Today’s choice
Previous poems
David Sapp
Aimless
Aimless between
Dropping out
Of art school
And absolutely no
Friggin’ money
For Kenyon
I moved in with
Television and doting
Grandma in flowered
Wallpapered rooms
Sat on her porch
Back and forth
On the glider
That Grandpa and I
Hauled home
From the auction
And for hours
Watched a robin’s trip
From yard to nest
Feeding her chicks
Delicious worms
And that was enough
Until ambition
Set in again
David Sapp, writer and artist, lives along the southern shore of Lake Erie in North America. A Pushcart nominee, he was awarded Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Grants for poetry and art. His poetry and prose appear widely in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Asia. His publications include articles in the Journal of Creative Behavior; chapbooks Solitary Nature, Cardboard Pleasure and Two Buddha; a novel, Flying Over Erie; a book of poems and drawings, Drawing Nirvana; and two books of poetry and prose, Acquaintances and a memoir titled The Origin of Affection, winner of the Violet Reed Haas Poetry Award.
Laura McKee
after the accident the plaster
held her still
Melanie Branton
At boarding school, I had no idea what to do
with myself. Most of the time,
I hid myself in a paper bag . . .
Lucy Calder
I arrange my books in order of height,
on a bank of cow parsley,
amid the random oscillations
of a cool breeze
Tanya Joseph
I know others blossom
but I vomit ectoplasm,
and squaring the corners of my bed,
the nurse reminds me I’m not dying.
Lucy Heuschen
It is known: a woman like that
brings evil on board.
Carolyn Oulton
Heat on the window
baking my face like a biscuit.
I move some hair, look over
at moss and narcissi, in a pot –
Jennifer A. McGowan
You have buried your mother and put
a memorial bench on a high hillside where
the wind blows sunsets straight through
and it’s always better to wear something warm.
Matt Bryden
You used to wind yourself in curtain turning taut,
look down at your feet, pirouette
as the fabric hugged you in.
James Coghill
the undershrub, shored up,
stakes its waspish claim,
its hereabouts