Category: Poetry

to get to the waterfall
you must go straight up

to go beyond you must
take the trail beside it

there is canopy everywhere
and a rush of noise
to guide you

south are trails
to the interstate
and to the abandoned
bridges that cross them

beyond that the trail
flattens out i hear. i do not know.
i’ve never been
and no one who goes that way returns

the things we miss
we will miss forever

– J.E. O’Leary…

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pollen drifts from the oaks, floats down
to the lawn, travels on the breeze

across the grass, turns from yellow-
green to brown, collects in clumps, balls

at the foot of retaining walls
loses stickiness, turns crunchy

blocks gutters & drains, fills cracks
between concrete sidewalk slabs, coats

parked white cars & black trucks, drapes
itself over bushes, hedges

& fences, sticks to black letter-
boxes, clings to the fur of cats

attaches to running shoe soles
& laces, stealthily enters

homes through back doors, insinuates
itself into living rooms, kitchens

bedrooms & bathrooms, irritates
eyes, attacks nostrils, triggers

histamines, sneezing, headaches
brain fog, dripping noses, transports

male oak DNA into gaps
& fissures, fails to fertilize

– Nathanael O’Reilly…

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I started like a seed, sprouting
in a wild world of June’s bloom.

Growing tall in the sun’s land
I asked why the night comes.

My mother knelt at old oak trees
in empty fields holding hope

in her hands. I spent
summers throwing rocks at stars,

waiting for them to fall
while looking for forever

in their unending light.
I left our ghosts in the garden

and aged among the hungry bees
searching for bright flowers

despite the darkness,
for even the night is as thin as paper.

– Natalie Marino

Note: A different version of this poem was published online by UCity Review in December 2021.…

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i woke up to the nightmare
of my house swallowed in snow.
in greenland we watch
floorboards fall through the fluxing ice

/ only the roof was left i
wanted to crawl into the attic window
to smell the wood of it.
i wanted to curl into the chest

too heavy to lift / filled with quilts.
/ when the permafrost melts, little
bubbles pop when they reach the
top of the lake nearby.

we watch the gases go skyward, they
meet with the geese going south.
the geese say,
methane has lives beyond any wads of old swamp on fire.

i know the frost wants to stay tired,
asleep. be the feverish girl immobile,
a frozen frog on top of a log.
once fully awake, it’s hard

to go back to sleep.…

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Picture sky, its timeless entirety:  north, south, east, west,
directions encompassing life beneath it, existence through it,
eternal bird species know best, returning flock after flock,
if not driven to extinction, the air, everywhere, ground of hunt.

This horizon, for now, does not seem to have that, bluing more pearlescent
with less coal smoke & oily carbon exhaust poking ozone holes
for blazing rays in separate glory, shaft by shaft.
Behind that the perfectly burning circular sun grants photosynthesis
or fires wild as if humanity has nothing to do with this present
as early on stoves were for wood & the heaping of peat,
the past air so pure lungs sung with oxygen glistening
from valleys and glades, deserts and alps.

Imagine this kitchen window here having such painterly sheen,
all interior surfaces dust-mote gleaming to the richness of shadows
while in close-up particular hands on a bread board pound & shape dough.…

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My friend’s backyard is a refuge for gypsies
feathered birds and fireflies, migrating spirits
on this plane and the next.

A bullfrog found a way through a fence
into his new pond, buzzing life to the grass
and trees beyond.

He’s a man who carries his hometown
tattooed under his skin, the stories
of people he loved in their own voices,

those who made and rejected him
in a single breath; set him to wandering,
led him to marry the world instead.

– Joseph Hardy

Author’s Note: I am drawn to write about the meaningful confusions of life.…

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We drove past abandoned homes and trailers that collectively
left the impression of a salvage yard

*

We stopped and parked in an empty lot near the house
with an old hearse (slowly dressing in a desert
patina) and a giant clam

*

At that point we followed the disjointed string
of “everyone else”

*

Over the dike and down to the beach

*

I took pics. I got the bones of a ship. I got a homeless mailbox.
I skipped the Lisa del Giocondo porch (face without a body,
face without a face) because my Mona Lisa refused to pose.
I zoomed in on the large swing in the water
and the misty mountains

*

When I got closer to the water I continued with my wading beauty:
swing & mountains, swing & shoreline, swing & black-necked
stilt, swing-seat & pendant fish

*

I took a break from the swing.…

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