Tag: Free Verse

Two Poems by Lynn White

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Stitching Together

There’s no fabric under the foot
and the machine isn’t plugged in.
It doesn’t need to be now.

She’s dreaming of her treadle
and the hand turned one.
Both dressed her
in her youth
cheaply
and sometimes
eccentrically.

She reads a note from the past
a piece of paper
a tiny fragment
but full of awakened dreams.

She thinks of that girl
sitting there sewing
then.
And now
stitching together
pieces
of a life
well lived
making
a patchwork
of her time.


Like Father Like Son

I wanted to be like my father,
to follow in his footsteps,
or rather,
his wheel-steps
as he drove his tram along the shiny rails.

We played the game constantly to give me practice
but I couldn’t quite get the hang of driving.
I was scared of crashing and tumbling on to the city streets.

So he bought me a Conductors uniform
and a bag for the money and tickets.
He drove and I sold the tickets.
It was a good compromise.

I think about it now as I look down on the city,
with its streets and green spaces
which no longer have trams.

“Like Father Like Son” first appeared in Verse Virtual.




Lynn White lives in north Wales. Her work is influenced by issues of social justice and events, places and people she has known or imagined. She is especially interested in exploring the boundaries of dream, fantasy and reality. She has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net and a Rhysling Award. Find her on her blog or on Facebook.

Two Poems by Miriam Maglani

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Paper Weight

They float in a perfect cube of clear resin,
a set of US mint coins from 1994.
He kept it on a dusty shelf
in his doctor’s office, next to the penguin
wearing a beret I sculpted for him.

We would take family trips to flea markets
so he could look for coins,
dollars, half dollars, nickels, pennies, silver, copper —

he felt their weight and contours
in his deft surgeon hands,
the coins preserved, frozen in time,
memories of a time long gone,

a reminder and remainder of him
and the unquantifiable weight of his loss.


Metal on Bone

When my mom’s friend Arthritis brewed
a storm in her knees,
the simple everyday task
of flushing the toilet made her fall.

She was found crumpled
on her bathroom floor
like balled up toilet paper.

X-rays and scans unearthed
her injury— a break in her femur.

She has metal in her now —
her organic existence compromised
with rods and screws that will join her
in her earthy grave.

Her family has faith in the skill of surgeons,
the fidelity of screws,
the strength of metal,
her mettle,
for the long journey to recovery
that stretches barren before her.

They pray she will be able to walk again,
metal on bone,
bone with mettle.




Miriam Manglani lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with her husband and three children. She works full-time as a Sr. Technical Training Manager. Her poems have been published in various magazines and journals including Red Eft Review, One Art, Glacial Hills Review, Paterson Literary Review, and Lothlorian Poetry Journal.

“our times” by Stephen House

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i know a guy
who presses leaves together
with heavy stone weights
to make trays
he piles up
on the veranda
of his small tin shack
that backs on to a railway line

sometimes i help him work
or just sit near
watching him with his big green leaves
keeping out the day-time heat
writing my travelling words down
into a notebook
or dozing on a grass mat
next to where he stacks the trays

as day slides to evening
by light of lamp
he packs the trays into cardboard boxes
ready for a dawn ride on his pushbike
to wherever he goes
to drop them off
and collect money

we don’t speak a language the same
but our times flow easily
we laugh
make noises with tongues
click fingers
smile warmly
touch each other lightly
affectionately

in the cool of the night
we sit out the front
of where he lives and works
and he goes inside and makes hot sugary chai
and we drink it on the veranda

together
in shared silence
as trains roar behind us
shaking the tin shack
and us

The poem “our times” first appeared in Feral Literary Journal.




Stephen House has won many awards and nominations as a poet, playwright, and actor. He’s had 20 plays produced with many published by Australian Plays Transform. He’s received several international literature residencies from The Australia Council for the Arts, and an Asialink India literature residency. He’s had two chapbooks published by ICOE Press Australia: ‘real and unreal’ poetry and ‘The Ajoona Guest House’ monologue. His next book drops soon. He performs his acclaimed monologues widely. Stephen’s play, ‘Johnny Chico,’ ran in Spain for 4 years.

“Ode to My Dad” by Patrick Connors

~ Randal A. Burd, Jr. ~ 1 Comment

What I Am Left With

Walter Gretzky died two days before my Dad.
They were both born in 1938. Other than that,
they had almost nothing in common.

My Dad and me also had very little in common
except our first names
and our last

the propensity to drink
as a means of dealing with anxiety
and a deep and abiding love in Jesus Christ.

My childhood was a hopeless struggle, founded
on pleasing my Dad, protecting my Mom
and becoming the next Wayne Gretzky.

My Dad was deeply damaged.
He was torn between trying to save us
from this damage and sharing how it felt.

Finally, we became
a family, found the courage
to leave the source of our abuse.

I started to live my life
and make my own mistakes
and then, eventually, become sane.

Decades later, after
a few vain attempts to make peace
I found out my Dad was very ill.

I couldn’t go see him.
In the times of Covid, 5 provinces away
it just wasn’t possible.

From decades gone by
the distance may as well have been
a million miles, even in the same room.

My Dad died.
The pain he felt and the pain he inflicted
cannot be reconciled.

I never got to tell him how much he hurt me.
I never got to say I forgave him.
I never got to say goodbye.

“Ode to My Dad” first appeared in Canadian Stories.




Patrick Connors charted on the Toronto Poetry Map with his first chapbook, Scarborough Songs, released by Lyricalmyrical Press in 2013. Other publication credits include: The Toronto Quarterly, Spadina Literary Review, Sharing Spaces, Tamaracks, and Tending the Fire. His first full collection, The Other Life, was released in 2021 by Mosaic Press. His new chapbook, Worth the Wait, was released this Spring by Cactus Press. You can follow him on X, Instagram, or Facebook.

Two Poems by Jacqueline Jules

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Blemished Fruit

My mother taught me to stew fruit.
To core and peel. Add raisins.
A bit of brown sugar, cinnamon.
Simmer till soft.

For this family treat,
she used mostly blemished fruit,
apples and pears she deemed
perfectly good, save for a few
brown spots.

At my own counter,
paring knife in hand,
I remember Mom
in her green Formica kitchen
humming while she sliced
the bruises off battered fruit,
never doubting for a moment
she could make something sweet
with whatever was left.


Before You Needed a Chair in the Shower

We often spent Sunday afternoons
at scenic spots. We liked those sprawling
parks, created from old estates
with grand houses and grounds.

Now I leave you home when I drive away
with my neighbor Shelley, already widowed.

You couldn’t navigate this leaf-covered trail
with your cane. While I can still step quickly
uphill, over exposed tree roots.

Shelley, cheerful beside me, suggests a stop
after our walk at the market down the road,
the kind of place we would have visited
before your first trip to the ER.

Returning to the car,
I think of your stammering steps
from couch to table, the groaning
effort to sit back down in a chair,
and wish it wasn’t so painful
to mention how much we both miss
what we used to do together.




Jacqueline Jules is the author of Manna in the Morning (Kelsay Books, 2021) and Itzhak Perlman’s Broken String, winner of the 2016 Helen Kay Chapbook Prize from Evening Street Press. Her poetry has appeared in over 100 publications including The Sunlight Press, Gyroscope Review, and One Art. She is also the author of two poetry books for young readers: Tag Your Dreams: Poems of Play and Persistence. (Albert Whitman, 2020) and Smoke at the Pentagon: Poems to Remember (Bushel & Peck, 2023). Visit  www.jacquelinejules.com.

Two Poems by A. G. Elrod

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Oostkerk in October

Broken wing and cowering beside the ancient door
While hollow echoes oscillate the empty chime within
Concrete eyes of living death unable to explore
The mystery that lies between intention and begin

Once young now in between the thread of life and mystery
Of hands that held the fire’s tongue now singed and cooled apart
The bell between chimes hollow still into an empty sea
Of lifeless space, abandoned halls, the chambers of the heart

The shade within, the black beneath is comfort from the light
Of life and scars and broken vows escorted through the noise
Of busy days with concrete eyes unable to ignite
A heated beat of pulsing veins and all hedonic joys

A scentless world of stone and shade and unacknowledged wrongs
Of lust unlived and songs unsung for hollow vows to keep
For sterile haunts of hallowed halls and abstinence prolonged
Safety from unveiling bright where naked hungers steep

          And now it comes, the door unlatched of final mystery
          What if? Her taste unknown escapes in final injury


Broken Wall

it took such effort of will
to pull down this wall to
meet you where you were
to elevate my affections
to equal yours

and now I stand beside the
broken wall and carry these
heavy affections that you
once shared, only to find
that I follow you in the cold
and at a distance




A. G. Elrod is a Lecturer of English in The Netherlands university system and a PhD candidate in the Digital Humanities.

“Finches in the Geriatric Ward” by Lillian Morton

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The molar-shaped hole still healing—dried blood, caved, new gum
beginning to fold over—I pick at it with my tongue.

The passing nurse teases how the finches are attracted to bright colors,
maybe one would land in your hair. They tap their beaks against the glass,
like morse code; me eyeing their very real, very untamed feathers.

Dad tells me, his loose canon of a thirteen-year old daughter, I cannot say
aloud what I know he is too thinking. It’s not just the smell of century-old perfume,
the ugly peeling wallpaper, the stains left on the carpet. We both see the finches’

wings, fresh from a clipping; the fluorescent sign—a sun that will never set
—the wrongness, the confrontation, the taboo of it all, an attempt
at peace, consolidation, grief; even inside a cage within a cage.

When I am noticed for my smooth hands I see the nurses’ hands
are cracked from their ritual washings—I allow myself to imagine
the shape of my new molar, what mold my gum cage will let it take.

An ancient wisdom tooth will erupt behind it, and even in this distant teenhood,
and the finches will continue to remain behind this glass wall, chirping,
flapping amongst the unchanging shades of frizzled, dying hair.

“Finches in the Geriatric Ward” was runner-up for the 2022 Colorado State University Creative Writing
Scholarship.




Lillian Morton is a writer based in Northern Colorado. She was born in Southern China and lived in Central Ohio during her childhood. Her poetry has appeared in issues by Laurel Moon, Polaris, and Dreamer By Night; her short fiction, “In Mason’s Time,” was honorable mention for the University of Colorado Boulder’s 2021 Thompson Writing Awards.

Two Poems by Diane Webster

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Rust Background

Rust is the background
to the white paint chiseled
into graffiti petroglyphs.

The hunter stalks through
rocks and stone
for a deer creature
poised for flight;
its antler carving
snarls in branches,
in hiding.

No other picture
glorifies the kill.
No picture celebrates
the hunter empty-handed.
Rust awaits another
hunting expedition
as rain and sunshine
strip away more paint.


Shell Echoes

The abandoned Shell gas station
lies washed up near the highway.
Heatwaves rise like dreams
in traffic blurring past
to destinations beyond.

Weeds are allowed
to grow in cracks
like tree seeds dropped
into boulder crevices
to sprout and heave roots
like Samson leaning
on the temple pillars.

Shell gas station;
a conch shell pushed
ashore by waves
like mirage heat
boiling once reality.

Listen to the conch
echo whispers of the ocean
like abandoned gas station
hearing tires buzz on the pavement.




Diane Webster‘s goal is to remain open to poetry ideas in everyday life, nature, or an overheard phrase and to write. Diane enjoys the challenge of transforming images into words to fit her poems. Her work has appeared in El Portal, North Dakota Quarterly, Eunoia Review, and other literary magazines. She also had a micro-chap published by Origami Poetry Press in 2022.

“Hapless Decoration” by Shelly Elizabeth Sanchez

~ Randal A. Burd, Jr. ~ 1 Comment

In those old days
Upon that ceramic floor
I stared into her back
Where she was resting on her knees
And staring in the water

As if she was finely brushed
With ocean blue tears
Devoid of salt
Teasing at the seam
Of her existence

She harkens to the girl
Wet from chlorine
On a holy afternoon
Staring at the flesh
Of her youthful thighs

Who could imagine
A being so small
So fragile and fair
As to wonder why
And for what purpose

She rests in that frame
Bathed in clinical light
Mirrored by the one
Dripping onto the floor
Into the vast sea below

“Hapless Decoration” first appeared in The Colton Review.




Shelly Elizabeth Sanchez grew up in the North Carolina Piedmont beginning at age six. Her earliest memories include playing with the boys, some freaky nightmares, and random sessions on the family Nintendo 64. Her existential poem, “Hapless Decoration,” won first place in Poetry in The Colton Review: Volume 17, and she published flash fiction in The Colton Review: Volume 18.

Two Poems by Anne Mikusinski

~ Randal A. Burd, Jr. ~ 2 Comments

The Concert

At first, there’s
Silence.
Then
Loops and whorls of sound
Fill up the room
Rising and falling
Feeding on all emotion and
Anticipation
Of the waiting crowd
A flash and flood of light
Reveal
The players, at their places
Settled into
Tonight’s temporary home
And for a while
No outside world exists
Just words
And music
And connection
A fleeting smile
A brush of fingertips
Or brief clasp of hands
There’s a middle, then an end
A mournful keyboard fades
Into a last goodbye
A quick embrace exchanged
And then
Silence.


Chapter Two

In my next life
I will be
Braver
But more
Careful
To cover my
Sleeve worn heart
With an extra layer
Of camouflage.

In my next life
I will be
Quiet
In the face of onslaughts
Temperate
With words and
More
Mindful of my actions.

In my next life
I will be more
Practical
Less prone to
Dreams
Less willing to
Follow
A path of
Promises
With no set destination.




Anne Mikusinski has been writing poems and short stories since the age of seven and probably making them up for a long time before that. Her influences range from Dylan Thomas and Sylvia Plath to David Byrne and Nick Cave. She hopes that someday, she will be as much of an influence for someone as these poets were for her.