Every Day Poems

A Poem A Day

Every Writer

Winter Kitchen by Jenny Dunbar

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winter kitchen a poem

Winter kitchen
by Jenny Dunbar

Quince, the golden peach
its essence blooming from glass jars, just sealed,
aromatic, warm,
raw November banished,
retreating through opaque windows,
I close my eyes, taste the air, redolent of the hours,
those carriers of narrative, each facet a glimpse of time remembered,
an affirmation of then and now,

a particle held captive in its amber pool,
the essential blemish,
that grounding mark, reminding me that perfection distracts,
there is always another layer,
a lifting of the lid,
promise of process between seed and harvest,
touching earth,
this year has gifted the maker with bounty,
as if the sands of time ran too fast
we husbanded with acknowledgement and skill,
intuiting the all too precious moments,
lost and found,
as we passed through together
in remembrance of warmth in the soul

Infinity by Anna Banasiak

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Infinity
by Anna Banasiak

I’m looking at people
lost in the rushing universe
I’m only a drop of time
in a gust of eternity
I’m searching for the truth
in the music of things
wandering in the world
like a blind bird.

Anna Banasiak have been published in New York, London, Surrey,  Australia, Canada, India, Africa, Japan, China, Cuba, Israel. She is the winner of poetry competitions in London, medal Unesco, Berlin, Bratislava, gold, gold and silver in Kamena, gold, silver and bronze at All Poetry. silver for short story, silver for dog poem, bronze for Mother poem, poems of the day at poemhunter, poems of the month at Poet bay, editor picks at Prose, winner at Poems and Quotes and Writers Café. I publish books of poetry in India and Japan.

The Low Hanging Sun by Nolo Segundo

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The Low Hanging Sun

The Low Hanging Sun
by Nolo Segundo

I went to take out the trash,
the good trash, glass and paper
destined for re-incarnation
and as I stepped outside,
the air cool and pearly white,
the low hanging sun smiles,
throws a late afternoon warmth
over my body, a blanket of silk.
For a moment I stopped to think,
then thanked the low hanging sun
for being there, the last defense
against a cold deep unto death….
In our immense Universe, wall-less,
ever expanding, is mostly night,
utter and fearsome darkness, all
pitch-black and cold, a coldness
beyond comprehension or life—
so the light and heat of every
myriad star is precious, precious….

Nolo Segundo, pen name pof L.J.Carber, became a widely published poet only in his 8th decade in nearly 140 literary magazines in 10 countries and 3 trade book collections: The Enormity of Existence [2020], Of Ether and Earth [2021], and Soul Songs [2022]. Nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net, he’s a retired teacher [America, Japan, Taiwan, Cambodia] who has been married 43 years to a smart and beautiful Taiwanese woman.

Glosa for My Deteriorating Mother

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Glosa for My Deteriorating Mother

Glosa for My Deteriorating Mother
by Haro Lee

I don’t ask you to love me always like this,
but I ask you to remember.
Somewhere inside me
there’ll always be the person I am tonight
–Tender is the Night, F. Scott Fitzgerald

Your hair, it’s summoned by moonlight now–
One day I noticed
how your middle parting beamed
at me. A silver embroidery. The first unwrapping
of fish cartilage by nature’s teeth.
It was so easy to dismiss
it then. After you painted your roots
we both went back to normal,
that new tapestry allowing us to miss
the warning: I don’t ask you to love me always like this.

That was a long time ago. The first
season that produced white foliage,
it returned. The tufts that grew
you painted over like swans
dipping themselves in night’s lake, emerging
black again. Your timber
weakened. The strands grew thin, breaking
off, the charcoal of it turning brown, burnt sienna,
then a sick jaundice. You’d grab a tender
bunch of it. Understand. But I ask you to remember

when being young mattered to you.
When you were always there,
always for me, you on a silver platter,
the crop of your head
a waterfall that always ran black.
Black vines, black veins, black sea,
rich of dark matter.
The memories of a younger you
burn something beastly,
something molten, somewhere inside me,

yearning. But your hair now,
you catch seasons with it.
Your head is a winter lake, flash frozen by age.
And you know how much I want
to break the ice, search for something bleak. Maybe you,
twenty years younger, a crown of night
growing from your head.
A younger you,
promising, against time’s flight:
There will always be the person I am tonight.

 

Haro Lee lives in South Korea with her grandmother. Her poems appear or are forthcoming in Michigan Quarterly Review, Zone 3 Press, The Offing, The Indianapolis Review, and elsewhere. She was also the recipient of Epiphany Magazine’s Breakout 8 Writers Prize. You can find her @pilnyeosdaughter.

Street Life by Fran Schumer

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Street Life

by Fran Schumer

Today, I watched a woman,
not young, squat in a doorway
on a crowded street, and pee.
I wore my new black shoes.
Later, I saw her crouch down
beside two men. Their cheeks,
crinkly brown like autumn leaves,
glowed in the still warm sun.

When I was young, I watched
a Little Person, fair and blond,
squat beside a tall, dark man
on a crowded highway, and pee.
How breezily she zipped up her jeans,
leaned against her companion,
then continue on her way.

Even younger, I watched an old woman
pick through the trash at Coney Island.
Her shredded stockings
crawled up her legs like spider silk.
The hamburger my parents bought me
turned grey in my cold, numb hand.

My great aunt picked
through trash
though she wasn’t poor.
Her husband was maybe gay —
no talk of that then —
she only knew she was unwanted,
pitied for not having children.

I watched her rummage
through old crusts, crushed cans,
bags stained with grease,
a veiled hat pinned
to her angel white hair,
a brooch at the collar
of her fine, dark dress.

At home, I disinfect my new shoes,
tell my husband of the varied street life
in the downtown where we now live,
at this, the end of our years.
Better than living in a gated community,
blind to the world, he says.

I say no —I’d rather live
in a gated community,
and soon we will,
walls made of clouds,
the angels singing,
lulling us into the false
consciousness of the dead.

 

Fran Schumer’s poetry, fiction, and articles have appeared in various sections of The New York Times; also, Vogue, The Nation, The North American Review, and other publications. She won a Goodman Loan Grant Award for Fiction from the City University of New York and in 2021, a Martha’s Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing poetry fellowship. In 2022, her poem, Memento Mori, was a winner of the Martha’s Vineyard Poet Laureate’s 2022 Contest. Her Chapbook, Weight, was the first runner up in the Jonathan Holden Poetry Chapbook Contest and was published in 2022 by Choeofpleirn Press. A native of Brooklyn, N.Y., she studied political science at college but wishes she had spent more time studying Keats.