AN ISLAND NEVER CRIES
or so sang Paul Simon
in 1966
with me singing along
all alone up in my room,
punching the air
and crying
and missing Faith Lubecki
who had recently
dropped me like the proverbial
hot potato for Chris DeMezzo
who was more of a risotto—
older, smoother, more
sophisticated, and played
the electric guitar
in a high school band
with other cool kids, and who
could compete with that?
He invited Faith
to play tambourine
and sing harmony with him,
their beatific crooning faces
together at the mic
reflecting the oneness
of all things, while I
spluttered and wailed
the chorus
of my new theme song
a capella
through gritted teeth
for years after:
I am a rock
I am an island
Paul Hostovsky
THE STUMP
grass remained the only semblance of life
on this rock in the midst of the ocean
the sole tree was cut to a lonely stump
creating an unshaded resting place
for this weary traveler to meditate
penning words of wisdom or maybe fear
that this lonely rock foretold the future
and the world would eventually look like this
he sat – focused on his meditations
writing how the ladder he climbed
was made from the shards of the removed tree
how many birds had lost their home
when this majestic beauty - heavily ringed
and a testament to nature’s resilience
was destroyed for man’s greed
and the incessant need to pillage
this little island no longer possesses any village
even abandoned by the little lizards
there is no pollination, hibernation or procreation
only this sole traveler penning these thoughts
for a fleeting moment that he was inspired
because he took a solo journey away from ‘life’
to channel and record his pains on this lonely island
Linette Rabsatt
ISLAND
Stuck at home
to avoid the virus
chasing the world
at cheetah speed,
masked families
sit on their porches
and watch a child
in a fuchsia tutu,
baseball cap, and
mismatched shoes
dance alone
in the empty street
to music that blasts
from an ancient boombox
someone found
in a basement closet.
She's an island of joy
in a sea of unease,
oblivious to all
but rhythm and pitch,
her vibrant flora
blinding beneath
an unchanging sky
the hue of dust,
and she doesn't feel
the waves of woe
eroding her shores,
only the breezes
of here and now.
Susan Spaeth Cherry
IN THE TRINITY ALPS
Under the full moon
we were an island apart
from all the other dark islands
in a great white sea of cloud
and I a stranger with only
my search dog
among so many strangers
asleep in their separate tents
until daylight when
the moon would be gone –
and would the clouds
dissolve in morning air? –
and all of us searchers
begin our separate descents
down the mountain,
to find another stranger, lost.
Taylor Graham
BAR ISLAND, BAR HARBOR
At certain times of day your wheels can drive
Along the sand bar stretching to extend
From town across the bay to the island,
Before your tracks get swallowed by the tide
Where whelks cling and myopic lobsters thrive.
There you can park upon the farther shore,
Beside a sign that warns lest you ignore
The moon-conducted waters when they rise.
Consider the experience of two
Green tourists who in their expensive jeep
Parked there and went exploring, when twelve feet
Of Frenchman's Bay had gone to sea. They rued
The day they kayaked out to some far isle
And back again to lose their vehicle.
Lee Evans
19
Workshop staff.
This was my humble title
All those many years ago.
We didn’t do it for the money,
Most assuredly.
Nor a resume stop.
(Who wants to settle at “staff,” after all.
And what workshop?)
The visionary baby of one man.
One teacher.
At one school.
With a handful of student visionaries
Following him around
Leading
That first year
It was hot and buggy
Surrounded by trees
And another man’s dream
Deeply buried somewhere
In all of us
For a moment, at least.
A snapshot in time.
“No man is an island”
We dutifully sang.
Amid suffocating insecurity
And breathless hope
We clung to the longing desire
For a promontory
And someone to walk the narrow road
To find us
And never let go
“No man stands alone.”
Our tender hearts
Fervently believing with the zeal
Only possible
In youth
And memory
And the naïveté of dreams
Can your joy really be joy to me?
Your grief really be my own?
Even now, a prick of that dream
Moves to resurrect itself.
Hope still clings to that little taste
Gasping like a banked fish
Desperate with hope
Fast forward decades
When the world—
Wild-eyed with manufactured fear—
Wheeled around
Pivot to strike
Wolves with clubs
In masks
It tolls for thee.
Laurie Sitterding
DEAR JOHN DONNE
I am no island, but I live on an island
by myself, not a part of the main.
Most days I live in the surf,
letting it wash over me, carry me.
Some days I wish I was the ocean,
but I don’t think metaphors
should extend beyond the page,
so if I tell you, John,
that I live on an island
separated from the continent,
in a small town separated
from most of the island,
in a small house on a hillside
that is not part of the town
and today I am writing this poem
and feel like a small island
in the middle of my own home,
I hope you won’t take me literally
or feel sad for me.
Lianna Wright
JOHN DONNE AT THE DEPARTMENT MEETING, LEAKING OPTIMISM
We assemble, as we do,
around a glass-topped table
in an unremarkable room.
We organize our spaces
and watch the stragglers
find relief in spotting a seat
left open near their
least objectionable colleague.
We await the arrival of Agenda,
who will feign delight in being
among one’s peers and make noises
of hesitation and resignation
and other tells of discomfort,
to which one of us will respond
with a sigh of beleaguered support.
And as we nestle into the molded seat
of a wooden chair and ponder
the futility of expectations,
we realize yet again that we are here,
each and all, united only by the
begrudging acceptance of time passing,
and our invisibility.
And like a wave or random swell,
an inchoate thought emerges
in our fluttering Agenda medias res,
a near-silent muttering as unintelligible
as our collective indifference is wan,
and a "well, then, let’s begin”
sparks yawns and exhalations.
And we dare to look around into eyes
that recognize the complacency
we’ve imbued in each other and hear
our own mocking inner thought, “let’s not.”
For though we all are credentialed and ranked,
though most of us wonder how,
we each harken silently back
to crisper days of eager anticipations
of respect and published profundities,
all turned into a shared dismay.
We know there could be something good,
should we pretend to be stroking as a team,
with ears attuned toward a coxswain’s call,
yet instead we find our common desire
in longing for this time to pass,
for all time to pass,
and imagine making our way
to the parking deck and flashing
an ironic gallows smile at our fellow travelers.
Rob Friedman
SCULPTING
“I saw the angel in the marble
and I carved until I set him free.”- Michelangelo
The poem begins.
Solid block of ideas.
I carve away the excess
and the form reveals itself.
Patience, vision, unexpected discovery.
The poem existed
before I wrote the first line
Seema Singh
BLOCK PARTY
They sit laughing, talking in the semi-dark,
gathered round a fire-pit in front of the mail
island on our cul-de-sac, momentary refugees
from days spent working, pursuing pleasure,
tending grandchildren, traveling the earth.
They talk of their jobs, their children
(some still with little ones playing round us),
the wondrous places they have been,
the stores and bars they frequent, the
the lives of their friends, family, pets.
Ordinary people round a fire as it’s always
been for thousands of years, talking to affirm
their existence inside the circle of light, huddled
against the darkness, against the weather, against
the strangeness of others living beyond the fire.
I have little to say, my life no longer filled
with the swell of life, the urge to grasp at
passing fancies, my natal family lost to the ages,
my daughter caught up in the rage of living,
so I sit back and listen, as I’ve always done.
Rob Miller
BELOW FREUD’S ICEBERG LIES AN ISLAND
People in bad relationships, failed relationships
Talk of islands between them
Insurmountable, irreconcilable differences
Mounds of love-killing, heart breaking strangling pesticides
Of resentment, disappointment, hate and eventual death
People talk about imposter syndrome
But what if we are imposters- all of us
And the islands that exist are within us
Because who we are and who we present
Are drastically different or at best incomplete
What if the imposter allows our real self
To survive at the same time it is killing it
Perhaps, more than one island, there are many
Archipelagos of being - islands within each of us
Mysterious chains of depths
Preventing us from reaching parts we ourselves cannot touch
Islands both within and between
More than the unconscious- though both ever present and submerged
Portions of psyche with nowhere to land
What we see, what others see, what is
A triangle of existence - A trinity
Of the unexplainable, unseeable, unknowable
Terri J. Guttilla
DEATH'S THERAPIST
I’d ask you how you’re doing but
It’s obvious you’re under stress
Last time we got together
You complained about your work
You said you were unhappy
Felt demonized, misunderstood
Feared, vilified and hated by
The very people you exist to serve
It was not your fault, you said
When you were called too soon
Because of people’s bad behavior
Unnecessary wars, preventable disease
Your preference was to come for people
In their dotage, once they’d lived
A purpose driven, long and healthy life
And were prepared for the inevitable
I must confess there was a time
When I was one of those who hated you
Each time you took another loved one from me
I would retreat to an island deep inside my brain
But the island I thought safe was also barren
The time I spent there, empty and alone
The pain I felt was because we’re all connected
Losing them, I’d lost part of me
I realize, there may be days your job seems thankless
And at those times, you might prefer another line of work
But, by being there for people in extremity
You’re giving those within your care a precious gift
So, Death — don’t be dismayed, take heart
Though we who see it come, may fear the dark
Night follows day — this is the arrow’s arc
Frank Kelly
TOO MANY TREES!
John Donne famously told us that
no man is an island, pointing to
our interdependency; we all rely on others,
perhaps even to the extent that the human race is one
huge entity, consisting of over eight billion
moving parts, all interlinked in ways
we have yet to comprehend.
But—sorry John!—I do sometimes feel like an island!
Very few have stepped onto my sandy shores.
Almost no one has made it off the beach.
And my interior is a rich, diverse rainforest,
explored by no one except myself.
Even my attempts to describe it to others
soon run into semantic and linguistic limitations
that are outside of my control.
Who but I could hope to follow
the tangled roots of thought and concept
snaking their way through the dark,
rich earth of my subconscious mind,
especially when the mesh of mycelium
makes connections I could never predict;
joins dots in ways I'd never consciously spot;
inspires insights from a higher, deeper place,
far beyond the limitations of my egoic self?
Then there are the figs and the palms and
the eucalyptus that soar majestically skywards,
seeking the Light of Truth.
I have climbed part way up a
tiny proportion of these; I'd need
a hundred lifetimes to explore them all,
yet I appear to have only one—
Morrison, another of the Greats, told us,
no one here gets out alive.
What happens to 'my' island when I die?
I'd like to think it would gradually sink back
into the surrounding Ocean of Cosmic Consciousness,
reabsorbed into The All, perhaps
to re-emerge at some other time,
in some other Divine Spark, someone
who may climb more of those trees than
I ever expect to manage.
Robert Best
