At the Turn of the Year by Robbi Nester (I Am Waiting Poetry Series)

AT THE TURN OF THE YEAR
by Robbi Nester

I am waiting for the moon
to hang like a golden lantern
among blue stars.
I am waiting for the orchid’s
tight buds to swell, fists
full of secrets, till the flower
bursts its bonds, unfurls,
a swallowtail finally free
of its chrysalis.
I am waiting for our resolutions
to fly like pennants
in the battlefields, for anger
to burn to ashes
and the weeping to start.
Let us begin again in the ruins
of what we have wrought.
Let us begin.

IMAGE: “Orchid” by Togyu Okumura (1889-1990).

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:  Robbi Nester is the author of a chapbook, Balance (White Violet, 2012) and a collection of poems, A Likely Story (Moon Tide Press, 2014). She has also edited an anthology of poems inspired by NPR and PBS stories, The Liberal Media Made Me Do It! (Nine Toes Press, 2014) and writes book reviews for The New York Quarterly Journal of Books and serves as an Executive Editor for Slippage, a journal of literature and science. She has published poetry, reviews, interviews, essays, and articles in many journals and anthologies, including Lummox, Poemelion, Inlandia, Broadsided, Poetic Diversity, and many others. Her poems are forthcoming in Cimmaron Review and Poetic Diversity.

I’ll Hold The Elevator by Daniel Eduardo Ruiz (I Am Waiting Poetry Series)

I’LL HOLD THE ELEVATOR
by Daniel Eduardo Ruiz

only if I like you—because the ceiling and the floor
are the same color gray as a saturated sidewalk
and if I need to go down seven floors
that’s my business—just like it might be your business

to sit right next to me in an empty movie theater
or wear a shirt thinner than black iced coffee
or point out that this elevator expires in August
or make too much noise in the adjacent bathroom stall

I want to know where you’re going, though,
because I wait for you to board this elevator
on the third floor to go to the fourth
when the stairs are instantly accessible
like mangoes that fell from your tree into your backyard

but I feel terrible when I notice your limp
because I’m wrong about your apathy

it does take more than stairs to keep you healthy
those heels do make you look professional
I understand you’re in a hurry

I’ve got to be getting somewhere too
I just never remember to get out on my floor

IMAGE: “Lift Sign” by Tom Gowanlock. Prints available at fineartamerica.com.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Daniel Eduardo Ruiz was born in Bayamón, Puerto Rico, but now lives in Tallahassee, Florida. A poet, translator, and full-time student at Florida State University, his poems have appeared or are forthcoming in the minnesota review, New Delta Review, and Foliate Oak, and he was fortunate enough to be nominated for a Pushcart Prize.

The Clarity of Hope by Maureen E. Doallas (I Am Waiting Poetry Series)

THE CLARITY OF HOPE
by Maureen E. Doallas

I am waiting, hope-
ridden on the darkest day
of the year.

This morning, in the wash
of green-foamed sea, the bloated
body of a fin whale lists, hushing

the pod’s fracturing echolocation.
The water, displaced, barely
conceals the gray-boned back,

so that I, adjusting my prayer
shawl that cannot be stretched
enough to cover

the living and what’s dying,
wait for some sign
its last great breath still holds.

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: On the first day of winter, I happened upon an image of a huge, stranded, and listing fin whale. The association of darkness with death, which the image seemed to evoke, was apt; yet, in this season of hope-filled waiting, I allowed myself to consider the possibility that the animal remained alive.

IMAGE: “Orca” by Tamara Phillips. Prints available at fineartamerica.com.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Maureen E. Doallas is the author of Neruda’s Memoirs: Poems (T.S. Poetry Press, 2011). Her work has appeared in Open to Interpretation: Water’s Edge, Open to Interpretation: Love & Lust, Oil and Water… And Other Things That Don’t Mix; Tania Runyan’s How to Read a Poem; and Felder Rushing’s book bottle trees. Her poems can be found at Broadsided Press (“Responses: Ebola 2014”), Split This Rock (“Poems that Resist Police Brutality & Demand Racial Justice”), Every Day Poems, The Woven Tale Press, The Found Poetry Review, The Victorian Violet Press & Journal, The Poetry Storehouse, Escape Into Life, and other online and print publications. She blogs at Writing Without Paper, is an Artist Watch editor for Escape Into Life, and has a small art business, Transformational Threads. Her interviews and features appear regularly at TweetSpeak Poetry.

Waiting for the Moose to Leave by Connie Wieneke (I Am Waiting Poetry Series)

Waiting for the Moose to Leave
by Connie Wieneke

I am waiting for the moose
all three of them today
to take leave of what’s left of summer
willow wands and rosehips
to polish off the by-now dwarf
mugo pine, to bulldoze a path
through cotoneaster, sedum, and the crimped
remains of red twig dogwood, to hurdle
the falling-down fence
with double-jointed oblivious grace
to do unto our neighbors’ gardens
as moose have done unto ours
unhurried season after
unhurried season.

I am waiting
to develop a strategy
that enviable practice of yogic non-
attachment to the idea of a future
perfection in my yard
to let go
of the superlative
borders and flower beds
unblemished by leaf mold
gopher tunneled tulips, aphid-
infested lupine, hay mice taking up
residence amidst sticky geraniums
and moose
pruning whatever and whenever
they want, waiting
to foster a devil
may care attitude toward
any and all
who make my garden
their own
no matter what I think
I can do about it

IMAGE: “Autumn Glimpse” by Marion Rose. Prints available at fineartamerica.com.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Connie Wieneke has lived in Wyoming for 30 years. Her poetry has appeared in a variety of journals, including Stand Magazine, Cutbank, Petroglyph, and Whiskey Mountain Magazine. Currently, she is working on a collection of poems about family. Who doesn’t? She received an MFA in creative writing from the University of Montana a long time ago.

A Belly Like a Bowler Hat by Laura MacDonald (I Am Waiting Poetry Series)

A BELLY LIKE A BOWLER HAT
by Laura MacDonald

The moment I found out I was pregnant,
I named the baby Godot,

not yet ready to be a mother.
I waited, my belly a swelling mound of dirt

I had always assumed barren, and I
closed the curtains on reality,

setting plays inside my womb,
muffled soliloquies echoing off fleshy walls

(that my mind, lacking a dramaturge,
had made to look like the inside of a whale:

a proscenium arch of towering rib bones
draped with red satin sinew and a

spotlight, tenuous at best,
coming in through the blowhole).

The day they cut me open and two
threadbare men climbed out of my belly

fully grown (though not fully shod)
and tottered away grumbling about being stood up,

I realized that I had been a mother
from the moment I gave you a name

and so I planted a tree instead of a stone
that, in the cemetery’s teeming soil,

would grow to be tall
but never sprout a single leaf.

IMAGE: “Pregnant Woman” by Otto Dix (1891-1969).

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Laura MacDonald is not good at waiting patiently so she went and had herself a baby before reading all the baby books. She read other books instead. Motherhood has changed her in countless ways, the most surprising being that, in all the chaos of diapers, puree-stained tiles, and forgetting what it feels like to close her eyes, she has found that writing has become a need. A visceral, uncontrollable, wonderful need. She still hasn’t checked but she’s fairly sure that’s not in any of the baby books. Visit her at purpletoothedgrin.wordpress.com.

Release by Prasanta Verma (I Am Waiting Poetry Series)

RELEASE
by Prasanta Verma

I am waiting for this single grain of sand—
drenched, beaten, bent— until
softened bubble pearl in my hands.

I am waiting for my words— churned and rummaged
through days and rivers— until
washed clean, in rivulets of graceful form.

I am waiting for my song, fleshed in earthen dirt—
off-key, uneven, cacophonous turn— until
a sapphire symphony from dissonant muddy grays.

I am waiting for my canvas— washed, primed, empty —
to recompose, through prismatic turn, until
a vision of breathtaking, radiant, luminous hues.

I am waiting for my broken pieces— fallen, beat—
seeking meaning as sunsets turn, until
framed with beauty and pulsing emerald seas.

I am waiting for life-bitten hands to open and swallow
the fears of mankind; the colorless, bland cries.
I am waiting for release of hopes and golden breath.

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: “Release” was originally a sestina I wrote a few years ago about waiting and the creative process as an artist struggles through creating art, whether it be poetry, painting, music, etc. I rewrote the stanzas, removed the form, and incorporated the word “waiting”; ultimately, the poem culminates with the desire, once again, for beauty and for sorrows to end.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:  Prasanta Verma is a homeschooling mom of three with a passion for words; she loves poetry, books, and chai. She currently teaches speech and debate classes to high school students, and her newest adventure this fall included acting in a local theater production. Prasanta wrote her first poem at the age of seven, and began studying poetry more intentionally a few years ago. She has had poetry published on blogs, including her own, and on the Tweetspeakpoetry.com website.

I am waiting that everything you say by Terry Adams (I Am Waiting Poetry Series)

I am waiting that everything you say
by Terry Adams

I am waiting that everything you say will be held against you in a court of      law
I am waiting that everything you say will be repeated in the court of the      hereafter.
I am waiting that everything you say was said before.
I am waiting that everything you say is the only way you touch.
I am waiting that everything you say is building your home
I am waiting that everything you say will not lie down in your casket
I am waiting that everything you say is solid as anger and invisible as the      Pentagon.
I am waiting that everything you say is hoarse with voices of ancient fire      and
cried through the breath of the hunted
I am waiting that everything you say is spelled in the ink of need
I am waiting that everything you say begins the reconstruction of the      mind
I am waiting that everything you say is the shape of music and the power of strawberries
I am waiting that everything you say lightens the burden of the future
anything you say should be complete in the time it takes
to give your cat an enema
the body is the nun of your lonely thoughts
the priest of our oldest wishes.
Your wireless minutes have exceeded their limits you have unused
icons on your desktop I am waiting that everything you say
your voice is a vote for the party of the unspeakable
your voice is a claim for the innocence of hell
I am waiting that everything you say will drag you by the nape of your      neck
We are caretakers in fire-watch towers in a single forest,
We are tenders of medieval gardens,
We are silent at the oil cloth table light bulb vigil
high over sunflowers abandoned and bending
We are champagne wedding in earliest sun
we are Martin Luther at the celestial suggestion box
which face is yours at the Greyhound window — are you reflected
in the glass of night?
Are you the spark advancing along the beach
Are you slung across a saddle on the way to Kabul
Is yours the scream that will stop the clatter of machineguns
Are you electrocuted at the microphone
Your sentence will pardon the eyeless and open the ears that are buried      in doors
You are an unlawful assembly
you are an unlawful assembly
The rock of the law is the sand around your feet
               Your description of the sunrise begins the healing of the world
               Your description of the spirit is the birth of the Spirit
                              Your question is the question the Universe has been                               waiting for
                              Your command tells the future to begin
you are shuffling a stack of grammar parts at a language fire
under the freeway
you are advancing the spark in the motor of breath
Shake your can of verbs onto the bar top
buy a round of soul for the vagrant children
Is there a lighted wick crackling along the base of your spine
Is there a lighted wick crackling in the base of your spine

IMAGE: “Spine of the Flame” by Garrett Gill. Learn more at fineartamerica.com.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Terry Adams MCs the poetry festival each September at the Beat Museum in San Francisco. He has poems in Poetry Magazine (Chicago), Witness, The Sun, The Sand Hill Review, etc. His current book is Adam’s Ribs, from Off The Grid Press (Weld, Maine). He restored and lives in Ken Kesey’s infamous old cabin in La Honda, California.

Linnets and Planets by Jennifer Finstrom (I Am Waiting Poetry Series)

LINNETS AND PLANETS
      After a line by Laurence Ferlinghetti
by Jennifer Finstrom

When the young man and woman orbit from one
train car to the next on the first warm morning
after the polar vortex, I am waiting
for the daily spell cast by my commute to end.

And when the man pulls the cord above the door
and it opens, stopping the train, he shouts
“Is this what you want?” and tries to throw his
girlfriend out into the air over the elevated

tracks between the Wilson and Sheridan Red Line
stops, and I am not waiting for anything at all.
And when a US marine, who is also on the train,
takes control of the situation, it is still only a few

minutes past 8 a.m., and the sun is still shining.
The police are waiting on the Sheridan platform,
and a nineteen-year-old man has tried and failed
to throw his girlfriend from a moving train.

And I wonder what would have happened if she
had let herself be released into the bright air,
if she would have become a small brown bird
with a splash of red on its breast, and when I step

out of the train, my own identity is waiting to settle
back over me like a cloak of feathers. The snow
is melting into puddles, and I imagine that I see
the planets there, and even though I feel how they

still move, I know that everyone has changed.

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: I find the lines “and I am waiting / for linnets and planets to fall like rain” in Ferlinghetti’s poem very compelling, and as I was wondering what they might lead to, I found myself revisiting another poem that I had been meaning to write and seeing some elements of confluence between them.

IMAGE: “The Blue Bird” by Marc Chagall (1968).

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Jennifer Finstrom teaches in the First-Year Writing Program, tutors in writing, and facilitates a writing group, Writers Guild, at DePaul University. She has been the poetry editor of Eclectica Magazine since October of 2005, and her work appears or is forthcoming in After Hours, NEAT, Midwestern Gothic, One Sentence Poems, and Yew Journal, among others. In addition, she has a poem forthcoming in the Silver Birch Press The Great Gatsby Anthology.

Waiting for the Blue Wren by Merlene Fawdry (I Am Waiting Poetry Series)

Waiting for the Blue Wren
by Merlene Fawdry

I wait for the blue wren
to emerge from his nest
for it is as good as any intent
when apathy threatens and
in the waiting, I notice
other small things
of haiku brevity
a spiral of butterflies
a rose petal adrift
a rain spider peeping
between rungs on a chair
blades of grass waving
in low level breeze
ants on the march
and bees hard at work
the blue wren stays home
but I thank him, in absentia
for the waiting

IMAGE: “A Little Blue” [male splendid fairy wren, Australia] by Wendy Slee. Prints available at fineartamerica.com.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Merlene Fawdry lives in rural Victoria, Australia. She enjoys the diversity of writing poetry, nonfiction, and fiction, and provides an editing, manuscript preparation, and writer mentoring service. She has a strong interest in social justice, and is committed to giving a voice to the oppressed through her writing.

Waiting During Summer Solstice by Martin Willitts, Jr (I Am Waiting Poetry Series)

Waiting During Summer Solstice
by Martin Willitts, Jr

This is the longest day
when the world is most fertile.
I am waiting for a cow to give birth,
but no one can control the timing.

I hear another cow having trouble
giving birth. I must reach inside
to turn another calf around.
It is messy work needing to be done.

Above, the sun has gone into stillness.
It takes whatever shade I had.
The sun is swollen and pregnant,
taking its time, moving with difficulty.

Another cow is struggling.
How many more will I help to deliver?
It is like the heat had shrunk their birth canals.
Waiting for babies takes patience.

My wife cannot wait; she is giving birth without a midwife.
The baby won’t turn. She is calling and cursing my name.
She says, if it is a son, she will put the child back in.
It does not matter. I reach inside, turn the baby around.

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: “Summer Solstice” is a memory poem, but mixed with situations that were not really in the same time period. When I was in my teens, I actually had to deliver some baby cows that would not turn around. I had been waiting, then realized the calf was stuck. Later in life, my wife had a Frank’s Breach birth (baby does not turn around) and I offered to assist with turning our baby around inside, but the hospital would not let me. When a baby wants to arrive, they do not want to wait until it is convenient.

ANOTHER NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: I still have a signed first edition of A Coney Island of the Mind with a self-portrait that Ferlinghetti drew with his signature.

IMAGE: “Peasants” by Pablo Picasso (1906).

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Martin Willitts, Jr has seven full-length collections including national ecological contest winner Searching for What Is Not There, and 28 chapbooks. His poem, “I Am Tired of Waiting” will appear in his forthcoming full-length collection, God Is Not Amused with What You Are Doing in Her Name (Aldrich Press). He won the one-time International Dylan Thomas Poetry Award for the centennial.