Tag: contemporary poetry

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

Joanne Durham: “Homage to Angelica”

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Homage to Angelica


No bloodline connects me  

to English gentry,  

but she is my foremother, too,

this woman adorned in flowing gown,
  

rose-woven garlands that sweep into auburn curls. 

Here she is: secluded with her alter-egos

to debate her future. One gently mocks the other,  

the second shows conviction, finger pointed 

toward her passions

as boldly as Moses’s staff 

signaled the Promised Land.  

I sensed her presence

as I donned the required skirt for dinner  

at my women’s college in the ‘60s, supposed  

to earn an MRS degree, or failing that,

to choose  

between secretary, teacher, or nurse. Instead,  

my friends and I sequestered

in the janitor’s closet, moved aside  

brooms and stacked pails, 

to strum guitars and write lyrics exploding

into a world we had yet to imagine.  

I decorated my dorm room 

with Picasso’s Lovers, Bob Dylan’s

haloed hair glowed from the ceiling. 

But ancient women swam in my veins, 

witches who brewed

potions centuries old, healing woes 

no one dared name. Here remains 

the artist who discarded

the coy smile she flashed at her suitors 

and painted herself  

into the right to choose her future.

About the Author: Joanne Durham is the author of To Drink from a Wider Bowl, winner of the 2021 Sinclair Poetry Prize (Evening Street Press, 2022). Her chapbook, On Shifting Shoals, is forthcoming from Kelsay Books. Her poems have or will appear in Poetry East, Third Wednesday, Calyx, Rise-Up Review, Love in the Time of COVID Chronicles, and numerous other journals. Please visit https://www.joannedurham.com/ for more about her background, publications and awards. 

Image Credit: Angelica Kauffman “Self-Portrait Hesitating Between the Arts of Music and Painting” (1791) 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)

Melody Wang: “She is the legend, I am the storyteller”

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She is the legend, I am the storyteller

Yet at this moment she is
but a faint flutter in my belly —

soft/sturdy plastic pouch housing
this feisty fish all glimmer & gold

hurling her tiny body against the confines
of a motherland — its sharp, swelling waves

a symphony of loss. She cannot be swept
away by the same tsunami that pinned me

in cold embrace, whispering of the slow
delicious dark depths eager to claim me

as their own. She will be born with no trace
of apology, defying odds, yet never at odds

with the wind-wild essence of the women
who came before, flowers strewn through

raven and chestnut hair, feet sturdy upon
sun-warmed earth — women with no fear

who inherited herbal wisdom, a warm healing
touch that drew in people from miles away

who longed for a remedy or the gentle smile
of someone who had traversed vast worlds

beyond them. In this familiar foretelling,
I arrive at the doorstep of my ancestors,

renewal of her-story cloaked in the crinkly
eyes of a mother reclaiming land. I’m a child

holding out my basket with trembling hands,
eager to collect all that was meant for me.

I feel her tiny, insistent kicks catapulting me
into the present moment and cannot hold back

my smile: tremulous as a shy burst of sunlight
finally fortified and flourishing after the storm

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About the Author: Melody Wang currently resides in sunny Southern California with her dear husband and wishes it were autumn all year ‘round. Her debut collection of poetry “Night-blooming Cereus” was released in December 2021 with Alien Buddha Press. She can be found on Twitter @MelodyOfMusings or at her website https://linktr.ee/MelodyOfMusings

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Image Credit: Chase Dimock “Fern Fronds” (2022)

Lynn White: “Eggshells”

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Eggshells

Make a hole in the eggshell
so the witches won’t steal them.
They’ll sail them away like a boat
and take you with them.

That’s what her granny said
when she was growing up.
So that’s what she did
as an obedient child.

But now she leaves the shells whole,
unpunctured
splendidly ovoid
as she always thought they should be.
She was not afraid of witches.
She was not afraid

and she would never walk on eggshells.

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About the Author: 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. She was shortlisted in the Theatre Cloud ‘War Poetry for Today’ competition and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and a Rhysling Award. Her poetry has appeared in many publications including: Apogee, Firewords, Peach Velvet, Light Journal and So It Goes. Find Lynn at: https://lynnwhitepoetry.blogspot.com and https://www.facebook.com/Lynn-White-Poetry-1603675983213077/

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Image Credit: Einhundert Tafeln colorirter Abbildungen von Vogeleiern : Dresden :[Brockhaus],[1856] Image courtesy of The Biodiversity Library (Public Domain)

George Freek: “The Ear and the Eye”

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The Ear and the Eye (After Chu Hsi)

The sun appears
trapped like a fly
in a web of branches,
but it’s an illusion.
The sun will escape
from such confusion.
They say before he died,
Li Po tried to express
the sound of a sunset in words
or so I’ve heard.
I watch willow leaves 
fall into a black river.
I hear the river carry
them somewhere.
I only imagine where. 
I’ll never go there.
I watch clouds assemble
like an invading army. 
I hear far off thunder. 
It seems I know nothing.
I can only wonder.

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About the Author: George Freek’s poetry has appeared in numerous Journals and Reviews. His poem “Written At Blue Lake” was recently nominated for a Pushcart Prize.

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Image Credit: Chase Dimock “Sunset West” (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

Rose Mary Boehm: “Cumbrian Summer”

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Cumbrian Summer

The mudroom. Wildflowers on the kitchen table. 
Big eiderdowns in which I could disappear.
Mother and I played hide-and-seek
during that last summer,
before her hair fell out.

We ran through oak woodland
and pretended to fish in the tarns.

Father couldn’t come, she said.
Sometimes she’d sit by the window
looking out at nothing. 

Those were the afternoons
when I professed to read,
with deep interest, my book
on English wildflowers.
With illustrations.

In London, on a drip
of lifesaving poison,
she smiled at the memory.
And the silence
was too loud.

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About the Author: Rose Mary Boehm is a German-born British national living and writing in Lima, Peru. Her poetry has been published widely in mostly US poetry reviews (online and print). She was twice nominated for a Pushcart. Her fifth poetry collection, DO OCEANS HAVE UNDERWATER BORDERS, has just been snapped up by Kelsay Books for publication May/June 2022. Her website: https://www.rose-mary-boehm-poet.com/

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Image Credit: Chase Dimock “Wild Daisies” (2022)