Last night I fell to dream
of Castle Combe,
Its shambling mists and tawny stream,
the holy pathos of its homes.
Wind-washed clouds, the lunar gleam
of cream-colored stone.
And there, somewhere between
drowsy dusk and day, I stood alone
In fevered dream,
in Cotswold cold,
Woke to air, moon-tide dimmed,
and the lulled hush of wool-
Soft hymns
with all hope gone.
Twirls of seaweed strew
over dimpled rocks
quickly shed free –
across damp sand
playing off each other
papery filaments skitter
and flip
Later, washed over
crisscrossed in a half-smile
frail footsteps recede
disquieting behind me
ribbed with graveyard bones
limestone fragments crumble
wallpapered underneath
in imprecise lines
snippets of ochre conjure
an amoebic design
a patina stained and flecked
Soon the drift of dusk –
unmoored, about to weep
drawn back and back
both beautiful and hypnotic
a bevy of clouds merge
towards the sea
continuously glassy
minute waves lap
almost silent –
gentle against my feet
Darrell Coggins is a poet, visual artist and musician who lives in Adelaide, South Australia. His poetry has been published in Poetry Matters, Positive Words, The Mozzie, Tamba, Studio, Nine Muses, Envy – Seven Deadly Sins, The Crow and Friendly Street Poets anthologies. Darrell’s poems are of moments seen, heard and felt.
a snowy day–
the green leaves of the garden
are wrapped in the thick blanket of ice
the dangling white rose
is the face of a black tiger
in such a depressing morning
a flock of one-winged birds
are migrating to a sunless island
through gray clouds arranged unruly
in this pale light of dreary noon
the deepening dusk
with its illusive movement
is descending swiftly to the earth
through eerie sound of the crickets
in the distance–
the wavy mountain
is a strayed dolphin, swimming
in the ocean of night-fog
alone
Chandan Dey is a new and emerging writer living in Kolkata, India. His work has appeared in Liquid Imagination, Vayavya, Sky Island Journal and is forthcoming elsewhere. He works in Kolkata and is a passionate reader and writer of poetry. He loves to write articles on scientific philosophy; some of them have already been published online. Some of his work can be found on http://www.chandankumardey.blogspot.in.
That night, I tied a tiny string to each of the stars
and pulled them down towards the earth
in a big bundle, like a flower bouquet
They left trails in the jelly sky
and tangled on the wisps of clouds
A few even clanged into each other
and the sound was like a bell
So, I pulled harder
Wrapped the strings around my fist
and let them cut into my pale cold flesh
Finally, my efforts came to fruition
and a single star floated down into the troposphere
I cradled it in my arms and sang to it
– until it burst –
and the embers dissipated in the
milky night
Linnea Cooley is a poet residing in the Washington D.C. area. Her poetry appears in Neologism Poetry Journal, Boston Accent Lit, and Anti-Heroin Chic among others. More of her work can be seen on her website, linneacooley.weebly.com.
Sequoias reach out
ready to receive storms—
passive as priests at confession—
watch widow-black mass
clouds gather to grieve
drum-heavy tension
into open-mouthed leaves.
Array of outstretched arms—
a vein-artery-capillary
neural network that funnels
into unquenchable quarry
of skyscraper roots.
After rain, life resumes—
itchy bark beetle, fleet-footed
squirrels in stop-start relays.
An air-cleansed chorus—
warbler, tanager and nuthatch notes,
echoed rata-tat-tat woodpecker beat.
Paul Waring is a retired clinical psychologist who once designed menswear and was a singer/songwriter in Liverpool bands. He is a 2018 Pushcart Prize nominee whose poems have been published in Foxglove Journal, Prole, Amaryllis, High Window, Atrium, Algebra of Owls, Clear Poetry, Ofi Press, Marble Poetry, The Lampeter Review and others. Find more at https://waringwords.wordpress.com.
If I could see beyond the clouds
what would there be?
As I stand here
(attached by the gravity of my life
to this two feet parcel of earth)
nothing there seems clear.
What would I see through the window beyond?
An endless green sea on which I might float (or walk)?
But neither my eyes nor mind have reach enough,
so I am like a shell
washed up on some endless celestial beach.
One day the sky may clear
and I may see and hear
answers to the mystery that I am living.
I will be beyond the clouds,
inside a limitless blue box.
Sky end to end, side to side.
Until then?
The ink of my thoughts will drop from the clouds like rain
and bloom upon a page.
I’ll watch butterflies light on leaves like orange flames.
and know that it is enough.
paul Bluestein has written poetry for many years, but has just recently begun to submit his work. He is hoping Foxglove Journal will be one of his first steps forward on this new journey. He is a physician (OB-GYN) by profession (retired … or just plain tired), a self-taught musician (guitar and piano) and a dedicated Bridge and Scrabble player (yes, ZAX is a word). He writes poetry because The Muse, from time to time, calls him unexpectedly and keep ringing insistently until he answers, even if he doesn’t want to talk with her just then.
We sit cross-legged on the carpeted floor, slugging cheap red wine. Our combined CD collections lie in a heap between us.
“How’re you set for tomorrow’s classes?” Kate asks, ever smiling, ever upbeat.
I frown. “I think my lesson plans are okay, but I hope my supervisor doesn’t come ‘til next week.”
“Maybe that’s because you’re a bit of a perfectionist, Rachel?” she says, gently. “Me, I hope my notes are good enough. After that, Mr Davis will have to take me as he finds me.”
We have a tendency to talk shop. Thursday night, our housemates are out on the batter, but we need to be reasonably fresh for school.
“So, what are we going to play next?” I ask, stretching my legs to avoid the feeling of pins and needles.
“‘Here Comes the Sun.’” Kate puts the CD in, closes her eyes, throws back her head, and smiles.
The tune fills the room. I can see how it would be her favourite. I sip more wine and marvel at the simplicity of the lyrics.
The song ends and we allow a silence to settle.
“Your turn,” she says.
I hesitate. “It’s called ‘A Storm in My Heart.’” I flip through the CDs, find Dolores Keane, and kneel to pop the disc in the player. Music fills the room and I feel like an empty Coke can being tossed down the street in the wind.
The smile slips from Kate’s face. Song over, she is first to speak. “It’s a bit dark, isn’t it?”
“I suppose.” An image of Dan in his best suit comes to me unbidden. He wore it – navy with a delicate pinstripe – at my cousin’s wedding. Our last outing.
“Maybe we should finish up for the night,” she says, “in case of a supervision tomorrow?”
“You’re right.” I tidy the CDs into two neat piles.
We troop upstairs.
I toss and turn in my bed. Five years I’d gone out with Dan. It started with the Debs. I invited him. Always that insecurity that I was the one to ask him. Then, last summer when I got back from a holiday in Australia, he said he’d been seeing someone else.
They say grieving for a living person is worse than grieving for the dead. They also say we can create hell in our own heads. Is that what I’ve been doing?
Before drifting off to sleep, I imagine tree branches becoming still again, clouds parting, debris being swept away, and a ray of sneaky sunshine poking through.
Geraldine McCarthy lives in West Cork. In a former life she was involved in tutoring, lecturing, translation and research. She has been writing short stories and flash fiction for nearly three years now. Her work has been published in The Fable Online, The Incubator Journal, Seven Deadly Sins: a YA Anthology (Gluttony, Wrath, Avarice), Scarlet Leaf Review, Brilliant Flash Fiction and Every Day Fiction. Find her at https://www.facebook.com/cruthaitheacht.
While eating at a diner just north
of Shreveport,
the world ended.
I hadn’t even gotten
my cherry pie yet.
A drizzly day, clouds
had many vacancies.
I’d like to remember Earth
at seventy-five degrees,
an abundance of Winston Churchill
fuchsias blooming
in a window box
held to a wooden garage.
Instead,
a confused moon mourns
tides it can no longer turn.
Kenneth Pobo had a book of ekphrastic poems published in 2017 by Circling Rivers called Loplop in a Red City. Forthcoming from Clare Songbirds Publishing House is a book of his prose poems called The Antlantis Hit Parade. Check out Ink Pantry, Brittle Star, and West Texas Literary Review to find more of his work.
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.
You were buried near twilight
and as the moon went missing
behind a combination of clouds,
and oncoming night methodically
devoured the shine, it was up to
your tombstone to illuminate
its surrounds, sprout grass and
wildflowers, as sky splashed,
on your new forecourt, star-sized tears
in the shape of rain, each one plopping
into the last, and your shadow,
having rid itself of you, found, beyond
death, new life as a black umbrella.
John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident. Recently published in Nebo, Euphony and Columbia Review with work upcoming in Leading Edge, Poetry East and Midwest Quarterly.
You know nothing about
Me and that stings,
That you don’t know what I like to read o’ winter nights,
Which finger I like to stick up at sexism,
What time of year I love best;
It’s early summer when the sky’s iridescent, and I can lie on the sticky new grass, gaze at the fat clouds floating heavenwards,
Apple blossom threaded through my hair.
But you didn’t know that, never thought to commit it to the library of memory.
The boy I’m half in love with has learnt what lights me up like a firefly, apart from being with him. The only thing that links us now, is the blood which slides through our veins, wraps its tendrils around our wrists.
That we both have noses like the buttons in Mama’s sewing box,
Thin feet as the angels do in Renaissance paintings.
Tell me
is blood and resemblance
ever enough?
Meredith LeMaître is a home educated writer and dancer from Brighton, UK. Her poems have previously been published in Hebe Poetry magazine, Now Then Manchester and Risen Zine, she has also been Highly Commended in Foyle Young Poets’ Award and was a Poetry Rivals 2016 finalist. You can find one of her articles on Hebe Poetry website. She loves writing, crafting, acroyoga and ballet and is interested in colour, languages and mythology.
Frost Moon, November
Cold and desiccated, the full moon
Broods just above the hills,
Its light through autumn haze
Like dust rising from ice.
*
Bristlecone Pine
Rooted the hard way into stone
And exposed to inhuman weather,
Nothing ever disturbs it inside
Its exoskeleton of loneliness.
*
Drought
Doves on a stunned afternoon
Flutter from dust to branch and back again,
Gray and taupe, seeds of rain clouds
With nowhere to take root.
**
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).
the kind of dream
surprised me.
the bruises
are
r e a l f a k e
(lost in questioning.)
thatsnotmyarm anditsnotyours
but
she
smile/speaks
all light
into gone glow.
the lamp posts
drifting out of sight(.)
clouds of
atmosphere below.
everything white.
She smile/laughs
us
into ruin
you/I
moon still.
Hannah is a student nurse at the University of Manchester who adores reading, writing and all other creative pursuits. She has previously self published a chapbook collection called Driftlight, and had their poem “Smile(.)” selected for Editor’s choice in the online magazine Under the Fable.
To paint a sunset sky above a bay,
one lightly brushes a blue field on white,
then brushes pink trails from an overlay
of plaited rose clouds on blue twilight.
One paints a thin blue strand across the bay
where watery shapes of yellow and pink rose
mirror the rainbow curtain whose array
ascends behind, in colors that transpose
the waters’ hues; its pink rose valance shades
the sunset clouds above a yellow haze
that thins to bright white sun upon the strand.
On the near shore, one paints blue shrubs and blades
of blue beach grass to mark a twilit maze
of winding darkening paths of blue sand.
Robert Pelgrift practiced law in New York City for many years and is now an editor for a legal publisher, working in New York City. His poems have been published in various anthologies and in The Lyric, The Rotary Dial, The Galway Review, The Foxglove Journal and The Waggle.
(Cutchogue, Long Island, New York)
The air is still, the Crick is low and clear;
and like the rain slanting down from storm clouds,
the sun’s rays streak this watery atmosphere
and light the mud bottom and wrinkled kelp shrouds.
We pole the old boat and silently pass
through a broken wall of mud and green rush,
into a salt pond hidden by marsh grass,
floating, weaving with the prow’s gentle push.
Through the muddy bank, the tides barely seep;
and under the pond’s smooth slick, thick with sun,
gray leaf flecks float, then settle, where the years lay
their ruin in a watery carbon heap
in the pond’s bed, as they have always done,
and will ’til all the centuries decay.
Robert Pelgrift practiced law in New York City for many years and is now an editor for a legal publisher, working in New York City. His poems have been published in various anthologies and in The Lyric, The Rotary Dial, The Galway Review, The Foxglove Journal and The Waggle.
Foxglove Journal 