Poetry

By Lee Gurga This week we have a special treat for our readers: haiku by Cindy Strong’s students at Lutheran High School. Passionate warmth, The sweet kiss of sunshine, Summer heat heals winter blues – Hannah Rucker   A hit, dust flying A player races the ball Which one is faster? – Ricky Harkins   […]

lines for an old friend when oswaldo juarez diedsome of us did not know he was in lima a musician for musicians and that music in his country would never be the same once he had touched it with the soft chords of his guitar everyone mattered to him you felt what can be the […]

late tax return sharks everywhere the feeding frenzy

Holiday at Normandy This June morning my skiff rides toward shore, grinds bottom; I hit the beach in my father’s steps– twenty seven, twenty eight, twenty nine . . . thirty yards the letter said. This morning a pale regiment patrols, white gulls drive the tide, falling back without casualties. Then one more wave attacks […]

Venus Fly Trap Somewhere between puberty and menopause I have been metamorphosed by life firmly entrenched in the soil of reality no longer watered and fed by admiring glances nor warmed in the sunlight of a man’s desire I have become less Lily of the Valley and more Venus Fly Trap. –Cheryl Miles Local poets […]

dogwood branch with blossoms girls milling at the chapel door after their first communion oh they are full of life this sunday morning ©John Knoepfle 2003

This week we have a poem by Corrine Frisch from her new chapbook, Seasonal Affections. Frisch will give a reading on Wednesday, May 28, at Imo’s Pizza, 751 S. Durkin. Frisch’s reading, sponsored by Poets & Writers Literary Forum, will be preceded by an open mic. at 7 p.m. Frisch is the director of public […]

Phineas Fletcher The first tornado or the last hard freeze — I mark the dates in records that I keep, No wind too cold, no drifted snow too deep To calculate in inches or degrees. I’m partial to a good storm, one where trees Are tossed and barns leveled by winds that sweep The prairie […]

All Hail the Native Sons Of that renowned pair in whose universal fame this copperhead city basks in dubious honor– a poet and a politician– the former drank Lysol and the latter hopped an east-bound train, grew a beard and never came back. —Frank Stokes Local poets were writing about contemporary events in the Sangamo […]

Under the Dome Down the street from Lincoln TowerUnder the dome in the seat of powerHeavy are the heads that wear the crownsBecause five billion dollars must be found. Bipartisan effort come on let’s thinkAs we face a budget deficit on the brinkNot higher taxes that’s what they are cryin’To clean up this mess left […]

Sonnet for Springfield How we try to rise above the prairie, Minds in constant flux, reach stars from heaven, Pull beautiful dreams from far and airy Realms overruled by good old Orion. Yet we live to flows of rivers, seasons, And the fits and starts of constant commerce In the heartland of the rich in […]

Collected Stones And so it’s the end; it was all Or nothing and now It’s the end. Every good thing Dies, so it may live again and Now it’s the end of my Passionate friend—collected stones From the ancient river hold Secrets of time forgotten On their journey to the sea. Time to move—to stay […]