April is National Poetry Month, and this year, the timing couldn't be better. In this month's issue's of Lowcountry Weekly, we're featuring the work of local poets...
The sweatiest most miserable hottest day
We woke up one summer day and
Momma did not shout
Make your beds, go play, get out!
Somehow momma had forgotten every habit
She shook her head and looked outside
the thermometers needle pointed to the sky.
She said to us, come sit in the nook and she
Began to cook – eggs bacon pancakes shaped like rabbits.
Come now eat up and we’ll soon see what fun
You might find on TV.
Surprised and speechless we didn’t think to fight
Over the finest chair to watch TV in right.
Momma said from the kitchen, its quiet,
I can’t hear a sound, turn it up, turn the dial round.
We haven’t lived long, we are seven years old
And not once has momma told us to get the remote control
Our eyes were huge like marbles, the pictures were marvels
Our friend commander sizzle and the forces of good
Were beating the heat in the neighborhood.
Starcruisers, go bots super squirrels and hero girls
Brought us to squeals and we jumped to our feet
Playing outside seemed like a dark evil to beat
Hours passed while we watched and momma never got mad
We loved momma, today TV was not bad.
Then the words we feared drifted in from her room
Children please don’t get used to TV too soon
Today has been special it been for your safety
The heat is high and the sun is hot, I love you so much
And you should not be outside on this
Sweatiest, most miserable hottest day.
– Deb Duer
Deb Duer is not-a-poet and is a member of Spirit Writers, a group for people who write. Deb writes short stories about things that go right, wrong or indifferent, sometimes about real people.
MEMORY
Yes, it's you who eyes the cherry only the red-fleshed fruit isn't tart or juicy
if your tongue won't slip under one, and you can't bite into it or spit out the pit
when the cherry on its' stem only hangs in your memory and yet,
such a sweetness!
– Warren Slesinger
Warren Slesinger
After he graduated from the Iowa Writers Workshop with an M.F.A., Warren Slesinger taught English part time while working full time in the publishing business as an editor, marketing manager or sales manager at the following university presses: Chicago, Oregon, Pennsylvania and South Carolina. His poetry has been published in The American Poetry Review, The Antioch Review, The Beloit Poetry Journal, The Georgia Review. The Iowa Review. New Letters, The North American Review. Northwest Review, Poetry Daily, The Sewanee Review, and The South Carolina Review. At present, he teaches part time at the University of South Carolina-Beaufort.
