High stakes of Summer

by Gabriella Brand

We watch the yellow rays of July
splaying across our bedroom floor,
playing poker with our vacation,
cajoling us out onto the porch,
gambling on thunderclouds,
living high on the hog,
bluffing us down to the beach,
hiding, seeking, upping the ante.

But some days hold the promise of a royal flush:
a small hummingbird hovering over the hollyhocks,
fresh raspberries dotting the morning yogurt,
enough wind to suck out the sail on the Sunfish,
grilled vegetables curling into dinner
fireworks dropping deep into the night.

###
Gabriella Brand’s fiction, poetry, and essays have appeared in Room Magazine, The Christian Science Monitor, Perigee, The Citron Review, The Mom Egg, and PIF. She has an M.A. from Middlebury College. She divides her time between Connecticut, where she teaches foreign languages, and Quebec, where she canoes, hikes, daydreams and writes.

See. The little stick editor and the little stick writer look happy. You will be too.  Be one of the first to be published with this very different approach. Also, it’s free, all you have to do is sign up: http://www.everywritersresource.com/literarymagazines/register/ This feature will launch sometime this week.

]]> http://allourpoems.net/37088/submit-your-work-to-many-editors/feed/ 0 http://allourpoems.net/37080/summer-in-a-country-town-by-eileen-dawson-peterson/ http://allourpoems.net/37080/summer-in-a-country-town-by-eileen-dawson-peterson/#comments Tue, 21 May 2013 02:44:25 +0000 Everyday Poems http://www.everywritersresource.com/poemeveryday/?p=1665

Summer in a Country Town

(in memory of Sisseton, SD)

by Eileen Dawson Peterson

I remember …
rain barrels
the round sound
when several friends hung their heads
deep inside and hollered
and hollered until the echoing voices
sounded like a crowd shouting
back at you;
the hollow whisper
of my brother calling through
the rainspout on the roof
into my ear at the other end
on the ground.
the shrill call, “Ally, Ally, Over”
as the ball came sailing over the rooftop.
the thrum of baseball cards pinned
to my brother’s bicycle spokes as he raced by;

the acrid sweet odor of
creosote when the sun unrelentingly
sizzled tarpaper roofs of garden sheds;
the hot pungent smell of tar oozing
out of the asphalt where road crews
patched cracks and potholes in the road;
the acid taste of tarbabies left behind
that we chewed on a dare to our parent’s dismay
the lusty rotting scent of fallen apples;
mustiness of freshly turned garden earth;
lilacs and peonies perfuming the air on the front porch;
burnt sugar from Gunderson’s kitchen
where Tuby’s Mom would be baking her specialty cake;

the tartness of spring’s first rhubarb ribs
twisted without permission from the ground;
that special taste of gooseberries picked green in summer
ripe in fall from the bushes surrounding the schoolyard;

I remember …
all the sounds smells tastes that made
growing up in a small country town special.

Eileen Dawson Peterson (2011)

by M.E. Riley

Tether ball hung from overgrown
maple really a soccer ball dented in
half with yellow nylon rope
but stepfather called it tether ball
That’s what it was

School was over
I pushed the trampoline beneath
the tree jumped high enough to bite
the tip off an oak leaf
I shoved my fist into the bulging ball
it swung away from me it swung back
towards me my bouncing sports bra
small knots I’d been praying for
Weren’t as big as my cousin’s she wore
a nude bra with underwire so her peach
knobs wouldn’t show through
tight Aeropostale shirts I’d never been able to afford

Didn’t even want a brand name
across my breasts till I saw hers
stretching the cotton-stitched logo
my neighbor groping spaces between
a and e, r and o
their moans growing as I tried
keeping distracted Baywatch playing on
his TV mounted in the corner

Summer heat swelled the room
his Nascar bedspread felt
scratchy back of my neck sweated walls
bowed in like pairs of hips
squished soccer balls I looked through his
bedroom windows across the street was my house
backyard and trampoline the tether ball
swinging with every hot thrust of wind

I played in the backyard till mid-August
even though Mama fussed about it being too hot
I jumped and punched and bounced and swung
till I heard a screen door open and shut
across the street my neighbor shirtless jerking
lawn mower pull cord it revved up then went
quiet revved then quiet rev-sigh, rev-sigh, I watched
till humidity grew thick my throat clenched

###
M.E. Riley is an Assistant Poetry Editor for Bayou Magazine, as well as a regular contributor to Bayou’s blog. Work has most recently appeared in Nude Bruce Review, Eunoia Review, Belle Journal, and Tales from the South VI.

A Gift

by Maria Wheeler

You plucked it from
A barren peach tree
And offered it to me some sort
Of bruised and oozing, thoughtless joke-
You centered it plump on a cotton placemat.
Its fuzzy, orange brilliance paled
The autumn warning
Of crisp grey leaves
And waning sunlight,
Of life and time-
so swollen, so soft and dewy
It mocked my womb
and warmed my heart.

###
Maria Wheeler has been teaching English for thirteen years. She has an MA in writing and is working on an MFA in professional and creative writing. Maria lives in New Jersey with her husband, a musician. Someday she hopes to finish her memoirs on that peaceful, little farm.

Scorch

by Brendan Sullivan

The white cotton of a summer day
streams across June
like paint peeling off porch railings
buttercups go drowsy in window boxes
watching the world nod and doze
and the burr of cicada wings
rubs the still air scorched
and scars the sky
like locusts on honey.

Sunset

by Emily Windover

afternoon crumbles into evening
citrus splashes across the wooden trees
jubilant and fresh
crunchy december grasses stretch out
in patches of yellow and scruff

the sun gets lower, the sky gets milky
the haze infused with peach
spread over the fields like a blanket
blurring the fence posts and steeples
like a watercolor

the darkness comes with a certain sadness
details disappear
deer recede into the shadows
the last bit of light is messy pink jet scrawl
there is no turning back
sad blackness erases everything

Sail Over the Rim

by Donald Frey

Cast off Embark
Throw smart phones
to sharks along
with keys Visa bills

Quit your job
Leave your junk
Breathe fresh air
Discover passion

Take a lover
Board a ship
The winds wait
Set your sails

Go now
without compass and chart
Leave shrinking shores
Head for deep waters

Rumbling heavens
White caps
Flashing horizons
Check you trim

Tack to
Starboard.
Push your mast into stars
Sail over the rim

###

My wife and I live on country acreage with a mountain view. I’m a retired lawyer.who formally skied and climbed mountains. Now I tend a large flower garden and
enjoy poetry as my new passion.