Charles Pierre | Early April Violet

Early April Violet

 

 

An ordinary shift in the chilly wind

brings this seed to sprout amid braided debris,

just above the high-water line on a beach,

where the Nissequogue River enters the Sound.

All one can see are five frail petals

on a slender stem, with no visible leaves

to cushion them in such a punishing place,

where the life of a being so small is gauged

in days, and the thin light of early April

is the only tenderness this flower will sense,

exposed on a raft of dead grasses and reeds,

bent by onshore gusts as the new moon ascends,

when a spring tide floats the violet to sea.

 

 

This poem originally appeared in the author's poetry collection, Father of Water (2008).

 

 

_________________________________

Charles Pierre was born in New York City in 1945 and raised in Centerport, New York. He studied at the University of Virginia and worked as a copywriter in Manhattan, where he has lived since 1973. Mr. Pierre is the author of five poetry collections: Green Vistas, Father of Water, Brief Intervals of Harmony, Coastal Moments, and Circle of Time.

Charles Pierre | The Red Fox

The Red Fox

 

 

At dusk, in the leafless woods,

where the path drops off

to the harbor’s frozen mouth,

silence seizes me.

 

My eyes, scanning the patches

of muted brown and lavender,

catch the only flash of color

amid the diminished acres.

 

A small streak of fire

hunches and watches me,

then skitters off a bit

to hunch and watch again,

 

and I, stiff with cold,

as still as the dormant

life surrounding me,

in winter’s thinnest light,

 

surrender to the heat

of this odd living hearth —

my throat thawed

against the frigid air.

 

 

This poem originally appeared in the author's poetry collection, Father of Water (2008).

 

 

_________________________________

Charles Pierre was born in New York City in 1945 and raised in Centerport, New York. He studied at the University of Virginia and worked as a copywriter in Manhattan, where he has lived since 1973. Mr. Pierre is the author of five poetry collections: Green Vistas, Father of Water, Brief Intervals of Harmony, Coastal Moments, and Circle of Time.

George Held | Yellow and Honey Moon

Yellow

Yellow crocus
bursts from snow cover
melting my heart

Yellow daffodils
bending in the April breeze —
sure signs of spring

Full moon in June
year’s lowest on the horizon —
honey-yellow moon


______________________________

Honey Moon

 

At ten the White Pine tops are backlighted

by a yellow glow that stops me in mid-

stride. Soon the etched disc of the Honey Moon

follows its aureole over the trees,

and I’m tempted to rhyme “moon” with “June,” but

such custom betrays the unaccustomed

glory of this nocturnal sight. One night

a year, this lowest of all the full moons

on the horizon gilds the east. I might

have been at the movies, or cloud cover

could have obscured this cool phenomenon.

From now on, for however many moons

I’ll be around, I’ll free my calendar

to let me keep this moonstruck rendezvous.

Previously published, in slightly different form, in Phased (Poets Wear Prada, 2008, 2010)

______________________________

George Held has published four children’s books with Filsinger & Company, Ltd. and over a dozen poetry titles with various small presses. His most recent book, Second Sight: Poems, was released by Poets Wear Prada in 2019. A collection of stories titled Lucky Boy is due out in 2020. Believing that smaller is better in poetry, he writes a lot of haiku. He wears his trousers rolled in Sag Harbor, NY.

Moe Seager | Orchid

Orchid

Sun
Day
Morning
Dew
Point
Drips
Dream
A
Wake
Egg
World
Weightless
White
Yellow
Yoke

Chestnut
Arbe
Black
Bird
Glide
Wind
Gentle
Violet
Orchid
Perfume
Petal
Breath
Flows
Hidden
River
Ocean
Deep

Ear
Nothing
Eye
Mystery
Golden
Grace
Mind
At
Peace
Heart
Happy
Over
All


__________________________________

Moe Seager, poet, vocalist (jazz & blues), and recording artist with two jazz-poetry CDs, sings his poems in Paris, New York, and elsewhere. Seager is the founder and host of the Paris-based Angora Poets World Caffé, organizer of 100TPC (100 Thousand Poets for Change) festival in  Paris, and one of the coordinators for La Fédération des Poètes. Internationally published (USA, UK, France, and Egypt), his nine books of  poetry include the most recent: Moe Seager (International Peace and Art Center, 2020) and I Want to Make to Jazz to You (Onslaught Press, 2016), and two in translation: One World (Cairo Press, 2004) in Arabic and We Want Everything (Le Temps des Cerises, Paris, 1994) in French. The French Ministry of Culture released his debut collection Dream Bearers in 1990. Seager has won a Golden Quill Award (USA) for investigative journalism (1989) and received an International Human Rights award from University of Pittsburgh - Zepp Foundation (1990).

John Swain | On the River Loing

On the River Loing

The sky loops over a rose bower,
your arms fall through rivers,
a clear rush of sun
on the tall ferns, between the plane trees,
you swim with me
in the bright poppy water.

Light lets the flowers trail your streamline,
the river moves
through the ancient bridge,
the sky of celandine springs,
the sky of yellow cherries ripe,
light taste in the white grape skins.

You turn with the river lit with sun,
your aura of leaves, aura of lamps
lights the trees on the sandbank gently blazing.


__________________________________

John Swain lives in Kentucky and in France.  His most recent chapbook, On the Roof Terrace, was published as a bilingual edition with French translations by Gaëlle Richard and Daphné Brottet. 

Patricia Carragon | Four Seasons of Haiku

when daffodils bloom
pregnant calicos sashay
down garden catwalks


Meowku (Poets Wear Prada, 2019)

__________________________________


topaz sunlight
the storefront cat
makes eye contact


Meowku (Poets Wear Prada, 2019)

__________________________________

golden leaves
touch the ground
autumn grace


Urban Haiku and More (Fierce Grace Press, 2010)

__________________________________


yellow snow
at the trunk of the tree
doggie’s m.o.


The Weekly Advocet Newsletter #122, March 15, 2017

__________________________________

Patricia Carragon is the author of several books of poetry and fiction. Her most recent poetry collections are Meowku (Poets Wear Prada) and Innocence (Finishing Line Press). Her debut novel, Angel Fire, is forthcoming from Alien Buddha Press. Patricia hosts the Brownstone Poets reading in Brooklyn and publishes an associated anthology annually. She is also an executive editor for Home Planet News Online.

Joe-Anne McLaughlin | Pollen (in Prada)

Pollen (in Prada)

See how the green grains
secret themselves into gray
sheaths when it rains —
as languorously as verdigris
seeds bronze. And we can breathe.
We can breathe,
at least, until they strip,
refreshed and lusting again
for hot-green sex, and we
sneeze. God bless spring!

__________________________________

Joe-Anne McLaughlin has an MFA in creative writing from Syracuse University. She has taught at Syracuse and Stockton College in New Jersey. Her books include The Banshee Diaries, published in 1998 by Exile Editions, Ltd., in Toronto, Canada; Black Irish Blues, published by Brooding Heron Press in 2000; and Jam, published by BOA Editions, Ltd., in 2001. Her poems have appeared in journals such as Poetry, Ploughshares, The Georgia Review, and The Southern Poetry Review. She currently resides in Munnsville, New York, where she lived with her husband Hayden Carruth, who died in September 2008.

Anne Barbusse | La belle verte

La belle verte

à Coline Serreau

explications aventurées sur printemps dernier-né : du cinéma
esquissé, du réel exaltant/exalté,
pluie de mai sur arche de roses, pétales éclatés et permis sur
le jardin plus vert que nos consciences éparses – l’utopie de Coline Serreau
gifle le monde en toute indifférence – l’herbe
n’est que l’image dévoyée d’une tendresse possible et
les arbres ont des mots d’arbres, effeuillés et extravagants –
menthe contre sauge, vert tilleul versus vert amande au bout de ce qu’il reste
de terre, au jardin d’où de toute éternité nous
sommes chassés tels des malpropres – les coupes de chênes
arasent la colline tandis que l’olivier
offre la résistance antique de la Méditerranée reine et
franchit des silences et des siècles –
La belle verte n’est qu’une comédie facile, de celles
que le public boude, et redécouvre plus tard quand l’apocalypse
moderne réunit les mondes face aux puys volcaniques en habits d’autrefois, mais
le jardin n’est pas un fable, il se déploie
dans le réel menthe ou amande, il ouvre
l’espace d’un flux de feuilles et d’eaux, il arpente
l’inconscience des arbres et dans le film on a jeté les objets
du consumérisme à la rue, Paris est
un périphérique gris et on a jugé les industriels
pour génocide, on a déparlé les sixties et déconstruit
le mythe capitaliste des adultes effrayants, « chaos pré-renaissance »
sur « concert de silence » – alors l’avant-monde s’installe
les utopies sont l’avenir sursignifié de l’homme exigeant
et du cinéma surgissent les acrobates-danseurs verdoyants des collines, dans
un panoramique encerclant chancelant, travelling ondoyant
sur la planète verte et franche – ère pré/post-industrielle, cornes
d’abondance de grappes et pommes, effort du jardin-monde à naître, encore.

__________________________________

Anne Barbusse est née en 1969 à Clermont-Ferrand (France). Après des études de lettres à Paris, elle s’installe dans un petit village du sud de la France, pour vivre plus en accord avec ses convictions écologiques. Elle enseigne le français langue étrangère aux adolescents migrants, et traduit de la poésie grecque moderne. Publications dans les revues Arpa, et récemment Sitaudis (extrait de A Petros, crise grecque) et Le capital des mots (Hôpital psychiatrique, extraits). Publications à venir dans Comme en poésie, Recours au poème, Terre à ciel, Nouveaux délits.

Yuyutsu Sharma | Rain

Rain

The rain comes

in silence

thought of her arrival

in a parrot-green glade

(her) thigh-thick cataract

tumbling down

her nimble rose-feet

coming

over mossy

green rocks

jingling

to smash

my tiny heart    

the drip    the drip

behind lush

green hill ranges

Can’t you hear it?

The shrub-ridden goats

rushing back home

the cows lowing after

and the crone,

the fragile-lunged

spirit of the hills,

following

lashing the cattle

with a green twig

in a wild hurry

but lagging behind

a cloud’s shadow

on stone-strewn hill path.

__________________________________

Recipient of fellowships and grants from The Rockefeller Foundation, Ireland Literature Exchange, and The Institute for the Translation of Hebrew Literature, among others, Yuyutsu Ram Dass Sharma is a distinguished poet and translator. He edits Pratik: A Magazine of Contemporary Writing and contributes literary columns to Nepal’s leading daily, The Himalayan Times. Nine poetry collections have been published including his most recent A Blizzard in My Bones: New York Poems and Quaking Cantos: Nepal Earthquake Poems, both from Nirala Publications, New Delhi, India. Frequently invited to read, lecture, and lead creative writing workshops by various universities in North America and Europe, he travels half the year. At home in Nepal, he enjoys trekking in the Himalayas.

George Held | Spring Haiku

Spring Haiku

Two young deer traipse
across my yard, dipping mouths
to graze green shoots


Green grows the grass
in the Bois de Boulogne —
here comes the sun


Sere grass bending
in the morning wind —
sap stirs the maples


__________________________________

George Held has published four children’s books with Filsinger & Company, Ltd. and over a dozen poetry titles with various small presses. His most recent book, Second Sight: Poems, was released by Poets Wear Prada in 2019. A collection of stories titled Lucky Boy is due out in 2020. Believing that smaller is better in poetry, he writes a lot of haiku. He wears his trousers rolled in Sag Harbor, NY.

Roxanne Hoffman | Choosing

Choosing

for Brant

a random stone sits upon the dresser:
green slate culled from walks along the river,
its striated shades as varied as the sea —
fern from forest, olive drab of army,

new buds sprouting sunshine among the trees —
this silent charm once sang me sweetest psalm
now locks down papers from a window’s breeze,
warmed by your touch it served as healing balm

quieting my ache when placed on bruising knee
encircled by slim fingers that once blessed me.
its mood has changed, its master shaman gone,
from vibrant voice to murky and withdrawn

and yet, I cherish its dirgeless wordless mourn
admire its resignation to a blind god’s scorn

Sliver of Stone, Inaugural Edition, 2010

_______________________________________________

Roxanne Hoffman runs the small literary press Poets Wear Prada with Jack Cooper. Her words can be found in cyberspace (IndieFeed: Performance Poetry, Pedestal Magazine, New Verse News); set to music (David Morneau’s Love Songs); on the silver screen (2005 indie flick Love and the Vampire); in print (The Bandana Republic: A Literary Anthology by Gang Members and Their Affiliates, Soft Skull Press; It All Changed in an Instant: More Six-Word Memoirs by Writers Famous & Obscure, Harper Perennial). Her elegiac poem “In Loving Memory,” illustrated by Edward Odwitt, was released as a chapbook in 2011. Their second collaboration, The Little Entomologist, appeared in 2018.

Tantra Zawadi | Green Is My Favorite Color

Central Park

A blanket of green
Surrounded by black asphalt
Embracing the light

Everybody’s Money

From hand to purse
Dollar bills move in the night
Green no matter what

Queen

Her aura lengthens
Green stems bend and swerve to see
A Queen in their midst

Leaves

I don’t want to move
Lord knows I don’t want to stay
Collard greens and you

Grand Exit

He left at sunrise
Rocking his worn out green cap
His loyalty rides

The Path

Heavy and layered
The weight of your past presents
Miles of greens to cross

Sunday Best

My favorite coat
Homemade lime green swing knee length
From my mother’s hands

Stirring

So I made them soup
Filled with green split peas and beans
Stirred with mother’s love

Silent Green

Looking from the sky
Stretches of green stun my eyes
And nobody knows

Grandson’s Hands

He reached for a twig
Used it to cut grandma’s greens
Strong like her cooking

My Garden

My sweet green garden
Perfumes the air with color
They speak in real life

Reveal

Back when I was young
I made some green promises
Most I truly meant

_________________________________________

Tantra-zawadi, Brooklyn born, international performance poet, is the author of three books of poetry, alifepoeminprogress (Chuma Spirit Books), Gathered at Her Sky and Bubbles: One Conscious Breath (Poets Wear Prada). She is a passionate educator, recording artist, and instigator with The Senegal-America Project, and a 2020 Brooklyn Arts Fund grantee! To learn more, or to hear her latest house music releases, please visit https://www.traxsource.com/artist/29323/tantra-zawadi or http://tantrazawadi.com/.

Mireya Perez | Cordillera Oriental

         Cordillera Oriental

              Verdigris  lianas  spruce
             
              moss  olive  emerald

              willow  laurel  teal  eucalyptus
             
              lime  pine  grass  clovers  palms

              helechos  peacock  mint
           
              parrot  lettuce  cabbage  capers
       
                     sage   cypress
             
                               not

              vermillion   ochre   terra-cotta   sienna

                        my  Andes

 
_______________________________________________

Mireya Perez-Bustillo, born in Colombia, raised in the Big Apple, writes fiction, poetry, and nonfiction in English and Spanish. Among her publications are La picara y la dama (editions Universal), Casos en la comunidad (Houghton Mifflin), and The Female Body (Greenwood Press). Associate Professor Emerita at The College of New Rochelle and Coordinator of the IRP Program at the New School, she has a Ph.D in Spanish Literature. She lives in Brooklyn, New York. BACK to EL DORADO (Floricanto Press, 2020) is her debut novel.                                                        

Jack Cooper | While We May

While We May

A fecundity of seed drifts

On the breeze and greenth wakens,

Thickening the tongue and in the eye —

Drunkenness to look on . . . 

All enrapt in a cool spell;

Shivering under a slight stole of rain.

Coin, flitted, of the elm, frittered —

Literally, fluttering butterily — away.

Glows grass (and grows) with her near-glad strength:

Proserpine’s lengthening sad,

Mad turn from afar: Did she not? Come back?

Neither of us lived nor should we ever have loved.



_______________________________________________



John Jack Jackie (Edward) Cooper is the creator of These Are Aphorithms (http://aphorithms.blogspot.com), author of Ten (Poets Wear Prada, 2012), Ten … More (Poets Wear Prada, 2016), and translator of Wax Women, with French texts of the original poems by Jean-Pierre Lemesle (International Art Office: Paris, 1985). His work has appeared widely, in print and online, most recently in The Opiate, Rat’s Ass Review, Jerry Jazz Musician, and Paris Lit Up 7. A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, he is editor and co-publisher of Poets Wear Prada, a small press based in Hoboken, New Jersey. He lives in Paris.

Patricia Carragon | Shades of Green

(for Evie Ivy)

shades of green

            in the sunlight

                        my tree knows Lorca



Urban Haiku and More (Fierce Grace Press, 2010)



_____________________________________________



spring speaks green

           the buds on trees

                       the blades of grass



Bear Creek Haiku Blogspot, Tuesday, March 31, 2020



____________________________________________



young trees

stretch green fingers

toward sun


____________________________________________

Patricia Carragon is the author of several books of poetry and fiction.  Her most recent poetry collections are Meowku (Poets Wear Prada) and Innocence (Finishing Line Press). Her debut novel, Angel Fire, is forthcoming from Alien Buddha Press. Patricia hosts the  Brownstone Poets reading in Brooklyn and publishes an associated anthology annually. She is also an executive editor for Home Planet News Online.