Mike Maggio

Thank God for Spring & Family

Shimmering blue pink and yellow pebbles
glisten in today’s glorious sunshine underneath the oceanic roaring water
of my brand newly planted by my visiting Beaverton son
freshly arrived from Amazon WATER PUMP
as seen through my newly exposed from moving furniture around picture window
nonetheless and yet perfectly fishiess FISHPOND
now rimmed all around by those huge flat mica-glistening rocks
that my traveling smiling (just stopped by for the weekend) sister
whom I hadn’t seen for months now all the way from Boulder, Colorado
helped me buy, transport, lift, and heave into place

Copyright (C) 2023 Joan Dobbie

Joan Dobbie’s new Chapbook, Zenyatta/Joanna, Two Poets: One Equine One Human should be out and available any day now from Finishing Line Press! Joan co-hosts the River Road Reading Series (RRRS) <https://riverroadreadings.blogspot.com>whose penultimate reading will be coming up this very Saturday, April 29, at 4:30pm PDT and will, come September, be co-hosting the Eugene Public Library’s Windfall Reading Series live and In-Person at the Eugene Public Library. as well as online. Her poems have appeared in chapbooks, a couple of full length books, small press mags online and off for decades.  She’s been part of 30 for 30 for some time now and looks forward to it every year. Thank you, Mike Maggio!

30 for 30 is sponsored by Potomac Review

Maples

Helicopters litter our porch and our neighbor’s driveway 
like puzzle pieces scattered on a table,
varied sizes, different shades of same hue,
impossible to spot how they fit together,
how in their seed propeller, they hold the force
to propagate, sow mini elm trees across our yard - twiggy stalks 
will grow into sturdy trunks of corrugated bark, 
limbs of leafy millions, more and more helicopters whirling, 
little elm embryos in search of a womb, life 
so tender, so delicate, so stubborn. 

© Kathy Smaltz 2023

Kathy Smaltz’s poems have been published in numerous journals and she has one poetry collection, Pieces. A VCCA creative fellow, she served as Prince William County’s Poet Laureate from 2016-2018. In her free time, she enjoys spending time outdoors with her family – hiking and writing nature poems.

30 for 30 is sponsored by Potomac Review

luxe

red roses wrapped in linen—
tissue paper-thin; unexpectedly
redolent; tucked between opulent
oxblood leather cushions
on the orient express and
carelessly forgotten—
speak in muted tones of
untold adventures, unsung
longings, days gone by, and the
mystery of what might have been …

© 2023 Rich Follett – all rights reserved.

Rich Follett, the Poet Laureate of Strasburg, VA, has authored Responsorials (2009), Silence, Inhabited (2011), and Human &c. (2013) through NeoPoesis Press, and Photo-Ku (2016) through NightWing Publications. Rich is featured in the ODU Virginia Poets Database at Virginia Poets Database | Old Dominion University. Information and publications at www.richfollett.com

30 for 30 is sponsored by Potomac Review

Երբեք մի մոռացիր–Μην ξεχνάτε ποτέ–Nie vergessen–Never Forget

I’d like to fill my yard with forget-me-nots,
common blue wildflowers with faces of five lobes,
Myosotis, some more rare in shades of violet.
I’d like to fill my world with plants rooted in soil,
leaves like fuzzy mouse ears that squeak truth,
petals that please with hexing hues of sky,
French blue, periwinkle, purple, lavender,
dark centers like pupils, ringed yellow lighting
a path forward as pods disperse seeds
for next season’s blooms. Forget-me-not.

Copyright 2023 Cathy Hailey

Cathy Hailey is Northern Region VP of The Poetry Society of Virginia and organizes In the Company of Laureates. Her chapbook, I’d Rather Be a Hyacinth, was published by Finishing Line Press.

30 for 30 is sponsored by Potomac Review

Taps, Elementary School

That flag meant business.
It would flap like an eagle.
It would freeze into metal
strangle the pole.
Five, ten, twenty times my height
and climbing.
I didn’t know whether the pole was a nail or a screw.
I didn’t know whether the rope was hoisted by big or little men.
And I didn’t know whether the flag was dying
or being born.

Copyright 2023 by Marion Cohen

This is a very early poem, written decades ago, at the very beginning of Marion Cohen’s “poet career”. It’s meant to describe the Proutian feeling that she had one afternoon, towards the very beginning of her life. Since writing that poem, she’s published 33 collections; the 33rd one is Disturbing Shapes, which has just been released from New Plains Press. She’s known for her “math poetry”, which sometimes has actual math in it and sometimes doesn’t, but is always for everyone, not only mathematicians. She lives, writes, maths, Scrabbles, Wordles, classical pianos, mothers, grandmothers, and thrift-shops in Philadelphia, PA.

30 for 30 is sponsored by Potomac Review

My Life in Coffee Cups

Chrissy’s —white with green lettering, 
  coffee shop In Maine, to celebrate my birthday.

Casablanca—cream with black lettering, 
  from a boutique hotel in NYC.

Starbuck’s mug from my daughter, white on white,
  the leaf’s vein in bas-relief. 

Shiny red with white letters, gratis for a poetry reading, 
   Baltimore, Enoch Pratt Free Library.

Blue with big clouds, green hills, and lots of raindrops—
   an artist’s creation.  

Copyright 2023 by Christine Higgins

Christine Higgins is the author of Hallow, a full-length collection of poetry published in Spring, 2020 (Cherry Grove).  She was the 2^nd place winner in the Poetry Box competition for her chapbook, Hello, Darling in 2019. She is the co-author of In the Margins, A Conversation in Poetry (Cherry Grove, 2017).  She has been the recipient of a Maryland State Arts Council Award for both poetry and non-fiction. Her work has appeared in America, Poetry East, Nagautuck River Review and Windhover.  You can read more about her on her website: www.christinehigginswriter.com. 

30 for 30 is sponsored by Potomac Review

To preserve formatting, this poem has been saved as  a PDF. Please click on the link below to access it.

Birdsong, On Zoom
(a haiku)

Copyright 2023 Marian Shapiro

Marian Kaplun Shapiro is a psychologist and author of five books of poetry.

30 for 30 is sponsored by Potomac Review

Winter into Spring

Landscape washed in cold cold water
three days past spring.  Trees stripped of leaves,
of names, are still gray.  Scentless, stiff

daffodils brave the northeast wind.
Magnolia petals scatter.

Clusters of purple deadnettle   
sprout over grass and glass alike.
Beside them dandelions blaze.

Copyright 2023 by Marianne Szlyk

Marianne Szlyk lives in Rockville, MD and is a professor at Montgomery College. This poem springs from her walks to the Rockville Metro Station. Her poems have also appeared in of/with, Bourgeon, Mad Swirl, Spectrum, Beltway Poetry Quarterly, and two of Pure Slush’s anthologies (“25 Miles from Here” and “Home”). Her most recent chapbook is Why We Never Visited the Elms. It is available on Amazon with her other books.

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Take the Day and Sculpt Long-Stemmed, Iron Roses into Apology

Do not let his anchored body bend,
let it rise from the wrought iron
she turns through the night,
let her tiny, grief-stricken hands take the stirring past
and twist it until metal flowers bloom,

Take the day and sculpt long-stemmed, iron roses into apology.

Do not let her fingers shape the cold bitter months,
her hands will balloon into an unlit soul breastfeeding the dark,
and when she opens her mouth, two worlds will breakthrough,
one holding a metal bullet, the other a blood-red sunset.

© 2023 Diane Wilbon Parks

Diane Wilbon Parks is an accomplished poet, an award-winning visual artist, author, and literary advocate. She was brought in as an Expert Consultant to the National Trust for Historic Preservation on a National Endowment for the Arts Grant. Diane is a USAF Veteran, Sr. IT Program Manager, and resides in Maryland.

30 for 30 is sponsored by Potomac Review

The Pie Not Baked

Fear crowds the pantry. Cans of pureed pumpkin
hold on. White and brown sugar stand in crisp bags.
Spice bottles’ mouths stay sealed. Graham cracker crust
cryosurvives elsewhere, but must defrost
when pecans near an endtime stamped in ink.
Wood shelves hold no excuses for the days
when it was easier to pile food higher
and soundly shut the polished pantry doors.
Instead of fear, I smell apology.

Copyright 2023 by Claudia Gary

Claudia Gary lives near Washington DC and teaches workshops on the Villanelle, the Sonnet, Natural Meter, Poetry vs. Trauma, etc., at The Writer’s Center (writer.org), currently via Zoom. Author of Humor Me (2006) and several chapbooks, most recently Genetic Revisionism (2019), she is also a health science writer, visual artist, and composer of tonal chamber music and art songs. For more information, see:pw.org/content/claudia_gary.

30 for 30 is sponsored by Potomac Review