SPRING 2020 | Dayton, Ohio

Clearing Out, Cleaning Up

Steve Broidy

Clearing out, cleaning up:
May’s job--my job, she told me.
Lawn’s alive again, long again,
henbit-deadnettle pools and puddles
flow all purple in risen wind.
Pasture’s still heavy-freckled in yellow--
mustard, dandelion, sneak butterweed.

Beeches, bare, have cleared old leaves;
eaves of the house have shed paint like old skin.
Gray, shredding, picked-over life
on the crumbling roadway is dragged away
by birds grim and black, absorbed in their task,
as I set forth to fix the old seasons’ breaches.

The morning is dark, but the wheat fields glow green.
A keen wind pushes my front door against me,
as if to say You stay while I work
to blow the last ice away!
I shove the door open, fight against the gale.

My bushes and trees drop the night’s rain
like tears, like sweat; I set out my tools,
shake off the pall of last night’s cold words;
guess what grace my deeds may earn:
clearing out, cleaning up
for what warmer days may come.

Envy

David Lee Garrison

Seeking revenge, Minerva descends
to the cavern of Envy…

Ovid, Metamorphoses

Minerva chooses Envy as her weapon,
finds her eating snakes, her tongue and lips
still wet with poison slime. She jostles open
with her spear the cavern door, then trips

and nearly falls upon the shriveled body
of the freak who lives to torture, smiles
when witnessing the pain of others. Shoddy
deeds are those she revels in, her wiles

are what the warrior goddess will employ
to punish one whom Mercury loves more
than her. Revenge through jealousy, the joy
of retribution. Envy keeps a store

of hardened grudges rotting in her mind
and passes them around to all mankind.

Fasting from Sobriety

E. Bowers

Enlightenment rolls off my skin like religion hitting a windshield, and the billboards on my way
to school scream “I am real”—to which I respond “All the legends were true,” and turn
on my blinker.
I did it once with you in the car and the godawful silence that rippled around us conjured
lightning faster than chewing foil.
It’s like the last thirty measures of Maslanka’s Traveler where everything wants to be niente
(nothing, not a problem, not in pain) and the oboe is left sobbing up by the ceiling while
the rest of us try to beat our hungover, twenty- year-old hearts softly.
And at every performance I find myself wondering if I might start screaming.
Like one might just slip through.
But when I tell you, you flinch, because you’ve already heard me, every time I sit down and
open my mouth to pour wickedness past my reed.

The Clay that Worked Our Bindings

Arnecia Patterson

Gather my footsteps. Leave their mashed imprints.
When you come from behind; chest empty and thin
tinny mud will fill you with the time we had together
in the clay that worked our bindings round each bend.

Rummaging the past you’ll find strands of ocher
strewn through random letters I didn’t send
to fill your chest with what we had together.

Since I’ve gone and left you on your own to fend
in a patch of dried willows and dense wild laughter
you appreciate the clay that pulled us round each bend.

Oh. The moon. Remember how it arced over its flat altar
of psychedelic black streaks running thick to thin
to entwine our reach with the time we had together?

How it moved from start to finish no middle no end
In its halo of dust that sang a morning rapture
Each night we ate a meal of binding clay that sent

us heavy into quiet cover marveling at the sense
we finally made of each other before the emptying
of your ribs that used to lace our world together.
Kneading clay that bound us round each other’s bend.

I Met a Man

Scott King

I met a man today
at the hardware store.

An older man, with a stoop,
a shuffle,
and pure white hair.

"Just a half inch off the door" he told the clerk
who was impatiently listening
as he wrote down his order.
"Can you guys do that for me?"

I knew the car in which this door lay:
the Jeep, bright blue in the sunlight,
with enough "TRUMP 2020" stickers that I made
certain assumptions.

Watching across a gulf of worldview, I quietly waited.

A short time later, the door came in,
the man went out,
and I took my turn at the counter.

Suddenly,
he was back.

Asking me, asking the clerk, for help with his car.
"My two light blinker is on," he explained haltingly,
and he was having trouble turning it off.

The clerk,
carefully absorbed in something behind the desk,
didn’t look up.
“Give me a minute,”
I said,
“and I’ll take a look,”
and he patiently waited near the door while I finished my business with the clerk.

We went outside, he opened the car door,
and I pointed out which button he needed to push.
He pushed it,
he thanked me,
and expressed his dismay with how complicated things were
these days.

I agreed as I said goodbye,
and went on my way.

I met a man today
at the hardware store,
a man struggling to navigate a world that has changed
beyond recognition,
beyond comprehension.

A man clinging to anything
familiar.

rabbit

Ron Rollins

jogging and nearly home, on a roadway
stretch i knew quite well
i passed a rabbit, quivering shaking
in the curb-lawn grass
sphinx-like, paws forward, head erect and not right:
its rear end twisted a full turn wrong
90 degrees around.

car-struck
back broken
eyes glassy wide
silent horror and pain

i ran home, got a plastic bag
returned, as they say, to put the poor thing out of its misery.
it shuddered and struggled
as i knelt and slipped the bag over its head
and gently pressed it tight.
“just a second,” i whispered.
“i’m sorry. it will only be
a few minutes.”

a girl came by, rollerblading,
saw me and stopped.
“oh my god,” she nearly screamed.
“what are you doing?”
“it was hit by a car,” i told her.
“its back is broken and it’s dying.”

“oh,” she said,
and stood by, watching
the final gasps, jerking, spasmodic.
as i drew the bag fully around the small body,
a makeshift shroud,

without a word, she skated on.

i took the bag home and put it
in the trash, went inside to wash my
hands. the water ran cool over my skin. i drank some
to wash the scrape from the back of my throat

then went back outside,
got a shovel from my garage.

Chesapeake Bay

Maureen Fry

It was cold for June the day we ran
the skiff against the tide and up the bay
to a cove we knew of, where the water lay
as still as summer afternoons and a span

of white beach swept a gleaming crescent fan
along the shore. Sandpipers picked their way
across the sand like young girls wary of the spray
of salt against their petticoats; frogs began

a strident chorus in the willows as our fire cast
a glow of light like petals on the water. Talk
and laughter echoed strangely in a night so vast

and black that sound was hardly more than squawk
of ducks or lap of waves against a rotted mast
that cut the sky as clean and white as chalk.

Safe Eggs

Ingrid Halpin

Blue eggs in a nest,
Warm in their mother’s feathers,
Safe in a tall bush.

Dayton Metro Library Poetry Contest
First Place | Grades 3 - 4

For the Love of Seasons

Zoey Deibel

Summer is relaxing.
You’re lying on the beach with the sun shining on your back.
Summer is lively,
With birds cheerfully singing and kids out playing.
Summer is fresh,
With crisp green grass and sweetly fragrant flowers.

The bright green leaves change color, and it’s fall.

Fall is bountiful,
Full of good food and warmth.
Fall is vibrant,
With leaves of orange, red, and gold covering the ground.
Fall is full of love,
With family and friends gathered near.

The leaves fall, the temperature drops—it’s winter.

Winter is serene,
With delicate snowflakes drifting from the sky.
Winter is cozy,
When you lounge by the fire with a cup of cocoa and a blanket.
Winter is bright,
With Christmas lights glowing on your tree and carols being sung.
Temperatures warm, plants bud, and we fade into spring.

Spring is a symbol of life,
With flowers blooming and baby animals taking their first steps.
Spring is perky.
More people go outside, and animals emerge from their burrows.
Spring is fragrant,
With clean air, blooming flowers, and new growth.

The air gets hotter, leaves cover the trees—it’s summer again.

Dayton Metro Library Poetry Contest
First Place | Grades 5 - 6

The Place Where the Stars Meet the Sea

Julianne Marzluff

“Hurry,” they laugh, as we start down the road,
“To the place where the stars meet the sea”.
And they say that we are well old enough now
To have fun and kick back and be free.

My friends from the water have warned me before
Of the place where the stars meet the sea.
Thy say, “You’ve never been to the surface before,
And you don’t know how grave it can be.”

My friends from the water are weary of them,
Those who go where the stars meet the sea.
They say to be a star, to be brighter than you are
You can’t bubble in false pleasantries.

My fishy friends don’t start down that road,
That goes where the stars meet the sea.
For they know of a path that is boring and grey
That will get them where they want to be.

And I do want to be a star someday,
Where with wealth and with comfort I’ll gleam
But that path is a bore and so much of a chore
When compared to the place where the stars meet the sea.

So I head down the road with these strangers,
And when we arrive I agree
That it’s high, and it’s smooth, and it’s warm in my throat
This place where the stars meet the sea.

And as morning arrives I can feel it
All the head-throbbing toxicity
But at night I am flying and it’s too damn exciting
To give up the place where the stars meet the sea.

They say that the stars don’t respect us,
But fish wait for the day they can be
On this fun middle ground that we teens have now found
Called the place where the stars meet the sea.

Dayton Metro Library Poetry Contest
First Place | Teen

St. Anne’s Hill, after the Quarantine

Erica Manto-Paulson

Dayton, Ohio

I learned to not take things for granted by feeding horses when I was very young.
This is especially important to me now when we are skeptical of everything,
having known so many bits and bridles that have pulled us by our teeth
during these months of staying distant from your body; mine.

If we will ever hold each other again on the hill where the tall grasses touch
the stone wall like a painting, we must stand still like the horses, who were here,
in this valley, a thousand years before us, and let the wind carry our scent to where
we find each other drinking coffee in the sunlight of the old violin maker’s workshop.

I’d like to think if I hold out my palm, flat like a plate and balance the round, beautiful
fruit that has ripened from all we have lost, you will come to me. And standing like
creatures in a pasture, nuzzling over the fence, we will embrace this new longing,
distant though we may have become for a time.

Dayton Metro Library Poetry Contest
First Place | Adult

Plodia interpunctella

Cathryn Essinger

The FDA allows up to 75 insect fragments
per 50 grams of wheat flour.

The pantry moths came in with a bag of birdseed
that we can no longer keep in the garage because
the squirrels have become so good with lids and locks.

The moths are such an easy kill, their soft bodies
so swattable, that it begins to bother my Buddhist
conscience, until I find two coupling in the corner

of a cereal box. Enough is enough! Their only defense
is to fly to the ceiling where they are easy to bring down
with a broom. I know some things are meant to be eaten—

"feeder animals" naturalists call them—rabbits, minnows,
Mayflies, for heaven's sake, which live so shortly
they have no need for mouths. But Plodia interpunctella?

I wonder if the spider in the window sill, our resident
consumer of everything wiggly, is counting her losses
just as I weigh the price of good, organic granola.

I toss two dead moths into her web, and she trots out
to have a look and then backs away--not good enough.
She wants them to protest--a meal should be hard won.

I offer the couple from the cereal box. She gets right to work,
tying them into a permanent embrace while I try to decide
how this complicates the conflict with my conscience.

And then I remember the squirrels, clever and determined,
and deprived of birdseed for over a week, and I know
what I am going to do with the granola.

Dayton Metro Library Poetry Contest
First Place | Older Adult

Understory

Maureen Fry

It washes me clean, this April rain,
plashes my upturned face, splatters
new maple leaves in velvet staccato.

And now the light, spilled sequins
drifting across the lawn, straying
into the woods, vanishing. Returning.

Something has shifted; the world sheds its
categories, stirs in unison. I'm wading
through a river of bloom: bloodroot,

hepatica, trillium. We are in this
together—the wakened toad
stone-still by a fallen sycamore;

the chipmunk, roused from its burrow,
blinking; the garter snake ghosting
under the wild ginger. I follow

the waddled path of a raccoon along
the creek bank, its delicate prints
like tiny hands probing the mud, watch

the pterodactyl flight of a great
blue heron against the checkered sky.
Where are we headed?

The Day Keith Haring Died (Love was More Alive than Dawn): An Aubade

Jake Sheff

Everybody swallowing in love
whom is wallowing in love.
It didn’t do its job—the sun—so it was fired.
These are ferocious roses.
You like the fire, striking flickering poses?

He also heals. O, the proper task of living is
whatever babies radiate. (Like ghost riders.)
Which unadulterated girl will push out
his sunlight’s haunted shout?
I’ve never seen the ending’s breast

we got accustomed to. “Pour
me a shot of grief, and say a prayer for poor
me,” the puppies radiate. Where do bodies meet
their pronouns and lose
themselves?
His untitled portrait of the king.

She’s a holy pandemonium;
mine, like silhouettes of snapdragons.
Our collection of penises,
her friendly snakes touching the beginning’s beard. Hear
me, man?

Do Something

Betsy Hughes

the movement to put an end to gun violence

The killer does his thing because he must—
Compulsion drives him, he cannot ignore
his anti-social impulse, self-disgust,
the suicidal anger at his core.

The rifle does its thing because it can—
Designed to shred the body's flesh, to wait
to feel the finger of the triggerman
release the bullets that will penetrate.

And we survivors do our thing. We're stunned
by all the bloodshed, harmless victims dead,
our innocence so violently gunned.
Still grieving, we resolve to look ahead:

Do something to reform the heedless laws
so human need, not greed, dictates our cause.

Blank Frame

Kathy B. Austin

There is one picture after the other,
the same pose—
child alone, straight stance,
face forward,
the smile;

child with mother,
similar stance;
mother with father,
entire family.

No hint of context,
no clues, except perhaps
the standing close together,
the hand around the waist;

no backgrounds—
a blank frame,
a mundane door,
the wide, unbroken lines
of aluminum siding,

the space above
colorless,
what must be
the clear blue sky.

Buster

Rita Coleman

Buster used to ride down the
middle of the street on his big
tricycle in the middle of the night.
One block down in a neat, new,
suburban plat, Buster, who was
probably forty, rarely strayed
outside during daylight hours.

But when you heard the
click click whish whish through
open windows on a late, dark,
summer night, if you were fast enough,
you could witness joy. Buster’s
open-wide mouth eclipsed his eyes,
his ball-capped head thrown back in glee.
His spindly body swayed left
and right, his skinny shoulders kept
time with the push of his legs, feet
primed on the pedals.

If you stayed at your bedroom window
long enough, you could watch his return
loop, still the same elation emanating from
Buster’s face, unaware of anything but
cool summer air from the glide forward
on the asphalt, the wheels going round,
the click click whish whish, a perfect
rhythm in his own private universe, cloaked
in the night from a judgmental world.

Marking the Days on the Wall with Acrylic Paint and Eyelashes.

Andrew Justice

On the 7th day my
tongue turned
to ash; I set it free
on the wind’s
muted hum. Vague
danger, the click
in my ear, ignored.
Feeling how empty
my mouth is gagging
on nothing. Eyes pop

from their sockets,
fall into a glass of
liquid oxygen making
all sights crystalized
portraits. I sleep. Cyclical.
On the 58th day,
my razor has dulled;
repurposed, I slide it into
my marsupia skin pouch.
Safe in my left arm. Let the child grow.

I replace my
teeth with rocks, life
sustained, now, on the
abandoned child’s
dampfires. On the 100th day
My wings came in, tastefully
ornamental. Unable to

dance, I made a bouquet
of my feathers & proposed
to a stranger’s shadow. She said
“No” but kept the
offering. Smart. On day
179, I found my
tongue, snuggled, renewed
in a maternity nest. I shoved
her into my mouth,

creating orphans. Proud,
I’m an artist now. Let the child grow.
Once, the sun rose in
the west & hatched in the east,
to human mutterings. In the
mythology of birds, stories
don’t begin. My cave
has been taken over
by a bear wrapped
in chrysalis awaiting meta-
morphosis. With all the hate, cracked
hands chisel conceded
hope into a tablet Let the child grow.

Data compiled I
return to a bar,
frequented a life
ago. Rock toothed,
winged, fire-fed,
with artic eyes &
captive tongue, I sit
on my stool. The bartender
slides The Usual.

Defeated & affirmed,
I leave her a
big tip of acorns
and pus-coated razors.

The Clarity of Taste

Herbert Woodward Martin

for Donald Hall

serenity capes the city
a steady black rain
pelts the neighborhood
leaves receive the brunt.
the backyard is quilted
the last bright green
has fallen asleep
under the cover of death.
tomorrow I will rake
the damp leaves on to
a plastic sheet and drag
them as best as I can
to the curb where the
city workers will suck
them up in a truck and
haul them away. that is
what the city does with
the money I pay them
in taxes to become
responsible.

Authors & Artists

Sponsors

The Apricot and the Moon

Poems by Cathryn Essinger

Envy

The moon climbs
Until she can see
Into every attic window.

“Her poems are rich with the tenderness of the unspoken. This collection resonates with humble beauty and wonder. “ —Jim Daniels

Dos Madres Press, 2020

Light in the River

by David Lee Garrison

In accessible poems that are much like stories, David Lee Garrison finds ambiguity and mystery beneath the surface of everyday experience. He rewrites the Biblical creation myth, positing Dog before Man; he imagines John Keats as a baseball player; he watches children play Hide and Seek and rejoice in finding and being found; he ponders the epitaphs in an old graveyard; and, he remembers a singer who came in one measure too early on the Hallelujah Chorus. The poet envisions life as a meandering journey through a summer afternoon by the river–humid and intense, with revelation everywhere, like leaves and shadows on the water.

“In the honorable tradition of poetic memento mori, the poetry of David Lee Garrison explores the nature of reflection and memory, probing the boundaries that separate the living and the dead.” —Corey Andrews, author of The Genius of Scotland

Dos Madres Press, 2020

Miami Valley Folk Dancers

Every Thursday
Beginners’ Class | 7-8 pm
Easy Dance You Can Do | 8-9 pm

Michael Solomon Pavilion at Community Golf Course
2917 Berkeley St.
Kettering, OH 45409