HELEN LOSSE POET OF THE MONTH OF FEBRUARY 2011

WELCOME to poet Helen Losse of Winston Salem, NC, POET OF THE MONTH here Above the Frost Line in this her birth month.

















Deep Purple Shadow

The sun sets behind black trees;

a soft wind cools the air;

the moon’s but a sliver: 

An orange reminder of what’s yet to come.

Fire tonight,

and the Blue Ridge Mountains

cast a deep purple shadow. 

Over a peak, a single star.

Animal sounds appear to surround,

while the moon disappears

into a navy blue sky.

So let us proceed to gather ample wood.

first published in Right Hand Pointing and forthcoming in my book Seriously Dangerous (Main Street Rag, 2011) available for advance order at a reduced price at Main Street Rag Bookstore

http://www.mainstreetrag.com/HLosse.html
Main Street Rag

Wintertime Prayer

The evening begins with the darkening of trees,

and I enter the sweetest of solitudes.

Where the sun gives us color, setting in the west—

pink and orange, purple and navy: precursors all,

to the purposeful blackening of the sky, which,

nightly in December, forms a simple backdrop.

Yes, pageantry inhabits a cloud-filtered moonlight:

A few lonely stars.  Then the fullness of shadows is

come, is frozen into a landscape, into genuine hope—

where snowflakes fall on the evergreens, on footprints,

are lost in the darkness of deepening snow,

and where inside, the glow of a candle-flame comforts me.

first published in The Centrifugal Eye, and also in my chapbook Paper Snowflakes (Southern Hum Press, 2006, OOP)

POET HELEN LOSSE

Helen Losse is a Winston-Salem poet, author of four collections of poems, including Seriously Dangerous (Main Street Rag, 2011) and Better With Friends (Rank Stranger Press, 2009) and the Poetry Editor for the online literary magazine The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature. Her recent poetry publications and acceptances include The Wild Goose Poetry Review, Main Street Rag, Iodine Poetry Review, Blue Fifth Review, The Pedestal Magazine, ken*again, and Literary Trails of the North Carolina Piedmont. Her poems have been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and twice for a Best of the Net award, one of which was a finalist.  Helen blogs at Windows Toward the World.  http://helenl.wordpress.com/

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