Category: Poetry (Page 7 of 31)

French Broad River

1 March 2024 / Editor

Poetry by Douglas Cooper

The hum of traffic on the bridge overhead, blends
with the gurgle of the river as it swirls around
the dock at the kayak ramp. A man wearing a bicycle helmet
sits on the bank watching a teacup Yorkie explore.

The bank is covered with huge catalpa trees, thickets
of sunflowers, Japanese knotweed, blackberry canes,
Asiatic lilies, and sweet pea flowers, making me
a world traveler standing in one place.

My friend Mick, with a twinkle in his eye,
asks the cyclist how many CCs his
electric bike could do. The cyclist answers
straight-faced, “Up to 30 miles per hour.”
“How many miles per gallon?”
“I can ride to work and back on one charge.”

About then, the Yorkie scampers across
the sidewalk toward an 80-pound husky
straining on his owner’s leash – a tiny hurricane hunter
flying straight into the storm. The cyclist
picks up the small dog and puts him in his cloth shoulder bag,
riding to safer places to explore the wonders of this world.

Douglas Cooper lives in the mountains north of Asheville, NC, with his wife and three pets. He has a BA in English from the University of West Florida, and attended many workshops with poet Francis Quinn. His work has appeared in Crosswinds Poetry Journal and The RavensPerch.

Early Spring

1 March 2024 / Editor

Poetry by Sharon Scholl

When everything portends,
clings to the edge of not quite yet,
teeters on perhaps.

Just a hint of green
pokes from wilted stalks,
risking little, wary of reversal.

Nothing signals go ahead!
Nothing gestures all safe now
to a land still hovering.

I sit with my seed catalog
deep in petunia fantasies
despite its warning, sow after frost.

Sharon Scholl is an ancient poet (91) still very active as convener of a poetry critique group and poetry editor of a local women’s journal. Her poems currently published are in Front Range Review and Third Wednesday.

Photo by NASA Hubble Space Telescope on Unsplash

The Pillars of Creation*

1 March 2024 / Editor

Poetry by Arthur Ginsberg

The pillars of creation fill my sight,
in ways I cannot fathom make me pray
and revel in the origin of light.

Though Galileo knew the stars were bright,
he could not know red dwarfs, light years away.
The pillars of creation fill my sight.

The James Webb telescope has taken flight
with golden panels opened wide today
to gather in the origin of light.

Men who’ve slipped earth’s bonds can ignite
the rapture mortals see in cosmic clay.
The pillars of creation fill my sight.

We peer now into space beyond the height
where angels fly and clarion trumpets play
and revel in the origin of light.

Beloveds who passed through tunnels, brilliant white,
came from the stuff of stars at which we gaze.
The pillars of creation fill my sight,
I revel in the origin of light.

*molten rock and dust in the shape
of pillars seen through the Webb
telescope, glowing in deep space

Arthur Ginsberg is a poet based in Seattle. Past work appears in the anthologies, Blood and Bone, and Primary Care. He received the William Stafford prize in 2003. He holds an MFA degree from Pacific University in Oregon. His most recent book, Holy the Body was published by Kelsay Books.

Aviary

1 February 2024 / Editor

Poetry by Konrad Ehresman

In the dark I hear the owl in my attic,
three beating thrums and a woosh,
screeching,
the sound of wings confined.

In the light,
I collect stray feathers
and celebrate silence.

Every day I think it gone,
but
every night,
the gift,
of being wrong.

I tell my family
but they can’t hear it,
say my mind is playing tricks,
I wonder where my brain mastered illusion,
how it chose
owl over
dove.

I could just show them,
pull on dangling cord,
turn shut door to yawning mouth,
bathe in the vindicating warmth of trapped air,
watch an owl erupt
from the parted lips of our house.

But I worry,

when I ask the attic to speak,
that it will refuse an audience,

that it will share only,
quiet settled into dust.

And I worry,

they will pity me as
I write pleas in the grime,
beg stale air to let them hear,
to teach them the music
of flying into walls,
the song of soaring
while starving.

But mostly,

I worry that if we look,
I might come to find,

there was no owl,

and the noise
is
mine.

Konrad Ehresman is a creative living on the central coast of California. His work has been featured by Ariel Chart, Awakened Voices, You Might Need to Hear This, and he has work upcoming in Mocking Owl Roost. When not writing Konrad can be found baking bread and being a nuisance.

Storms

1 February 2024 / Editor

Poetry by Diana Raab

Life is scattered with storms—
emotions and weather
that have run wild.

After a seven-year drought
I finally see rain trickle
down my bedroom window

as I rejoice that our reservoirs
will fill. This also makes me think
about how often life flows,

when a swift storm hits our psyche:
while trees and debris clutter
our path, and then,

during our psychological
clean up we pave the way
for clarity to be followed
yet by another storm.

Diana Raab, PhD, is an award-winning memoirist, poet, blogger, speaker, and author of 13 books. Her latest poetry chapbook is An Imaginary Affair: Poems Whispered to Neruda. She blogs for Psychology Today, Thrive Global, Sixty and Me, Good Men Project, The Wisdom Daily and many others. Visit: www.dianaraab.com.

acquisition

1 February 2024 / Editor

Poetry by Charlie Steak

walking
on the beach
I pick up shells
at the surf line
each tiny, perfect
(to me at any rate)
pale petal pink
delicate, ridged, lined,
butter paper yellow
rinsed in swirling water,
eluding my fingertips
chalkboard black
I have no purpose
for this handful of
bleached white
deserted homes,
is it ungrateful
to re-scatter
I’ll keep
one

Charlie Steak is an author and playwright currently living in the southwest USA. The winters are great but gardening in summer resembles Armageddon. Or maybe Mordor. He has written for Space 55, Synthetic Human, Rising Youth Theatre, and many other organizations. His poetry will be published in Constellations this winter.

A Night in Alaska

1 February 2024 / Editor

Poetry by Ellen Skilton

There are raccoons in the floorboards,
and to-dos sprouting from my ears.

The dog wedges himself under the bed to
monitor anxiously the vermin’s every move.

The Philly basketball announcer gets
hyped up about a free-throw parade.

But her enthusiasm doesn’t shake
my seeping sadness. Like the melting
ice outside, it finds every crevice to fill.

Across town, a man dreams of a night
in Alaska, so cold there is no hospitality.

He tells his son — being an old husband
is kind of like being a baby. Now, I can’t
un-see the word hospital in how we care.

I may have lied about my vision to get ugly
glasses in 1972, but today I am forgiven.

This morning’s sunshine on the winter trees
makes now seem so distinct from then.
Like a ski-lift, I float high above old mistakes.

Ellen Skilton‘s creative writing has appeared in Cathexis Northwest Press, Literary Mama, Ekphrastic Review, and Dillydoun Review. In addition to being a poet, she is an educational anthropologist, an applied linguist, and a Fringe Fest performer. She is also an excellent napper, a chocolate snob, and a swimmer.

And Yet This Life

1 February 2024 / Editor

Poetry by Lisa Low

Is still worth living;
even now the rain is falling, making
mud from dirt around the roots and filling
in the ragged spots where grass hardly
ever shows. Tomorrow, too, the sun
will bring its healing mix of heat and light,
and make the flowers grow, more firmly
capable, their fancy floral dresses
stiff, each new eye glazed with thick black stripe
of paint, each marigold more grandly
dressed, more rich with bright silk fabrics hung,
orange vests and epaulets . . .

Lisa Low’s essays, book reviews, and interviews have appeared in The Massachusetts Review, The Boston Review, The Tupelo Quarterly, and The Adroit Journal. Her poetry has appeared in many literary journals, among them Valparaiso Poetry Review, Phoebe, Pennsylvania English, American Journal of Poetry, Delmarva Review, and Tusculum Review.

On the Mend

1 February 2024 / Editor

Poetry by Andrew Shattuck McBride

Until we die our lives are on the mend.
Richard hugo

At the shoreline near the coffee shop,
someone has balanced shards of stone
tip to tip in ragged stacks, creating
a forest of stone above the water.

Under a bench, a pink pacifier, forgotten.
Further down the paved trail, a woman
gathers another woman who is weeping
into a fierce loving hug, murmurs comfort.

A curtain of rain cloud passes overhead,
and steady rain soaks us as I walk by.
Cherry trees are in bloom. Sodden
pink petals redeem pavement and lawn.

There are fewer discarded masks.
The rain, gentle, comforts like a hug.
I don’t hurry. I’m on my way home,
toward something resembling hope.

Andrew Shattuck McBride grew up in Volcano, Hawaiʻi, six miles from the summit of Kīlauea volcano. Based in Washington State, he is co-editor of For Love of Orcas (Wandering Aengus, 2019). His work appears in literary journals including Rattle, Clockhouse, and Crab Creek Review.

Breath

1 February 2024 / Editor

Poetry by Jeff Burt

In the shower from a hose
over tomato vines, an Anne’s hummingbird
entered and rinsed and hovered
a foot from my face, then landed
on my chest to catch a breath,
feet gripping my shirt like a newborn.

I thought of the forty beats
per second of its wings
that I could both hear and feel,
wondered if it slowed and felt the torpor
of stasis come over like sleep,
but in the moment my mind wandered
the hummingbird had flown.

To catch a breath, to enter the mist
and rest on the dusty, arid day–
I thought of the taxi driver
from Eritrea who said he drove
each day until he couldn’t stop,
then he’d stop, he laughed,
he had many mouths to feed,
and hustle is all he knew, cabbie, valet.
When I touched his shoulder,
I could feel his heartbeat slowing down,
body harbor below my hand.

So many months have passed
and he stayed in my thoughts
in the mass where I store
random things I cannot place,
but today I knew,
he was a hummingbird,
beating his wings all day
against the dead air
to stay alive for others,
clutching for a foothold
and turning his throat
skyward for a breath.

Jeff Burt lives in Santa Cruz County, California. He has contributed to Williwaw Journal, Rabid Oak, and Willows Wept Review, and has a chapbook at Red Wolf Editions and a second chapbook available from Red Bird Chapbooks. Read earlier fiction and poetry in The Bluebird Word.

Category: Poetry (Page 7 of 31)

French Broad River

Early Spring

The Pillars of Creation*

Aviary

Storms

acquisition

A Night in Alaska

And Yet This Life

On the Mend

Breath

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