Today’s choice
Previous poems
Jade Kleiner
Deeper Than
After Maggie Nelson’s Bluets
There is the green that birthed all pine trees. I had a green turtle necklace just like that once, I lost it, not in a pocket, not under my bed, not down a drain, just lost. The shell wasn’t turquoise not emerald not verdant not turtleshell and so on, just green for its own sake, the kind of green that points north, that can’t be contained in paint, a deeper green than my eyes. I can’t retrace my steps, it’s lost like I never owned it. But a green that true isn’t anyone’s to own, not mine, it’s not even free, just loose.
Jade Kleiner is rooted in New England. Her poetry, fiction, and haiku can be found in Free the Verse, Bright Flash Literary Journal, Haikuniverse, and elsewhere. She is transgender.
Jim Murdoch
I didn’t know what to do with all my dad’s love
so, I minded it for him fully intending to give it back one day.
Finola Scott
Such a knife, a real Et Tu Brute number. Bone handled, incisive. Decades of marriage
had whetted the blade to feather lean. Anniversaries marked in metal.
Sarah James/Leavesley
My mother’s knife made the first cuts –
she removed my fertile light bulbs,
then stuffed my womb with shredded tissues.
Max Wallis
god grant us the serenity / to accept the things we cannot change / the courage to change the / things we can / and the wisdom to know el differencio /
Play, National Poetry Day: Heather Hughes, Laura Webb, Jude Brigley
We searched so long for that clover.
Every time the sun shone we scoured
the fields and woods, running past
the children playing with skipping ropes
Play, For National Poetry Day: Suzanna Fitzpatrick, Charlotte Dormandy, Lee Fraser
10 Children dart in the dark, screamers
streaming sweets and neon, their parents
Play, for National Poetry Day: MD Bier, Catherine Sweeney, Rachel Burns
Those hot hot summer days. Hair curling against sticky clammy foreheads.
Pony tails, pig tails or braids. Keep it off our neck and backs.
Play, for National Poetry Day: Alexandra Corrin-Tachibana, Ruth Aylett , Brian Comber
They can imagine a forest,
we don’t need this minimalist tree,
we’ll represent a place to live without walls, without foundations or a hearth.
Play, for National Poetry Day: Jennifer A. McGowan, Judith Shaw, Robin Houghton, Wendy Klein
Over and over, you are Dorothy
or Glenda the Good,
me the Wicked Witch of the West