| Autumn 2018 - Time Travel |
Highland Park Poetry asked poets to write about time travel, whether it be the science fiction variety of H.G. Wells' Time Machine, or casting back into the pool of memory. Sit back, relax, adjust your goggles. These poets have set your course for a variety of destinations in the where and when.
Many thanks to all of the poets and artists who shared their work with us.
Enjoy the ride!
Jennifer Dotson, Editor
P.S. Brief bios including their desired time machine destination for all poets and artists selected in this Autumn's Muses Gallery are posted at the top of the Participating Poets Page.
|
 |
| Don Widmer, Artist - www.lionofbali.com |
|
|
Michael Nickels-Wisdom
Delavan, Wisconsin
| a portal seen to open between anode “re-“ and cathode “member”
|
Time Travel
By
Liat David
Highland Park, Illinois
|
I have that power
It is from within
Not a machine
Not an anomaly
Just me
Flying backwards
At the speed of memory
|
 |
| J. Ray Paradiso, Photographer |
|
|
Epistle to a Time Traveler
By
Jenene Ravelsoot
Chicago, Illinois
| I have taken the liberty of sending you an attachment, along with this letter. Note that I have underlined the name of a particular planet, Mercury. Its present economy of scale might interest you. No ubiquitous skyscrapers here, no glass ceilings, glass walls, glass windows, glass floors, or glass furniture that offer little privacy from prying eyes. The ‘big’ has been vanquished. The diminutive rules. On this planet, you are free to dream like the child you once were, that is, if that is your desire. Stay as long as you wish before you move on, but move on you must. I’m sure you’ll want to make the best of your well-earned vacation. What is your pleasure then among so many choices: Mars, a favorite destination of all time travelers with its deep grottoes and red sand; or our lovely planet, Venus, known for her virtuous inhabitants; or something truly exotic like Methuselah, the oldest exoplanet with its endless waterslides? But before I forget, there is the question of time. Are you interested in the past, or future, or both? Simply state your preference or preferences and I will take care of all the little details, since you are too busy. “Time Travel is My Business,” I like to say. Your safe return is vouchsafed. I can assure you of that in advance.
|
Carob Trees
By
Marjorie Rissman
Highland Park, Illinois
Based on the Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Ta’anit 23a
| because the world is both a bequest and a birthright
we inherit and keep in safekeeping
from those who come before for those that come after
we find the garden filled with carob trees
and plant trees for our grandchildren
so they may eat from the trees of their grandparents
if we were to fall asleep for seventy years like Honi
we would find upon awakening our grandchildren
enjoying the fruit of the trees we planted and
no one would know us or believe we had come back
to taste the fruits of our labor, see offspring of our sons
yet they would also plant trees as time dictates for all
we care for and enjoy this garden of Eden with respect
for the past and the future knowing that we are mere
gatekeepers that come and go, soon to be forgotten
inconsequential in the scheme of things to keep
the time machine oiled and running backward
and forward from one generation to the next.
|
 |
| Carob tree closeup |
|
|
History's Tricks
By
Wilda W. Morris
Bolingbrook, Illinois
| Who would have guessed making our capitol at Tanis
would cause history to write us out?
For centuries, Pharaohs who ruled at Memphis and Thebes
were listed, lauded, written about.
Who hasn’t heard of Ramses the Great, Zosar, and all the rest?
Even queens Nefertti and Tye gained recognition.
But here in the Nile Delta, moisture rotted parchment to nothing,
blotting out our names, our stories till after 1939, when Pierre Monet
dug down deep by the corner of the Great Temple of Amun,
found plundered tombs and then mine, undisturbed through centuries
but I was tricked again from recognition for my gold face mask, jewelry,
falcon-headed silver coffin, grave goods rivaling any pharaoh’s.
No fanfare, no horde of reporters because the world was spinning
out of control, Hitler on the march so still my name is unknown
and visitors to the Egyptian Museum pass by the room with my gold bracelets,
pectoral, lapis lazuli scarab pushing a golden solar disk, in their rush
to see the boy king, Tutenkamun.
Learn my name.
I’m Sheshonq II, twenty-second dynasty.
Pay homage. It’s long overdue.
|
Time Traveler's
To Do List
By
Jen 'Pen' Richards
Highland Park, Illinois
| Slip into a book and step backward or forward across decades.
Lose your bearings in films as you travel by horse and buggy and spaceship.
Listen to music that spans generations and captures dance eras.
Tour a city, looking both up and down, finding architectural developments.
Discover technology that unlocks mysteries of the future.
Delve online and research genealogical history.
Swipe off the dust and examine family photos of loved ones long gone.
Uncover letters from a bygone generation and be transported to faded settings.
Begin a five year journal and document the progress of time.
Create photo books to illustrate life’s journeys.
Honor the past, embrace the future, but live in today.
|
 |
| Jen 'Pen' Richards, Photographer |
|
|
Planning
By
Lennart Lundh
Orland Hills, Illinois
First appeared in Poems Against Cancer 2015
| I wrote this poem yesterday,
knowing you’d be somewhere else.
Before you saw it, tomorrow
would fool us with today.
And I’d be somewhere else:
The shower, food store, Ohio.
We are never in the same place
later, after that, or now.
|
Voices from the Past
By
Gert W. Knop
Zittau, Germany
| The stars,
unfulfilled,
not tangible.
Winter in summer,
shiny crystals in the light
The world,
like a strange star,
fathomless.
Time is catching up
as a stray message
Thoughts return
with the voice of yesteryear,
recorded on tape,
recurring memory,
baptized with a familiar voice,
so clearly now as if they were new
|
 |
| Ann Lamas, Photographer |
|
|
While I Wonder
By
Donita Ries
Cary, Illinois
| Whether it is time that slips
through grasping fingers or
we who push against time
like wind through leaves,
wielding our wishes,
the result remains:
one or the other
will not wait.
We seldom savor
the drama of fall flowers
against a cloudy sky, the bee
honey-laden,this second’s step.
We imagine other lands, eras, lives.
We hash and rehash yesterday and tomorrow
when maybe the most exotic
trip of trips—the most
psychedelic, awe-inspiring, surprising
way to time travel might be
to explore the intricate nooks and
vast landscape of
now, this miracle of senses—
our ultimate scenic view.
Ticking from the wall, squirrel
chatter, shadows of branches, tea
warm on the tongue, scratchy wool
sweater, myriad thoughts, movement,
muscles, bones, like ribs of sunken ships
in the deepest dark,—all await exploration,
all harbor unseen, luminous treasures.
|
Thoughts
By
Elisabeth Evans
Virginia
| A day of joy,
A day of cheer,
And maybe just one tiny tear,
In memory of things long gone,
And of the things I might have done.
|
Michael Nickels-Wisdom
Delavan, Wisconsin
| carry a crumb of choice through antlike passages in the loaf of time.
|
 |
| Rita Yager, Photographer |
|
|
Returning for Personal Possessions
By
Rita M. Yager
Deerfield, Illinois
Published in Lyrics of Our Lives, 2003
| What would make you do such a thing?
Especially after I have held onto these things for so many years
Kept them encased in a shrine
Carefully laid out for an almost daily viewing
I awoke today to find an empty glass picture frame
No note of any kind
Are you applying for a job?
Trying to enter a portal and return?
Now I have nothing left of you
I hope you have money in your coin purse
a good blade to shave with, new billfold to put your license,
local 710 union card and social security card in
good shirt pocket to hold your snuff and bankbook
frame for the picture you took of you and me
but I am not sure if the bank is still in exists
or if you will be able to withdraw any funds
is Grama in on this?
my only hope is that I can get to your grandson
who has your gold watch, get him over here
together we could turn back the dial to yesterday
maybe get to see you again
even it its just for a little while
|
The Time Machine
By
Jack Horne
Plymouth, England
| Last week, I built a time-machine,
and, first, I traveled back to see
the dinosaurs upon the Earth;
they tried to eat or trample me!
Such fun to set the clock and then
I'd whoosh through time, from age to age:
I saw the Romans, Vikings, Celts,
and witnessed Shakespeare on the stage.
I longed to be with you again;
I'd travel back and there I'd stay...
my memories and what I saw
were quite at odds, like night and day.
I realised that in my mind
I'd changed the past; my love was blind.
|
 |
| Melissa Shuttlesworth, Photographer - www.lovevintagesigns.com |
|
|
Way Back
By
Gail Denham
Sunriver, Oregon
| I focus hard
and I’m there, A Sunday
afternoon in downtown Redmond.
No one much around but me, riding
my brother’s old no-speed bike.
No point trying Cent Wise; they’re
closed Sundays and that’s the only
place in town for a good cherry coke.
There’s the Dairy Queen
or the Snow Bunny where nickel
fries fit my budget. Have
some monies
from last night’s babysitting job
with those pesky Simpson boys,
who wore me down
to slow speed.
Stopped to watch the Rasmussens
drive by in their 1952 blue Buick,
probably on their way to
Mrs. Rasmussen’s sister Gretchen
who lives out by Lone Pine.
Maybe I’ll pedal by the tennis court,
see if anyone’s skating. Then go home
and strap on my clamp-ons.
|
Close Your Eyes
By
Barbara Eaton
Downers Grove, Illinois
| The temperature is 75 degrees
The sun is gently shining
There is a delicate, cool breeze
And it is like this
Every dayIn Santa Barbara.
I sleep late,
Pad to the kitchen in bare feet
Leisurely drink coffee with milk
Wash my hair
Dry it in the sun
And think about you
And Santa Barbara.
I write poems all day
Take a break
Play with the dog
Grill steaks outside for dinner.
I could do this
Every day
In Santa Barbara.
The orange and magenta sunset
Is somehow sexy.
Sexy, too,
Are the long brown arms
Of the Santa Inez Mountains.
I close my eyes.
It is midnight
And I am in Santa Barbara.
|
 |
| Dan Widmer, Artist - www.lionofbali.com |
|
|
Sunset Vista
By
R. Craig Sautter
Chicago, Illinois
| Between shafts of silver light,
a smiling face he knew, now,
because now he knew language,
but then, but now, as he turned
to smile back the light swayed,
hid her behind yellow waves of
something he had learned was love,
recaptured in repeating hours
of unconscious consciousness.
When was then? When was now?
He could not detect differences
in the two tracks running as one
in the untamed mind of a fading
old man whose waking dreams
were not dreams but outposts of
another time when or where he
had been, now, as he had been
the last forty nights since he had
to watch her slowly die, then,
but not now any longer.
He woke. The room still dark,
the gaping dark so still. Almost afraid
to inhale, exhale, least the crystal
of this silence shatter, disappear.
Which was real? Which less
ephemeral, less likely to vanish
into this exquisite darkness?
No longer the child he had been
moments before crawling
through his own sleep unable
to escape, as tangible as if
he had dodged the rush hour
maze of work and isolation
until he fell beyond sleep again
traveling a dueling helix of dualities
as time ripped apart at its seams.
|
Michael P. Wright
Highwood, Illinois
Traipsing Time
So fast, spell out spontaneously
Preparing for another eon
Time travel, an unknown like death
Write words, time always elapses and it's gone
Traveling the globe, time advances can let you explore places
Soon, it's Medicare time, my age is just a stodgy number
Time travel by the decades, what's next, a walk on Mars
I can't believe my mother died in 1989 and it seems like yesterday
Time takes long vacations and doesn't give a hoot about us
My time is precious and barring a sickness,I am game for it
God's great mysterious nomenclature and we have to figure it out
A giant puzzle of life, tricky time has us right where time belongs
Week by week, month by month, watch it travel and presto, five years has passed
Prepare for my future, time questions everything
My time could be a flash, a blur of my death
Time travel, I make a reference in living fortuitously.
|
 |
| J. Ray Paradiso, Photographer |
|
|
Virtual Visit
By
Joe Glaser
Chicago, Illinois
|
iPhones asizzle,
energized oldsters embrace
the brave new world of virtual reality,
seeking to relive the joyful days of baby once upon a time.
At the Travelers Aid station, a galactic guide books
them passage through an interstellar worm hole,
pathway to a parallel universe.
Dissolving into stardust, they soon
coalesce on an eerily familiar doorstep, where
they meet their avatars, toting Grade A newborn twins.
Genetically tweaked to perfection, certified to become one-percenters,
elite IDs and model numbers are seen on the soles of tiny feet,
as they are carried into their brave new baby coming-out party.
Inside, the oldsters watch a stridently single aunt morph into a virtual mother, photoshopping twins into her selfie to get the rush of a baby fix.
Inside, they listen uncomprehendingly as newly pregnant Millennials plan a babymoon spree in outer space.
Inside, they gawk in disbelief as diapers are auto-changed by Robonanny.
Too much.
Silently, the oldsters slip away,
back outside,
back through the worm hole,
back to their own time and place...
...glad they bought round-trip tickets.
|
Short Stay
By
Dave Marcus
Streamwood, Illinois
| Visited Earth in century twenty
Loss from war n’ purge-a-plenty
200 million civilian and military
Vast amount not your ordinary
Do other worlds post epic tolls?
Job security for diggers of holes
Sordid count deters nuke clashes
If not, y’all deal with the ashes
Power and money can be thanked
Peace and love can’t be banked
|
 |
| Gert Knop, Photographer |
|
|
Mesopotamia
By
Mark Hudson
Evanston, Illinois
Originally published in A Galaxy of Verse, Spring/Summer 2018
| I flourished in academia,
and went back to Mesopotamia.
A magician took me from the present,
and dropped me off in the Fertile Crescent.
I went into a time continuum,
and ended up in the fourth millennium.
I visited some scribes in Egypt,
who would use papyrus for a script.
I found some four wheel wagons,
and vases with Chinese dragons.
I saw people, who were undiminished,
and pyramids that were unfinished.
Pyramids made of brick and clay,
worked on in the heat of the day.
The sun bore down on Egyptians,
the insides of pyramids bore inscriptions.
They received insight through omens,
and hadn’t yet been conquered by Romans.
I flew into 331. B.C,
with Alexander the Great to see.
I visited the Seleucid Dynasty,
the ruin of Mesopotamian society.
I saw the ruins of the city,
and none of it looked very pretty.
Ghost towns looking like swamps,
grounds where people no longer stomped.
My time in the past came to a conclusion,
perhaps it all was an illusion.
The lesson to learn was not clear,
then my memory began to disappear.
Pretty soon I had no recollection;
of the time traveling trip reflection.
It vanished right out of my mind,
and the past was once again left behind.
|
Jacquelyn Stearns
Bloomfield, New Jersey
A Journey Through American History
Winging my way through American History by way of wish travel.
"Civil War," I say, and am in the South,
viewing the United States when she was a nation turned in on herself.
Freed slaves, realizing their humanity for the first time,
after years of beatings, and decades of white masters forcing themselves on slave women,
ignoring resulting progeny.
Nineteen sixties! I see people turning onto acid, see these people on bad trips,
leaping off of cliffs and out of windows.
I Am at Woodstock, am marching, protesting Viet Nam.
Civil rights era. Once again, African American citizens,
fighting for the right to be human, breaking invisible shackles
Jim Crowe and segregation.
No more whites' only water fountains, no more sitting at the back of the bus.
Next stop in my time travel adventures,
the nineteen seventies, era of feminine emancipation.
The vote was no longer enough. Women wanted to be part of the lawmaking process.
Needed to work toward equal pay for equal pay and a life outside the kitchen.
Needed to erase gender bias.
The future.
I am hurtled into a far away century where peace reigns.
Unlike the technologically ruled twenty first century, which finds people glued to smart
phones, ignoring people they are with, people communicate with words.
|
 |
| Salvador Dali, Artist - detail from Persistence of Memory |
|
|
Sheila Elliott
Oak Park, Illinois
Sidewalk Colors
It's a painterly wash on a sidewalk from the Bar and Packaged Liquor sign
above, but its blur has the muscle to carry me. In a moment, I am in
another time, place, another there I knew long ago, when I often overheard the talk.
'Somebody's Daddy liked a drink', they said,
and 'Somebody else's Daddy drank too much'.
Gossip or news-- In life, you choose a version that suits.
We did then, do now. But this blurred image now evokes lessons
learned then quite well: We all belly-up sometimes
to the bar of judgment, take a gavel, stein like, in a hand, will--
sadly-- parse lives, family fates, deliver thoughtless
verdicts in a world that still delights in shame.
Gossip or news--You choose the version that suits.
Or not. I can't stand here, caught in neon tinted memories.
I am just passing through. But, yes, I know the place. I know to
that there is a door, a point of choice, that inside you will find
vinyl padded booths scared with tiny tears from someone else's yesterdays.
Once inside, you will find someone willing to share someone's private stories.
Somethings in life, you don't get to choose.
The sound of neon filaments buzz now in my head, so I step past the
diluted light now, return to this world, where unseen behavior lines still,
are etched, acid dark, sketched with bold, crayoned outlines of expectations,
lines as opaque as that shadowy space between framed concrete block, the
unfilled crevice that keeps sidewalks smooth and balanced, then and now.
This is not news. As with so much in life, in the end, you must choose.
|
You = Time Machine
By
Lennart Lundh
Orland Hills, Illinois
First published in LexPoMo 2015 Anthology
| It's as though you were a time traveler,
showing up in my life unexpectedly
and then leaving, again and again.
The cat in the photograph is dead now,
as are the flowers in the vase,
the bird in the tree outside the window.
It’s not that I want them to be absent,
or that they did. They had no say in the matter,
no more than I might, stranded here forever.
The picture is as old as my memories of times,
so they and I have no hope for resurrection.
Unless, of course, you bring them back with you.
|
 |
| Gail Goepfert, Photographer |
|
|
Lynne S. Viti
Boston, Massachusetts
In Louisburgh, County Mayo, Thinking About Dublin
The smell of burning peat in this steady morning rain
suggests a memory out of reach, something from years ago
when I got the notion to drain my small savings account,
head for Ireland, once final exams were read, grades in,
textbooks collected, counted, accounted for, our bosses
satisfied that the City of Stamford had gotten its due.
I was twenty-six, marriage in shreds, divorce papers drawn up—
I was seeking a different self, a poetic self.
I stayed a week in Dublin, wandering the paths Joyce describes.
Each day I distracted myself from the hole in my life,
went to the Abbey, met an American actor, a minor
figure on the Broadway stage, who took me to an after-hours place
frequented by the Dublin theatre crowd— I could’ve sworn
when we knocked and the actor whispered the password,
the man who peeked out and opened the door was Milo O’Shea—
The actor and I drank Jameson’s neat, sipped it slowly.
In Boyle, County Roscommon, town of my great grandmother,
I wandered the cemetery, searching for the Sheekey graves.
The headstones from the days of the Great Hunger hid in the high grass.
I rented a small red Ford, drove across Ireland,
slowing down, stopping often for the sheep, accepting waves
from old farmers as I shifted into first gear, on to the next village
stopping each night to find a room and perhaps supper—
Supper identical to breakfast, eggs and rashers,
Brown bread and white, tomato, tea, lashings of butter—
I ate too much and drank the Guinness, which fattened me up--
I outsized my waistbands. I was growing in my grief:
Instead of wasting away. I came home a stone heavier,
a bottle of Jameson’s in my duty-free bag.
|
Units of Time
By
Wilda W. Morris
Bolingbrook, Illinois
| The same little clock
which keeps time
by my bed in Illinois
ticked away minutes
in London and Beijing
but can’t measure
the weight of hours
spent by a loved one
in ICU
or days when the phone
doesn’t ring and the mailbox
is empty again.
|
 |
| Rene Magritte, Artist - Time Transfixed |
|
|
My Personal Time Machine
By
Marjorie Rissman
Highland Park, Illinois
| without knowing it by name
word perfect brings the past to life
and spins a web of future tales
often in memoirs sometimes in poems
the past becomes today or the future
spinning silken threads to form
the pattern of my life, thoughts
cascade on white paper,
memories come alive to be reborn and told
to others ready to read or to listen
when I sit down at my pc my own
time machine hums and smiles
|
Transitory Time
By
Henry Torres
Bronx, New York
| Passing time away
enveloped in a ripple
created by whims and tufts from
The Source
I float in a dense mind-sop
unable to drift past the imbalance of the moment
distant from the lulling calm that
evades my effort at credible clarity
I’m entrapped by worldly impediments
my doubt demons have made a strong stand
I sense the nonvisible nature of their design
cathartic agents that I hope-for
will show only when
I’m willing to forsake those demonic obfuscations
curative crimson nectars
continue to course through my sinews as
I wearily straddle my existence
awaiting the advent of another divine cleansing
from inside-out
|
 |
| Don Widmer, Artist - www.lionofbali.com |
|
|
Time Travel
By
Wilda W. Morris
Bolingbrook, Illinois
First published in Rockford Review (Winter-Spring, 2012)
| My ribs are railroad tracks
leading me back to an Iowa childhood,
the rattle of metal wheels
coursing down steel tracks,
whistle blowing.
I ride the train back
to the 1950s, back
to the house Grandfather built,
the home sometimes shared with Uncle Norman,
who took us, his nieces, to search
for banded rocks in the railroad bed
and watched us balance
on those long straight balance beams
that stretch east to the ocean,
west beyond sunset.
I return to that parallel world
each time I touch my ribs.
|
Once
By
Gert W. Knop
Zittau, Germany
| And when I stood there
thoughtful with emotions
remembering the good times
long yet passed,
the unforgotten days so filled with joy,
so sudden ended in a lonely blast.
I see you in my dreams,
smoothing my mind so well
and my desire.
A fragile piece of driftwood like
or only some remains of ancient fire?
I keep my dreams,
well knowing that they will not last.
And I so consciously admire
those lovely pictures
of a well remembered past
|
 |
| Gail Denham, Photographer |
|
|
Michael Nickels-Wisdom
Delavan, Wisconsin
Bones: journal for contemporary haiku, March 2018, p. 47
| myself seeing myselves seeing myselves who told me I was naked
|
Time
By
Elisabeth Evans
Virginia
| Time wanders aimlessly along
or dashes madly.
It collects our high points
of growth and accomplihsment,
And our low points
of weakness and sadness in the things
we have failed to do.
Time is a debt we owe,
and asset to be used,
an ever continuing eternity.
Time is everyday--
Yesterday, today, and tomorrow,
So use it well.
|
Unwhole
By
Lennart Lundh
Orland Hills, Illinois
First appeared in Hitchhikers in Mississippi, 1936
| You’ve left a hole in the world as I know it.
I find myself with Gore beating Bush,
with Dewey in fact defeating Truman.
What you’ve done is provide final proof
that we are not alone in the only universe,
by creating a parallel one without you.
Absenting yourself from future history,
you’ve left Germany and Japan victorious
over both the United and Confederate States.
We’ll never stand in wonder on lunar soil,
never sail for the Indies and discover more.
You can forget about our unborn children.
|
Returning to Another Decade
By
Rita M. Yager
Deerfield, Illinois
Originally published in Lyrics of Our Lives, 2003
| We wonder what’s become of those people
That we never went back for.
Those who we slammed the door on
And then never saw anymore.
Perhaps at the time it was all we could do
there was still no excuse
To hurtfor fear of being hurt first
We ponder, we wonder,
If we saw them today,
What would we say?
What would we find?
Would we still be unkind?
The lover we never saw again,
The parent,
The child we left
The brother, sister, friend…
We’ve gone forward
For better,
Maybe for worse
What if we’d returned?
What would have happened,
If we had stayed,
Had maybe prayed?
|
Time Travelers
By
Nalini Priyadarshni
Ludhiana, Punjab, India
First published in Your One Phone Call
| Sprawled on the shore of forever
we are time travelers
talking to each other across
dusks and dawns of tomorrows
toasting our marshmallows
on the bonfires of yesterdays
sipping amnesia we pour into
each other’s cups to heal
wounds on our feet that keep
changing the shapes of our journeys
like maps we abandoned after a brawl
in the bar that offered us tepid beer
with reheated fish that was falling apart
all we wanted to change was the music
but we weren’t allowed near the jukebox
where men with gold chains and Rolex watches
with devotional songs for ringtones
laughed loudly at the jokes
women in slinky saris whispered in their ears
did not want our songs after they’d pocketed our coins
We are time travelers
forever making beds on crossroads
patting our pockets for stolen kisses at gloaming
eyes fixed on horizons livid with promises
of soft beds and steaming masala chai
listening to chapattis being slapped on griddles
as jars of mango pickle waited on wall
their mouths covered with mulmul torn from
mother’s discarded sari bought from Dhaka
we wore as children in summer afternoons
when the family took refuge in a single room
cooled by a khus padded giant cooler for napping
And we, playing under the canopy of mango trees,
assumed identities other than our own
took out forbidden toys and invited neighbors we
were not allowed to play with
stole raw mangoes entrusted to our protection
until their tang lacerated our tongues
We are time travelers
forever departing and arriving in pieces
held together by long strands of memories
mother rolled and tucked in the cloth pouch
hanging by her mirror, every time
she combed her hair with a sigh
to the place we call home, braving
wind blasts in our faces without flinching
with hair so short and sparse it can’t be parted
in middle or tied into neat plaits
telling stories of lovers we almost made love
to lovers we would never make love to
when we grow tired of playing Parcheesi
with pawns of time held in place under our tongues
knowing there are no winners or losers
other than sap of our imagining, gurgling in
hollows of our chest, waiting to bloom or wilt
We, the time travelers, sprawl and dream
of glistening shells we broke open
and the sweet sorrow of losing innocence
drunk on apocrypha, sipped on the shore of forever
|
 |
| William Hicks, Photographer |
|
|
Time Traveler's Pantoum
By
Jennifer Dotson
Highland Park, Illinois
| Time travelers depend on clocks
and calendars to navigate their destination.
Unprotected from the journey’s shocks
One must adapt to current conversation.
When compassing your desired destination -
Last week, two decades or a century ago –
Quickly adopt the current mode without hesitation
Or your strangeness could immediately show.
A week or two becomes decades in the flow
Of time for someone lost in another past.
Don’t let your other-time-ness show;
Listen and pick up local jargon fast.
Becoming lost in another past,
It’s hard to keep your stories straight.
Listen and pick up the local jargon fast.
Study history and improve your fate.
Some find it hard to keep their stories straight
When suffering time travel’s aftershocks.
Remembered history may keep your trip great.
Time travelers depend on clocks.
|
 |
| Jennifer Dotson, Photographer |
|
|
2009 Fall
Muses' Gallery Archive
|
|
|
