“Wooden House” Image courtesy of Dariusz Klimczak.
(See also “Leaf Music” by Sudha Balagopal.)

~Upon seeing a video of a man in North Carolina firing his rifle
into a sign asking citizens to Vote Against NC Amendment One.

There are oaks that remember
what we would forget–the burn of the rope,
how a body takes on more weight
the moment it breathes its last, how
the earth below shoeless feet grows
hungry for the slaughtered. There are rooms
where paint has been rolled over
blood, where the body’s salt has been
vacuumed into bags of dust, where the veneer
of a nightstand still bears the imprint
of a living hand’s last message. Ghosts
of children and men and women hang
from fences, linger in the corners
of dorm rooms, of courtrooms, of churches.
This is how we deal with it around here, he said,
after emptying his gun into a plea for equality, and some people
were shocked by his quivering pride. I will try
not to think of him when I stand in a room
in DC and vow to continue to love the man
I have loved for 16 years. I will try not to remember
that 17 years ago, a friend of mine opened his door
to a cry for help from the other side, only to be robbed
then stabbed to death with his own kitchen knives
because the thief felt threatened that my friend–
while begging for his life–revealed that he was gay.
I will even try not to think of my grandfather
who cannot forgive me for loving the man
who held me steady as I purchased the dress my grandmother
was to be buried in. I will try not to think of the memory
of these oaks, of those fences, of some rooms. I will say I will
and mean carry on loving you until death. I will
think of the dorm room where we first made love,
I will think of the fence around our house
and its roses that change color in the heat. I will
think of the Carolina oak who might remember
the night we kissed in the first bands of rain
from a hurricane just making landfall.

Daniel Nathan Terry, a former landscaper and horticulturist, is the author of Capturing the Dead (NFSPS 2008), which won The Stevens Prize, and a chapbook, Days of Dark Miracles (Seven Kitchens Press 2011). His second full-length book, Waxwings, was released by Lethe Press in July of 2012. His poetry has appeared, or is forthcoming, in many journals and anthologies, including New South, Poet Lore, Chautauqua, and Collective Brightness. He teaches English at the University of North Carolina Wilmington.

Read our interview with Daniel here.

“Peace,” image courtesy of Dariusz Klimczak

Ants do what ants do: hive
in creases and cracks, build
villages in my garden wall, and frenzy
through daily routine in what looks to me
as rushing to and fro for no
discernible cause—from where I stand,
at least, just now alert
to this nation’s invasion into my own
sovereign soils.
A bugle
wails its alarm, calling me to march
to the garden shed, survey the stores
—powders, sprays, bombs—
arm myself against this foreign assault.

In the blast of afternoon heat, the ants
zigzag from chore to chore, absorbed
in each career, lofting bits of leaf and bark,
grains of sand.  The queen’s orders relayed—we think—
in chemical codes of one’s antennae wiped
across another’s.  Do they suspect me?
Do they see me?  How can they comprehend
the impending doom
raining down
from my shaker of Bug-B-Gone,
guaranteed to rid any garden and lawn
of creatures unwanted.  The napalm
burns into their polished uniform hides.
Some run, some collapse, some writhe.
I bulldoze their bunker with my shoe,
over-ending stones beneath which lie

nurseries of the unborn, a next generation
assigned to care and feed the future hive, till
my shadow looms overhead,
and I’ve put an end to all of that.  Which is natural,
isn’t it?  Ants do what ants do.
My species too.

Lowell Jaeger founded Many Voices Press and compiled Poems Across the Big Sky, an anthology of Montana poets, and New Poets of the American West. His third collection of poems, Suddenly Out of a Long Sleep (Arctos Press) was published in 2009 and was a finalist for the Paterson Award. His fourth collection, WE, (Main Street Rag) was published in 2010. He received fellowships from the NEA and the Montana Arts Council and won the Grolier Poetry Peace Prize. Jaeger was awarded the Montana Governor’s Humanities Award for his work in promoting thoughtful civic discourse.

Read an interview with Lowell here.

“Sandmachine” Image courtesy of Dariusz Klimczak

They’d carved
(this army of ants)
in the gravel . . .
an expressway!

My son and I stood watching
constant traffic.
Frenzied comings
and goings.

Aztecs.  Egyptians.
Giant blocks heaved
shoulder to shoulder,
bits of leaf and bark.

The hive mounding,
grain by grain
proudly skyward.
Whatever their plan

our lunchtime ended.
My son in the backhoe
and I with my spade
ripped the earth

beneath them.  Another
civilization lost.  Buried.
We laid a hundred
yards of crushed-rock

driveway that afternoon.
All the while, glancing
over our shoulders.
Feeling small.

Lowell Jaeger founded Many Voices Press and compiled Poems Across the Big Sky, an anthology of Montana poets, and New Poets of the American West. His third collection of poems, Suddenly Out of a Long Sleep (Arctos Press) was published in 2009 and was a finalist for the Paterson Award. His fourth collection, WE, (Main Street Rag) was published in 2010. He received fellowships from the NEA and the Montana Arts Council and won the Grolier Poetry Peace Prize. Jaeger was awarded the Montana Governor’s Humanities Award for his work in promoting thoughtful civic discourse.

Read an interview with Lowell here.

“On the Road” Image courtesy of Dariusz Klimczak

It comes right down to this. Just one more hit
and he will be cured of the need
for this frenzy in the dark, this scrounging:
things he can pawn, lies he can tell.
She will know then; all will be revealed.
Something will save him from the sharp,
tight hankering in his brain, this net
he’s cast around the world: the feel
of pressing the glass mouth full, sucking
and the sense that he is everything
in that one split second rush.
Now he is Hercules eternally is he not.
So surely this time that will be it.

O surely this time that will be it.
Now he is Hercules eternally is he not?
In that one split second rush there
is the sense that he is everything, sucking,
pressing the glass mouth full, the feel
he’s been cast around the world, a net
tight & hankering in his brain.
Something will save him from the sharp She
who will know then; all will be revealed –
those things he’s pawned, the lies he can tell.
All for this frenzy in the dark, this scrounging
to be cured of the need.
It comes right down to this. Just one more hit.

Catherine Owen has published nine collections of poetry and one of prose. Her work has been translated and has appeared in journals in NA, Europe and Australia. Her website is www.catherineowen.org.

Read our interview with Catherine here.

WE
Poems by Lowell Jaeger
Main Street Rag, 2010

WE is a glimpse of the extraordinary, hidden within seemingly mundane everyday lives, and Lowell Jaeger gives us beautifully constructed portraits of the people you may not notice rushing to catch your bus or pushing past on a street when late for an appointment.

The titles alone reveal the objects of his scrutiny: “regular guy,” “stroke survivor,” “the wives,” ”dad,” and “door to door jesus.”

But what Jaeger gives his reader is something that transcends any idea of a lofty introspection. It’s quite the opposite. Jaeger solidifies this idea of exploring the seemingly simple and takes us deep into where these people live, how they work, and who they might be in a way that creates connections to us all.

In “If They Blow,’ the reader is dropped into the middle of a conversation as if we were eavesdropping in a crowded room full of strangers:

If They Blow

“…run for shelter, Dad said.
Means Krushchev’s launched his warheads.
I’d asked: Why the yellow horns on a tower
atop the grandstand’s roof? (31)

In “we all know trouble when we see it” the dialogue is realistic and so regionally dense that I was brought back to sitting in a diner as a kid fascinated by the chatter of the adults around me; a place of no secrets where verbal clues alone become the vehicle to understanding:

“Birdie snags the waitress to question
this or that about the bill. Silly,
but I hold my breath to listen…” (81)

“every mother” gives us the gruffness of the man, the tirelessness of the woman and the obliviousness of the children where a mere car breakdown can create a whole new level of frustration in an already exhausted day:

“Try it again, the man shouts
like he’s peeved at her
when his machine won’t go.
He adds a string of curses,
drops his wrench, and she’s on the spot
with a wad of Kleenex
to nurse torn knuckles.” (19-20)

Lowell Jaeger’s WE is a collection of portraits that give us an inside view of people at their everyday tasks, errands, and jobs, but these characters become so much more than that by the end of the book. This is a contemporary view of who we are, where we come from, and where so many of us really live. WE is a beautifully crafted poetry collection with intimate language, densely sketched /images, and as realistic a viewpoint as any observer could discover. I have become a fan.