Monthly Archives: May 2023

 
The Seagull’s Ninetieth Seguidilla
 
That seagull’s fire won’t ascend.
It’s wrapped in paper. 
It ignites designs within
A bird’s skyscraper.
Mother of hoopoes
And father of kiwis; our
Wings make sky-tipis. 

##
 
The Seagull’s Ninety-Fifth Seguidilla
 
Gone to rack and ruin, I 
Cock-a-doodle-doo.
The ancient sound of new growth 
Reaching reaches through. 
It stretches, stretches 
Infinitely from the place
Where history etches. 

##
 
The Seagull’s Ninety-Sixth Seguidilla
 
Silvery sorority 
Above, very still;
Like each falling snowflake, you
Ring a little bell.
The winter sky’s blank
Page is marked by gulls made of
Invisible ink.

Jake Sheff is a pediatrician and veteran of the US Air Force. He’s married with a daughter and crazy bulldog. Poems and short stories of Jake’s have been published widely. A full-length collection of formal poetry, A Kiss to Betray the Universe, is available from White Violet Press. He also has two chapbooks: Looting Versailles (Alabaster Leaves Publishing) and The Rites of Tires (SurVision).

Lararium


Of the gods,

the panoply of them,
there is one, a companion
to all others, a sense within,
the presence of the good,

in those I have known, 
gratitude itself, the murmuring
innocence of wonder
in the naming of the dead,

the list I’ve made and read
before sleep, the tutelary gods
of the house of my body, those
who have done for me some sound good,

making their best moments mine,
a kindness in the service
of that companion presence
now before me before sleep—

     The colonel who saved me from butchery,
     the teacher who clothed me in dignity
     for dignity’s sake, the cousin who left 
     his kindness, the acceptance of all things, 
     the writer-mentor who was herself
     every inspiration, a friend wronged 
     by birth and tormented by the acts
     of those he rose above.

                       * * *
                                        
Longing is everywhere,
it is itself on its knees,
it is here tonight in the arms
of an armless body, an unknown lover.

I dream of them, the others, they never part,
a living vivarium, Apollo’s heart.

Michael Gessner has authored 14 books of poetry and prose. His most recent is Nightshades, (2022). His poems have been included in, or are forthcoming from, Arlington Literary Journal, The French Literary Review, La Citta Immaginaria, North American Review, (finalist for the James Hearst Poetry Award,) and The Wallace Stevens Journal. A voting member of the National Book Critics Circle, his reviews may be found in NAR, Jacket2, The Edgar Allan Poe Review, and The Kenyon Review. For additional information: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/michael-gessner

Pity for a Birdless World

I detoured along the shore at sundown,
avoiding the short route home 
to consider what you, my love, had told me:
our true souls are as mortal as foam

fizzing above the tideline. I sat on a log. 
Watched crows hop and sanderlings 
chase waves back and forth,
snatch amphipods from popping 

suds. Black dots appeared above the setting sun.
Rungs of flickering dark spots spawned
at their peak a visible globe… then all 
the piper peeped and crows cawed:

           Beware! The birdless world 
           that lurks behind the sun
           is showing through! 
           Twin Earth, where automata run 

           without birds inside 
           for songs to bell,
           where flesh lives unpaired with souls
           to smear with taste or smell!

Exposed, enlarged by some celestial mirage,
I saw the turning image of our twin planet loom,
faintly showing landscapes like our own
until, on its horizon, leaves like sickle moons

pierced that globe’s blue envelope of air.
A single tree grew there: vast branches
reared buds and leaves so high 
that waves of cosmic birds could brush 

against and perforate their skins, slaking 
the need that shivers in all cells. And all 
the crows and sanderlings and I pleaded
with the force who fuses flesh to soul:

           Bless this tree, this witness to being’s thirst 
           for birds! Bless each fungus woven 
           in its rhizome, the sowbugs and slugs
           sheltering within its scalds. Spare them the curse

           of soulless melusines and mermaids, perishing 
           when essences incapable of death 
           replace all mortal atoms. Let this tree 
           be honey-combed with hatchlings 

           in foramina and crotches. Let bark 
           be maculate where beaks chip holes 
           for sap. Let rainbow flocks cacophony 
           on every bough. In its chartreuse dark 

           let raptors snatch up wailing rats — let its snakes
           glut the crops of storks.
		                                          The sun sank.
The birdless planet blinked from sight. 
Shorebirds whisked to wing. Ranks

of crows coalesced on the wooded bight. 
I sat alone, pitying a planet of atoms 
simpliciter and longing for your touch, 
your look. I thought of you at home, 

my love: sipping tea, or sucking 
chocolate chips, full of life and hives of words.
In you repose both flesh and soul: 
a braid of clockwork and living birds. 

Daniel Cowper is a poet from a small island off the west coast of Canada. His poems and criticism have appeared in reviews in Canada, the United States, Ireland, and the UK. He is the author of a book of poems entitled Grotesque Tenderness (MQUP), and The God of Doors, which was published as winner of Frog Hollow Press’ chapbook contest.

To a Pigeon in Paris
 
Your iridescent breast
deep purple, silver, magenta fast flutter
shimmering mother of pearl
the same as shells in the sea

Your red-rimmed, dull stupid eye
senseless & opaque, your rhythmic
beak peck at bakery crumbs
regular as hands on a clock
 
Autumn yellow leaves
sticking to wet cobblestone
people draped on bent cane chairs
faces to the sun drinking coffee and wine
 
Above all the single flap of your wings
against cold cobalt sky—
the supreme sound of it, one fast clap
way too close to me, mere inches from my face
 
Thank you for your ordinary, ideal flight
allowing my tired heart instinct to alight

Julia Caroline Knowlton PhD MFA is a poet and Professor of French at Agnes Scott College in Atlanta. As a young poet, she won an Academy of American Poets Prize. In 2018 she was named a Georgia Author of the Year and in 2022, her work was publicly installed as part of the Georgia Poetry in the Parks project. The author of five books, her poems have been published in journals such as ONE ART, Trouvaille Review, Roanoke Review and Rust & Moth.

Between the Knowable and the Unknowable


A crack, sliver of space, hairline fissure
where dreams go, but never nightmares,

where names you can’t remember and phone
numbers slip away, letters jumbled with digits,
where nouns abscond as you age and impostor

homophones intrude. They slither just out of
reach, blurred, impossible to reclaim, along with
the scent of your first lover, the particular timbre

of your first dog’s bark, prayers and song lyrics
you memorized between seven and seventeen.

In that crevice, answers to lifelong questions:
Who is my true self? How do I muddle best? 
What am I doing? What comes next?

Joan Mazza is a retired medical microbiologist and psychotherapist, and taught workshops focused on understanding dreams and nightmares. She is the author of six self-help psychology books, including Dreaming Your Real Self. Her poetry has appeared in The Comstock Review, Prairie Schooner, Slant, Poet Lore, The Nation, and other publications. She lives in rural central Virginia and writes every day.

Smile 

Looking, looking. Through a box of postcards. Her collection. All these postcards. Must be a hundred by now. Maybe more. At least. And then she finds it. The one with the photo of a Yorkie. Yes. That’s the one. That postcard. “Dear Elaine,” she writes. “When I was meditating this morning. You know. Mindful breathing. Watching my breath. Concentrating on that. Inbreath, outbreath. Inbreath, outbreath. Like Thich Nhat Hanh teaches. I had a revelation. Thich would call it “insight.” I know. But it felt bigger than that. Bigger. Much, much. It was this. That I don’t need anything. To be happy. That happiness can only be found in the present moment. Here. Now. No matter where I am. Anywhere. With anyone. Or without. I can be happy. In this moment. I mean. I used to think I needed something. You know. To be happy. That I needed to move to another city. To have more friends. To participate in more activities. Everything we’re taught we need. To be happy. But that’s not true. Happiness. It’s already here. Now. In me. In this present moment. I don’t need anything else. To be happy. None of us do. Imagine that? Light. So light. That’s how I felt. And free. That too. Anyway. I thought I’d mention this. To give you a smile. If you haven’t had one. Today. If you’re not smiling. Already. Like me. Right now. Smiling, smiling. Sorry. I can’t stop.”   

Laura Stamps loves to play with words in her fiction and prose poetry. Author of 48 novels, novellas, short story collections, and poetry books. Most recently: CAT MANIA (Alien Buddha Press 2021), DOG DAZED (Kittyfeather Press 2022), and THE GOOD DOG (Prolific Pulse Press 2023). Nominations: Pulitzer Prize (1) and Pushcart (7).  

Gold
                           for Josiah

	
Who would want to miss the world?	

The barn swallow’s nest under the eve,
the fiddleheads unfolding in the forest,
the patter of spring rain

the way the mourning dove speaks to us
of our longings 

and how unfailingly sunlight and moonglow 
remind us that all light casts shadows.

The complexities of our lives urge us away
from knowing things as they are

from realizing that what we are drawn to
is God
   
waiting to be noticed.                                         

   

Michael S. Glaser, Professor Emeritus at St. Mary’s College of Maryland, served as Poet Laureate of Maryland from 2004 – 2009. He now co-leads workshops which embrace poetry as a means of self-reflection .He is the co-editor of The Collected Poems of Lucille Clifton (BOA 2012).  (more at http://www.michaelsglaser.com )

Quarry



I would sit inert.
The BB gun pumped
The imagination, loaded
With illusions of the hunt,
Stalking barn swallows
In the beams they haunt.

Spit a BB and swallowed
As they flew away with each
Miss, until the miss wasn’t
A miss. A shock of feathers
Lie still there, a spot of blood,
A flush of surprise, throat frozen.

Crestfallen. Fun was in the pretense
Of hunt and hunter, not the shot
Or success. I gave it away, the gun,
To someone else’s son and took up
A simple stick, a spear, and went
Afield where the butterflies were.

Bruce Morton divides his time between Montana and Arizona. His poems have appeared in many magazines, most recently in Ibbetson Street, Sheila-Na-Gig, ONE ART, London Grip, and Ink Sweat & Tears. He was formerly dean at the Montana State University library.

Gabriel


God entrusts His words, His strength His
Archangel, the land’s guardian. I was conceived,
Born to describe, grown to shape with words.
Rufous hummingbird my yearn for meaning.
Imagination my Tree of Knowledge. In shade
Elohim, from whom you pass the pomegranate.
Let me interpret the seeds on my tongue.

Grant me the future salvia, sage of diviners
And the scape. Clear my lungs, so I could
Bring the long exhalation to your horn. If
Revelation be theirs, if annunciation sounds,
Incarnation be the fruit we at last deserve.
Every ear shall know the ring, brass and 
Light, brilliant as the way words sing.  

Jonel Abellanosa resides in Cebu City, the Philippines. He writes poetry and fiction. He considers the sacred an important element of his personal poetics. He advocates animal rights and living comforts. He has three beloved dogs.

Not the Ascent 

I was growing with the mountain, 
and rising to meet its breath. 
I found my filled hips level with the glacier, 
and lifted my eyes to it as I was taught to do, 
blinding myself blue with the frosted sky. 
I asked the mountain if it would hold me,
and before it could reply, I knew it was not 
the ascent I wanted, but something else. 
It was chasing the last glint of moon 
on a fox tail, running off trail 
through a cloud of wet flowers, 
and sinking into their cold honey 
as each stem towered above my spine. 
It was listening for that ongoing 
clang of cowbells swelling in each bud, 
until I no longer cursed the spiders 
living below for bites that bled black. 
It was remembering how I had passed 
this field so many times and wondered 
what would fly from its waving grass. 
The stillness asked me where I was 
and I did not know how to answer. 
I had not been looking at all. 
Now, I was growing again with the mountain,
falling to meet its breath through each tree 
entering my lungs, until all I carried 
was the wind and the wind was carrying me. 
I asked the mountain again if it would hold
my body and bring me closer to itself, 
to love me beyond all disbelief.
It was not the ascent it wanted from me,
but something else, and it was blooming. 

Nora Kirkham is a writer from Maine currently based in Scotland. She was raised in Japan, Australia, and Eastern Europe. She holds an MA in Creative Writing from University College Cork, Ireland. Her writing has been featured in Rock & Sling, Clayjar Review, Ruminate Magazine, Tokyo Poetry Journal, and St Katherine Review.