poetry
There are many kinds of poetry, and we want them all. Freeverse, iambic, haiku, sonnets, romantic, humorous, dark, send us your best!
Samhain
Spectral hoofbeats lash the trees, as shadows
swarm and scatter. Once blazing day gives way
to ashes. The mundane waxes hallowed.
Cackling faces across each stoop arrayed
By Alexander Ross
Spectral hoofbeats lash the trees, as shadows
swarm and scatter. Once blazing day gives way
to ashes. The mundane waxes hallowed.
Cackling faces across each stoop arrayed
stand sentinel and bid me remember.
Remember, young mortal, in this season
of reaping, an era when November’s
threshold demanded not fits of reason,
but of rite. A hollowed root with cavern
alight, fires tended from hill to dale.
Shelter in mask betwixt house and tavern;
a horde titanic traverses the veil.
I know you, riders, by face and by name.
Tonight, we ride as one in the same.
About the author
Alexander Ross is an American poet. His work has appeared with Antelope Hill, Corncrake Magazine, Multipolar Press, Apocalypse Confidential, and many others. He can be found on both Substack and X @YeomanPoet.
Tree Haunted
Nobody in this little town is still alive
who remembers me
as a young girl
except the stumps on our farm—
elms, Douglas firs, and maples
cut down by ancestors
and sold down the Snohomish River.
By Trish Saunders
Nobody in this little town is still alive
who remembers me
as a young girl
except the stumps on our farm—
elms, Douglas firs, and maples
cut down by ancestors
and sold down the Snohomish River.
When I was a God-struck little kid
on a hard chair in Sunday school
I could see their leaves shimmering
through the windows,
unheavened,
and wondered,
is God in here, or out there?
My time marked ‘before’ is drawing nearer.
I am okay with vanishing with the trees.
About the author
Trish Saunders's poems are published or forthcoming in Chiron Review, Main Street Rag, Eunoia, Gargoyle, Open Arts Forum, and the late lamented Fat Damsel, among other publications. She lives in Seattle