Tag: Nature Poetry

Richard Levine: “Playing at Forever”

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Playing at Forever

The ocean never stops its tug of war 
with beach sand.  Its great democratic voice 
consumes all the laughter and whispered vows 
vacationers make on blankets, spread out

under brightly striped umbrellas under 
the sun and our tans that end where our suits
begin.  We have come as far away from 
our careers as a tide of untimed time

could take us, yet we find there is something
naggingly familiar in the way native 
children smile at us.  They coax us to throw
coins they dive for, perhaps their only real

freedom.  Resurfacing, their faces glow 
brightly as their palms lined with silver.
Our minds float above us like jellyfish,
permeating our days with stinging

responsibilities.  But here we are 
untethered from time’s twins, and our bodies 
ache to be calmed, cooled and retuned to whim.
We swim under water, holding our breath, 

carefree as children playing at forever,
though we know we must come up for air.

About the Author: Richard Levine, a retired NYC teacher, is the author of Selected Poems, Contiguous States, and five chapbooks.  Now in Contest is forthcoming from Fernwood Press. An Advisory Editor of BigCityLit.com, he received the 2021 Connecticut Poetry Society Award, and co-edited “Invasion of Ukraine 2022: Poems.”  “The Spoils of War” is forthcoming in American Book Review. website: richardlevine107.com

Image Credit: Herman Hartwich “Cape Cod, Beach” (1894) Public domain image courtesy of Artvee

Ruth Bavetta: “Stargazers”

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Stargazers 

Lilies strain from the mouth 
of the vase by the window, open 

their throats to the sky, stretching
toward the accumulation of clouds,

furred stamens powdered red
as starling’s blood. The shadows

of the room, the scent of 
perfume heavy as tomorrow’s end

held in stasis for seven steady 
days as stems collapse in secret

and leaves transmute to slime. 
In this world of sorrow and of loss 

all things must fail, must come to moss
and murder, must disintegrate

in damp and dust. And we must 
open our throats, and swallow.

About the Author: Ruth Bavetta’s poems have appeared in North American Review, Nimrod, Rattle, Slant, American Journal of Poetry, and many other journals and anthologies. She likes the light on November afternoons, the music of Stravinsky, the smell of the ocean. She hates pretense, fundamentalism and sauerkraut.

Image Credit: Chase Dimock “Fire Lily” (2022)

John Dorsey: “The History of Rivers”

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The History of Rivers

a car with one headlight
bobs and weaves its way through the mud
looking for a pair of missing glasses
what good are they anyway
we can never see where we’re going
only where we’ve been
floods of emotion like this
are only supposed to happen once a century
but we can’t see our way past the rocks
everything only seems to come into focus 
after we get out of the water
& raise a glass to the spirits 
resting in capsized riverboats 
that you’ll never find squinting in the sunlight
listening to the words of that lonesome whippoorwill 
singing some far fetched river song.

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), Which Way to the River: Selected Poems 2016-2020 (OAC Books, 2020), Afterlife Karaoke (Crisis Chronicles Press, 2021) and Sundown at the Redneck Carnival, (Spartan Press, 2022).. 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.

Image Credit: Frances Benjamin Johnston “Potomac River” (1898) Public domain image courtesy of The Library of Congress

Dan Raphael: “A thread of Winter”

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A Thread of Winter


sun sends frost into the grass and soil
wind is waiting for the dog to drop the ball 

those late night moments when a stretch of freeway
is empty and resents the next vehicle that comes through
but the road can’t change fast enough to assert its will

other times the freeway is so full and heavy
nothing moves and the earth beneath it
dreams of being a river and swimming inside itself

as the river knows without dreaming that
for much of winter, several threads of frozen water
tangle through it, unable to cohere or slow anything

yes heat rises, but in winter cold starts at the top 
walking to and from high school in winter, i could
generate heat in the center of my chest and have it
flow outwards, never spent enough time in heat
to generate cold, or a wind that trickles out my pores
not breath, a snack I can walk through
legless walking, how this body could fly
and land safely

what if our solar system was too hot
and we needed the opposite of the sun
to make earth cool enough to live on

what if the only places to live on this planet
were at the equator, what new ways
would we divide time, how would we
vary our wardrobes, what would be
peak vacation times, our birthdays
would be our personal new years

what if the only places to live on this planet
were at the equator, would I get adventurous
or systematically imaginative

About the Author: dan raphael’s poetry collection In the Wordshed will published by Last Word Press this November. More recent poems appear in Fireweed, Trampoline, Rasputin, Haight Ashbury Literary Journal and Unlikely Stories. Most Wednesdays dan writes and records a current events poet for The KBOO Evening News.

Image Credit: Ferdynand Ruszczyc “Winter Tale” (1904) Public domain image courtesy of Artvee

Christian Paulisich: “Whale Watching”

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About the Author: Christian Paulisich is an undergraduate poet at Johns Hopkins University. He lives in Baltimore, Maryland, but is originally from the Bay Area, California. His poems have appeared in Neologism Poetry Journal, Orchards Poetry Journal, Beltway Poetry Quarterly, and Monterey Poetry Review. He enjoys nature walks, drinking Yerba mate, and spending time with loved ones. 

Image Credit: Original image from Icones rerum naturalium. Copenhague,Chez E.A.H. Möller, etc.,1805-1806. Courtesy of the Biodiversity Heritage Library

George Freek: “Night Conversations”

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NIGHT CONVERSATIONS (After Mei Yao Chen)

I watch a chilly night arrive.
Leaves die on the trees,
unable to survive.
Will I be afraid when
it’s my turn to die?
I tell myself words 
that are probably lies.
Clouds solid as mountains
disappear from the sky.
Death is as mysterious
as is life to me.
I talk to my cat. He’s
concerned with a worm.
He’s incredibly wise.
He pays no attention
when I tell him my lies.

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.

Image Credit: Alfred William Finch An August’s Night (1898) Image courtesy of Artvee

Jon Bennett: “Winter Apples”

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Winter Apples

The powdery mildew killed my eyes
but I’d climb it anyhow
an ancient Gravenstein
with a pine tar patch
in the vee of two trunks
My dad’s friend was a jazz guitarist
and a tree surgeon
to my kid ears ‘tree surgeon’
was as good as Dr.
he did the patch
and later died of vodka poisoning
in his mobile home
I picked up the guitar myself
and wondered what dad thought about it
My dad and the tree
look worse each year
sooty blotch and flyspeck
liver spots and basal carcinomas
but big, sweet Gravensteins
as if the tree knows
these are the last
they’ll ever have.

About the Author: Jon Bennett writes and plays music in San Francisco’s Tenderloin neighborhood. You can find his work on most music streaming sites as well as here. His new chapbook, Leisure Town, is available on Amazon here.

Image Credit: Image originally from The apples of New York Albany :J.B. Lyon,1905. Image courtesy of the Biodiversity Heritage Library

John Macker: “The Gentle Hours”

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the gentle hours
                   ⸺to John

a felt bluebird perches on the purple
orchid on my kitchen table
a broken heat wave
elixir for the skin
these are the gentle hours
at 6 am I’m up and around the place
shedding the shortened sleep

I haven’t yet grown into my windows, 
the few flat bottomed clouds have 
nested under my eyes, dawn is an 
obsessive safecracker     vault of blue 
sky wide open dreams wide open morning 
broken like an egg and opened      no one at 
this hour seems shocked at the sounds of life. 

I think of my friends present and long gone
as interstellar rainbows, sun-kissed 
children of beauty     no one but everyone 
ends up a stranger, they are my muses 
my runes my river. When I think of them
I think every star inhabits the soul of a 
desert flower, every soul a signal fire.

First news of the day will rattle some 
empty cages, no doubt, it’ll take more 
than imagining the contents of Thoreau’s
haversack to gentle the earth. At my age I 
become something I’m not all over again 
and it fits me like a glove. Fate is a direction 
that won’t let me lose my way.

About the Author: John Macker grew up in Colorado and has lived in northern New Mexico for 25 years. He has published 13 full-length books and chapbooks of poetry, 2 audio recordings, an anthology of fiction and essays, and several broadsides over 30 years. His most recent are Atlas of Wolves, The Blues Drink Your Dreams Away, Selected Poems 1983-2018, (a 2019 Arizona/New Mexico Book Awards finalist), Desert Threnody, essays and short fiction (winner of the 2021 Arizona/New Mexico Book Awards fiction anthology prize), El Rialto, a short prose memoir and Chaco Sojourn, short stories, (both illustrated by Leon Loughridge and published in limited edition by Dry Creek Art Press.) In 2019, his poem “Happiness” won a Fischer Poetry Prize finalist citation, sponsored by the Telluride Institute.

Image Credit: Image originally from “The natural history of Carolina, Florida and the Bahama Islands”. Image courtesy of The Biodiversity Heritage Library

Rose Mary Boehm: “Sirocco”

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Sirocco 

The hot winds blow northwards.
Laboring hearts adapt to a slow-burning rhythm.
Nights find you breathing harder,
dreaming languid dreams dipped in Saharan orange.
Snow melts into puddles, makes
little rapids in the gullies.

Shy bright green unfolds on hitherto
barren winter stalks, like young girls
succumbing to the whispered promise
of swelter, not heeding either calendar
or caution.  Cars covered in red sand
use the roads like go-cart runs. An early
tulip pushes through heavy slush,
a sense of unseemliness in the air.

On a park bench two grey heads,
woolen scarves undone daringly,
galoshes protecting warm shoes.
Old hands stripped of thick gloves,
he holds hers and bends over them as far 
as his stiff back gives him leave.
The Sirocco will hold a few days.

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, will be published by Kelsay Books in July 2022. https://www.rose-mary-boehm-poet.com/

Image Credit: Chase Dimock “Dead Leaves and Landscape” (2021)