Mint & Gold Poets
Carol Hamilton
Aldas
Meagan Denese Mealor
Historical Perspective
We have not all forgotten rectitude.
In fact, perhaps, we line up
Faster than ever in the past,
Like the books on the background shelves
Of the TV commentators, from their homes,
All spines straight, neat, no messy stacks
Or frayed covers. Yet we choose our fervent truths
At such wildly opposite poles,
Though not for the first time in history.
But we can clump and clash almost as fast
As quarks right after the Big Bang
And even before our wild motion can spark light.
We forget, ignore much as we march, truth holders,
Forget to slouch or wonder or leave a messy pile
Of our unfinished work beside an open window.
I Grasp
I grasp at the stars upon the top
for desires outside my reach.
Intoxicated, I balance
my toes on the chair
and reach for the cookie jar
that pokes the ceiling with its shiny lid.
My sure, sweaty palms grip the dish
and rub it like Aladdin summoning the genie.
Life is truly opportune. The world opens up
when the bounds of fear are removed.
Gamine
Arsenic-blue maidenhair
hammers at the French barn door
like homicidal harbinger banshees,
or werewolves whittled from Baily’s Beads
Platinum pixies pamper the stargaze hothouse
birthing bullheaded bouquets of floss flowers,
quicksilver pomp trailing Lusty Gallant
and drunk-tank pink, the tender articulation
in a flame-of-burnt-brandy butterfly kiss
Often, I will summon scapegrace zigzag Jobyna:
unvarnished eventide of black-market milestones
ill-mannered flower moon nighthawk kiss-curls
wildcat moxie in labyrinthine lifeblood
hunting steeplechases in cerulean snowstorms
Monophonic, we watered waxen orchids
crooning gypsy jazz for understory tea fields
graphed camisado shortcuts throughout
pine-floored Greek Revival plantations
branded tin lizzie go-carts with dirt road donuts
lindy-hopped the cha-cha-cha
wielding origami legwork
cross-examined historic lavender hotels
hunting the revised ghost of Jesse James
divined japa mala jumble sales
from Americana roots-rock ash heaps
Between these discolored heartbeats
thrashing with tobacco shiraz and inanimate elegies,
you still lie in wait, a curtained gator
transporting twigs atop its pancaked skull,
luring in catbirds patchworking platform nests
Your koi pond essence lingers
like stolen apple perfume:
an atomic tootsie outlaw
in that rumpled peplum dress,
bumbling bungee cord sneaker boots,
catapulting rotting rogue ranches
into tectonic missing lakes
Carol Hamilton has recent and upcoming publications in Burningwood Literary Journal, Flint Hills Review, North Dakota Review, Chiron Review, Edison Review, Nevermore Journal, Gyroscope, Southwestern American Literature, The Pangolin Review, Willow Review, Poem, Blue Unicorn, Woven Tales Press, Hotazel Review, White Wall Review, Abbey, Fine Lines, Coneflower Review, Bookends Review, Sin Fronteras/Writers Without Borders, The Raven Review, Psaltry and Lyre, Stone Poetry Journal, Oklahoma Humanities, Poetica, Poem, Main Street Rag, Brushfire Literary Journal, The Hotazel Review and others. Carol has published 19 books and chapbooks: children's novels, legends and poetry and have been nominated ten times for a Pushcart Prize. She is a former Poet Laureate of Oklahoma.
Aldas is a writer and editor with MA in Creative Writing. He had the privilege of being chosen as the Irish Writers Centre delegate for the International Literature Festival Dublin 2020. His work has been featured in Cabinet of Heed, The Fiction Pool, Qutub Minar Review and elsewhere.
