Bio of René Parks

René Parks is an award winning poet and has presented her academic work at esteemed venues such as the Midwest Modern Language Association conference and Sigma Tau Delta International English Honors Society conference. Her scholarship and creative writing focus on themes central to ecofeminism, healing with nature, and folk stories. She received her BA and MA in English from Governors State University in University Park, Illinois and her MFA in poetry from Lindenwood University in St. Charles, Missouri. 

Rhamnus Cathartica (Common Buckthorn)

Mourning doves coo to each other and young hawks circle the sky 
flight patterns dancing overhead
rays of sun hit the meadows edge
two broad canine heads boast crowns of wild sunflowers and butterfly weed
they munch grass like goats in the warmth of the afternoon
Althea’s lips form an O as she sucks up fallen chokecherries 
Noble’s strong jaws crunch cracking meat from acorn shells
streamside their patient tongues lap between frogs and minnows, among the algae
full bellies lull them to sleep in the big blue stems of grass 
under the shaggy bark of the hickory sits their transcendent queen in half lotus

unaware that from the shade of the forest
a stag, with twelve points to be made is watching
he silently accosts her meditation, mashes his deer lips to hers, 
sucking the ujjayi breath from her mouth, hooves like stones pin her gyan hands
hornets swarm from their nearby hole, stinging protest
and Althea & Noble hear nothing through their dog dreams, kicking and whining in the weeds
hidden by stalks of mullein, the stag is sated
he wrests away her hawthorn ring and the spellbound queen sinks into the deepest sleep
nine months later, baby buckthorn penetrates a frosty ground
beneath the hickory, a single story is unbound

A Kindergartener & His Teacher, in Portrait

slim finger laid against Her tightly pursed lips 
dividing the course craven hairs cowering atop,
bitter dark chocolate percolating in each crusty corner.
around the room She is drifting, elbows winging:
brillowed black hair and a serious snoot
She is maneuvering shin sharp tables 
surrounded by trippable chairs
wafts of paints, crayons, and cookies flow on the air

and with leering looks of incredulity and scorn She 
reduces him to dust five times a day 
assessing his paper, grabbing his crayons, 
proclaiming scribble scrabble, 
pushing toward him a single leaden pencil
thus watering and sunshining seeds of self hate 
planted by his divided parents
She pushes them deeper into underdeveloped 
tissue soft recesses close to the bone 
a reminder forever

of shoes too big for too small feet, 
feet that refuse to fall in line
puffy pull-up threatening the elastic in his jeans
hang dog expression hardening his face of
translucent skin framed by fine orange hair,
crooked saucers astride his head
eyes round with shame
sitting in a chair at the back of the room 
in permanent pout

while the good, the blessed with clean clothes 
sit criss cross each pinned to a colorful carpet square
embracing Her pecking-order, they’ve outgrown the 
need for a nap, and have flexible fingers producing tenuous letters 
on white boards in their laps while Her talonous pointer lands 
primly on each dear page of the glossy picture book

California Dreamin’

All real living is meeting.—Martin Buber
It’s important to get the basics.—Mahnaz Saberi

They can hear the bulldozers rumble down, to raze all
their makeshift dwellings in the camp. Real
people live here, but those living
nearby complain of noise and theft. Fear is
what fuels the brightly-lit machinery, this violent meeting.

One woman, 44, a shed-dweller, says it’s
urgent to save what’s important
for her friends―blankets, flashlights, a grill—to
warn them that their plywood shanties will get
no mercy. Life here is the
splintered furniture of poverty, where stars are the only basics.

End Zone

Somebody died yesterday.
Then another and another.
I saw their souls sitting on the prairie,
wrapped in blankets and sun.
Should I speak to them now, or wait?

Stay calm. Go from bed to pen and back.
The paper’s there for conversation.
Ink on pages will outlast me,
when persons become ghosts
and a whole world of anima hangs above
like webs on a chandelier.

It is the living who pray to strange gods,
who make laws and break them
in our short, foolish lives,
who worry when the roof leaks, a cellar floods,
who torture each other, cage children,
who keep walking our daily rounds, thinking of youth,
waiting to slide into the dark.
Who will mourn us, someone or no one?

I will wrap myself in wind.
I will pull the needles from my arms,
the tubes from my mouth. My skin, tissue-thin,
will be the memory of veins in a leaf.
My fragility will bloom with wordless affection
for the living and the dead. My bones
will disintegrate, their ashes rise to meet
my ancestors on some mountain or cityscape,
their dust in the skyscrapers they built,
stone on stone.

– Previously published in Poetry Salzburg


Bio of Marilyn Peretti

Marilyn Peretti's poems have appeared in journals including Kyoto Journal, Christian Science Monitor, Talking River, Journal of Modern Poetry, California Quarterly, Snowy Egret and online New Verse News. Nominated for the Pushcart Prize, she has self published two books on cranes: Let Wings Take You, and Cranes to Come, once featured at Int’l Crane Foundation; also Lichen-Poems of Nature, Angel's Wings, and To Remember-To Hope, thoughts on tragedies of the Japanese Tsunami. See other poems at http://www.perettipoems.wordpress.com

White Poinsettia

Aztecs surely knew
what glory they might
bring to hopeful eyes,
cultivating the brilliant

flor de Nochebuena,
delicate broad plant
mostly seen in season
of Christ's Celebration,

wide green leaves with
snowy bracts fluttering,
gracefully curving to points,
so like wings of angels.

Somewhere the Sea

San Donato di Ninea, Italy

A window dressed in mystery:
curtains allow only a glimpse
of rooftops, the drift of rain,
the promise of sea. Where they part,
a sliver of balcony cuts the hills.

For ten days, we live intimately
with strangers, lost cousins.
The old house smells of wax
and wood and family.
Standing at the sill, we listen
to found music, the blood singing
in the moment when the air is hungry.

Chimneys lean into each other.
Below us, a small white cat
crouches on a doorstep between
two flowerpots, her fur
wet with rain, her head
a little ball of fallen sky.

The invisible sea, with its
warm waves, stones and shells,
its white-rimmed restlessness,
its life of grasping and letting go,
asks nothing less of us
than surrender.