Mike Maggio

Nina Simone’s Three-Room Childhood Clapboard House

enduring A-frame house: ashen overlap, splinter after splinter,
livid brick legs bowing beneath the sagging hips of worn wood,
algae crusted steps, a bare porch rocker, the dingy front door –
a cuboidal mouth opening to frameless rooms, frangible floors,

handstitched pastel quilt squares draping a rusting iron bed,
just past the blue shiplap room, cold, dark, wood burning stove, 
a silenced kettle, sheer pushpin curtains, curled windowsill paint,
still-shiny Jesus, the cross, the wall mounted phone, its hand crank, 

near a starless window: the piano, the standing sheet of bold-font Bach,
timeless, engraved, curvy pump organ: defiant and relentlessly Black.

©2023 by Cherryl T. Cooley

Like activist and musical genius Nina Simone, Cherryl T. Cooley is a native North Carolinian. An advocate for the restoration of Nina Simone’s childhood home, she’s published two single-author poetry collections under the name Cherryl Floyd-Miller. She makes a living as a Narrative Strategist for a social change and public health organization. Cherryl loves, lives and works from Woodbridge, Virginia.

30 for 30 is sponsored by Potomac Review

I sunk in search of Cézanne,
the pickled flower who has cleaned History’s teeth.
He cut up a cigarette and dipped it in tea,
remembering it wasn't a cigarette,
and held it with eyes as sharp as a table.
But Cézanne is just a used car from 1616,
And so my blank pages continued to plow a silent manicure.
All I know is this:
the kiss is the moon that is red,
and a respectful kiss won't turn into a corkscrew.

Copyright 2023 by Angelo Colella

Angelo ‘NGE’ Colella was born in Italy where he still lives. He writes prose and poetry in Italian and English and also makes collages, asemic writing and DADA objects. Some of his works have appeared on Uut Poetry, Utsanga, The Ekphrastic Review, Il Cucchiaio nell’Orecchio, Il Mirino, Multiperso, Blogorilla, Word For/Word, Otoliths, La Morte per Acqua, and 22 Pensieri.

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Blue Skies, Daydreams, Watching Clouds

He saw bears and eagles, an alligator, grandpa’s puppy in heaven.
One time, a dragon. One time, Kokopelli.
Every day, he watched the clouds boil and rearrange themselves.
One day, he saw them form you. You were brilliant – shining and dancing like the sun on water.
He took your picture to keep in his pocket.
And then you were gone, and the darkness came, but he still looked for you.
And he saw that he could see clouds at night, too, and nebula, among the stars.
He waited – how long? Years – He waited years until he was stooped and hobbled, for a sign.
One day, a star fell. Faint, concentric waves just offshore.
He waded in. Stardust, peonies, rose petals. He knew it was you.


Copyright 2023 Jay McClendon

Jay McClendon was born and raised in Birmingham, Alabama, and now lives in Herndon, VA. He was most recently published in Maryland Literary Review.

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infer

rays flash the sphere
as it flies a vector
through blue-backed air
spinning as it goes

a prediction autonomic
the opponents racket
makes a tight arc

to meet it and yellow
fuzz wafts as the ball
tangents a different curve

© Dave Lego 2023-03-02

Dave resides incognito in the east and counts the days when the Federal government paroles him from his forty-nine years of hard labor.

30 for 30 is sponsored by Potomac Review

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.

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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

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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.

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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