Tag: reflection (Page 5 of 5)

7:00 PM, JUNO

28 April 2022 / Editor

Poetry by Stephanie Buesinger

The turtle’s shell is plastic, his insides
spongy – we dug out the hard wires,
tossed out the batteries that made up his belly
left only the soft parts for you.

The first thing I bought from a TV ad,
his shell riddled with holes to project the night sky
you wanted only his squishy body, sweet face
even after I wash him, he smells like you.

They say – watch out
for alligators in shallow water
for poisonous frogs in deep grass, but you
always liked the roughness of shells.

Tonight, under the white moon, the mothers will crawl onto this sand to lay their eggs
Like me, sea turtles can hold their breath for a long time.

Stephanie Buesinger writes fiction and children’s literature and enjoys illustration and photography. With degrees from Wellesley College and the University of Texas at Austin, she has worked in corporate finance and economic consulting. Stephanie is the Blog Editor at Literary Mama. She lives in Florida with her husband, teenagers, and rescue pets.

left human hand photo — Photo by Jonas Ferlin on Pexels.com

Where to Start

11 April 2022 / Editor

Poetry by Sara Sherr

Let’s play this backward, that could be the place to start.
Driving home from practice with your dad, fear sang
you’re the worst one on the team, you’re the worst one on the team.

Remember us at Hannukah, you’re a baby with curly hair,
you’re safe, you’re protected, everyone here loves you and always will.
The four of us, forever, you loved your little sister,
you’ll always miss her. You fell asleep with your hand on her arm
at your grandparents’ while the cars rushed by below. Go to sleep now.

Remember it with me, shield your eyes so love doesn’t blind you.
Fear lived inside these stories. But what did the trees say?
Love sung on, floated in the sunlight on the lake
your mom, your girlfriend, lying on the blow up boat and there were no mirrors
and there were no cell phones there was just
the present, the radiant, exalted now.

You never really rode horses, your bike never really got crunched,
you never yanked up a whole garden at its roots. Bravo, my love, I’m proud and
you made it all up. You never got to be a boy but you’re glad about that now, right?

You made it all up. You never got to be a boy, but you’re glad about that now. Right?
You never yanked up a whole garden at its roots. Bravo my love, I’m proud and
you never really rode horses. Your bike never really got crunched.

The present, the radiant, exalted now.
And there were no cell phones there was just
your mom, your girlfriend, lying on the blow up boat and there were no mirrors.
Love sung on, floated in the sunlight on top of the lake.
Fear lived inside these stories. (But what did the trees say?)
Shield your eyes so love doesn’t blind you. Remember it with me.

At your grandparents’, while the cars rushed below, go to sleep now,
you’ll always miss her. You fell asleep with your hand on her arm,
the four of us, forever. You loved your little sister.
You’re safe, you’re protected, everyone here loves you and always will.
Remember us at Hannukah, you’re a baby with curly hair.

You’re the worst one on the team, you’re the worst one on the team.
Driving home from practice, with your dad, fear sang.
That could be the place to start. Let’s play this backward.

Sara Sherr is a writer and high school English teacher who lives in Yarmouth, Maine with her fiancé and their dog. Let’s get in touch: [email protected].

red sand — Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

A mind like a broken arm

9 April 2022 / Editor

Poetry by Mieke Leenders

The room screams… YOUR BODY IS NOT WELCOME
White cloth and alcohol remove anything human.
“Why did you run out of class?”
The only human thing, a stain just below her collar
She leans forward.
“It got too loud.”
The orange stain, a calming desert.
“You were in the middle of an exam. No one was talking.”
She notices my gaze. She looks down at her coat and frowns.
White cloth and alcohol.
“I need your help with a small task. Will you help me?”
Hazy orange desert. I see you from behind a foggy window.
“I need this note delivered to the principal’s office.”
Principal’s office; stale coffee smell, worn carpet, unused file cabinets, pale rings on desk, …
“I’d like you to put it straight into the principal’s hand.”
… one window on the top, always open, doesn’t mask the smell …
“Her secretary will let you through, I already called her.”
… door with patched varnish, loose threads on the curtain, wooden closet with a secret.
She snaps her fingers. “Hey!”
The stain is gone. The coat is different.
“Here you go.”
She smiles. Her wrinkles are canyons filled with orange dust. An orange desert.
“Hurry now.”
I take the note. I know it says I can go home.

Mieke Leenders is a freelance writer and editor with a Masters in Art History and certificates in Teaching, Journalism, and Editing. Originally from Belgium, she set out on a solo backpacking trip which led her to put down temporary roots in Costa Rica. Mieke is passionate about travel, hiking, literature, photography, animal welfare, social justice, and art.

flock of birds perched on post cable — Photo by Brett Sayles on Pexels.com

Black Lines

8 April 2022 / Editor

Poetry by J.V. Foerster

Her wings are cut and then she is blamed for not knowing how to fly.”
Simone de beauvoir

I imagine my body
free from its bones
the wind my invisible sister

Free from waking up
and weighing myself
each morning to see what place

I have on the ground in
this world of obsession
to form and insolence.

I dreamed last night that birds
were flying at me and behind them
they left lines in the air.

Thin black lines to hang up my
desires or to dry out my regret.
I think they came to show

me that when the eye can no longer
find its place in the ordinary you
must sleep and dream another life.

J.V. Foerster has been published in Eclectica, Agnieszka’s Dowry, Red River Review, Midnight Mind, and many others. She was nominated in 2011 for a Pushcart for “Apple Girl” by Fox Chase Review. J.V. has work in the Rosemont College Press and Philadelphia Stories Anthology “50 Over 50: Celebrating Experienced and Emerging Women Writers.” She lives in Portland, Oregon.

Broken Wing

5 April 2022 / Editor

Nonfiction by Jennifer Weigel

I am still processing everything that has happened over the past year and then some, in part due to COVID and in part due to life. These haven’t been the most difficult times I have endured, nor have they been silver linings amidst challenges, but they kind of came at me out of left field and I stood there reeling for quite some time.

Early in 2019, I found myself without my voice: I had nothing to say, no art to share. When I first started making art again, I began by taking photographs of the empty sky. Not the nuance of color as you near the horizon, but as close up as I could zoom in on the most flat blue tone I could find, resulting in a pixelated wash of color with no real content.

This sense of drift eventually subsided and I was able to make art again. Flash forward to now, I have returned to photo documenting my surroundings and have even taken up horror writing. I am drawing and painting again. I am no longer at a loss for words. But I still feel incomplete and uncertain.

It’s funny the things you notice when you are in the midst of change. The butterfly is a symbol of metamorphosis and of becoming, but it is fragile and fleeting. Beauty and life are much the same. As I was walking down the sidewalk, I noticed this diminutive shard of a swallowtail wing and was struck by its delicate beauty. I have always noticed things that lie unobserved, some of which can be difficult to gaze upon because they bespeak past violence or hardship that cannot be undone. But at the time, it stood out as a symbol of the past year, the anguish and the hope.

I stood and stared at the wing for some time before a gentle wind caught it and it blew away like an unspent wish. This is my reflection upon the course of the past year and a half. I don’t entirely know where it has gone. I have experienced a lot of changes, some good, some bad. The wind has carried away the time and my thoughts with it and I still sometimes find myself reeling, gazing up at the sky awash in blue and contemplating the fragility of a found butterfly wing.

Jennifer Weigel is a multi-disciplinary mixed media conceptual artist. Weigel utilizes a wide range of media: assemblage, drawing, fibers, installation, jewelry, painting, performance, photography, sculpture, video, and writing. Much of her work touches on themes of beauty, identity (especially gender identity), memory & forgetting, and institutional critique. Weigel’s art has been exhibited nationally in all 50 states and won numerous awards.

blue and white boat on body of water — Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

i am learning to be still

1 April 2022 / Editor

Poetry by Stacie Eirich

i am learning to be still,
to pay attention to each breath, its slow rise and fall,
to feel the soft spring breeze on my skin, its gentle rush and play,
to listen to the song sparrows in the air, cooing and calling
in the bright yellow sunshine of morn.

i am learning to be still,
to watch the dance of the butterflies, their colorful frenzy and flight,
to admire the grace of the bald eagle, silent and watchful from his perch,
to gaze upon the splendor of the mountains, their peaks rising against a vast expanse
in the warm orange glow of afternoon.

i am learning to be still,
to savor the taste of a tender strawberry, sweet and tart,
to let the rain wash over me in ripples, cool and refreshing,
to hear the harmonies of the juncos and thrushes, repeating and resonant
in the waning lavender light of evening.

i am learning to be still,
to seek a path of peace and wonder, intention and reflection,
to find the calm within each moment, blithe and smooth,
to experience the echo of the Earth’s heart, beating and thriving
in the endless blue waves of time.

Stacie Eirich is a writer, singer & library associate. A former English Instructor, she holds a Masters in English Studies from Illinois State University. Her work has appeared in Ariel Chart International Literary Journal, Auroras & Blossoms Anthologies, Scarlet Leaf Review & Potato Soup Journal. She lives near New Orleans with three cats, two kids and one fish (www.stacieeirich.com).

Catch and Release

26 March 2022 / Editor

Nonfiction by James Callan

The tug of a taut, invisible thread. So thin. Unseen, it reflects on the gray water, so I suppose. At the far end a silver barb has found the silver mouth of a silver fish that has seen better moments, by far, again, so I suppose. Static water undergoes a savage transformation of violent thrashing, splashing. Like cheerleader pompoms in a gesture of exaltation for the winning touchdown, only inches below the surface of the lake. Liquid confetti tossed in celebration.

My arms hold on, barely, to the device that has snagged an agitated leviathan, or so it seems in my struggle. It’s probably a muskie. And when I finely pull the slick, scaled thing that weighs as much or more than a toddler into the canoe, onto the aluminum floor, I confirm, yes, a muskie.

I look into a mouth that looks like a perfect way to lose a finger, or a hand. This pink abyss, a downward spiral of open-heart surgery, scalpels and all. So many scalpels, needles waiting for their payback. I remove my wedding ring, just in case, and I go in reckless and brave, the last of which I like to think the more prominent. I had to be more than a little firm. I mean, fingers, hands, these are things I want to keep for myself. But in being firm, on the edge or perhaps over the edge of being rough, I remove the barb. I free the beast. And with one last wild gesture of courage, I shovel out what in that moment seemed to me to be the marriage between porpoise and a good way to get hurt.

The splash was surprisingly subtle. A non-splash, almost. Like a vacuum sucking in only the air around it, but quiet. The dark of the depth took the image of the muskie with it. Gone. Free. I caught a prize fish. And then I let it go.

James Callan grew up in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He lives on the Kapiti Coast, New Zealand on a small farm with his wife, Rachel, and his little boy, Finn. He likes toads and frogs and polliwogs, but he LOVES cats. He believes when he says that When Harry Met Sally is the best Rom-com of all time, he is not offering his opinion, but is merely stating a fact. He has been fully grown for a long while, but still has some growing up to do.

cloth with artistic design — Photo by Frank Cone on Pexels.com

This should’ve been an Urdu ghazal instead

19 March 2022 / Editor

Poetry by Uday Khanna

While being buried I thought why spare me space for breathing,
I should’ve been wound in white and cremated instead.

Waking has taken up the place of life,
I should’ve been nostalgic for a time which passed me by instead.

Living has come disarmingly too fast lately,
I would like a stern word instead.

Someone asked me how I write so beautifully of terrible things,
I should’ve been a keeper of chopped meat instead.

I was named ignorant far too many times,
I should’ve been left blissfully unaware instead.

I keep meeting myself on different horizons for novelty,
The mystery of time is repetition instead.

This circle tells me I’m merely a handful of mistakes,
I should’ve been a fistful of wasted sperm instead.

Soon poetry will become unattainable,
I should’ve gone back to plucking flower buds instead.

O poet, you’ve spent all your life seeking to write about an ungrateful ant,
You should’ve stepped on it instead.

Uday Khanna is a research scholar currently pursuing his MPhil from the University of Delhi. His research interests lie in the fields of postmodernism, media theory, cyber-culture, and 20th century short-story genre.

snow covered village — Photo by Roland Juhász on Pexels.com

Primitive Prayer

13 March 2022 / Editor

Poetry by Nancy Byrne Iannucci

I go outside at sundown,
pinning the stained-glass trail
to the Earth with ice cleats,

glorious snow under my feet.
The hawk screams above Creek Road.
Does anybody live in that blue house?

Hopper lonely, so Hopper lonely.
The snowbank at the side of the road
sits in the shape of a pew,

but I’d rather move with the mallards
slapping their wet feet, ready to fly.
I’m ready.

A songbird pounds
his pipe organ in the sky,
calling me up the hill.

I climb
breathing in the night air,
revived by this primitive prayer.

Nancy Byrne Iannucci is a widely published poet and the author of two chapbooks, Temptation of Wood (Nixes Mate Review, 2018), and Goblin Fruit (Impspired, 2021); she is also a teacher, and woodland roamer. Nancy can be found at www.nancybyrneiannucci.com