October 2016

Welcome to the October issue of the Dragonfly Press Ezine! This month, we have:
“YOU DON’T READ A POEM TO FIND OUT HOW YOU GET TO TWENTY-FOURTH STREET.” by Calder Lowe (Poem)
“STAIRS” by Stacy McKenney Norr (Photo)

 

“YOU DON’T READ A POEM TO FIND OUT HOW
YOU GET TO TWENTY-FOURTH STREET.”

(a quote from a Mark Strand interview)

This poem will not give directions to 24th Street
or to a saloon in a Gold Rush town. If you require
those use MapQuest, a divining rod, or entrails of an ox.
This poem will force you to observe a lab rat embryo
suspended in a glass jar, a child’s toe stolen by a bogus
Santa alluded to by a host in an SNL skit, to hear
strains of a Miley Cyrus song inspired by her friend’s
cat clawing its way into her dreams.

As if in a trance, follow the trail to a conversation
with a famed poet where he waxes rhapsodic about
his love for Rhode Island Reds and other poultry faves.
Dropkick your psyche into a vat of caramel. Let your pores
absorb its sticky sweetness. Remember, though. This is no
cheap carousel ride, no rinse cycle in a Jersey laundromat,
no astronomer’s search for Alnitak, Alnilam and Mintaka

in a night sky. You are a nomad. Face it. Surrender
to Zanzibar sands, camel rides at dusk, risky forays into
Gotham’s alleys, firing practice at a country club in Dubai.
The rivers of the Ganges, the Euphrates, the Everglades
Swamplands leave a stench on your designer jacket
and glow-in-the dark tennis shoes. Find a traffic light
in Chicago. Toss a coin and choose right or left.

Wherever you land will be your new home. Put mistletoe
in the doorway, a wreath of lavender on the mantel,
and pitch the cell phone into the fireplace. You need
no direction for the former you, no longer exists. You
are a factory’s emissions, crusted mozzarella bubbling
atop a deep dish pie in a pizza parlor, wisps of perfume
from a whore’s boudoir, a cherry tree readied for cutting

by a boyish George Washington who cannot tell a lie lest
his nose grow as long as Pinocchio’s. Grab a pastrami on rye
and a corn dog on a stick. It’s time to search for a new family
of terriers and gypsy kings. Suburbia is a long forgotten blip
on the soul’s odometer. Mind the breeze shimmying through
the aspen, the patterns on a peacock’s tail, the scent of lilacs
under snow and the saltiness of your freshly shaken margarita.

When the cock crows thrice, grab a tunic and abandon
your tool box filled with nails in a dumpster in Vallejo.
This is a resurrection, not a crucifixion. Time to grow up,
grow a pair, sprout some wings, give up wine in a box,
sing a cappella to the starlings wheeling from roof to roof
in Illinois peppering the lawns and chimneys. Adopt
a feral bat and kangaroo. But heed the bites lest you
become immortal or carry your young in a pouch.

 

“YOU DON’T READ A POEM TO FIND OUT HOW YOU GET TO TWENTY-FOURTH STREET.” first appeared in the Fall 2015 issue of MiPOesias


Calder Lowe is an award-winning writer/editor, former college English instructor, university writing lab director, and Ragdale Foundation alumna. A collection of her poems and flash fiction, Holding the Light in Your Arms, was published in 2010 by Jacaranda Press and her prose collection, The Light on His Feet, was released in 2014. She is the 82nd Annual Writer’s Digest First Prize Winner in the Nonrhyming Poetry category and has won six awards in recent years at the Los Angeles, San Francisco, Great Midwest, and New England Book Festivals. An empty nester, she lives in the Sierra Foothills with her husband Al and Zatoichi the Cat.


STAIRS

stairs-sm


Stacy McKenney Norr is a lighting designer for live performances, theater, and dance. She designs lights in the Los Angeles and Orange County areas in California. She enjoys designing musicals, dramas, comedies, and dance performances. Her design work has led her to collaborate with theaters/theater companies and institutions such as: Irvine Barclay Theater, South Coast Repertory Theater, The Great River Shakespeare Festival, The Utah Shakespeare Festival, International City Theater, The Electric Lodge, Highways Theater, Operaworks at The Secret Rose Theater, Sierra Repertory Theatre, Chapman University, California State University of Los Angeles, Cypress College, El Camino College, and Sage Hill School. Mrs. Norr observes light in her everyday life and captures photos of these moments when she is inspired. She loves color and contrast and this is evident in her photography.