Does her dimpled-cheek delirium still thrill you? Or her death escalate as you try to focus, cataracts pixilating her image, static of hail in late-day snow? Do her eyes ring almonds of tender memory? Times I wrestled your camera away so you’d stand with her. Mom’s little-girl smile, head on your chest you contain her, blue-sweatered, small in your bulky leather-jacketed arms. She secretly hated your obsession. Told me so, yet smiled dutifully, willed your Kodak to break open, admit its blindness, thirsty glass eye hiding yours. These mounted prints— all you’ve had of her … Continue reading Portrait of My Father the Photographer as a Dying Man by Bobby Parrott→
for Nana Pansy “Give these to Weaver,” you said. The books that saw you through sleeplessness. “I’m done with reading.” You already knew how it ended. You were done with Who Done Its. “Give these back to Weaver.” Like a good sergeant you gave me the case, the tough one called Life after you. I’m on it, Nana, like a small dog who’s just unearthed a dinosaur’s femur. A passable conundrum, but not one you expect me to solve. We both know the pleasure’s in the chase, the day-to-day details, not the inevitable solution. We … Continue reading Last Words: Mysteries of Life by Richard Weaver→
I got to have it (just a little bit) A little respect (just a little bit). Otis Redding, as sung by Aretha Franklin As Memorial Day approaches and graduation season is in full tilt, there will be many inspiring speeches: some will have a few humorous lines thank goodness, some will be overloaded with platitudes and sound bites, a few with creative insight in reading our times accurately. A rare few may have prognostications which are useful, inspiring, and come to pass. One meaningful and heartwarming event, though perhaps not unique, … Continue reading To Solve America by Fred Wilbur→
Joyce Compton Brown is the 3rd place winner of Streetlight‘s 2023 Poetry Contest Apology for Ralph’s Mule …and before them went the mules: and ever upward, downward, sideward, and aslant they fared. The Iliad II.23.93 You stood there in mud and dung, your little streetside lot hardly big enough for a good stretch, a kick. I’d stop sometimes, Ralph’s Mule, think about the muck on your hooves, how it must feel, you standing in the mud, mired in that nasty mess. I never knew your name. Your … Continue reading Apology for Ralph’s Mule by Joyce Compton Brown→
Patricia Hemminger is the 2nd place winner of Streetlight’s 2023 Poetry Contest Considering My Last Carbon Footprint New York Governor Legalizes Human Composting, ⎯The Guardian, January 23, 2023 I’ve been composting for years. It’s very satisfying, potato peels, broccoli stalks, tumbled with dried leaves decompose, enrich the garden soil each spring. I wonder whether to make a will that requests my family do the same with me cocoon my body in wood chips and straw for a month or more. It’s legal now and carbon neutral when sun powers the rotation. They could plant a tree … Continue reading Considering My Last Carbon Footprint by Patricia Hemminger→
Linda Parsons is the 1st place winner of Streetlight‘s 2023 Poetry Contest Digging Dirt peppers the sink as I roll palm to palm these golds heaved from the ground with heft and pitchfork, this egglike clutch for soup, stew, hash, roasted, smashed in fall’s coming. I roll them lightly, thin skinned, perfect and misshapen, knobby knuckled. Dirt becomes dust filming my hands I am loath to wash, for here in the grit of new potatoes I am one with the garden, back bent, salt sweat, my own stew of becoming. And I think what else I’ve … Continue reading Digging by Linda Parsons→
Life should not be a contest, but it is. This statement seems terribly bleak, “survival of the fittest,” dystopian, shoot-‘em-up violent and down-right unappealing, but countering this notion, contests can be good things. There are team competitions, matches between two individuals, and self-challenging ‘contests.’ Professional sports teams immediately come to mind. They are primarily entertainment, but they illustrate coordination, cooperation, cohesion among members of the team. Such events promote social camaraderie and civic pride (forgetting the celebratory riots which sometimes follow.) Amateur sport is less about entertainment and more about learning to be a team … Continue reading The Goodness of Contests by Fred Wilbur→
Samadhi By day it hides in the bones, disguising its rich scent with worry and talk. At night it falls lightly, dips fingers in water, crosses itself on the steps of a shuttered church. The hand tingles, cool as quartz in an atmosphere of stone and wood and wax. As a child it dwelt under the skin, then beyond the edge of a paperback book. Now I bite the inside of my cheek, taste metal where it tries to form words. It is promise, night blooming flower, jasmine tree at the end of Rose Lane … Continue reading Samadhi and The Genesee River, 2 poems by Victoria Korth→
your namealways tasteslike a palindrome across my tongue minnowingpond wide words stained red as pomegranate arilsthe sun dies between us painting ripples aquarelles what is left to say when there is no way forward that doesn’t feel like retreatwhen clouds lit citrus bright over lakeside cypress hold that dream i can’t whisper B. Luke Wilson grew up in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains and his fiction and poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Moon City Review, LIT Magazine, Artemis Journal, and elsewhere. He is the assistant … Continue reading say goodbye, without disappearing by B. Luke Wilson→
My father died twenty-five years ago when I was fifty; a third of my life ago. He was by most measures a good man, and I grieved as a good son should. I think of him often, have written poems about our relationship. So, I was eager, a few years back, to read An Odyssey: A Father, A Son, and An Epic (Daniel Mendelsohn) which, though mostly memoir, explores the father/son relationship; Odysseus and Telemachus being an early example in literature. My father was not secretive though reserved, not agitated but conscientious, not obnoxiously ambitious … Continue reading Our Fathers by Fred Wilbur→
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