January’s Featured Poet – James Keane

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Other notable work by Ellen Foos and Vasiliki Katsarou.

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James Keane-

Bless

the home this house
becomes when brightened
by your love to withstand
the darkness only my eyes,
grown frightened, can hold
against your wishes. Bless all

trees and bushes
gracing the home this house
becomes when tended
with your love to withstand
love’s erosion only my anger,
grown distended, can mold
against your wishes. Bless your

heart’s flowing
warming the home this house
becomes when paned
by your love to withstand
love’s slowing only my heart,
grown self-contained, can uphold
against your wishes. Above all, bless your

soul’s knowing, no stranger
to the danger of my anger.
Brace the home this house
has become. Sprung
by your love to withstand
the death of my soul’s
knowing, growing no longer,

should it die
against your wishes.

_______________

From Where I Stood

the coiled cord
of the wall phone was
taut, a straight line
disappearing
down behind the counter
to – what? It was you
and resignation
slumped against the wall
in chorus
mouthing the name
of your brother – or was it you
and desolation, having
listened (hour upon hour)
to his wailing for
understanding, for
compassion, for
consolation
you will never
hear from him.

_______________

Nephew

A latch-key kid is not prepared to tread around
his robed mom, face a frozen yawn, dead

from self-infliction. Better to retrace your childhood
steps back through the door to the solid ground

of your childhood friends. Till the death you could not bear
was averted. But back inside again, you found your childhood

deserted. Youthful as your years were, they crawled, while
a new path to self-infliction cleared. Oh Danny, dead at 23,

what did you see

of beauty that makes a happiness of strife. Of peace that
happiness makes of life. Of love that living cannot touch

when living is too little, and too much.

Previously published in Gold Dust.

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Hey, Hummingbird

Hey, hummingbird,
hovering, peering in
just outside my window
to life,
just be there when I need you,

where my sad son
can see you. Be tickled
your soundless whirring makes
him smile a little to fly
a little, forget to cry
alone, a little.
May he always know

he is good, and my prayer
through his window to life
be heard, and never misunderstood:

Keep him lovingly in your sights
all of my days, and all of his nights.

Previously published in my poetry chapbook, What Comes Next
(Finishing Line Press, March 2013).

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James Keane celebrated the publication of his first poetry chapbook, What Comes Next, in 2013 (Finishing Line Press). His poems have appeared in a number of online and print journals – most recently the East Coast Literary Review, The Bond Street Review, Out of Our, Scissors and Spackle, and the Tipton Poetry Journal – and in several anthologies, including The Harsh and the Heart: Celebrating the Military (Silver Boomer Books) and Eating Her Wedding Dress: A Collection of Clothing Poems (Ragged Sky Press).

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Ellen Foos-

Side Yard

When we tired of the backyard
there was the side yard,
accessory to our crimes,
a hideout, a conduit for racing
full circle around the house.
The best place to backtrack
when being pursued.

Lilac trees on the side
had a shaggy look.
It was easy to peek
into basement windows.
The neighbors were close
but never clear-eyed.

Corner lots expanded blandly,
we had two sharp corridors.
Here’s why I left New York City,
no side yard.
Who speaks of
the White House lawn
and thinks side yard?

When I lost my father,
I thought how it changed me,
the side yard I’ll never visit again,
the ladder he stored there.

_______________

Wreckage

Wherever they are recovered,
chunks of airplane parts
carry a weight never felt in midair.
What emergency measures can be taken
when all the fuel combusts—

it’s not printed on the card
in the pocket in front of you.
Best to cherish the small packet
of sweetly flavored peanuts.

Fish or flies may soon feed on you
while a flight list, perhaps even a plaque,
carries your name.

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Fish Story

Flap they go and flip over.
All muscle and waterproof,
silent as the deep sea.
Keep them or clean them,
fry them or buy them a castle.
Pink gravel for a kitschy kingdom,
barbed hook for a pierced lip.
The wise ones grant wishes
or pretend to until they can escape.
The dumb ones try to blend in,
travel in schools.
You might teach one to play dead,
swallow one on a dare.
Repository for mercury,
taxidermied, legs tucked up.
Fantails in full bloom.

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Ellen Foos is a senior production editor for Princeton University Press. She is the founder and publisher of Ragged Sky Press and was the recipient of fellowships to the MacDowell Colony and the Vermont Studio Center. Her first collection of poems, Little Knitted Sister, was published in 2006 and her poetry has appeared in U.S.1 Worksheets, The Kelsey Review, Edison Literary Review, and Sensations Magazine.

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Vasiliki Katsarou-

Primary

The sun parted the painted clouds

rent a sun-sized hole
in my dingy tableau

a reality-hole

wiped clear years of hesitation
and tobacco smudge

So the dancers with red aprons,
stymied by music-less decades

gazed at the real sun in their artificial world
and lifted their skirts

to take one
tarantella step
forward

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Elements

Light: first source
of fruit,

fruit: gifts of the tree
and the sea,

see, seek shelter in its shade

let shade scissor light
from dark

weave

we’ve a pattern
of these elements

and draw from them a home

dance in its shadow

Time
whirls
through us demi-
urgically

let the wind connect us
to the tree

let the rain connect us
to the sea

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Unmined

Slate heaves forth
and sinks into earth

its layers unexposed
unslaked, unmined

Durable snow clings to slate
and burning lichen leaves
naked patches of dirt

Tiny twig etchings shiver
into reminiscences of summer

Durable snow wipes the slate clean
covers dung hills and all manner
of summer hiding places

Durable snow distills texture
from silence, adds the premonitory s
to s—
crunch—

provides a slick path through the treeline

(for Ellen Foos)

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Vasiliki Katsarou’s poems have appeared in Poetry Daily, Agave Magazine, Regime Journal, wicked alice, Press 1, as well as in the anthologies Not Somewhere Else But Here: A Contemporary Anthology of Women and Place and the forthcoming Rabbit Ears: TV Poems (NYQ Books). In 2014, she read her work at the Dodge Poetry Festival, the largest poetry festival in the United States. Her first collection, Memento Tsunami, was published in 2011.

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