All posts tagged with poetry

May 9, 2023

Col. Jon D. Marsh — Poetry and Prose

“Pagan” THEY made this so. It was so even before the Others came. Too many moons ago to consider. Even before the Fathers of the Father’s Fathers, it was so. But that does not matter. Before the Others came They called Us Mana-Hoka. The Others called Us Machu Grande, and They were forced to use the Other’s words. The Others are gone now. They gave the Others to their Gods to appease them. Now We are Mana-Hoka once more. But that does not matter, either. At those times when They became of many, the Gods would often grow angry and send a curse of hunger or sickness, so They learned to appease the Gods, as They would on a night when a complete moon fills the jungle with soft light. Just as They had many…

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April 27, 2023

Our National Poetry Month Finale: Vera West

Posted by Jack B. Rochester in Writing

Please welcome Vera West, The Fictional Cafe’s Poet in Residence, who shares her thoughts about our National Poetry Month celebration: chickadee I’m not always angry but I am mostly melancholy, thinking about those little potholes of memories riddling a twisting road of disappointment; these memories jar me: pancakes, carnivals, front yard barbecues, black fridays and pastel pink egg hunts, nicknames no one else called me; these memories always jarred me, they’re so different than the standard of both back then and now. ** thinking of you Things you did right: encourage me to be authentic, drive me around town, instill independence, and push high expectations. [I want to be somewhere in the middle, between the good and the bad, between emotion and logic, but I’m stuck in extremes. either I miss you terribly or hate you…

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February 6, 2023

Deux Poèmes from Deux Poets

Posted by Jack B. Rochester in Writing

Today, Fictional Café introduces two fine poems from two fine American poets in our virtual magazine. Please let us know what you think of their work in the Comments section at the end of this post. Frank De Canio Language Primer I might as well become a child again, since my substantial English goes as far as what my senorita comprehends. As such, my native tongue becomes a bar against pronounced exchanges with my friend. She understands enough of what I say to stumble through the meaning I intend, but not enough for me to get my way. Yet, speaking fluent Spanish to her peers, she leaves me feeling witless in my age, while she with rapid fluency endears herself to those in the proficient stage of verbal mastery. And I must wait on textbook…

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February 1, 2023

Robert Lunday’s Poetic Moments

Posted by Jack B. Rochester in Writing

Little Man I need what I earn and could use a little more. But the little man in me needs none of it. He squats like an undiscovered arthropod and bottom-feeds on my mutterings. He sits in the position known as Lotus with his knees at forty-five degrees. The supposed virtues are his zodiac and if he’s naked you try not to notice. Fragment Please believe in me and do not doubt what I say. This foaming mouth is Aphrodite but the hands are Hephaestus clawing the air as he falls through the heavens in dismay. You break my heart but I take the pieces and make from each a thousand more. Gravel Gravel was on the menu. It was the thing you weren’t supposed to eat. It was there to make everything else look…

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January 29, 2023

“Man Does Not Live By Words Alone”

Posted by Jack B. Rochester in Writing

Poetry by Dana Yost Rainbow Through the window the sun blew into a glass of white wine then refracted into a rainbow upon the skin of lemon-pepper chicken as we talked about Nazi death camps and soldiers killed by sniper fire in Vietnam. A teacher dead in the recent derecho. It was such a peaceful setting for death, wasn’t it? The seven of us around the table and one finally mentioned amnesty for draft-dodgers, and no one went berserk, no one even disagreed. We shook our heads at the insanity of war, at the cruelty of death, and my classmate posted photos on Facebook of herself in hospice, ready to die from cancer. “I’ll be here for the end,” she said from her living room couch, under a blanket. I looked for a rainbow but…

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December 15, 2022

“Mother,” Poetry by Bharti Bansal

Posted by Mike Rochester in Writing

Mother Sometimes I look at the regrets of my mother trailing along the corners of her eyes As she wonders about her place in the world too often There is no secret to motherhood, I suppose Just a constant feeling of doing it wrong My father consoles her, calls her beloved A sincere way of reminding her of their own vows Yet when she wakes up at night, feeling the clutches of past on her throat, she simply lets him sleep without saying a single word I believe it is when a relationship turns into partnership as time moves along the edges of their bodies, Sometimes becoming a game, as they team up together, shake hands, pat each other’s back, constantly reminding themselves about the love that blossomed years ago This is how I see…

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December 2, 2022

“Ode to the Wild Daffodil,” Poetry by Birch Saperstein

Posted by Mike Rochester in Writing

Ode to the Wild Daffodil After Ross Gay Come, rise, my friends! The season has shown her fertile belly, turned her deep skin, and now a new portion is facing the sun! Come, join me! Our time growing underground has come to an end, face the world with me! Open your faces to the bees and butterflies and hummingbirds and gnats and let them sing you everywhere! I know you’re scared, terrified to stick your stems out into the air, terrified of frost and collapse and wind and rabbits and I know there’s nothing I can do to change or quell that which you fear. But I know, no, I promise, that we’ll rise together, into a new season. ** Clippers My heart is a pair of hedge clippers wielded by a crow who simply…

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November 22, 2022

Nina Kossman Poetry

Posted by Mike Rochester in Writing

The Tale of Tzarina Alyonushka and Her Brother Ivanushka (a free-verse version of a well-known Russian fairy tale) “I warned my brother not to drink from the lake. I warned him. But, at that age, do they listen? He drank from it. And of course his quick arms and legs became goat limbs, his blond curls became white fleece. –Ivanushka! Beware, kid brother, of the witch and her knives, her pots full of water. Her greed fills them up. Her jealousy heats them. She is the Queen now. She wears my face. She stole my figure, and I– I worked so hard at it! But who can hear my protests? My voice hardly reaches you from these stinky depths. What does she want with us? Ah, my husband, the Tzar. Does she hold his hands…

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September 22, 2022

“The Day I Thought I Would Die, ” by Mini Babu

Posted by Mike Rochester in Writing

The Day I Thought I Would Die The day I thought I would die the woman who accompanied me to the hospital said, she needs cooking oil for, “tomorrow,” I used up a little of my valued time, to contemplate on, “tomorrow.” Coffee houses, supermarkets and theatres drove past me, coffee, bread and rice were found unseasoned . . . And they went on talking of “coffees” while I rode in a vehicle called, “now.” All things, other than me were yesterdays and tomorrows. ** Talcum Powder The first time I powdered my face, I imitated the manner my father did, tender strokes on the brow, cheeks and chin, and a mellow even rub, from that time on, I thought of him, twice a day, at no unusual hours, later on, I gave up using…

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August 25, 2022

“Blue Ridge Autumn,” A Poem by Reed Venrick

Posted by Mike Rochester in Writing

“Blue Ridge Autumn” ONE On a cold but sunny afternoon, late autumn, Wendy hurries up a chilly, pine-shaded sidewalk. And as she hurries, she memorizes her favorite poem from that semester’s study and strife; she, sounding out dee-dum, the stresses of iambic rhythm, while inhaling the rich aroma of pine boughs hanging over her ascending walk. After another week of classes, just a few weeks more, at the university across the ridge, but now Wendy hurries on up to her waitressing job at the restaurant and hotel called “The Grove Park Inn,” where Scott Fitzgerald and Zelda dined, where Thomas Wolfe rushed to write—gazing out to Mount Pisgah. Hopkin’s “Spring and Fall,” the sounds stepping inside Wendy’s fresh-air brain, as she recites the lines on an autumn day cold enough to need a woolen sweater,…

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