Night
By Joel Holmberg
Frozen beneath the snow
living in a cryologic state
the tiny bodies feel
nothing
until marsh ice melts and
spiders begin weaving webs
immediate urgency
with tinkling calls for a mate
competing with hundreds
stopping only
to seize with sticky tongue
that spinning spider
Listening...
Eulogy for the Old Man on the Hill
By Maurice Young (1972)
There’s a lonely old man away, way high up on a hill;
puffing vainly on his pipe amidst the stench in the chill
that his angry smoldering fires have been unable to kill
in...
in a wood / where nobody goes
By Jill Jupen
You will come
to it
(to borrow
a phrase).
You can do something
forever.
I did it once.
I mean,
that happens.
The Archbishop
of Anarchy.
The poet
and what he has not seen.
He too gets
tired
of getting lost
in the trees.
Of rising each
morning
wishing to be
just
an...
Everything the Snow Touched Turned Blue
By Fan Ogilvie
Cans no gallons of paint fell from the sky in a marvel of rivers coating the forests the fields the winter fallow gardens all houses restaurants businesses
and the glass blowing barn with...
Figures in a Landscape
By George Mills
I was sitting on the back steps
mumbling a toothpick,
thinking about the mayflies
dying in the kitchen sink.
My reveries kept changing sex,
then flew off into a frenzy
of cathedral building.
How sad, I thought, that I...
The Man Who Loved Mountains
By Lee H. McCormack
Because he loved mountains he stood at the edge of the sea
Studying wind for signs and scents of apple trees standing sentry
Over forsaken meadows still flowering with the insects of summer.
The...
Poet’s Corner: To Frost
By M.R. Baird
I woke up to a world of white
You up in that forest, still
Walking on the newly fallen,
Down the path you knew so well,
Tallest pines bent down heavy
Greet the morning,
Full to breaking,
It’s what...
Sunday Morning, Vineyard Style
By Nancy Langman
Rooster crowing
getting loud
sky lightening
Ne’er a cloud
Cat purring
Snuggled tight
He’s been there
Through the night
Dog sleeping
Foot of bed
All that I see
Is her head
Birds chirping
Fewer now
As winter
Bends the bough
Snow falling
Lightly here
Barely sticking
Soon to clear
Hubby snoring
Very softly
Soon...
Poet’s Corner: Snowy Owl
By Philip A. Zentz
Snowy Owl takes to flight
On lumbering feathered wings
Broad in body, white on white
With only a hoot he sings
Vanishing into the snowy night
Not a silent majestic soar
Against gravity he fights
Takeoff, a solemn...
Poet’s Corner: Dune
By Steve Ewing
Great sentinel of sand
how quietly
you stand
and slowly
shed
yourself
into the sea
Beaches sprawl
beneath
aprons
at your feet
while silently
you creep
away
into the deep
(Truro)
Steve Ewing is a dock builder, living in Edgartown, with his wife Claudia. Steve is the town's...
Poet’s Corner: The Whole of Us
By Jeffrey Agnoli
Only part of us
believes what can be seen
matters more than what is unseen
Only part of us
believes to mistrust others
is smarter than to trust others
Only part of us
believes weapons are more
powerful than wisdom
Only...
Poet’s Corner: Christmas Offering
By Lee H. McCormack
Sacrifice is the source of life:
We must always give away what we want most.
To live each day one asks the light for succor
One bows in dark and whispers
Praise for all that...
Poet’s Corner: I thought I saw Carly Simon
I thought I saw Carly Simon
at the town dump, tossing
her hair in case she was recognized.
At least I thought it was her,
and I thought it was the town dump
because, surely, she has people.
Just as...
Poet’s Corner: Before Christmas on Cuttyhunk
By Jim Lowell
Now the wind has swung
from Uncatena to Noman’s
and the trawlers are in Quick’s Hole
throbbing toward their haul.
On the deserted dock one gull
with one leg and one hungry eye
remembers a summer of bounty
when...
Poet’s Corner: Tantrum
By Barbara Peckham
The wind is having a tantrum.
It whines and screams and
Howls around the house,
Tearing at the shingles,
Whacking the roof with branches,
Blowing porch chairs into a corner,
A loose cushion into a puddle
On the next...
Poet’s Corner: All I ever need
By Philip A. Zentz
Give me a place to stand
A little shelter above my head
Some earthly sustenance
With its abundance we all are fed
I need no more than this
For life is full of bliss
If I should...
Poet’s Corner: The Villagers
By Jill Jupen
When you count the villagers,
you have to count the scarecrow.
I turn you over
again & again
trying to find
the side of you
I used to understand.
When did I reduce you
to a statue
the size of my...
Poet’s corner: To This Wonder
By Jeffrey Agnoli
In two days of storm
all remaining leaves are shorn.
Fields of diamonds
open in the vastness
between branches.
In centuries of fear
all angelic insight seems to disappear.
Gardens of wisdom
grow in the deep beds
between errors.
In endless years...
Poet’s Corner: Contemplating Connection
By Rebecca Perkalis
Papers strewn about
On a thick, cherry wood table
A cold, blustery breeze
Turns the curtains
Jaggedly
Papers strewn across
The table
Slipped under
Table, chairs
Spaces under the stove
Secrets or sheets
Hiding away
I open the
Pine door
Whoosh of a fall gust gale
Tries...
Poet’s Corner: The Life of Socks
By Nancy Langman
First I’m a pair
And then I’m not
I went from socks
To being sock
Not sure if I will ever see
The other sock, part of me
Lost but who knows where
Owner searching everywhere
In the drawer and...