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Photo by. Marco Chilese .on. Unsplash

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Prayer to the Three Rivers in Pittsburgh

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Who I love
who I pray for
more than anyone but my wife and children
do you think of me beautiful Allegheny
when you reach the Gulf of Mexico?
Monongahela what about you?
and silent Ohio
I know you don’t
overflowing with rainwater
and coal runoff
and locks and dams and levees and hills
a galaxy not a river that says nothing
until it reaches New Orleans
and then
in bed with whores and jazz musicians
dawn to dusk
what kind of example is that
strutting with some barbeque like Louis
and Kid Ory at a county fair
if God turns his head for a minute
you’re a drunken snake
licking the receding Mississippi
then giving birth to the sea like a pig
through your legs
I love
that you don’t think of me
not my bridges over your body
not my sky
not me washing your hair
not my Jesus and all that
but you do think of jazz
and the sun and the life I pray for

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by John Stupp

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Pianist and Her Listeners

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Her hands swept through the piano’s keys
like wind blowing snow through darkest night.
The music intoxicated listeners, as though
they were alone (sipping the finest cognac

in a room lit by a crackling fireplace)
with one special person whose whispered
words expanded the room into a universe
of two where flames were stars near and far;

when the hands stilled, the keys grew silent, all
in the room returned from imaginative worlds they
had visited, and craved skills to explore music’s cosmos
with unparalleled vigor and oceanic depth.

Each listener gladly would have exchanged long life
for one night of genius, one evening of perfection.

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by Michael L. Newell

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___

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“Wednesday Night Prayer Meeting.”

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John Stupp’s third poetry collection.Pawleys Island was published in 2017 by Finishing Line Press. His manuscript Summer Job won the 2017 Cathy Smith Bowers Poetry Prize and will be published in 2018 by Main Street Rag. He lives near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. From 1975-1985 he worked professionally as a mediocre jazz guitarist.

 

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Michael L. Newell lives on the south-central Oregon coast.  He is a retired teacher.

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