There is a second when the invisible
is visible. Light tilts, just the right way,
or our prayers intercede,
and we see someone dead that we love.
No one is certain why this happens,
but it happens more often than reported,
because people are afraid of being called crazy.
When we experience this offering,
we stifle the vision, wave it off,
pretend it never happened,
never talk about it again.
But when the dead visit us,
we want the moment to be still,
like a photograph. We want time to cease,
to crease open to spend time reminiscing,
ask questions, be assured, hug them,
never let them go, again.
But they must go,
and we will doubt strongly, again.
We will forget this ever happened.
The contact never lasts long —
a mere glimpse; an eye blink.
I’ve heard, if we love someone extremely,
they will return; we should never question
if or when this will happen.
Just in case, I slow waltz with my wife.
Tag: Poetry
“The Blighted Laureate” by Andrew Benson Brown
Brown beetles plague the laurel tree.
They sit on twigs and dine on leaves,
A throne-usurping peasant mob.
Infested branches, twisted free,
Are shaped into a hollow crown
And given to a gloomy queen.
She reaches for her teeming prize
To make her head renowned,
And fumbles.
The itching starts, the redness swells.
The beetles raise their guillotine:
Crawling, they bite her honeyed scalp
Shampooed with artificial smells
As drooping, pitted bays detach
And fall like birds with broken wings.
Her brittle wreath, now barren, cracks.
As fingers lift to scratch,
It crumbles.
Andrew Benson Brown was a graduate student at George Mason University before taking too many classes outside his discipline coincided with the reality of Debt. He now works as a children’s caseworker in rural Missouri. In his spare time, he reads obscure classics, writes things of little market value, and exercises far more than is befitting for a modern intellectual.
“To My Father Who Immigrated to America” by Miriam Manglani
How scared you must have been
leaving your native Egypt,
the only home you knew,
alone,
leaving your parents,
your seven siblings,
your friends,
by boat at twenty-two
with only sixteen dollars in your pocket,
driven out by antisemitism,
the gang of Arabs
who beat you,
almost killing you for being Jewish.
Perhaps you saw glints of the lives
you would create and change
in the waters of the gleaming Mediterranean
you crossed —
Perhaps you saw in France
beneath the layers of soot
on the copper chimneys you cleaned
for one long dirty year —
to make your way to the states,
glimmers of the trail you burned years later
as a renowned OB/GYN,
reflections of the many women you saved
who regarded you as a quiet hero,
facets of the worlds you helped create
for your future wife, children,
and your grandchildren
who only know your cold grave.
When you stepped on American soil,
did you feel the rush of wind
from the golden doors
of opportunity swinging wide open?
Perhaps you saw and felt none
of those wondrous things,
but you still gave rise to them.
Miriam Manglani is an emerging writer with poetry published in Village Square, Poetry Quarterly, Rushing Thru the Dark, Vita Brevis, and Cerasus Magazine. Find her at www.miriammanglani.com.
Two Poems by E. C. Traganas
Best Friends
Call me what you will.
Fickle, for instance. I
simply haul in my net
roll up my sails
drop anchor and sling
my ropes on solid land
while frenzied water ebbs
and flows behind me.
Or dull and lackluster.
That’s when I take
the salt and acrid lemon
of your words and rub
the tarnish from
my copper pans
until they gleam.
Call me shallow.
And I reach down
from the submarine depths
of my limitations
and build an arc
shooting past the clouds
through an expanse
that even the orbs
of your eyes
can scarcely fathom
without squinting.
Call me what you will. I
turn your insults into gold.
It’s an amazing thing, this
strange alchemy
between us.
Reckoning
Crystals of ice-flakes. Squalls approach.
The cold-frost numbs my fingers.
Steam escapes the kettle-lid
etching steel-point vines upon the doors.
Crack of dusk. Vapored breath.
Contraction of the stone-like flesh.
My skin retracts as larch-pins snap
from northern gusts of spiking winds.
And what is left of mossy leaves
rank sodden with decay
I pile into a nameless heap
a mound where hardened insects play.
In the Indian Summer of my days
what thoughts of Winter’s Darkness call —
I have been summoned to reflect
that in my youth, my soul grows old.
E. C. Traganas is the author of the acclaimed debut novel Twelfth House. She has published in Möbius, Ibbetson Street Press, The Penwood Review, Sacred Journey, and numerous other literary journals. Shaded Pergola, a book of short poems featuring her original illustrations, is set to be released in January.
Two Poems by Fran Schumer
High Summer
I trudged through the day,
figured and refigured
plane routes, train routes
which buses to take
to see my aging parents.
My husband and our neighbor
would figure it out on the spot,
in the station, on the platform
bang bang it’s done — in situ
but I am not an in situ girl.
I plan
I worry.
Different parts of their bodies fail
lungs, livers, my father’s skin so delicate
it tears on the sheets at night.
Only their hearts keep beating
their ancient hearts
their faithful, ancient hearts
keep beating
keep loving us
keep us loving them.
Their kind doctors speak
in numbers, percentages, odds.
At dusk, I finish packing when I notice
the light, low and golden.
It’s high summer, early August
sunset still an hour off
the days warm and lasting.
Why not, I think, and carry my dinner
out to the deck where I listen
to the birds, the flap from the oven vent
tap tap-ing against the wall
watch the golden light
lick every leaf of oak and beech
until they glisten.
And I wonder
What did I ever do to deserve such happiness?
Ghost Writer
Who knew what a good job
it was for me who loved
to pretend I was someone else,
the only way
I knew to be myself.
They told me their stories
and I became a young lawyer
fired for marrying her boss;
an actress who gained and
lost and re-gained weight;
a thief; a bulimic; a druggie.
I slipped into their bodies
like ghosts in old movies,
cast spells to make them
heroes, victims, saints
and martyrs — and writers!
When we finished, I missed
them. But when I tried to
write my own book, the spirit
vanished. All that remained
was a ghost-white page.
Fran Schumer is a journalist and author. Her poetry has been published in The New Verse News, Hole In The Head Review, and Contrary. Another poem is forthcoming in Prospectus. In 2021, she won a second-place poetry fellowship from the Martha’s Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing. She majored in Social Studies at college but wishes she had spent the time studying Keats.
Two Poems by Felicia Nimue Ackerman
Mina Says No to Hospice
I entered the world with a blast,
Triumphant and ever so loud.
The room was engulfed by my cries.
My mother was weary but proud.
And now, although 90 and failing,
I still want to live as I am.
They said I came in like a lion —
I’ll never go out like a lamb.
Because She’s So Popular
She’s welcomed and flattered and favored and kissed.
She’s promptly invited; she’s first on the list.
She glides through the envy that always awaits her.
Because she’s so popular, everyone hates her.
“Mina Says No to Hospice” and “Because She’s So Popular” first appeared in The Providence Journal.
Felicia Nimue Ackerman is a professor of philosophy at Brown University and has had about 200 poems published in a wide range of places, including two in Sparks of Calliope last May and two last June.
Two Poems by Judy Lorenzen
Fog
A thick fog rolled in this morning,
and it’s just one of those days
when clouds of memories come in
and eventually move way, as one
picture comes clearly into focus—
now I see my father sitting
in the living-room chair
after cooking in a hot kitchen
all morning and afternoon long
at The Platter on Interstate 80—
his eyes, closed,
his feet and legs aching.
Ronnie Milsap’s “Smoky Mountain Rain”
plays in the background,
and I hear my father’s voice,
“I’ve had a change of dreams,
I’m comin’ home. . .”
I am moved by hearing his voice again
and realize that he was singing from a place
of deep understanding of the song—
the rain, the regret, the homesickness,
the “doing everything I can to get back, but
no one will let me in”—
and for the first time,
I see him.
He harmonizes with Ronnie
and the memory is sweet,
and just like the rain in the song
and the tears
the singer has to wipe back from his eyes,
I’d give anything
to see my father again,
a man whose love
I rejected most of my life
when the fog of resentment obscured my perspective—
then I took his love for granted
like he owed it to me.
But death and memory offer
the sorrows of hindsight,
the blessing of clear vision.
Now I see everything,
and what I see
is all that I failed at,
and what I remember
is goodness,
and the only thing I feel
is mountains of love.
Gratitude
Tonight,
high above the old barn,
which began leaning years ago,
is its Milky Way roof,
starlight shining on rotting boards
and broken hinges. A rush of wings
escapes out the broken door
as I approach.
This is the way I remember
Grandma and Grandpa—
beautiful and falling apart,
grey haired,
arthritic hands and bodies,
sitting in their lawn chairs
in the evening, smiling—
always welcoming.
They felt the years of hard toil
in every joint,
never complained—
and when they couldn’t keep up
any longer,
they learned to let go
and enjoy stars.
Judy Lorenzen is a poet, writer, and English teacher. She holds a BA in English; an MSED in Community Counseling (LMHP); an MA in Creative Writing from the University of Nebraska-Kearney (UNK); and a PhD in Rhetoric and Composition from UNL. Her work appears in Plains Song Review, Relief Literary Journal, Plainsong, Celebrate: A Collection of Writings by and About Women (Volume XVI), Nebraska Life, The Fence Post, The Untidy Season: An Anthology of Nebraska Women Poets, The Grand Island Independent, Misbehavin’ Nebraskans, Voices from the Plains, Vol. 2,Verse-Virtual, and Your Daily Poem, among other publications.
Two Poems by Cat Dixon
Disappointed
Disappointed in the mansion with all
its thrills—library, jacuzzi, firepit,
and pool, you attempt escape by way of secret
never-ending tunnels, but you’re lost in the maze.
Emancipated from wealth and fame, you grow
neither thin nor pale. The paparazzi grows
gaunt waiting at the front gate. Your steps are
uninterrupted in this game of hide and seek.
Your fans haunt every mirror and light fixture.
Every floorboard creaks like a thousand
nighttime stalkers hunting for a photo-op.
Prompt but Undereducated
Prompt but undereducated, you hold
recipes and a cup of chamomile tea
in one hand and dark lipstick in the other—
never meant for lush lips—that dark. The hidden
cockles of your heart are shocking red/black.
Every other color fades, but not this lasting
satin finish with its sweet flavor and sweeter
stories of long lost lovers who flake, but never
cave to the pressure of your chipped teeth
against such delicate skin. You arrive
royal and clean, but they’ve noted the flaw
only hidden by your bangs. You can’t
love anyone, except the one that matters,
you. So sip the tea, cook the risotto,
number the hours and days alone.
Cat Dixon is a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee. She is the author of Eva and Too Heavy to Carry (Stephen F. Austin University Press, 2016, 2014) and the chapbook Table for Two (Poet’s Haven, 2019). Her recent work was published in Sledgehammer Lit and Whale Road Review, and she is a poetry editor at The Good Life Review. Find her on Twitter @DixonCat.
“Populating Thanksgiving” by Ken Gosse
In a world full of people
there’s hate, crime, and war,
but today we recall
what we’re most thankful for.
At the top of the list
let’s place people again,
the young and the old;
girls and boys, women, men.
Our family, relatives,
neighbors and friends,
even strangers unknown,
way out where the Earth ends.
More than things or events,
fame, fortune, or glory,
the people we love are
the best of our story.
So pause to reflect
and take time to give thanks,
even though, now and then,
we’re all crotchety cranks.
Ken Gosse prefers writing short, rhymed verse with traditional meter, usually filled with whimsy and humor. First published in First Literary Review–East in November 2016, his poems are also in The Offbeat, Pure Slush, Parody, Home Planet News Online, Eclectica, and other publications. Raised in the Chicago suburbs, now retired, he and his wife have lived in Mesa, AZ, over twenty years.
“Photographing Hoodoos – Bryce Canyon” by Terence Culleton
“Thou still unravished bride . . .” —John Keats
As of yet these, too, are still unravished or
too slowly carved to call it ravishing.
Distended, urn-like, rust red, eighteen soar
above me as I inch down, ogling.
Some seem countenanced like totem poles
or tiki men atilt to ruminate
as I square round to frame their limestone souls
within the finder lest the inner state
of stone be only stone, what wind and hail
have carved respond as nothing to the eye.
And I’ll insist on thinking up the tale
of what I see here—now—and maybe why
I see them this way, beautiful, and true
as anything I’ve known or thought I knew.
“Photographing Hoodoos – Bryce Canyon” from A Tree and Gone (Future Cycle Press, 2021).
Terence Culleton is a former Bucks County (PA) Poet Laureate, a 2019 Pushcart Prize nominee, and recipient of First Honorable Mention in the 2019 Helen Schaible International Traditional Sonnet Contest. Terence has published two collections of formally crafted narrative and lyric poems, A Communion of Saints (2011) and Eternal Life (2015), both with Anaphora Literary Press. Poems from his forthcoming collection of sonnets, A Tree and Gone (FutureCycle Press), have recently appeared in Antiphon, The Lyric, The Eclectic Muse, Innisfree, The Road Not Taken (including Feature Poem), Blue Unicorn Review, and Raintown Review.
Sparks of Calliope 