Molting (Anca Vlasopolos)

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Male chaffinch (Fringilla coelebs)
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this winter says it has settled
for good
so that even now
late March we expect
more and more snow
mocking
a post-equinox sun

yet on the finch feeder
there’s no denying
even if smiles still crack lips
that pathetic ridiculous
mix
of olive camouflage
starting to tatter
being pushed
aside

patches
bright-lemon yellow
opera black
struggling toward
dapper array
males on the make

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Anca Vlasopolos is the author of The New Bedford Samurai (Twilight Times Books, 2007); Penguins in a Warming World (Ragged Sky Press, 2007); No Return Address: A Memoir of Displacement (Columbia University Press, 2000); a poetry e-chapbook, Sidereal and Closer Griefs, print chapbooks Through the Straits, at Large and The Evidence of Spring; and a detective novel, Missing Members (trans. Miembros Ausentes, Madrid, 2009). She has also placed over two hundred poems and short stories in literary magazines.

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Copyright 2009, Anca Vlasopolos

Posted with permission from author.

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A Day at the Bird Feeder



davidkade

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Constellations (Gary B. Fitzgerald)

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My father, the pilot, taught me

the names of the stars:

Betelgeuse, Sirius, Rigel, Polaris.

He taught me the constellations:

Orion & Leo, Pegasus, Centaurus,

the eternal portraits of imagination

painted on the infinity of dark.

I was only three or four when,

just before sleep, he came into my room.

He told me that he would be home soon,

that he had to leave to hang the moon.

The next night I’d ask my grandmother

to take me outside to see "the moom,"

so I could be sure that he really was

still up there.

Long after the B-17s and the DC-3s,

but before his beloved 707s,

my father flew the magnificent old three-tailed

Constellations, and many souls were carried

over empty seas, along the edge

of the heavens, presidents and kings and VIPs,

in skies then just as empty.

And now at night when I look up

I think of him and all the constellations.

I wonder how, after all these years,

they’ve never changed,

how all he ever taught me was still true.

I look up at the moon and imagine

what distant seas are flown,

what stars now skirted by his wings,

now that I’m sure that he really is

still up there.

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Copyright 2008 – SOFTWOOD-Seventy-eight poems, Gary B. Fitzgerald

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Burn Pile (Gary B. Fitzgerald)

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Warm Spring evening at my burn pile,

hissing restless of the fire,

pierce of an occasional hawk overhead.

Otherwise quiet.

Out burning Winter’s trimmings in the pasture:

wind-fall sticks, old hay and rosebush clippings,

broken fence boards and leftover pages.

Some cardboard boxes.

A pleasant fire on a warm Spring night,

relaxed like a deep woods campfire,

just thirty feet past the fence from my back yard.

Safe and serene, but a fire still primeval,

like Neanderthal after a good hunt,

bellies full, protected and sleepy.

I drift in a reverie, communing with the ghosts.

But that damned tractor across the pond keeps

on working, roaring, noisy diesel clatter,

snapping of saplings and trees

destroying this otherwise quiet,

destroying the otherwise pristine,

disturbing my tranquil evening alone

with the ancient spirits and popping peaceful

of the fire. Some voices are never heard,

others never cease to intrude.

Did I mention what was in the

cardboard boxes?

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Copyright 2008, by Gary B. Fitzgerald

From HARDWOOD-77 Poems

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XIII. When I was One-and-Twenty (A.E. Housman, 1859-1936)

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A.E. Housman
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When I was one-and-twenty
---I heard a wise man say,
‘Give crowns and pounds and guineas
---But not your heart away;

Give pearls away and rubies
---But keep your fancy free.’
But I was one-and-twenty,
---No use to talk to me.

When I was one-and-twenty
---I heard him say again,
‘The heart out of the bosom
---Was never given in vain;

'Tis paid with sighs a plenty
---And sold for endless rue.’
And I am two-and-twenty,
---And oh, 'tis true, 'tis true.

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President Barack Obama's Inaugural Speech

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Earlier today, I posted the Inaugural poem for Abraham Lincoln's 1865 Inauguration.

If you would like to see and read President Barack Obama's Inaugural Address, click here.

(Disclaimer: I own this non-profit site.)*

Abraham Lincoln's 1865 Inaugural Poem

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Abraham Lincoln
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An Inaugural Poem,

Dedicated to Abraham Lincoln, of Illinois, and Andrew Johnson, of Tennessee

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March 4, 1861 - Match 4, 1865.

In the glorious days of old,
When all manly words were gold,
The pledge of haughty Southern Knight
Was held as true and kept as bright
As if it had been coined in heaven,
And to the world by angels given.

But when the curse of slavery fell,
As though a pestilence from hell
Had poisoned all the land!
A direful demon took command;
And they who owed their country all,
Struck at her life, contrived her fall,

But first they broke their solemn word,
Before they drew the murderous sword,
Forgot their creed, so orthodox,
And scorned the sacred ballot-box;
Then here, where Freedom's temple stood,
Tried to let loose the tide of blood.

Oh! doubtful day, four years ago!
When, threatened by the assassin foe,
Our President was sworn to stand
By God and by his Native Land;
But traitors failed, because they knew
Their plots were clear to patriots true.

And when the fiends of civil war
Filled all the South with blood and fire,
Long swayed the dreadful, doubtful fight,
And the world shuddered at the sight:
Thousands of all our boldest braves
Fought, fell, and died in honored graves.

For days, for months, for lingering years,
This strife of kindred and this flow of tears,
Was grimly fought and bitterly maintained
Till none could tell which side had gained:
But now, at last, a rescued nation
Hails here her perfect vindication.

And God is good, for he has said,
(Oh voice to wake the myriad dead!)
If your first oath was sworn in gloom,
Unknowing then your fate or doom;
At your to-day's inauguration
You do behold your land's salvation.

No scowling traitors in this hour
Will dare to thwart the people's power:
No forsworn plotters can implore
That Freedom's temple may run o'er
With the heart's blood of him who won
The post twice filled by Washington.

For like to him so Lincoln ran
The race for Liberty and Man,
And like to him a people's voice
Proclaimed him twice the nation's choice;
And by this act have set their seal
To show the gratitude they feel.

Now as the President ascends
Yon marble flight, and lowly blends
Before the majesty of the laws,
And vows to serve his country's cause,
Nothing but victory for the Union
Will gladden all that vast communion.

Before him frown no angry foemen,
For all are friends and sturdy yeomen;
But gazing up and to him listening,
Behold the face of Johnson glistening--
He who in renowned December
Fought the great fight we all remember;

Who, without sign of fear or favor,
Struck 'gainst traitors with best endeavor--
Made them quail beneath his glances,
And fly before his bold advances,
And now, from rescued Tennessee,
Takes part in this, Our Jubilee.

Oh! History, with thy impartial pen,
Tell us in what age of godlike men
Hast thou been ever called to write
A page so wondrous and so bright?
Where is the struggle that can equal
That of which to-day's the sequel?

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From the Chronicle Junior.

Printed in the Inauguration Procession of Lincoln & Johnson.

Washington, D.C., March 4th, 1865.


American Treasures of the Library of Congress
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