diner – Tammy L. Breitweiser

 

A three day trip

A torn plastic booth

White stuffing protruding

From the wound.

Bandaged haphazardly with silver tape

 

The aroma of stirring coffee with a spoon

On day 16.

Fills my nose

But my mind is still on

Six driving hours and two time changes

 

Misty droplets roll in from the lake

The fog horn is not the sound

Which concerns me.

 

“I am four years old

The year I learn to lie,”

Says my little companion.

Elsa always told me

“Don’t get attached”

 

What else do you need?

“Pink marshmallow mountains”

You had a bowl of ice cream

I had a glass of tequila and lime.

 

We drive down Highway 90

The bridge from old life to new.

I grip the wheel and think about

All the times I have driven on this road

Where I was going and how

A boy started the whole thing.

 

---

Tammy L. Breitweiser 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 @inspiretammyb.

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November 8, 2022 by foxglovejournal Categories: Poetry, UncategorizedTags: bandage, bridge, coffee, creative, creativity, diner, food, journey, lake, lie, life, memory, place, poem, Poetry, road, senses, sound, Tammy L. Breitweiser, trip, weather, wheel, writing 2 Comments

The tender pines – Robert Beveridge

 

It is not far, not far at all beyond

the city limits where the road ends,

even the tire tracks peter out amidst

the wild-grown grass surrounded

by trees, invisible from buildings.

Just enough room to park, lay out

a blanket, pitch a tent.

 

Off to one edge, a ring. I thought

at first of mushrooms. But no—

of snails, their variegated shells

ablaze in the afternoon light.

I read to them awhile, until the sun

was low enough that it was time

to gather wood. Whether they

enjoyed it I’ve no idea.

 

A fire just long enough to warm

ramps, mushrooms, beans, a chunk

of bread torn to pieces, then to bed

and dreams of snails who aspire

to write their first poems.

 

---

Robert Beveridge (he/him) makes noise (xterminal.bandcamp.com) and writes poetry in Akron, OH. Recent/upcoming appearances in Blood and Bourbon, The Stratford Quarterly, and Stonecoast Review, among others.

January 16, 2022 by foxglovejournal Categories: Poetry, UncategorizedTags: Akron, creative, creativity, dreams, fire, food, landscape, light, nature, OH, pines, poem, poet, Poetry, road, Robert Beveridge, shells, snails, tender, time, trees, US, writing Leave a comment

Preserved – Stephen Kingsnorth

 

I dusted coal soot from the sill

and came across the brittle bee,

stuck, desiccated, frosted pane.

And yet, with yoghurt, muesli dish, –

a bowl of porridge not amiss –

I plunged my fork deep in the pot

and spooned gold honey onto mix.

 

The jams and pickles, sloe gin jars –

ghoul specimens of organs, blood –

thank God for vinegar preserve,

a promise realised before.

Those languorous, drawn heady days

of elderflower, drone buzzy gnats,

will come gain, blaze summer tastes.

 

For now, past future on the shelves,

swelt sweating stove for spreading loaf,

float gherkins, onions, sweet with cheese,

a ploughman’s grubby hand from sheaves,

slow thaw, then other layered snow

cannot remove year’s heavy brew,

sure harvest cycle, budding soon.

 

---

Stephen Kingsnorth (Cambridge M.A., English & Religious Studies), retired to Wales from ministry in the Methodist Church, has had over 250 pieces published by on-line poetry sites, printed journals and anthologies. Find more at https://poetrykingsnorth.wordpress.com.

June 16, 2021June 16, 2021 by foxglovejournal Categories: Poetry, UncategorizedTags: creative, creativity, cycle, food, future, harvest, honey, jars, memory, nature, past, poem, Poetry, preserved, promise, senses, Stephen Kingsnorth, summer, time, vinegar, Wales, writing 1 Comment

Time travelling in a coffee shop – Demi Lloyd

 

Sarah smells like caravan

holidays when I was small

I reach for a chip and

I’m stranded,

trapped in a blur of playing

Go Fish with Dad

 

---

Demi Lloyd recently gained a Masters degree in Creative Writing at Nottingham Trent University. She is part of a poetry group based in Nottingham called GOBS and is working towards her contribution to their spoken word showcase in March. In her spare time you can find her reading, listening to podcasts or thinking about cats.

February 1, 2021 by foxglovejournal Categories: Poetry, UncategorizedTags: blur, caravan, chips, coffee, creative, creativity, Demi Lloyd, family, food, game, holidays, memory, Nottingham, past, poem, Poetry, scent, senses, shop, stranded, time, UK, writing Leave a comment

always yours – Lisa Reily

 

after Renoir’s Dance in the Country

 

spring days 

under the chestnut tree

I remember well,

cups of tea and cake

chocolate mousse

raclette with sweet wine,

and you.

across the table 

you in your handsome blue suit,

I waited for your eyes

as snails drowned in garlic butter

and music played.

my dress to catch your glance,

I hoped its pretty flowers

would bring you to me;

but the music caught me another,

and I was swept away.

hot breath in my ear, silky words of love,

his hat to the floor as 

we danced,

pressed against one another,

my gloved hands in his,

while all the while,

it was you that I wanted;

my smile

was always yours.

 

---

Lisa Reily is a former literacy consultant, dance director and teacher from Australia. Her poetry has been published in several journals, such as Amaryllis, London Grip, The High Window, Panoplyzine, Channel Magazine, The Fenland Reed, as well as Foxglove Journal. You can find out more at lisareily.wordpress.com.

January 26, 2021 by foxglovejournal Categories: Poetry, UncategorizedTags: art, Australia, breath, creative, creativity, dress, eyes, food, glance, Lisa Reily, love, memory, music, nature, painting, poem, Poetry, Renoir, senses, smile, spring, words, writing 1 Comment

Canvey Island – Rebecca Metcalfe

 

We spend the afternoon playing on the beach surrounded by fumes from the oil-refineries and chemical works. With our plastic spades we build sandcastles and dig for buried treasure. There’s a picnic of marmalade sandwiches and cartons of Ribena, then a shout of “tag: you’re it” starts the running around games. The tide hisses at us if we get too close. We run up to the bulging concrete flood-barrier and take it in turns to sneak round the edge to see if we can spot the troll we know lives behind it. He’ll get us if he sees us. We climb up and jump off into the sand with a thud. We have to rub our hands furiously up and down our legs to get the sand off before we can get back in the car. The drive home smells of seaweed and factory fumes, and we sit and laugh as we pick the grit out from under our fingernails.

 

 

Originally from Essex, Rebecca Metcalfe studied first at the University of Chester and then at the University of Liverpool. She now lives in an attic in Manchester with two black cats and works part time in a museum and part time in a restaurant. She has previously been published in Spelk, Flash: The International Short Story Magazine, Peach Street Magazine, Lumpen Journal, and Foxglove Journal, among others. She can be found on Twitter at @beckyannwriter.

August 2, 2020 by foxglovejournal Categories: flash fiction, Prose, UncategorizedTags: beach, Canvey Island, creative, creativity, Essex, fiction, flash, flash fiction, food, laughter, memory, place, Prose, Rebecca Metcalfe, sand, senses, short, short story, story, tide, treasure, UK, writing Leave a comment

Images and Fragrances – James G. Piatt

 

It was near the morning hour, when visions

arose in my mind: I saw a brick sidewalk

leading me to an old house where precious

memories transported me inside the house

and I smelled the sweet fragrances of

peaches and honey wafting into the air.

 

 

James is the author of four collections of poetry, Solace Between the Lines (2019), Light (2016), Ancient Rhythms (2014), and The Silent Pond (2012). He has had over 1,440 poems (four of which were nominated for Pushcart and Best of Web Awards), five novels, eight essays, and thirty-five short stories published. He earned his BS and MA from California State Polytechnic University, and his doctorate from BYU.

May 4, 2020May 4, 2020 by foxglovejournal Categories: PoetryTags: air, creative, creativity, elements, food, fragrance, honey, hour, house, James G. Piatt, memories, mind, moment, morning, nature, peaches, poem, Poetry, scent, senses, sweet, visions, writing Leave a comment

Come stay with me and be my night – Michael H. Brownstein

 

Come stay with me and be my night,

We’re done with dinner’s clutter

As stars blister through the moonlit light.

 

Water anchors moon streams white

Across the wake, across the cutter.

Come stay with me and be my night.

 

The children at peace, everything’s right,

Goat milk, huckleberry bread, apple butter.

Stars blister into pimpled light.

 

The children dream, the wind grows slight,

The storm is but a mutter,

Come stay with me and be my night.

 

Now comes a fullness full and bright,

Leaves skip across the gutter

As stars blister into moons of light.

 

My love is strong. It knows to fight.

I no longer need to stutter.

Stars blister through the moonlit light.

Come stay with me and be my night.

 

 

Michael H. Brownstein has had his work appear in The Café Review, American Letters and Commentary, Skidrow Penthouse, Xavier Review, Hotel Amerika, Meridian Anthology of Contemporary Poetry, The Pacific Review, Poetrysuperhighway.com and others. In addition, he has nine poetry chapbooks including A Period of Trees (Snark Press, 2004), Firestorm: A Rendering of Torah (Camel Saloon Press, 2012), The Possibility of Sky and Hell: From My Suicide Book (White Knuckle Press, 2013) and The Katy Trail, Mid-Missouri, 100 Degrees Outside and Other Poems (Kind of Hurricane Press, 2013). His book, A Slipknot Into Somewhere Else: A Poet’s Journey To The Borderlands Of Dementia, was recently published by Cholla Needles Press (2018).

March 12, 2019 by foxglovejournal Categories: PoetryTags: creative, creativity, dream, elements, food, fullness, leaves, light, love, Michael H. Brownstein, moon, nature, night, peace, poem, Poetry, sound, stars, stay, storm, water, wind, writing Leave a comment

Pumpkin pie – Cath Barton

 

In the dark street the window of the sweetshop shone out. Maisie, aged nine and three-quarters, had taken a detour on her way home from school. She pressed her nose up against the shop window; there were meringues iced to look like ghosts, witches’ hats made of chocolate and little marzipan pumpkins. Maisie pushed her hands deep into the pockets of her coat as she continued to stare at the sweets. In the right-hand pocket her hand closed on something unexpected and she pulled it out. It looked like a small, hard, shiny nut. She held it in the palm of her right hand and touched it, very gently, with her left index finger. Would a fairy appear in a puff of smoke and offer her three wishes, or at least her pick from the sweets? Nothing happened. She touched it again, said one of her own magic spells under her breath and waited. Still nothing happened. She put the nut back in her pocket and turned, reluctantly, from the bright window.

When she arrived home her mother was in the kitchen, looking flustered as she always seemed to be these days.

“Tea’s nearly ready,” she said. “I wondered where on earth you’d got to, Maisie. Wash your hands quickly now.”

They had bread and butter and jam for tea, as usual. Maisie had a cup of milk and her mother drank tea, weak tea. The two of them sat in silence, each lost in her own thoughts, but after a while the warmth from the food and the one-bar gas fire made them easier with one another.

“I’ve got a surprise,” the woman said, and the girl looked up, uncertain whether to ask what it was. Her mother was unpredictable, and Maisie didn’t understand what made her upset.

“It’s a pumpkin. Your dad brought it round. I’m going to make a pie.” She smiled at her daughter in an entreating way.

Maisie found it difficult thinking about her dad, so she thought about the marzipan pumpkins in the sweetshop window instead. She had never eaten pumpkin pie, but she had had marzipan on Christmas cake and she knew she liked that. She managed a wobbly smile

“Tomorrow,” said her mother, “We’ll have it tomorrow. It’ll be a treat.”

That night, when she knelt by her bed to say her prayers, Maisie held the shiny nut between her hands.

“I’m giving you a third chance,” she said, and then, surprising herself with her boldness.

“And just so as you know, this isn’t for me. I want you to make things better for my mum and dad.”

Next day Maisie stopped at the sweetshop window again on her way home from school. The marzipan pumpkins seemed to be winking at her. When she put her hand on the nut in her pocket it felt different. She pulled it out and gasped: it had turned into a coin, as bright and shiny as the shop window. Maisie pushed open the shop door, a bell tinkled and a little old man appeared from a back room.

She ran home with her bag of sweets. At the door she hesitated, hearing voices in the kitchen, but there were no shouts, no tears. Just soft talking.

They had tea together, Maisie and her mother and father. Pumpkin pie. Which, actually, the girl did not like. But she didn’t say so, just smiled. As they all did. Later, Maisie looked in the bag for a marzipan pumpkin. But the bag was empty, apart from a small, hard, empty nutshell.

 

 

Cath Barton is an English writer who lives in Wales. She won the New Welsh Writing AmeriCymru Prize for the Novella 2017 for The Plankton Collector, now published by New Welsh Review under their Rarebyte imprint. Cath was awarded a place on the 2018 Literature Wales Enhanced Mentoring Scheme to complete a collection of short stories inspired by the work of the sixteenth century Dutch artist Hieronymus Bosch. Active in the online flash fiction community, she is also a regular contributor to the online critical hub Wales Arts Review. She tweets @CathBarton1. Find out more at https://cathbarton.com.

February 19, 2019 by foxglovejournal Categories: flash fiction, ProseTags: Cath Barton, chocolate, coin, creative, creativity, family, fiction, food, home, magic, pie, Prose, pumpkin, shop, short, story, surprise, sweets, treat, UK, warmth, wishes, writing Leave a comment

Seven sleeper/thruddle-crump/hazel mouse – Rebecca Gethin

 

Under leaves a furry apple of a one-ounce-mouse

sleeps fast in a cup woven with honeysuckle bark.

gaps darned with moss and grass blades.

 

Before sleep it gorges on rosehips, hawthorn

and blackberries, or hazel nuts, leaving little round holes

in the shells. Before seven months of sleep it must be fat.

 

With cold growing thicker, its metabolism slows to a tick over

inside its core. The furred tail is a scarf wound across its face,

as it curls itself into the pips of its heartbeat.

 

 

Rebecca Gethin lives on Dartmoor in Devon. In 2017 two pamphlets were published: A Sprig of Rowan by Three Drops Press and All the Time in the World by Cinnamon Press who published an earlier collection called A Handful of Water and two novels. She has been a Hawthornden Fellow. In 2018 she jointly won the Coast to Coast Pamphlet competition and has been awarded a writing residency at Brisons Veor. Find more at www.rebeccagethin.wordpress.com.

January 23, 2019January 23, 2019 by foxglovejournal Categories: PoetryTags: bark, cold, core, creative, creativity, Devon, food, grass, heartbeat, life, months, moss, mouse, nature, poem, Poetry, Rebecca Gethin, scarf, shells, sleep, tail, UK, writing Leave a comment

Afterthought – Beth O’Brien

 

I’ve recycled the packaging before I thought

To check the calories.

 

Half way to the bin, I made myself stop and I’m

Standing in the middle of the kitchen,

Battling the need to know, with the words:

It doesn’t matter.

 

But just wanting to look feels like I’m

Walking backwards, and

The words: ‘Just looking won’t hurt’

Already do.

 

Turning around, I sit back down and

Tell myself to just be proud

That calories are now an afterthought.

 

 

Beth O’Brien is currently studying a degree in English Literature at the University of Birmingham. She loves reading, writing, food and seeing the world – when any of these overlap, she loves them even more!

September 20, 2018 by foxglovejournal Categories: PoetryTags: afterthought, battle, Beth O'Brien, Birmingham, calories, challenge, change, creative, creativity, food, middle, packaging, poem, Poetry, pride, progress, stop, thoughts, triumph, turn, UK, words, writing Leave a comment

Spectacular Toaster – Steven Translateur

 

“That’s the fifth slice of toast burnt,” lamented Brad to his mother.

He tried to toast whole wheat bread and got nothing but chards of carbon.

“Let’s go to the Appliance Emporium for a real toaster this time!” exclaimed Lodia. “Let’s splurge.”

So she and Brad rode down to the store to browse.

They found aisles and aisles of distinct devices from the budget cost to the extravagant.

“May I help you?” inquired Ginrey, a salesman.

“Yes,” said Lodia. “We want a toaster with a guarantee – the best.”

“Then you may be interested in our Jet 5000 – it is the greatest toaster machine ever built. It is so good that we guarantee a perfect slice of toast each utilization. If this does not happen, we refund your money and give you another free toaster. All you have to do is bring the crumbs of a failed toast in for the refund.”

“How much is it?”

“200 pounds.”

“It is worth it. We’ll take it.”

And so they did.

And they used it for a month before it began malfunctioning. It started burning toast just like their previous model.

So they returned to the Appliance Emporium with two slices of charcoal toast crumbs in a bag to show the salesman.

He was not impressed. He said that they were manufacturing the failure and that their toaster would work fine if used properly. He gave them the runaround and argued for all the virtues of the Jet 5000 and said that rarely does anybody actually return it – only if they cannot get it to function properly despite trying every approach.

Then they spoke to a supervisor and he agreed to give the refund plus a free toaster. The free toaster was a budget model called the Economy Toaster.

The Economy Toaster never worked right, but because it was free, they used it anyway, for a few months, until it began malfunctioning and they got sick of it. Instead of toast it began over cooking bread to the point of near disintegration. They tried repairing it but the contraption just got worse and worse. It destroyed several loaves of bread and burnt otherwise good pastries.

Then they returned to the Appliance shop for more help.

This time they purchased a brand new model called the Jet 8000. It had the same guarantee as the Jet 5000 but was more advanced. It had every feature one could imagine for such an invention – three timers, a heat sensor, a toast evaluator that rated the toast from mediocre to excellent, a mechanical voice that could give instructions in 15 languages, a jam dispenser doohickey, a battery power backup, two solar panels power grid, a television for watching the best shows, a video camera for recording cooking fun, a melted cheese releaser, a two way transmitter for contacting the store’s 24 hour help-line, a spare bread holder, and rows and rows of multi-colored blinking light indicators.

They loved it!

They now know it costs 800 pounds for a perfect toaster.

 

 

Steven Translateur’s work has appeared in a variety of publications including
MEMES, MIND IN MOTION, and NEXT PHASE.

August 28, 2018 by foxglovejournal Categories: flash fiction, ProseTags: bread, creative, creativity, crumbs, features, fiction, flash, food, jam, lights, model, pastries, price, Prose, return, shopping, short, Steven Translateur, store, story, technology, toaster, writing Leave a comment

Gone – Kenneth Pobo

 

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.

August 2, 2018 by foxglovejournal Categories: PoetryTags: clouds, creative, creativity, day, dessert, ending, flora, flowers, food, garage, Kenneth Pobo, memory, moon, mourning, nature, pie, poem, Poetry, tides, weather, window, world, writing Leave a comment

A Problem Shared – Laura Muetzelfeldt

 

Everything important Mum ever told me she told me while cracking eggs. The news was always followed by a business-like tap, freeing wobbly flying saucers from their shells. Mum could crack eggs and open them with one-handed, something I tried to get the hang of, but couldn’t; I always ended up having to rescue tiny triangles of shell from the goo. Making cupcakes to sell at school she told me once they found a lump inside her which turned out to be her twin, dead and swallowed before she was born. Her stories always lasted as long as the recipe took to make, then we would sit down with Dad, and the secrets would fizz inside me as he tucked into whatever we’d just baked, not knowing what I now knew.

Most of the secrets she told me were to do with love. Once, whilst making an almond cake for someone’s birthday, she said:

‘It was only when I met your father that I realised my whole life up to then I’d mistaken lust for love.’

I wasn’t sure what lust was, but it sounded dangerous, creeping – liable to spread when you turned your back.

Mum looked less like a mum when she was baking, like she was just playing at being a grown up. That day, she had flour smudged above her eyebrow and her sleeves rolled up so that they kept drooping, nearly getting in the mixing bowl. I pushed up my sleeves but they kept falling down and getting messy.

All the times we baked, I never told Mum my secrets. I never got that thing where telling other people made your problems seem smaller. For me, it always made them double not halve: like kisses or a punch, they were something you could never take back.

 

 

 

Laura is a teacher, writer and silversmith who lives in Glasgow with her family. She writes short stories and has been published in journals such as The International Literary Quarterly, Bandit Fiction, and Ink, Sweat and Tears; her story, ‘Anna on the Wing’, was highly commended in The Federation of Writers Scotland Competition 2018. She also writes young adult fiction and her novel, Perfect Memory, was longlisted for Fish Publishing’s Young Adult Novel Contest.

July 30, 2018July 30, 2018 by foxglovejournal Categories: UncategorizedTags: baking, cake, childhood, creative, creativity, eggs, family, fiction, flash, food, Glasgow, Laura Muetzelfeldt, love, memory, past, problems, Scotland, secrets, sharing, short, story, telling, writing Leave a comment

Chocolate – Robert Beveridge

 

If I could take a drop

of honey from the tongue of Satan,

 

or dip my silver chalice

in an Erewhon river of chocolate,

 

I would feed you, my lips to yours.

 

Instead I have filled my mouth

with words, my cup

with water from a mudpuddle

 

still I ask you

take your nourishment

from me

 

 

Robert Beveridge makes noise (xterminal.bandcamp.com) and writes poetry in Akron, OH. Recent/upcoming appearances in Savant-Garde, Other People’s Flowers, and The Indiana Horror Review, among others.

July 19, 2018July 19, 2018 by foxglovejournal Categories: PoetryTags: chalice, chocolate, creative, creativity, cup, drop, feed, food, honey, lips, mouth, nourishment, OH, poem, Poetry, river, Robert Beveridge, silver, sweet, US, water, words, writing Leave a comment