Tag Archives: poem

Poetry: Groundspeed by Emilia Phillips

books poetry lit February 6, 2015 Leave a comment

A falling plane as vessel. As Valkyrie—

The espresso shots tremble, darkening; the ounces
chatter on the tray as the unceilinged twin-
engine roar scourges the ear of the drive-thru
worker who only made out double tall. Out the window,
the plane jerks kite-like, tether whipped serpentine, &
drops like an elevator into the abandoned strip’s
parking lot a block from the register, nose snapped like
pencil lead guided by the god-hand that wanted to write
something (elegy, condemnation) across the weedy
& scarred blacktop. The falling plane as thrall, apologia of who’s
to become shadow. After hours, she guided us outside
with chilled canisters of heavy cream sweetened with vanilla
pressurized to spray. It was her last
night on the job. I used to dream I could float two stories
high, like confetti above a fire barrel, but when I
addressed my grounded companions, they said, You’re not
flying. When I say tangible, I mean to
touch. I mean, Of the earth & not above it. & yet love

is an act of falling; & parting, falling out.

read the rest at Green Mountains Review 

Poetry: ‘The Call’ by C Dale Young

books poetry lit January 28, 2015 Leave a comment

Make sure you click through for the ending because especially in this poem..it’s the most important part.

in memoriam Cecil Young

I am addicted to words, constantly ferret them away
in anticipation. You cannot accuse me of not being prepared.
I am ready for anything. I can create an image faster than

just about anyone. And so, the crows blurring the tree line;
the sky’s light dimming and shifting; the Pacific cold and
impatient as ever: this is just the way I feel. Nothing more.

I could gussy up those crows, transform them
into something more formal, more Latinate, could use
the exact genus Corvus, but I won’t. Not today.

Like any addict, I, too, have limits. And I have written
too many elegies already. The Living have become
jealous of the amount I have written for the Dead.

So, leave the crows perched along the tree line
watching over us. Leave them be. The setting sun?
Leave it be. For God’s sake, what could be easier

in a poem about death than a setting sun? Leave it be.

read more

Poetry: Vibrations

books poetry lit January 24, 2015 Leave a comment

The earth has music for those
who listen. ~Santayana

Around midnight, I ask again,
“Do you hear it?” It’s not the engines
from McClellan Field, nor the purr of the frig,
more something of earth or sky, or both.
Over the Aegean, a quarter moon
and single star spangle in dawn’s first light.
A smart man once said “Heaven is today,
not yesterday and not tomorrow.”
(sorry you missed it).
I look up the Aramaic word for heaven:
Shemeya,
(light, sacred vibrations, never ending).
And when I think complete silence,
that echo again, the pulse of a million suns,
the slip of comet’s tail—
immeasurable?
I want to find heaven on earth, a glimpse
of kindness in the everyday. An Arab country
gives our students new computers
after their school was tornado damaged.

read more

Jeanine Stevens, Blue Five Notebook 

Poetry: Untitled

books poetry lit January 15, 2015 Leave a comment

Bedridden, I ate nothing for days.  Gradually came paper-thin
noodles boiled in lemon water, salt-less crackers they called
saltines and half cups of chamomile.  Unable to escape I assumed
nothing happened in the world beyond my bedroom.  Light
changed as it always had, doves cooed in the hollows of the house,
once the sound of a woman laughing, two men yelling in a strange
tongue, the old church bells down the road and the occasional car
passing by, but the restless silence seemed to be the most
unbearable thing.

-W.J. Preston, Apple Valley Review

Lilies of the Field Motion Poem

books poetry lit January 14, 2015 Comments: 2

Extraordinarily beautiful video by Marie Craven for The Poetry Storehouse, of a poem by Laura M Kaminksi

Lilies of the Field from Marie Craven on Vimeo.

The Flag

books poetry lit January 10, 2015 Leave a comment

On the roof of the old barracks
a row of air vents burr,
breathless as nuns praying.
A string of bird calls—
light starts trickling,
sleepers fret behind the gauze.

A string of katydid songs
stark in the foothills
of Tennessee,
maybe it was Morgantown.
There, the library in July was cool
like a nave. Tell no one.  Desire
is the flag I open and fold.
My room alights in doubt.

-Pui Ying Wong, Up the Staircase

Poetry: Plantains

books poetry lit December 19, 2014 Leave a comment

Very excited to say that my poem “Plantains” was picked up for Blue Fifth Review’s December Poetry Special.

Peeling plantains,
I sway in the kitchen while the orchid you gave
eases toward the lamplight.

I am waiting for your staccato on the door.
Green spikes my fingertips, and I roll bites
in sugar my tongue rejects.

Read more at Blue Fifth Review 

Poetry: A Spokesperson Said Thoughts and Prayers Go Out

books poetry lit December 9, 2014 Leave a comment
Out like what? Whispers
in a tin can tied with yarn
a thousand miles long
to the can of a woman, her
ear desperately pressed
to its emptiness? Like a loon’s
song transmitted by Morse?
Can you fathom the miles
of murky ocean that whale
must sing through? Did you know
some people believe
all sounds ever made
are still present, hovering
like butterflies? Even, say, the whir
of a copy machine out there
in the ether, sent flying
when the first plane hit? Do you see
voices as monarch wings
wheeling through the sky?
If you shout from the window
of a thousand-foot tower
before you fall, where does
that scrap of voice go? Is it still
falling? You mean go out
like candles snuffed by the wind?
You mean out like empathy
in tiny increments marching
like ants made of sound
across the wires of the world?
Did she just hear an Our Father
whiz past? I’m sorry, I’m sorry,
she said. I think you’re
breaking up.
-Sonia Greenfield, Rattle

Poetry: Mornings

books poetry lit October 17, 2014 Leave a comment

She would have cooked
his breakfast, eggs sunny-side up,
runny the way he liked them,
strong boiled coffee poured
and waiting, better than the diner.
But before the train screaming
through tunnels, his windowless office,
the idiots he had to “sir,”
he needed a space without her
or his children, so he dressed
in a crack of light from the bathroom,
held his shoes by two fingers,
and left them sleeping. That walk

to the diner was his time

Read more at Burnt District

-Susan Aizenberg

Poetry: Orderly Dispersal

books poetry lit October 13, 2014 Leave a comment

I’m asking you now in my calmest voice, my voice of patience and maintenance and strength, to rise slowly from your seats and turn to face the nearest aisle. The person in front of you is moving deliberately and efficiently. Put your trust in that person’s control of his or her impulses to rush or push or trample the persons between him or her and the ultimate goal of the exit just as you exercise your power over your own impulses to act in the same way.

Listen to the tone of calm in my voice. Do not worry. Relax the muscles in your shoulders. Lift your feet one at a time, move each a few inches forward and put it back down with plenty of clearance for the shoes and feet of the person in front of you who is proceeding in the same measured way out of the row of seats to the aisle and on toward the ultimate goal of the exit.

Read more

-Jesse Minkert, Paper Nautilus