All posts by Sharron Singleton

Thirty-Three; Now to Discover by Joan Mazza

vinyl record
 

Thirty-Three   The number of vertebrae in the human spine when coccyx bones are counted individually. The temperature at which water boils on the Newton scale. In Fahrenheit, just above freezing. It’s a not-so-secret symbol for the KKK, where each K is the 11th letter of the alphabet, times three. Who died at 33? Perhaps Alexander the Great. Yes, and Eva Braun, Hitler’s lover, was a suicide. Sam Cooke’s age, when he was murdered at the Hacienda Motel. John Belushi overdosed. Jesus the Christ was crucified at 33, after 33 miracles. Count them yourself, if … Continue reading Thirty-Three; Now to Discover by Joan Mazza

Beatitude by Sam Barbee

daffodils in snow
 

Beatitude   It is winter. It is cold. Meek sky offers no color. Hardwood skeletons assemble along the treeline. Roots knuckle up through blizzard’s encumbrance, grasping at sunrise. Rhododendrons sag, iced-over leaves weighted like bats roosting through chill’s clutch. Snow frosts the cedars’ dulled-blue berries and skulks backside shadows as along dark edges of the moon. I scuff out among other tracks across frost to seize prioritized news. Daffodils sprout behind liriope, fractures splitting freeze, peaceful blessings to scatter any frost, virtuous blooms declaring along the garden’s brink. Green shoots shame wisdom of the wise … Continue reading Beatitude by Sam Barbee

2 Poems by Tom Montag & Julia Travers

Ursa Major
 

The Bear’s Back   Last night I dreamt of a bear who carries us through the forest on his back. He goes through the mud, we cling to his fur, he wants to bury us in a storyteller’s throat. Julia Travers is a poet, author, artist and journalist. Her creative writing appears with OnBeing, The Mindfulness Bell and Heron Tree Poetry Journal, among other publications. She holds a BA in Literary and Cultural Studies from The College of William and Mary and a BFA in Art Education from Virginia Commonwealth University. She is on Twitter … Continue reading 2 Poems by Tom Montag & Julia Travers

Full Snow Moon by Joan Mazza

full moon in clouds
 

Full Snow Moon   Fat and slow, she climbs the eastern sky like an old woman climbs stairs, holding onto tree branches and stars to make her way to February’s zenith. She rises on time, a beacon fully seen. A passing comet with a green head tips his hat and is gone. Look. The Sea of Tranquility is next to the Sea of Crises. Wolves howl, but she persists. Joan Mazza has worked as a medical microbiologist, psychotherapist, seminar leader, and has been a Pushcart Prize nominee. Author of six books, including Dreaming Your Real … Continue reading Full Snow Moon by Joan Mazza

Two Poems by Diane DeCillis

house in hills with trees
 

Agnostic   In the bath a spider crawls along the ledge. It’s tiny enough that it doesn’t scare this arachnophobe. Isn’t that the way fear works, the smaller the threat the less a reason to run? Unlike the huge, or maybe average wolf spider that cornered me in the kitchen. In a panic I reached for Easy Off, sprayed the hirsute carapace into an igloo of chemical foam. Drenched, seemingly undaunted, the fizzy white dome skittered across the linoleum toward me, and I fled, as if from Godzilla. But here in my tub this little … Continue reading Two Poems by Diane DeCillis

Common Stingray by Carol Was

stingray
 

Common Stingray                     Dasyatis pastinaca In the infinite silence    of her velvety skin, she roams          through moon water at night, scours coastal shallows, glides    around the Mediterranean,          Norway, Canary Islands— fluid creature soaring,    foraging chink snails,          snapper biscuits, spiny shrimp, undulating    in and out of waves.          She is a wave— primordial, flexing spine    and filament, overlapping,          ruffling her flexible body— a pectoral fin disk, graceful    as gull wings in watery air.          Diamond-shaped, she resembles a stealth fighter,    almost alien, yet magical—          all flesh, fiber, cartilage, onyx eyes peering through    sand when she buries          herself in … Continue reading Common Stingray by Carol Was

Blue by Linda Nemec Foster

leaves
 

Blue   It must have been her accent that seduced and baffled my ears. The Egyptian woman, still lost in the desert air of Cairo, read her poems filled with water from the Nile and blue heaven, blue heaven, blue heaven flying over the lotus flowers. I heard “heaven” but later discovered she said “heron.” A distant cousin to the sacred ibis, herons (even blue ones) are commonplace–are everywhere–even in the non-exotic marshes of northern Ohio where another blue creation–my mother– landed. Blue Helen, blue Helen, blue Helen. The kids in Cleveland would tease her. … Continue reading Blue by Linda Nemec Foster

A Vast Bloom of Light

Stars in the sky
 

In my almost 80 years it seems as if I have lived numerous lives because the world has changed so swiftly under my feet. My world now as a mother, grandmother and great-grandmother, pastor’s wife and poet could not be more wildly different than my first world as a child in the near wilderness of rural Michigan. But as crooked and wandering as the path was, those early days are instrumental to who I am now.   The first house we lived in after moving to rural Michigan from Chicago in 1942 when I was … Continue reading A Vast Bloom of Light

23 Feet Deep by Martha Snell

low tide abstract image
 

23 Feet Deep   The footway we walk sketches brown lines on green fields that seem to hover over the Irish Sea. All around us sheep and cows hold their mouths to grass, unmindful of heaven. This perpetual path traces cliffs, cuts into rock, curdles to mud, descends onto beaches of rock draped in laver fronds, home to codling and flounder. Kelp, clams, fishermen, children who splash and swim, all know the sea’s routine. Even Annie the cab driver knows the tidal ways: in out in out days nights, unending. It’s the far away sun … Continue reading 23 Feet Deep by Martha Snell

The Indian Lady Who Lived in a Quonset Hut

Metal Quonset hut
 

As a child, one of the most thrilling things to me was the story my father told about how he, at the age of ten, first encountered Indians on a dusty road near the Flandreau Santee Indian Reservation in South Dakota. He had been sent to live with relatives who homesteaded there after his mother died in the flu epidemic in 1918. These were almost fantasies to me, stories which transported me away from my insular life on a small lake in rural Michigan. But to him this was his real and often tragic life. … Continue reading The Indian Lady Who Lived in a Quonset Hut