GAS Featured Poet: Frederick Pollack

 

Frederick Pollack is author of two book-length narrative poems, THE ADVENTURE and HAPPINESS (Story Line Press; the former reissued 2022 by Red Hen Press), and four collections, A POVERTY OF WORDS (Prolific Press, 2015), LANDSCAPE WITH MUTANT (Smokestack Books, UK, 2018), THE BEAUTIFUL LOSSES (Better Than Starbucks Books, 2023), and THE LIBERATOR (Survision Books, Ireland, 2024). Many other poems in print and online journals. Website: www.frederickpollack.com.

In the Walls

They were in prison under Putin,

then via miracle

came here; are eventually

imprisoned again under Trump,

freed by a larger miracle. That’s when I meet them.

Her English is better than his but she seldom speaks;

her response to camp conditions was

to become a listener. 

Ravaged smile. He, moon-faced, talks readily,

not only about his continuing, death-defying 

activism but a moment in prison when,

at last, he slept. On the verge

of waking he heard, perhaps a fart, perhaps

a curse from a cellmate, a cry

from above, and perceived them not

as sounds from reality but creaks and footfalls

from the corridors behind

this world. Where gods no smarter than we, 

less in fact but immortal, stumble

endlessly forward, sometimes blundering

into our realm where they, by accident,

do mostly ill.

Those Russians are the sort of friends 

I might have had if my life had been more … 

dynamic. I invented them and project 

experiences onto them because

they’re less averse than I to “spiritual” topics,

and because they’re more important.

Blockage

As isolation spreads, the existence of

a spirit world becomes harder and harder

to deny. Some of the living 

are glad their parents are back (and more

connected, for the most part, than before);

some are horrified. And when it’s

kids who return – well, 

of course one’s overjoyed (although 

they’re always in a sense “special needs”).

Welcome for spouses, friends, siblings

depends on the specifics of relationships. 

There’s a return to family, often very extended.

Conservatives especially value it.

One opinion, hard to articulate, is that

what all this reveals is disappointing. 

Whether believed in or not, the afterlife offered

change, perhaps improvement, at least clarity.

Now we learn that everyone 

just wants to come (back) here.

These clouds of dead are merely (though only

hard-right podcasters say it) immigrants …

There’s also the problem 

of ghosts who return to the wrong place.

One showed up at my place.

Seemed slow, insisted I was someone else,

then began to apologize. 

This was early on; I’m afraid I let 

the pressure we were all under show.

Now, years later, I

wander, trying to find 

him or someone who knew him, say I’m sorry.

GAS Featured Poet: Bart Edelman

 Bart Edelman’s poetry collections include Crossing the Hackensack, Under Damaris’ Dress, The Alphabet of Love, The Gentle Man, The Last Mojito, The Geographer’s Wife, Whistling to Trick the Wind, and This Body Is Never at Rest: New and Selected Poems 1993 – 2023.  He has taught at Glendale College, where he edited Eclipse, a literary journal, and, most recently, in the MFA program at Antioch University, Los Angeles.  His work has been anthologized in textbooks published by City Lights Books, Etruscan Press, Harcourt Brace, Longman, McGraw-Hill, Prentice Hall, the University of Iowa Press, Wadsworth, and others.  He lives in Pasadena, California.

How to Howl

 

Tell yourself it’s normal—

Quite natural, this time of year.

Invite the moon into your bedroom

For a smoke or a tipple;

Perhaps both, if available.

Consecrate the event with a prayer,

And then howl, as required,

Until you reach the welkins.

Think Ginsberg, should you dare.

Put your shoulder to the wheel,

Turning when necessary.

By now, I must imagine,

Your new friend is no stranger.

You can both engage

In any wolfishness you desire—

Reaching a fevered pitch.

At some point, before dawn,

Your throat might give out,

Yet not your desire to wail

A few more exquisite hours.

And the ever mercurial moon?

It’s already summoned home.

But don’t worry, my friend.

You need it no longer.

 

The Wagon

 

On the wagon?

Off the wagon?

And whose wagon is it?

Never quite sure

Where I should be,

This time of night,

When everything’s so still

You can hear your heart

Thumping, beat after beat,

Like a backward kangaroo,

Unable to navigate his way

Out of the front yard.

I suppose I should know

How to stay sober by now.

How to go cold turkey.

But the chicken in me

Won’t ever fess up

To the comical truth:

I have no desire

Living through a life

Without a measly drink.

So there you have it.

Can’t say it ain’t been said.

And the wagon?

Gone, once again.

 

 

GAS Featured Poet: Jason Ryberg

 Jason Ryberg lives part-time in Kansas City, MO

with a rooster named Little Red and a Billy-goat named

Giuseppe, and part-time somewhere in the Ozarks,

near the Gasconade River, where there are also many

strange and wonderful woodland critters. 

Tanka

 

 Event Horizon 

 

I’ve heard there is an

event horizon waiting,

quietly, at the

     hollowed-out hearts of typhoons,

     tornados and hurricanes.

 

 

 White Noise 

 

A city full of

transient winds, and a head

     full of birds (with a

     mainline hotshot of all the

     white noise of the universe).

 

 A Few Good Laughs and 

     a Comfortable Grave 

 

In the end, don’t we

all just want a little bit

of dignity and

respect, a few good laughs

     and a comfortable grave?

 

 

 

 Night Mail 

  

He’d told us he’d been

out delivering the late

     night mail of dreams (like

     paper lanterns set adrift

     on the dark river of sleep).

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GAS Featured Poet: Bob McAfee

 Bob McAfee is a retired software consultant who lives with his wife near Boston. He has written nine books of poetry, mostly on Love, Aging, and the Natural World. For the last several years he has hosted a Wednesday night Zoom poetry workshop. Since 2019, he has had 141 poems selected by 57 different publications. Two poems nominated for Best of the Net. His website, www.bobmcafee.com, contains links to all his published poetry.

Quiet Is

the doe hidden in tall grass,

the lion stalking by upwind;

the January bear dreaming of salmon,

his belly anticipating the Spring spawn;

the winds mellowing in the hurricane’s eye,

the seagulls flailing to hold the attic of the sky;

the trees talking at midnight, willows whispering  

prophecies as the moon slides behind the tamarack;

the city settling in after the bars have closed,

the early morning garbage trucks still sleeping;

the tom cat trying to make it home

through suburban coyotes howling in pantomime;

the patrol car parked behind the Piggly Wiggly,

the cop nursing his empty coffee cup;

a man, lying catty-cornered on his king-sized bed,

alone in perfect isolation.

My Mother’s Hair

She lies in a hospice bed, 

her hair spilled out around her head,

longer than I ever remembered, so white 

it looks blue in the afternoon sunlight

pouring through the windows, glistening.

My daughter applies a damp sponge 

to the cracked lips and tongue, 

raises the head so the lush 

hair leaps to the waiting brush,

relates all the day’s events 

in a voice of great intensity,

just in case Mom is listening.

After a while, my grand-daughter, a nurse, 

takes over, expertly pulls and smooths,

every stroke well-practiced and rehearsed;

this is not the first dying woman she has soothed. 

My mother went to the beauty salon each week, 

her hair a sea of lacquered wave and frozen curl,

but now it looks so soft along her cheeks

I could bury my young boy’s face in its carefree swirl.

My great-granddaughter, age four, 

as though death is commonplace,

leans to kiss my mother’s face 

with deep concern.

I lean toward the bed and hear soft singing, a lullaby,

and I resist the urge to cry 

as I await my turn.