Poet's Corner: A Tuesday evening in Edgartown
By Rachel Alpert
A Tuesday evening in Edgartown
Six chimes elude from the Old Whaling Church bells
sonorously ringing in the evening overture.
A guitarist crescendos on the Harbor View packed porch,
each delicato pick and strum vibrates my...
Poet's Corner: Fair Wind
Fair Wind
By Steve Ewing
With hiked up trou
a big smiling grin
A smooth amblin gait
his brown weathered skin
Hailin’ from Cuttyhunk
the last of the chain
Grew up on seaweed
pure salt in his veins
Good with a boat
sure in a...
Poet's Corner
Roots and Vines
By Linda Bergeron Freedman
Over the ocean they come by boat
Some with jackets, some with coats
They bike and hike and plan their day
To forget their troubles far away
The berries plum and berries blue
Are...
Poetry Corner: Closing Time
Last night, smoke,
steak and wine.
Up late — endless jokes
about right women
and wrong women
This morning it's clear
and cold. You cover
the pontoon boat
while I watch warblers
blow away over the channel
like yellow leaves
In my hand, any one
of...
Poets corner: Ocean Love
By Robert MacLean
We walk in a daze of unconscious assumptions
Oblivious of Divinity, assured of some whiteblack doom.
We walk in projections, in mazes of our own making
Separate from knowing our ocean origins —
Those first miracle...
Poet's Corner
August Sounds
A best thing about summer
is having the windows open,
hearing the outside in every room,
breezes lightly wafting
or humidity heavily settling.
Everything feels connected;
birds, stars, crickets, and moon
Just when I’ve grown accustomed to the
sounds, no longer...
The Poet's Corner: The Last Sail
As the sun shined through
She squinted her eyes
And waves came crashing
As they said their goodbyes
He boarded Blue Heaven
Up went the sails
They exited the harbor
On came the gales
Two days and three nights
The heavens did pour
Two...
A Gay Head Wedding
By Mark Foster
No matter what the wind and weather
At the wedding of the waters
Sea and Sound they merge together.
Since time immemorial, daughter,
Girls and boys have gone together
Out into the world’s wide pasture
With no thought...
For All the Tides That Rise Above You
By Karen Skidmore
I awoke to the echoes of a faded dream,
An ecstasy that only my mind could scheme;
Secretly wishing that it would mean
An end to my crazy sorrow.
And I ache as memories surround...
Mechanical Failure
By John Eisner
if you can leave yourself
just for a moment
you will see them trotting
thru glass held corridors
they pull black bags on wheels
moving only forward
away from longing towards regret
strangers to each other
they laugh at misunderstood...
Cocktail Party
I talked to an artist considered iconic
Chatted with a friend who is always ironic
Laughed a lot with a swarthy beauty
Engaged in gossip, as if by duty
Sipped a tall vodka laced with tonic
Talked politics and...
Poet’s Corner: Appointments
By Barbara Peckham
When we were young we’d go for weeks
And nary a doctor we’d see.
But now that our senior years have arrived
Seems that hardly a moment is free.
Appointments accumulate day after day —
It’s hard...
Sign of Spring
By George Balco
The creature stretches from his long, long nap,
And smells the trees just oozing their sap.
He sharpens his claws and practices his leap,
So take care, you voles and birds. Do not peep.
The grass...
Last Frost
The last frost of winter occurred last night
although it is spring now.
The warm dampness of yesterday,
which felt like Florida air blown north,
in the clear moonlit night
turned to crystal and rime ice,
coating every blade of...
Spring
wind whooshes and rattles
up metal vents
through walls
crawl spaces
halting silence
hovers
just above my head
air thick around me
back to my chimes
sound before sun
shimmer before day
vibration before light
still
in the momentum of Spring
Valerie Sonnenthal joined the Cleaveland House Poets...
Photo of a Boy with a Football
By John Eisner
To this moment’s me
attached observer
as close to my end as
this boy is to my beginning,
the scene seems staged
more custom than passion
on this early spring park visit
the sun offering no warmth bequeaths
only a...
Ode to Longboarding
By Landen Osborn Stromsoe
I grab my board
Drop it on the ground
I give a push
I'm on my way down
Going down a hill
Collecting speed
I feel the grip lock in my feet
My grip is like sandpaper, it's...
Aunt Ethel’s
By Jo Scotford Rice
It seemed we were all children of that house
and it was a place to go home.
It held the sacred attic
full of our ancestral past.
The beds were birthplaces,
womb-homes to crawl back into,
where...