We are pilgrims in the earth and strangers— we come from afar and we are going far. –Vincent van Gogh Abroad for some time now following our family’s wishes without much success or happiness. I sense their exasperation, their disappointment growing— soon there will be no tolerance left, even for an eldest son. I prefer not to speak of it except to you, brother. I hold up a mirror to the deep things which pass through me, sometimes flickering, sometimes blazing, always indomitable— feeling no connection to these plans for me. This I freely admit. … Continue reading Abroad by Brent Short→
If you make a quick on-line search about loneliness in America, you may be surprised that between twenty to thirty-three percent of the population feels lonely every week. There is a myriad of causes for this condition which I am not qualified to delve into as my sociological skills are suspect, but phrases like depression, political angst, feed-back bubble, frustration with technology, uncertainty, isolation, and others, are all thrown around with rabbit-hole parsing. I wouldn’t know where to begin knitting together all the nuance of psychiatric terminology. I have been living alone and thinking about … Continue reading Journal of Absence by Fred Wilbur→
Rebecca Faulkner is the 2nd place winner of Streetlight’s 2025 Poetry Contest Father’s Day Mum says I have a new family now, matter-of-fact with the tea brewing. A half-sister who rides her shiny bike without training wheels, plush carpet hugs her staircase. Suppers in the car nights he drives me home, fish & chips steam the windows. My eyes vinegar-itch but I will not cry. Weekends he fails to fix the bird-feeder, spilling seed in my sandals while I jostle sparrows for crumbs. When he’s back I’ll make him read Charlotte’s Web, work busily like … Continue reading Father’s Day by Rebecca Faulkner→
Abby Murray is the 1st place winner of Streetlight’s 2025 Poetry Contest Of All the Qualities She Could Have Inherited She carries my penchant for flowers she hasn’t learned to identify as weeds. she brings me dandelions, red clover, morning glories, buttercups, even scotch broom, and I prop them up in a vodka bottle on the windowsill because she can’t believe her luck, how nobody fought to collect these beauties before she did, how she found them heaped on yard waste piles or reaching up from the cement or clay beneath utility poles and … Continue reading Of All the Qualities She Could Have Inherited by Abby Murray→
They tried to protect us from the TV as it vomited unspeakable news straight from Cronkite, night after night Age six, I snuck looks at the evening news a few times, a ticker at the bottom of the screen announcing the death of solider after soldier. The ashes fell like rain. Much later, I learned about the red death the world had witnessed, brought to us in black and white every night. Mom cried. It was 1968. Now, 60 years gone, I stand at the top of Crabtree Falls, a hike Mom loved when she … Continue reading The Tet Offensive by Debbie Collins→
Remember that time you spent five whole dollars on a ticket to win a calf at the fair? What you thought we’d do with a little cow, I have no idea. We lived in a two-room apartment. We wandered through the trade hall, looking at things to improve and repair a home we wouldn’t have for twenty-five years, considering where a hot tub might go, if we had a place, or what sort of siding would look best. We made an investment in ourselves, paid a small deposit with a promise that, after a year … Continue reading Hope by Carlene M. Gadapee→
I possess a book on reading at the beach. How to Read a North Carolina Beach* is one of those few books you need a beach to enjoy fully, one that prompts you to verify its contents by actually walking on the beach! The notion of reading at the beach began in the latter nineteenth century with the rise of summer vacations (not necessarily all at the beach) and this leisure time to read was promoted by the publishing industry producing entertaining, light, or fun works of literature. Thus, “beach read” eventually rose as … Continue reading Let the Leaves Turn by Fred Wilbur→
Because we didn’t ask Abraham to do anything we wouldn’t do ourselves. We don’t owe him any explanation. Let him think it’s revenge in advance for when kids snitch on parents. We know it’s a kid who kicked off the Salem witch hunt. We knew Shylock’s daughter ran off with his ducats, that kids would accuse their mothers’ boyfriends of all kinds of crime to keep them apart, then set fire to City Hall: We already planned to replace it with cheap dwellings all the way from South Street to High. We knew revenge in … Continue reading We Need Appointments to See Friends by Gerald Yelle→
My father stared at me like a rose full of lint. He was wondering how living haunted me, spreading through my face and body, how it serenaded me like a black shadow, this slice of stench, this mound of nausea. I told him that I would get married to her, the love of my life, the lint of my universe, the one whose smile cracked Heaven open, the only woman whose carcass cleaned me. When she lived, my parents hated her; my mother believed she had no home training; my father thought she did not … Continue reading A Dead Love by Chibuike Ukah→
We are excited to announce the Streetlight Poetry Contest winners for this year. But first, several observations: we are pleased with your response of 106 entries comprising 290 poems. As we have previously noted, all poems are read by each of us independently. Then, through consultation and often multiple re-readings, we arrive at the most poignant and well-crafted poems. But we also want to emphasize that, being poets ourselves, we recognize and appreciate the creative effort of each entrant and in a sense, each poem. We want to encourage each of you to persevere … Continue reading Poetry Contest Winners for 2025 by Sharon Ackerman and Fred Wilbur→
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