New Poetry
Two new chapbooks of poetry by Karen
Lynn Williams published by graduate students at Chatham University
publishing class.
Crowns of Silver a chapbook of nature and travel poetry. And
Voices Rise and Fall, Poems of Haiti.
Here are some samples:
Chadec Flames
Drying in the shimmer
Of a heat mirage day
Ribboned rinds of grapefruit
dangle from the candlab hedge twisted
streamers swirl yellow and white
like underskirts of ra-ra dancers
in the street
at night, the peels tossed
into embers of cook fires
hiss and spark
whisper “belle sent”
flirt with the smolder
of sweat and trash and death
suffocating smoke dances compa
in a shaft of moonlight
undulates in partner with
the flirtatious perfumed illusion,
a cruel tease.
Deepening of Autumn
come swift or slow
her hues do not fade gently
like the red in my son’s cheeks
after an autumn run,
instead; spark like dying
embers in the bellow’s breath
of an October evening’s breeze
together he and I watch
the slanting sunlight
sigh through trees
turn gray to Cape Cod blue
for one brief
moment fades
into night.
He was birthed in October
when the deep purple
of a last hollyhock
and the blood red
of one final nasturtium still
graced the garden
perennials curl back to
earth, deep escape
the fingers of frost,
while annuals shrivel
and end with the season.
Ripe for learning
his jacket unzipped to the cold
he kicks at fallen leaves
crunch beneath his feet
the sound of joy
his breath billows
white with heat,
leaving as natural
as season’s change,
only Spring’s return is sure.
Autumn deep with good-bye
takes him
steeped in brilliant youth.
|