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

Bewildered – Ann Pedone

 

What is the body in the eyes of the body

is it nothing more than a translation

of water salt and air

an alchemy of blood and sand and lust

bones fragile anxious within

muddy flesh the nervous

desire of hips

bewildered

that you are still not here every

 

day I put my feet down one in

front of the other a child would

say that this should be enough

but the heavy box of the body asks

 always for more.

 

---

Ann Pedone graduated from Bard College with a degree in English and has a Master’s degree in Chinese Language and Literature from UC Berkeley. Ann is the author of the chapbook The Bird Happened, and the chapbook perhaps there is a sky we don’t know about: a re-imagining of sappho is forthcoming in December. Her work has recently appeared in Riggwelter, Main Street Rag, Poet head, Cathexis Northwest, The Wax Paper, and The Phare, among others.

November 15, 2020 by foxglovejournal Categories: Poetry, UncategorizedTags: air, alchemy, Ann Pedone, blood, body, creative, creativity, desire, elements, emotions, eyes, feet, fragility, movement, nature, poem, Poetry, salt, sand, translation, US, water, writing Leave a comment

A Few Very Speculative Ideas About Language – Ann Pedone

 

sometimes it’s hard to remember/the names of things /those trees

along the side of the freeway/ I used to know what they are called

and  then there are words  I’ve never known /is there a word for

the lust bees feel for a flower /or the way his neck tastes /that moony

combination/ something like cyprus and salt and bone.

 

---

Ann Pedone graduated from Bard College with a degree in English and has a Master’s degree in Chinese Language and Literature from UC Berkeley. Ann is the author of the chapbook The Bird Happened, and the chapbook perhaps there is a sky we don’t know about: a re-imagining of sappho is forthcoming in December. Her work has recently appeared in Riggwelter, Main Street Rag, Poet head, Cathexis Northwest, The Wax Paper, and The Phare, among others.

October 19, 2020 by foxglovejournal Categories: Poetry, UncategorizedTags: Ann Pedone, bees, bone, combination, creative, creativity, flowers, freeway, ideas, knowledge, language, memory, names, nature, plants, poem, Poetry, salt, senses, taste, trees, US, words, writing Leave a comment

The Cyst – Fizza Abbas

 

If I could poke the yolk

of a fried egg,

 

or sprinkle a pinch of salt

around the albumen,

 

I would tell him, my skin tastes salty.

 

Instead, I handed myself to the body,

thick, sticky mucus marks my newfound respect

for two elastic bags

they fondly call lungs

 

I ask you finally,

will you help me leave my DNA in the world

before they call it a deed

 

 

Fizza Abbas is a Freelance Content Writer based in Karachi, Pakistan. She is fond of poetry and music. Her works have been published at many platforms including Indiana Voice Journal and Poetry Pacific.

June 21, 2020June 21, 2020 by foxglovejournal Categories: Poetry, UncategorizedTags: albumen, body, creative, creativity, cyst, DNA, egg, Fizza Abbas, health, Karachi, legacy, life, lungs, mucus, Pakistan, poem, Poetry, respect, salt, skin, world, writing, yolk 2 Comments

Echinoderms – Margaret Holbrook

 

You take all life from your

immense, fathomless,

median disc.

Asteroidia,

spangle tipped in salt

to the end of your arms

red spotted markers.

No brittle stars or

basket stars but true

Asteroidia.

And in your watery sky

environment you flourish,

live, die, regenerate,

shine brighter than any

celestial form.

 

 

Margaret grew up in Cheshire where she still lives. Margaret’s poems and short stories have been published in several anthologies and magazines and online journals including most recently: Schooldays, Best of British, Flash, I love you, Patches of Light, Torrid Literature Journal, The Foxglove Journal, The Wilfred Owen Association Journal. Margaret also writes plays. Her monologue ‘Our Brian’ was longlisted for BBC Radio 4’s ‘Opening Lines’. In 2017 her play ‘Ruthless’ was longlisted for the Top Five Competition at Bolton’s Octagon Theatre. Her play The Bus Stop was performed at The Old Sawmill in Congleton in May 2019 and will be performed at Buxton Fringe Festival in July this year. Margaret hosts the Poetry and Prose Open Mic at The Petersgate Tap in Stockport. Keep in touch: www.margaretholbrookwrites.weebly.com

March 15, 2020 by foxglovejournal Categories: PoetryTags: animals, arms, brightness, Cheshire, creative, creativity, death, echinoderms, elements, form, life, Margaret Holbrook, nature, poem, Poetry, regeneration, salt, shine, sky, stars, UK, water, writing Leave a comment

Siren – Jessica Michael

 

There is an ache like oceans

emptying themselves of everything but salt.

 

I walk the bottom,

cut my feet with wandering,

I fear her reckless chasms

and keep going.

 

Because for years

I thought I had a choice

in who and what and how I loved

 

when the only choice I ever had

was if I loved at all.

 

Here I am,

singing music to call the sea to shore.

 

 

Jessica Michael lives and writes in Prescott, AZ when she’s not traveling this intriguing blue planet. Her work has appeared in Allegro, Comstock Review, Red Fez, Rebelle Society, Outdoor Australia, and others. Find her poetry and photography at www.authorjessicamichael.com or follow her on Instagram as @authorjessicamichael.

September 9, 2019 by foxglovejournal Categories: PoetryTags: AZ, choice, creative, creativity, elements, fear, feet, Jessica Michael, love, movement, music, nature, oceans, poem, Poetry, salt, sea, senses, shore, US, walk, writing, years 1 Comment

fisherman – Ion Corcos

 

blue bay turns to white

scatters seagulls on the pier

 

splashes high on empty restaurants

onto rocks

 

a lone fisherman on an old cane chair

hot mountain tea on salted stone;

 

no man calls to long-haired goats

along the rugged path, no clinking bells

 

only a loose canvas flapping

a few dead fish in buckets

 

and a dying wind in the cove

 

 

Ion Corcos has been published in Grey Sparrow Journal, Clear Poetry, Communion, The High Window and other journals. He is a Pushcart Prize nominee. Ion is a nature lover and a supporter of animal rights. He is currently travelling indefinitely with his partner, Lisa. Ion’s website iswww.ioncorcos.wordpress.com.

December 9, 2017 by foxglovejournal Categories: PoetryTags: animals, bells, call, colours, cove, creative, creativity, death, elements, fish, goats, humanity, Ion Corcos, mountain, nature, path, poem, Poetry, rocks, salt, stone, wind, writing 1 Comment

Buried – Sara Comito

 

You can get a horse as soon

as you get a backhoe big

enough to bury it, Momma

told her. Likewise, she didn’t

have the smarts to bother

with college.

 

Down the pier a sailor smoked

and mended his net. Feeling her

stare, he pegged her for

lonely, took her out to sea.

 

Momma didn’t get a husband

til she had a big enough knife.

The net was big enough for this

new catch, but – Momma

will be missing me.

 

His face cracked with years

of salt like those sore, handknitted

knots. Swells made false islands

of horizon. Seven miles and you

lose the land, he says.

 

The distance she can’t

make sense of. It folds itself

into a wave she could ride

all the way back there and bury

everything. But she can’t

tell.

 

Is it big enough?

 

 

Sara Comito is a writer living in Fort Myers. Her poetry has been published at places like A-Minor Magazine, Thrush Poetry Magazine, and Blue Fifth Review. Her interests include a new love – fiction writing, plus experimenting with world cuisines, camping in Florida’s swamps, and watching her teenage son invent his future.

November 22, 2017 by foxglovejournal Categories: PoetryTags: catch, creative, creativity, distance, family, FL, horizon, humanity, islands, knots, land, nature, net, poem, Poetry, salt, Sara Comito, sea, sense, US, wave, writing, years 3 Comments

Wickham’s Crick – Robert Pelgrift

 

(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.

October 22, 2017 by foxglovejournal Categories: PoetryTags: air, atmosphere, boat, clouds, colours, creative, creativity, decay, elements, mud, nature, NY, poem, Poetry, rain, Robert Pelgrift, ruin, salt, storm, sun, US, writing, years Leave a comment

Pinky Swear – Jayne Martin

 

The caustic odor of rubbing alcohol burns my nostrils, settles on my tongue. A nurse paints Vaseline on my parched lips. I can’t remember the last time I was kissed.

I am tethered to tubes, encased in a coffin of flesh and bone that ignores all commands.

The growing cries of gulls, boardwalk barkers, laughter and shrieks of excitement begin to flood the room.

I sit in the car of a rollercoaster as it chugs and bumps up the steep incline toward the point of no return. Braver kids raise their arms high over their heads. I squeeze my eyes shut until it’s over; say “I want to go again,” relieved when you do not.

The ocean breeze sends salt and sand up onto the walkway where we smoke cigarettes stolen from my mother’s purse and stroll looking for boys. We make up names, Bridgette and Marilyn. Names that sound older and sophisticated unlike our own. We fool no one.

A pipe organ bellows. With fingers still sticky from cotton candy, we board gaily-painted steeds, ride round and round, each time stretching as far as we dare for the brass ring, each time finding it just out of reach.

Our bodies distort in fun house mirrors and we wonder who we will become.

Pinky-swear friends forever.

We do not anticipate the power of decades to divide.

The nurse rolls my body onto its side to slip a fresh sheet beneath, and I see you next to my bedside. You wear our favorite sweater, the rose one we passed back and forth until it unraveled, your smile still a mouthful of braces, your hand outstretched to me. In it, a brass ring.

 

Jayne Martin is the 2016 winner of Vestal Review’s VERA award for flash fiction. Her work has appeared in Boston Literary Magazine, Literary Orphans, Midwestern Gothic, f(r)iction, Blink-Ink, Spelk, Cleaver, Connotation Press and Hippocampus among others. She is the author of “Suitable for Giving: A Collection of Wit with a Side of Wry.” She lives in Santa Barbara, California. Find her on Twitter @Jayne_Martin.

August 22, 2017 by foxglovejournal Categories: flash fiction, ProseTags: change, creative, creativity, decades, fiction, flash, friendship, humanity, Jayne Martin, life, memory, ocean, past, relationship, rollercoaster, salt, sand, short, smile, story, sweater, time, writing 8 Comments

Prophetess in the Wrong Time – Mark J. Mitchell

 

“Horrendas canit ambages.”

“She chants her dread enigmas.”

—Virgil

Aeneid VI, 99

 

Salt monks chant—as quiet as time—

Stone voices inhabit old stones.

She stares through waxed smoke at a bowl

of small words from lost tongues. Tears bind

them into riddles that define

the rite. She knows she must not eat

them. Her hands ripple. She repeats

the chant. Words melt like smoke, like fire.

Stirring in sheets her high school choir

breaks her to wake. The dream’s complete.

 

Mark J. Mitchell studied writing at UC Santa Cruz under Raymond Carver, George Hitchcock and Barbara Hull. His work has appeared in various periodicals over the last thirty five years, as well as the anthologies Good Poems, American Places, Hunger Enough, Retail Woes and Line Drives. It has also been nominated for both Pushcart Prizes and The Best of the Net. He is the author of two full-length collections, Lent 1999 (Leaf Garden Press) and Soren Kierkegaard Witnesses an Execution (Local Gems) as well as two chapbooks, Three Visitors (Negative Capability Press) and Artifacts and Relics, (Folded Word). His novel, Knight Prisoner, is available from Vagabondage Press and a new novel is forthcoming: The Magic War (Loose Leaves Publishing). He lives in San Francisco with his wife, the documentarian and activist Joan Juster where he makes a living showing people pretty things in his city.

April 19, 2017April 19, 2017 by foxglovejournal Categories: Poetry, UncategorizedTags: chant, creativity, dream, elements, fire, hands, humanity, Mark J. Mitchell, nature, poem, Poetry, puzzle, riddles, rite, salt, smoke, stones, tears, time, US, voices, words, writing Leave a comment