Tag: contemporary poetry

Cord Moreski: “Space Shuffle”

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Space Shuffle

I wonder what music
the one percent will be playing
on their voyage through space
after leaving this warm planet behind
like some kid’s father never returning
after going out for a pack of smokes

maybe it’ll be disco
where they’ll wear roller skates
that glitter like the stars outside
their space shuttle windows
and dance the funky chicken
or the hustle as they get their boogie on

or maybe it’ll be
more of a nu-metal experience
where they’ll sport backward baseball caps
and break stuff like Fred Durst
while Earth in the rearview mirror
turns into a sad puddle of mud

for what it’s worth
I bet it’ll be elevator music
or Muzak for the aficionados
where they’ll tap their champagne flutes
to the beats of soft sounds
waiting to get off on the next floor.

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About the Author: Cord Moreski is a poet from the Jersey Shore. Moreski is the author of The News Around Town (Maverick Duck Press, 2020), Shaking Hands with Time (Indigent Press, 2018), and Stay Afloat Inside (Indigent Press, 2016). He was the host of the New Jersey poetry series Words on Main and the virtual poetry series The Couch Poets Collective. When he is not writing, Cord waits tables for a living and teaches middle school children that poetry is awesome. He is currently working on several new projects for 2022.

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More By Cord Moreski:

Aubrie

Someday

Understudy

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Image Credit: Earth Rise Over The Moon (Public Domain)

Laura Grace Weldon: “Butternut Ridge Cemetery”

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Butternut Ridge Cemetery 

From the back seat my six-year-old asks
about the grandfather who died
when she was four months in the womb.
She wants to know about his favorite color
and what he likes to eat, correcting herself
to say “liked” to eat. She wants to know
what being dead means, for real.

I know children ask full force till
they get what they need, like the time
my oldest asked why people have skin
darker than his, and seconds into
my big-wattage answer
interrupted to ask
why faucets turn “this way”
twisting his hand, “to make it hot.”

But she doesn’t stop asking
and since we’re driving past
the cemetery that minute, I pull in.
She skips around his gravestone
as if in a park, touching dusty
pebbles and leggy buttercups, before
announcing to air and ground
and everything between,
“I’m sorry you’re dead Grandpa.
You would have loved me.”

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About the Author:  Laura Grace Weldon has published three poetry collections: Portals (Middle Creek 2021), Blackbird (Grayson 2019), and Tending (Aldrich 2013). She was named 2019 Ohio Poet of the Year. Laura works as a book editor, teaches writing, and maxes out her library card each week.  lauragraceweldon.com

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Image Credit: Chase Dimock “Small Sunflower” (2021)

John Dorsey: “Paul & the Trailer Park Tornado”

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Sign for the old Dreamland mobile-home park in Phoenix, Arizona.
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Paul & the Trailer Park Tornado

the door of our trailer flapping
my heart wide open
my mother says
not to stand
by the window
where my fingers
touched everything
for the first time

while a plastic pinwheel
in the shape of a rooster
takes flight
over our roof.

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About the Author: John Dorsey lived for several years in Toledo, Ohio. He is the author of several collections of poetry, including Teaching the Dead to Sing: The Outlaw’s Prayer (Rose of Sharon Press, 2006), Sodomy is a City in New Jersey (American Mettle Books, 2010), Tombstone Factory, (Epic Rites Press, 2013), Appalachian Frankenstein (GTK Press, 2015) Being the Fire (Tangerine Press, 2016) and Shoot the Messenger (Red Flag Poetry, 2017),Your Daughter’s Country (Blue Horse Press, 2019), and Which Way to the River: Selected Poems 2016-2020 (OAC Books, 2020). His work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net, and the Stanley Hanks Memorial Poetry Prize. He was the winner of the 2019 Terri Award given out at the Poetry Rendezvous. He may be reached at archerevans@yahoo.com.

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More By John Dorsey:

Anthony Bourdain Crosses the River of the Dead

Punk Rock at 45

Perpetual Motion

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Image Credit: Carol M. Highsmith “Sign for the old Dreamland mobile-home park in Phoenix, Arizona.” (2008) The Library of Congress

Tohm Bakelas: “the end is near”

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the end is near

she maintained communication
by way of phone
sometimes she would write letters,
but she was best at the phone.
there were times she’d stop calling
and it seemed as if she disappeared,
but she never did
she was always there.
and then one day all the letters
and all the calls stopped,
everything stopped.
all her bills were paid through the next month,
she was always good at that
always ahead of the game
she never gave anyone a reason to
come looking for her,
but when the letters and the calls stopped
that’s when they went looking for her.
when they got to her house
the grass looked like a jungle
the mailbox was stuffed full of letters
all the curtains were pulled closed
and the front door was locked
but they found the key
inside a rusted out bucket.
when they went inside
they turned on the lights
the electricity worked
and the house was mostly clean
there were unopened medication bottles
neatly lined on kitchen countertops
the bills organized and stacked
checks undelivered addressed and signed
the calendar was stuck on last month
and the phone was off the hook.
when they reached the living room
that’s where they found her
sitting in her favorite rocking chair
facing a broken glass tv screen
containing four words written in dust:
“the end is near”

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About the Author: Tohm Bakelas is a social worker in a psychiatric hospital. He was born in New Jersey, resides there, and will die there. His poems have appeared in numerous journals, zines, and online publications. He has published 13 chapbooks. He runs Between Shadows Press.

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Image Credit: The Library of Congress: ” Historic American Buildings Survey, Stanley P. Mixon, Photographer, March 28, 1940 INTERIOR DETAIL, MIDDLE ROOM, MANTEL AND DOORS, WEST SIDE, FIRST FLOOR, OLD HOUSE. – Samuel Phillips House, Tower Hill Road (U.S. Route 1), Belleville, Washington County, RI”

Agnes Vojta: “I don’t usually pray”

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I don’t usually pray


My father is still alive
when I switch off the phone
to board the plane.
My mother pleads
with him: hang on, wait,
just one more night.

I ask for a glass of wine.
I don’t usually drink.
Today I hope it dulls
the edge of grief,
lulls me to forget
where I travel.

Over the Atlantic,
I dissolve in weeping.
I don’t usually cry.
The flight attendant asks
if she can do anything.
Make the plane fly faster.

I keep checking the flight status.
I will search my sister’s face
when she picks me up.
I don’t usually pray.
Today I pray.
To be in time.

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About the Author: Agnes Vojta grew up in Germany and now lives in Rolla, Missouri where she teaches physics at Missouri S&T and hikes the Ozarks. She is the author of Porous Land (Spartan Press, 2019) and The Eden of Perhaps (Spartan Press, 2020), and her poems have appeared in a variety of magazines.

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More By Agnes Vojta:

Legend

Sisyphus Calls It Quits

Flotsam

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Image Credit: Chase Dimock “Airplane over the Beach” (2021)

Robin Wright: “Make-believe”

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Make-believe

When the sun rolled the rain away,
Mother, tired of sheets, blankets tossed
across chairs and couch for our fort,
shooed us outside to swing on a tire
held to the tree by rope.

She washed rainbows of cloth,
pinned them to the clothesline
with the same reverence
she showed in church,
hummed Amazing Grace as the sun
imbued freshness and new life.

We swung high, waited
until Mother headed inside,
slipped between the sheets
into a new existence
while the sun sprinkled light,
vowed to stay there
until the moon took over.

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About the Author: Robin Wright lives in Southern Indiana. Her work has appeared in Muddy River Poetry Review, Rat’s Ass Review, Bombfire, Sledgehammer, Young Ravens Literary Review, Sanctuary, Ariel Chart, Spank the Carp, Panoply zine, and others. She is a Pushcart Prize nominee, and her first chapbook, Ready or Not, was published by Finishing Line Press in 2020.

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Image Credit: Arthur S. Siegel “Point Pleasant, West Virginia. Mrs. Fergusen putting a pole on the clothes line” (1943) The Library of Congress

Mike James: “Supporting Characters”

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Supporting Characters

Jill has the largest flea circus of anyone I know. She keeps them practicing in her spare bedroom beside her Winston Churchill mask collection. That’s another obsession I’ve never gotten into. I’d rather collect half-used candles, discarded matchsticks, and light projecting items of every variety. Though not every lamp hides a genie. I’ve learned that from years of rubbing. Jill says she scrubbed away whatever magic her hands held. She uses the harshest, discount soaps. Despite that, her bathroom smells like lavender. Whenever I visit, I go to the bathroom, lock the door, close my eyes, and imagine a charmed garden. On more than one occasion, both Jill and I have forgotten I was there.

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About the Author: Mike James makes his home outside Nashville, Tennessee. He has published in numerous magazines, large and small, throughout the country. His poetry collections include: Leftover Distances (Luchador), Parades (Alien Buddha), Jumping Drawbridges in Technicolor (Blue Horse), and Crows in the Jukebox (Bottom Dog.) In April, Red Hawk will publish his 20th collection, Portable Light: Poems 1991-2021.

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More By Mike James:

Grace

Saint Jayne Mansfield

Paul Lynde

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Image Credit: Chase Dimock “Desert Fence” (2021)

Ace Boggess: “End of the Fence”

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Extremely old wooden fence in the town of San Elizario, near El Paso.

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End of the Fence

Strong winds. A pillar leans.
A beam descends on one side,
angling toward a motorcycle ramp
for squirrels launching themselves
toward flimsy branches.
Wire mesh, loosened, waves
like a nationless flag.

Here is the ruin, lapsing:
all that’s built crumbles,
no matter words spoken,
savior speed-dialed on the phone.

What seemed sturdy all those years
shares news of broken lumber
while the boastful, constant sky
promises other storms, graceless
as madcap dancers in the mud.

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About the Author: Ace Boggess is author of six books of poetry, most recently Escape Envy (Brick Road Poetry Press, 2021). His poems have appeared in Michigan Quarterly Review, Harvard Review, Mid-American Review, River Styx, and other journals. An ex-con, he lives in Charleston, West Virginia, where he writes and tries to stay out of trouble.

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More by Ace Boggess:

Rock Garden

And Why Am I A Free Man?

Why Did You Try To Sober Up?

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Image Credit: Carol M. Highsmith “Extremely old wooden fence in the town of San Elizario, near El Paso, Texas” (2014) The Library of Congress

Jenna K. Funkhouser: “Chihuly’s Baskets”

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Chihuly’s Baskets

How carefully we preserve the emptiness
      in these theaters of light

how the man spins silken robes
      of turquoise and pebbled gold
            from the hot mouth of the kiln
and clothes oxygen in its fragile gowns,
            now
drawing its tensions away
   from the point where there must be
nothingness

cupped in its pale, deep hands

and the prayer he breathes is nothing but
good, good. 

To remain filled is
      to remain heavy

to resist your capacity to hold
invisible things
                          to grow lucent
lose everything
even your darkness

let the fire touch you

it whispers 

this bright shell husked
from the seed of eternity.

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About the Author: Jenna K Funkhouser is an author and nonprofit communicator living in Portland, Oregon. Her poetry has recently been published by Geez Magazine, the Saint Katherine Review, and the Oregon Poetry Association, among others; her first book of poetry, Pilgrims I Have Been, was released in October 2020.

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More by Jenna K. Funkhouser:

Persephone

Gerald Friedman: “A Race of the Red-tailed Hawk”

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A Race of the Red-tailed Hawk 

Audubon shot a hawk,
mostly black-brown.  Painting it
while it still lived, he said,
he chocolate-covered its white marks,
tidied its tail pattern,
not thinking both were typical.
He wrote tall stories:
his specimen bred in Louisiana,
feared him only when he carried his gun.
He baptized it in Latin
after his friend Dr. Harlan;
in English, “Black Warrior”,
maybe something good to have
dying or dead
to be depicted as he saw fit.

Morning frost by the Rio Grande.
All summer Harlan’s, black or rare white,
glided down from Alaska
in my mind.  Now
a red-tail screams. At me?
I sneak, a commando,
to capture it with my camera,
barely disturbing
fragile cottonwood leaves.
By some occult sense
it feels me, flies, straight
as limbs slip by.  Out of view.
But I’ll call it a Harlan’s,
tail white constellated in black.
A stereotypical birdwatcher,
I’m already checking my pictures.
One shot caught that tail,
so I’ll get an accepted sighting.

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About the Author: Gerald Friedman grew up in the suburbs of Cleveland, Ohio, and now teaches physics in Santa Fe, New Mexico.  He has published poetry in various magazines, recently Rat’s Ass Review, Entropy, The Daily Drunk, and Better Than Starbucks.

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Image Credit: Plate 86 of Birds of America by John James Audubon depicting “Black Warrior Falco harlani” Public Domain