In the interest of karmic balance, our Guest Poetry Editor agreed to accept all poems submitted to us on July 13 and August 29 — provided the authors allowed her to retitle their work.
We thank the two poets whose work appears below for their bravery.
NEW TITLE: The Extra E is for Electricity
(original title: Storm)
by Lea Storry
Mountain rain storm
No thunder
Or lightening
Just the resonance of drops hitting the
Metal
Roof
A natural on unnatural sound
I want something amazing to
Happen
To see electricity reach out from the sky
to strike out from the
Grey
To collide with the green peaks
A fragment of magic in the
Midst of ordinary
There is it
Finally
A crack, a peal, a loudness of a noise through noise
Thunder
It splits the clouds
breaks
and I can see a perfect hole of
blue
Burned through the dark sky.
NEW TITLE: Hot Buttered Rhino
(original title: Butter)
by Lea Storry
I let emotions and thoughts and ideas cut through me
With ease like a hot knife
Through butter.
One kind thought towards me
One frothy compliment
One caress
And I melt.
You.
You on the other hand
Have a hide like a rhino.
Thick and tough and like a concrete wall
It was built by you and added on by others
And now it protects and withstands every
menacing shape and form
including a shadowy hint of love.
My softness rubs against you
And my attempts drip off
To congeal on the floor
Like my heart
many, many times before you.
NEW TITLE: Dragonflies Doin’ the Nasty
(old title: Dipped)
by Lea Storry
A country walk with the doggies this evening. We went to Peckmeadow.
Isolated. Undisturbed. The smells and sights of a Nova Scotian autumn
are already here – invading summer.
Two dragonflies were mating near the creek. Darting and buzzing so
loudly. Like they were fighting. They dipped themselves into the water
a few times. Almost drowning. Or I thought so.
They always rose out of the tea-coloured pool together. Two
intertwined. One body.
That is the way relationships actually work. It isn’t all gliding
above it all. It’s getting immersed in it all and struggling to swim
back to the surface. Breaking free to breathe and love again.
NEW TITLE: Cranberry Flaxseed Oatmeal’s Quite Tasty.
(old title: Remix Culture)
by Peter Richter
In the morning, I extended from the tepid linen
into a chilling vertical stretch. You were motionless,
still afloat in a dream’s afterthought.
You continued down river with a bounce and
splash toward morning; dew and sun come together as tinsel and wake you.
I was stirring oatmeal in the kitchen.
You were at the white oak table, enjoying the rhythm
of the brown sugar, spoon and ceramic all churning.
You watched my shoulder blade enter and leave itself,
you explain “remix culture.” That we don’t create,
we extend the brilliance of things, “Like adding brown sugar to oatmeal,
or beats to a Frankie Valli tune.”
In the afternoon we went to look at carpet samples.
I stood admiring the curve of your neck
as you looked at the tufts of color in a binder;
your spine was curled and gentle
like a hose under snow.
There is a flat paisley square
on the last page that makes everything before it look better.
At night, the day carbon-dated itself
into static reminiscences on the porcelain tub.
Dusk conjugated over us, white into violet.
I fell into a dream of you salting peapods at a Tai restaurant.
Then two spots of pollen come and linger at your nose.
You introduce them to the sequin blares of spring
where they spin together in a magnetic field
fit for one another.