An Online Literary Journal for Poetry and Flash

Tag: daily life

Perfect Day

Poetry by Susan Wolbarst

The day unfolds
in its own sweet way:
sunny, highs
in the mid-seventies,
light breeze. Zero
chance of rain.

Its slow perfection
savored
by coastal retirees
breathing deeply
exhaling thanks.

The most ambitious
get some steps in,
or re-pot baby
tomato plants from
the greenhouse.
The rest of us

sip coffee on
the deck and,
due to bad habits
we cannot shake,
read newspapers
on our phones.


Susan Wolbarst is a newspaper reporter in rural Gualala, California. Her poetry has been published in Plainsongs, pioneertown (pioneertownlit.com), Naugatuck River Review, and other journals, as well as in the anthology Alchemy and Miracles: Nature Woven Into Words. A chapbook of her poems, It’s Over, published in August 2025 (Finishing Line Press).

Reflection

Poetry by AJ Saur

When the 7 a.m. sun suddenly
beams your windshield, you may discover

yourself in the back window of a city bus
a great deal more serious than you knew.

Perhaps it’s not surprising considering
how you flew out of the house without

your morning coffee, without a goodbye
kiss, without a single word shifting the new air.

Now, thanks to traffic, you’re inching
toward yourself, cautious, uncertain

of this one who acts in opposite
at every turn. Enlightened, block after

block, by the set chin, high cheekbones,
those steely eyes spanning

the distance from a someone so thoroughly
other you catch yourself, for a moment, wondering

where he’s headed on this average Wednesday
and, if you flash a smile, will he follow?


AJ Saur is the author of five books of poetry from Murmuration Press including, most recently, Of Bone and Pinion (2022). AJ’s poems have also appeared (or will soon appear) in Abandoned Mine, Front Range Review, Glimpse, The Midwest Quarterly, Muse, Third Wednesday, Willow Review, and other journals.

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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