Bio: Kathryn Alison Graves received a MFA in creative writing, writes poetry and lives in Oregon.

Poetry by Kathryn Alison Graves

Issue: 1.3

Woman Turns into Wall

I took the largest part left of me today

Placed it on the passenger seat of my red car

The damn thing glared at me all the way home

Are we going somewhere brilliant?

Or will you let the remains of your expressiveness

slop over into the attaché beside and snap shut as a crypt?

Where the hell did I place my keys anyway…

I sat it next to the shower

Where steam clouds of creativity were forfeit, sucked into the plastic vent

Pulling the curtain tighter and tighter

Trying to preserve the swirl of the fire that lingered

A passive defense on my part

I wonder if I was the oldest salesperson at the meeting today…..

About a Firend

Several times, several dreams
Remembering and so loving
Unreal to me that your eyes were sinking; slipping
Your one time crawl had begun
Moss covered stones on soil
Don't talk about it, hush now
Amongst diapers and feedings
Why didn't you tell me of your mind?
In your last days we spent hours
A comfort in the sterile bed beside you I sat
Your young babes need to know you
There is not enough tape to record your voice today
They will grow up without you
There is not enough lined paper to tell them of you
I look at you dear friend
While those in white shoes cloud your mind
One last time to share
To hold onto
It's striking now
As hard as glass shattering
A collision that yields no survivors
Blood on warm pavement and soaked sheets
Spectators looking on
But they don't know what they see-who they see
You can't be dead
Because I know who you are
Your babies know
And they listen close and will remember
And if nothing else will be praised
Know that I am sleepless with memories. about you

Issue 1.2

Valley Birds

A perch of Valley Birds fronting
one of Southern California’s many suns
blew in on strong eastern Santa Ana winds
and held firm. Feet bolted onto their thin,
ginger-brown legs, the air parted their tightened
pin feathers - clear down to the pink
of their thin transparent skin
and visible even from the ground.

Sharp enough at both ends and capable
of laying them out on their backs,
combative gusts continued - pushed hard,
yet managed to move only the bend of their wings.

Heat collecting in their bottom beaks
kept them staggering, a terrible struggle
to keep their place, to keep a balance.
A noisy silence with nothing more to say,
witness that we were one less today.

~In memory of Ronald Gordon Graves
April 29, 1946-July 25, 2008

Steam

This morning I released the cows not meant
for slaughter back out into the fields. I penned up
the rest, being careful not to look into their eyes.
It’s been pouring for weeks now.

When the sun finally came through the trees
everything soaked by rain was steaming.
Spongy soft cedar trees framing
the neighbors’ soupy five- acre lot
were steaming. Fence posts steamed too.
I imagine that to every moment there is a spirit,
like the breath of the cattle released
seen only when it leaves, like steam -
rising, lifting clear.

As Familiar as a Sparrow

Feeling my hand pulse out in code
I know that I’m alive and well
enough to fit inside the words
that you once thought could sing, a heart
within a heart, always singing.
And the music is always there,
varied degrees of subtlety,
symbols and metrics reaching far
beyond barriers and limits
spilling out of the arms that hold
up the skies, your voice careens down,
well known and shared with me
over cups of light, golden-brown tea
and as familiar as a sparrow.

~In memory of William Brian Graves
September 6, 1953-January 28, 2008

Issue 1.1

Too Cold

He had two strikes against him; he was black and he was homeless. The article said he liked the used bookstores, to get in out of the rain/sniff the books/if only for an hour or two/frozen spittle nesting in his beard/living on sustenance of free coffee and everything else too lean/on the street/where scowls and nightsticks fell like rain. The article said most homeless are eventual victims; no key/no door/ no protection. In one week: 3 rapes/2 beaten/a woman sleeping set on fire. Already the day is stretching/he doesn’t move/died in private/disintegrated in silence/too cold/too cold.

Between Enemy Lines

It was too hot to see past the threshes, foxtails and dead armadillos
flattened out on the road and left for bait
Heated steam from the asphalt rises up this time of year
and bakes its victims
Texas is another country you know...

Your letter of compliance was well uncovered
and yet I paid it no mind
Just remember the Bluebonnets I picked
be sure to smell your fingers
Dust gets into lungs no matter where you sit out here

My last breath was a scent of your bleached white t-shirt
A combination of old spice and body odor
Oh, and her....

Fermentation

This is the way it has always been
white on the outside, red on the inside
it wasn’t until my finger slipped that I felt the sting
funny how nobody really knows what I am talking about
until the time of festivities have passed
and they begin to gossip

What some think of as pleasure has begun my pain
and my certainties are now hanging
as fruit of the vine not yet picked
not yet a part of the crush

I never said a word to him how
the other makes me feel
and it is killing me
within a fold of lies is what I serve
until I am true to myself
I am bottled within this vintage

I am separated
good from the bad
and then the barrels are laid out
in a slow procession
of fermentation
and in the glass remains
my residuals
what is left

Screaming for your attention
producing what is required of me
as fluidly, and as easily as words
and this is where I remain
one taste as bitter
as the first
and between my empty bottles....

Mindful Transition

All the same she knew when she was ready -
recognizable handwriting, visible
from the inside of her eyelids,
even when she slept. It spilled over
into the weekends, hung off the couch like a fat cat
and kept her up at night - sometimes
it was the little things, sometimes harder,
hard enough to write down long hand
and in pencil, not out of anger or irresponsibility
but to allow them to soften and move
into something bigger.

Poetry Reading in the City of Roses

Under the Burnside Bridge, poetry slams
and bounces off a concrete stage -
the audience feasts
on handfuls of blackberries.

The hipsters sing songs that left home
to find themselves drifting with others,
rain soaked and stacked deep
against used bookstore windows

while the overpass scrapes into a chorus,
skateboards in wearing black T-shirts
and Goodwill sneakers -
all on city time.

Spectators rock and cock their heads
to their sides not listening,
as a young man reads
pulling his hood over his head
and his hair out of his sunglasses.