A Poem for April

Recipe for Calm

When you feel
out of sorts,
grab an onion,
clove of garlic,
sprig of parsley.
Chop, dice, slice,
and then, filet
a nice cut of meat.
Use carrots and lemons,
olives and almonds,
and don't forget
something sweet.
Sit down at your table
with a bottle of wine,
a sharp cheese,
and a friend.
Raise your glass.
Lift your fork.
Lean back at the end
and allow for a belch;
a calming measure
to mark your pleasure.

Lisa Vihos

A Poem for March

I Have No Qualms with Snail
(to my friend, who said he preferred not to order my chapbook online)

She glides through the garden
looking for recipients
of letters sent
the old-fashioned way.

I see her now,
wiping sweat from her brow,
hoisting her sack
at the end of the day.

Intrepid she is, our snail.
Remember those gems
of the daily mail?
That hand-written prose,

sacred through the ages?
The beloved’s mark
on ink-swept pages
that lit us, alive.

Escargot and email aside,
I have no qualms with snail.
I accept her glistering tidings,
grateful for her travail.

Lisa Vihos

Bonus Poem for February

Leap Day

Wake up!
Today is leap day!
Leap into this moment.
Today, the day
that only comes once
every four years;
the day that man made
to correct the slippage
in the cosmic clock.

Who figures these
things out, anyway?
When I can’t even
decide what to eat
for breakfast,
who can measure
and determine
what to do with time?

Who got the whole darn
world to recognize
leap year?
Let’s get that guy or gal
working on world peace
and the green house effect
today, right now.

Or is leap year
just another one of
those false constructs
that delude us
into thinking
we’ve mastered
the time-space continuum?

No matter.
I will leap today
and every day
because this moment
is here forever,
always new,
always the next breath.

Lisa Vihos

A Poem for February

3 a.m. Hot Flash

You know that oven?
The one where sometimes

they say there is a bun?
Without warning,

that oven door busts open
on its rusty hinge

to radiate a dying sun,
a nuclear explosion. Then,

hot needles prick me
along every extremity.

Am I getting a tattoo?
Spontaneous combustion?

Cauterizing heat seeps
and settles in the shoulders,

smolders in the chest,
a super nova of the soul.

An image etched
of an imploding star,

of red hot coals—
the kind you find

when you flip over
the last log in the fire pit,

its ashen underbelly
all aglow within. So pretty,

until that belly is in you.
Fortunately, it’s a dry heat.

There is no sweat, yet.
Maybe later, I’ll be drenched.

For now the burning is enough.
A brief, five-alarm fire storm.

Where are those damn firemen
with their ladders and hose?

Before they come,
the inferno goes, quickly as it came.

I toss the covers, red lava flows,
and I am left without my heat, alone,

extinguished on the bed sheet
seared, cold as burnished bone.

Lisa Vihos

A Poem for January

Holy Mackerel

Who is this fish?
Where can I find him?
What may I confess? Can he
absolve me of all my guilts?
Can he ever forgive me?
Will he bless my inner child
and let me marry myself to myself;
perform the last rites upon my death?
Can I follow him home to the next
spawning ground?

Who is this holy, breathless one;
this one who thrives in water, not air?
Does he wear a bishop’s miter
or sit in silence somewhere?
Is he encrusted with the wealth
of the Church or does he roam the earth
in tatters, holding aloft his begging bowl?

If he comes toward me now, will I recognize
a fish out of water, out of earth, out of air?
When he courses down the aisles of my life
swinging a censer and spritzing me
with salty blessings, my job is not to ask
who is this holy, shining one
but simply, to accept
his pungent guidance.

Lisa Vihos

A Poem for December

Type-N

You’ve heard of Type-A.
They’ve got it wired
and will take the world by storm.

As for me,
over-achievement is shadowed
by perpetual self-doubt.

I am not Type-A. Sometimes,
all I want is to crawl
into a hole and be left

A-lone.
I have come to realize
I may be Type-N.

All my socks have holes in them
and there are old crackers
in my cupboard.

Left to my own devices,
I forget to eat breakfast.
I’m afraid to be the best

at anything. Most telling,
the N-key on my laptop
has rubbed off.

Either I type a lot of N-words:
no, never, narrow
nefarious, ninny

or I need to remember
to clip my right index fingernail
more often.

A Poem for November

At the End of the World

This poem is temporarily removed, as it will appear in the next issue of Verse Wisconsin.
The link will be posted when the issue is available online.
Thank you for reading.
Lisa