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Poetry Breakfast

Serving a little poetic nourishment every morning. Start your day with our new expanded menu. Poems, of course, are our specialty. But we will also be serving a fuller menu that includes poetry book reviews to feed poets' and poetry lovers' souls.

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crescent moon – A Poem by Linda M. Crate

crescent moon
by Linda M. Crate

the moon sang to me
i did not have to be whole in
order to shine,
and i couldn’t help but
smile;
this week has been sullen and somber but to know
as i was
i was perfect made a real difference
to my heart—
i have always had a fondness
for crescent moons
their arching arms of longing resemble my own,
and somehow in that moment
i didn’t feel so alone
the loneliness was washed away by the tide
of the cerulean waves of night.

 

 

About the Poet:  Linda M. Crate is a Pennsylvanian native born in Pittsburgh yet raised in the rural town of Conneautville. She is a two-time Pushcart nominee. Her poetry, short stories, articles, and reviews have been published in a myriad of magazines both online and in print. She has six published chapbooks: A Mermaid Crashing Into Dawn (Fowlpox Press – June 2013), Less Than A Man (The Camel Saloon – January 2014), If Tomorrow Never Comes (Scars Publications, August 2016), My Wings Were Made to Fly (Flutter Press, September 2017),  splintered with terror (Scars Publications, January 2018), More Than Bone Music (Clare Songbirds Publishing House, March 2019), and one micro-chapbook Heaven Instead (Origami Poems Project, May 2018). She is also the author of the novel Phoenix Tears (Czykmate Books, June 2018).

Sarasvati – A Poem by Megan Alford

Sarasvati

Researching how much the Tube costs a month,
deciding who I should say sorry to before I go,

I pray to Sarasvati for Absolute Truth.

She presses a conch shell to my lips, loosens
the noose around my neck,

shows me how to separate the water
from the milk.

 

 

 

About the Poet:
A graduate of Toronto’s George Brown College in Dance Performance, Megan Alford went on to complete her Bachelor of Arts in Concordia University’s Creative Writing Program. Her poems have been published in Matrix Magazine, Soliloquies Anthology, Encore Literary Magazine, Vallum, Room, and Cirque Literary Journal. In Montreal, she was shortlisted for the 2010 Irving Layton Award in both poetry and fiction. Originally from Prince Edward Island, she now resides in Vancouver.

 

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.

Marchmont Street – A Poem by Sapphire Elisha

Marchmont Street

Marchmont Street,
You are my vegan Bohemia,
Drenched in white sunlight,
My yellow San Francisco sweater,
Scented tree lined pavement,
From dusty secondhand bookshops,
To health food labyrinths,
Quaint coffee shop aromas,
Mediterranean lunch houses,
Fresh bread and herbs,
Hanging sweetly in the air,

Quiet gardener woman planting,
Begonias at the side of the kerb,
Splashes of red, yellow and purple on the street,
Where eyes meet and hearts,
Bond in love over shared blurbs,
Bric-a-brac,
Multicoloured plastic,
Buckets and spades,
Last minutes holidays in tropical places,

Marchmont Street,
How I have reclined and indulged in your,
Sumptuous chocolate cake paradise,
Two full years at your continental door,
Have left a warm, yellow, sun soaked,
Stain on my heart,
To be revisited some time,
Soon, I hope, with a chilled,
Elderflower pressé and,
Parasol on the corner.

 

 

 

About the Poet:
Sapphire Elisha is a British writer, musician and trainee speech pathologist. Her poetry is strongly influenced by urban landscapes and social communities within the UK. Having started writing poetry at the age of six, her aim is to connect with people, through writing freely about life’s simple pleasures and the shared experience of being human. Originally from the North West coast of England, Sapphire currently lives in Sheffield, where she finds inspiration in the history of the “steel city” and the beauty of the surrounding Peak District. Sapphire Elisha’s poetry can be found at Sapphire Elisha

 

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.

Commuters – A Poem by Kevin Shyne

Commuters

The puppy sun
licks at my face
not letting me sleep.

I wake aboard
an inbound train
uncurling in my seat.

A man flips through
a file, his office formed
by knees and shirt.

His neighbor’s paper
crinkles, each page crying
“read me first!”

Pre-teens pose
in Hello Kitty clothes
as if in a mirror.

Twin earbud boys
sway with wires
dangling from their ears.

A romance novel
smoulders where
a lady marks her page.

The train conductor
twirls his punch,
sherrifing an Old West stage.

Early bird commuters
ride on tracks
within their minds.

Their dreams dissolve
at 6:03, derailed
at the end of the line.

 

 

About the Poet:
Kevin Shyne is a lifelong writer, whose work once appeared frequently in corporate annual reports, but now in his retirement, appears in poetry journals including Clementine Unbound, Poetry Porch, Poetry Breakfast and The Lyric.

 

 

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.

The Kidnapping – A Poem by Maggie Rosen

The Kidnapping

Last year she was in El Salvador.
Somehow she is here.

The teacher says she is Persephone.
She has flowers.

She is wrapped in a sheet

and she is not uncomfortable
with saying or being
in Hell.

The sheet tangles, her hair woven, fused to the flowers.

I hold up a fruit laden with seeds
encased in thick syrup.

I explain that if you eat you have to stay,
but only six months here
and six months there.

Now she is shocked.
The idea ricochets

as she contemplates borders passed,
bargains, anger, fatigue,
violation,
a cycle of eating and failure,
picking yourself up
and more falling.

It was hard enough just to get here.

 

 

About the Poet:
Maggie Rosen lives in Silver Spring, Maryland. Most of her professional work has been as a teacher of English to speakers of other languages. Her chapbook, The Deliberate Speed of Ghosts, will be published in 2016 by Red Bird Chapbooks.

 

 

Photo by Susanne Dicke.

 

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.

If Stephen King Wrote Poetry – A Poem by Alan Harris

If Stephen King Wrote Poetry

it still goes on
those little things
that annoyed me about you

the casket’s closed
but the kitchen cabinets remain open

it’s like you’re here
going through the junk drawer
leaving the toilet seat up

the dog wags its tail
at your Laz-Z-Boy

your favorite beer
fills my fridge
your socks lay on the floor

our grandchild
still talks to you

your aftershave
calls my name from
hand towels and pillow cases

the damn lawnmower
refuses to start without you

along with the old Ford,
barbeque grill,
and the sump pump

which leads me to
your photo on the wall

as I wonder if those eyes
are asking me to follow
or simply saying good-bye

 

 

About the Poet:
As a hospice volunteer Alan Harris helps patients write stories, poems and letters. Harris is a 61 year-old graduate student. He writes short stories, plays, and poetry based primarily upon the life-stories of friends, family and total strangers. Harris is the 2011 recipient of the Stephen H. Tudor Scholarship in Creative Writing, the 2014 John Clare Poetry Prize, and the 2015 Tompkins Poetry Award from Wayne State University. In addition he is the father of seven, grandfather of eight, as well as a two-time Pushcart Prize nominee.

 

Photo by Mystics Art Design.

 

 

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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