Wes McNair

Drury Pond

Wes McNair, former director of the University of Maine Farmington's Creative Writing Program, has been a visiting professor in creative writing at Colby College. He is the recipient of fellowships from the Rockefeller, Fulbright and Guggenheim foundations, as well as the Robert Frost Prize; the Devins Award for poetry; the Eunice Teitjens Prize from Poetry magazine; the Theodore Roethke prize and other honors. He has edited The Maine Poet anthology, has several poetry collections, including Fire, and essays about poetry and place, Mapping the Heart.


Love Handles



If the biker’s head where the hair was
shines in the sun while he blows
into his helmet to get the heat out
of it, she doesn’t mind. It’s not him
with the bald spot, it’s just him. And she likes
feeling the fleshy overhang in the front
when she climbs on behind and takes him
into her arms. How else could he carry her
up and up the wild, quick, five-
note scale that they float off on? Anyway,
who doesn’t love a belly? Forget the revulsion
we’re supposed to feel looking at the before picture
in the diet ad and remember the last time
you asked a good friend you hadn’t seen in years,
What’s this? patting where the shirt
stuck out. Or think of feeling somebody’s
back, like the two old lovers lying in bed, she
turned away from him inquiring over her shoulder
with her finger, What’s that, right there, is it
a bug bite or a mole? And he, the one trusted
with this place so private not even she
can see it, touching it, not skin or flesh
in this special, ordinary moment but something
else, something more, like the hand the hunched
old lady has in hers going across the fast-food
parking lot. Beside her an old man, the hand’s
owner, is walking with what you and I
might think of as a sort of kick
over and over, but what they don’t think of at all,
balancing each other like this so they can arrive
together to get a burger. The point is, you can’t
begin to know how to hold another body
in your eye until you’ve held it a few times
in your hand or in your arms. Any ten couples
at the Fireman’s Ball could tell you that. Put aside
your TV dreams of youth running its fingers
over the hood of a new car, or the smiling
faces of Tammy the weather girl and Bob on sports,
she with the unreal hair and he with the hair
that’s not real, and imagine the baldies
with their corsaged wives under the whirling
chunks of light at the Ball. Think of their innocence,
all dressed up to be with the ones they’ve known
all their lives. See how after those years
of nudging and hugging and looking each other all over,
they glide, eyes closed, on love handles across the floor.


©Copyright 2003, Wes McNair




Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Portland

Killed at the Ford


He is dead, the beautiful youth,
The heart of honor, the tongue of truth,
He, the life and light of us all,
Whose voice was blithe as a bugle-call,
Whom all eyes followd with one consent,
The cheer of whose laugh, and whose pleasant word,
Hushed all murmurs of discontent.

Only last night, as we rode along,
Down in the dark of the mountain gap,
To visit the picket-guard at the ford,
Little dreaming of any mishap,
He was humming the words of some old song:
"Two red roses he had on his cap
And another he bore at the point of his sword."

Sudden and swift a whistling ball
Came out of a wood, and the voice was still;
Something I heard in the darkness fall,
And for a moment my blood grew chill;
I spake in a whisper, as he who speaks
In a room where some one is lying dead;
But he made no answer to what I said.

We lifted him up to his saddle again,
And through the mire and the mist and the rain
Carried him back to the silent camp,
And laid him as if asleep on his bed;
And I saw by the light of the surgeon's lamp
Two white roses upon his cheeks,
And one, just over his heart, blood red!

And I saw in a vision how far and fleet
That fatal bullet went speeding forth,
Till it reached a town in the distant North,
Till it reached a house in a sunny street,
Till it reached a heart that ceased to beat
Without a murmur, without a cry;
And a bell was tolled in that far-off town,
For one who had passed from cross to crown,
And the neighbors wondered that she should die.





Annie Farnsworth

Kennebunk

In Case I'm Asked


Perhaps last time I was something
cold-blooded that crawled,
something gray-green and slow
moving under rocks and then after that,
in the great between, a filament
of small brightness, a thought
and I thought then to choose this body
for this journey through.
Let me walk upright I said, all ambition,
Give me long bones and warm blood,
I'll take eyes and ears and teeth.
And let me be a woman, so I could
feel this particular way of bringing
more life through.
Perhaps I didn't think through
all the implications, didn't count on
the heaviness of conscience, the
specifics of flesh and gravity.
I should have asked someone
who'd once been a woman, How was it ?
and How many sorrows ?
So now I am trying to plan ahead
and think next time I’d like
to feel flight, would like to try
the small winged body. Make it
too small to bother for meat, give me
feathers too small to covet. I am finished
with a life as game or harvest,
don't want to feel chainsaw or knife.
Let me be a hummingbird, a tiny
quick thought of a bird drinking flowers.
I understand there is a long line
for this short life of light -- it's all right
I've learned all about waiting. There have been times
I was nothing but a small leaf floating
face-up in a slow-moving river.

©Copyright 2003, Annie Farnsworth





C. M. Webster
Yarmouth

Two Thousand and Three
In the warm Florida evening, the sky darkened
with an impetuous burst.
Maybe another rain shower. I hurried on, but
a soft swish above stopped me.
Fearing a teasing bat, I tousled my hair,
and looked up.

A mass of birds, some flying high, some
skimming treetops, blackened
the sky, following their destiny. They talked in
quiet sounds only they could decipher.
Overwhelmed, I waited and listened to the
softness of their chatter.

Some flew low and I saw their robin breasts.
No, I cried, it is too soon to go
north. Your wings will freeze, you will starve.
But they did not listen,
and as I watched, the flotilla thickened to
hide the coming dusk.

I laughed for the first time in days and knew
the world would not end,
at least not this night. The delicate birds
faced a frosty future, but
would survive as they have through the eons,
before Darwin.

©Copyright 2003, C. M. Webster




Constance Hunting

Orono

Constance Hunting, pianist, poet and an unselfish promoter of other Maine writers through her Puckerbrush Review literary magazine and Puckerbrush Press. She teaches English literature and creative writing at the University of Maine at Orono and is chair of the National Poetry Foundation. Hunting has edited books about May Sarton and co-edited two books of Maine writing. She has published 15 books of poetry and a book of essays and appeared on Sandy Phippens' PBS, "A Good Read."

.

Tracings


In the arc of the fall
the vision:
objects of heart's memoryi
the grand piano
a grandmother's teapot, spout downward
an ormulu clock
a brass candlestick
worn Paisley shawl (pian0)
basket of bees
books books books
foxed flaking uncut
a prie-Dieu
a ring with a blue stone
and so on all in
the arc of the rainbows
the fall of the body
to dive below the surface of the lake
towards the cerulean
the sky-flower.

©Copyright 2002, Constance Hunting





Terrell Hunter
Orono


King George on the Throne Sees a Prophecy

Another Parable of the Allegory

I was at the Kennebunk CentCom on the throne
listening to the waves shatter against the rocks
reading Newsweek while the Nation
read my lips—when suddenly
what’s-her-name screamed
“Look! A big hawk! It landed on the weather vane.”

“No kidding” I said. “Are you sure it’s not
a turkey? I could use some Wild Turkey.”

“No, silly. A big one. Maybe the goshawk.” She
sounded excited, almost like the old days
back at the ranch.

“It’s staring at the blue jays.”

“What do you expect me to do about it?”
I said. “I’m busy in here.”

There was no way I could get up.
I was expecting a call.

“The blue jays are in the Cherry Tree squawking at it.
Why don’t they hide?”

“Nowhere to run,” I crooned. “No
place to hide.”

“It’s taking off.
Oh my God,
it’s going after the jays!”

I looked at the hotline.
I had lost my train of thought.

“My God, it got one! They’re both down
on the snow. The other jay is screaming.
They must be mates.

The hawk is eating the jay alive!” she cried.

“Why don’t you scare it?” I said.
But my mind was focused on the hotline
like a Chihuahua on a gopher hole.

She opened the door and yelled
“Hey, shoo! Get out of here.

I can’t scare it,” she yelled. “The hawk
is plucking the blue jay alive!”

“Habeas Corpus,” I said. ”Bring me the body.”
For some reason I remembered that from Yale.
Ah, the good old days—hanging
with the guys, sleeping late . . . .
But I was starting to get curious. So I cast my ballot,
dismissed the Privy Council, and joined her
at the window. The hawk was hunched
over the jay like a drunken derrick
pounding at its heart.
Tomahawk City, Texas—I tell you what.
Feathers were rolling across the snow like tumbleweed.

“Christ . . . nature!” she said, and went back
to smoking her cigar and watching Falwell. I let the cat out.
I watched the execution.

Too late now, I thought.
He’s a goner. Christ . . . nature!

Then the cat saw the action and slinked over
to investigate. The cat scared the hawk. The hawk
shrieked and launched into the sky.

Suddenly the jay shot up from where it had lain slain,
fell back onto the snow, then resurrected, whirled up again,
found its bearings, and disappeared behind the gazebo.
“It’s alive,” I cried. “Tony, the damn jay is still alive!”

I ran out to the spot in the snow where they had engaged.
There were feathers, tufts of down blowing in the wind,
speckles of blood and what looked like particles of actual flesh.
It was horrible.
The hawk was back on the weather vane screeching.
The blue jays had vanished.

Why does everything keep doing that? I wondered.
My slippers were snowy and coming back
I skidded on the front steps
smacked my face against the doorknob
and gave myself another black eye.

Why does everything keep doing that?

©Copyright 2003, Terrell Hunter





Mark Melnicove
Dresden


©Copyright 1983, Mark Melnicove





Charles Grenville Wilson
Farmington


The Sawmill


Here the trees are brought to die:
Trees who proudly touched the sky,
Standing tiptoe on the hills
Decked in vernal leafy frills.

Trees who in the Winter wear
Snow like powder in their hair;
Trees whose sacerdotal rites
Are performed on Summer nights;
Trees with squirrels in every locket,
And a bird in every pocket:

Spangled by the Summer rain,
Tinctured with Autumnal stain,
Jostled gently by the clouds,
Silent in their misty shrouds.

Plod the horses, solemn, slow,
Come their corses laid so low,
Borne upon their humble biers –
Is it frost that brings these tears
Starting to the teamster's eye? –
Now the funeral train goes by.

Grim the sawyers wait their troths,
Golden sawdust on their clothes,
Lift them to the waiting table;
Brawny hands, gnarled but able
Hold them down, who proudly stood,
Mystic Druids of the wood.

Cruelly now the snarling blade
Bites through the flesh the Summer made,
Winter strengthened, Spring gave birth,
Suckled at the breast of Earth...

Here the trees are brought to die,
Trees who proudly touched the sky.

©Copyright 2003, Charles Grenville Wilson




Holman Day
Vassalboro


Readin' the Rug

Take a chair by the fireplace, mister. Pull up, s'r, pull up to the blaze!
Cheerfuler some than an air-tight, hey? Too many air-tights these days!
But that ain't a matter to harp on--complainin' isn't my style:
Do you notice that rug where ye're sittin? Let me tell ye 'bout that
for a while.

That's an old hooked rug; just burlap with snippin's o' rags looped through-
A hit-or-miss pattern they call it; it looked pretty smart when t'was new.
Some fami'lies have his'ries about 'em an' docyments filed away,
But ourn hain't ever done nothin' that his'rys can find to say,
Yet next to my Bible, mister, the readin' I like the best
I find right there in that old hooked rug, when there's ary a minit to rest.
I come an's read it o' daytimes, but the readin' goes best at night
With the wind and the rain at the winder an' the hearth flames burnins' bright.





Steve Luttrell
Falmouth


Synthesis


Things happen
below the slow
movement of clouds.

Unseen,
a synthesizing rhythm
moves

and gathers to
itself a world.

Clouds and water
circumscribe
my seeing.

Night and day
becoming one
eternal round.

Things happen
below the slow
movement of clouds.

A flow of crows, perhaps.

©Copyright 2003, Steve Luttrell

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