“The past is a bucket of ashes.”
1
THE WOMAN named To-morrow
sits with a hairpin in her teeth
and takes her time
and does her hair the way she wants it
and fastens at last the last braid and coil
and puts the hairpin where it belongs
and turns and drawls: Well, what of it?
My grandmother, Yesterday, is gone.
What of it? Let [...]

On Jubilee Day the Ramsbottoms
Invited relations to tea,
Including young Albert’s grandmother-
An awkward old . . party, was she.
She’d seen Queen Victoria’s accession
And `er wedding to Albert (the Good)
But she got quite upset when young Albert
Asked `er `ow she’d got on in the Flood.
She cast quite a damper on’t party,
But she warmed up a bit after [...]

Oh Maggie, do you mind the day
We went to school together,
And as we stoppit by the way
I rolled you in the heather?
My! but you were the bonny lass
And we were awfu’ late for class.
Your locks are now as white as snow,
And you are ripe and wrinkled,
A grandmother ten times or so,
Yet how your blue eyes [...]

You are my day, you are my night,
You are sight, you are my light,
You are my heart, you are my soul,
To be with you is my goal.
You are my touch,
My taste, my smell,
You are my feel, my inner glow,
You touch me, I’m on fire,
In your arms I want to dwell.
You are my moods,
From happy to [...]

My garden blossoms pink and white,
A place of decorous murmuring,
Where I am safe from August night
And cannot feel the knife of Spring.
And I may walk the pretty place
Before the curtsying hollyhocks
And laundered daisies, round of face-
Good little girls, in party frocks.
My trees are amiably arrayed
In pattern on the dappled sky,
And I may sit in filtered [...]

You didn’t wanna say that you love me,
You didn’t wanna help me when I needed help,
You didn’t wanna feel sympathy for me when I tell you something important
You didn’t wanna comfort me when I was depressed
You didn’t wanna care for me when I was about to die and when I was losing my mind; instead [...]

Three times thrice hath winter’s rough white wing
Crossed and curdled wells and streams with ice
Since his birth whose praises love would sing
Three times thrice.
Earth nor sea bears flower nor pearl of price
Fit to crown the forehead of my king,
Honey meet to please him, balm, nor spice.
Love can think of nought but love to bring
Fit to [...]

In Germany the Kaiser always won the war games
The Pentagon here chose Colonel Paul Van Riper
Marine Corps, Combat Veteran, Retired
So able that he beat the odds
Won the war game and was fired.
There are always great dangers
When a Kaiser must always win at war games.
This poem was written/submitted by Bill Grace.

Time collapses between the lips of strangers
my days collapse into a hollow tube
soon implodes against now
like an iron wall
my eyes are blocked with rubble
a smear of perspectives
blurring each horizon
in the breathless precision of silence
One word is made.
Once the renegade flesh was gone
fall air lay against my face
sharp and blue as a needle
but the rain fell [...]

Every year without knowing it I have passed the day
When the last fires will wave to me
And the silence will set out
Tireless traveller
Like the beam of a lightless star
Then I will no longer
Find myself in life as in a strange garment
Surprised at the earth
And the love of one woman
And the shamelessness of men
As today writing [...]