In The Third Year

Milton Jordan

June 24, 2022

We began, after three long years, to shed

burdensome precautions and slide back

toward a hoped for almost normal.

The virus, though, had variants

to slip unseen into our midst

with old demands for measurement and masks.

I see, you know, the smile behind your mask,

a crinkle at eye’s edge, your cheek stretching

those elastic straps around your ear. 

A new covid outbreak has infected many residents and some staff in the Senior Living Center in Georgetown where Milton has lived with Anne for these three years.

On Meeting a Son at an Intersection Where He Had the Right-of-way

Jan Seale

April 30, 2022

Yes, it was his grandfather’s car left over from a death. 

And there were rules. I had to admit he was there 

five seconds ahead. He knew too and waved merrily

as he pulled out like his final rush from my body, 

a bit of dizziness taking my head. Recovering,

I gave a timid honk, his back disappearing to my left,

saying that to meet like this, wedged as a right triangle,

three generations bowing to a minor traffic law and

holding a conference  at the corner of Eighth and Vine,

was a curtsy in the long day of family dancing.

Jan Seale lives in South Texas, a place of anomalies. As you might guess, she drinks mesquite bean coffee. She is the 2012 Texas Poet Laureate. Her latest book is Particulars: poems of smallness.

Triplet of April in and out of Lust

Jesse Doiron

April 6, 2022

Cliché

April feigns her rains.

She is an actress, a witty talent

in a scene from some

superbly written script.

And well she plays her part, 

for she is very nearly able

to convince us all that, 

with Winter dead,

she is grief-worn at the pall.

Standing by his bier,

to all appearances bereaved,

teary rain within her eyes,

she squints and forces out the drops.

While we, quite naturally, applaud,

both upon her entrance and her exit.

For, in truth, we know

this satin shower on her face

is but a faint facade, a purposeful

concealment of her Summer’s love.

Ah! April! She is an actress.

And only when her final,

soft soliloquy is done

are we allowed to see

that most unsomber smile

upon the face of April.

April X

I laid April last night.

In like a lion.

Made her cry.

So much for Summer studs.

What she needed was a

good autumnal raking 

with a little winter solstice.

God, she’s hot.

Especially the tears –

all fake I know,

just for show.

Such a drama queen.

Should have been an actress.

But she does make 

every part of me turn red –

until it falls.

Thought I’d died 

by the time she finished.

Then, she smiled, 

and said, “Again.”

God, I love that.

Out like a lamb.

April in the Shower

Men are so pathetic when it comes to sex.

The young ones are all clumsy.

The hung ones are a pain.

The old ones are unable.

And the ones you want are vain.

Men are so pathetic when it comes to sex.

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.

Stargazers

Suzanne Morris

March 16, 2022

Some nights I wonder if the stars

know we’re down here, our faces

tilted up, admiring them.

I remember my childhood

dance recitals held in the big

Houston Music Hall

where we’d appear on stage in

silver tap shoes, our small bodies

blinking with silver sequins.

When the house lights went down

and the auditorium turned

as black as night

our constellation of twinkling stars

saw only a gaping void beyond the

blinding footlights

as if all the mamas and daddies

out there had been

swallowed up by the darkness.

But we knew they were out there

those stargazers, their faces

tilted up, admiring us.

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.

Haiku Sequence for Nicholas

Betsy Joseph

March 9, 2022

Unearthed from a drawer

Where I search for picture hooks, 

A relic appears.

Not an ancient shard—

Rather a bib from your past.

History unfolds.

Outlined in dark blue,

Quilted –red fire truck on front—

It flaunts stains proudly.

Neat, folded in half,

Faded but not forgotten, 

It speaks to a time:

A time of smeared chin,

Chubby fingers raised to mouth,

And giggles unchecked.

Finder of relics,

Keeper of lost time, I am:

Archaeologist.

Betsy Joseph (Dallas, TX) 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.

Re move / Three

Jim LaVilla-Havelin

March 6, 2022

            harnessed to your daughter

                                    skeleton-skinny you walk

                                                across the living room floor

            they have taken

                                    everything they can

                                                                        out of you

            Noah smartly when he went

                                    took two of each so when

                                                                        they landed

            three emerged to start the world again

                                    and he, used the wood from

                                                                          his trusty ark

            to create a set of convenient rockers

                                    for him to sit

                                                            to tell

            the tale. The narrative arc encrusted

                                    with metaphor, moves us

                                                            nodding by the fire –

            and once turns slowly into now

                                    and now unwinds into

                                                something like then

            tomorrow

                        and tomorrow

                                                and tomorrow

            pulled from each account and tethered to her

                                    we move across time too

                                                            we walk into darkness

Jim LaVilla-Havelin is the author of five books of poetry. His chapbook TALES FROM THE BREAKAWAY REPUBLIC will be published by Moonstone Press in Philadelphia in 2022. Coordinator of National Poetry Month in San Antonio and Poetry Editor for the San Antonio Express-News, LaVilla-Havelin lives out in the country, in Lytle, Texas with his wife, the artist, Lucia LaVilla-Havelin, and two cats.                                                                                 

3

Chip Dameron

March 3, 2022

A crowd, a charm.

Wise men, wise monkeys.

No more strikes at home.

How good things come.

Sheets to the wind.

When fish and guests stink.

Semicircularly linked.

Odd, singular, multiple.

Lined and stanzaed: a poem.

Chip Dameron is the author of ten books of poetry. A forthcoming book, Relatively Speaking: Poems of Person and Place (Lamar University Literary Press), is a shared collection with Betsy Joseph. A member of the Texas Institute of Letters, he’s also been a Dobie Paisano fellow.

At Trinity Bay

Milton Jordan

March 1, 2022

Generations ago 

slaves, some say, cut

these three terraces

Along the seaward slope

of this rounded mound

to reach water’s edge

Where we sit one terrace

above the steadily

climbing shoreline.

Milton Jordan lives in Georgetown with the musician Anne Elton Jordan. His most recent poetry collection is What the Rivers Gather, SFASU Press, 2020. Milton edited the anthology, No Season for Silence: Texas Poets and Pandemic, Kallisto Gaia Press, 2020.