Frequent WIZ contributor Karen Kelsay’s new book of poetry, Lavender Song, is out and available for sale here. Karen’s formalist poetry is a well-kept garden of lovely sensibilities. For samples of her work published on WIZ, go here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.
Writers: The deadline for Torrey House Press’s creative non-fiction contest is [...]
While we’re teetering on the very edges of our seats gripping our arm rests watching the heated race for the Most Popular Poem Award, I have a few announcements I’d like to make.
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Thanks, Karen, for providing this photo.
I never knew you held a rosary
of lilies in your heart, or meadows filled
with songbirds in your hand, that chirped and trilled
into the night. I could not sense the sea,
or brimming emerald pools that filled your days
and buoyed you up, when morning could not find
one star. Your quiet life is intertwined
with jasmine flowers, washed in [...]
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Botanical gardens rock.
For fifteen years this lemon tree has bloomed
And offered up her fruit; our little maiden
Who sweeps the walk, housekeeper of the soil.
Her headdress in the wintertime is laden
With branches that bear golden offerings.
She’s our enchanted one, with perfect limbs
Producing flowers in the springtime. Her
Exquisite emerald leaves evoke soft hymns
From sparrows on the trellis. Daughter, bound
Into [...]
When Lily plays the cello, it is holy.
Like lavender that strays from garden walls
and necklaces of evergreens that slowly
curl across the meadows, along the halls
her wreath of somber notes is softly borne.
She wings the bow; I hear my mother’s voice,
recall a lover’s crying flame. I mourn
and then, with silent chanting tongue, rejoice.
Each memory is coaxed [...]
I love the hour that hangs its weightless haze
of yawn across my bed. An ivory wrap
of humming stillness, spectral dance embossed
in thimble-light. I love the wentletrap
of thoughts and gurgled chants that twist before
white shoals of sleep. The bend and blur of night
with loveliness and brokenness inside
soft vagaries that pivot in the light.
I love the hour [...]
Shadows cast by hills of Andalusia
Trace the groves and vineyards near the shore;
Sunset turns blue skies to red sangria;
Twilight spreads her Spanish veil once more.
Silver castanets appear as starlight;
Rhythmic clapping fills the village square;
Gypsy music floats in through my window,
Carried on the sultry summer air.
Moonbeams spill their secret spells upon me,
And I cast about a [...]
A partial sun suffuses slender weeds
in ocher light. Beside an echelon
of gorse and heather, wispy Maiden Pink
has nearly lost its bloom. The lapwing’s gone
to glide across the mound and mind her young,
as silently as August slips away.
Long sedges with their tawny oval heads
spring out from brambles forming a bouquet
of summer’s final hues. Beyond the gate
low [...]