Recent Poems
I submitted four poems to the Mildred Haun Review for their 2024 edition. They accepted three of them. One was rejected, probably due to a typo in the submitted version.
Turn of the Wheel Ray Zimmerman The years roll back like the turn of a wagon wheel and I am home again. The rocker on the porch returns me to the smell of woodsmoke and barbeque, the sound of a tractor, and my dad on horseback at my uncle’s farm. Uncles and aunts, parents and grandparents long gone step up to the porch. Even the cousin that passed last week says hello. He was a disagreeable old cuss. Still, he was family and I tried to be kind until he ran me off for good. A Small Thing Red spots appeared. I thought of chiggers. I had felt their itch before. They crawl under the skin, but Steroid cream stopped the itch. More spots appeared. I remembered a tick bite. Got tested for the fever with Rocky Mountains far away. The tick was a small thing. Rickettsia smaller still. The itch subsided. Antibiotics and another test gave me the freedom of a cure. With caution, I returned to the woods. Rebirth Like Jonah from the belly of the whale, the bear emerged from her winter den. Three cubs were her message of salvation. Despite frost and snow, life continued. Jonah was grouchy, having spent three days dead. Not yet the symbol of the risen Christ, he wanted God to smite the Assyrians. The bear was grouchy too, having given birth in the frozen ground and nursed cubs with stored reserves. No berries waited to restore her strength. On the way to the river, her cubs saw leaves shivering in the breeze and stopped to play as all young things do. She swatted one cub on the backside and proceeded to fish. Coyotes’ Howl They awakened us one morning. Safe in the cabin we listened. Without fear, we searched for the new moon. No highway noise disturbed our peaceful scene, although the roads would take us home on Sunday. When morning came, I made grits and eggs but saved the chili peppers for another dish. The coffee awakened our nostrils and taste buds. I thought blackberries might be good if pancakes were in the picture, but hiking shoes and the ridgeline beckoned. I have also had five poems accepted by The Weekly Avocet. The Elegance of Clouds Men shot egrets for their plumes, for the adornment of ladies’ hats, resplendent in the sun. Gauzy like a bridal veil, fresh as new-fallen snow, egrets put on their best clothes for courtship. Fleecy white clouds, they dot the marsh. Lotus blossoms welcome egrets give way to seed pods bent toward earth, soon empty, where new life formed and departed. The lotus is rooted in the mud yet grows sublime flowers just as the spine is rooted in the body’s lower parts and stretchers toward mind and soul. Twenty-nine great egrets and a few Great Blue Herons line the shore, necks as fast as snakes. They wait for fish or frogs. Old Stone Fort Paved entrance to a stone enclosure aligns with the sun on the summer solstice. Excavations revealed carved shell gorgets and ornate breastplates which complement skull bone rattles. Are those skulls honored ancestors? Are they a human sacrifice? Dance to greet the sun within ancient walls. Venerate the long day. Anticipate the harvest. Under a setting sun, barrows fill in. Walls wear low as stones fall to the valley below. New ceremonies grace a waning moon with the dancers gone. Were they honored ancestors or human sacrifice? The moon went behind the clouds, millennia ago, The dancers worked magic moments in scared time. Moonbow Have you seen the moonbow? I don’t mean the rainbow, light fractured by raindrops. Pale moonbeams pierce mist thrown upward by a waterfall, each appearance a month apart. To see the moonbow, you must go, to the Cumberland Mountain not the plateau, Where fiddlers exchange a tune, and whiskey falls as water in a halo of light and sound. North Chattanooga Try chicken wrap and fries only six ninety-eight, all the lard you can eat. Fries clog arteries of drivers as they clog traffic arteries burning oil and gas to get to Coolidge Park. A dragon kite at the park flies mimicking fixed-wing vultures though wooden slats replicate wings of bats. It flies above pigeons and a gorgeous redhead who throws a Frisbee above her boyfriend’s head beaning an innocent pigeon. The park comes alive as lawyers prowl the sterile halls of justice in Washington. They claim their clients have already paid enough for letting a drunk run hard aground on Prince William Sound, oil polluting ocean water instead of Chattanooga air. They stop to wash and sanitize their hands but can’t wash off the oil of Prince William Sound as it sticks to the money in their wallets. They argue to limit damages paid to Alaskans twenty years after the ship ran aground in the sound killing herring, killing the fishing economy for twenty years as young men reach middle age and middle-aged women reach retirement but can’t sell their commercial fishing license with the economy gone to hell and who can tell them to switch to tourism since the oil killed the whale. Editor’s Note Welcome to our green issue. In these pages, you will find we care about the environment, so we went white water rafting. You, too, can travel down Tennessee’s Ocoee River where rocks have been moved to sculpt a natural waterway suitable for Olympic competitions. This issue’s featured artists exhibit their love of nature by making ornate wooden bowls from carefully selected trees. Our dining section features an Irish pub. What could be more appropriate for the wearing of the green? Our message this month is Green Goes Mainstream. Sorry to say it’s printed on glossy, non-recycled paper. As one of our advertisers says, at their import emporium, you can buy locally while shopping globally