Read poetry written by your Cape Cod neighbors
As mild-mannered Spring (wind aside) blows over Cape Cod, poets divide their adorations between a helplessness for Ukraine and a celebration of nature's joy.
Here are winning poets for the May Cape Cod Times poetry contest.
Sally Taylor moved from New Canaan CT to Orleans in 2013 and currently lives in Brewster.
Poem inspiration: While an undergraduate, I studied Russian history and literature and was fortunate to go to Moscow, what was then Leningrad, and Kiev, at that time part of the Soviet Union. I happened to visit Kiev as Spring was making its debut, and the feel of the city and the warmth of its people were inspiring. Today Ukraine is inspiring the world.
To Kyiv and its People
By Sally Taylor
It’s been almost fifty years
since I was in your lovely city.
I had been first to Moscow,
grim, in spite of the gleam
of Kremlin gold,
and the crazy quilt domes of St Basil’s.
Dark and forbidding,
snow muffling footsteps,
the emptiness of shops,
except the Beryozka,
where the local elite and foreigners
resignedly lined up with their purchases.
And then beautiful Leningrad,
the stillness of its frozen parks,
the chilliness of pale palaces
in the pallid March light.
The ice in the canals and river
just beginning to break up.
But in shiny Kyiv,
despite its tragic history,
and hushed Babi Yar memorial,
the streets were alive with children,
kicking footballs,
shouting with excitement,
Spring was in the air.
People were smiling.
I wish I were a doctor without borders,
tending to the wounded.
I wish I were a diplomat
pressing for peace.
I wish I were a soldier
in solidarity,
holding the line against tyranny.
But I am a world away
and my heart is breaking.
Note: Babi Yar which was damaged by Russian troops last Tuesday, is the site of a massacre in September 1941 in which more than 33,000 Jews were murdered by the Germans. Beryozka shops are hard currency shops.
***
Paula Trespas has been writing poetry for 25 years. A native Cape Codder, she‘s retired and lives in Yarmouth Port.
Inspiration: The title of this poem is the date that Ukraine was invaded by Russia and the date I wrote the poem. It expresses my feelings of sadness and despair, not just for myself but for mankind.
February 24, 2022
By Paula Trepas
Trying to stay whole
in a broken world I wonder
should I shut it out
and whistle my day away
or let it in and grapple
with feelings I want
to choke to death?
Leave it to them to fix
I think.
Leave it to them
to break the bastards
of the world
repair the wreckage
ease the suffering
prove goodness
triumphs over evil.
But today what good is
is up for grabs
what evil is
is contentious.
The coat of despair
I wear weighs
me down like a
granite stone.
***
Amy MacAvery lives in Brewster.
Inspiration: "Reclamation" sprang from a poetry workshop prompt. “Lemons” was included in a list of words we were to use. I had a friend who, before she died, always kept a bowl of lemons on her sofa table. I tried to replicate this in my living room, but they always rotted, while hers remained vibrant. I touched hers one day only to discover they were fake.
Reclamation
By Amy MacAvery
When I see lemons
I remember that porcelain bowl
kept on an elegant sofa table
filled with fruit, so vibrant, sun yellow.
When I see lemons or a porcelain bowl
I remember your kitchen, spotless
atrium windows and French doors
sparkling in the light.
When I see lemons or a porcelain bowl
I remember you closing those windows
shivering against fate.
The perfect lemons, the perfect bowl
windows controlled until
shattered by an ill wind.
Without you the illusion breaks
and out fly the lemons, free to be
fruit and not simply decoration.
***
Carol Amato lives in Brewster and Boston and has written 11 nature books for children.
How the poem came to be: One of the loveliest sights for me is to see colorful clothes flapping in a brisk wind on a clothesline, especially by a gray clapboard Cape house near the shore. When I recently saw exactly this, blowing and bedecked with lacy panties, my poem’s imagination took flight! ! miss that fresh redolent scent of the sea from the sheets on a newly made bed!
Before the Storm and After
By Carol Amato
The sheets begin to gather the wind,
their bleached rigor mortis ghostly white
now beaten soft and alive by the sudden
freshening blow from the north.
The spanking clean colors follow:
turquoise towels;
blue pinned-striped shirts;
tie-dyed Ts;
trousers break-dancing
to the syncopated rhythm of the pulsing gusts.
Pinched like the others by their paired captors
the silk panties nevertheless escape,
a black bird flying over the flapping line
secured tentatively by the wavering gray
posts as old as driftwood.
The underwear somersaults across
the diminishing dunes and onto the barrier beach
that guards the white-whipped sea.
Someone shouts,
“Take in the clothes!”
Later, as the slanted rain pelts the clapboards
the two of us turn toward each other reconciled,
and slide to sleep in between crisp sheets redolent
of beach grass, sea-breeze, and rosa rugosa.
The morning after the storm
the discovery on the beach
of black silk and the titillating surmise
of passion.
***
Guy D’Annolfo is working on a forthcoming collection of poems.
Inspiration: "Hermits in the Bay" was written out of regular walks with my son off Shore Road in North Truro near where our family vacations every year in summer. I wanted to capture the excitement and tenderness of those walks, along with the beautiful volatility of the Bay, which mirrors our own fragile and evolving lives.
Hermits in the Bay
By Guy D'Annolfo
We emerge from tufts of long
grass onto shore, tide lower
than yesterday, tread the arched
brow of the Bay's blue eye, under the pale
orb rolling in its sky
socket. Striations of sand redrawn
around mounds of gnarled
weed tucked upon shore by suspirating
waters. You scream Dada! a fearful
hand dives and returns
a whorled shell between pinched fingers
as you lean in to
search the ovoid
eyes, fragile
claws rub your fingers — here you pass
the fighter to me, they tickle, curious
how fast fear
shifts to innocent affection; boldened, you become my
teacher: they find and change their shells
as they grow. You bring the hermit
back in your palm, place it beneath a wave to scuttle
away. Scanning the horizon, there's
not as many out, a spiraled
eddy of expectation I'd
been mulling, while this
bay, past the midpoint of its life, will be washed back, you cast
for my smile, your fleshy cheeks brighten, not
yet drawn by sandy time. We stand with the waxing
& waning, high & low tides that rise & sink, empty
& fill, while
our imaginations migrate into the unknowable
to strike a balance of collecting & giving.
***
Shelby Allen of Falmouth received the Katharine Lee Bates award. Cherry Grove published her collection "Crack Willow: Poems of Transformation."
Inspiration: I come from a line of warm-hearted, voluble, open, loving controllers. I mean the women. My mother needed a world to embrace and to manage: the world was closed (1950s) but I was available (only child). She poured into me (poetry, silliness: Does Mr. Brown ever feel purple?) when she wasn’t hospitalized (electric shock for depression; total failure). Up and down. Ride the waves.
my mother was water
By Shelby Allen
my mother was water
a sea with no shore
we were drowning
till I remembered
my own arms and legs
Mother
swim with me
***
Dorothy Kelly is a visually impaired writer and watercolor painter who resides in Harwich Port.
Inspiration: A Map of Chatham was a prompt given to us at the Eldredge Library Chatham Writer's Group. I wrote this poem with global warming and its effect on the town in mind. Several years later, a severe winter storm with rough seas and high waves breached the barrier beach off Morris Island, resulting in the erosive destruction of the east-facing sand cliffs.
The Elbow: Our Town, Little Chatham
By Dorothy Kelly
There’s an arm in the sea we call home, thee and me, On the elbow, our town, little Chatham.
Ah, the seals love it too, while they take in the view, as they sun on the rocks with location that’s hot in this fish-laden town we call Chatham.
Eh, the sharks like it too, with those seals in their view, flashing fin and white smile, swimming ‘round for a while, chasing seals on the run, having oh, so much fun in our seal-laden town known as Chatham.
And of course, there are whales, who spout water like hail, singing out with loud wails all those Moby Dick tales, sometimes napping in sun. Our humungous big guns goin’ round little town, tiny Chatham.
Now the village has shops, and all that fine lot that are run by good men and good Chadams. You can end your long day with some starfish and whey in a place that you like, that’s stays open all night, pouring glasses of wine to the folks dressed to nines in this trendy quaint town, little Chatham.
But the crowds come and go, as they follow the flow, and the villagers know when to seasons forego. If it ever should snow, then on sleigh rides we’ll go in a winter white town we call Chatham.
Yes, the elbow has charm, where it sits on the arm. If it ever should break, then our hearts will feel ache. Forced to swim with the seals, we will both fetch for eels. And be wary of sharks, when they hunt us on lark, and stay clear of drunk whales, when they drink too much ale in our waterlogged town, lovely Chatham.
But today all is nice, as we steam our brown rice, cooking fish on the grill, sitting high on a hill. Sing me song, Whippoorwill, as the moon shows its rills, glowing down on our town, pretty Chatham.
Oh alas! What was that! Did I hear a fine crack? There she goes, achin’ back! Sliding fast off her tracks! First a thump, then a whack, popping open all tacks. Where’d she go? Where’s my town — little Chatham?
Is she safe on the lee? Pssst !!! Between you and me, she went flop in the sea! Where the fish smile with glee, serving lobsters to thee as we sip our green tea twenty leagues in the sea-- where no atom remains of our Chatham.
Coordinator’s Note: This was submitted by a visually impaired writer originally in double-spaced tercets, quatrains, etc. and compressed into the above at my request to meet maximum line requirements.
How to submit your poem
Here’s how to send us your work:
Submit one poem, single-spaced, of 35 lines or fewer per month.
Poems cannot be previously published (in print or online).
Deadline for the next submission is June 1, 2022.
Submit by email to cctpoetry12@gmail.com.
Poems should be free of hate speech and expletives (profanity, vulgarity, obscenity).
IN THE BODY OF THE E-MAIL, send your contact information: name, address, phone number and title of poem; then, IN A WORD .DOC ATTACHMENT include poem without name or any other personal info, so that the poem can be judged anonymously.
Poets not previously published in the Cape Cod Times are welcome to submit a new poem each month; those poets previously published in the Times, three months after publication.
Poets will be notified only if their poem is accepted.
Poems will be selected by a panel of readers on the Cape and Islands who are published poets and editors.
This article originally appeared on Cape Cod Times: Cape Cod Poetry: Sharing Ukraine's pain, admiring local beauty
