Category: Poetry (Page 1 of 35)

Whaleshark

20 March 2025 / Editor

Poetry by Arthur Ginsberg

for Miriam, La Paz 2024

Of all the treasures hidden in the sea,
creation sprinkled them with luminous dots,
and none more magisterial than thee.
They range from far to migrate to this spot.

For months they feast on ocean’s sumptuous broth
of plankton, krill and small fish through fine gills.
Stunned by their beauty we hover like moths,
recalling with horror how Ahab killed.

We come as strangers to this holy place,
as do pilgrims travel to a shrine,
to feel these spirits through our eyes’ embrace,
to revel in their eloquent design.

From fin to head they’ve not a single bone,
a scaffold upon which to drape their flesh,
solely from cartilage these giants have grown
to swim for years through oceans without rest.

Our guide beckons that it’s time to go
back to the solid earth we love and know.

Arthur Ginsberg is a neurologist and poet from Seattle who has studied with Galway Kinnell, Marvin Bell, Dorianne Laux, and Sandra Alcosser. He holds an MFA from Pacific University. He teaches poetry in the Honors program at the University of Washington. His books are Brain Works and Holy the Body.

Sister Beams

14 March 2025 / Editor

Poetry by Anne Bower

We look to words for paths forward
beyond complaints, self-pity, nostalgia
long for new seeing
new rhythms, surprise
like a gong in midnight’s silence
or reassuring sister beams
nailed to old timbers
to shore up this old house,
like a tent of sapling trunks
giving purchase to beans’ urging tendrils

Anne Bower‘s poems have appeared in multiple literary journals and anthologies as well as three chapbooks. She lives in rural Vermont, teaches tai chi, trains instructors, gardens, and is currently working on a novel set in Appalachia with a protagonist who becomes a famous quilter.

Tracking the Fox

11 March 2025 / Editor

Poetry by Terra Miller

sticks and stones
encased in ice
shine in the eye
of the hidden sun.
her

pawprints hide beneath
fallen birch tree
and between broken
boulders.
she will not escape me.
but

while snowflakes fall into
the wind
making white mounds
of rubble
out of autumn

a voice creeps into my ear:
rest.
what have i
to lose
or gain?

i stand
ankle deep in snow
on a wet stone,
ready to sharpen my mind
with silence.

i’ll let the vixen tread another trail
for me to find tomorrow.

Terra Miller is a tired senior at Palm Beach Atlantic University in Florida. Her poetry has been published in Living Waters Review and Westmarch Literary Journal. Even though she’s had the opportunity to live in many states, she would call Hawaii her home, leaving half her heart behind after moving.

Robin Bathing in Puddle

1 March 2025 / Editor

Poetry by Russell Rowland

The puddle was available, because
it rained last night. Drought means a long time
between birdbaths.

Only a quick dip and flutter. Overindulgence
takes time away from foraging.

I relate to the hygienics
of a backyard bird, for after all, we too are songs
bird-caged in bodies for a while—

though we have bathed in the Jordan
with some others, to wash away shortcomings;

restore our voices. The robin
meanwhile simply rises, refreshed and cleansed,
to a nest with its three promises.

Russell Rowland writes from New Hampshire. Recent work appears in Red Eft Review, Wilderness House, Bookends Review, and The Windhover. His latest poetry books, Wooden Nutmegs and Magnificat, are available from Encircle Publications. He is a trail maintainer for the Lakes Region (NH) Conservation Trust.

While Walking Down the Twilit Road

1 March 2025 / Editor

Poetry by Brian C. Billings

While walking down the twilit road
that flows along my neighborhood,
I cast aside my daily load
and thought of comfort as I could
until a limping insect crossed
upon my way. So small. So lost.

It labored toward a leeward hedge
along an inconsistent line
that ended in the rounded edge
where bricking holds a crossing sign.
Six legs marched forth to meet the goal,
their push propelled by sturdy soul.

A line of molt had split the shell.
Two claws were badly worn and bent.
The bulbous head bobbed in a spell
while on the creature weakly went.
I felt a stir of comradeship
as I beheld this forlorn trip.

Too often have I dwelled these days
on thorny word and bitter thought
and given reign to black malaise
convinced depression was my lot.
Cicada nymph, your simple drive
reminds me how to be alive.

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 Paths, Antietam Review, Confrontation, Evening Street Review, Glacial Hills Review, and Poems and Plays. Publishers for his scripts include Eldridge Publishing and Heuer Publishing.

Family Flock

23 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.

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.