Tethered Ride

Red-tailed Hawk

Book Giveaway

 
 

    Goodreads Book Giveaway
 

   

       
   

   

     

          Hawaiian Time
     
     

          by Cornelia Dedona
     

     

         
            Giveaway ends June 21, 2016.
         
         
            See the giveaway details
            at Goodreads.
         
     
   
   

    Enter Giveaway

At A Recent Poetry Reading, Where I Attempt The Vulcan Mind Meld With The Dead Poet, Czeslaw Milosz

 Vying for my attention

another poet cries,

“Try not to look at me.”

as she models her black bribe.

To which I reply,

"You are a garden I dare not enter

a rusted gate

glumly rigged."

...

I must awaken my taste.

My mood is blind.

...

They come in the night

with empty buckets

to take the land

assault my knowing

with malodorous cues.

...

Idle reality

impales hope

to a tree

where

not even

the

crow

can gloat.

...

Have faith, child     

The World is naive. 
Feed it a few gluten-free animal crackers.

 From Poem Hunter: Czeslaw Milosz, Polish poet, prose writer and translator of Lithuanian origin and subsequent American citizenship. His World War II-era sequence The World is a collection of 20 "naive" poems. He defected to the West in 1951, and his nonfiction book "The Captive Mind" (1953) is a classic of anti-Stalinism. From 1961 to 1998 he was a professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures at the University of California, Berkeley. In 1980, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. 

Poem: Fine Wine

Published in the 12/2015 issue of Chronogram Arts. Culture. Spirit.

 

Fine Wine

Wine 

should be

savored like 

a grand epic 

filtered throughout with 

barely audible hints 

of blackberry and currant, 

joined among swirls of licorice.

A dressed-up ballroom duo, noshing

creamy avocado wedges a-

top crispy crackers heaped with slices of

sharp orange cheddar from Wisconsin.

Accompanied by a sweet, good

looking Filipino man 

that croons steamy songs

to  pale, earthy girls

beneath  moon’s blush 

nightly, on

a cruise

ship. 

 

A poem that starts with one syllable per line, increases to ten syllables, and then decreases back down to one is called a  Double Etheree (or sometimes a stacked or diamond Etheree). 

The Etheree form was created by Arkansas poet Taylor Armstrong in the late 1970s. 

"Seasons of the Mid-Hudson Valley"

Dancing Bears

"Seasons of the Mid-Hudson Valley"

An exhibit of photographs by 
Mohonk Preserve Volunteer Photographers

November 13, 2015, to Monday, January 4th, 2016

La Bella Pizza Bistro 

194 Main St, New Paltz, NY 12561

Opening Reception
 Sunday, November 15 from 5-7pm.

Spirit Mana

I hear them whisper
in the gentle trade winds
in the grunt of the wild
boar, the high-pitched mating call of the coqui.


I see them
in the blood moon
the double rainbow
in the mist against the folding
emerald cliffs of the Ko'olau.

I taste them
in the freshly caught pan fried mahi-mahi
a tropical papaya
tangy mango.

I smell them in
the white gardenia
the orange blossoms
the plumeria I place behind my ear.

I feel them buzzing
my ankles
scurrying sideways in the white sand
between the sharp coral
in the gentle rain.

They watch as I wait for you to return safely.

They watch the dogs chase
after wild chickens
the koi feed on fat
mosquitos.
The bullfrogs sing.

They watch

They accept.

They smile.

They are here with me

the ‘Aumakua, guardian ancestors

rooted in the past, the first of their generations.

Giant's Workshop

Intimate Moments

I feel your saliva dripping onto my big toe

as you lean up against me and belch.

I rub your neck,

massage behind your ears

staring at the Ko'olau Mountains

breathing in the pink Plumeria blossoms

as we both listen to the caw, caw, caw,

of Petey the Peacock

perched on the neighbor's roof.

Thursdays

are special in our datebook.

Me

climbing ladders,

shaving coconut palms with my chainsaw

trimming the Be-Still bushes,

training them into a hedge.

You

inspecting the heap

smelling the fallen coconuts

and then chasing the cooing doves

feasting on your forgotten dinner.

Me

stuffing green bins with yard waste.

You

ears back

standing on the wall behind the fence

as the giant yellow truck

swallows their contents and burps,

farting around the bend.

We fit

you and me.

You

sniffing and alert.

Me 

smearing citronella leaves

on my arms, your butt, and our legs

shielding us from the mosquitos at dusk,

while relaxing at the fire pit,

listening to KCCN Hawaiian 105.9.

Both of us,

still frisky

unleashed

in paradise.

Rainbow Falls 3