The spring issue of Soul-Lit is now live and I have two poems in it that can be read here.
I’ll note that “Morning Blessing” previously appeared in my chapbook “Irresistible” and “Kindness” in the anthology “Best of Kindness 2017” where it placed third. These notes were supposed to be included with their appearance here. Such a lovely journal! Do check out the rest of the issue.
You drink the cool clean water
and smack your lips, refreshed.
Elsewhere, in this same country,
the water is not clean,
must be boiled, then drunk.
Elsewhere, you might be dying
to drink it as is,
and damned if you do.
Elsewhere, water means business.
It thickens wallets.
You will pay for it.
You could ask whose future is being spent
down to the last hovering drop.
You could ask about thirst—who thirsts
for a better life and who for just a life
to grow all the way up in.
But you don’t. You drain the glass
and turn on the tap for more.
There’s never not been more.
This poem, written 20 years ago and finally published in The American Journal of Poetry in 2019 (with deep thanks to editor Robert Nazarene) unfortunately addresses a continuing and current situation (I’m thinking of Texas). It was inspired by watching my thirsty ten year old son gulp down a glass of water and imagining this conversation. He must have heard me – he continues to ask all the right questions about this world that he and all our kids and grandkids will inherit.
Thrilled to have two poems (“Paradox” and “Elsewhere”) included in Volume Seven of The American Journal Of Poetry alongside the work of poets I’ve long admired! Many thanks to editor Robert Nazarene for ushering them into the larger world!
Here’s a pic of my poem as it appears in the entirely wonderful print journal: Crosswinds Poetry, Volume IV, 2019. Many thanks to the editors for including it in their spring issue!
“Bride Drowns While Modelling Wedding Gown Near Rawdon”
CTV News Montreal – Aug. 24, 2012
First a coquettish dip of toes in the shallows, then a saucy
wade, the mud bottom making it easy to balance.
The Oureau River glinting, hurrying out of sight. Just Maria
and the photographer, before she consigned the dress to a box.
What next but to lift her veil, unmoor a few minds?—
swim a little, where it was deeper…not knowing
how thirsty that dress was: how it would drink and drink
and drink, until its weight was unbearable,
no Houdini to hold open the elevator door long enough
to uncuff her from all the snug finery, the lacy squeeze
of her lungs, irresistible pull to the river’s bed.
How her heart surely sank before she did, gonging
regret and betrayal. Sounds like a Stephen King story—
a gown with vows of its own. No, the horror’s more
the slippery ease with which vanity slides under our skin,
looks in the mirror, one way or another does us in.
This is the title poem from my new chapbook – just out from Finishing Line Press hooray! https://www.finishinglinepress.com/product/irresistible-by-lynne-burnett/. If you’d like a copy and don’t use this link and search instead, best to search the bookstore under the title “Irresistible”.
It is now also available on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/IRRESISTIBLE-Lynne-Burnett/dp/1635344425/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1523920109&sr=1-1&keywords=lynne+burnett . If you don’t use this link and search instead, it’s the opposite – there are so many books with “my” title, it’s best to search by my name.
Customer reviews are most welcome and greatly appreciated on both sites, should you be so inclined! Many thanks for reading, and more poems to come!
Below this whale song of waves: the fin-happy,
sounding through all the dumb canyons
of the sea, coloured crayon-bright in the dark
flooded basement of the earth, shadow-drifted
across aqueous meadows prismed with light,
blending with gray rock and white sand,
knobby coral and long swishy green,
ferned and prickled, smoothed and elongated,
troubled hard, dense, small
but here, and free—
the mute-mouthed, mandibled hungry
and the hunted—to a grotto-chased,
honorable death. Or those given eyes
to see the dangling hook, the silver
door swinging shut before it’s too late.
Those at least, weapons in the hand.
Not a cavernous ground zero.
Not here.
But this water knows, in its reach, how
my bikini got its name. Makes me think
of dreams I barely had, so quickly did they
sink from sight, but whose notes floated
long after, as if there was something
I could yet retrieve. In a tidal lullabye
of voices I cannot hear, the many mouths
of the sea open and close, open and close
lips I cannot read.
Another poem from my chapbook “Irresistible”, forthcoming from Finishing Line Press in March. Like to read more? Pre-orders (upon which the print run is based) end soon – January 12th! May this new year be as exciting for you as it is for me!
One large glass of water daily
before the endless cups of green tea,
a glass that stood wrapped
a long time in my father’s two hands,
head bowed to it, eyes closed
to the rest of us at the table.
I didn’t know what he thought
or felt or said to himself right then
nor how thirsty I was
for a silence so meant
until I felt it filling me too,
slaking the cracked creekbed
of rushed and ordinary days.
Fifty-five years old and home for a visit,
back in the cradle
of his slow kind hands.
This poem won first place in Pandora’s Collective 2012 contest and is included in my new chapbook “Irresistible”. Only two weeks left to reserve a copy here!
More good news! My poems “Always, In Returning” and “In The Cathedral” are now up at the lovely Taos Journal of Poetry & Art, along with many other beauties from writers I’ve long admired. Please do scroll through this Issue 10 to see what I mean! Many thanks to editors Cathy Strisik and Veronica Golos!
You can read them here: http://www.taosjournalofpoetry.com/always-in-returning/ – “In the Cathedral” is on the next page.
Lynne Burnett 