VOICEMAIL POEMS - Fall 2025

“There can be but one teacher – nature. She must always be consulted.”
     -   Camille Pissarro

I’m wondering how best to preserve 
this day when I find myself summoned 
outside into the warming light, tossing
my net beyond the low islands and 
the jagged edge of the Sound, 
hoping its threads return in gilded 
attire, yielding a tangle of blessings 
culled from both sea and hollow 
that are a mix of old-growth splendor 
and the commonplace, while I fall 
back to silence, watching the way 
the morning light breaks apart and 
is then quickly redrawn by wind gusts
that blur and wrinkle the surface of 
the water, and entranced by the soft 
rustling of the beach grass and taste 
the tang of salt-scented air while 
white-capped tides are suffused with 
the same mussel-blue hue as the 
open fist of sky and seeing how 
both air and water are stitched together 
by these clamorous gulls rising in 
rapture then swooning towards shore 
and asking what more can be done 
other than to try and somehow slow 
earth’s hurry and call summer back.

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John Muro called us from Glastonbury, CT.

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"Beholden" by John Muro

April 2024
Wish you were here is no synonym for I miss you, though of course I do.
Wish you were here 
Like I know you would love this
LIke I want to remember this with you, not to you
Wish we could rebuild the subtleties to each other and build the details
Fall over each other in the telling 
Want you to feel this first hand, absorbing it too
Count you among the partners here along for their own rides
Drinking in the soprano soloist, a bringer of comfort, this time firmly hand in hand

I said I wish you were here because I WISH YOU WERE HERE
This time, I’ll settle for one of us

November 2024
I miss you jumps to my mind and tempts my tongue, only for strangers to hear it.
To be somewhere alone is to be there unseen, thoughts unheard, except by their thinker.
Their thinker, like The Thinker, sits unseen by any he knows, his crowded head superimposed on whipsering autumn plane leaves.

Surely I am beheld as I behold, traversing sunlit plazas, long skirted and parasol shielded
If only as Narcissus in mirror-black windows.
My thoughts have value even if no one reflects on them.
These mountains scrape the sky even after the sun dips behind them,
the gardens keep growing in darkness even after the dykes who dressed up for the art have wandered out
Jesus and Mary Magdalene remain trapped amid rough marble after I stop circling them .

And I grow softer and stronger by the day, even though at the end of it there's no one to feel it for a thousand miles

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Juniper Danger called us from Philadelphia, PA.

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"The Evolution of Missing You" by Juniper Danger

"4-tongue poem" by Chiara Crisafulli

Solidarity is pissing 
in adjacent stalls. 
A godly marriage 
is a throuple with 
Christ. Dude was 
a real trove of sword 
lore. We cheered for 
the biracial babies. 
At the racist wedding, 
the pastor praised 
Korean cars & 
submissive wives.
Cousins snuck liquor 
into the dry reception 
while sober Christians 
gnashed their teeth. 
So began the diaspora. 
One spent a year in
Singapore; another
posted pics from 
Botswana. Were  
we the first to get 
divorced? At least
on that side of the
family. For twelve 
years she was my
grandmother too.
Remember how we
buried her in the rain,
& how afterward we 
ate crab cakes.

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Alexa Vallejo called us from Philadelphia, PA.

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"Lawful Good" by Alexa Vallejo

I have been made aware of the fact that you died 
in 1846, but am hoping this will reach you regardless. 
I have heard you are the foremost expert on solar activity, 
weather patterns, and astronomical cycles, as well as 
the best times to fish and how to build a community. 
I have heard you lived and worked in New Hampshire, 
which is where I have recently come to live and sometimes 
but rarely work. Did you know that ticks no longer freeze here, 
in the winter? The annual mean temperature has increased 
by about 2.6°F since your days. I check my ankles in both 
August and January, and am disappointed by how little 
it snows. I read about you on the Almanac’s website 
(a website is like a book that’s in the air) and wanted to reach out. 
They have a biography on you, they praise your name, they say 
there were two total solar eclipses in the US in your lifetime. 
They publish a new cake recipe on your birthday every year. 
They sell things now, too, like a Fruits Vegetables & Herbs 
1000pc Puzzle for $19.95 and a Jeffersonian Brass Kinetic 
Wind Vane for $119.99. Don’t worry, that’s inflation, mostly. 
I know you just wanted to help the travelers, sailors, bookkeepers,
beekeepers, and prognosticators. I don’t know if those people 
exist anymore. Robert Bailey Thomas, I fear summer now rots 
into last ditch efforts and expletives over the softness of peaches,
so I’ll wrap up with some questions I hope you can answer. 
Why can I only see some stars out of the corner of my eye? 
Was your America much greener? Why, even when I am so quiet, 
and so good, can I not catch a fish? Why did you die, when 
you knew every psalm by heart and every benefit of witch hazel? 
Do you ever feel like July has forgotten your name? 
Do you know what I mean? Hey, Robert Bailey Thomas, 
please say you know what I mean.

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Lauren Mills called us from London, UK.

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"Letter to the Editor of the Old Farmer's Almanac, Robert Bailey Thomas" by Lauren Mills

do not be afraid of your own heart beating
there must be chocolate maybe even daily
I would recommend buying the better cheese
drink orange juice in the morning it will help
drink wine or whiskey and write things down
it is always good to know your own handwriting
remember how clean sheets feel and hot baths
keep lip balm by your bed keep a tissue in your pocket
buy a lamp so your room is warm and buy things
so they are memories later and look at your hands
they are beautiful! Once a week make a nice meal
because you can and don’t be afraid to be alone
that would be like throwing away perfectly good
socks or bras keep them and buy new underwear
it’s easy to forget but let your friends remind
you and remember your friends and their favorite
colors and kiss someone just to taste their lips
love your apartment even when the microwave breaks
love food even when it is toast from the toaster
love your hands and your skin put rings on your fingers
wear a designer lipstick and keep it in your pocket

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Charlotte Alexander called us from Moscow, ID.

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"The Way to Keep Going in Your Twenties" by Charlotte Alexander

Poetry via voicemail. Missed calls you need to hear.

Open submissions accepted.
Guidelines at http://voicemailpoems.org