Feather to Stone

by Joan Leotta


You see me as a feather,
as I ride the breeze
down to you, gently
swaying.
You say you
do not even feel me
when I land on your heart,
softly.
Your hardness
deflects my tiny
self.
When breeze calls again,
I float away, weeping for you.
You cannot move.
Your stone self is
stuck
in equally hard earth,
incapable
of understanding that my
very softness,
my lightness, is my
strength.
You are forgiven.


* * * * *

"Feather to Stone" was first published in Peacock Poetry in 2019, and is now also published in Joan Leotta's chapbook, Feathers on Stone, out from Main Street Rag in 2022.
https://mainstreetragbookstore.com/product/feathers-on-stone-joan-leotta/

Joan Leotta plays with words on page and stage. She performs tales featuring food, family, and strong women. Internationally published, she’s a 2021 and 2022 Pushcart nominee, a Best of the Net 2022 nominee, and a 2022 runner-up in the Robert Frost Competition. Her essays, poems, and fiction are in Ekphrastic Review, When Women Write, The Lake, Verse Visual, Verse Virtual, anti-heroin chic, Gargoyle, Silver Birch, The Wild, Ovunquesiamo, MacQueen’s Quinterly, and Yellow Mama, among others. Her chapbooks are Languid Lusciousness with Lemon from Finishing Line Press and Feathers on Stone from Main Street Rag. 

Good Thing

by Cynthia Bernard


Good thing I’ve got two shoulders
on a bad day
when my right arm
can’t even pick up a towel

Used to be easy
to wash a pan
brush my hair
pull on a sleeve

Used to be
applying deodorant
didn’t turn me into a contortionist

Never thought twice about
turning a doorknob
carrying a cup of tea
walking downhill
rolling over

Always thought I’d want to go on forever
but if the worst days
become my every day
I don’t know

Never thought anything would stop me
but the right shoulder
the left knee
my hips
both hands

Moderate to severe degenerative changes
said the doctor
you can see it on the x-rays

I can feel it in my days
don’t want it
can’t change it
and here it is

My beloved
weaves his fingers through mine
drawing me close
my heart welcomes him
but my fingers cannot
and we have to find another way
to intertwine


* * * *

"Good Thing" was first published in MockingOwl Roost (Volume 2, Poetry Special Issue 2022).

Cynthia Bernard is a woman in her late 60's who is finding her voice as a poet after many decades of silence. A long-time classroom teacher and a spiritual mentor, she lives and writes on a hill overlooking the ocean, about 20 miles south of San Francisco. 

 

This month's Moon Prize, the 111th, goes to Lola Haskins' stunning poem "Leaving Belgrade."  


Leaving Belgrade

by Lola Haskins


           I am Croatian but my wife, Hana, she is Serbian.

Every day
Luka read in the papers the ads of willing assassins.

Every day
someone else spat in front of him on the street.

Every day
his position at the university became slightly less clear.

By the time
he decided to leave, it was too late to take anything but two cases.

The first
he packed with clothes, his, Hana's but only a few of Ivo's and Ela's

because
they were still growing. The second, Hana filled with what she could not

bring herself
to leave behind: her mother's tablecloth, her grandmother's salt shakers,

the cloth flowers
her sister had made her so she would not feel so alone in the new place. 

Luka emptied
that case and replaced its contents with so many outdated math books

he had
to sit on it to close it. When Hana protested her lost things,

Luka
told her, leave them, let's go. And she remembered how he'd worked

so late
all their married life, even on weekends, that she and the children hardly

saw him.
It was then she understood that wherever they settled, nothing would change.


* * * * *

Lola Haskins' most recent collection – Asylum: Improvisations on John Clare  (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2019) – was featured in the NY Times Sunday Magazine. Past honors include the Iowa Poetry Prize, two NEAs, four Florida individual artist awards, two Florida Book Awards, narrative poetry prizes from Southern Poetry Review and New England Poetry Review, a Florida's Eden prize for environmental writing, and the Emily Dickinson/Writer Magazine Award from Poetry Society of America.

Living with the Elephant

by Cynthia Bernard


I guess the fog has little cat feet sometimes
but around here
it dances with the wind,
wild and fierce,
especially at dawn,
howling across the ocean, up the hill,
gusting my robe against me,
sloshing coffee into my face as I try for a sip.

I guess aging is gradual sometimes
but around here
it’s been a tempest,
arising suddenly,
wild and fierce and relentless,
wrenching my days apart
into a before that can never be found again
and a very different now.

I guess one could fight it sometimes,
hair dye, face cream, denial,
supplements and potions,
exercises, affirmations.
I guess one could simply accept it,
sometimes.
Around here, though,
arthritis has swept in on elephant feet,
fierce and relentless,
and no pill, no potion,
no affirmation, no meditation,
can sweep it out again.

I guess one could handle things gracefully
and sometimes I do,
but around here there are the other times, too,
when everything seems to hurt
and I just want to stay under a quilt
for whatever part of forever
I get to see.

And then again there are yet other times,
sometimes,
the majesty of the ocean at first light,
the sweetness of love found late,
my hand sliding into his,
new buds on the camellia,
rain on the roof, deer in the yard,
granddaughter’s smile,
or just a nothing-special-time
in the exquisiteness of the now.

And I find that sometimes,
increasingly often,
I welcome it all,
the cat’s feet and the elephant,
things wild and fierce,
quiet moments and raging ones,
lines on my face,
creaky joints and aching bones,
wind in my hair,
full heart,
fog over the ocean at dawn.


* * * * *

"Living with the Elephant" was first published in Multiplicity Magazine (Issue 4, Spring/Summer 2022).

Cynthia Bernard is a woman in her late 60's who is finding her voice as a poet after many decades of silence. A long-time classroom teacher and a spiritual mentor, she lives and writes on a hill overlooking the ocean, about 20 miles south of San Francisco. 

At the beginning of the road

by Irma Kurti


Here I am,
not at peace,
a ball of sadness
and also of tears.

A new
disappointment ...
I thought
I’d changed,
I’d become rational,
abandoning
the candor
and my escape
to an ideal world,
without people
without pains.

Here I am,
at the beginning
of the road,
tired of all,
especially
of myself.
A suitcase
as old as me
in my hand,
accompanies me
in these cases.

A difficult road
is waiting ahead
in search
of my soul mate.
How many
kilometers are left,
how many
disillusionments
I’ll meet,
I wonder if
he does really exist.

Once again,
at the beginning
of the road ...


* * * * *

Irma Kurti is an Albanian poetess, writer, lyricist, journalist, and translator. She is a naturalized Italian. She has been writing since she was a child. She has won numerous literary prizes and awards in Italy and Italian Switzerland. In 2020, she received the title of Honorary President of WikiPoesia, the Encyclopedia of Poetry. She is a member of the jury of several literal competitions.

Irma Kurti has published 26 books in Albanian, 20 in Italian and 10 in English. She is also the translator of 12 books of different authors and of all her books in Italian and English.  

 

SIDES

by Susan L. Pollet


Forced to take sides
No more sitting on
The sidelines when
Freedoms are at stake
No more baking
Cookies and cake
Some sisters may
Not support rights
They will fight too
In the other faction
The edges are not blurred
Sharp camps without entente
No negotiation or mediation
When women's choice over
Their bodies is attacked
There is no going back
To the wire hanger


* * * * *

Susan L. Pollet is an author, artist, advocate for women’s and children’s rights, rewired lawyer, proud mother and grandmother, and world traveler.  She is a past president of the Westchester Women’s Bar Association and past Vice President of the Women’s Bar Association of the State of New York.  She is currently the co-chair of the Domestic Violence Committee for Wbasny.

POINT-BLANK

by Susan L. Pollet


Shot her point-blank in the face
While she pushed the stroller
With their infant child
He wanted her to know her place
She died and he disappeared
With plenty of traces which led
To his capture—not much of a chase
He became a court case and she
Became candles and flowers on the
Street where she was gunned down
The child to grow in another’s embrace
No point to the blankness
Of the point-blank shot in the face


* * * * *

Susan L. Pollet is an author, artist, advocate for women’s and children’s rights, rewired lawyer, proud mother and grandmother, and world traveler.  She is a past president of the Westchester Women’s Bar Association and past Vice President of the Women’s Bar Association of the State of New York.  She is currently the co-chair of the Domestic Violence Committee for Wbasny.