Featured Poet: S Stephanie, Manchester

S Stephanie lives in Manchester, NH where she teaches English and Creative Writing. She also works as a nurse. Her work has appeared in   magazines such as The Birmingham Poetry Review, The Café Review, The Larcom Review, Third  Coast, The Southern Review and The Sun. Her chapbook, Throat is available through Igneus Press. She published and co-edited the poetry magazine, Crying Sky: Poetry & Conversation 2005-2007. She has a second chapbook coming out with Pudding House in 2009.

This poem came out of the frustration I sometimes feel when I watch the news. That feeling of ones hands being tied in the midst of so much negativity. It may have been my attempt at taking back my day.  We do go on with the things we deem important, despite what is happening around us. At this time I was working with Alzheimer's patients. What the News Seemed to Say is also the title poem for my new chapbook.  I put the chapbook together after realizing I was a bit of a "news junky" and had several pieces inspired by or incorporating news items in them. I then expanded on the theme news to broaden the theme of the book. 

What the News Seemed to Say

So easy for us to lose things,
and so many things for us to lose:
 
the wallet gone from the back pocket,
the car from the curb, a woman
 
and her child—yanked from the corner
like laundry from the line.
 
According to the newscaster, even our
tempers can be lost in plumes of “road rage,”
 
kick-the-dog rage, kill-the-boss rage;
dark clouds of pent-up anger, gathering
 
along the streets and arteries of America.
Fat clouds that can travel fast and settle
 
as far away as the Middle East. Now there’s
a place where it rains heavily.  Souls
 
rising like cheap umbrellas caught by wind,
dark balloons rising higher and higher,
 
leaving us little hope that someone
on the other side will find them.
 
And rain forests and dolphins seem to disappear
as easily as sunglasses and galoshes.  Lost
 
dogs who can’t smell their way back.
Homes to flood,  Pictures to fire.
 
Wedding rings lost in all kinds of weather.
Memories locked behind broken neurons,
 
lives behind broken laws.
But some group in Nevada believes
 
they can save what’s left with Anthrax,
Who knows what
 
they think they are saving.  I don’t
understand them.  Today,
 
I spent the morning helping a woman
with Alzheimer’s remember her husband’s
 
name.  She said it wrong, yet fiercely.
And she said it too loudly.  The sound
 
of rocks hitting the bottom of a wheel-barrow.
As if the road she had been traveling before the war
 
suddenly ended.  And now, the country
between them was impassable.