Category: Poetry
Preparations for a Cycle Journey
by Josie
It’s pleasing to the mind to findthat I have everything I need. All I hadpreviously reckoned sub-par, I now wagglemy fairy wand at and pronounce: ample. Ambition, improvement, constant venturing to be better than average, this shit is addicting. From the top of the stone towerto the daisy chains below, I cannot get enough. To now breathe deeply, objectively assess, let the senses take wind with the changes in … Read More Preparations for a Cycle Journey
I Dreamed Today,
by Josie
a good one,with acrobatic knights and archers lancing cupcakes full of candy rain. Dogs had tongueslike streets-sweepers, properly fed they slept happy.It was a victory dream. Nobody lied. No tears were shed. The dogs lived the longest of all and there was naught a cat to take the blanket. The sun and her spectators clapped wildlywhistling blades of grass between long fingers until the moon grew jealous and picked up a … Read More I Dreamed Today,
+ Bold, Hawaii, Living on Purpose, Nature, Poetry
Stella in the Starlight
by Josie
Stella sticks her toes in the grass and she don’t knowthe impact — the moonlight bending on the bowingblades of grass, casting long shadows like tracks. I follow her, relaxed Stella don’t know her own impact.
Clipboard and Pen
by Josie
The first organizer was Noah. Tied to a boat he counted giraffes on all ten fingers, mumbling as he went, here Dolly, HERE Angus, no not like that—chocolate-like he tempered himself to the toes. Did the predators forget their evolution? Pocket eyes staring out of lacy skulls, daggering antelopes like hot summer cantaloupe. A gosling gets a splinter do the hyenas go mad with the scent of carnage? Oh Noah. I … Read More Clipboard and Pen
Tandem
by Josie
I seek solace in the company of cafe tablesand black aprons. Hair that sways, liquidly, under a rotating fan. I write in the companyof strangers, in order to be myself. As if I could hear the words from their lips instead of feel the conversation like a forest. As if it could not matter when the forest was on fireor still, peaceful in dew dreams under a rising … Read More Tandem
Open Window
by Josie
Clasping my hands behind my back, I survey the sights from the kitchen window and breathe deeply the wind that docks from the mountain tops tucked in clouds. All is fair, if one counts birds and lemon treesagainst the straying plastic trash kicked up by flattened car tires and pulsing hydrants. The neighbor boys clatter skateboards against the stretched asphalt, heat dust wavering between ground and sky. Crisped linen shirts wiggle freelyon laundry … Read More Open Window
Oksana
by Josie
A blue bike leans against the iron railing. It is bright summertime in Ukraine and the railroad lady tends a garden full to blooming with cucumbers, beetroot, squash she bends over in a frock like livery. Her blue buttoned uniform blossoms from beneath the frock, the cuffs kissed with splashes of dirt kicked up from the motley flower pots. She hears a distant whine— she unties the bow and drapes it on the … Read More Oksana
+ Kansas, Nature, North America, Poetry
Stars & Stripes
by Josie
Stars and stripes & a purple ponytailjiggling up and down on the windingroad fur-lined in Douglas Firs andpocket-bullys straining on chains.
On Judging a Poetry Contest
by Josie
One finger tapping against an illusive white ceramic cuppa something—you don’t know—I’m a mystery, I’m the poetry editor. Illustrious task, these scribbleslaid bare to me, laid out like coffee spilled silent on the plate. Not too late to duck down into hiding, find a proper bunker. Fortunately good poetry chooses me, not I and I know in my heart
