I Will Remain Silent

Thomas Quitzau

June 26, 2022

I will remain silent.

Silent as a still ultrasound, unidentifiable

Silent as these words only written, unspoken

Silent as a heartbeat, unchecked and steady

I will remain silent.

Silent as your pain, which I could never feel

Silent as your family, who will never know

Silent as your government, who are too busy

I will remain silent.

Silent as the dreams, we’ll never hear

Silent as your bullhorn, yanked away

Silent as the muted news, pretending

I will remain silent.

Silent as your donors, anonymous

Silent as the laws, scattered in books

Silent as a thumb, sucked in darkness

I will remain silent.

Silent as a nursery rhyme, in sealed rooms

Silent as the prayers, spoken in minds

Silent as a table, flat and empty

I will remain silent.

Silent as a Gerber ad, same ol’ smile

Silent as a diaper, yellow and new

Silent as a man, who has no place

I will remain silent.

Thomas Quitzau is a poet and teacher who grew up in the Gulf Coast region and who worked for over 30 years in Houston, Texas. A survivor of Hurricane Harvey, he recently wrote a book entitled Reality Showers, and currently teaches and lives on Long Island, New York with his wife and children.

The Blues

Suzanne Morris

June 20, 2022

Blue is the color of

periwinkles

on the glass shade of

my favorite lamp

the color of

the young girl’s dress

in the painting

above my desk

blue, the color of

Galveston shutters

in the painting

beside my bed 

and the color

most vividly brought to life

with my cataracts

finally shed.

Blue was the color

before your eyes

when you came near

a stroke last night

the color of the shirt

you wore when you

rushed through my door

in fright.

Blue is the color

of my world today

seeing clearly how frail,

this life. 

Suzanne Morris is a novelist and a poet.  Her poems are included in various anthologies, including No Season for Silence (Kallisto Gaia Press, 2020) and Gone, but Not Forgotten (Stone Poetry Journal, 2022).  Examples have also appeared in The Texas Poetry Assignment and The New Verse News.

A Theorem of Love with Greater and Lesser Corollary Statements

Jesse Doiron

June 12, 2022

I love you theoretically, 

            which is not to say 

                        I love you well 

                                    nor very badly; 

                                    rather, I mean to say 

                        I love you in the 

            measured way of those 

who count on fingers. 

                                    I love you theoretically, 

                        which is not to say 

            I love you well 

nor mistakenly; 

rather, I mean to say 

            I love you despite the 

                        wrong assumptions  

                                    I, too often, make. 

I love you theoretically, 

            which is not to say 

                        I love you well 

                                    nor accurately; 

                                    rather, I mean to say 

                        I love you in a  

            countless day-  

to-day adjusting. 

                                    I love you theoretically, 

                        which is not to say 

            I love you well 

nor with an answer; 

rather, I mean to say 

            I love you in an 

                        infinitely  

                                    questionable way.

Jesse Doiron spent 13 years overseas in countries where he often felt as if he were a “thing” that had human qualities but couldn’t communicate them. He teaches college, now, to people a third his age. He still feels, often, as if he is a “thing” that has human qualities but can’t communicate them.

Provision

Chris Ellery

June 5, 2022

Of all in this realm of particles and force

nothing is mine.

Not the beans or bread on my plate.

Not the tea in my glass. 

Not “my” plate or “my” glass.

Not the woman who cooks and bakes and sets the table.

Not the song that she sings as she lights a candle.

Consider the bowl of the body.

The blood, made in the bones, enters and leaves the heart

like a modest allowance.

Can I own a single cell?

Can I save a breath for a rainy day?

Can I earn interest on a swallow?

As we sit together, the woman and I, light spreads over the table

and over our faces.

But the light and the flame are no more mine

than they are the candle’s. 

The hand that butters the bread is not mine.

The teeth that chew are not mine.

The tongue that tastes is not mine.

The stomach is not mine.

Neither is any thought mine nor the will to love.

Still, holding her hand and mumbling in the mystery, 

I offer thanks (thanks that is not mine)

to the nothing whose we are

for the bounteous marrow of this poverty.

Chris Ellery is author of five poetry collections, including The Big Mosque of Mercy, Elder Tree, and, most recently, Canticles of the Body. A member of the Texas Institute of Letters, he has received the X.J. Kennedy Award for Creative Nonfiction, the Dora and Alexander Raynes Prize for Poetry, the Betsy Colquitt Award, and the Texas Poetry Award.

Come February

Suzanne “Zan” Green

June 3, 2022

Jay leaves

the following day

sunlit heath 

absent chlorophylls’ greens

bell heathers’ purples

but primed for bees’

arrivals are gorse flowers

and though much 

seems familiar

I don’t remember

‘dendrons

growing here wild

Jay leaves

the following day

robin pays a visit

mallards leave the runway

and rotting plants 

submerged have left 

pond’s face

a shiny mirror—

today’s reflections 

are bulrush—silver birch 

towering scots pines

Every week—

our age in pennies

and spent them at

the corner sweet shop 

on flying saucers

sherbet fountains—

a small paper bag’s 

worth

Coots peck their

unmissable white bills

Water birds—V’s

in their wakes

Jay leaves—I can’t believe 

we’ll never talk again

I’ll never see her sparkle

(reminding me of dad’s)

The way back—

someone’s

dropped their hat

I can’t believe 

she’s gone

Suzanne “Zan” Green grew up in the South of England, and moved to Texas in 1992. The poem Come February was written for their dear sister Jay, who died in January 2021, after a brief terrible illness called CJD. The woods were their childhood playground.

Now

Jan Seale

May 27, 2022

Now has been running away forever.

You get it fixed in position,

all set for contemplation,

you turn your head and it’s down the road.

Now has been freezing for a second

on a stopped clock  but what a trick

and it doesn’t count for the catchy

“When time stood still.”

Now has been briefly accounted for

on the shining faces of astronauts 

returning from deep space. If they saw it

they’re not telling NASA.

Now has been sounding like a cat’s meow.

Come to think of it,

Now twines the legs, is hungry, 

appears suddenly as Now here,

which when pronounced

like it teases to be remembered,

is Nowhere. I don’t want to make Now

a kissing cousin with Time,

But Now has been sassing Time, 

calling out that “Time is running out,”

has shown up in an identical outfit.

What party are they attending?

Jan Seale has had two books published during the pandemic, thanks to the editors of Lamar University Literary Press.  They are A Lifetime of Words (2020) and Particulars: poems of smallness (2021). 

A Story We Have Forgotten

Sarah Webb

May 25, 2022

Dust. Children who cannot remember their parents,

their gods toppled, their tongues broken,

vagrants, begging their way among strangers,

a land lost, a people lost, dust on the road away

dust chants their story: canals gone dry

as wind singes terrace and field,

wells turned bitter and rivers blue-green,

seed unsprouted in spring

dust, a rebuke for storehouses emptied,

the rich still fat and the peasants hungry,

collectors trampling on high-mettled horses

though the people have nothing to give

dust, a cloak of rumors—of men in the hills,

hunts without meat and the fires gone cold,

of wolves come down in the black for a sheep

or a horse, or a child in a house without light

dust, warning of plague flags, of cargoes burned,

of a clerk in a high-up window who gasps

as red-sailed galleys file into the harbor,

bowmen and shieldmen bristling the prows

dust and death—fear shrilling at

torches and horsemen and blood in the night,

a boy who stumbles away over furrows

rags and fur against ice-filled wind

dust that whispers—of climbing to secrets,

of rites to placate, of arms hidden,

bands in the heights, tents onto rock,

night falling, sleet falling, silence.

Sarah Webb splits her time between a lake in the northern Hill Country and Corpus Christi. She will soon go on the road with her new rescue dog, who is learning to be brave.

Here is a Moon Song

Jim LaVilla-Havelin

May 23, 2022

peek the moon out top of the sky through the trees and over the barn

peek the future slipping into today like the sun over the far trees

peek the owl and the other night birds at moon, at sun, at scurrying beneath them

peek out from under the covers

peek to the end to know what’s coming

and here is the sun crossing the field, glad

Jim LaVilla-Havelin is a co-founder of San Antonio’s Stone in Stream/Roca en el Rio: a collective of writers and artists committed to the environment.

Primer

Melanie Alberts

May 15, 2022

I 

I dream

I walk

I plant seeds

I water the sprout

I feed lambs

I chase the fox

I bag the fleece

I gather nuts

I comb the wool

I boil shells

I stir the dye

I spin the thread

I wind the spool

I smile back

I gather a poesy

I feed the needle

I sew a dress

I marry a man

I memorize sums

I keep a fine house

I shut my eyes

I scream at the wall

I give them names

I sing a song

I cool a fever

I spin patience

I can perseverance

I memorize lies

I feel my heart stop

I shut my eyes

I feed the earth

I seep into creeks

I am not marked by stone

I am 

I

Writer and psychic artist Melanie Alberts works at the University of Texas at Austin. Her writing and artwork have or will appear in Drifting Sands, Sleet Magazine, Cold Moon Journal, Failed Haiku, Texas Poetry Assignment, Ransom Center Magazine, Just This, The Austin Chronicle, Borderlands, bottle rockets, and others. Follow Melanie on Instagram @clair.circles.spirit.art.