Bring on all the latte in the Cafe.
Keeps us going because we are knowing
it will not be bitter but better
with all the warmth of a Cup a or a Cup of Joe
and a kind smile at the end of the rainbow.
Love my Library Family,
-Lynn H
Sitting
Waiting for Nothing
Watching
Centuries Pass
By
Bland Colors
Concrete Walls
The Most Interesting Part of My Day.
— Nate Gerber, age 11
Then, and Now
A scarf I once found
floating through a Paris park
just became a mask
-susan richard
Teetering on the rim of reality: Thoughts on the verge of a psychotic break
Like the Watermain break
outside my windows
That floods the streets
with gushing water
My mind breaks open
Flooding my eyes and ears with sights and sounds:
Parallel universe
Music has color
I can hear red and blue swirling into purple
The workers digging up the streets laying water pipes and cable are really Russians and Nazis in disguise
Shutting off water and power
Disabling the city
The city is under siege!
Courage is not the absence of fear but rather doing the right thing despite fear
Everything is fine
It is just my mind
Am I crazy or is everyone talking in riddles?
I’ve been in a mental hospital 11 times
So I do not trust my mind
On the surface everything seems fine
But there is no TV reception
And the radio sounds crazy
I want a healthy mind!
It would be a real miracle
If they found a cure
For mental illness…
-Beth Lazar
The Spark of the Creator
Butterflies and dragonflies
Bluebirds and blue skies
The Spark of the Creator
Is in all these beings.
The Spark of the Creator
Is in me and you
Mountains and rocks
Rivers and rainbows
Are plants and animals that live and grow
The Spark of the Creator
Is in all these beings
The Spark of the Creator
Is in me and you
Mothers and fathers
Grandparents and babies too
The Spark of the Creator
Is in all these beings
The Spark of the Creator
Is in me and you
Deer and fox
Teacher, student and the janitor who mops
The Spark of the Creator
Is in all these beings
The Spark of the Creator
Is in me and you
Rabbis and Reverends
Buddhist monks and imams too
The Spark of the Creator
Is in all these beings
The Spark of the Creator
Is in me and you
When at last
We transcend this earthly realm
The Spark returns from whence it came
to the Creator
The Spark of all Sparks
The life force with the unspeakable name
-Beth Lazar
The Thread of Life
Though I have never learned to sew
I’ve always been drawn to spools of thread
So much thread on one small spool
For someone like me who doesn’t sew
The thread seems limitless, the spool unspent
Sometimes I line up a bunch of spools
And run my finger across them, so smooth
So many colored threads to choose
As hours fray and days give way
I sense the spool unwinding –
That same spool I’d felt was never ending –
There’s less thread every year, every season, every day
Yet thread’s a funny thing: sometimes, without warning,
It will break
You could be in the middle of sewing a button
And suddenly your thread will run out
Or just as often a thread can be cut short by a tug
That renders the thread too weak not to snap
What should be made of life’s marvelous thread
That may be either sewn or snapped
Which one will be used to the end – the yellow? the beige?
Which one will be severed – the light blue? the rose red?
On what spool does my life revolve
And how long, how strong is my thread?
All of this I do not know – but maybe if I learn to sew
I will learn to see thread in a different light
-Laura Pochintesta
a day in the life of a lazy dog in quarantine
By Nate Gerber, age 11
I roll over on my back
And I think of those two-leggeds now
How they have to work all day, and come back to my kingdom with their faces stale, saying one thing - “N-n-need T-toilllet Pap-p-per…”
But I feel the hand on my ear… I hear the heater hum…
I think of those dogs-
The ones that sleep on torn-up wooden floors
How they run around all day, looking for chipmunks that must pay.
Those peasants.
But I, as King, slowly chew, chew away
On my servant’s new high-heeled shoes, through all the way.
I devour my mother’s number-stick
And I think, “My Rule is Over!”
But all I hear are words more toxic than a clover (slang word for grapes, it's what your dog says)
I get up, off my throne and run far, far, away
And I finally feel the way those puppies do, all day
A burst of joy enters my blue bone stream
And I, as king of the house, see what they mean.
When I see people coughing, I stray far away
And if I trip and fall on a mask string, I try not to lay there all day!
I come to the place those humans call Hole Foods (I think its called that because toilet paper is for your hole and also the real name is trademarked)
I come inside and see food and paper
All tucked away.
I run and jump, the first time in my life, and I dash back home with the goods
Chased by the Owner’s Wife
Yes, now a days I may just have an endless loop of sleeping and cuddling,
But now I know my family can have a happy poop and lots of chuckling.
-Nate Gerber
Assessment
Inconvenience but not desperation
Salary cut but not termination
Unable to visit but they are still here
Can’t go far but my closest is near
Expectations shattered but resilience remains
Goals missed but ingenuity unconstrained
Want to weep but have no right
May just break but now must fight
-Patia McGrath
FALLING
floating on my back I was
surrounded by peaceable waters
whose warmth I feel only now
that the sun
has gone down and the waters
are cold
a storm came while
I slept barely sensing the lap
of quiet waves against my skin
the heat of the sun
seemed so sure in the past
I affirmed my future’s frailty
with merely a cursory nod
and as I nodded dropping my eyes
for a moment only
a moment
clouds gathered quickly and quietly
and then fell
like stones
I shivered then but even then
had no warning
of the cold the other side of
another horizon
and blindly ran toward the storm
beating my fists against
the rain that washed over me
like the waves I had never seen
I see them now still
I ran
desperate
felt the winds chasing
and knew I was lost but
ran still
until I lay down at last
and dreamt between sleep
and wakefulness I was falling
and starting awake I
clutched at the ground but
still I fell
and it was then I became afraid
of never stopping
while before
I had been afraid only to
fall
-Amy van Daalen
Long Ago and Now
There was a time when my
Dear ones sheltered in place
Walls and floor of mud
Boards above their heads
A grave-like hole they dug
The moon in darkness phase
And I in comfort shelter now
With chosen images that surround
Food abundant air and sky
Fret an unseen foe attack
Protective mask and gloves abound
The man he was my father
Huddled by his starving wife
A strong willed iron woman
They breathed such bitter air
That filled the dank dark bunker
Relentless days and years endured
Their angel Polish farmer
Brought news to those he'd spared
The winter liberation day
So white and cleansed and fair
Too bright for shuttered eyes
Afraid to leave the lair
Emerged with broken bodies
They hobbled to their home
Where neighbors thrust their tongues
This place no longer yours
A story seared within me
Their strengths flow through my veins
Compared to what they suffered
And came forth with resolve
An enemy I hide from
Is paltry and obscure
-'Hinde' Helen Martin Block
Like a Book
I know you like a book
Your pages turning slowly
So as not to give yourself away too soon.
A mystery -
Hints of foreshadowing along the way
Concealed amongst each paragraph
Like a well-kept secret
Too tempting to reveal.
Then,
Somewhere around the middle
The story coms to light –
Slowly unraveling itself.
You are like a good book,
A page-turner,
Impossible to put down.
-Judith Marks-White
Hooked
While the husband fishes, he lapses into reverie,
Memories floating up like flotsam
On a wave of years.
He recalls with detailed precision
The taste of bluefish –
His wife’s scent after cleaning it –
The way the worm glistens on the line,
A wiggling warrior fighting for freedom.
The rod, flung far back as adolescence,
Thrusts forward into the sky
Plunges into the ocean
Reeling in a slippery fish
Delivered cold to its silver pail coffin
Tail still quivering.
A gift of bluefish is handed over to his sweet-smelling wife.
Her apron, crusted with scales from the summer’s catch,
She rinses the fish under a stream of running water
Secretly hoping for a whiff of breath.
Her husband, a pungent mix of fish and sweat, loosens his wife’s barrette.
Hair, cascading down in a sea of curls,
Washes over the blue and white-checkered cloth.
Love waits for no one,
Not even bluefish.
-Judith Marks-White
Childhood – 1952
Mother, did you know
While you were basting turkeys in ‘52
I was secretly sampling
Cream-filled chocolates,
Sticky-handedly
Fingerprinting the ivories,
My ankles' skin
Peeled and itching
Inside patent leathers?
A fire crackled like cellophane
Amid the din of culinary commotion.
An assortment of cousins and
Giggling aunts
Hovered at the door
Like stuffed animals
In their winter furs.
Underneath the stiff crinoline-
The scratchy taffeta
My skinned knees bulged
Like fleshy red cheeks,
My heart bursting like champagne bubbles
On the rim of my bittersweet years.
-Judith Marks-White
Summer
I’m six and barefoot,
That time of day
When the best parts of summer happen.
Caught between a stretch of late
Afternoon and sunset
Mothers shout from behind screen doors,
Fathers, home from work
Punctuate the street
With Buicks, Oldsmobiles and Chevys.
The smells of suppers waft through
Open windows.
Pots of red geraniums bow in procession, beckoning us home.
Ritchie from across the street with his
Green Hornet comics -
Patty, with her chipped tooth and jump rope -
Mr. Smoke, with his cigar, and his dog named Alger Hiss -
Decorate the neighborhood.
I bounce my pink Spaldeen as far as my front porch
To smiles, wide as watermelon –
Hugs, round as melons –
My mother’s lips, red as dark cherries.
Many summers later in some far-off distant future
I still recall those afternoons
When my bedroom smelled of lilacs,
Put there by Maddie,
Who made the best fried chicken,
Scraped the day’s dirt off my overalls,
Kept my secrets
Hidden deep inside
Her apron pockets.
-Judith Marks-White
Apple Picking
All my life I imagined you
In some far-off distant future,
Tucked neatly away in my mind,
Half-believing you were real,
Expecting you would one day appear like
October apples in an orchard
Ready for picking.
Instead, in late November,
I was inspecting apples at Fresh Market
When you whispered: “try the Honeycrisps, they’re better.”
So, I put down the Cortlands,
Tossed the Honeycrisps into a bag,
Checked them out,
Walked toward my car,
Into a Red Delicious sunset
You lagging closely behind,
The scent of apples
Lingering in the air.
-Judith Marks-White
Choose your words carefully.
Place in a pan.
Let simmer
Half-cooked
To stew in their own juice.
Add a pinch of salt to taste,
A dash of pepper for inspiration.
Mix until sentences begin to form.
Watch them bubble.
Discard extra fat,
Stir occasionally.
Let your poem cool.
Do not cover.
•
•
•
•
-Judith Marks-White
Love's Abyss
I cried deep from the recesses
of my soul.
Malice in my heart.
Her sweet candy kisses seduced me.
Made me a concubine.
A slave deep in her chasm.
Love is painful.
It does hurt.
An endless void in my spirit.
Trapped in a bottomless pit.
My sweet love's abyss.
-Daniel Clancy
The Art Of Piano
A recent activity
Providing Entertainment
Piano
Black and white keys
Spread across
And music flows as I play
Quick
Hoppy
Staccato is a tap
Long
Steady
Continuous
Legato rolls
From key to key
Back and forth
Every sound
Controlled by a finger
Hands together
Double the music
Flow through a waltz
Half notes for Shepherd’s Song
A story told
In only sound
As one listens carefully
-Elena Nasar
Naivete or clueless?
Guilty I plead
It's part of my make up
Part of my creed
Skipping through life
Whatever befalls me
Ignoring the bad things
See what enthralls me
Is it a wall
That descends to protect me?
"Perhaps it's resilience,"
said one who respects me.
-Alison Wachstein
Many people have
Stuffed teddy bears,
Or
Rabbits,
But I have
A stuffed elephant.
His name
Is
Ellie.
His tail,
A little shredded,
From all the times
I rubbed it against my hand.
His neck,
With no stuffing,
From all the times
I squeezed him tight in a hug.
His blue fur,
All matted down,
From all the times
I used him to brush away my tears.
His amber eyes,
A little scratched,
When they stare at me,
I wonder
Just how many memories
A stuffed elephant
can hold.
-Zachary Newshel
A CRY
Mornings you palm the gravel up
into a reasonable shape
for it is your hope
to honor the innumerable host of
us with your obvious love
and by honoring to give or save
until struck blind you slip your heel
you topple spin cry and flail
and make a wreckage by your fall
we will remember the try
and in the pit your name will be
a solemn and joyful cry
-Tony Abbott
You naughty wave
You knocked me down
You silly clown
-Kristina Stephano
Children
Professor wrote me a letter inquiring
if it were true if
Germany were down g such things..."
Ovens
Children like loaves of bread
They made me eat it up,
they made me taste it again.
-Marilyn Grogins
The River and Me
Sometime when the river freezes over
Ask me what mistakes I have made
Ask me of the glad times and the sad times before they fade.
Ask me if what I've done is my life
And I will tell you: no
That's what you've seen
Not where I've been.
For I am spirit, duck down, dragonflies and radiant spiritual light
I am energy, joy, alternating vibrations.
I am not what you've seen.
For I cannot be seen.
I will listen to you.
You and I can turn and look at the silent river and wait.
Wait for the understanding to come.
Wait for the ice to melt.
Wait for the underside of our lives to surface.
Watching as the rocks beneath the ice and beneath the water are exposed.
We know the current is there bubbling over the rocks
As we know life moves on without our understanding its direction or clock.
We have lived underwater; we hold our breath.
What the river says
That is what I say: I want you to be happy when I am gone on.
March 2020. after having had COVID 19
-Susan Miller
