Seven Short Poems by Tom Blessing

 

7 Short Poems

morning’ silence    broken by ravens

*

so close now 

the branches 

heavy with snow

*

the day has not been wasted

i have written a poem

to you

*

looking out the window

it seems the trees have paused

even the birds

*

highway            

dense with wind

moving snow

*

clouds

casual in the morning sky

ravens circling

*

I don’t know

What the argument is about

Ravens in the cedars

Tom Blessing lives and writes in Michigan's Keweenaw Peninsula, a region that is dominated by the whims of Lake Superior.  He has edited small press magazines off and on for over 40 years and his poetry and short stories have been published in a variety of magazines of that time.   Alien Buddha Press published his book of flash and short fiction - Misery is Only a Bay.  It is available on Amazon.

Five Haiku & Three Short Poems by Teresa Godfrey

 

Five Haiku

 

 

Deep in the forest

the sound of falling beech nuts

shelling the silence.

 

 

Pines shed their needles,

seamstresses of the forest

dropping their stitches.

 

 

Night in the forest

crossings and double-crossings.

Journeys of life and death.

 

 

A pair of buzzards

whistling in the sky above.

I take root below.

 

 

Like a bird crashing

hard against a window pane

my world has frozen.

 

 

Three Short Poems

 

Words

 

They followed me

into the forest today

asking useless questions.

 

Trampling the foxgloves

and buttercups. Chattering

through the pine needles.

 

Drowning out the birdsong

and raising themselves

above the waterfall.

 

Making themselves so important

even the rain couldn’t shut them up.

 

 

Inside the Earth

 

there is a core of hurt

swelling like the cold sea above.

Sometimes red-hot tears burst through

making mountains that live forever.

 

 

Song

 

If you let yourself,

the song you will hear is your own.

 

Like the sailor who hears the mermaid sing,

you will never go home again.

 

I have heard you singing.

Teresa Godfrey’s poetry and short stories have been published in The Galway Review, The Honest Ulsterman, Boyne Berries, Rhythm of Hearts, Ireland’s Own, Crannog, Corncrake, North West Words, the Blue Nib, the Community Arts Partnership anthologies Resonance 2018, Find 2019, and Vision 2020, the 2018 Highland Poetry anthology (USA), and Curlew (UK). Her poetry was selected for inclusion in Her Other Language: Northern Irish Women Writers Address Domestic Violence and Abuse. Her first poetry collection titled This, Also, Is Mercy was published by Summer Palace Press in 2021 and her debut novel, Wipe Out, was published by Sunbury Press USA in 2022.