I Met with Mars and Athena, a poem by Eve Fisher

 

Eve Fisher

I met with Mars and Athena
Just the other day
Just because the desire for justice
Leaves us bare
In a cold barren field
As if, really, as if
God has memory
To tally a score
I told them to go home
And change their names
It's late but not too late
There are those who are yearning
With visions of new growth
In a hot wasteland burning
God three folds the envelope of war
Athena stared me in my eyes
Mars looked away
But he held out his hand to me
I took it
And he pressed mine to his forehead
I felt his fever grow cold in three breaths
Athena never broke her gaze
This is how it started
She wanted me to be the first to look away
But I won't this time
And I wouldn't then
I'll go back to the beginning
Here I am
To have a story
She must have memory
And if she does
She's not a God
In the silence is something
Like a new day

Marche into March with Spring in Your Step, poem by Helette Gagnon

 

Helette Gagnon, Montreal

March, fighting back winter, litters and swamps
the terrain—“rain washes away promises.”

It helps to see green not the cold pink aura of Mars.
Large spruces sing again—birds as always hidden.

Dead of winter seems as far away as Mars. White
disappears replaced by grey-brown mud and puddles.

It came early unsure of itself bearing a sullen sun—
enough for a god to brandish his spear and condemn 

Global warming every Tuesday ‘till doomsday. Can’t
let the precious crops fail with testy weather.

This morning snow is back with a vengeance—
inch by inch suffocating the tired sprouts.

Dormant Royals won’t help us nor will dead planets
alone, having caused the eminent demise of another. 

I hear his statues hurling insults in the polluted
atmosphere—scrolls of painful mischief and bewares.

Humans blare with the flare of gods & goddesses—
torrents of guff and belligerent tantrums.

We made the list of extinct species several befores.
Darkness is coming with a fine wind of dust.

Consequence? We aspire for a spring transformed
into old springs—less flooding, while the mountains

Disgorge, the rivers surge.  In mighty skies, as in
desperation, downpours participate.

We are not going back. Futurists see red hazes over
cities—when bleakness overwhelms the earth

War is not far behind.

Steve Cahill's No Disclaimer

Steve Cahill at Whirligig in St. Johnsbury, autumn 2023
 [photo by Scott Norman Rosenthal]


NO DISCLAIMERS

One of the rules of the Barton poets is to make no disclaimers no tedious explanations, no long-winded stories of the origins of the poem, its provenance and lineage, its conception and conceits, because all of that prefacing chatter is a thinly disguised defense. Make no self deprecating little asides about form being clever Or about managing to sneak in a line that ended with forever No, let’s have none of that. Let’s just stand up and shut up and read the poem aloud. Let it stand on its own merits—use words with weight and gravitas, heavy words like Eternity and Infinity plugged in along the way so they will add substance to the poem. As for writing to a prompt—yes, yes, we have them—the one for today is ‘Eternity’ but we are not required to write about them so can go down any rabbit hole we like which makes a loosey-goosey escape clause out of the poetry business and we can write about anything we want. Or nothing. Which turns out to be the case here. You will remember that I made no disclaimers and embedded the prompt, Eternity, carefully in line three of verse three and so have more than fulfilled any obligations to the poetry group and their rules making me free to go off and write whatever the hell I please: so here’s a haiku all about eternity which lasts forever Which, if true, means that something exists that has no beginning and, for that matter, has nothing at the other end either so where did it come from? Like who made it? And why? Who holds the patent? And is there any possible way to prove that something can be endless? I thought not. So now I’m left with the task of nailing down a poem that began with no disclaimers or defense and I plan to leave it the same way because it’s a poem about finding a destination that does not exist and everything I nail down comes loose at the other end but there isn’t one.