Ravenswood Used Books

    THE FIFTH AND FINAL POETRY MONTH POST
which features poems by the members and friends
of the Facebook Group "Ravenswood Books!"
Thanks for being here as a participant
or as a spectator. Please let us know
if you would like these postings to continue.
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 ANCIENT GREEK PHILOSOPHER DISCOVERS PERPETUAL MOTION

    On finding himself bogged down,
    Aristotle had the insight to say to himself
     "GET UP AND DANCE, STUPID!!!
      He did and moved on.
      Hence, the earliest known affirmation that
      'Bodies in motion tend to stay in motion.'"


TAKE A CHANCE

   Ouch!
   Hey, wise up!!
   Go stub your toe again!!!
   Take a chance.

Aristotle Soter
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Tollway Oasis

Once so ultramodern,
the machines still dispense pain relievers and candy.
Remember the Beatles' A Hard Day’s Night piped into the lobby?
We saw ourselves reflected in the glass,
modeling bright pink purses
and rabbit fur hand muffs
Aunt Phyllis bought for us in Chicago.

___________

Product Impurities

the skin off a worker
dipped in the vat
whether foul play
or accident we’ll not
be called upon
to explain it to our
television viewing consumers
sitting comfortably in rooms
where heartbreak is measured
in number of tugs
on the tissue box.

Morgan Harlow
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Born without recollection
That I sat in your hand,
to see myself in the world,
so I can learn about love.
Or of hard candy horses- in turquoise and red,
Casting dark shadows on the brightest yellow,
they collide and turn to steam.
Nor of the field with tall flowers,
where the dry sun cleans dust.

I had the initial fear of kindness, and distrust in the voices of women.

When the moon is huge in the North,
and the sidewalk urine is sweet as honeysuckle,
the incubus clouds will swim over the sleep deprived.
There was a deer that watched me wake up in that clearing.

I must be passing through again, to leave
and come back soaked in rain.

Shizu Homma

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There is ink, thank god, on your hands again

Like a dry orange, ripping skin from the flesh,
what a waste. Some days you can't pull it together enough to even try
to peel it. But you always forgo the knife. Even when you are so far
behind that you're in the negatives and you're selling the beautiful
pieces of yourself to the garbage pickers. Watch them finger
your things. It's then when you begin to count your pennies
one at a time, palm to palm.

You see, the machines are tired of operating. Gold is tired
of shining, doctors of trying, birds of flying. The laundry is piling,
the dishes teetering. At times like these, pink won't stop my mind
from thinking. Maybe if I was still blond and rainbows weren't lies.
But the dolls of my childhood are armed and lining my bedside.
They are angry and their hands are dirty.

It's like the snow will never melt in Chicago. Afraid everyone thinks
that this would be better if I weren't here. Me thinking, I would be better
if I weren't here. My time is measurable. Reduced
to a tick. It's like waking up in a dark room
in the middle of the afternoon. Tock. Realize you are the only thing
that drives the world to keep making days.

Want to know how hard my father hit me as a child? Which men
I have allowed? Keep reading. You will die, the children will die,
the plants, the light bulbs, the love will die and mingle with worms
in the dirt. But there is so much beauty in pain. White
light, weak, pale, and sweating. There is so much beauty in feeling
anything.

Megan Wheeler