On the Verge: Poets of the Palisades III

Edited by Paul Nash, Denise La Neve, Susanna Rich, John J. Trause, and David Messineo. The Poets of the Palisades shine in their third anthology of new and memorable works — 142 poems from 80 poets. All have had featured readings in the series sponsored by the North Jersey Literary Community in Teaneck, NJ (founded 1997) and the High Mountain Meadow Poetry Series in Wayne, NJ (founded 2017). For these tumultuous times of environmental crisis, bad politics, pandemic, and unrest, the editors selected submitted poems and arranged the best into eleven themed sections.

These works, of our time, are on the verge, or, as editor Paul Nash indicates, “In transition … about to change … at the point where something may occur … in anticipation … to extend outward toward the unknown … nearing the likely or inevitable attainment of some state of being … to approach a barrier, boundary or portal … at an event horizon … crossing a permeable membrane … to reach the outer margins of something different or unexpected.”

This publication, issued simultaneously in print and ebook formats in the midst of a national pandemic and social distancing, tests the community of poets and artists in its pages with the challenge of continuing to read together (virtually), and to be read by the many friends and supporters of poetry on the “wrong side” of the Hudson River. Poetry will prevail, on line, on screen, and in print.

POETS AND ARTISTS IN THIS ANTHOLOGY: Joel Allegretti, Renée Ashley, Donna Baier Stein, Amy Barone, John Barrale, Caterina Belvedere, Norma Ketzis Bernstock, Michael McKeown Bondhus, Laura Boss, Theresa Burns, Laurie Byro, Kevin Carey, Cathy Cavallone, John Chorazy, David Crews, Jessica de Koninck, Erica Desmond, Catherine Doty, Juditha Dowd, Sandra Duguid, Jane Ebihara, James C. Ellerbe, R.G. Evans, Tom Fitzpatrick, Ellen Foos, Laura Freedgood, Davidson Garrett, Deborah Gerrish, Henry Gerstman, Suzanne Gili Post, George Guida, Barbara Hall, Therése Halscheid, Patrick Hammer Jr., Karen Hubbard, Pamela Hughes, Josh Humphrey, Paul Kuszcyk, Vasiliki Katsarou, Tina Kelley, Adele Kenny, Janet Kolstein, Elaine Koplow, Denise La Neve, Susanna Lee, Joel Lewis, Timothy Liu, Roy Lucianna, Mary Makofske, Charlotte Mandel, Maria Mazziotti Gillan, David Messineo, Marilyn Mohr, Gene Myers, Paul Nash, James B. Nicola, Priscilla Orr, Wayne Pierson, Tom Plante, Jennifer Poteet, Morton D. Rich, Susanna Rich, Denise Rue, Alison Ruth, Brett Rutherford, Yuyutsu Sharma, Danny Shot, Carole Stone, Heather Strazza, John J. Trause, Doris Umbers, David F. Vincenti, Emily Vogel, BJ Ward, Galen Warden, Joe Weil, Barbara R. Williams-Hubbard, George Witte, Dave Worrell, Anton Yakovlev, David Yazzi, Michael T. Young, Donald Zirilli, Sander Zulauf.

Cover design by Galen Warden. Book design & typography by Brett Rutherford.

ISBN 9798650452249. 284 pages, paperback, 6x 9 inches. $19.95 from Amazon. Ebook for $4.99 (link to come).

A Toast to Wendy

The group known as “The Poets of the Palisades” gathers every New Years Eve to read poetry until midnight and beyond, and to enjoy and renew literary friendships that span decades. Two times the group met at a colonial bed-and-breakfast in Bristol, Rhode Island. This is a true account of the strangest bed-and-breakfast visit of all time.

A TOAST TO WENDY
by Brett Rutherford

1

Who fired the cannonball that this colonial manse
(now B-and-B a-host to poets!) caught up and lodged
in fireplace brickwork? The British, of course, from bay,
a frigate bearing down on Lafayette’s abode.
This red frame barn of a house leans back in salt air,
sheds heat from six-paned windows against the blizzard
of modernity. Its literary pilgrims
arrive on the noon of New Year’s Eve, their papers
bulging from backpacks, laptops, Dickensian journals.
They sign the open guest book: who sleeping with whom,
or chaste with Byronic doom-gloom, whose name is real
and whose pseudonymous, details of little note
as the house is all theirs. The rooms are all for them,
theirs the sole use the welcoming fire, the never-
exploding mortar of King George the Third inert
to even the most outrageous manifesto.

Off to their rooms they ascend on Escher staircase,
up front and down back amid the heaped-up bookshelves,
hostess-hoard of Brit-American volumes,
vestiges of her New York publishing career.
Like as not the bookshelves hold this place together
(Rhode Island shore a vast, connected termite nest
to hear the well-off exterminators tell it).
The walls bulge. Windows no longer square won’t open,
pipes rattle and hiss, the wide-planked floorboards gap-toothed
beneath the cat-scratched and faded Persian carpets.

The stooping elder Anderson greets them; son James,
a new face to them, lugs bags and reminds them,
“Wendy will not be with us. She is gravely ill,
told us from hospital bed she wanted you here.
No matter what, she wanted the poets again.”
Old Mr. Anderson seems dazed and disoriented.
He shuffles away as his son gives out advice
on local eateries. “Redleffsen’s the best,” James says.
He counts up heads for the morrow’s breakfast, assures
them he knows his way around the dim-dark kitchen
that looms cool-cave behind the formal dining room.
“We’ll get you breakfast, don’t fear. My father’s no help,
but Wendy made me promise to help you out.”
To the one he thinks is their leader, James adds:
“Of course a large tip would be appreciated,
since I’m off to the ski slopes once this is over.”

As midnight nighs, the fireplace sputters, poetry
sparks up and out, logs spurt out flame-salamanders,
to the lines of Thomas Hardy, to their Gothic
utterances, Poe-reimaginings, wild verse
salt-sown from Carthage in elephantine revenge,
Baudelairean bleedings, achings of heart-sweet
first love, oh what an overflow of unbashful
egos and peculiar tastes. James has joined in,
“I just want to listen,” he says. So on they go.
But when one translates from Russian (Akhmatova)
and reads “I drink to our ruined house, Ya pyu
Nad razorenni dom, James interrupts them, “No!
That is just too close for comfort. Let’s not say that.”
So they veer away from Russian. The Hardy book
makes another round with its bittersweet savor.
The dining room clock then rattles out its midnight
clamor; before twelve-stroke fireworks erupt somewhere;
drunks who failed to kill deer fire off at the heavens.
They break out the champagne. Glasses are passed around,
and one spontaneously says, “Let’s make a toast
to our absent hostess, a toast to Wendy!” “I'll join
in that,” James answers, half-choking the words.
“A toast to our absent hostess! A Wendy toast!”

They drink, and being poets, they read some more, and more.
It goes on till nearly two, till one by one and
two by two they rise to go on up to their rooms.
“Listen!” James calls out to them. “I could not say it,
while you were reading and sharing your work with us.
But I can tell you now that Wendy — my mother —
she died at ten o’clock this morning. Her last wish
was that you all have your New Year’s celebration.”

2
Who slept, if at all?
Who lay awake
and listened
as the bereft husband
in and out of knowing
roamed in his bedclothes
mouthing, Wendy? Wendy?
Then shaking his head,
You fool, she’s dead.

Whose door squeaked open
to Mr. Anderson’s plaintive
Wendy? Wendy?

Who listens as through
the floorboards
James phones his girlfriend
in Minnesota,
hears snatches of sentences:

“She was doing well,
brain-tumor surgery and all.
They planned to send her home,
but then the diabetes kicked in
and they had to amputate
both legs.”

What walked just then,
first up, then down
the crazy-angled staircase;
who thought he saw
a foot, a knee,
a calf, a thigh,
then rubbed his eyes
of sleep-sand
and saw nothing?

“And so I came home. First time
in a decade, to take my mom
to New York in her wheelchair.
Just one last time she wanted to see
the big tree at Rockefeller Center,
the lions at the Public Library,
the Bethesda Fountain.”

And who was it,
in search of toilet,
who saw and heard
the pages turn
in an open book,
the Oxford dictionary
on its oaken lectern,
turn, turn, turn of page
fast-furious,
yet not a hint of draft?
Who would not wish to know
what word was sought
and by whom or what?

“And then it got worse.
Back to the hospital.
They must have liked
her insurance policy.
This time they took her arms.
Both of them.
What was the point?
She died this morning.”

And who, in their bed

where the Gothic dame
and her platonic admirer
shared one chaste mattress,
reached out the hand
that made her yell

I told you not to touch me like that!

And just as he protested
That wasn’t me!

what kicked him hard,

rolled him clear off

the bed to the floor?
That wasn’t me! She cried.

“My father. His mind is gone.
We were in the hearse.
Taking her, you know.
And he had agreed
to God knows what,
signed up for ‘the best’.
I lost it.
We have no money for that.
We had a screaming fight,
right in the hearse,
and so, it being a holiday and all,
we never —”

What roamed the rooms
so that every third book
was pulled from its place
and left at shelf-edge?
The books, perhaps,
she never got around
to reading?

What rattled pots
in the kitchen
in the pre-dawn hour?
No, that was not a poltergeist:

just the quarrelsome son

and the still-angry father.

“There’s nothing fresh!

No eggs! No milk!

How are we going to feed

these people?”

A car roars off. As poets stir,

it screeches back in.

Doors slam. A coffee smell

wafts up. Sun peeks

through clotted clouds,
frowning on Bristol
and its half-frozen bay.

3.

Sensing the rancor and chaos backstairs
two poets brave the kitchen.
They help, they set the table.
James does a yeoman’s job of cooking
while Mr Anderson attends
to a bin of dubious potatoes.
He wields a dull peeler
and just as well it is
they take it from him
and hide away the green potatoes
unfit for human eating.

Uncommon quiet rules the table.
Some make attempts to thank the Andersons
for hosting them despite calamity.
Each thing James says just makes it worse.
“You’ll be the last guests we’ll ever have,”
he tells them. My father is incompetent,”
he says while his father stands right beside him.

Breakfast has passed, and all have breakfasted.
Bags at the door, hugs all around, glances
at the parlor and its extinguished fireplace.
James looks at his watch, reminds them
of his urgent need for ski-lift fees. Wallets
and credit cards go and return.

At the door, he tells the last of them:
“Sorry I didn’t tell you that my mother was dead.
And what I really didn’t want to say at all,
while all of you sat eating there, and everything,
was that Wendy is in the freezer in the basement.”