Poetry 2023

Things That Return

by

by Mark Fischweicher

we can walk on the trail
as it runs by the brook
where a heron we’ve seen seems
a statue of sorts
still as stone
till it catches the fish
in one gulp

and down where the tracks still run
where we board the train
going down to the city
there’s this one single woman
who walks out
on her lawn
across from the station
who stands with her hands, statuesque,
deftly stretched

there before her
balletically smoking her one cigarette
not to fill up the house with her ash
I suspect
these are the things that we look for in life

the things that return

even memories
and poems

Mark Fischweicher has been involved with poetry all his life. As an elementary, junior high school, high school and adult educator he has published poems at all those levels and has taught courses on the Beats, the Black Mountain Poets, Ezra Pound, and The New York School of Poets.

For the Birds

by

by Mark Fischweicher

It is being God
to feed the birds
and they have dressed up
for the feast.

I will teach them
how to worship.

common knowledge
for the Cardinals,
already dressed in robes of red,
old hat for the gray cheeked
almost threadbare Thrushes
and the black capped
Chickadees
Who already wear their yarmulkes
to shul

I should not worry who will feed them
When I am gone.
They have gone without my industry
for forever and a day,
for eons.
for a crow’s age, an
eternity;
and the bird-seed aisles are always full
of somewhat seedy people
all the time,
but we have brought them tragedy as well;
the Willow Flycatcher may soon
no longer play the field
and the Yellow-Breasted Chats
may not cluck or cackle
as much as you have heard

but I will feed them still
with no religious purpose
after all.

Mark Fischweicher has been involved with poetry all his life. As an elementary, junior high school, high school and adult educator he has published poems at all those levels and has taught courses on the Beats, the Black Mountain Poets, Ezra Pound, and The New York School of Poets. 

Theban Shocker

by

by Stewart Alter

What tabloid today wouldn’t long to tell
“Cult Mom and Aunts Rip Son to Shreds!”
How Pentheus died at the Bacchanal
When they thought him a boar
And then tore off his head.

This story surely would lead the news,
“King who Defied the God is Slain!”
They’d replay his speeches and interviews
From his famous attacks
On Bacchus’s train.

How online comments could fuel that debate,
“Killers or Victim, Whose Crime was Worse?”
For didn’t this king seek to violate
A god’s sacred rite
In spite of a curse?

When the TV talkers tackle this theme,
“Men and Mothers They Don’t Understand,”
Could they ever explain that feral dream
Of family bonds abandoned,
Lured by a tambourine band.

Stewart Alter, who joined LP2 in the Fall of 2020, has been writing poetry and painting intermittently before, during and now after a long career in business journalism and corporate communications.

The Businessman’s Lament

by

by Stewart Alter

After he dies, he will finally
Have time to spend with his family.
He vows presence and patience
As he listens and delves,
And grows closer than
Their own thoughts to themselves.
No more flights abroad,
No separate memories stored,
No more windowed wonders
While adrift aboard.
He will get to the heart of things.
Study how each behaves,
Exploring even their darkest caves.
He will seep through their soil,
Embed in their clay,
Live in the liquid dream
Shaping their glass of day.
Yes, he will use his time well,
Unseen, but committed to stay,
Becoming the chemistry
Their clouds employ to play.

Stewart Alter, who joined LP2 in the Fall of 2020, has been writing poetry and painting intermittently before, during and now after a long career in business journalism and corporate communications.

Misplaced

by

by Stewart Alter

We were no longer talking
About the field across the river,
The one with the giant rock emerging
Out of the ground at a funny angle.
We agreed it would be tempting
To slide down that slope together
When the snow covered its jagged edges.
And we agreed also that the rock
Was exposed for one of two reasons–
Either the grass’s frantic fingers had
Lost their grip on this prow, upside down
To us, as it steered the earth around
On its axis–or else it was
A monumental sculpture from ancient times
Which, like the glass shard in the garden
Near the house, would keep rising,
Revealing the bridge of the nose
Of a huge broken bust
Whose forehead is now the sky.

Suddenly we were talking instead
About my misplaced tie, the one
That you picked out for me. I have searched
Everywhere, retraced my steps three or four
Times, rummaged through every drawer
And closet, and looked into the shadow
Beneath the bed, but have come up with nothing.
Except that I do remember
The last time I saw it,
Resting there on a chair.
I studied it, asking, “Is that really me?”
Just as one casual random doubt among many,
Like one arthritic brown leaf
Swirled among many, and it seems
This really is how things get lost.

Stewart Alter, who joined LP2 in the Fall of 2020, has been writing poetry and painting intermittently before, during and now after a long career in business journalism and corporate communications.