POETRY Ode To A Macaroon A macaroon goes in my mouth and I taste the splendor of crunchiness, The true sweetness. Like a mini sandwich With just the right crunch and A unique cream in the middle. With many different colors to marvel at, The famous French pastry Gives satisfaction to my empty stomach
The Artist Hold those darts —steady— ready to let them loose. I wear these balloons, filled with crayon-colored dreams and syrupy acrylic aspirations, to burst over my canvas skin. Pop as many as you wish. But don’t you worry about my heart; Small —punctured— red stains my breast but one more hole will not kill me. —Courtney Kiesecker
Edited by Phillip X Levine. Deadline for our November issue is October 5. Send up to three poems or three pages (whichever comes first). Full submission guidelines: www.chronogram.com/submissions.
Real actors, not people —p
Longing for something to savor. Messy as it can be The focus is on the enriching flavor, Which makes you nod in approval. Enjoy it For the present will soon Become the past. —Jahnvi Mundra (10 years)
Saturday Poetry Workshop: What Have You Learned? I learned … that a huge weight lifted off my shoulders just moves to land hard on my heart. I wish I felt empty. I learned that time moves according to memory and not the other way around. I could say I learned how to navigate the miasma of hospitals and jargon and cancer but– Anyone can learn that. I learned that the diagnostic differential is really what they call it–just like on T.V. I learned that a janitor covering me with our worn Mexican blanket as I slept on the final chair-bed next to you is what finally made me cry. —Lisa St. John
You Should Have This You left a poem In the street Near your place Where you knew I’d be walking.
Cannonsville in the Catskills, New York Cannonsville, NY, was flooded in 1964 to make way for the Cannonsville Reservoir.
I left the office open all weekend nothing was taken I was offended
If you haven’t noticed the mists on mountains let me remind you of their drifts like ghostly drapes over cliff and pine and fountain. Tonight, the storm has come to gather heavy heat then leaves in quiet lightning pulsing orange clouds like a heartbeat or something. The reservoir is still— you can almost hear the sunken towns, a fish swims through a bright red barn as a flash illuminates the name of the long dead farm. Ah, time is precious, friend— if you haven’t noticed the mists on mountains, let me remind you of their drifts over cliff and pine and fountain.
—Richard Donnelly
—Kerri Nicole McCaffrey
On a sheet printed with several others, Folded, an arrow and a star above The one That moved me. The first stanza somehow always Already committed to memory As when we walked together: Light from a distant building reflecting, Blinding you for one instant As if being Photographed. —R. Subtler
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76 poetry ChronograM 10/16
Labor Day, Upstate NY The familiar great blue heron visits again on Labor Day, Passing overhead with lazy sweep of wings And raspy cry, Before settling at water’s edge to tiptoe In the chilly shallows where The deer and the bear slaked their summer thirsts. A hurricane threatens from the south, Wetting the empty strands from Daytona to Montauk, Summer crowds vanished Like the newly dead. The great blue heron, too, is soon to go, Chasing the hummingbirds toward Mexico. Rummaging in the drawer this morning To fetch that forgotten sweat shirt, Suddenly welcome again. —Gary Lee Alderson