Category: Poetry (Page 35 of 41)

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Someplace Else

8 July 2022 / Editor

Poetry by Valerie Valente

Snails line the slick pavement
like a stagnant post-office queue
They probe the damp air
with gelatinous horns
as if they would enact
a slo-mo battle with the mist

I veer gingerly around them
as they forage in scattered directions,
blindly heading
someplace else
My eyes scrunch tight and I grimace
as I hear the inevitable
crunch of my misstep
A wayward journey swiftly ended
by the grime-laden sole of my shoe.

I pause to contemplate
my habitual direction,
a path so repetitiously followed
that my muscle-memory
just pulls me along
I point my face skywards,
feel the mist upon my cheeks,
and reverently turn towards
the silver moon’s beacon
With a tentative step
I abandon all direction,
blindly heading
someplace else

Valerie Valente’s first love was poetry; she has been writing since the age of nine. Valerie has self-published two children’s stories. She is now launching a creative writing workshop business, Kist Creative, which she hopes will expose people to the joyful, therapeutic benefits of tapping into their imaginative energies.

Upwellings

4 July 2022 / Editor

Poetry by Chris A. Smith

The wind is wild and self-willed,
and I mark its passage through the trees,
shaking them like marionettes,
the neighbor’s rainbow flag snapping with each gust.
High-pressure systems, temperature inversions,
ocean upwellings, the Bernoulli effect—
the language of meteorology fills my head.
Still, there’s mystery in the wind’s rough grip.

Next to me on the couch a sleeping cat,
an ouroboros of fur, snoring lightly.
I scratch behind his ears and,
still half-asleep, he flexes his paws,
his tiny motor rumbling to life.
He’s warm, and smells of sleep,
whiskers twitching, eyes dancing behind his eyelids.
I watch the trees tremble, and try to imagine his dreams.

Chris A. Smith is a writer in San Francisco. Though trained as a journalist–he’s reported on topics ranging from African acid rock to killer asteroids to revolutionary movements–he also writes fiction and poetry. Find him at chrisasmith.net.

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Jukebox

3 July 2022 / Editor

Poetry by C.T. Holte

Most nights, I am a jukebox.
Tunes play from the stash in my head—
doo-wop to Debussy,
Bach to Beach Boys—
chosen by a mysterious mechanism
and repeated as many times
as the system specifies:
no Next button,
no Mute switch,
no Off to let me sleep.

The selection varies:
last night, the top hit
was Mozart’s Ave Verum Corpus,
reprise of a piece I had sung recently
at a choral workshop;
tonight, perhaps a favorite or two
from American Bandstand
or Casey Casem’s top forty countdown.

Music and memory are amazing gifts,
even at the price of sleep interrupted
by random hours of Deck the Halls
at any time of the year.

C. T. Holte grew up without color TV and played along creeks and in cornfields. He has been a teacher and editor, and now migrates between New Mexico and a tiny New Hampshire cabin. His poetry is found in Words, California Quarterly, Months to Years, Pensive, and elsewhere.

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Paperboy

2 July 2022 / Editor

Poetry by Cosmo Goldsmith

From my bedroom window, overlooking
this tableau stillness of sheds and fields,
there is movement below
among the avenue of chestnut trees.

A paperboy ghosting through stippled shade,
luminous orange postbag strapped tightly
across his thin shoulders, first job perhaps,
so young he seems, restless and impatient,
eager to complete his round on schedule,
and keep in check the heavy tread of time,
those allotted hours and binding routines.

This is the crossover point he has reached
where suburbs give way and the fields begin;
a whole future unfolding before him
in misted prospects of treetops and hills.

And all I can do is watch and observe
from the opposite end of the telescope,
from the shrinking lenses of my vision,
for all my outlooks are gently receding.

The world out there belongs to him.

Cosmo Goldsmith is a ‘semi-retired’ English teacher with a passion for all forms of creative writing. He has taught in both the UK and Greece and still divides his time between these two countries.

The Swinger

29 June 2022 / Editor

Poetry by Carl Hubrick

Although traditions have we many
and technical skills beyond compare,
despite our thoughts and ideas aplenty
stored in computers everywhere,
’tis best at times to just remember,
and to ourselves gently remind,
that following us close in evolution
swings the chimpanzee with his
bare behind.

Carl Hubrick has a Bachelor’s in History and English and post-graduate diplomas in teaching, including teaching the Deaf. He first worked in the television industry as a director and later in teaching. His teenage novel Target for Terror (2008) is still in use in many New Zealand schools today.

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Crumbs

27 June 2022 / Editor

Poetry by t.m. thomson

Maybe the woods are on fire with green.
Maybe wild violets pepper the ground
in the March-cool air. Maybe leaves hang
from rain-drenched branches slick

with October or maybe snow’s audacity
coats ground & breath. Maybe regardless
I choose to sit in a broad-seated swing
pump my legs & sweep back & forth

scraping soil & coming face-to-face
with sky. Maybe I slow-kiss dawn & savor
afternoon & trust twilight, staying out
as long as moon & wearing a red dress.

It would be lovely if women would dance
below me. They could wear red as well
& shout encouragement at me & Glee
would rule the day & night.

Laughter & off-color conversation
would raise temples from mushroom
& moss. Surely the gods of the forest
would hear & come slithering/hopping/

soaring with heads raised & noses
twitching their curiosity at our offerings
of stirred leaves & shuffled snow
revealing black seed & apple rind

shards. We are but crumbs of cosmos
ourselves—why not blaze woods
with the green of our voices, shower them
with ahhh, shiver them with Yes?

(inspired by Niels Corfitzen – “Swimming Between Clouds,” 2021)

Three of t.m. thomson’s poems have been nominated for Pushcart Awards. She is co-author of Frame and Mount the Sky (2017), author of Strum and Lull (2019), which placed in Golden Walkman’s 2017 chapbook competition, and The Profusion (2019). Her first full-length collection, Plunge, will be published next year.

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Heartfelt: A Bilinguacultural Poem

25 June 2022 / Editor

Poetry by Yuan Changming

感：/gan/ perception takes place

when an ax breaks something on the heart

闷: /men/ depressed whenever your heart is

shut behind a door

忌：/ji/ jealousy implies

there being one’s self only in the heart

悲：/bei/ sorrow comes

from the negation of the heart

惑：/huo/ confusion occurs

when there are too many an ‘or’ over the heart

忠：/zhong/ loyalty remains

as long as the heart is kept right at the center

恥：/chi/ shame is the feel

you get when your ear conflicts with your heart

怒: /nu/ anger influxes when slavery

rises from above the heart

愁: /chou/ worry thickens as autumn

sits high on your heart

忍:/ren/ to tolerate is to bear a knife

straightly above your heart

忘: /wang/ forgetting happens

when there’s death on heart

意: /yi/ meaning is defined as

a sound over the heart

思: /si/ thought takes place

within the field of heart

恩: /en/ kindness is

a reliance on the heart

Yuan Changming hails with Allen Yuan from poetrypacific.blogspot.ca. Credits include 12 Pushcart nominations & chapbooks (most recently LIMERENCE) besides appearances in Best of the Best Canadian Poetry (2008-17), Poetry Daily & BestNewPoemsOnline, among 1929 others. Yuan served on the jury and was nominated for Canada’s National Magazine (poetry category).

Who Knew

23 June 2022 / Editor

Poetry by Barry H. Gordon

Someone wrote tenderly,
knowingly,
of the death of a classmate,
as we casually prepared
for the reunion
of the living
next summer.

Who knew, Durbin,
that your oddness,
your awkward efforts
to connect,
were linked to years,
fourteen we are told,
in a foster home.
And who knew
of the heartache
you carried at graduation
because your father
hadn’t survived to see you
walk across the stage
of life.

And who knew
really much of anything
about the true you,
or the true me
for that matter.
We just walked across
that stage
and most of us
kept on walking.

Still, I am jolted
to hear
you have dropped out of line
and I have missed
my chance to know you.

Barry H. Gordon is a retired psychologist and a published author of Your Father, Your Self and two co-authored books. He is an emerging poet who has been writing poetry throughout his career.

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Sparrows I Have Known

21 June 2022 / Editor

Poetry by Catherine Coundjeris

My first memory is of song–
song in sunlight rapturous and bright.
Elusive bodies hopping in branches
and on rooftops, lining wires
and chattering back and forth.

In Boston to my delight,
by old Ironsides, they
came to rest on my table.
Perching on the backs of chairs,
begging for morsels.

With my brother in Oxford,
we noticed their variety
marveled at their language
photographed them on walks.

Now in Frederick, outside Walmart,
they sit on baskets, flit
between cars, and angle
for scraps still curling along
the macadam.

It is April and I remember
our trek through back roads,
looking for hawks and eagles
with sparrows for company.

I have seen them
beat each other up
at bird feeders.
We have my brother’s old
feeder but we need
to buy a post for it.

They come anyway and
taste the seeds
on our fruit trees,
alighting on the wildflowers
on the hill behind our house.
My brother would have enjoyed it here.

A former elementary school teacher, Catherine Coundjeris has taught writing at Emerson College and ESL writing at Urban College in Boston. Her poetry is published in The Dawntreader, Visions with Voices, Nine Cloud Journal, Academy of the Heart and Mind, Bombfire, Paper Dragons and many more.

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Pilgrim

19 June 2022 / Editor

Poetry by Rob Lowe

I like clocks, and books, and music,
Things which structure the way forward,
Are signposts and dwelling places.

Map-reading living is my hobby;
But exploring the nature of being
Requires a compass of faith.

I am waterproofed with hope,
My thoughts are warm but breathable;
I am well-equipped for the journey.

And when at last the sun goes down
After a walk through mountain terrain,
I pitch a tent of morality.

I have no home, nor family,
My friends are birds and beasts and trees;
They talk to me nightly.

I saw a harvest once, of people,
Crowded on a plain below;
And in the midst there was a steeple

And what tolled from its Sunday bell?
There is no lasting peace until
Religion consists of poetry.

Rob Lowe has written privately for many years, but only lately started submitting pieces for publication. Typical work can be found in recent issues of Lucent Dreaming, Libretto, Seventh Quarry, Aromatica Poetica, and some anthologies. He lives in Milton Keynes in the U.K.