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 […]

  • 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 b […]

  • 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 s […]

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    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 ad […]

  • 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. […]

  • Thanks Sharon, for this thoughtful introduction to the current/recent literature of Appalachia.

  • 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 v […]

  • ….1. France. Poppies blooming blood.

    Hedged by four sheets strung on wire, my grandparents
    spent their wedding night, December 1917:
    a New York married-barracks, moans muffled
    the night before the men […]

  • “Lose something every day. Accept the fluster . . .” (Elizabeth Bishop)

    Every once in a while I open
    one of too-many, tiny

    boxes, and there you are,
    bright stab of memory: My bra […]

  • “An artist is said to be original exactly when he takes up the challenge of tradition and makes us see something more than we already knew.” Demetri Porphyrios. Classical Architecture.

     

    I am a fund […]

  • It’s wrong to feel lucky
    when a poplar blooms.
    …………Branches spit out slender pinks below low clouds.

    In fields here, we find arrowheads.
    Ancient whispers on the ridge. One death begs […]

  • Vigil
    Outside the nurses’ station,
    third floor east, twilight spreads
    its white canopy over
    the busy avenue of bright buildings.
    Down the hall, an orderly lofts a pale
    sheet over a vacant bed.
    In the next […]

  • As a very small child I learned language just like all small children. Only in my case there were some mysterious words that took me years to sort out their true meaning. There were words like Amtrak, lugao, Santo […]

  • A Taxonomy of Lists by Fred Wilbur     As a youngster, I watched my father slice out-of-date reports whose 8 1/2 x 11″ sheets had blank back sides; the pivoting knife of the p […]

  • Ahab’s Widow
    I wait for him as every whaler’s wife.
    I write him letters every day.
    I tell him how he grows bigger and stronger.

    I tell him of his first words and of his first walk on his own.
    I write, […]

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    It was my granddaughter’s fourth birthday party. I, old lady
    with cane, was sitting in the shade on the side, then made my way
    cautiously to watch the children hit the piñata with a plastic bat […]

  • Antonyms for “Affluence”
    It is a myth that mice
    are impossible to eat.

    I see my tuxedo
    on another man,

    a groom or musician.
    It is a myth

    that the bride will be thinking
    about Queen Vic […]

  • Sara Biel has earned an Honorable Mention in Streetlight’s 2021 Poetry Contest

    I Want to Give Him a Chance
    Her voice is thin, scrapes and rolls, a dry leaf across the sidewalk.
    My fingers grip the phone, […]

  • Nate Jacob has earned an Honorable Mention in Streetlight’s 2021 Poetry Contest

    Mourning Doves
    Looking back, the choice seems obvious.
    A man is given the chance in life
    to select from a pantheon of […]

  • Elizabeth Nowak has earned an Honorable Mention in Streetlight’s 2021 Poetry Contest

    Dear Mi-Kwon

    Before the whole world went mad,
    you wrote to ask about my life
    in beautiful America. I could not then […]

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