SUBSEQUENTLY by Chella Courington

You gave me a cactus pear
after our daughter
tumbled
off the boat and you
swam
under spiral blades
to raise her
from the bloody floor
a rose anemone
waiting
for spring
not for you.

Did you jump
for her
or did the white lady
with silver hair
like the moon
reach up
and pull you
overboard
into an ocean
not salty
enough
to bear your gamy
carcass
spitting it back to me
night
after night?

In darkness
I dive
past star feathers
and sea pansies
searching for my child
not for you
until I find her
asleep
in a conch shell
skin
luminously pink
unsuited
for sun.


This poem appears in the recent issue of Karamu, edited by Olga Abella and published by Eastern Illinois University.

As Kingfishers Catch Fire by Gerard Manley Hopkins

As king fishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame;
As tumbled over rim in roundy wells
Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell's
Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name;
Each mortal thing does one thing and the same:
Deals out that being indoors each one dwells;
Selves — goes itself; myself it speaks and spells,
Crying What I do is me: for that I came.

I say more: the just man justices;
Keeps grace: that keeps all his goings graces;
Acts in God's eye what in God's eye he is —
Christ. For Christ plays in ten thousand places,
Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his
To the Father through the features of men's faces.


from poetryfoundation.org

"Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking" by Walt Whitman

Reproduced here is the first stanza of Whitman's "Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking" from bartleby.com. Hit on the above link to read the rest of this magnificent poem.

1
OUT of the cradle endlessly rocking,
Out of the mocking-bird’s throat, the musical shuttle,
Out of the Ninth-month midnight,
Over the sterile sands, and the fields beyond, where the child, leaving his bed, wander’d alone, bare-headed, barefoot,
Down from the shower’d halo,
Up from the mystic play of shadows, twining and twisting as if they were alive,
Out from the patches of briers and blackberries,
From the memories of the bird that chanted to me,
From your memories, sad brother—from the fitful risings and fallings I heard,
From under that yellow half-moon, late-risen, and swollen as if with tears,
From those beginning notes of sickness and love, there in the transparent mist,
From the thousand responses of my heart, never to cease,
From the myriad thence-arous’d words,
From the word stronger and more delicious than any,
From such, as now they start, the scene revisiting,
As a flock, twittering, rising, or overhead passing,
Borne hither—ere all eludes me, hurriedly,
A man—yet by these tears a little boy again,
Throwing myself on the sand, confronting the waves,
I, chanter of pains and joys, uniter of here and hereafter,
Taking all hints to use them—but swiftly leaping beyond them,
A reminiscence sing.

Syrinx by Amy Clampitt

Like the foghorn that's all lung,
the wind chime that's all percussion,
like the wind itself, that's merely air
in a terrible fret, without so much
as a finger to articulate
what ails it, the aeolian
syrinx, that reed
in the throat of a bird,
when it comes to the shaping of
what we call consonants, is
too imprecise for consensus
about what it even seems to
be saying: is it o-ka-lee
or con-ka-ree, is it really jug jug,
is it cuckoo for that matter?—
much less whether a bird's call
means anything in
particular, or at all.

Syntax comes last, there can be
no doubt of it: came last,
can be thought of (is
thought of by some) as a
higher form of expression:
is, in extremity, first to
be jettisoned: as the diva
onstage, all soaring
pectoral breathwork,
takes off, pure vowel
breaking free of the dry,
the merely fricative
husk of the particular, rises
past saying anything, any
more than the wind in
the trees, waves breaking,
or Homer's gibbering
Thespesiae iache:

those last-chance vestiges
above the threshold, the all-
but dispossessed of breath.

since feeling is first by e.e. cummings

since feeling is first
who pays any attention
to the syntax of things
will never wholly kiss you;
wholly to be a fool
while Spring is in the world

my blood approves,
and kisses are a better fate
than wisdom
lady i swear by all flowers. Don't cry
—the best gesture of my brain is less than
your eyelids' flutter which says

we are for each other: then
laugh, leaning back in my arms
for life's not a paragraph

And death i think is no parenthesis

Ellen Bass: "Gate C22"

At gate C22 in the Portland airport
a man in a broad-band leather hat kissed
a woman arriving from Orange County.
They kissed and kissed and kissed. Long after
the other passengers clicked the handles of their carry-ons
and wheeled briskly toward short-term parking,
the couple stood there, arms wrapped around each other
like he’d just staggered off the boat at Ellis Island,
like she’d been released at last from ICU, snapped
out of a coma, survived bone cancer, made it down
from Annapurna in only the clothes she was wearing.

Neither of them was young. His beard was gray.
She carried a few extra pounds you could imagine
her saying she had to lose. But they kissed lavish
kisses like the ocean in the early morning,
the way it gathers and swells, sucking
each rock under, swallowing it
again and again. We were all watching—
passengers waiting for the delayed flight
to San Jose, the stewardesses, the pilots,
the aproned woman icing Cinnabons, the man selling
sunglasses. We couldn’t look away. We could
taste the kisses crushed in our mouths.

But the best part was his face. When he drew back
and looked at her, his smile soft with wonder, almost
as though he were a mother still open from giving birth,
as your mother must have looked at you, no matter
what happened after—if she beat you or left you or
you’re lonely now—you once lay there, the vernix
not yet wiped off and someone gazed at you
as if you were the first sunrise seen from the Earth.
The whole wing of the airport hushed,
all of us trying to slip into that woman’s middle-aged body,
her plaid Bermuda shorts, sleeveless blouse, glasses,
little gold hoop earrings, tilting our heads up.

Ellen Bass

The above poem is taken from _The Human Line_, forthcoming next month ( June 2007) from Copper
Canyon Press. Bass also has published several non-fiction books, including _The Courage to Heal_.
In 2001 she won the Nimrod/Hardman Pablo Neruda Prize in Poetry.


THE MARRIAGE

I wake to his erection
like a gun in my back.

It forces me to lie still
breathe shallow.
His arm over my shoulder
pins me to the mattress.

He’s dead asleep.

Why don’t I lift myself
out of the bed, walk
out the door, out
of his life into my own?

Sun slants through venetians
turns the comforter
into bars of shadow.

He rolls over
away from me.

Still I lie.


THE DIVORCE

The wife got the furniture
kids during the week
SUV and dog.

The husband got the house
kids every other weekend
car and timeshare.

Who were they thirty years ago?
She in lace and he in wool
repeating vows
snatched from movies.

Each 24 hours thereafter
they moved imperceptibly
until countless revolutions
eclipsed the girl in white
boy in blue

The Missing Persons Bureau
admits defeat in this case.
"No trace of them exists.
They vanished into air."


First published in _Leaf by Leaf_ (Spring 2007),
Evergreen Community College.

WAS IT MORE THAN A KISS

me over your arm
my hair like Rapunzel's
swinging out the window
red clover lured bees
one flower to the next
you sucked juice from a mango
fleshy fruit dad called it
merchant marine who thought
life began in Mozambique or Malibu
anywhere but hovered over two kids
never still long enough to please
mom packing peanut butter sandwiches
dropping us at Evans Elementary
before she climbed
three floors to her classroom
hung with posters of Shakespeare & Petrarch
waiting for the first bell
kids in starched dresses & creased khakis
slid into desks older than mom
hearts with initials
RM & JC carved in wood
caked with grime
years of restless fingers
scratched letters over letters
palimpsest of love
inscribing what had been inscribed
glossing what could never be glossed
two people met at the turn
clasped & fell away

Published in _Leaf by Leaf_ (Spring 2007).
Evergreen Community College.

Miguel Gandert & "From Juarez"

One of my early poems, “From Juarez,” was based on a photograph by Miguel Gandert, a photographer who teaches at the University of New Mexico. Yesterday a dear friend who works there sent me Gandert’s University link that I include above.


FROM JUAREZ
(after a photograph by Miguel Gandert)

I'm Teresa Gutierrez. Look at me. Alive.
Not like my friend Cecilia Covarrubias. Shot
once in each breast and tossed in a field
where nothing grows.

The next day I ask my cousin to work
his magic. Tattoo the Blessed Mother.
Clothed with the stars and sun.
Spiked light down my back.

He lines and shades
week after week.
I flinch and turn away.
See our Lady of Guadalupe
rise out of my jeans.

Carry her with me.

To the maquiladora.
To dark streets after the second shift
crossroads where the bus stops.

Her mantle around me.


First Published in _Confluence_ (vol. 17, 2006), Ed. Wilma Acree

Poetry Contest Winner: "Cant Quit"

Dear Poet Lovers & Contest Entrants,
I was quite pleased with the large number of good poems entered in this year’s “Gravity & Light” contest.
After several weeks of mulling over the poems, the judges are pleased to announce this year’s winning poem:
“Cant” by Allison Hummell. Congratulations, Allison, for a memorable and surprising poem!


"Cant Quit" 


Why do you think you’re allowed
To be so bad?
God knows you’re the worst thing
I ever had,
A good boy grown into a bastard of a man.
The kind you want to knock down like a strike or spare.
The kind you want to throw all of their
Cigarettes down the sink.
The kind you want to break their sunglasses
And puncture their tires.
(Just like you punctured my poor blue heart.)
The kind you want to take off their shirt
Like you'd take the shirt off the lord if you could.
The kind you want to light on fire with a waterproof match
because they make you cry mercy.
The kind you want to hold their hand tight as Lennie held that other
man's wife.
The kind you want to make fall to their knees and bleed.
The kind you want to curse and meet again in hell
so you can do it all again.
The kind you cant quit. 
 
 
 
 


Annual Poetry Contest

Gravity and Light announces the second annual poetry contest. Poets may submit up to three poems, no longer than 40 lines each. Send cover page with name & address, & contact information: phone, cell phone, and e-mail address to: couring@sbcc.edu. Deadline for entries is April 30, 2007. Only electronic entries pasted into the body of an email are accepted. In the subject line, write Contest Poetry Sub. Winning poetry will be published at Gravity and Light in early May.

Writers at Work

I'm honored that one of my poems is featured at Writers at Work during February--the month of my father's birth 90 years ago! Please click on the link above.

Stories I Want to Tell

Peter all in blue
flies from Mr. McGregor
drops one shoe
in cabbage
another
in potatoes.

My hero
outwits this farmer
every garden turn.
Forfeits jacket
before slipping
under gate.

In my story
Peter finds me
outside with a pink suitcase.

But don’t mistake us
no Alice and Mad Hatter
no Grace and White Rabbit.

We are Chella and Peter
in a wood at dusk
far from family noise.

He tells me his grandfather
sacrificed his own tail
to save Otter.

I want to confess
my father shoots otter
bruises me
when mother’s not home.

I want to say
some pain is worse
than dying.

Peter holds my hand
under the harvest moon
stars floating downstream.

First Published: _Phantasmagoria_ (vol.5, no. 2), ed. Abigail Allen.

FROM JUAREZ
(after a photograph by Miguel Gandert)

I'm Teresa Gutierrez. Look at me. Alive.
Not like my friend Cecilia Covarrubias. Shot
once in each breast and tossed in a field
where nothing grows.

The next day I ask my cousin to work
his magic. Tattoo the Blessed Mother.
Clothed with the stars and sun.
Spiked light down my back.

He lines and shades
week after week.
I flinch and turn away.
See our Lady of Guadalupe
rise out of my jeans.

Carry her with me.

To the maquiladora.
To dark streets after the second shift
crossroads where the bus stops.

Her mantle around me.


First Published in _Confluence_ (vol. 17, 2006), Ed. Wilma Acree

SENTENCE PRAYER

May heathens roast in hell like chickens on a slow cooker,

prays my Sunday School teacher. I see Homer
Lee Masters, splayed on a grill, fingers dangling
over coals. Hear him crying like a shot dog.

Sweet Jesus, cleanse Homer of whiskey and loose women,

she asks at Easter, warning us about the sin
of slow dancing like that hussy Salome.
I see Mama lean on a gentle wind, swaying
in the kitchen to Sinatra’s croon

I’ve got you under my skin, deep in the heart of me.

Nobody’s going to shame my mama
so I beg Sweet Jesus for an angel
to swoop down and carry that teacher away
drop her in a fire with slow-cooking chickens.


Chella Courington
From _Oregon East Magazine_ (vol. 37, 2006)

When Monkeys Fly

Below me lives an actor. The director spots her long nose and skinny ass.
Casts her in a huge role, Richard III. She screams My life for a horse's ass.

The super accuses me of jamming the toilet and flooding the apartment.
Two hours you cost me, he yells and threatens to shove a firecracker up my ass.

A guy doing shots at the bar declares a butt like mine deserves headlights.
I reply excuse you big boy and knee him in the crotch. Life is full of ass.

At rehab they say apologize for behavior under the influence.
Apologize? Whatever I do drunk I'd do sober. They can kiss my ass.

Mr. Johnson pokes me with his chalky finger, and I rise out of my desk.
Moon Pythagorus and his disciples, dropping my Levis over ass.

Me? I love glutes au natural. No fancy tattoo, no lacy French thong.
Swinging my backside in open air, just denim rubbing against my ass.

Ghazal by Chella Courington first appeared in _Poemeleon_ (vol. 1, issue 1, summer 2006)

Iris Online: Jane Eyre

Here's a poem featured in iris online in 2005.


JANE EYRE TAKES TO CYBERSPACE


Tired of midnight screams in drafty rooms
she imagines a jaunt down lover’s lane
like a walk on the moors
to distract her dampened spirits

if she can make it on match.com
through questions
more questions than any governess agency
dares to ask.

She wants to speak the truth
though truth often brings her trouble.
So this time she’ll slip
into white lies.

Plain? Not Very
Exciting? Somewhat
Sexy?Very

Lying is fun.
She can turn herself into a babe
by clicking keys.

Who cares if Rochester waits for her
the other side of a burning house.

She’s sick of gloom
of being the model for every wallflower
in every century.

Longs to be a hot young star
even Barbie would emulate.

To shine in cyberspace.

Pyromantics

the father
shouldered
the boy
who twirled a baton
tipped in red
while the father
swallowed
long rods of fire
snuffed out somewhere
past lips
and over tongue
hidden behind teeth
yellowed from nights
tasting sulfur
as giants and dwarfs
with floppy orange shoes
snaked
into dollhouse windows
dangling toes
between me and the boy

and i was nine again
walking
over hot coals
dumped
from the grill by dad
who bet ten bucks
i couldn’t do it
and i said i would
if he would
and i did
and he laughed
wiping his hand across his mouth
me standing there in burnt feet
crying

with time came a vision
branding his back
as skin sizzled

his fingers
tapers in a church
that i lit
one by one
snuffing each flame
so he’d smolder
before me


Chella Courington
From _Oregon East Magazine_ (vol. 37, 2006)

Creative Writing Community Online

Dear Poets,

Following is a notice of an online Creative Writing Workshop at Cerro Coso Community College and facilitated by Professor Gary Enns. During the next couple of weeks, guest poet, Sterling Warner, who teaches at Evergreen CC & has just come out with a new book, will comment on posted work. This CWC is a productive, supportive community of writers and critics. Please
check it out.

METAMORPHOSES AND THE CWC PRESENT
The Online Creative Writing Workshop
with Poet Sterling Warner
October 29-November 11

All are invited to participate online, contribute creative writing,
discuss craft, and/or ask the poet questions, so encourage your
students to join, and log in yourself! Feel free to forward this
message. Here are some directions:

HOW TO JOIN AND PARTICIPATE
----------
1. Click the CWC Moodle site link on the following
page:
http://www.cerrocoso.edu/metamorphoses/cwc.htm

2. Follow the directions on the right of the screen to
CREATE A NEW ACCOUNT and become a participant.

3. Email me here to let me know that you've joined. I
will add you to the workshop group so you can participate.

From: Gary Enns

What is Poetry? Video including me

Here's a video of three poets in the Santa Barbara area made by Jonathan Cline.

Go to http://current.tv and search for topophilia.

The first video that shows will be "What is poetry?"

Watch it & vote.

Thanks, Chella