FOUR FEATHERS PRESS ONLINE EDITION: GRASS LEAVES Send up to three poems on the subject of or at least mentioning the words grass and/or leaves, totaling up to 150 lines in length, in the body of an email message or attached in a Word file to donkingfishercampbell@gmail.com by 11:59 PM PST on January 17th. No PDF's please. Color artwork is also desired. Please send in JPG form. No late submissions accepted. Poets and artists published in Four Feathers Press Online Edition: Grass Leaves will be published online and invited to read at the Saturday Afternoon Poetry Zoom meeting on Saturday, January 25th between 3 and 5 pm PST

Wednesday, January 15, 2025

Bill Cushing

SUMMONING THE PAGES


I love pulp I can see, feel;

pages to taste, chew and digest;

versuri made more real


by the musk of their smell

released in understated swells

as they age.


I dive head first into leaves

surrounding and filling me

with joy, sadness, information,


recording the souls of each generation.

They shelter me like protective eaves,

each waiting to provide.


Words become beatitudes

of discovery; others confide

melancholy meditation.


I still refuse to submit

to the new allure of reading a screen

designed by the demon Kindle,


preferring to listen to the crinkle

of paper as it flips,

falling flat against its ancestors.


Even cheap escapism

or the worst of creations

can fill a purpose,


have a message to tell.

In the end, the pages I’ve viewed

have all served me well.



(Part of Just a Little Cage of Bone, Southern Arizona Press)


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