Vicki Ziegler

Booklover (CR: Rough Description by Don Pyle), into literary news, reviews and discussion, #TodaysPoem and #SundaySentence contributor, #SilentBookClub organizer, dog lover, proud Torontonian, constant crocheter of wacky things

More about #TodaysPoem: http://bit.ly/2J4ym4C
More about Silent Book Clubs: http://bit.ly/2NSBVtw
Bookgaga blog: http://www.bookgagabooks.ca

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relay.damus.io

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Last Notes

2026-03-14 22:40:54 UTC

Celebrating the completion of another wacky afghan, heading soon to a new home! #AfghanCrochet #Crochet
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2025-09-28 14:20:07 UTC

"The dark is full of holes. Let us read by mothlight and detect the faint
shimmer of their calculations before the flood of radiance breaks thru."
#SundaySentence (and bonus #TodaysPoem) from Mothlight by Paul Vermeersch in NMLCT (2025 ECW Press) https://ecwpress.com/products/nmlct

2025-09-04 16:00:25 UTC

"It must have been my mother’s plan
to rupture the dear ordinary.
Every day she prepared to leave,
tended us with gentle indifference
until she sailed off the edge,
into that unknown life of perished things."
#TodaysPoem #poetry @npub1xfw…mava
Everything that falls upon the eye is apparition by Dagne Forrest (2025 Pinhole Poetry) https://pinholepoetry.ca/11863-2/

2025-09-01 15:11:01 UTC

"in the changingness of light clouds drift time passes sun shifts
steamy morning crosses the field seethes in the simmering white sun
bending light rays produce images of distant objects"
#TodaysPoem #poetry @npub1xfw…mava
undersong by Cordelia Hanemann (2023 Stone Poetry Journal) https://tinyurl.com/mrkebfe7

2025-08-31 15:38:02 UTC

"This is fire at its fire-est with a grand and wild
hunger. What we're asking for, praying,
is for the equivalent in rain."
#TodaysPoem #poetry @npub1xfw…mava
In which we learn to call for a new + stronger rain by Sue Goyette (2023) https://tinyurl.com/7mdchyxn
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2025-08-30 13:21:50 UTC

"Could the rain-carried pain be my banshee's caoineadh,
soothing my homesickness in its own morbid way?"
#TodaysPoem #poetry @npub1xfw…mava
I can't reach the greengage and my tomatoes are blight-ridden. by Sarah O’Connor (2024 Anthropocene Poetry) https://tinyurl.com/yc64ha8h

2025-08-28 14:17:19 UTC

"i need gathering to fight the winds and swells jack cheers me on and i
haul myself forward imagining amy’s the one shouting when i haven’t heard her voice in
four years"
#TodaysPoem #poetry @npub1xfw…mava
open water long haul by melanie brannagan frederiksen (2021 thin air winnipeg) https://tinyurl.com/bdx6t2vn

2025-08-27 15:25:59 UTC

"how can you re-wire a cascade, make water
fall in reverse, change the river’s direction?"
#TodaysPoem #poetry @npub1xfw…mava
Skinny-Dipping As Self-Baptism by Cassandra Myers (2025 League of Canadian Poets) https://tinyurl.com/mua7mhad

2025-08-26 15:47:08 UTC

"When there's nothing showing
there's nothing to give
that someone hasn't taken
so my car alarm gets camera shy
blaring to be broken into."
#TodaysPoem #poetry @npub1xfw…mava
New by Jacob Alvarado from I Can Make It All Up To You (2024 knife fork book) https://tinyurl.com/mr4bzx3m
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2025-08-25 14:47:00 UTC

"You couldn’t
work out where it was or where
the voices came from but the fact
it happened somewhere made
us both feel calm so we decided,
standing there, to regard all our
feelings as mutual, the only action
as collective, & speech a way
of taking it to you"
#TodaysPoem #poetry @npub1xfw…mava
Take It by Will Harris (2021 Tentacular) https://tinyurl.com/4ejvhm66

2025-08-24 15:37:45 UTC

"What we take, in the presence of the beloved object, is merely a negative, which we develop later, when we are back at home, and have once again found at our disposal that inner darkroom the entrance to which is barred to us so long as we are with other people."
#SundaySentence from Within a Budding Grove by Marcel Proust https://tinyurl.com/ax9cff8t

2025-08-24 14:54:16 UTC

"I wonder
if I bury my birthday cards in this hollow tree whether the bees will
come for my body when the sun rises, fill me with new paper houses."
#TodaysPoem #poetry @npub1xfw…mava
Panoramic (after Gold Motel) by E. Kristin Anderson (2020 Bending Genres) https://tinyurl.com/5y3ac8ws

2025-08-23 13:18:31 UTC

"the one day
with no horses
was the day
you were with me.
there were deer, though.
did you see them?"
#TodaysPoem #poetry @npub1xfw…mava
i make kandi with mikhail bakhtin in temperance, ... by autumn koors-foltz (2025 Red Ogre Review) https://tinyurl.com/32mh2kdv

2025-08-22 12:36:04 UTC

"a whisper skin on skin
on hair electric fear faster breath loud gravity pulls it
from me into the storm my breath his breath our
breath marks time the only sign I haven't crossed
alone"
#TodaysPoem #poetry @npub1xfw…mava
my body, thunderstorm: anechoic series 3 by Sara Dovre Wudali (2022 Blood Tree Literature) https://tinyurl.com/58jhf59b

2025-08-21 13:52:15 UTC

"some oil
a little zardchoobeh
handfuls of whatever herbs on hand
and enough water to cover it all"
#TodaysPoem #poetry @npub1xfw…mava
The first time I make ghormeh sabzi by Tina Ehsanipour (2021 Nowruz Journal) https://tinyurl.com/5dw54tt3

2025-08-20 14:04:02 UTC

"I'm not asking you to understand.
I know you can't.
But if you'd like to try - picture
a brush of black-trimmed astral
Blue dipping over summer grass"
#TodaysPoem #poetry @npub1xfw…mava
Lifecycle of the Large Blue Butterfly by Guy Elston from The Character Actor Convention (2025 The Porcupine's Quill) https://tinyurl.com/55bcbnmj
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2025-08-19 14:08:04 UTC

"No birds today - the garden empty
as this envelope, before I started writing."
#TodaysPoem #poetry @npub1xfw…mava
Ever After by Guy Elston (2023 periodicity journal) https://tinyurl.com/4ecercvf

2025-08-17 14:53:10 UTC

"Why can’t I be an ! like an Aries
& say everything
with conviction and passion?
Yes, I just asked another question.
Because I’m leaving everything open to input.
So Cancerian of me."
#TodaysPoem #poetry @npub1xfw…mava
The Astro Poets say I’m a ? by Nicole Tallman (2022 Have Has Had‬) https://tinyurl.com/4u7sycxj

2025-08-16 14:07:04 UTC

"and now we see,
though what arises is not clarity
but a set of new misgivings. Is this how the world will be
and not just how it is?"
#TodaysPoem #poetry @npub1xfw…mava
Smoke by Karen Solie from Wellwater (2025 House of Anansi Press) https://tinyurl.com/4xy83hym & https://tinyurl.com/2s4bjcf5

2025-08-15 14:15:30 UTC

"first, the oil sizzles, then— khada masala
two bay leaves, one cinnamon stick (both sources
from the same plant), cloves, peppercorns,
and badi elaichi
this time the onions are not translucent
they need not shrink,
instead, they are browned
in the utensil made of clay,
from earth
a heritage of brown"
#TodaysPoem #poetry @npub1xfw…mava
There Will Always Be Rice by Sneha Subramanian Kanta (2025 128 Lit) https://tinyurl.com/3smsyyxb

2025-08-14 14:09:20 UTC

"six birds
settle in the crowns of the cedars,
herons, their eyes like burned buildings, and evening
sifts from their long feathers."
#TodaysPoem #poetry @npub1xfw…mava
Shuttle by Noah Warren (2025 Academy of American Poets) https://tinyurl.com/53b9hnk8

2025-08-13 13:08:13 UTC

(from Baker v Canada (Minister of Immigration & Citizenship), [1999] 2 SCR 817 at para 5)
#TodaysPoem #poetry @npub1xfw…mava
NO, SUFFER HERE by Chimwemwe Undi from Scientific Marvel (2024 House of Anansi Press) https://tinyurl.com/y3yj4uhh

2025-08-12 14:00:34 UTC

"I swim to the sun-shaped hole in outer-space
and peer over the edge at the mirrored universe."
#TodaysPoem #poetry @npub1xfw…mava
Offerings to Save the World by Mahaila Smith (2022 Arc Poetry) https://tinyurl.com/4yrhv4z7

2025-08-11 11:17:02 UTC

"The watershed was a Japanese watercolour at risk
Of running off the canvas, the big water carrying its muted palette
Down to the sea and taking a good part of me with it."
#TodaysPoem #poetry @npub1xfw…mava
Walking Underwater by Mark Tredinnick (2011 Montreal Poetry Prize) https://tinyurl.com/yhu32c45

2025-08-10 14:46:07 UTC

"Somewhere
there is a hurricane, a fire, a herd of elephants,
a boy on a pink tricycle, a garden with a long table
set for dinner with tea lights. Bye, world. Bye."
#TodaysPoem #poetry @npub1xfw…mava
All Day I Look at Things by @npub1ms8…gf03 (2025 The Walrus) https://tinyurl.com/2uhjft9t
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2025-08-09 13:22:40 UTC

"and short as views surrounding
where land rolls far beyond
with knowing wings the ways
that see ahead.
through every dangle heart"
#TodaysPoem #poetry @npub1xfw…mava
Ode to the Edge by Hiram Larew (2021 Words for the Wild) https://tinyurl.com/2wnd2ub4

2025-08-08 20:39:19 UTC

- reply

This is one of my #TheSealeyChallenge posts from a previous year ...

2025-08-08 12:44:28 UTC

"A sky not seen until the stars came out
Houses melting in a copper pot
There was the quickening of fairy tales
A little radio filling with distance"
#TodaysPoem #poetry @npub1xfw…mava
Our Garden Had No Pomegranate Tree by Şükrü Erbaş, translated by Derick Mattern (2020 The Common) https://tinyurl.com/mu2z6t2x

2025-08-07 13:57:02 UTC

- reply

Some more of my #TheSealeyChallenge posts from previous years ...

2025-08-07 12:33:06 UTC

"I have only
a small amount
of magic now.
Spells born with me
are of too few moons—
and I only speak
when under a half
wafer of light."
#TodaysPoem #poetry @npub1xfw…mava
A hard-edged glow by Rachel Nelson (2025 Ecotone Magazine) https://tinyurl.com/2vbccvkc

2025-08-06 12:56:06 UTC

- reply

I'm so glad to hear it, Alex!

2025-08-06 11:22:02 UTC

"This three-inch-high goddess
carved from birch
has no eyes but her stare
could drop an ox. The birch is
back and she’s
the business. She’s top branch."
#TodaysPoem #poetry @npub1xfw…mava
Birch Goddess by Tanis MacDonald (2020 The Goose) https://tinyurl.com/zhvh9afm

2025-08-05 16:12:30 UTC

- reply

Looking back on some more #TheSealeyChallenge posts from previous years ...

2025-08-05 14:08:09 UTC

- reply

Agreed - it's powerful and haunting, isn't it? I'm glad you connected with it ...

2025-08-05 13:40:57 UTC

"I have been strung with a necklace
of hummingbirds, my hair
in braids, my braids are tongues."
#TodaysPoem #poetry @npub1xfw…mava
I Ride Upon a Tiger, by Kirun Kapur (2019 The Missouri Review) https://tinyurl.com/w2yuzwzy

2025-08-04 14:57:50 UTC

"Within his smoke-glazed kitchen walls; tobacco-stained,
the sharp abrasions
of his voice a thing you can still hear
for kilometres, years. Or the underbody of cars."
#TodaysPoem #poetry @npub1xfw…mava
from Four Poems for Peter Van Toorn by @npub14vw…fcnl (2022 Vallum) https://tinyurl.com/6cepz5m6

2025-08-03 15:50:47 UTC

- reply

Ah, looking back on #TheSealeyChallenge posts from previous years ...

2025-08-03 15:35:09 UTC

"He believes her (and
That sounds okay), but
He knows
Only so much
Can be
Unwound."
#TodaysPoem #poetry @npub1xfw…mava
Only So Much by Taylor Dibbert (2024 The Argyle Literary Magazine) https://tinyurl.com/ykees4tt

2025-08-02 19:13:38 UTC

- reply

Oh! Perfect!

2025-08-02 15:32:50 UTC

"I tear colonizing rhizomes
from my rented rectangle of allotted earth
and they regenerate as my hands cramp
and bleed."
#TodaysPoem #poetry @npub1xfw…mava #TheSealeyChallenge
Life Cycle by Allison LaSorda (2025 Opaat Press / @npub1x58…7899) https://tinyurl.com/mv4zvtxv
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2025-08-01 15:15:22 UTC

"Late summer mornings
I slept in your side, in the sun,
and to all your wishes in my sleep I wished 'Yes.'"
#TodaysPoem #poetry @npub1xfw…mava #TheSealeyChallenge
Awake, This Summer by Jean Valentine from Light Me Down - The New & Collected Poems of Jean Valentine (2024 Alice James Books) https://tinyurl.com/bdum5pez
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2025-08-01 14:44:55 UTC

- reply

My last #TheSealeyChallenge post from last year!

2025-07-31 15:35:16 UTC

"Up and down, you flowed in those waters, returning us slowly, softly, humbly, to the lake.
So silently. So stately.
In that moment, I could have canoed behind you for eternity."
#TodaysPoem #poetry @npub1xfw…mava
Boundaries by Katie Ross (2025 The Nature of Our Times) https://tinyurl.com/295jkcxd

2025-07-30 13:47:48 UTC

"Everybody wants to write the song of summer
Roll the windows down just to feel the breeze
Was radio the only thing that ever mattered
That we let into our dreams"
#TodaysPoem #poetry @npub1xfw…mava
Song of Summer by Hawksley Workman from Median Age Wasteland (2019) https://tinyurl.com/bdhn4kpb

2025-07-28 15:38:06 UTC

"I cannot imagine this paper more beautiful
than now; in a Verona antique store -
torn edges pressed by fingers
obscuring Persian text at its margin."
#TodaysPoem #poetry @npub1xfw…mava
The Tiger by Zachari Logan from Green (2025 Radiant Press) https://tinyurl.com/42948rm5
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2025-07-27 14:19:42 UTC

"In something less than a moment, that shear
between one life and whatever this is. Next.
A sharp fragment of nothing, like a knife
that cut clean without touching
what it separated."
#TodaysPoem #poetry @npub1xfw…mava
The Breaks by Lorne Daniel from What is Broken Binds Us (2025 University of Calgary Press) https://tinyurl.com/mwmu6wjh

2025-07-26 13:31:03 UTC

"There was a time when your cheerful spirit burbled
in every brook and stream, full of music & life."
#TodaysPoem #poetry @npub1xfw…mava
Zayandehrood: A Ghazal by Niloufar Behrooz (2025 New Verse Review) https://tinyurl.com/3ek7ztv7

2025-07-26 02:51:18 UTC

- reply

Great way of describing his poetry!

2025-07-25 13:29:46 UTC

"My fire might show steam-phantoms simmer
From Time’s old cauldron,
Before the birds made nests in summer,
Or men had children."
#TodaysPoem #poetry @npub1xfw…mava
Miners by Wilfred Owen from The Poems of Wilfred Owen (1920 Chatto & Windus) https://tinyurl.com/ymbcj5am

2025-07-24 15:09:39 UTC

- reply

Very operatic!

2025-07-24 14:30:55 UTC

"My teenage sister taught me
the word “fuck”.
I’d sing it operatically,
while dusting.
The word tasted like alphabet soup."
#TodaysPoem #poetry @npub1xfw…mava
Miracles by Meg Pokrass (2025 One Art Poetry) https://tinyurl.com/4725pcxv

2025-07-23 16:05:36 UTC

"We’ll
have the patience
of a splinter
working its way
to the surface
and keep quiet
the worrying mind. "
#TodaysPoem #poetry @npub1xfw…mava
What Will Poets Do Now? by Ryan McCarty (2025 Pinhole Poetry) https://tinyurl.com/zbhyup3d

2025-07-22 13:56:38 UTC

"Space and time collapse
inside ten thousand teeth
or rather such occasions
render brothers asunder:
yes, the sister was
so much stronger."
#TodaysPoem #poetry @npub1xfw…mava
If in Language is Lightness and in Lightness Transformation by Nicholas Alti (2025 Trampoline Poetry) https://tinyurl.com/3atdvcmn

2025-07-21 13:28:54 UTC

"Would we listen, would we bear
our own music if we could hear
him singing in the world again?"
#TodaysPoem #poetry @npub1xfw…mava
The last ʻōʻō by Sarah Westcott (2025 Bad Lilies) https://tinyurl.com/4hf4xa7m

2025-07-20 15:43:04 UTC

"What a delicious, ordinary life. Maybe what you love will be easier.
To live another life isn’t a rescue, you know. Even if all that did happen
doesn’t happen, all those other details."
#TodaysPoem #poetry @npub1xfw…mava
To Live Another Life by Mistee St. Clair (2025 Lunch Ticket) https://tinyurl.com/mrv39hhv

2025-07-19 15:13:26 UTC

"Please, if you can, make sure there is an ash tree, young and tight and green.
And bring back the smell of turf for the burning. Of her. Of me."
#TodaysPoem #poetry @npub1xfw…mava
Margo by Fanny Howe (2021 Academy of American Poets Poem-a-Day) https://tinyurl.com/yur58v3f

2025-07-18 15:08:35 UTC

"Saikaku sprouting twenty-three thousand
five hundred verses in a day
one night sprung up there forests of sermons!"
#TodaysPoem #poetry @npub1xfw…mava
Bosky Homily by Colleen Coco Collins (2025 Opaat Press / @npub1x58…7899) https://tinyurl.com/fn4vux8e
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2025-07-17 16:27:36 UTC

"Light-headed, scrubbed raw, I felt
pure and amazed—the way the amber gas
glazed my flesh, the searing,
subterranean pain of it, how my skin
shimmered and ached, glowed
like rainbowed oil on the pavement."
#TodaysPoem #poetry @npub1xfw…mava
Fast Gas by Dorianne Laux (2006 Rattle Poetry) https://tinyurl.com/6va2v9x8

2025-07-16 17:05:37 UTC

"Name your hopelessness
a quiet hollow, a place you go
to heal, a den you dug,
Sweetheart, instead
of a grave."
#TodaysPoem #poetry @npub1xfw…mava
Instead of Depression by Andrea Gibson from You Better Be Lightning (2021 Button Poetry) https://tinyurl.com/mndxumh3

2025-07-14 16:19:00 UTC

"Outside is a stage & I’m a pretty player.
I love what I see on the other side of myself."
#TodaysPoem #poetry @npub1xfw…mava
Drenched in Reflection by Jzl Jmz (2025 Academy of American Poets Poem-a-Day) https://tinyurl.com/mtpyex4u

2025-07-12 15:57:49 UTC

"for I am
intrigued when a centrifuge spins
my blood 3,000 revolutions per minute
to render me perhaps anew to me again"
#TodaysPoem #poetry @npub1xfw…mava
An End by Chet’la Sebree (2025 Academy of American Poets) https://tinyurl.com/3af7hmu5
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2025-07-11 13:20:24 UTC

"Then wind,
and a petal floated in the air before falling softly
into your glass."
#TodaysPoem #poetry @npub1xfw…mava
Rose Tragedy by Özge Lena (2023 iamb) https://tinyurl.com/4897ra3p

2025-07-10 13:26:46 UTC

"And after that loneliness will accompany you to
every airport, train station, bus depot, café, cinema,
and onto airplanes and into cars, strange rooms and
offices, classrooms and libraries, and it will hang near
your hand like a habit.
But it isn’t a habit and no one can see it."
#TodaysPoem #poetry @npub1xfw…mava
Loneliness by Fanny Howe from Second Childhood (2014 Graywolf Press) https://tinyurl.com/583b27e7 & https://tinyurl.com/975sc6rc
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2025-07-09 13:06:08 UTC

"How you happened to be
wild had nothing to do with wildness
& everything to do with knowing
someone else disapproved."
#TodaysPoem #poetry @npub1xfw…mava
Mid-Trauma Sonnet by Susan Leary (2025 Lunch Ticket) https://tinyurl.com/msbje5d2

2025-07-08 13:32:55 UTC

"I was the dead-living. Not a manmade monster,
not a zombie, or a ghost—but like a black
swimmer in a warm black ocean
on a moonless night without a breeze or star."
#TodaysPoem #poetry
The Insomniac by AF Moritz (2025 NewPoetry via @npub1wy4…2nhn) https://tinyurl.com/m6hyyd4c

2025-07-07 13:08:44 UTC

"I like people who tell half stories and forget the rest,
I like people who make doodles in important written tests"
#TodaysPoem #poetry @npub1xfw…mava
Some Things I Like by Lemn Sissay (2020 On Being Project) https://tinyurl.com/34fzb72a

2025-07-06 13:49:57 UTC

"It'd be better for us if you don't understand
It'd be better for me if you don't understand, yeah"
#TodaysPoem #poetry @npub1xfw…mava
Locked in the Trunk of a Car by The Tragically Hip (1992) https://tinyurl.com/yvz5p8x6 & https://tinyurl.com/zknb95dn

2025-07-05 13:21:35 UTC

"He knelt
on the ground next to the flower bed at the library, gathered a mound of red clay
with his hands, formed it into a dove and blew his breath into the bird’s
tiny beak. And then, without a word, he flung the bird into the air,
and we watched it fly up and up, into the blue, clear, endless sky."
#TodaysPoem #poetry @npub1xfw…mava
Hanging Out with Jesus on a Sunny Day by Donovan McAbee (2025 Bad Lilies) https://tinyurl.com/2jyceanz

2025-07-04 13:22:56 UTC

"The illusion
Of choice is a hallmark of technological democracy.
A choice continues, generously, to be offered you,
You are a free agent, you have a choice, you might
Even think of this as a cherished choice"
#TodaysPoem #poetry @npub1xfw…mava
MagAi, or Ai,Ai,Ai,Ai by Sina Queyras (2025 Send My Love to Anyone) https://tinyurl.com/mr43bpnh

2025-07-03 15:07:09 UTC

"Now I have a little more time with the flowers
that interrupt
the runway’s
lift.
Thank you for this gift."
#TodaysPoem #poetry @npub1xfw…mava
Heaven by Jim Johnstone (2025 Poetry Magazine) https://tinyurl.com/3d2fn644

2025-07-02 15:12:16 UTC

"somehow she knew
to love you & the hour
without halving herself
without urging each to stay"
#TodaysPoem #poetry @npub1xfw…mava
long division by Lauren Peat (2025 Dusie) https://tinyurl.com/mvrsyw6r

2025-06-30 11:56:06 UTC

"Loving each other mallows poured into caress and joy and
pristine stones at the bottom of the riverbed, spring, resting
in peace and free reverberations:
Loving each other
And to stop can be
another way to flow."
#TodaysPoem #poetry @npub1xfw…mava
What Do You Mean in a Precise Language, Anemone? by Maricela Guerrero, translated by Robin Myers (2025 Poetry International) https://tinyurl.com/4uumxcr8

2025-06-28 12:56:20 UTC

"And mirrored in the dilated,
upturned eyes, can you, she asks, see a room’s
bright window, panes of light. And can you see
how the selfsame light pours into us,
the shine of attention, of tenderness."
#TodaysPoem #poetry @npub1xfw…mava
Its Room, Our Moment of Attention by Joseph Tate (2024 Another Chicago Magazine) https://tinyurl.com/23fu42m5

2025-06-26 12:11:01 UTC

"I miss it all—
the house, the tree, the lorikeets—
especially in late winter, those few weeks
when it almost felt worthwhile.
I’m told there’s more light in the house now."
#TodaysPoem #poetry @npub1xfw…mava
Condemned by Audrey Molloy (2024 Rochford Street Review) https://tinyurl.com/nhh23hed

2025-06-25 14:16:01 UTC

" quilts
can keep
a pattern held"
#TodaysPoem #poetry @npub1xfw…mava
Patterning by Nina Mingya Powles (2025 Nine Arches Press) https://tinyurl.com/3ytw8xfr

2025-06-24 13:56:41 UTC

"Called bluestem for the blue-green
stalks that rise two feet or so, unless you put it in the right
place where it can top seven or eight feet tall, swaying
in the breeze, sheltering small animals near the roots."
#TodaysPoem #poetry @npub1xfw…mava
Little Bluestem by Pamela Manasco (2025 Identity Theory) https://tinyurl.com/yc3bcn48

2025-06-22 15:54:53 UTC

"The kitchen’s where your words haunt me.
In serene dishcloths. In steaming potatoes and
warm daal freckled with mustard seeds."
#TodaysPoem #poetry @npub1xfw…mava
Libation for Mother by Saraswati Nagpal (2024 Dust Poetry) https://tinyurl.com/4eswkfkn

2025-06-21 15:41:56 UTC

"This was love in his hands
either a lover, mother, sister,
father, who knows made them
but it makes me think of
my mother"
#TodaysPoem #poetry @npub1xfw…mava
by Jacqueline Valencia (2025 Chaudiere Books) https://tinyurl.com/223xdvms
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/114/722/109/800/570/367/original/e4f674da665f2bc8.jpg
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/114/722/109/848/251/712/original/547d6c41100d01d7.jpg
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/114/722/109/927/217/326/original/07ffcf319661dbf1.jpg

2025-06-20 14:55:56 UTC

"But the hills are still the same
Grey-blue above Belfast.
Perhaps if I’d stayed behind
And lived it bomb by bomb
I might have grown up at last
And learnt what is meant by home."
#TodaysPoem #poetry @npub1xfw…mava
Afterlives by Derek Mahon from Collected Poems (2008 The Gallery Press) https://tinyurl.com/5n6jy56y

2025-06-19 14:08:58 UTC

"I should declare the apologies. The explanations.
The what-if’s. The missing photographs.
The heartaches that have haunted
my grandparents, their parents, their children."
#TodaysPoem #poetry @npub1xfw…mava
Customs by Sara Shea (2025 The Wrath-Bearing Tree) https://tinyurl.com/mu7avvh6

2025-06-18 14:29:45 UTC

"A circle moving fluidly apart
into the neighbourhood's slush-edged streets. In shadows,
early crocuses, holding their saffron hearts."
#TodaysPoem #poetry @npub1xfw…mava
Iftar at 99 York by Sadiqa de Meijer (2025) https://tinyurl.com/yk2bakf7

2025-06-17 14:25:48 UTC

"He decides to move away to an old farmhouse that doesn’t exist on any known map. He begins constructing miniature versions of himself, each one placed into the corners of its rooms."
#TodaysPoem #poetry @npub1xfw…mava
The Moon Files For Bankruptcy by Chrissy Stegman (2025 Gooseberry Pie Lit) https://tinyurl.com/yevupt7b

2025-06-16 12:05:15 UTC

"For years, I have come to sit this way:
one hand open, one hand closed,
like a farmer who puts down seeds & gathers up;
food will come from that farming."
#TodaysPoem #poetry @npub1xfw…mava
Consider the Hands that Write this Letter by Aracelis Girmay from Teeth (2007 Curbstone Press) https://tinyurl.com/mpecyv3b

2025-06-15 14:59:33 UTC

"Has anyone done that for you, lately
or ever? Come over, torn open the sky
and let the snow fall in the wrong month
to show there's a rip in the face of the world?"
#TodaysPoem #poetry @npub1xfw…mava
Rending the Garments by @npub1ms8…gf03 (2025 Fiddlehead) https://tinyurl.com/524urc2m

2025-06-14 14:49:36 UTC

"At the museum, the paintings of costumed men were immaculate.
The shading so soft, the light in their eyes so difficult to discern
that they followed you."
#TodaysPoem #poetry @npub1xfw…mava
The Subject by Farah Ghafoor (2025 Brick Literary Journal) https://tinyurl.com/yc57taxj
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/114/682/268/994/812/967/original/93c9cd89678a97fd.jpg
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/114/682/269/037/713/456/original/93a27d11682086a3.jpg

2025-06-13 14:23:58 UTC

"I’m wandering the craft store aisles--
yarn bins to the ceiling of blackberry dusk,
lime sherbet, heather bloom,
grape gala and so much more.
I pass them all to find
what will carry me through
the cruel months to come"
#TodaysPoem #poetry @npub1xfw…mava
Crocheting in December by Andrea Potos from Her Joy Becomes (2022 Fernwood Press) https://tinyurl.com/2fdkmu23 & https://tinyurl.com/4mt38e9m
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/114/676/504/286/567/992/original/225bc68eab6d308f.jpg

2025-06-12 14:06:15 UTC

"Maybe I make people worry
please don't
I will never be condos"
#TodaysPoem #poetry @npub1xfw…mava
Cloud Glare by Matthew Walsh from Terrarium (2024 icehouse poetry) https://tinyurl.com/3rp7pvde & https://tinyurl.com/mr36eh58

2025-06-11 11:16:10 UTC

"It’s approaching dusk,
and at dusk the birds
in the marsh revive
old conversations
to which I sometimes
stop to listen"
#TodaysPoem #poetry @npub1xfw…mava
On Being Forgiven by Howie Good (2025 ONE ART: a journal of poetry) https://tinyurl.com/3xxr5aj4

2025-06-10 14:08:38 UTC

"How do I read
your pauses? If you
juxtapose a link into our chat
and my clicking fingers open music,
how can I be certain you are
singing to me?
#TodaysPoem #poetry @npub1xfw…mava
from Spiritual Media, 2. Histoire du Livre by Jennifer Zilm from Waiting Room (2016 BookHug Press) https://tinyurl.com/y2env7nv
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/114/659/457/054/665/706/original/61895e90189db0b2.jpg
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/114/659/457/123/349/389/original/11f63f4f77bd8e53.jpg

2025-06-09 14:32:55 UTC

"After hours of delay
and a particularly long layover,
the voice promising me clear blue skies
sounds like I imagined God
would when he asked me to forgive."
#TodaysPoem #poetry @npub1xfw…mava
In 27D by @npub19j5…h3tq (2013 The Southern Review) https://tinyurl.com/24655p6u

2025-06-08 15:24:43 UTC

"It remains on the screen long enough, so that when I close
my eyes to check if I am sleeping, instead of darkness,
YOURLIFEISWAITING stares back at me."
#TodaysPoem #poetry @npub1xfw…mava
from Don't Let Me Be Lonely - An American Lyric by Claudia Rankine (2004, 2024 Graywolf Press) https://tinyurl.com/4pw848x8
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/114/648/432/734/414/521/original/44135ab414e38857.jpg
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/114/648/432/781/761/400/original/c95ed63af8bd86fa.jpg

2025-06-07 11:04:01 UTC

"children are like mice. they learn
to avoid the peanut-butter traps,
and drive you from your home.
you're downtown saying,
"I thought they were cute
at first. I can't
go back."
#TodaysPoem #poetry @npub1xfw…mava
Increase by Dawn Macdonald from Northerny (2024 University of Alberta Press) https://tinyurl.com/2vnr7s47

2025-06-06 17:59:38 UTC

- reply

You're very welcome, Tom. I'm glad it reached out to you.

2025-06-06 14:38:09 UTC

"Time to begin again. That these things: bicycle, plant, chair, gentle cat, symbols of inner goal, supply their own light. Omens of wind, cold spring bite, knowledge that nothing lasts."
#TodaysPoem #poetry @npub1xfw…mava
Arrangements by Judith Copithorne from Another Order: Selected Works, edited by Eric Schmaltz (2023 Talonbooks) https://tinyurl.com/2pur43nr
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/114/636/925/712/802/294/original/0e07000eb62e9e96.jpeg

2025-06-05 14:46:44 UTC

"The city, no time to dress herself against the night.
Witch on broomstick brewed up glass and metal, asphalt, stone.
Bomb and bomb—all brightly polished, tons of rubble
Fell through the shaft into the waiting mistress's lap."
#TodaysPoem #poetry @npub1xfw…mava
from Porcelain: Poem on the Downfall of my City by Durs Grünbein, translated by Monika Cassel (2020 University of Chicago Press) https://tinyurl.com/yn3sbh3j & https://tinyurl.com/3ksa4cav

2025-06-04 13:38:20 UTC

"At my touch,
a piano
melts like a slab
of black ice. I’m
steam rising,
dissipating. I’m a ghost undressing.
I’m a cowboy
riding bareback."
#TodaysPoem #poetry @npub1xfw…mava
Self-Portrait with Tumbling and Lasso by Eduardo C. Corral from Slow Lightning (2012 Yale University Press) https://tinyurl.com/3we8ajmn & https://tinyurl.com/2nz2j3uz

2025-06-03 14:37:01 UTC

"His responsibility is to explain the importance of the sacrosanct apple in their literature, in their pies. The importance of their sun."
#TodaysPoem #poetry @npub1xfw…mava
The Mermaid and the Bell Tower by Rebecca Pyle (2025 Red Ogre Review) https://tinyurl.com/4frdzhdx

2025-06-02 13:47:17 UTC

"but what you really want — and you’ll never tell her this, because you cannot bear to hear what she’ll say — is the thing that might destroy you, what can pierce, what can wound, what will swell your heart until it is entirely too fucking big to beat inside your chest"
#TodaysPoem #poetry @npub1xfw…mava
In the One Place Where You Should Tell the Truth by Jad Josey (2025 Have Has Had) https://tinyurl.com/4kbn2ncn

2025-06-01 15:28:30 UTC

"pages of hard-fought words, dancing language
meticulously & contemplatively written by the likes of me & others,
shelved imperfectly at the level of open hearts & minds,
is preventive medicine"
#TodaysPoem #poetry @npub1xfw…mava
So Many Books, So Little Time by Haki R. Madhubuti (2023 Poetry Magazine) https://tinyurl.com/wdptwp8v

2025-05-31 13:42:38 UTC

"A family spots their brother sleepwalking
in a narrow hallway. He is cooking in his dreams,
pretending chef, moving around a kitchen,
screaming humbug at dried bits
of onion powder in a spice container, and so
takes off to the grocery store"
#TodaysPoem #poetry @npub1xfw…mava
Addiction by Major Jackson (2025 Academy of American Poets) https://tinyurl.com/2cssckk3