Category: Poetry

“Ignorance, Bliss” by Yermiyahu Ahron Taub

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I walk along an autumnal country road.
Eventually, there will be a fork,
and of course, I will have to make a decision.
But for now, there are these reverberations.
Ones I cannot identify.
Although I suppose with today’s gadgets,
I could find a way to do so. Only I do not.

Is that a caw?
And that other—the howl of a coyote?
What of this crooning buzz that seems
to be emerging from the brush alongside the creek
now low from lack of rainfall?
Or is it coming from the creek itself?
When will the rains come?

Here, bales of hay are lined up against the horizon’s line;
there, they dot the fields.
A low stone wall marks a crucial boundary
whose meaning I will never know.
This is not the time to envision disputes
or hours spent in courtrooms
or feuds long-lasting that occasionally erupt into the summoning of police.

Far off in a distance, a structure of some sort
is barely visible through the trees I know are not evergreens,
but whose identities escape me. I smile at the proverbial kindness
of these strangers.
The structure could be a house or a shed or a romantic getaway.
Perhaps young lovers sneak off there now to perform paradise
in the now almost-ruin.
Perhaps not.
As you can tell, the intentions of its builders and its possible
denizens elude me.

Horses neigh in the distance.
I wonder what color their coats are
and whether they’ve had a good day grazing.
A rooster crows repeatedly. Urgently, I imagine.
But what do I know of rooster calls?
I picture his beard jiggling.
What danger does he sense that causes this late-hour crowing?

For all my gliding, my footsteps echo on the asphalt.
An occasional truck roars by.
Or so it seems to me,
given the stillness of the road, the time of day.
And the unjangle of my nerves.
The sky is saturated with streaks of rose and gold and flame.
A clash that is the custom, a conflagration in harmony.

I cannot locate the borders of each color,
but they are all there.
Each as was intended. Here, that—if perhaps only that—I know.
Against this panorama,
and through this choir concert of unknown,
past and present, I reciprocate the unhesitant embrace of
the beginning of the close of day.




Yermiyahu Ahron Taub is a poet, writer, and translator of Yiddish literature. Honored by the Museum of Jewish Heritage as one of New York ’s best emerging Jewish artists, Taub has been nominated four times for a Pushcart Prize. Born and raised in an Orthodox community in Philadelphia, Taub received his secondary education at the Talmudical Yeshiva of Philadelphia and the Mechina High School of the Ner Israel Rabbinical College in Baltimore, Md. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa and summa cum laude from Temple University, where he was also named a President’s Scholar.  Taub earned a Master of Arts degree in history from Emory University and a Master of Library and Information Science degree from Queens College, City University of New York. He lives in Washington, D.C.

“A Deeper Understanding” by Bradley Samore

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At the stoplight, a gentleman picks his nose, pokes
with the don’t-give-a-dollop only old folks

and toddlers get away with. To his left,
a car’s tinted windows rumble from the heft

of a thumping bass while a yellow
van brightens the cloudy morning. “Hello!”

the world seems to shout, but nothing can pluck
his attention from the gold nugget stuck

at the back of his nostrilous cave. Past how
many nose hairs does his finger now

dig? I turn to tell my uncle to watch the scraping,
but he’s frowning, and I sense there’s no escaping

the looming lecture. His hand on my shoulder,
he says, “You shouldn’t stare at people older

than you. You don’t know what they’ve
been through. When you’re old enough to shave,

you’ll understand,” and I say, “Okay, I’ll quit being
nosy.” He nods. I’ve mastered this whole agreeing

with grown-ups thing so that they’ll stop. Later
that night, I walk in and see my uncle writing a letter,

and just as I’m about to ask him who he’s writing
to, he sneezes, nearly knocking over the lamp lighting

his desk. He puts down his pen and picks his nose.
I now know where his understanding grows.




Bradley Samore has worked as an editor, writing consultant, English teacher, creative writing teacher, basketball coach, and family support facilitator. His writing has appeared in The Florida Review, Carve, The Dewdrop, and other publications. He was named a Joint Winner of the Creative Writing Ink Poetry Prize. You can find his website here.

Two Poems by Jessie McLean

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Wound Care

It’s just a little scratch, but the blood fountain streams
Conquering the edges, bubbling redness gleams
Through the bandage seams,
The wound not cleaned,
It’s just a little dream.

I allowed the wooden sword to jab
The space between my arm and torso,
Empty air, newly stabbed, of course I was Mercutio.
Dad directed with zeal,
My 5 year old brother inscrutable,
The crucial lines, I spoke and died,
I love passion, the vitriol,
I hate the bedtime rituals.

We grew up not needing stitches,
Our gashes shared, bare to fresh air,
The flair, any flood of blood, unscared.
Sound the alarm, but not on the farm,
Invincibility was born here.
No laws, just blue gray old wooden barns,
Playing cards and tackling the Bard.
I truly never knew fear.

But I’m bleeding on the bar room floor,
I think I need a doctor, but I need a beer before.
Walgreens: the first aid aisle, you depleted it,
Treated the wound while I swore,
Seated awkwardly on the bathroom floor,
Tybalt’s sword, just the frame of a door,
But of course you came through when I needed it.
A scratch, a hot bed of germs and nerves,
Urgent care was there,

But I didn’t have the urge.
I don’t mind getting hurt,
Just sometimes lack the courage
To clean the wound
But I dreamed of you
And it came true,
‘Twill serve.


Low Clouds at the End of the World

The sky looks grumpy with the ground.
All in all I’m put off.
If I sleep and sleep
Until it clears up
Will you be here still?

What if the sun goes,
Like permanent,
Like plants and birds and sea creatures are out
In the blink of an eye,
If I disappear
And you disappear
Where does the love go?

I live for you!
Terrified.
My breath stuck, your face cupped in my hands,
Nothing is gradual,
Lines chase lines
And life’s getting fragile.
I live for you. What if you die?

A friend has a brain aneurysm,
Waiting to explode and disappear life.
Red and horribly larger,
Thin from puffing out pressure wrong,
Silent and raging
And racing towards nothing.

The sun is one and many
Depending on how far you look out.
All I want is what’s right in front of me.
I have never been so happy
Or helpless.




Jessie McLean, unpublished and entirely without accolades, loves poetry because no matter how lonely the writer gets, a few lines from someone else’s writing can make beauty out of a shared pain. McLean realizes that sometimes we can describe a thought or feeling in a way it’s never been said before. Then the unique and the universal settle together, calling for art, but also connection.

Two Poems by D. Marie Fitzgerald

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A Changed Heart

The day his youngest son was born
with a hole in his heart
my grandfather made a novena.

As a child I was told the cruel history:
how he poured hot soup over my
grandmother’s head,
chained his sons in the garage to a coal stove,
made them go without food,
would not allow children to talk at the dinner table,
slapped them across the head if they did.

As an adult I faced his hilly garden,
admired the ascending rows of
peppers, garlics, tomatoes, onions, grape vines.

Pointing to a plant I did not recognize
he motioned me to a shed
where rows and rows of unfamiliar
leaves hung on string,
the aroma making them known to me.
He pulled one large leaf down,
crinkled it between his plump fingers,
deftly rolled a cigar,
lit a match;
it smelled like home to me.

We descended the cellar stairs of that
house he had built with those dangerous hands,
where his casks of wine lined the stone walls.

There was no cruelty in that hand
that passed me a glass.

“A Changed Heart” previously appeared in A Perfect World by One Spirit Press, Cholla Needles, and Academy of the Heart and Mind.


Japanese Vase

For sixty years it moved with us,
that Satsuma vase.
Other object disappeared over the years,
but the vase was always there,
the original design brought by Korean potters
to Japan in the early 1600s
to the island of Kyushu.

It fell once,
surviving a clean break.
Mom glued it back together.
She believed it worth something,
held this vase in awe:
the Japanese man and woman
in feudal dress,
bold colors of red, blue, orange,
the backdrop a seascape
an island in the distance,
a three clawed dragon wraps
the circumference,
flamboyant figures in enamel
outlined in gold against chocolate
and white dotted moriage.

I can’t remember when
we didn’t own this vase
Mother purchased at auction.
When she died it became mine.
It would have been the perfect
place for her ashes, but there
is no stopper or lid.
She is there though
all the same.

“Japanese Vase” was first published in Plainsongs and appears in A Perfect World published by One Spirit Press.




D. Marie Fitzgerald is a retired English and creative writing instructor. She is the author of six collections, and her work has appeared in several publications, most recently Down in the Dirt, Cholla Needles, and Academy of the Heart and Mind. She currently hosts a monthly featured readers series in Palm Springs, California and runs a poetry critique group.

Two Poems by James Bellanca

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On Waking to Shakespeare’s Garden in Autumn

On this young autumn’s sun-squint light-bright morn,
I snuggle like a Joey safe reclined
In pouch, so glad to dream sweet days fast gone.
I see round pink tails take their own sweet time
To nibble my much-loved, green garden down
Ignoring all but fragrant balm and thyme.
At last awake in William’s hut, I see
Only bits of chewed plants’ scattered debris.
This day, pink roses still greet the sun
and spread such scents I know with Puck in mind.
Rose Eglantine’s sweet nose my nose will stun
with floral scents to reach my soul now primed
to sense fall airs. I bend my head anew
to see the last surviving roses’ view.


Rings

I yet recall the day we stopped to buy
our marriage rings at the local jewelry store.
We searched each case. We peered through countertops
before the lone salesman (no sales “they” then)
displayed our choice. Breathless, we bought our bands.

Soon came new years to raise our four offspring
and then our children’s children grown too fast,
fast lost in widespread universities to play,
to learn, to sport, to seek new paths, new loves
fresh absent empty nest advice from us.

So many years have flown like birds gone south.
These nights we search Hulu and Netflix shows
reviewing places, we could not glob trot
or watching old BritBox comedy acts
with neighbor friends we’d gathered in our ring.

Full round the ring our lives have spun,
our life cycle now most likely marred
when Death brings news of loved ones rowed
across the river Styx. We clasp our hands,
our long ringed fingers locked, a single bond.




James Bellanca, 87, is a retired high school English teacher and author/publisher of teacher education guides who came lately to writing poetry. As a gardener, he learned to celebrate the natural world in his backyard. He favors formal narratives in which he weaves nature with themes of peace, justice, family with sardonic commentary into the foibles of senior life. His work has appeared in Witcraft, Down in the Dirt Magazine, Ethereal Haunted Journal, The Oakleaf, and Solution Tree Press. He organically gardens with his wife and friends in Lake Forest, Illinois.

Two Poems by Holly Day

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In the Park

The bonsai trees pose behind the glass
like little girls wearing too much makeup
or old women dressed like children.
Their leaves and spring blossoms
are too large for their branches, disproportionate
their slim trunks gouged and twisted
with memories of inflicted droughts, near-fatal cuts.

The man in charge of the display whispers to the trees
as he works them over with the shears, tells them they’re pretty
as he keeps them from growing up. Roots, thick and sinuous,
quietly search for a way out beneath the display
of dry moss and gravel, tap against the glass at night
tell stories so slow they take decades to end.


Inherent

some babies just know that they’re born on thin ice
well-behaved children
of rape and desertion, as if they know how deep
a hole they have to climb out of just
to

stay. some babies just know
that they’re born on thin ice, that they’re always
a hair’s breadth from being
abandoned, that they live in
the shadows of state care, foster homes, or
a paper bag dumped by the side of the road.

some babies just know.




Holly Day was recently published in Analog SF, Cardinal Sins, and New Plains Review, and her books include Music Theory for Dummies and Music Composition for Dummies. She currently teaches classes at The Loft Literary Center in Minnesota, Hugo House in Washington, and The Muse Writers Center in Virginia.

Two Poems by Martin Elster

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Playground In Early Fall

A woman pushes her child
who swings on a leather strap
as wings of sprightly yellow jackets slap

the afternoon. Beguiled
by the scent of bones, charred meat,
a mongrel wanders, scavenging the trash

near grills, as scattered cash
might make you pause. Kids, fleet
as pups, play wolf-cub-rough. Their howls carry

across the length of the park.
They wriggle through tunnels, dark
as a serpent’s gut, and slither down slides as scary

as seeing the teeth of the hound
now nosing around the fence
that shields them from a world far too immense.

He marks it, scuffs the ground.
He seems sublimely numb
to the squall of squeals and shrieks (as if the noise

that blooms from these boisterous boys
and clamorous girls must come
from beyond the world), while those who are climbing and crawling

are unaware a fog
will make them deaf as the dog
to the whispering leaves of memory, falling, falling.


Greenland Shark

Swimming adagio
through frozen seas, you grow
far slower than a hickory
and, by some wicked trickery,

are the oldest vertebrate
on earth. Is that so great?
Perhaps. Or maybe not.
It would depend a lot

on whether you’re go-getting,
letting your gills down, jetting
through the Atlantic Ocean,
or lost. You haven’t a notion

you were a youth when Bruno
was born. Perhaps you do know
that you’ve, indeed, outlasted
the hoariest whale that blasted

its songs across the sea
or a bivalve thought to be
five hundred seven years old.
While swimming through the cold,

you’re surely not aware
of the net which soon will snare
your ancient bones. They’ll floor us.
“Amazing!” we will chorus.




Martin Elster, who never misses a beat, was for many years a percussionist with the Hartford Symphony Orchestra. Martin’s poems have appeared in numerous literary journals and anthologies in the U.S. and abroad. His honors include the 2022 Helen Schaible International Sonnet Contest winner, Rhymezone’s poetry contest, five Pushcart nominations, and a Best of the Net. A full-length collection, Celestial Euphony, was published by Plum White Press in 2019.

“Grave Thoughts” by Jeffrey Essmann

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Perhaps, I thought, it’s time I bought a grave:
Just something humble by a chain link fence
With room enough my name there to engrave
And one or two geraniums to brave
With grace the passage still of earthly time
And mind the passersby of fairer climes
(An aisle down, where folks aren’t packed so dense).

It’s not so much that I’ve been feeling old
(At least not older than I rightly should)
But sense now everywhere some deeper cold
That nothing in me could have quite foretold,
And think: Perhaps just go there, take the tour;
Ask questions; look at holes; take a brochure;
Consider well my coffin: Metal? Wood?




Jeffrey Essmann is an essayist and poet living in New York. His poetry has appeared in numerous magazines and literary journals, among them: America Magazine, Dappled Things, the St. Austin Review, Pensive Journal, U.S. Catholic, Amethyst Review, The Society of Classical Poets, and various venues of the Benedictine monastery with which he is an oblate. He is editor of the “Catholic Poetry Room” page on the Integrated Catholic Life website.

Two Poems by Richard Lovelace

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Richard Lovelace (1617–1657) was a prominent Cavalier poet of the 17th century, renowned for his lyrical elegance and association with the Royalist cause during the English Civil War. Born into a well-to-do Kentish family, Lovelace was educated at the prestigious Charterhouse School and later at Gloucester Hall, Oxford, where his charm, good looks, and poetic skill quickly gained him admiration and support among the literary elite. Known for his refined manners and loyalty to King Charles I, Lovelace’s life and work were deeply influenced by his unwavering commitment to the Royalist ideals of honor, loyalty, and courtly love.

Lovelace’s poetry is marked by its musical quality, emotive depth, and dedication to the ideals of chivalry. His most famous work, To Althea, from Prison, penned while he was briefly imprisoned for his Royalist sympathies, contains the immortal lines, “Stone walls do not a prison make, / Nor iron bars a cage.” This piece and others in his collection Lucasta (1649) express his belief in inner freedom and resilience, as well as his love for a woman he called Lucasta (thought to be a poetic pseudonym for his beloved Lucy Sacheverell). Lovelace’s verses often celebrate themes of loyalty, love, and liberty, reflecting his desire for both personal and political freedom during a time of national turmoil.

Lovelace’s commitment to the Royalist cause led him to serve in the military on behalf of King Charles I, fighting in the Bishops’ Wars in Scotland and later in the Civil War. However, his loyalty came at great personal cost. After repeated imprisonments and financial losses, he spent his later years in poverty and ill health, facing the bitter disillusionment that many Cavaliers experienced after the fall of the monarchy.

Lovelace’s legacy as a poet rests on his ability to merge graceful language with Cavalier ideals. His verses capture the spirit of a turbulent era, and his enduring works offer insight into the personal sacrifices of those loyal to a lost cause. Though his fame dwindled after his death, Lovelace’s poetry was rediscovered in the 19th century, appreciated for its lyrical beauty and its emblematic portrayal of honor and love. His work, including the two poems featured below, remains a touchstone of the Cavalier tradition, influencing later poets and reminding readers of the values of courage, loyalty, and resilience.


To Althea, From Prison

When Love with unconfinèd wings
Hovers within my Gates,
And my divine Althea brings
To whisper at the Grates;
When I lie tangled in her hair,
And fettered to her eye,
The Gods that wanton in the Air,
Know no such Liberty.

When flowing Cups run swiftly round
With no allaying Thames,
Our careless heads with Roses bound,
Our hearts with Loyal Flames;
When thirsty grief in Wine we steep,
When Healths and draughts go free,
Fishes that tipple in the Deep
Know no such Liberty.

When (like committed linnets) I
With shriller throat shall sing
The sweetness, Mercy, Majesty,
And glories of my King;
When I shall voice aloud how good
He is, how Great should be,
Enlargèd Winds, that curl the Flood,
Know no such Liberty.

Stone Walls do not a Prison make,
Nor Iron bars a Cage;
Minds innocent and quiet take
That for an Hermitage.
If I have freedom in my Love,
And in my soul am free,
Angels alone that soar above,
Enjoy such Liberty.



To Lucasta, Going to the Wars

Tell me not (Sweet) I am unkind,
         That from the nunnery
Of thy chaste breast and quiet mind
         To war and arms I fly.

True, a new mistress now I chase,
         The first foe in the field;
And with a stronger faith embrace
         A sword, a horse, a shield.

Yet this inconstancy is such
         As you too shall adore;
I could not love thee (Dear) so much,
         Lov’d I not Honour more.




The informational article above was composed in part by administering guided direction to ChatGPT. It was subsequently fact-checked, revised, and edited by the editor. The editor/publisher takes no authorship credit for this work and strongly encourages disclosure when using this or similar tools to create content. Sparks of Calliope prohibits submissions of poetry composed with the assistance of predictive AI.

“Rainbow Hues Throughout Life” by Janice Canerdy

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When hourglass sands were mostly in the top
and life was like a poem penned for me,
when forests beckoned friends and me, “Come play,”
love of adventure ruled and I felt free.

When rainbow colors filtered through the trees
and Nature served to thrill, fulfill, and teach,
imagination wove grand tapestries
and—for a time—all seemed within my reach.

********************

Let children have their dreams and fantasies.
They’ll grow up soon enough and see what’s true.
May each define “success” and work for it,
find joy, and keep those rainbow hues in view.




Janice Canerdy is a retired high-school English teacher from Potts Camp, Mississippi. Her poems have appeared in numerous publications, including Light Quarterly, The Road Not Taken, Lyric, Parody, Bitterroot, the Society of Classical Poets Journal, Westward Quarterly, Lighten Up Online, Halcyon Days, Penwood Review, the Mississippi Poetry Society Journal, Whispering Angel Books, and Quill Books. Her book, Expressions of Faith (Christian Faith Publishing), was published in 2016.