Friday, April 18, 2025: Three Poems by Fay Loomis

 

                                                                   

© 2025 marie c lecrivain

 

Metamorphosis

In Memoriam: Joan Miller Bladden

where are you

dear sister

frozen bird

afraid to sing

in death

you open

your throat

fly

Ripped Path

sanctimonious

words drown me

fear drives a knife

into my heart

speak to me

of covert truth

Turn on Caesar’s Tables

Veni, Vidi, Vici. “I came, I saw, I conquered.” Attributed to Julius Caesar, 47 BC

I came, I saw, and I was conquered

beaten, burned, destroyed

And, like the Phoenix, I rose again

tempered by the fire

© 2025 Fay Loomis

Fay L. Loomis leads a quiet life in the woods in Kerhonkson, New York, USA. Member of the Stone Ridge Library Writers and the Rat's Ass Review Workshop, her poetry and prose appear in numerous publications, including five poetry anthologies. Fay is the author of Sunlit Wildness (Origami Poems Project, 2024) and Fragments of Myself, forthcoming from Porkbelly Press. She is a Pushcart Prize nominee.

Monday, December 2, 2024: Pushcart Nominations (2024)

 

Here are the 2024 Pushcart Prize nominees. I wish them well, and much success.:)

1. Lorraine Caputo "A Weekend Escape"” (poem)

2. Beverly Collins Beverly M. Collins's "Cost of Knowing" (prose)

3. Kitty Jospé's "Someone's Birthday is Someone Else's Death Day" (poem)

4. Fay L. Loomis's  " Writing Poems While Asleep" (poem) 

5. Lisa Marguerite Mora's "Afterwards the Moon"(poem) 

6. LB Sedlacek's "One Hit Wonder"(poem)

Friday, November 29, 2024" LB Sedlacek's "One Hit Wonder"

 One Hit Wonder  

The corn stands tall
a deep grass green
brown decay on top
and I lean slowly
back in the chair
soft plaid, blue-green
waiting for my favorite
songs to play on
the old black rectangle
a radio that sits
on the dresser in
my parent’s green room
the shade lighter than
the green cornfield slaughtered
in fall stalks cut
down fresh fodder for
wild geese dining in
moonlight, the walking path
borders around the cornfield
laid bare walkers, bikers
exposed to the elements
and while the field
sleeps seeds are planted
anew in spring and
the corn leaps up
lashes out at sky
relishing its deep green
its hearty cycle of
repeating a popular tune.

© 2024 LB Sedlacek

Bio: LB Sedlacek is an award winning writer and poet. Her latest poetry book is Unresponsive Sky, published by Purple Unicorn Media.  Her latest short stories book is The Renovator & Motor Addiction, published by Alien Buddha Press. She has been nominated for Best of the Net and a Pushcart Prize both in poetry. Her mystery book, The Glass River, was nominated for the Thomas Wolfe memorial prize. She also enjoys swimming and reading. 

Instagram:  @lbsedlacek

Facebook: @lbsedlacekpoet

Twitter: @lbsedlacek

http://www.lbsedlacek.com

Friday, November 15, 2024: Lisa Marguerite Mora's "Afterwards the Moon"

Afterwards the Moon (when my cat died)

It was a large white disk low in the sky. It didn't glow. It was cloud color. And kind of defiant about it. I stopped walking down the slant of hill and said, wow.

What are you supposed to do with the moon? In another time, another era, maybe I would have raised my arms, or genuflected or offered something to the fact it was there, rising as it always promises to do.

Something real and solid but still ephemeral. Mysterious, because while reliable you never know when you’ll see it or where. Or what it will look like. The moon is hard to pin down.

I resumed walking, but looked for it again between the buildings. I looked. But the clouds had shifted and were darkening to blue. It was no longer there. I’ll never see it like that again, that size, that color, framed in just that way. The moon was gone. A single granule of time.

These moments as they slip by are baffling. Not designed to be held. The heat of life pressed against my chest, as I tenderly cradled its bones and fur. And then the life is gone, slips into invisibility. My eyes cannot adjust. My eyes cannot stay wide enough to take it all in.

Yet still I search the skies.

© 2024 Lisa Marguerite Mora

Bio: Lisa Marguerite Mora has been published widely including in Chiron Review, Rattle, Literary Mama, Public Poetry Series, California Quarterly, Rebelle Society, Serving House Journal, semifinalist Tom Howard Poetry Contest, First Place winner Micro Fiction for Dandelion Press. Nominated for Best of the Net and a Pushcart Prize. Her first novel is searching for a home while she writes a second.

Thursday, October 31.2024: Emma Lee's "Neutrals Don't Suit Anyone" and "Keep it Real"

Neutrals Don’t Suit Anyone

A one bed flat is hardly

likely to be kitted out

ready for a House Beautiful

photographer, but even here,

the run-down part of the city

smooth textiles in neutrals,

cover windows, except one.

A flash of gold, a brief sunny

spell picking up its glittery

strands. The sort of fabric

that could be a barely-there

dress which outshines

the outsized sequins

complementing the huge

hoop earrings, tall beehive,

platformed stilettoes

siren red smile, heavy kohl

worn by someone out

for a night of drowning

sorrows, a few hours

before tottering home

to a single bed. A kitchen

that would just about cope

with a hangover busting fry-up.

A shower to flatten hair

to accommodate a wireless

headset, an office suit, a smile

that never reaches the eyes.

© 2024 Emma Lee

Keep it Real

Slick suits and shades slide across a stage,

the singers’ mouths obscured by headset mics,

the choreographed moves muffle accents.

In a standing room only venue where the roadie kicks

the amp into action, the sound engineer compensates

for the quirks of a cobbled-together set-up. A broken

string could throw the rhythm, a spilt beer could

electrocute a guitarist, the crowd could drown the vocals.

The suits shimmy off stage and are ushered to a dressing

room where they wait to be bused to a hotel. Wash,

rinse, repeat. Every minute scheduled, accounted.

The men in jeans, faded tees, rough shirts step over

the sticky patches, taped wires, plug in, limber up.

There’s an hour’s workout ahead. Music thumps against

a ribcage, loosening the heart’s imagination before

it’s burnt by a stubbed cigarette, leaving smoke.

It’s too easy to say the suited choreographed

singer/dancers wouldn’t last five minutes in the bar.

Their lyrics an opaque gloss of unknown lives.

The bar band shy off stage, stamped applause

vibrates through the floor. This is their moment,

a hyped audience vibrant in the post-gig shadows,

band absent, music still thrumming through the amps,

kept alive by the memories of people now drifting home.

© 2024 Emma Lee

Emma Lee’s publications include The Significance of a Dress (Arachne, 2020) and Ghosts in the Desert (IDP, 2015). She co-edited Over Land, Over Sea, (Five Leaves, 2015), reviews for magazines and blogs at https://emmalee1.wordpress.com.

Friday, September 19, 2025: Annette Sugden's "She Runs in Silver"

She Runs in Silver

She runs in silver like an arctic fox

(No, that’s not right)

She walks inside colors

Rains out games and lovers

(Still not quite it either)

She is not she or they or he or it

She is a nebula

(No, she isn’t)

She stands on my window

Invisible, a sylph, not a siren

Her secret, silent and just out of reach

© 2024 Annette Sugden

Annette Sugden is a poet whose work has appeared in poeticdiversity, Gentle Strength Quarterly,, and more. She’s lived in Seattle, London, and Los Angeles. Annette currently resides outside of Phoenix with her partner, Michael, their three dogs, and two cats.

Friday, October 25,, 2024; Jan Steckel's "The Fire Game"

 

The Fire Game

I didn’t set out to be a rage-a-holic,

but it crept up on me, what with

certain friends and family

turning out to be rabid

abled supremacists and all.

I didn’t start out with burning contempt

for my fellow Americans, for other poets,

for Republicans, for the entire South,

for the unvaxed, the unmasked.

I just smoldered until I burst into flame.

I want to smother it in human kindness,

but every time I start to get there,

another disabled or elderly friend

drops dead, or the ERs fill up,

or somebody gives me shit

for wearing a mask to a party,

and I just want to unhinge my jaw,

yell “Dracaris,” and incinerate

the whole freaking fiesta,

then crawl back in my cave.

© 2024 Jan Steckel

Jan Steckel’s debut fiction collection Ghosts and Oceans came out from Zeitgeist

Press in 2023. Her poetry book The Horizontal Poet (Zeitgeist Press, 2011) won a

2012 Lambda Literary Award. Her poetry book Like Flesh Covers Bone (Zeitgeist

Press, 2018) won two Rainbow Awards. Her fiction chapbook Mixing Tracks

(Gertrude Press, 2009) and poetry chapbook The Underwater Hospital (Zeitgeist

Press, 2006) also won awards. Her creative prose and poetry have appeared in

Scholastic Magazine, Yale Medicine, Bellevue Literary Review, Canary, Assaracus and elsewhere.

She lives in Oakland, California.