Category: poetry

poetry

2 Poems – Amanda Laughtland

Help Wanted

I need a job and an apartment, but to get a job
I need an address and a phone number
and a driver’s license and a social security card.
I walk back to my “office” at the pay phone.

A middle-aged woman with a three-year-old granddaughter
tells me it’s always hard at the beginning
but you adjust and you apply for as many as possible
since a help-wanted ad may not mean

any help is wanted just now.

 

Swing Shift

The guy with the crucifixion t-shirt
(SOMEONE TO LOOK UP TO)
complains that his baked potato is too hard
and his iced tea too icy
and leaves no tip at all. I try to

treat each shift as an emergency:
you’ve got starving people,
so feed them! Forget that you
will have to do this tomorrow. Forget
that you will have to be

alert enough to drive home tonight.

—

Amanda Laughtland lives in the suburbs of Seattle. She is the author of Postcards to Box 464 (Bootstrap Press) and a handful of chapbooks. Most recently, her work has been published in E·ratio and One Sentence Poems.

 

poetry

Night Black – Lynn White

It may be morning
but I bring you
a touch of the night.
The night black night
that I will unfold
and bequeath to you,
whatever you may do.
There is nothing
you can do.

Only wait.

—

Lynn White lives in north Wales. Her work is influenced by issues of social justice and events, places and people she has known or imagined. She is especially interested in exploring the boundaries of dream, fantasy and reality. Find Lynn on Facebook or visit her blog here.

 

 

 

Photo by Danielle Dolson on Unsplash

poetry

Poem Written While Listening to Brett Kavanaugh – Terri Muuss

Looking back, it felt brave 
to have touched
any man, like beating
a train across the rails.

He told me I was off mine–
conjured the words 
testimony, veracity and sides.
Rain and all the days made us

hostages. The animals boys
become. My blood
drying in the banks 
of bent grass, their tips,

pins inside pores,
blades, a stray cat’s 
mouth. The silent 
rivers and ghosts— 

disturbed fever sleep.
My dreams are green 
branches for whipping, 
an exorcism of cells.

—

Terri Muuss is a social worker, director, performer, speaker & author whose poetry has received three Pushcart nominations. Her first book, Over Exposed, was released in 2013 and in 2016 Terri co-edited an anthology of NY women poets entitled Grabbing the Apple. Terri has performed her one-woman show, Anatomy of a Doll, around the US and Canada since 1998. Her second book, Godspine, is forthcoming through 3:A Taos Press. 

http://www.terrimuuss.com/

 

 

 

 

Feature Image by Priscilla Du Preez

poetry

2 Poems – Abigail George

I am fossil, flesh and bone
(for the Dutch poet Joop Bersee)

Didn’t eat bread today so that was a
good thing. Full of sleep. Full of winter
the poetry was enough. The basil leaves
were enough. His voice is like clay in
my hands. I make animals out of the clay.
So the gin remained on the table. I tell
myself to wait for the lines burning-bright
to come to me to go into my future.

 

life through a bipolar lens is a mosaic
(for the Dutch poet Joop Bersee)

you mother are living in my bones again
this is my love story for her i never wanted
to have those children during that phase
of autumn in rehearsal mother you were a
difficult woman to love a woman with her
own issues and secrets you’re the fallen
kingdom you’re mine you’re mine but not
mine not mine all at the same time it came
too late her love came too late i am master-
chef life with father is my vanishing tribe
i send her all my love in my rice and meat

—

Pushcart Prize nominated Abigail George is a South African writer. Her writing has appeared numerous times in various anthologies and online in e-zines across Africa, Australia, Asia, Europe, and the United States.

 

photo by Annie Spratt