The Bluebird Word

An Online Literary Journal for Poetry and Flash

Tag: fate

Photo by Jack Hamilton on Unsplash

The Fool: 0

1 May 2024 /

Poetry by J.T. Whitehead

Sometimes acumen gets lost
when tossed like the cards
that are lost in the bets
that we secretly play
in our way – meaning to lose
our sense of all meaning
or meaning to lose our way –
& wands become canes
now holding us upwards.

We dance across plains
all sundown & westwards
to graveyards & canyons
                & tin-can saloons.

No longer seers & no longer
bards & no longer tossing
our meaningless cards
                                          away
like our fate or our money today – tonight,

Tonight
               we wager on play.

 

J.T. Whitehead has published poetry in Slipstream, The Iconoclast, Gargoyle and The New York Quarterly, among others. He edited “So It Goes,” the journal of the Kurt Vonnegut Library, briefly, for five issues. He lives in Indianapolis with his sons, practicing law by day and poetry by night.

Photo by Andréas BRUN on Unsplash

Cut and Carry

25 November 2022 /

Poetry by Colleen Wells

A few tiny ants milling about the circle of trust, a round tapestry on the floor,
   set with candles, crystals, sage and yellow daffodils.
It’s a focal point for the writing circle whose facilitators
   I overheard plotting the insects’ demise.
The ants are here through no fault of their own,
   innocent stowaways who were just
enjoying a taste of spring
   in a bunch of plucked daffodils
brought here through no fault of whoever brought in the flowers.
   An accident, soon to be a deadly mistake.

How are we different from the tiny ant
   when it comes to fate?
How are we different from a speck of pollen
   that moves through the wind to parts unknown,
creating flowers for you and I to cut down and carry in?

Colleen Wells writes poetry and nonfiction. Her work has appeared in Gyroscope Review, Ravensperch, and The Potomac Review among other publications. Her chapbook Animal Magnetism was published in May 2022. She works in mental health and is also a consumer of mental health services.

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