Best Quarterly Poems
I'm searching for a new man.
(My lemon quit on me.)
I'm a discerning seeker.
(The smallest dent, I'll see!)
I want a younger fellow;
(Low mileage is a must.)
Required is great get-up-and-go
(an engine with no rust).
He should desire me in his lap.
(Seat warmers feel so good.)
He's gotta be in tiptop shape.
(I'll know what's under the hood!)
Low-maintenance, I value.
(oil changes quarterly)
He must look good and make me proud.
(Buffed shine, I love to see.)
Trustworthiness, I so desire.
(Don't like those tow truck calls!)
He must always keep pace with me.
(Don't want a thing that stalls.)
April 1, 2017--entered in Brian Strand's April 2017 Premier Contest
Hour upon unending hour, day upon unending day,
quietly, in her prison, our dear Jennie Butler lay.
No curses did she utter, never once did she complain,
though hands and feet were gnarled, swollen, and burning with pain.
Instead, she smiled, told us jokes, those she often would repeat,
and sing to us the old songs, in tones pleasant and sweet.
Down the hall outside her room, other voices mingled there,
mumbling and babbling or calling out in despair.
No one came to visit her, no one that we could recall,
though she waited patiently, no one ever came at all.
Published in Art With Words
Poetry Quarterly, Oct., 2005
Published in MSPS Anthology
Life on the Edge, Dec., 2005
(Aunt Juanita's roommate in the Nursing Home)
The Hours of Alzheimer
12
It starts ticking away slowly
Longer needed to search what’s known.
Watching the hand jerk
Minutes passing
“Twelve is for noon, then?”
“Yes. Yes, Daddy! Just like that.
Twelve noon is lunch.”
3
Very gently, oh so sweetly,
Out of love and kindest thought
Offering words and filling fissures
Keeping pace and instant beating
“The, oh, you know, the oh how silly, the the box thing”
“Yes, the box thing, the clock, Daddy. Says it’s 3 and time for tea.”
6
Now impatience starts its tapping
Chasms stretching longer still
Wanting this moment
to stop its running
“I I please fork I I food”
“Oh, of course, dear Daddy. Dinner time.
Here, your fork. ”
9
Interval waxing
Memory waning
Lingering in the distance
This cavity expanding
“ I I I I”
“Oh it’s last course time Daddy. Some dessert, then time for bed.”
12
Midnight falling
Thoughts abandoned
Cadence silent
Dead of night
First published: Poetry Quarterly
When is a newsletter not a newsletter
When it's full colour and 36 pages long
Approximately 8 years ago
Began designing what was then
An 4 page black and white newsletter
It has since grown into this schmaltzy
Quarterly full colour community publication
I've always taken great pride
In every venture I became involved with
Now in my years since retirement
This exciting project has my fingers back in the pie
It has given me “raison d'être”
Translated... “a reason for being”
My only regret is that it's quarterly
And not monthly which I would much prefer
It is so very important to remain active
Any way we can in our retirement years
© Jack Ellison 2014
the first leaf falls brown through green an august end well played
insect sounds whir brushes on tin seed shakers speak squirrels chatter
crisp metal days sharp tasting contrasts to the noon heat crescendo
the black dragon fly hovers above the tall jewel weed bed
black waters beneath stagnant sunlight twinkles like stars on the night
gnats swarm drinking from leaf boats hidden sparrows call and wait
two eyes flit left, right, up, down granite boulders panther god
silently stalking on root legs shaded nostrils open scenting
pray that the big cat sleeps I leave him chamomile flowers
First Appeared in Poetry Quarterly
Fall 2013 along with Babe & the Boyo's, as well The Bitter End of the Road
See About the Poem
*I do not get paid if you buy a copy, just thought you'd like to know.
There is no ‘you’ or ‘I’
Except that you choose
to call the fat clouds a name
and make them feel like overlords upon the others.
And, there is neither ‘you’ nor ‘I’
when we collect in droplets into rain
and percolate the crevices between rocks and questions.
The free flowing water you rinse your feet in
Collects the geography of the places you’ve been to
That the same water you now wash your hands with, is what
You once called ‘dirty’ and fed to the gutters of nevermore.
There is no ‘you’ or ‘I’, save ‘we’
We, driblets of water
Garnering into puddles,
Some, redeemed in pots of human bellies.
And, there is neither ‘you’ nor ‘I’
Little dribs charged with pain, break out
As saline rain, bouncing off troubled eyes,
A cesspool of wails in the offing.
And some others, not ‘you’, not ‘I’
Distraught to meet this uncertain world
Are lagged in rocks, trapped prisoners.
We are all waters, variously hued
To boil in teapots and warm the mien of takers
And a few, crystallized into heart-shaped cubes,
Are nursed between the parched tongues of lovers.
Loin waters all! Congealed over time
Sneaked into places like shy rivers
Collecting genetic snapshots of their bearers
Then those ones frozen by fear, iceberg-solid
Make the routes of our ideas unpassable
A few, like calm ponds
Unperturbed by gravity and noise
Undress before the caress of the setting sun
We all are waters,
Not you, not I, but we; streaming
In endless pursuit on the surface
While selfsame dispatch, gather like roots undersea.
**previously published in Sentinel Quarterly Review
Inspired by Josh Rosenberg's Introduction
@ Samara's Medical Fund
Samara is the most loving, kind and very funny,
outgoing human being, always warm and friendly.
From the first minute you meet her she immediately
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I challenge anyone to spend 5 minutes with her
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In 2012, Samara was diagnosed with breast cancer sadly
and after numerous surgeries and a lot of chemotherapy
we believed she had beaten her cancer once and for all finally.
All this treatment came with a humongous price tag unfortunately,
which she is still trying to pay off to this day desperately.
When Samara went in for her quarterly check-up appointment
they found that her cancer had come back with a vengeance.
It is now stage-4
and her battle will now be harder than it's ever been before.
Her medical bills have already been astronomical and frequent.
There's no way she'll win this battle without proper treatment,
so we've started this campaign to help her receive
the care and treatment she so desperately needs.
Your love and support will go a long way in helping my friend
win this battle, and bring her dreaded cancer to its ultimate end.
Thank you all very much in advance for your donations
and please share Samara's story with everyone you can.
*
https://www.gofundme.com/yvjnxk
*
It was never about the suit,
the charcoal stitching,
the pocket square that folds itself,
the red tie I swore was alive.
At first, it just stood there—
hooves crossed, ears like knives
stabbing into the conference room light.
It never spoke, but no one dared speak over it.
The org charts bent to its gaze.
Quarterly losses shrunk like timothy hay
waiting too long for sun.
I kept my hungry eyes on the llama,
after all, its black-marble stare could polish
a version of the best vision of myself, if I let it:
animal energy tugging at my own red tie,
my voice cracking like a glass ceiling
when I pitched the last idea I was proud of.
Now the llama knows my name.
It signs my emails
and leaves fur in my throat
when I try to say no.
On Tuesdays,
it stands too close
to the mirror in the breakroom,
straightening its tie with my hands,
licking the salt from neck—
its muzzle smelling like a ferment
of wet grass and my sweat.
The interns whisper that it’s a myth,
but they’ve all stopped wearing red.
I now sit at the head of the table,
rubbing my hindquarters with two toes
on the scale, protecting my own
wall-eyed stare. The suit fits better
than I thought.
You can see everyone from here—
their necks, their ties,
the slow nodding of skulls.
The llama was never absurd.
It’s they who look strange now.
So, XYZ Company, after my five years of servitude and loyalty
you close the doors, you dissolve the department
with less than a day's notice, because, hey, that's all we deserve-
And it was no accident you announced right before Memorial Day
So you don't have to give us holiday pay
And of course you think that's fair
You would rather deny a dozen people their livlihood
Than deny yourself your vacation home in Hawaii
Or your Montana ranch, or your private plane
At least, you avoided the hyprocrisy
Of pretending to be sorry.
And what of our bonus, XYZ Company,
that you promised, oh so ardently!
Oh dear, so sorry, quarterly revenue goals
were missed by thatmuch
so whoops, can not pay bonus after all
And it would be super great if everyone
Could just develop group amnesia
that we ever said it was 'absolutely' on the way-
Oh, XYZ Company, you scammed us, you flim-flammed us
You lied and you know it and we know it
We were betrayed like an unfaithful lover
Burned like an untrue friend
But there is no illusion here of friendship, or respect, or trust
Or even professionlism
You have no future, XYZ Company, for you are dying
diseased, corrupt, and caving in,
squeezing pennies 'til the end
And I am glad to be long gone
When the collapse comes
When the avalanche of your ruin is complete
And you are done-
Submitted to 'The Gem that Slipped through the Cracks' contest on 2/09/21
Sponsor: Edward Ibeh
Feminized
“This subversion was accomplished by taking advantage of two kinds of vulnerability that women raised in our society tend to have. The first is the quality of self-sacrifice, a learned willingness to set their own interests aside and be used and even used up by the community...
The second kind of vulnerability trained into women is a readiness to believe messages of disdain and derogation.”
~ Mary Catherine Bateson, Composing a Life, p. 54, First Plume Printing, October, 1990
In the moment at which her lovely shoe has just reared back
After I’d come to a stop atop it
My temerity in having been shoved down the flight of steps
At the bottom of which she stands
Having resulted in annoying her dainty foot
What inspiration’s thrusting it forward
To bury itself amid ribs
No longer mine?
In the quiet conversations betwixt Sunday school and service
What inspiration’s guiding the gossip
About yet another young man
Following a call of seduction
Followed by a call to the police
And the final call to a court that believes her every word
No longer his?
In the august halls of corporate consummation
Where products once designed to last
Crafted to provide quality service over years
Via jobs that straddled whole careers
What inspiration’s driving the quarterly cycles
Moody and impertinent as menstrual periods confined
No longer home?
In the light like it’s like light of heavenly grace
Where before an audience of like familiar litsos rolls or sidles
The most lovely young devotchka you could ever hope in all your jeezny
Whom Alex the large would like to have right down there on the floor
With the old in-out real savage
What inspiration’s coming skorry as a shot
Making him want to like heave in entrailing keeshkas
No longer his?
In the society rendered bereft of male vigor and energy
What inspiration’s asserting steady direction
Toward care and heartfelt protection
Of those weaker more wayward of less physical capacity
Shifting drifting changing winds in exchange for brash audacity
Armchair sports the glib vestige of masculinity
A world that once could’ve had a purpose
No longer ours?
~ Thanks Always Returns
for formerly Bonnie L. Garcia
and formerly Marci K. Garcia,
with fondness and humility
Holistically speaking, she you divorced
is one fantastic fitch on a quarterly
basis at minimum. That's three months of coerced
servitude, bloody attitude, disorderly
fits of public theatrics, so on and so forth,
for every single frcking year endured
with an egg-shedding nut-cracking whore worth
exactly half of everything procured
by you who's kissed his retirement goodbye
from the couch where you live in your mother's den.
Forget her! You're a peacock primed to fly!
As was I - which is why I get it when
I see a brother, sad and confounded,
that absent his wife, life's a mother; grounded.
She tells the story with tears in her eyes: Her family's farm, largest farm in the county;
Land-granted, debt-free paradise; all they needed pay were quarterly taxes;
She tells of how one hot summer day, the wind began to blow,
Blowing away moisture-filled clouds, drying the ground into crackled layers.
She tells of bitter winter days, snow blowing back into the clouds,
Pastures dry-freezing, blasted by cold winds from the northwest.
She tells of hot winds scorching pastures; starving cattle choking on thistles;
Government agencies purchasing the remaining cow-shaped, walking skeletons;
She tells of beloved horses loaded into rail cars bound for St. Paul stock yards,
Purchased by the army for $3 a head -- 75 cents per glue-filled hoof;
She tells of scraping grit from the butter dish; scraping mud from the ice box;
Of lifting dusty scum from the milk bottles; rinsing dusty scum from mouth rags.
She tells of two years with no crops, two years of blowing dirt;
Two years with no rain, no snow; two years of diffused sunlight, beautiful sunsets;
She tells of so much electricity in the air, in the ground, running from roof to wire,
Men would wrap their hands in pieces of cloth before they touched
The handles of their cars, lest they be thrown to the ground from the static.
Her voice lowers as she tells of the day the wind finally faltered, then died away.
She tells of the day her grandfather stood on his once-proud porch,
Finally able seeing through clean, clear air, the farm he would soon no longer own.
Taxes unpaid, liens placed on farms, on equipment, on promises; 'sheriff's sale' posted;
Her tears fall as she tells of how he was forced to let it go, to give it up;
She tells of her birth, ten years later, in a migrant shack in Washington state;
She says history sealed her desperate legacy before she ever had a chance.
When I am searching for a healthy leader,
a wise teacher,
a mature mentor,
I look for someone who knows from experience
when a family member dies
a cherished part of her or himself
also is lifetime lost.
I look more for someone
who at least might feel,
even for a short moment,
that s/he would prefer
it had been her or himself.
Why does this matter?
Because without this maturity of extended family identity,
security,
love,
adolescent and even childish issues evoke ego-mania
rather than wiser and slower and steadier eco-passion
with other human natures
as with other EarthTribe cellular health natures.
Cells whose purpose becomes reduced to self-thrival
grow leaders of cancerous pathology.
Cells whose purpose remains to reproduce
their full contribution to organic families,
their extended forests of life,
their ecological eco-root systems,
are those mentors
my healthy wealth most needs
and craves
and would gladly step-aside from my personal agenda
to listen to
and learn
what remains of our synergetic purpose,
regenerative meaning.
I would be more drawn to a parent
who would say
My son broke the law
because I asked him to,
and he trusted me to not ask him to do
or not do
anything that would become a problem for him.
I would steer away from someone
who would say
My son did it on his own qualitative initiative
and never said a word to me about it,
but I respect him anyway.
And,
by the way,
those corporations that fell apart
while I was CEO,
well they did that all on their own
right after I drew my final paycheck
and quarterly return on my short-term investment.
I would not nominate such a person
for public office,
or even any private office,
for s/he does not know the wisdom of a healthy cell,
s/he has not felt the crippling loss of a wise mentor,
and is thereby her/himself exposed to monoculturing cannibalistic tendencies
of self and other exploitation,
eating our young;
not strong CEO maturity
because not a strong mentor of future compassionate CEOs.
This Quatrain King is taking a break for a bit
Rhyming has been my thing since day one
Sometimes I talk in riddles I'm told by wifey poo
But you'll be happy to know
This old geezer is multitalented
I'm able to talk and chew gum at the same time
Can even spit nickels while singing Moon River
Okay enough about this talented old soul
I'd like to hear what extraordinary talents you guys have
Let's keep it clean though
Little kiddies or sensitive old nannies
May have stumbled across P-Soup
While searching for a recipe for French Canadian Pea Soup
Raunchy is permitted BUT
Only when describing the love habits
Of the Northern Hairy-Nosed Wombats of Australia
Their nose is very important in their survival
Since this creature has very poor eyesight
And needs its nose to smell food and OTHER THINGS in the dark
I have long since had that ability
Now aren't you glad you tuned in
So let me know what weird and scary talents you guys have
And I'll write a poem about it
May even get published in the quarterly edition of “Poetry Weekly”
Ta-Ta!
© Jack Ellison 2014
She wears nice clothes and waits for the next thing to happen.
No more hospital beds or quarterly syndromes to cry.
Now that you’re gone - she's divine and she's fine.
Rags and traps are washed from the tears you drop.
And she wears them in a ballroom as a beautiful red gown dress...
Before you tell her to stop.
Waiting for the dark man to dance with her.
Oh, what a beautiful and sorrow pain that flows.
Fresh, new, assimilated.
Lovely ballerina.
White lily.
Timid young man.
They’re in love in the starry night.
Admiring the sky together.
Wondering if this time they’re right.
Bright eyes.
Sweet smile.
And their affection can finally climb and shine.