John L. Stanizzi

Poetry

 

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Business

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Heat again and more heat

as August sets invisible fires.

 

In fog the ash tree is an abstraction

out of which 40 or 50 sparrows burst,

and into which they vanish.

 

Late August a year ago,

a jeweled memory now,

I recall those days waiting and waiting

for the full draught of worry

that could never be pinned down or tossed out

to finally vanish

and take with it its haunting.

 

That is the perception 

into which I usually vanish,

and out of which I emerge 

feigning ease, joy,

busy as a tree full of sparrows,

disappearing as a single entity,

reappearing as an inexpensive gift.

 

Hungover

 

As I slept

the sun rose

but the moon had nudged

the tonnage of night

like a barge

through my veins

 

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Burn

a meditation 

 

He’s singing a song for you at his own expense.  

You’re a Big Girl Now

~ Bob Dylan

Another summer come begrudgingly,

El Nino, furtive, spirituous,

out there with the yellow warbler, 

wood thrush, the next surprise secret.

Everything busy.

These are the first hot days.

Temperature near 90 three straight days,

starlings panting,

everything left undone.

 

*

 

First light,

humidity thinning, 

the wide, straight shadows 

of the corral on the clay road

fading under spreading clouds,

the same hills, trees, water,

the air in last year’s balloon,

mouth shut, 

fingers poised at the keyboard.

 

*

 

As soon as the rain calmed enough

to be gentle 

the frogs started.

 

Shadows and lights,

the surface of the pond,

silhouettes of birds darting,

saxophone darting,

the deck liquid,

chairs and plants floating

on the slick surface.

 

You know as well as I what it is to float,

burdened by deep water.

 

*

 

tree frogs

louder than geese

in fog

at dusk

exquisite and peaceful

 

rain all night

and now

thick clouded gray morning

just after sunrise

leaves absolutely still

mist rising from the river

pond black and gray

the whole scene lit

by the diamonds of dew

on the tail of a grackle

 

*

 

The stars shine tonight,

boundaries of brilliance,

sustenance,

and idleness.

 

Perhaps that is the blessing.

Otherwise the one desire

might flicker and vanish.

 

Who are we to say,

traveling tentatively

in among the shadows, the lights, the movement,

that there will be something else

that will make us burn.

 

*

 

There is good cause for mentioning birdsong,

for being drawn in, over and over again,

to its constancy.

 

You know, the fog, the river, the clouds.

 

You’ve heard it all before,

gawking at the hills,

waiting like a fool

for a strand of haze,

a brown branch snapping, hanging down,

all that green,

or perhaps a shadow

whose corner is lifted

to find what has been swept beneath it. 

There is such ease in crafting excuses.

 

Each bird singing at his own expense,

and the room crowded with laziness,

while out there,

(OK, I’ll say it again.)

the horizon is crowned with an aura of mist,

entire flocks of sparrows come to eat;

the dirt road is soft clay,

the stream misplaced in the woods,

reflecting all of it, 

all the gestures,

and all the stagnant waiting,

wedged between nothing to say and less.

 

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The Motion of Chaos

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Oh, that this lashing wind was something more

Than the spirit of Ludwig Richter …

…The rain is pouring down. It is July.

There is lightning and the thickest thunder.

It is a spectacle…

Chaos in Motion and Not in Motion

~ Wallace Stevens 

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The place on the lawn 

where the tree had stood 

is empty now,

after the wind indeed 

lashed everything at once,

turning the landscape inside out,

the garden bowing 

a deep and fearful bow,

birds huddled on branches,

thick rain bashing 

its pocked face again and again

in a rage against the windows;

the razor wind stripped the countryside,

time filling the air with willow limbs, 

tattered leaves,

lawn chairs and flower pots, 

and how did we take it all in?

What did we make 

of this apparent atmospheric effrontery?

 

Only what we could, 

with our feeble sensibility, 

weak and impudent at once.

 

This fierce gray storm 

was being done to us.

We were insulted and afraid

as we crouched in the stairwell 

and ducked under the lightning 

that scrawled its sizzling autograph 

all around us in the air,

and as the storm 

squeezed a darkness through 

the cracks of the house at midday, 

we decided, without thinking, 

to ignore the sun, 

which would illuminate 

the place on the lawn 

where the tree had stood,

until we were ready 

to consider coming out

and beginning again.

 

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Bloofer Lady

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We have just received intelligence that another child, missed last night, was only discovered late in the morning under a furze bush at the Shooter's Hill side of Hampstead Heath, which is perhaps, less frequented than the other parts. It has the same tiny wound in the throat as has been noticed in other cases. It was terribly weak, and looked quite emaciated. It too, when partially restored, had the common story to tell of being lured away by the "bloofer lady".

Dracula

~ Bram Stoker

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Oh, do you know, the bloofer gal,

The bloofer gal, the bloofer gal,

Oh, do you know the bloofer gal,

That lives near Hampstead Heath?

 

Oh, yes I know the bloofer gal,

The bloofer gal, the bloofer gal,

Oh, yes I know the bloofer gal,

That lives near Hampstead Heath?

 

*

 

She spins and she rolls in the shine

of the gleaming seductive shrine.

Your greed will vault.

The spinning will halt.

She spins and she rolls in the shine.

 

*

 

There once was a diphylla from Carfax

who only wore garments that were black.

Speaking in slang,

He said, Yo, dig my fangs!

Come to Me, Love, for some rough sex.

 

*

 

Hey, scribble, scribble,

the pen and the syble,

the bard leapt over the boon.

The girls they all

laughed to see him fall short,

and the noun ran away with the rune. 

 

*

 

I’m a little half-pint, short and stout.

I’m in a brown bag, I have some clout.

When you get all stupid, and you prate,

Tip me over and pour me out.

I am very sneaky, yes it's true,

Here, let me show you what I can do.

I can make you feel all full of doubt,

Tip me over and pour me out.

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*

 

The itsy bitsy Spyder

roared down the road at night.

Out came the id

And squished the Spyder’s fright.

 

Out came the sun

And with it the Ray-Bans,

So the itsy-bitsy Spyder

Roared down the road again!

 

 

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After the Latest Attacks

 

…in just a few days the rumor spread

of the rooms emptied of words

and filled with screams.  Swollen eyes.

~ Emilio Zucchi

Translated by Beppe Cavatorta and Brenna Ward

 

 

I’m sitting outside on a cool mid-November evening

the day after the latest violence

resting by a little fire I’ve started

 

winter’s blind contour tapestry settled in now

the trees knuckled and intricate

more tangled and lovely than in summer

 

I’m watching YouTube

Gerald Stern is reading a poem about a grapefruit

but mostly I’m watching how he turns the page 

 

a kind of excitement or urgency in his fingers

He turns them quickly so that when he says the words 

mostly from memory

 

the next page will be the correct one

an unnecessary reminder 

that he’s in the right place

 

The sky is darkening and it is cool and silent

not even the sound of one bird

and the streak along the top of the far hills is pink 

 

I make a feeble attempt 

to recognize some kind of connection 

among all the splintered pieces of everything

 

hoping that if I can gather 

together two or three

I may find something like hope

 

or the reemergence of the sense 

of the goodness in people

And the burning logs 

 

with their square and rectangular demarcations

remind me of burned out cities 

seen from the air

 

an image brought to mind no doubt

because today like every day 

the world is on fire
 

It’s burning everywhere

and poor poor expressionless faces

are lit by flames

 

concealed a little by smoke

but I can see that it’s not sorrow--

it’s emptiness

 

as they roam the charred streets 

searching for the lost

though soon enough this too will be forgotten

 

The burning bodies and the 

wild words whispered somewhere 

explaining the necessity of this or the horror of that

 

will become memory

a vague recollection 

no matter how terrible

 

Then I hear a bird chipping quietly

in a tree gone all black 

just these past few moments

 

That private little pipe in the dark 

makes me smile

It brings tears to my eyes

 

the fire crackles quietly

how beautiful this darkness is 

and there is peace I realize 

 

but you have to go down between the black spaces

between the delineations on the fiery logs

deep down beneath the flares and smoke

 

The world is burning

and the need to know 

what comes next comes quickly

 

Ember on the ground

bigger fires burning everywhere

blazing on the next page

 

When we turn to it it will be on fire 

and the chill November night

cannot quench those flames or the next

 

The hot red flashes of hatred

thrust up into 

the blackened sky
 

Could they be a signal 

a call for help

for grace 

 

up in a sky with no stars

the fire is hissing

the sound of a distant car 

 

going somewhere I cannot imagine

to do normal things

routine chores unremarkable tasks

 

though I fear 

it could be burning 

there too

 

 

 

John L. Stanizzi is author of the collections Ecstasy Among Ghosts, Sleepwalking, Dance Against the Wal, After the Bell, Hallelujah Time!, High Tide – Ebb Tide, Four Bits, Chants, Sundowning, POND, and The Tree That Lights The Way Home.

 

John’s work has been widely published including the journals Prairie Schooner, The Cortland Review, American Life in Poetry, Praxis, Rust & Moth, The New York Quarterly, Paterson Literary Review, The Laurel Review, The Caribbean Writer, Blue Mountain ReviewTar River, Poetlore, Rattle, Hawk & Handsaw, Plainsongs, Patterson Literary Review, Potato Soup Journal, and many others. 

 

His work has been translated into Italian and appears widely in Italy, including in El Ghibli, The Journal of Italian Translations Bonafini, Poetarium, and others.  His translator is the Italian poet, Angela D’Ambra. 

 

His nonfiction has been published in Literature and Belief, Stone Coast Review, Ovunque Siamo, Adelaide, Scarlet Leaf, Evening Street, Praxis, Potato Soup Journal, The Red Lemon, after the pause, and others.  Potato Soup Journal named his story Pants “The Best of 2020” and it appeared in their anthology celebrating these works.

 

John is the Flash Fiction Editor of Abstract Magazine TV, and he has read at venues all over New England, including the Mystic Arts Café, the Sunken Garden Poetry Festival, Hartford Stage, and many others.  

 

For many years, John coordinated the Fresh Voices Poetry Competition for Young Poets at Hill-Stead Museum, Farmington, Connecticut.  He was also a “teaching artist” for the national poetry recitation contest, Poetry Out Loud; he spent a decade with Poetry Out Loud.  

 

A former Wesleyan University Etherington Scholar, and New England Poet of the Year (1998), John has just been awarded an Artist Fellowship in Creative Non-Fiction – 2021 -  from the Connecticut Office of the Arts and Culture for work on his new memoir. 

 

He teaches literature at Manchester Community College in Manchester, Connecticut, and lives with his wife, Carol, in Coventry, CT. https://www.johnlstanizzi.com

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