Northwest Winds
by Emil Sinclair
When the northwest winds
blow in,
the warm, moist air
flees south
for comfort.
It’s cool and dry now;
the leaves have color,
and she’s getting us ready
for winter.
I don’t need anything
special much,
anymore;
just some hot coffee,
and a good book
to read
at bedtime.
I saw this coming
a good long while ago.
Well, I’m ready.
Emil Sinclair is the pseudonym of a sometime poet and longtime philosophy professor in New York City.
Autumn
by Debi Swim
Waking to fog-filled mornings
foretelling winter snows
August ends like a dry martini
in small, lingering sips
that you hate to see go
September comes swiftly like crows
gleaning what’s left of the corn
spider webs dot the fields
miscanthus flowers dry creamy white
inviting as a chenille throw.
October is the realization
Old Women’s Summer is gone
sweaters and shawls
come out of storage
there’s a chill in the air of fall
Autumn is regrets and revelations
escalation of time winding down
a time to scatter, a time to decline,
a time to wait
for frost makes the sweet ice wines.
Process notes:
1.For every fog in August, there will be a snowfall. Weather lore, Farmers’ Almanac
2. A warm period in late autumn is called Altweibersommer (“old women’s summer”) in Germany
3. Ice wine (or icewine; German: Eiswein) is a type of dessert wine produced from grapes that have been frozen while still on the vine.
Debi Swim has had poems published in two anthologies and in the Bluestone Journal for Bluefield College. She is a persistent WV poet who loves to write to prompts.
I Lay Aside My Pen (After Su Tung Po)
by George Freek
The night unfolds like a fan.
The sky wears a halo of stars,
but its meaning is unclear.
I know only what I can.
What I’ll never know,
I must doubt. The stars
exist in a different sphere.
I lay in bed, holding
my pen, thinking only
in words often said,
dull clichés,
and worn out phrases
in age old rhymes.
When I came to this,
I said I would quit.
I fear I’ve reached that time.
George Freek’s poetry has appeared in numerous Journals and Reviews. His poem “Written At Blue Lake” was recently nominated for a Pushcart Prize.
Thoughts On A Winter Evening (After Li Shangyin)
By George Freek
Icy waves batter the shore.
Clouds like boulders
crash erratically
in the storm-filled air.
The blood moves slowly
in my hardening veins.
I wonder when I lost my way.
What wisdom can the stars
give me. They were dead
billions of years ago.
They fill me with dismay.
Savants in purple robes
write erudite books,
gazing at the sea,
or like blind men in a fog,
search for answers
in the dregs of a cup of tea.
George Freek’s poetry has appeared in numerous Journals and Reviews. His poem “Written At Blue Lake” was recently nominated for a Pushcart Prize.
The End Of A Year (After Su Tung Po)
by George Freek
A dark cloud falls over
the remaining light,
a frozen sliver of ice.
This brutal weather
destroys all my desires.
Outside my room
shadows sit like old men
morosely sipping tea,
watching leaves fall
from dessicated trees.
My garden lies under feet
of snow. Month ago,
I watched daffodils,
reach toward the sky,
and bees rush to
gather nectar
before the flowers died.
George Freek’s poetry has appeared in numerous Journals and Reviews. His poem “Written At Blue Lake” was recently nominated for a Pushcart Prize.
A Change Of Season
You, as our header says, “turn toward me, your lips move, wanting to speak.” After experience comes expression, comes story. It’s you trying to be coherent in a somewhat random world. You trying to process experience. Everything that is experienced and spoken is a process, remains in your consciousness, which you try to solidify by speaking about. Form is your consciousness wanting to speak. Poems are our spiritual selves speaking.
In speaking, poems are ways of falling in love with the world, of discovery and re-discovery, an enactment and a reenactment of the world, or the worlds we imagine ourselves in, in a never-ending process. The world you write about is a multifarious thing. It changes according to light or dark, at different moments. It becomes infinite just as poetry is, while we remain finite. It’s all about perception isn’t it? Our point of view changes depending on who we are at a certain point in time. Our selves are perhaps seasons. A reflection.
We invite your submissions to Winter/Spring 2023. Perhaps the seasons will serve as tropes in your writing. As the seasons change, so do your experiences, your perception, and your voice. With every year that passes, how does the world reach out to you? How do you receive the world with your senses? How do you, with your voice, reach out to the world?
Your musings are welcome here.
Read our submission guidelines here. Kindly follow those guidelines before submitting, part of your careful attention to details. Please check back on our site to see if your poem has been selected. We will not be sending out any rejection letters.
Submissions period: September 2022 to February 2023. Selected poems will be posted here on this site as well as on this site and compiled into a PDF release in March 2023.
Happy writing!
Irene Toh
Editor
Winter/Spring 2023
I am pleased to announce the release of the Fall 2022 Issue.
The poets with work in the A Change of World Volume 2 edition are:
B. L. Bruce
Jeff Burt
Joe Cottonwood
Debbie Cutler
George Freek
John Grey
Mary Anna Scenga Kruch
Karla Linn Merrifield
Mitchel Montagna
Frederick Pollack
Emalisa Rose
Emil Sinclair
Adrienne Stevenson
Ralph Stevens
Debi Swim
Mark Tulin
Robert Walton
You may download a copy of the PDF release here.
A Change of World Fall 2022 Issue 21
You’re invited to submit to our new Winter/Spring 2023 issue. Read our submission guidelines here. Happy writing!
Irene Toh
Editor
Fall 2022
Red Wolf Journal 