Fable of the Ant and the Word, poem by Mary Barnard

FABLE OF THE ANT AND THE WORD
by Mary Barnard

Ink-black, but moving independently
across the black and white parquet of print,
the ant cancels the author out. The page,
translated to itself, bears hair-like legs
disturbing the fine hairs of its fiber.
These are the feet of summer, pillaging meaning,
destroying Alexandria. Sunlight is silence
laying waste all languages, until, thinly,
the fictional dialogue begins again:
the page goes on telling another story.
***
“Fable of the Ant and the Word” appears in Mary Barnard’s Collected Poems (Breitenbush, 1979), available at Amazon.com.

Image: Typewriter Pep Talk Raven Ant Mug available at zazzle.com.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Mary Barnard (1909-2001) was born in Vancouver, Washington and attended Reed College, where she received her bachelor’s degree in 1932. Her works include A Few Poems (1952), The Mythmakers (1966), Three Fables (1975) and Nantucket Genesis: The Tale of My Tribe (1988). She was awarded Poetry Magazine’s Levinson Award in 1935, the Elliston award for her book Collected Poems (1979), the Western States Book Award in 1986 for her book Time and the White Tigress (1986) and the Woman of Achievement award from Clark College in 1988.

Small Beings, Erasure Poem by Thomas R. Thomas

We are pleased to announce the first submission in our call for erasure poems created at erasures.wavepoetry.com. Thomas R. Thomas — whose work also appears in the Silver Birch Press Summer Anthology, available at Amazon.com — submitted the erasure poem below, using a passage from The History of Insects (find the text here) as source material. Thank you, Thomas!

SMALL BEINGS
Erasure Poem by Thomas R. Thomas

Try it yourself at erasures.wavepoetry.com.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Thomas R. Thomas was born in Los Angeles  and grew up in the San Gabriel Valley west of LA. Currently, he lives in Long Beach, California. For his day job, he is a software QA Analyst. He volunteers for Tebot Bach, a community poetry organization, in Huntington Beach. Thomas has been published in Don’t Blame the Ugly Mug: 10 Years of 2 Idiots Peddling Poetry, Creepy Gnome, Carnival, Pipe Dream, Bank Heavy Press, Conceit Magazine, Electric Windmill & Marco Polo. In November 2012, Carnival released his eChapbook, Scorpio, and Washing Machine Press released a chapbooklette called Tanka. In 2013, World Parade Books will publish a book of his poetry. Visit his website at thomasrthomas.org.

The Grasshopper, poem by Conrad Aiken

THE GRASSHOPPER
by Conrad Aiken

Grasshopper
grasshopper 

all day long 

we hear your scraping 

summer song 

like
rusty 

fiddles 

in 

the 

grass 

as through
the meadow 

path 

we pass 

such funny legs 

such funny feet 

and how we wonder 

what you eat 

maybe a single blink of dew 

sipped from a clover leaf would do
then high in air 

once more you spring
to fall in grass again
and sing. 

PAINTING: “Grasshopper on Flowering Plant” by Tsuji Kako (1870-1931)

Primo Levi Ponders Butterflies

“The butterfly’s attractiveness derives not only from colors and symmetry:  deeper motives contribute to it.  We would not think them so beautiful if they did not fly, or if they flew straight and briskly like bees, or if they stung, or above all if they did not enact the mystery of metamorphosis, which assumes in our eyes the value of a message, a symbol, a sign.” PRIMO LEVI

Photo: Ryan Learoyd, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Haruki Murakami Muses About Butterflies

” … I come here every day, say hello to the butterflies, and talk about things with them. When the time comes, though, they just quietly go off and disappear. I’m sure it means they’ve died, but I can never find their bodies. They don’t leave any trace behind. It’s like they’ve been absorbed by the air. They’re dainty little creatures that hardly exist at all: they come out of nowhere, search quietly for a few, limited things, and disappear into nothingness again, perhaps to some other world.”  HARUKI MURAKAMI, IQ84

Photo: Melanie Huff, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Butterfly, Poem by D.H. Lawrence

BUTTERFLY

Poem by David Herbert Lawrence

Butterfly, the wind blows sea-ward,
strong beyond the garden-wall!
Butterfly, why do you settle on my
shoe, and sip the dirt on my shoe,
Lifting your veined wings, lifting them?
big white butterfly!
 
Already it is October, and the wind
blows strong to the sea
from the hills where snow must have
fallen, the wind is polished with
snow.
Here in the garden, with red
geraniums, it is warm, it is warm
but the wind blows strong to sea-ward,
white butterfly, content on my shoe!
 
Will you go, will you go from my warm
house?
Will you climb on your big soft wings,
black-dotted,
as up an invisible rainbow, an arch
till the wind slides you sheer from the
arch-crest
and in a strange level fluttering you go
out to sea-ward, white speck!

Photo: Grace Ray, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Z-ing of the Locust, Journal Entry by Henry David Thoreau

“Very warm. Now for a thin coat. This melting weather makes a stage in the year. The crickets creak louder and more steadily; the bullfrogs croak in earnest. The drought begins. The dry z-ing of the locust is heard…” 

From The Writings of Henry David Thoreau: Journal 1837-1846

Photo: Say Cheese, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED