New Poetry by Pawel Grajnert: “Michigan”

PARTICLES THAT FLOAT / image by Amalie Flynn

Michigan

Before the salmon-full,
PUthe alewife-less,
PUtropic blue
Mussel-filtered water,
Was a green lake
PUT_CCCCCCof indigenous fish.
A fishing industry.
Before that logging.
After eradication.
Before that trading.
Before that, words of people
comprehensible over
and around us –
Before most of ours –
PUthat’s the take,
PUTif you’re wondering –
Describing the bounty.
The ease of it.
The rise and fall
Of waves on an inland sea,
One of the great
Cycle-keepers.
Let the gunk go down its gullet
Is one way back to the true
Inheritance of all that violence.
The other is to let
The moist, rising earth –
PUthe great Kankakee –
Absorb – more than once more
The particles that float about,
PUand entomb them
In some future peat.


Poetry from Eric Chandler: “Hetch Hetchy”

THERE’S A DROUGHT / image by Amalie Flynn

Hetch Hetchy

There are two signs on
The towel rack.
One says, “cozy” and explains that
The towel rack
Heats your towels.

It’s next to the switch
That fires up
The electricity to the towel rack.
That fires up
The coal fired power plant.

The power plant
Sends up the gas.
Is the drought because the power plant
Sends up the gas?
Either way, there’s a drought.

I looked down through that gas at the
Hetch Hetchy reservoir.
White bathtub rings surround the low
Hetch Hetchy reservoir
Because of the drought.

The second sign on
The towel rack
Says they won’t launder what’s on
The towel rack.
Only what they find on the floor.

All the water in the city comes from
The Hetch Hetchy.
They’re conserving water from
The Hetch Hetchy.
They hope you won’t mind.

Enjoy your hot towels.

 

“Hetch Hetchy” previously appeared in Eric Chandler’s book Hugging This Rock



New Poetry from Lisa Stice: “Water Cycle”

SMALLER WE ARE / image by Amalie Flynn

Water Cycle

No matter where we are, the oceans
meet us in some form.
PUT_CHARAAAAAAAAI am small
and my daughter (who is only eight) –
is even smaller
PUT_CHARAAand still, our dog is smaller
yet, then there are those microscopic zoe-
and phytoplankton
PUT_CHARAAAAAand the not so micro
fish that eat them and so on
PUT_CHARAAAAAAAAAAAand once again,
oil casts a poisonous rainbow on the Pacific.
Optimism is difficult to catch these days—
evasive like a baitfish
PUT_CHARAAAAAAit’s so small, and we’re
so small, and the smaller we are (like my daughter
who is eight), the more we truly believe
PUT_CHARAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAthis can’t
happen again.

 

 



Poetry by Amalie Flynn + Images by Pamela Flynn: “#150,” “#151,” “#152,” “#153”

Flow #150

SPIDER / 150

Thick in Louisiana swamps

Atchafalaya Basin

Hot cypress shooting out

Stretching in that bayou

Where pipelines

Pumping black gold oil

Cross across the swamp

Like spider veins.

 

 

Flow #151

TRACKS / 151

How I find tiny cuts

The skin of my inner

Thighs outer lip my

Labia

Cuts from his finger

Nails small bloody

Crescents

Like beetle tracks.

 

 

Flow #152

SPOIL / 152

Or deep in a swamp

How oil companies

Create canals

Push earth into piles

Push mud into banks

These spoil banks or

Dams

That block blocking

Water so it cannot

Flow.

 

 

Flow #153

CLAM / 153

The sky is full of trees

Now after

After he hits me over

The head

With a pipe metal pipe

Hard on

The crown of my skull

Bone and

Suture cracking like a

Clam shell.

 

Pattern of Consumption is a year long project featuring 365 poems by Amalie Flynn and 365 images by Pamela Flynn. The poetry and images focus on the assault on women and water.