Tag: American Poetry

Victoria Twomey: “The Healing Properties of Tony B”

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The Healing Properties of Tony B

that long winter storm
left you with no power for eight days

stubborn, independent old man
stoic child of the depression, brave survivor of war

huddling by your fireplace for days
skin so cold to the touch when we arrived

we brought you to our house after a small fuss
you were too bone chilled, pale and weary to say no

and oh to watch you warm and melt
and get the pink back in your face 

sitting on our couch
after a hot shower

wrapped in a blanket, your hands curved around a hot cup of tea
a warm buttery-sweet croissant on your plate 

I put Tony Bennet on the stereo
you smiled said hey! this is my music

told us, you didn’t realize 
just how cold you had been 

what a gift to hold you in memory
all the rest of my days like that

you letting me love you, listening to Tony B
the warm steam rising from your cup of tea

About the Author: Victoria Twomey is a poet and an artist. She has appeared as a featured poet at venues around NY, including The Poetry Barn, Barnes & Noble, and Borders Books. Her poems have been published in several anthologies, in newspapers and on the web, including Sanctuary Magazine, BigCityLit, PoetryBay, Autumn Sky Poetry Daily, The Tipton Poetry Journal, Verse-Virtual, The Agape Review, The Trouvaille Review, with many forthcoming. Her poem “Pieta” was nominated for a Pushcart Prize.

Image Credit: Carol M. Highsmith “Comfy leather and burled-wood chair in the Round Room, the center of ranch gatherings and entertainment at the A Bar A guest ranch near the town of Riverside in Carbon County, Wyoming” (2016) The Library of Congress

LB Sedlacek: “Black Truck, Stopped”

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Black Truck, Stopped
		
Black truck, old man
white hair
wearing brown cap
pulled down low
over the forehead.
			
Black truck, stopped
in the driveway
white dog
tongue flapping
head hanging out the window.
			
Black truck, old man
commanding
black dog
barking
to stay at home.
			
Black truck, stopped
like the time the
policeman stopped me
under a bridge
to give me a ticket.
			
Black truck, old man
living alone
giant creaky house
tomatoes for sale
in the front yard.

About the Author: LB Sedlacek has had poems and stories published in a variety of journals and zines. Some of her poetry books are “Swim” (Alien Buddha Press), “I’m No ROBOT” (Cyberwit), “Happy Little Clouds” (Guerilla Genesis Press), “Simultaneous Submissions” (Cyberwit), and “Words and Bones” (Finishing Line Press).  Her first short story collection, “Four Thieves of Vinegar & Other Short Stories” came out on Leap Day 2020 from Alien Buddha Press.  She also served as a Poetry Editor for “ESC! Magazine” and published the free resource for poets, “The Poetry Market Ezine,” from 2001-2020.  In her free time, LB likes to swim, read and attempt to play the ukulele.

Image Credit: Carol M. Highsmith: “Interior of an old, rusted truck outside the Cutler General Store in the Carroll County, Indiana, settlement of Cutler, which was laid out by John A. Cook during the construction of the Logansport Crawfordsville & Southwestern Rail Road in 1871” (2016) The Library of Congress

CL Bledsoe: “Where Do You See Yourself In Five Years?”

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Where Do You See Yourself In Five Years?

The man on the other side of the table
is a variety of sneezes, held together
inside beige by sheer force of lack 
of will. What he’s smelled out there 
is more sensible than me, but I don’t 
so much fault him as marvel at his 
restraint. In the face of all joy, this
man chooses the sour eye. He gets 
excited at the prospect of a new tie 
on father’s day. His hair is a damp 
smattering of crumbs from other 
people’s meals, and he’s proud of 
its pedigree—carries a laminated 
copy. Everything about him is 
something I don’t understand, something
I would avoid at all costs, and vice 
versa, but the difference is he holds 
the soft feathers of my future in his 
sweaty palms and all I hold is the bill.

About the Author: Raised on a rice and catfish farm in eastern Arkansas, CL Bledsoe is the author of more than twenty-five books, including the poetry collections Riceland, Trashcans in Love, Grief Bacon, and his newest, The Bottle Episode, as well as his latest novels Goodbye, Mr. Lonely and The Saviors. Bledsoe co-writes the humor blog How to Even, with Michael Gushue located here: https://medium.com/@howtoeven His own blog, Not Another TV Dad, is located here: https://medium.com/@clbledsoe He’s been published in hundreds of journals, newspapers, and websites that you’ve probably never heard of. Bledsoe lives in northern Virginia with his daughter.

Image Credit: Carol M. Highsmith “Office Interior” (between 1980 and 1990) The Library of Congress.

Carolyn Adams: “Forecast”

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Forecast

I’ve started to think in weather,
to measure time that way.

I don’t know what you’re saying 
if you don’t tell me
it’s raining, 
or there’s snow coming,
or give me the percentage 
of sunshine to expect.

My friends tell me
the frost is gone in Galway.  
Late-winter
is moving through.

These and other forecasts,
accumulate 
all the news I need.

Snow has softened
everything
in Santa Fe.
Cold ventures
in from the wilderness.

Gusts roll in the Cascades, 
transient clouds obscure
the summit of Mt. Hood.

Rain is expected in Borneo.
A heat wave in Sydney.
Extremes mark every hour.

Hello and goodbye 
are steeped in tempests.

About the Author: Carolyn Adams’ poetry and art have appeared in Steam Ticket, Cimarron Review, Dissident Voice, and Blueline Magazine, among others. Having authored four chapbooks, her full-length volume is forthcoming from Fernwood Press.  She has been twice nominated for both Best of the Net and a Pushcart prize.

Image Credit: Chase Dimock “Albuquerque Stoplight Sunset” (2021)

R.T. Castleberry: “Bare A Heart”

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Bare A Heart

Take ice clouds, take an owl
shading the rose moon,
clouds crystalline at the edges, 
their bleak diamond centers 
etching wingtip and claw.
Hold a river cup, 
lip washed by melting frost,
dipped to overflowing from 
the ripple of Lyra’s reflection.
Take a family ring,
garnet red, etched bronze,
worn as fetish, borne 
through conquest voyage, 
arranged marriage.
Hold the passing ocean storm in sight,
stripped branches as divining rods,
as cudgel or cane, a wand
to conjure an island cave’s comfort.
There are those who 
connive a resting space in 
untracked lanes, intemperate riddles.
Forego your sighting. 
Leave them to their peace.

About the Author: R.T. Castleberry, a Pushcart Prize nominee, has work in Steam Ticket, Vita Brevis, San Pedro River Review, Trajectory, Silk Road, StepAway, and Sylvia. Internationally, he’s had poetry published in Canada, Wales, Ireland, Scotland, France, New Zealand, Portugal, the Philippines and Antarctica. His poetry has appeared in the anthologies: Travois-An Anthology of Texas Poetry, TimeSlice, Anthem: A Tribute to Leonard Cohen, and Level Land: Poetry For and About the I35 Corridor. He lives and writes in Houston, Texas.

Image Credit: Arthur Dove “Storm Clouds” (1935) Public Domain

Alex Z. Salinas: “Overboard”

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Overboard

I dreamt I was pushed over the edge 

Before I was ready to jump

And the surface stung like a jellyfish’s caress 

As I sunk in the pusher’s tears— 

Herman Melville’s agony—

And anchored to my ankle was 

Moby-Dick

And I gurgled the ocean with a fleeting sense of

Poetic justice 

As the cold watery locker

Reclaimed my lungs &

The sun sailed & vanished—

Would it dive in &

Resurface my aching bones?—

How was I to know?

A killer poet (& poet killer) 

Was on the loose

And a line by Renata Adler

Rattled my suffocating mind:

Lonely people see 

Double entendres everywhere—

Would Melville attend my estate sale

And buy my library wholesale?—

How was I to know?

The deep salty palace believes not in

Reinvention

But I don’t pretend to 

Speak for the darkness

Accepting me blindly—

Blithely— 

Which is to say

Here I’m treasured 

Even though I arrived by way of

Sitting on a powder keg—

Then I woke up & choked on my spit.

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About the Author: Alex Z. Salinas is the author of two full-length poetry collections: WARBLES and DREAMT, or The Lingering Phantoms of Equinox. He is also the author of a book of stories, City Lights From the Upside Down. He holds an M.A. in English Literature and Language from St. Mary’s University. He lives in San Antonio, Texas.

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Image Credit: Chase Dimock “Chain-Link Ocean” (2022)

Troy Schoultz: “Abbotsford Cemetery”

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About the Author: Troy Schoultz is a lifelong Wisconsin resident. His poems, stories, and reviews have appeared in Seattle Review, Rattle, Slipstream, Chiron Review, Fish Drum, Santa Monica Review, Steel Toe Review, Midwestern Gothic, Palooka and many others in the U.S. and U.K. since 1997. He is the author of two chapbooks and three full-length collections.  His interests and influences include rock and roll, vinyl LPs, found objects, the paranormal, abandoned places, folklore, old cemeteries, and the number five. He hosts and produces S’kosh: The Oshkosh Podcast. For more information check out https://troyschoultz.wixsite.com/website

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Image Credit: Chase Dimock “Crow on a Fence” (2021)

Steve Brisendine: “The Gray King of Winter’s End”

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The Gray King of Winter’s End

We have lions in Kansas, of a sort, but
our sort skulks, yellow-eyed, and slinks
               from one shadow to the next.

Here, March comes in like an old badger,
surly and still possessed of claws
               with a few good scratches left.

It growls through whipping prairie grass, 
burrows down past-dusk suburban streets 
               daring you to try and stop it.

In its prime, it bit with teeth of jagged
ice, dug holes in houses, picked off and
               picked clean the unhoused.

Even in twilight it is nothing you want to 
fight for long; even dulled, its weapons
               still sting, still buffet and bruise.

It chases thunder east to Missouri, nips
at lightning’s heels, gnaws all night
               at chattering screen doors.

Whatever comes to take it to earth at last
will not wear wool, but feathers, and fly
               full speed into April, talons bared.

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About the Author: Steve Brisendine is a writer, poet, occasional artist and recovering journalist living and working in Mission, KS. He is the author of two collections from Spartan Press: The Words We Do Not Have (2021) and Salt Holds No Secret But This (2022). His work has appeared previously in As It Ought to Be Magazine, as well as in Connecticut River Review Journal, Flint Hills Review, Circle Show and other journals and anthologies. He was a finalist for the 2021 Derrick Burleson Poetry Prize.

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Image Credit: Russell Lee, “Weather vanes, Sheridan County, Kansas” (1939) The Library of Congress

Larry Smith: “March 31, 1852 in Thoreau’s Journal”

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March 31, 1852 in Thoreau’s Journal:
What would the days, what would our life, be worth, if some nights were not dark as pitch, – of darkness tangible or that you can cut with a knife? How else could the light in the mind shine? How should we be conscious of the light of reason? If it were not for physical cold, how should we have discovered the warmth of the affections? I sometimes feel that I need to sit in a far-away cave through a three weeks’ storm, cold and wet, to give a tone to my system. The spring has its windy March to usher it in, with many soaking rains reaching into April. Methinks I would share every creature’s suffering for the sake of its experience and joy.

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March 31, 1852 in Thoreau’s Journal:

What would the days, what would our life, be worth, 
if some nights were not dark as pitch, 
of darkness tangible or that you can cut with a knife? 
How else could the light in the mind shine? 
How should we be conscious of the light of reason? 
If it were not for physical cold, how should we 
have discovered the warmth of the affections? 

I sometimes feel that I need to sit in a far-away cave
through a three weeks’ storm, cold and wet, 
to give a tone to my system. 
The spring has its windy March to usher it in, 
with many soaking rains reaching into April. 
Methinks I would share every creature’s suffering 
for the sake of its experience and joy.

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About the Author: Larry Smith, director of Bottom Dog Press in Ohio. Smith is from the industrial Ohio Valley and a professor emeritus at Bowling Green State University with over a dozen books of fiction, poetry, and memoir.

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More By Larry Smith:

No Walls

Union Town

At The Country Store

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William Taylor Jr.: “Little Windows and the People Behind”

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Little Windows and the People Behind

They finally fixed my busted heart with a brand new 
robot valve and after a week in the ICU I’m well enough 
to be moved into a regular room.

The other bed is empty
so I have the place to myself .

From the hallways and other rooms I hear 
the sounds of people vomiting and moaning, 
bargaining with gods they don’t believe in, 

asking the nurses when they can go home 
or how long they have to wait before 
they can take their meds again.

I have a little chair and table by a window 
overlooking Geary Street and if the people
below look up they can see me here

gazing at crows resting on the tops of streetlamps
reading an old Sherwood Anderson novel that nobody remembers
breathing in and out and marveling at the fact of it.

The nurses bring me drugs and jello of myriad colors.

Countless days I’ve passed this building
on my way to the store or somewhere and I’ve always 
glanced up at the little windows and imagine 
the people behind, feeling both afraid of and for them.

And now here I am, one of the window people
sitting with my laptop writing the first 
draft of my first hospital poem.

I wave down to the sidewalk folk,
give them a thumbs up to let them know
that things are alright, and it’s not so bad 
except for the food.

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About the Author: William Taylor Jr. lives and writes in the Tenderloin neighborhood of San Francisco.  He is the author of numerous books of poetry, and a volume of fiction. His work has been published widely in journals across the globe, including Rattle, The New York Quarterly, and The American Journal of Poetry. He is a five time Pushcart Prize nominee and was a recipient of the 2013 Kathy Acker Award. Pretty Words to Say, (Six Ft. Swells Press, 2020) is his latest collection of poetry.

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More by William Taylor Jr.

“The Fire of Now”

“One of Pessoa’s Ghosts”

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Image Credit:  Gottscho-Schleisner, Inc. “Triboro Hospital for Tuberculosis, Parsons Blvd., Jamaica, New York. Typical six-bed ward, to balcony” (1940) Image Courtesy of the Library of Congress