Mike Maggio

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.

30 for 30 is sponsored by Potomac Review

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

Please Accept My Donation

for Ken

I want to thank you for dazzling heaving deserts praising love,
for extravagant birds and clowns.
Please forgive the calamitous leaping over sand, the shouts of fire,
the startling rings. I didn’t know.
Afternoons hasten. That’s why I want to say, most of all,
I memorized your paper gardens, drifting stones, the willow trees.
I’ll always remember the sun we survived, the vulnerable surfs, waking.
I deeply appreciate the way we addressed each other faithfully,
powdered gold faces, crossing like this, tomorrow in mirrors.
It was all a lovely motion of fleece, feathers on the sea.

Copyright 2023 by Grace Cavalieri .

Grace Cavalieri is Maryland’s tenth Poet Laureate. She founded and still produces “The Poet and The Poem” now from the Library of Congress, now celebrating 46 years on-air.

30 for 30 is sponsored by Potomac Review

Liberation

(with a cat name from Bob Mortimer)

Don’t call me queen. Don’t put me on coins.
Don’t lick my stamp. I’ll sleep on the couch.

Dawn, when I leave, I’ll take the blue car.
I’ll take the cat, Babs Moonwater. I’ll buy

the bowl and the box. The scoop my scepter
in the flat over the sushi place, third best

in town. I’ll rule that town, Moonwater
in my thrall. Paisley sheets. Christmas, I’ll call

with my address to the nation. Mine’s
a new address. Not yours. Not your queen.

© 2023 Pamela Murray Winters

Pamela Murray Winters lives in Bowie, Maryland. She is the recipient of a 2022 Independent Artist Award from the Maryland State Arts Council.

30 for 30 is sponsored by Potomac Review

THE RIGHT NOUNS ARE JUST OUT OF REACH

Perched on a fallen oak,
she notes the lichen like a green aura
hovering between the rows of knobs
on the bark’s rough braille.

We are dust. We are spores.
The ruffle of turkey tail fungi
on the cut side of the log.
The mist of particulates
suspended in a slanting beam.

Copyright 2023 by Kim Roberts

Kim Roberts is a 2023 Poet-in-Residence at the Arts Club of Washington. She is the author of A Literary Guide to Washington, DC and editor of two anthologies of DC poets, most recently By Broad Potomac’s Shore, selected by the Centers for the Book for the 2021 Route 1 Reads program. Her sixth book of poems, Corona/Crown, a cross-disciplinary collaboration with photographer Robert Revere, will be released in Fall 2023 by WordTech Editions. http://www.kimroberts.org 

30 for 30 is sponsored by Potomac Review

Jeweled Reflections

Precious jewels sparkling diamonds
Sunlight shining over earth, over life.
Genuine, precious stone, radiant brilliance star bright.
Reflections pure goodness over all beautiful ladies admire.
Jeweled beauty sparkles over all gorgeous ladies adore.
Steadfast endurance brings complete comfort consistent care.
Glorious, mighty strength, known heartfelt struggles.
Jewels, lavished aquamarine, subtle green, peacefully serene.
Purple passion, amethyst, adorn royalty, poetry’s heart.
Singing sweetly, sashaying brilliance before big, bright eyes.

Copyright 2023 by Sylvia Dianne Beverly

Sylvia Dianne Beverly (Lady Di) is an Internationally acclaimed poet, presenting poetry In London, England, at the Lewisham Theater.  A collection of her work is housed at George Washington University’s Gelman Library, Washington, D.C. She has been featured at Smithsonian’s Museum of History, African Arts Museum, Hirshon  Museum and other Smithsonian museums in the Nation’s Capital.

Ladi Di celebrated the 40th Anniversary of Maryland State Poet Laureate and Host Grace Cavalieri, reading on her show “The Poet and the Poem” at the Library of Congress Experience. She is the author of two books, Forever in Your Eyes poems and Cooking Up South, recipes and poems.  Ladi Di is a founding member of “Collective Voices” Poetry Group.  She is “Poet of Excellence 2020 for Prince George’s County.  Ladi Di is a courageous member of the “Voices of Woodlawn”.  She is also a member of the Poetry Poster Project and the visionary and director of “Males Making a Difference in Our World”.  For the last three months of 2021, Ladi Di was featured in a magazine out of Zimbabwe, South Africa, “Sailor’s Review”.  Ladi Di is the proud Matriarch of her family.

30 for 30 is sponsored by Potomac Review

So Many I Like

Let the sands of poetry run through my little sieve.
Though below I leave a pile,
It makes me smile
To see the pretty pebbles I catch
On the beach between the land and wave
And put them in my bucket to treasure and save.

Copyright 2023 by Dennis Price

Dennis Price is a shy writer of poetry, who uses it as a journal and diary of his life. In his spare time he’s a parent of two, husband and cat father. He makes money by making sawdust.

30 for 30 is sponsored by Potomac Review