Here's a wonderful book by my friend and fellow poet, Susan Vespoli:

 

From the hilarious cover art through all the poems, this book is quite a ride. Susan Vespoli, with determined frankness and unrepentant humor, showcases modern love, loss and their aftermaths. She writes, when the relationship ends, that she "tore off our bed sheets and bought a pink set" and "Goodwill clothes [he] liked and kept the ones [he] didn't." By the end of Cactus as Bad Boy, you'll be rooting for her.

 

Susan Vespoli

Here's a poem from the book: 

Sea Otters

Sea otters hold hands while they're sleeping

so they don't drift away from each other,

lying on their backs, they float through night

like kayaks rafted together by tow ropes,

lulled by the cradling rock of waves that roll

from flat to round to pointy peaks of foam.

And that's what I miss the most.

Lying on my back with you dozing beside me,

your hand draped over my heart like a gentle tent,

my fingers laced through yours in a sort of truce,

because when we slept no one had to be right.

MONSOON SEASON

In Arizona, we have a fifth season, the monsoon season, which begins in June and continues through September.

The name "monsoon" comes from the Arabic word "mausim" which means "wind-shift." While during the winter the primary wind flow in Arizona is from the west and northwest, during the summer the winds shift to a southerly or southeasterly direction. This brings moisture up from the Gulf of California and the Gulf of Mexico.

Before the actual thunderstorms, there are gust fronts that pick up large quantities of dust and sand from the desert floor, creating a dust wall called a haboob (from the Arabic word for wind). Many times the heavy pre-storm winds are more damaging than the thunderstorms themselves, although there are places plagued by regular monsoon flooding.

Here are two monsoon season poems:

Towering Cumulus

I.

Another appears outside our kitchen window.

Weather apps worry us with warnings

to watch for floods and thunderstorms--

as the dew point climbs higher and higher.

The wind picks up. Ripe grapefruit plop

to the ground while our wind spinner seems frantic--

as if its wheels might just crash through the window

and slice our throats. The sky darkens with thick dust

that will settle on patio table & potted plants.

Only a few fat raindrops splatter the pool.

Five miles up the road a neighborhood

suffers three inches of rain.

Cars trapped under downed power lines

& rescues in gullies get national attention.

II.

We waken to ozone alerts, humidity--hot and muggy

we say. Look at the sky. Yet another, we say.

Trapped in purgatory, we surmise

August will last at least 90 days.

            by Johnnie May Clemens

Standing Outside, I Remember A Line By Charles Wright

            Summer in the Sonoran Desert

From the concrete bridge,

a view north to Daisy Mountain,

dun-colored, a crooked triangle.

And in the south, dust

                        gathers its discontent.

We are deep in the monsoon season

when, in the parched parlance

of the desert, a storm's prefix

is dust.

A handful of dust is a handful of dust

                       no matter who holds it.

The east valley from Ahwatukee

and Queen Creek to Carefree and

as far away as the Tonto Basin

braces for what's to come.

            The afternoon air fidgets,

unappeased and impatient,

and, suddenly, before one of our

summer thunderstorms, gusts of wind

lift loose dirt from the arid land 

and build walls of dust and debris.

It's hard to imagine the height and length

--almost absurd in its drawn-out

deletion of all forms, everything

covered over to a camel brown.

Then a hard rain

                        with distant snarls

and snaps like a bad-tempered pit bull

barking at something we can't see.

            by Lenny Lianne

            (previously published in

            Inlandia: A Literary Journal)

  

MY MOTHER

My mother died twenty years ago the first week in August. Typing "twenty years ago" was a shock as it doesn't seem that long ago. 

She was an artist and teacher of French and Spanish and of fine arts and art history. Mom also loved to travel. 

Here she is in a medieval village

in Languedoc in southern France.

The poem I wrote about this photo was published earlier in August in Bourgeon Magazine 

at bourgerononline.com

This is the poem:

Walking Away

            Languedoc

The gate is open, the pebbled path

between weathered stone walls, old,

and Mother is walking away.

In the middle distance,

a chiseled-brick archway

over a lane that's long been dusty

as no wind has come along

lively enough to sweep back

and forth between the aged houses.

Mother's a tourist in this region

where, if a person said Yes

in the vernacular of the troubadours

and radically Christian Cathars

rather than in the Parisian patois 

used by invading northern nobility,

she might've been marked for death,

along with entire families and towns,

slain by bonfire or the sword.

Mother's been able to say Yes

in a handful of languages.

Yes, to marriage, to children

and to a dynamic accumulation 

of days and, lately, Yes

to whatever waits ahead.

The breathless blue sky

above the down-sloping village's

hillside and its castle in ruins

are nowhere in view. Only the walls,

the open gate and the path on which

Mother is walking away.

---- by Lenny Lianne

Rest In Peace: Elizabeth (Lysie) Banigan Iddings

                                        1924 - 2002

WE’RE BACK!

It’s been a few years since I blogged on my old blog (passport to poetry) but I’m back and will post new blogs twice a month.

Join us here at

Spotlight on Poetry.

Best wishes to all,

Lenny Lianne