ON THE LAST DAY OF FEBRUARY - WE'RE STILL HONORING HELEN LOSSE AS POET OF THE MONTH

It's been a pleasure to share seven poems by North Carolina poet Helen Losse in this her birth month. Thanks to all who commented. As promised, I did save two of the best for last here on the last day of the month.  

Negating Natural Erasers by Helen Losse

I walk the rocky road after midnight,

moon overhead, feel dew descend,

land on dusty weeds at the road’s

edge.  The soft wind will strive to

negate my walk, blow my scent away.  

I will write my name in dark sand

near the ocean, hum a tune that can’t be

heard over breakers.  They will

wash away all evidence that I walked

here.  Can I prove them wrong—

from now on—by writing love songs

(first published in Independent Tribune)

Point of Departure  by Helen Losse

There’s an echo against the cliff

below the castle where the sand is

wet with tears, seaweed

a faded shade of brown.  A tide-driven froth

coats my bare white feet.

Beachcombers in lingering shadows 

rummage through fragments. The only light

is an orange moon.

The tide is green.

. . . Listen, listen.

All dreamers hear sounds, whispered by shells.

Some hear the Atlantic as she softly moans.

While the story travels, up, riding the flotsam

and sea foam, and slowly unfolds,

the trees near the ocean’s edge hint

at what happened.

Yes, they only hint.

But oh!  Oh, at the point of departure,

how the spirits speak!  Sounds like

horrible groans.  Sounds.

Like the rattle of chains.  Sounds.

Listen.  Listen hard.  For the voice of the echo

is joined to the cliff by salty tears:

The tears who married that dark, dark sand.

The bones of kings,

who last saw Ghana as they

sailed away, crossing the vast and silver water—

then probed by small, mean fish—

are preserved now by salt and have settled,

several fathoms deep on the ocean floor,

where the whole world is as black as it was

in the hold of the slaver’s ship.

first published in Independence Boulevard and later in my book in Better With Friends (Rank Stranger Press, 2009)  available from the author or Amazon.com  

If you want to read more, remember Helen Losse's new poetry collection is forcoming from Main Street Rag.  Also, if you want to buy a copy of Better With Friends, click below.


http://www.amazon.com/Better-Friends-Helen-Losse/dp/1599481952/ref=dp_return_1?ie=UTF8&n=283155&s=books

Helen Losse is a Winston-Salem poet, author of four collections of poems, including Seriously Dangerous (Main Street Rag, 2011) and Better With Friends (Rank Stranger Press, 2009) and the Poetry Editor for the online literary magazine The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature. Her recent poetry publications and acceptances include The Wild Goose Poetry Review, Main Street Rag, Iodine Poetry Review, Blue Fifth Review, The Pedestal Magazine, ken*again, and Literary Trails of the North Carolina Piedmont. Her poems have been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and twice for a Best of the Net award, one of which was a finalist.  Helen blogs at Windows Toward the World.  http://helenl.wordpress.com/