The Bluebird Word

An Online Literary Journal for Poetry and Flash

Month: June 2025

Photo by James Lee on Unsplash

Lessons from Fire and Water

1 June 2025 /

Poetry by Diane Melby

Fish jump in the canal behind the trailer park where I rest
my feet on a plastic bin, let the sun warm my neck.

This is not a park on the outskirts of a declining town but a haven
for those fleeing winter winds, returning each year to this community

where friendships grow as days melt over cocktails
and the sun sets over western lands.

I visit my sister whom I haven’t seen since fire stole her home in Lahaina
and she seems ok, enjoying activities with neighbors

and in quiet times, knitting hats to sell in her daughter’s shop, except
for a certain lassitude that has settled in the depths of her eyes.

They used to sparkle with the same blue green of the ocean
but now have darkened, reflecting the change in tides.

We launch paddleboards in a quiet cove of the Indian River. Accustomed
to the feel of shifting waters, she leads us through mangrove forests

into a tranquil lagoon. Later, I lose my bearing as mercurial winds
threaten to sweep me into turbulent waters. Every muscle tightens,

fear drives my breath away. I dig my paddle frantically into the water
as if I can dig myself a tunnel out of trouble. She comes to my rescue,

reminds me to stay calm when navigating rough waters. With a gentle push,
she returns me to the safety of the cove.

Diane Melby’s poetry has appeared in Gyroscope Review, Quartet, and Thimble, as well as in other print and online publications. She was recognized for literary excellence in 2024 by the Poetry Society of Virginia. She is the founder of the Salon for Creative Expression @ www.dianemelby.com, an intimate online arts community.

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First Light

1 June 2025 /

Poetry by Sam Barbee

Snow surrounds the wide pond.
Squirrels bound edges.
Silence begotten by still water.
Catalyst for green leaves,
and April hymn.

Crystal glaze bursts open in sun–
ice will submit, sepia dispelled
with winter’s consent.
                                                  Trees resemble
black keys against white horizon,
flats and sharps to swoon the rabbit
down the slope.
                                   Chill abides
with brown bear and cub.
Downey woodpeckers tap notations.
Nature’s fresh overture
                                                      spills treble,
underlies with bass notes–
morning song
and dirge alike.
                                  A red fox waltzes
extinction. Toppled trunks and stumps
ossify, and
                        shadows absorb imprecise
light. A lively etude evolves
with the immaculate meadow.

Evergreens sway, fallen cones
freckling drifts. Each impact
an apostrophe
                                 to this frozen canticle.
Dwindling imprints reminding
we dance alone.

Sam Barbee’s newest collection is Apertures of Voluptuous Force (2022, Redhawk Publishing). He has three previous poetry collections, including That Rain We Needed (2016, Press 53), a nominee for the Roanoke-Chowan Award as one of North Carolina’s best poetry collections of 2016; he is a two-time Pushcart nominee.

Photo by James Lee on Unsplash

Kingfisher

1 June 2025 /

Poetry by John Grey

A dazzle of blue
skirts the green-water pond,
merges with a fish
in its squat beak.

He is a king.
No other bird sits so squat,
so regally, on a tree branch.

And a fisher of course.
His catch is inhaled
neatly down his gullet.

He flies off
and other birds arrive
in his wake.

They land
in a wave of salutations,
in a homage
to his feathery crown.

John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident, recently published in New World Writing, River And South and Tenth Muse. Latest books Subject Matters, Between Two Fires, and Covert are available through Amazon. Work upcoming in Paterson Literary Review, White Wall Review and Cantos.

Photo by José Luis Rodríguez Martínez on Unsplash

Chocolate Skies

1 June 2025 /

Poetry by Peter A. Witt

In the twilight, the sky drips chocolate,
a velvety hue, soft as a lover’s caress,
filling the horizon like melted dreams.

Clouds loom, thick and rich,
floating like frosted truffles,
each a promise wrapped in dusk.

I savor dark pieces, bitter and sweet as memories,
each morsel a kaleidoscope of comfort.

Stars prick the canopy, tiny sugar sprinkles
against the night, while the moon blushes,
a creamy ganache, pouring tranquility
over weary eyes, chocolate in the clouds
and on my tongue, molding time into moments,
indulgent and fleeting.

Peter A. Witt is a Texas poet, twice nominated for Best of the Net. Peter also writes family history, is an avid birder and photographer. His poetry has been published on various poetry sites and appears in several anthologies.

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Found a poem

1 June 2025 /

Poetry by Burt Rashbaum

I walk alone in pre-dawn lantern light
sometimes two golden
eyes stare back
other times a hundred
tiny golden orbs all
different heights on the move
a heard of elk
most times a sky of stars a sliver of moon
as the morning light still sleeps
as the bloodshot horizon teases
dawn from the night
a small circle of silver visibility leads the way
beyond its edges the darkness mute unknowable
like a dream.

Burt Rashbaum’s publications are Of the Carousel and Blue Pedals. His poems have appeared in Storms of the Inland Sea (Shanti Arts Press, 2022), Boats Against the Current, The Ravens Perch, Valiant Scribe, The Bluebird Word, The Seraphic Review, and The Nature of Our Times.

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No Small Thing

1 June 2025 /

Poetry by Lana Hechtman Ayers

from the size and shape
I can surmise

that it’s a lady bug plodding
across my window screen

black polka dots &
flame orange autumn wings

though only this bug’s
dark underbelly faces me

I know for certain
beauty is out there

ready to be seen

ready to fly off

Lana Hechtman Ayers has shepherded over a hundred forty poetry volumes into print in her role as managing editor for three small presses. Her work appears in Rattle, The London Reader, Peregrine, and elsewhere. Her newest collection is The Autobiography of Rain (Fernwood Press, 2024). Visit her online at LanaAyers.com.

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Neah Bay

1 June 2025 /

Poetry by Ursula McCabe

Gull noise was always abundant
for the Makah People
even when they labored over
red cedar baskets
in their plank houses.

They lived by beaches
lined with purple-blue mussel shells.
Summer sunsets turned the sea
melon colors and behind their camp
ridges of conifer crowns
glowed hunter green
from the yellowish cast.

Since ancient times
Makah peoples have had the ability
to navigate places where
they cannot see land.

And even now when they return
to the rocks closer to shore,
there are the gulls—
calling them home.

Ursula McCabe sold wine in Portland, Oregon for many years. Her work can be seen in Piker Press, Oregon Poetry Association’s Verseweavers, Lit Shark Magazine, The Bluebird Word, and The Ekphrastic Review. She likes the ocean, forests, lots of birds, and shopping at thrift stores.

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The Hydrangea

1 June 2025 /

Poetry by Celine Bach

The hydrangea hangs heavy,
a secret soft as shadow,
its petals pulse in quiet hues—
blue to violet, like a bruise
that lingers, unnoticed.

Roots reach beneath,
hidden hands clutching
at the hush of earth.
Grief grows in its gentle folds,
strong in its silence.

No sun can coax its bloom—
only time, only the weight
of waiting, weaving slowly.
Then, the garden whispers,
color spilling, soft and strange.

Celine Bach is a writer and poet based in New York City. She has won numerous awards in regional contests and is currently working on a new poetry collection.

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Sword Play

1 June 2025 /

Fiction by William P Adams

When Jimmy started first grade, his mother paid a sixth-grade boy a nickel a day to walk him to school each morning. He felt like a baby—other kids his age walked to school alone; why couldn’t he? After a week’s worth of grousing and complaining, Jimmy’s mother relented and released the boy from his lucrative bodyguard job. Jimmy was now free to travel the cement sidewalks of 26th Street to school unencumbered.

Space travel was huge in the 1960s, and Jimmy had a space-themed lunchbox adorned with planets and rockets. One day, he dropped the thermos, shattering the glass interior, and his mother then gave him a nickel a day for milk—since she wasn’t paying the kid anymore, it was a wash.

Jimmy developed a scheme since he had a nickel a day for milk. Some days, he’d go without, stop at the Dime Store after school, and buy a nickel’s worth of chocolate stars at the candy counter. He’d eat them after school or squirrel some away for later consumption.

The scheme worked flawlessly, and Jimmy decided to bring it to the next level. He went without milk and chocolate stars for a week and accumulated 25 cents come Friday. On Saturday, after breakfast, he had permission to walk to the Dime Store and left with the five nickels jingling in his pocket. A dashing rubber sword, painted silver, with a bejeweled scabbard had been calling out to Jimmy during previous visits—the price: 25 cents. Upon arriving, he made a beeline for the object of his infatuation, and it was displayed on the toy shelf magnificently—the only one left.

Jimmy picked up the exquisite weapon and marveled at his good fortune, thinking how lucky he was. He walked on air to the cash register and placed the five coins on the counter. The clerk smiled and jokingly admonished Jimmy to be careful, rang his purchase, and Jimmy left the store in jubilation, imagining himself aboard a pirate ship with piles of booty and swag.

When he arrived home, Jimmy brandished the sword dramatically before his parents like the swashbuckling pirates he’d seen at the neighborhood movie house. They wanted to know how he managed to acquire it because Jimmy received no allowance, and his mother could account for every coin and bill in the house. Jimmy couldn’t lie; it was a sin. He spilled that he’d saved his milk money for a week and bought the sword with the five nickels. His mother was upset that Jimmy went without milk and strongly suggested he march back to the Dime Store and return the faux blade.

But his father was inwardly impressed with his son’s creative business acumen, and after a short parental commiseration, they decided Jimmy could keep the sword if he promised to include milk with his lunch each day from here on out.

Jimmy agreed and immediately leapt aboard the imaginary Pirate vessel, sword flashing with the Jolly Roger waving above.

William P Adams is a retired baby boomer living and writing near Seattle. His short fiction, poetry, and memoir excerpts have appeared in Bright Flash Lit, CafeLit, Macrame Lit, Rockvale Review, Sea Wolf Journal, X-R-A-Y Magazine, and elsewhere.

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Julia

1 June 2025 /

Nonfiction by Pama Lee Bennett

I’m standing beside a gurney in the emergency room, a gurney on which my great-aunt, age 104, is lying. Some preliminary tests have been done. A doctor we haven’t seen before enters and stands opposite me across the gurney. He doesn’t address her but begins talking over her to me.

“She appears to have a kidney condition, but I’m not sure we can do much to help her at her age.”

I look down at her, and back to him.

“Doctor, I’d like you to do for her whatever you would do for me, or yourself, or your own mother.”

“Well, your aunt is very old. She is probably at the end of her life.”

I think to myself, wait for it, wait for it.

My aunt looks up at him sweetly and says, “Doctor, I would like to live. But if I die, it’s all right.”

The look on his face: priceless.

He mumbles that certain procedures might injure her delicate body, but he can order some medication. I say, “Ok, I can understand that, but let’s do what we can.”

He leaves the room.

He can’t know that she walked on her own and lived on her own until 100. That she loves to play Skip-Bo with family members every week. That she reads voraciously and still keeps in touch with former students from her days as a one-room school teacher. That she hushes me in conversation if Tiger Woods comes on the golf channel and she wants to watch him play.

I can’t know that nine months from now, she will die suddenly and quietly of natural causes one afternoon, just short of 105.

I can’t know that. But neither can the doctor.

Pama Lee Bennett is a retired speech-language pathologist living in Sioux City, IA. She has taught English at summer language camps in Poland and at a school there in 2019. Her work has appeared in Tipton Poetry Journal, Evening Street Review, The Bluebird Word, The Penwood Review, and others.

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