Moving Words 2002 Poems

DIARY OF A BAD HOUSEWIFE

She spread herself
so
thin
there wasn't enough
wife
left
to butter her
husband
with.

Deanna D'Errico

EARLY SPRING

A jogger darts by.
Green willow fragrance follows,
trying to keep up.

Karen Kimball

DON'T ASK

We raised the question and first it hovered vaguely
like a spook at a seance, and then we raised it again
even higher until we both had to salute it.
So we thought we'd better table the question
but it rattled the plates and cutlery and would not
take polish. What left but to call the question?
Here it came, romping like a puppy gone goofy over
its own name. We couldn't get rid of it.
No, we said, bad question, we don't want you,
but we answered it anyway, and now I live alone.

J. Morris

GLEBE ROAD

What trees are they from?

Behind a bus stop shelter,
a boy lies in a puddle of leaves
the heavy color of wine.

Steps away, under a great yellow fountain,
a girl matches her hand to a shard
and doesn't pull back.

Paul Andrew Fogle

WAITING FOR THE POPEYE EFFECT

No amount of spinach
does the trick

cartoons lie to me
on a daily basis

Richard Peabody

MAN WEEPING IN A CHAIR

After "A Man in Sorrow" by Van Gogh

His inconsolable shoes drop,
the right clog a wasted man,
the left a bitter matron.
His hands hold his head
because his mind can't see
why his eyes should weep.
His sorrow lights
a smoldering that will not stop.
As dusk swallows the man,
the man's shadow spreads.

Elizabeth Rees

About the Poets

Deanna D'Errico is an Arlington-based freelance writer and editor. She holds an MA degree in English from Ohio State University and is co-founder and former managing editor of Belles Lettres: A Review of Books by Women. She has been active in the Arlington community as an "arts activist," volunteering time to Arlington schools and programs to help ensure the provision of high-quality arts education and to keep its value prominent in the public consciousness. She's currently an editor for WordWrights! Magazine and host of a monthly literary reading series at Hot Shotz coffee shop in Arlington. Her first chapbook will be published by Argonne House Press in 2002.

Karen Kimball is a native Washingtonian. She graduated from Wakefield High School in 1958 and received a BA in Philosophy from George Mason University, a J.D. from MasonÌs School of Law, and a Masters in Labor Law from Georgetown University. She lived in Southeast Asia for nine years. Before retiring last year, she was a trial lawyer for various Federal agencies. She has three grown children and four grandchildren.

J. Morris has published fiction and poetry in many literary magazines in the US and Great Britain, including The Southern Review, The Missouri Review, Prairie Schooner, The Christian Science Monitor, and Five Points. His chapbook, Pregnant Blue, is forthcoming from Flarestack Publishing.

Paul Andrew Fogle was born in Norfolk VA and grew up in Virginia Beach. His first chapbook of poems, Extincting the Drunk, is forthcoming from March Street Press, and other poems have appeared in Fine Madness, Dry Creek Review, The Tangent, Ingin the Ooh, Parting Gifts, and once, in disguise, in the Washington Citypaper. He's been poet-in-residence for the DC Creative Writing Workshop at Hart Middle School and an adjunct professor at George Mason University for the last two years. A part of both DC WritersCorps and the rock band Calibos for three years, he also reviews books and music for Popmatters.com, and has erratically assembled the free poetry publication 5th Gear since 1994.

Richard Peabody wears many literary hats. He is editor of Gargoyle Magazine (founded in 1976), and has published a novella, two books of short stories, five books of poems, and co-edited five anthologies with Lucinda Ebersole --Mondo Barbie, Mondo Elvis, Mondo Marilyn, Mondo James Dean, and Coming to Terms: A Literary Response to Abortion. Their sixth anthology is Sex & Chocolate due out in spring 2003. He also edited A Different Beat: Writings by Women of the Beat Generation for Serpent's Tail in 1997. Peabody teaches fiction writing at the Writer's Center in Bethesda, Maryland,and in the Johns Hopkins Advanced Academic Program. He lives in Arlington, Virgina with his wife Margaret and their daughter Twyla Grace. You may contact him at hedgehog2@erols.com

Elizabeth Rees is the author of Balancing China, winner of the Sow's Ear press national contest in 1999. Her poems have appeared in such magazines as Seneca Review, Pequod, Kenyon Review, Partisan Review, Ironwood, Mid-American Review, and Agni. She works as a Poet-in-the-Schools for the Arlington Public Schools Humanities Project and the Maryland State Arts Council, and teaches adults at The Writers' Center. Rees is also a consultant to the education department at the John F. Kennedy Center.