Untitled in Blue to Y Gabriella Garofalo

 

Vanessa Pozos

Untitled in Blue to Y

A clear, stark choice? No, stairs,

Stairs everywhere, the silent kindness 

Of her soul when she plays the game, 

But no shelter from quagmires, beasts, or moving sands,

And breathing the only gift if mothers rant

Against quilts and dahlias-

Got it? The sky was a no-man’s land, flowers were 

Rioting, blowing up, the winter they began dating, 

So long ago, when she would drink flowers

To dance away her soul in a frenzied sky,

As a defiant blue upset her-

The moon? Oh, like you she’s just a heaven’s pariah

As even in the deepest nights 

Stars always snap back, if shadows and light
Keep  tainting the sky in a mystic diversion-

So, you ready for a raid, you warriors of the blue flame?

And please keep in mind she hails from Essenes

Who smell blue even if the sky keeps wondering

Why do others exist, and why her dim light 

Sees herself as a most charming lady in a noble bearing,

Dressed to the nines.

© Gabriella Garofalo

Gabriella Garofalo

Born in Italy some decades ago, Gabriella Garofalo fell in love with the English language at six, started writing poems (in Italian) at six, and is the author of these books: Lo sguardo di Orfeo, L’inverno di vetro, Di altre stelle polari, Casa di erba, Blue Branches, Blue Soul, and After The Blue Rush.

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Nature’s Orchestra by Sarah Das Gupta

Derek Keats

Nature’s Orchestra

The voices of Spring sound clearly in the percussive music of water. The snow melts in the high mountains. Streams clash against rocks. The watery roll of drums roars and crashes in majestic turmoil. In the valleys the river splashes and plays on the trailing strings of willow and elder.

The wind tunes up with a soft breeze, plucking playfully at the first flowers. White wood anemones bend and dance to rippling notes from winds of the South. New leaves try a tentative whisper, a plea to the storm clouds to wait for the crashing crescendo of brass, which will mourn the death of Summer.

Now the first cuckoo call, the rise and fall of nature’s clarinet overture to Spring and rebirth. The blackbird’s cascade of notes echoes from the budding elm. In the grey layers of twilight, the ring dove’s soft tone rinses the ear, as sweetly as any oboe, in the scented air.

© Sarah Das Gupta

Sarah Das Gupta

Sarah Das Gupta is an 82-year-old, handicapped poet from Cambridge, UK. She started writing poetry in 2022 after an accident that has prevented her from walking more than a few metres. Her work has been published in over twenty countries. Writing has enabled her to travel and communicate with many people through words.

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Audience of Light by Terry Trowbridge

Jessica Lewis 🦋 thepaintedsquare

Audience of Light

I can see to the end of a rainbow,

sing star language to constellations

and read their responses in fireflies

-Marc di Saverio, Sanitorium Songs, p. 46.

Let us pray in meditation, contemplate the singer of light.

Rainbows are lines of sheet music, water particle scales,

denoting octaves in wavelengths, sounded by thunder clefs.

The singer reads aloud. His song is prismatic.

Arrangements of stars: an audience who embodies liturgy.

Little lights, like fireflies, must be tiny beatitudes;

no less for being tiny, but no more than one-sentence proclamations.

In stars, the sermon itself can listen to the parishioner.

The whole parish is a speck by comparison.

Sing and be heard, speck! Galactic significance in not only for galaxies.

Homily, altar call, constellation…they compel replies.

When the audience is made of light as wide as a ray from the dawn of time,

the transcendental proof of the existence is the applause of light

flitting from fireflies with the pulses of dusk-muted finger snaps.

© Terry Trowbridge

Terry Trowbridge

Terry Trowbridge is a Canadian fruit farmer who is grateful for poetry funding from the Ontario Arts Council. He is widely published in over 100 journals and reviews, such as Pennsylvania Literary Journal, Carousel, Lascaux Review, Kolkata Arts, Leere Mitte, untethered, Snakeskin Poetry, and many others.

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Feelings by Ann Privateer

Peter de Vink

Feelings

Look west as they dip
Into tomorrow, so distant
And deliberate as though
Framed to not mumble
Or stumble while sunflowers
Beam, ready to be great
Providing an escape route
And lollipops are for everyone
Who has been shunned
So, have a cupcake but don’t
Bust, one’s enough, I guarantee
Because so much is unfinished
Even the Wild West Wind
Looks while it wants to be free.

© Ann Privateer

Ann Privateer

Ann Privateer is an artist, photographer, and poet. She grew up in the Midwest and now lives in California. Some of her recent work has appeared in Song of the San Joaquin and Poets’ Espresso Review.

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Left Behind by William Ogden Haynes

 

juliane Monari

Left Behind

She left me with her roses, azaleas, garden 

tools and plastic bags of plant food.

But she forgot to take our times at the lake, 

sailing through sunsets in the summer, 

trying to make it home before dark.

And she forgot to take the smell of her 

perfume on a silk scarf and the sound 

of her voice when she said my name.

She left all the stained-glass windows 

she made, her favorite books on a shelf 

and years of greeting cards from me she 

had saved in a shoebox in the closet. 

But she forgot to take her smile, the way 

she always said she loved me, and the 

color of her eyes.

She left her clothes, her garden, recipes,

and boxes of jewelry in dresser drawers.

But she forgot to take the bottle of wine 

we were saving for a special occasion. 

She forgot to take our evenings watching 

movies, the softness of her hair and our 

son whom she loved so well.

© William Ogden Haynes

William Ogden Haynes

William Ogden Haynes is a poet and author of short fiction from Alabama, born in Michigan. He has published several collections of poetry, and many of his poems and short stories have appeared in literary journals and anthologies. http://www.williamogdenhaynes.com

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A Tuesday in September by John Doriot

Los Muertos Crew

A Tuesday in September

My dog and I walked this 

morning, greeted with 

weather, requiring a sweatshirt

for me, cool relief for her fur.

The brisk changes of the season 

have the leaves fluttering, 

still green with hints of 

yellow and brown. 

Burnweed, unchecked due

to the hurricane a year ago, 

towers in the woods with 

white snowcaps. 

Birdsong is absent. All I 

hear is a caw from a distant

crow. I think many have

migrated further south, 

their seasonal instinct

better than the best 

weather forecast. 

Magenta, coral, and scarlet

azaleas, ignore the change 

in season and continue to 

provide beautiful contrasts

to green and brown.

The Althea has had 

abundant blooms since 

summer. Still full, it is a

prom full of pink carnations. 

I welcome the change in season. 

Soon, I can plant more trees,

shrubs, flowers to replace those

destroyed by angry winds a year ago.

Nature always whispers, “Rebuild,” 

and I never ignore her advice. 

© John Doriot

John Doriot and Oreo

John Doriot is an award-winning author and poet. He has written 17 books and received 7 Georgia Independent Author of the Year Awards from 2022 to 2025. Three of those awards were for collections of poetry. 

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Hope by LeeAnn Pickrell

Ray Bilcliff

Hope

is a still whisper. 

Only if you lean in, 

hush the world’s noise,

can you hear her voice

in the scratch of squirrels 

playing up and down 

redwood’s trunk.

Lying in bed awaiting 

sleep you might hear her 

in the owl’s brief call.

She floats like dust motes 

in the corner of a room, 

as the quick blaze of sunlight 

between storm clouds, 

nasturtium growing 

through impossible fence boards. 

You’ll sense her in 

the hint of jasmine 

before you cross a busy street, 

essence of a neighbor’s rose, 

tang of an orange peel.

Taste her in spring’s strawberry, 

honeyed juice of a peach,

that first sip of coffee.

She’s the down of a cat.

dew of morning grass,

solace of a foot reaching 

across to warm your own 

in the night.

© LeeAnn Pickrell

LeeAnn Pickrell

LeeAnn Pickrell’s debut collection is Gathering the Pieces of Days from Unsolicited Press. Her chapbook Punctuated was published in 2024 by Bottlecap Press, and her book Tsunami is forthcoming in 2026, also from Unsolicited Press. She lives in Richmond, California. See more at www.leeannpickrell.com.

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Memorabilia by Edilson A. Ferreira

 

Dagmara Dombrovska

Memorabilia 

Suddenly a grain of sand invades an oyster,

peacefully lying in the depths of the ocean, 

unhappy a road accident. 

Then, to protect itself from irritation,

the oyster quickly covers the uninvited visitor with layers 

and layers of nacre, a mineral from which is fashioned 

its internal shell.  

The grain of sand gains a fine coat, which produces,    

iridescent and stunning, a pearl.  

Some accidents like this permeate our lives,

in unexpected days and by unforeseen intruders.

Perhaps, similarly, we have made our pearls:

  --memorable statues, symphonies and sonnets—

First published in Indiana Voice Journal, August 2016 issue.

© Edilson A. Ferreira

Edilson A. Ferreira

Edilson A. Ferreira, 81, is a Brazilian poet who writes in English rather than Portuguese. He has launched two poetry books, Lonely Sailor and Joie de Vivre, and has published 300 works in various international literary journals. Has also been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. He began writing at the age of 67 after retiring from a bank.

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