Cats that kept me as their owner
Long ago when I was younger
Taught me much, though I’ll admit
I was a very slow learner
 
I like to think I played a part myself
Cementing interspecial ties
Or bonding, if you will
I’d rather not admit the fact
Admit that what it really was
Was I served them
And all they learned from our relationship
Was how to best put up with all my failings 

But my memories are fond
And they treated me well
I miss them 


Gordon Gilbert 4/15/2014

wordplay, this playground of poetry
  hide and seek, we are all here on a treasure hunt
  to find the exact right word we need to bandy
  this evening words are tantalizing floating in the air around us
  snatch them, catch them, catch them if you can
  if you can't catch them, coin them
  make up your own, fall under Shakespeare's spell
  when feelings can be deftly captured and released in living language
  then our poems coax our hearts out of their shell.

Elizabeth Shepherd   4/ 15/ 2014

 they say the bees are in trouble
      dying out
  then how can the flowers survive
  without pollen winged from one petal and stamen to another?

  they say poets are in trouble
      dying out
  then how can we mortals survive
  without being pollenated with words speaking from heart to heart?

  tonight my heart is like a probiscus
  probing sustenance from other poets' hearts
  as together we create a buzz for poetry.


Elizabeth Shepherd   
4/8/2014

你又來了，在我們家的小雜貨店
拿起一把板凳，坐下來
你就發出聲音，好像拉二胡
可是你手中沒有任何樂器
手指也沒有撥任何的琴弦
 
咿喲－－咿喲－－
不管有沒有人在聽
你發出奇妙的聲音
擺擺頭、搖搖身體
你忘記了我們
我們也忘記了你 

咿喲－－咿喲－－
我不知道這些聲音從那裡來
我看不出你的嘴唇在動
非常驚奇的盯著你
我跟隨著聲音想像…

咿喲－－咿喲－－
這是什麼聲音呢？
是天堂來的聲音？
是森林在跳舞？
是青山在酣睡？
是清風吹？是鳥鳴？
是瀑布的狂笑？
還是海浪永恆的呼喊？

咿喲－－咿喲－－
我不知道這些聲音從那裡來？
你不在的時後
我也照樣
發出自己的聲音
唱起歌來  

        李碧玲

        4-15-2014 於熱詩人詩社

“i eu - - i eu - -”, the old man
Here you come again, to our little grocery store
Grab a stool, sit down
You start making sounds, like playing an erhu*
There is no instrument in your hands
Your fingers are not plucking any strings
 
“i eu - - i eu - -”
No matter if anybody listens to you or not
You make magical sounds
Shake your head, move your body
You forget us
We forget you 

“i eu - - i eu - -”
I don’t know where the sounds are coming from?
I don’t see your lips move
Staring at you, I am amazed
Following the sounds, I imagine… 

“i eu - - i eu - -”
What are the sounds?
Does it come from heaven?
Is the forest dancing?
Is the green mountain sleeping soundly?
The breeze whispering?  The birds singing?
The wild laughing of the waterfall?
Or the eternal calling of waves? 

“i eu - - i eu - -”
I don’t know where the sounds are coming from?
When you are not here
I imitate you
Make my own noises
And sing 

*Erhu, a Chinese 2 strings fiddle
 

          Peling Lee

          4-15-2014 at Hot Poets Society

 The hot room with its high, doily-covered dressers,
their mute, framed faces staring down at me:

Men in black cassocks
showing me where my gene pool ended
in that small corner of the Old World –
scattered, sterile seeds,
lost in cavernous, dark seminaries.

An ice box in the corner,
drip pan beneath, sparse provisions within.
All the rest victims of the hot room with
its thick, drawn drapery.

Hard cheeses, sour auras redolent when you’re near,
wrapped in cheesecloth,
aging in the open air;
flagons of wine
and a green viscous oil that it would take years
for my American palate to love.

My grandparents would mutter
in their strange and fluid tongue
and urge me to mangia.
I was too thin–“Fagiole!”

The salad of crisp green--
cool, ignoring the August day–
greens and orange slices.
My little face cries silently at the first taste--
why did they douse it like that?
I liked olives–if they were pitted...
and dyed black, and swimming in a can
under murky, innocuous water.
But this green oil was from no olive I knew.
And with the black pepper, too,
the oranges were spoiled for me.
Bitter and sweet, bitter and sweet.

Why did the old people mix bitter with life’s joys?

I would not mangia,
me, with taste buds
not yet born into the flavors of my people.



Art Gatti
04/25/2014

Out of lust, out of bargaining,
there is this love, and you and me.
I wield that word like a toy sword –
waving that plastic and menacing thing
like the dance of a stomping child.
I love you, I whisper it like
a chant in an archaic tongue, committed to memory,
half-hoping for divine intercession.
I love you to make sense of the tragedy
of your saying it back to me.
I love you as Dorian gazes at his reflection,
I love you as Eve drapes leaves over her breasts,
I love you as a pilgrim embarks at night
with a tired horse and empty pockets.

Grace Seol
3/11/2014

Perhaps I started slowly,
but that I don’t remember now…
I remember flying,
flying down. 
 
Church camp in the mountains
every summer. 
We were too young
to even consider
a future where we would all move on
to other summers,
leaving camp behind. 
Kids would arrive,
stay a week or two,
then go home again
til next summer. 
But we, my family ---
well, dad was the director,
and so we stayed
til camp ended. 
And that was how
I learned to fly,
fly down.  

The campgrounds were
on fairly level ground, a field. 
At the forest’s edge,
a steep and rocky path
descended down
in twists and turns
among the trees
a quarter mile
to the lake below
where all the campers
would swim each afternoon. 
On hottest days sometimes
a morning dip as well.  

But there were times
up at the campgrounds
that I would steal away
descending down
to fish the lake shore
with my coiled-up line and hook
and dough balls made from bread
pocketed at lunchtime,
catching on occasion
a few small chubs.

The descent became in time
a game unto itself
to see how fast
I could race down,
not a thought to
dire consequences,
should I stumble, trip or fall. 

Arms akimbo,
eyes on the path,
where to plant one foot just lifted,
while the other landed,
banking off a root or rock
to make each turn
on down the twisting path,
I only had to guide my feet,
gravity did the rest,
free-falling cueball
caroming off the cushions,
down I flew,
settled into a two-step cadence
pushing off enough for feet to glide
just above the path between footfalls.
With all the exuberance
of immortal youth,
Sure-footed,
and sure I would not fall,
arms out, I flew,
flying down.


Gordon Gilbert
03/27/2014

 Of all the possible fruits
you nest in my hands
molded by the body weight of your sumptuous shape.
Blush, perfume and combination of flavors,
short word extended in the memory.
Sweet drop pinned at the end of a cane:
the feminine cavity of your seed
now doubles with a hack my expectations.
Your flesh slowly gives itself
in the sugary anesthesia
of a baby snake biting my tongue.
By taking you, you have left
a basket full of broken promises,
withered possibilities, fragrances now useless.

Roberto Mendoza-Ayala
03/29/2014

En las piedras verdes de Yaxchilán
mil quinientos años después
leemos el periódico de la selva.

No sabemos si exageraste tus hazañas
o si te aumentaste el grosor de los muslos.
No nos hemos puesto de acuerdo
en la cantidad de tus
rivales
que caen
como pelotas de hule
dando tumbos serpiente abajo.

El tamaño real de tu grandeza
se encuentra amurallado por signos
en la geometría esparcida
sobre colinas verdes rematadas con trofeos.

Desde lo alto del dosel
los saraguatos festejan a gritos,
nos hacen conscientes de tu impecable triunfo:
la partida que ganaste a pulso contra el olvido. 

BIRD JAGUAR (Translated from Spanish by Susan Kline)

In the green stones of Yaxchilán
1500 years later
we read the newspaper of the jungle.

We don't know if you exaggerated your deeds
or if you augmented the thickness of your thighs.
We have not agreed
to the quantity of your 
rivals
who fall
like balls of rubber
tumbling serpent down.

The real size of your greatness
is found walled by signs
in the sparse geometry
on green hills topped with trophies.

From the height of the canopy
the howler monkeys celebrate with cries,
making us aware of your impeccable triumph:
the game that you won fairly against forgetting.



Roberto Mendoza-Ayala
02/05/2014