Voices in the Coalshed
reaches out beyond mining and its history to include a variety of voices. They
may not have anything to say directly about coal mining, but the industry is
just one part of the wider world. The
present pandemic has demonstrated all too vividly how closely connected we all
are.
Here are three poems in a voice from Alaska - Kersten Christianson, welcome to the Coalshed.
Alignment of the Chakras
It’s
June and my Throat Chakra
opens
to sing to fingers eager
to
type love poems, their words
captured
from the wind, the tips
of
an errant raven feather flipping
abandonment
in the yard, the rebirthed
petals
of raging violet rhododendron.
Words
like heartfelt, connection,
and
We need to figure this out flit,
cut
wake through sleep, and even
the
June moon, the Strawberry
Moon,
is romantic in her roundness
and
name. Both Sacral and Third
Eye
Chakras argue for levity; one
for
potential and if, the other
a
reminder of distance and time.
But
it’s that tricky Heart – she’s
fickle,
demanding, hopeful. She
is
plain in her language and shies
of
woo. Never has the written
word
been easier.
Courier
“How
now, Balthasar? How fares my Juliet?” – Romeo
In waking, you roll into another rusty
pandemic morning. Like a minor
character in any inconvenient plague,
your iPhone, a modern Balthasar, you
dredge social media outlets for some sweet
morsel of optimism, anything to hitch
your hopeful wagon to, even a star,
but without the stench of an idiot
president, fallout still lacking a vaccine,
unmasked masses by choice, a million
broken hearts in the wake. Sometimes
the peel is more fortuitous than the
fruit.
Sometimes, all it takes is an otter
juggling stones. A blanched moose
jawbone hosting wild geraniums
in their short, season of sweaty dance
under hyperborean sun. This morning,
you peruse the airbrushed photos
of celebrity marriages boasting partner
age differences of 15 years or more.
Sir Elton John sagely advises,
You take it
one day at a time. And this
is rope ladder enough to pad barefooted
downstairs, humming “Rocketman,”
to start the midmorning coffee.
Bawdy Muse
Cisneros
Might well be
Bukowski’s
Shiny star
Sister: Thigh,
wine, bed crumbs
Appetite
for stanzas
sloppy men
Kersten Christianson
(www.kerstenchristianson.com)
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