Mother Tells Me I’m Not Sick by Elaine Nadal (ALL ABOUT MY MOTHER Series)

Mother Tells Me I’m Not Sick
by Elaine Nadal

Her unrelenting certitude is as irritating
as her criticisms of other peoples’ food and
her refusal to let anyone cook in her kitchen.
She tells me God doesn’t lie—to have faith.
A leap is a star many say can be reached, but I’ve seen
a small frog in the middle of the road, dead from
curiosity or maybe from wanting to live.

My body is dead wood.
Am I a good lover?
I can no longer dance how I used to
when Mother wasn’t looking, and I’d listen
to songs of the flesh. Mother tells me not to profess
an ailment I don’t have. She says it’s all in my head.

Sometimes, I can’t brush my hair or pick up a spoon.
Sometimes, I don’t feel beautiful.
And then, I’m faced with guilt and shame.
I should pretend everything is fine;
I should smile all the time, and
not let anyone in my kitchen.

Mother hasn’t visited.
When she calls, I lie about what I made for dinner.
She tells me it sounds good.
I don’t indulge her truth. I don’t disclose how
I’ve been at my lowest, and suddenly,
I’m graced with a brief interlude, a moment of comfort
sufficient enough to consider the firefly and its light,
the wings of a hummingbird,
the way a weeping willow thrives,
offering its leaves to cover, stretching
its branches to hold—like a golden hug, transferring
an energy unknown yet familiar to the spirit.
It’s because she hasn’t given up.
I can feel when she’s praying.

Previously published by Minerva Rising Press. 

PAINTING: Weeping Willow and Water Lily Pond by Claude Monet (1916-1919).

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: There have been times when I’ve felt dispirited, and suddenly, a sense of hope arose. Each time, I was certain that it was my mother’s love for me, reflected in her prayers.

PHOTO: The author (left) with her mother (December 2023).

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee Elaine Nadal is the author of two poetry chapbooks,  When and Sweat, Dance, Sing, Cut, published by Finishing Line Press. Her fiction and poetry have appeared in several journals and anthologies. Nadal has shared her work at many venues. She also delivered a TEDx talk on hope, poetry, and music. Visit her on Instagram and on her website at elainenadal.com.

For Olivia, Dying by Richard Vargas (ALL ABOUT MY MOTHER Series)

For Olivia, Dying
by Richard Vargas

funny
always thought i’d be there
at your side
the dutiful son holding your hand
but now it’s relief i feel
halfway across the country and
finally able to stand straight
as the weight slips from my shoulders

i remember well the life lessons you gave me
how to discard family relations like used candy wrappers
the ability to turn the heart into a piece of coal
how to be desperate for the good life
and give your children a deaf ear
as they cry out in the dark shadow
of a stepfather’s lewd smile

i know the fear that motivates an animal
to gnaw its own leg off
run and stumble into the night
get far away as possible

now, after many years of trying to unlearn
what i can never forget
i return the favor
present a life lesson of my own
from me to you

when the pain is so unbearable
my name cursed for not showing
the respect you thought was your maternal right
remember this:

certain flowers survive the freezing kiss of December
thrive in the smothering heat of August
they can be pulled out
mowed under
spitted and shitted on

yet
when least expected
they will still rise up to the sun
and bloom

Published in American Jesus (Tia Chucha Press, 2007).

Photo by Ludmila Kuznetsova on Unsplash

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: We never know where/when/or who will deliver the most devastating betrayal that shatters everything we thought we were. I learned to painfully embrace it and rise from the ashes. I have no regrets. Parents have the power to really fuck us up. Freedom is finding the ways to right the wrongs and becoming a better person than those who raised us.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Richard Vargas earned his B.A. at Cal State University, Long Beach, where he studied under Gerald Locklin and Richard Lee. He edited/published five issues of The Tequila Review, 1978-1980, and 12 issues of The Mas Tequila Review from 2010-2015. Vargas received his MFA in Creative Writing from the University of New Mexico, 2010, where he workshopped his poems with Joy Harjo. He was recipient of the 2011 Taos Summer Writers’ Conference Hispanic Writer Award. He was on the faculties of the 2012 10th National Latino Writers Conference and the 2015 Taos Summer Writers’ Conference. His published collections include: McLife, 2005; American Jesus, 2007; Guernica, revisited, 2014; How A Civilization Begins, 2022, and leaving a tip at the Blue Moon Motel, published by Casa Urraca Press in 2023. He currently resides in Wisconsin, near the lake where Otis Redding’s plane crashed. Visit him at richardvargaspoet.com.

Call for Submissions: ALL ABOUT MY MOTHER POETRY Series (Deadline: 4/15/24)

We’re issuing this call for submissions on Leap Day 2024! My mother was born in February during a Leap Year, and though she’s been gone for 10 years, she remains alive in my thoughts. With this in mind, we’re announcing our ALL ABOUT MY MOTHER Poetry Series (with a nod to the movie of the same title by Pedro Almódovar). Relationships, especially familial ones, are complex, so your poems can reflect that dynamic—from light to dark. Thanks in advance for offering your work for the series. My mother loved the arts—especially the literature—and I know she’d be pleased to have sparked the idea for our ALL ABOUT MY MOTHER Series.

PROMPT: Share a poem about your mother or a mother figure in your life. What we like: First-person narrative poems that offer insight into the author’s life, mind, thoughts, feelings.  What we don’t like: Didactic poems and most rhyming poetry (we make exceptions for poetic forms such as sonnets, villanelles, and pantoums). Note: One poem per author, please.

WHAT: Submissions can be original or previously published poems. You retain all rights to your work and give Silver Birch Press permission to publish the piece on social media. We are a nonprofit blog and offer no monetary compensation to contributors—the main benefit to you is that we will publicize your work to our 10,000+ followers. If your poem was previously published, please tell us where/when so we can credit the original publisher.

WHEN: We’ll feature the poems on the Silver Birch Press blog during the ALL ABOUT MY MOTHER Poetry Series starting in March 2024. We’ll also feature the poetry on Facebook. and X (Twitter).

SUBMISSION CHECKLIST

To help everyone understand our submission requirements, we’ve prepared the following checklist.

1. Send the poem in an MS Word document TITLED WITH YOUR LAST NAME (e.g. Smith.doc or Jones.docx or some variation thereof).

2. In the same MS Word document, include your contact information (name, email address). Also list your home state or country.

3. In the same MS Word document, include a one-paragraph author’s bio, written in the third person. You’re encouraged to include links to your books, websites, and social media accounts — we want to help promote you!

4. In the same MS Word document, include a note about your poem or creative process written in the first person (this is optional — but encouraged).

5. To accompany your author’s bio, send a photo of yourself as a SEPARATE jpg attachment (not in the MS Word document). Title the photo with your last name (e.g., Jones1.jpg, Jones2.jpg or some variation thereof).

6. Send a photo of your mother (at any age) and/or a photo of you with your mother. (This is optional, but encouraged.) Please provide a caption for the photo (date, occasion, location).

7. Email your MS Word document and attachments to sbpsubmissions@gmail.com—and put “ALL ABOUT MY MOTHER” in the subject line. Please allow several weeks for our reply.

SUBMISSION DEADLINE: Monday, April 15, 2024

Photo by Nastassia Samal.

Invitation by Patricia McGoldrick (SPICES & SEASONINGS Series)

Invitation
by Patricia McGoldrick

The screen door slams
as I step out onto the front porch

Lavender lingers in the air tonight
fills my lungs with precious pause

Spritely sprigs of white and pink and mauve,
replenished with today’s June showers,
emit their secret scent to the night air,
smile as they line the flagstone walkway and
border the garden
filled with white daisies and pink roses
that renew my spirit each year on every summer’s day

Now, after midnight,
the moon hides from me
in a black cloud-filled sky
but I am reassured
as I breathe in the sweet mist of lavender
that lingers in the air tonight.

 ©️Patricia McGoldrick

*Originally posted an earlier version on the author’s now-retired blog. 

PHOTO: Lavender by Daiga Ellaby on Unsplash.

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: Lavender has long been a favourite part of the perennial garden. Relatively short summers here in Canada have led me to cherish the blooms and scents of these plants that return each year.

PHOTO: Lavender in the author’s garden (photo by Patricia McGoldrick). 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Patricia McGoldrick is a Kitchener, Ontario, Canada, poet/writer inspired by the everyday. A member of The Ontario Poetry Society and the League of Canadian Poets, her recent publications include a haiku in the Silver Birch Press MY PRIZED POSSESSION Poetry & Prose Series, an essay in the Nancy Drew Anthology (Silver Birch Press, 2016), and poems in Red Wolf Journal.

AUTHOR PHOTO:  The author during a visit to l’Anse Aux Meadows, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. 

One Good Thing by Catherine Klatzker (ONE GOOD MEMORY Series)

One Good Thing
by Catherine Klatzker

I hear the tree-trimmers
before I see them. Workmen
in fluorescent lime green
jackets and bright blue
helmets position traffic cones
in the street, already raising
one worker in the squeaky
cherry picker, ready to slash.

Heart racing, unsure if the tree
with the new crow’s nest will
be spared, I slip into my shoes
and face mask and speed down
to the street—to what? To stop the
timber slaughter? I did not imagine
myself as tree monitor and bird
protector this day. It seems
frivolous. I know it is not.

There is so much needless death
and destruction in this world. Maybe
not today for this crow family.

The tree-trimmer axes branch after
branch from the neighboring palm
trees. He sways closer to the nesting
Corvus, ready to hack. Two crows
instantly sweep up and circle above
his head. The mulcher devours
fallen palm fronds as the defeated
worker descends to the ground.

The crow pair has not dived
at the worker, nor vocalized,
but it is well known that crows do
not forget a face. They will
remember a dangerous person’s
face and get the word out.

All night, I watch for the crows’
return, alert for swooping wingspan,
their flapping plunge. I anticipate
my joy when they reappear.
All night, the sky is empty.

At daybreak, one crow drops
gingerly onto an upper palm
branch, a ramp to her rugged
nest. I hold my breath as she
inches her way down, slow
as parched creek mud, and
in the pale dawn she reenters,
home.

PHOTO: Mother crow feeding her nestlings by Sally Wynn from Pixabay.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Catherine Klatzker is the author of You Will Never Be Normal (Stillhouse Press, 2021). She lives and writes in California in a fourth-floor condo that resembles a tree house. Her prose and poetry have appeared in mental health anthologies as well as a range of other publications, including Atticus Review, Intima: A Journal of Narrative Medicine, Tiferet Journal, Please See Me, River Teeth‘s “Beautiful Things,” The Forge Literary Magazine (upcoming), and others. Visit her at catherine.klatzker.com.

My Son Slows Me by Dick Westheimer (ONE GOOD MEMORY Series)

My Son Slows Me
by Dick Westheimer

His backpack was bigger than ours,
bulged with more than tent staves,
his little sister’s sleeping pad
and his mother’s foul weather gear.

At noon on our first day out, we find
a shade cave, just five miles
into the high desert canyon,
where we, black-fly bitten and

painted red by the midday
blaze, stopped for rest.
As I reached into a side pocket
for a mushed up pb&J, Gabe

called me over. Get out the stove
he asked, turned to his brother,
said, Pull out the cook set. Do we
have time, I asked, for this?

He replied, gesturing
to the gathering stream below,
the red rock canyon walls,
the generous overhang we found

ourselves under, All we have
is time, he said. Brother
and brother and father,
set to work while the others

drifted in heat dreams.
I chopped greens and sweet chilies
while the boys assembled the stove
ignited the flame, sautéed sweet

onions in oil awaiting my sous chef
prep. We seven ate like queens
of the caverns, cleaned up in the chorus
of the rushing waters, slept,

heads rested on packs, til the sun
lowered a few degrees to the west.
Awakened, I heard the older boy
say: Greens today. Carrots tomorrow.

Beans can wait. And I knew
what he carried was so much more
than the weight he’d offered
to take off our less robust backs.

Photo by StockSnap from Pixabay. 

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: My eldest son Gabe is an adventurer and an extraordinary cook.  But he is not goal oriented like I am. Both adventuring and cooking for him are part of a larger appreciation for “the moment.” On a backpacking trip together, I learned the joy of “being there” rather than “getting there” from his simple example.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Dick Westheimer has—with his wife and writing companion Debbie—lived on their plot of land in rural southwest Ohio for over 40 years. His most recent poems have appeared or are upcoming in Rattle, Paterson Review, Chautauqua Review, Whale Road Review, Minyan, Gyroscope Review, Northern Appalachia Review, and Cutthroat. More can be found at dickwestheimer.com.

Writer’s Block by Vince Gotera (I AM STILL WAITING Series)

Writer’s Block
by Vince Gotera

I am still waiting
for bubbles to rise
through dark water

I am still waiting
for new sun to glow
peach at the horizon

I am still waiting
for sky to open
for one raindrop

I am still waiting
for breezes to stir
spiral upward

I am still waiting
for angels’ wings
to waft soundless

I am still waiting
my lover’s hand
soft on my cheek

I am still waiting
I am still
                waiting

PHOTOGRAPH: Drops of Rain by Clarence White (1903).

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: I was writing a poem a day during April. This poem is titled “Writer’s Block” because in fact that was the occasion for the writing. I was having a bit of a hard time coming up with a poem one day, and all I had in mind was the phrase “I am still waiting” from this prompt. So I tried to clear my mind and let things come as they would . . . and this was the result.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Vince Gotera teaches at the University of Northern Iowa, where he served as Editor of the North American Review (2000-2016). He is also former Editor of Star*Line, the print journal of the international Science Fiction and Fantasy Poetry Association (2017-2020). His poetry collections include Dragonfly, Ghost Wars, Fighting Kite, The Coolest Month, and the upcoming Pacific Crossing. Recent poems appeared in Altered Reality Magazine, Crab Orchard Review, Dreams & Nightmares, The Ekphrastic Review, Philippines Graphic (Philippines), Rosebud, The Wild Word (Germany) and the anthologies Multiverse (UK), Dear America, and Hay(na)ku 15. He blogs at The Man with the Blue Guitar.

How to Meet a Brand-New Day by Jeannie E. Roberts (HOW TO Series)

How to Meet a Brand-New Day
—in villanelle form
by Jeannie E. Roberts

Wake before sunup, receive the new day.
Find insight in silence, yield to its flow.
Rise with blithe spirit to brighten your way.

Gather blossoms, shape a centered bouquet.
Welcome awareness, behold garden’s glow.
Wake before sunup, receive the new day.

Honor your essence like lilacs in May,
as if Almond Blossoms bursting with hope.
Rise with blithe spirit to brighten your way.

Enliven your body, bend, stretch, and sway.
Extend openness, like Landscape with Snow.
Wake before sunup, receive the new day.

Bathe in the lucence of enlightened rays.
Shine like the paintings of Vincent van Gogh.
Rise with blithe spirit to brighten your way.

See Sunflowers, Tree Roots, The Night Café.
Envision The Sower, Wheatfield with Crows.
Wake before sunup, receive the new day.
Rise with blithe spirit to brighten your way.

PAINTING: Almond Blossoms by Vincent van Gogh (1890).

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: I had several ideas for this inspiring series, including how to crochet, how to snowshoe, how to be an artist, and how to write a villanelle (though another poet crafted that one). I settled on how to meet a brand-new day, a meditation of sorts; its content seemed to frame well in the form of a villanelle. Follow this link for the rules and history of the villanelle: Villanelle | Academy of American Poets.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Jeannie E. Roberts lives in an inspiring setting near Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin, where she writes, draws and paints, and often photographs her natural surroundings. She’s authored four poetry collections and two children’s books. As If Labyrinth – Pandemic Inspired Poems is forthcoming in May 2021 from Kelsay Books. She’s listed in Poets & Writers and is poetry reader and editor of the online literary magazine Halfway Down the Stairs. To learn more, visit jrcreative.biz and Jeannie E. Roberts | Poets & Writers (pw.org)

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS — I AM STILL WAITING Poetry Series

American hero and literary icon Lawrence Ferlinghetti passed away on Monday, February 22, 2021, just a month from his 102nd birthday. Born on March 24, 1919, Ferlinghetti’s life reads like a Dickens novel — orphaned, exiled, and embattled, but visionary, heroic, and inspired. His experiences ranged from service as the Lt. Commander of a submarine during the WWII Normandy Invasion to his career as a publisher, founder of San Francisco’s City Lights Books, defender of free speech, and Beat poet with his million-selling A Coney Island of the Mind. Six years ago, Silver Birch Press featured the series I AM WAITING, an homage to Ferlinghetti’s poem “I Am Waiting,” that included 136 authors, and ran from December 1, 2014 to January 31, 2015 (read the series at this link). To celebrate and honor the life and work of Lawrence Ferlinghetti, we will host a new series called I AM STILL WAITING.

PROMPT: We’re all waiting for something. What are you still waiting for? Tell us about it in a poem of any reasonable length. The poem could address something personal, or be crafted as an homage to Lawrence Ferlinghetti. Include the line “I am still waiting” somewhere in your poem. What we like: First-person narrative poems that offer insight into the author’s life, mind, thoughts, feelings. What we don’t like: Didactic poems, sermons, rants, diatribes, and most rhyming poetry (we make exceptions for poetic forms such as villanelles and pantoums). Note: One poem per author, please.

WHAT: Submissions can be original or previously published poems. You retain all rights to your work and give Silver Birch Press permission to publish the piece on social media. We are a nonprofit blog and offer no monetary compensation to contributors—the main benefit to you is that we will publicize your work to our 10,000+ followers. If your poem was previously published, please tell us where/when so we can credit the original publisher.

WHEN: We’ll feature the poems and prose on the Silver Birch Press blog in the I AM STILL WAITING Poetry Series starting in April 2021. We’ll also feature the poetry on Twitter and Facebook.

SUBMISSION CHECKLIST

To help everyone understand our submission requirements, we’ve prepared the following checklist.

1. Send ONE MS Word document TITLED WITH YOUR LAST NAME (e.g. Smith.doc or Jones.docx).

2. In the same MS Word document, include your contact information (name, email address). Also list your home state or country.

3. In the same MS Word document, include a one-paragraph author’s bio, written in the third person. You are encouraged to include links to your books, websites, and social media accounts — we want to help promote you!

4. In the same MS Word document, include a note about your poem/prose or creative process written in the first person (this is optional — but encouraged).

5. Send a photo of yourself as a SEPARATE jpg attachment (not in the MS Word document). Title the photo with your last name (e.g., Jones1.jpg, Jones2.jpg).

6. Email to sbpsubmissions@gmail.com—and put “STILL WAITING” in the subject line.

SUBMISSION DEADLINE: Wednesday, March 31, 2021

Boys! Build Your Own Time Machine! by Oz Hardwick (HOW TO Series)

Boys! Build Your Own Time Machine!
by Oz Hardwick

IMAGE: Untitled (Bird, Tree & Mountain) by Jagdish Swaminathan (1984).

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: When I think of my childhood, I think of the smell of wood: the timber yard a few streets away that I’d explore while Dad bought whatever it was he needed for something around the house; the school floorboards that were polished like treacle under glass; the wet tree stumps in the park where my grandfather would collect leaf mould for his prize-winning flowers; pews in the new church; and burning wood in the open hearth. During the past year, with so much less traffic, the world has smelled different, and sometimes a scent will trip me down a wormhole into another time.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Oz Hardwick is a European poet, photographer, and self-deluding musician, whose work has been published and performed internationally. His chapbook Learning to Have Lost (Canberra: IPSI, 2018) won the 2019 Rubery International Book Award for poetry, and his most recent publication is the prose poetry sequence Wolf Planet (Clevedon: Hedgehog, 2020). He has also edited or co-edited several anthologies, including The Valley Press Anthology of Prose Poetry (Scarborough: Valley Press, 2019) with Anne Caldwell. Oz is Professor of English at Leeds Trinity University, where he leads the postgraduate Creative Writing programmes. Visit him at ozhardwick.co.uk.