Daily Dreaming – Kara Goughnour

 

I don’t want to give too much away

but the sun doesn’t rise in this one.

Instead, I light a matchstick on your spine

and our slept-over sweat doesn’t burn

and the bathtub quakes with lavender and grime.

These days, we sleep in shifts

and watch for shadows, crawling about

like things that don’t live here, like things

that don’t live anywhere.

I’m hoping that, in every scenario,

you still love me more in the end.

Outside, the hydrangeas are sagging

with rain and inside you are looking me over.

I don’t want to give too much away

but, in this one, the night is both wasted and spent well.

 

 

Kara Goughnour is a writer and documentarian living in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. They are the author of “Mixed Tapes,” forthcoming in the Ghost City Press Summer 2019 Micro-Chap Series. They are the recipient of the 2018 Gerald Stern Poetry Award, and have work published or forthcoming in The Bitchin’ Kitsch, Third Point Press, and over forty others. Follow them on Twitter and Instagram @kara_goughnour or read their collected and exclusive works at karagoughnour.com.

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September 24, 2019 by foxglovejournal Categories: PoetryTags: body, burn, creative, creativity, dream, hope, Kara Goughnour, lavender, light, love, nature, night, PA, poem, Poetry, rain, senses, shadows, sleep, spine, sun, US, writing Leave a comment

Fire – John Grey

 

I touched fire when two

and I’ve not forgotten.

I was burnt, bubbled, red,

darkened, and the flame

burned so pretty too.

 

I glanced longingly

at the liquid in dark bottles

but my mother snatched

them away.

Likewise the taunting

sharp edge of a knife.

And the patio railing

that invited me to climb.

 

But with fire

she was not quick enough.

I learned that lesson

the hard way.

You can suffer in your hand

what your heart endures.

You can shriek

a kind of glory

until the salving butter comes.

 

John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident. His work has recently been published in New Plains Review, Stillwater Review and Big Muddy Review, and is upcoming in Louisiana Review, Columbia College Literary Review and Spoon River Poetry Review.

February 8, 2017 by foxglovejournal Categories: Poetry, UncategorizedTags: Australia, burn, childhood, creative, creativity, danger, fire, flame, hand, heart, John Grey, lesson, memory, mistake, pain, past, poem, Poetry, suffering, US, writing, youth Leave a comment