Category: Poetry (Page 1 of 34)

Plumage

20 February 2025 / Editor

Poetry by Sam Barbee

The red cardinal, whose head-feathers
have fallen out, sits on the wooden fence.

He notices our yard full of movement, shapes
big and small imparting various shades –

blue sky with white clouds, zinnias.
Dogwood wavers with breeze he does not see.

Motionless, one coarse and knotted branch
cradles the nest he feeds. The birdbath

bends a murky prism, a reflection of scruff
on his grey-red tuft. Unlike full-feathered

finches, and pileated cousins pecking a maple’s trunk,
he can only imagine a proper bonnet of feathers –

not molt or baldness from mites. Not scar
of low-branch wound. Perches content without

storybook color or crest. His grandeur resets
the order. A quest for tranquil, preening wings

on the wooden fence. Sanctified to guard
against squirrels or Cooper Hawk carnage,

he flaps to the nest of hatchlings,
content with reimagined beauty.

Sam Barbee’s newest collection is Apertures of Voluptuous Force (Redhawk Publishing, 2022). He has three previous poetry collections, including That Rain We Needed (Press 53, 2016), 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.

Walking with a Leaf in Winter

17 February 2025 / Editor

Poetry by Christine Andersen

I don’t know where it came from
since the tree limbs around me were bare—

the leaf was slight, brown,
jagged at the edges

like a scrap torn from
a paper bag,

but there it was beside me
drifting on a cold, slow,

February wind,
keeping pace

as if we were connected
by a slender thread,

an odd companion,
wafting,

remarkable as a sunset,
easy, debonair

falling away with a wink
too elegant for words.

Christine Andersen is a retired dyslexia specialist who hikes daily in the Connecticut woods with her five dogs, pen and pad in pocket. Publications include the Comstock, The Awakenings, New Plains and Gyroscope Reviews, Slab, and Glimpse, among others. She won the 2024 American Writers Review Poetry Contest.

Climbing Tree

15 February 2025 / Editor

Poetry by Ava Spampanato

The last time I sat in the hallowed out nook of climbing tree was a warm spring afternoon
The grass was dappled with buttercups
while cousins ran through sprinklers rainbow mirage
sidewalk chalk dusted knees
made wishes on dandelion cotton breeze

Each pappus packed with hopes of
Cotton candy castles
and pirate treasure

When our wishes got tangled amongst the leaves of climbing tree
My pollinated fingers grasped onto thick belly out branches
While the splintered brown bark aged my youthful step

I tried to grab each childlike dream and cup them in my palms
But the mourning doves claws captured each cotton desire
And her soft coos reminded us our days of childhood bliss were fleeting

Ava Spampanato is a surfer from the Jersey shore, and currently writes from South Florida. Her writing is inspired by the ocean and the natural elements around her.

In a far field

13 February 2025 / Editor

Poetry by Mark Clemens

for Charles Everett Clemens, 1922-1992

The ground
where my father lies
by now has settled some.

The clods
that tumbled moist
from a digger’s spade three decades past
by now have crumbled
as he crumbled some
between his fingers in the garden
so long ago.

The sod
that flourished green upon his grave
by now has withered at the fringe
and a few hard brown blades
bristle in the wind.

The flowers
though faded pale
and clasped dry against the coffin lid
are yet the flowers his loving flesh
laid white and fresh
within his final grasp.

And in a ruffling breeze beneath sun-shot clouds
where sparrows harry dumb black crows
birds feel free to light upon his plot
to hop and, pausing, bend eyes sidewise
for some grub from his piece of earth
one place like any other
down the mounded rows.

Good ground
the ground where my father lies.
lovely ground
by now.

Born in Missouri and raised in Iowa, Mark Clemens earned an M.F.A. from the University of Montana. Through the following years, he wrote part-time while working at newspapers, state agencies, and colleges. Now he writes full-time where he lives on the Quimper Peninsula by the Salish Sea in Washington State.

Only Windows See

4 February 2025 / Editor

Poetry by Rebecca Nacy

harvest hues hugging
pointed rows of houses,
horizon decorated with
shimmering skyscrapers.

roasted reds and golden grasses
settled to support sparkling shorelines.

sky and sea
separated
by soft stratospheric spectacles.
scene only visible through satellite-sight

rows of grey ovals closed shut,
darkness stales the cabin still.
airborne sleepers snore,
as windows and wings watch.

Rebecca Nacy is a ginger born and raised in Mexico, replanted in Southern Florida. When not researching in a lab, you can find her covered in mud, measuring oysters. While her brain thinks in STEM, her heart loves the arts like singing, tap-dancing, and of course, writing.

September 29

1 February 2025 / Editor

Poetry by Lorelei Feeny

for Dad

Today might be your last full day on earth
but know that I’ll think of you
every time I go to the Dollar Tree.

And whenever John Grisham writes a new book
I’ll put your name on the waiting list
even though you said he always tells the same story.

I still have your pocket avocados growing in my apartment,
windowsills lined with trinkets
given to me when I was a little girl.

and after
all these months
i can release
my grief
held hostage

From endings, new beginnings.

Lorelei Feeny was born and raised in Raleigh, North Carolina. She loves words and learning foreign languages. Her dad inspired her to write poetry. Read his poem The Garden published in The Bluebird Word in July 2023.

Family Flock

1 February 2025 / Editor

Poetry by Danita Dodson

Daily I count turkeys on my land—
one, two, three, four, five,
six, seven, eight, nine—
willing this family unit
to stay together forever, wishing
to goodness that not one of them
will ever be lost from the circle
when winds blow or rifles rise,
hoping they’ll keep close to home
in the unknowns of shifting storms.

At twilight, they nest in the trees,
finding refuge in the folds of earth,
the sky a quilt of fading autumn light
that draws them near as one,
like a cabin’s warmth at day’s end,
kinship a shield against the cold.
And I pray for them as a brood—
one, two, three, four, five,
six, seven, eight, nine—
what I’ve prayed for my own family.

Danita Dodson is the author of three poetry collections: Trailing the Azimuth, The Medicine Woods, and Between Gone and Everlasting. Her poems appear in Salvation South and elsewhere. She is the 2024 winner of the Poetry Society of Tennessee’s Best of Fest. She lives in Sneedville, Tennessee. More at danitadodson.com.

Photo by Cristina Anne Costello on Unsplash

February Morning in Palm Springs

28 January 2025 / Editor

Poetry by Suzy Harris

Blue sky laced with clouds, chilly breeze.
Sometimes the sun breaks through to kiss

a cheek, a shoulder, then hides again.
Sandals and sun hat emerge from hibernation.

It is all about the light here,
how it sets the lemon tree aflame,

each lemon a small sun of tart brilliance.
Each cell dulled by winter stirs,

arises to greet the day. Day is still
getting used to these strangers,

prods the multi-celled being
we call human to watch

a hummingbird hovering the base of twin
palm trees, to notice the stalk

arising from the center of an agave,
its death bloom still tightly curled.

Suzy Harris lives in Portland, Oregon. Her poems have appeared in Clackamas Literary Review, Willawaw Journal, and Wild Greens, among other journals and anthologies. Her chapbook Listening in the Dark, about hearing loss and learning to hear again with cochlear implants, was published by The Poetry Box in February 2023.

Pears

22 January 2025 / Editor

Poetry by Barbara Santucci

Remember those golden d’Anjou pears
that arrived every Christmas Eve in a wooden box,
each flirty orb nestled inside brown shredded paper.

On Christmas morning, their gold
brightened frosty windows panes,
like ornaments glittering on the tree.

You sliced down to the pear’s core,
spread warm Brie over firm flesh
while warming your toes by a fire.

Now, lips chapped by January frost,
hunger for their subtle sweetness.
Dry cracked hands long to cradle their soft skin.

What would you give
for those golden d’Anjou pears
that arrived last Christmas Eve in a wooden box?

Barbara Santucci is a literary and visual artist. She explores the themes of nature, family, and self-reflection. Her poetry has been published in several journals: Plants and Poetry Journal, The Bluebird Word, Writing in a Woman’s Voice, and Macrame Literary Journal. Barbara has published three picture books. Visit her at barbarasantucci.com.

Maisie at Folsom Lake

19 January 2025 / Editor

Poetry by Cecil Morris

On this January day the sky opens wide and bright,
a dream of blue realized and guileless, and the lake,
thanks to a December of bountiful rain and snow,
looks again like a lake where a teenage boy might water ski
through the sear of August and right into the start of school.
My best friend and I take turns throwing a tennis ball
for his galloping Labrador retriever that chases
every arc and leaps into the risen water with a joy
inexhaustible as the sky. She hardly needs a name,
this year-old eagerness, this incarnation of galumphing.
I watch her mad rush and think of Sisyphus. Maybe he loved
the boulder, the reassuring weight of it, the thunder
of its roll. I see rapture in her eyes, her open mouth,
the pink expectation of her tongue, the whole body shake
and spray of water flung off: a little galaxy
of love, of canine glee, of heart in orbit tight,
around and around a simple repetition.

Cecil Morris, a retired high school English teacher and Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee, has poems appearing or forthcoming in The Ekphrastic Review, Hole in the Head Review, New Verse News, Rust + Moth, Sugar House Review, Willawaw Journal, and elsewhere.