Tag: Poem

Spiderweb

Nancy Byrne Iannucci

 Glistening spiderweb –
                     street wires
                              at sunset.

Nancy Byrne Iannucci is the author of Temptation of Wood (Nixes Mate Review 2018). Her poems have appeared in several publications, some include Allegro Poetry Magazine, The Mantle, Gargoyle, Clementine Unbound, Three Drops from a Cauldron, 8 Poems, Glass: A Journal of Poetry (Poets Resist),Red Eft Review and Typehouse Literary Magazine. Nancy is a Long Island, NY native who now resides in Troy, NY where she teaches history at the Emma Willard School. Find her on Instagram.

Black Swift

Sean Cunningham

You asked me what bird I would be if I were a bird and I told you I would be a Black Swift, living on the wing. I told you I would take the highest crag behind the waterfall and furnish it with the mossiest nest anyone had ever seen – even you would be in awe. And if anybody, bird or beast or man, ever saw my acrobatics in the fine morning spray, they couldn’t help but to believe in something higher, something more. At this point, you tried to tell me what bird you would be if you were a bird, but instead I told you that if I were a Black Swift, I would pepper the afternoon sky with shooting stars of charcoal grey, or hover on the current, in love with the Earth below. You told me that you would be a parakeet with green and gold – I told you that I would tell nobody of my secrets. You said that you don’t understand me anymore. I told you I would die on the wing.

Sean Cunningham is a writer of very short prose and poetry, from Liverpool. His work has appeared in publications such as Fugue, Ellipsis Zine, Bending Genres, and Breadcrumbs, among others. He can be found on Twitter (@sssseanjc).

lightning bolts

Heather Sager

the ghosts of my mind
abandoned me

I can never
unite
with the drifters

while the sun is shining
and blue daisies sing
I bear castles of ruin
on my shoulders

Heather Sager is an Illinois poet and short-fiction author whose recent works appear in Words & Whispers, dreams walking, Door Is a Jar, Bluepepper, Sein und Werden, The Fabulist Words & Art, Slippage Lit, and elsewhere.

Remnants

DC Swanson

Is legacy an empty word?
A deathbed hope that we’ve been heard
a misplaced need to feel ingrained,
to make a mark the world retained?
A selfish wish to leave behind
a piece of self for peace of mind?
Is legacy defined by clicks,
by hearts and likes on posted pics
when my departed face appears
to mourners who are moved to tears?
Or is it marked by works displayed,
by goals achieved or progress made
through debts repaid or contests won
through songs composed or poems begun?
I can’t be sure, for death forbids,
but when I’m gone, go ask my kids.

DC Swanson, from Washington D.C., is a night writer not yet ready to give up his day job. He posts rhymes written by him and his two young daughters at @swanson_dc.

Swift

Sadie Maskery

I had a dream like this once
more vivid and positive than reality
except you were naked and I 
was a bird.
The agony and recoil
of wanting you
and knowing you saw
only wings,
distant, in flight.

Sadie Maskery lives in Scotland by the sea with her family.  She can be found on Twitter as @saccharinequeen where she describes herself, optimistically, as ‘functioning adequately’.

Knight, Night

Shane Schick

The weighted blanket an excess
of chain metal, embarrassingly
overcompensating for the fact
that I am in a position to joust
no one, and nothing, except
whatever it is I can’t see
hanging over my head

Shane Schick‘s most recent poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Analogies & Allegories, Gossamer Lit, Cardigan Press and more. He is the founder of a publication about customer experience design called 360 Magazine and lives in Toronto. See more on his website or Twitter (@shaneschick). 

Two Poems

Ruth Callaghan do Valle

Rare Animals

Rare animals fascinate me.
Night falls and I lie in wait.
Silence descends, the conditions are favourable,
there is every chance now that they will
make an appearance –
Would I still recognise them?
A sudden disturbance puts them to flight.
Shenanigans, shy creatures that they are,
make themselves scarce. 
They are unlikely to return now with the toddler so close, 
a dormant despot whose iron grip is inescapable. 
So we settle down in the hide and wait for another day
and pray for conditions to remain favourable.

Esperança

Spring has arrived –
cascades of golden blossom
carpeting the ground

Before the rains come
winds sway the young green mangoes
waiting hopefully

Yellow spears burst through
brilliant green foliage
reaching to the clouds

Ruth Callaghan do Valle writes in English with forays into Portuguese, and currently lives in small-town rural Brazil with her husband and toddler. You can find Ruth on Twitter (@rufusmctoofus), her spoken word poems on Instagram (@mctoofus) and posts about life in Brazil on her blog.

To A Child

Lauren Thomas

Bird song and seaweed in its
Dark green ribbons,

Evidence of storms that came
From deep inside the night

But here she patters in pools
And breeze blown ridges

Sea reflecting skim-stone sky above
Its curling arms of deep just out

Of reach. A quiet wild, held in sharp
Sting of salt. Patterns in the sand

Map the tidal pull and draw, the
White foam follows where she hops

From sturdy water-break to shore
Oystered in her blue-bone wilderness

Lauren Thomas is a teacher of English Literature. She likes writing vivid poems that deal with themes of passing time, memory, and the natural world. Lauren’s most recent work was published in The Daily Drunk Mag and The Crank Literary Magazine. Find her on Twitter (@laurenmywrites).

Sunflowers

Shiksha Dheda

beautifully bold
stemming from strength
thick from the root
dark inside
bright outside
attention seeking
happy in solitude
unbearable in groups

Shiksha Dheda is a South African of Indian descent. She uses poetry (mostly) to express her internal and external struggles and journeys, inclusive of her OCD and depression roller-coaster ventures. Mostly, however, she writes in the hope that someday, someone will see her as she is: an incomplete poem. Her work has been featured or is forthcoming in Visual Verse, The Kalahari Review, Brave Voices, Glitchwords, Versification, Resurrections Magazine, and others.

it’s one of those things

Craig Kittner

I would have held on to
so I could tell you later

how its velveteen color was the first thing I noticed, followed
by its cardinal-like shape and the touch of yellow along its tail

how, after I grabbed binoculars, one became two and then six…
seven… twelve… a whole flock of masks in the magnolia leaves

how I remember the pocket guide we had in the old house and how
their illustration was my favorite and I’ve never seen one ’til now

I would have told you all this – because it’s simple and real
and nothing to do with politics – or business – or morality

and you would have appreciated it because our hearts
were just similar enough to be moved by such things

and that’s what this is all about

how you no longer have ears to hear
and I can’t tell you what that feels like

Craig Kittner has lived a lot of places. Fourteen at last count. Providence saw the start of interesting things that DC helped solidify. Now he lives near the sea in North Carolina and likes to ramble and write. Recent publications include Rabid Oak, Right Hand Pointing, and Bones.