An Online Literary Journal for Poetry and Flash

Month: March 2024

Another One Gone South

Poetry by Brian C. Billings

In the great Northeast,
I’ve soaked in rain;
I’ve chilled in snow.
I’ve had enough.
It’s time to go
to the water-strained Southwest,
where it’s best
to feel the kiss
of a dry metropolis
and bake to overdone
in the sun.

Abandoning myself to thirst,
I’ll brand myself the first
among the downward strays
who seek hot, vulnerable days.

Farewell to risk
when weather’s brisk
and tax that bites like a basilisk.

Farewell to rent
that puts a dent
in budgets that were all well-meant.

Farewell to bunkers.
No one hunkers
in the land of drills and junkers.

I’ll learn how to make do with less
in my arid new address.
Among the scrub I’ll decompress.

Sunscreen’s become my safest bet
for coping with the constant threat
of chaos where the climate’s wet.


Brian C. Billings is a professor of drama and English at Texas A&M University-Texarkana. His work has appeared in such journals as Ancient PathsAntietam ReviewThe Bluebird WordConfrontationEvening Street ReviewGlacial Hills Review, and Poems and Plays. Publishers for his scripts include Eldridge Publishing and Heuer Publishing. Read earlier poems from last March and December in The Bluebird Word.

March Weather

Poetry by DS Maolalai

the sun rolls like marbles;
makes passage down
georges st. the sun
looks in windows
at old hanging clothes,
aging to pale
bleached out
detail. I roll
with the sun
and against
in a pattern. move
between traffic
and dodge
around passing
pedestrians.
drink coffee
in this early
march weather.
this first
dusty day
of the year.


DS Maolalai‘s poetry has been nominated twelve times for BOTN, ten for the Pushcart and once for the Forward Prize, and has been released in three collections, most recently Noble Rot (Turas Press, 2022). The author’s poem The Lawsuit was one of The Bluebird Word‘s early selections in the inaugural February 2022 issue.

Birthplace

Poetry by Alexander Etheridge

for W.S. Merwin

Out under clouds in the broad wheatfield
is a certain breed of silence
where only the perfectly hushed
give voice
Wind through the stalks
A sound of colors blending everywhere
in fine webs of shadow and light

After hours here you can start to sense
God’s breathing
like slow shifts in the clockwork
of ancient life
Then you may leave your body

as you lie in the delicate wheat
to return and find yourself
new once more
as you were long ago

your eyes wide
in the freshly formed world


Alexander Etheridge’s poems have been featured in The Potomac Review, Museum of Americana, Welter Journal, The Cafe Review, Abridged Magazine, Susurrus Magazine, The Journal, and many others. He was the winner of the Struck Match Poetry Prize. He is the author of God Said Fire (2023) and Snowfire and Home (Belle Point Press, 2024).

suddenly the third day of spring

Poetry by Cecil Morris

laugh splashing
it is raining
but the sun is out and bright
and somewhere a rainbow
must be refracting missiles of light
must be fracturing tears
and the neighbor children
all three dark-haired slips in single digits
are outside and laughing
and squealing and opening their mouths
and pointing erupting glee
rain with sunshine
big juicy flashing drops
wetting their bare arms
darkening their dark heads
hearty fat drops smacking
sun-warmed concrete
with satisfying, cartoonish splats
the best of everything
how little it takes
to engender joy
laugh flashing


Cecil Morris retired after 37 years of teaching high school English and now tries writing himself what he spent so many years teaching others to understand and (maybe) enjoy. He has poems appearing in Ekphrastic Review, Hole in the Head Review, Rust + Moth, Willawaw Journal, and other literary magazines. Read his earlier poem Some Kinder Resolutions for a Better Year in The Bluebird Word.

Empty Netters

Nonfiction by Diane Choplin

Dada Brown gently jostled me awake, forefinger finger pressed to his lips.

“It’s time,” he whispered. “You dressed?”

“I slept in clothes.”

“Atta girl.”

Cautiously fumbling our way in the dark, so as not to wake Mama Brown, I felt my way down the hall as he gathered our gear. Once outside, we clicked on flashlights and made for an old chest freezer advertising Creamsicles in faded, cyan lettering. Dada Brown held open the lid while I stood on tippy toes and reached inside, plunging all ten figures into loose soil.

“We just need a handful in this styrofoam cup.”

I was six years old, digging for red wigglers on my first crack-of-dawn fishing expedition with grandpa. He and Mama Brown, my grandma-too-young-to-be-called-that, lived on riverside acreage in La Grange, California – a tiny gold rush town surrounded by rolling hills dotted with gnarled oak trees. Two blocks of nineteenth-century western-fronted shops defined its center. Overlooking these was a hilltop one-room schoolhouse with bell and similarly designed Catholic Church with pioneer cemetery.

We loaded Dada Brown’s forest green ‘66 Dodge truck, smooth-fronted like a VW bus, while Toby, his collie, hopped in the back, pacing excitedly. A short rumble down windy road brought us to a gravel pull out looking like any other. Adamant No Trespassing and No Hunting or Fishing decrees were nailed to nearby trees. Though Dada Brown was one of a privileged few locals permitted to ignore the signs, I still felt an exhilarating prick of danger defying them.

Juggling our poles, net, folding chair and cooler, we made our way across uneven pasture to a four-strand barbed wire fence, sunrise softly illuminating oak savannah. Dada Brown pushed down its menacing top line and climbed deftly over, one leg at a time. Then, as he would on every successive trip, he stepped on the bottom wire and pulled up the next adjacent, prying them apart for my passage through. Some fragment of me inevitably caught. He’d free my fly-away morning hair, my corduroy pants or yellow windbreaker, and we’d continue on, dodging cow pies. Toby led the way down the hill, skirting the lichen splotched dry stone wall, his tail moving in happy circles. When frog chorus suddenly halted, we knew he’d made the pond.

Squeamish about putting worms on hooks, I recoiled at first effort.

“They can’t feel it,” Dada Brown said, reassuringly.

I was skeptical about worms not feeling pain, thrashing as they do when poked.

“Did you know,” he added, “that worms have five hearts? If you cut one in half, they’ll heal and live on as two.” (His voice returns to me when I accidentally cleave one with my shovel: “It’ll be okay, Diane. You made one into two.”)

Somewhat appeased by their regenerative superpower, I reluctantly baited my hook.

Lines cast, Dada Brown settled on his folding chair, pole in one hand, thermos at his side. Unable to sit still, I propped mine against a log, braced it with a rock, and explored with Toby. We stalked bright green tree frogs, shy crawdads and praying mantis, catching each for closer examination. Once, I even managed a young garter snake, Toby barking wildly in what I imagined to be congratulations.

Tugs on line reclaimed my attention, but I don’t remember ever catching a fish. For lunch Dada Brown brought hotdogs we’d roast on sticks over a fire, or wax paper wrapped bacon and peanut butter sandwiches. We ate while making up stories about wily fish evading hooks, occasionally tossing pebbles for Toby to chase.

“Get the frogs,” we shouted. He gleefully obliged, biting water where stones broke the surface. Our raucous game eliminated all hope of hooking dinner.

Once the sun reached its apex, hot and glaring, we packed up. Not wanting to return empty handed, we stopped by the general store for a whole fish, later telling Mama Brown we’d caught it. She no doubt saw through our ruse, but my child brain, giddy to share in a secret, believed she believed.

I’ve been on a few fishing excursions since my early trips with Dada Brown, none nearly as fun. Trapped in a boat, I got antsy, itching to move. Casting lines from watercraft isn’t my idea of a good time. I can’t just park my pole and run around a bank, exploring. I have to sit still and wait. I’m not good at sitting still.

“Isn’t this great!” someone inevitably exclaims. Feet up with a fishing pole in one hand, cold beer in the other, they say: “I could be out here all day!”

Half smiling, I shift uncomfortably and stare off into the distance, where shoreline dissolves into dense forest, wondering what treasures might be found there.


Diane Choplin‘s essays have appeared or are forthcoming in Countryside Magazine, Oregon Humanities, Monologging, and The Oregonian. She lives and writes on a five-acre farm where she also raises rotationally grazed lamb, welcomes Airbnb guests, and keeps hopeful eye out for edible wild mushrooms.

Despair

Poetry by Michael S. Glaser

I take refuge among the trees
the Maple, Cedar and Chestnut Oak

where the wind dances with the leaves
and the birds invite my spirit to sing their songs.

The soft blue of the endless sky
knows that everything on earth is small

– even despair –

and reminds me that I am a part of something
wonderous – this sanctuary of mystery,

of sunlight, shadows and this breeze
that ruffles my hair

like my father did each time
he felt proud of his only son.


Michael S. Glaser has published eight collections of his own work and served as Poet Laureate of Maryland from 2004–2009. He now co-leads workshops which embrace poetry as a means of self-reflection. He co-edited The Collected Poems of Lucille Clifton (BOA 2012). Read more at http://www.michaelsglaser.com.

French Broad River

Poetry by Douglas Cooper

The hum of traffic on the bridge overhead, blends
with the gurgle of the river as it swirls around
the dock at the kayak ramp. A man wearing a bicycle helmet
sits on the bank watching a teacup Yorkie explore.

The bank is covered with huge catalpa trees, thickets
of sunflowers, Japanese knotweed, blackberry canes,
Asiatic lilies, and sweet pea flowers, making me
a world traveler standing in one place.

My friend Mick, with a twinkle in his eye,
asks the cyclist how many CCs his
electric bike could do. The cyclist answers
straight-faced, “Up to 30 miles per hour.”
“How many miles per gallon?”
“I can ride to work and back on one charge.”

About then, the Yorkie scampers across
the sidewalk toward an 80-pound husky
straining on his owner’s leash – a tiny hurricane hunter
flying straight into the storm.                               The cyclist
picks up the small dog and puts him in his cloth shoulder bag,
riding to safer places to explore the wonders of this world.


Douglas Cooper lives in the mountains north of Asheville, NC, with his wife and three pets. He has a BA in English from the University of West Florida, and attended many workshops with poet Francis Quinn. His work has appeared in Crosswinds Poetry Journal and The RavensPerch.

Early Spring

Poetry by Sharon Scholl

When everything portends,
clings to the edge of not quite yet,
teeters on perhaps.

Just a hint of green
pokes from wilted stalks,
risking little, wary of reversal.

Nothing signals go ahead!
Nothing gestures all safe now
to a land still hovering.

I sit with my seed catalog
deep in petunia fantasies
despite its warning, sow after frost.


Sharon Scholl is an ancient poet (91) still very active as convener of a poetry critique group and poetry editor of a local women’s journal. Her poems currently published are in Front Range Review and Third Wednesday.

The Pillars of Creation*

Poetry by Arthur Ginsberg

The pillars of creation fill my sight,
in ways I cannot fathom make me pray
and revel in the origin of light.

Though Galileo knew the stars were bright,
he could not know red dwarfs, light years away.
The pillars of creation fill my sight.

The James Webb telescope has taken flight
with golden panels opened wide today
to gather in the origin of light.

Men who’ve slipped earth’s bonds can ignite
the rapture mortals see in cosmic clay.
The pillars of creation fill my sight.

We peer now into space beyond the height
where angels fly and clarion trumpets play
and revel in the origin of light.

Beloveds who passed through tunnels, brilliant white,
came from the stuff of stars at which we gaze.
The pillars of creation fill my sight,
I revel in the origin of light.

*molten rock and dust in the shape
of pillars seen through the Webb
telescope, glowing in deep space


Arthur Ginsberg is a poet based in Seattle. Past work appears in the anthologies, Blood and Bone, and Primary Care. He received the William Stafford prize in 2003. He holds an MFA degree from Pacific University in Oregon. His most recent book, Holy the Body was published by Kelsay Books.

Hell’s Kitchen

Nonfiction by Leslie Lisbona

We were in my father’s car on Sixth Avenue driving uptown towards Central Park, or maybe we were on Third Avenue approaching the 59th Street Bridge, when my father said, “Don’t marry him.  I’ll take care of you.” After a long silence I said, “But Dad, I love him.”

My mother had died a few months before, and it was just my father and I in the house in Queens where I had grown up. I worried about him. I knew it was too soon to leave him alone. Val was living in New Jersey at the time. My father put his arm around Val’s shoulder and convinced him to move in with us. “After the wedding, you can look for an apartment together,” he said. 

Val moved in three months before our wedding. We slept in separate rooms. He called my dad Mr. Lisbona.

We got married on a beautiful day in April. I invited my mom’s friend Beatrice to attend.

On my wedding day, my father said, “Can you stay with me a little longer?” When Val agreed, I thought he was so understanding; he was so nice about it.  But then I noticed how well he got along with my father. They sat in the living room watching TV together and laughing at the same jokes. Val walked around on Sunday mornings in pajamas while my dad made coffee for them both, and on Sunday afternoons the two of them went food shopping on 108th Street. If something needed fixing, Val was eager to do it.  He started calling my father Leon. When I suggested a neighborhood that might be good for us to live in, Val didn’t show any interest. My father said, “Stay here and save some money,” and Val smiled conspiratorially.

We lived eight months as newlyweds in my father’s house. 

Toward the end of that stretch, Beatrice came for an overnight visit. I noticed how happy my dad was, and then I spied them. It was just a moment, through a slice of door: She was on the bed, he was in his bathrobe; he leaned over her. I caught my breath and recoiled. I slinked down the stairs and hurried out of the house. I walked to the subway and felt the urge to squeeze my eyes shut, trying to unsee the image of my father and Beatrice that kept fluttering to my mind. By the time I got to the train platform, I realized that this was my chance to leave. The moment had presented itself like a gift.

Without telling Val, I found us an apartment on my lunchbreak. The one-bedroom was walking distance from my office building on Sixth Avenue. That evening, after kicking off my boots, I gathered Val and my father at the round table in the kitchen and announced that Val and I were moving. Val said, “We can never afford it,” and my father said, “A two-year lease?” and I said to Val, “We have five days to pack.” My father lit up a cigarette and inhaled deeply. 

A week later we took a few boxes of clothes and two rolled-up Persian rugs to the twentieth floor of 301 West 53rd Street in Hell’s Kitchen. I liked the name of my new neighborhood. That first night, Val was working across the river in New Jersey. I was alone.

The apartment was bare. Our wedding presents, still in their unopened boxes, were scattered in our empty living room. Our only piece of furniture was our too-hard bed, which we had bought that day without thinking it through.   

I lay in the bed and looked out the large plate-glass window to see the time and temperature flash atop a taller building. I listened to a bouncer arguing loudly with a patron at the back entrance of the Roseland Ballroom. I heard the trucks rumbling up 8th Avenue and the horse and carriages ambling towards the stables. I wished Val were there on my first night away from home. Somehow, despite all the city sounds, I fell asleep.

One hour before I needed to wake up the next morning, my dad called, a pattern he took years to break. We chatted until I was sufficiently awake. 

I put my feet on the Persian rug. I pulled out from a box something to wear to work. I walked two short blocks to my office and never wanted to set foot on the subway again. 

In the evening, Val and I went to Central Park, walked to 9th Avenue, and ate in a little restaurant. On the way home we stopped at Tower Records, our fingers interlocked. Val loved the spartan apartment and declared that we didn’t need any furniture. “Where will we eat?” I said.  “In our hard bed,” he said, and we both laughed. 

I loved him so much, and I was so happy.

A year later I was pregnant with Aaron, and my father remarried a woman who wasn’t Beatrice.


Leslie Lisbona recently had several pieces published in Synchronized Chaos, Dorothy Parker’s Ashes, The Bluebird Word, The Jewish Literary Journal, miniskirt magazine, Yalobusha Review, Tangled Locks, Koukash Review, Metonym Journal, and Smoky Blue Literary. She is the child of immigrants from Beirut, Lebanon, and grew up in Queens, NY. Read Leslie’s earlier essay Taboule in The Bluebird Word.

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