Poem During the Plague: Poem 52

Andy Hoffman

Andy Hoffman writes fiction, non-fiction and poetry. Best-known for his Pulitzer-nominated biography INVENTING MARK TWAIN, he has recently completed a new novel, HOW TO LIVE FOREVER. He holds a PhD from Brown University and has been an entrepreneur, primarily in educational technology, since 1997. He lives in Providence, RI.

Rope

We are cities

separated by a river.

            I will build a boat.

We are countries

separated by war.

            I will broker peace.

We are planets

separated by emptiness.

            I dream a spaceship.

Centuries come between us.

By faith alone

            I will become a man of your time.

Even death can’t come between us,

not against the force of love.

But as it is

only a small chasm

keeps us apart.

            A rope can bridge it.

When I throw the rope

will you catch it?

Or will your end

slide into the chasm,

and me with it?

Poem during the Plague: Poem 28

Bridget Seley-Galway

Separately  

Separately 

We melded into oneness 

became a lively chorus  

of each days anticipation 

there was something of me 

separate from you 

an unrelenting foreboding whisper 

pushed forward 

where nights aching limbs  

wore away possibilities  

and frayed like dust into ether 

then letting go  

knowing 

there is an after life 

where we are one again 

*****Bridget Seley-Galway artist/poet professional career was developing multi-disciplinary free arts centers and programming for under privileged youth. Her passion and commitment was to prove art to be a powerful tool for self-empowerment. 

Her collection of poems and images “What Moments Yield” has been published by Ibbetson Press, and has been included in the following permanent collections: N.Y.C Poets House, Sate University of Buffalo collections, Umass Amherst W.EB Du Bois Library, and the Truro Library Cape Cod. 

Her poems have also been published in Provincetown Magazine’s Poetry Corner, Wilderness House Literary Review, Poetry Porch, Ibbetson Press, and Bagel with the Bards, to name a few. Her art has been exhibited throughout New England, and reviewed in several publications, including Artist Magazine and Cape Arts. Her paintings have been selected for the covers of Bagel with Bards, Ibbetson Press, and individual poet publications. 

Poem During the Plague: Poem 26

Eliot Cardinaux 

I WALK EACH DAY

Along these walls

I set up defeated country.

Even briefly

insane, I’m loved

by these walls, their

shadows faint

& harmless.

I walk each day.

The acorns push disaster,

furnish our living space.

These walls can move.

Someone’s pain

is confined by this.

The sky is a final,

fevered blue, where

chaos laid a hand on them.

****Born in Dayton, Ohio in 1984, Eliot Cardinaux is a pianist and poet now living in Northampton, Massachusetts. Having studied jazz piano at The Manhattan School of Music, as well as contemporary improvisation at the New England Conservatory, he has lived in many places and absorbed a variety of influences. He is the founder of The Bodily Press through which he has released the works of other poets, as well as several of his own projects, including, most recently, the full-length poetry collection “Around the Faded Sun,” and the album of poetry and free-improvisations, “Magpie: Six Feet on Solid Ground,” featuring Asger Thomsen and Jeppe Høi Justesen. His first album as a leader, American Thicket, was released in 2016 on Loyal Label (Brooklyn, NY), and features Mat Maneri (viola), Thomas Morgan (bass), and Flin van Hemmen (drums). He has since been involved in projects such as a trio with bassist Will McEvoy and Max Goldman, Our Hearts as Thieves (with Asger Thomsen, Jonas Engel, and Etienne Nillesen), and his own solo project, Sweet Beyond Witness. His poetry has been published in Caliban Online, Big Big Wednesday, Hollow, Bloodroot Literary Journal, White Heat, Trestle Ties, and Dispatches from the Poetry Wars. Cardinaux performs and records regularly around the East Coast and in Europe, with musicians such as Jeb Bishop, Randy Peterson, Taus Bregnhøj-Olesen, Eivind Opsvik, and Kresten Osgood. He is a current candidate for an MFA in Poetry at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst.