top of page

Free Verse  with Vera Ignatowitsch

Rescues

 

Sometimes this is all there is:

Kindness that floats on the air

Like the first September leaf that drops

And is captured by the breeze

To land on the bench where one sits alone;

Like the call to come share the ledge over the

Sheer face of despair,

An elbow gripped to change

The course away from the faithless fall;

Like the rocky field that renders grain

husbanded in grace

By a caring hand.

 

It is night ending.

The long devotions of the heart,

In the dreary dawn, stopped,

Awake to the pulse in the ears

Against the pillow

That signifies survival;

Small words from one

Working small miracles

On another.

 

Sometimes kindness is all there is.

 

And the limits of deep grief expand

With a whispered word,

Grow thinner like a cloud.

The closet where

Tears are hung to dry

Opens to a raging moon

That fades below a rising sun.

 

 

Michael Cawley is a retired marketing executive who has been writing poetry for over 45 years. He had a few poems published many years ago but did not submit again until now. He is a father and grandfather and lives in West Chester, Pennsylvania.

My Sister and I

 

On our jungle gym in mid-August

and she believes

we are the same.  The air presses against

the round baby fat of our thighs,

the ridges of our outstretched necks.

We think we might choke on it.

Her bangs lick the sides of her face,

hiding the forehead freckles

that only come out for the sun.

Same as mine.

I do not tell her

what my mother has told me,

that although we are so close in age,

I will always be much older,

that there will be some things

she may never understand,

like long division or falling in love.

I do not tell her

because I would like to pretend

she is my best friend, that the silence

between us is our choice.

With the same grasping motion,

my sister and I

pull and push ourselves over

the sea blue plastic bar

and tumble forward into the eternity

three feet below.

 

 

Heather Brett is a middle school English teacher in New York City.  She studied creative writing at Binghamton University.  Her favorite writers are Dorianne Laux and Jhumpa Lahiri.

Refugees

 

Imagine, if we stopped migrating

birds at the border . . . 

 

Said, “No, this stretch of sky,

sea, and land are out of order

 

Can you perch someplace else,

please?

Perhaps, in your native trees?”

 

​

Migrant Caravan

 

These are the wandering years . . .

homeless, at last

tormenting idea

become beckoning reality

 

Lovers of longings’ song

and whispered promises

all the colors once fixed

now, profusely bleed

​

Just as constellations disperse

the pattern no longer discernible

here, within reach, the future looms

high as imagination, deep as fear.

​


Yahia Lababidi is the author of seven books of poetry and prose, most recently Signposts to Elsewhere: A Book of Aphorisms by Yahia Lababidi (Hay House, 2019)

Dementia in Two Parts

​

she forgot our name

stares at me like

she doesn't know who I am

no flash of recognition

strangers in an empty room

or

two women in the same mirror

dead eyes searching for

memories lost to the mind 

new pieces go missing every day

she is fading

 

she is fading

new pieces go missing every day

memories lost to the mind

dead eyes searching for

two women in the same mirror

or

strangers in an empty room

no flash of recognition

she doesn’t know who I am

stares at me like

she forgot our name.

 

 

Gracy Boes is a recent college graduate with a degree in creative writing from North Central University in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Her work has appeared in The Wineskin, Rouge Agent, and Visitant.

Not knowing where to stop.jpg

The Balcony Part One

​

The attempt to maintain a surface calm is more frightening than the rest. Your coat matches the carpet and every mile

     of that eye promises everything and nothing at all.

A cleared throat like rain splitting the sky. A sea floor smeared with halcyon and pearl.

The heart of this bunch has no hinges watching as she threatens to jump.

“Nurse, pass me the gasoline.”

Law enforcement was called because there are certain flowers you were never allowed to know.

 

The Balcony Part Two

​

Because there is no answer.

Because no one cleans up after themselves.

Because I’m surprised we find the time to care at all.

Opening the windows and watching people relate is like television.

Because we are all buckets of oil spewing from some dead kid you heard about.

Because of the way people lie in such a fashion that no one’s ever been hurt.

Because I was raised on talk shows, drinking from a broken cut.

 

 

Paul Ferrell’s last name is pronounced “feral,” like the cat. Though his first name is spelled like “Raul” it’s actually pronounced “Pall.” Paul is a stand up comic living in Las Vegas. His poems have been published in [PANK], SAND Journal, and Jet Fuel Review. He was 193 years old. 

Archive of Free Verse Poetry with Suzanne Robinson by issue:

     September 2019    July 2019    May 2019   

 March 2019     January 2019     November 2018      September 2018     July 2018     June 2018     May 2018     April 2018   

  March 2018     February 2018     January 2018     December 2017     November 2017     October 2017     September 2017   

   August 2017     July 2017     June 2017     May 2017     April 2017     March 2017     February 2017     January 2017   

  December 2016     November 2016     October 2016     September 2016     August 2016     June 2016     May 2016

​

Archive of Free Verse Poetry with Vera Ignatowitsch by issue:

     September 2019     July 2019     May 2019

bottom of page