Poet’s Corner
For the children
By Amarylis Douglas
“When will our blood be red enough?”
When will our tears, that reflect in the journalists’ eyes,
be holy enough?
Our mothers and grandmothers strong enough?
When will it happen?
Will our children’s bedrooms...
Poet’s Corner
By Camden Fullin
I hear you everywhere I go.
I hear the sounds of pretty birds in the wild.
And the sounds of butterflies going to buttercups.
The sounds of bees and the sounds of people.
And the sounds...
Poet’s Corner
Tread softly on sacred ground
By Nancy Langman
Tread Softly on sacred ground
Tread softly on this war-torn land
Many lay beneath your feet
All the things they loved are gone
So many died in retreat
Tread softly as your tears...
Poet’s Corner
Light Workers
By Jeffrey Agnoli
In raw wet weather
a shingler works in
just an old sweatshirt.
Above the big new house
stoic oaks raise bare arms
to reveal a slate sky.
A world away the ancient
pain of Ukraine rises and
the old...
Poet’s Corner
Haiku for Trans Chick: Beware King George, the rooster
By Cynthia Riggs
An SBS chick,
Marjorie’s now a rooster.
We thought s/he was trans.
A book’s in the works
For small children now to learn
That sex is fluid.
A moral treatise
With...
Poet’s Corner
As You Were
By Fan Ogilvie
It seemed we were over war
When we were born.
We went quickly from armistice
To Bozo The Clown under the sea.
But our brothers dressed in Army
And Navy caps to train for the...
Poet’s Corner
February
By Donald Nitchie
Don’t be glum. Odds are you’ll survive
the winter, and probably several more.
Why not get your hopes up
for warm breezes off water and falling
asleep in the shade. Hang in there,
even as memory stalls...
Poet’s Corner
Johnny Hoy and the Blue Fish
By Stephen Power
I drive Beach Road to Temahigan Road
past the Police Station where, two years ago,
two deer, on separate occasions,
jumped in front of me. One hit my car but...
Poet’s Corner
My Friends
By John Ortman
Afraid of the dark,
But told to sleep without a light,
I said my prayers and waited
For the shadows of the night.
I faced the wall and watched them grow
In shapes so strange to...
Poet’s Corner
Omicron
By Don McLagan
Finally, the Covid claw
at my throat, eases.
Night-shivers pass.
Hacking phlegm crests.
In the morning,
it will be possible
to swallow soup.
I will notice the weather,
respond to some email,
wheeze a few words
on the phone. Rest.
The clutch at...
Poet’s Corner
In Zombnia
By Ashley Mackey
I tossed.
I turned.
I puffed my pillow.
How many turns to go?
Blankets on
Blankets off
First I’m hot
Now I’m cold.
One arm up
One arm down
Off to the side
Keep moving around.
(Make an octopus proud.)
Count up by threes
Count...
Poet’s Corner
On Turning 75
By Tom Dresser
I never thought the day would arrive,
The day that I turn seventy-five,
An age beyond my fear and ken
Too many years to remember when
As a youth, carefree, without fear,
I gave no...
Poet’s Corner
Produce
By Clark Myers
Peas today —
Green toes with tendrils
nested under
a fluorescent sun in the false furrows
of a northern market.
Emerald hope
against the winter chill,
displaced sugar
this product of Chile —
this taste
of Spring and Summer
side by side
roots and...
Poet’s Corner
My Heart Asked My Hands
By Zachary Wiesner
My heart asked my hands
Will we ever be safe?
Will we ever embrace
Growing old?
Will we ever stop
Feeling alone?
My hands told my heart,
Start by holding hands with yourself,
Then open your...
Poet’s Corner
By Tracy Thorpe
Dear Winter,
How are you?
Since I last saw you the birds have nested,
fledged, and fattened for long flight
and again, I feel the drowse
pulled through my roots, trunk and twig.
Now I must sleep, and...
Poet’s Corner
OMG!
By Nancy Slonim Aronie
Why did we ever put God so far away
When clearly he’s in the amber glow
Of my new lamp Lorie gave me?
He’s in my garden, too.
He’s pink and still growing
Even after the...
Poet’s Corner
Overlooking the Dunes
By James Miller
With sunlight on their gentle back,
I watch the current of green wind
which blows left and right and then back
like a pure soul who’s never sinned.
For nature is clean of our...
Poet’s Corner
Gathering
By Ellie Bates
winterberry dressed the curve in the road along Mill Pond
her naked branches burst with red berries
carefully I step to cut several stems as cars speed by
add them to crimson stalks from the...
Poet’s Corner
Effortlessly
By Mark Halperin
Today
my postponed life
came to a crystallized moment
as I
hesitantly
snowshoed on three feet
of freshly fallen snow
asking myself
“how shall I live?”
Then
in the void of silence in these woods
shocked
surprised
overwhelmed in the present,
I heard the
loving hugging enveloping
sound...
Poet’s Corner
Bedtime Story
by Nicole Jackson
I write at night,
Between my ears words take flight.
Judgement free, finally.
Empty my head and flush it free.
Delete all day's burdens inside of me.
My mind continues to roam,
Finding the words to match...