Our Story, by Tricia Sankey

Our Story
by Tricia Sankey

I dreamed I bought our story in an old
bookstore yesterday,
the book smelled of vanilla,
an odd mustiness, that only comes with age
and marination,
like the seashell you found
that day we sailed away,
held it to your ear,
and heard such secrets,
old words,
glue, paper, ink, fibers,
the smells unravel,
long walks with the dog,
days sick in bed,
the flowers we planted,
the cookies and tea.
This book read like the Bible,
right before judgement falls,
the pages rolled back,
like the sun
across our wooden deck,
battered and worn,
marked up by three kids,
chasing butterflies,
catching frogs…
It ends like
the beginning,
adrift on the waves,
rocked back and forth
we managed to sleep.

Tricia Sankey has traveled the United States as an Army wife while blogging and writing poems at http://www.triciasankey.com. She managed to obtain an MFA in Writing from Lindenwood University along the way and enjoys tweeting her micropoetry @triciasankey. Her work has been published in anthologies and online poetry journals.

I dreamt I was a butterfly, by Emil Sinclair

I dreamt I was a butterfly
(with apologies to Chuang Tzu)
by Emil Sinclair

Once I dreamed that
I was a butterfly
playing Scriabin’s
piano sonata
number four
in a concert hall
of great renown.
All the other butterflies
flapped their wings in joy
and deep appreciation,
as the bumblebees
hummed along in unison,
and a lone ladybug
danced a solo jig—
mad dance!
mad dance!
—up and down
the center aisle;
back and forth,
back and forth,
to the amazed delight
of the fireflies,
their bright bellies pulsing:
estatico, estatico.
I was the star
that night,
burning so fiercely
that I singed the wings
of the dragonflies,
in shimmering iridescence,
who buzzed the stage
in homage to me.
Then I took my bows,
and thanked the ladybug
for my wish fulfilled
and her eternal
dance of glory.

Emil Sinclair is the pseudonym of a sometime poet and longtime philosophy professor in New York City.

The End of Everything, by Virginia Aronson

The End of Everything
by Virginia Aronson

A roof thatched with blackbirds
wine cellar alluring as the stable
servants’ cottage ready for guests
the hills greening, greening
everything has happened.

Baby unhappy, his swarthy face
dark red and ferocious
the little girl playing tea party
under apple trees in bloom
white petals floating down
fat juicy blackberries, raspberries
elegant old elms running slow
to a river flecked with silvery fish.

A watercolor primrose garden
flowers drunk on their own scent
splurging lilacs and nut trees
he plants peaches, plums, pears
you can see from the window
in your private study, writing
at the desk he sanded down
for you one long plank
from a coffin
everything has happened.

A tiny town of farmers
factory workers and housewives
no television or education
just slow sheep, cows grazing
lulling, lulling
in a rippling sea of grass
orange sunsets casting shadows
over your country manor
and the mad dreams you share
with us still.

Sources: Red Comet by Heather Clark
Process notes: It seems almost trite to write poetry about Sylvia Plath but while reading Clark’s new and fascinating biography, I erupted in a short series of poems. As Plath was struggling with the collapse of her marriage, she was also striving to be a successful writer and a good mother to two babies. This is the kind of impossible situation women writers have long faced, and it is still relatable almost 60 years later. Her desperation is ours too.

Virginia Aronson is the author of many published books, both nonfiction and fiction. Her poems have appeared in literary journals and in books from small poetry presses. Itako was published by Clare Songbirds Publishing House in 2020. In 2021, Shanti Arts Publishing will release Hikikomori. Originally from Boston, she currently resides in the lush and lurid tropics.

Wrinkled Dreams, by Debi Swim

Wrinkled Dreams
by Debi Swim

What will I dream now that I am old
Now that I’ve seen them come and go
What will I feel now that my dreams
Have floated along on ruffled streams
What will I long for in my old age
At this last, lingering, lonesome stage
Warm summer breezes during the snow
Custards and ice cream under willows
Dead-heading blossoms drooping and brown
and turning the seeds back into the ground
Maybe I’ll live to see another spring
With kites of all shapes on taut cotton string
Maybe there are still things to be desired
and like small shaky embers will burst into fire.

Debi Swim has had poems published in two anthologies, online publications and in the Bluestone Journal for Bluefield College. She is a persistent WV poet who loves to write to prompts.

Visitations, by Ron. Lavalette

Visitations
by Ron. Lavalette

Last night, sleeping, alone, I saw her once again,
three times, as I’d often seen her in dreams before:

once at recycling, recycling bottles and promises,
tossing the clatterous mass into the waiting container,

and twice at the Price Chopper: once in the lot,
parking in her favorite space, her face a smile

like the store was hers alone, owning everything
in it and around it, and loving everything about it;

and again in aisle five, buying toothpaste and
mascara, aspirin and a brush, a bunch of stuff

(she would have said) she’d never need in heaven.

And even now, today, a Tuesday or a Thursday

(I can’t remember which, have lost the knack
for keeping track) I met up with her again

at the coffeeshop in the bookstore, saw her
sitting across from me at our favorite table,

my disbelief suspended by desire for just another word,
for one more moment, hoping she could see me too.

Ron. Lavalette is a very widely published poet living on the Canadian border in Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom. His premier chapbook, Fallen Away, is now available from Finishing Line Press. His poetry and short prose has appeared extensively in journals, reviews, and anthologies ranging alphabetically from Able Muse and the Anthology of New England Poets through the World Haiku Review. A reasonable sample of his published work can be viewed at EGGS OVER TOKYO: http://eggsovertokyo.blogspot.com

On the whims of the crosscurrents, by Emalisa Rose

Through madness and
moonshine, I rise from the
jaundice of January

And with that, dear reader, you’ll be enraptured by the poetic reverie that defines Emalisa Rose’s delicate and delightful collection. Hers is not a journal of facts nor actual events. Hers are figments born of imagining; it’s the elsewhere that we dream about in word images. It’s an almanac that reaps as it sows in language, what might be called ‘scribbles’. Yet there’s nothing pejorative about it as it is rich and sweet as it fills the air.

We are words seeking
exit; concentrically
circling, babbling echoes.
–“On the whims of the crosscurrents”

It could be likened to birdsong, the musicality that awakens us in the way the sun does. Indeed birds are a major trope in Emalisa’s work.

And you, sweet songstress

of the scarlet night, set between the
barren branch with voice that breaks
December’s still life –

with Winter wings, forever singing
–“With Winter wings”

Whatever “it” is, Emalisa’s lyric dapples our world with the colors of the seasons. It echoes our heart’s song be it in winter or spring, rain or shine.

the
droplets of rain splashing
the streets in the swirl
of asymmetry

painting of poets; we make
art, then step back; our reds
blending blues into purples.
–“Watercolour poems”

The poems see the imagination as both a salvation and an indictment. But of course, it’s just a dream. But “she” is all the richer for having the dream isn’t she?

How did I know that your wings
had brushed by, with my window
eyes barred to the rapture of raindance

but somehow I knew
as I got ready

‘cause down here – we shiver.
–“Damaged goods”

A worthy discourse on the imagination indeed. Is it real or unreal? But cast that aside, for as reader, you’ll be rewarded by Emalisa’s poems tracing all those momentary highs as well as lows.

Download Emalisa’s debut collection here.

On the whims of the crosscurrents by Emalisa Rose

Shadows on the Wall, by Holly Day

Shadows on the Wall
by Holly Day

Just like in the beginning, it’s people who have to do all of the grunt work.
Baskets full of seeds and tubers are passed out with unnecessarily explicit directions
for planting. Some of the seeds will grow into trees and flowers
while others will grow into crops and animals. No one asks

where the people came from—they’re just there, ready to take orders
from the gods of creation, whether they be in the shape of giant spiders
or wolf-headed men, or faceless commands from the void.
It’s people who always do the work in these stories.

When the world ends, perhaps these same people will materialize
to wander through the wreckage, picking up the mess,
carefully collecting seeds from trees, flowers, animals and buildings
put each remnant into a plastic bag for storing, carefully labeling the future
with the black Sharpie pen.

Holly Day has taught writing classes at the Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota, since 2000. Her poetry has appeared in Big Muddy, The Cape Rock, New Ohio Review, and Gargoyle, and her published books include Walking Twin Cities, Music Theory for Dummies, Ugly Girl, and The Yellow Dot of a Daisy. She has been a featured presenter at Write On, Door County (WI), North Coast Redwoods Writers’ Conference (CA), and the Spirit Lake Poetry Series (MN). Her poetry collections are A Perfect Day for Semaphore (Finishing Line Press) and I’m in a Place Where Reason Went Missing (Main Street Rag Publishing Co.).

The Lost City Next Door, by Holly Day

The Lost City Next Door
by Holly Day

I tell myself that just over the next hill, around the next corner
is a world of magic, some proof of God, a rip in time
something impossible is just moments away. I take one more step
towards that impossible destiny, then stop myself because
if it’s not there I won’t be able to go on.

I have turned my back and walked the other way
from more miracles than I can count
from time travelers asking for directions and the exact date
from talking alley cats, holy gurus reincarnated as sparrows
mysterious doorways that open into another world.

I know in my heart that they’re there and that’s enough, I don’t
turn the corner to confront the mystery and find out
I’ve been deluding myself this whole time
I don’t want to know that there isn’t actually something wonderful
just over the next hill.

Holly Day has taught writing classes at the Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota, since 2000. Her poetry has appeared in Big Muddy, The Cape Rock, New Ohio Review, and Gargoyle, and her published books include Walking Twin Cities, Music Theory for Dummies, Ugly Girl, and The Yellow Dot of a Daisy. She has been a featured presenter at Write On, Door County (WI), North Coast Redwoods Writers’ Conference (CA), and the Spirit Lake Poetry Series (MN). Her poetry collections are A Perfect Day for Semaphore (Finishing Line Press) and I’m in a Place Where Reason Went Missing (Main Street Rag Publishing Co.).

Up, by Holly Day

Up
by Holly Day

You can’t let the universe overwhelm you, can’t let
the infinite reaches of space intimidate you.
You can’t let the size of a star convince you
that you don’t exist, you don’t matter, you do.

Even a tiny mote of dust
floating in the air, pinned by a sunbeam
occasionally reflects the light just enough
to become the brightest object in the room
a flash of unexpected brilliance.

Holly Day has taught writing classes at the Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota, since 2000. Her poetry has appeared in Big Muddy, The Cape Rock, New Ohio Review, and Gargoyle, and her published books include Walking Twin Cities, Music Theory for Dummies, Ugly Girl, and The Yellow Dot of a Daisy. She has been a featured presenter at Write On, Door County (WI), North Coast Redwoods Writers’ Conference (CA), and the Spirit Lake Poetry Series (MN). Her poetry collections are A Perfect Day for Semaphore (Finishing Line Press) and I’m in a Place Where Reason Went Missing (Main Street Rag Publishing Co.).

A Dreaming Tree, by Heather Sager

A Dreaming Tree
by Heather Sager

One afternoon last year,
in a drowse in my window chair,
I dreamt my body stood as a tree
in a green forest.
My body’s torso, legs
and arms
raised foliage and chattering crows
with my soft skin.
I stood tall as the other trees,
the real ones.
My skin turned cold
with the change of the season.
Icicles hung from my elbows and knees.
The crows fled my hair and arms.
I shivered with loneliness.
Soon, the warmth of a new season came.
Green foliage returned to decorate
my solitary arms and shoulders.
The birds flew back.
Despite the warmth of spring,
an overwhelming
lonesomeness filled me.
The need to be touched by hands.
I quivered.
Then, a wind in the trees shook me
and my eyes opened.
The sun streamed through my window,
warming me where I sat,
in my dreaming chair.

Heather Sager is an Illinois-based author of poetry and short fiction. Her most recent writing appears in SurVision, The Fabulist Words & Art, Words & Whispers, Door Is a Jar, Fleas on the Dog, Sein und Werden, DM du Jour, Bluepepper, and other magazines.