Poetry Posts

Person drawing pie chart on paper

Diagrams

by Anne Mikusinski Life is a pie chartShade it three quarters darkDue to waitingFor newsOr answersOr reasons whyBut keep that one fourth brightFor momentsKept in memory.

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Close-up of waves

At the Coastal Commission Hearing On The Desalinization Plant

by Kimberly Nunes The question was water, how to bring more to our lives.It may all come down to the Western Snowy Plover.City seats and valley farms, ecologists, and native tribes—the thing is water, how to bring it to our lives.Ohlone Esselen Monterey coast, here, where this bird thrives,the size…

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Silhouette of a man against a sky at golden hour

You Wouldn’t Know

by Gil Hoy he was my father. I never knewhim very wellbecause he wasn’t aroundwhen I was born. You wouldn’t know He married my motherwhen she was just 16. That hetook my sister to the park Most Sunday morningsso my mothercould sleep in. You wouldn’t knowa lot about any of…

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Bed of dandelion

The Spider in the Gnome House

by James Maynard Once I found a dandelion seed headAs big as a melon. In the gopher-plump grassI thought it was a child’s lost ball.I loved how freely it came into our sphereWithout a wrapper, or preview, or price.Or the soggy afternoon we spent rushingHalf-drowned worms from the puddlesTo the…

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Empty asphalt road stretching into distance

Static

by Talitha R. Degraff Gum–unrelenting–on a shoemeltingon the frying pan asphaltstretching endlessly, mutatinginto something Wrigley never intendedbird shit always finds a windshieldto sunbathe onshriveling like worms on smiling hooksGod grants cat hair life eternalclinging to Christmas sweatersand soul-black dressesspiders squat in attic cornerssalt-water taffy tuckedbetween newly rotting teethat the circustrouble…

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Person walking down a road with a suitcase

Six of Swords

by Robert Beveridge how the handle of the cheap plasticsuitcase feels against the palmof your hand and how the solesof your cheap Keds feel when youstep off the stoop and hit the road and you swear you won’t come backbut you know somewhere downthere you will end up back in…

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Large crashing waves

Interaction

by James Croal Jackson Now that I know how to swimI am ready to save every bodyfrom the waves in my brain. The neurological tsunamisweeps me from whatever you are trying to say because I was trying to save myself firstby drifting away.

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Dog carrying driftwood on a beach

Putting the Dog Down

by Kimberly Nunes Though it meant deaththe van pulled up in luminous sunthough it meant death—carried to sand, her final ocean whiffkind eyes on us, haunches stilled,a big heart too large, and all this beauty—though it meant death

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Pond surrounded by trees and a grassy field

Pipedream : County Hwy F36, Newton, Iowa

by James Maynard We lingered four thousand nights beneath an unmoving sky.Rut and root and bark. Fruit bursting from our limbs.And without speech we swayed, a system writtenFor the choirs of leaf we named the shattering.As the afternoon’s white yellow split into blue.As beneath the shards he sang his dark…

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Close-up shot of a line on a sports field

On the Pitch of Life

by Ali Ashhar On a freezing winter nightwhile watching premier league on televisiondad tells me he used to leadhis college team,we sip coffee togetherit has been a whilesince dad has seen his college pals.He narrates me an instanceas he reminisce his dynamic personalityon the field,in the meanwhile Chelsea scoresand dad…

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