Being on staff at a poetry review has given me focus and motivation to improve, more importantly, it has given me the opportunity to contribute by teaching and encouraging other writers. I am indebted to Jim Corner for giving me a chance to spread these tiny wings and use my talent here at Desert Moon Review. I am also thankful to each of the poets who allow me to read and critique their art, which I know can be as close to a writer as his own skin. I once had an editor tell me that I should be grateful that he had even read my poems, but I disagree with that position; I feel grateful to all of you for sharing your work with me.

   Read as much poetry as you can find. The riches of poetry, past and present, are more readily available today than at any other time in history. The Internet has brought together a community of writers from many nations, walks of life, and abilities. Take advantage of this venue and give back as much as you take. If you learn, teach; if you teach, learn. Write what you know and write as though your life depends on it.

   Tamar Silverman

Hoha
by Gabriel Siegel

Hoha. Hoha. Hohahaha.

you can hide in the oak chest
or keep concealed in the closet
You can creep behind the couch
or make scarce below the porch
but don't let me catch you
steeling my mandarins
from my mandarin tree.

Hoha. Hoha. Hohahaha.

you can throw out all my clothes
or put dinner in my shoes
you can fix the stove so it explodes
or make my tea for you
but don't let me catch you
eating those orangest mandarins
off my mandarin tree.

Hoha. Hoha. Hohahaha.

the forest wide; the jungle deep
every single slender bough
curves overfull; the fruit has rotted
take a bit of each, then drop them
but bebbe, don't let me catch you
thinking 'mandarin mandarin'
beneath my mandarin tree.

Hoha. Hoha. Hohahaha
Hoha. Hoha. Hahahaha.
mandarins
tiny people
Hoha. Hoha.
Ho.

In fall you iced all
grasses and rooted grains.
You shriveled sunflowers,
snapped wet-ink branches.
You slicked the lakes
and staled bushes' berries.
I starve while you persist
in frigidness, pale
and unapologetic.

Copalis Beach

No ship sails the fierce horizon.
God is a gray voice
in the angry clouds.
I can hear Him.

An oyster moon rises
in the nickel-plated sky;
I cast milk-bottle prayers
upon the waters -
wait for a reply.

It's where green fingered people
gather to eat cheese
and branston pickle sandwiches

and chew over tall tales
of shrubbery.
Together they dream

of watering cans and plot
a back garden insurrection
of chrysanthemums.

I walk past the open door,
silently happy, with my yellow fingers
and yellow heart.

My Emulous Rival:

Know love as the fruit after fruit;

That you have gone to false Summer
within the General's winter garden.

Is it written true that love lasts?
O, Forever love is not enough.

Drag a knife across this belly, Marie.
Cut through this baridness; I will not bleed.
I am the Hollow Empress.

The Archduchess births a Roman king?
Whilst I am put off
amongst my own treasures,
you retain Marrakesh and a martlet
upon your crest.

O, France rejoices - Napoleon! A son!
A cloud of this, and a shadow of that
within those shaken lies I've borrowed
to shade the disrobing of a barren Lioness.

Build yourself a bower, Marie,
and farther may glow a gentle hue
as my eyes dwell upon the reflection
of Love's empty fool.

O, Demons dream beyond the convent ground;
beyond my love for sorrow, as I glide
to vesper where sounds are stilled by sorrow.

If I find my voice,
I'll sing from the carriage window,
Marie Louise -- my lightening shade
my hours' keeper -- my cup of life
empties of morrow's care.

O, My signs of grief are sighs of love, Marie.
Show caprice; give me dolor; give me hope --
shroud where I've been. Conceal my failure.

Shadows crisscross my lawn, slide along
the wall, streak the trees, hummers
whir above the salvia, phantoms jet
skyward. Silhouettes bomb the garden,
then often rest fleetingly on the grass.

Virtual birds rally my dog to urgent combat,
when inside she charges the glass,
outside surveillance triggers a chase
across the rock, gazelle-like leaps
upon the fence.

A chaparral cock cannily scans the yard,
elects to stay a while. In high gear
my canine attacks cock's expanded shadow,
a near fatal crash against the brick,
a dobie-mix lies prostrate.