Poet’s Corner
Islanders
By Donald Nitchie
Anyone who doesn’t want to leave.
Orlando, sure, New England Aquarium,
school vacations to Sanibel, Mt. Snow
and if you can swing it, Aspen or Bora Bora
but if you can’t, the Town & Beach Motel
in...
Poet’s Corner
Vineyard Herreshoff Cup
By Don McLagan
We come to compete for the Cup
From Chappy to the trail of Moshup.
Menemsha, V-Haven, and E-town
Contend in the Pond and the Sound.
We duel it out in H12s
For a trophy that...
Poet’s Corner
Climate Change
By Vi Larsen
A bottle floats helplessly into a mass of hungry plastic bobbing through the endless sea
A polar bear stumbles weakly over the frozen tundra and collapses, its final icy breaths shakely exit
A...
Poet’s Corner
Tiasquam
By Fran Schumer
(to J.A.)
I ride through the forest
to buy chocolates
for a friend. Dozens
already on lengthy lines.
Like the former mayor said:
half the fun of going
to the movies is the line.
I eat leaves from turnips
just picked,...
Poet’s Corner
By Nancy Slonim Aronie
For my sister Grandma was the Red Cross
I had no such first aid station except for her, my older sis
she told me everything
which I passed on
to my fellow four-year-olds
with perhaps a...
Poet’s Corner
Random Musings
By Michael Oliveira
let sleeping dogs lie —
so those dogs who are awake
must now tell the truth?
if tempus fugit
he should not take Spirit Air
he'll always be late
so funny how it's
easy to turn a sentence
into...
Poet’s Corner
Jackson Pollock
By Paul Dawson
Pollack’s beautiful messes
have their own covert
meaning sécreted in the
raw materials of his soul.
Peace is yet to be drawn
from the chaos of experience
and impressions,
vulnerable and personal:
Each painting a testimony,
each painting a sacrifice
of...
Poet’s Corner
Illumination Night: Oak Bluffs
By Dionis Coffin Riggs
(from “The Collected Poems of Dionis Coffin Riggs”)
Just once each year
I can recapture something
Of childhood’s summer-scented magic
When, on Illumination Night,
The band plays in the park.
And one by one,...
Poet’s Corner
Greetings
By Dick Fligor
to all, I nod my head
from time to time.
Eye contact kept with all comers.
Coffee house culture gone…
internet shy…
I’ll keep writing to myself
till my last goodby.
So what to do, where to go
now? Buried...
Poet’s Corner
Opening the House
By Warren Woessner
We drag our bags to the side door
and hunt for things that don’t work—
big things like the heat and hot water
and little things like burned out bulbs.
I am putting up...
Poet’s Corner
When I almost left
By Valerie Sonnenthal
I arrived home taking it in
every manicured moment
a secret garden
just a rock off the mainland
drive down Middle Road
in the green sweet green of summer
relish every honeysuckle whiff
in the lap...
Poet’s Corner
The Flying Horses Carousel
(For "Children Young at Heart”)
By Robert Ferriman
The Flying Horses Carousel
still today is found
In Oak Bluffs Massachusetts
going round and round,
Children of all ages
once having sat astride
A painted faithful steed
theirs alone to ride,
An...
Poet’s Corner
Forgetting to Remember
By Peter Ledermann
Speak not casually ever
As there is no drop of rain
that is insignificant
Nor any look that we give to one
another
Impermanent
Look to the passage of every moment as precious as
The splitting of...
Poet’s Corner
A Walk In The Park
By Michael Oliveira
So was gonna start
with my morning walk
and the sapphire blue pond
echoing the sky a dart of yellow finch
elide to a smoldering Ukrainian flag on an urban street
to the...
Poet’s Corner
An Afternoon in May
By Christine Burke
I have ice cream
in the car but
I can’t resist
the urge to visit
Owen Park
on this last
day in May
with white
sailboats perched
on the so very blue
water and matching
seagulls (white
not blue)
flirt with the...
Poet’s Corner
Shady Lane
By Lucas Thors
Pinch my 29ers and take a guess
Just a couple more pumps for posterity
Arlo hears the gears and comes running
Then we ride
Past the lichen-covered climbing tree
Where hot shot hide and seek
Ended in...
Poet’s Corner
Clear Skies
By Valerie Sonnenthal
I could die of a headline
but it's sixty-four delicious degrees out
April spreads her sun kissed joy
all is forgotten what's forgotten is forgiven
daffodil shrill yellow awakening breathe in
air unmasked in sunshine and...
Poet’s Corner
O' to be Bear
By Jonathan Burke
O' to be Bear
live in land
where rivers begin
mountains fill sky
thundering land
of song
nature's might
land of Bear.
O' to be Bear
so joyful
summer grass
lush thick green
snowy air
plump scents
wonderful mouthfuls
sweet blueberry.
O' to be...
Poet’s Corner
Saltmarsh
By Don McLagan
The crash and suck of waves,
the sweep of dunes are elsewhere.
Here is the quiet library of the shore.
A spindle-legged egret stares
as with spectacles through the surface
of a salt pool. From its balcony,
an...
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...