Category: Poetry (Page 11 of 35)

Birthplace

1 March 2024 / Editor

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

1 March 2024 / Editor

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.

Despair

1 March 2024 / Editor

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

1 March 2024 / Editor

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

1 March 2024 / Editor

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.

Photo by NASA Hubble Space Telescope on Unsplash

The Pillars of Creation*

1 March 2024 / Editor

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.

Aviary

1 February 2024 / Editor

Poetry by Konrad Ehresman

In the dark I hear the owl in my attic,
three beating thrums and a woosh,
screeching,
the sound of wings confined.

In the light,
I collect stray feathers
and celebrate silence.

Every day I think it gone,
but
every night,
the gift,
of being wrong.

I tell my family
but they can’t hear it,
say my mind is playing tricks,
I wonder where my brain mastered illusion,
how it chose
owl over
dove.

I could just show them,
pull on dangling cord,
turn shut door to yawning mouth,
bathe in the vindicating warmth of trapped air,
watch an owl erupt
from the parted lips of our house.

But I worry,

when I ask the attic to speak,
that it will refuse an audience,

that it will share only,
quiet settled into dust.

And I worry,

they will pity me as
I write pleas in the grime,
beg stale air to let them hear,
to teach them the music
of flying into walls,
the song of soaring
while starving.

But mostly,

I worry that if we look,
I might come to find,

there was no owl,

and the noise
is
mine.

Konrad Ehresman is a creative living on the central coast of California. His work has been featured by Ariel Chart, Awakened Voices, You Might Need to Hear This, and he has work upcoming in Mocking Owl Roost. When not writing Konrad can be found baking bread and being a nuisance.

Storms

1 February 2024 / Editor

Poetry by Diana Raab

Life is scattered with storms—
emotions and weather
that have run wild.

After a seven-year drought
I finally see rain trickle
down my bedroom window

as I rejoice that our reservoirs
will fill. This also makes me think
about how often life flows,

when a swift storm hits our psyche:
while trees and debris clutter
our path, and then,

during our psychological
clean up we pave the way
for clarity to be followed
yet by another storm.

Diana Raab, PhD, is an award-winning memoirist, poet, blogger, speaker, and author of 13 books. Her latest poetry chapbook is An Imaginary Affair: Poems Whispered to Neruda. She blogs for Psychology Today, Thrive Global, Sixty and Me, Good Men Project, The Wisdom Daily and many others. Visit: www.dianaraab.com.

acquisition

1 February 2024 / Editor

Poetry by Charlie Steak

walking
on the beach
I pick up shells
at the surf line
each tiny, perfect
(to me at any rate)
pale petal pink
delicate, ridged, lined,
butter paper yellow
rinsed in swirling water,
eluding my fingertips
chalkboard black
I have no purpose
for this handful of
bleached white
deserted homes,
is it ungrateful
to re-scatter
I’ll keep
one

Charlie Steak is an author and playwright currently living in the southwest USA. The winters are great but gardening in summer resembles Armageddon. Or maybe Mordor. He has written for Space 55, Synthetic Human, Rising Youth Theatre, and many other organizations. His poetry will be published in Constellations this winter.

A Night in Alaska

1 February 2024 / Editor

Poetry by Ellen Skilton

There are raccoons in the floorboards,
and to-dos sprouting from my ears.

The dog wedges himself under the bed to
monitor anxiously the vermin’s every move.

The Philly basketball announcer gets
hyped up about a free-throw parade.

But her enthusiasm doesn’t shake
my seeping sadness. Like the melting
ice outside, it finds every crevice to fill.

Across town, a man dreams of a night
in Alaska, so cold there is no hospitality.

He tells his son — being an old husband
is kind of like being a baby. Now, I can’t
un-see the word hospital in how we care.

I may have lied about my vision to get ugly
glasses in 1972, but today I am forgiven.

This morning’s sunshine on the winter trees
makes now seem so distinct from then.
Like a ski-lift, I float high above old mistakes.

Ellen Skilton‘s creative writing has appeared in Cathexis Northwest Press, Literary Mama, Ekphrastic Review, and Dillydoun Review. In addition to being a poet, she is an educational anthropologist, an applied linguist, and a Fringe Fest performer. She is also an excellent napper, a chocolate snob, and a swimmer.

Category: Poetry (Page 11 of 35)

Birthplace

suddenly the third day of spring

Despair

French Broad River

Early Spring

The Pillars of Creation*

Aviary

Storms

acquisition

A Night in Alaska

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