Fall. The cool weather prompted their conversation.
He was a newcomer to the country.
He and his family skied out of Russia, dodging pursuers,
enduring hunger, cold, fatigue, crossing border after border
to escape communism and finally embrace freedom.
Now he was a college professor in the country of his choice,
teaching economics with an accent few students understood,
but telling his story over and over until they knew it.
He had climbed higher, colder, more treacherous mountains,
mountains where people died, knew they might, but climbed anyway.
He told of a man who lost his footing, fell from a peak, and hung frozen,
suspended in space until the spring thaw permitted rescuers.
So this mountain was nothing to him.
Still, like the students, he needed a mountain to climb,
and this one was available.
MARY ANN GOODWIN joyfully indulges her love of poetry and fiction writing following retirement. She belongs to the Society of Children Writers and Illustrators and the Gulf Coast Poets chapter of the Texas Poetry Society. She enjoys fellow writers and values their wisdom and encouragement. A number of her poems were selected during the 2008 GCP Poetry Competition. Contact Mary Ann.
ETUDE
by Robert Feins
The bay is a curved whole note,
flat water its silvered nacre.
Small quavers of steam rise off base clefs -
hunched silhouettes of Great Blue herons.
Overhead, duck wings beat
high tide’s first staccato. Soon more flocks -
widgeons, scaup - pulse southward in a great
autumn cadenza, Sun’s cold volta.
Swirling flocks of dunlin flicker white,
brown. Their sharp vibrato trill,
more harmonics than pure note, echoes
low above the scribbled staff of beach
where algae line the sand in brown and green.
Across this score, calligraphy of worms,
beaks' probe and pock, webbed fans of ducks
write a concerto of glissandi, half notes, rests.
ROBERTA FEINS lives in Seattle, and works as a computer consultant. She received her MFA in poetry from New England College in 2007. Her poems have been published in Tea Party, Floating Bridge Review, and The Lyric, and are forthcoming in Junctures and The Antioch Review. She edits the e-zine Switched On Gutenberg http://www.switched-ongutenberg.org/
DEAR FRIEND
by Floriana Hall
Dear friend,
There are times when I need someone
To tell my troubles to,
There are times when the only one
I can talk to is you.
Dear friend,
You listen to me without criticizing
You don’t waste any time just analyzing
You listen to my fears and sadness
And fill me with a sense of gladness.
Dear friend,
You understand that I need to talk
You lift me up to walk the walk
I know that I am in your prayers
Thus feel relieved of all my cares.
Dear friend,
I plan to always be there for you
If you are ill or feeling blue
Everyone needs a friend, that’s true,
And, my friend, you know that I love you.
For what are friends if they can’t bring
Peace and comfort for each to cling!
From GATHERING GRACES.
FLORIANA BERDYCK HALL was born in 1927 in Pittsburgh, PA, She is a Distinguished Alumna of Cuyahoga Falls High School, OH and attended Akron U. She has been married to Robert for 59 years. They have five children, nine grandchildren, one great-granddaughter. She is author/editor of ten nonfiction inspirational books, SMALL CHANGE, self published; THE ADVENTURES OF FLOSSIE, ROBBIE, AND JUNEY During The Great Depression (2006); THE SANDS OF RHYME, poetry; DADDY WAS A BAD BOY; OUT OF THE ORDINARY SHORT STORIES; HEARTS ON THE MEND (2006); FRANCIS, NOT THE SAINT (2008) and GATHERING GRACES, poetry (2008). Founder/coordinator of the Poet’s Nook at Cuyahoga Falls Library, Floriana is Editor of the group’s four books, VOICES IN VERSE, THROUGH OUR EYES, POET’S NOOK POTPOURRI and TOUCHING THE HEARTS OF GENERATIONS. She has won many poetry contests and is mentioned in WHO’S WHO IN US WRITERS, EDITORS AND POETS, WHO’S WHO IN INTERNATIONAL POETRY, MARQUIS WHO’S WHO IN AMERICA. She has been published in the US, UK, France and India and is a Poetry teacher, YOU, ME, AND POETRY, at www.LssWritingSchool.com. Contact Floriana.. Websites: www.alongstoryshort.net/FlorianaHall.html and www.BooksofExcellence.com
LOST KEY
by Patricia Wellingham-Jones
The key glints silver
against the gray gravel road.
I stoop to pick it up,
leave it alone.
I picture the small boy
trudging home from the bus stop,
drooping from school
and the heavy pack on his back.
Hope his eye catches
that gleam on the road
before he gets to the house.
Finds his pocket empty,
crouches on the step,
stomach growling.
PATRICIA WELLINGHAM-JONES has a longtime interest in healing and the benefits people gain from writing and reading their work together. Chapbooks include DON'T TURN AWAY: Poems About Breast Cancer, VOICES ON THE LAND, and ENE-CYCLE: Poems about Caregiving. Contact Patricia.
MICHAEL CERAOLO is a 51-year old civil servant/poet who is interested in, and writes about, past, present, and future. Contact Michael.
TRAVELING ROSES
by Maralee Gerke
In front of a rented house,
sit pots containing a single rosebush.
For weeks I have watched
thinking they would be planted,
but now it’s fall and the
plants are stripped of their foliage.
Never watered or moved
symbols of impermanence.
Perhaps they've traveled a long way
a legacy from mother or grandmother
dug up but never thrown away
riding in the broken down trailer
protected by plastic tubs
a reminder of better times.
He holds the thorny stems with thick gloves
as she digs them in order.
“First the Paul Scarlet
that twines along the porch rail
then Peace, a Damask,
Dresden Doll, Fairy Moss, Prosperity,
Moonlight, Celestial, Grandmas Lace,
Autumn Delight, and another half dozen
without known names
All old favorites,
their roots tucked reverently in familiar earth.
Ready when the time comes.
The sheriff, sad eyed, handing over papers,
escorting them to the truck, leaving
two rows of empty holes in the backyard.
Maralee Gerke lives in Madras, Oregon. She has been writing poetry for 10 years and has published two books of poems. She has been published in many magazines and literary journals. Contact Maralee.
GONE AWAY
by Sudip Bhattacharya
Such anger as peals of thunder rent the earth,
And dust-showers, stones thrown about:
Rage, unforgiving at each turn –
What means pain easily felt?
And lips that pain because they smile?
The tears dried up eons ago,
The laughter never was,
Peace came stealthily,
Stepping delicately.
But I wasn’t there, of course –
Impatience took me off:
Yonder! Beyond horizons,
Beyond truth!
SUDIP BHATTACHARYA is a teacher by profession, currently Reader in the Department of
English, at one of India's premier colleges, the Ramakrishna Mission Vidyamandira. He writes
poetry and prose fiction, but has only recently, at the behest of friends and relatives, offered it for
public reading. A Ph.D in English, his published work until that time had been largely academic.
Sudip is married and has a four-year old daughter. In addition to reading and writing, he enjoys
Note: THE GOLDEN TREASURY OF ENGLISH SONGS AND LYRICS is a popular anthology of English poetry,
originally selected for publication by Francis Turner Palgrave in 1861.
ASHUTOSH GHILDIYAL was born in 1984 in Lucknow, India. He is a salaried professional and a parttime author. He writes short stories, poetry, and essays. His work has been published in both print and online media. He is currently based in Mumbai. Website: http://ashutosh-ghildiyal.blogspot.com . Contact Ashutosh.
CANNING FOR WINTER
by KB Ballentine
Rough-tongued raspberry skirts
the artless field, filters sun, rain,
the willful moon. Just yesterday
our sons embraced pails full of red
to greet you at noon, bloody juice
smearing shirts, staining hands.
Your nod, lingered phone call revealed all.
Today I listen to you limping
toward another excuse. Steam
spools from boiled jars flickering
in the sun. Kitchen window frames
the stale yard, the broken swing.
I’ve fooled myself, pretending
you’ll fix it, this. Clouds whisk
the blue, your voice dissolves to static.
KB BALLENTINE resides in Dayton, Tennessee, and teaches English, theatre arts and creative
writing. She has a M.A. in Writing and a M.F.A. in Creative Writing, Poetry. Her work has
appeared in numerous journals and publications, including Bent Pin, MO: Writings from the
River, Apocalypse and Touchstone. In 2006, she was a finalist for the Joy Harjo Poetry Award
and was awarded the Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Prize in 2006 and 2007. Her first
poetry collection, Gathering Stones, was released in 2008, and her next collection, Fragments of
JOANNA M. WESTON has had poetry, reviews, and short stories published in anthologies and journals for the past twenty years. She also has two middle-level readers to her credit: THE WILLOW TREE GIRL and THOSE BLUE SHOES. The readers and a poetry book, A SUMMER FATHER, were published by by Frontenac House of Calgary. Contact Joanna.
SUMMER ROSES
by Bill Roberts
Their dizzying perfume swarmed over me
as I jumped from the streetcar,
still quarter of a mile from where they grew
in Grandma's narrow backyard,
those fat summer roses in yellow, pink, red and
white, bending to earth they were so obese.
Nearby were fatter yet red orbs, tomatoes,
Grandma would pick for our BLT sandwiches,
even the mayonnaise homemade on
flabby slices of Wonder Bread.
We'd eat on her screened-in summer porch,
let the tomato juices run down our wrists
as we inhaled the intoxication of those roses,
blended with the essences of her marigolds
and cascading petunias in multi-pastel shades.
Such a small garden but such wonderful
growing things, my Grandma's knees always
caked with mud, spring through fall, from
bending into the earth she loved so dearly,
never once in memory calling it dirt or
implying it was anything but a testimony
to the existence of a God she believed in,
prayed to, coaxed me towards, hoping I too
might someday appreciate what the earth
gives us and then, eventually, will take back.
BILL ROBERTS is widely published in online and small-press magazines (nearly a thousand poems in about 200 journals). He has just solved the biggest mystery in his life: why it is that his grandparents had 22 children and he and wife Irene have had none so far. Answer: they were from Oklahoma, he and wife from the East Coast. Bill, Irene and obnoxiously spoiled dogs live the good life in Broomfield, Colorado. Contact him.
