Mamá
is your first language. What is country to you? Everything is Mamá. Mamá is brave to leave Méjico, to taste a sharp language on her tongue. For you, English will be as easy as growing. Sleep, Bebita, while Mamá dreams. Alarie Tennille This poem was written as part of the 20 Poem Challenge. Alarie Tennille was born and raised in Portsmouth, Virginia, and graduated from the University of Virginia in the first class admitting women. She became fascinated by fine art at an early age, even though she had to go to the World Book Encyclopedia to find it. Today she visits museums everywhere she travels and spends time at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Missouri, where her husband is a volunteer guide. Alarie’s poetry book, Running Counterclockwise, contains many ekphrastic poems. Please visit her at alariepoet.com.
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Growing Pains/Pain Glow
older life older skin spots appearance you sleepless peepers age in lines and crows-feet lines frozen movement improvement a dermal trough hollow half a syringe weighty jowls face technology kick-starting process you the neck elegant Botulinum skin papery-texture chin peaks atrophy lips mouth chin up injections process acid experience thicker under eyes don’t worry - hyaluronidase Crystal Snoddon This piece is a found poem sourced from pgs 25-27 of November 2016 Canadian Living Magazine article on anti-aging procedures. It was written as part of the 20 Poem Challenge. Crystal Snoddon is addicted to words, and enjoys both reading and writing to make some sense of the world. Previous and forthcoming publications of poetry can be found at SickLit Magazine, Rat's Ass Review, The Quarterday Review, Poetry Breakfast among others. The Rest
Badass nun digging a grave, arms strong enough to slug harassers. God, make me like that half-habit-clad babe who pulls soil at dawn after breaking the surface with a pickaxe, her hair in a rag. Tough as nutshells, flushed and pretty, her face lit by the sun, she leans down and delves in—unlike her cucumber-cool supervisor who keeps wimple clean and counts beads while posing on a fallen marker. My girl draws back with a shovel full of dirt —brawny dancer, ready to fling it farther-- Oops, I missed, she says (no apology) then scoops out and tosses another brown pile. Sister Tidy shakes out her skirt, dislodging beetles, compost and gravelly bits, and directs a fed-up look at Millais, mouthing, No rest for the immaculate. Sarah Carleton Sarah Carleton writes, edits, plays the banjo and raises her son in Tampa, Florida. Her poems have appeared in Houseboat, Burning Word Literary Journal, Avatar Review, Poetry Quarterly, The Bijou Poetry Review, Off the Coast, Shark Reef, Wild Violet Magazine, The Binnacle, The Homestead Review, Cider Press Review and Nimrod. She also has work upcoming in Silver Birch and Chattahoochee Review. This poem was written as part of the 20 Poem Challenge. Entering the Promised Land without Moses
I was just a child when we left Egypt. Felt the ground tremor – chariots charging after us. Run! Run! I couldn’t keep up. Uncle Joshua yanked me onto his back. We heard the hooves, the terrible whoosh! Water rose high in the air! A road cleared through the sea! Just as we scaled the bank, the sea crashed. I shook for three days. After that, I was frightened of Moses. What else could he do? But that changed when he came down from the mountain with the tablets. Only then did he yell at us. The elders were afraid, but not me. Something was different – his hair and beard gone white, but his face – more than young. He glowed like an oil lamp –a beacon I knew I’d follow. I didn’t know it would take forty years. My faith scorched and dried. Now it doesn’t seem fair. Here we are without him. Alarie Tennille This poem was written as part of the 20 Poem Challenge. Alarie Tennille was born and raised in Portsmouth, Virginia, and graduated from the University of Virginia in the first class admitting women. She became fascinated by fine art at an early age, even though she had to go to the World Book Encyclopedia to find it. Today she visits museums everywhere she travels and spends time at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Missouri, where her husband is a volunteer guide. Alarie’s poetry book, Running Counterclockwise, contains many ekphrastic poems. Please visit her at alariepoet.com. At the Rally Glut of rectangles. A few squares. Angled shoulders dig hard into reporters locked inside a square box where cubed fingers tap on rows of quadrilateral devices. Way in the back by a perfect right angle, an oval shouts something cursive, is escorted outside by hard-edged isosceles trapezoids who march up linear aisles perpendicular to the plane of the wall. Suddenly a squeal from a place near intersecting diagonals--a circle is hiding! Bare knuckles swing for the radius. The circle calls out theorems and proofs. The crowd goes crazy. Squares form a Rubik’s cube in the chaos. A rhombus stands up, reminds that proofs are artifacts of political correctness. The circle rolls down the aisle, slips away. A golden trapezium stands at the podium. Kathleen Stancik This was written for the 20 Poem Challenge. Kathleen Stancik recently discovered ekphrastic poetry and finds it an exciting way to stimulate creativity. Her poems have been published in Manastash and Poet's Unite! The LiTFUSE @10 Anthology. West Wind
“Lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud...” (Percy Bysshe Shelley, "Ode to the West Wind") We let the west wind take his remains. Gentle, she bore each flaming ash skyward to burn with momentary brilliance then vanish like an unremembered word. And in the end, there was little left-- an unremarkable band in black who mourned in minor voices and the west wind who did not pause to grieve. Steve Deutsch This was written as part of the 20 Poem Challenge. Steve Deutsch, a semi-retired practitioner of the fluid mechanics of mechanical hearts and heart valves, lives with his wife Karen--a visual artist, in State College, PA. Steve writes poetry, short fiction and the blog stevieslaw@wordpress.com. His most recent publications have appeared in The Ekphrastic Review, New Verse News, Silver Birch Press, Misfit Magazine and One-sentence poems. Shelley's Farewell Now at last I lay at rest upon this prickly pyre, cradled in this smoking nest enveloped by the fire. To leave behind what I detest remains my one desire, to turn my back on life's cruel jest escape the loveless mire. Let mourners wail in tones distressed, perhaps they are not liars. But I alone am truly blessed as twilight lifts me higher. Kati Nagy This was written as part of the 20 Poem Challenge. Kati Nagy is a semi-retired, globe-trotting ESL teacher who now resides in San Francisco with a view of the sparkling Bay Bridge. She weaves her stories in poems, collages, memoir, and solo performances. Surprise Hook “Good morning, ladies and gentlemen,” he began each trig class. Unflappable. Mr. Thurston, with his silver hair and military bearing – always in coat and tie, could have stepped out of a 1930s movie. The butler. There I sat – the lone girl surrounded by teenage testosterone. He often told us, “When you become an engineer…,” as I glazed over. So I’m glad I was paying attention the day he asked, “Does anyone know who Firpo was?” Firpo was before our parents’ time. A long pause. “No one?” “He was a boxer,” I answered. I cared nothing for sports, but I did know a thing or two about art. Alarie Tennille This poem was written as part of the 20 Poem Challenge. Alarie Tennille was born and raised in Portsmouth, Virginia, and graduated from the University of Virginia in the first class admitting women. She became fascinated by fine art at an early age, even though she had to go to the World Book Encyclopedia to find it. Today she visits museums everywhere she travels and spends time at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Missouri, where her husband is a volunteer guide. Alarie’s poetry book, Running Counterclockwise, contains many ekphrastic poems. Please visit her at alariepoet.com. Patina
A black man in 1890 painted these gorgeous glowing onions. Don’t ask why his colour matters. Colour mattered when he painted the crock, the kettle, the onions, their lovely coppery-gold patina. Still does. Still life. Tricia Marcella Cimera This poem was written as part of the 20 Poem Challenge. Tricia Marcella Cimera will forever be an obsessed reader and lover of words. Look for her work in these diverse places: Buddhist Poetry Review, The Ekphrastic Review, Foliate Oak, Fox Adoption, Hedgerow, I Am Not A Silent Poet, Mad Swirl, Silver Birch Press, Stepping Stones, Yellow Chair Review, and elsewhere. She has a micro collection of water-themed poems called THE SEA AND A RIVER on the Origami Poems Project website. Tricia believes there’s no place like her own backyard and has traveled the world (including Graceland). She lives with her husband and family of animals in Illinois / in a town called St. Charles / by a river named Fox. Bacchus Brings Her
Bacchus brings her blue-violet bunches from a landscape teeming with patina’d clouds. Trees bend around her but their bare bark offers no protection against wind. She crouches no cave no pelt no warmth. He brings her leopard skin and nectar. He brings her to a cave steaming with warm waters. He shelters her under his shaggy brow licks his lips and scatters grapes like amethysts on a dry floor. Taunja Thomson This poem was written for the 20 Poem Challenge. Taunja Thomson: "My poetry has most recently appeared in Anti-Heroin Chic and will be featured in the September 2016 issue of Halcyon Days. Two of my poems have been nominated for the Pushcart Award: “Seahorse and Moon” in 2005 and “I Walked Out in January” in 2016. I have co-authored a chapbook of ekphrastic poetry which has recently been accepted for publication and have a writer’s page at https://www.facebook.com/TaunjaThomsonWriter" |
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