70 Seconds – Anna Ross

 

A small spark

A flicker, a flash

Blink and you miss it

A lone reaching flame

Small, steady, silent

Growing at both sides

A red hand waving

Calling for attention

Its journey begins

Rug, stool, chair, bookcase

Claiming them all

Flaring up, grasping

Ascending the curtains

Smoke pools above

Now unstoppable

All within is lost

Inferno rages

 

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Anna Ross lives in North Yorkshire and works as a university administrator. She greatly enjoys reading and writing stories and poems of all shapes and sizes. Her short stories have been published across a range of anthologies. Though she is noted amongst her peers for writing literature with dark underlying themes and messages she is actually a very friendly person in the real world.

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February 28, 2022 by foxglovejournal Categories: Poetry, UncategorizedTags: Anna Ross, attention, creative, creativity, fire, flame, flicker, grasp, growth, hand, inferno, journey, loss, poem, poet, Poetry, rage, smoke, spark, time, UK, writing, Yorkshire Leave a comment

Sunlight – Stephen Kingsnorth

 

The bulbs above –

their filaments,

the broken joints of spider legs –

hang lazy, washing on the line,

a sad parade unheeded now,

awaiting switch of energy,

electricity,

spark generation of the sun.

 

The bulbs below –

first snowdrops show,

hint cream and green above the snow,

the phototroph, explosive strength,

breaks crystal ice of brittle soil.

Then corms of crocus, specie, grow,

pale mauve or streaked,

bear stripes of war

from battle through harsh undergrowth,

spark generation of the sun.

 

---

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 28, 2021 by foxglovejournal Categories: Poetry, UncategorizedTags: battle, bulbs, colours, creative, creativity, electricity, elements, energy, flowers, generation, growth, light, nature, poem, Poetry, snow, soil, spark, Stephen Kingsnorth, strength, sun, Wales, writing 1 Comment

Wind spell – Sebastián Díaz Barriga

 

Translated from Spanish by Delphine Tomes

 

I never learned how to whistle

I always waited

for you

for your lessons

and your What´s up buddy

Do you need any help with that maths?

I´ll be right here

for you

 

now that you are gone

my voice

my laugh

and even my weeping

are stronger

 

thank you so much

and have a good night

 

 

Sebastián Díaz Barriga was born in Mexico City in 1998. In 2018, he wrote his first book (Un rezo para mi padre) translated into English in 2020. He achieved first place at the XII National Desiderio Macías Silva Poetry Contest in 2019. He lives in the 21th century while dreaming about life. http://fabricandopajaros.blogspot.com is his blog.

September 28, 2020September 28, 2020 by foxglovejournal Categories: Poetry, UncategorizedTags: change, creative, creativity, emotion, growth, help, laugh, lessons, Mexico, Mexico City, night, poem, Poetry, Sebastián Díaz Barriga, skill, spell, strength, voice, waiting, weeping, whistle, wind, writing 1 Comment

Another Word for a Stopped Watch – Edward Alport

 

And then my watch stopped, but not

Like a crashing car or a rabbit caught by a fox.

No drama in this crisis.

The hands slid to a graceful halt,

Worn down by time and friction.

 

My elderly neighbour had an elderly Aston Martin

Parked in a garage and never driven again.

He would glance at the garage

And glance at his watch

And say ‘You need a light heart

‘To drive one of those.

‘Now it is weighed down by grease and gravity.’

Though whether it was his heart or the car I never asked,

Even though I bought the round.

 

But it sold, and sold well,

Unlike the house, which hung around for years.

We sat beneath the oak tree and watched his roses grow

While the shadows of discarded machinery

Marched across the lawn.

 

<>

 

Time has a language of its own, I’ve heard,

With hard words like ‘Never’ and ‘Enough’,

Soft words like ‘Maybe’ and ‘Again’.

Healing words, like ‘Bind up’ and ‘Embrace’,

Cutting words, like ‘Told you so,’ and ‘Stop’.

 

The language that everything learns as it grows old;

The earth tells it to the oak,

The oak tells it to its leaves.

My neighbour, I reckon, taught it to his car.

But my watch had to learn it for itself.

 

 

Edward Alport is a retired teacher and proud Essex Boy. He occupies his time as a gardener and writer for children. He has had poetry published in a variety of webzines and magazines. When he has nothing better to do he posts snarky micropoems on Twitter as @cross_mouse. He moderates the monthly @ThePoetryFloor poetry event on Twitter.

August 9, 2020August 9, 2020 by foxglovejournal Categories: Poetry, UncategorizedTags: age, car, change, creative, creativity, Edward Alport, ending, Essex, garage, growth, hands, heart, language, life, neighbour, poem, Poetry, stop, time, UK, watch, words, writing 1 Comment

When Summer Comes – Holly Day

 

I bury their heads in peat and think of the day when

the sun warms the soil and the clouds bring the rain and the white

snowy fields that once seemed to stretch endless will

be a fuzzy memory of a cold and irrelevant past.

the seeds so carefully planted before the first frost will

unfold like origami and send thin furry roots tunneling

through the chilly dirt to find footholds in the earth.

I’ll wake to find a thin coat of green covering

the warmed soil surrounding the base of the old birch tree

in the back yard.

 

eventually, the thin frost of green will grow into a thick carpet, obscuring

the domed hills marking the entrance and exit of traveling worms,

the triangular footprints of excavating seasonal birds, even the

occasional fox footpad, preserved in wet mud. but

today, snow falls in soft clumps outside my kitchen window, barely

heard or felt by the tiny cocooned bodies of insects and plants

lying dormant beneath the soil. I stare past the snow

dream bright, grand dreams of far-off

summer days, imagining the crackle

of night crawlers moving beneath decomposing leaves, the way

the stars look so fuzzy in the sky on

hazy, summer nights.

 

 

Holly Day has taught writing classes at the Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota, since 2000. Her poetry has recently appeared in Tampa Review, SLAB, and Gargoyle, and her published books include Walking Twin Cities, Music Theory for Dummies, and Ugly Girl.

May 31, 2020 by foxglovejournal Categories: PoetryTags: animals, birds, change, creative, creativity, dream, elements, growth, Holly Day, memory, MN, nature, past, poem, Poetry, seasons, snow, stars, summer, time, US, weather, writing Leave a comment

Lichen – James P. Roberts

 

Covers gravestones

Erases names and dates

 

Pale green

& white growth overlapping

 

circular shapes expand

with every year

of neglect.

 

Rain

will not wash away

the stain

only spur

further growth.

 

I expect

someday to wear

a mantle of lichen

like a warm coat

sheltering me

from the cold, dark dirt.

 

 

James P. Roberts is the author of five previous collections of poetry. Recent work has been published in Weirdbook, Mirror Dance, Rosebud, Sand Canyon Review and Zingara Poetry Review. He lives in Madison, Wisconsin where he haunts Little Free Libraries and has a passion for women’s flat-track roller derby.

December 15, 2019December 15, 2019 by foxglovejournal Categories: PoetryTags: coat, creative, creativity, dates, elements, growth, history, James P. Roberts, lichen, mantle, names, nature, neglect, poem, Poetry, rain, shapes, shelter, time, US, WI, writing, years Leave a comment

Rumble Rumble – Joe Albanese

 

I thought I lost a thousand years,

turns out I was just blinking

What I thought a ruptured volcano

is just what I’ve missed in aching

 

Hanging out the window sill –

is even half of me worth saving?

I never made it to the church,

but held my faith in breaking

 

Why rebuild this house when it’s the land that’s cursed?

I hear it, I hear it, I hear it

 

I got nowhere by acting low –

even my shadow overheated

What’s a rhapsody within myself

when all I did was stay seated?

 

Forge anything and hope it grows

to shed a weight only Atlas knew

I calculate I’m nothing special

because entropy does what we already do

 

There’s a wave so big I can’t see its crest

But I feel it, I feel it, I feel it…

 

 

Joe Albanese is a writer from New Jersey. His work can be found in publications across the U.S. and in ten other countries. Joe’s novel, Caina (Mockingbird Lane Press), and his novella, Smash and Grab (Books to Go Now), were both published in 2018.

November 26, 2018 by foxglovejournal Categories: PoetryTags: aching, creative, creativity, crest, curse, faith, growth, house, Joe Albanese, land, loss, NJ, poem, Poetry, salvation, senses, shadow, US, volcano, wave, weight, writing, years Leave a comment

Two poems – Sarah Hulme

 

Freedom

 

The bird in the blue

It flew and it grew

To a place where it

knew how to be.

 

*

Longing in short

He’s miles away, he smiles away. Distance is grey.

 

 

Sarah Hulme is a Durham University graduate who enjoys writing poetry as a way to understand thoughts, feelings and the world we live in.

June 11, 2018June 11, 2018 by foxglovejournal Categories: PoetryTags: being, bird, blue, change, creative, creativity, distance, flight, freedom, grey, growth, longing, miles, nature, place, poems, Poetry, Sarah Hulme, separation, short, smile, UK, writing Leave a comment

Caterpillar – Arlene Antoinette

 

After a brief search,

I find my ten-year-old daughter

in the garden, crouched by my shrubs,

staring at her right hand

extended towards the heavens.

 

On her index finger crawls a greenish-

yellowish creature

mesmerizing my child

who normally couldn’t sit still.

 

Looking closer, I see

the miracle of her stillness

is the result of a caterpillar

leisurely making its way up her finger.

 

She glances up at me with

awe on her face,

the look only a child

experiencing an exciting marvel

for the first time could display.

 

In that moment I feel the dread

every mother feels

when she realizes her baby

will grow up one day and all

her “firsts” will be gone.

 

 

Arlene Antoinette is a poet of West Indian birth, but has given her heart to Brooklyn, New York where she spent her formative years. Her work has been published in The Ginger Collect, The Feminine Collective, Boston Accent Lit, Sick Lit magazine and Girlsense and Nonsense.

January 23, 2018January 26, 2018 by foxglovejournal Categories: PoetryTags: animal, Arlene Antoinette, awe, caterpillar, childhood, creative, creativity, creature, dread, emotions, family, garden, growth, hand, humanity, marvel, miracle, moment, motherhood, nature, poem, Poetry, writing 2 Comments

How I arrived at who I am – John Grey

 

When I was seven,

my father bought me an airplane kit,

something to put together

with glue and guile

and instructions translated directly

from the Korean.

 

He did not help me in any way.

And I proved useless at the task,

would have set fire to the little

balsawood pieces

had I been allowed to play with matches.

 

There are other projects,

other details,

but they all amounted to the same thing.

My hand and my eye

were as Sanskrit is to the Ford Edsel.

 

So I grew up

surrounded by piles

of shapes and images,

and the encouraging cry of,

“Go for it, kid.”

 

That’s why I sat in the corner

building things that always fell apart,

falling apart the more

with each passing year

while I struggled to patch here,

hammer a nail there,

employ the tools

whose use I never understood.

 

Luckily, somewhere along the line,

I was able to set aside objects

and take up with words.

Sure, the sentences I constructed

were no more stable

than my cars, my castles,

my Lego giraffe.

But, as long as it was down on paper,

a Ford Edsel really was Sanskrit.

It got so not even I knew the difference.

 

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.

July 3, 2017 by foxglovejournal Categories: PoetryTags: Australia, childhood, creative, creativity, education, family, growth, humanity, images, John Grey, learning, life, memory, paper, past, poem, Poetry, shapes, skills, tools, words, writing, youth Leave a comment

New Haven – Michael A. Griffith

 

I miss the flowers of our old garden,

roses, foxglove, bleeding hearts, lilacs and lilies.

 

We had a garden that,

when tended well,

looked like part of Eden.

 

I have a new “our.”

You have a new “we.”

 

Both will start new gardens

and grow new things

as well as plant familiar flowers:

roses, bleeding hearts, lilies.

But enough new will grow

to make our own new paths to Eden.

 

Same sun, different rays, different light.

Different rainbows from opposite arcs.

Stars set in different ways in the same sky,

yours night while I see day.

 

Our own clouds upon which

to build new castles,

each its own

new haven for two.

 

Michael Griffith turned to poetry during a long stay in a nursing-care facilty to keep his mind healthy as his body grew healthier. So far poetry is doing the trick. He resides in Somerset County, NJ.

May 7, 2017 by foxglovejournal Categories: PoetryTags: change, clouds, creativity, Eden, elements, feelings, flora, flowers, garden, growth, haven, humanity, light, Michael A. Griffith, nature, NJ, rainbows, relationship, sky, sun, US, world, writing 1 Comment

Mushrooms and Onions – Jon Bennett

 

When I first got a kitchen

I baked salmon

and decided, from then on

fish every day!

I only made it once

I’m too impatient for ovens

and still eat from the bag and can

although I do fry up

mushrooms and onions

with my eggs in the morning

I feel this kitchen

has saved my life

although maybe

it’s the soft bed

that came along with it.

 

Jon Bennett is a writer and musician living in San Francisco’s Tenderloin neighborhood. You can find more of his stuff on Pandora and iTunes. For booking contact jonbennett14@hotmail.com. Most recently his work has appeared in Degenerate Literature, Your One Phone Call and In Between Hangovers.

March 24, 2017March 24, 2017 by foxglovejournal Categories: Poetry, UncategorizedTags: bed, change, cooking, creative, creativity, eggs, fish, food, growth, home, humanity, Jon Bennett, kitchen, life, morning, patience, poem, Poetry, salmon, San Francisco, soft, US, writing Leave a comment

Botanica – Caitlin Johnson

 

& have we grown together –

the vine & the tree,

our own ecosystem evolving around us?

Your oxygen, my chlorophyll,

green & hushed in the sunset:

feeding the world, forming ourselves.

My garden. Your garden.

 

Caitlin Johnson holds a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from Lesley University. Her work has appeared in Carcinogenic Poetry, Foliate Oak Literary Magazine, Narrative Northeast, Pembroke Magazine, Vagina: The Zine, and Wild Quarterly, among other outlets. A chapbook, Boomerang Girl, was published in 2015 by Tiger’s Eye Press, and a full-length collection, Gods in the Wilderness, was published in 2016 by Pink.Girl.Ink. Press.

March 10, 2017 by foxglovejournal Categories: Poetry, UncategorizedTags: Caitlin Johnson, change, creative, creativity, ecosystem, evolution, flora, green, growth, humanity, life, nature, oxygen, poem, Poetry, relationship, sunset, together, tree, vine, world, writing Leave a comment

Prunus Pumila – Carl Boon

 

Snow lay atop the boxwoods

all winter,

lather on skin,

and shielded

the sand cherry’s branches.

Now the dead wood

splinters when I pull,

and the leaves have bronzed

early. What should be neon-

red this sunset’s

glimmerless, a girl

too long neglected.

On the south slope

January comes—

Lake Erie finds its way

and waits.

 

I read it’s part rose,

part shade, where my father

used to sit and study

the broadening pin-oak.

The final spring he lived

it shone hot pink,

the blood of the lawn

he watched grow

nights like this,

nights in a chair with coffee,

the hedge a memory,

the trellis empty

of the purples we knew as kids.

 

Today I drew away

as much of the dead as I could.

My wrists grew furious

cutting, aligning, motioning

to corners of the yard

unseen in decades.

I stood back,

then I moved forward

as my father might’ve,

at peace with what remained.

 

Carl Boon lives in Izmir, Turkey, where he teaches courses in American culture and literature at 9 Eylül University. His poems appear in dozens of magazines, most recently Burnt Pine, Two Peach, Lunch Ticket, and Poetry Quarterly. He is also a 2016 Pushcart Prize nominee.

February 24, 2017 by foxglovejournal Categories: Poetry, UncategorizedTags: Carl Boon, change, creative, creativity, family, flora, growth, life, loss, nature, peace, plants, poem, Poetry, rose, sand cherry, seasons, skin, snow, splinters, Turkey, winter, writing Leave a comment

when in april… – Fritz Eifrig

 

rain, again,

from twilight skies.

echoes of my

past, signals

of those days to come.

nodding yellow crocus

flashes semaphore.

there, another, purple,

shivering,

closed as for night –

these too tell me

of you.

 

falling

water conjures the wet

sound of my name

choking in your throat

like a bite

of rotten peach.

those tears, here

mirrored along

peering iris blades,

pooling onto dirt.

pain feeds growth,

sadness made manifest in these

fragile blooms.

 

wet birds dart

into shadowed trellis shelter.

rain, again.

 

Fritz Eifrig has been writing poems on and off for several decades. He has been published in Poetry Quarterly, and the Hiram Poetry Review. He lives and works in Chicago.

 

February 10, 2017 by foxglovejournal Categories: Poetry, UncategorizedTags: birds, Chicago, colour, creative, creativity, echoes, falling, flowers, fragile, Fritz Eifrig, growth, nature, past, poem, Poetry, rain, sadness, shelter, sky, US, water, weather, writing Leave a comment