Author Archives: Sarah

Morningside to Meadowlark


to Tanglewood to Orchard. These streets
that want to be folded into poem.

They have kept me company, held me
when I did not want to be held.

This is friendship, wordless bond, steadfast
quiet to quiet. I ask the thick surround sound

of trees: Are you stuck here too? Rooted 
in spite of yourselves to inhospitable ground?

How to thrive anyhow, how to stay, take hold,
to leaf and branch for a season, make a home

for the birds and your own grounded doubt.
How to reach ever skyward—oh

stubborn longing!—to fly
to not fly at once.

Robin Turner has recent work in The Fourth River, Bracken Magazine, One Art, and Ethel, and in the Haunted anthology (Porkbelly Press). A longtime community teaching artist in Dallas, she is now living in the Pineywoods of rural East Texas for a spell. She works with teen writers online.

Sunrise Triolet

Where sky meets land-a gold cloud band;
But we are Michelangelo’s Adam, 
Faint finger raised to outstretched hand.
Where sky meets land, a gold cloud band. 
The swirling starlings lightly land,
Perch, and sing at the edge of the chasm
Where sky meets land. A gold cloud band - 
But we are Michelangelo’s Adam. 

Caitlin Clase is an aspiring storyteller who spends more time reading than writing. She loves the sound of bells, the smell of vanilla, and any color of a jewel toned hue.

Tornado Watch

Rumbles resound 
igniting a frisson of fear.
Looking out the
window all I see is fog
as thick as a blizzard.
No way to tell by
sight if a whirling
cloud’s approaching.
Television beeps.
Can I finish my coffee
here at the table?
A few minutes later
rain tip taps then pounds
our roof, as promised,
threatened by the rumbles.
I take a deep breath,
choose to finish my coffee,
mindful that last year
a tornado crushed my
friend’s neighborhood
just a few miles away.
I say a prayer that
once again the watch will
go unanswered.
 
Just in case, I place
two more flashlights
with fresh batteries
in our safe room.
I know tornadoes can
whirl through our lives
without much or any warning.

Joan Leotta plays with words on page and stage. She performs tales featuring food, family, and strong women.. She’s a two-time Pushcart nominee, nominee for Best of the Net, and runner up in the 2022 Robert Frost Foundation Competition. Her newest chapbook, Feathers on Stone is from Main Street Rag.

Extinction
 
Without a thought, I gazed out the kitchen window
to watch the gathering of winter birds at the feeders.
 
I haven’t had a visitor in weeks, yet I can expect
dark-eyed juncos and hairy woodpeckers to set
 
caged suet & seeds in motion, hour by hour, until
watery blue shadows fall upon the thickening snow.

M.J. Iuppa’s fifth full length poetry collection is The Weight of Air from Kelsay Books, May, 2022, and a chapbook of 24 100-word stories, Rock. Paper. Scissors. from Foothills Publishing in 2022.  For the past 33 years, she has lived on a small farm near the shores of Lake Ontario. Check out her blog: mjiuppa.blogspot.com for her musings on writing, sustainability & life’s stew.

Divine Intervention

Ashley Robles is your average chronically ill Hispanic bisexual and the only person you know that still wears fingerless gloves. She studied English and Creative Writing at the University of Texas at Austin and has been catching up on sleep and video games at her home in San Antonio ever since. Her work has been published in The South Carolina Review, The Poet’s Billow, Unstamatic, Grim & Gilded, and is forthcoming in the Alebrijes Review. She is a recipient of The Bermuda Triangle Prize and a part of Lighthouse Writers Workshop’s Poetry Collective. She can be found online everywhere @mzashleypie

Blessed are the Coffeemakers



Blessed are those who, when they hear about suffering,
	ask a follow-up question instead of changing the subject.

Those who tell a homeless navy vet
	who just wants a little flirting and affirmation

they like sailors. Those who dance before the Lord.
	Blessed is the delivery man –

blessed are the simpletons and the felons,
	the crazy lady haranguing the pedestrians. 

Blessed is the guy with the free flyers.
	Blessed is your neighbor you never talk to.

Blessed are the bus boys and the rush hour drivers,
	the child soldiers. The dead, for their span on Earth is done.

Blessed are the fickle and the incomplete,
the guilty. Blessed are those

who make the coffee in the coffee pot
while others chatter. Blessed are the blind,

the fallen, the foolish.
Blessed are the deaf.
 

John Claiborne Isbell taught French and German for many years in Indiana and Texas after his Ph.D. at Cambridge University. In 1996, he appeared in Who’s Who in the World. He has a new monograph, An Outline of Romanticism in the West, with Open Book Publishers, where it is available to download for free online. His first book of poetry, Allegro, came out in 2018. 

Sky Square

I eavesdropped on a Frenchman
Over last night’s gnocchi and white wine.
He spoke in English of the museum
Opposite the golden duomo. 

This morning I tiptoed through there, 
Careful not to touch the ancient art;
Fragmented pots pieced together 
The lives of nameless dark figures.
I usually rush past these sections 
Of the Met, Louvre, and National.

I found my own corner, though—
One where God and I can both live.
Upstairs and to the left
Hid a window 2 feet tall and wide.
Alone, I leaned my body out—
For here, private moments are hard to come by.
Since the vases couldn’t make me feel a part
Of a life more grand, I relied on the breeze.

Raven Cullo is a recent college graduate and aspiring writer. Her inspiration stems from her religious upbringing, travels abroad, and intimate relationships. She considers herself to be quite transient, but is primarily based in Illinois.

The Old Men on the Path
 
The old men sat and wagged their beards and shook their heads.
We’ve seen dark days before, they say. Bleak days and cold nights.
And they pass. They may hurt us, passing through, but they pass,
And nine of ten we scarcely notice that the sun has risen.
 
I saw the old men and their wagging beards and mumbling teeth.
I saw their benches stretched across a path, a stony, twisty path
That would take our footsteps out of the valley to the hills beyond
Where the light began to unravel the darkness and the shadows fled.
For all that they have seen, whatever wisdom they had known,
The path they sat on, not one of them has followed.
 
And I could see that old men mumbling into their beards would never
Let an old man pass. They’d shuffle up. Make room and draw him in;
Make him one of them and their stories of old times, bleak times,
Dark times that never end in sun. What comes will come. We never lift a finger.
 
But I might see a child, leading us past; racing us past, leaping past, running
Up to the shadowy brow of the hill to the light that bursts into dawn.
To the light that shatters the cold panes of wisdom.
To the light that scoffs at the fear of shadows
To the child who leads us out of the cold night.
The child who leads us on the path to the sunlight. And I, for one, would follow.

Edward Alport is a retired teacher and proud Essex Boy. He occupies his time as a poet, gardener and writer for children. He has had poetry, stories and articles published in a variety of webzines and magazines and on BBC Radio. He also posts snarky micropoems on Twitter as @cross_mouse.

On Christmas Day in the Morning


I saw three planes slowly circling   ablaze 
so every eye could see where they were
a setting of three diamonds   equidistant 
under the parchment dome   early on a Christmas Day 

like slow-moving torches that brightly burn
each waiting its turn   like shimmering gifts of gold
frankincense & myrrh   in a caravan crossing sand
each having come a long way   & so close to arrival 
  
but having not yet arrived   like promises nearing fulfillment   
three planeloads of weary   gift-bearing travellers   eager to return
to loved ones   still asleep beneath snow-covered roofs   
or waiting in the terminal   to welcome them home   

D.S. Martin is Poet-in-Residence at McMaster Divinity College. Angelicus (2021) is now available from Wipf & Stock ― a poetry collection written from the point of view of angels. Visit his blog Kingdom Poets and his website.

Christmas Eve


Midnight Mass is in full voice to welcome in the Day.
A new baby is laid in the crib.

The priest turns, arms outstretched, palms open.
He stands, almost triumphant, 
in his white vestments shimmering with gold thread.
He reminds us of the familiar story
while the forest-scented tree,
tastefully decorated, 
twinkles in the candlelight.

How joyful.

Pulling coats round snug,
hats on, boots zippered,
we stride out for home smiling, laughing,
thankful that the address was to the point
and short.
Calm and warm waits for us.
Our own Christmas tree too,
anchored in piles of presents.

An early hoar frost glitters the edges of
tired winter tussocks.
Pools of coloured light thrown by the stained glass
glow gently
in the Long Night moon.

How pretty.

Angled angels and sloping crosses sit in deep shadows.
Glancing round, I see a pinpoint glow of red,
like a small ‘stop’ light.
Out of place. 
Not part of a pattern.
My eyes accustom to the darkness.
The light glows again.
I trace a burning cigarette back to 
a hollowed face.
A figure is slumped against a tilted gravestone.
His dog is curled up against him.

He greets me.

‘Happy Christmas, love’.

Viv Longley has been writing for her own pleasure since she was a child.  Later in life she undertook an MA in Creative Writing at The Open University, specialising in poetry. As well as having one collection (Tally Sheet, Currock Press, 2021) she is undertaking a number of collaborative publications.  Notably, Daughters of Thyme. She is also preparing a second collection of her own and a number of essays – the latter to be called I am in a Hurry. ‘Now nearing my 80’s, you just never know how much time you have left!’