Consequences of Salt – Tammy L. Evans

 

Angry water reflects a mirror of

Distorted decisions

Shown to me one by one

Like a slide projector I have broken.

 

My pretend life is

Different from the one before me

 

A handcuff of small lotioned hands

Full of promise and sweat

 

Salt lures me with

                                        Crunch

Substance and

                     Bite.

 

But dissolves rendering it invisible

Before I can ask what my purpose is

 

Orphaned again

Not by death but by

Dissolving back

Into this version of myself.

 

---

Tammy L. Evans 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 @inspiretammy.

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March 21, 2023 by foxglovejournal Categories: Poetry, UncategorizedTags: angry, change, creative, creativity, decisions, dissolving, elements, hands, invisible, life, mirror, poem, Poetry, pretend, promise, purpose, reflection, salt, self, senses, Tammy L. Evans, water, writing Leave a comment

Gaia’s Song – Claire Shaw

 

We start slow

Let the fire burn low

As the shadows grow

by Moon Mother’s glow

Wait

 

Lick the grease from our fingers

Breathe the smoke in that lingers

Wait

 

Test the ground with our feet

Wait for the beat

The thrum

Feel the life in the peat

The hum

We drum

 

We dance

fling the embers as we spin

a trance

there’s heat on our skin

a chance

to feel the fire burn within

 

and now we’re striped with sweat and dust

 

we’re dripping

with the scent of musk

heady incense

burning lust

 

and we are bound

to the sound

of the beat

that we found

at the hearth at the heart of the world

 

---

Claire Shaw is an emerging UK-born poet and author whose work has appeared in publications including Black Hare Press, The Dawntreader, Silkworm and Grimsy. She currently resides in The Netherlands with her husband and two cats and works in Digital Marketing. She loves to travel, practice her photography, and read like it’s going out of fashion.

November 18, 2022 by foxglovejournal Categories: Poetry, UncategorizedTags: Claire Shaw, creative, creativity, dance, elements, fire, Gaia, heart, hearth, life, moon, movement, nature, Netherlands, poem, Poetry, senses, shadows, smoke, song, UK, world, writing Leave a comment

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.

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

Living with parents – Christiana Sasa

 

My mum and dad call me

many times a day.

we live in the

same house,

but on different floors

when I’m working,

I hate to get interrupted.

They understand me

and I, too, understand them.

still….

it often makes me

erupt in a yell,

“What’s wrong?”

“Don’t call me now please”;

but my heart sinks,

every time I react like that.

An emptiness

bites on my nerves.

I know

One day I’ll miss getting interrupted…

 

---

Christiana Sasa has been writing poetry for three years. Her work has been published in the literary magazines Poetry Life and Times, Literary Heist, Rye Whiskey Review etc. and in two E-zines called Dark Poetry Society and RavenCage. Besides poetry, she’s interested in painting, music, short films, and comedy.

June 7, 2022June 7, 2022 by foxglovejournal Categories: Poetry, UncategorizedTags: Christiana Sasa, creative, creativity, days, emotions, emptiness, floors, future, heart, home, interruptions, life, living, nerves, parents, poem, poet, Poetry, time, together, understanding, work, writing Leave a comment

The Argument Of His Painting – Julian Bishop

 

After Robert Herrick

 

I think of tainted saints, unseemly Madonnas,

Bacchus hung over, artichokes in butter,

dirt-caked soles, two mop-headed angels

coupling, Jesus and Cecco baring all.

 

I paint in bone-black, bloody vermillion,

backdrops of ochre and black, umbers that burn,

throw in hasty halos, Gentileschi’s feathers,

water-snakes and corpses hauled from the Tiber.

 

I picture Paul being floored, John’s head severed,

Matthew tethered, Lazarus resolutely dead

and Goliath, beheaded, gasping for air –

deft self-portraits of violent despair.

Painted or unpainted, in every picture

I’m a spectator, the spectre who’s always there.

 

This is one in a series of poems about the painter Caravaggio

 

---

Julian Bishop is a former television journalist living in North London who is a member of several London stanza groups. A former runner-up in the Ginkgo Prize for Eco Poetry, he’s also been shortlisted for the Bridport Poetry Prize and was longlisted in this year’s National Poetry Competition. He won the 2021 Poets And Players Competition judged by Sean Hewitt with his poem Sitting For Caravaggio.

He’s also had poems in The Morning Star, XR’s Rebel Talk, Riptide Journal, Finished Creatures Magazine and the first few issues of The Alchemy Spoon. He is one of four poets featured in a 2020 pamphlet called Poems For The Planet. Read more at https://www.julianbishoppoet.com.

January 24, 2022January 25, 2022 by foxglovejournal Categories: Poetry, UncategorizedTags: air, angels, art, blood, Caravaggio, colours, death, despair, feathers, history, Julian Bishop, life, London, painting, poem, poet, Poetry, portraits, saints, spectre, stories, UK, violence Leave a comment

Chronos – Anna Ross

 

Tick, tick, tick.

The clock hands are all heading for twelve,

And there is nothing I can do to stop them.

Perhaps I could break the clocks.

Tear their hands from their faces,

Scatter their cogs on the floor.

But I don’t. I know it will not help.

For no matter how many timepieces I destroy,

The clock hands will still reach twelve.

 

Tick, tick, tick.

I’ve tried to look the other way.

But time is a tricky thing to hide from.

It is indefinite and exact, constant and ongoing.

And it knows not its own value.

I’ve played my part, fulfilled my role,

And in this I make my exit.

 

Tick, tick, tick

Twelve will be my final hour, when I shall meet my ‘justice’.

Under the midday sun, as the church bell rings,

The hour is near and they have all come for me.

The tides still flow, the sun still rises,

I am no longer scheming escape.

My life and my innocence are inconsequential to time.

For all the clock hands are heading for twelve,

And there is nothing anyone can do to stop them.

 

Tick, tick, tick.

 

---

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.

January 9, 2022 by foxglovejournal Categories: Poetry, UncategorizedTags: Anna Ross, clocks, cogs, creative, creativity, ending, escape, exit, hiding, hour, justice, life, nature, poem, poet, Poetry, sun, tides, time, twelve, UK, writing, Yorkshire Leave a comment

In the Archives – Charlotte Cosgrove

 

I keep a list of all the books I’ve ever read.

A catalogue of all the presents I receive.

It is not the reading of the book,

Or the opening of the gift,

That excites me.

It is the afterwards.

Like the look you give

After sex, days later, at dinner.

I write that down, too.

How many times, how long it lasted.

I don’t mark these things out of ten,

I don’t compare them to each other.

They are just there –

For data.

A hoarding of my history.

 

---

Charlotte Cosgrove is a poet and English lecturer from Liverpool, England. Her work has appeared in Trouvaille Review, Dreich, The Literary Yard, The Broadkill Review, Wingless Dreamer, Confingo, Beyond Words and various anthologies online and in print. She is editor of Rough Diamond poetry journal. Her first poetry book Silent Violence with Petals will be published with Kelsay Books in June 2022.

December 5, 2021 by foxglovejournal Categories: Poetry, UncategorizedTags: afterwards, archive, book, books, catalogue, Charlotte Cosgrove, creative, creativity, excitement, gift, history, life, Liverpool, marks, memory, poem, poet, Poetry, present, reading, time, UK, writing 1 Comment

Carnota – Elizabeth Gibson

 

We are in a glass dome of summer – pick us up and shake us,

and pollen-dust will swirl around us. The delirious strip of sea

is the other side of our zip: we curve and arc into each other.

Life is reduced to blue and green, with dots of pink and yellow,

and all I could ever need for fullness again is this sea and sky,

these hills of foxglove and gorse, and long Galician granaries,

their stone frames warming lizards and cats. We stop, to sprawl

among the brittle mauve patches of seaweed, watch dolphins

spinning like cogs, in and out, in and out of the wave machine.

Hey, I see a whale – well, I see spray – but no-one believes me.

We find the corpse of a small creature – a porpoise, maybe,

all beak and curve, now brittle with sand. Across the meadows

are chubby brown goats, and foals gulping from patient mothers

whose fringes tumble like kelp. It all keeps circling in on itself.

 

---

Elizabeth Gibson is a Manchester writer and performer, and the Editor and Photographer for Foxglove Journal. Her work is often inspired by her travels, as well as themes of queerness, community, body image, and mental health. She has recently been published in Aurelia Magazine, Giving Room Mag, Lighthouse, Popshot, Queerlings, and York Literary Review. She is @Grizonne on Twitter and Instagram, and she blogs at https://elizabethgibsonwriter.blogspot.com.

August 10, 2021 by foxglovejournal Categories: Poetry, UncategorizedTags: A Coruña, animals, Carnota, colours, creative, creativity, death, elements, Elizabeth Gibson, Galicia, landscape, life, moment, nature, poem, poet, Poetry, sea, Spain, summer, travel, UK, writing 1 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

Flowers and night-time flowers – DS Maolalai

 

camden. the bus

flipped like a swing

in bad weather

with somebody

kicking their heels.

11pm. earth gone

grey in salty

shades of orange.

the shops all closed, bars

curled open,

like flowers

giving way to night-

time flowers. someone

already hammered,

being sick in a corner

next to a fish shop.

pavement alive

like a pond

with ducks.

a part of the city

with evening in shades,

beautiful and busy.

stylish people

and shirts

bought from second

hand stores.

 

---

DS Maolalai has been nominated eight times for Best of the Net and five times for the Pushcart Prize. His poetry has been released in two collections, Love is Breaking Plates in the Garden (Encircle Press, 2016) and Sad Havoc Among the Birds (Turas Press, 2019).

April 4, 2021 by foxglovejournal Categories: Poetry, UncategorizedTags: beauty, Camden, city, clothes, colours, corner, creative, creativity, DS Maolalai, earth, elements, evening, flowers, Ireland, life, night, pavement, people, poem, Poetry, time, weather, writing Leave a comment

dog love – Lisa Reily

 

when, after ten years, the two of us were no longer alone

and a new man entered my life, took your seat

in the front of my car, you gnawed a seatbelt to shreds

in the backseat, freely expressing your disgust.

 

he and I thought you were sick, but it was love sickness, 

and loyalty. 

slowly, you allowed him to play with you,

granted him a ball, sometimes one of your soft toys;

you tolerated his presence at our table, if only for morsels,

traded seats without a whimper,

wagged your tail, if only briefly, upon his arrival at our door,

 

until one day, we both learned to trust him.

 

---

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.

December 28, 2020 by foxglovejournal Categories: Poetry, UncategorizedTags: adapting, animals, arrival, Australia, change, creative, creativity, dog, door, introduction, learning, life, Lisa Reily, love, loyalty, pet, play, poem, Poetry, presence, relationship, trust, writing 2 Comments

You – Daniel Tobias Behan

 

You are one, whose

lung breathes

new song, of

love beautiful;

 

dreaming

heart-drum

ever beating the

rhythm-shape of life;

 

the one whose

ear births

new ways

of hearing me,

here, being with me;

 

who grows

ever stronger

than ever will I

forever love you.

 

---

Daniel Tobias Behan is a London born-and-based poet. From 2017 to 2019, Daniel performed regularly at the London Irish Centre, Camden; in 2018 Daniel was interviewed by the Irish Post as part of their London Calling podcast series, and in 2020 had a short film made of ‘The Visit’ featuring acclaimed actor Nora Connolly and directed by Patrick O’Mahony, was interviewed for Wombwell Rainbow, and commenced a poetry series ‘Findings’ on channillo.com.

November 22, 2020 by foxglovejournal Categories: Poetry, UncategorizedTags: birth, body, breath, creative, creativity, Daniel Tobias Behan, dream, forever, hearing, heart, life, London, love, lung, poem, Poetry, rhythm, senses, shape, song, strength, UK, writing Leave a comment

BITS – Kate Lewington

the backs of discarded earrings found on heater sills, the odd socks down sofa cushions, pen lids in the corner of rooms, batteries rolled from view underneath cupboards, bookmarks stuck fast to coffee tables, the book holding even the table leg, the hairband wound around the blind cord, the Christmas cards that have fluttered down from end of season high to rest on surfaces, packed upon by bills and pliers and fuse plugs and instructions and spare envelopes, the blu-tack sculpture rolled between thumb and finger picked off from calendars, posters and photos

possessions now in boxes, supermarket bags and carrier bags, holdalls with busted zips

stains, stray hairs and the imprint of wooden legs

i lock in

next
finding new ways to adapt –
new way of getting places, shortcuts through rows of houses, new faces – neighbours, dog walkers and pub owner

same skyline, different angle to aspire from, building tops puncturing the blue –
spires as needles, moving in tandem on a machine –
threading a tapestry
as i fly by on my bicycle.

---

Kate Lewington is a writer/poet and blogger. She writes on the themes of belonging, loss, mental illness & hope. She is passionate about learning, social justice, food, music and comedy.

October 11, 2020October 11, 2020 by foxglovejournal Categories: Poetry, UncategorizedTags: adapting, bags, bicycle, boxes, buildings, cards, change, creative, creativity, flight, home, imprint, Kate Lewington, life, memories, neighbours, poem, Poetry, possessions, shortcuts, skyline, surfaces, tapestry, writing 2 Comments

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

Before – Elisabeth Kelly

 

Dusty tins of condensed milk in the pantry.

Scholl slip on wooden sandals in the porch.

The blue labels worn down so only a soft oval remains in the wooden sole.

Tip toe hanging up the washing and the sandals falling down off dry heels.

Your life mapped by the cracks on your skin.

 

A drum of stagnant water in the corner of the steading.

Wellingtons with waterproofs wound around in the utility room.

Two sets of different ones, occasional and everyday wear.

Smelling of the black rubber cover over the silage pit and the cold stone ramp of the

midden.

Your life lived between the two.

 

A tree house made of old fence posts in Back Field.

Bare-feet drumming through the dust of the lane. Creosote sticking to the backs of knees.

Cow muck with a crust on top to poke with your toes, daring, pushing to see how far you

will go.

 

I never gave a thought then to how far we may go.

 

 

 

Elisabeth Kelly is an Early Years Teacher based on a hill farm in the Scottish Borders. She lives with her young family and too many animals. She has recently returned to writing. She has a poem currently in the Longlist for the Anthony Cronin Award at the Wexford Literary Festival 2020. She tweets at @eekelly22.

July 5, 2020July 5, 2020 by foxglovejournal Categories: Poetry, UncategorizedTags: before, clothes, creative, creativity, dust, Elisabeth Kelly, future, house, life, map, memory, milk, past, place, poem, Poetry, reflection, sandals, Scotland, senses, skin, time, writing 1 Comment