The Laws of Physics – Richard Luftig

 

There is a pull

of a new moon

tonight, a yield

of starlight

that blinks

on, then off, as

only the clouds

command. Down

 

wind, the piers

that jut from

shore to shoals

are statues

with freezing arms

where even

barnacles sag

from dripping

ice. A neap

 

tide that refuses

to rest makes

whispers that

can still awaken

the waves while

along these sea-oak

shores, a jetty

that just a few

short hours ago

made a beach

 

now worries

the sand and

constantly tells

us as we struggle

to make a safe

harbor about

the gravity

of our situation.

 

 

Richard Luftig is a former professor of educational psychology and special education at Miami University in Ohio now residing in California. His poems and stories have appeared in numerous literary journals in the United States and internationally in Canada, Australia, Europe, and Asia. Two of his poems recently appeared in The Best Ten Years of Dos Madres Press.

Advertisement

July 13, 2018July 16, 2018 by foxglovejournal Categories: PoetryTags: CA, change, clouds, creative, creativity, elements, ice, moon, nature, night, poem, Poetry, Richard Luftig, starlight, struggle, tide, time, US, water, whispers, wind, writing, yield Leave a comment

Over the fence – John Grey

 

I watched the boy

struggle to climb a fence.

I don’t know whether his intent

was escape

or if he was merely retrieving a lost ball.

 

It was a tall, wooden stockade barrier

and progress could be measured

in the merest of inches

but failure was all the way back down.

 

I didn’t volunteer my help.

He was a kid

and that would have been an insult.

But he did catch my gaze

once or twice.

He must have thought my height

was unfair.

 

He could have much more easily

exited through his front gate

but that lacked the derring-do of a real option.

The fence was Mt. Everest or an opposing army

or a thick jungle or a rampaging animal.

Or maybe it was even me.

 

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 15, 2017 by foxglovejournal Categories: PoetryTags: Australia, barrier, challenge, climb, creative, creativity, escape, exit, failure, fence, gate, gaze, height, help, John Grey, memory, opposition, poem, Poetry, progress, struggle, task, writing Leave a comment

Walking – Allison Grayhurst

 

A grain I throw

in the water, floating, ready to

sink. I see you – thin as anyone

must be living on such an edge – tense

and tired of holding your breath. So many years –

a raging prophet, flailing your limbs

to keep the barnacles off, to keep the ones you love

close and to keep your mission in perfect purity.

 

These days the summer is dried spit on the pavement.

It opens my eyes to the struggle everywhere – pigeons

waiting for water, children running up the dry incline,

facing a bridge, the great restructuring.

 

You, riding the gilded wing – love is like the Earth’s dirt,

necessary, elemental, and its smell, saturated with memories.

I love you: Sometimes it is easy.

Sometimes I am a woman in God’s funnel cloud,

bending back to look, but seeing only storm.

 

Allison Grayhurst is a member of the League of Canadian Poets. Three times nominated for Sundress Publications “Best of the Net” 2015, she has over 950 poems published in over 400 international journals. She has twelve published books of poetry, seven collections, nine chapbooks, and a chapbook pending publication. She lives in Toronto with her family. She is a vegan. She also sculpts, working with clay. Learn more at www.allisongrayhurst.com.

March 26, 2017 by foxglovejournal Categories: Poetry, UncategorizedTags: Allison Grayhurst, bridge, Canada, creative, creativity, dirt, earth, elements, eyes, humanity, life, love, memory, nature, pigeons, poem, Poetry, storm, struggle, summer, tiredness, water, writing Leave a comment