Member Poems
Illinois State Poetry Society
One of the many benefits of membership is being published on our website. Each quarter, ISPS invites a segment of the membership, designated by last name, to publish one poem and/or haiga on the website.
Quarterly Poems
Poems listed by poet name
Exposure
by Jacob Erin-Cilberto
firefly
scutter by
the stem
alight
in the
between
love and war
it’s all a bore
flashing power
no plan
and soon all of the flowers
will be extinct
and there will be
no place to rest.
Tribute to Spring Love
by Michael Escoubas
(after The Rose Garden at Wargemont, by Pierre August Renior, 1879)
In that April week
as flowers begin
their spring emergence
two lovers meet
one hand takes the other
they lean into
each other, her skirt
and fan brush lightly
against his muscled thigh
and fragrance enters in—
the moment becomes
a composition as the body
slows, colors take on voice
as they rest there
and for a moment
a kind of Swiss perfection
comes . . . a balance
an awakening, in which
they rest on the edge of silence
fingers touching ever so lightly.
Kintsugi of Old Hearts
by Karen Fullett-Christensen
We have lived long enough to require repairs
to become acquainted with imperfection
experience teaches and sometimes breaks
Wisdom brings the recognition
that broken hearts are often stronger
when they are mended
With the lacquer of friendship
sometimes love
always joy
It’s the sharing of pain
the holding of hands
that strengthens the broken
The imperfections
that illustrate
just who we are
Horse Dream
by Jim Hanson
It is behind as I drive
down the road ahead, alone
to find refuge from the end
and weary from disquieting thoughts
and the light of day now gone
I stop to sleep and find some rest
to dream about wild horses
running over parched prairie
in flight from tireless predators
and at dusk of day, quietly
they seek the solace of sleep
yet stand alert to traces
of scent and sound in the wind
coming from above
where the mountain lion
looks through hungry eyes
to hunt and to kill
the colts who stray alone
too young too late to run
down the highway ahead
he has taken for himself.
I wake to a whinny
shimmering through the night air
perhaps real, perhaps dream
then nothing again heard
but for crickets chirping
near in the dawning woods
and sun beams light out to
the field where the horses
graze green grass, quietly
as I resume my travel
knowing it will still be well
for yet another day.
Relief in Relife
Does evening raise a fear of no more dawns?
Does autumn’s chill forever kill our lawns?
If not, then why dread gray hair in a mirror?
If dawns and lawns recur, is death to fear?
Is body all I am, a soft robot
conditioned by blind chance, then left to rot?
Is heaven just a slide shone on the sky
to keep believers honest till they die?
To think extinction ends our too-short life—
to think a void replaces child and wife—
to think a shroud blanks out all consciousness—
all far too grim for me, I must confess.
I’m reassured from deep in bone and heart
that when I and my body come to part,
I’ll slip it off and leave it like a coat,
retaining what I know, but free to float.
Our breath comes in, goes out, and so do we
who end each earthly life, but then are free
to roam bright inner realms with opened eyes
which see through physicality's bleak lies.
We thrive in heaven’s symphony of mind
uncounted blissful years, until we find
we thirst again to join the physical
where atoms quickly teach what’s practical.
Like gravity, a pull of destiny
reels in our soul from near infinity
and helps us choose as home some mother’s womb—
what most call birth, our trammeled soul deems tomb.
Then choice and aftermath on earth are learned—
like school, where each promotion must be earned.
With open-hearted deeds we all progress;
with selfish acts we duly retrogress.
If death is no more end than western sun—
if Soul appears through bodies, one by one—
then life is no more opposite of death
than breathing is the opposite of breath.
Heart and Soul
by Teresa Harris
Give me a kind heart
That beats in time
Butterflies in my stomach
Send chills down my spine
Leave me breathless
Make a long lasting bond
Lend me a strong shoulder
To rest my weary head upon
An ear that listens
Like a whisper in the wind
A mind that is understanding
A steady reassuring grin
Eyes that look deep into my soul
A compassionate and caring gaze
A mouth singing a beautiful song
That creates a passionate blaze
Let me breathe in beauty
Like a delicate flower smell
Uncover hidden truths
Experience trust that never fails
A hand that cradles my hand
Tells me to hold on tight
A finger which points the way
In the darkness of the night
Wrap me with arms and legs
Intertwine and never let go
Bodies that turn into spoons
To feed a hungry soul
Attending the Funeral of Someone You Never Knew
by Colleen McManus Hein
We sat to the side; it had been
Too many years since this man
Paid my husband over high school summers
To paint back porches, ones that snaked
Up the building like cross-stitch patterns
In lumber.
Since I wasn’t sad, not yet,
I watched a cluster of cousins
Reunite three pews up.
The males did the brief chest bump,
Clap on the shoulder hello,
The females full-on neck-wraps.
When the violist drew a mournful bow
The chatter dropped as the
Priest drew a life to a close.
We stood, we kneeled, we prayed,
We sang for the man I didn’t know.
When the son rose to the lectern,
Though, the picture he painted for
Us was as dark and light and shades
Between as a person could see
Without having actually been.
One life, summed in a sorrow
Of jokes, pranks recalled, memories stoked.
When his voice broke as he read a
A boxed note, a naked declaration,
Rare for this otherwise stoic man,
He held the mourners close for a moment
To this man I’d never known,
This man I wished I’d known.
Ancient Greece
by Mark Hudson
In ancient Greek democracies,
men got an education.
Plato studied under Socrates,
and teaching was his vocation.
Socrates was executed,
and Plato left Athens in a rage.
To an academy he contributed,
teaching at the college age.
Music, poetry, and gym,
as well as math and science.
They were instructed under him,
Aristotle helped teach the clients.
Students were often prepared for war,
the boot camp began in classrooms before.
A Language of Sensing
by Melissa Huff
inspired by the The Morton Arboretum’s mission:
“where people and trees thrive together”
You can run your hand along the deep ridges
and furrows of the white ash—
let your skin read it as though it were Braille.
Your mouth might relish the sweetness
of linden leaf buds—bundled leaves
murmuring their tender messages.
If you linger in a stand of white pine—
inhale their healing fragrance—
they will tell you of their essence.
Cottonwoods borrow the wind’s voice to whisper
through their big-hearted leaves—while aspen
sing along in a shake-and-shuffle dance.
And look at the sugar maple—draped
in autumnal robes it declares itself to your eyes
as it will later in its full winter nakedness.
Our senses know—already—how to speak
with these sentinels of the plant world.
Perhaps when we practice this language
something even deeper within us
will commune with the trees.
Divine Sculpture
by Emory Jones
inspired by the The Morton Arboretum’s mission:
“where people and trees thrive together”
He sculpts the earth with water, wind and fire,
Sends the roiling stream, cutting soil
With force of rushing flowing water
Sends sand to sculpt the sandstone with the wind.
Through this sculpture garden glides the wind
As sun beats down on desert, hot as fire
That spreads like a shallow river across the earth
And like molten silver beneath the water.
Up in the mountain over rocks, the water,
Rippled by the fingertips of wind,
Resists the glowing warmth of orange fire
To cool the surface of the waiting earth.
The rocks in pinnacles arise from warming earth
As now the flowing river gives its water
To natural bridges, carved by rushing wind,
That arch and leap as if they were on fire.
He blesses earth, refreshes it with water
And on the wind renews eternal fire.