Spring/Summer 2016 Issue 9

We are pleased to announce the release of Red Wolf Journal’s Spring/Summer 2016 Issue 9:

Red Wolf Journal Spring Summer 2016 Issue 9

 

The poets with work in this edition are:

Pat Anthony
Vivienne Blake
Marilyn Braendeholm
Edilson Afonso Ferreira
Grace Harriman
Christopher Hileman
A.J. Huffman
Kathleen Kimball-Baker
Ron. Lavalette
Patricia McGoldrick
Sanjeev Sethi
Debi Swim
Robert Walton

You are welcome to submit work to our upcoming Fall/Winter 2016/2017. The theme is “The Heart Knows”. Watch this space for the official announcement.

With pleasure,
Irene Toh and Tawnya Smith
Spring/Summer 2016 Editors

Inward Nobility, by Edilson Afonso Ferreira

Inward Nobility
by Edilson Afonso Ferreira

I cannot accept the sacred and solemn
as private of the Popes and Bishops,
Kings and Judges.
On the various facets of daily life,
in the streets, avenues and alleys,
houses and hovels, by
        hugging a friend long not seen,
        returning an unexpected smile,
        giving a hand to the child and
        listening to an elderly,
        stopping to hear the birds
        and the buzzing of the bees,
        admiring the beauty of the horizons
        and the flowers of the gardens, and,
        for the exasperation of all the demons,
        making love, not war;
there is genuine a solemnity,
also grandeur and nobility, as
at the cathedrals, palaces and courts.
And so we go easily moving
heavy and hard wheels of time,
towards uncertain and unknown days.

Mr. Ferreira is a Brazilian poet who writes in English rather than Portuguese. Recent works have appeared in Red Wolf Journal, Right Hand Pointing, Creative Talents Unleashed (Featured Poet), Indiana Voice Journal, The Lake, Young Ravens, Whispers, Every Day Poems, Dead Snakes, The Basil O’Flaherty (Featured Poet), among others. Ferreira lives in a small town with wife, three sons and a granddaughter and, unhurried, is collecting his works for a forthcoming book. He began to write at age 63 (nine years ago), after retirement as a Bank Manager.

Song In Minor Key, by Debi Swim

Song in Minor Key
by Debi Swim

You ask for a song to sum up a life,
song of me, as though I should know
these words and melody not writ down
nor scored on staff paper.
I do not know myself.
Are there those
who can proclaim with assurance
This is me. I am thus and thus, page by page
I can account the totality of I am?

Some days I’m nice, some days I’m not
I’ve been unsure, sure, cocksure
brilliant, stupid, average
and if I say
I am a Christian
born under Cancer
a female

what does that explain
about the me you want me
to sing about?
You’ve waited too late
to ask for my song.
There was a time I loved to talk of me
now it is a most boring thing
to dwell on , and I am tired
of the subject.
But, if you’d like we could
talk all night of William Carlos Williams
or Emily Dickinson or Billy Collins
or Billy the Kid.

 

Note: Written in response to Red Wolf Poems, Prompt 191.

 

Debi Swim writes primarily to prompts. She is a wife, mother, grandmother and WV poet.