Dear Mr. Robinson - Kathryn H.

Dear Mr. Robinson,

I hope you will forgive me for my unusual behavior and strange clothes.
I did not purposefully intend to disrupt your day.
When you told me to leave, I tried.
I really did.

I am always trying to leave to the world where the moon sings my name
and the rich secrets of the earth pulse through my body.
Last evening,
when the sky was smote with pink and purple bruises,
I thought I had found a way to get there.
My war-drum heart shouted:
Home at last!
We found the pulse!
Run to the sun!
So I did.
In the land of truly alive things it does not matter if you are wearing
bedroom slippers and a raincoat.
I realize now that you might have found that strange.

When you found me on your roof I was trying to dissolve sideways.
That's as best as I can figure out how to get there.
Dissolve sideways, the wind said.
We will catch you.
But my atoms would not let me,
and when the world went gray
I was
nothing more
than a silly girl in her bedroom slippers and a raincoat,
trapped on the roof of a stranger.

I wanted to be off of that roof as much as you wanted me off of it, of that I promise you.
I'm sorry for all the fuss you had to go through to get me removed safely.
If we ever find ourselves in the flipped situation,
I will be sure to try and reciprocate.

I am writing this letter because I realize you probably thought I was crazy and
I wanted to clear things up.
If I had succeeded in dissolving sideways, neither of us would be in this
awkward situation.
But I could not dissolve sideways.
I hope you understand.

Sincerely,
Laura

God's Grandeur - Gerard Manly Hopkins

THE WORLD is charged with the grandeur of God.

It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;

It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil

Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?

Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;

And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;

And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell: the soil

Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

And for all this, nature is never spent;

There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;

And though the last lights off the black West went

Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs—

Because the Holy Ghost over the bent

World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

Redwood - Katy R.

She stands
chin to the sky
stretching
her arms
like Redwoods,
plunging one
into damp soil
fingers curling
like roots,
cradling the earth.
The other she
stretches
through the clouds,
her thin
fingernails like
half moons
stoop to kiss
the stars goodnight.

She stands whisper still.

After a few years
her skin
toughens like bark,
her eyelashes turn
to leaves,
her purple skirt
blooms Lilacs
around her ankles.

And the mothers wonder—
whatever happened to that little girl,
the one whose family drove away one day
blowing kisses from behind bags
Just a short trip father said
Don’t break my stuff brother said
We’ll miss you terribly mother said.

With one hand
she holds onto
the crumbling earth,
but with the other
she stretches
just a little more
each day
reaching limb
after lonely limb
into the sky,
hoping to see
her father, her brother
stretching
to hear her mother say-

Oh, we’ve missed you terribly,
Yes, so terribly.

Victoria Market - Francis Brabazon

I said to my companion, this is walking
I said to my companion, how my heart goes
out to all lovers.

The darkness was still warm
but the fields were freshening beautifully
in the winter rain;
the market was full of little lights
and I remarked the ear of a sack
sleeping on top of a tyre like a cat
on the curbstone

I said to my friend stop falling on your knees
I have to keep pulling you on to your feet again-
then the dawn came down silently between
the rows of vegetables
and we passed out into the white star
rejoicing companionless in our love

As I crossed the square on my way home
the highest spires were ablaze with the movement
of feet.

Submitted by Chrissie M.

Foolish Coyote- Kathryn H.

Coyote crouched, watching her as she crafted her

careful mosaic on the blackberry cloth of the night

This is slow work

Her hands glowed from the warmth of the stars

Before she could stop him, he flung the  remaining

stars out into the night spilling them in a wild

disarray

What have you done, you foolish coyote

Never knowing the confusion that would always

dwell among them

Dream Song 14- John Berryman

Life, friends, is boring. We must not say so.
After all, the sky flashes, the great sea yearns,
we ourselves flash and yearn,
and moreover my mother told me as a boy
(repeatingly) "Ever to confess you're bored
means you have no

Inner Resources." I conclude now I have no
inner resources, because I am heavy bored.
Peoples bore me,
literature bores me, especially great literature,
Henry bores me, with his plights & gripes
as bad as Achilles,

who loves people and valiant art, which bores me.
And the tranquil hills, & gin, look like a drag
and somehow a dog
has taken itself & its tail considerably away
into the mountains or sea or sky, leaving
behind: me, wag.

Two Months of Inklings!

Dear Inklings' Loyal Followers:

This week marks the 2 month anniversary of Inklings! We are so excited to have had the opportunity to hear from so many different people sharing a variety of poems that they've written or just love. What a fun couple of months for us.  You are constantly challenging us to become better readers and writers.  We enjoy getting together every week (usually at your local Modesto Starbucks, though lately we've been teleconferencing between Modesto and San Fran--talk about professional!) and spending some quality time with your words. In case there was any doubt, we really do spend at least a couple hours each week with the submissions we get, discussing what we like, what we think could be improved, and how we have such brilliant friends. That's you, people.

So where do we go from here? We have some ideas in mind--collaborations, special holiday editions, themed submissions--but it all hinges on you continuing to send us your favorite and original work! Also, if you ever have any suggestions for how we can improve our little journal, we'd love to hear them because, really, it is your journal too. On that note, we'd just like to remind you that while we have a lot of fun discussing the poetry with each other, we want you to be in the conversation with us. So for you noble souls who dare to click outside their RSS feed and leave a comment for the Inkler(s) of the Week, keep it up!


 Signing off from spinning chair in the valley and a desk at a hotel near SF,


Katy & Megan

cold- Melissa J.

escaping the sky it falls cold
and lands on my earth in winter
although the truth is, it's merely water
there is something wonderful about rain
the way it invades, overtakes my hair
makes me miss christmas and home

last december i braved the weather to come home
somehow i seem to have forgotten the cold
my red nose, numb hands, mist in my hair
the calendar and the tv said it was winter
but it didn't seem real until the rain
and my life was overtaken--flooded with water

starving, i head to a restaurant, drink water.
scanning the menu, my mind wanders to home
and thoughts of you and the last time it rained
when we stood outside for hours never feeling cold
it must be that time, it has to be winter
here i am, lonely again, twirling my hair

let me run my fingers through your hair
your eyes are deep and grey like water
like the ocean in the middle of winter
i do not like this being apart, you at home
and me holding photos and feeling cold
maybe i'm not lonely, it's just the rain

i have always wanted to kiss someone in the rain
with the little droplets sliding down my hair
i stood in the rain today and only got cold
i wanted to cry but there was already enough water
my house was empty and not really a home
i always think about homeless people in winter

christmas comes to the world every winter
and here, it's always joined by the rain
they hold hands and sit above the lighted cheery homes
filled with babies and old men with no hair
the gutters fill with icy dirty murky water
it's not this weather that makes me cold

each day i walk home, take the pins from my hair
open the faucet, heat rains down, over my body, water
that washes away the proof of winter's cold


(please see posted comments for the editors' comments)

November Night - Adelaide Crapsey

Listen. .

With faint dry sound,

Like steps of passing ghosts,

The leaves, frost-crisp'd, break from the trees

And fall.