Waiting for Change by Kathy Buckert (I Am Waiting Poetry Series)

WAITING FOR CHANGE
by Kathy Buckert

I’ve waited for the possibility I’d change, not for me but for you.
I know who I am, I accept it.
But I also know who you are and you don’t.
Now, I am waiting for you to see I am divinely created.
I am waiting for you to see I am fearfully and wonderfully made
I am waiting for you to see past my ugliness,
the madness that creeps into your healthy mind.
I am waiting for the infinite possibilities of my moods to
stop raging against your black and white reality.
I am waiting for the deepness of my despair to
stop leading you to your booze and video games.
I am waiting for my mania and moments of exultation
to stop creeping into the center of your utmost fear,
simply because you cannot control it.
I am waiting for you to see the beautiful me, not on the outside
like a trophy on the mantle to admire or to have on your
arm admired by your friends.
I am waiting for the fulfillment of my lingering desires, an anticipation
constantly postponed because I am lost in the chasm of your longings, not mine.
I know who I am. Now, I am waiting for you to see the prettiness of my soul.
To be the man who took me for better or for worse.
To stand by my side when the storm rages inside me.
To love the moments when I am rapturous.
To pull me up out of the depths of my despondency.
Now I am waiting for you to change, not me.

IMAGE: “The Hesitation Waltz” by René Magritte (1950)/

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Kathy Buckert holds a Master’s Degree in Education from St. Michael’s College in Vermont. She also holds an M.F.A in Creative Writing from Goddard College’s low residency program in Plainfield, Vermont. Her work has appeared in Stories: The Magazine, The Barefoot Review, Riverlit, The Blue Hour, Black Mirror Magazine, Electric Rather, and other publications. She is an adjunct assistant professor at Monroe Community College in Rochester, New York.

Running ahead to fall behind by Rizwan Saleem (I Am Waiting Poetry Series)

Running ahead to fall behind
by Rizwan Saleem

Waiting
Eternally, waiting
For lost things to return
A turn in tides
From fortune turned to ashes
A fire extinguished to burn
I’m waiting
For the perfect moment
In every day and every year of mine
I’m waiting
To stop wasting time
I’m waiting for mystical clouds to burst open
And shower me down with holy water
Wash me clean of my sins
I’m waiting
For my problems to solve them selves
For magic unknown
To conquer all
And fear none
I’m waiting
To stop waiting
I’m waiting to move on

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Rizwan Saleem is a banker based in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. The thoughts and expressions detailed in his works are of his various escapades suffered through life, and of the profound surprise of having survived long enough to pen them into words. His poems have appeared in anthologies Twenty-Seven Signs by Lady Chaos Press and Self-Portrait Poetry Collection by Silver Birch Press.

IMAGE: “The Future of Statues” by René Magritte (1937) painted in oil on a commercial plaster reproduction of the death mask of Napoleon.

Self-Portrait, poem by Robert Cording

SELF-PORTRAIT
by Robert Cording

So strongly present, enclosed
in familiar features: all you
ever see, your self, unreal
to the Buddhist monk, but
something you cannot get rid of.

Inconceivable, this face, yours
just once to wear, that says, You
can go this far and no further.
That grins, self-mockingly,
when you try to reach with words’

tenuous liaisons what you believe
words do not invent.
Your petitions repeat themselves,
endlessly trying to get it right,
but still you hear only

your own voice, your will
never strong enough
to will nothing. So here
you are, fleshed out in features
that tell the same old story

year after year, the end
just beginning to make itself
clear in the boney ridges
rising to the surface
of your cheeks, in the deep

holes into which your eyes
stare, and sink, an emptiness
asking, What have you ever seen
beyond the point of vanishing
to which we have brought you?

SOURCE: Poetry (December 1996).

IMAGE: Self-Portrait (The Pilgrim) by René Magritte (1966).

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Robert Cording is the author of several collections of poetry, including Life-list (1987), Heavy Grace (1996), and Walking With Ruskin (2010). Cording has received numerous honors for his poetry, including fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Connecticut Commission on the Arts, and the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference. He has served as director of From the Fishouse and was poet-in-residence at the Frost Place. The Barrett Chair of Creative Writing at the College of the Holy Cross, Cording lives in Woodstock, Connecticut.

Short Song, poem by Douglas Goetsch

SHORT SONG
by Douglas Goetsch

The self is a ship in a bottle.
You want to built it when you’re young
but if not, no matter, the self
will be the thing in you that’s sad
when the sun goes down. Ninety
percent of it you’ll never know
but there are worse thing to not know
like the rest of a song
the great Russian novels
or the way home.

SOURCE: “Short Song” appears in Douglas Goetsch‘s collection Nobody’s Hell (Hanging Loose Press, 1999), available at Amazon.com.

IMAGE: “Homage to Magritte” by Enrico Ripamonti. Prints available at pixels.com.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:  Douglas Goetsch is the author of three books of poems, most recently Nameless Boy (Orchises Press, 2015), and four prizewinning chapbooks. His work has appeared numerous magazines and anthologies, including The New Yorker, The American Scholar and Best American Poetry. He is a recipient of a National Foundation for the Arts Poetry Fellowship and a Pushcart Prize, and is founding editor of Jane Street Press in New York City. His poem “Swimming to New Zealand” will appear in the Silver Birch Press Great Gatsby Anthology (April 2015). Visit him at douglasgoetsch.com.

Late March, poem by Edward Hirsch

LATE MARCH
by Edward Hirsch 

Saturday morning in late March.
I was alone and took a long walk,
though I also carried a book
of the Alone, which companioned me.

The day was clear, unnaturally clear,
like a freshly wiped pane of glass,
a window over the water,
and blue, preternaturally blue,
like the sky in a Magritte painting,
and cold, vividly cold, so that
you could clap your hands and remember

winter, which had left a few moments ago—
if you strained you could almost see it
disappearing over the hills in a black parka.
Spring was coming but hadn’t arrived yet.
I walked on the edge of the park.
The wind whispered a secret to the trees,
which held their breath
and scarcely moved.
On the other side of the street,
the skyscrapers stood on tiptoe.

I walked down to the pier to watch
the launching of a passenger ship.
Ice had broken up on the river
and the water rippled smoothly in blue light.
The moon was a faint smudge
in the clouds, a brushstroke, an afterthought
in the vacant mind of the sky.
Seagulls materialized out of vapor
amidst the masts and flags.
Don’t let our voices die on land,
they cawed, swooping down for fis
and then soaring back upwards.

The kiosks were opening
and couples moved slowly past them,
arm in arm, festive.
Children darted in and out of walkways,
which sprouted with vendors.
Voices greeted the air.
Kites and balloons. Handmade signs.
Voyages to unknown places.
The whole day had the drama of an expectation.

Down at the water, the queenly ship
started moving away from the pier.
Banners fluttered.
The passengers clustered at the rails on deck.
I stood with the people on shore and waved
goodbye to the travelers.
Some were jubilant;
others were broken-hearted.
I have always been both.

Suddenly, a great cry went up.
The ship set sail for the horizon
and rumbled into the future
but the cry persisted
and cut the air
like an iron bell ringing
in an empty church.
I looked around the pier
but everyone else was gone
and I was left alone
to peer into the ghostly distance.
I had no idea where that ship was going
but I felt lucky to see it off
and bereft when it disappeared.

SOURCE: Poetry (July/August 2007).

PAINTING: “Night Sky with Bird” by René Magritte (1945).

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Edward Hirsch is an American poet and critic who wrote the national best seller How to Read a Poem. He has published eight books of poems, including The Living Fire: New and Selected Poems (2010), which brings together thirty-five years of work. He is president of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation in New York City.

The Invisible Birds of Central America, poem by Craig Arnold

THE INVISIBLE BIRDS OF CENTRAL AMERICA
by Craig Arnold

The bird who creaks like a rusty playground swing
the bird who sharpens the knife         the bird who blows
on the mouths of milk bottles         the bird who bawls like a cat
like a cartoon baby         the bird who rubs the wineglass
the bird who curlicues         the bird who quacks like a duck
but is not a duck         the bird who pinks on a jeweller’s hammer
They hide behind the sunlight scattered throughout the canopy
At the thud of your feet they fall thoughtful and quiet
coming to life again only when you have passed
Perhaps they are not multiple         but one
a many-mooded trickster         whose voice is rich
and infinitely various         whose feathers
liquify the rainbow         rippling scarlet
emerald indigo         whose streaming tail
is rare as a comet’s         a single glimpse of which
is all that you could wish for         the one thing
missing         to make your eyes at last feel full
to meet this wild need of yours         for wonder

PAINTING: “Le Printemps” by René Magritte (1965)