Red Fox Winter – Glen Sorestad

 

The red fox treads slowly

in the new-fallen snow,

stops, listens, intent.

 

Its perked ears detect

the scurry of small feet

below the snow crust;

 

the predator visualizes

its prey, now motionless

on its well-trod route.

 

Its leap is pure ballet,

an arching, head-first flash

ending beneath the snow.

 

The vulpine hunter emerges

from a shower of fine snow,

a field mouse in its jaws.

 

---

Glen Sorestad is a Canadian poet whose work has appeared in publication in various parts of the world, has appeared in over 60 anthologies and textbooks, and has been translated into eight languages. He was nominated for Best of the Web 2020. He lives with his wife Sonia in Saskatoon on the northern plains.

January 2, 2024 by foxglovejournal Categories: Poetry, UncategorizedTags: animals, Canada, creative, creativity, creatures, elements, encounter, fox, Glen Sorestad, mouse, movement, nature, place, poem, Poetry, Saskatoon, senses, snow, sound, weather, wildlife, winter, writing Leave a comment

Pilgrimage – Louise Walker

 

The day I nearly visited Plath’s grave,

I stood at the wrong bus stop for twenty minutes,

gave up and headed back into the town

at the bottom of the valley.

 

On the path to Stubbing Wharfe,

mud and last year’s leaves sogged

beneath my inappropriate footwear.

Sensible couples in cagoules

and walking-boots nodded

good morning: the fit retired

like me, with time on their hands.

 

It was November,

a sepia postcard: trees and stone, brown

like strong tea, the canal a black mirror.

Only a bright shawl of moss thrown

across a wall shocked the eye.

I thought to have a coffee at the pub

where a man once stared into the bottom

of his Guinness while his wife wept

but when I turned the corner

three angry geese blocked the way.

 

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Louise Walker is a poet and teacher who lives in London. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in anthologies by the Sycamore Press and Emma Press, as well as journals such as South, Oxford Magazine, Acumen, Second Chance Lit, ARTEMIS and Dreich. Commissions include Bampton Classical Opera and she was Highly Commended in the Frosted Fire Firsts Award in 2022. She is working on her first collection.

January 1, 2024 by foxglovejournal Categories: Poetry, UncategorizedTags: autumn, canal, creative, creativity, eye, geese, grave, journey, Louise Walker, memory, nature, November, pilgrimage, place, Plath, poem, Poetry, postcard, stone, time, valley, walking, writing Leave a comment

A Broken Pebble – Edward Alport

 

When you left you gave me

Half a pebble,

A round pebble, nothing much to see,

But split as neatly as a chocolate orange,

One half for you and one half for me.

 

You closed my hand around it

Though the edges,

The edges round the broken face

Were rather sharp, and the way you closed my hand

Made me think you’d left me with a graze.

 

When you hold it, you said,

Think of me.

Think of me when the moon is new

And hold your half of the pebble, you said, and I’ll hold mine.

I’ll look at the moon, and think of you.

 

But I have never looked

At the moon,

At the new moon, and thought of how you left,

Or at the pebble, gathering dust these days,

And though of how it made me feel bereft.

 

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Edward Alport is a proud Essex Boy and occupies his time as a teacher, gardener and writer for children. He has had poetry published in a variety of webzines and magazines.

December 31, 2023 by foxglovejournal Categories: Poetry, UncategorizedTags: creative, creativity, dust, edge, Edward Alport, emotion, ending, Essex, half, hand, leaving, loss, memory, moon, past, pebble, poem, Poetry, relationship, sharp, split, UK, writing Leave a comment

Chickadee Morning – Glen Sorestad

 

The sky, this second last day of November,

is reminiscent of August blue, light wind

ruffling and rippling pliant needles

of the hardy young Scotch pine

that steadfastly overlooks our window,

as if it finds more of interest here

than we can muster most days.

 

Here on my side of the pane, I am

drawn to the furious fluttering

of a handful of chickadees, hopping and hitching

along the length of needled limbs and twigs

as if in determined quest. I imagine them

probing out frozen insects,

or eggs deposited several months ago.

 

Black-capped Chickadees, predominant

feathered foragers of winter’s skeletal trees

this sun-warmed morning, as we tilt

towards the last month of twelve

in this annual journey to the longest night

and the official declaration

of winter, our six-month season.

 

The sun has fled the white plains

for more festive fields of play, abandoning

these hardy little birds, now busy

cleaning this conifer of insect detritus,

unopposed by bird bullies, watched only

by those who by choice or chance remain

here to muse and to mull over how

we have been abandoned

to our own winter thoughts.

 

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Glen Sorestad is a Canadian poet whose work has appeared in publication in various parts of the world, has appeared in over 60 anthologies and textbooks, and has been translated into eight languages. He was nominated for Best of the Web 2020. He lives with his wife Sonia in Saskatoon on the northern plains.

December 28, 2023 by foxglovejournal Categories: Poetry, UncategorizedTags: birds, Canada, chickadee, creative, creativity, creatures, eggs, elements, Glen Sorestad, insects, morning, movement, nature, place, plains, poem, Poetry, Saskatoon, sky, time, trees, winter, writing Leave a comment

Stormy Night – James G. Piatt

 

“Caught within a storm

Seeking rescue and respite

For now, must endure”

Janis Haikus

 

Splintered raindrops splash on the remnants of my dreams as the sky fills with the haunting sounds of nightfall and cold gales. A storm thrown against the last days of March breathes its last gasp as I struggle through the wet hours of the night with thoughts of a sunnier tomorrow. There is a sense of mortality hidden amid the sound of raindrops

battering against windows, which are lit up by sprinkles of light from ribbons of lightning screaming within clouds. It is cold outside, and I hear the faint chirping of songbirds trying to stay dry by being secreted in bushes away from stormy gusts. Water is dripping off the eaves again, like pieces of time surfacing then vanishing into the haunting void of the past. Trees, are bending to the weapons of wind and rain, since their shields of leaves were blown into the air and lost. I am trying to sleep amidst the deafening

intermittent din of thunder and lightening, which assaults my ears, and eyes, and makes the room glow with an eerie explosion of light that twists around the room like a wild beast looking for a way to escape. Then in a sudden gap of timelessness, I realize that rain and wind have worn down my dreams. I then hear wood shingles on the roof being blown off onto the brick patio, making a stentorian noise. The pattern of raindrops on the windows, lit up by lightening bolts that snake across the window panes like demons, seem to be carrying messages of grief.  But, as I listen to the sounds of the storm, I remember someone once told me when I was but a small child, that you must live in the

moment and enjoy everything that takes place, for each event has its place and all things are beautiful, even the din of thunder, the flash of thunderbolts, and the sound of rain pouring on roofs. Even death, it was said is just another door into another life.

 

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James, a retired Professor and octogenarian is a Best of the Web nominee and three time Pushcart nominee, and has had five poetry books, The Silent Pond (2012), Ancient Rhythms (2014), LIGHT (2016), Solace Between the Lines (2019), and his latest book, Serenity,  and over 1700 poems, five novels, seven essays, and 35 short stories published worldwide, in over 255 publications. He earned his doctorate from BYU, and his BS and MA from California State Polytechnic University, SLO. He lives with his wife Sandy in an 1880s replica of an Eastern farmhouse, in the foothills of Santa Ynez, California.  

December 26, 2023 by foxglovejournal Categories: Poetry, UncategorizedTags: beauty, CA, creative, creativity, dreams, elements, James G. Piatt, life, nature, night, poem, Poetry, rain, senses, sky, sleep, sound, storm, time, US, water, weather, writing Leave a comment

A Valediction – Edward Alport

 

I kissed good bye to the winds of summer

Waved away my sand castle days

When my shadow was smaller

And evenings were darker

And others could fret about

Sand on the carpet

And sand between the toes.

 

I kissed goodbye to the day’s endless sunshine

When sunshine was blesséd,

And sand the foundation

Of the wonders of building

Architectural winners,

And watching as they crumbled to dust.

 

I kissed goodbye to the colours I cherished

As the sun tattoos down

And the leaves turn to autumn

And the heat is a scalpel

That scrapes at the skin

And the sand burrows into every crevice.

 

I kissed goodbye to the cool shade of trees

And the sunshine turned into

An army, besieging

The castle, scraping the mortar

Leaving me a dry, shapeless mound,

Of sand that, had it been pouring

Through the pinch of an hourglass

Would tell me it’s time to go home.

 

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Edward Alport is a proud Essex Boy and occupies his time as a teacher, gardener and writer for children. He has had poetry published in a variety of webzines and magazines. When he has nothing better to do he posts snarky micropoems on Twitter as @cross_mouse.

July 9, 2023 by foxglovejournal Categories: Poetry, UncategorizedTags: creative, creativity, dust, Edward Alport, elements, Essex, goodbye, home, leaves, nature, poem, poet, Poetry, sand, senses, summer, sun, time, trees, UK, wonder, writer, writing Leave a comment

Mushrooms and Orchids – William Doreski

 

When I joke about your obsession

with mushrooms and orchids you gaze

with inhuman flicker candid

as a reptile’s. The Sunday light

refracted by your smile hurts

the churchgoing crowd you despise,

and like me they regard you

from the corners of their eyes as if

afraid some curse will apply.

Some claim you sleep under toadstools.

Some even whisper that the pink

of the lady slipper tempts you

to a devilish sort of excess.

Yet you’re harmless as the flora

you admire, excepting the toxic

amanita, the flesh of which

is tough and white as your thighs.

 

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William Doreski lives in Peterborough, New Hampshire. He has taught at several colleges and universities. His most recent book of poetry is Mist in Their Eyes (2021). His essays, poetry, fiction, and reviews have appeared in various journals.

June 29, 2023June 29, 2023 by foxglovejournal Categories: Poetry, UncategorizedTags: creative, creativity, curse, eyes, fear, flora, flowers, gaze, light, mushrooms, myth, nature, NH, orchids, poem, Poetry, reptile, smile, toadstools, US, whisper, William Doreski, writing Leave a comment

Close calls – Daun Daemon

 

Atop the cucumber trellis,

a red-tailed hawk, hunching

under his uniform’s epaulettes,

reconnoitered the vegetable garden,

            the cottontail grazing outside the fence

            frozen in July’s humid heat.

 

Nearby, a plump predator,

sporting a tuxedo and as richly fed

as a nobleman, conveyed a chipmunk

onto the screened back porch,

            dropped its panting body on the planks,

            plopped down to rest before the feast.

 

Scanning but not seeing, the hawk

            floated away into the trees,

            the rabbit invisible in its stillness.

The cat, too tired to dispatch his catch,

            sighed into a nap in the sun,

            the patient chipmunk motionless.

 

Thawed, the rabbit — ravenous as the hawk —

            began to munch clover flowers

while the chipmunk — bone-weary as the cat —

            quietly skittered away.

 

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Daun Daemon’s fiction has appeared in Flock, Dead Mule School, Literally Stories, and Delmarva Review among others, and she has published poems in Third Wednesday, Typehouse Literary Review, Remington Review, Deep South Magazine, Into the Void, Peeking Cat Literary, Amsterdam Quarterly, and other journals. Daemon is currently at work on a memoir in poetry as well as short stories inspired by memories of her mother’s home beauty shop. She teaches scientific communication at North Carolina State University and lives in Raleigh with her husband and three cats.

June 4, 2023 by foxglovejournal Categories: Poetry, UncategorizedTags: animals, cat, creative, creativity, creatures, Daun Daemon, encounter, garden, hawk, moment, movement, nature, NC, place, poem, Poetry, rabbit, Raleigh, stillness, sun, trees, US, writing Leave a comment

foliage hatching – Martin Potter

 

twitch-woods

fresh trees’ switches

sprout cocoons

along spring-necks

 

the fledge-buds

begin to fan free

bat-wing tender

in salad green

 

wing-take

flutter-leaf among

anchored branches

earth by root-claw

 

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Martin Potter (https://martinpotterpoet.home.blog) is a British-Colombian poet and academic, based in Manchester, and his poems have appeared in Acumen, The French Literary Review, Eborakon, Ink Sweat & Tears, The Poetry Village, and other journals. His pamphlet In the Particular was published in 2017.

May 10, 2023 by foxglovejournal Categories: Poetry, UncategorizedTags: branches, buds, creative, creativity, earth, elements, foliage, green, growth, hatching, leaves, Manchester, Martin Potter, nature, place, poem, Poetry, roots, tender, trees, UK, woods, writing Leave a comment

Daphne – Gillian Moran

 

When people tell my story, they tell it wrong.

Despite my current condition, I know the edges have been smoothed. I suppose it is necessary. No one wants him to be the villain. If Eros shot him with an arrow, then nothing he did afterward was his fault. He remains the Sun god, glorious and beautiful.

The truth is, he was not enchanted nor enamored with me. He hunted me out of rage. He wanted to possess me. When he failed, he decided he would claim and hurt me. He was predator and I was his prey.

All women knew that if one of them wanted you, you would never be safe. He chased me until my lungs seized and my feet bled. I was terrified. Still, I refused to submit. I fled to the river and begged father for help.

Father knew I never wanted to be reduced to a destructible possession. All he could do was change me. He turned me into my favorite tree, the laurel, that could never be destroyed. 

He still tried to hack off my branches, but he failed. He wears another tree’s laurels as part of his crown. He never caught me.

 

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Gillian Moran is an expatriate living in the United Kingdom with her rescue dog. Her flash fiction has been previously published on 50-Word Stories.

April 10, 2023 by foxglovejournal Categories: flash fiction, Prose, UncategorizedTags: change, chase, creative, creativity, Daphne, Eros, escape, fiction, flash, Gillian Moran, gods, myth, nature, river, safety, short, story, sun, transformation, tree, truth, UK, writing Leave a comment

Consequences of Salt – Tammy L. Evans

 

Angry water reflects a mirror of

Distorted decisions

Shown to me one by one

Like a slide projector I have broken.

 

My pretend life is

Different from the one before me

 

A handcuff of small lotioned hands

Full of promise and sweat

 

Salt lures me with

                                        Crunch

Substance and

                     Bite.

 

But dissolves rendering it invisible

Before I can ask what my purpose is

 

Orphaned again

Not by death but by

Dissolving back

Into this version of myself.

 

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Tammy L. Evans writes, walks, inspires, and teaches. She is the conjurer of everyday magic with short concise poems and stories. Her fiction has been published in Gone Lawn, Cabinets of Heed, Spelk, Five on the Fifth, Clover and White, Fiction Berlin Kitchen, Shorts Magazine, and Elephants Never. She is the lead moderator for the Sarah Selecky Centered community and a teacher for the school. You can connect with Tammy through IG @inspiretammy.

March 21, 2023 by foxglovejournal Categories: Poetry, UncategorizedTags: angry, change, creative, creativity, decisions, dissolving, elements, hands, invisible, life, mirror, poem, Poetry, pretend, promise, purpose, reflection, salt, self, senses, Tammy L. Evans, water, writing Leave a comment

Soft W – Kristy Snedden

 

She perks up her heads

and debates which exit

to use. A few consonants

run for my throat but the vowels

want to journey through

my heart, get polished

by the oxygen rich blood

flow into the crowded world.

 

Now the consonants talk

to each other and to my throat

which makes guttural noises

and feels lost without vowels.

But the ws come, wanting

who, where, what, when.

With soft puffs of air

and a whoosh they blow

 

the letters out of my mouth.

Like magnets the vowels

and consonants pull to

each other and rearrange

themselves by the relativity

of the morning light.

And there she is, ushering

me out of granite into form.

 

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Kristy Snedden has been a trauma psychotherapist for forty-plus years. She began writing poetry in June 2020.  Her work appears or is forthcoming in various journals and anthologies, including Snapdragon, The Examined Life Journal, Open Minds Quarterly, Pensive, and Anti-Heroin Chic. She is a 2024 Pushcart Prize nominee. In her free time, she can be found hiking in the Appalachian Mountains near her home or hanging out with her husband listening to their dogs tell tall tales. You can follow her on Instagram @kristy_snedden_poetry.

March 6, 2023 by foxglovejournal Categories: Poetry, UncategorizedTags: air, communication, consonants, creation, creative, creativity, elements, form, journey, Kristy Snedden, language, letters, light, magnets, poem, Poetry, sound, speech, talk, US, vowels, word, writing Leave a comment

fog fall – Martin Potter

 

stepped inside to sidestep

a throat-tickle chill in the air

an hour later fog fell

 

haze of night had smothered

murk-wise the tight street

only your own echoes

 

bounce off walls pavement

resonant but ghosted out

lamp-glare haunts the home-walk

 

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Martin Potter (https://martinpotterpoet.home.blog) is a British-Colombian poet and academic, based in Manchester, and his poems have appeared in Acumen, The French Literary Review, Eborakon, Ink Sweat & Tears, The Poetry Village, and other journals. His pamphlet In the Particular was published in 2017.

February 22, 2023 by foxglovejournal Categories: Poetry, UncategorizedTags: air, chill, creative, creativity, echoes, elements, fog, ghost, haunting, lamp, light, Manchester, Martin Potter, night, place, poem, Poetry, street, time, UK, walk, weather, writing Leave a comment

Longwood – Louise Walker

 

Hail hard in our faces, sun in our eyes,

we push through brambles, past the dovecot

and piles of tumbled bricks, driving deep into

the heart of the wood. Long before the house

burned down, someone planted daffodils here

and every year there are more, seen only

by those who still remember where to look.

Around the empty walled garden, bastard

fruit trees shoot upwards from ancient rootstock,

foaming white, but there will be no fruit,

unless we bend to read these faded labels

beside each shadow tree against the stone,

unless we plant again to face the sun

with Concorde, Harrow Sweet, Laxton’s Superb.

 

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Louise Walker is a poet and teacher who lives in London. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in anthologies by the Sycamore Press and Emma Press, as well as journals such as South, Oxford Magazine, Acumen, Second Chance Lit, ARTEMIS and Dreich. Commissions include Bampton Classical Opera and she was Highly Commended in the Frosted Fire Firsts Award in 2022. She is working on her first collection.

February 14, 2023 by foxglovejournal Categories: Poetry, UncategorizedTags: creative, creativity, elements, flowers, fruit, garden, heart, London, Longwood, Louise Walker, nature, place, poem, Poetry, senses, stone, sun, time, trees, UK, weather, wood, writing Leave a comment

Murky Valley – Chandan Dey

 

The questions, turned
into the waves ~
                            hissing & slamming
into the screen door

A swim ~
                 in a spiral galaxy
a sense
                            of your close presence

A signal ~
                  from a neutral field,
where blur
joy                  &                  sorrow A ditch ~ a love flux
                  around your house,
an agonizing severance ~
                                                    too…

 

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Chandan Dey is a young and emerging writer. His work has appeared in Liquid Imagination, Vayavya, Sky Island Journal, Foxglove, and is forthcoming elsewhere. He works as an accountant in a company and is a passionate reader and writer of poetry as well. He takes a special interest in writing speculative poetry and fiction, and loves to write articles and books on scientific philosophy. He lives in Kolkata, India. Some of his work can be found on www.chandankumardey.blogspot.in.

January 29, 2023January 29, 2023 by foxglovejournal Categories: Poetry, UncategorizedTags: blur, Chandan Dey, creative, creativity, door, emotions, flux, galaxy, India, joy, Kolkata, love, poem, poet, Poetry, presence, questions, senses, signal, sorrow, sounds, waves, writing Leave a comment