Category: Vermont Studio Center Full Fellowship
opening the shades by Stephen Page
Brass Bell has published a poem by Stephen Page in the November Issue of Morning Haku:
opening the shades
to let the morning light in —
two sparrows staring
– Stephen Page
Brass Bell is curated by Zee Zahava

A Haunting Poem Fit for Halloween or Day of the Dead or All Souls’ Day
The Night is Long
By Stephen Page
red and green walls
melt from the ceiling
red and brown ducks
paint the windows
a hanging witch
a reminder of Salem
12:00 12:00
the hour of evil
a female nude stands
in shy sexual wanting
cold as stone
from sculptor’s hands
my clothes are scattered
in some semi-order
my room is displaced
in time and location
Pluto’s guitar
her lovely remembrance
strums and plays
A song for daughter
Charlie Chaplin
sits on a shelf
his staring eyes
sadly know all
five o’clock now
the mourning bird sings
a song for me
the death I’ve lived
a week has passed
in eight long hours
a moment ago
it was tomorrow
*This poem first published in “Our Reader’s Quarterly”
Editor: Gene Brill
“Reading Aloud for his Grandson” by Stephen Page
“Reading Aloud for his Grandson” by Stephen Page
as published on RiverLit
read poem here:
Reading Aloud for His Grandson
For the seventh time in a row
Jonathan reads aloud a story
in rhyming couplets
for his grandson
who rests his head
on Jonathan’s arm
and sits with his dirty boots
tucked up under his legs
upon Teresa’s white couch.
It is a tale of a fisherman
who stands upon a muddy shore
of a lake in front of his home
and for months has hauled in
nothing but shoes and key rings
and buckets and bottles.
When he finally lands a fish,
the biggest fish ever caught
from the lake,
and the neighbors cheer,
and the book ends,
Jonathan’s grandson says:
Again.
Again.