fog fall – Martin Potter

 

stepped inside to sidestep

a throat-tickle chill in the air

an hour later fog fell

 

haze of night had smothered

murk-wise the tight street

only your own echoes

 

bounce off walls pavement

resonant but ghosted out

lamp-glare haunts the home-walk

 

---

Martin Potter (https://martinpotterpoet.home.blog) is a British-Colombian poet and academic, based in Manchester, and his poems have appeared in Acumen, The French Literary Review, Eborakon, Ink Sweat & Tears, The Poetry Village, and other journals. His pamphlet In the Particular was published in 2017.

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February 22, 2023 by foxglovejournal Categories: Poetry, UncategorizedTags: air, chill, creative, creativity, echoes, elements, fog, ghost, haunting, lamp, light, Manchester, Martin Potter, night, place, poem, Poetry, street, time, UK, walk, weather, writing Leave a comment

Longwood – Louise Walker

 

Hail hard in our faces, sun in our eyes,

we push through brambles, past the dovecot

and piles of tumbled bricks, driving deep into

the heart of the wood. Long before the house

burned down, someone planted daffodils here

and every year there are more, seen only

by those who still remember where to look.

Around the empty walled garden, bastard

fruit trees shoot upwards from ancient rootstock,

foaming white, but there will be no fruit,

unless we bend to read these faded labels

beside each shadow tree against the stone,

unless we plant again to face the sun

with Concorde, Harrow Sweet, Laxton’s Superb.

 

---

Louise Walker is a poet and teacher who lives in London. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in anthologies by the Sycamore Press and Emma Press, as well as journals such as South, Oxford Magazine, Acumen, Second Chance Lit, ARTEMIS and Dreich. Commissions include Bampton Classical Opera and she was Highly Commended in the Frosted Fire Firsts Award in 2022. She is working on her first collection.

February 14, 2023 by foxglovejournal Categories: Poetry, UncategorizedTags: creative, creativity, elements, flowers, fruit, garden, heart, London, Longwood, Louise Walker, nature, place, poem, Poetry, senses, stone, sun, time, trees, UK, weather, wood, writing Leave a comment

Walking the Dales Way in Autumn – Ceinwen E. Cariad Haydon

 

Rain-glistened raised roots

emerald moss-coated stones

water spattered, spreading cow pats

slippery wooden footbridges

rocking, ancient stiles

with hard-sprung gates –

 

all conspire to tumble me as I walk

our old ways in these Dales

long swept by winds, storms,

artists’ eyes, mizzle and sunlight.

 

Somehow, I stay upright

and advance slowly, mindful

of the present moment

rich with overflows

of tricky beauty

as breezes waft smells of byre

and mulch of fallen, slithered leaves –

 

I find I am

unbalanced only by time

about to run out.

 

---

Ceinwen lives near Newcastle upon Tyne, UK and writes short stories and poetry. She is widely published in online magazines and in print anthologies. Her first chapbook is ‘Cerddi Bach’ [Little Poems], Hedgehog Press, July 2019. She is developing practice as participatory arts facilitator. She believes everyone’s voice counts.

December 8, 2022December 8, 2022 by foxglovejournal Categories: Poetry, UncategorizedTags: autumn, beauty, Ceinwen E. Cariad Haydon, creative, creativity, Dales, elements, journey, moment, nature, Newcastle, place, poem, Poetry, rain, roots, season, senses, time, UK, walking, weather, 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

A Summer’s Afternoon in Castile – Glenn Hubbard

 

Endless August afternoon.

Vegetation yellows.

Seed heads

sizzle and pop.

Their beaks

open wide,

distressed,

beside themselves,

the small birds

are overheating.

Only the kite,

tirelessly circling

above the exhausted

earth, endlessly

adjusting the angle

of its forked tail,

appears unaffected.

 

Then a breeze arrives like a blessing

and in the tiny pools spangling the river bed

the pond skaters ride the ripples

while the dragonflies, momentarily spooked,

rise and stand off a while

until the rushes come to rest once more.

Up above, the leaves of the poplar

tremble, sparkle and click.

Down below, the dozy dogs

prick up their ears.

And out on the stubble,

the never-knowingly-not-nibbling sheep

raise their heads

in slack-jawed, dumb surprise.  

 

---

Glenn Hubbard has been writing since 2013 and lives at the foot of the Sierra de Guadarrama near Madrid. He has written a good deal of nature poetry over the years, inspired by the flora and fauna of both Spain and the UK. Some of this work has been published in journals such as Words for the Wild, the Dawntreader and Sarasvati.

January 30, 2022 by foxglovejournal Categories: Poetry, UncategorizedTags: animals, birds, breeze, creative, creativity, earth, elements, flight, Glenn Hubbard, heat, leaves, nature, poem, poet, Poetry, rest, senses, Spain, summer, surprise, water, weather, writing Leave a 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

Haze – Neil Fulwood

 

Soft haze hangs

over trees, over road,

view losing focus

near broken gate

at field’s edge,

rich man’s house

vaguely outlined

a half mile away.

The rumble

that trembles teacup

could be anything

passing at any

distance at any

point in time.

 

---

Neil Fulwood was born in Nottingham, England, where he still lives and works. He has published two pamphlets with The Black Light Engine Room Press, Numbers Stations and The Little Book of Forced Calm; and two full collections with Shoestring Press, No Avoiding It and Can’t Take Me Anywhere. His third collection, Service Cancelled, is due for publication later this year.

March 28, 2021 by foxglovejournal Categories: Poetry, UncategorizedTags: creative, creativity, edge, elements, focus, gate, haze, house, nature, Neil Fulwood, Nottingham, outline, poem, Poetry, road, scene, senses, sound, time, trees, UK, weather, writing Leave a comment

Hot as a log – DS Maolalai

 

cold as logs

in water, a wet

and winter

evening. a rain

which cracks

the windows,

sounds like logs

in burning

hearths, and you

here on the sofa, curling

with me around tea.

you are hot as a log,

as solid and beautiful

as a pile of dried firewood

stacked carefully next

to a fire. outside, the grass

is wet and quite

miserable, taking weight

with the softness

of age-wilted salad.

even the dog’s

feeling anxious this evening

and rubbing the carpet

with her head.

 

---

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).

March 7, 2021 by foxglovejournal Categories: Poetry, UncategorizedTags: anxiety, beauty, cold, creative, creativity, dog, DS Maolalai, elements, fire, heat, Ireland, logs, nature, poem, Poetry, rain, senses, sounds, tea, weather, window, winter, writing Leave a comment

Cromarty, 29 April 2019 – Neil Fulwood

 

Wake early. Take a cafetière

through to the conservatory.

Mist blanks out everything:

the road, the firth, the sea

beyond the curve of headland.

The oil rigs are vague shapes –

storybook monsters; phantoms.

Plunge; pour a mugful. Take

your first sip of the day. Feel

the bitter kickstart of caffeine.

The day hasn’t come alive yet.

Give it time. The sun will burn

through the mist. Landscape,

sea and sky will correlate.

 

---

Neil Fulwood was born in Nottingham, England, where he still lives and works. He has published two pamphlets with The Black Light Engine Room Press, Numbers Stations and The Little Book of Forced Calm; and two full collections with Shoestring Press, No Avoiding It and Can’t Take Me Anywhere. His third collection, Service Cancelled, is due for publication later this year.

February 8, 2021 by foxglovejournal Categories: Poetry, UncategorizedTags: creative, creativity, Cromarty, elements, landscape, mist, morning, nature, Neil Fulwood, Nottingham, place, poem, Poetry, scenery, Scotland, sea, senses, sky, sun, time, travel, weather, 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

When Summer Comes – Holly Day

 

I bury their heads in peat and think of the day when

the sun warms the soil and the clouds bring the rain and the white

snowy fields that once seemed to stretch endless will

be a fuzzy memory of a cold and irrelevant past.

the seeds so carefully planted before the first frost will

unfold like origami and send thin furry roots tunneling

through the chilly dirt to find footholds in the earth.

I’ll wake to find a thin coat of green covering

the warmed soil surrounding the base of the old birch tree

in the back yard.

 

eventually, the thin frost of green will grow into a thick carpet, obscuring

the domed hills marking the entrance and exit of traveling worms,

the triangular footprints of excavating seasonal birds, even the

occasional fox footpad, preserved in wet mud. but

today, snow falls in soft clumps outside my kitchen window, barely

heard or felt by the tiny cocooned bodies of insects and plants

lying dormant beneath the soil. I stare past the snow

dream bright, grand dreams of far-off

summer days, imagining the crackle

of night crawlers moving beneath decomposing leaves, the way

the stars look so fuzzy in the sky on

hazy, summer nights.

 

 

Holly Day has taught writing classes at the Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota, since 2000. Her poetry has recently appeared in Tampa Review, SLAB, and Gargoyle, and her published books include Walking Twin Cities, Music Theory for Dummies, and Ugly Girl.

May 31, 2020 by foxglovejournal Categories: PoetryTags: animals, birds, change, creative, creativity, dream, elements, growth, Holly Day, memory, MN, nature, past, poem, Poetry, seasons, snow, stars, summer, time, US, weather, writing Leave a comment

King’s Cliff Wood – Anthony Watts

 

And if at times there seems to be

no more to it than this

return with muddied boots to the locked car

 

(groping for comfort under coats, cold nose to cold

nose, the same old words you won’t

or don’t believe)

 

then love is always the path we saved for another

day, the tunnel winding, whisper-filled,

under a sun-rug of November trees.

 

Also (and always) love is the lit sky, shorn

of its restless weathers,

falling

forever

into everlasting.

 

 

Anthony Watts has been writing ‘seriously’ for about 40 years. He has won 26 First Prizes in poetry competitions and was longlisted for the National Poetry Competition 2014. His poems have appeared in magazines and anthologies, including Poetry Salzburg Review, The Rialto and Riggwelter. His fifth collection, Stiles, is due to be published by Paekakariki Press. His home is in rural Somerset and his main interests are poetry, music, walking and binge thinking – activities which he finds can be happily combined.

February 2, 2020 by foxglovejournal Categories: PoetryTags: Anthony Watts, boots, cold, comfort, creative, creativity, elements, fall, love, nature, path, poem, Poetry, sky, Somerset, time, trees, tunnel, UK, weather, woods, words, writing Leave a comment

Copse – Yuan Changming

 

Standing tall against the frozen sky

Your skeletons are the exquisite calligraphy

Of an entire season

Your name is curly writ

 

Not in water

But with wind

 

 

Yuan Changming published monographs on translation before leaving his native country. Currently, Yuan lives in Vancouver, where he edits Poetry Pacific with Allen Qing Yuan. Credits include ten Pushcart nominations, Best of the Best Canadian Poetry (2008-17) and BestNewPoemsOnline, among others.

December 1, 2019 by foxglovejournal Categories: PoetryTags: calligraphy, Canada, copse, creative, creativity, elements, frozen, name, nature, place, poem, Poetry, season, sky, tall, time, Vancouver, water, weather, wind, world, writing, Yuan Changming Leave a comment

Belated Farewells – Linda Rhinehart

 

That summer night we walked

together under the moon,

brighter than a fluorescent snow

globe in a Halloween window;

You told me to look up, so I did; I saw

a scattering of sun-dipped stars behind,

stepping stone to bright unknown horizons.

Later that night mist fell over a silent ocean,

and now I sit alone before a window

wondering if there is anything I could have said,

if there was anything I could have done,

and the moon a mere piece of cloth

pinned to an ink-dark sky.

 

 

Linda Rhinehart, 30, is a student, writer and translator currently living and studying in Cardiff, Wales. In the past she has lived in Switzerland, the USA and Germany. She has been writing poetry for around three years and reading it for a lot longer. In her spare time she enjoys playing piano, going for walks in nature and cats.

September 27, 2019 by foxglovejournal Categories: PoetryTags: creative, creativity, elements, farewells, Linda Rhinehart, mist, moon, nature, night, ocean, poem, Poetry, sky, snow, stars, summer, unknown, Wales, walk, weather, window, world, writing Leave a comment