Happy Birthday by Julie A. Dickson (PRIME MOVERS Series)

Graphic by Yekaterina Nalimanova, used by permission.

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: My Aunt, who resides in an upstate New York state nursing facility, is the topic of this true poem. She is grateful to the dedicated medical staff, both caregivers and companions. Her family is most grateful that she is safe and hope to be able to resume in-person visits soon.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Julie A. Dickson is a New Hampshire poet whose work addresses nature, current events, animal welfare, elephants in captivity. Her poetry has appeared in various journals, including Ekphrastic Review, Poetry Quarterly, Blue Heron Review, The Avocet and The Harvard Press. She is a member of the Poetry Society of New Hampshire, and has coordinated workshops as well as 100 Thousand Poets for Change. Her full-length works of poetry and Young Adult fiction can be found on Amazon.

Happy 2nd Birthday to the Silver Birch Press Blog

On the second birthday of the Silver Birch Press blog — June 24, 2014 — we’d like to thank our visitors for spending time with us. A sincere thank you to our valued guests from 182 geographic designations around the world (shown in the shaded areas on the map below).

A Birthday Candle, poem by Donald Justice

A BIRTHDAY CANDLE
by Donald Justice

Thirty today, I saw

The trees flare briefly like

The candles on a cake,

As the sun went down the sky,

A momentary flash,

Yet there was time to wish
***
 “A Birthday Candle” appears in Donald Justice’s collection The Summer Anniversaries, (Wesleyan University Press, 1959), available at Amazon.com.

Photo: “Sunset Over Pine Forest” by Kim Seng

Happy Birthday to Shel Silverstein

HAPPY BIRTHDAY
by Shel Silverstein
So what if nobody came?
I’ll have ALL the ice cream and tea,
And I’ll laugh with myself,
And I’ll dance with myself,
And I’ll sing, “Happy Birthday to me!”

On Sept. 25th we celebrate the birthday of the multi-gifted Shel Silverstein (1930-1999).

Drawing: “Happy Birthday to me!” by Shel Silverstein, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

A Birthday Candle, poem by Donald Justice

A BIRTHDAY CANDLE
by Donald Justice

Thirty today, I saw

The trees flare briefly like

The candles on a cake,

As the sun went down the sky,

A momentary flash,

Yet there was time to wish

 “A Birthday Candle” appears in Donald Justice’s collection The Summer Anniversaries, (Wesleyan University Press, 1959), available at Amazon.com.

Photo: “Sunset Over Pine Forest” by Kim Seng

Free on 8/16/13: Kindle Version of Silver Birch Press Summer Anthology

To celebrate Charles Bukowski’s summer birthday, we are offering a free Kindle version of the Silver Birch Press Summer Anthology on Friday, August 16, 2013. The collection features summer-related poetry & prose from over 70 established and up-and-coming writers around the world — including some classic authors from the past. 

Find your free Kindle of the Silver Birch Press Summer Anthology at Amazon.com. (If you don’t have a Kindle device, get free kindle reading apps for your computer at this link.)

We would appreciate any reblogs, tweets, or Facebook posts about this offer! 

First Birthday, poem by Brad Leithauser

FIRST BIRTHDAY
by Brad Leithauser

You have your one word, which fills you to brimming.
It’s what’s first to be done on waking,
Often the last at day-dimming:
Lunge out an arm fiercely,
As though your heart were breaking,
Stab a finger at some stray illumination —
Lamp, mirror, distant dinner candle —
And make your piercing identification,

“‘ight! ‘ight! ‘ight!”
Littlest digit, you’ve got the world by the handle.
Things must open for you, you take on height,
Your sole sound in time reveal itself
As might, too, and flight. And fright.
Some will be gone. But you will come right. 

Happy 1st Birthday to the Silver Birch Press Blog

On the first birthday of the Silver Birch Press blog — June 24, 2013 — we’d like to thank our visitors for spending time with us. A sincere thank you to our valued guests from 144 geographic designations around the world (listed in order of number of visits): 

United States, United Kingdom, Canada, France, Germany, Netherlands, Australia, Italy, India, Brazil, Poland, Spain, Mexico, Portugal, Turkey, Belgium, Sweden, Philippines, Greece, Japan, Czech Republic, Taiwan, Republic of Korea, Argentina, Ireland, Finland, Russian Federation, Serbia, Slovakia, Singapore, Switzerland, Romania, Indonesia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Norway, Hungary, Croatia, Austria, Colombia, Denmark, Malaysia, Israel, South Africa, Pakistan, Thailand, Bulgaria, Chile, United Arab Emirates, Lithuania, Saudi Arabia, Slovenia, Peru, Egypt, Ukraine, Venezuela, Ecuador, Cyprus, Puerto Rico, Georgia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kenya, Luxembourg, Albania, Viet Nam, Latvia, Jordan, Estonia, Uruguay, Kuwait, Qatar, Morocco, Panama, Macedonia, the Former Yugoslav Republic, Lebanon, Bangladesh, Bolivia, Malta, American Samoa, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Sri Lanka, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia, Moldova, Guatemala, Nigeria, Belarus, United Republic of Tanzania, Bahrain, Mauritius, Algeria, Iraq, Mongolia, Paraguay, Montenegro, Palestinian Territory–Occupied, Honduras, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Nepal, El Salvador, China, Myanmar, Zimbabwe, Ethiopia, Guam, Iceland, Cayman Islands, Greenland, Mozambique, Jamaica, Kyrgyzstan, Nicaragua, Bermuda, Saint Lucia, Uganda, Bahamas, Maldives, Libya, Réunion, Oman, Sudan, Jersey, Virgin Islands, Guadeloupe, Haiti, Barbados, Macao, Micronesia, Federated States of Martinique, Namibia, Burkina Faso, Guyana, Cambodia, Mayotte, Congo, Botswana, Zambia, Senegal, Grenada, Aruba, Guernsey, Ghana     

We share a slice of birthday cake with each of you! 

Bukowski’s Birthday, 1992

two nights before my 72nd birthday

poem by Charles Bukowski

sitting here on a boiling hot night while
drinking a bottle of cabernet sauvignon
after winning $232 at the track.
there’s not much I can tell you except
if it weren’t for my bad right leg
I don’t feel much different than I did
30 or 40 years ago (except that
now I have more money and should be able
to afford a decent
burial). also,
I drive better automobiles and have
stopped carrying a
switchblade.
I am still looking for a hero, a role model,
but can’t find one.
I am no more tolerant of Humanity
than I ever was.
I am not bored with myself and find
that I am the only one I can
turn to in time of
crisis.
I’ve been ready to die for decades and
I’ve been practicing, polishing up
for that end
but it’s very
hot tonight
and I can think of little but
this fine cabernet,
that’s gift enough for me.
sometimes I can’t
believe I’ve come this far,
this has to be some kind of goddamned
miracle!
just another old guy
blinking at the forces,
smiling a little,
as the cities tremble and the left
hand rises,
clutching
something
real.

Note: Bukowski wrote this poem in 1992, about a year and a half before he passed away.

Image: Bukowski cake by Tess Munster.

The History of One Tough MF, poem by Charles Bukowski

 

THE HISTORY OF ONE TOUGH MF
by Charles Bukowski

he came to the door one night wet thin beaten and
terrorized
a white cross-eyed tailless cat
I took him in and fed him and he stayed
grew to trust me until a friend drove up the driveway
and ran him over
I took what was left to a vet who said,”not much
chance…give him these pills…his backbone
is crushed, but is was crushed before and somehow
mended, if he lives he’ll never walk, look at
these x-rays, he’s been shot, look here, the pellets
are still there…also, he once had a tail, somebody
cut it off…”
I took the cat back, it was a hot summer, one of the
hottest in decades, I put him on the bathroom
floor, gave him water and pills, he wouldn’t eat, he
wouldn’t touch the water, I dipped my finger into it
and wet his mouth and I talked to him, I didn’t go any-
where, I put in a lot of bathroom time and talked to
him and gently touched him and he looked back at
me with those pale blue crossed eyes and as the days went
by he made his first move
dragging himself forward by his front legs
(the rear ones wouldn’t work)
he made it to the litter box
crawled over and in,
it was like the trumpet of possible victory
blowing in that bathroom and into the city, I
related to that cat-I’d had it bad, not that
bad but bad enough
one morning he got up, stood up, fell back down and
just looked at me.
“you can make it,” I said to him.
he kept trying, getting up falling down, finally
he walked a few steps, he was like a drunk, the
rear legs just didn’t want to do it and he fell again, rested,
then got up.
you know the rest: now he’s better than ever, cross-eyed
almost toothless, but the grace is back, and that look in
his eyes never left…
and now sometimes I’m interviewed, they want to hear about
life and literature and I get drunk and hold up my cross-eyed,
shot, runover de-tailed cat and I say,”look, look
at this!”
but they don’t understand, they say something like,”you
say you’ve been influenced by Celine?”
“no,” I hold the cat up,”by what happens, by
things like this, by this, by this!”
I shake the cat, hold him up in
the smoky and drunken light, he’s relaxed he knows…
it’s then that the interviews end
although I am proud sometimes when I see the pictures
later and there I am and there is the cat and we are photo-
graphed together.
he too knows it’s bullshit but that somehow it all helps.