“Land of My Home”
by Adair Heitmann
Drinking tea: age two
Calling the bathroom – the loo
Name for a cow: coo
Oil lamps light our home
Briny scents waft off North Sea
At night sheep bleating
Seals playing on rocks
We draw water from fresh streams
Shortbread melts in mouth
Decades later when
Remembering windswept coasts
Our rugged lifestyle
Back in the U.S.
Connecting home and myself
Memories flood back
Purple heather fields
The land of the midnight sun
Scottish isles formed me
Connecticut Press Club 2024 Professional Communications Contest Second Place Writing Award for Creative Verse (Single Poem)
Heitmann, Adair. “Land of My Home.” We Are Here: Poetry That Explores the Power of Place, edited by Sandy Lee Carlson, Orenaug Mountain Publishing, 2024, pp. 65-66
PIETA*
By Polly Brody
She clasps him, pallid torso
naked against her knee.
She’s turned his face
into the black pyramid of her grief.
We see neither face.
Could we endure their grimace?
Her stygian burqa
conceals her cradling form
but we know her—
mother of sorrows.
There is the irony of latex gloves,
necessary precaution
that denies his flesh
her fingers’ treasuring touch.
And what of that small, white slit
in her head’s obsidian cowl—
her teeth gleam there,
bared by lamentation’s howl.
*From photo of a Serian woman holding her son.
And may stand in now, 2025, for all Palestinians.
Halloween
By Matthew Borelli
Here we are at October’s tail
Time for witches and goblins to wail
Nighttime shadows create fear
Making you think that evil is near
Black cats seen everywhere
Make us heed the signs that say Beware
Eerie sounds in the night
Cause us to run in mortal fright
In the streets on the Stoops and at each entry
Adults await the children who ask for plenty
Trick or treat is their cry
Wanting candy is their why
Dressed in costumes and fancy dos
They prepare to practice their Halloween ruse
They come to us with good in their heart
Hoping with loads of candy they will depart
Using every trick that they can ply
No request can we deny
What they say
Is as an actor in a one act play
No evil for us to fear
There can only be goodness when children are near
So on this special night
Allow the world to be filled with fright
Let the ghouls the ghosts and the black cats play
Make believe that they are real this day
It’’s all a game and when the night is through
Reality will come back to you
The monsters that came asking for more
Tomorrow will play soccer right next door
The evil witches and goblins too
Will ride their bikes in front of you
For us, we will again put our costumes and decorations away
Storing them for another scary Halloween day
IMPRINT
by Polly Brody
At conception, gene galaxies
pregnant with stars
code embryo ears
toward particular oracles.
The mallard rolls her eggs and settles closer.
Brood skin presses its contact
hot toward the pipping tooth
and tremors of imminent heads shoving.
Bill down, she speaks:
tucked within nacreous curves,
ducklings hear her whispers.
Their cries respond through eggshell walls–
dialog, sealing identity.
My unborn child floats, chin-down.
Behind his brow new cortex waits,
its hemispheres as yet naïve.
I press my palm to the ripple
of his heel shoving my flesh.
Does this infant, tucked under thunder
of my proximate heart,
hear maternal syllables
and know himself?
Haiku Chapter Member’s Poems
The prompt for September is Transition. The topic for October will be sent out by the end of September. Do not send haikus before October 1.