Category Archives: poetry

poetry

Oktoberfest (full moon)

[Header Photo by Ganapathy Kumar on Unsplash]

It was an unusually
Cool day in October
For South Carolina

He was drinking
An Oktoberfest pint
Märzen people mispronounced

While reading a novel
That reminded him of her
Choosing this nonsense of him

He had loved every curve of her
For longer than seemed possible
Through far too many angers

And there between sips
Of a beer perfectly amber
He was thinking about her

The best thing he thought
Was how much he liked her
Like these chilling sunsets of fall

Nobody told them they shouldn’t
Stand outside holding hands
Under a cold full moon

Like children hoping someday to be lovers

—P.L. Thomas

poetry

Recommended: maybe there will be music (Rachel Lanik Whelan)

“rising sun, you (solstice),” “glimpse you” (see here), and “we weathered winter (silence & shouting)” are three poems featuring descriptions of winter and thawing by South Carolina poet Paul L. Thomas. Life is lived in cycles, like the seasons. The word “promise” and variations of “long” (long, longer, longing) strike me as a subtle understanding of the deep power of memory and the deep hold of nostalgia. An entire year can pass with vivid connotations to each seasonal affection and somehow that remembrance is a mere glimpse of the actual lived experience.

The poems were modified from their original formats to fit the structure of the individual movements using the text as inspiration to determine form: “rising sun” is transformed with the structure of a pop song (verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, verse, chorus), “glimpse you” is meditative and spiraling, using only fragments of the original poem, and “we weathered winter” emphasizes the first-person plural of the text to blossom into a triumphant duet of resilience and hope.

So often in poetry and music the season of winter is maligned as dark and brooding. Paul Thomas encourages a different approach, one that opens the idea of the winter season to the possibility of what’s to come.

Written for and dedicated to the University of South Carolina School of Music in celebration of the 100th anniversary.

Performed live in the University of South Carolina School of Music Recital Hall by:
Dominic Armstrong, tenor
Ashley Emerson, soprano
Ari Streisfeld, violin
William Terwilliger, violin
Douglas Temples, viola
Claire Bryant, cello
Jeff Francis, audio engineer

Text appears with permission from the poet. To read more of Paul’s poetry, please visit: https://radicalscholarship.com/

For biographical information, to contact the composer, or to submit a program from a performance, please visit http://www.rachellwhelan.com or rachellwhelan@gmail.com

memoir, poetry

Poem: a human throat (ineffable)

[Originally posted 29 December 2020]

The dead cannot call out to us.

All they can do is wait for us to call to them.

A Man, Keiichiro Hirano

i have always disliked xmas

holidays and bow-wrapped gifts
the shortest daylight of the year

the seasonal depression
of being always a stranger

i have been losing xmas eve

social media reminding me
a crushed cycling helmet from 2016

a text message xmas morning 2020
my aunt killed herself the night before

i have not cried for my aunt yet

our fractured family tensions
quilted with abrupt texts and messaging

verbalizing the weight of suicide
the frailty of just being human

i have pervasive anxiety about that frailty

the shock of suicide reminds me of Camus
“that after a while you could get used to anything”

except of course those who can no longer
fathom simply waking up one xmas morning

i have so many mostly ineffable words

minutiae tenuous melancholia existentialism mundane
this language merry-go-round chiming out of kilter

her matter-of-fact obituary-life of 192 words
a 17-word text admitting “box cutter” and “throat”

—P.L. Thomas

memoir, poetry

Poem: my mother had a million faces (3 pictures)

Chosen for ARS POETICA III exhibition at the Blowing Rock Art & History Museum this fall: my mother had a million faces (3 pictures). See catalogue HERE

Posted by BRAHM

Thank you to all who joined us for the reception of ARS POETICA III. What a wonderful celebration of so much talent. We hope to see everyone again next year!

Congratulations to our winners:

2025 First Place Award:
Visual Art: David Molesky, RESCUE
Poetry: Candace Tippett, Requiem for Father

2025 Second Place Award (not pictured):
Visual Art: Jennifer McCormick, Redacted
Poetry: P.L (Paul) Thomas, my mother had a million faces (3 pictures)

2025 People’s Choice Award:
Visual Art: Debanjana Bhattacharjee, Hope
Poetry: Susan Harris, Hope

See HERE

Then memories are films about ghosts

“Mrs. Potter’s Lullaby,” Counting Crows

my mother had a million faces
i think most of them were sad

•

in the wake of a hurricane
i fell into a jumble of pictures

spending hours trying to reassemble
memories of asheville nc wrecked by floods

my recollections were as scrambled
as the picture files stored on my computer

•

creation is recreation and memory is a flawed tool
but the things that now haunt me are three pictures

a series of my father and mother on a couch
with my oldest nephew sitting in my mother’s lap

the images make me think “ochre” and “amber”
but mostly i think everything should be “blue”

•

as my mother was dying
i did not know what to do

after my mother died
i did not know what to do

i do not know what to do
with these 3 pictures of my mother

•

i do not know what to do
with her 3 faces in these pictures

i do not know what to do
with her hands slightly upturned

i do not know what to do
with memories and ghosts

•

my mother had a million faces
i think most of them were sad

—P.L. Thomas

poetry

Poem: that time we sat around waiting for my father to die (deathbed)

[Header Photo by Boston Public Library on Unsplash]

The bed still had a depression in it from his body.

1Q84, Haruki Murakami

we didn’t know
and we weren’t exactly waiting

but he died
right there in front of us

my mother beside him
muted by the consequences of a stroke

this first time
you had met my parents

how did we walk away from that
wake up the next day and just go about it

and then in a few months
i slept through my mother dying

the first time i read 1Q84 my father was alive
the second time he had been dead 10 years

and yet here we are together
living in this never-ending wake of

that time we sat around waiting for my father to die

—P.L. Thomas

poetry

Poem: right justified (the elephants in the room)

[Header Photo by redcharlie on Unsplash]

“This was a disgrace,”
Trump told reporters.
“This was a rigged trial
by a conflicted judge
who was corrupt.
It’s a rigged trial, a disgrace.”

rigged

manipulated
or controlled
by deceptive
or dishonest means

disgrace

to be a source
of shame to

“This political witch hunt
does nothing more
than make fools
out of the Democrats.”
Evan Power, chairman, Republican Party of Florida

witch hunt

the searching out
and deliberate harassment
of those
(such as political opponents)
with unpopular views

“In America,
the rule of law
should be applied
in a dispassionate,
even-handed manner,
not become captive
to the political agenda
of some kangaroo court.”
Gov. Ron DeSantis (FL-R)

kangaroo court

a mock court
in which the principles
of law and justice
are disregarded or perverted

“Banana republic.
To orchestrate charges
in an election year
for something years earlier
just to try and take out
a political opponent —
this is what people have been fleeing
in 3rd World countries for decades.”
Florida Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis

banana republic

a small dependent country
usually of the tropics
especially : one run despotically

“The verdict in New York
is a complete travesty
that makes a mockery
of our system of justice.”
U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio

travesty

a debased,
distorted,
or grossly inferior
imitation

mockery

an insincere,
contemptible,
or impertinent
imitation

—P.L. Thomas

[Definitions sourced from Merriam-Webster]

Recommended

“The Elephant in the Room,” Kay Ryan