Category: Poetry (Page 5 of 43)

Lessons from Sunflowers

17 October 2025 / Editor

Poetry by Nancy Kay Peterson

In thick morning fog,
tall, dark-eyed cyclops
with butter-colored faces
face eastward, patient,
sensing the unseen sun,
trusting in its rising.

We fear anything could emerge
from the earthbound cloud,
things undreamable.
We covet the one-eyes’
sun-bright faces that turn
confidently in the white unknown

with unwavering determination
and joy.

Nancy Kay Peterson’s poetry is in The Bluebird Word, Dash Literary Journal, Earth’s Daughters, Last Stanza, RavensPerch, Spank the Carp, Steam Ticket, and Tipton Poetry Journal. She co-published Main Channel Voices: A Dam Fine Literary Magazine (2004-2009) and has authored two chapbooks: Belated Remembrance (2010) and Selling the Family (2021) from Finishing Line Press. Visit www.nancykaypeterson.com.

Pulse

11 October 2025 / Editor

Poetry by Richard Levine

One morning alone, light came
and I understood everything
in the world belonged to itself.

The sky surrounded a heron,
and from a green curve in the creek
it rose on the broad majesty

of its loneliness and wings.
The noiseless blue paddling
of my pulse, timed it out of sight.

Above me, wind stirred trees
… is it any wonder stringed
instruments sing so sweetly?

Richard Levine, an Advisory Editor of BigCityLit.com, is author of the forthcoming Taming of the Hour: An Almanac with Marginalia from Fernwood Press.

Autumn

6 October 2025 / Editor

Poetry by Susan Zwingli

I can’t afford to miss
the autumn leaves this year;
my hands, so busy with mend and tear,
eyes blurred by loss
I could overlook
the changing tender veins, leafy points igniting
tangerine, vermillion, golden sparks
as they scatter, trembling,
joyful, even in free-fall
I must not miss their fire
because of my own steady burning;
unearthing ash where once
only vibrant color lived
Soon, frosty windows will frame
the turning, returning, to sacred ground
and I will feel the chlorophyl surrendering, oxygen releasing;
taste autumn’s tangy bitter sweetness;
behold the way falling leaves hold the light
even as they die

Susan Zwingli currently lives in Henrico, Virginia. She holds a BA in English, an MA in Spiritual Formation, and writes about nature, relationships, spirituality, and life beyond loss. Susan’s poems have been published by the One Page Poetry Anthology (2023/2024) and The Bluebird Word (2024).

Overheard, an offering

3 October 2025 / Editor

Poetry by Michelle Hasty

The line of us waits silently for the audiologist
Leaf green chairs face closed white doors
We seem ordered according to age and startle
When a mechanical voice shouts at us
From someone’s purse saying that she has reached
Her destination and the owner of the phone
Stops the sound, shakes her head, and says
She’s asked her son to quit with the technology
But he tells her she must join the 21st century
I’m here, she says, giggling, I just don’t know
What to do here. The line of us giggles with her.
Silence broken, a pair to my left discusses ailments.
It’s always something, one says.
I can’t hear the specifics—this is why I’m here–
But I catch a phrase from the other: I can’t really complain,
She says. The phrase catches me up short: I can complain.
I don’t want pink plastic devices attached to my ears
When I’m barely fifty. The possibility of a piercing
Shriek emanating, of my body beeping, I’m here!
Seems like a good reason to complain. Wasn’t I just
In middle school forever scrambling on the grass
Searching for lost contact lenses, or praying in ballet class
That the sound of music would cover my knees cracking?
A white door opens and a wobbly woman emerges,
Sinks into an empty chair at the end of our line.
Dizzy, she mutters. Getting crackers, the technician calls
Bustling past us, using her badge to exit the corridor.
The woman who can’t complain digs something
Out of her purse, holds a cupped hand to
The one who is dizzy, and asks, would you like a peppermint?
I am grateful to have heard this offering.

Michelle Hasty is a professor of education living in Nashville, Tennessee. Her academic writing has been published in literacy journals, such as Voices from the Middle and The Reading Teacher, and her short story, “Prone to Wander,” was published in the Dillydoun Daily Review. She is new to poetry writing.

A Half-Decent Guy

1 October 2025 / Editor

Poetry by Brian C. Billings

He always went off half-cocked—

left every party halfway through
because he only half knew anybody,

half convinced himself he was a genius
(but half forgot how to prove it),

took the better half of a day to go anywhere
and the worse half of a night to leave,

drank his morning coffee half ready
and his evening drinks half mixed,

never took more than half a chance
when acting on his own behalf,

bought about half of the small lies
while halfheartedly believing the big truth,

tossed away his relationships half done
whenever his love had half begun,

acted like a halfwit more than he should
(while maybe half understanding why),

stayed half on track when the job mattered
and went half astray whenever it didn’t,

ran over half the world to find himself
and half killed himself when he couldn’t,

gave the people who tried half a chance
about half the time he worked with them . . .

They say he was a decent guy,
but they don’t know the half of it.

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, The Bluebird Word, Confrontation, Evening Street Review, Glacial Hills Review, and Poems and Plays. Publishers for his scripts include Eldridge Publishing and Heuer Publishing.

In Praise of the Apple

27 September 2025 / Editor

Poetry by Sheri Flowers Anderson

Even those tasteless ones that taste like water,
those ones with the soft texture

of out-of-season defeat, can be composted,
fed back to nature, reclaimed into the earth.

I prefer the cleansing scent and sweetness, the mild
tart-tingle-crunch of fresh taste in my mouth,

biting into the unpeeled whole of an apple, the
whole of life, just as it is,

delighting in nature’s freshness, in the inspired,
intimate relationship with an apple a day

Surely, I’d fail a blind taste test, these tastebuds
unskilled in differentiating between a Fuji and a Gala,

or a Red Delicious and a Mcintosh. But still,
I’d savor the varying flavors, the firm texture,

my teeth and tongue enmeshed with this simple
thrill, the magnificence, bite after bite.

Sheri Flowers Anderson writes and lives in San Antonio, Texas. Her work has appeared in Atlanta Review, Unbroken Journal, Pensive Journal and others. She’s the author of a poetry collection entitled House and Home (Broadside Lotus Press). When she’s not writing or reading, she’s watching YouTube. Visit: https://linktr.ee/sheriflowersanderson.

This Morning

1 September 2025 / Editor

Poetry by Kate McNairy

I’ve been longing for you,
minutes dog my hours—

a prism splits
early morning light.

There’s so much chatter
among colors

that I am not alone—
there is so much to feel

& in a clump of orange
tiger lilies by the road

petal touches petal.

Kate McNairy has a forthcoming chapbook from Finishing Line Press. Her work appears in Third Wednesday, Raven’s Perch and The Bluebird Word, among other journals. Kate lives in upstate New York.

Photo by Vijayalakshmi Nidugondi on Unsplash

Voices

1 September 2025 / Editor

Poetry by Marsha Howland

A solo artist sings in the
woods close by. Four notes,
a pause, then two and six
(three times). For several
minutes this bird loudly
performs. Then comes a
soft echo from deeper in
the woods. They sing a
duet, back and forth, his
voice growing more faint
each time he flies further
into the thickening trees.
By stages, song and
response move closer and
closer, until it almost seems
there is one voice, one song,
one small triumph in the
eternal progressions of
life. The nature of things:
You find your voice and, if
blessed, find another.

Marsha Howland‘s poems have been published in The Moon issue of The Black and White series, the American Journal of Nursing, and Waves (AROHO). As a senior at Wellesley, Marsha won the college’s Academy of American Poets prize. She had the privilege of studying with poets David Ferry and Frank Bidart.

Fairytale in Six Voices

1 September 2025 / Editor

Poetry by Norbert Hirschhorn

The Prologue

Once upon a time, a young woman—beautiful, good, true—lived in a forest hut with her poor but honest parents. One day, a Prince came by on horseback & looking out for a bit of mischief, began to court her. Her parents, knowing what could come, tried to talk sense: We’re beneath his station, he’ll break your heart, we need you here, & so forth. But she was ecstatic; it had never happened before, probably would never again. You see, although she was lovely, virtuous, etc., she had a deformity, tuberculosis of the spine from childhood. But she was too happy to think clearly, & the Prince, perhaps a little in love, appeared not to notice. One day he rode up to the little hut saying, Get yourself ready, I want to introduce you to the King and Queen. Her parents, wanting only her happiness, sold their cow, pawned their dishes, mortgaged their little plot so she could wear something decorous, lovely for the meeting. But only one thing, said the Prince. Yes, darling, anything, she replied. When we enter the Royal Court, try to stand up straight.

The Voices

The Young Woman’s Parents (a duet): We were idiots to think this could even be. All that time we deliberately stayed in the forest, away from people, so our daughter would never have cause to be unhappy.

The King: Reginald disappoints. A gadabout, he has never buckled down to study statecraft and the arts of war. So, when he announced he had been taken in by this opportunist with her mincing gait, I was ready to disinherit the fool, send him out of the Kingdom.

The Queen: He is a good son. Headstrong like his father, but a romantic like me. Perhaps it was something about the zephyrs, the honeysuckle, forest trails surprising at each turn. When the King courted me, I too was cloistered, shy, worshipful. I would have liked to have met this young innocent.

The Prince: So imagine how I felt! Well, she was sweet. I thought she was just being humble, not a hunchback. I’d never hear the end of it from my mates, never mind all the goosey gossip. I had some gold coins sent over.

The Young Woman: It was a dream, and so it sweetened my life. I know no one lives happily ever after, especially not in a castle. But if the King had condemned him to exile, I would have gone with him. My parents and I are moving deeper into the forest.

Norbert Hirschhorn is a public health physician, commended by President Bill Clinton as an “American Health Hero,” proud to follow in the tradition of physician-poets. Hirschhorn has published seven previous collections; recently Over the Edge from Holland Park Press, London. Visit https://bertzpoet.com.

Bright Prospects

1 September 2025 / Editor

Poetry by Andy Oram

Free from guile or prejudice, snow
Casts a rarified grace.

It fills the land with crisp equity,
Assured monument to the Earth’s greatest artifice,
The tip in axis that brings us appointed seasons.

Crystal, by breeze-sculpted crystal, fasten atoms
Poised to bestow the promise of
Our existence.

Each waterous orb, spritz of the universe’s most fertile molecule,
Hugs its drop until the Earth’s bias turns once again
So that the crocus and hyacinth wake to its flow.

If you take the snow to you,
If you survey its bright prospects,
Stride into its treasured potential,
Run hands through its sharp intensity,
Taste its porcelain presence,
You can glory in the working of the world.

Andy Oram is a writer and editor in the computer field. His editorial projects have ranged from a legal guide covering intellectual property to a graphic novel about teenage hackers. Print publications where his writings have appeared include The Economist, The Journal of Information Technology & Politics, and Vanguardia Dossier.

Category: Poetry (Page 5 of 43)

Lessons from Sunflowers

Pulse

Autumn

Overheard, an offering

A Half-Decent Guy

In Praise of the Apple

This Morning

Voices

Fairytale in Six Voices

Bright Prospects

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