November & December 2019
Vol IV No VI
Not your ordinary poetry magazine!
If good coffee (or just the concept of coffee), great books, sharp wit, and great authors excite you, we are for you!
Tip: if it is underlined it is a clickable link.
Note: drop downs from the menu below sometimes take a few seconds to load.
Published bi-monthly
Free Verse Poetry Page with Suzanne Robinson
Use links at the bottom of this page, or the drop down menu above, to connect to our other poetry pages.
Featured Poem
NO -ly
before touching the door
a kiss to my cheek
be safe leaping out my throat
drive safe
no -ly
off they go alone
maybe with friends it will be dark later
obvious-ly, mom
be safe
at the stadium, at school, at the mall, at the fair, on the street,
alone,
with your friends, in the city, in the suburbs, in the building,
at the theater,
on the road, at the beach, at his house, at her house, at the
airport
on the plane, on the bus, on the boat, in the Uber, in the lake,
on the river . . .
be safe
drive safe
without -ly
SAFE
a magnificent bubble shielding their human flesh
a bulletproof amulet delivering them unscathed
be safe
drive safe
we know, you don’t have to tell us every time
yea, I do
AM Roselli’s poetry book, Love of the Monster, was published in 2016. Her writing has appeared in The Stillwater Review, The Paragon Journal, Oddball Magazine, Firefly Magazine, Literary Mama, Panoply, Absurdist, and Into the Void.
A Man’s Last Chance
High-spirited woman,
I desire your enormous domination.
I am tired, alone,
growing older by the mirror-glance.
And I’m here
with an unfulfilled libido
and find myself
thrashing about
in the before-it’s-too-late section
of human life.
Your windows are wide open.
The chill could give me a fever.
And who knows what
your boisterous physicality
will do to the sciatica
in my gluteus medius.
But I believe
your animal heat
will heal more than it harms.
So wrap me up
in your beguiling arms.
my bonnie, boisterous, beloved.
Time may not be on my side.
But you can show me what is.
John Grey is an Australian poet and US resident. He was recently published in THAT, Dunes Review, Poetry East, and North Dakota Quarterly, and has work upcoming in Haight Ashbury Literary Journal, Thin Air Magazine, The Dalhousie Review, and failbetter.
Joyous Reclamation
As true a companion as I could find
yet the switchback wanders of life
bring me here
without you by my side
To watch the sunrise melt into blue
a slim line of purple yellow orange
no telling if it’s earth flexing her muscles
lifting the weight of a new day or
a broken water vein
painting a rainbow from tomorrow’s cosmic cloud
no telling without you by my side
To walk the Costa Rican highway from our tiled hilltop home
with windowed wall opening to dancing bamboo tree
pinto luncheon beans perking
earthy breakfast coffee competing
with sweet papaya smoothies swirling
in blender bliss
no gates to halt our stride down greenery
as dusty cars speed past
the smell of burnt sugar scorching tiny nostril hairs
saliva spilling into our mouths while
papaya surrenders to caramel disguise
What joy to reach the churchyard grounds
to sit and watch expats church-pats find steeple home anew
then foot race to market choosing
more fresh beans succulent papaya lettuce and local cheese
softer smoother than the finesse of a Napa Valley Red
all this daily sustenance brought by farmers
for you and me
Such joy it brought
such joy it brings
to reclaim our care-free then
now
Sandra Luber is the writer of the visionary fiction, Divine Intercourse, and three creative nonfiction works. In 1995 she coined the phrase “emotional addiction.” It remains the lynchpin of her poetry and Buddhist practice. She resides in Tucson, Arizona.
Now Is The Time
Between you and me,
now is the time,
and now it’s gone.
Now is the time.
Between now and then,
I think I love you.
I am certain
you must know.
You are the now.
Now is the time.
What word is more fleeting than now?
Let us build a bridge together.
Luis Cuauhtémoc Berriozábal lives in California and works in the mental health field. His poems have been published by Kendra Steiner Editions, and in Mad Swirl and Unlikely Stories.
The Audit
I am 70
and the rocks in the creek
are slippery
I have left the toast
too long in the toaster
and the butter is hard cold.
I’m waiting for the auditor
to review my taxes.
I am certain all my misdeeds
will be revealed at the kitchen table
today. Not just honest mistakes
like errors of addition
but the time I honked and
gave the finger to the old man
who was most certainly
just lost.
The time I screamed at my mother,
payback for troubled years,
and she cried
and I didn’t care.
Oh yes I’m cruel
And deceitful
And harsh
And it will all come out this morning.
While out on the deck
the cottonwood seeds
float freely the way stardust
drifts through the universe.
First published by Dime Show Review.
Sandra Kacher wrote her first poem in third grade. She has lived a relationship-rich life as daughter, mother, partner, and therapist. Now that she is retired she is returning to poetry in order to create work that is fresh, layered, and heartfelt.
After Rain
Sand in the arroyo is fresh and
Verse fills my head like water
In the risen pool after rain —
Images in my head enmesh
As the temperature gets hotter;
The weather leaving leaves its stain.
Wind blows against the house in rhyme
Though no one will seem to notice —
Like sun behind a palm that shades;
It’s only a matter of time until
My head unfolds in a fit of new
Blades like a wild lotus.
Michael C. Seeger lives with his lovely wife Catherine, still-precocious 16-year-old daughter Jenetta, a magnificent Maine Coon Jill, and two high-spirited Chihuahuas Coco and Blue. Some of his poems have been published by the Lummox Press, Better Than Starbucks, and The Literary Hatchet.
I Don’t Believe in Math
It’s made of dreams
Nor physics on the whole
Because it’s just more math with clocks
No equation can prove our existence
Just as no proof can square a dream
Though I am made of dreams
And walk on lines without points, or ends
I still work equations at midnight
Seeking the proof and the sum that no equation can square
Love is an equation without a proof
Nor a single perfect square
The perfect curve of a fingertip
The sums of points on an endless line
Held, like a kite, by a string
Doug Pinkston has been writing short and long works of fiction and non-fiction for over 40 years. In addition to self-publishing two books, he has published a non-fiction historical memoir, History, Doug’s Tale, and has completed a CD of original music.
At Cedar Keys
I forget what I was going to tell you.
Perhaps it’s the radio’s news
or the saw palmetto tipped over
into the salt marsh.
Maybe the snowy egret
I found on the bank of the estuary
or the Indian shell mound
we climbed.
Or that our names
are not who we are but
abstract, arbitrary,
like Timucuan or Apalachee,
that we love each other
with an animal love
that will not last
beyond our un-naming.
Diane Dickinson has worked as a research analyst and business writer, and lives in the Detroit area. Her poems have appeared in California Quarterly, Altadena Poetry Review, The MacGuffin, and Young Ravens Literary Review.
Thunder in an Open Wound
Today I was petulant,
pulling emotions from beneath my skin,
letting them gape and bleed.
Today I was a sun that refused to give warmth,
a sliver of moon
piercing thunder into an open wound.
I was the cruel bit of bone at the back of your eye.
Today I refused to stroke the underside of your ego
and cut off my ear to stifle your complaint.
Today I felt hate rattling in my blood,
tearing at the roots of my teeth.
Today I turned my back on you
and forgot to say goodbye.
Susan Richardson is a widely published, award-winning poet from Los Angeles. In addition to poetry she writes a blog called Stories from the Edge of Blindness. You can read more of her work on her website http://floweringink.com.
Later
the half moon rose into blue sky
in the warm afternoon, barely visible
to the sleepy running river
later the moon shone on the brush
then faded behind branches as it set
at midnight over the ridge
the stars appeared and the night
lay still on the summer-dusty leaves
as the dew began to settle
I heard the trains somewhere close
starting as a low rumble, then the whistle
as they crossed the highway, seven in all—
the sky turned light and the stars
faded away, then the logging trucks came
braking down the grade
intersection of steel on steel
through the pines
through dawn
the chaos of engines
no longer needing to dissemble
in the quietude
of the forest.
Emily Strauss has an MA in English but is self-taught in poetry. Nearly 500 of her poems appear in a wide variety of online venues and in anthologies, in the US and abroad. She is a retired teacher living in Oregon.
Questionable Immortality
We cut through
the thin strip
of woods on the south
side of our property,
meandering back to the house
one fall day,
when we noticed
beneath a sponge of fern-
crowns matting the ground,
broken brown glass,
bottle shards stark
through leaf mast and thirsty
for blood.
With boot-toes and leather
fingers we searched carefully;
workings of an ancient camera,
a once-white iron bedstead,
heavy door from a Franklin stove,
pink and yellow piece of mixing bowl, silent red cap pistol-
ghost of a family,
50 years gone.
I found a never-opened plastic box
of hairpins, the kind I call “grandmother pins.” I held it to
the light.
Two single strands of green moss threaded bright
through their tines.
Rachael Ikins is a poet/author/illustrator. She is also associate editor of a small publishing house. Her work made it into six anthologies this summer and her newest book, Eating the Sun, is a memoir which happens to include poetry and recipes.
in the self-help aisle of Barnes & Noble
I ask him where to find
a late-night bowl of mac-and-cheese
(the kind
that comes with powder), and he
looks somewhat confused and inquires
about the author’s name.
I try again: Okay, I say,
perhaps you’ll point me to a couple hours
of Autumn on a mountain porch, with sky
that’s punctuated by a rolling line
of balding heads
and wind-stripped birches where a nut-fat squirrel climbs
to whisper secrets with his scraping claws.
We have Twelve Rules for Life
he says, or Taking Control
of Diet, and asks me if
I’ve heard of Carol Dweck.
He’s old,
confused, I remind myself.
One last exasperated try: Surely you have forks
that slip through key-lime pie? The end-line of a poem? A shelf
of wooden knick-knacks
in a small-town antique shop?
Firm grapes?
L.R. Harvey teaches and writes in Chattanooga, Tennessee. His most recent poetry has appeared in magazines such as The Write Launch, After the Pause, The Tennessee Magazine, and many more. He hopes that his poetry is an enchanted union between mystery and clarity.
Outfoxed
On seeing Fox, 1957 by Andrew Wyeth
Ghosting out the page
brushstrokes birth the animal’s upper torso
the apparition crouching, looking rightward,
oblivious to you viewing from its side.
It sniffs lengthily along the ground,
paws front, ready to pounce.
Hypnotised your gaze lingers —
closer and closer
barely grey strokes mesmerise to black,
texture up thickness, warmth.
Elsewhere ears bristle in curves
concentration darkens eyes
as lids lengthen in focus.
Its snout sharpens
into yours, the smell of prey
flares nostrils
as this snow fox summons
the primitive in the gallery visitor
outsmarted by the draughtsman’s skill.
Sheila Ash is a global Scot, having lived on four continents. Retired and based in Suffolk, she continues to travel in Garfunkel, her campervan. An avid reader, more recently a poet, Sheila has her own blog and also contributes to local writing group workshops.
We will watch the sea again
I watch the sea
on a television screen
it’s a long tape
my dad recorded
many times
on many tapes,
a long time ago.
Several cassettes,
but they are all the same
and we’d make fun of him.
My dad was making Postmodern Art
and he didn’t know it,
we thought
those tapes were just a boring, shaky
nonsense
so basically Postmodern Art,
but we did not know it.
In 1993 my Dad bought me a fish
I called the fish Monotony
and I made Monotony
watch the sea on the tv screen
playing my father’s tapes.
On a new tape
my father filmed the fish
watching the sea
And now
I am watching the tape of Monotony
watching the sea
taped on my father’s tapes.
We could all be rich.
Claudia Leporatti is an Italian writer, journalist, and tour guide based in Budapest. Her newest short story will appear in the Central European magazine Panel, while previously she has been featured in Italian magazines and websites.
Lemons
From my opened window
music drifts thru the open space
as faint light streaks across
a darkened sky.
Migrant hands work quickly
as the morning light comes alive
and ripe butter colored fruit
drop silently into heavy canvas bags
as singing fills the air.
Joan C. Fingon is a Professor of Education and a lover of all genres of writing. While many of her haiku have been published, this is her first published free verse poem.
morning walk
my arms thrash
clearing a path
through crosswalks
they traveled
this driveway
before me
the silk strands
a spider
trap
kiting
a dead leaf dances
on a thread
Ingrid Bruck’s work has been published in Better Than Starbucks, Otata, Failed Haiku, and Halcyon Days. Her debut chapbook, Finding Stella Maris, was released this year. Visit her poetry website at www.ingridbruck.com.
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: