Category: Poetry (Page 13 of 35)

If Not Glitter, If Not Gold

17 December 2023 / Editor

Poetry by Kersten Christianson

This early Sunday morning
my coffee mug steams.
A miniature Mauna Loa,
it resides within an archipelago

of trunk-top clutter: Solstice gifts,
dog-eared chapbooks, sun-bright
Satsumas. In this indigo light,
I scour Etsy for glitter-crusted

New Year banners, lunar calendars,
their moons of the year stamped
in bright gold, not just on paper,
but parchment. I can’t explain

this fiery December need for
glimmer & glam, twinkle & flash,
but I am ever the believer, searcher
for the harbinger of fortune & joy.

Kersten Christianson is a poet and English teacher from Sitka, Alaska. She is the author of Curating the House of Nostalgia (Sheila-Na-Gig 2020) and Something Yet to Be Named (Kelsay Books, 2017). She serves as poetry editor of Alaska Women Speak. Kersten savors road trips, bookstores, and smooth ink pens.

Christmas 2000

17 December 2023 / Editor

Poetry by Nancy Kay Peterson

A red grapefruit sunrise hugs the horizon
and stark sycamore limbs lance the lunar landscape.
Chimney smoke signals an unreadable message.
Snow creaks in protest at every step.
Cold pierces even the heaviest coats.
It is a handful of days till winter solstice,
then Christmas, then nearly half a year till
the bare branches vanish in greenery, chimneys quiet.

II.

Christmas lights glow like jewels in the dark room
where, Norwegian traditions passed on to me,
an unrelenting weight, will pass to no one.
My Jewish ex-husband tolerated the annual pine invasion.
My Hong Kong husband eschews the antique ornaments
in favor of a minimalist approach — less work.
Scarred globes of my childhood remain boxed
like the Christmas pasts sleeping in my heart.

III.

The few remaining family have happy hour,
call the one uncle left, his days now numbered.
My brother-in-law has brought his mother
from the Aase Haugen Home where an old man
sat in his wheelchair by the door
asking “Can I come, too?” I can’t erase
the thought of one of us there as he is now
waiting for a Christmas that will never come.

The moon’s grin is ever cold, never changing.

Nancy Kay Peterson’s poetry has appeared in The Bluebird Word, Dash Literary Journal, HerWords, Last Stanza Poetry Journal, One Sentence Poems, RavensPerch, Spank the Carp, Steam Ticke, Three Line Poetry and Tipton Poetry Journal. She’s published two chapbooks, “Belated Remembrance” (2010) and “Selling the Family” (2021). For more information, see www.nancykaypeterson.com.

San Marcos Christmas

17 December 2023 / Editor

Poetry by Steve Wilson

No snow for Christmas in Texas, where nevertheless
the inflatable snowman across the street seems jovial

enough. In place of new-fallen snow, we’ve
a freshly mown lawn and, in our front garden,

five yellow flowers confused into blooming
by warm afternoons and clear skies. Still,

the neighbors’ twinkling lights manage to coax us all
toward something approaching goodwill with the world

that’s stubbornly churning along upon its complaints
and recriminations, its internet trolls, its rising rages.

Candles glow in windows here and there. Someone
has tethered a Santa to their chimney; it totters drunkenly

upon the breeze. We’re weary of this weariness, the lot
of us. Bumbling through. Mumbling. Humming

ragged fragments of carols as we worry our way
through the evening’s always breaking news.

Steve Wilson‘s poetry has appeared in journals and anthologies nationwide; as well as in six collections, the most recent entitled Complicity. He lives in San Marcos, TX.

Shadows and Silhouettes

17 December 2023 / Editor

Poetry by C. DeForest Switzer

She stood her ground beside
the blue tarp, looking up at me in the window
from the new and unknown below.
I stared down, hoping to convey
that everything was okay;
But, of course, it was not.

My family hated the “pests”—
their destructive habits;
the drab, dirty-gray rabbits that lurked
constantly wary but secure,
indifferent,
bolting free with lightning speed…
No problem for Dad;
his pellet gun at the ready.
The offense?
Eating garden plants to nubs —
creatures older than us,
forever in the dark:
now a kit under my deck,
quiet and free of predator’s eyes
Silhouetted in the dusk.
A paper cutout, unconcerned,
nibbling birdseed on the flagstone,
feet away from her ground-level haven.
And me, in the gray twilight,
atop the shelter of her life,
My rustic deck.

As the winter wind blows the snow,
the blue tarp flaps
atop the sheltered haven.
“It’s okay,” I mouth, looking down
from my window above,
motioning with hands and body
as best I can.
“It’s still safe,” I say
to the rabbit looking up at me
Thumping her foot in reply.

C. DeForest Switzer lives in western Iowa’s Loess Hills. He loves the outdoors and studied at Cal State, Chico, competing in a South Lake Tahoe park design contest. He published a poem in the college literary magazine, “Watershed,” and has been writing since. Currently, he’s editing his first novel.

Target, at Christmas

17 December 2023 / Editor

Poetry by Allison Baldwin

All it takes is the laughter of children,
the screech of shopping carts
to remind me of love.

In the aisle on my left,
red shirts in straight lines
waiting to be purchased
one by one.

Several feet away,
my best friend, walking, in an opposite direction
toward Starbursts, Sweet-Tarts, Goobers.

I know her: a sugar queen,
even as she asks me not to let her be.

I know me: last minute shopper, buying gifts for family
even when the task is far from easy.

In a basket:
Two small notebooks
A Yoshi hat my brother will never wear
A pair of Mario socks he will.
Some dog toys.

Love is not always easy, either.
But it holds its weight.

At the register, my friend gives into temptation,
buys the candy anyway
yet I follow through, tell her not to.

(The secret: I’ve already bought her
the sweets she seeks)

When she wonders why,
I say, “I am just doing my job.”

We laugh,
and the clerk joins in.

Allison Baldwin is a poet who combines authenticity with sass. Her work has been published in print and online, with an essay forthcoming in Folkway Press’s Right to Life anthology. She holds an MFA in Poetry and Poetic Medicine from Dominican University of California.

Another Christmas

17 December 2023 / Editor

Poetry by Rohan Buettel

That time of year has come again.
We brave the crowds in shopping malls
and search the shelves but look in vain,
the perfect gift not on these walls.
The hours we spend in kitchens hot
preparing food that tastes so good.
A Christmas meal will hit the spot,
enough to feast the neighbourhood.

The cheer of hearing from old friends,
the family gathers round at last,
repair the breaks and make amends,
a time to put away the past.
The effort worth it all to place
a smile upon a little face.

Rohan Buettel lives in Canberra, Australia. His haiku appear in various Australian and international journals (including Presence, Cattails and The Heron’s Nest). His longer poetry appears in more than fifty journals, including The Goodlife Review, Rappahannock Review, Penumbra Literary and Art Journal, Passengers Journal, Reed Magazine, Meniscus and Quadrant.

This peculiar work

17 December 2023 / Editor

Poetry by J.T. Homesley

This peculiar work. For this
lowest legal wage. Paid to
help people play. In the snow.
Tempting gravity. Nowhere to go.
But down hills high speed.
Not for me. Though I will
gladly take pay to keep it on
open all be it precarious
possibility for them. Others
buried in layered flannels
and rainbow goggles. I like
to imagine behind them, they see the world
like a horsefly gushing by trees
bristled hairs in loose tail
whipping. Ears twitching and
brittle as ice. Hit the landing
just right. Broken wings and six
shattered legs lie crumpled in a pile.
Rise from the white ashes,
laughing.
Clearly this whole thing is a peculiarity.
It’s just. They keep on insisting I call it work.

J.T. Homesley is an English teacher, writer, actor and farmer currently based in the Piedmont of North Carolina. He holds a Master of Arts in writing and has been published with collections including Ghost City Review and GreenPrints Magazine. Follow his journey at www.writeractorfarmer.com.

Thrift Shop Santa

2 December 2023 / Editor

Poetry by Melissa Wold

Santa, my man. How did you wind up in this place?
Santa, my man. How did you crack your face?
Tossed amid dusty knickknacks, chipped china plates.

Did Mrs. Claus catch your paws on the photo gal at the mall?
Did Mrs. Claus without pause pack your bag? What gall!
Now you sit lost on a shelf without an elf or Ken or Barbie doll.

Santa my man, come on home with me.
We’ll boogie round the tinseled tree.
Santa, my man, come on home with me.

Did you take to bettin’ on reindeer races?
Did you take to bettin’ on penguins running bases?
Money squandered on plastic roses in cob-webbed vases?

Did you binge on Jim Beam at the corner bar?
Did you still white lightning in a mason jar?
Serendipity plunked you into a martini glass tucked in a boxcar.

Santa my man, come on home with me.
We’ll boogie round the tinseled tree.
Santa, my man, come on home with me.

Did you and the elves have a spat?
Did they pull your beard? Did you rip off their hats?
Letters flake off a weather-worn welcome mat.

Santa, my man, hang your head in shame.
Santa my man, fess up, who’s to blame for your flagging fame?
Ninety-nine cents buys you and a sea-shell picture frame?

Santa my man, come on home with me.
We’ll boogie round the tinseled tree.
Santa, my man, come on home with me.

Melissa Wold is retired from a career in student services area of higher education. She writes with a group affiliated with Mobile Botanical Gardens in Mobile, Alabama. She shares her poems with Rocket, her rat terrier. He is quick with his barking critiques. Read her first published poem in The Bluebird Word from November 2022.

Fear of Falling

2 December 2023 / Editor

Poetry by Suzy Harris

They say we have not seen this high-piled snow
for more than thirty years. For three days now,
few cars snow-crush silently down the roads,
and walkers teeter on ice-crusted sidewalks.

Just yesterday, as I walked past a bus stop,
the woman in front of me fell thud-hard.
Another passerby and I reached our hands
to her, hefted her back up, handed her
her glasses clattered under the bench.

I knew her – not the falling woman,
but the other – and after, we stood together
under the snow-blue sky, exchanging a few words
before setting off, she to the bus,
me walking toward home,
imagining myself pillow-padded,
light as breath-puffs, balancing on air.

Suzy Harris is the author of the 2023 chapbook Listening in the Dark about living with hearing loss and learning to hear again with cochlear implants. She has served as a poetry editor for The Timberline Review and several of her poems have won recognition from the Oregon Poetry Association.

The Radiator

2 December 2023 / Editor

Poetry by Charlene Stegman Moskal

My winter years speak softly.
The aroma of chicken soup
mixes with the slightly metallic
scent of steam hissing warmth from a radiator
in a pre-war building in Sunnyside, Queens.

I am looking out a second story window—
snow has fallen through the night.
My gravel playground transformed;
sleds zooming down a silent hill,
snowsuits, runny noses, frozen finger tips
in gloves with ice crystals to suck
until a pall overtakes the streets.
Cold loses its Macintosh Apple crisp bite,
angels melt into nothingness,
streets now perilous with black ice and slush.

There were magazines with pictures
of places that stayed white
dotted with dark green pine trees,
under skies the blue of my mother’s eyes,
where one ice skated on frozen ponds
ringed by white capped mountains;
places so dry, so cold that a child
would look pink-skinned healthy all winter.

I wanted to be that rosy cheeked girl
but I always returned to a second floor apartment
where the aroma of chicken soup mixed
with the slightly metallic scent of steam from a radiator
that hissed out familiarity, comfort and love
in a pre-war building in Sunnyside, Queens.

Charlene Stegman Moskal is published in numerous anthologies, print and online magazines. Her chapbooks are One Bare Foot (Zeitgeist Press), Leavings from My Table (Finishing Line Press), Woman Who Dyes Her Hair (Kelsay Books), and a full length poetry manuscript, Running the Gamut (Zeitgeist Press), Fall 2023.

Category: Poetry (Page 13 of 35)

If Not Glitter, If Not Gold

Christmas 2000

San Marcos Christmas

Shadows and Silhouettes

Target, at Christmas

Another Christmas

This peculiar work

Thrift Shop Santa

Fear of Falling

The Radiator

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