VerseWrights
  • Home
  • Tweetspeak
  • Poet Index
  • Poet Profiles
  • Performances
  • BookLooks
  • Closing Announcement
  • Archive Index
  • Disclaimer
  • Meet Our New Owner
  • Recent

Archive #33
March, 2016


Kathleen Everett And The Depiction Of
​A Local Character

PictureKathleen Everett

​ 


 The Prodigal

She’ll get her back up if you ask her about it –
that life before
when she left home and ran around.
But she never says a word
and shoos you away from the porch
if you keep on pesterin’ her.
We all know the story
but never get to hear the juicy details
of those high livin’days.
And the stories of when she came home-
bruised and barefoot,
no better than the pigs in the sty.
They ran all the way down the road
past the mailboxes
when they saw her-
wrapped her in their best cotton sheets
and covered her hair in honey.
Calling all the neighbors,
they butchered their prize hog
and we ate like kings,
all the sweet meat and greens and potato salad
we could hold.
And, my, oh my, that coconut cake.
But that’s not what I wanted to tell you.

Ever since then,
she’s kept to herself,
minding her daddy til he passed
and now her mamma,
tied to this porch like there was a chain on her,
never uttering a solitary word of regret.

Or remorse neither.


Read the poetry of Kathleen Everett
Read a profile of Kathleen Everett

Poet Katherine Gallagher And A
​Generational Panic

PictureKatherine Gallagher

  Lost


  Our child lost in Kew Gardens -
  acres, acres and us peeling back
                     the unimaginable,
                     desperate for another chance. . .
 
Tourists passed smiling - blossoms, trees
blurred into policemen's radios,
children's cries cutting -
a three-year-old's blind signals.
 
He had gone, vanished
while we raced the afternoon's
frenetic maze, dread and nausea
jagging our ribs.
 
An hour's nightmares magnified -
waiting in one place as directed,
with reassurances gathering like balloons,
plummeting to a despair.
 
Suddenly my mother, stern heart
moored between separations, deaths
and years of loving, stood there

marking time, waiting too.

Read the poetry of Katherine Gallagher
Read a profile of Katherine Gallagher
​

Two New Poems From Poet Tracey Gunne

PictureTracey Gunne
 
 

     Hydrangea

  after everything has fallen
                     the delicate blue and the insufficient white
                     torn apart by the cloud's tears
                     and mangled by a deceiving breath 

                     after beauty has come and gone
                     to be placed in a crystal vase
                     forgetting the warmth of mother's touch

                     and left to die alone


morning nostalgia

left too long the longings remain damp
but fertile secrets kept 
beneath the cup overflowing
laced with sugar bittersweet half-moon
stains on the parchment wherein lies
some boy you loved
his moods shifting with the grey touch

of the weeping willow that provided only shade for one


Read the poetry of Tracey Gunne
Read a profile of Tracey Gunne



A New Selection Of Short Poems From
Poet Bauke Kamstra

PictureBauke Kamstra
        
       You begin to dream
         those dreams
 
         then winter comes
         all intimate with snow.


​                                       ❊

Ah her beauty
swallows my mouth
 
brings its sea taste
of iron
& salt
 
blood beats waves
all the way
to my head.

                                      ❊

                             High up
                             & clinging
 
                             to ropes
 
                            wishing I'd
                            the bones
 
                            of a bird.
​


                 Read the poetry of Bauke Kamstra
                 Read a profile of Bauke Kamstra
​



Poet Witty Fay Returns With Two
​New Poems

PictureWitty Fay

  Deliverance

  The last of you
  Dwells at the tongue’s root
Swathed in veins of slender
Woven to some other
Inner chamber of words.
A day came when you looked at me
And nothing in me broke.
The shards were sewn again
And self-cursed blessings
Turned into stone.
Today I am painting all still
On the wallpaper of the little people
That grow nettles for roses
And pebbles for seeds.
I know what to ask of their grit-
To fight my eyes from such light
Into repetitive blindness.


Licorice Love

You wore me out
Of words and sighs
Of days and lies
And all those flippant
Kites that burst out
Of my chest in colors
When mornings whisper
Dewy wails
On my swollen cells.
As I lift the body
Of my barren fruit
Into the gooey sun
You spout rivers of veins
Of my ribless bones
And I welcome your thievery
Into the moistness of me
With unbounded coils.


Read the poetry of Witty Fay
Read a profile of Witty Fay
​

Poet Brian Mosher: Seeing Straight While Not Seeing Straight

PictureBrian Mosher

 Whiskey Cross-Eyed

  Two dead ends - my only choices
   so fill up my glass again, barmaid
   you look awfully sweet in this dim light
I'm whiskey cross-eyed, I'm afraid
and you're prob'ly not more than 22 anyway
what's a girl like you know about a guy like me
reaching the end of the road with
two dead ends my only choices
 
so lend an old man an ear
while you pour me another beer
you look awfully sweet in the dim light
though I'm whiskey cross-eyed, I'm sure
but there's a theory I heard
from a man with a drunken piano
maybe the devil made the world
while god was sleeping
 
I'm pressing my knife against the milky white throat
of another broken down Saturday night
and though I'm whiskey cross-eyed, still
you look awfully sweet in the dim light
and the only sound in here
is the babble of drunken voices
all pretending to be more than they are
and knowing they are less than they wish


Read the poetry of Brian Mosher
Read a profile of Brian Mosher
​

Poet Christina Strigas: Accepting
​and Excepting

PictureChristina Strigas

   To Follow

   In the centre of my universe I found you
​    awake
    up past midnight as usual
                       driving down highway 15 reaching
                       centre ville 
                       and vinyl record stores on Bishop

so I followed you

all out of Bukowski again
Twitter has made him popular 
he says stroking his beard 
I act like I don't know much
I shrug my shoulder and smile
don't know much about that
I read him before indie
before coffee
and now I let him rest
he's super tired
with your young generation and your attention span
you look familiar 
he says
No I don't
and I ignore him
before he talks about car crashes
National news
superheroes and writers.

I lost you on de la Montagne
where hotels will become condos with shops
and memories rubble.
I wanted to follow you
to a new uprising
but the " manifestations"
students banging pots 
took over the laureate prizes;
when I was a student I banged other things,
spoke about philosophy
across from Concordia
and made love with words
like I always do.
My hair touched my ass
my poems well hidden
and no one followed me.
How things change
yet still
stay the same on this
emotional ride lost on one way streets
so far from your world order
and parallel highways
but I'll still follow you
anywhere
except in my dreams.


Read the poetry of Christina Strigas
Read a profile of Christina Strigas
​

Poet Jill Lapin-Zell Rekindles An
Old Flame

PictureJill Lapin-Zell

​  
 
  
Ancient Union

I called for you across the canyons of time
reached out my hand in open invitation
asking that you join me once again
to 
explore the magic of our souls’ journey home
I would climb and fall 10,000 times
before hearing the distant whisper
that told me you were near
sailing on cosmic winds
toward our rendezvous
I sat beneath the shady trees of my life
learning the virtue of patience
and softly singing the melody of time
so you might find me and begin anew
and there you were with sunbeam smiles
passions that fanned the embers
of countless heart fires lit long ago
in faraway places with mystical names
we come together now with open hearts
sharing a joy born of new awareness
to savor the double helix of life's mysteries
and awaken to the promise of ancient union


Read the poetry of Jill Lapin-Zell
Read a profile of Jill Lapin-Zell
​


Poet Edjo Frank's Latest Poem Is An
​Affair Of The Heart

PictureEdjo Frank
 
​    a bouncing heart

​   there they are
    this group of men
                       at the end of the street
they hang for hours
tins of beer in their hands
scowling at passersby
with plastic bags loaded
life style gadgets
shamelessly rocking
in their jealous eyes
 
here I am
at the other side
equipped with
all comforts of life
that cannot prevent
the inevitable
of a bouncing heart
an irregular breath
heralds of impermanence
I feel vulnerable
longing for some company
not aware
weakness walks with me
all the time
 
I try to grasp the wind
grasp the puffy clouds
in vain
notable stature lacking
I am not a birch
that can reach to the sky
spreading her trees
in solitude standing
or  with her peers
in the woods echoing
everlasting murmurs
preaching the past
and the future
 
why deaf for the song
of the greenfinch
why blind for the
yellow robe
the coltsfoot shows
the sacred dance of spring
demands all attention
untamable the outbreak
of promising new life
 
the street a public place
for all souls God created
to stay or move on
the body a temporary home
for our names
to reside for a while
no room for complacency
no time for mourning
but resign meekly
in the cycle of life
 
I button my coat
turn to the corner
with firm step
and a bouncing heart


Read the poetry of Edjo Frank
Read a profile of Edjo Frank
​

For Poet J T Milford, The Tropic Brings An Expansive Vision

PictureJT Milford

​  A Yellow Bush

   In a time of loneliness and regrets
   the dreary descending darkness
   on this rainy afternoon 
                        presses down my fragile life
 
It seems light once gone will never
again return leaving only extended night
Yet out beyond the house stands a yellow bush
catching the solitary moments of last glow
on this time without time when the sun's 
zenith is in the Tropic of Capricorn
 
As I watch the last fading afterglow   
it seems that for a brief time my life 
on this spinning planet is free with
no desires anticipations or possessions
Life illuminated by cascading sparks
of deep stars descending
from an infinite peace
 
In this still time my gaze moves
to a place without boundaries
For this once I can see out beyond

the far distant horizon to pure space

Read the poetry of J T Milford
Read a profile of J T Milford



​

Picture

Poet jacob erin-cilberto Meets Bukowski—And Then Himself

Picturejacob erin-cilberto

 turning into Bukowski

  i fell in love with...
  pastured parliaments, mad rivers
​  righteous clarity

                     autumns in New England
                     and Eiffel Towers in the Bronx
                     that paled in comparison

to that foreign one that wasn't surrounded
by graffiti
and hop scotch chalk lines
and disheveled poets
on street corners
trying to sell their words for a few drinks

and that spit shine
fella dreaming of collared shirts
and brazen ties
bought for the company Christmas affair

and maybe a back room mama
who had one too many,
and was giving something besides
a grab bag present,
or maybe she wasn't

and then i blinked
and fell out of love with...

imagined pretense
subway thoughts, underground morals
teenage angst
dreams of Europe
 
and strolled ever so pretentiously
into a 9 to 5 existence
sweating ink onto pages
of routine banishment
an exile into a normal life
 
begging for another fantasy
then settling for a drink or three

to forget who i really am.

Read the poetry of jacob erin-cilberto
Read a profile of jacob erin-cilberto
​

Picture
Danielle Favorite

Danielle Favorite Returns With
​Two Short Poems

This morning is tinted with ghost-light

Ripe honeydew cubes glisten on the cutting board.
I cover the walls with pages from Vogue:
                        lips and ribs and skin.
I have two wrists, one navel and three voices.
 
Rub honey on my lips.  My skin
cracks like a cocoon;
                        a skeleton walks out and sunlight passes through.


Back to you

Tonight the sky’s a dusty chalkboard
with a translucent moon cut from thin paper.
Love, draw me some yellow stars
so I can find my way back to you.


Read the poetry of Danielle Favorite
Read a profile of Danielle Favorite
​
Picture
Debbie Strange

New Tanka/Tanshi From Poet and Artist Debbie Strange

Picture
Photo Art By Debbie Strange (Click photo to enlarge)
that biting winter
my sister carried me
over hungry snowbanks
that swallowed our footsteps
before the bus opened its mouth


Enjoy the poetry and photo art of Debbie Strange
Read a profile of Debbie Strange
​
Picture
Torrin Greathouse

We Warmly Welcome Poet Torrin Greathouse To Our Pages

The House, Exhaling

Red light pulses through the fog, car windows sweating
bloody in the early morning light.
 
Their voices chatter like east flying birds
as they huddle against the gray bay wind.
 
From across the street, the house stares with dead eyes,
words creeping like a scattered emergency bulletin, eaten by radio
​     static,
through its open doors.


a body                                     white sheets
 
            widow
                                    widows
buried
                                                            alive
                                                         (if only)


            We would have helped,
                                                            if we had known.
And the house exhales,
scraps of newspaper fluttering through the doors
and windows like hundreds of wings.
 
Four bodies wrapped in blue
carry one body wrapped in white,
skin all twisted up
like dried paper, foxed with age,
 
and her body is loaded into the back of the ambulance
and somewhere that night
a paramedic will cry, for one more body he couldn't revive,
 
and tonight, through open windows, the house will breathe
in after years of only exhaling,
till the wood of its lungs will feel like it could burst.
 
And it would weep if only it could,
tears dripping down its dusty windows, candles pulsing on its steps
in the yellow rhythm of prayers spoken too late. 


Read the poetry of Torrin Greathouse
​​Read a profile of Torrin Greathouse
​

From Matthew Henningsen, A Glimpse Of The (Un)Civil War

PictureMatthew Henningsen


​     Bull Run

     Again they flee through us,
      Ash-smeared men, delirious
                          With fear, men of bright
                          White teeth glinting in

Scorching, dry July heat
That makes delicate ladies in pink
Petticoats sweat bullets that smear
And blear bulbous, top-hatted

Men, resplendent in red vests
That cling too tightly to
Fat arms with dirty nail tips
That point and poke and prod at

The wild men rushing through,
The wild men rushing through.


Read the poetry of Matthew Henningsen
Read a profile of Matthew Henningsen



VerseWrights Warmly Welcomes Poet
Kat Lehmann

PictureKat Lehmann

  from Selected Haiku and Tanka

   bowlful of night
   with just the right amount
   of moon
                      a sprinkle of stars 
                      that taste like old wishes

                                    ❊


letting go
of the unnecessary...
autumn maple

                                    ❊


                       what we can do together snowflakes

                                    ❊

for a moment
I see
her face has changed again
a sunrise, quietly
paints a new sky


Read the poetry of Kat Lehmann
Read a profile of Kat Lehmann
​ 

Picture
R. Gene Turchin

VerseWrights Warmly Welcomes Poet
​R. Gene Turchin

        night driving on two lanes       
 
            This road, I imagine, provides
               Ice cream delights for eyes that
               Wander its edges restlessly while
               Sunlight splashes trees in summer greens.
 
               Passing by with quick cute glances
               “Aren't the trees soo....”
               “Almost like a movie sce”...ne(s) are most real”
               The peripheral corner remembers and plays
                    across dreams.
 
               But let the night curtain fall on
               Ropes of rain and thunderous crash, then
               Welcome the cast...with new roles to play while
               Darkness paints darkness across the (sk)eyes
 
               Tread a cautious step, reluctant page
               This script springs not from my hand
               For this Road designs its own designs, I
               Think a joke, to trick, fool, us all, this dark
​                     night.


Read the poetry of R. Gene Turchin
Read a profile of R. Gene Turchin
​

VerseWrights Warmly Welcomes Poet
John Grey To Its Pages

PictureJohn Grey
  Accumulation

​  First light flakes of snow
  fall onto the sidewalk and poof!
  they disappear.
  No use staring down at the cement
when more of the things
are alighting on my hair,
vanishing among the flecks of gray
without a hint of dampness.
Across the street, a couple
are speaking to each other
but their words do not carry.
And a car is ambling down
the road, so slow, so quiet;
its engine doesn't register as sound.
More flakes pat against
the sides of buildings.
Without my witness,
they would never exist.
A block down, a pretty girl,
long, lanky and blonde,
even with fake fur to thicken her,
awaits entry into the hardware store
where she surely works.
The snow-flakes that disappear
in her tresses, down her neck,
across her cheeks
are as invisible after contact
as the key she does not have
to let herself in.
Eventually, of course,
enough next to nothings
will create something out of this.
The word "accumulate" comes to mind.
But am I not accumulating:
flakes and couple and car
and building and loveliness.
A weatherman might forecast me
as just a dusting.
But I'm out on the sidewalk
on an early December morning,
taking it all in,
and ready to be deep.
​

Read the poetry of John Grey
Read a profile of John Grey



We Extend A Warm Welcome To Poet
​James Croal Jackson

PictureJames Croal Jackson

​  Baklava Smile


    at four A.M. we drink burning
     rivers under the solitary
light hanging from the crusted,
tall white pole perpendicular
to dad's red, handcrafted birdhouse
which spins in the wind.
 
by five it rains.
we leave the cobwebbed lawn chairs
in darkness and sniffly we travel
to France with rocks in our boots
on hilly sides of streets next to deep ravines.
statues stand tall in driveways
and gleam gargoyle teeth.
 
sunrise and your baklava smile
is reluctant sweet summer
molasses and you say we will
always be friends but not when
you are cold. I procure a folded
blanket and wrap you in it and
 
underneath
it seemed appropriate (didn't it)
how we didn't know yet how to cross. 
for a long time we did not and
miles make for lost time
adrift of the other


Read the poetry of James Croal Jackson
Read a profile of James Croal Jackson
​

Poet Ellen Conserva: Not All Stains Are Unwelcome

PictureEllen Conserva

​  Residual


   You say you want to
    Let me
                      Forget you.
As if the not remembering is
Done easily
By erasing
Or removing
Or washing 
As if you are a sad stain
On my shirt
On my heart
On my soul.
 
Indelible are you
And no matter how much
I soak
Or try to rub out
Or rinse in warm water
You will remain as a remnant
And a reminder
Of something sweet that landed there
Right there.
I see it
I trace it
With my eyes when I look
In the mirror.
 
I will always wear you.
I will not fold you tight or
Put you in a drawer
Or use you as a paint rag
Or when I change my oil
Or wipe up spills on the floor.
 
You have marked something
That I thought was just okay
And made it beautiful.
You make me beautiful.
I have been wonderfully stained
Forever
By you.


Read the poetry of Ellen Conserva
Read a profile of Ellen Conserva



We Warmly Welcome Poet Lisa Folkmire To VerseWrights

PictureLisa Folkmire

​    A Preemptive
    Obituary


When I go to science museums with my sister
She likes to tell me how we will die.
 She points to the enlarged heart and says
“That’s it. That’s how we’ll go.”
 
The words tangle between names of family members
And medical tests and medicine bottles
For heart disease and blood pressure
And anger issues and too much salt.
 
I stare down at the too-large-heart and place my hand over my own
Remembering the time Mom asked why I cared so much
As I cradled mine, beating, bandaged,
Passed its sides between palms as they seeped past tape.
 
I’m back to drawing my own breath into the too-large-heart
A fog now on display glass, holding the picture of my sister and me
Together with eyes set on our future folly
Of kindness and too high cholesterol.
 
The two daughters who worked for hours
Hand drawing greeting cards
Cooking dinners on over-worked days
Giving cookies to the neighbors on rained out nights
 
She continues to compare ratios
And the size of the veins
Saying “three times the size”
And “we could try a stent”
 
It’s sweet, almost, how she knows that we’ll go the same way
Two same-sized-hearts held between
With strings in knots and veins at sight,
I can read it now: Here lie two girls of too-big-hearts.
 
One thinking of chapter seven in her sophomore year anatomy class
The other counting the beats against her neck
Begging her heart to stay small forever.


Read the poetry of Lisa Folkmire
Read a profile of Lisa Folkmire
​

We Extend A Warm Welcome To Poet Christine L. Villa

PictureChristine L. Villa

  from Selected Tanka

   all these things
   we kept avoiding
   to talk about . . .
   the built-up fluff
                     in the dryer lint trap

                                ❊


what lies
behind the mauve shades
of mountain dusk . . . 
how I long to know
if you're waiting for me

                                ❊

                    where petals unfurl
                    into subtle shades
                    like the clouds in the sky
                    I am a birdsong waiting
                    to be heard

                                ❊

the full moon
too huge for my heart
I walk alone
in the growing scent
of magnolia


Read the poetry of Christine L. Villa
Read a profile of Christine L. Villa
​

Neil Fulwood And The Joys Of Hiking,
Or Not Hiking...

PictureNeil Fulwood

​  Trail

   Keep to the path. You will know
   the path by its coating of moss
                     and wet leaves. It will try

to unfoot you. Three kilometres
of bad camber and changes
in gradient: it has unfair

advantage. No campfires
or ball games. But you will know
the picnickers by their safe proximity

to the car park. Their flasks,
their point-and-shoot snaps
of the lake. No drinking of the water;

no dog fouling. But you will know
the enthusiasm of the dog
unleashed, its happiness at the path

and the acreages of things to sniff.
You will know its muddy paws,
its tongue unfurled in welcome.

Swat the thick of the dirt
from your coat or trousers.
Stout footwear is recommended.


Read the poetry of Neil Fulwood
Read a profile of Neil Fulwood
​

Picture
Sarah Frances Moran

VerseWrights Warmly Welcomes Poet Sarah Frances Moran

Making Love To The Sea

You walk with feet against hot sand that cannot be kept from entering
the cool water.
 
With the way the mist of the waves becomes a whisper,
like a lover’s lips close to your ears drawing you in.
 
You disregard your lack of gill.
Forget the way the anatomy tells you, you have to be.
Take the plunge into the unfamiliar
and make it mold to your skin.
 
No one ever realizes how hard that swim is.
How it never occurred to you that you couldn’t enter those waters,
until you heard all the screaming from the shore.
How it didn’t matter and how those screams could never be loud
​     enough
to make you exit,
because you were made this way,
whether it was normal or not.
 
No one ever realizes how beautiful and brave it is
that even though you’ve been told your whole life you’re meant for the
​     shore
 
you chose to make love to the sea.


Read the poetry of Sarah Frances Moran
Read the poetry of Sarah Frances Moran
​

VerseWrights Warmly Welcomes Poet
Claire Scott To Its Pages

PictureClaire Scott
  Pact

   I press the pillow
   over her face
   and I can’t breathe
 
A pact made long ago on a
sunlit afternoon
as we sipped chardonnay and
smoked Virginia Slims
watching our children
shoot marbles, jump rope
                  Mabel, Mabel
                  set the table
 
Surely we wouldn’t want
to be warehoused in
Applewood or Sweet Pines
squandering our grand-
children’s college funds
 
Surely we wouldn’t want
to force friends to visit
to feel guilty they prefer golf
or pulling dandelions
 
Reluctant to see
our marbles roll across
coffee-stained carpets
                  beta-amyloids
                  destroying synapses
 
Reluctant to see us stare
with blank faces, drool Ensure
on flowered nightgowns
complain about strange men
 
In our closets, under our beds
stealing pearl necklaces
and sapphire rings
                  plaques multiply
                  and suffocate 
 
I let go
so I can breathe
 
The pillow falls
to the floor
I lie down next to
my closest friend
who no longer
knows who I am
                  signals between cells
                  gone silent
 
I run my fingers over
her creased face
I brush thin hair aside and
kiss her dry forehead
                  forgive me
 
I close my eyes
as we breathe together
scissored from time
I see a sunlit afternoon
I hear distant voices
                  Mabel, Mabel
​

Read the poetry of Claire Scott
Read a profile of Claire Scott

Poet Evie Ivy And A Rhyme Reimagined

PictureEvie Ivy


​  The Poem Goes
       "There was a little girl who had a little curl..."

He too had a little curl, 
just a little.
And when he was bad 
it was worms all over.
 
And when he was good
he’d be a heaven’s gate.
The silence of reality set in,
it became confusing.
We were and stayed friends.
 
I moved away a bit.
Then I looked back,
thought only of doves,
and heaven’s gate.

Read the poetry of Evie Ivy
Read a profile of Evie Ivy
​

Poet Lee Kisling Succumbs To Impulse,
Thankfully...

PictureLee Kisling

  
  I Cannot See Your
​  House from Here


​because I tore it down while
you were gone
with a bulldozer and an end-loader
and a dump truck.
Took all morning
and part of the afternoon—nobody
was around except a little kid with a wagon.
I gave him your front doorknob.
Billy or Bobby something.
 
Whether it is better to dwell in the house of mourning
or in the house of mirth—a moot point in this case considering
that you have no house at all.
 
Sometimes the Spirit overtakes
a person and he acts
according to his (or her)
preordained notions, lips a’tremble
in the rolling backwash of dust and
cracking timbers.
 
From my east window I can now see
the mountains far off, and closer in
I can see the florid colors of the billboard-
a little rectangle which portrays
a serious young woman with
wind-blown hair drinking gin.
Well, maybe she’s onto something.
 
Now I’m going to go search for her
in the mountains where
the wind always blows your hair and
together we may find God
above the tree line – her with
the gin and me with my heavy
unnatural grievances
in Billy’s (or Bobby’s) wagon.


Read the poetry of Lee Kisling
Read a profile of Lee Kisling



Picture
ayaz daryl nielsen

Two Short Poems From The
​Pen Of ayaz daryl nielsen

                     further                    

                     unkempt words, joining
                     unfolding, becoming
                     wayward byways
                     of resilience, of
                     heightened awareness,
                     seemingly pursued
                     to further
                     resplendent
                     byways
                        beckoning 
                           from just beyond
                              an everyday thought



the bear in heavy fur

The bear in heavy fur licks its lips and
dreams the taste of berries on bushes
Wildflower seeds waiting below white-
washed chapels of frozen snow listen
to voices of wild geese and wood ducks
carried within an early chinook wind
Humbled, I pour a second cup of coffee,
again renew my promise to keep the
wondrous faith of this earth and my
loved ones, and add a splash of cream.


​Read the poetry of ayaz daryl nielsen
Read a profile of ayaz daryl nielsen
​
​
Picture
Bethany W. Pope

From Poet Bethany W. Pope
A Fine Puzzle Of A Poem

        Complete Circuit

Venous red, her body streaks through the dark.
I feel her coming, a static surge, the
Xenon-like spark. Her body is so thin,
Ectomorphic in furs. Her dog-like bark
Never echoes on brick. I sit, cold on
Inclement concrete, waiting. I take no
Notice of the wet. Her approach is slow,
Thoughtful; current dulled to warning hum. This
Human is patient. She is no dog. Thrum,
Echoing thrum of her heart, felt through my
Bare fingers. Her dense pelt rests lightly on
Raw bones. I am the master here, alpha
Animal. My friendship will save her from
Cold death. Her electric love will save me.

​Note: This poem is a double acrostic

Read the poetry of Bethany W. Pope
Read a profile of Bethany W. Pope


​
Picture
Ann Huang

VerseWrights Extends A Warm Welcome To Poet Ann Huang

​Emblem

I am the one in love
and know it.
I am the one in love
comprehensively. Pray for
my big heart,
laughing and sinking with
the self-serving things.
Pray for my proud progression.
I am personable and personal,
as frail as fate.
I give gold wishes
and shake silver seas.
I bring
together shattered
shards of glass.
Miles of meanings.
Meanings of miles
akin. The words
are starting to sing
and I am the investor

in all with wings.

Read the poetry of Ann Huang
Read a profile of Ann Huang
​

VerseWrights Warmly Welcomes Poet Veronica Lupinacci

PictureVeronica Lupinacci

  Full Moon

   The moon was a tangerine and lifted the
        night.
   The night sat—a gentle fog— just above
        the street.
I passed gates woven with southern jasmine, climbed
 
to the top of brick and iron, rested there
on the hovering night, my bed of mimosa moonlight.
The moon batted her eyes at me.  Began to thump,
 
thump, and swelled and swelled so large with each pulse
she met me right at the edge
of the hovering night. I reached up and tore
 
a scrap of her peel for myself. Squeezed and inhaled
the light oil sprayed faintly
from the pores, rubbed the fragrance on my wrists.
 
Pulled myself up onto the soft surface. Walked
in the absence of noise. Even in the blank
of space, I still thought I heard
 
the smallest music. Following the contralto song,
following faint piano— keys collapsing
like dominos just before they tap the ear
 
on the shoulder. Each step, sinking slightly into the
     spongy surface,
my bare feet dressed delicate in sweet tangerine oil. The
     face
of our moon has warm cider steam of spanish persimmon
 
lemon peach whip, yuma summer saffron garnished with
     vermillion
atomic tangelo zest. The cheeks of our moon are calypso
     honeyglow
against the cerulean steel sky. The atmosphere
 
a nervous glittering array of white
tiny blossoms. I laid down on the bottom of the moon,
the side facing earth. Sunk my fingers into pores,
 
my whole body deep in her pulp. Submerged, looking
     down
to the planet, on the underbelly of the moon. I could see
 
it begin to rain on earth. I could see everything else in the world
 
that slept on the hovering night go back
where it belonged on a cascade that tickled
blades of grass and made them bow, soaked
 
into the ground where dead things are kept. There should
​     be
groves up here in no particular rows with people in hammocks
​     swaying
among the leaves, growing sleepy, dreaming
 
of all that small music. Isn’t there
a railroad here? With a conductor in overalls and tight brimmed hat,
​     pointing
over the mountains to the place I should travel?
 
There is not. There is only
my moon and her pumping fruit heart.


Read the poetry of Veronica Lupinacci
Read a profile of Veronica Lupinacci



​


Picture
Go to Archive Index
Powered by
✕