Hush – Don Thompson

 

The night, this night anyway,

has requested quiet—

using an older, quieter word.

 

The owl complies, sounds one note

pianissimo on a marimba

with a soft mallet.

 

No crickets fidget.

 

No feral tom cats talk trash.

 

Even the hound over on the next farm

howls for only a few minutes

and then, whatever had been bothering him,

lets it drop

and drifts off to sleep.

 

---

Don Thompson has been writing about the San Joaquin Valley for over fifty years, including a dozen or so books and chapbooks. A San Joaquin Almanac won the Eric Hoffer Award for 2021 in the chapbook category. For more info and links to publishers, visit his website at www.don-e-thompson.com.

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December 19, 2021 by foxglovejournal Categories: Poetry, UncategorizedTags: animals, CA, cats, creative, creativity, cricket, Don Thompson, hound, howl, hush, nature, night, note, owl, poem, Poetry, quiet, request, San Joaquin Valley, sleep, sound, US, writing Leave a comment

I Have Walked This Path Before – James G. Piatt

 

I am peering through raindrops, which are

washing away my memories watching the past

fade as I walk along an old path I have walked on

many times before.

 

I have walked this path before, in the springtime

when cheery trees were pink with blossoms,

giant maple trees were showing their pink buds,

and young animals in their new born freedom

loped along the river, carefree, and filled with the

excitement of new birth.

 

I have walked this path before when the summer

heat silently placed its warmth upon my

shoulders as I sat on a beach chair near a placed

pond thinking about the beauty of nature, and

listening to the sweet warbling of tiny songbirds.

 

I have walked this path before when autumn’s

slowly increasing winds started their polished

journey into winter with whispered hints of

fading time, and the sun was covered with dark

moisture filled clouds.

 

I have walked this path before when the chill of

winter blurred my footsteps, tiny birds took

refuge in bushes and I, bundled up in wools and

layered cotton, pondered on the coldness of the

season, and what I should etch onto the marble

face of my tombstone.

 

---

James is an internationally published poet, a Best of Web nominee and three time Pushcart nominee. He has had four poetry books; Solace Between the Lines, Light, Ancient Rhythms, and The Silent Pond, 1500 poems, five novels, and 35 short stories published worldwide. He earned his doctorate from BYU, and his BS and MA from California State Polytechnic University, SLO. He writes poetry to maintain his sanity, and sometimes succeeds.

July 21, 2021 by foxglovejournal Categories: Poetry, UncategorizedTags: animals, birth, CA, change, creative, creativity, elements, James G. Piatt, journey, life, memories, nature, past, path, poem, Poetry, seasons, senses, time, US, walk, weather, writing Leave a comment

Her Love Has Faded Away – James G. Piatt

 

My love is not here again today

Her image only lives in slumber,

Her essence has faded away.

 

My memory’s road is now a dull gray

My sad reminiscences do encumber:

My love is not here again today.

 

In the midst of another gloomy day

Silent footsteps increase in number:

Her essence has faded away.

 

Woeful visions are those that stay

Wretched hours the days do cumber,

My love is not here again today.

 

I no longer smell the roses’ sweet bouquet

Lonely visions then outnumber:

My love is not here again today,

Her essence has faded away.

 

---

James lives with his wife Sandy, a cat called Barny, and a pup named Scout, in a replica 1800s eastern farmhouse in the foothills of Santa Ynez, California. He was nominated for a Best of Web award, and three times for a Pushcart award. He has had four collections of poetry, The Silent Pond (2012), Ancient Rhythms (2014), Light (2016), and Solace Between the Lines (2019), over 1,485 poems, five novels, and 35 short stories published worldwide. He earned his BS and MA from California State Polytechnic University, and his doctorate from BYU.

November 8, 2020 by foxglovejournal Categories: Poetry, UncategorizedTags: CA, creative, creativity, emotions, essence, feelings, flowers, hours, image, James G. Piatt, loss, love, memory, poem, Poetry, reminiscence, roses, sadness, senses, silence, time, US, writing Leave a comment

Reluctant Diver – Susan Richardson

 

I move toward the pool with delusions

of grace coursing through my muscles,

eager to feel the sky against my skin.

I am caught on the wings of a dream,

limbs in perfect formation,

like a bird in tandem with the wind

plunging toward the water.

I stop to linger in the scent of flight.

The smell of chlorine attacks my senses,

tearing doubt into my imagination.

I stumble to the ladder and start

my climb to the 3- meter board,

a thimble of fright tapping

a ballad across my rib bones.

Cold metal screams against my feet,

vines of anxiety crawling with skill

up the back of my neck.

I look nervously toward my coach,

pleading for a glimmer of confidence

or a fistful of staunch advice.

“If your fear is greater than your desire,

climb down”, she tells me.

It turns out I’m not a bird after all.

I prefer my feet on the ground.

 

 

 

Susan Richardson is living, writing and going blind in Los Angeles.  In addition to poetry, she writes a blog called, Stories from the Edge of Blindness. Her work has been published in Foxglove Journal, Amaryllis, The Writing Disorder and Eunoia Review, among others.  She was awarded the Sheila – Na – Gig 2017 Winter Poetry Prize, featured in the Literary Juice Q&A Series, and chosen as the Ink Sweat & Tears March 2018 Poet of the Month.  She also writes for the Arts and Lit Collective, Morality Park.

August 6, 2018August 6, 2018 by foxglovejournal Categories: PoetryTags: anxiety, bird, CA, creative, creativity, diving, doubt, dream, flight, fright, ground, imagination, poem, Poetry, pool, senses, sky, Susan Richardson, US, water, wind, wings, writing 3 Comments

The Laws of Physics – Richard Luftig

 

There is a pull

of a new moon

tonight, a yield

of starlight

that blinks

on, then off, as

only the clouds

command. Down

 

wind, the piers

that jut from

shore to shoals

are statues

with freezing arms

where even

barnacles sag

from dripping

ice. A neap

 

tide that refuses

to rest makes

whispers that

can still awaken

the waves while

along these sea-oak

shores, a jetty

that just a few

short hours ago

made a beach

 

now worries

the sand and

constantly tells

us as we struggle

to make a safe

harbor about

the gravity

of our situation.

 

 

Richard Luftig is a former professor of educational psychology and special education at Miami University in Ohio now residing in California. His poems and stories have appeared in numerous literary journals in the United States and internationally in Canada, Australia, Europe, and Asia. Two of his poems recently appeared in The Best Ten Years of Dos Madres Press.

July 13, 2018July 16, 2018 by foxglovejournal Categories: PoetryTags: CA, change, clouds, creative, creativity, elements, ice, moon, nature, night, poem, Poetry, Richard Luftig, starlight, struggle, tide, time, US, water, whispers, wind, writing, yield Leave a comment

Unwavering – Susan Richardson

 

Each day, as I reluctantly get out of bed,

to face the sunlight and blindness,

I ask you to hold my hand so I

won’t feel afraid of standing still.

You wrap my fluttering pulse in threads

of warmth that traverse your palms,

dulling the edges of my anxiety.

You teach me to shake off rage

and laugh at the act of coming unglued.

How quickly I learned to seek your

voice in the clamor of being alive,

rely on the steady cadence of your heart

to quiet the noises that breathe in darkness.

You stand unwavering in the center of

our life together, a beacon that always finds me.

Feeling your fingers against mine,

I stand beside you, content to close my eyes

and let the sun shine on my face.

 

 

Susan Richardson is living, writing and going blind in Los Angeles. In addition to poetry, she writes a blog called, Stories from the Edge of Blindness. Her work has been published in Foxglove Journal, Amaryllis, The Writing Disorder and Eunoia Review, among others. She was awarded the Sheila-Na-Gig 2017 Winter Poetry Prize, featured in the Literary Juice Q&A Series, and chosen as the Ink Sweat & Tears March 2018 Poet of the Month. She also writes for the Arts and Lit Collective, Morality Park.

June 18, 2018 by foxglovejournal Categories: PoetryTags: anxiety, beacon, blindness, CA, creative, creativity, darkness, eyes, fear, hand, heart, life, light, poem, Poetry, pulse, rage, sun, Susan Richardson, US, voice, warmth, writing 10 Comments

Earthquake – Susan Richardson

 

The earth rolls beneath my feet, a wave

carrying me across the courtyard.

I sink into his mouth.

Afternoon erupts with fear as the

ground spits back its shaking aftermath.

Sunburned pavement cracks in his grasp.

Evening whispers its descent,

peppering the sky with darkened clouds.

Far below, the world stands still.

 

 

 

Susan Richardson is living, writing and going blind in Hollywood. She was diagnosed with Retinitis Pigmentosa in 2002 and much of her work focuses on her relationship to the world as a partially sighted woman. In addition to poetry, she writes a blog called “Stories from the Edge of Blindness”. Her work has been published in: Stepping Stones Magazine, Wildflower Muse, The Furious Gazelle, The Hungry Chimera, Sheila-Na-Gig, Chantarelle’s Notebook, Foxglove Journal, Literary Juice and Sick Lit Magazine, with pieces forthcoming in Amaryllis. She was also awarded the Sheila-Na-Gig Winter Poetry Prize.

March 4, 2018March 4, 2018 by foxglovejournal Categories: PoetryTags: aftermath, body, CA, creative, creativity, descent, earth, earthquake, elements, evening, fear, feet, ground, mouth, nature, poem, Poetry, senses, sky, Susan Richardson, US, world, writing 1 Comment

Honest Hands – Susan Richardson

 

If he is the rain, then I am gravel,

parched under the embers of shame,

longing for the relief of him.

He washes the soot of loneliness

from my skin and offers me comfort.

 

Irish blood and bones, he is

the son of verdant landscapes,

shared pints of stout and fierce loyalty.

He navigates life vigorously

and laughs with his whole body.

 

His voice carries the tones of Autumn,

rich with the luster of unravelling gold.

I sink into the warmth of his words as

he helps stitch my broken limbs

with threads offered from his heart.

 

I remember so clearly the night

he wrapped his arms willingly

around my imperfections.

It was the first time I was

touched by honest hands.

 

 

Susan Richardson is living, writing and going blind in Hollywood. She was diagnosed with Retinitis Pigmentosa in 2002 and much of her work focuses on her relationship to the world as a partially sighted woman. In addition to poetry, she writes a blog called “Stories from the Edge of Blindness”. Her work has been published in: Stepping Stones Magazine, Wildflower Muse, The Furious Gazelle, The Hungry Chimera, Sheila-Na-Gig, Chantarelle’s Notebook, Foxglove Journal, Literary Juice and Sick Lit Magazine, with pieces forthcoming in Amaryllis. She was also awarded the Sheila-Na-Gig Winter Poetry Prize.

February 23, 2018February 23, 2018 by foxglovejournal Categories: PoetryTags: blood, body, CA, comfort, creative, creativity, hands, heart, life, loneliness, memory, nature, poem, Poetry, rain, relief, shame, Susan Richardson, US, voice, warmth, words, writing 1 Comment

Outside the window – Tony Press

 

You can’t see nothing from here but if you could, what would you want it to be? That’s what she asked the first time I ever went to her apartment. We’d met in Sioux City when I was living there on a highway crew. She lived in Correctionville. Yes, Correctionville is the real name and you’ve probably already got an idea why it’s called that. Don’t bet on it.

I thought about it. Really: what would I want to see, if there were anything to see out her kitchen window. I’d seen the rest of the place and my answer was more important than you might think, because the kitchen was the only room with a window. The living room slash bedroom was nothing but three walls and the bathroom was the same, just smaller. It had more plumbing, too, which was a good thing.

Sweetie, I said, I’d like to see one of those Venice canals.

Venice? Venice, Italy?

That’s the one.

Oh, Darrell, did you ever go to Italy? Did you ride in one of those boats there?

No. Nope. I’ve never been across the Atlantic. Or even seen the Pacific. The farthest east I’ve ever been was South Carolina and the farthest west – you’ll laugh, maybe – was Kansas. I was at Fort Riley for four years and two more in Manhattan after I got out.

Manhattan? New York Manhattan? I thought you were talking about Kansas.

I am. It’s smaller than the one with Rockefeller Center and the Empire State Building and all that, but it’s got the same name. I was working at the university there: Kansas State.

Oh. Oh. Okay. Anyway, let’s just stand here and you can tell me about the canal out the window.

I poured her another glass of wine and one more for me, and then I lowered the light. I’ll give the place some credit, it had a cool dimmer switch, at least for the kitchen. I put my left arm around her shoulders and with my other I pointed outside.

Look, that’s the Grand Canal and over there … can you see it? That’s the Bridge of Sighs. If two people stand on that bridge and kiss they will be together forever. Flat-out-fucking-forever.

Really?

Really, I said. Step up onto it with me, but careful, ‘cuz it was raining so it might be slippery. I held her hand. That’s it, I said. Easy does it.

It feels real, she said. I’ve never been any place like this.

Kiss me, I said, and we’ll never be any place else, no matter where we are.

She did, and we held that kiss until I needed to breathe. She could have lasted longer, she said, and then we kissed again. I moved in that week.

I’ve still never seen the Atlantic, or the Pacific. I did – we did – get out to Nevada once. We drove to Omaha and took the train to Elko, where a buddy’s got a place. We saw mountains on that trip, so that was cool: no mountains in Iowa. I’ve got a cousin who lives in Hills, Iowa, but the name’s a joke. Maybe I ought to tell my cousin to look out her kitchen window and think about what she’d want to see, in her heart of hearts.

We have a bigger place in Correctionville now, a real house, with windows in every room, but each night before we go to bed we stand at a window, and look out at the Bridge of Sighs.

 

 

Tony Press tries to pay attention and sometimes he does. He’d be thrilled if you purchased his 2016 story collection, Crossing the Lines (Big Table). It’s available at indy bookstores, directly from him, or even from that Amazon place. He lives near the San Francisco Bay.

November 4, 2017 by foxglovejournal Categories: flash fiction, ProseTags: boats, bridge, CA, canals, conversation, fiction, flash, forever, heart, home, humanity, Italy, kiss, place, rain, relationship, short, story, Tony Press, travel, US, Venice, window Leave a comment

Synesthesia Among Wildflowers – Don Thompson

 

Everyone knows how a cheap scent sounds,

its odor loud and clear,

astringent—a sting in your nostrils

that makes you taste dissonant brass.

 

But lupins in a field whisper

subtle fragrances, inaudible

unless you’re willing to stand still

on a windless afternoon

 

and listen: a blue fugue

in which you can recognize motifs

of raw denim, antique lilac silk,

or dusty amaranthine velvet.

*

 

Don Thompson was born and raised in Bakersfield, California, and has lived in the southern San Joaquin Valley for most of his life. He has been publishing poetry since the early sixties, including a dozen books and chapbooks. For more information and links to his publications, visit his website San Joaquin Ink (don-e-thompson.com).

September 26, 2017September 26, 2017 by foxglovejournal Categories: PoetryTags: CA, colour, creative, creativity, Don Thompson, fabrics, flora, fragrance, lupins, motifs, nature, odor, poem, Poetry, scent, senses, sound, sting, synesthesia, US, velvet, whisper, writing Leave a comment

Rose Tinted Glasses – Susan Richardson

 

The experts say my disease is genetic.

It spreads across families without discrimination

and taps randomly on the shoulders of children,

condemning them to a life of waiting for

the world to become shadows and pitch.

 

I stand alone with my dying retinas,

cocooned in the muslin of a fading canvas.

I have searched for a family connection,

a blood born comrade in a life of darkness,

but they tell me there is no one.

 

As the years pass and my vision

careens down a steep precipice, I

remember stories of a paternal grandfather

I never knew; a good dancer with sensitive eyes,

who always wore rose tinted glasses.

 

He was only 32 when he died, leaving

my grandmother to turn him into legend,

and my father to fend for himself

against the grief of a broken mother.

The secrets of his blood are caged in mystery.

 

Did my grandfather pass down the

genetic code that chains me to blindness?

Are my eyes a reflection of his own?

I hold desperately to the idea that he is the link,

but in my family, legends don’t go blind.

 

 

Susan Richardson is living, writing and going blind in Hollywood. Much of her work focuses on her experiences as a partially sighted woman in a sprawling urban environment. Her work has been published in Free Lunch, The Old Red Kimono, Stepping Stones Magazine, Wildflower Muse, The Furious Gazelle, The Hungry Chimera, Sheila–Na- Gig and Chantarelle’s Notebook. In addition to poetry and creative non-fiction, she writes a blog called “Stories from the Edge of Blindness”.

September 11, 2017September 11, 2017 by foxglovejournal Categories: PoetryTags: blindness, blood, CA, creativity, darkness, death, eyes, family, grief, history, humanity, legend, link, loss, mystery, poem, Poetry, reflection, secrets, shadows, stories, Susan Richardson, US 4 Comments

Erebus – Christopher Eskilson

 

Days have passed since

I

was in my mouth,

long and oddly shaped.

 

The touches

of a dead rock leave me opened wide.

Silence sits beneath a maze of multiplying sand.

 

I had never forgotten a tune the planets learned,

brightening like a spoon collecting

pictures of a gone world.

 

Now, my pupils burn.

The innards of a feeling blacken.

The vibrations sigh

& bury your

excuse me.

 

Let go, spreading out along a road

cutting through my woods.

I rub my tongue in evening as

the pines curl asleep.

 

Listen:

The dream

—its special music—

hums.

 

This is the mind;

cold and black light blue;

the desert carelessly approaches.

 

A sea of squeezing bites.

 

I can’t inhabit where I goes.

An effigy,

a wild silence.

Living, burning, lost control.

 

Christopher Eskilson is a Junior at Pitzer College studying English and world literature. He is a managing editor at the Claremont Colleges’ The Student Life Newspaper and also an associate editor for Claremont Graduate University’s Foothill poetry magazine. In the past, he has worked as an editorial intern for Red Hen Press in Pasadena, California. Christopher’s work has appeared in After the Pause, 30 N (formerly the North Central Review), Apeiron Review, A Quiet Courage, and others.

March 30, 2017March 30, 2017 by foxglovejournal Categories: Poetry, UncategorizedTags: body, CA, Christopher Eskilson, colours, creative, creativity, dream, elements, evening, feelings, journey, mind, music, nature, poem, Poetry, senses, silence, thoughts, US, woods, world, writing 1 Comment

Fishing at midnight – Richard Luftig

 

a blood-red moon

means me no good

 

and stars winking

their secrets

 

are not about to tell.

bass in this lake

 

have gone on strike

for better food

 

and my lures

are not fooling

 

anyone. but later

after my rowboat

 

has cut through

the last diagonal

 

of water, I’ll climb

the hill to my cabin

 

watch squirrels run

under a spotlight

 

floodlamp across

telephone wires

 

like acrobats

without a net

 

crawl under a blanket

try to sleep leaving

 

any upcoming dawns

to fend for themselves.

 

Richard Luftig is a former professor of educational psychology and special education at Miami University in Ohio who now resides in California. He is a recipient of the Cincinnati Post-Corbett Foundation Award for Literature and a semi-finalist for the Emily Dickinson Society Award. His poems have appeared in numerous literary journals in the United States and internationally in Canada, Australia, Europe, and Asia. Two of his poems recently appeared in Ten Years of Dos Madres Press.

March 22, 2017 by foxglovejournal Categories: Poetry, UncategorizedTags: acrobats, animals, blanket, CA, creative, dawn, fauna, fish, hill, lake, moon, nature, night, OH, poem, Poetry, Richard Luftig, secrets, sleep, stars, US, water, writing Leave a comment

When The Wind Came Up – Jackie Davis Martin

 

When the wind came up she hated the world. Before that, before the sand started whirling around, before her ears hurt with the sudden gusts, she’d found a moment of peace, as slim and painstaking as the slight parenthesis of the moon, now obscured by heavy clouds scuttling urgently. Before the moon disappeared, before the wind came up, she’d considered that maybe there was some point to surviving, something to be said for living in the moment the way her grief group was instructed to think. She could see it then, standing next to her close friend, another woman old as she was, but both young because they’d known each other for so many years they carried the former selves within the old and didn’t see the new old. There was some peace in knowing that she didn’t have to achieve anything more and having the company of her friend to watch the ocean, listen to its gentle shushes. But then the wind came up. At first the women stayed, trying to discern the speed of the tide, walking backward up the grassy knoll to the parking lot that overlooked the beach. But then, with sand whipping around them suddenly, they couldn’t see well and sought shelter in the car, which they quickly discovered had a flat, and so called for roadside help and waited in howling wind and the growing dark and had nothing more to say. Now she was back in her own head, locked into a loss as solid as this car, the wind blowing billows of sand, the world too much to interpret once again. When the truck arrived, its lights flashing into the darkness, and a young man with a jack got out, she understood why people found faith.

 

Jackie Davis Martin has had stories published in journals that include Flash, Flashquake, Fractured West, and Dogzplot, as well as story collections Modern Shorts, Love on the Road, and the recent Road Stories.. Prizes were awarded by New Millennium and On the Premise and finalist placements for a novella (Press 53) and a chapbook of flash fiction (Conium Review). A memoir, Surviving Susan, was published in 2012.  Jackie teaches at City College of San Francisco.

 

March 12, 2017 by foxglovejournal Categories: flash fiction, Prose, UncategorizedTags: age, CA, faith, feelings, fiction, flash, grief, humanity, Jackie Davis Martin, loss, moon, nature, night, ocean, pain, peace, Prose, San Francisco, sand, story, US, wind, world Leave a comment