Category: Poetry (Page 2 of 34)

Calling Out for Color

16 January 2025 / Editor

Prose Poetry by Kathryn Ganfield

Through the dirty, double-paned windows, screens blackened by a box fan that perches there five months of the year, I see snow poured out blue as gas station slushees or abandoned bottles of glacial electrolytic drinks. But when I open the back door, call out hoarsely to the dog, the snow is not blue after all. Not a bit blue, not even a little. Snow is mauve by the seasoned cedar fence, the fence we always meant to stain, but now seven years have gone by, and the weather beat us to it. Snow is black from puppy paws. Snow is divots and sand traps and even a mangrove back by the barbecue grill and the shade garden where, slicked green, the hosta leaves are a fitted sheet under a snowy duvet. And finally, eyes adjusted to winter’s light, I see the snow for what it is. Not white or blue or any of these colors, but, of course, a color sent south from Canada. The color of goose down—sharp, curling and cold.

Kathryn Ganfield is a Minnesota-based nature writer and essayist. She was a Loft Literary Center Mentor Series Fellow, 2023 Paul Gruchow Essay Contest winner, and a two-time Pushcart Prize nominee. Her words have been published in Water~Stone Review and Creative Nonfiction, among other journals. Find her at kathrynganfield.com.

Tsuga of the Pine Family (Haiku Sonnet)

13 January 2025 / Editor

Poetry by Kersten Christianson

Soft-needled hemlock,
sculpted by edged breeze, you are
both branched, bare-barked, your

evergreen voice notes
a wooden, wild chime chanting
against trunked neighbor.

Tonal clopping, wood
on wood on wood, whispering
needle, shuffling dried

pages of gale, tea-
tossed fluttering paper, winged
winter hummingbirds.

Twinkled spell of fête, nip, rime,
you are welcome in our home.

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.

Tabula Rasa

10 January 2025 / Editor

Poetry by Jennie Meyer

The beach a sheet
of untouched morning snow—
the sweeping tide a distant rumble.

My scuffing footprints
as I draft this new poem in steaming breaths—
the first and only brushstrokes.

Not a soul on the beach— no bird, no human,
no dog, not even a fowl’s fork-print embossed.

An empty canvas, free of life’s clamber.

Only one white car parked on Atlantic Ave.
One song sparrow singing like its spring
from some snow-filled limb.

One black mussel reaching out
from beneath the white sheet.

One seagull lifting off from tidal stream,
landing on the blanketed beach, mirroring
its purity with her white sloping belly,

painting it, Pollok-like, with one blast of scat.
Each of us engaged in her craft.

Jennie Meyer’s poetry has appeared in two print anthologies and numerous print and online publications. She is a 2024 finalist for Cathexis Northwest Press: Unpublished Author Chapbook contest, a 2023 winner of Beyond Words: The End of the World Creative Writing Challenge and a 2022 grant recipient from Discover Gloucester.

January Walk

6 January 2025 / Editor

Poetry by Laura Hannett

Trudging in my brilliant scarf
my coat, my hat, my gloves
I see that
as much as any other creature
I am an adornment to the world
The cardinal
so lavishly and recklessly red
in the black-and-white tracery of snowy branches
is not more bracing to the eye

Shaking not a little
from the pitiless wind
I fear that
as much as any other creature
I am a trifle to the world
The rabbit
huddled with ruffled fur
beneath the spirea’s bones
is not more exposed to the cold

Returning home
to warmth that bathes my icy face
I own that
I am some fortune’s darling
The cats
so thoroughly and sensuously lost in sleep
on this freezing afternoon
are not more spoiled than me

Laura Hannett lives in Central New York with her marvelous family. She is a graduate of Hamilton College and the College of William and Mary.

The Calendar Ritual

1 January 2025 / Editor

Poetry by Melanie Harless

It is the end of one year
the beginning of another
I take out all the calendars
sent by charities pursuing
donations

and choose one with lovely pictures
and the largest day blocks
with enough space to write many
upcoming events on a busy day

the calendar is smooth and new
holds the promise of a smooth new year
I hope that lunches and parties
will be filling the spaces, not doctor
appointments or boring meetings

I am already filling up the days
of January and will go through
each month and write in birthdays
and regular scheduled meetings

many people have online calendars
but I have launched a new calendar
with high hopes for the coming year
for as long as I can remember

I take my cup of coffee and walk
to the calendar each morning
and am greeted with a beautiful scene
as I check what awaits the new day

Melanie Harless began writing after retirement as a school librarian in 2006. She is an award-winning writer with poetry, fiction, non-fiction, and photography published in anthologies, journals, and magazines. She is a board member of Tennessee Mountain Writers and leads excursions for the Oak Ridge Institute for Continued Learning.

Two Winter Haiku

29 December 2024 / Editor

Poetry by M.L. Lyons

Pine trees of winter
Burlap warms the cedars
Deer licks green needles.

Year end ritual
Snow geese cry fleeing winter
Beeswax candles glow

M. L. Lyons is a poet, writer, editor and co-editor of the anthology, “Raising Lilly Ledbetter: Women Poets Occupy the Workplace.” Her work has been nominated for the Pushcart and her poetry collection, “Songs from the Multiverse” is forthcoming in 2025 from Finishing Line Press.

Jam Cakes

27 December 2024 / Editor

Poetry by Lo Riddell

Here comes nature’s peace
offering: pale landscapes

with feather-brush forests
licking the first snowflakes

straight from the sky.
Invisible sun shines through

shadow-bellied clouds, turning
blue skies white with promise

of more snow. My grandmother
alchemizes the last of her summer

blackberries into cakes that fit
kindly in my open hands.

Dusk comes early once again,
creeping in through kitchen windows

to steal a piece of fresh-baked bread
from the stovetop. The holly berries

light up the roadside like string lights
for families of deer trotting by.

At last, December takes her stage
and exhales the passing year.

Lo Riddell is a lesbian writer from southern Ohio, currently based in New England. She received her BFA in Creative Writing from Bowling Green State University in 2022, and now spends her free time writing poetry, prose, and essays on pop culture. You can find her on Instagram at @vintagelouisa.

Bluebirds on Christmas Day

25 December 2024 / Editor

Poetry by Wesley Sims

Early morning, a gloomy Christmas day,
with only mild expectations,
noisy birds gathering for breakfast outside.
I trudge to the kitchen for morning tea,
pull the blinds, put out some feed.
Within minutes three bluebirds arrive
and perch the porch rail near the patio door.
Their bold blue feathers seem to shine
like robes in the beam of brightening sky.
They seem not in a hurry to eat,
peer at me for a while as if
to ask a question. I ponder how three
is a perfect number so fitting this day.
They fly away but leave their gifts—
beauty and hope and a helping of cheer.

One soon returns to sit, and lingers.
Here for seconds or to tell me something?
If a bird could talk what would it say?
He tilts his head up toward the sky,
sits motionless for five full minutes.
Finally lowers his little blue head
and gazes at me through the glass.
Sits almost still for five minutes more.
I’ve fed the birds in winter for years
but never before witnessed such a scene.
I bow my head, and offer thanks.

Wesley Sims has published three chapbooks of poetry: When Night Comes, 2013; Taste of Change, 2019; and A Pocketful of Little Poems, 2020. His work has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies, and he has had poems nominated for Best of the Net and the Pushcart Prize.

Sounds of Christmas

23 December 2024 / Editor

Poetry by Brian Billings

When we reach December,
the sounds begin to change.
The steady hum of daily life
moves to a higher range.
The beats become staccato
while chording starts to swell.
These are the sounds of Christmas I know well.

The Santas manning city blocks
collect the coins that clink.
Laughter spills from coffee shops
where good friends share a drink.
Bags of presents crinkle.
Chimes on front doors tinkle.
Swishing brooms push flakes away
where snow’s begun to sprinkle.

Cheery fires crackle
where families abide.
Wintry breezes howl and hiss
while lovers kiss inside.
There’s a fizz within the whiz
of shoppers all pell-mell.
These are the sounds of Christmas I know well.

An organ roaring “Allelu!”
will leave you feeling jolly; you
can hear good tidings when the rafters ring.
The glockenspiel and carillon
will help high spirits barrel on
when either instrument begins to sing.

The snap of bursting popcorn
locked in a box of glass.
The piping of a cardinal.
A greeting as you pass.
Not one of these dear novelties
is just a bagatelle.
These are the sounds of Christmas I know well.

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.

Christmas Comes

21 December 2024 / Editor

Poetry by Terri Watrous Berry

Like well-rehearsed mice, we
grumble through a mall maze,
hoping just to find the perfect
tie, but whether the bathrobe’s
bought or not, Christmas comes.
And all is not merry and bright
holly jolly Christmas folly for
we just have far too much to do!
Until the magic moment, for
there’s always that one magic
moment, when Christmas gifts
itself to us again. It may happen
in the twinkling of a small child’s
eyes, or a carol keyed within
a lock hidden in your heart.
Or a perfect stranger’s change
clangs, into a copper kettle, and
your own bone-weary spirit is
renewed. No, Christmas doesn’t
come to us, it just sits there
on the calendar. We are the ones
who finally come to Christmas.

Terri Watrous Berry’s prose has received awards from venues as diverse as Hemingway Days Festival and Des Plaines/Park Ridge NOW Feminist Writers Competition. Nonfiction pieces this year were included in Wayward Literature, The The Bluebird Word, and The Terry Tribune; fiction in Wising Up Press, Persimmon Tree, and University of Alabama.