Author: grandmamosespress

POETRY: Jason Bertucci – A Farewell to Becky

A Farewell to Becky



a country girl reclines on her back porch

the twinkle of moonshine in her eye

born and raised in her small town

she sits on the precipice of change

one last party at her little house

a bittersweet haze in the air

old memories packed in boxes

familiar scents drifting away

the young girl tired of gossip

and the same old people she knows

she’s moving on to New York City

a big grey bird flies to her new home

there’s a job waiting on the 9th floor

and a new, faster way of life

trading barns, horses and wheat fields

for hope, glass, concrete and stone

she’ll find subways and taxis

instead of old pickups and dirt roads

from one world to a melting pot

only takes one dream to rule them all

maybe she’ll get lost in the shadows

or wind up on the cover of a magazine

she has only a few contacts

but she’ll make plenty more

one last look back over her shoulder

as she winds up for that giant leap

and opens a brand new door

 

 

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POETRY: Jessica Wiseman Lawrence – Birds

Birds

 

 

Water breaks for Terns and Petrels

diving to an unknown thing,

then up from water into air –

with no clumsy shaking or annoyance –

for them this is life and as easy as the atmosphere.

 

I saw a little grey sparrow land on a fence

when I arrived at a place I promised I’d be.

My car hummed,

and everything was humming,

and everything was noise.

We are just noise to everything.

 

Ahead, two crows pecked at grass, at seemingly nothing,

and feasted on worms and fleas

ignored. We toss simple things

away, we’ve thrown up

 

our hands to more food than could feed

countries full of children.

There is no flight enough to make us

comfortable with the animals we are.

There is nothing enough to make us the birds

we could be.

 

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A DAY IN THE LIFE OF GRANDMA MOSES PRESS

    

A DAY IN THE LIFE OF GRANDMA MOSES PRESS

July 2, 2015

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Grandma Moses Press is an small independent poetry publisher in Las Cruces, New Mexico.

 

 

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Grandma Moses Press founder, Tim Staley, chops out chapbooks before the reading.

 

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After all the book’s insides are cut out, the covers are chopped to size.

 

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The final steps are folding, stapling, and numbering each book by hand. This is the press’ newest release, a debut collection of poems by Antoinette Nena Villamil.

 

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A line of poetry is stretched from Las Cruces to Albuquerque.

 

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Minutes before the reading begins.
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The Beatlick Sisters open with “Can You Breathe?”

 

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Joaquin Fore delivers his Science Fiction Gumshoe poems.

 

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Katrina Guarascio slams into high gear. She will be competing this year at the National Poetry Slam in Oakland, California.

 

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Jon Huerta, down from Outlaw Mountain, closes the evening with four poems from his Grandma Moses Press release: Posole with Benefits.

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POETRY: Barbara A Meier – Selenelion Oregon

Selenelion Oregon

The moon in the valley mist shimmies upon the Manor roof:

a lady dancing in a veil, gauzy and seductive,
in the space between night and day.

She
weaves
in
and
out
of my Venetian blinds.
I am alive in her blue light.

My words
play
hide
and
seek
between the slats of light.
I am alone
and you are so far away.

“Can you see the moon?

Does the desert dress her differently?

Does your heat rise to cradle her body
suspended in liquid sky?

Do her shards of light
slice
your
body
sleeping ‘neath the Pinyon Pine?”

I would be that light,
catching my hair on needles:
a shadow dancing on your tent wall:
The light
shimmering
from my fingertips,
caressing,
your face in sleep.

We are impaled with light,
the luminous flux,
spanning the Mogollon Rim to the Rogue Valley,
between Northwest Willow and Ponderosa Pine,
basking in her light bars: the earthlight cold in our morning breath,
inhaling air glow in the flutter of REM sleep.

She
sets
with
a
sigh,
a whisper of movement across your face,
gliding
down.
behind tall mountains.

In that moment:
Selenelion.
You and me on a horizontal eclipse.
A refraction of light fading to daylight
and then gone.
I am alone
and you
are
so
far
away.

 

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