Harp Musings by Michael Brockley

 

Jan Brndiar

Harp Musings

The harpist plays “Hotel California” during the first Rock the Arts benefit fair. You struggle to write a poem about Joni Mitchell at a poems-on-demand table while the fair vendors around you ply t-shirts, handmade earrings, and mocktails. While the aerial silk dancers weave scarves around their graceful bodies as they pose in mid-air. Mitchell wrote “Both Sides, Now” after reading about Henderson the Rain King’s airplane trip. About seeing clouds from above as well as below. She never finished the novel. You buy a stuffed peanut butter cookie from Coop’s Creations and discuss Wile E. Coyote and poets laureate with a descendant of French flag bearers.You skim through a poem by Dean Young on your iPhone. Fiddle with a fine-point pen until you break it. The harpist plucks the first strands of  Mitchell’s “The Case of You.” Mitchell willed herself to walk when she had polio. Was named Sparkling White Bear Woman by the Saulteaux Nation on her 75th birthday. After an aneurysm, she learned to sing again. Around you, the harpist is singing about living in a box of paints. About the woman who knows a lover’s devils and deeds. And you’re sitting in the front row at a Sparkling White Bear Woman concert in a Joni Mitchell aloha shirt while the reckless daughter herself spends the evening singing to you.  

© Michael Brockley

Michael Brockley

Michael Brockley is a retired school psychologist who lives in Muncie, Indiana. His prose poems have appeared in The Prose Poem, Doublespeak Mag, and Keeping the Flame Alive. In addition, Brockley's prose poems are forthcoming in Bay to Ocean Journal, Unlikely Stories Mark VI, and Stormwash: Environmental Poems, Volume II.

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The Old Art of Handwriting by Kushal Poddar

 

Image / Katya Wolf

The Old Art of Handwriting 

         To Mitarik 

The old art you practice neither 

in a lit-up room nor on a Burmese 

teak writing desk, as if 

you nurse the golden shyness 

on the rocks in a virgin glass heart, 

but sometimes, in the moonlight, 

in the cold of the river, on 

a rectangle of paper kept on the knees 

balanced between the front and the back seats 

of the very autorickshaw that passed 

your old neighbourhood on its way 

to the water. You try the old art 

and handwrite your name. 

Sometimes it brings back the endless 

number of letters, unsigned, grenaded 

through the windows of the Girls' School, 

and some nights it sniffs out 

the scent of your silhouette 

lost in the undergrowth. 

© Kushal Poddar

Kushal Poddar

Kushal Poddar has authored ten books, the latest being A White Can For The Blind Lane, and his works have been translated into twelve languages. He is a co-editor for Outlook Magazine and the editor of Words Surfacing. He does illustrations and sketches for various magazines.

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The Woods: A Prologue by Loralee Clark

 

Image / Matheus Bertelli

The Woods: A Prologue

In all my memories I am eight.

In spring, I walk past the boulders (no yelling)

piled at the edge of the back lawn, (no judgement)

out to the sinkhole filled with water,

inky with leaf tannins, to pretend

I was fishing; stick in hand (no baiting)

to flip the stacks of leaves at (no traps)

the bottom, pollywogs darting away.

In summer, years upon years of pine needles

cushioning the ground, (no slamming doors)

leading the way to a neighbor’s house; even 

if I was off by a few minutes, (no slapping)

I still got out to the other side.

I was never lost.     

In winter, the snowmobile tracks behind

the Cook’s trailer, curving in arcs through (no loneliness)

their property, ours, and the Holt’s.  Miles 

of mechanical doodling.

Once the ponds froze over, Stacy, Stephen 

and I would skate, avoiding the dried clumps of grass

sticking up through the ice; coming in (no martyrdom)

only when we could no longer

feel our toes and the dusk

made it hard to see. (no shouting)

In the woods: freedom,

imagination, tools for important work.  (no neglect)

Calming, predictable through the seasons

but surprising when a bird perched close, (no threats)

when a ladybug would land, when I saw 

a piece of wood chewed by a porcupine. (no intentional

                                                                        silence)

"The Woods: A Prologue" is from A Harmony in the Key of Trees: A Healing Myth (Dancing Girl Press).

© Loralee Clark

Loralee Clark

Loralee Clark resides in Virginia; her website is sites.google.com/view/loraleeclark. She has a book, Solemnity Rites, forthcoming in 2025 from Prolific Pulse Press LLC. She has been published most recently in Periwinkle Pelican, White Stag Journal, Chewers by Masticadores, Nude Bruce Review, Lucky Leaves, Everscribe, The Rockford Review, and Soul Poetry, Prose and Art Magazine.

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THE EPIC OF THE PHOENIX by Angela Kosta

 

Image / Tiến Nguyễn

THE EPIC OF THE PHOENIX

Sun-dust glimmers 'neath craters unsealed,

Untold triumphs time has concealed,

Carved in tempests, on stone and flame,

By a tyrant hand with no name.

The blood-drenched Phoenix, whirls the sphere,

Thirsting in hell’s own frontier,

Burns to ash 'neath ruins deep

Then rises again, its vow to keep:

To rule the world anew, unbowed,

Above the silence of the crowd.

And we are mute…

I am mute…

Stripped of power, stripped of truth.

I cannot fight what mercy feigns,

Nor time’s cruel chain that still remains.

Beheaded, blind, we linger still,

Shadows of glory, bent by will.

We leave behind the sneer of loss,

Bear time’s burden, feel its cross,

And chew the darkness of the soul

No tears to cleanse, no centuries whole…

©Angela Kosta

Angela Kosta

Angela Kosta was born in Elbasan, Albania, and lives in Italy. She is a writer, poet, translator, journalist, and cultural promoter. A member of numerous international academies and associations, she has represented Albanian literature at various festivals and competitions. Her work has been translated into 45 languages and published in many countries. In 2024 alone, her works appeared in over 170 international magazines and newspapers. She has received significant awards, including Best Translator from OBELISK magazine for translating poems by Giosuè Carducci, and the title of Important Figure from the Moroccan newspaper Akhbar7 (2023). She was also listed among the 100 most prominent figures in Arabic literature by Al-Rowad News in 2024. Angela is an active member of academies in Italy, the USA, China, Greece, Poland, and other countries. Her work promotes dialogue between cultures through the written word, building literary bridges worldwide.

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Eighth Magnitude Decline by Richard King Perkins II

 

Gordon Bishop

Eighth Magnitude Decline

In a chilblain forest

a clearing admits the passage of moonlight

as the white bells of snowdrops

crackle slightly beneath your eyes. 

Your naked vision finds Neptune,

the faintest of captured pearls

even in its eighth magnitude decline.

Beneath the rise of your uplifted chin

a Lenten rose emerges

mistaking your flesh for the first sign of spring.

© Richard King Perkins II

Richard King Perkins II

Richard King Perkins II is a state-sponsored advocate for residents in long-term care facilities. He lives in Huntley, IL, with his wife, Vickie, and daughter, Sage. His work has appeared in more than fifteen hundred publications.

I Blinked by Lee Robison

Image / Evelin Magnus

I Blinked 

just now and the snow

brightened; nothing  

else changed; the sun,

a dim disk

still suspended;

the willows, bare sticks  

along the ditch, still;

nothing else changed, 

just this sudden 

shadow leaving snow. © Lee Robison

Lee Robison

Lee Robison has retired from Federal service. He lives with his wife in Montana on a sliver of the ranch he grew up on, a couple of mountain valleys west of The Paradise. Lee currently works as a potter, poet, and storyteller. His collection of poems, Have, was published by David Robert Books in 2019. 

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WHAT FRIENDS SOUND LIKE by Peter Schwartz

 

Image / RDNE Stock project

WHAT FRIENDS SOUND LIKE

for Chris

I have no idea how he thinks he sounds

because I've never even looked in his eyes

but when he confessed a question the other day

how can God love me when I can't even keep

from doing bad I immediately thought okay this guy's

a blues singer which made me giggle because

he loves heavy metal almost as much as his church

but when he casually brought up the fact that

we were currently flying on a giant rock through space

in a mostly empty otherwise lifeless universe not really

making sense I said holy everything this guy's a poet too

and so we were in it like we almost always are

because neither of us particularly cares for trivialities

because like me he also understands or is always

calculating that distance as we talk so then he suddenly

drops a parable of how he once drank so much and the

music got so loud he woke up passed out in a field somewhere

only to reflect on how far from that moment he'd come especially

because of the whole hurling on a giant rock through space thing

which felt like him letting me borrow his strength like an older brother

might do with a cool shirt he'd just worn yesterday anyway

I don't remember my response to wherever we were

in that particular part of that particular conversation but

when he let himself go full preacher mode in what I imagined

as a whisper and told me he thought there are too many people

thinking they are the found sheep when we're all lost

because this world was actually designed to pull us

away from light well okay I made up that last part

but my point is if your eyes and ears work well enough

in a weird way everyone is everyone and you yes you too

can make great friends over the internet

© Peter Schwartz

Peter Schwartz

Peter Schwartz has had poetry featured in Pank, The Columbia Review, Diagram, and many other cool places. He is the author of the poetry collection Old Men, Girls and Monsters, as well as four other chapbooks. You can check out his art any time you want to at: the-art-of-peter-schwartz.jimdosite.com. 

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Of Time and Silences in the Mirror by Myrtle Thomas

 

Image / Engin Akyurt

Of Time and Silences in the Mirror

1.

looking into a cracked mirror at night

seeing my temporal eyes and their darkness

such gladness falls and mingles with sadness

like a hard rain with thunder and lightning

glass then has a voice I had failed to hear

maybe there were faint whispers in silver waves

but youth had blinded my vision!

called with force in vanity

both past and future held my attention

still looking back has its treasures

the blending of mist and rain will disappear

quicker than my mirror's fading face.

2.

my eyes bright and sky blue looking through windows

catching the light breaking on life's branches

chasing the shadows that flee from me like my youth

I realize I've relinquished that youth long ago!

when my eyes were clear and my mind tasted life

what more could soothe my emotions in hindsight?

maybe the resemblance of summer rain or roses

or the power of life's thunder in my restless mind!

while I look into  black veins and branches of a looking glass

as it murmurs in whispered tones of strained glass

for now age has caused me to inspect my old passions

to listen to the sounds of my rattling bones and their sorrows.

© Myrtle Thomas

Myrtle Thomas

Myrtle Thomas lives in America and is retired from a large manufacturing company. She has been published in several poetry journals and magazines, and is a member of ALLpoetry.com, writing under the pen name Bluebird74. Myrtle self-published four poetry books and also has a new chapbook on Amazon (In My Land of Dreams). She uses poetry as a form of medicine to heal past wounds; poetry has been a companion to her for over thirty years.

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Color Haiku by Joshua St. Claire

 

Image / Bayramli Anar

Color Haiku

please hurry 

                    this is a limited time offer 

                                                               white crocuses 

indigo 

bunting 

dissolving 

into 

fox 

color 

theory  

amber light 

pulsing through cicada song 

—the heat! 

surprised 

to hear you talking about me 

blue sky 

yellow violets 

she decides 

to wait 

Weltschmerz 

the orange enormity 

of the dying sun 

pink clouds struck 

against the electric cyan 

floating ribs 

new green

the crow with a sprig 

in his beak 

dame’s rocket 

a cabbage white fluttering 

into blueness 

sea spray 

the storm color  of a gull  © Joshua St. Claire

Joshua St. Claire

Joshua St. Claire is an accountant from a small town in Pennsylvania, working as a financial director for a nonprofit. His haiku and related poetry have been published broadly, 

including in Frogpond, Modern Haiku, The Heron’s Nest, and Mayfly.

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