Two Poems: Jennifer Hill-Kaucher

The Alphabet Backward

Soon snow will cover everything
and the body will forget
the bruise of spring, melted wax
of summer. The world slings
into itself, cuts its grooves – an almanac.
Soon snow will cover everything –
fenceposts wear hats, trees are furred
in white – the landscape reversed as a layette.
Memory falls to collect at the feet in a blur
and the body will forget.

* * *

Lovely Boat

A girl folds a red lotus, centers a candle
and floats it downstream. As it passes the bridge
a man with a net scoops it out. This is tourism
in China. She has creased hundreds of prows,
but never diced a sheet for confetti to throw,
or to tuck into an envelope with a letter.

In Philadelphia’s Chinatown, my daughter and I
sit under the gold dragon at a restaurant
where shrimp crawl and curl their last in a tank
by the door. The instructions for the Jongie Nara
“Lovely Boat” origami are all in Chinese.
We puzzle it out through the images and laugh –
Start with a rectangle, turn it into a tricorner hat
and bend, twist, writhe? Our wonton soup
grows cold. When our first boat forms,
a shiny blue miniature among the gargantuan
tassels and murals of spring, I want to find a river
and let her watch the water whisk it away, too fast
for any hands to catch.



~ Jennifer Hill-Kaucher is the author of four books of poetry: “Questioning Walls Open,” from Foothills Publishing in 2001, “Nightcrown,” a crown of sonnets in a limited edition lotus book in 2003, “Book of Days,” from FootHills Publishing, 2005 and "A Proper Dress," 2006. Her previous poem in ETR appeared here. She also edits Paper Kite Press.

Three Photos: John Craig

"Untitled"

"Untitled"

"Untitled"

Artist's Statement:
I raise the camera to my eye and I look through the viewfinder. I go into a place of silence, a place of inner stillness. The room could be filled with noise and rumblings of a passerby or I could be in the forest sitting next to a raging stream. At that instant of composition I go into stillness. Letting my conscience evolve into the environment that surrounds me. Next I move into a moment of unearthing discovery, looking to see the unseen to find the spark where God lives and art grows. Following that I move into the “yes of the blessing” when I capture that sacred frame that lived only for that finite second of stillness. To conclude I move into the point of celebrating the gift, that presence of grace that I alone was able to see, experience, document and share with the world.


~ John Craig is a frequent contributor to the Elegant Thorn Review. He is a Pittsburgh, PA based photographer with a B.A. in communications and over 15 years of experience. You can find him at his blog, Craig Photography.

Two Poems: Lyn Lifshin

THIRTY MILES WEST OF CHICAGO

paint chips slowly.
It’s so still you
can almost hear it
pull from a porch.

Cold grass claws
like fingers in a
wolf moon. A man
stands in corn bristles

listening, watching
as if something
could grow from
putting a dead child

in the ground

*****

SEPTEMBER 26, 1996

this morning the pond
looks like marble. Rose
and charcoal dissolving
to dove, to guava, rouge.
Only mallards pushing
holes in the glass, so
unlike the pond, deep in
trees, almost camouflaged,
startling as coming upon
your reflection in a mirror,
just there under trees and
the wooden bar and the
driftwood benches blackly
jade with pines dripping
into it, shadows close to
my hair. What I didn’t have
blinded me so I hardly saw
the small birds, blue,
pulling out of moss and
needles as if reaching into
the dark for their color


~ Lyn Lifshin is one of the most widely-published poets in America. You can find her at her website.

Two Poems: Tim J Brennan

ellipse

there are other women
out there i could love

but will never
meet in the places
where i’m going

where i’ve been
has led me to you

just as certain words
remain unread, so
do i remain lost
in your throat

my fingers reading
your open spine

you touching the dark
places between my stars

*****

Dreaming of Emily Dickinson

i sometimes dream
about Emily Dickinson,
her seemingly stoic allegories
speaking of lost love

flies buzzing, yellow halos,
unblossomed thighs,
apple orchards,
new shoes in Eden

she was a woman
i loved even though
she didn’t know,
wouldn’t acknowledge,
wouldn’t have known what
to do even if she had known

she was my home town,
all my favorite streets,
elm lined lovers’ lanes

i would have died
for her Beauty,
instead i died
for her Truth

today i saw a woman
who reminded me of her

i wanted to tell her it was
she who once touched
my face and found me there



~ Tim J Brennan hails from southeastern Minnesota. His poetry continues to be a work in progress.

Two Photos: Whiter-Shade

"Nature's Sculpture"




"Contemplation"


~ Jim (Whiter-Shade) lives in Canada. He often gets comments that his photos look like paintings. He doesn't reveal how he gets that effect, but the images are amazing. You can see more of his work at his homepage. Look for more of his work to appear in this space.

Two Photos: Aeterna Doloris

"The Empty Bench"




"Broken Window II"


~ Aeterna Doloris is 19 years old and lives in Portugal. More of her work can be found at her homepage.

Poem: Margaret James

not far from the tree

I say, “I will hang upside down for your fruits,”
like the small gray and black birds with the jay caps,
those creatures who flutter so joyously
on the other side of the window, on the other side of the fence.

Dozens of beating wings -
sideways, frontwards, upside down wings
beating for green, blue, purple berries.

You are this tree with the gradually changing leaves
near the black crow who sits laughing
at all of us little birds.

And I repeat, “I'll hang upside down for your fruits.”

But you ask me for patience and a quiet tongue,
alien acrobatics that I am not so eager to attempt.


~ Margaret James lives in Eugene, Oregon, and is working on a degree in comparative religion. You can read more of her work on her blog at Zaadz. I am pleased to say more of her work will be appearing here.

Poem: Jennifer Hill-Kaucher

Birds of North America

"What you see in a guide is what you see in nature."
~ The Golden Guide to Field Identification, North American Birds

I.
My mother watches families of wrens
move in and out of the birdhouse,
names the chickadees and titmouse,
curses the sharp-shinned hawk that lurks
on her fence. The shrubbery, full of finches,
holds its breath. Even the squirrels, doves
and chipmunks that pick at the dropped seed
are invisible. The hawk cranes his neck
at every rustle. A yield light eye
hones in when the first finch darts out
and his movement is one quick mechanical
drop and lift into the air, a light brown pennant
against the blank sky.

II.
A common yellowthroat circles the room of light
beamed into the sky by the World Trade Center.
Disoriented, it flies into the glass and falls, stunned.
A woman on a scooter zips by the perimeter of buildings,
brown bags and labels the dead or dazed.
The dead are frozen. The dazed are freed.

III.
All three outbuildings burned down,
the one closest to the house filled
with partridges, quail, doves and a peacock.
He kept his shop in there, sanded tops and ships
between the coo and guttural warbles.
There was nothing to do. She watched from her dishes
at the kitchen sink. In the morning before sunrise,
ash scent and birdsong crisscrossed in the fields.


~ Jennifer Hill-Kaucher gave me no biographical information, but this is her first appearance in Elegant Thorn Review. Look for more of her work in the future.

Poem: Jennifer M. Wilson

Pesky Angels

The dead walk these hours
ruling the living with their imperfect recollection.

I beat away the angels with my stick
as they flock like gulls over my head,
begging for bread and attention.

Around me people prostrate themselves on the sidewalk
crying for mercy at the gate of their own soul’s mansion.



~ Jennifer M. Wilson holds a degree in Communications and Comparative Religion from Ithaca College. You can read more of her work at her website.

Two Photos: Päivi Valkonen

"Two Seasons"




"Campus Area III"



~ Päivi Valkonen is from Finland. You can see more of her amazing photography at her homepage.