Ruth Benvegnen, who lives in Switzerland and records under the name FistleRoots, contacted me to ask if she could use my poem “If I Had 3 Lives” as the basis of a song. She works in Suno, an app that lets you provide lyrics and pick genre, voices, melody, etc. via AI. After hearing some of her songs, I agreed immediately. I think the song she wrote and the added lyrics are beautiful! If you go out to listen to “my” song, be sure to hear some of her others. They are all wonderful.
Tag: love
My thanks to Rose Mary Boehm
Way back in 2014, when I was just starting to write poetry again and had never been published, Rose Mary Boehm approached me and said she would like ten (10!) of my poems to publish on her blog. I didn’t know what poems of mine were good or bad, so I sent her 20 and told her to pick. She gave me confidence and my start, and I’ve never looked back. I hope other poets out there will find an angel to guide their first efforts.
Recently, she republished my poems, so here’s the link. Thanks, Rose, for believing in me.
https://houseboathouse.blogspot.com/2014/01/featured-poet-no-22-sarah-russell.html?q=sarah+russell
Great Horned Owls, Mid-Winter
My thanks to Red Eft Review and editor Corey Cook for publishing my poem today.
On our evening walk we hear them
in a stand of oak and pine—the female’s
breathy notes; the male’s answer, deeper,
like tones blown across a stoneware jug.
Before their sortie over snowy fields
they whisper greetings to their mates—
an alliance voiced in shadow. Our breath
clouds in the twilight.
Celebrating Now
The first of 3 poems published today in the wonderful Voice-Virtual. My thanks to editor Jim Lewis.
Long walks and sunshine. Not the mileage
I used to clock nor the speed, but birdsong
and daffodils I’d have missed before.
An outing with granddaughters, peeking
into their lives and loves, their favorite band
(loud) and the in spot for burgers and fries.
The quiet, driving home.
Dinner with friends, repeating tales decades old,
tsking at AI, cryptocurrency, Tik Tok, X.
Evenings of old sweatshirts and slippers
takeout and TV, my dog chasing rabbits
in his sleep.
Thinking About Faith
My poem is up at the wonderful Poetry Breakfast this morning. My thanks to editor Kay Kestner.
Thinking about Faith
I’m not talking religion here,
although it’s nice to have that too.
I’m thinking of the sun-rising-every-day
kind of faith we take for granted—
that cars coming at me will stay
in their lanes, that planes
will land. It’s deeper than expectation—
that the dinner party will go well,
or the Amazon delivery will arrive
on Tuesday. It’s more akin
to assurance—that when my friend
says she understands, she does.
Faith is more solid than Emily’s hope,
more bedrock, but it’s beautiful
like her feathery allusion—
that you’ll come home every evening,
that we will share our day,
that you will hold my hand.
On the Shore
The 3rd of my poems published by Verse-Virtual. There are so many beautiful poems in this issue. I’m honored to be among them.
Seaweed calligraphy at the tide’s edge.
A crab tracks through, smears the ink.
I wait for the fog to lift. The gulls argue
over someone’s sandwich crust, get on
with survival. I remember your words,
the undertow.
Who hoards rain clouds in the desert?
Another wonderful poem by my friend Rajani Radhakrishnan. Instead of reblogging it from her website, I put it here so you could read it uninterrupted. Please leave comments on her site and look around while you’re there. She writes beautiful poetry.
Who hoards rain clouds in the desert?
There the universe stores vats of virgin happiness, doling
it out like a grim faced Scrooge, while we wait, bowl in
hand, wanting more. Always wanting more. We are made
of longing and hunger. And everywhere we look, is a giant
supermarket feeding that emptiness. Everything in excess,
marked down, on luscious display, the seed of the first apple
feverishly multiplying on every shelf of every aisle and our
hands reaching constantly to fill the ever growing void. Except
for happiness. For that, there is a line and a quota and a price.
We pretend not to see each other. Who will admit to such
privation? We study the signs from a distance. Perhaps, it
is another sorrow, another wound, another word that brings
you here. Does my skin turn transparent as I stand? Do you know
the scars inside? You will not turn your head. I will not call. How
much longer? Who hoards rain clouds in the desert? No one
warned me to save my smile. To save the light in your eyes.
– Rajani Radhakrishnan
Rajani’s website
The Beach at Lighthouse Point
A beautiful villanelle I found today by Michael Flynn Ragland.
^^^^^^^^
But she had told me even stranger things.
I shook my head and gazed off down the shore,
the cirrus twilight filled with seagulls’ wings.
A hallway of insistent mutterings
still echoed with the four-inch heels she wore.
(And she had told me even stranger things.)
A beauty, dressed in black among the strings,
she played such passages as soon would score
our cirrus twilights filled with seagulls’ wings.
A man who once had brought her jewels and rings
had left her sprawled, her head gashed, on the floor.
Yet she had told me even stranger things.
Had I loved her? Another autumn brings
her ghost. In dreams she murmurs from the door.
In cirrus twilights filled with seagulls’ wings
her hand takes mine: “A lonely mermaid sings.”
She kisses me. “Hear, through the breakers’ roar?”
But she had told me even stranger things,
those cirrus twilights filled with seagulls’ wings.
– Michael Flynn Ragland
Bio: As a kid in the Ozarks, I lived in an old, stone house atop a cliff; as a teenager, by a stage road along which had been fought the last major battle won by the Confederacy. After an aimless decade in college and graduate school, I lived on a barrier island. I’ve taught English in high schools and universities, worked as a photographer for an advertising firm, and kept the books at a medical clinic. Writing that appeals to me is introspective and steeped in atmosphere.
Chancing Love
Not a dive’s precision arc.
Instead a lemming run and plunge,
oblivious to depth,
temperature, whether
water’s in the pool.
Cynics shake their heads.
“Only a fool…” they say.
“Yes, yes!” I answer,
and drop my towel.
– Sarah Russell
First published in Shot Glass Journal
Maintenance
Loose roof shingles —
a couple on the ground
after last night’s wind
when the trees creaked
and rubbed themselves
like old men. Can’t put off
the mending. I loved once,
before I knew how love
works, how roofs leak
when it rains.
– Sarah Russell
First published in Poetry Breakfast
Sarah Russell Poetry 