Tag: Poetry

Two Poems by Robert Donohue

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2023 Best of the Net Nominee

2024 Pushcart Prize Nominee

Pegasus

One evening in the dining room I saw
Dad sketch a horse upon a legal pad,
I will assume this was the time he had
Enrolled in school to study labor law.
He drew a thoroughbred without a flaw
And here I thought all art was for the mad,
But also thought none saner than my dad,
I didn’t even know that he could draw.

I don’t believe he ever drew again,
Perhaps it was his way of showing us
A horse is just a horse, not Pegasus
And plainness was the subject of his pen.
I think he would believe a horse with wings
Might be unsuited for more earthly things.


Categorical

I had a friend whose grandmother would hoard
Sears’ catalogues, and meeting her she’d ask
When you were born, then making it her task
You got one from your birth. These volumes stored
More than a taste for which the world was bored
And like a wine drawn from a moldy cask
Within your vintage you could freely bask
In being young, and when you were adored.

By thinking of the Nineteen Seventies,
Those plaids and knits, and those high-waisted pants,
I think of time no changing now supplants
And at the end of life’s declivities
I’ll fall (foretold as much, so I discern)
Onto shag carpet, laid for my return.




Robert Donohue has published his poems in journals such as: Amethyst Review, Better Than Starbucks, The Ekphrastic Review, and FreezeRay Poetry, among others. He lives on Long Island, NY.

Two Poems by A. Gee

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By the Shore

Whitecaps, eager, race to shore —
couldn’t get there any faster;
sand attempts to keep the score…

Shells of pearl and alabaster
dot the wild, abandoned coast,
laid bare as an ossuary,
and the wind, a mournful ghost,
wails…

Indifferent, the waves hurry.


Beach Chair

Hanging clouds, soft cotton candy,
wispy tendrils probe about.
In my beach chair, sipping brandy,
waiting for the tide to out.
Sweat is cooling, makes me shiver,
pondering my life and death,
yearning for a single sliver
of a sail upon God’s breath.

There she is, all mast and power
as she leans from bow to stern.

As her wake upends the hour

yearning over, I return.




A. Gee has spent the bulk of his 20-year career writing code for a living. An avid reader of both English and Russian classical literature and poetry (English is his third language), he’s long been fascinated by the challenge of creating metrical, rhyming English poetry that wants to escape out of your mouth and be read out loud. A happily married father and grandfather, A. Gee and his wife split their time between New Jersey and Texas. Check out his book, Myth Takes: Rhyme and Reason in the Age of Entitlement or more of his poetry here.

Two Poems by Preeth Ganapathy

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Cicadas

In the evening, they alight on the bark’s
tarmac, loud and clear.
I scour the lines of the silver-oak,
for their scent.
After seventeen searing seconds,
I am about to turn away
satisfied with the tang of their fervent
metallic songs until,
one tiny frame
shivers like a newborn flame.

Before dawn, they assemble again, sing their songs,
laced with the freshness of dew and air,
from the edge of a single Mussaenda petal,
from behind an Arabica coffee stem,
from between the cracks of the cement courtyard,
from beyond the delicate hills and the thin mist,
calling out
to Light.


Stay

The sun is like the air –
calm on the skin, but not seen.
The garden glows green,
my son is on the swing,
the one with the blue paint peeling off the seat,
clasping the rust-coated side chain.
A big smile stretched on his face, mid-flight,
singing feathery songs to the morning light.

After some time, I call out softly, tell him it is time to leave,
before his eyebrows furrow,
before he can shake his head,
a dragon-fly hovers,
her black paper wings flutter,
and she carefully selects one of the lines of my open palm
and perches
for the moment.

Like a gracious host
she whispers
‘stay’.




Preeth Ganapathy is a software engineer turned civil servant from Bengaluru, India. Her works have been published in several magazines such as The Ekphrastic Review, Soul-Lit, The Sunlight Press, Atlas+Alice, Ink, Sweat and Tears, Mothers Always Write, Tiger Moth Review and elsewhere. Her microchap, A Single Moment, has been published by Origami Poems Project. She is also a two-time winner of Wilda Morris’s Poetry Challenge.

Two Poems by Royal Rhodes

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Dying Languages Archived

Collecting dying languages at risk
from Mongol tribes, Nigeria, Nepal,
linguists try to digitize in brisk,
efficient ways before we lose them all,
to capture mythic chants like butterflies,
dead and instantly available.
The “nuts and bolts” of cultures lost will rise,
with vocal repertoires made saleable.
Their videos show shamans with their tools
living on the margins, while disasters,
famine, shaky governments of fools
allow the loss, a vacuum newer masters
fill. But words have motion, color, scent,
not categories that we just invent.


Coroner’s Report: 1569

The county coroner’s report
described the victim’s drowning

in the nearby river Salwarpe,
not far from Stratford-upon-Avon.

“By reason of collecting and holding out
certain flowers…’yellow boddles’

growing on the bank of a certain
small channel…called Upton myll pond

…about the eighth hour after noon
suddenly and by misfortune fell

and then and there she instantly died.”

Perhaps, perhaps such domestic details
often with their roots in village gossip

gave the resident playwright gist
to fell his own forlorn, mad heroine

in a brook, while she clutched tight
garlands of crow-flowers, nettles, daisies,

and sang in the still waters “snatches
of old tunes,” until her waterlogged dress

dragged her under to a silent death.

No one bothered to write a play about
those killed by performing bears, or those

dead wrestling, tossing a ball, bell ringing,
or lobbing a sledgehammer for sport.

Only this child, a girl holding certain flowers.




Royal Rhodes is a retired professor who taught classes in global religions, the Classics, religion & the arts, and death & dying. His poetry has appeared online and in a series of art/poetry collaborations for The Catbird [on the Yadkin] Press in North Carolina. His current project is a poetry/photography collaboration on sacred sites in Italy.

Two Poems by Felicia Nimue Ackerman

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Song of a Future Age

Children of the present age,
Reading this indignant page,
Know that in a former time,
Longer life was thought a crime.

“Elders needing doctors’ care
Cost us more than we can spare.
Elders who retain their health
Rob the young of jobs and wealth.

Fourscore years are all you need.
Seeking more reveals your greed.
Live your numbered years with zest.
Then go sweetly to your rest.”

So the pundits used to say
Till we reached a better day.
Children, how our lifespans grew:
I’m 300—you’ll be too.

“Song of a Future Age” first appeared in Blake House.


On the Snow

We’re all supposed to love the Earth
And thrill to nature’s bold displays.
We’re all supposed to be entranced
When nature sends us snowy days.

But I just tumbled on the snow
And gave my knee a nasty whack.
If I’m supposed to love the Earth,
The Earth should try to love me back.

“On the Snow” first appeared in The Providence Journal.




Felicia Nimue Ackerman is a professor of philosophy at Brown University and has had over 230 poems published in a wide range of places, including twelve in past issues of Sparks of Calliope.

“Lessons in Love” by Susan Jarvis Bryant

~ Randal A. Burd, Jr. ~ 4 Comments

2023 Best of the Net Nominee

2024 Pushcart Prize Nominee

Inspired by William George Falconer, 1922 – 2006 


I. The First

The photo flew from Grandad’s falling wallet.
It fluttered to the floor within my reach.
I picked it up and saw the writing on it –
Summer ’64 at Brighton Beach.
I gazed at Gran – a siren of the ocean –
Her skirt hitched up, surf lapping at her thighs,
A skittish grin with saucy notions frozen
In tantalizing, sea-and-sunshine eyes.
My tender heart had plenty left to learn.
The man who snapped the picture taught me well.
He told me Gran’s bold beauty made him burn
To dance with her till frost froze flames of Hell.
I knew that day the value of our chat.
I knew that night I’d pray for love like that.


II. The Last

His feisty spirit hid in wizened skin
That stretched across each worn and weary bone.
I saw his grief – that wretched wince within
His wistful eyes. He choked down every groan.
I held my grandad’s gnarly hands in mine –
Hands that fought a war and built a life
With she who made the bleakest moments shine –
My grandmother, his gone and longed-for wife.
He told me, when the stars were in his reach
And always silvered sprawling golden sand,
He’d meet his foxy sweetheart on the beach.
They’d waltz and kiss then walk home hand in hand.
He taught my smarting heart the marvel of
That death-defying miracle called love.




Susan Jarvis Bryant is originally from England and now lives on the coastal plains of Texas. She has poetry published in a variety of places. Susan is the winner of the 2020 International SCP Poetry Competition and has been nominated for the 2022 Pushcart Prize.

Two Poems by Jessica Whipple

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Heyday

When do we stop wanting
to go up into things?
When I was ten,
we went inside the St. Louis Arch.
My brother and I rode the tram
like a caterpillar along a stem
that bends under its weight.
At the top we looked out the windows
and felt we had grown wings.

Next summer at the Statue of Liberty
we learned the crown was closed.
He didn’t care. He was older,
bored by the seeming-smallness
of brothers, cities.

Following the interstate
we took decades earlier,
I’m on my way again.
Can the drear of adulthood
really be this obvious:
The gas station where my brother and I
got Big Apple keychains and Bugles or Combos
or some other past-its-heyday snack,
even that is somehow worse-off now,
overtaken by weeds.


Behold the Pawpaw

A secret delight grows native
to our PA home: The pawpaw,
left from another time when
indigenous people foraged, built eel weirs
in Susquehanna symbiosis.

We traveled highways to a pawpaw sale,
stood giddy in a (socially-distanced) line
hustled home snuggling Potomac, Shenandoah
in crinkly brown bags heavy with hope in the promise:
Tropical flavor, banana plus mango, creamy inside.

Because we were bored, lonely
worn out from pandemic living
couldn’t help feeling
these Prehistoric-looking trees
persisted for ages in the understory
destined to bear fruit for us
yellow flesh was ours to discover
floral scent set free to fill these nostrils.

So we read blogs, Food & Wine
hungry for joy, novelty.
Pawpaw ice cream
would redeem lonely summer days.
Pawpaw salsa would salve our restless souls.

At home I sliced one open
revealed an eerie smile of black seeds
—this will be good!—
glistening flesh like overripe melon
—I can’t wait to taste!—
But if I’m honest,
what I discovered
was twenty-seven dollars
of soapy, slimy mush
not at all tropical
And if I’m honest, I was foolish
to think a fruit could save us.




Jessica Whipple is a writer for adults and children. Her poetry has been published by One Art, Nurture, Ekstasis, Rathalla Review, Stanchion, Door Is a Jar, and Pittsburgh Quarterly, with some forthcoming in Pine Hills Review and Anti-Heroin Chic. Her debut picture book, titled ENOUGH IS…, will be published March 7th, 2023, by Tilbury House, and another titled I THINK I THINK A LOT by Free Spirit Publishing is forthcoming in August. To see more of her work, visit AuthorJessicaWhipple.com or follow her on Twitter @JessicaWhippl17.

Two Poems by Jarad Bushnell

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Where Someplace Now a Downy

The moon has risen up
The snow has fallen down
The cold has set itself inside
Each member of the town

While on my porch in quiet
I breathe the misty chill
Remark to self the silence
Of each surrounding hill

Where someplace now a Downy
Is sleeping in a tree
Waiting out the cold snap
Alongside wife he be

In bed of woodchip blanket
In home of limb of dead
He spends the night deep dreaming
With fluffy belly fed

And once near morn he stirs
To sound below on ground
His little lady hears it too
His warming wing spreads ‘round

Her slender shoulders, tense
Her dark red open eye
Her velvet head is burrowed deep
Into his side, she sighs

As little chests return to
The night’s deep rhythmic beat
Before the sun stirs up the hills
Before the moon’s retreat


Anniversary Poem 2022

While tidying up I uncovered a tote
Buried beneath a closet heap
A pouch of prints showing how I’d dote
On that girl whose heart I continue to keep
Of adventures had in distant days
A multitudinous display

There were campers in Iceland and Coney Island;
Her bob cut, my jeans and black shirt;
In the former days when I was too thin
We’d shoot pool and stay out and make out and flirt!
Enjoying all there was to find
I came across two of one kind

In both that eager Emerald Eye
Held trance with chin turned low
In both on breeze a tress let fly
To barely brush her even brow
Wait – Do curls compared appear
To differ by a millimeter?

No sense in keeping dupes to cherish
But if unique and one be tossed
With it a piece of me will perish
With it an instant will be lost
It’s an awful thought to entertain
So back in tote I placed prints again




Jarad Bushnell is a data scientist who lives in Philadelphia with his wife and cat. His poetry has appeared in Grand Little Things, WestWard Quarterly, and others. He enjoys calisthenics, birdwatching, and exploring nature. You can find his published work at JaradBushnellPoetry.com.

Two Poems by Paul Buchheit

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To Seize the Day

With every pulse a pixie scatters dust
to mark her presence, as the gods ordain:
she heaves and thrashes with a harlot’s lust
to satisfy the scurrilous refrain
of moments hurtling in a desperate
appeal to never end, while humankind,
possessed of dreamlike powers to emit
a billion self-delusions in its mind,
adorns itself in jewels, velvet robes,
and masquerades of immortality.

But merciless the timeless eye that probes
and parodies the human foolery
of squandering tomorrows to ascend
to glory just before tomorrows end.


To Embrace One’s Fortune

When breath of dusk is gathering inside,
and paths are blurred by brooding clouds of mist;
when kindred spirits hesitate to guide
your errant journey, and the Fates persist
in taunting you by lashing heavy stone
to every step: then stoke your neural fires
until the glimmer in your mind has grown
to waves of longing, rousing your desires
to revel in the ancient mysteries
of being. Lots were cast for centuries,
and moments passed in infinite degrees
of time and place for fleeting ecstasies
to spark your life — yet lives to never be
are numerous as droplets in the sea!




Paul Buchheit, a lifelong Chicagoan and retired college teacher, is an author of books, poems, progressive essays, and scientific journal articles. He recently completed his first historical novel, 1871: Rivers on Fire. His most recent non-fiction book was Disposable Americans, published in 2017 by Routledge.

Two Poems by Mark J. Mitchell

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The Helen Portrait

Dies nächt sinf nicht für die menge gemacht
(Nights are not made for the masses)
          —Rainier Maria Rilke
          The Book of Pictures

Night. She hopes she looks east. One husband liked
early sun on her impossible face. Night
makes her sing of touch. He asked a picture
be made. She’d lean on a terrace, east wall
ahead of her—for the light. She knew his fall—
that death—waited there. He meant to see her

at his end. Small man came with a smooth
board, pumiced. He arranged paint wells, burnt sticks.
Then he looked at her for days. He didn’t move.
She stood, silent as a laurel. She knew
what was and what was coming. Her eyes fixed
the distance. On the third day he tried
a stroke of charcoal, sounding like a wound
on an unshaved face. She looked out and sighed
the sigh of one who knew. He sketched. At noon,
he left. The board was bare. She’s seen his hand
moving. Heard it draw. She breathed, but kept still.
Next dawn, he tried again. Again. Again.
No pictures exists and no picture will.


The Blind Room

The blind room hides decks of blank cards. You look
for symbols, faces, you see richest dark
revealing meanings you can’t quite read—
not here. This special place, built out need
for one place you’re never meant to see.
Rest blind. The room hides and those blank cards look
back at you, cheating but chaste. Unmarked.

You deal crisp cards by touch. It’s still a game
that must get played. Of course you’ll bet blind,
dropping colorless chips on what must be
green felt. Click. One. Two. More? At least three
players. A voice says, “call.” Rakes chips. He
says, “deal.” New cards touch your fingers. The game
goes on. Repeats. The voices are soft, kind.

They play, careful as pianists. Each note,
each card is important. When they begin,
you lose. The hands, the blank cards, must be played.
Toss plastic at the kitty. Never raise
no matter which suits you think you hold. Say
check. Play cards like a piano. Take notes.
Soon, these blinds will open. Light must pour in.




Mark J. Mitchell was born in Chicago and grew up in southern California. His latest poetry collection, Roshi San Francisco, was just published by Norfolk Publishing. Starting from Tu Fu was recently published by Encircle Publications. A new collection, Something to Be, and a novel are forthcoming. His first chapbook won the Negative Capability Award, and he has been nominated for Best of the Net and twice for the Pushcart Prize. He lives in San Francisco with his wife, the activist and documentarian Joan Juster. Find him on Twitter, Facebook, or his website.