Welcome to Our Online Poetry Gallery Featuring Local Poets
The Sun
Oh how lovely shines the light,
Streaming down from morn til night.
It creates bright patterns all around,
And casts my shadow on the ground.
It sparkles the dew upon the grass,
And the quiet seas reflect like glass
In winter time it melts the snow,
In spring it helps my garden grow.
It warms sandy beaches and summer swims,
And colors the foliage as fall begins.
It’s nature’s wonder and when day is done,
We await a new dawn of our splendid sun.
- Fran Reichert
Waiting in the Parking Lot to Pick up Pizza at the Edge of the Abyss
There are dark holes in space the size of the sun,
and this might be one of them.
What will I do when the pizza is ready?
I will sing a lullaby, and offer it up as
sacrifice.
But our God wishes no sacrifice only that we give thanks even here
on the edge of the abyss where next week
I may be planning a funeral.
There is something so autonomic
About ordering pizza during an apocalypse,
Something that quickens the soul to want
Wild mushroom, spinach and artichoke,
also grandma’s, especially that which is stone oven-baked
by an Italian from Brooklyn,
symmetry, isn’t it, the edge of the universe
calls out for some small sign that what we love
is still alive.
- Susan G. Dingle
From Parting Gifts
(Local Gems Press, 2020.)
as i question
this hopelessness
i notice
what is
taking the time
to grow
even now
in the cold
the crocuses bloom
- Stella Keating
(this poem was accepted and included in the Oberon Poetry magazine’s Fall 2019 issue)
The Great Wood Table 1945
Inside the great wood table
Flour grouts the grain
Veils the oak.
Here and there
Traces of pies,
Hugh pies carefully rolled
Around the great wood table
The family celebrated,
Weddings, births, communions.
The return of sons
On the great wood table
My grandfather made wine
From brown cherries.
Displayed his harvest of scallions,
Tomatoes, peppers
Shining like porcelain.
I first noticed the women
Sprinkling flour on the wood,
Fingers kneading,
Touching
Stretching the yielding dough.
They poured the soaked grain,
Filled the shells,
Placed the latticed works
Into the fired ovens.
The men gorged themselves on food
Rich red sauces, pasta, thick bread
They drank dark wines,
Smoked small twisted cigars,
Snored, while blue smoke curled
Around the room.
The pies!
Filled with citron and
Sweet cheese
Wheat grains
In the soft center,
The women,
The great wood table.
You never saw the wood
The light in the cherry wine
You never danced the tarantella
- Dr. Nanette H. Yavel
Crossing the Line
In first grade I learn
to write
wiggly A’s like tee pees in
a hurricane and wobbly O’s
stretching into green striped air balloons
carrying me through cotton clouds.
Below me, my playground with
the silver swing where each afternoon
my toes touch the sky
“3, 2,1- Blast Off. Red planet, next stop.”
On earth, my stick straight hair rebels
against ribbons and berets with
my head bent over columns of numbers leaning across
white lined paper scarred by my endless erasing.
My teacher’s eyes squint-unable to see the galaxies
Surrounding my scribbles, scratches and scrawls.
If only she would smell the lines of crayon,
With a new born hue, that untouched color,
hidden under the circles like suns round and rising, rising
- Pat Gallagher Sassone
Love, Be My Valentine!
I don’t know
if I always knew
that love is
ever the answer…
I’d like to think so.
I’d like to think that
“down deep,” no matter
what I was doing
or saying or thinking,
love lurked nearby,
its hook ready to
yank me from the lip
of the abyss
where not-love lived.
But I’m not certain!
With my now-consciousness
I try to fathom
that sanctuary,
that inmost place
yet to be located
by anatomists
where not-love and love
duke it out daily,
where hell and heaven
dwell side-by-side,
not separated from
real life, not reserved
for future occupancy,
but connected by
a well-oiled swinging door.
- Joe Mc Kay, February 2020
Fine Lines
fine lines
are hard
to define
between the
seen and unseen
fine lines
fade quickly
when love
prevails
when joy
is present
fine lines
harden and
separate
when hate
invades
fine lines
become walls
barriers and
blockades
when evil
steps in
fine lines
are so
subtle
waiting
to be
defined
it is in
knowing
both sides
of a fine line
that we begin
to know the truth
there is NO
fine line.
- Vera Decicco
The Miracel of V
I lift my head, I raise my eyes
An awesome sight to see
The uniform perfection of
The miracle of V
You let me know you’re coming
A sound uniquely you
The honking voice you trumpet
Alerts my point of view
You call to me, I heed the call
With eagerness I look
The wondrous sight before my eyes
Precision by the book
I think about how you could know
Exactly what to do
Synchronicity as you perform
The gift of very few
In flight you shine beyond belief
On this my heart is sold
On ground it is another tale
The paradox be told
For here and there you leave behind
A vision not so grand
Perhaps at best but nonetheless
You fertilize the land
So in the end it does depend
On which I chose to see
Pedestrian Disaster
Or the miracle of V
- Michele D. Mauro
finelyme@optonline.net
Play Ball
A car width separating the houses was our stadium.
A strip of grass between the pavements was our ball field.
A girl waiting for the right pitch
learned the language of the game,
how to throw hard and over -handed like a boy.
Then, win or lose,
walked hand- in- hand with her father out of the settling dusk.
- Joan Kuchner
Published in Bard’s Annual 2019
Ice Harvest
Chilled bones ache with each reduced degree
Already summer seems far-off.
I miss the sunny ocean’s balm,
yet snow on sand calms,
bringing winter’s dreams of cozy fires,
quilts that warm and soothe us.
Our thermostat demands control by me.
You’re always lowering it one more degree.
This dance of heat
chills our shared domesticity.
until we laugh .
Dear God, the levity is wondrous,
softening the brittle, winter me,
warming you as well,
flushing my pallid cheeks
fleshing out the fragile skeleton
that holds us.
Winter’s bluster crackles
into edgy conversation
The easy autumn banter
freezes into sullen murmurs,
Love that blooms in spring and summer
drifts to fields of frost.
Seasons flow melodically
in moody rhythms,.
temperate and intemperate,
Brahms darkness, Mozart’s light
What binds us to each other is a mystery,
An unremembered history of passion and pretense,
ephemeral as a breeze,
soft as the snow that will cover you and me.
- Maggie Bloomfield
www.maggiebloomfield.com
If Only
If only..
I knew how easy
It would be to get up
My first steps wouldn’t have
Been so frightening
If only…
I knew how wonderful
it was to ride a bike
I would have asked Dad
To remove the training
Wheels sooner
If only…
I realized that first broken
Heart would mend
And lead me to my true love
There would have less tears
If only….
I was aware that the golden
Years are so rich in memories
Getting older would have been
Approached more eagerly
If only….. if only
The next big if only
I honestly don’t know what
To say
I’m not quite ready for it
That’s for sure
But, recalling fulfilling
Promises of the past
I’m certainly not afraid any more
- CarolAnn Zito
carolannscorner@optonline.net