Beside the bank where black swans often lie
in twos, beneath wild fruit trees near the stream
where Chinese geese move single file across
the water like a strand of flags that gleam
with little angled feathertips of light,
I heard her speak. It was a quiet voice,
like summer clouds that weep along low hills
of poplar groves then peacefully rejoice
in [...]
Victorian Violet Press editor Karen Kelsay, a frequent contributor to WIZ, sent this announcement:
Victorian Violet Press, an online poetry magazine, is seeking submissions for the December issue. Please check out the magazine to get an idea of what type of poetry is published. You can find the magazine here.
Guidelines: Our taste in poetry is eclectic, [...]
First off, frequent WIZ contributor Karen Kelsay invited me to submit poetry to her online poetry journal Victorian Violet Press, where I’m the featured poet for her summer issue. Victorian Violet Press also nominated “The Pear Tree” for a Pushcart Prize. Thanks, Karen!
You can hear me read “The Pear Tree” here.
Second: If you’re one of the [...]
As everyone probably knows, the winner of the Spring Poetry Runoff’s Most Popular Vote Award is Karen Kelsay for her poem, “Waiting for Spring.” In fact, Karen’s fans filled the top three spots with her poems, all of which, as I’ve noted before, have lovely minstrel qualities. “Waiting for Spring” exhibits not only Karen’s trademark [...]
October, what will you bestow? You’ve left
the tulips and long daffodils unborn,
and spreading ferns aloof in darkest glens;
your brown leaves have revealed a scarlet thorn
to snag the frosty mornings. Mallards will
not light upon the weir, and open skies
remove their lightest blue. The fallow rose
is waiting for the spring–and like my eyes,
discolored branches search for green. [...]
Sitting cross-legged beneath the cherry tree,
wearing her mother’s seed pearl necklace
and a sprig of jasmine on her bodice—
she offers blossoms to a gravestone.
The gilt and gold of late afternoon washes
through shadows. It’s springtime. Unripened
fruit hangs like quiet temple bells between
flowering cylinders of white, and brides
with dark branches. Somewhere in the sweet alone,
silence caps hilltops and [...]
Slowly, after evening has gathered her stars,
Daybreak quietly spreads over the meadowland.
Foxglove and larkspur rise like tranquil towers
Floating in the shadowy, purple dawn.
Briar patches, woven with dewy blackberries,
Hedge around crooked oaks where sparrows
Flit in the branches. Small clouds of palest pink,
Mushroom in the soft-born morning light,
And linger above the violet embroidered vales.
Soon, all the budding [...]
Elizabeth Songstaffe, whose name
is inscribed in my gold-edged bible,
how was your life composed?
Did your pockets brim
with grace notes that scattered
like freckles on a shoulder?
Were you awkward
as a lonely clap, sounding after
a symphony’s first movement?
Born one hundred years ago,
your death was not recorded–
yet, I hear a faint refrain.
Did you once hum across prairies
on humid evenings, or [...]
I cannot kick a mound of maple leaves
or see a pumpkin peeking from the vine
before the frost and not remember hills
where summer laid her green. A distant line
of poplars gleams like curtains made of coins;
it shakes at passing clouds. And everywhere
the magpie hops, I see another sign
of hawthorns beckoning the winter air
to breathe upon the [...]
When the moon becomes a mellow pear
on twilight’s bough, and stars swirl up like maple leaves
before they’re swept into the dawn, I’ve often
walked this garden where the voice of whippoorwills
would carry remnant melodies across long, dusky
hours. At times I feel this eastern breeze has lifted
me, somehow, beyond the soft-lit sloping fields
and conifer lined hills. To [...]