The Times They Are A-Changing: Autumn Poems

Melinda Palacio

Last week was great because Bob Dylan was blowing in cyberspace. Congratulations Bob on winning the Nobel literature prize. This week may be all about nasty women and bad hombres. So, I bring you some excellent Autumn poems by Patricia Spears Jones (you may have read Linda Rodriguez's review of ALucent Fire), Gina Ferrara (http://labloga.blogspot.com/2013/10/spotlight-on-gina-ferrara.html) and Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo. These are poems you will want to savor, read aloud, then read them all over again. Enjoy and refill your cup as many times as you'd like.

Ghosts

Patricia Spears Jones 

He was filled with beauty, so filled he could not stop the shadows

from their walk around his horn, blasting cobwebs in the Fillmore's

            ceiling

Somewhere dawn makes up for the night before, but he is floating

Dead in the water. And yet, my lover tells me, he saw him

             shimmering.

As did others. It could have been the acid. Or fragmented

            harmonics.

His reed ancestral. This perilous knowledge. The band went home,

shivering. A girl threw roses in the water. Carnations, daisies. And

            bright red sashes.

Like ones the Chinese use for funeral banners. A drummer intoned

            chants

From the Orient. Police wrote up the news. Years later, my lover told

            me

Friends would hear the whisper, then a tone, full throttle from the

            wind.

Ghosts on Second Avenue, jazzmen in the falling stars.

If you catch one, your hands will glitter.

A Lucent Fire. Poems by Patricia Spears Jones

All Saints' Day

Patricia Spears Jones

Diamanda Galas screams sings

rage upon love

as winter forms

drop by cooling drop.

And earlier in that year, spring in the Blue Ridge—

pastures and hills bejeweled

with violets, dogwoods, the Judas Tree—

softens the bitter taste

of recipes for worming, for worry,

for the death of masters, overseers,

the uniformed patriarchs of a history

astonished by defeat. The burned mansions and

moth-ridden grief comes back to haunt lanes

to the left and right, a clear divide

between the Black side and the white,

On All Saints' Day, a wind resurrected

as dervish, spiraling dry, sharp leaves

righteous fuel for bonfires.

Honorable music to comfort the dead.

In New York, hear Patricia Spears Jones and Christopher Stackhouse, Tuesday November 1, 2016 at 6:30 pm. Free to Dia members, $10 general admission, $6 admission for students and seniors. Grab tickets while you can. 
Readings in Contemporary Poetry
Dia: Chelsea
535 West 22nd Street 5th Floor New York City
212 989 5566 www.diart.org

Knowing

Gina Ferrara

When the medics strapped

you on the stretcher,

the bones of my knees and shins

pressed against Neruda's earth—

the acacia's offerings,

the cicada's hum,

a pair of fish

ascending from the abyss,

the accolades of tangled morning glories,

the solitary crow followed

by a triptych of magpies.

None of the sonnets

roused or woke you.

Your silent tongue and slack lips

extinguished the light of novas

and unstrung lanterns.

*From Gina Ferrara's Amber Porch Light

Amber Porch Light by Gina Ferrara

Ladder to the Moon
Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo

Ladder to the Moon, Georgia O’Keeffe

                                                              Ghost Ranch, O’Keeffe’s

                                                              sprite spirit rises

                                                         like the waif of moon

                                                         over Perdenal’s inky, cut top.

                                                    It’s an aquamarine night

                                               when I catch her climb wooden rails

                                             to the sky. Her frail arms

                                             evoke twigs, but her eyes

                                         ignite like the stars.

                                        I want her to invite me up,

                                    but she doesn’t.

                                    I want her to teach me how,

                                but she won’t.

                             I kick red rocks across the land

                        and keep a look out

                        for my own blond ladder to blaze.

*This poem was first published in Malpais Review.

Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo's Posada

Don't miss Xochitl-Julisa's Book Release Party, Saturday October 29 at 7pm at Avenue 50 Studio, 131 N Avenue 50, Los Angeles, CA 90042