Ode to It

Zan Green

June 14, 2022

We all know It—

Its silkiness & Its calm

down our throats—so easily 

(Just ask anyone’s stomach)—

Its pH—made perfect for us

Yet Its preciousness—often 

disregarded—until a day or two 

of Its lacking—our body learns  

It’s a lifesaver—& bathing 

in It—Its wetting molecules

revives our unhappy scales

Or being chilled—warmed by It

& rinsing off impurities

Our clean rosy glow—newness 

in keeping with Its status 

as that of a Superstar

(& that’s just for starters)—

I haven’t even talked about

Its music—how It’s a drummer

as It’s tumbling over boulders

the wild blues of its colorlessness

& just see how It sparkles!

When it comes down to It—

we should all start a fan club

& It will be our idol

Suzanne “Zan” Green grew up in the South of England and moved to Texas in 1992. On the outside, Zan is a mother, and a geoscientist—on the inside, a dreamer for the Earth. Their poems are the tender work of healing. Zan has self-published a trilogy titled All Things Holy, and recently, a tribute to their sister Jay, called Wonderings.

Ode to a Whooping Crane

Kathryn Jones

June 5, 2022

We steer the boat into the mouth of Mesquite Bay

past pink and turquoise condos on the tourist beach

Searching for the last flock of Whooping Cranes

at Aransas, marshy melding of land, water, and sky.

True Winter Texans, they arrive each autumn,

migrating from nesting grounds in Canada,

Traveling by instinct, calling to each other

with their ancient songs – a whooping kar-r-r-o-o-o.

Floating down to forage in warm waters until spring,

they teach their colts to hunt the shallows for blue crabs,

Then take flight and head north to their summer place

to mate, build nests, and hatch a new generation.

Once ten thousand strong when Spanish explorers arrived,

their numbers dwindled to just twenty-one – shot, poached,

Habitat destroyed, caught in power lines, run over by cars.

Eight hundred survive, still endangered, seeking refuge. 

We raise our binoculars in the morning fog to see

white ghosts on black stilts prowling for prey close to shore.  

We pray these feathered angels return next year, and the next.

Such grace saves us, too. We are all endangered now.  

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.

Eye Postures for an Old Texas Western

Jan Seale

June 4, 2022

I.  Down

This stance is designed

with boot toes in mind

and inspecting anthills,

yet also snakes,

canyons,

and…ah, heck…

becoming a dirt expert.

II.  Sideways

This pose is supposed

to be right

for birds low in flight,

for furry things in hollow logs,

for looking inside windows

while board-walking;

exact for sending hate down the bar

or bonnet-viewing in church.

III. Straightways

A position perfect

for spitting goals it is,

as well as playing hypnotist

or sitting duck;

just fine for missing tree trunks,

winning arguments,

and looking dead.

IV.  Up

This bearing is rare,

reserved for overhead tornados,

for spying hat or feather

dawning the ridge,

for knowing the hills of home,

for spotting noon. 

Jan Seale is a lifelong Texan. She is the Poet Laureate of Texas for 2012. She belongs to the Texas Folklore Society, the Poetry Society of Texas, the Texas Association of Creative Writing Teachers, and the Texas Institute of Letters.

An Ode to Texas Twang

Jesse Doiron

May 31, 2022

with Explanatory Notes

The voices of our Beaumont girls

prick like leaves of Wax Ligustrum.

“Have you ever had Drambuie

with black coffee?” Glenda asked.

The good ones drag a tongue

against gap teeth like a 

boot scrape on a porch of lips.

“I hear tell it’s an aphrodisiac.”

The drawl hangs in the air.

Like honeysuckle—sweet.

Like bunches of wisteria, 

all purpled up and full of bees.

She was married but not to me.

Like poison ivy, oak, and sumac,

itching everywhere that you can’t reach. 

“My husband’s working midnights.”

And when you listen long enough 

and close enough, 

with enough Drambuie and black coffee,

the twang becomes a piercing sigh—

and painfully enjoyable.

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.

Two Halves of a Whole

Suzanne Morris

May 29, 2022

-for Ruth and Frank

I

On a morning such as this

when clouds crisp and white are

pinned to a chilly blue firmament

white bed sheets are 

hoisted like flags

along the clothesline in the

backyard of my childhood

billowing and flicking

to the finger-snapping rhythms

of the Gulf Coast breeze

and Mama in her apron– 

starched and ironed–

is coming through

the back door then down

the porch steps and

heading to the clothesline

where she will lift both arms

like a Hallelujah,

release the

weathered wooden clothespins along the top

and drop them into her apron  pocket

then gather the sheets

in a wide embrace and

bear them inside like a pure,

unblemished offering.

That night after a warm bath

my big sister and I will

slip into our prim twin beds

and inhale the windblown scent of clean

as we close our eyes to sleep.

Mama is not given to hugging or

taking us on her lap

but she believes– and

rightly so– that

the two of us, tucked in between

crisp white linens

fair enough to grace a Sunday altar,

our bodies safe and warm and

soft with bath powder

know that we are cherished

above everything else.

II

My hands are like my father’s– 

slender, long-fingered– 

good for playing the piano.

Life was harsh where

Daddy grew up– out in Brady, Texas– 

harsh and dry and flat, a searing wind

howling across the prairie.

To me, a refinement like piano lessons

doesn’t fit into such a place

though I remember the story of

how Daddy’s piano teacher

whacked his hands hard

with a ruler when he made a mistake

and that seems in keeping

with the landscape.

I envision a male figure 

looming high above

red-faced, grim, righteous, a

telltale gleam of pleasure in his eyes

each time he inflicts pain on the

small boy in knee pants.

After one too many thunderous whacks,

Daddy got up and walked out,

and never took another lesson.

Apparently the experience didn’t ruin

his love of music or dull his good ear.

He willingly paid for piano lessons

as I was growing up

and played duets with me

on our big upright piano.

I wonder now if he ever thought of

the cruel teacher with the ruler

as we sat together on the bench,

Daddy playing bass, and me, treble,

his love warm and tender as

our thighs pressed close

and our four hands rose and fell

above the keys.

A novelist with eight published works spanning forty years, Suzanne Morris now focuses largely on writing poems.   Her poetry is included in the anthology, No Season for Silence - Texas Poets and Pandemic (Kallisto GAIA Press, 2020).  Examples have also appeared in The Texas Poetry Assignment and The New Verse News.

Ode to Texas Beasts

Thomas Quitzau

May 26, 2022

Dip, munch, munch, rise

Dip, munch, munch, rise

Everywhere we look, we can spin and see you, it seems, 

“The best cuts end up north, y’all, in NY and Seattle”

While we hear of “meatless diets” and saving planet earth

Some salivate for the taste of pure protein beneath the girth

Dip, munch, munch, rise

Dip, munch, munch, rise

In the Lone Star state where there’s no shortage of steaks

In feckless fields covered in grassy feed growing fakes

Emerge encased in a leathery hull, tough surrounding waists

Firm enough to stop rattlers’ fangs

Dip, munch, munch, rise

Dip, munch, munch, rise

Pierced numbered ears flipping down, then up

The branded steers waddle and step in slow-mo

Lines of fence posts define sharp limits

For these serene harmless creatures

Dip, munch, munch, rise

Ridden by none

Eaten by few

Famous to many 

In passing cars

Dip, munch, munch, rise

Sacred elsewhere

Such a gentle relic

Awaiting, unbeknownst 

Her invisibly barbarous fate

Dip, munch, munch, rise

Dip, munch—

Dip, munch, munch, rise

Dip, munch, munch, rise

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.

A Late Ode on the Farm-to-Market Road

Chris Ellery

May 22, 2022

for Terry Dalrymple

Never resting interstates rush us to a funeral. 

Trucks in the left lane, cars that won’t move over, 

traffic merging like mercury bumper to bumper, 

speed traps, death traps, damaged guardrails, 

clunkers abandoned, the right lane closed, 

orange cones and concrete barriers, flashing cruisers, 

a biker pulled over and hand-cuffed on the shoulder. 

While our friend waits to be buried, we curse 

all the hazards and every impediment to time and speed.

No wonder we wish for a warp in this dimension, 

a tunnel to where an hour is relative, a portal 

through which some friendly alien descends 

just to fetch us in a battered pick up

for a beer in Luckenbach. What if gravity 

could not bend light? What if the heart 

of the galaxy was a park and not a black hole?   

After planting our friend in that urban garden

of granite monuments and plastic flowers, 

we think of his smile under a broad sky, 

and we suddenly know our need 

for a farm-to-market road threading through ranches—

cattle and horses in pastures green as Eden 

under the blue of blooming May, chinaberry, 

catalpa, cottonwood, purple thistle 

bursting from junk cars, front porch rockers, 

beans and tomato vines in front yard gardens.

O endless ribbon of light, band of the Milky Way, 

let us drift on you like a lazy river through big country 

blessing everything along your shores. 

Bless the barbed wire, tractors, lonely houses. 

Slow arroyos with board and rail bridges. 

Oil pumps, gas wells. Weathered wood windmills

beside muddy stock tanks. Bless the towns 

barely towns with chain-link yards, roses, 

redbud, crape myrtle, pecan, a church and a diner, 

barbecue, sweet tea and peach cobbler, 

old folks and children and helpful neighbors.  

Bless cactus and yucca. Rabbits, dove, 

and deer in the bar ditch. And, yes, let us bless 

even the roadkill and buzzards.

For beatitude is a two-lane road singing 

like a minstrel under turning tires. 

Singing of here and now. 

Singing of rolling vistas. 

Singing of how the journey is good 

and how we’re sure to reach our destination.

Singing of how the best boons are often out of the way. 

Singing to us as we go with our windows down 

singing along, talking and laughing, admiring horizons, 

happy to be heading in the general direction of home,

but in no hurry.  

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.

With Robert Frost at El Tenampa Bar

Fernando Esteban Flores

May 18, 2022

Goin’ out to El Tenampa

Drink away my blues

Double shot of whiskey

Should make me feel brand new

Party hearty long & strong

Down at Rosedale Park

In well-creased khakis, orange Stacy’s on

I’ll be chillin’ after dark

Be at El Tenampa/drink a few/shoot some pool/

                                                                        You come too

Goin’ out to El Tenampa 

 Jump start Market Square

 Jitterbug Zoot suit style

Slick back my wavy hair

Dab of El Perico 

Un poquito de pomade

A splash of Brut smell real good

No hombre got it made

Be at El Tenampa/drink a few/shoot some pool/

                                                                         You come too

Goin’ out to El Tenampa 

Promenade Hemisfair

Parade low riders on la Commerce

Beboppin’ in the air

Groovin’ to the oldies 

Ruka by my side

Smile Now Cry Later

Be a wild wild Westside ride

 Be at El Tenampa/drink a few/shoot some pool/

                                                                       You come too

Goin’ out to El Tenampa 

Back to Rosedale get my fill

Con las hijas de Don Simón

Wear out my charoles get my thrill

Dig the foot stomping sound 

Batería bajo sexto y acordeón

Spin ‘em round & round

Con tequila y agua de melón

                                   Be at El Tenampa/drink a few/shoot some pool/

                                                                       You come too

____________________________________________________________

El Tenampa—a historic cantina in downtown San Antonio, TX

Rosedale Park—site of the annual Tejano Conjunto Music Festival on San Antonio’s fabled Westside

Stacy’s—Stacy Adams shoes popularized by Mexican American men

El Perico—a popular hair pomade used by Mexican American males

Un poquito de—a little dab’ll do ya

No hombre—Naw man

la Commerce—Commerce Street

Ruka—in Calo (Mexican American slang for chick or girl)

Smile Now Cry Later—60s ballad popularized by Chicano band, Sunny & the Sunliners

Con las hijas de Don Simón—a cumbia titled the daughters of Don Simón

Charoles—patent leather shoes

Batería bajo sexto y acordeón—drums, acoustic bass guitar & accordion characteristic of Norteño music

Con tequila y agua de melón—with tequila & melon water

Fernando Esteban Flores is a native son of Tejas, a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin, published three books of poetry: Ragged Borders, Red Accordion Blues, & BloodSongs available through Hijo del Sol Publishing, published in multiple journals, reviews, newspapers, and online sites, selected in 2018-19 by the Department of Arts & Culture of the City of San Antonio, with support from Gemini Ink for his poem Song for America V (Yo Soy San Antonio) as one of 30 poems/poets to commemorate the City’s Tricentennial anniversary, and recently named poetry editor of the Catch the Next Journal of Ideas & Pedagogy.

Ode to Torah

Betsy Joseph

May 7, 2022

You emerged in the early Eighties

as Torah High School of Texas,

barely a blip on the consciousness or conscience

of a historically conservative city,

beginning and ending your eight years

in the classrooms of an unadorned synagogue

in a quiet North Dallas neighborhood.

You provided a bedrock of stability

for young Orthodox males who hailed

from all over the U.S. and even Canada,

boys as young as fourteen who arrived in their new city

homesick, uncertain, but strong in their faith and goals.

They graduated, some at seventeen, others at eighteen

matured and enlightened scholars of the scrolls

while also firmly guided and grounded

in their secular coursework, in which I took part.

Then, in the mid-Eighties, the breath in our city shifted

as a fresh wave of anti-Semitism blew through

and tested the innocence of the young.

You had protected your students, had thought them safe

from rancor rising once more from the darkness,

a darkness you hoped  had been vanquished,

that you prayed would not release its poison again.

But then one lovely spring evening the actions of four boys

driving around, possibly bored and looking for something to do,

challenged our perceptions about history repeating itself.

Jack, a student of mine, was strolling to a nearby 7-Eleven.

When the pack of teens noticed Jack’s yarmulke,

they became his pursuers, first heckling him for a block or two

then finally jumping from their car, each beating Jack savagely.

With your solid loving care and strength of faith,

joined with the language of the prayers,

Jack recovered and school resumed.

Still, I don’t believe we felt wholly safe again.

There continued to be that reminder of a world

populated by people bent on confusing wrong with right.

Though later circumstances had you choose to close your doors,

your legacy prevailed with lessons taught and learned,

with insights gained and valued—

all bolstered by the healing flame of your faith.

Betsy Joseph lives in Dallas and has poems that have appeared in various journals and anthologies.  Her poetry collection, Only So Many Autumns, was published by LULP in 2019.  Lamar is also publishing her forthcoming book, Relatively Speaking:  Poems of Person and Place, a collaborative collection with her brother, poet Chip Dameron. In addition, she and her husband, photographer Bruce Jordan, have produced two books, Benches and Lighthouses, which pair her haiku with his black and white photography. 

An Installation Ode To a Courageous People

Milton Jordan

May 2, 2022

They grew a few sunflowers spaced along

fence rows fronting the county road east

of the house and that year when blossoms turned

toward morning she hung several blue banners

in gaps between those bright yellow flowers

that one area station featured 

with film in their coverage of local

responses to events in Europe.

Milton Jordan lives with Anne in Georgetown. His collection, "A Forest for the Trees," is due this summer from Backroom Window Press. He is editing an anthology from the first year of the Texas Poetry Assignment.

A Poet Out of Place

Jim LaVilla-Havelin

May 1, 2022

sometimes Texas seems so unlikely that

even Staten Island feels more like it

and, I guess, finally it’s where you are

most at home – but what that has to do

with the work – a fish out of water dies,

does that mean, without connection we

wither, fade, stop making sense? or is 

a poet out of place alive in words? Yes, 

particular. Yes, personal. Yes, specific.

but somehow, gracefully the words make

their own place, find their own landscape

and it is nothing like and everything like

Texas.

Jim LaVilla-Havelin is the author of six books of poetry. His most recent, TALES FROM THE BREAKAWAY REPUBLIC, a chapbook, was published by Moonstone Press, Philadelphia, in May 2022. LaVilla-Havelin is the Poetry Editor for the San Antonio Express-News and Coordinator for National Poetry Month in San Antonio.

Collected Stories

Milton Jordan

April 27, 2022

But for table talk, we were not unlike

our ordinary neighbors, the middle

of the middle class, cathedral Philco

or Motorola radios, black and white 

television sets in a few houses

with standup trays to serve as meal tables.

We were, though, long without television

and Father dressed for dinner, his shirt

glare white, a dark tie knotted four-in-hand

expecting the four of us on time,

equally well dressed, attentive to stories

of his day and ready with our own.

The four of us, now far scattered, gathered

outside Ozona once more last summer

sitting around Doc’s well scarred table,

gravy grown cold on our plates and long necked

brown bottles filling empty spaces,

surprised when Sarah said she’d seen two

volumes of his Collected Stories 

still shelved at the Heights Branch Library.

Milton Jordan lives with Anne in Georgetown. His collection, A Forest for the Trees, is due this summer from Backroom Window Press. He is editing an anthology from the first year of the Texas Poetry Assignment.