Category: Poetry

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Floating with Piano Jazz by Patricia Wellingham-Jones

A stream rippling
in timeless riffles
slides into backwaters
wanders down a rivulet
slips back into its
liquid trail
downstream
ever downstream
rippling

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.

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Latest Escape by Patricia Welllingham-Jones

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A friend is slogging her way home
from Buenos Aires, thirteen air hours
topping off an arduous trip:
flights around Chile and Argentina,
bus rides along sharp Andean ridges,
four days on a boat in rough Patagonian seas.

That doesn’t take into account
the mountain-miles hiked
with aching joints
where her real knees used to be.

So now she’s heading for Atlanta,
hoping their record snow has stopped,
the power’s back on. Wishing
she didn’t have a seven-hour layover.
Wishing she was a long-flying bird.

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.

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Edge of Dusk by Bobbi Sinha-Morey

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By the edge of dusk I’d
escaped just in time
through the broken slats
of a fence, into an orchard
where I stole enough plums,
kept running farther away
till I could no longer see
the farm my stepfather owned
and my insane family who did
nothing but abuse me. All I
ever wanted was a peaceful
sanctuary, a loving touch to
waken my senses, a nurturing
light so I could find my passion
in the sun. Too wary to put my
thumb in the air when I reached
the open road, I walked for three
miles before I arrived at a bus
depot, and I counted my change
for an overnight ride out of here.
And when I slept I dreamed of
my future—barefoot in the wet
grass in back of my one bedroom
home, peaches ripe on the vine,
the stillness and quiet of an idyllic
life. New faces, new memories;
pancake breakfasts every Sunday.
And, maybe, if I lost my ponytail
and let down my hair, a man would
come into my life, wrap his arms
about me forever.

About the Author: Bobbi Sinha-Morey

Bobbi Sinha-Morey’s poetry can be see in a variety of places such as Plainsongs, Pirene’s Fountain, The Wayfarer, Red Weather, Oasis Journal 2016, Helix Magazine, and Uppagus. Her books of poetry are available at www.Amazon.com, and her work has been nominated for Best of the Net. She loves taking walks on the beach with her husband.

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The Aurorean Morning Mist by Bobbi Sinha-Morey

I never dreamed I’d see
the parasol lady again who
would only appear in the
aurorean morning mist to
take me away from my
stressful reality, from the
emotional burdens of my life.
This time, a wrap about my
shoulders, I went after her,
eager to escape the pallor of
my unwanted life; and, in
the orphic wind, she led me
to a world I never thought
I’d be in. An elegant two story
house, a wide patio set up for
a party decked out with fine
china and white tablecloths,
long stem glasses with honey
apple wine. Paper lanterns
with candles to illumine the
walkway inside each one of
them. And a little girl in a blue
dress seemed to fill the lilac
shadow with her own light
wherein she quietly played.
The splendor, the simple
beauty reminded me of my
favorite story by Virginia
Woolf, the coming summer
night like a perfection of
thought. This house, these
gardens, for me to wander
in as I please. A breakfast
kept for me until I choose
to arise, with puff pastry as
a daily repast, stitching
booklets of verse that fit so
petitely in the palm of your
hand. A new family I can
cling to; their gaiety, their
genuine smiles that just stick.
I’ll never go back to what I
used to be.

About the Author: Bobbi Sinha-Morey

Bobbi Sinha-Morey’s poetry can be see in a variety of places such as Plainsongs, Pirene’s Fountain, The Wayfarer, Red Weather, Oasis Journal 2016, Helix Magazine, and Uppagus. Her books of poetry are available at www.Amazon.com, and her work has been nominated for Best of the Net. She loves taking walks on the beach with her husband.

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My Horoscope Said I Would Travel by Patricia Wellingham-Jones

Surgery loomed, escape was needed
before the body shut down for weeks.
I smuggled myself on a friend’s
casual invite to San Francisco.
She didn’t think I’d go.

Top of my list of wanna-sees,
Coit Tower, symbol of that magic city
standing proudly over the bay.
We parked blocks away, strolled by an alley
with almost hidden door.

I was drawn to the wood surface
carved with names: Flaco, 3D, T+M, Scott, AlexT.
Some were freshly dug with a sharp knife,
some with ballpoint pen,
many engrained from years of exposure.

I wondered what connected these guys,
if they were winners – or losers –
in ancient gang battles
or someone just passing by, as we were.

Breathless at the top of the hill
I gazed at Coit Tower, enjoyed
the murals on its walls, its iconic form.

More than the landmark, what dazzled
was the view of sparkling water,
sailboats tacking in a fresh breeze,
smells of salt and diesel and distant air.

I sighed, replete. Escape complete.
My back to the famous icon
I savored the sea.

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.

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Myopia by Nancy Richardson

Who could live with a person who sells
vacuum cleaners to old ladies, sweeps
the dead skin from their mattresses
promising them a cleaner life?
All I felt was the heat on his skin.
Later in the dark, when the baby’s cries
were like spikes in the mattress
and he wouldn’t get up, I wanted to throw
his body off the bed. Words float away
like dust motes leaving nothing
but quiet air, the way the small silences
around a conversation alter the direction
of a thought and are seen, like dams
in a river, by the way the talk flows up,
over and around. I sat in front of the TV
serving the baby chunky food from jars,
the day Robert Kennedy was shot.
Sobbed for his lifted head, his empty eyes,
my silent life, and left then, along
with the unused words, drove down
the two lane road in my rusty Volkswagon
with the kids, headed for words
like insight, foresight, some other life.

About the Author: Nancy Richardson

Nancy Richardson’s poems have appeared in journals anthologies. She has written two chapbooks. The first, Unwelcomed Guest (2013) by Main Street Rag Publishing Company and the second, the Fire’s Edge (2017) by Finishing Line Press concerned her formative youth in the rust-belt of Ohio and the dislocation, including the Kent State shootings that affected her young adulthood. In An Everyday Thing, she has included those poems and extended the narrative to memories of persons and events and the make a life.

She has spent a good deal of her professional life working in government and education at the local, state, and federal levels and as a policy liaison in the U.S. Office of the Secretary of Education and for the Governor of Massachusetts. She received an MFA in Writing from Vermont College in 2005 and has served on the Board of the Frost Place in Franconia, NH. Visit her website.

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Fairy Dust by Bobbi Sinha-Morey

It had been so long with the days
rushing by that I hadn’t been away
from rinsing fruit I’d gathered from
trees, churning milk for butter and
cheese, that I’d forgotten what it was
like to have a waking dream, to be
lifted somewhere else so nothing,
no one could touch me. It was then
I made a fusion for myself of apples,
oranges, cherries, strawberries, and
a rare ounce of fairy dust, a smoothie
I poured in a tall, chilled glass, and
I’d been asleep till a wind in the door
and a smidgen of feet woke me up.
It was a young girl in a bonnet, not
much more than fourteen who, as
quietly as she’d come, had slipped
away from me. I followed the path
her footprints had taken—past a
woman in her yellow dress, the ivory
memorial, and a road I’d never seen
before that curved around a copse
of trees. It brought me to a small
house of orchids and I stood there
with them watching me. I knew
they had eyes, and they whispered
among themselves. The empress
orchid was larger and more powerful
than the rest; her color was as golden
tawny as my hair, and there were red
streaks along her petals as though a
lady had stroked them with her fingers.
And her voice was so bare—a light,
airy rhapsody stoking the love in my
heart; and I saw the girl in her bonnet
again, spinning crystal into saucers,
ballet dancers, swans, angels, and
chessmen. She led me to the water
where handmaidens were finding
alluvial diamonds in the river,
the best ones on beds of soft
eiderdown, some of them blue
in the cerulean light, and I saw
them glister, perfect for a bride
on her wedding night; and, in their
deep fire, the crimson vanilla swirls
of an opal.

About the Author: Bobbi Sinha-Morey

Bobbi Sinha-Morey’s poetry can be see in a variety of places such as Plainsongs, Pirene’s Fountain, The Wayfarer, Red Weather, Oasis Journal 2016, Helix Magazine, and Uppagus. Her books of poetry are available at www.Amazon.com, and her work has been nominated for Best of the Net. She loves taking walks on the beach with her husband.

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Alla Prima by John Grey

My view has been deliberately chosen,
a cozy spot halfway along the beach.
I have an image in my mind.
It’s now up to beauty to render it.

Each vision must have been born of woman,
sired by man, eighteen or more years added
plus a pleasing shape and lovely smile.

They must step out of the water at slow speed,
one after the other, an alia prima of loveliness,
lithesome and graceful.

And let each and every one of them
leave their footprints in the sand,
a fleeting record of consummate ease.

About the Author: John Grey

John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident. Recently published in New Plains Review, South Carolina Review, Gargoyle and Big Muddy Review with work upcoming in Louisiana Review, Cape Rock and Spoon River Poetry Review.

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To Isaac Albeniz’s Asturias by Patricia Wellingham-Jones

The guitar’s deep voice
stroked and plucked into life
wings like a broad-feathered bird
over treetops, lifting, dipping,
darting to alight on a bowing
hemlock crest. Balanced, calm
the bird settles, feathers tucked.
He scans the skies, dips his yellow gaze
to creatures below. Dismisses
any that don’t look like food.
The music builds then soars,
fingers pluck the bird into magnificent flight.
Sailing high where blue melds into white
he rides the air currents,
spins out of sight.

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.

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Cultivation by Lisa Zaran

My father’s spirit, built of plank, flew
into the afterlife’s eye like a stone thrown.

Old bone, I’m sure he made its ledge,
narrowly escaping the turnstile of reincarnation.

In that calm of death where even moss can be discerned
growing against the rivers edge,

his soul, unbidden, lifted as his heart
blued inside his breast. Slender as a
sprig on a silver buttonwood.

Oh good earth, he was a decent man.

About the Author: Lisa Zaran

Lisa Zaran is the author of eight collections of poetry including Dear Bob Dylan, The Blondes Lay Content, If It We and the sometimes girl. She is founder and editor of Contemporary American Voices, on online poetry journal in its twelfth year of publication. Lisa lives in Arizona where she works full time for a Community Service Agency serving individuals with substance use and mental health disorders