Amber Smithers, Bea Garth, and Shasta Hatter

Now that I've transferred my blog-zine files from my old computer to my brand new one, I am going to begin posting poems from the fall/winter/spring contest!

I'll start with a powerful poem that Amber Smithers sent me a while back.

He Doesn’t Hit You But 

He doesn’t hit you but before you started dating he said you looked ugly with chipped nails and acne. 

He doesn’t hit you but he tells you that you look ugly.

He doesn’t hit you but he tells you you look beautiful with a lot of make up on.

He doesn’t hit you but you start wearing makeup every time you FaceTime him.

He doesn’t hit you but makes you feel bad for not calling him when he asked. 

He doesn’t hit you but he tells you you would look better if you gained weight, that he likes girls who look like your best friend. 

He doesn’t hit you but he tells you he thinks stretch marks and sagging boobies are ugly, so you hide your body when he asks you to undress. 

He doesn’t hit you but he tells you about him beating a woman up before.

He doesn’t hit you but he makes you feel like he should. 

He doesn’t hit you but he tells you you are worthless.

He doesn’t hit you but he said why would someone like me want someone like you.

He doesn’t hit you but he says he wants to beat the shit out of you. 

He doesn’t hit you but he threatens to come to your house and pull you by your hair and make you tell everyone that he wasn’t your boyfriend.  

He doesn’t hit you but he tried to talk to me a week after we broke up.

He doesn’t hit you but maybe if he did people would have believed he said this to me. 

He doesn’t hit you but for 2 years I looked over my shoulder thinking he would make good on his threat.

He doesn’t hit you but I had a nightmare that he found my new address and beat the shit out of me. 

He doesn’t hit you but he did hurt you.

I think that Bea Garth's "Transfixed" creates a good transition.  At any rate, it is a very timely poem.

TRANSFIXED

We are deer

looking up

at the headlights,

our movements caught in a frieze

the shapes of our bodies

and the woods around us

etched in the probing light.

by Bea Garth

Bea's other poems are non-driving poems set in the Pacific Northwest.

6:30 AM: RIDING THE BUS

(Seattle)

My trench-coat glistens with spattered drops of rain

as I settle into my seat next to a small woman

who fingers her silver embroidered ring

while she chatters Vietnamese.

At the next stop everyone crinkles their eyes

and nods and shakes their heads at a gray haired man

who explains he missed his stop thinking of his girlfriend.

The young man in front of me gets up yet hesitates to leave

my field of vision suddenly encompassed by his dark, curly hair

raindrops still clinging to the ends of the strands like crystals on a chandelier.

A small brown haired girl in a yellow vinyl coat

smiles slightly at the push as bodies jostle,

the aisles boggled with legs and bedraggled, dank, dripping clothes.

I stare outside at the darkening gray sky and remember

swimming in San Carlos Bay near Guaymas, Mexico

amongst the blue and yellow striped fish, reveling in the clear, warm water

while avoiding the sharp out-crops and my suppressed terror

when an eel swam next to me.

I close my coat tighter and fix my scarf

then raise my hand to pull the cord: its my stop

and the rain is falling like liquid beads

bouncing on the sidewalk. 

by Bea Garth

STREET SCENE

You say you are from Alberta

stranded somehow—but I don’t smoke

and hardly have the change to get home

still I think I’d like to take a picture if I could—

black straight hair matted across your wide brown face,

frank black browed eyes molded with a slight fold—

a mental click as I admire you putting it on the line

panhandling without a scarf or hat

while parents herd their children in soft grey wool caps

red mittens, pink and blue picture books

—like Mother Goose laying the Golden Egg—

the contrasts make me a bit crazy this time of year

and I would like to talk with you

but it’s getting damn cold

and I run, ears red, and catch the wrong bus.

by Bea Garth

WALKING UP MT. PISGAH

We climbed nearly to the top

passing the deep purple/blue iris

and the oak sprouting

tight shiny yellow/green leaves

amongst their hair moss covered limbs.

A tangled hedge of poison oak

and blackberries hid us from the path

as we lay upon the open grass

and held each other, feeling the late

spring sun drench our bodies

and open us up as if we were blossoms.

When dusk came I walked sideways 

beside you on that last steep slope

coming down, and breathed deeply—

smelling the fresh air

thinking of the wild iris

and the pale green yarrow

rubbing our socks as we kissed. 

by Bea Garth

WORDS

I walk on gritty snow stained streets

and wonder at the drone of an old woman

rocking back and forth on an iron grate,

warm air slightly billowing her thin gray coat,

belongings flanking her feet,

her eyes rolled back in a constant flicker

while she mutters for days, weeks,

words no one can fathom.

by Bea Garth

TO DONALD

I sit beside a young man at the bus stop.

His slanted eyes, ash-blond hair,

legs folded lotus fashion

make me think of you. He is eating

a filled donut, enjoying each morsel

with rocking sighs, ducking his head and body

in rhythmic motion. I want to say hello

and have him declare “You my frien’!”

elbows in, clenched hands out—beaming.

Instead I catch myself

remembering that dream I had

when I learned you would have to wait

several years before you could go to school,

and that if you learned to read at all

it would be like turning a quail 

into an eagle. You had become trapped

in a house spinning high up in the air,

I woke up screaming: “You can’t fly!”

—afraid the house would come crashing—

and ran to Mom and Dad’s bedside,

my first and only time.

I turn to look at the young man

next to me. His thick, stubbed fingers

are twisted around the clasps

of his lunch pail, eyes concentrated

while he holds his breath then sighs.

Soon, we both stand up, hearing

the electric click of the approaching bus.

Mom says sometimes you miss your bus,

and then walk back and forth, pacing

for several hours until either she or Dad 

happen to drive down through their orchard 

and out onto the road, or you get hungry

for a mustard sandwich and trudge back up

the street to Grandma’s.

I remember the first word you said:

you were entranced by Grandpa’s gilt-edged

mirror and called it “Beautiful,” leaves

and grapes twining copiously in an elongated

oval. This, despite the high arch

to your palate, the near-sightedness

of your eyes. Yet your drawings are frenzied

scribblings, black on black on white. 

Mom has always worried a little

about the straight line

running across my left palm—it looks

just like yours. Me? I wish I had 

your ability to tell Dad “No way!”

while the rest of us lie sucked,

mummified like small, winged insects

caught in his arachnoidal tracery.

When I ask you questions,

you like to double-up your arms, smile,

then say: “Why naturally!” “Consequently,”

“Maybe,” or “But, of course!”

—making Mom and Dad wonder why

we hug each other, laugh and cry

when they can never make you budge:

Dad weaving chaos like thick, misshapen

sweaters; Mom ruling lawyer-like,

unable to interpret the smallest smile.

Grandpa liked to call you “Big Boy”

and take you out on Sunday drives.

Sometimes I’d join you in his

1942 Buick, grey upholstery

looking like a felt hat, the plastic knobs

shining like yellowed ivory,

the steering wheel covered with leather.

We’d pretend we were in a high-class tank

and shoot the passing strangers.

At home, I’d read you and our younger brother

The Pied Piper of Hamelin

or Jungle Jim, though you seemed to prefer

the free-for-all of The Three Stooges.

Your worst epithet was “You’re stupid!”

and then you’d pound your head like Larry

and start to wrestle (it took me years

before my ex-husband got me to stop kicking 

his shins as an aside). But most

of the time we’d share things,

like  crackers spread with peanut butter,

or forts where I’d stand lookout

while you burned small, clean holes

on black Alka Seltzer advertisements in Readers Digest,

the sun’s rays narrowing

through your magnifying glass.

I can just about see you

getting off the bus

after a day at the workshop, happy,

having kissed your girlfriend.

You walk past Grandma’s iris bed,

the green leaves looking like swords,

the blooms translucent and brittle as ancient papyri;

past the prune trees, some bent and fallen,

encircled by poison oak sprouting flame-licked leaves,

and up the steep, hairpin driveway

where Dad turned a road-grader on its side.

The young man has gotten in ahead of me,

sits on  the seat behind the bus-driver,

his short wide head bent down,

his fingers forming parenthesis.

Soon he is joined by two others;

the air fills with thick, lisped words,

grunts, laughter while the young men

jostle each other from side to side. 

by Bea Garth

Bio: Bea Garth’s honest approach to sensuality mixes a sublime earthiness with a love of nature through her figurative painting, ceramic sculpture and poetry. She has decades of experience organizing and hosting poetry and art events both in Oregon and California. She has been editing Eos: The Creative Context since 2008, an online progressive e-zine devoted to poetry, visual art and social, political, metaphysical and health commentary. Newly married, Bea has recently moved to Vancouver, WA where she is now often found painting in her studio or editing in the office while her husband works on clean technology articles or thinks of a new musical composition. She has previously had poems and artwork published in a variety of small press magazines including Alchemy, Poetic Space, Denali, Coyote’s Dance, The Other Paper, The Song Is, Writing For Our Lives, Caesura, Fresh Hot Bread, Sparring With Beatnik Ghosts, DMQ Review (featured artist) and the poetry anthologies Elegant Stew, Women’s Dreams/Women’s Visions and Song of Los Gatos. Examples of her work can be found at https://bgarthart.com/ .  Feel free to submit work for her e-zine at http://eosthecreativecontext.com

Northwest poet Shasta Hatter has also entered the non-driving contest with a poem and a haiku.

Commuting Home

By Shasta Hatter

Rattling through the night

Silent, separate, alone.

A young woman swears loudly

At her wireless companion.

No one reacts to this,

It is too common for notice.

The boys in oversized jeans

Slouch on the upper deck 

And glare out at no one.

Laughing babies roll on and off

Accompanied by unseen mothers.

A woman calls out to someone boarding the train.

Laughing, they greet each other.

They always laugh when they greet each other.

They speak of men, politics, children.

Today they decide to boycott diamonds,

And we all smile at our sudden wealth.

First published in Rose City Review, Dec, 2015.

Morning Commute

crow caws sound over
clatter of train's arrival
we both have to fly

Shasta Hatter is returning to poetry after an eighteen year absence.
 In 1998, she started taking a medication that let
her function but seemed to strip away her poetry. In May, 2016 she 
decided to write a haiku every day for a month. This discipline gave her
back her poetry. Recently, she has been published in Setting Forth, 
Haiku Journal, and Eos:The Creative Context..

Last night my husband and I went to Reginald Cyntje's concert in Gaithersburg, so I will post a few of his videos from YouTube.  I'll start with a live version of his "Atonement."  Allyn Johnson is the pianist.  Christie Dashiell is the singer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pKvn-NRz2Tk

A more stripped down version of "Daybreak" was part of the encore in Gaithersburg:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-cufKQxIiLM&list=PLppekGc6bVq4dAwX1GluoeZ-cwq7HIS8s

The next song is "Yellow" live at Twins: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcRXxWissow

I have to include this video of Cyntje at Bohemian Caverns:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lVvYYXZY-IE

I will finish with "Orange," which includes his current pianist Hope Udobi: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wYMzSuYs4Y0