Good morning everyone,
It’s already beginning to feel a lot more like summer, and I hope you’re enjoying it as much as I am. Our poet today is Phil Timpane, whose work I have always found mysterious and interesting. Phil Timpane lives in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, where he works as a building contractor and designs and builds new poems. His poetry has appeared in the Atlanta Review, Canary, The Cortland Review, The Philadelphia Inquirer, upstreet. and Vallum, among other print and on-line journals.  He was a winner of the Atlanta Review’s International Publication Award.

Here are three of my favorite poems. I hope you enjoy them as much as I do. 

–Irene Willis, Poetry Editor

Climate Change Too 

We thought we could take it 
in random doses 
all those new age poisons– 
my dad with his PCBs in the lab at GE 
me and my orange sunshine  
black beauty dropped 
in unmarked tabs at school 

And it’s anybody’s guess 
whether the dementia was from natural or man-made causes 
the creep of the next regularly scheduled ice age 
or reason’s not so glacial retreat  
in the face of deregulated doom 

But even his Pa before him near the end 
blamed the cancer on additives in his Kellogg’s Special K 
ignoring the Parliament recessed filters  
laid out like stiffs in a hinged glass case 
on display between us during those weekend visits 

Even I admit that luck and love may not be enough 
to stuff the damage done back 
into the magic lamp of wishful thinking  
its finish rubbed to a blush of self-inflicted wounds 

No turning back 
the hands that wound the working guts 
sprung before the digital age 
when made-in-America meant something 
that conceived the likes of Pa and me and him  
and truth 

Be told 
generation is a two edged word 
that cuts in one direction 
what’s written in the blood  
whether chemist’s code or poet’s scrawl 
is the cursive on the virtual wall 

A forecast 
of days being numbered  
believers and skeptics alike  
probability after all just 
math at a distance 
moving in like the fog that closed on dad 
or the flashbacks I never had 
to map the thickening climate  

[Ir]Religion of the Day
                                          Where to now, Saint Peter 
                                    -Elton John & Bernie Taupin

I have to confess I’m a serial liar in the lurch
I mean why burden somebody with the truth

When you know what they want to hear
Maybe I’ll pay one day 

Some final accounting before the pearly gates
But maybe one last whopper taken on faith

And I’ll join my fellow sainted sinners who know 
Just how much the world loves 

A good spin with just the right slant
To balance Dark and light

God and gullible be damned                                                                       

A Taoist Heretic’s Anniversary Poem

The Tao that can be spoken is not the eternal Tao  
– Lao Tsu

Sometimes no poem
is the only poem
that speaks 

Forty years
or a lifetime 
silent as first light
of a dawning year

The void can’t hold a candle
to this

The uncarved block splits
with age

I love the many lines and the wrinkles
in time that we’ve become
the imperfections
that make us less 
somehow making us more

The love that can be spoken is not eternal love
still

This poem

Good morning everyone,
I hope you enjoyed all the recent holidays and are looking forward to many more happy days to come.
Our poet today is one whose work I very much admire.

PD Pin received an MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts and worked as the Programs Director at The Mount, author Edith Wharton’s home, a National Historic Landmark and literary center in western Massachusetts. In partnership with the Straw Dog Writers Guild, where she serves as the Executive Consulting Director, Pin helped establish an Emerging Writers Residency at The Mount, now in its fifth year. Her favorite extracurricular activity is teaching kids (ages 5-12) karate–a practice in humility and stand-up comedy.

Below are three of her recent poems.
Perhaps, the World

~after Joy Harjo

Good Morning:

Lisken Van Pelt Dus

 I know Lisken Van Pelt Dus has been in our column before, but this time is different. It’s not with individual poems, but with a whole book.
It’s been said that poetry is music for the soul.  Well, if so, then never did our souls need music so much as now, which is why I recommend How Many Hands to Home by local poet, musician, and teacher of writing, languages, and martial arts, Lisken Van Pelt Dus.
Once you get past the title, which is a poem in itself, you begin to enjoy your first reading (and there will be many more) of Lisken Van Pelt Dus’ How Many Hands to Home (Mayapple Press, 2025). War, fear, love—this graceful little book takes them all on and renders them part of our knowledge—a knowledge we seem to have always had.
Among my favorites are “After the Dying”, “Remix: The Paper Brigade”, “Towards the Starting Points”, “London Asks to be Remembered”, “Blind Earl Teacup”, and “Autumn Letter”, with its charming epigraph, “to my nursery school fiance, Benjamin”.
So, there you have it. As they say in restaurants, “Enjoy!”
–Irene Willis, author, Allow Me: New and Selected Poems 1975-2021 (IPBooks, 2022).

Our Poetry Monday editor, Irene Willis, is on vacation so there will be no Poetry Monday June.

David Holper

Good Morning, Everyone,

Our poet today, David Holper, has an unusually interesting background.  He lives in Eureka, California, where he served as the City of Eureka’s inaugural Poet Laureate from August 2019-August 2021.  He has published three collections of poetry, including Language Lessons: A Linguistic Hejira (Deeper Magic Press, 2023), from which today’s poems have been chosen.  Other books have been The Bridge (Sequoia Song Publications) and 64 Questions (March Street Press).  His poems have appeared in many literary journals and anthologies, and have won numerous competitions, including the Synkroniciti award for best poem in its September 2023 issue; second place in relationships for Write from the Heart Anthology 2023; the Barbara Curiel Award for his poem “Depaysement” in Toyon 2018; and the Jodi Stutz from Toyon 2017 for his poem “Cana de Azucar.”  Additionally, he has been nominated for a Pushcart by Relief Journal for a poem called “Doubt.”

He is also a writer of fiction, which has appeared in various quarterlies, including Grand Street, the New Virginia Review, and Callaloo.

It’s my pleasure to share the following three poems from his latest book, Language Lessons: A Linguistic Hejira:

Vade Mecum