Poetry Breakfast

As Befitting Majesty

Reclining in a lily slipper, a toad
is halfway to a prince,

already satin-mantled, high
above the hoi-polloi,

observing the stars wheeling
in their courses,

clouds threatening like nations
before passing over.

Small as he is, the toad fills
his space,

accepting its loftiness
as his due.

About the Poet:  Devon Balwit is a poetry editor at Minute Magazine and the proud mamma of five chapbooks. Her individual poems can be found in The Cincinnati Review, Fifth Wednesday, The Stillwater Review, Red Earth Review, The Fourth River, Emrys Journal, The Carolina Quarterly, and more.

Poetry Breakfast accepts submissions of poetry and poetry related creative non-fiction year-round.  See our Submission Guidelines page for details on submitting your work.

Start your morning with a nourishing poem.  Follow us on  Twitter, Facebook, and  Tumblr,  and enjoy a new poem every morning straight to your feed.

Through His Lens

He frames the world through his lens, directing
his subjects this way and that, ordering one gone

completely, as if to rewrite history, you
were never here, changing whole landscapes

with a slight shift of his body, eliminating
doorframes, phone wires, fences, a shadow,

or making the world only these, zooming in
on a single feature, exaggerating its importance.

He alters the mood with the swap of a filter,
chilly to warm with no effort, no apologies,

his discretion from start to finish. All day, he edits,
his, the vision, even with no camera in sight.

About the Poet:  Devon Balwit is a poetry editor at Minute Magazine and the proud mamma of five chapbooks. Her individual poems can be found in The Cincinnati Review, Fifth Wednesday, The Stillwater Review, Red Earth Review, The Fourth River, Emrys Journal, The Carolina Quarterly, and more.

Poetry Breakfast accepts submissions of poetry and poetry related creative non-fiction year-round.  See our Submission Guidelines page for details on submitting your work.

Start your morning with a nourishing poem.  Follow us on  Twitter, Facebook, and  Tumblr,  and enjoy a new poem every morning straight to your feed.

Free-Box

I am not above stooping,
free-box food as good as any other,

the shampoo in half-used bottles still shampoo,
a set of tea lights with only two missing,

a cable sweater with a faint stain I’d put
in the same place, a batik wall-hanging,

a serving platter, an unopened bottle of wine,
all still treasures. The code is don’t take all

the good stuff, leave one book you’d want to read,
split the four chairs with someone still blocks away;

and if you’re the one boxing, scan the sky and
watch for rain; don’t leave anything drained of mana.

Joy comes when nothing is left, with imagining
your castoffs buttoned by new hands, catching the light

on different sills, with picturing someone whose bad day
your gift drains of sadness, no money exchanged.

A true bodhisattva would point the way home
with a sign: Come in. Whatever you want is yours.

About the Poet:
Devon Balwit is a poet, parent, and educator from Portland, OR. Her work can be found both in print journals and on-line. The only thing she likes better than writing is watching her joyful dog catch frisbees in the morning.

Poetry Breakfast accepts submissions of poetry and poetry related creative non-fiction year-round.  See our Submission Guidelines page for details on submitting your work.

Start your morning with a nourishing poem.  Follow us on  Twitter, Facebook, and  Tumblr,  and enjoy a new poem every morning straight to your feed.