Influencer
by Chris Jansen
Like a car wreck with a plastic sheet.
Like the place to go where we might meet.
Like a bloody bandaid in the street
next to a penny,
two feathers,
a yellow burrette,
my mother’s unlived life,
I see,
I glow,
I go around.
I run.
And I derive my power from nothing.
Like the sun.
About the Poet: Chris Jansen is a recovering heroin addict. He lives in Athens, Georgia, where he teaches boxing and cares for a disinterested guinea pig named Poozybear.
Tucson Morning, 6 a.m.
by Geraldine Connolly
I walk through the neighborhood
past the ends of driveways,
doors locked tight to guard sleepers.
The day opens like a new recipe.
I want to follow its neat
measurements, solve its problems.
Each breeze stirs a blossom.
I smell something, sweet, dusty, earthy—
sage and creosote, a whiff of mesquite.
I find a quail’s nest, its small eggs close
to my shoe like bones about to break.
I often walk, away from the thought
of border crossings, away from breaking
news toward the patient saguaros,
a babble of doves surging up
from the saltbush.
About the Poet:
Geraldine Connolly is a native of western Pennsylvania and the author of four poetry collections: Food for the Winter (Purdue), Province of Fire (Iris Press) and Hand of the Wind (Iris Press), Aileron (Terrapin Books.) She is the recipient of two N.E.A. creative writing fellowships in poetry, a Maryland Arts Council fellowship, and the W.B. Yeats Society of New York Poetry Prize. She was the Margaret Bridgman Fellow at the Bread Loaf Writers Conference and has had residencies at Yaddo, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts and The Chautauqua Institute. Her work has appeared in Poetry, The Georgia Review, Cortland Review and Shenandoah. It has been featured on The Writers Almanac and anthologized in Poetry 180: A Poem a Day for American High School Students, Sweeping Beauty: Poems About Housework and The Sonoran Desert:A Literary Field Guide. She lives in Tucson, Arizona. Her website is http: www.geraldineconnolly.com and Facebook author’s page: https://www.facebook.com/geraldineconno/
Morning Poem
In the moments before the day begins, I am alone.
Almost full moon still visible through
the narrow slit of a window in the back of the house.
Dawn breaks in an instant:
Look out one window and it’s dark,
turn to another and it’s light,
morning flooding the side yard,
instant time travel.
Wet leaves cling to everything this morning,
so much rain last night,
we had to stand outside to
watch it fall on streets flooded with lamplight.
It’s been years now since that fall day I cried
with joy because we moved in,
because we came home
to this town, the only one that
has ever felt like home.
A week ago I stood in
the acoustic room of the Martin Guitar Factory
holding one guitar by its neck
while my husband played another.
It thrummed in my hand
like a living thing,
its vibrations a call and response to the other guitar,
as though they were partners,
as though they could finish each other’s sentences,
as if one could translate for the other.
The house will wake,
I know this the way the dog knows this:
she stretches and sighs in preparation.
Feet will find their way down stairs and into kitchens
as if it is inevitable, a call and response,
the period at the end of my sentence.
About the Poet: Jennifer Judge has taught creative writing and composition for 20 years at King’s College in Wilkes-Barre, PA. She earned her MFA from Goddard College. She lives in Dallas, PA with her husband and two daughters. Her work has been published in Literary Mama, Blueline, Mothers Always Write, Schuylkill Valley Journal, Every Pigeon! and Rhino.
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.
Kayaking the Upper Buffalo
Whitewater rainbows in spray, pool dropping between willows, river birch, driftwood—three buzzards, droop-shouldered, perch in ash. Popping lid on tin of sardines, one bird lifts immediately into flight, begins to turn circles on wingtip. Sun splashes off standing waves, dampens limestone, dries, dampens. Mayapple umbrellas below blackjack oaks. Blue-tailed skink skitters into patch of sun.
drifting hawk,
a broken shadow
circles the bluff
About the Poet:
Al Ortolani’s newest collection of poems, Paper Birds Don’t Fly, was released in 2016 from New York Quarterly Books. His poetry and reviews have appeared in journals such as Rattle, Prairie Schooner, and New Letters. His poems been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net, and he has recently been featured on the Writer’s Almanac.
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.
Feeling of Fall
The air changes from stale to crisp,
the wind sweeps in coldness,
it crawls into my bones with determination.
I sense the change days before it happens;
leaves drink in the color like ocean sponges.
Along comes the frigid cold to strip them bare.
Forests left unclothed,
naked for all to see.
Wooden skeletons model their new frames.
Full moons mark the season until spring can return.
Nourishment needed is now replaced,
And gives all life a brand new face.
About the Poet:
Cindy O’Quinn is a writer, RN, and homesteader. She lives in the North Woods of New England with her husband and sons. Cindy’s short stories and poetry can be found in Sanitarium Magazine issue #48, as well as upcoming issues of Blood Moon Rising Magazine.
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.
Childhood Prayers
Yes, as a child I prayed,
because the nights in bed
were long and dark
and the days
had already shattered my mind
into gleaming fragments
moving quickly upon
a flame of fear.
Yes, I prayed
into the darkness,
for there were holes
in the safe world
and even my parents
sometimes became
strangers in the house.
I tried to hold our family
safely in my arms
so that it would not shatter too,
along the fault lines I knew,
and leave me all alone.
I prayed and never thought
these prayers trying to find
their way upward through thick
layers of tangled, textured shadow
were answered, but it may be
the prayers themselves were
the answer needed then.
About the Poet:
Max Reif has published three books of poetry, Canticles for Meher, Every Day Music, and Journey from here to HERE. His forthcoming book of stories, Toward an Interior Sun, is being published by The Mindful Word. He has also just recorded a CD of songs, titled The Wake-Up Man. His poem, Jazz Kahuna, which appeared in POETRY BREAKFAST, has been nominated for a 2016 Best of the Net Award. He lives in the San Francisco bay area with his wife, Barbara.
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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.
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