Poetry 3 Fall 2023

If Autumn Had a Taste

by Carolyn Wolfe

If Autumn had a taste

it would be apple cider

sipping cider your mind wanders

to Autumn leaves

bright and full in the trees

you breathe in the scent

of winey, over ripe apples

drifting in the air

you hear echoes of

children loudly calling

"trick or treat."

and the light of the Jack O' Lanterns

become instead, the fireglow

from wood stoves, cozy fireplaces

and campfires holding back the dark

in the deep wood

Hearth and Home

Holidays and Baking

crisp walks on crackling leaves

favorite sweaters

and the tang of frost

coming over the horizon

all this in the first sip

so you take another..

Bio: Carolyn Wolfe is a free-lance writer, published poet, and author of 11 books, four of which are illustrated children's books. Those include, "Am I YOUR Pet?", "The Drowsy House," "The Bedtime of The Sky and Other Sleepy-Bye Stories" and "The Unhappy Little Dragon, Lessons Learned. Her books for general readership include: "Miracle Paws, A Love Story" a story of rescue and light romance, and "The Moonsparrow Collection" which is a collection of her short fantasy stories. Ms. Wolfe has also published three collections of her original poetry" Notes From the Shadow Self" and "Making Waves," and "April Snow, A Journey Through Grief" as well as an adult Sword and Sorcery novella, "Blade's Magic" which is about dangerous magics and an attraction that spans two worlds. Her latest book, “Tales Told Under The Darkened Moon" is a collection of dark fantasy stories, that have a hint of humor, a hint of dread, and little bit of shiver for all fans of ghost stories and tales that go bump in the night. Ms. Wolfe lives in the Shenandoah Valley with a houseful of her own rescued, animal companions. Her books are primarily available on Amazon.com, but can also be found online at Barnes & Noble and Books-A- Million websites. For more information please visit: http://wolfecarolyn.wix.com/carolyn-storyteller

BIRDFALL

by Stephen Grant

A bird hit my window, hard, not my fault, nor god’s either,

(she doesn’t exist and couldn’t care less, one way or the other),

echoing the deceptive translucence of twilight after you had

vanished into the purple haze and left only vaporous trails, an

elliptically vague air pocket for the forlorn bird and me

I live in life’s penumbra, that moody abyss between the maybe

and the real, catching only tail winds, crossing fiercely turbulent

jet streams to know your wise heart, measuring our lives, without

pause, from ladles to shovels, roughly the real shelf-life of a Twinkie,

maybe 93 years (not likely that few) but good enough for that bird

who, after the shock of her ordeal and embarrassment of her misadventure,

gathered her ruffled feathers and flew away, without a word of goodbye.

Bio: Stephen Grant is a Toronto poet and writer, most recently found in In Parentheses.

18 Miles from Wilkes-Barre

by Dan Raphael

lightning’s too forceful and quick to just tickle

ripping the sky with light

straining the sails of local space

rain coming from 3 or more directions

not counting the ground, trying to spit back

while gulping as much as possible

and the trees, some remembering stories

some wanting to shut their eyes

while the leaf mouths eager to take in

what could be their last breath

slithering threads of rain in a sky-wide jailbreak

joyous to be so much closer to lake, river and sea

Bio: Dan Raphael's poetry collection In the Wordshed was published by LastWord Press in December of '22.More recent poems appear in Lothlorien, Impspired, In Parentheses, Otoliths and A Too Powerful Word. Most Wednesdays dan writes and records a current events poem for The KBOO Evening News.