The Wave – Kristy Snedden

 

A wave curled over my bed

last night, fell into the center of my body,

surf ran through each cell.

The words I was saving for today

Washed away leaving empty space.

It was warm, like that glow around

The waning crescent moon.

 

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Kristy Snedden has been a trauma psychotherapist for thirty-five plus years. She began writing poetry in June 2020. Her poem “Dementia,” was awarded an Honorable Mention in the 90th Annual Writer’s Digest Writing Competition. Her work appears or is forthcoming in various journals and anthologies, most recently Snapdragon, Open Minds Quarterly, The Power Of The Pause Anthology, and The Examined Life. She is a student at Phillip Schultz’s Writers Studio. When she isn’t working, reading, or writing poetry, she can be found hiking in the Appalachian Mountains near her home or hanging out with her husband listening to their dogs tell tall tales.

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October 21, 2022 by foxglovejournal Categories: Poetry, UncategorizedTags: bed, cell, creative, creativity, curl, elements, glow, Kristy Snedden, light, moon, nature, night, poem, Poetry, saving, space, surf, US, warmth, water, wave, words, writing Leave a comment

Beyond the Tree Line – Hugh Cartwright

 

It’s our first Christmas adrift in the stars.

And Molly’s first egg.

“Can I break it now?”

“Be gentle.”

Molly’s just four, the youngest of our tiny community. She taps the egg with fierce concentration, as if it’s the most important job in the Universe.

Suddenly the egg shatters and a glittering shape unfolds from among the fragments – a silver Christmas tree. It would weigh a handful of feathers on earth; here in deep space it floats effortlessly.

The tree glides quietly through the cabin until I tie it down with red ribbon. Our little group of 19 gathers round in a circle, linking arms and singing carols.

On 12th night, Molly helps me shepherd her tree into the airlock and we set it free. It glides behind the ship, not wanting to leave. But, as the hours go by, it gradually falls away, dissolving into the star-strewn sky.

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Our 27th Christmas; it will be the last before we reach our new home.

Molly is unwell, but she is our talisman; she must crack the final egg. A shimmering, golden tree emerges, capped with a crown of sparkling stars.

Our group now numbers 22. We gather around the tree for the final time, holding hands and singing carols.

On 12th night, Molly, whose memories were of nothing beyond our ship, is dead; she is the first to die.

27 trees drift behind in a soundless, invisible line, watching over us as we rush towards a world that Molly will never see.

 

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Hugh’s not really a writer. His career has been spent in Universities, working at the interface of artificial intelligence and physical science. Now retired, he has begun to write occasional stories, some colored with elements of science fiction, others being just a little odd. It helps to take his mind off his impossible project: growing citrus trees in the Canadian climate.

March 17, 2021March 18, 2021 by foxglovejournal Categories: flash fiction, Prose, UncategorizedTags: Canada, Christmas, community, creative, creativity, death, eggs, fiction, flash, fragments, home, Hugh Cartwright, memories, Prose, short, sky, space, stars, story, time, trees, world, writing Leave a comment

Imperfect Shelter – Martin Potter

 

Overcast and when it starts

To come down a heavy headed

Tree appears to offer

 

Round its trunk a dry space

Above countless leaf strata

Parrying the downpour

 

To begin with it’s like a roof

Secure you hear the percolation

Working through the rafters

 

Until collected the outsize drops

Single out whatever tender

Spots are homing unwary

 

 

Martin Potter is a poet and academic, and his poems have appeared in Acumen, The French Literary Review, Eborakon, Scintilla, and other journals. His pamphlet In the Particular was published by Eyewear in December 2017. Read more at https://martinpotterpoet.home.blog.

June 28, 2020 by foxglovejournal Categories: Poetry, UncategorizedTags: creative, creativity, downpour, drops, elements, leaves, Martin Potter, nature, place, poem, Poetry, rain, roof, senses, shelter, sound, space, tree, trunk, UK, weather, world, writing Leave a comment

Once in a blue moon – Bojana Stojcic

 

My blood moon

he used to call me

because i blushed

every time

his shadow

descended

upon my slopes

 

He’d point

his face toward me

and howl

 

 

Bojana Stojcic is a teacher from Serbia, living in Germany. Her poems and flash pieces have been published in Rust + Moth, Anti-Heroin Chic, Barren Magazine, Spelk, XRAY, The Opiate, and elsewhere. She blogs at Coffee and Confessions to Go and is currently working on a collection of flash fiction/prose poetry.

March 1, 2020March 1, 2020 by foxglovejournal Categories: PoetryTags: blood, blue, blush, Bojana Stojcic, change, creative, creativity, descend, face, Germany, howl, moon, name, nature, poem, Poetry, point, Serbia, shadow, sky, slopes, space, writing 19 Comments

Lacuna – Alfie Prendergast

 

Lacuna means a gap in something;

like we don’t know how they built Stonehenge.

That’s a lacuna.

We have a lacuna in our knowledge about Stonehenge.

A Stonehenge lacuna.

I used to have a lacuna lacuna but then I looked it up.

It has the same root as lake.

Latin: lacus, meaning pool.

Which is odd. Because a pool, a lake,

is by definition a gap filled.

The big empty lake-shaped space in the earth is filled

with water; making it a lake.

Otherwise it would be a crater.

From the Greek: krasis, meaning mixture, then krater,

meaning mixing bowl.

Which also suggests a gap filled

with whatever’s being mixed.

 

I suppose all lacunas are filled.

Pools, mixing bowls. The water in them

is so perfectly clear that we can’t see it.

It is the same temperature as our bodies.

It is empty space. But it is there.

Thin and fluid,

awaiting murky knowledge.

shining a light in the dark, the edge of the light.

The border of the darkness is the lacuna.

It’s empty but full.

 

 

Alfie Prendergast is a writer currently studying an MLitt in Creative Writing at Glasgow University. He writes about human futures, occult pasts and thoughts overheard. He is currently working on his first novel, as well as producing Open Mic Podcast; a literary reading podcast which hopes to capture the intrepid energy of open mic reading nights in podcast form.

August 13, 2018August 13, 2018 by foxglovejournal Categories: PoetryTags: Alfie Prendergast, creative, creativity, earth, elements, emptiness, gap, knowledge, lacuna, lake, language, light, names, nature, poem, Poetry, pool, roots, Scotland, space, water, words, writing Leave a comment

Starstruck – Catherine LoFrumento

 

struck

by that star

the one looking

through my window

 

its eye of silver

urging me

to visit venus

 

and swim

on the moon.

 

Catherine lives in Connecticut with her husband and fur babies. Though not scientifically proven, she likes to think that earning degrees in both English and Accounting confirms that both sides of her brain work. Her poetry has been featured in various journals and anthologies including Neverlasting, Cattails, Modern Haiku, Frogpond, bottle rockets, 50 Haikus, Three Line Poetry, Vine Leaves Literary Journal, and wild voices: an anthology of short poetry and art by women. To see more of her ramblings follow her on Twitter @Catherin03.

September 5, 2017 by foxglovejournal Categories: PoetryTags: American, Catherine LoFrumento, Connecticut, creative, creativity, CT, eye, light, moon, night, one, poem, Poetry, silver, sky, space, star, struck, swimming, US, Venus, window, writing 1 Comment

The status of Pluto – Kieran Rundle

 

“Pluto is no longer a planet.”

You whispered it to me, a venomous secret,

while we laid on the pillow of fresh mowed grass

and examined the velvet void consuming the sky above us,

admiring the warriors against the dark,

the blanket of 100 billion gold and white fires.

 

“It doesn’t really affect your life.”

Your secret stunned me in my midnight haze.

Why were we trying to limit the icy chaos of a world

to fit a structure that our hypocritical organization deemed worthy

when it is well over 100 billion yards away?

 

“It’s now a dwarf planet.”

The moondust pirouetted above our eyelashes,

moth wings fluttered with the anxiety

of pinning astronomical entities to a corkboard

and then removing them when someone exacts

a modern definition

that excludes something 100 million years old.

 

“It didn’t lose exclusivity, but gained an epithet!”

You tried to console my lightning reactions.

Pluto was simply too deemed too small for its status now.

It would never be told. It would exist in ignorance.

How bitter science can be to something that we deem small,

but is over 100 kilometers wide?

 

“It’s funny, how quickly things change.”

Nothing had changed.

Torchlights in the sky can monitor over 100 billion of our years.

We see the farthest ones as they were over 100 minutes ago.

I shuddered, watching the sky die,

and we were too concerned with demoting Pluto.

 

“The status of Pluto” first appeared in Volume Four of Sincerely Magazine.

 

Kieran Rundle, a high school student, is the owner and editor-in-chief for Sincerely Magazine LLC. She is on the staff for Miracle Magazine, and has worked for three years as an upper editor on Albemarle High School’s Literary Magazine. She is an award winning artist, poet, prose writer, and playwright. Her work can be found in a plethora of places including Charlottesville Area Transit Busses, The UVA Special Collections Library, Quail Bell Online Magazine, and the Crossroads III Anthology.  She is also an avid theatre kid, cat lover, stargazer, cookie eater, and chocolate addict. Find her at redbubble.com/people/owlgirl.

October 25, 2016February 25, 2017 by foxglovejournal Categories: Poetry, UncategorizedTags: astronomy, change, humanity, Kieran Rundle, nature, planets, poem, Poetry, science, sky, space, US Leave a comment