Morning Song – Susan Richardson

 

Mornings begin with the scratch

and rattle of claws against wood,

chaos seeping with fervor

into the void of night.

He plants his feet reluctantly

onto a floor bathed in the chill

of a disappearing moon,

tails sweeping in and out of

precarious spaces between his ankles.

It is a long walk to the kitchen,

where the hiss of an opening

can awakens a cacophony of hunger,

mingled with chords of impatience.

A spoon clanking against glass sets

the rhythm for notes of anticipation.

He fills the bowls and places

them on the branches of the tree.

Quiet settles into plump warm fullness.

 

 

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.

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February 9, 2018February 9, 2018 by foxglovejournal Categories: PoetryTags: animals, cacophony, chaos, creative, creativity, food, fullness, hiss, hunger, impatience, moon, morning, night, poem, Poetry, quiet, rhythm, senses, song, sounds, Susan Richardson, warmth, writing 4 Comments

The River – Jade Cuttle

 

Oblinsky Plateau, Siberia

 

The mist above the river hangs in hesitation

like the tingle of flies, time bending slowly

in on itself like the spill of the sun as it turns

 

a blind eye to the chaotic curl of the current,

shoving its swell through the morning rush

of rocks shifting restless beneath the surface:

 

this river is ready to be ripped from its bed,

stripped of its sheets, dragged by the drift,

its stitches of silt worked loose by the tide

 

before it can rise, like a splinter of sunlight 

whose split is slight then all of a sudden

has swallowed the sky.

 

Jade Cuttle read literature at University of Cambridge. She has performed on BBC Radio 3 in association with BBC Proms (The Art of Splinters) and is broadcast regularly across BBC Introducing. She has been commissioned for BBC podcasts celebrating Shakespeare’s 400th anniversary and won competitions run by Ledbury Poetry Festival, Foyle Young Poets, BBC Proms, and the Poetry Book Society. She is currently working as Daljit Nagra’s Apprentice Poet-In-Residence at Ilkley Literature Festival and is looking to publish her first pamphlet. If you enjoy her work, you are warmly invited to follow here: www.facebook.com/jadecuttle.

June 25, 2017June 25, 2017 by foxglovejournal Categories: PoetryTags: bed, chaos, creative, creativity, drift, elements, hesitation, Jade Cuttle, mist, nature, poem, Poetry, river, rocks, rush, silt, sky, sun, surface, tide, time, water, writing Leave a comment

keep your pomegranates – Linda M. Crate

 

i have no respect

for you

because you are a man

who shirks duty

and pretends love is a game,

running from his problems

as if mere demands that i be a stranger

will make it so;

a part of me will always love you

but i don’t want or need you—

you were the wolf that turned on me,

snarling and yowling like the wind you ripped

out my vital organs

leaving me to bleed in the snow beneath the pines;

i had to die to who i was to survive

acquire new feathers as i rose from the ashes

of your chaos

a white raven whose flames will never die—

i will not be defeated so easily

as that

will come back to haunt you like a ghost

since you have done this to me for many moons now

four years is enough time to torment me

especially since you’ve already moved on

i need not these memories of you because they’re more

bitter than sweet and i have never acquired the need

for pomegranates in my life.

 

Linda M. Crate’s works have shown up in numerous magazines and anthologies both online and in print. She has four published poetry chapbooks the latest of which is If Tomorrow Never Comes (Scars Publications, August 2016). She is also the author of the Magic Series and the forthcoming Phoenix Tears.

April 22, 2017April 22, 2017 by foxglovejournal Categories: PoetryTags: ashes, blood, body, chaos, creativity, duty, elements, flames, fruit, ghost, Linda M. Crate, love, memory, nature, poem, Poetry, pomegranates, relationship, senses, snow, survival, torment, writing 1 Comment

Red brick rondeau – Georgia Affonso

 

Red brick stands strong, faded but in the mind

Halls of chaos ring with voices new

I turn, holding heavy my heart, resigned

Facing white-washed walls to journey through

 

When clouds blemish ceilings of empty blue

Drenching us off guard, a coat to find

Under rat tailed curls I’ll smile, and think of you

Red brick stands strong, faded but in the mind

 

Though the many trodden towers have now declined

With cracked repairs lingering, long overdue

Regardless. each year, a sanctuary is defined

Halls of chaos ring with voices new

 

To stay, a life un-lonely held onto

Would wither our wondering plans designed.

Once drunken daydreams, now to pursue

I turn, holding heavy my heart, resigned

 

We will reach out together, hands intertwined

Transplanting with us the guts we grew

We stumble forward, scarlet supports behind

Facing white-washed walls to journey through

 

Georgia Affonso studied Music and Drama at the University of Manchester and now works as a Teaching Assistant in Manchester. She has recently set up No Door Theatre with her best friend Sarah Teale, and is having her first full length play ‘forgive-me-not’ debuted in December. Find out more at www.facebook.com/NoDoorTheatre.

December 6, 2016February 25, 2017 by foxglovejournal Categories: Poetry, UncategorizedTags: chaos, colour, dreams, Georgia Affonso, humanity, journey, life, poem, Poetry, strength, time, UK Leave a comment