Two Poems by Nancy Simpson - You can read them on Line- FUTURE CYCLE PRESS

Nancy Simpson ends the year on the up-swing - with ten poems accepted this year. You can read two of the most recent on line - FutureCycle Press. "First Responder" in  AMERICAN SOCIETY - What Poets See 2011. (34) and "Years Later- Still the Old Dream" in Future Cycle Anthology 2011, (27)


http://futurecycle.org/FutureCyclePoetry/SimpsonBio.aspx
click on poems at the bottom of the page

Two Poems by NANCY SIMPSON from Living Above the Frost Line

Water On the Highway

Water on the pavement moves before me,

Witch Water, I say, as though some sorceress waits

snapping her crooked fingers to make it disappear.

It is real I tell you. It evaporates,

or seems to, and it is always there.

Last night a friend talked about going home,

the roadmap she followed, the bridge she had to cross.

As I listened, I studied her words on paper

describing a house with stained glass windows,

a wicker chair, her father’s face.  I want to believe

poets who say this is the way home, who go and come

traveling lines as concrete and safe as any interstate.

The sun is hot today and my map is marked, open.

I drive home, knowing as I go,

I will have to cross water to get there.

Previously published in The Georgia Review

Reprinted in Living Above the Frost Line

New and Selected Poems, the first book by 

Carolina Wren in their laureate series.

Grass

We ought to be thankful it grows wild

on road banks, sometimes blond and curled.

It holds earth together and still,

we hear Earth is falling.

Sink holes in the south swallow cars.

We do not doubt, but can we help wonder

what happens when the bottom drops?

Maybe clumps fall with the Jeep

and the Porsche, forming the shoreline

of a lake in some post suburb.

Grass has a right to be cherished,

Crowning Glory, clipped to perfection.

No matter where we sleep we live

with threat hanging over our lawns.

Who says we need more weapons?

We want to know what will happen to grass,

grass everywhere, amber savannahs,

sacred as the hair on our heads.

Previously published in Southern Poetry Review,

reprinted in SPR 50th Anniversary Anthology

Don't Leave Hungry and reprinted in

Living Above the Frost Line, New and Selected Poems.


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http://carolinawrenpress.org/books-and-merchandise/poetry/living-above-the-frost-line

TWO POEMS BY NANCY SIMPSON from Living Above the Frost Line

Grief Loses Its Grip

First a crooked smile,  

a giggle, then there comes the urge

to utter words, I'm back. 

One laugh emits so strangely

it almost hurts, a horse laugh.

When was it I changed direction,

turned around?  Yesterday,

a serene smile and humming

as I drove to the store for bread,

The absence of sorrow feels best 

in winter on the first day of a new year.

Joy. The mundane dead.

A friend arrives with news. I learn

all I missed. We drive through the valley,

looking up, nearly ecstatic,

my laughter resounding in witness to

a violet splash, sunlight streaming

across purple mountains near home.

From the Top of the Mountain

   in memory of Barbara Simpson Askew

Against my will the Everglades burn.

Smoke blows through the portico

and heat filters in through the window screen.

That is the scene the day you started 

to die, Sister, and why I say no

to a road, a highway so humid 

and long, it took a lifetime to leave.

I tried comparing the sentimental 

and the real,  but I don't know

what happened. Proximity is my problem.

If we talked, sipping coffee, saying

what humidity is like, thick air, unmerciful heat,

maybe I could  remember more

Perspective comes from being high,

looking as far into blackness

as my eyes can see, so I rise,

years, miles, reduce the volume

of your wheezes,

erase the whole neighborhood

the day men spread shells on our sand road,

forget they covered every shell with tar.

I only want to remember the last time

you came to my house for a visit.

New Year's Eve. Our party lasted

until Monday, enough snow to cover the leaves.

You laughed at me, a flatlander come to live

on a mountain, how I moved up, teased me

in your girl voice asking, How high are we?

(These poems are reprinted from 

LIVING ABOVE THE FROST LINE

Selected and New Poems published 2010

 at Carolina Wren Press. This first book in the new
Laureate Series was chosen by Laureate
Kathryn Stripling Byer.

Order from publisher Carolina Wren Press

Order a copy at Malaprops Book Store in Asheville

or order a copy at Amazon.com

or Call The Book Nook in Blairsville, Georgia

TWO POEMS by Nancy Simpson Dedicated to the Memory of Former Student, Dennis White

THE SHUT WINDOW by Nancy Simpson

Our handicaps are apparent
today in the sunlight.
When we come out of the classroom
to look at our shadows
we find our bodies are crooked, see
the spastic walk of our dark selves,
so we laugh and make a game. Shadow
proves to us there is light.

Dennis who is sixteen
wants to be a monster.
He lifts his arms and spreads his fingers.
With white chalk I outline the shape
of his body. The picture of the boy
stays etched on the pavement.

Afternoon sun through the window
of the classroom frames a silhouette
of leaves moving on the blackboard.
We listen but cannot hear the leaves
rustling. They are separated from the tree
outside the shut window.


Previously published in NIGHT STUDENT







WALK FACE INTO THE WIND by Nancy Simpson

for Dennis White


Remember the orange balloon
floating above the track field
at Cullowhee last spring?
How it stayed all morning
then passed on from view
while you dashed fifty meters
and won a blue ribbon.

There is life after death, Boy.
Old leaves rise from the ground, see them
rising above low growth and new pine.
Walk face into the wind and see.
A hood will not stay on your head.
My scarf comes loose, glides off
like something alive, flying
straight out of this world.

Previously published in The Appalachian Journal
and included in NIGHT STUDENT.