Poem by Jake St. John

Slow Drag

I sit in eternity
on this river
an early spring sun
struggles through clouds
ferry boats sail
towards open sea
with my thoughts
of yesterday
in tow
and these morning musings
travel not too far
to the north
where the hills rise
over my childhood
as my grandfather
worked the fields
until the moon
cast tired shadows
and my grandmother
fed the cardinals
from the kitchen window
as she cooked
for the family
and a campfire
still smolders
beneath pine boughs
sending smoke signals
up into the breeze
and floating off over America
off over all of America
over old jazz joints
of neon nights
and hole in the wall taverns
over broken down farms
bankrupt and left to die
in the dust
over crowded prisons
that consume
the human spirit
like wolves
tearing at the meat
of a fresh kill
over empty mills
where red brick
and broken glass
crumble and crack
like old tombstones
rising out of deserted towns
buried beneath interstates
and the smoke signals
float off over highways
that stretch under the sun
to the west
where the untouched plains
lay softly
between the horizons
above the old bones
of history
that are scattered
violently
beneath the earth
but now birds
begin to sing me
out of my trance
and return me
to the eastern shores
of home
and flowers wake up
stretching fingers
upwards and pointing
and I notice
a lone cardinal
silent
on an empty branch
staring with me
at this river
caught in eternity

Jake St. John has been called “a neoBeat adventurer” by poet Tom Weigel. He writes out of New London CT where he serves as editor of Elephant and Flying Fish. His latest chapbook I Talked To The Moon (Wandering Head 2012) is a collection of poems detailing a summer long trip across America by way of back roads and side streets.

Allison Goldin is an artist living in Cambridge. Her work is a collection of spontaneous drawings from the imagination. The most common link throughout her art are the semi-recognizable creatures scattered amongst and bringing together the surrounding doodles. She is currently studying Illustration at The School of Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.