John Cullen is the 1st place winner of Streetlight‘s 2022 Poetry Contest Appeasement Three hundred pounds of pasture mix in the trunk. International Farms estimates .05 percent weed mixed with Kentucky Blue and Meadow Fescue, and I suspect at least fifty percent perennial hope. We bounce up the driveway, and the stars really appear diamond-like. Far from the glow of town we haul bags filled with Colgate Whitening toothpaste, Momma Mia frozen pizzas, boxes of pasta, cans of kidney beans and cubed beef for the coming chili weekend. Half the celestials shine but no longer … Continue reading Appeasement by John Cullen→
Driving switchbacks on Shenandoah’s spine, dipping into valleys and screaming up again, we scorch speed warnings from yellow diamonds as the dashboard Garmin’s destination time spins backwards. We’re regaining invisible minutes that would have languished on a longer voyage, one that slowed to marvel at purple splashes of ironweed and white tassels of sweetspire or braked to heed warnings of falling rocks. The cerulean sky has tumbled other sarsens in our path, and instead of ringing them in monuments, we have taken to the road, racing time itself, arms stretched out windows, splayed fingers … Continue reading Time Traveling by Bill Glose→
A Gull A gull so far from the river circles the parking lot. Its whiteness is lost in this late fall day’s brightness. Its black edges are lost in the sunlight. Its black edges are lost against the glowing clouds, where its whiteness is lost. My daughter sleeps in the car and does not see the gull gleam above us so far from the river. She is lost in a glowing white dream. Tomorrow I will have forgotten the gleam of the gull that circled above her so far from the river. Years from now … Continue reading A Gull and The Black Birch, 2 poems by J. R. Solonche→
Between the two American holidays of Thanksgiving and Christmas, it seems appropriate to write about one aspect of both: food. Traditionally the first Thanksgiving was a celebration of a successful, or at least adequate, harvest with the hope that such would carry the Pilgrims through the hard winter to come. Occasions for such thoughts, no doubt, are ancient and center around family and tribe sustainability. An official thanksgiving holiday was not celebrated until 1863 when Abraham Lincoln declared one, a few hundred years after the “first” Thanksgiving in 1621. We collectively count the blessings … Continue reading Beware the Feast by Fred Wilbur→
a lot of roadkill lately. one sign of summer’s approach. dead foxes— dead birds especially. and once, on the main road driving toward blessington, an otter—an almost intact thing, a torso as thick as cracked leadpipe, lying down on the lines which bisected the lanes, and everyone swerving about it. april is indeed a morbid month, and it’s dishonest— sun striking the tarmac like water and drawing things in. daffodils rise, draping forward fat flowers with curl in the neck of a landed and interested vulture. folding its wings at the verges of roadside. strutting, … Continue reading A morbid month by D. S. Maolalai→
The sky streams by overhead, a blue tapestry dappled with puffs of white, each cloud haloed by the sun’s mild gold. The day is at its half- way point. Soon, the sky will lose its hold on gold, the blue spruce will sigh, the verdure of their green growing imperceptible as night unveils its black cloak But, for the moment, the sun’s orange rays still shower down; the moon’s silver sliver is an afterthought for the firmament. I sit in front of my computer to write, the white screen staring back at me. This is … Continue reading The Shades of My Life by Alexander Lazarus Wolff→
the fancy radio my wife gifted into my simple pickup has finally died despite all manner of punching and twirling, little instrument won’t rouse, nor even static startle, and the bright digital time sign has flown silence, salient, at first, like a big embarrassing passenger, crowds the cab I pull over, pour a bit of citrus vodka into an empty fast-food coffee cup on the crow-rowdy gravel road to the river, windows down, an old channel crackles Ted writes, paints, plays tennis with Amy Lee. Nominated twice for Best of the Net, and twice for … Continue reading analog by Ted Jean→
I gave up early: and went to a houseboat to mourn: both named a beer and splashed next to woes about your love in a bunk of redwood done messy by stinkbugs. your adjectives were pointed the day that barley was cut, reckless, in Groningen: ………. sultry. magnetic.. taut …… .and then you said you would arrive on time, or late to draw me out and push on my groin– and the void in between us became not measured in feet but in eye glances gone awry: looking at the cusp of … Continue reading The Amstel by Isaac Amend→
Morels ………………….For Tom Proutt In my latest unsuccessful hunt for the unicorn of the woods, I found a two-point buck skull, a square of soapstone, a 1952 Mennen bottle, and a foxhole. Lots of fiddleheads, lots of May apples, and an ant floating in a pool of water in a leaf. A snail slugged its way across the duff as birds and squirrels sang and chittered in the branches above. The dog ran chasing sticks and splashing through the creek bed. I think I may have discovered a spring, but I am not certain: water … Continue reading Morels and Fun, 2 poems by Stuart Gunter→
Sending simultaneous submissions is a fact of a poet’s life whether you practice the strategy or not. How such a maneuver began may be one of those mysteries of history, but it is acceptable to most literary venues these days. It may have come about by the eagerness and impatience of poets frustrated by the often long waits and by thinking that someone out there would just love their work. I suppose the more complicated recordkeeping of this doubling (tripling) up has been taken care of by sophisticated spreadsheet programs. Simultaneous submissions is a strategy … Continue reading Submissions Etiquette by Fred Wilbur→
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