Month: May 2025

Above Omena Lake

26 May 2025 / Editor

Poetry by Sarah G. Pouliot

We lounge on the ledge of your grandfather’s dock
with two poles and a punctured cup of crickets,
watching snow geese ascend in an arrow,
black-tipped wings slicing dawn,
bellies blurred in billows.

Saltwater taffy cements to our molars;
toes wiggle in ripples, the whip
of your translucent line cracking
Omena’s mirror—when I tell you,
“I’m afraid of heights but not falling.”

Catapult me in the air—
a diving gannet searching for sardines,
a leaping Devil Ray, the sway of an oak
surrendering to wind like the smoke
from your after-breakfast cigarette.

Falling is familiar:
a scraped knee and sideways bike,
a plugged nose and cannonball plunge,
the plop of your soaring bobber brushing
the water like a sloppy morning kiss.

Sarah G. Pouliot is a poet and editor from Titusville, Florida. She believes that poetry has the power to bring stillness and meditative reflection in the midst of life’s chaos, and she hopes that her writing can do this for you—even if only for a moment.

The Ghost Light Greets the New Company

22 May 2025 / Editor

Poetry by Lois Anne DeLong

Standing watch during the intervals
When the applause has faded
A single bulb keeps guard
In this sacred space

A safety measure of course,
This unadorned ghost light.
No more than a bulb on a stand
Yet, perhaps something more

A welcome to those who
Would not tread earth’s boards again
What shadow plays might these
Restless thespians choose to stage?

Unfettered from the constraints
Of printed word, melodic forms,
Physical limitations, or living imaginations.
Free at last to share their dreams

On this side of
The undiscovered country
The word “Places” can be heard
And the replacement cast now take their places

Lois Anne DeLong is a freelance writer living in Queens, New York, and an active member of Woodside Writers, a literary forum that meets weekly. Her stories have appeared in Dear Booze, Short Beasts, and DarkWinter Literary Journal, and her poetry is found in Literary Cocktail.

Instructions on Chivalry

19 May 2025 / Editor

Poetry by Nancy Kay Peterson

Hold the door open
and honor “Ladies First.”
Pull out the chair
when she seeks a seat.
Walk on the street side
to shelter her from splashes.
Stand up when she enters
or leaves a room.
Lend her your arm
when the going gets rough.
Don’t leave bruises
that have to be explained.

Nancy Kay Peterson’s poetry has appeared in The Bluebird Word, Dash Literary Journal, Last Stanza, RavensPerch, Spank the Carp, Steam Ticket, and Tipton Poetry Journal. She co-published Main Channel Voices: A Dam Fine Literary Magazine (2004-2009). She has authored two chapbooks, Belated Remembrance (2010) and Selling the Family (2021). See www.nancykaypeterson.com.

tree

16 May 2025 / Editor

Poetry by Miguel Rodríguez Otero

the tree at the back of my yard is scheduled
to be felled by the city in the coming days
its roots spread well into the wildflower patch
then outward and deep
eventually intersecting with fiber cables

my father planted it soon after i was born
in the black-and-whites he is digging a hole
while mom is breastfeeding me

half my life is scattered around this tree
playing fetch with dog
first cigarettes at night at the swing

the other half is buried
childhood thoughts and teenage obsessions
that have hidden away
inert like cables that intertwine with adult fears
which i always say i’ll unearth
and get rid of in the winter

but all of them – roots and fears –
have continued growing

the tree remains quiet
probably considering whether
to change colors and shed leaves
as if nothing was to happen

my feet are now restless
waiting for a sign
unsure how to say goodbye
to mom and dad
raising me away from fears

Miguel Rodríguez Otero’s poems appear in The Lake, Book of Matches, Red Fern Review, Wilderness House Literary Review, Scapegoat Review, Last Leaves Magazine, The Bluebird Word, DarkWinter Literary Magazine, and The Raven’s Perch. He likes walking country roads and is friends with a heron that lives in the marsh near his home.

This morning, I woke early

13 May 2025 / Editor

Poetry by Stacie Eirich

This morning, I woke early, stepped out
when eastern light was rising. A cool breeze
brought goosebumps. Two blue finches
flew fast, diving and calling from tree to tree.
The thick hanging branches of palms swayed,
hiding flashes of feathers beneath green tents.
The rumble of motors began to whir as the hour
turned, the roar of engines breaking through air
as titanium wings soared above, over and over
hulking giants of steel passing in dawn’s light.
The day bright with golden sun, the noise
of so much life, so much commotion.
My heart beats small, silent, my ears unable
to stifle the sounds throbbing around me.
I go back inside, sip my coffee, read a few lines.
Listen to the sounds muted, watch the light creep
over the trees, the rocks, the pool’s edge.
Watch how the water almost stills, its flow
small and constant, a moving blue-green mirror.
Feel how time moves slowly, how in this space
there is only air and light, cool and warmth,
flowing water and rough-hewn rock.
How they live and breathe in the midst
of our human clutter and noise and need
of so much, of more, of everything.
How the only thing they need is the rising
of rays to ascend heavenward— how the branches
reach the light, fingers of fronds dancing
beside a blue jay’s quick winged perch.
How when I step outside once more, my fingers
can’t quite reach, touch, my skin can’t feel
this brightness. My heart moored elsewhere, my soul
seeking peace in a place that can’t be mine. Even with
all this light, all this life— all these things.
What is enough? I wish to be a bird, to fly and call,
fleeing and free, quick and light as dawn, rising
with silver-tipped wings into golden sunlight. Here
then gone — bright, beautiful. A small burst
of feathered joy in golden sunlight, a brush of dawn, a rush
of feathers, a voice ringing loud, blue-silver streak
of a bright, exuberant heart.

Stacie Eirich is a mother of two, caregiver, and poet. Her book, Hope Like Sunlight (Bell Asteri Publishing, 2024), is an illustrated memoir benefitting St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. Her poems have recently been published in The Amazine, The Bluebird Word, and Synkroniciti Magazine. She lives in Texas. Visit her at www.stacieeirich.com

Mothers Carrying Things

10 May 2025 / Editor

Poetry by Rachel Beachy

We begin by carrying the car seat,
the diaper bag, the pump parts
and pacifiers.
Then they grow and bring us
collected rocks, Lego blocks,
remains of snacks,
dirty tissues.
All of this
we take in
so they will know:
whatever you hand to me,
I can handle
no matter how heavy it gets.
Remember, I once carried
my whole world
in the crook of my elbow.
There is nothing I cannot hold
for you.

Rachel Beachy lives in Kentucky with her husband and children. Her poems have appeared in Ephemera, Freshwater, The Orchards Poetry Journal, The Rising Phoenix Review, Sky Island Journal, Steam Ticket and others. Her debut collection “Tiny Universe” will be published by Kelsay Books.

Making Beds

7 May 2025 / Editor

Poetry by Alexandra Newton Rios

I throw the clean sheet up into the air
that my mother bought us
from the United States
to stretch it across the wide algarrobo bed
and as I center the white-and-light gray striped top sheet,
tuck each side along the bed
with the tips of my fingers
because the top sheet has not held bodies,
cradled them across the years
unlike the bottom fitted sheet grown threadbare
and sewed back into life several times,
I think of my mother before she is gone.
I have been doing this a lot lately
and wonder if the memory of her
will remain in the sheet
when I fly it into the air
and let it down on my bed.
Will memory cover me and warm me
when I need to be warmed?
How do we suddenly stretch memories
so that out of the old the new may come?
My mother taught me to fold
hospital bed corners at the end of the bed
holding sheets and blanket together.
I gained a Housekeeping badge
as a Junior Girl Scout.
We are so different.
Throughout my years in another land
where she was born I have only needed
to know she is still living.

Alexandra Newton Rios is the mother of five children and a marathon runner. Nueva York Poetry Press published Poemas de Georgia/The Georgia Poems, one long poem in 34 parts as a dialogue with American artist Georgia O’Keeffe in November 2024.

Julia’s Journal

4 May 2025 / Editor

Fiction by Robert Nisbet

Friday, July the twenty-first.
The journey from Gatwick was easy enough. Placid, six hours or so. But after an hour or two, I became aware of the couple across the way from me. They were mother and daughter, by the sound of it, and very English, genuine countryside types. You could almost picture them in tweeds, tramping along bridleways, accompanied by Basset hounds, the mother with a headscarf. (Whoa. Slow down now, Julia. That’s the feature writer in you taking over. You’re on holiday.)

It seemed that the girl might be disabled in some way, it wasn’t quite clear how. They were kind and cheerful people though and I’d quite liked having them across the way, even though we’d only exchanged a few words. But when we landed in Hamilton, our aisle had to file out very, very slowly in their wake. Clearly she had some problem.

The airport was hot, so hot, so humid, but Harry, meeting me, said, That’s Bermuda in July. We’ll get a thunderstorm tomorrow at three. Yeah, sure, I said, but he said, No, that’s our climate, babe. It’s so, so predictable. Honestly. It gets hotter and hotter, humidity building, for just three days or so, then …Whop … a cloudburst and it’s cool and settled again.

Saturday the twenty-second.
Harry was right enough, the heat this morning got desperate and at ten to three, we dived into a spacious café, everyone in sight did. We had a grandstand view, the wide street emptying, then, as he’d said … storm.

And it deluged, oh, it hammered, across the empty street. I think I was impressed as much as anything. Then I looked and saw, just across the street … Oh hell, where was Harry? … loo or somewhere … but look. Oh God. It was the mother and daughter from the plane. They can’t have been told, they were out in it. They were almost … well, not almost, they were … staggering in the weight of the water, the force of it. The girl’s disability was very clear now, her posture was wildly uneven, but the mother just stood by her girl, got her close to the wall, steadied her, trying somehow to fend off the storm.

Then, just as I’d started yelling for Harry and he’d wandered into view, three waiters ran out, into the sheet of rain … and dear God, even our eyes could barely penetrate it. They went racing across from the café, gathering in a bunch, a shield, and helped keep the daughter steady.

Five minutes and the storm had gone. Like that. Storm. Bang. Bermuda. And the waiters led them back, the mother, the daughter, back in to the café, gave them a chance to dry, then said, Let’s get you tea. Traditional English, with buttered toast.

Robert Nisbet is a Welsh writer who had many short stories published in his native land, before switching to poetry in the 2000s. Many of his poems have appeared in both Britain and the USA since then, and he is now switching back to shorter fiction.

Unbridled

1 May 2025 / Editor

Poetry by Rachel Beachy

When the horses run, they run
wildly without pre
amble – the gates open
the gun sounds
they go as if their lives depend on it
and they do
They were born so they walk
and they walk so they run –
I used to find it remarkable, how at two years old
they could be their fullest force
then I watch you at the same age,
your short legs carrying you
down
the
hill
as close to flying as falling
and so free you do not fear the difference.

Enthusiasm for the Smell of the Sea

1 May 2025 / Editor

Poetry by Allan Scherlen

Open the car windows
and feel
the sea breeze blowing
through seats—
thick with smell
of salt and sand;
we drove over rice fields;
seagulls swarmed
the field’s grain;
and we crossed a causeway bridge—
seeing birds soar
over mirrors of water fields,
our family singing to the radio,
with enthusiasm for the sea.

Allan Scherlen’s experience is rooted in San Antonio and exploring roads along the Gulf of Mexico; eventually he moved to the Appalachia mountains. Along the way, poetry arose. And some friendly animals stuck around. Trips to Mexico and China influenced his writing. Being a librarian brought him close to books. For a specially-created video of this poem, please visit YouTube.