An Online Literary Journal for Poetry and Flash

Tag: daily life

Some Days

Poetry by Carole Greenfield

Some days it feels like I will never be free from dread,
never escape the darkness, always be lugging those bushels
of rocks, the weight I drag behind me.

Some days it feels like I will never have time to say thank you,
never have heart to share love, never know grace to let go.

Some days it feels like I am trudging through a swamp
filled with skunk cabbage and quacking of frogs
and when I stop to listen I know their voices
are pure silver, a chorus of answers and questions.

Some days I remember all I need is to stand still
and let the quiet rain of their chirps, squeaks and creaks,
the half-notes of their small hearts fall into and over and through me.


Carole Greenfield grew up in Colombia and lives in New England. Her work has appeared in such places as Amethyst Review, Humana Obscura and The Plenitudes. Read her poem “Trace Fossils” published in The Bluebird Word in October 2022.

Reverie

Poetry by Peter McNamara

I interrupt a cockroach
               attempting a backstroke
through the leavings of dinner stew;
               he/she seems certain to survive
the age of man.

A guy comes to my door—all insistent
               knuckles—with a petition for
improving peninsular life;
               I muse as I turn him away . . .
have I thought to return his pen?

Yesterday’s hibiscus wither like
               retirees languishing for a
fountain of youth. Lives crisp
               beneath remorseless sun:
shadowless, unvarying days.

Roy Orbison renders “Crying” as
               Montserrat Caballé paces the wings.
Does time come, or only go?
               I should have taken this up
with the cockroach.


Peter McNamara’s “Eating Up Light” appeared in 2022. His work appears in such journals as Center, Main Street Rag, Pembroke Magazine, The Paris Review and Pleiades. He’s a former Wall Street financial editor and lyricist with Polyhymnia and the New York City Gay Men’s Chorus.

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