Alte Issue #1 FALLING

Getting Older

by Esther Cohen

Now I have a whole shelf of books

about getting older that shelf wasn’t there

before older a word I knew and didn’t a word like sex

you can’t actually imagine what happens

completely naked the way you haven’t been before

someone else naked right there with you. Getting older is the same.

If we’re lucky we do. Just like sex. And then, if we try

to describe what happens, what actually happens although

maybe millions of others have successfully described

these common every day human things, sex and age for instance,

easy to miss how simple and mysterious they are,

small incidents of feeling and touch of years that are days

and days and years and the desire some of us have to say

what life is to describe sex and old and

one December in the morning.

Poems on Global Warming

by Sparrow

Poem No. 1

glacier

Poem No. 2

glacie

Poem No. 3

glaci

Poem No. 4

glac

Poem No. 5

gla”

Eco-Minded Innovators Disrupt the Rituals of Death

by Jessica de Koninck

The plants I started from seeds in peat pots

on the kitchen table have withered and died.

Watering requires presence, and I am absent

more often than not. When I’m not absent

I’m forgetful, or lazy about the simplest tasks

like opening the tap, filling the can, pouring water,

repeat, repeat, but the electric bill is due and

something is on television and I am late

for a meeting or didn’t take my vitamins

this morning. I revel in distraction while my

next door neighbor prunes his roses daily,

cuts errant grass stalks with a pair

of scissors, removes each fallen leaf. I hate him.

Years ago I grew parsley and snap peas

and California poppies in beds of vermiculite

on the small porch of a tiny apartment. Later

I learned vermiculite damages lungs,

the irony that its manufacturer is named

Grace. Today the New York Times tells me,

Eco-Minded Innovators Disrupt the Rituals

of Death. Joke’s on them. Death makes its

own rules. Dad didn’t scatter his ashes,

we did. Look, seeds from last year’s rotten

tomatoes sprouted in the yard. They mind

their own business, remain focused,

don’t need my help.

As Best As I Can (A Song for Rob)

by Lawrence Bush

I used to be ambitious,

striving to be noticed and admired.

Of all my secret wishes,

this was the one I trained for all my life.

Now I just want to love you, my friends,

as best as I can, every day.

Now I just want to love you, my friends,

as best as I can.

Took pride in feeling handsome,

as if that made me special (or mattered at all).

Took pride in feeling brilliant.

The only brilliant thing I know is pride goes before a fall.

Now I just want to belong to a world

with good people sharing righteous ways,

and I can join in, and love you, my friends,

As best as I can.

Oh, it took so long — to settle in, to belong.

Oh, I suffered so, trying to be special.

I used to be so jealous

of every man who rose above the crowd.

But now I tell you, fellas,

I’d rather be down here with you, laughing out loud.

All I really want is to love you, my friends,

As best as I can, every day.

All I really want is to love you, my friends,

As best as I can.

A Tree that Fell but No One Heard

by Marc Jampole

She was a tree that fell but no one heard,

and those who heard, forgot, 

and those remembering didn’t write it down

those who wrote it down didn’t save the page, 

and those who saved the page

imagined her a drifter by the river

covered with the caustic dust of exile

and they agreed to disagree. 

She was a tree that fell and no one heard,

and she became an empty space

that others filled with musty tales

of other tumbles patterned after hers, 

as swollen silver dresses in the clouds 

are patterned on the dull-gray rags that they become

overlooking pools of squandered rain 

in which her fallen branches soak.

She was a tree that fell and no one heard

and those who heard agreed on silence,

best for all concerned to bury sounds they never knew

even as they chopped her into logs and kindling wood.

Falling

by Esther Cohen

1. 

My neighbor LECCO who has been a male prostitute across the hall for 32 years and had some celebrity clientele even I recognized them in the elevator as well as a Long Term Relationship with Wayne my neighbor Bick who is very handsome told me a week ago that he has at last FALLEN IN LOVE with a married man he met at a hardware store of all places. Lecco is not a hardware kind of guy. They Got Together over drinks and then They Got Together at Bick’s apartment which is right in front of ours and I got in the elevator when The Married Man was going to work with his briefcase and I saw them say goodbye. 

2.

Jake is still handsome at 78. He was handsome at 77 too. This year his third wife decided she did not want to be married anymore. Too much bother she said. I’m sure that’s not the whole story but that’s the story Jake Told Me.  He emailed Annabeth a woman he’d met at in a writing group. She lives in New Hampshire. Jake’s in Charleston.  They decided to go to a conference together in Marseille. Jake said his expectation is not Falling in Love. He’s hoping for four days of a good time.

Back Seat Driver

by Jessica de Koninck

God creates so much noise in the back

I can’t hear the radio, and he kicks

both legs to the music, rhythmically

juts his feet into my spine each fourth beat.

God, God loves the blues, the petty sorrows,

shiftless men and flashing women. Me, I’m

silent, speeding east, the seat beside me

empty. God says, it’s safer in the rear,

airbags or not. I’m no fool. This banter

is one of his tests, daring me to turn

around, grab that damned foot. I face forward,

pump up the volume, choose a new station.

I know to hit the gas or slam the brake

without omniscience pushing from behind.

Four Poems

by Sparrow

My Pen

I lost my pen

but my pen

noticed &

returned.

65th Birthday Poem 

44 years ago

I wrote a

bad poem

for my

21st

birthday.

This one

isn’t

so good,

either.

Pacific Sonnet

Sitting on sand, gazing into the pure

immensity of the Pacific, you 

imagine what words you will say on your 

deathbed. “If only I knew Latin!” you 

exclaim. “Final messages are so good

in Latin!” For instance, “Walk, don’t run” 

would be, in an exact Latin rephrasing,

Ambulare non decurrunt, and “What

goes around comes around” = Quid circa 

venit sit circuit — both pretty hot

deathbed utterances. Of course, these days

one dies surrounded by machines and a

couple of nurses, none of whom know Latin;

they just watch you expire and flatten.

True Story

My friend Franella and I briefly fell in love in 1976.

We slept together, and the next morning went bicycling.

While we rode, we attempted to kiss — and fell to the ground, laughing.