Friday, May 15, 2026: Cynthia Linville's "Scrapbook"

 Scrapbook

She sees sunlight, so quiet

she can almost hear the dust.

Heat wears away the edges,

in life, in photographs.

These memories are old

like someone else’s shoes –

rigid where they should bend

pliant where they should be tough.

She didn’t know how much she wanted

until she felt ready to jump in.

By then the zeotrope had blurred –

scenes spun past too fast.

Now she sees how quickly opportunities collapse.

To want one thing is

to want a thousand things.

The real trick is to want today’s offerings.

She places the book back up

on its high dusty shelf

slips on her shoes and gloves

and steps out to tend her roses.

© Cynthia Linville

Bio: Cynthia Linville’s work has appeared in many publications and several anthologies. Her two books of collected poems, The Lost Thing and Out of Reach, were published by Cold River Press. Her poems have been nominated for two Pushcart Prizes and two Best of the Net awards. Linville has received three mini-grants from Poets & Writers to perform in collaboration with musicians. She invented a poetic form dubbed the Linvillanelle which can be viewed here:

https://webpages.csus.edu/~sac16141/TheLinvillanelle.pdf

Cynthia is also a photographer whose work has appeared in People's Tribune, Sacramento News & Review, Capital Public Radio website, WTF, and more. You can see more of her work at CynthiaLinville.com.

Friday, October 18, 2024: Cynthia Linville's " This Connection is Not Private," and " Alone at Midnight: In a Field in the Rain"

This Connection is Not Private

She feels like she’s been struck

breathless

into a blue so intense

she can’t imagine any other color

She seems to be standing on a river

The sky is falling in a thousand tiny rainbows

salted with stars

She tells herself, it’s just a story:

Cinderella bootstraps

Overnight sensation

a story that repeats

over and over

in a meteor storm of falling stars

She feels like a star

maybe already falling

She tries to bring the stars inside

tries not to dissolve inside that storm

But she, too, is story

maybe just a story

just another story on the internet

Alone at Midnight: In a Field in the Rain

Lightning sparks a repeated prayer

against darkness. In the thunder,

she senses a path between centuries,

a narrow approach winding through shadows.

She feels a repeated blue presence

floating languidly.

Flickering starlight, seen only

in deepest darkness, is leaving traces

everywhere, is pulsing inside her:

a god’s strange silver feet

dancing across the sky,

dissolving what once was.

She feels ravenous, eating nothing,

overjoyed to be turned upside down,

enfolded into the sacred. Scarred,

but not scared. When asked about it later,

she doesn’t have to answer.

Her psyche is shaped differently now.

© 2024 Cynthia Linville

Cynthia Linville’s work has appeared in numerous poetry anthologies, and her two books of collected poems, The Lost Thing and Out of Reach, are available from Cold River Press. She served as Managing Editor of Convergence: an online journal of poetry and art for ten years and as Poetry Editor of Poetry Now for two years. She has received three mini-grants from Poets & Writers to perform in collaboration with musicians. Linville has taught in the English Department at Sacramento State University since 2000. You can see more of her work at CynthiaLinville.com.

Friday, July 29, 2022: Cynthia Linville's poems " Valley Fire" and "Fire Season"

 Valley Fire

(September 2016)

We are the last

to set foot in this house,

the last

to sleep in this bed,

to see these green trees.

After we shut this door

and turn this key,

all evaporates into

ash and stone,

into memory.

Originally published in Redshift 4 Anthology

By Arroyo Seco Press 2020

Fire Season

August, season of reversals,

blows the year’s ashes

on a hot wind

August lets the past slip in, 

shadows a bright day

with the pieces that are missing

August reminds you

of the price you to have to pay 

for just about everything

reminds you that love

can leave you 

unprotected

August lies to you

hides the heart of the fire

behind the smoke

© 2022 Cynthia Linville

Cynthia Linville has received three mini-grants from Poets & Writers and often performs her work in collaboration with musicians. Her poetry has appeared in many publications and several anthologies. Her two books of poems, The Lost Thing and Out of Reach, are available from Cold River Press. Linville served as Managing Editor of Convergence: an online journal of poetry and art from 2008-2018, and she has taught in the English Department at California State University, Sacramento since 2000. See more of her work at CynthiaLinville.com

Women's History Month: Monday, March 1, 2021 "Two Poems by Cynthia Linville"

 

Pentecost

“We contain the other, hopelessly and forever.”

—James Baldwin

In the end, it doesn’t really matter

who loved who more

Loneliness is a siren

that keeps drawing us back

Perhaps we are the lucky ones

blazed by the redemptive power of

accidental truths –

smokey orange and blistering

           * * *

The blisters and smoke don’t really matter

The fire calls us back

Redemption

is lit by our own match

We’re lucky –

we haven’t lost that fire

we haven’t forgotten what it feels like

to be blazed by love

           * * *

Love itself is redemptive

is a spark that ignites

We blaze our own truth

our own luck

In the end, it’s all

smokey flames and blisters

© 2021 Cynthia Linville

Regret—

The weight of it in your fingers

unpolished, but alive

coldest just before sunrise

Its liquid voice

chanting you into

the center of

your hollow labyrinth

Chances you squandered like rain

slippery, without edges

echo and echo and echo

*  * *

Persistent voices echo

from the center of your labyrinth

chanting squandered chances

like falling rain

Slippery

unpolished, but alive

the liquid weight

falls through your fingers

Always coldest just before sunrise

*  * *

Cold sunrise edges sharply

cutting the labyrinthine chants

soothing your voice

into liquid

polishing you

softly

into life

Drops of light

pool

in your cupped hands

echoing away the night

© 2021 Cynthia Linville

Cynthia Linville is a poet and photographer who collaborates with musicians. She was managing editor of Convergence: an online journal of poetry and art for ten years, and her two books of collected poems, The Lost Thing and Out of Reach, are available from Cold River Press. Visit her website at CynthiaLinville.com

Wednesday, March 4, 2020: National Women's Month: Cynthia Linville's poem "A snow of crows"

A snow of crows

falling from a wire,

a rain of tiny gold leaves:

we are uninvited guests here,

wading into the middle,

spreading ourselves out

like a blanket.

Can we read this weather?

In the silence,

I hear that song.

I am in love with this sky,

stitched by birds,

brighter than yesterday.

We ourselves sprout wings,

lift off,

fly away.

© 2020 Cynthia Linville

(Previously published in the Sacramento News & Review)

Cynthia Linville's work has appeared in many publications and several anthologies. Her two books of poems, The Lost Thing and Out of Reach, are available from Cold River Press. Linville served as Managing Editor of Convergence: an online journal of poetry and art from 2008-2018, and she has taught in the English Department at California State University, Sacramento since 2000.  Cynthia frequently reads her work in northern California, often in collaboration with musicians, and has received three mini-grants from Poets & Writers.  She has been nominated for a Pushcart and has been a featured artist on Sacramento365: http://www.sacramento365.com/featured-local-artist-july-2014-2/  See more of her work at CynthiaLinville.com

Women's History Month: Cynthia Linville's "The Library, Albuquerque", "Evangeline's, Sacramento", and "Rim Rock Ranch"

"The Library, Albuquerque", © 2019 Cynthia Linville

  "Evangeline's, Sacramento, © 2019 Cynthia Linville

 "Rim Rock Ranch", © 2019 Cynthia Linville

Cynthia Linville’s photographs have appeared in The People's Tribune, The Sacramento News & Review, Capital Public Radio's website, Cracker (band) Official Facebook page, WTF, and Medusa's Kitchen, and her two books of collected poems, The Lost Thing and Out of Reach, are available from Cold River Press. Linville’s photography and poetry cross-pollinate, creating some strong poem-picture pairings she hopes to publish in a collection. Visit her website at CynthiaLinville.com.

National Women's Month: Cynthia Linville's poem "Pilgrimage to Duncan's Landing"

Pilgrimage to Duncan’s Landing

Lush pastures roll out
wildflower-patch quilts
as eye soothing sheep flow
past my window,
the eucalyptus and manure scented air
blows in,
and then
(I’m almost there)
misty brine,
and the guilt and loss I carry
tastes like sand in wine.

At the overlook
salt-laced wind slaps my face
as the tide’s thunderous rage
chews the cliff scape
inch by inch
into new shapes,
as the years have chewed
my inner landscape.
I climb down barefoot
to pace a gentler beach:
this briny repository of secrets

I’ve doled out slowly over the years –
a lover in jail
the death of a friend
the beginning of an affair
the end of an end –
these resilient waves never fail to soothe me
with their sibilant liturgy:
pardon
and peace
pardon
and peace.

At night the sharp stars
sting
like grit in my eye
and the surf’s soft caress
sounds like your absence –
breathing in
breathing out
breathing in –
while the cant of foghorn
absolves me
of every sin.

Poem Credit: First published Poetry Now Nov 2007; later included in The Lost Thing, one of my books of collected poems from Cold River Press, 2012.

© 2017 Cynthia Linville

Photo Credit: Rosario Romero

Cynthia Linville, a 2012 Pushcart nominee, has taught writing in the English Department at California State University, Sacramento since 2000 and has served as Managing Editor of Convergence: an online journal of poetry and art since 2008. Her work has appeared in many publications and several anthologies, and her two poetry collections, The Lost Thing (2012) and Out of Reach (2014), are available from Cold River Press. She invented a poetic form dubbed the Linvillanelle which is profiled here: http://medusaskitchen.blogspot.com/p/calliopes-closet.html.