INSIDE THIS ISSUE:
Richard Gartee
Fahredin Shehu
Steve Barfield
Silvia Scheibli
Laszlo Slomovitz
Shutta Crum
Running Cub
Sodiq O. Alabi
Stephen Sleboda
Alan Britt
Aneek Chatterjee
John Grey
Michael Lee Johnson
Robert Nisbet
Jennifer Burd
Alica Mathias
Roo Bardookie
Gale Acuff
Alex Ferde
Fred Wolven
Ann Arbor Review
is an independent
International Journal & ezine
Copyright (c) 2022 Francis Ferde
All rights revert back to each poet.
--editor / Southeastern Florida
-
AAR history note: in print 1967 - 1980. Irregular publications 1980 - 2004. As ezine 2004 - present. Most of 51 years all together....
------------------------------------------------
staff:
Francis Ferde
Silver Grey Fox
Running Cub
Fred Wolven
Submissions via e-mail:
praise to all the above
praise to the rain that found
the hole in the roof and softly
spattered onto the floor of the attic
looking as water always does
to go down and further down
each drop singing the limbo
rock how low can you go
until the drops found the cracks
between floorboards and seeped
into the insulation below
eventually soaking through
to the ceiling tile which sagged
and browned but I didn’t notice
until I picked up from the floor
the top sheet from the large
disheveled pile of unfiled paper
and found it was wet
praise to the rain praise to the hole
praise to gravity and water
to all that came from above
that compelled me to pick up
and find that none of it would have
been a loss to the world had the rain
reached it praise to all the above that
and this poem the best of the lot
when
my son was little
like all children at first he thought
the stars in the sky were only
a few feet apart and some
like the Pleiades were bunched
only inches from each other
when I told him there were
more than eight hundred stars
in that cluster and there were
millions of miles between them
he looked at me as he did
when I read him fairy tales
and he’d already figured out
his father sometimes lied
to make a story better
he had his own metaphors
and his imagination had felt
the wind of their wings he was
learning the ways of the sky and oh
he could spin questions like a spider
with dew drops glistening on its web
is it like when you scatter seeds
in the garden and some of them
end up almost stuck together
and others fall in the grass
and others on rocks or clay
and some of them grow and
some of them die and why is it
that way and I said yes but do not
fear your star seeds will grow
every night of your life (and I
wasn’t lying though I didn’t know)
and shine more and more light
flowers and light fruits into
your dreams and every day
they’ll hide behind the sun
and add their silver to its gold
and I continued spinning blessings
to shower him with and even now
when he’s become taller than me
and I don’t know when and where
I’m going but perhaps back to the stars
to continue shining down on him
Laszlo Slomovits, Ann Arbor, Michiga