Inaugural Poems
Fallen Live Oak
Marilyn Robitaille
January 20, 2021
for Inauguration Day, January 20, 2021
Oak tree decline arrived here unannounced
I did not see or smell this ghostly haze
Creeping through the Texas countryside
All within a year or two, the big Live Oak
Shed its leaves, sent acorns madly helter-skelter
All across the yard, nothing left untouched
Like some desperate, last-chance swimmer
Drowning, flaying arms in salty water
Loud cries for help I could not hear, but others did
Resident mesquites replied with Spanish blessings
Scrawny elms across the way said Hail Marys
Sage bushes by the fishpond sang Ave Maria
Nothing worked to save the Oak, the biggest Oak of all
At least five hundred rings around, so many years
Giving shade to those first Comanches on the land
My great-grandfather surely saw it, taking note
On a clear, blue day, this big Oak rising
From an eastern hill on his way to Lingleville
No amount of love or chemistry could save it,
The Oaken soul left during summer months
Branches brittle-gray in moist, heat quickening
Birds knew not to nest there, squirrels stayed away
The dozers came today, and I hear them now
Snarling as they grind away towards Oak oblivion
If I remember anything about this time
About pandemics, about stupidity beyond belief,
About a presidential psychopath who won’t go away
About Proud Boys and rampant racism,
About friends lost and loved ones sick,
About our fallen Live Oak
It will be this: I vow mad determination.
Plant new Oaks for coming generations
Say prayers in Oak remembrance
Cast protective spells for Oaks still standing
The ones still strong, survivors of the blight
Democracy will hold, regardless of the devil’s undertow
I, for one, will turn into the sun and stay afloat
And refuse, along with Joe, to be undone.
Marilyn Robitaille is Associate Professor of English at Tarleton State University, a member of the Texas A & M System. She is founding co-editor of Langdon Review of the Arts in Texas. Her book of illustrated poetry Not by Design: 50 Poems and Images (2018) has been featured in gallery readings with samplings of the original art exhibited. Her work has been included in a variety of poetry anthologies. She is the founder of Romar Press, an independent press dedicated to publishing works that embrace the power of artistic expression, touch the heart, and keep us civilized.
Inaugural Erasure
Lyman Grant
January 20, 2021
Lyman Grant is a poet living in Virginia, and loves being able to visit Washington, D. C. often. His most recent book is 2018: Found Poems and Weather Reports.
January
Loretta Diane Walker
January 19, 2021
Is a caterpillar,
slowly starving,
a pupa cocooned in silky promises,
a wingless creature
craving flight.
Isn’t this the transfiguration,
unfurling tale of a New Year?
To consign our yesterdays
to cinders and dust,
to become a servant of hope,
unseal faith from its belly?
Loretta Diane Walker, an award-winning poet, multiple Pushcart Nominee, and Best of the Net Nominee, won the 2016 Phyllis Wheatley Book Award for poetry, for her collection, In This House (Bluelight Press). Loretta is a member of the Texas Institute of Letters. Her work has appeared in various literary journals, magazines, and anthologies throughout the United States, Canada, India, Ireland, and the UK. She has published five collections of poetry. Her manuscript Word Ghetto won the 2011 Bluelight Press Book Award. Loretta received a BME from Texas Tech University and earned a MA from The University of Texas of the Permian Basin. She teaches elementary music at Reagan Magnet School, Odessa, Texas.
There’s a Special Providence
Seth Wieck
January 19, 2021
in the fall of a pharaoh
whose falling arrow
falls fast past
a flying sparrow.
She weaves in her nest
a dead pharaoh’s
hair, O Lord, she
builds her nest
out of his reach. O Lord,
she knits her nest high above his throne.
Seth Wieck's writing has appeared in Narrative Magazine, the Langdon Review of the Arts, Tejascovido, and the Broad River Review where he won the Ron Rash Award in Fiction. He lives in Amarillo with his wife and three children, and teaches literature and writing at Boys Ranch High School.
Inaugural Villanelle
Seth Wieck
January 18, 2021
In our beginning when dust was given skin,
and breath slipped in and slipped on out again—
even when we slept we breathed out and in
and out, a carbon bound to a pair of oxygen.
No volition, our lungs just wending on with wind.
In that garden when dust was given skin
and God gave breath to men and said right then
it wasn’t ours to sustain, we breathed two words: sin
and hope— that when we slept we’d breathe out and back in.
For every Abel’s breath of adoration,
an oath of Cain. Blood cried out a new jargon
in our beginning when dust was given skin
to consume. Worms then roots then leaves respired oxygen
breathed in by cities of violent men, so laws were penned
which allowed us to rest, to sleep, to breathe out and in.
In every sworn oath breathed by a politician
is the seed of redemption and the root of sin;
an attempt to untangle our dust from our skin
before we sleep and breathe in and out again.
Seth Wieck's writing has appeared in Narrative Magazine, the Langdon Review of the Arts, Tejascovido, and the Broad River Review where he won the Ron Rash Award in Fiction. He lives in Amarillo with his wife and three children, and teaches literature and writing at Boys Ranch High School.
Inaugural Incantation 2021
Carol Coffee Reposa
January 18, 2021
Today we’ll see the turbid tides recede
And peel away those months of sludge and smear
To stanch the nation’s wound, our long slow bleed.
New songs will rise up in the streets, words freed
At last to bear their weight, and all will hear.
Today we’ll see the turbid tides recede.
Dry streams will start to flow again, to feed
The many on their banks. Our skies will clear
To stanch the nation’s wound, our long slow bleed.
No souls will live in shadow, forced to plead
For mercy, shed their dreams, or breathe in fear.
Today we’ll see the turbid tides recede
To make way for new growth, the bursting seed
That sprouts a forest, brings all people near
To stanch the nation’s wound, our long slow bleed.
No law will have to power to impede
That shining birth, that gift, in this new year.
Today we’ll see the turbid tides recede
To stanch the nation’s wound, our long slow bleed.
Author of five books of poetry, Carol Coffee Reposa has received five Pushcart Prize nominations, along with three Fulbright/Hays Fellowships for study in Russia, Peru, Ecuador, and Mexico. A member of the Texas Institute of Letters and of the Voices de la Luna editorial staff, she is the 2018 Texas Poet Laureate.
Forrest Trump Sits at the Bus Stop, Waiting for a Ride To the Opening of His Presidential Library
Chuck Etheridge
January 17, 2021
Hello
My name is Forrest Trump.
You want a chocolate?
I could eat about a million and a half of ‘em.
No, you can’t have one,
But I’ll sell you one.
My mama always said, “Life is like a box of chocolates.
You can sell something to almost anyone,
Even if they don’t need it.”
My mama was an immigrant.
She came from Scotland.
She came here because she hated haggis and kale,
And wanted to eat good old American food
Like frankfurters and sauerkraut.
My grandpa was an immigrant, too.
He got deported from Germany.
That’s right, they kicked him out.
His name was Drumpf,
But they changed it at Ellis Island.
They were the right kind of immigrants, you see.
They came from Europe.
They didn’t come from one of those shithole countries.
And that’s all I’m gonna say about that.
Mama, Grandad, I love my family.
I’m proud of my family.
That’s one of the things that they’re gonna say in my library—
That I protected the American family.
I believe marriage should be between a man and a woman.
I believe it so much I married three different women.
I was a good father, too.
I was such a good father I paid child support for all six of my children.
Did Obama do that?
Did he pay his child support on time?
Nope, I bet he didn’t pay it at all.
Besides, his father was an immigrant
From a shithole country.
And that’s all I’m gonna say about that.
I love my country, too.
Everywhere I go, people say,
“That Forrest Trump, he really loves America.”
I fought for America, too.
No, I didn’t go to Vee-Ett—Nahm.
I really wanted to
But the doctors said I couldn’t.
But you can bet that if I woulda gone,
I woulda been the best soldier ever.
The US woulda won that war bigly.
But I kept this country safe.
I stood up for America.
When they said
“Russia is attacking the US
With computers,”
I didn’t really understand how
You could attack with computers.
But I went to this place called Helsinki—
I think it’s in Europe somewhere,
And I told that Putin fella—
Putin was President of Russia at that time—
To stop firing missiles at South Korea.
No, wait a minute. That wasn’t Putin.
That was the other fella.
I made him—I think his name was Jim or Kim,
Anyway, I made him pinkie promise
Not to fire any more missiles.
And he stopped.
Same thing with Rasputin.
No, wait a minute, it was Putin.
He pinkie promised me
That Russia didn’t have anything to do
With computer attacks on America.
I stood up to him!
And now, America is safer that it’s ever been.
We got Russian and Korean military bases
Right here in the US of A to keep us safe!
I protected America.
And that’s all I’m gonna say about that.
You sure you don’t wanna buy a chocolate?
You wanna know the best part?
When I ran for office,
I said I was gonna build a wall
And get Mexico to pay for it
And I did!
When Russia and North Korea
Started setting up bases
In California and Kansas.
Some people didn’t like it.
Really, they were traitors,
And they started to try and leave.
So many of ‘em tried to get into Mexico
That Mexico built a wall
And they paid for it.
You wanna know the best part?
Canada built a wall, too.
And that’s all I’m gonna say about that.
And now they’ve built me a library
US taxpayers didn’t have to pay a nickel!
The government of Russia
And the government of North Korea
Pitched in to honor me.
Can you believe it?
It’s gonna be the biggest,
Bestest,
Most amazingest presidential library ever.
And that’s all I’m gonna say about that.
That’s Ivan, my driver,
And Byung-hoon, his helper.
I have to go now.
You sure you don’t wanna buy a chocolate?
After joining the Navy, El Paso native Chuck Etheridge kept California safe from communist invasion before attending UTEP and TCU. He’s published two novels, Border Canto and The Desert after Rain; Chagford Revisited is forthcoming in January. His most recent poetry is in Corpus Christi Writers Anthologies, Trek-a-Tanka, and Tejascovido.
Continental Divide
Thomas Quitzau
January 17, 2021
[on the occasion of
the swearing in of
one imperfect servant]
The crests and craggy majesties separate
A continent never unified and only recently
United by $15 million, a few wars, hasty
Annexation stitched together by tracks
Tying seams with tensions of two worlds
Splitting elevations.
Barefoot more than not, concerned more with
Hummingbirds than political flamethrowers,
The underfunded military, embarrassed
Ambassadors racing ahead of the contrails
Above the spinning lands floating, sinning on
Seas molten.
We’ve stared into rectangular worlds and seen
Both sides at once, simultaneously split screen
Symbolic of our two lands, contrasted—
Contrarily lagging literally logging time unchanged
Saving daylight basking Arizona scene—
Life in four dimensions.
Coronal retentive pretenders,
Masquerading attenders, world leaders
Following media’s mediocre rendition
Neglecting those truly in need, seeing
“The Big Picture” at the expense of
The hungry…
The lowly…
The little ones…
Un-united,
Dis-invited,
Zooming one-and-all
The empty National Mall.
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.
Search Party
Vincent Hostak
January 16, 2021
Standing in line November third,
I thought of a neighborhood search party.
It was too early, too cold,
not enough coffee in us
to greet the day in this way.
Not one dared imagine
what we gathered to do
didn’t make a difference,
wouldn’t mean the world
to someone.
I heard a song:
I walked these woods before.
At their darkest, I knew the markers:
every scrub oak and mountain juniper,
the roots swelling from the path.
I roamed this place before.
At their inmost, I was foot sure.
Even through the mazy deer lanes,
I could find my way—there and back.
But parts grew unfamiliar
overgrown with briar:
catclaw where a meadow lived,
elderberry in the creek bottom.
In January, we thought,
she may have been a lost child,
our neglected dear intentions.
But there in line,
I looked at you, you at me—
strangers in a moment
when we were cursed
by affection without exception
to call our country back home.
VINCENT HOSTAK is a poet, essayist, and advocate. Long a resident of Texas, he resides in the intersection of city and wilderness near Denver. His poetry is published in Sonder Midwest (#5), Tejascovido.com, Langdon Review of the Arts in Texas, and Wild, Abandoned (the blog). His podcast on refugee resettlement & culture: https://anchor.fm/crossingsrefugees.
Trumpet
Chris Ellery
January 16, 2021
I went to Market Street Inauguration Day
intending to grab a couple of steaks, a bottle
or two of good Chardonnay. The crowd was bigger
than the one on the National Mall, dog eat dog.
Passing racks of vinegar and bread,
I shot straight to the Meat Market. Masses
of carnivores were there ahead of me
electing entrees. You could tell by the tonnage
of meat on the shelves how easy killing is
for us. I pushed through the mob, stretched,
and reached under the shelf, noodling for a family
pack of New York strip, thick cut. But hooking
my hand on something sharp, I jerked it back
and saw the blood. Before I was able to staunch
the flow, a plump little drop dripped on the wrap
of a five-pound roast, spattered and spread
like a trumpet blast. The sound of it pierced
the clouds of Sinai, Jericho fell,
and in the twinkling of an eye the food chain
reversed its politics. The store became
a shambles. Pork, chicken, mutton, beef
threw off packaging, flew out of the coolers.
Sausages burst, bouillon cubes unwrapped
themselves while cans of soup and bottles of soap
exploded, flooding every shopping lane.
We never think how much we are touched by forests
and seas—there was hardly a thing for sale in that store
not partly made with some animal part.
Creatures arose from goo, reclaimed their entrails
and reclaimed their tails, reassembled, somehow,
bone and fur and feather, fin and scale,
and filled the place with zoological noise
and zoological smells. Some shoppers panicked,
upset their carts, and fled the store. I stayed
where I stood with bleeding hand and watched
cows come together part by part, rump roast
and rib. Boneless chicken recovered bones,
ham hocks and hams again became pigs, veal
became calves, mutton sheep. Salmon and cod,
lobster and shrimp spilled from boxes, leapt
from ice to breathe like mammals, swim in air.
I saw an emu, buffalo, and even a dolphin
(its atoms erupted and joined from can after can
of tuna fish). Seven of the animals formed
a band. The first was a catfish pierced with hooks,
a good hundred pounds, cool as a beatnik,
dripping Mississippi crud. The next
was a hog wearing bacon enough for three super stores.
The third, a nag, galloped over, un-rendered,
from the Pet Food aisle. A great, shaggy bison
came fourth, stoic as a shaman from
some high plains myth. That dolphin I mentioned
before was using flippers like hands and had fixed
on its face a leviathan grin. As if to give thanks
a gobbler was sixth, a big roasting hen, her breasts
sufficient to feed an army of sinners. The last
of the band seemed also the first—a snowy lamb
afloat in a nimbus of rapture—agnus dei,
I absently thought, having been bred in the One
True Church. Each of the seven carried a horn
made only of air, and all together they
began to blow ripe Cornucopias
of Dixieland jazz. Soon all the animals started
dancing, some upright, hoof and claw
(fish on their tails), all whimsically whirling
in wild arabesques, laughing, clapping, kissing.
They danced in the Meat Market. They danced
in the Bakery, danced in the Deli, danced
in Dairy. In Frozen Food, they—the formerly
frozen—danced. They danced in the Pharmacy.
They danced in Cosmetics. They danced and danced.
Then, moved by the beat of victory, they started
to march, dancing and marching Mardis Gras style
to the blast of brass. That lamb, blowing trumpet, took
the lead. It led the animals down the aisles
of the store to the automatic doors and out
onto the parking lot. Chaos outside.
Day turned to night, cars on fire in thick
black smoke, which parted like water clearing a path
for the beasts as they marched to the streets
where throngs of more animals flowed in step
through the burning world. Some were wild,
some were pets, some were even presumed extinct.
They marched away through wreckage on the beat
of jazz, the rhythm of joy. Soon all were gone,
and the echo of music faded away in the sky.
Only humans remained. The mob was stunned. We stood
each alone, abandoned, like sense, in the hiss
and the mess of this inaugural apocalypse.
I was in shock, but shocked as I was, I felt pain
in my hand. After all that, the thumb that I cut, plump
and pale as a drumstick, was still throbbing and bleeding.
When I looked around, everyone else was looking at me,
their eyes filling already with lip-licking lust.
Chris Ellery is author of five poetry collections, most recently Canticles of the Body and Elder Tree. He has received the X.J. Kennedy Award for Creative Nonfiction, the Dora and Alexander Raynes Prize for Poetry, and the Betsy Colquitt Award. A member of the Texas Institute of Letters, Ellery teaches literature, creative writing, and film criticism at Angelo State University.
Four Haiku
Juan Manuel Pérez
January 15, 2021
Inauguration, No.1
inauguration:
word seems larger than meaning
leaving room for HOPE
Inauguration, No. 2
storms of silent cheer
passing of a broken torch
time and peace, the glue
Inauguration, No. 3
refresh faint rainbows
in representative tones
peaceful in contrast
Inauguration No, 4
destroyer of noise
may peace re-sign its contract
may the sun rise true
Juan Manuel Pérez, a Mexican-American poet of indigenous descent and the 2019-2020 Poet Laureate for Corpus Christi, Texas, is the author of several books of poetry including two new books, Space in Pieces (2020) and Screw the Wall! and Other Brown People Poems (2020).
A New Place
Sherry Craven
January 15, 2021
I gave birth to a child once
and immediately the air was lighter,
motes of dust became stars.
Colors touched my soul with bright,
hope was in everything, everywhere,
everyone. Hard became softer.
His presence washed over me, the world,
as I watched him start a new, fresh life,
promising a path not traveled before.
I watched him lead me into a new place
full of promise, full of little leaps of
excitement that all was good now.
I could walk out into my life knowing
the path of his birth was my rebirth,
faith we would all somehow be safe.
SHERRY CRAVEN has published poetry in numerous journals and anthologies and has had a poetry collection Standing at the Window published by vacpoetry in Chicago. She has also had flash fiction and creative nonfiction published and read poetry on NPR, as well as being included in Quotable Texas Women
A Country Without Firsts
Antoinette Winstead
January 14, 2021
“But while I may be the first woman in
this office, I won’t be the last.”
-- Kamala Harris
I long to live in a country without firsts
where females and people of color
in positions of power
symbolize a norm
not disruption and chaos
circus oddities
marveled and goggled
held up as models
of the achieved impossible
judged as outliers
success garnered questionable
accomplishments under constant suspicion
of whether earned through hard work
or given through the largess
of well-meaning liberals
perceived behind the achievements
of all implausible barrier breakers.
I long to live in a country without firsts
conceived in the dream
over half-a-century ago
by a man who imagined a world
unbiased by gender or color
where no obstacles of injustice
exist for those who envision
positions of power and one day
taking the oath of office
unburdened by the label of first before it.
It is this country I long to live in
heartened by successes that shatter
the facades of fortresses
long-believed impenetrable
demolished by the intrepid
who brave the brand
no female or person of color envies
for to be the first is to suffer
as those to follow will never.
Antoinette F. Winstead, a poet, playwright, director, actor, and professor teaching film and theater courses at Our Lady of the Lake University, where she also serves as the Associate Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences and the Program Head for the Mass Communication and Drama programs.
America, The Patient
Katherine Hoerth
January 13, 2021
This January morning, may she rise
from her sick bed, clear her feeble chest
of phlegm that’s plagued her body far too long,
and take a wheezing breath all by herself.
May this nightmare finally meet its end.
We know she’ll wear the scars of this for years
on her alveolus, bronchi, pleura,
atrophied muscles, and a foggy brain.
We know she could have died of this disease
with her comorbidities: congenital
racism, lacerated politics,
the heavy weight of poverty, all wreaking
havoc on her immune response. Her lungs
were already shot from breathing in
years of exhaust. But she hangs on to life:
our mother of democracy, this tough
old broad of liberty. She’s coming back
from the brink of darkness, every vote
a leukocyte of hope. This isn’t over,
but today’s a better day than yesterday.
May we take this country’s hand in ours.
May we bring her to her feet again.
May we stagger with her towards our lodestar:
an age of healing for the flesh and soul.
Katherine Hoerth is the author of four poetry collections, including Goddess Wears Cowboy Boots, which won the Helen C. Smith Prize from the Texas Institute of Letters in 2015. She is an Assistant Professor of English at Lamar University and Editor-in-Chief of Lamar University Literary Press. Her next poetry collection, Borderland Mujeres, will be released by SFAU Press in 2021.
Inaugural - a Sijo
Marcy L. Tanter
January 12, 2021
In the cold Washington air, Joe Biden makes his vow
To overturn damage done and save the nation’s future.
With citizens divided, can salvation be had?
Sijo: Poetic Form
3 lines in length, averaging 14-16 syllables per line (for a poem total of 44-46 syllables).
Line 1 introduces the situation or theme of the poem.
Line 2 develops the theme with more detail or a "turn" in argument.
Line 3 presents a "twist" and conclusion.
Marcy L. Tanter is a Professor of English at Tarleton State University, where she has taught since 1998. Her areas of interest are American and British literature of the long 19th century and Korean Studies.
A Trio
Sumera Saleem
January 11, 2021
1) One Special Day
Rising of every sun brings back to the earth its soul,
Every time it rises, raises the bar of gold
On the shadowy shoulder of mixed, mad rainbow,
Spread like a colour bridge over crisp land and
Across the waves, crashing against our deaf ears
Fed with news till better angels sing for fun
Reminding us that the world belongs to everyone or none.
2) Joe Biden’s Inaugural Speech
I am bent on bending the universe a bit or lot more,
Have my back, and I’ll have yours.
3) Vision in 2021
To work together is also a choice.
It marks our only possibility of power.
You can drive on, not a mile alone
But hundreds together.
Sumera Saleem is a lecturer in the Department of English Language and Literature, the University of Sargodha, Sargodha, Gold medalist in English literature from the University of the Punjab, and former sub-editor in the Department of English, University of the Punjab, Lahore, Pakistan. She has published poems in national and international literary magazines.
Inaugural Directive
Yahia Lababidi
January 10, 2021
Do not dare celebrate
what is hardly victory―
note Damocles’ sword, overhead
Now, is time for modesty
slender expectations
humble utterances
No more talk of audacity
whether of hope or change
after the promises betrayed
Beware all eloquence
and, equally, its opposite―
they lead to one another
American exceptionalism is a lie
America will never be great, again
at the expense of others
After the vulgar braggadocio
and monstrous fear unleashed
now, is time for humility
Crawl to the lectern
head hanging in shame
that it’s come to this
Raise your downcast eyes
for a somber moment
in mouthless contrition
Should you see fit
to speak, keep it brief
only say, Thank you
Then, for four long years
work hard to be worthy
of such grave privilege.
Yahia Lababidi, Lebanese-Egyptian-American, is the author of 9 collections of poetry and prose. His new book, Revolutions of the Heart, is preoccupied with transformations: political, cultural and spiritual.
This Strange Malachite Art
Jerry Craven
January 9, 2021
A malachite cross here surfing with grace
and bathed in a star’s yellow light
is stretching out time and purpling space
in defining the shape of a night.
This painting with those Seven Sisters invite
me to a childhood sky close to Rio
Tigre and one El Tigrito night
of humming owl songs and music of wings
and the warm tones of Carl’s words telling
the way Seven Sisters burn in the night
and stand together, Carl said, like the dipper
now in this strange malachite art.
As he spoke of planets and the Pleiades,
my finger traced his words through those
sizzling stars until finding made the Sisters
mine to hold forever in my racing heart,
inaugurating me among songs of nightjars
into the cosmic wonder of sister stars.
Light-years from that childhood, I hear Carl,
a man wise from Time and shaking slow
to conjure words of mourning for our sister,
then telling a plan to write another book.
My promise to help draws a dark look
from the lady who knows him best. Your brother,
she tells me aside, cannot hold a pen.
Those fingers have forgotten all keyboards,
and the hospice nurse helps him endure his pain.
He has already written his last book.
But I know a plan can help shape the night
like the malachite cross coloring space, defining
time and truth for all we’ve seen in our light.
Jerry Craven has published collections of poetry, novels, and collections of short stories. Currently, he serves as press director for Lamar University Literary Press and editor for the international literary journal Amarillo Bay. He is a member of the Texas Institute of Letters and Science Fiction Writers of America.
Yearning to Breathe Free
Kathryn Jones
January 8, 2021
An acrostic golden shovel merges two forms. In acrostic poems, the first letter in each line spells a word or phrase. In this poem, the phrase is “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses.” In golden shovels, the last word in each line is borrowed from an existing work, often a poem or song. In this poem, the last word in each line is the end of the bronze plaque inscription and date on the Statue of Liberty from the poem “The New Colossus” by Emma Lazarus.
Go out into the wildness, my friend, and give
Into your desire to lose yourself with me
Validate your existence, discover your
Embedded strength; do not give up when tired
Make yourself forge ahead, focus your
Eyes on the riches, remembering when you were poor
Young, and restless, determined to set out on your
Own; remember that your ancestors in caves huddled
Unaware that someday there would be such masses
Running amok, and cities, and technology, and still a yearning
To return to places with no cellphones and computers to
Immerse the spirit in nature, to find places where you can breathe
Releasing the heart longing to soar, to be free
Embracing the sky, floating on ravens’ wings into the
Dawn filling the canyon, where the wretched
Yowling ceases and the rotting refuse
Of alleyways and streets disappears like a bad dream of
Urban blight crushing you; throw open your
Room’s windows, unleash the restless spirit teeming
Paddle a canoe down a river, ride a wave upon the shore
Or toss a message in a bottle to send
Over oceans proclaiming that you have discovered these
Rocks of ancient ages, handprints on cave walls, the
Ying and yang, a place of refuge where you will never be homeless
Or hopeless, cast away on an island like a boat, tempest-tost
Unfurl your passion to discover the heartland, to
Rest your weariness on my wings and fly with me
Hanging on to your desires and not falling, for it is I
Unafraid to bear you across the vast spaces and lift
Darkness like the drapes of my robe, my
Dreams for you burning like a glowing lamp
Lighting your way, skirting the shadows beside
Eden’s tent, following the path, marking the
Distance to the crystal shoreline, the sun’s reflection so golden
Melting into the water, the rays holding open the door
America, seek out the worthy and righteous again --
Say the name that means whole and universal, Emma
Say the name that means dead and resurrected, Lazarus
Enter the canyon, climb the mountain, open your arms every November
Stand like a statue with a torch, shouting those words from 1883
on January 20, 2021.
Kathryn Jones is a journalist, essayist, author, and poet. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Texas Monthly, and in the anthologies A Uniquely American Epic: Intimacy and Action, Tenderness and Action in Sam Peckinpah’s The Wild Bunch (University Press of Kentucky, 2019) and Pickers and Poets: The Ruthlessly Poetic Singer-Songwriters of Texas (Texas A&M University Press, 2016). Her poetry has been published on tejacovido.com, in the Langdon Review of the Arts in Texas, and in the upcoming Odes and Elegies: Eco-Poetry from the Texas Gulf Coast (Lamar University Press). She is finishing a biography of Ben Johnson, the Academy Award-winning actor and world champion rodeo cowboy, to be published by the University Press of Mississippi. She was inducted into the Texas Institute of Letters in 2016.
Swearing-in: 1923 and 2021 - a ballad
Jan Seale
January 7, 2021
Calvin Coolidge at his homestead in Vermont
heard in the night a sheriff’s knock.
The messenger said Warren Harding was dead.
Imagine for Coolidge the shock!
But his father, a notary public, commanded
with New England verve, as though he had planned it,
“Son, to the parlor! Now raise your right hand.”
There by kerosene lamp in the pre-dawn damp,
Calvin Coolidge swore to be President.
Now, a store-keeper/farmer was Coolidge the elder.
So they asked him later, “What kind of feller
would presume to swear in to the highest office
his very own son as our nation’s defender?”
With granite reserve and a countenance wooden,
Old John replied, “Nobody told me I couldn’t.”
Taking our cue from this store-keeper/farmer,
full of fatherly pride and American ardor,
we’ve gone and elected a new president
to live as the White House resident.
Some told us we definitely shouldn’t,
and others, that we definitely wouldn’t,
But nobody told us we couldn’t.
So here’s to the inauguration!
Please, no bifurcation!
Let’s pause for a while, give chase to guile,
and enjoy an earned celebration.
Yes, some told us we shouldn’t,
some told us we wouldn’t,
but nobody told us we couldn’t.
Jan Seale is the 2012 Texas Poet Laureate. She writes poetry, fiction, and nonfiction, her latest being A Lifetime of Words, from Lamar University Literary Press. Published soon will be a book of poems about small things, Particulars. She lives five miles from Mexico in deep South Texas and is enjoying the warm winter and migrating birds.