Lilies
All hope in my heart lies in good weather,
the promise of tomorrow: the slow river
rushing to the edge, unlocking leaves,
frogs singing in approval for a better life.
Downstream, fish dart with delight.
Category Archives: Poetry 2022
ADR poetry published in 2022
Sprite’s Spring by Avra Margariti
Sprite’s Spring
If the cream is missing
From the milk bottle on your stoop
And you hear distant laughter
Like windchimes through the trees
The Lost Tradition by Sreekanth Kopuri
The Lost Tradition
After August 15, 1947
Humanity slithers past
hungrily with fangs
dripping hemotoxin
of fanaticism in search of
its prey while democracy
on its last journey
Running by S. T. Eleu
Running
abandoning
the town and her tell-all eyes
for the woods and their promise of shelter
we ran
The Hate Parade by Paul Edward Costa
The Hate Parade
The only ones watching the parade
are those wishing to join
a procession of ritual purpose
possessed by ecstatic expressions.
Whackalicious by F. J. Bergmann
Deep in the Grain by William Rieppe Moore
Deep in the Grain
Allanstand, North Carolina
Yep, I can pick a pound of beans
in a heartbeat—all while
A wishing Lord Lovel good speed,
visit empty nests that hid in vine
and leaf, before the noon thunder-
storms, since the moon refills its jar:
Dad’s Bowling Buddy by Chris Wood
He always reminded me of an old hound dog.
The way his face drooped, eyes yellow and bloodshot.
His lips puffy, the bottom one sticking out.
Polyester polo with pocket protector and houndstooth trousers,
his words slurred when he gave me money
for a candy bar and Coke. Continue reading Dad’s Bowling Buddy by Chris Wood
Native Wit by Howard F. Stein
Native Wit
Not for lack of native wit
Have cottonwoods prevailed
Upon prairie’s crusted skin.
Brief torrents of summer rain
Fill dry streambeds, soon
Give way to months of drought.
Crocus, tulip, pom-pom, azalea,
forsythia, redbud – they take their
chances with Spring’s early dare.
When, for blooming, nothing else
Remains – enter cottonwoods,
Hearty laggards of the plains.
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Image Credit: Ghostly branches of a cottonwood in spring [photography by Richard Schulte, San Diego, CA]
From a Long Line of Trees by John C. Mannone
From a Long Line of Trees
My brothers—one shaped into chariot wheels, the other, into an expansive bed for a king—had it good. I’ve been rough-cut and split into two. God knows where I am being taken to now. My leg drags through camel dung, my arms straddle a broad-shouldered peasant cloaked in dirt-brown tatters. Sweat on his brow. A noisy crowd follows me to a barren hill outside of town. They throw me to the ground; lash a man to me, whose face is so marred I cannot tell who he is, but thorns crowning his head scratch me. I feel his blood. Lots of blood as the Romans nail his flesh to mine; hoist us high as one—each of us a cross to bear the other’s weight. It grieves me to hurt this man who won’t speak one word of guile as he hangs broken; I am washed in his blood. After many hours, he struggles to speak…It is finished. Continue reading From a Long Line of Trees by John C. Mannone