questions – Foxglove Journal

Murky Valley – Chandan Dey

The questions, turned
into the waves ~
hissing & slamming
into the screen door

A swim ~
in a spiral galaxy
a sense
of your close presence

A signal ~
                  from a neutral field,
where blur
joy                  &                  sorrow A ditch ~ a love flux
                  around your house,
an agonizing severance ~
                                                    too…

Chandan Dey is a young and emerging writer. His work has appeared in Liquid Imagination, Vayavya, Sky Island Journal, Foxglove, and is forthcoming elsewhere. He works as an accountant in a company and is a passionate reader and writer of poetry as well. He takes a special interest in writing speculative poetry and fiction, and loves to write articles and books on scientific philosophy. He lives in Kolkata, India. Some of his work can be found on www.chandankumardey.blogspot.in.

January 29, 2023January 29, 2023 by foxglovejournal Categories: Poetry, UncategorizedTags: blur, Chandan Dey, creative, creativity, door, emotions, flux, galaxy, India, joy, Kolkata, love, poem, poet, Poetry, presence, questions, senses, signal, sorrow, sounds, waves, writing Leave a comment

Breakfast Club – Jeffrey Joseph

I take my daughter into Breakfast Club,

Tracksuit bottoms sparking as I force myself along,

And leg ends heavy with damp;

She skips beside me, taut with a promise of the new,

Her sentences long, long, her questions unanswerable,

Her laughter unanswerable.

In the busy, smelly, milk and plimsoll hall, she stands bemused –

Aware, perhaps, that something is changing,

Hearing across a span which I have lost

(Or, if not lost, forgotten),

The din of warring hopes.

Through the window I see her – a uniformed dot –

Move, unnoticed, to her place.

Jeffrey Joseph was born in London in 1952 and was educated at the University of York, University College Cardiff and at The Open University. He worked at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama before spending many years as Performance Manager at Trinity Laban Conservatoire. He is a heavily published musical journalist and poet. His music has been performed on the South Bank, at St John’s Smith Square, in Westminster Abbey, in the National Concert Hall in Dublin, throughout Europe and in Africa and the USA. He is published by Warwick Music/Hal Leonard Music and is distributed on-line by lulu.com.

October 13, 2022 by foxglovejournal Categories: Poetry, UncategorizedTags: answers, breakfast, change, creative, creativity, family, hope, Jeffrey Joseph, laughter, loss, memory, movement, new, place, poem, Poetry, promise, questions, senses, sound, UK, window, writing Leave a comment

Beyond the clouds – paul Bluestein

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.

August 31, 2018 by foxglovejournal Categories: PoetryTags: beach, clouds, colours, creative, creativity, earth, elements, eye, knowledge, life, mind, mystery, nature, paul Bluestein, poem, Poetry, questions, rain, sea, senses, sky, thoughts, writing Leave a comment

Sun against Moonspill – Hannah Downs

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

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.

December 22, 2017December 22, 2017 by foxglovejournal Categories: PoetryTags: atmosphere, bruises, clouds, creative, creativity, dream, glow, Hannah Downs, humanity, laughter, light, Manchester, moon, poem, Poetry, questions, ruin, smile, still, sun, surprise, UK, writing Leave a comment

saving a shell – Paul Waring

I picked you from a shallow grave

of mussel shells one of many

that lie close to the sea wall beneath

the promenade left exposed when

the tide rolls back into the horizon

haphazard clusters of naked nacreous

sockets without eyes and blue-black

domes of weathered backs in rockpools

at rest on soft skin of red and grey

pebble and stone I chose you

I don’t know why I stepped over

seaweed tendrils sprawled on sandstone

to ask questions about your secret life

how you met death unglued unhinged

prised open cracked like a code

scooped out by curve-billed curlew

or common gull abandoned washed

and buried here by the incoming tide

in this ghetto of empty homes I don’t

know why I thought I could save you

Paul Waring is a retired clinical psychologist who once designed menswear and was a singer/songwriter in several Liverpool bands. His poems have appeared in journals/sites including Reach Poetry, Eunoia Review, The Open Mouse and are forthcoming in Clear Poetry and Amaryllis. He recently returned from living in Spain and Portugal and continues to enjoy being re-acquainted with the wonderful variety of nature in Wirral and other parts of Britain. His blog is https://waringwords.wordpress.com.

October 2, 2017 by foxglovejournal Categories: PoetryTags: abandonment, animals, colours, creative, creativity, death, emptiness, fauna, home, horizon, life, nature, Paul Waring, poem, Poetry, questions, rockpools, sea, secrets, shell, tide, UK, writing 1 Comment

The History Of Their Handprints – Len Kuntz

It was the second fire

Years after the garage

Had burnt down

I came home from

Night church

The light switches

Wouldn’t work

I didn’t smell smoke

Right away but heard

My kitten Christopher

Mewling downstairs

The hallway door

Leading there was closed

And in the basement

The shell of my brother’s

Bedroom had become

Charred crimson cinders

Each slat of wood

Resembling red rebar

Or long stove coils

In the smoky haze

I scooped up Chris

Went to a neighbor

Dialed the fire department

They brought an investigator

Who grilled me

Out on the damp lawn

Until it grew so dark

I could no longer see

His expression and

Determine if he was

Actually serious

He pointed questions

Was I resentful my

Parents had left me

While they lived

Somewhere in Idaho

Did I want retribution

Were there issues

I had with them

That would lead me

To set my house on fire

I said

And

Of course not

I never said how

In those years

Each day was spent

Hustling the demons

That buzzed around

My shallow skull

Like a hive of

Angry wasps

Sometimes drilling

Their stingers

Straight through

My hippocampus

I never said I

Was actually thrilled

My parents were living

Someplace other than here

Where the history

Of their handprints

Still haunted everything

Darker than

The thickest smoke

Glowing brighter

Than any oven coil

Burning everything

To ash

Again and again

And again

Len Kuntz is a writer from Washington State, an editor at the online magazine Literary Orphans, and the author of I’M NOT SUPPOSED TO BE HERE AND NEITHER ARE YOU, a story collection out from Unknown Press. You can also find him at lenkuntz.blogspot.com.

May 28, 2017 by foxglovejournal Categories: PoetryTags: ash, cinders, creative, creativity, darkness, demons, family, fire, handprints, history, home, Len Kuntz, memory, past, poem, Poetry, questions, senses, smoke, US, WA, wood, writing Leave a comment