Día logues – Margaret King

 

She talks to every living thing

Maybe even more than humans

She talks to her plants as they grow

To butterflies & birds who visit daily

She has an ongoing rapport with the

Blue jays and chickadees

Who boisterously call for food

Whenever she walks under the trees

Of the yard

Underneath, the grass is littered with

Shells of sunflowers & peanuts

A beach, an ocean of giving &

Giving back

She talks to her cats

Marking loyal days together.

To her, these things are as alive as anyone

& worthy of communication.

But why doesn’t she speak to the

Hummingbirds? Messengers, she feels

She should at least send a prayer

Or a wish

Or a private longing

A cry for help

But she doesn’t

Want to scare them away.

 

 

 

Margaret King is a Wisconsin writer who enjoys penning poetry, short stories, and young adult novels. In her spare time, she likes to haunt the shores of Lake Michigan, similar to many of her fictional characters. Her most recent work has appeared in Unlost Journal, Moonchild Magazine, Enclave, and The Ginger Collect.

Advertisement

March 2, 2018March 2, 2018 by foxglovejournal Categories: PoetryTags: animals, birds, cats, communication, creative, creativity, dialogue, elements, fauna, giving, insects, life, loyalty, Margaret King, nature, plants, poem, Poetry, speech, US, WI, wish, writing Leave a comment

Bed Against the Partition – Roy Moller

 

In from Ontario to have me,

she rooms in a floral,

threadbare situation

in strange Scotland,

picking up chanting

from Infants and Juveniles,

and pigtailed little madams

shoo-ing away

clodhopping brogues

from elaborate elastics

and hopscotch plotted

in chalk mark.

 

She samples the songs of

pat-a-cake in action.

She is handsome, she is pretty,

She is the flower of the golden city.

 

She’s seven months seeded,

sitting out playtime

perched on the edge

of a tartan coverlet

wishing the quilt

and pillow would muffle

anxious appointments,

obligations pressing upon her

and pressing within her

till she can skip over

this rope again forever.

 

Roy Moller is a poet and songwriter who lives in Dunbar on the east coast of Scotland. He is the author of the short-run collection Imports and his work has been featured in the anthologies The Sea (Rebel Poetry) and Neu! Reekie! UntitledTwo. His musical works include My Week Beats Your Year, described by Louder Than War as “profoundly moving and inspirational”. His website is www.roymoller.com.

September 15, 2017 by foxglovejournal Categories: PoetryTags: chalk, change, childhood, creative, creativity, flower, games, hopscotch, humanity, memory, music, obligations, past, poem, Poetry, Roy Moller, Scotland, skipping, song, travel, wish, writing, youth Leave a comment

Higashi-Koenji 東高円寺 – Anne Louise Avery

 

*Higashi-Koenji is situated in Tokyo’s Suginami ward and is famous as a center of alternative youth culture and for its temples and shrines.

 

The summer my father died

I moved to Higashi Koenji.

The house had new tatami floors

And a fat white cat called Setsuke.

It smelled of cedar wood and mayonnaise. 

It was also

By a video store,

The best in Tokyo

(with every X-Files episode

And sun-faded posters of Peter Sellers).

A lantern carver lived next door.

His mother left me peaches on our stoop

Coated with a thin dusting of mica.

One day, I walked to the station

At six fifteen am to catch a train to Mitaka-shi.

It was my father’s birthday,

The Seventh of July,

And overnight the station people had covered the entrance

With silver stars and 

Long streamers like tentacles 

(Watermelon pink! Slush blue! Frog green!)

For the Tanabata Matsuri, 

The Star Festival,

When the Weaver-girl and the Cow-herd

Meet on a bridge across the Milky Way

Made of magpie wings.

In the evening, I eat grilled eel and

Strawberry cheese cake and

Scratch a wish with marker pen on a thin strip of tanzaku paper. 

And I tie it next to all the other wishes

Bristling on a bamboo branch in Koenji temple.

 

Anne Louise Avery is a writer, art historian and the cartography editor at the travel journal, Panorama (http://panoramajournal.org). Her recent book, Albion’s Glorious Ile, published by Unicorn Press, was featured in the Guardian and on Radio 4. She is also the director of the acclaimed arts education charity, Flash of Splendour. Follow her on Twitter @annelouiseavery and @petitflash.

August 28, 2017August 28, 2017 by foxglovejournal Categories: PoetryTags: Anne Louise Avery, change, colours, creative, creativity, family, festival, home, Japan, memory, nature, past, poem, Poetry, senses, stars, summer, Tokyo, tradition, train, travel, wish, writing Leave a comment