TURTLE ISLAND QUARTERLY 24
Winter 2022/2023
2 poems by Michael Lauchlan, 4 poems by Sara Backer, 2 poems by Barbara Parchim, a poem by Lorrie Ness, a poem by Pepper Trail, a poem by Mark DeCarteret, and 2 poems by Michael Spring
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2 poems by Michael Lauchlan
On a Marsh
the last of them/seen by any human alit on a Texas marsh in 1964--Robert Hass
Our old phrases fade away--
extinctions of a kind, like
the American Chestnut (a wind
riffling its vast mane)
the arctic curlew, long
division, old jazz bars,
and songs of innocence.
We go on without them,
until we find ourselves
gaping toward something
we can’t manage to say.
Voices slip from the world--
my mother quoting Gershwin
to her unsuspecting kids, a light
in her eyes. If I say we heard
the McKinneys play hot jazz
on a cold night, you’ll scoff,
maybe. But they kept us
alive–two brothers, Ray
on bass and Harold ringing
the piano–the last chords
hanging in that bright bubble
even as we shook their hands
and stepped into the frosted dark.
A Lathe
finds a bowl
within the block
From a day’s dust,
a thing rises takes
flight--a thought
newly borne in air
***
At Miner’s Falls
water crashes on stone
and laughs Men broke
rock here once--
died poor and young
Old and stiff
I crane from a railing
toward a million bright
hammers shaping granite
and not breaking stride
washing out to Superior
and the rocky continuities
When miners organized
thugs brought death
by arson and shotgun
One hundred years one
hundred years a day
a moment’s bright cataract
a waiting echoing stone
Even today wherever it’s dug
copper exacts a toll
***
We lean into the realm
of hawk and loon
longing for the spray
for what rolls
toward the deep cold
as though we’d forsake
our element and race down
with droplets and rivulets
toward unrelenting undulation
Michael Lauchlan has contributed to many publications, including New England Review, Virginia Quarterly Review, The North American Review, Sugar House Review, Louisville Review, Poet Lore, Bellingham Review, and Lake Effect. His most recent collection is Trumbull Ave., from WSU Press (2015).
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4 poems by Sara Backer
How Do You Remember Amoeba?
One eye at the microscope,
the other trying to draw. Still moving,
a swirl of pinpricks, a galaxy.
A clear, loud waterfall
we had to shout over
wind blowing away our words.
A single cell.
A prison cell.
A start.
Pond
thick with muck
and water lily stink
of duck and reeds. Rich
food for herons and turtles,
geese and frogs, eating
each other over and over.
Fallen
On the trail with dirty ice, wind
ruffles a cluster of speckled feathers
frozen in blood, as if they will
pull themselves up
and flutter back to life.
Culvert
Like the wormhole in Deep Space Nine
the culvert’s mouth opens under the road
and things appear.
A rosy mushroom with white spots.
Fly agaric, the lethal standard
of fairy tale illustration.
A package of Zig-Zag wraps
and a misspelled cookie fortune:
Patience is your alley.
A tiny scarlet maple leaf.
The blade of a hoe without a handle.
A torn shopping list.
A coyote pup barks like a squeaky toy.
I step back slowly, hoping he will
find his way back to Alpha quadrant.
Sara Backer’s first book of poetry, Such Luck, follows two poetry chapbooks: Scavenger Hunt and Bicycle Lotus, which won a Turtle Island poetry award. Her honors include a prize in the Plough Poetry Competition, nine Pushcart nominations, and way too many honorable mentions. She holds an MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts and reads for The Maine Review. Recent publications include Lake Effect, Slant, CutBank, Kenyon Review, Bamboo Ridge, and Poetry Northwest.
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2 poems by Barbara Parchim
from the sea (on seeing the Peter Iredale)
she rests on the shore - huge -
jutting out of the sand
like a fantastical sculpture
or a dark-boned carcass
nothing left but iron hull
and remnants of the masts pocked with rust
almost buried, these masts are
uncanny now at eye level -
odd patterns surround them in the sand
symmetrical encryptions of another language,
as though something
still lives and breathes below
I touch the iron latticework of the hull
forged by other hands over 100 years ago
framing the surf once home to this barque
the skeletal hull beckons -
I hesitate to enter the looming sanctum -
as though at any moment
the ship will rouse and shudder,
like some long-slumbering beast,
to return home on the next retreating wave
feral
we spoke as strangers do
when they meet as travelers -
inconsequential and wary
we were there for the long cave tour -
darkened passageways,
hushed and slightly claustrophobic,
the guide speaking of
grizzly and jaguar bones
long at rest in the dark,
vaulted marble rock,
bats asleep in their ancestral home
returning to daylight,
snow a few inches deep on the ground,
the stranger opened the back of his car
there, another type of cave -
a bed covered in furs,
feathers and beads tied with rawhide
hanging from the sides
antlers and other bones at one corner,
a sheathed knife and small pieces of wood,
stones neatly cached in another,
the smell of cedar and sage
an arrangement – deliberate -
this diorama awash with ambient light
feral -
yet as compelling as the collections
of the bower bird
when attracting a mate
I was drawn as if to nest
but it was autumn verging on early winter -
better to den up for a long sleep
in this safe hibernaculum
daylight waned
as we stood in light snowfall,
hesitating, a question hung in the air,
before we stepped back,
each to return to our own lair
Barbara Parchim lives on a small farm in southwest Oregon. She enjoys gardening and wilderness hiking and volunteered for several years at a wildlife rehabilitation facility caring for raptors and wolves. Her poems have appeared in Jefferson Journal, Isacoustic, Cirque, Windfall, Allegro Poetry, Otoliths, Trouvaille Review, Front Porch Review, Pedestal Magazine, Turtle Island Quarterly, Canary and others. Her first book of poetry titled What Remains was published by Flowstone Press in October, 2021.
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poem by Lorrie Ness
Broken
The appaloosa pistons on hind legs,
front hooves pummeling chill air.
Its sclera, branded by pupils,
are crescent moons locked
in orbit.
A nebula of dust laps
its ankles. Slammed to the ground
you straddle a saddle of weeds,
mistake the hoofbeats
reverberating in your chest
for a pulse.
A horse that is broken
shows you how to break. Your jaw
is a bone bridle. Your tongue
has been bitten
but was never a bit. Bloody teeth taste
like the metal threading
the appaloosa’s mouth.
The moment you drop the reins,
your fists are orphans. I lead
the horse to a tree & crouch to wipe
your cheeks. Under my thumbstrokes
your lips draw sideways
& your head steers
left then right.
The appaloosa lowers
its muzzle to graze, leather leads comet-tailing
through the tall grass.
When Lorrie Ness isn't writing, she can be found stomping through the woods, watching birds and playing in the dirt. Her work can be found in numerous journals, including Turtle Island Quarterly, THRUSH, Palette Poetry and Sky Island Journal. She was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2021 and her chapbook, “Anatomy of a Wound” was published by Flowstone Press in July of 2021.
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poem by Pepper Trail
En Route, Oregon to California
1.
Up the steep grade, trucks shoulder aside the spring rain
Spray falling on soft maple leaves, plump swaying flowers
2.
The volcano, inside the clouds
Could be doing anything
3.
Rows of almond trees
Make the flat land
Flatter
4.
Truck and truck and truck
At the Glenn County line
A field of weeds, a field of goats
5.
Cluster of porta-potties leans together
Gray, yellow, blue, and tan
What stories they could tell!
6.
The vulture has the sky to itself
Its shadow strikes our windshield
7.
The Bay a metal mirror, scratched by ferry boats
The heart of the city
Cold in this twilight
Pepper Trail's poems have appeared in Rattle, Atlanta Review, Catamaran, Turtle Island Quarterly, Ascent and other publications, and have been nominated for Pushcart and Best of the Net Awards. His collection, Cascade-Siskiyou: Poems, was a finalist for the 2016 Oregon Book Award in Poetry. He writes and explores the world from his home in Ashland, Oregon.
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poem by Mark DeCarteret
The Year I Went Without Reading Up on My Town
Look at how the stone had not shown how it’d cooled to the sun or is now known. How it had cloned all those shadows we’d worked into words. Lorded over our worlds, new and old. Sure, we could draw them closer to size. Sit down with them. And fill them in on our secrets. The role of those ancient walls. The need for all those laws. If not, take the word of that clown with the white ankle socks. Work him into the narrative. And when no one is looking. Select one little stone for the start of civilization. For who is left to tell on us? Those gods we half thought up and half sought after? Our doubts that grew, over time, into an altar? The ants that had carried it all off. Towards where the sun will eventually cool to it? I mean, even the light has had it with worshipping. And grown tired of us trying to professionally shop for it. Finding more stones for it to put up with.
Poems from Mark DeCarteret’s manuscript The Year I/We Went Without have been taken by The American Poetry Review, Asheville Poetry Review, BlazeVOX, Guesthouse, Hole in the Head Review, Map Literary, On the Seawall, Plume, South Florida Poetry Journal and Unbroken
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2 poems by Michael Spring
Mambo Azul
for Elizabeth Buchter
she waded through cattails
and stood waist deep
in the pond
her skin absorbed
the blue of dusk
when she opened her hand
to release a ghost
swamp trees encroached
with hunger
a black moon burned
inside her
from death and decay
to light
she sang
that is when the shadows
dissolved in the water
and the water began to stir
then as she pulled the pond
like a robe
over her shoulders
lily pads and koi
drifted
the contours of her body
I didn’t write the poem last night
when I found myself at the crossroads
I stepped on the gas
dust billowed like smoke from my car
I blasted straight through
passing Papa Legba’s Rum Shack
even as Papa stepped out of his fencepost door
waving for me to pull over
even as his eyes glowed like stop lights
it’s twilight and I’m still on a road that snakes
toward this year's first blood moon
between dusky hills swallowing dusky hills
I know somewhere in the distance
there’ll be another crossroads
shall I then take a right or left turn
is there still enough time
or should I turn around
I couldn’t remember the directions
Michael Spring is the author of five poetry books and one children's book. He has recently won the 2022 James Tate Prize for his chapbook Kahlo’s Window (SurVision Books, Ireland, 2023). His most recent book is dentro do som/ inside the sound (Companhio Das Ilhas, Portugal, 2021). Other accolades include the 2013 Turtle Island Poetry Award, a 2016 Luso-American Fellowship from DISQUIET International, and an honorable mention for the 2012 Eric Hoffer Book Award. His poems have recently appeared in Gavea-Brown, New York Quarterly, and Paris/Atlantic. He currently lives in O’Brien, OR. He is a poetry editor for The Pedestal Magazine and editor-in-chief for Flowstone Press.