~~~~~~~~~~~~ (the poetry) WORM ~~~~~~~~~~~~ 40

Welcome to WORM 40. We hope you enjoy this juicy selection of poems.

All poets appearing in ~ (the poetry) Worm ~ have granted a limited
copyright waiver for electronic replication [only] of the relevant
collection as a whole [only]. If you like this Worm, please forward it,
intact, to others. Many thanks to all who have contributed to WORM 40.

WORM will continue to be archived at http://www.poetryworm.com

Don't forget that submissions are welcomed for WORM 41 and all future issues.

Send up to 5 poems, free verse or formal, to Margaret Griffiths at wordbug@btinternet.com .

Please address any queries about WORM 40 to the same address.
All the poems I receive are forwarded (without authors' names) to my co-editors

for each issue, and the selection is made on our combined scores.

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Landed

               She returns from the sea with a boy child;
               sand-coloured, quartz eyed.
               She says his name is Jack, plants their home
               in the centre of the land. She dresses him
               in brown and green, guides his frond-soft
               fingers to push seeds into earth, rocks him
               from his back-forth rushing with stories
               of mountains and plains;
                                              of high, dry, places.

              She banishes waves from the house; changes
               his alphabet: fish to fowl, shark to sheep.
               His hair floats around his head, catches
               the sun in winks of light, won’t stay down
               when she brushes it. She strokes oil
               on his skin where it cracks, dry; tutors
               the sibilant lisp from his speech.
                       She can’t meet his pebble gaze
                       when he salts his drink of water.

© Angela France

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               April, Three Weeks After Surgery

               I'm not ready to write this poem yet,
               emptier than a bell, clapperless,
               belly seamed and itchy with healing.

               The doctor's granted permission
               for me to drive, and I've eased the belt
               back over myself, levitated puddles

               on either side of my tires. It's cold;
               the trees are bare and black with rain.
               Of course, my muscles remember:

               brake, accelerator. How comforting, too,
               to hobble back onto our porch,
               gait weak as milky tea, slow steps

               an old red sweater. It still fits; it'll do
               while I need it. Daffodils fake sunshine
               in clumps amid the dark blades

               of their foliage. I'm not ready but
               the season advances, steady as breath
               taken in sleep—something rising, tolling.

© Christine Potter

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               Morning Talk

              The pigeons are tutting in the yellow tree.
               Something has astonished them and they want
               to get it off their chests, talking in curt mutters,
               low groans, like women discussing
               death or the sudden blow of illness.

               They’re silent as they let the news sink in
               and then start up a drone
               of comfort and acceptance:
               It’s how life is, it’s how life is,
               life is, life is.

© Gill McEvoy

(Morning Talk: Editor's Choice of Alison Armstrong-Webber ,'There's an immensity of focus in this small poem; a hyper-reality:

"the yellow tree" exists beyond seasons. The birds' composition quietly shifts, bird and human voices merge, and rise—yet never

abandon bearing physical witness. The poem transcends itself while it remains vividly, audibly, true: "life is, life is". ' )

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               Button, Button

               When one subtracts from life infancy
               (which is vegetation),—sleep, eating, and swilling—
               buttoning and unbuttoning—
               how much remains of downright existence?
               The summer of a dormouse.

                                                        : from Byron’s Journals


               Just ask the poet, life’s a dumb thing.
               Button, button, eating, swilling.
               Life isn’t much but, still, it’s something.

               Existence is a rule-of-thumb thing.
               Buying now with later billing.
               Just ask the poet, life’s a dumb thing.

               To dream, to sleep, a ho-and-hum thing.
               Boring, boring, mulling, milling.
               Life isn’t much but, still, it’s something.

               Mum’s the word, the word’s a mum thing.
               Button lips and no bean spilling.
               Just ask the poet, life’s a dumb thing.

               Life, of course—the known-outcome thing.
               Death and taxes. God is willing.
               Life isn’t much but, still, it’s something.

               Life is short, a bit-of-crumb thing.
               Dormouse summer, daddies grilling.
               Just ask the poet, life’s a dumb thing.
               Life isn’t much but, still, it’s something.

© Edmund Conti

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wordspread for nicole

                              "don't hog the muse though:
                              spread some words my way"
                                   —Nicole Cartwright-Denison to the author

                i'll wrap up a dozen footsteps, oysters
               with potential, horny frogs

               weigh out a pound of colours: fishbelly,
               bluebeard, calendula, sin

               bottle up a gale, a riptide of rebellion,
               cursive moments in blue

               i'll deliver half a hero, the outline for a jezebel,
               a merman's bitter tongue

               stuff avalanches in your mailbox, a sliver of
               snakeskin, a pope's holy smoke

               hand you thumbtacks, three point five inches,
               the blunt blade of a scythe

               i'll spread butter, lustre, the rubberband
               of boredom on your bread

               signal serendipity, a tap-tap-tap, a sudden
               shift in determination

               send skylights, a sandbox, siren song,
               the rainbow sheen of scales

               i'll whisper today, tomorrow, too much
               fever in your ear

© Michaela A. Gabriel

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               I Close My Eyes When I Listen to Poetry

               People notice. But I still close my eyes
               in class, at readings. The table legs,
               scarred floors, cups of coffee get in the way,
               almost blur the words. Even the light
               is too much. I don't want to see you,
               poet speaking from the books, poet of the open mike.
               Not your fingertip scanning down the page,
               not your mouth. I want to be
               your mouth, in the dark, your tongue
               between our lips, the liquid l's and r's,
               a fricative f in that inverted kiss.
               I wait for your keening words, your aching words,
               first spoken with no one else there, sounds
               of animal or infant, fragmented, green,
               pawed through and kept. Still naked.
               And when you pause, I breathe as you do,
               leaning toward the air in your throat,
               your projected wanting, your final line.

© Amy MacLennan

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Epitaph on an Army of Free Verse Poets

These, in the day of small press failings,

the hour when art’s foundations sent

insistent mercenary mailings,

so they could pay their uptown rent;

these shoulders hold artistic poses;

louche beneath each self-crowned head,

and free, free, free, free, each one proses

sincere, unspoiled, unversed, unread.

© Marcus Bales

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               What My Mother Told Me On Thanksgiving Night

               Fifty years ago, and pregnant with the baby who would die,
               she dreamt of her dead grandfather, Peter Rauch,
               who made white wine and drank it singing Du, du, du,

               in the cellar with his friends. I knew both endings:
               Peter's fall downstairs with no one home, and how
               my brother's breath had failed him at his birth.

               In the dream, she said, The baby was a boy.
               I didn't know that yet. Grandpa Peter asked
               if I would give it to him, so I did. She'd never told me this.

               I remembered how she knew of other deaths, saw
               faces lit in shadows, lustrous in mid-air. A woman's ghost,
               she thought, peered out my bedroom window,

               or down into my crib. I knew these things in grade school
               but told no one—as if I'd only read them, some long
               word I did not dare pronounce for fear of being wrong.

               We had finished with our dinner and were sunken
               in the couch. A few people still held wine glasses
               and swirled the gentle spirit as they talked.

               Outside, it was twilight with the leaves no longer falling
               from the trees; twigs and branches pointed gracefully
               to nothing. And above that, luminous blue,

               the last deep breath of the day that passed,
               then, suddenly, the moon.

© Christine Potter

( What My Mother Told Me On Thanksgiving Night: Editor's Choice of Cheryl Snell,' This poem immediately drew me inside

its world of premonitions and family lore. It is well-paced and beautifully made, deftly weaving memory and mood, finally bringing

the reader into a psychological space where it is

"… twilight with the leaves no longer falling/ from the trees…/ then, suddenly, the moon. " ' )

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A Long-Legged October Evening

               This sky hurrying along
               a long-legged October evening,
               stops to murmur
               its sacred, sublime things,
               and quite reasonably

               the tall green grass
               turns into leaping horses,
               striking with their hoofs
               the mills and farmhouses,

and thumping them

one by one over the mountain,

before romping

toward the east.

In the wood, snails awaken
as children wearing pajamas

and clutching rabbits.

               A blue moon
               bobs in the cornfield;
               and cabbages glow

with an eerie light

from the secrets they know;

               and the songs of bullfrogs
               reveal a sanctuary,
               an old country church
               with lush red carpet
               and rows of oak pews.
               An altar and pulpit.
               Organ music. Bach.
               Stained-glass windows.
               The congregation,
               their heads bowed,
               praying for moths.

               The long shadows
               of oak trees blow trumpets,
               and bright colored summer leaves
               shimmer deep within the earth,
               where an old Frenchman plays a piano,
               and the hours of a clock
               like bearded drunkards,
               sitting on barstools
               ache to hear
               the sound of rain.

© Ernest Slyman

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               1:00 am on Lake Harney

               The night sky is scratch art,
               a trillion glinting specks
               stylus sketched
               on a black plane,
               carbon copied into rippling water.

               I manipulate grains of sand
               with my toes. The dark blusters
               with sonance. A chorus
               of horny frogs blare
               over squeals of cicadas,
               drowning the cricket’s frail rings.

               A warm Florida breeze gentles my face,
               Spanish moss sways as the moon jumps
               in a flicker of yellow
               back and forth in the lake.

               Behind me the house is dark,
               concealing its conked-out contents,
               eluded in a Sominex sleep—
               they cannot discern what they lack,
               I've shed them like a skin
               discarded at my back.

               I disown mortality—
               that flesh cocoon has ensnared me
               ten years too long and it knows it, it’s ready
               to give as I step onto the tide-slapped pier
               and fishy-air taints my nostrils.

               Brittle boards stretch out before me—
               a plank that destiny blades my back to walk,
               stupid pirate, I creak those slats willingly.

               As I step forward a heron bursts
               into the sky from the water,
               white feathers spread
               wide like an angel’s.

If only such beauty could change me.

© Shawn Nacona Stroud

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               Hypatia of Alexandria

               Female philosopher of Alexandria, Egypt, 425 CE

               Rise of the Nile, its easy rhythmic rush
               is measurable, predictable like stars,
               like numbers, or like planes passed through a cone,
               the intercourse of flat with round; or like
               the planets wandering through the desert night,
               Venus bright and Mars red with his flame,
               but still predictable observed at length,
               following plotted patterns.
                                                               How unlike
               the human heart, churning and passion-blind,
               as unpredictable as moving earth. My father said
               that I should choose the rational always;
               that I should be the perfect human being.
               He taught his little girl geometry
               (the purest abstract vision) and the lore
               of the philosophers.
               Yet all of this
               crumbled when I first met the Prefect,
               Orestes. My philosophy gave place
               to passion in his arms, and then I saw
               the perfect human being is something else.
               My theorems failed and I was swept away,
               out past the Pharos lighthouse, to the sea,
               the churning ebb and flow, pull of the moon,
               pull of tide and shore, motion of waves,
               past all that integers can map, discourse can tell,
               into the silences where we are lost
               in the body’s lore, into its own unique
               unstinting knowledge. So I understood
               for all the certainty of human thought
               the heart rules and the heart is preferable.
               The passion of the thinking soul is pale
               when seen through deeper passions, those locked in
               the body’s discourse, inarticulate,
               beyond all of logic of expressing it.

© David W. Landrum

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Robe

His maroon robe folded into a square

rests on the bed, no daily furling unfurling

over his head, no daily sweep under

an arm and over a shoulder.

No shelter from the sun, the snow,

the rain or sleet, where fingers

pulled cloth in warm or cold,

these seams covered his spine,

so straight even as his blood ran

a different course—east to south—

—west to north—against the flow

of winds and humors. Shifting patterns

of the bile and phlegm, the wind

and bones sifting different sands

of time, his fever up, his fever down,

his robe wrapped around or draped

loose around. Flesh clinging closer

to the bone, yet a spirit wind flowed:

a steed running, galloping, then

cantering, trotting, slowed to clip

clop, till he stood, still.

The wind departed in a faint breath

but everywhere his spirit flows

through woven patterns from his robe.

© Annie Bien

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               Grievance

               The upstairs tenant—mousy, middle-aged—
               took comfort in her landlord's quiet manner.
               Her pin-drop nerves were rarely set on edge
               by Siameses wheedling their dinner.
               But then he gave the duplex to his daughter
               and son-in-law, a jazzed-up, just-wed pair,
               whose habits rattled her: They talked to each other.
               Laughed at jokes. Went up and down the stairs
               in tandem, always. Everything they did
               rang jointness through the joists and two-by-fours
               to ears tuned too acutely, teeth that gritted
               at little nighttime sounds of their amours.

               Judging matters unlikely to improve,
               she found another place. They helped her move.

© Maryann Corbett

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               Lunch Break at the Oudekerk, Amsterdam

               Late last night came thunder's old romance:
               poltergeists, wind, rattling sheets of zinc.
               Magnesium-fire lightning streaked the darkness
               underneath my eyelids red. Across the street
               a German man, shoulders bare in blood-warm rain
               shouted, in half-English, Fooking wetter!

               That storm, not the city's oldest dream
               of icy marshes, fish-rank shacks on stilts
               has wet the air inside this skull of a church:
               stone floor worn uneven, leaded glass clear
               as logic. Why be shocked by prostitutes outside
               these same brick walls, or windows
               each topped with a single strip of red?

               Buttoned into angels blowing horns,
               lost beneath the filigree and pipework,
               someone plays bad Bach on the Oudekerk's great organ.
               Its ancient voice is smoky, human gossip.
               His friend, tonight's recitalist, has gone to lunch.

               How easily this town attends its needs
               in noon's profane, white buzz! Small clouds
               part like broken mercury in North Sea wind
               and distant carillons. A woman wobbles,
               one knee to the curb, her camera focused
               on a coffee shop's blue neon. Long, light hair
               blows in her face; a tram clacks by six inches
               past her shoulder. She clicks the shutter.

               On the canal, that same cold breeze lifts
               shirt-tails of a tour guide from Chicago. It's over!
               Summer is over! he cries, and smiles in despair.
               The chill's a missed ball through his fingers
               that ruffles trees, and spatters light on the brown water.

               There must be wide difference between luck and grace,
               but once again I have escaped my foolishness.
               Or none of us have, and still don't see the loveliness
               that traps us, for our reason. His friend's mistakes
               forgotten, the recitalist returns to play
               "Wir Glauben All' An Einen Gott, Vater"
               like flames that climb three hundred year-old stairs.

© Christine Potter

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               The Mandolin

               I tried to tell you about the barbed wire man
               and how as a kid I was frightened of that starved
               hound of his, the snarl and bite of wire round
               the shack that he called home. You never listen
               when I am like this. You invent ways to compare me
               to a mandolin, your callused fingertips wanting to strum,
               to pluck my body like a string. I shake you off.

               The wire of my body is being stripped from the inside
               out. The lining of my spine heaves with nerves
               that are taut and frayed. I tell you I am afraid.
               You never believe me. Instead, your nails move back
               and forth across the frets of my wrist. You play
               chords on my arm, croon "Don’t be afraid, hush."

               You sink into me on your couch and run me through
               the lush green forests of childhood. You rehearse
               me on your guitar, eyes half-closed against the bright
               summer moon. I study your arms as you play,
               mesmerized by the clawed fingers, the rusty
               glint of hair. There is a river we cross and we pull one
               another along through a crooked wire fence.
               We arrive skin on skin and only slightly torn.
               The wire man sleeps. We replace him with this.

© Laurie Byro

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Wede Away

(For JMA)

Wisteria soft against a deeper blue,

and hyacinth, youth’s talisman: those bright

creations filled my wakening world with light.

I miss the flowers of spring and all things new.

Fulfilment followed promise to a time

rich with the scents and ripeness spring foretold—

honeysuckle, poppy, marigold.

I miss the flowers of summer in its prime.

Sparse as the season fades towards December,

pale soldier roses, rearguard in retreat,

still blossom as they face an old defeat,

while asters linger late into November

to hurl their small defiance at the fall.

—I’ll miss the flowers of autumn most of all.

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               Retention and Renewal

               Although the swaying church bell
               rings, tolls, tells, clangs
               the dust and stony architecture
               of these worn out fields, only
               because it has no other purpose

               and even though the wet nurse
               of religion offers no more
               than a dry dug of history
               to all these hatchling cuckoos' gaping maws,

               I would ring the bell, at least
               until I thought of something
               better to do. And then,
               then I would ring the bell.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Tyger

Walking, I remember my forest for its endlessness,

till the trap clanged on the terror of confinement.

Now people gather to laugh as I reach for meat,

blood boiling on a pole, to be clawed through bars.

I take note of the shortest way out to their hearts.

Otherwise I pace forwards and backwards, forwards

through burning, and all days smoulder in me.

Those pointing at my set smile do not know

that I count, measure distance until these bars

dissolve and I find I have walked home.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

               Legend

               When you were three, you knew Big Foot
               was real. After all, you'd seen him on t.v.
               You knew he was hairy, scary and very strong.
               And, thanks to your sister, you knew he lived
               just up the street.

               You knew, post-dusk, Big Foot came to feed,
               climbed through bedroom windows, ripped
               kids to bits and gobbled 'em up.
               Especially three-year-old kids, sister would say.

               You didn't sleep much that year, instead
               you'd sit up in your creaky bed, frog-small,
              embrangled in a thick of poison plants, frightened
               by the noisy walk of nightfall.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

               Biff

               An eastern sun stains white duchesse satin,
               highlights the genteel termination of devotion
               with its blood seeping through winter frostwork.

               Twelve years ago, I fastened a shadow box
               to a wall in our suite in the Hotel La Giocanda.
               You caught for its display, from our Florentine window,
               the vestigial profile of Lorenzo de Medici.
               Preservation of a modest sort.

               I have stripped the marquisette
               from our irreparable demise.
               I could not see everything,
               but did spy what further separates
               the difficulties in extracting gold
               from the inner chambers of your heart.

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56° F. And Sunny

(a triolet)

I concentrated far too much on death,

and somehow missed the violet and the crocus,

and sharp green shoots that sucked the sun like breath.

I concentrated far too much on death;

ignored the rose, or some such shibboleth—

let pure, prismatic joy escape my focus.

I concentrated far too much on death,

and somehow missed the violet and the crocus.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

               Navigating Sempronius

               No trace of where we went was on the map,
               cool dark shadow and slushy cope
               where the green last fall, drunk on sap,
               flung its leaves on the signless road.

               Leafless, the trees were so close-lipped
               tha