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community and globally.

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WELCOME

to

The River Poets

Journal

Based in Lambertville, NJ

A Journal of Poetry/Prose

Art & Photography

After Apples, Listening     

They have all gone now,

the fire engine-red Macintosh,

under batter with cinnamon,

gone to day school

on yellow buses

with brown-baggers,

or bruised to a freckled

taupe and plowed under

for ransom and ritual.

Some have had the life

crushed out of them

for Thanksgiving cup.

Standing on the stiff lawn

downwind of winter,

I drop the first cold

moon of November

into a fractured wheel

of apple limbs

and hear the bark

beg away.

A pine ridge,

thicker than a catcher’s mitt,

grabs half the wind

riding off Monadnock

and squeezes out

wrenching cries that hang,

like wounded pendants,

on necks

of far, thin stars.

Deep in the Earth,

in a thermal tube

of its own making,

an earthworm grows

toward a rainbow trout

sleeping under ice

and waiting to be heard,

or the last of an apple’s pips

still this side of the grass.

                                         ©Tom Sheehan

Coming and Going

Facing opposite directions,

swaying to the commuter train’s click clack,

are a gray-haired man in a gray suit

and a teenage boy with dyed-purple hair.

The voyagers sit face to face but not eye to eye.

The gray man's profiled face is wrinkled

and his crow’s-feet eyes are half open

as he slumps his head against the window,

while everything outside recedes from him,

but the purple-haired teen's eyes are wide

with his arms and legs in a restless fidget

as he seems to race toward everything beyond him.

Travelers on the same train,

one looking back, one looking forward.

                                     

                                            © Richard Fein

The Last Supper Date

on a one-way road

in the warm heart of Paradise

is a red light

where the road

dead ends

has no turns

or turnarounds

though the bulbs

bloom seasons of

green yellow red

and roadside roses

stir in breezes that once

were perfect angel breaths

with no borders to hold them in

I get out to pick the perfect one

but its petals blacken

into cold pieces of night

on which my teeth chatter

shatter at a sin-eater’s last meal 

from inside a closed flower shop

I hear God trying to hold it in

                                            ©Robert S. King

Fall  

how can world news be dire when                        

October lapis sky hides nothing

and butterflies flit in the botanic garden

where pumpkins’ brassy orange

perch atop hay bales

paths beckon deeper into wooded trails

acorn kerpops echo in a

faraway desert, where young men duck

to avoid fall, fall of bullets, fall of friends

I stumble amidst the park’s crunch

stoop to pick up a red leaf

blaze of blood-like brush

reminder of summer’s heat

now fallen

                                               © Joanne Faries

Autumn Offering

I shall be Autumn

this Halloween,

with leaf draped skirt,

and folds of

boysenberry velvet wine

flowing to the ground.

Brown stained face,

eyes rimmed in gold,

nails dripping sunset,

a crown of twigs

to cover my head.

You may gather from me

the spring of my youth,

my summer of maturity,

and hold onto

with me

the solace of

these days of remembering

before the frost.

                            © Judith A. Lawrence

Pinwheel Prediction

I am looking at New England posed in my photo album,

a white veil of fog lifting, the horizon blushing

with scarlet, amber, orange

while the pinwheels in my garden are squeaking,

spinning a death melody.

Their wimpy whines, woeful groans, pitiful songs

proclaim flowers are dying

and winter is crawling on the calendar.

But a fist full of butterscotch haired gaillardias,

white armed dusty millers, and begonias with rose fingers,

hang on, sing of hope, memories, wisdom—

we came from the earth and will return to it

one soft petal at a time

and morning will continue to drool on the grass,

wet the dead yellow blades with heavy spittle.

See how the fingers of autumn air comb

through the chinaberry tree;

last month it was a peacock—

branches feathered with fiery leaves;

today half of it looks puny, ill with change.

When winter’s cold skin covers it,

that tree will become a skeleton—

pale limbs suspended in gray air,

and you will walk on its fallen dead leaves,

forgetting about their former glory.

                                    © Loretta Diane Walker

River Poets Autumn 2009 Poetry Selections

Poems, Prose, Art/Photography by River Poets and Journal Contributors

All future rights to material published on this web site are retained

by the individual Authors and Artists/Photographers

Music by Sandy Bender

"Trinidad to Tobago"

This page was last updated: December 31, 2009

Contact: Judith A. Lawrence

judithlawrence@comcast.net

Featured Photographer  - Richard Fein

Two Tykes Near Trees  -  Richard Fein

Red Umbrella  -  Richard Fein

Banjoman  -  Richard Fein

Balancemaster  -  Richard Fein

Fairgiant  -  Richard Fein

Mother and Child -  Richard Fein

Late Night Guitar

I hear an odd wire vibrate

against a dark red wood.

It ripples along, hoarse,

talks a mountain to pieces.

All Iberia is elaborate

in string and lath;

peninsula of high heels,

ribbons dancing on the mane,

black hats horse-parading,

friar’s lantern honing swords.

A later moon of Pico de Aneto

dies in the dust of olive trees.

A forlorn SAC bomber, tailed,

falcons its way home silently.

When a bull is born

the earth shakes twice,

and an odd wire vibrates

against a darker red wood.

                               ©Tom Sheehan

Rain

In my bottle of verse

all is quiet.  The wind

has stopped blowing on

main street, shuffled the

townspeople off of

the sidewalks.  Dogs

have stopped barking,

cats curled up in corners.

There are no more

words for color,

memory, thought,

you.  My feet are

up on the couch as

rain pelts the window,

trickles slowly down,

picking up droplets on

the way, like a bus

on the first day of school.                                     

                                    © Steve Shilling

Autumn

A chill in the air

last rose clinging on the vine

Fall waits in the wings

                    ©Judith A. Lawrence