New Jersey Spring
Donna Kaz
Purple clouds drift
across a chalk white sky.
Telephone poles bleed new rust
and sprout plastic bags.
Sedimentary rock sports
a fresh face of lightening bolts
and the numbers three and four.
A sea of oat grass
bent over with tulip-root
surrounds the Days Inn.
Someone has painted the Dutch Boy factory
bright green and hung up
a ripped American flag.
My train is stalled just before
the long black tunnel into Grand Central.
I sit in the dining car
tearing open sugar packets,
dumping them out on the table.
Through the soot tinted window
I see a rat scurry over
a twisted fragment of hemp then stop
fall over and die.
The garbled voice of a stranger on the intercom
repeats words made up of only vowels.
I strain to comprehend his message:
we will be moving again.
Listen to Donna read the poem here:
across a chalk white sky.
Telephone poles bleed new rust
and sprout plastic bags.
Sedimentary rock sports
a fresh face of lightening bolts
and the numbers three and four.
A sea of oat grass
bent over with tulip-root
surrounds the Days Inn.
Someone has painted the Dutch Boy factory
bright green and hung up
a ripped American flag.
My train is stalled just before
the long black tunnel into Grand Central.
I sit in the dining car
tearing open sugar packets,
dumping them out on the table.
Through the soot tinted window
I see a rat scurry over
a twisted fragment of hemp then stop
fall over and die.
The garbled voice of a stranger on the intercom
repeats words made up of only vowels.
I strain to comprehend his message:
we will be moving again.
Listen to Donna read the poem here:
Working notes
For a time I commuted from New York City to New Jersey on a regular basis and would see the same landscape day after day through the train window. One day, I looked out on a scene that was littered and abused and summoned up a glimmer of hope.
About the author
Donna Kaz is a poet and lyricist whose poems have been published in Lilith, Turning Wheel, and Step Away Magazine. She has been a featured writer at the Pulse Poetry Slam, Carpo, Uncle Mo’s, and Wordstock. Her musicals include “Food” (music by Gerald Stockstill, New York Musical Festival 2010) and “LIVE! NUDE! GIRL!” (music by Wayne Barker, New York Musical Festival 2009). She is the recipient of residency fellowships from Yaddo, Djerassi, The Blue Mountain Center, The Ucross Foundation, and The New Lyric Institute for New Musicals. Donna Kaz resides in New York City and is completing her MFA in Creative Writing at Queens University of Charlotte.
For an updated list of works published in TRIVIA, please see this author's contributor page.
For an updated list of works published in TRIVIA, please see this author's contributor page.