Category: Poetry (Page 14 of 35)

Eleven Elves in Eight Elfchens

2 December 2023 / Editor

Poetry by Brian C. Billings

Stockings
hold two
for the children.
Four eyes keep watch,
judging.

Doorside,
one lounges
in our wreath’s
bedding of red bows.
Slacker.

Snap,
Crackle, and
Pop have a
friend in the pantry:
Quinoa.

Climbing
the tree
in the foyer,
one clings to a
garland.

Jesus
lies waiting
for his gifts.
An elfling offers him
peppermints.

Kitchen
candles nestle
in three laps
while the bread machine
bakes.

Guppies
rush past
a jolly figure
necklaced in a silver
ichthys.

Boxes
wrapped in
Santa paper camouflage
the final visitor in
scarlet.

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, The Bluebird Word, Confrontation, Evening Street Review, Glacial Hills Review, and Poems and Plays. Publishers for his scripts include Eldridge Publishing and Heuer Publishing. Read his poem from March 2023 in The Bluebird Word.

Cordially (in Winter)

2 December 2023 / Editor

Poetry by Jennifer Campbell

Each driveway is a scuffed shoe,
tick marks revealing the extent
of our waiting.

Days when blue sky pokes through
the gray, cars fill the roads
with more color.

The gray days are what I want
to tell you about:
landscape, water, and horizon,
different smears of charcoal.

I hope this letter finds you well
is something I could say
if I were being impersonal,
but formality went out the window
with your last address.

We may freely speak
about the steak you fixed
to perfection or how it felt
to play pool after all this time,
experiences that are so real.

Yet someone who intercepts
this letter could imagine
I am speaking of the afterlife,
the imagery of travel a tool
to express how we keep moving.

Jennifer Campbell is a writing professor in Buffalo, NY, and a co-editor of Earth’s Daughters. She has two poetry collections, Supposed to Love and Driving Straight Through, and a chapbook of reconstituted fairytale poems. Jennifer’s work has recently appeared in Healing Muse and Paterson Literary Review and is forthcoming in Slipstream.

Expectations

2 December 2023 / Editor

Poetry by Peter A. Witt

Winter arrived, unpacked its undressed trees,
waters that slowed to an iced tea trickle,
sun that slept late and went to bed early,
harvest moon that had completed its job,
now a memory of witches riding broom
sticks across its surface. We settled in
for weeks of log laying, kernels that
popped with a buttery rhythm, holidays
celebrated with family, few of whom
could remember their meaning, snows
that filled the yard with carrot-eyed statues,
and a groundhog that despised its shadow.
We looked forward to snowdrops,
robins, and waxwings, all harbingers
that warmer days, gentle rains, baby
rabbits, and softer skies were ahead.
All this we could count on year-by-year,
written only in our expectations, played
out with joy, wisdom, and wonder.

Peter A. Witt is a poet, family history writer, active birder and photographer. He took up writing poetry in 2015 from a 43 year university teaching and research career. He lives in Texas. His work has been published in several online and print publications.

Echo

2 December 2023 / Editor

Poetry by Christine Andersen

When the pond froze over
my father and I went out
with our skates and hockey sticks
slung over our shoulders,
trudged through the snow
to the log where we laced up.

He swept the ice clean,
gliding behind a broom
in the brisk air
with the grace of a floating swan.

We spun circles
end to end,
sliced the ice
with newly sharpened blades
in flurries of low, white storms
deking,
zigzagging the puck—
a deft strike
then another
and another—

wooden sticks clacking
against the whir of our blades—
the puck— a lightning bolt
across the glittered surface—

I yelled,
I got this!
Watch out!
SCORE!

Score
score
echoed off the ice
like rumbling thunder
through the winter woods,
where 40 years after,
when I walk by the pond,
it echoes still.

Christine Andersen is a retired dyslexia specialist who hikes the Connecticut woods daily, pen and pad in pocket. The outdoors inspires many of her poems. Publications include Comstock, Octillo, Awakenings and Evening Street Reviews, Dash, Slab and Glimpse, among others. She won the 2023 American Writers Review Poetry Contest. Read her poem Wild from The Bluebird Word’s October Issue.

Feliz Año Nuevo/Happy New Year

2 December 2023 / Editor

Poetry by Amelia Díaz Ettinger

of course, most New Years
Eve, La Nochevieja, were spent
with mi Papá, at home or at La Casa
de España. Him in a tuxedo
to dance with me at intervals
between him and whichever
boy was my fancy at the time.

But mostly it was about the two
of us. Watching fireworks
from the roof of that club,
with its uncertain roots
forged on prejudice
and privilege.

Yet for me the pleasure of la Nochevieja
was staying at home in plain,
comfortable clothes,
with Papi throwing bucket after bucket
of water out the door
—a sacar los males del año

as if our sins and trifle peccadillos
could be washed away with rain

una Nochevieja, he smiled and said,
—pon un huevo en agua
and I did. Placing the raw egg
on a glass of water,
—En la mañana verás el futuro

but in the morning, the future in the glass
was a thin veil of clouded hesitancy,
just as the tide between the young
and the old year. It left no prophesy
of what we would lose, nor
what any New Year can bring back again.

Amelia Díaz Ettinger is a Latinx BIPOC poet and writer. She has three books of poetry and two chapbooks published. Her poetry and short stories have appeared in many literary journals and anthologies.

Perhaps

22 October 2023 / Editor

Poetry by Anne Leigh Parrish

We map disaster
Perilous seaways
Treacherous mountain passes
Forbidding terrains of all kinds

Do we hold it in common, or
Is there one map for you, and another for me?

We find ourselves on a tiny plot of land
In a strangely calm sea

How do we escape?
The map is blank
Faded and burned by the sun

We’ll draw a new one, you say
With clear paths and gentle views
No, I say, that’s a silly fantasy
You say, perhaps, but some call it faith

Anne Leigh Parrish’s new poetry collection, If The Sky Won’t Have Me, was recently published by Unsolicited Press. Her next novel, A Summer Morning, arrives in October 2023, also from Unsolicited Press. She lives in Olympia, Washington. Explore her writing at www.anneleighparrish.com and her photography at www.laviniastudios.com.

Photo by Vijayalakshmi Nidugondi on Unsplash

Framed Declaration

22 October 2023 / Editor

Poetry by John Zedolik

I thank father fish for my spine,
which with the earth allows me to align
and look straight up if I choose
into the sky in effort not to lose

my bearings and reconfirm my status
as one of capacity to focus on the stratus
and my semi-separation from the ground
rejoice in relative stability found

in the necessary inherited armature
support to compete with any furniture
remain myself and certainly discrete
while with lifetime gravity I must compete

John Zedolik recently published his third collection, Mother Mourning (Wipf & Stock). He has also published two other collections, When the Spirit Moves Me (Wipf & Stock), and Salient Points and Sharp Angles (WordTech Editions), which are available through Amazon. Additionally, he has published many poems in journals around the world.

gray metal candle lantern on boat dock — Photo by Burak The Weekender on Pexels.com

A Good Night

22 October 2023 / Editor

Poetry by Paul Cummins

Already with thee, tender is the night.
John Keats, “Ode to a Nightingale”

Not fancy, not a dream—truly, Nancy kissed me goodnight,
Her lovely face lifting tenderly to meet mine,
That magical midnight, that innocent June,
Yes, she kissed me on the lips and I knew.

Then, with a strange new lightness to my gait,
I glided down her lawn to my moonlit Chevrolet,
Dizzying home in a popular-song sort of bliss—
Recalling a lifetime later the sweetness of that kiss.

So say to me whatever you may and know,
Say Paul, that day over half a century ago,
And I shall reply with enduring delight,
Beautiful Nancy kissed me that good night.

Paul Cummins is an educator, writer and social entrepreneur. From classroom teaching he went on to the founding and co-founding of six schools—including independent schools and a Public Charter School. From educational outreach programs to groundbreaking ventures, Cummins champions quality education, especially for at-risk, foster and incarcerated youth.

Reminder

22 October 2023 / Editor

Poetry by Travis Stephens

Scattered around town,
bolted to the backs of benches
or bus shelters or appearing
without apology in free magazines
are well composed photos of
a couple, plus the sans serif
“It’s time to talk about Alzheimer’s.”

Yes, you say, while we can.
Before we forget to, I offer,
teaming for another joke.
Or talk about it again, you smile,
Because we don’t remember
we already did.
We are walking to the taco truck
on Pico, the one with the dollar tacos.
Not big, but tasty. Plus cans of Coke
or Sprite or milky horchata.
You order for both of us, the men
at ease with your dark-eyed loveliness
& tolerant of my gray hair.

I’ve always looked older, fooled even you.
But I see that the back of my arm
now looks crepey, the spots on my
hands not freckles or ink. We sometimes
run the numbers to calculate what your
parents were doing at our age, living
in Palm Springs or travelling abroad.
Grandparents many times over & both
retired early—something I am reminded
of in my daily commute. Grandpa Tug,
the little one says, & points at the stencil
on my shirt. His small body
lodged between us on the couch as we read.
The daily arrival of joy, eyes fresh with wonder.
If we stumble over names, what to call
that thing, you know…thing, don’t worry.
We will talk about it later,
vow to remember, try not to forget.

Travis Stephens is a tugboat captain who resides with his family in California. Recent credits include: Gyroscope Review, 2River, Sheila-Na-Gig, Tiny Seed Literary Journal, Raven’s Perch, Crosswinds Poetry Journal, Gravitas and The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature. Read his earlier poems in The Bluebird Word from April 2022 and September 2022.

Walk a Block

22 October 2023 / Editor

Poetry by Brian Christopher Giddens

The brace of wind
Belies the broad blue sky
And puffs of clouds above me.

I walk, briskly,
To clear my head.

But let’s be honest.

My head is as empty
As a vacant room,
Dull, devoid of detail.

I need an image.
An image that gives birth
To a first word, then a series of words,
Forming sentences, creating a theme,
A theme that leads to a poem.

Or perhaps a story.
An idea that sparks imagination,
A bursting star in a black sky,
Creating a world, a place,
Out of nothing.

A world of words that
Make my fingers fly ‘cross the keyboard
Stopping at times, mid-flight,
To wipe my eyes,
Or laugh out loud.

Lost, in a new land.

Brian Christopher Giddens writes fiction and poetry from his dining room table in Seattle. Brian’s writing has been featured or is pending in Raven’s Perch, Litro Magazine, Silver Rose, On the Run Fiction, Glass Gates Collective, Roi Faineant, Flash Fiction Magazine, Hyacinth Review, and Evening Street Review.

Category: Poetry (Page 14 of 35)

Eleven Elves in Eight Elfchens

Cordially (in Winter)

Expectations

Echo

Feliz Año Nuevo/Happy New Year

Perhaps

Framed Declaration

A Good Night

Reminder

Walk a Block

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