Mike Maggio

Choices

Morning greets with 
Joyful anticipation
When life was Simpler
One choice
choose 
One
Sweater,
Just one
Which one?

Crouch 
Looking into
That drawer
Sunshine spills
Illuminating its contents

Pluck 
One sweater
Plenty
Of time
Having arose early

I think of 
Friends I’ll see
And smile
I want to look my 
Best
This first day

Oh no, lots of time has passed
Anxiety builds
Calm myself
force myself
To choose

Just one
Only One
A Special
One
From this
Low drawer contents
Neat pile
black- too dismal
charcoal gray, light grey
Maybe charcoal
I like charcoal 
Reminds of sketching
Still
Too somber
Hmm
Then 
Forest green 
Beckons

Darn!
Now I’m running late
jump up
Crap!
Hurry up!
Grab curlers 
Those Clairol
Orange and green
Heat on counter
Scoot into shower
No makeup
just tame those frizzies

Will mom drive-
yes! 
Still late
Don’t know my new homeroom
pop into
Any classroom
Gee, room full of youngsters
Mentally challenged
I’m Enthralled by 
gentle
Teacher
Woman with glowing brown skin
Even in my dream
I wonder why?
Why is it pertinent  
A Woman
And Of color?
Sitting there I am still in my curlers
Hoping no reprimand
For violating
School rules
A boy smiles 
At me
I smile back
He glows
Teacher smiles 
At me
Lesson ends 
As I walk by her lectern

She looks down
fetches
pink spongy curlers
Clasps them into
Her hair!
Says
My action
Breaking the rules
Encouraged her to also 
We exchange smiles
Partners
Women 
in solidarity-

I made two choices 
That day

Copyright 2024 Lynne Grossman

Lynne Grossman is an artist and writer who strongly believes in using the arts for healing and social justice. She has published nonfiction, poetry, and flash fiction in the anthologies: The Light Between Us-True Stories of Healing Through Creative Expression, Poems of the Super Moon, and Flash! Short Short Stories by Pen Women (The Pen Women Press). Her essay and other poems have been published on websites such as Split this Rock Organization’s blog: “Blog this Rock” for the theme  Poems of Resistance, Power, and Resilience. Lynne has given many poetry readings including as an introduction to the special evening of poetry led by then Poet Laureate of Virginia Sofia M. Starnes. Lynne was an invited reader for “The Celebration of African-American Poets of Washington, D.C”. She is a retired Speech-Language Pathologist and Hearing Therapist. Lynne holds degrees from The University of Virginia: B.S. Speech-Language Pathology, M.Ed. (Concentration: Audiology).

30 for 30 is sponsored by Potomac Review

German Expressionism-Max Pechstein 1881-1955
Nude Figure 1920
Graphite on paper

As my head crushed the pillow,
My last thoughts were of a nude
I had seen in the National Gallery.
Not of her ample breast,
Nor the exhibit label,
But her eyes glancing to one side,
Reckless strokes of graphite
Pulling me near….

She tore the paper and asked me to step in,
I said, “Sure,” with a grin.
I leapt into the frame
With no thought of being tame.
Those glancing eyes,
Looking side to side,
“Let’s do it here in plain sight.”
“Let’s do it here in black and white.”
Shocked by our intention,
The young and old
Took flight to another dimension. 
As she and I started to dance, 
Her eyes always in that glance,
Came the gallery guards
With little Hitler mustaches,
Their jack boots making crashes,
Kicking in pictures
That seemed anti-fascist.
We ran into the background 
Where by boots and eyes we couldn’t be found.
The guards goose-stepped by, 
We clinging together on the ground
Not making a sound.

I opened one eye  
And from my pillow 
Looked at the time.
The rhyming had stopped.
I closed my eye,
The room being dark,
Hoping to rejoin the dream’s arc

Copyright 2024 Dennis Price

Dennis Price is an unpublished poet, who by day earns money making sawdust and is a husband, father of two adult children, and a cat lover.

30 for 30 is sponsored by Potomac Review

My Mothers Are Ladybugs

Carnivorous guardian angels slip
through window cracks in search of
gnats or half empty 
glasses of juice.

Their razor mouths chew
the dust of fitful sleep.  
When I wake,
my mind is neater for it.

They swarm around the bed
post and under pillows—bold 
soldiers, red, orange, black
caught in my doze.

I waste my buzzing days stuck 
in the nectar of grave possibility.  
I hum to the raindrops 
of a music box.

a silver beetle, “Ladybug, lady
bug, will you be mine?” It plays
its lullaby, “You are my sunshine, my 
only sunshine.”

The drizzle slows and 
slows until the sound winds
down. Then a thousand bubble 
wings form a shield around my rest.

I twine two spiky arms around
my own round middle, roll my bug self 
over, and fall back under 
it all.

Copyright 2024 by Sally Huggins Toner

Sally Toner (she/her)is a writer and high school English teacher who has lived in the Washington, D.C. area for over 25 years. She is a Pushcart nominee whose poetry, fiction, and non-fiction have appeared in Northern Virginia Magazine, Gargoyle Magazine, Watershed Review, and other publications.   Her first chapbook, Anansi and Friends, from Finishing Line Press, is a mixed genre work focusing on diagnosis, treatment, and recovery from breast cancer. She is presently completing an MFA at the University of Georgia in narrative nonfiction. A recent empty nester with two grown daughters, she lives in Reston, Virginia with her husband. You can find her at sallytoner.com, salliemander70 on Instagram, and on X at @SallyToner

30 for 30 is sponsored by Potomac Review

God Calls

God speaks in Her own voice,
raspy from cigarettes
and tequilla shots.


“I hear you’re feeling down,
She says, “You want to lie, 
under the bedcovers and drown.
One more teacher shot,
another six-year-old
with a gun in their hands.
You can’t stand 
the sound
when the gun goes off.”


God sighs, tucks her top
into her pants. Her face
has crows feet. Eons
of disease, war – poverty –
will do that to you –
even if You’re God.

“I watched a fish trapped
in plastic die last night,”
She says, “You gotta have
a thick hide. Or it becomes
too much. I’m used to
schools of fish dying.
But that one fish really
got to me.”

God wipes away a tear,
quietly, curses polluters,
for a long minute fumes
against the outrages
of Her children. But, She 
doesn’t create a scene.
That’s not Her jam.

“Maybe this is all a dream,”
God says, “from which we’ll
soon be awake.”
Or, She adds, shutting Her eyes,
“this is our long tortured sleep.”

"God Calls", by Kathi Wolfe. Copyright, 2024: Kathi Wolfe

Kathi Wolfe, who has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, is the 2024 winer of the William Meredith Poetry Book Award. Her most recent poetry collection is The Porpoise In The Pink Alcove.

0 for 30 is sponsored by Potomac Review

Stymphalian Shadow

        Oh Artemis,
goddess of the hunt,
why do you sic
your pet on those

	who have done you no wrong?
Be gone Ares,
god of war,
stop

	the Stymphalian shadow.
Break its wings,
catch its beak,
let it writhe forever

	against a prison of cork.
It escaped a pack of wolves
only to sweep across the valley
destroying olive trees

	and peace.
Then the laughing dove
wakes me from my unsettled slumber,
“No, no, this is mine!” he cries, his breath

	rattling jasmine out of the air.
And the Stymphalian shadow
passes over the dove.
Lo, watch, as orange blossoms

	stop dancing for the moon
	when fighter jets
	pierce the night
	with metallic poison.

__________________________________________



Copyright 2024 by Lucy Koons

Author’s Note:In Greek mythology, Stymphalians were man-eating birds with bronze beaks and sharp metallic feathers. They dropped poisonous dung and launched feathers at their victims. Their feathers could pierce both iron and bronze armor but, if a person wore cork, then the Stymphalians’ beaks would get caught in the cork, rendering the metallic birds impotent. This poem was inspired by the dreams I would be awakened from in Beirut when a neighboring country’s fighter jets would suddenly appear, fly threateningly low above the roof of our apartment building, and “buzz” the city.]

Lucy Koons is a Virginia native who has lived abroad for more than 20 years. She began her career in communications on Capitol Hill. Overseas, Koons worked at The American University of Beirut and Georgetown University in Qatar. Her favorite activity is going on adventures with her husband and daughter.

30 for 30 is sponsored by Potomac Review

I Dream 

I'm peeking out at the sliver of light
Visible because the crimson blanket
Draped over the standard rectangle
On the side of our backroom bedroom
Tries to cover a narrow concrete alleyway
Where the sound of a passing animal
Skittering across the makeshift fence
Of stacked green plastic panels which lie
Onto chain link usually standing firm to
The minuscule weight of a squirrel or cat
But on this still overcast Friday morning
I see in the long finger of brightness
A horrific sight a cylindrical object
Rumbles by in the low hazy gray sky
As if being towed by armored tank
I hear a shattering explosion not far
Away how can this be I am in America
I shrink back pulling my blanket closer
And listen for another heavy blast on
What should be an air of Pacific cool
I believe I'm in a war zone unsettled
The click of the clock radio wakes me
To caffeine fueled banter of two hosts
I am relieved it was only a chimera yet
Disturbed that somewhere in the world
This is someone's reality every day

Copyright 2024 by Don Kingfisher Campbell

Don Kingfisher Campbell, MFA in Creative Writing from Antioch University Los Angeles, taught Writers Seminar at Occidental College Upward Bound for 36 years, currently a Board Member of California Poets In The Schools, publisher of Four Feathers Press, and host of the Saturday Afternoon Poetry reading series in Pasadena, California. For awards, features, and publication credits, please go to: http://dkc1031.blogspot.com

30 for 30 is sponsored by Potomac Review

The Tribunal       

The idea was to speak
but none of us 
spoke. We stood in
a line. Moonlight 
wouldn’t reveal what 
lay in shadow and 
our silence felt 
no echo between 
us. Like the darkness
inside a cave, that 
complete. We held 
paper strips over 
our mouths. As 
the dream turned 
a corner the lighting 
changed. Somewhere 
the sun appeared  
a final glimmer. It became 
clear the paper strips 
held the names 
of the dead. That they 
were once wish-fulfilling 
trees. We held the
paper over our 
mouths, but it wasn’t 
as if we had 
no idea where our silence 
would take us.

Copyright 2024 Emily Carlson

Emily Carlson is the author of four poetry chapbooks including Why Misread a Cloud, selected by Kimiko Hahn for Tupelo Press’ 2022 Sunken Garden Chapbook Poetry Award; check out their website here: https://emilycarlsonweb.wordpress.com/.

30 for 30 is sponsored by Potomac Review

Copyright 2020 Marian Kaplun Shapiro.

Marian Kaplun Shapiro, a practicing psychologist, is the author of a professional book, and seven books of poetry. She was twice nominated for the Pushcart Prize. Upbringing, her latest collection of graphic poems, was published by Plain View Press in January, 2023.

30 for 30 is sponsored by Potomac Review

Greetings fellow poets and poetry lovers.

As you may be aware, tomorrow, April 1, marks the beginning of National Poetry Month which was started back in 1996 by the American Academy of Poets. Ever since then, National Poetry Month has been observed every April throughout the country with readings, poetry challenges and other events, including 30 for 30.

Eleven years ago, to help celebrate NPM and to provide a place for poets to showcase their work, I started 30 for 30 right here on this web site. And, while it started as a local endeavor, it quickly blossomed. Indeed, it has become a place not just to display contemporary poetry across the nation but across borders as well. For me, then, April has become International Poetry Month.

This year, I will be presenting poets from Massachusetts to California. And, on the international front, we have two poets from Italy: Mario Badino, who participated earlier this year in my Italian poetry in translation project, and Angelo Colella who was a part of 30 for 30 last year and who contributed to La Guerra è Pace / La Guerra e Pace in Naples in 2020.

This year’s theme is “Dreaming of Dreams” in honor of the 100th anniversary of André Breton’s Surrealist Manifesto and the advent of a literary movement that soon influenced all modes of art, most notably painting and the visual arts, but literature, cinema and music as well.

Also this year, we are honored to have Grace Cavalieri, Poet Laureate of Maryland and creator and host of the Poet and the Poem, broadcast from the Library of Congress, as our esteemed judge. Grace will be judging the poems anonymously in a file I will forward to her at the end of the month to avoid any conflict of interest.

And finally, I want to thank the editors at Potomac Review for once again sponsoring 30 for 30. Their dedication to presenting the best in poetry, fiction and non-fiction is necessary to the sustainment of those who produce literature and of literature itself.

I hope you will enjoy this year’s poems and, as always, I encourage you to share your thoughts with the poets by commenting on their work.

Let the poems begin.

Mike

30 for 30 is sponsored by Potomac Review

I’m pleased to announce the eleventh annual 30 for 30 Poetry Celebration, sponsored by Potomac Review, which will once again take place this year on my web site, www.mikemaggio.net

This year’s theme is as follows:

Dreaming of Dreams.  Specifically, I’d like you to take one of your dreams or nightmares and transform it into a poem.  The poem should be dreamlike in its execution and should immerse the reader into a dreamlike experience. Surrealism is the key here.

Your dreamlike poem should be between 20 and 40 lines (no more, no less).

       To participate, please follow these instructions:

1. Send an email to mikemaggio@mikemaggio.net stating your intent to participate. Do not send any poems at this time but do state in your email where you are from.
2. The first 30 poets who respond to this call will be selected to submit their poem.
3. Once the 30-poet limit has been reached, I will randomly assign each poet a day in April when their poem will be due.
4. Poets must submit their poem at least one day before it is to be posted. Earlier submissions are welcome, but don’t rush your poem.
5. All poems must be written by the submitting author. Poems should not contain any racist or sexist language.
6. Poems must be submitted as a Word document or in RTF format (not in the text of the email or in PDF format).
7. Poets should include a short 1–2-line bio with their poem. A copyright statement should also be included (e.g., Copyright 2024 by [your name]).
8. All rights automatically revert to the author. Please note that if your poem appears on this web site, it is considered by most journals to have been previously published.
9. To promote community and discussion, readers and participants are encouraged to post comments on the web site about each of the poems.
10. At the end of the month, our judge will select the winning poem.
11. The winning poet will receive a free one-year subscription to Potomac Review.
12. All poems will be archived on mikemaggio.net. (I am working with George Mason University to archive the web site in their collection which now houses my papers, so your work will be preserved there for future researchers).

This year’s judge is Grace Cavalieri, Maryland’s Poet Laureate and creator and host of The Poet and the Poem, broadcast from the Library of Congress.

If you have any questions, please email mikemaggio@mikemaggio.net. I look forward to your participation.