Tag: Night

Mysteries

3 October 2022 / Editor

Poetry by Rebecca Ward

Mysteries of bewilderment
trace night into darkness,
light casts reflection on keys
melody mirrors our souls:
entangled notes in creative freedom.

Rain kisses the window,
stories echo in musician’s fingers.
Sorrow-filled notes exude love, joy
full interludes escape into night.

Mirror captures moment, memories.
Wilderness of creativity
spins in random caution,
as unknowns shadow our thoughts,
our beautiful music.

Rebecca Ward is an adventurous, free-spirited woman. She is a full time member of the Mississippi Air National Guard. Writing poetry while immersed in music has once again found a home in her free time. This is her first published poem.

vinyl albums near player — Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

Jukebox

3 July 2022 / Editor

Poetry by C.T. Holte

Most nights, I am a jukebox.
Tunes play from the stash in my head—
doo-wop to Debussy,
Bach to Beach Boys—
chosen by a mysterious mechanism
and repeated as many times
as the system specifies:
no Next button,
no Mute switch,
no Off to let me sleep.

The selection varies:
last night, the top hit
was Mozart’s Ave Verum Corpus,
reprise of a piece I had sung recently
at a choral workshop;
tonight, perhaps a favorite or two
from American Bandstand
or Casey Casem’s top forty countdown.

Music and memory are amazing gifts,
even at the price of sleep interrupted
by random hours of Deck the Halls
at any time of the year.

C. T. Holte grew up without color TV and played along creeks and in cornfields. He has been a teacher and editor, and now migrates between New Mexico and a tiny New Hampshire cabin. His poetry is found in Words, California Quarterly, Months to Years, Pensive, and elsewhere.

photo of a full moon — Photo by Brett Sayles on Pexels.com

A Full Moon in Winter

5 June 2022 / Editor

Poetry by Tad Tuleja

The flat soft pallor of this night’s moon
Sidles noiseless to my window
Turning the slatted blinds I have not closed
Into ebony and silver prison stripes.
Whisks of moon lean in beckoning
But I am snug though sleepless
And I have been out there before
When the ground was painted ashen
And the air had given up its breath
To windless mystery. Human eyes cannot
Bear that color. What creature would be afoot
At such an hour? I hear no owl’s wings,
No coon-rattled trash cans, no feline squawking,
Only my wife’s gentle breathing, best of
Consolations, until—there!—some distance
Away, the thinnest of whines flutters
The ash, as Coyote scopes the ground
For skittering fieldmice. In safer light, tomorrow,
I will find his calling card, the berry-pocked scat
He places in driveways as if to say:
Come, drowsy brother, break fences
With me. I will show you a moon
You have not seen before.

Tad Tuleja, a folklorist and songwriter, has edited anthologies on vernacular traditions and military culture and received a Puffin Foundation grant for his song cycle “Skein of Arms.” Visit https://skirmisheswithpatriotism.buzzsprout.com for his weekly podcast. Under the musical alias Skip Yarrow, he performs songs on www.skipyarrow.com and You Tube.

white and black moon with black skies and body of water photography during night time — Photo by GEORGE DESIPRIS on Pexels.com

Salsa y Reggaeton Went Silent

20 May 2022 / Editor

Poetry by Gigi Guizado

Salsa y reggaeton went silent
No soundtrack to my dreams

Don’t know what it means…
My soul was lonely

I surfed
and thought moonlight becomes you

drawing me closer
as if I were the tide

You have trouble sleeping too
Don’t know why…

Sometimes you make my heart sing anew
like light sparkles on the water

Or hips, feet, arms entwine
keeping time on the dance floor

Don’t see you much anymore
in and out like the radio

on a country road
…

Your rhythm stays with me
like the shore recalls the sea

Moonbeams shine on all things
solid, liquid, no matter the distance

More faithful than sound
face in the sky sings his silent lullaby

Sandy-eyed memories rock me to sleep
Dreams are the drumbeat of motivation

Gigi Guizado is an actor, writer, and theatre translator based in Las Vegas. Her micro-plays have had productions or staged readings in San Francisco, Las Vegas, and London, UK. Her poetry and translations have been published by Adelaide Literary Magazine, Another Chicago Magazine, and Asymptote Journal.

Night’s Turning

22 April 2022 / Editor

Poetry by Robert Okaji

If I am the leaking valve, you are the whisper
tugging me back, the hummingbird’s nectar.

When you speak, the thunder listens.
When you brush your hair, stars erupt in the mesosphere.

Your gravity transcends all others, tethers me to life.
In this frame, on this bed, at this instant, I melt.

I relinquish the green beetles, the rodents of destiny and all the little
trees. I relinquish my sorrows, my secrets, their bluest songs.

You are the storm’s respite, the eye of the world at the night’s
last turning, the bridge between hands and the healing stone.

Robert Okaji lives in Indiana. His work has been published or is forthcoming in The Night Heron Barks, Vox Populi, Exilé Sans Frontières, Salamander Ink Magazine and elsewhere.

light hands people art — Photo by Devran Topallar on Pexels.com

Heartworm

20 April 2022 / Editor

Poetry by Kat Stubing

Butterflies prancing in air
Pulling a sleigh of light

I can’t help but wonder
Where you went last night

While the fireflies reigned
Over blades of wily grass

Periwinkle skies rolling in
As the thunder clouds passed

Did the twigs pop like corn
Under your bare calloused feet

As the owls watched you run
To the secrets that you keep

Oh, tiny wings, show me the
Way to lenity and peace

To unobscured waters
And a pure love to lease

Kat Stubing studied at UMBC and took sketch writing classes at Upright Citizens Brigade. Her poems are published (or soon to be) in Beyond Words, Allegory Ridge, Closed Eye Open, and Wingless Dreamer. Kat lives, works, and plays in New York City.

Inventory of the Night

18 April 2022 / Editor

Poetry by Travis Stephens

Frog noise
cloud breath, dew’s silent
steady approach, The dog
snuffles, stretches long legs
out of her bed, yawns.

Potato plants
push back against the dirt
as corn reaches for
the smallest bats who
dash from pond
to tree line
but never near the road.
Who has seen
a bat hit by a car?
Radar love.

Traffic noise
beyond the range of
headlights so only the
sloppy snarl of tires on
asphalt
A quiet after.
A trickle of water,
sigh and sorrow.
Maybe an airliner, maybe not,
and all those faraway
stars.

Last item, the march of
morning from stage left.

Travis Stephens is a tugboat captain who resides with his family in California. A University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire alumni, recent credits include: Gyroscope Review, 2River, Sheila-Na-Gig, GRIFFEL , Offcourse , Crosswinds Poetry Journal, Gravitas and The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature. Visit him at: zolothstephenswriters.com