Better Than Starbucks Poetry Free Verse November 2019

poetry magazine, poetry book collage, free verse

Free Verse Poetry Page with Suzanne Robinson

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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.

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