We Two Boys Together Clinging (by Walt Whitman)

We Two Boys Together Clinging
by Walt Whitman
from “Calamus” in Leaves of Grass, 1867

We two boys together clinging,
One the other never leaving,
Up and down the roads going, North and South excursions making,
Power enjoying, elbows stretching, fingers clutching,
Arm’d and fearless, eating, drinking, sleeping, loving.
No law less than ourselves owning, sailing, soldiering, thieving, threatening,
Misers, menials, priests alarming, air breathing, water drinking, on the turf or the
    sea-beach dancing,
Cities wrenching, ease scorning, statutes mocking, feebleness chasing,
Fulfilling our foray.


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To read other Whitman selections in the Crisis Chronicles Online Library, click here.

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When I Peruse the Conquer’d Fame (by Walt Whitman)

 

When I Peruse the Conquer’d Fame
by Walt Whitman
from “Calamus” in Leaves of Grass, 1867

When I peruse the conquer’d fame of heroes and the victories of mighty generals,
     I do not envy the generals,
Nor the President in his Presidency, nor the rich in his great house,
But when I hear of the brotherhood of lovers, how it was with them,
How together through life, through dangers, odium, unchanging, long and long,
Through youth and through middle and old age, how unfaltering, how affectionate
     and faithful they were,
Then I am pensive–I hastily walk away fill’d with the bitterest envy.


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To read other Whitman selections in the Crisis Chronicles Online Library, click here.

Overview (by April Salzano)

Overview
by April Salzano

The year you left my father died, our
dog was put down, our son was
diagnosed Autistic. Our home became headquarters
for agency people who came and went like visiting
nurses or FBI agents. I signed and waived
rights disclosures legalities. It was truly an Intervention. Your
head bobbed on its thick stem while you checked
to make sure your socks hid the track marks
between your toes. You were busy that year

diverting hospital meds, stealing pain
relief from the migrainous, the clueless,
the injured. No one needed it
more than you. It was wasted in the Sharps
container, down the sink; it was justified
and validated and signed for.
Once you were gone I sterilized myself
against the risk of future diagnoses and county services.
I carried our Autistic son like broken luggage
through our house while you slept it off.
I was done. In

the year you stayed, I had a miscarriage
before you had the affair during your trip
to London to detox and finish
your novel, after I made you have a Vasectomy.
Sometimes foresight too is 20/20. But somehow I managed
to ignore the minefield of evidence that you had gone
so much further than any England.



* * * * * * * *
April Salzano teaches college writing in Pennsylvania and is working on her first several collections of poetry and an autobiographical novel on raising a child with autism. Her work has appeared in Poetry Salzburg, Pyrokinection, Convergence, Ascent Aspirations, The Rainbow Rose, The Camel Saloon, The Applicant, The Mindful Word, Napalm and Novocain, Jellyfish Whispers, The South Townsville Micro Poetry Journal, The Weekender Magazine, Deadsnakes, Winemop, Daily Love, WIZ, Visceral Uterus and is forthcoming in Inclement, Poetry Quarterly, Decompression, Work to a Calm, and Windmills.

The Prairie-Grass Dividing (by Walt Whitman)

The Prairie-Grass Dividing
by Walt Whitman
from “Calamus” in Leaves of Grass, 1867

The prairie-grass dividing, its special odor breathing,
I demand of it the spiritual corresponding,
Demand the most copious and close companionship of men,
Demand the blades to rise of words, acts, beings,
Those of the open atmosphere, coarse, sunlit, fresh, nutritious,
Those that go their own gait, erect, stepping with freedom and command,
     leading not following,
Those with a never-quell’d audacity, those with sweet and lusty flesh clear
     of taint,
Those that look carelessly in the faces of Presidents and governors, as to
     say Who are you?
Those of earth-born passion, simple, never constrain’d, never obedient,
Those of inland America.


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To read other Whitman selections in the Crisis Chronicles Online Library, click here.

Kiss of the Cosmos (by Linda M. Crate)

Linda M. Crate

kiss of the cosmos

the sun blushes its golden hymns,
spilling them lovingly into my lap —
the river dances whispers as it
guards some secret wound whose
echoes are deeper than the darkest
ocean of time; rocks bleed from old
scars yet unhealing, vertigo dances
on the edge of my tongue — forget me
not in your blaze of glory the universe
screams, and even death bows his
scythe for a time; I gaze into the white
lanterns of heaven and know my truth is true.



* * * * * * * * * *

Linda Crate is a Pennsylvanian native born in Pittsburgh and raised in the rural town of Conneautville. She has migrated to the small town of Fort Fairfield in Maine. Her poetry and short stories have appeared in a myriad of magazines the latest of which include: Mirror Dance, Motley Press, and Blue & Yellow Dog.

You Again (by April Salzano)

You Again
by April Salzano

I find myself
thanking you again for the anxiety
that holds me
down for the times I wake still
myself more you
I find you there
in the hurt the disgust
the cells the gluttony monster
who comes and comes
in the kitchen
in the mirror
in old photos the center
of attention belongs to you
I thank you every time
I ache in my joints every time fear
holds me in its twisting
hands I tear and tear.
You always knew
I’d never break through
I have buried and unearthed you
I have burned and staked you have
martyred and rejected you
in circles I have chased you caught
you hit you lived for
you died beside you
left you claimed you answered
to your name done you run from
you followed you carried you
bent you sent you
away crossed you out
hated you ate you
been you I have always been you



* * * * * * * *

April Salzano teaches college writing in Pennsylvania and is working on her first several collections of poetry and an autobiographical novel on raising a child with autism. Her work has appeared in Poetry Salzburg, Pyrokinection, Convergence, Ascent Aspirations, The Rainbow Rose, The Camel Saloon, The Applicant, The Mindful Word, Napalm and Novocain, Jellyfish Whispers, The South Townsville Micro Poetry Journal, The Weekender Magazine, Deadsnakes, Winemop, Daily Love, WIZ, Visceral Uterus and is forthcoming in Inclement, Poetry Quarterly, Decompression, Work to a Calm, and Windmills.

I Hear It Was Charged Against Me (by Walt Whitman)

I Hear It Was Charged Against Me
by Walt Whitman
from “Calamus” in Leaves of Grass, 1867

I hear it was charged against me that I sought to destroy institutions,
But really I am neither for nor against institutions,
(What indeed have I in common with them? or what with the destruction of them?)
Only I will establish in the Mannahatta and in every city of these States inland and seaboard,
And in the fields and woods, and above every keel little or large that dents the water,
Without edifices or rules or trustees or any argument,
The institution of the dear love of comrades.



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To read other Whitman selections in the Crisis Chronicles Online Library, click here.

This Moment Yearning and Thoughtful (by Walt Whitman)

This Moment Yearning and Thoughtful
by Walt Whitman
from “Calamus” in Leaves of Grass, 1867

This moment yearning and thoughtful sitting alone,
It seems to me there are other men in other lands yearning and thoughtful,
It seems to me I can look over and behold them in Germany, Italy, France, Spain,
Or far, far away, in China, or in Russia or talking other dialects,
And it seems to me if I could know those men I should become attached to them as
     I do to men in my own lands,
O I know we should be brethren and lovers,
I know I should be happy with them.


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To read other Whitman selections in the Crisis Chronicles Online Library, click here.

Jesse’s Homeless Face (by Michael Lee Johnson)

Michael Lee Johnson [photo courtesy of the author]

Jesse’s Homeless Face
by Michael Lee Johnson

Someday Jesse wants to go home.
I see his world,
all its hidden concepts
embedded in Jesse’s aging face–
life has whispered by leaving
memory trails–
wrinkled forehead,
deep as river bed ruts
dried with years, weather-beaten,
just above his bushy eyebrows
that are gray and twisted–
much like life drawing memories
across his empty face.
Jesse has a long oblique
Jewish nose with dark
blue opal eyes,
that would pierce
even the pain
of his own crucifixion.
Life tears flow though
a whole new ghoulish
apparition, a vision
of homelessness plastered
east of Dearborn Bridge,
near Lower Wacker Drive,
downtown Chicago–
where affluent citizens
seldom go unless inebriated,
puke-stained, or in a taxicab.

Jesse’s hair sprouts skyward,
groomed like an abandoned
dove nest in wild Chicago
meandering winds.
Puffed eye bags of weariness
sag like sandbags,
one slightly heavier than the other.
Weeks of bearded growth
contour his chin in color blends
of white and black.
Over one shoulder drapes
a grungy gray blanket found
in Lilly Mae’s garbage can;
the other shoulder,
naked, but tanned,
bears itself to the elements.
Jesse panhandles during the day.
At night and early Sunday mornings,
you can find him behind
a local McDonalds,
near Cracker Creek,
sharing leftover burgers
and sugar candy
with river rats–
Jesse considers it an act of religious charity.
Age 69, someday soon,
Jesse wants to go home.

* * * * * * * * * *

Michael Lee Johnson is a poet, freelance writer and small business owner of custom imprinted promotional products and apparel:  www.promoman.us, from Itasca, Illinois.  He is heavily influenced by:  Carl Sandburg, Robert Frost, William Carlos Williams, Irving Layton, Leonard Cohen, and Allen Ginsberg.  His new poetry chapbook with pictures, titled From Which Place the Morning Rises, and his new photo version of The Lost American: from Exile to Freedom are available at  http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/promomanusa.  

New Chapbook:  Challenge of Night and Day, and Chicago Poems by Michael Lee Johnson. 

Michael has been published in over 25 countries. He is also editor/publisher of five poetry sites, all open for submission, which can be found at his Web site: http://poetryman.mysite.com. All of his books are now available at Amazon.com, Bookworld, and Barnes & Noble.

When Roses cease to bloom, Sir (by Emily Dickinson)

Emily Dickinson

[1858]

When Roses cease to bloom, Sir,
And Violets are done —
When Bumblebees in solemn flight
Have passed beyond the Sun —
The hand that paused to gather
Upon this Summer’s day
Will idle lie — in Auburn —
Then take my flowers — pray!