Hourglass Time by Patricia Wellingham-Jones

coffeeitaliancup

There’s something to be said
for living on the bottom half
of the hourglass, for being the elder
of the neighborhood, the widow-woman.

The morning walk on country
roads nets animals to pet,
gardens to sublet in the mind,
air freshening body and brain.

Submission to the new status
bring neighborly coffee
in Italian cup and saucer

and a rancher checking on bulls
who pulls up to chat
then waits down the road
until trash-pickers are safely past.

A wave of thanks from designated elder,
arm through truck window in salute,
and the rich life in unwinding time
slides on.

About the Author: Patricia Wellingham-Jones

PatriciaWellingham-JonesPatricia Wellingham-Jones is a widely published former psychology researcher and writer/editor. She has a special interest in healing writing, with poems recently in The Widow’s Handbook (Kent State University Press). Chapbooks include Don’t Turn Away: poems about breast cancer, End-Cycle: poems about caregiving, Apple Blossoms at Eye Level, Voices on the Land and Hormone Stew.

What Fills Me by Pat West

WhatFillsMe

Dark chocolate with black sea salt and caramel
A cold rain quiet as a mirror
Slow cooked eggs
Sundays
Shanghai silk merlot
Deep yellow heirloom tomatoes
Driving over the Tehachapi Mountains,
down the Grapevine, that serpentine road
The old gray sweater,
that feels like a hug from my mom
Seattle’s lavender sky
Ferries—slow moving castles
across the Sound
People watching
at Pike Place Market
Sunlight cathedraling through
tall fir trees
Muddy Waters playing
bottleneck guitar
Cowboys—the reason they invented jeans
Nana’s sweet relish
Slow kisses
Cold pizza for breakfast
October’s marmalade moon
How in Kansas the earth flattens,
the road straightens
and there’s nothing but amber wheat
all the way to the horizon
rippling on the breeze,
that dry rustling sound

About the Author: Pat West

PatWestBioPat Phillips West lives in Portland, Oregon. Her poems have appeared in various journals, including Haunted Waters Press, Persimmon Tree, San Pedro River Review, and Slipstream, and some have earned nominations for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net.

Small Indulgence – by Patricia Wellingham-Jones

chocolatsoftserve2For the first time in too many years
she treated herself to a softee,
a tall chocolate swirl
rising from a small cone.
It begged for her tongue.
She obliged. Licked and slurped,
tried to keep the sides
from dripping down her white shirt.
Settled at a picnic table under a pine tree
she watched the traffic on Main St. flow by.
She listened to teens just out of school,
watched a mother manhandle a twin stroller,
heard birds above her head bicker and sing.
The creamy sweetness of chocolate
tickled her taste buds, reminded her
she didn’t have to pare everything good
out of her pared-down life.

About the Author: Patricia Wellingham-Jones

PatriciaWellingham-JonesPatricia Wellingham-Jones is a widely published former psychology researcher and writer/editor. She has a special interest in healing writing, with poems recently in The Widow’s Handbook (Kent State University Press). Chapbooks include Don’t Turn Away: poems about breast cancer, End-Cycle: poems about caregiving, Apple Blossoms at Eye Level, Voices on the Land and Hormone Stew.

Motherhood 2016 by Lisa Zaran

motherhood2016

Perhaps I’m planning a diagram of a family structure.
Here is the beginning, a dot on a page, and what to call
this dot? Here.

About the Author: Lisa Zaran

LisaZaranBioLisa Zaran is the author of eight collections of poetry including Dear Bob Dylan, If It We, The Blondes Lay Content and the sometimes girl. She is the founder and editor of Contemporary American Voices. When not writing, Zaran spends her days in Maricopa county jails assisting women with remembering their lost selves.

Wurzeln (Roots) by Æverett

Leaf by Hiroyuki Igarashi via Unsplash

Leaf by Hiroyuki Igarashi via Unsplash

You stand in front of the mirror, muscles tired, and watch your own skin.

You flex and stretch and watch your body move, like some force of biological magic.

Then, you see it — tendrils. Creeping roots. Pale blue and branching. Your veins under your untanned skin. This is what they mean by “translucent.”

You cup your breast up, away from your ribs and twist slightly, stretching your side-body to observe the thicker vein descending from your hip into your pelvis. To memorise it’s limbs, branching, reaching up toward your ribs. To see the tendrils weaving over your ribs, latticing about the Cage. Lacing across your chest, under your collar bone, from your shoulders, like wadded spiders’ webs.

You imagine my fingertips running over them. Tender touch. Gentle breath. Whispered kiss.

You feel no shame in your pale state. You are beautiful in your biology. Your blood flooding to tired muscles.

Should you break the skin it would flood out.

I want to remember it.

 

About the Author: Æverett Æverett

Æverett lives in the northern hemisphere and enjoys Rammstein and Star Trek. He writes both poetry and fiction and dabbles in gardening and soap making. She has two wonderfully old cats, and a dearly beloved dog. He also plays in linguistics, studying German, Norwegian, Russian, Arabic, a bit of Elvish, and developing Cardassian. Language is fascinating, enlightening, and inspirational. She’s happily married to her work with which she shares delusions of demon hunters, detectives, starships, androids, and a home on the outskirts of a small northern town. He’s enjoyed writing since childhood and the process can be downright therapeutic when it’s not making him pull his hair out. It’s really about the work and words and seeing without preconceptions.

Image Copyright: issaystudio / 123RF Stock Photo

Afternoon, for Instance by Lisa Zaran

AfternoonForInstance

we all go drifting from a dark bedroom
to a sunlit porch. even when a day feels
flattened and depression seems like the
only open door, hope abounds.

maybe it’s a skirt turning in summer sun
catching refractions of yellow light
maybe

it’s the gentle phrase of a stranger saying
have a nice day
maybe it’s just the afternoon
God’s mid-day break, sighing.

About the Author: Lisa Zaran

LisaZaranBioLisa Zaran is the author of eight collections of poetry including Dear Bob Dylan, If It We, The Blondes Lay Content and the sometimes girl.  She is the founder and editor of Contemporary American Voices.  When not writing, Zaran spends her days in Maricopa county jails assisting women with remembering their lost selves.

Solitude – by Patricia Wellingham-Jones

solitude_books_birdsong

solitude
filled with books and bird song
nourishes
quiet
chosen for rounded edges
not lonely

About the Author: Patricia Wellingham-Jones

PatriciaWellingham-JonesPatricia Wellingham-Jones is a widely published former psychology researcher and writer/editor. She has a special interest in healing writing, with poems recently in The Widow’s Handbook (Kent State University Press). Chapbooks include Don’t Turn Away: poems about breast cancer, End-Cycle: poems about caregiving, Apple Blossoms at Eye Level, Voices on the Land and Hormone Stew.

Affairs by Pat West

SeaSaltmargarita

One day he just shows up,
sweet and quiet at first
with a poem.  An electric charge
builds like a coming storm
vibrating up my spine.
I gulp mouthfuls,
While you slept,
I watched you breathe
as the moon rose in the sky.

Night after night
I devour Billy Collins,
a chocolate truffle
on my tongue.

Next one holds me close.
We float down afternoons
on slow rivers of margaritas
and conversations.  I become
a descarada woman
with Jimmy Santiago Baca.
Flick my ruffled skirt, flash
the butterfly tattoo on my ankle,
challenge him to Flamenco.
Later, slurp the last bits
of Immigrants in Our Own Land
from my plate with red-chili lips.

Each time with Sherman Alexie,
a hollow sensation hovers
low in my stomach
like on a carnival ride
beside people on the Rez,
not depressed victims,
but the most joyous Indians
in the world.  I rise and fall
with his metaphors
sweet as cotton candy,
caress his long mane of hair
fanned across red satin sheets.

Lemons, artichokes, eels, love
and despair.  Another all-nighter
with Neruda.  Odes to objects,
foods I pass in life without any  (No stanza break)
attention.  Tonight the onion
and tears I don’t even know
wait inside, seep from my eyes.
Then Pablo starts in about socks.

About the Author: Pat West

PatWestBioPat Phillips West lives in Portland, Oregon. Her poems have appeared in various journals, including Haunted Waters Press, Persimmon Tree, San Pedro River Review, and Slipstream, and some have earned nominations for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net.

The Language of Loss by Sue Ann Gleason

language-of-lossForget everything you were about to say.
And the days you can’t bear
to pick up the phone
because you know the news
will be the same
and you feel the weariness
of the stalwart.
And you wonder how long a body
can go without sleep in service
to the one she loves.
And you feel helpless
and hapless
despite the knowing,
the bone deep knowledge
that there are forces so much
greater than you
at work here.
And isn’t that what this one precious
life is?
She said we had to be willing
to live in the mystery.
And yet, regret slips in.
She always does.
Relentless.
Hovering.
Her cadence
the language of loss.
This morning we are awash in rain
as if to say, See? I told you today
would be dismal.
Pick up the receiver.
It will feel like a barbell.
Stop this inner lament.
It’s your turn to be brave.

About the Author: Sue Ann Gleason

Sue Ann GleasonNourishment guide, SoulCollage® Facilitator, and ‘wise business’ strategist, Sue Ann Gleason is a lover of words, a strong believer in the power of imagination, and a champion for women who want to live a more delicious, fully expressed life. She has been featured in Oprah and Runner’s World magazines and numerous online publications.

When not working with private clients or delivering online programs, Sue Ann can be found sampling exotic chocolates or building broccoli forests in her mashed potatoes.

You can connect with her in a few different places. Delicious freebies await you!
nourished living | wise business | instagram

How to Devour the Blues by Pat West

picnicbasket1

You receive three rejection notices
in one week. Or perhaps you fought
with your lover. And there are still
things to say. Forget the reason.
Toast a baguette, rub with garlic,
grate a tomato, spoon onto bread and eat.
You feel funky covered with crumbs
and sound like a noisy squirrel chewing
his snack, but feel the buzz in your mouth.

Riff off of something like the article
in The New York Times
about Buenos Aires giving pensions
to published writers. Improvise:
roll the idea of moving to Argentina
over your tongue like the R’s
in Spanish class. Imagine the smell
of parrilla in the afternoon, tenderloin
and strip steak, sausages, rows
of vegetables over fresh wood.

Amp things up a notch. Catch a flight to L.A.,
celebrate an unbirthday at the Hollywood Bowl.
Order the Verano picnic basket from Patina:
lemon poached salmon in dill sauce.
After a few sips of merlot, full of piss
and vinegar, tap the guy on the shoulder
next blanket over, ask to sample his potato salad.

Lean back, close your eyes.
When Diana Krall’s smoky voice reaches
the edge of the sky, you will taste
the sweet man and salty tears in her song.

About the Author: Pat West

PatWestBioPat Phillips West lives in Portland, Oregon. Her poems have appeared in various journals, including Haunted Waters Press, Persimmon Tree, San Pedro River Review, and Slipstream, and some have earned nominations for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net.