A lovely grouping of poems. good luck to all!

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I Saved Mandela Last Night


Like a king on his throne,
he sat bored out of his mind. One after another.
Each celebrity and person of importance
went up,
singing
his praises.

Then. I,
went up.
Unrecognizable to the room.
A foreigner to pretense.
Just the man on the street.
A woman I am but
a man as there were
no frills or fragrance or flowers flowing through me.
I might as well have been dressed in sack clothing.
I grabbed that mike.
His heart cheered
and Mandela sat up.

Mischief on his smile, he teased
me.
Was it because I
dared believe
me great enough to address him in the midst of these as I was?
I the man on the street woke him up with my presence
In my sack clothing
more than great,
The famous
as common people
Till those beautiful daughters
ushered him away
When he wanted to stay longer and tease
me.
I woke up.
Liberated from chains that constrain me.
I wake up.

Realising my own light
is as powerful as I will dare
shine it.
as my light saved him
from self-absorbed celebrities
who were showing off that even they
had spoken to Mandela.


--Siki Dlanga


~~~~


Santa, Santa, Santa


Before we leave, my father intones
towns with In and Out Burgers:
Buellton, Santa Maria, Paso Robles,
like listing missions for bygone travelers.
We hit El Camino Real, the royal road,
its rusty bells ringing Santa, Santa, Santa.
Santa Rosa Island with a fog lace collar.
Snowy egret aloft, legs stretched behind.
Inland we ride, through San Marcos Pass.
Hawk on a line. Hawk on a post.
Hawk on the crux of a crucified grape vine.
San Luis Obispo’s Madonna Inn,
where guests drink pink martinis,
eat pink cake with pink shakes.
Buzzard spirals in the sky.
Oak and sage, interloper eucalyptus.
Dry river beds. Crows on dead citrus trees.
Llamas laconically stretch their necks.
Black cattle seated sedately like library lions,
goats, roan horses and ponies.
Rusted train tracks. Santa Margarita.
San Anselmo, San Miguel, San Juan Bautista.
Rolling hills ribboned and posted.
Road to Mariposa Reina, the Butterfly Queen.
Arroyo Grande, Pismo Grande. Pismo Beach,
home of giant clams. Yellow-flowered iceplant,
ubiquitous oxalis. Little lemon trees.
Stooping brown-skinned laborers,
trailer parks, their tiny yards beautiful,
leafblowers busy borrowed from work.
Sand-colored tract housing, red-tiled roofs,
round about planted with palms.
Higuera, “fig tree,” Los Osos, “The Bears,” Prado, “Meadow,”
that once were here and are here no longer.
Hometown Buffet, Margie’s Diner, IHOP, Macdonald’s,
In & Out Burgers like rosary beads.
This is my own, my native land. Santa Maria,
pray for us now and in the hour of our lunch.


--Jan Steckel


~~~~


AND THE KNIFE SAYS


Sister, leave this house. Go into the market and say what is your name.
Speak with the texts that uncover you

Enthrall you. Do-gooder you and gutter you. The you that cuts the shank
Deeply. In your glove you’ll keep a single coin. In case there’s

Gold toothes underneath those dark mustaches. But no, not those gloves.
They are made of bladders. You’ll need rainproof

Something ribbed for that. You’ll need stuffing your hatbox
A semi-transparent apron sway. Your mother’s lacy caul

So you can still call out the deep waters. A plastic sheet
To catch the drippings.


--Tara McDaniel


~~~~


Jaybirds Feeding on Robins


They are at it again. Momma
robin tears through the trees to save
what’s left of her babies. One lies
twitching on the ground, its eye socket
emptied by a jay. I can’t bury it
until it’s dead, and I can’t kill it,
so I sit by it
beneath the screaming nest in the sugar maple
as rain drops sizzle through hot leaves.

It’s June, and it’s supposed to be like this,
daylong heat frying up evening
thunderstorms. In the west, new cumulonimbus
stretch their gargoyle heads, growl long and low.
If it were dark, I could see lightning
ricochet from cloud to cloud. Thunderheads,
Daddy called them.

Four summers ago, a palm reader
told me that a man I love
is slipping away,
a dandelion letting go of its seed,
the seed grasping the stalk in the west wind.

Daddy was afraid of leaving
for anywhere not close to home.
He always wanted to swim
in the ocean, but I went first,
came back thanking him
for my life. Last time I dragged
myself home from the white edges of Georgia,
past the palm-reader’s house just outside
of town, past the lily-
pad-covered swamps, past tired cattails
fuzzing out seeds,
he’d bought a van, “Next year
we all can go, and you can drive.”

The reader said that I pass many
but travel alone because
I’m afraid of loss, of being left.
I closed my hand to this fool before she took
any more of my money
or my palm.

The twitching stops. The rain runs
down my face, tugs free of my chin.
The earth is dry
beneath the bird. I triangle-
fold it into one of his old hankies,
lift a corner just before the earth goes in.
I want to be sure.

The wedge of its beak is cold,
arrowed like the sharks’ teeth
I found on San Fernandina beach.
He’ll be dead four years this August.
Above me, in a high fork
of the sugar maple he planted
twenty-six years ago,
the screaming has stopped.

Three years ago, we sold the van.
He’d parked it in the sugar maple’s shadow,
the grass pale and stiff when we moved it.
Today I leave for Georgia.

In the west, the thunderheads shake
out their dark fur; the wind rakes
rain and leaves from the trees;
years of roots and worms and earth
steam from the ground. I pat it down, make a cross
with rocks like we did when I was four.
“Why do jays do that?” I asked.
“It’s their nature,” he said.

All rain runs to the ocean.
I still taste salt
in the back of my throat.
I stand, drag my muddy hands across my jeans;
if I hurry, the storm will be behind me as I drive.

--Trish Lindsey Jaggers


~~~~

BLUR

Her beautiful raggedy doll
With one gentle blue plastic eye
With fingers you can bite
Smelling like a doll does
Feeling like a favorite sheet

She cupped it close to her cheek
Rolled over it to the other side
Dolly now in her outstretched hand
She looked at it and stared at it

And then it began to blur
Like everything else
When you look too hard
And you look too close
It begins to blur

--Nita Pavitran