Tag: holidays

Monongahela Christmas by Tom Barlow

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Monongahela Christmas

Comes the snow, drifting across
the wild grasses like the water
that polishes river rocks

of the Blackwater into ornaments.
This is the raw Christmas, pines
tipped with hoarfrost, torpid trout

holding place in their current, while
wild ponies turn their backs
and gather together to endure.

Hunters plod through the valley
for whom the forest opens just wide
enough to allow them to pass before

folding closed again, stealing
the sound of their gunshots for
the wind. Mercy has found little

foothold in the winter mountains
while the whole countryside
attempts to sleep, some until spring,

some never to wake. This is no place
for an infant; only the glare of the sun
off the river ice could be mistaken
for a star that seeks a savior.

*

Tom Barlow is an American writer of novels, short stories and poetry, whose work has appeared in journals including Hobart, Tenemos, Redivider, The New York Quarterly, The Modern Poetry Quarterly, and many more. See tombarlowauthor.com.

Simple Supper by David B. Prather

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Simple Supper

My mother made mac-n-cheese
without any showy breadcrumbs.
It was simple—boiled pasta
and Velveeta cubed with a paring knife.
I loved to stir the pot,
watch those pale orange chunks
melt to a glossy sheen.

A little margarine made it rich, which
is something we were not.
For a little kick, she threw in a few pinches
of black pepper,
gray powder from a grocery store tin,
none of that snooty
freshly-ground stuff. I once used

a baking dish and panko,
as though I could do it better. A friend
tells me they like diced shallots
in theirs, and paprika. All I want
is that old aluminum pot
on an electric stove’s glowing coil,
and the past coming up to a boil.

*

David B. Prather is the author of three poetry collections: We Were Birds (Main Street Rag, 2019), Shouting at an Empty House (Sheila-Na-Gig Editions, 2023), and Bending Light with Bare Hands (Fernwood Press, 2025). His work has appeared in many publications, including New Ohio Review, Prairie Schooner, Poet Lore, The Comstock Review, etc. He lives in Parkersburg, WV. Website: www.davidbprather.com

One thing you could do by Mary Paterson

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One thing you could do

is rent an apartment that is unfurnished
except for a large television
and a brown settee. You could go there
two to three times per week

to watch true crime documentaries
and cry about your mum. The deal is
you tell no one. At home you maintain
your days all perfectly ordinary:

magnet parking tickets to the fridge,
recycle cardboard, and so forth. Cycle there
as if you don’t believe in traffic. Hang a mirror
in the darkest room. The story is going to angle

itself out in instalments. You will see
your features become smudged away,
one by one, and, one by one,
see them repaired. Do this for nine months

and then it’s winter, your lungs burst open
like poinsettias; you, with ribbons on,
in the supermarket, everywhere. People
will think that it’s finished, people sing,

‘you look well!’, people make up
hoops of small talk about the sky.

*

Mary Paterson is a writer and curator based in London (UK). She writes mainly for performance, and her work has been performed around the world including with Live Art DK (Copenhagen), Wellcome Collection (London) & Arnolfini (Bristol). Her poetry has been published by Poetry Magazine, 3am Magazine, & Ambient Receiver, amongst others. Mary is the co-founder of ‘Something Other’: a platform for experimental writing and performance, running since 2014.

Two Poems by Grant Clauser

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To the Carol Singer at the End of the Anthropocene Mall

A week until Christmas and the mall mostly
ghost town, one Macy’s still struggles
on like a steam engine against new highways.
Even the store manager buys his gifts online.
I stop in the rotunda while my wife browses
past empty boutiques. Teenagers searching
for irony pose for photos with a jaundiced Santa.
On the small stage, a lone singer with piano
pokes through an app for carols she knows,
settles on White Christmas, then slides into
I’ll Be Home… while an audience of three
stare into our phones or Starbucks cups.
We’re all a mess of distraction and regret.
And how can we not be? The season trying hard
to cheer us into a new year. Signs for lease
and loss all around. Trauma so common
it becomes a kind of faith. She sings like she knows
none of this. She sings like an evening campfire,
like snow over a plowed field, like a table
set for the whole family. She sings
as they say, her heart out, which takes
all her strength to carry home.

*

The Last Christmas

Eventually the weather turns
on all of us, and then
you find yourself in a forest
without recognizing the trail.
Every tree older or broken by winter.
Loved ones gone or going
dawn by dawn.

It’s harder now to get back.
Children grown, and the days
imitate water flowing over falls.
We say that creaking in the foundation
is ground settling and not decay
in the heart’s bedrock

breaking apart.

*

Grant Clauser’s sixth poetry book is Temporary Shelters from Cornerstone Press. His poems have appeared in The American Poetry Review, Southern Review, Kenyon Review and other journals. He’s an editor for a news media company and teaches poetry at Rosemont College in Pennsylvania.

I’m taking a holiday by Shawn Aveningo Sanders

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I’m taking a holiday

from headlines, and I’m not the only one.
I walk through a nearby neighborhood,
the kind with a community pool
and a new elementary school
between row after row of houses.
Cul-de-sacs of cocoa & cookies,
lights adorn rooftops down each street,
everyone saving each other a seat
for the big Holiday Parade. Scouts
setting up for a bake sale, tables of
treats their moms helped make sweet.
I stop at a house with one blue spotlight
and a red bucket hung on a hook,
where a plaque invites me to Take One.
Hoping to find a little poem inside,
there’s a handwritten prayer instead.
And though I didn’t feel the need,
I was grateful for the offering, this
token of kinship from a stranger—
and how I found myself believing
maybe—just maybe—We the People
can still turn things around.

*

Shawn Aveningo Sanders’ poems have appeared in journals worldwide, including Calyx, ONE ART, contemporary haibun online, Drifting Sands, Quartet, Timberline Review, Cloudbank, Sheila-Na-Gig, MacQueen’s Quinterly, and many others. Her new book, Pockets (MoonPath Press, 2025) was a finalist in the Concrete Wolf Chapbook Contest. Shawn is a Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net, and Touchstone Award nominee. A proud mom and Nana, she shares the creative life with her husband in Oregon, where they run a small press, The Poetry Box. When she’s not writing, you might find her in a shoe store hunting for a new pair of red shoes. (redshoepoet.com)

Three Poems by Hilary King

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A Lesson from Inflatables.

Mornings, let’s nap on the lawn.
Let our plans become puddles
of red, green, and reindeer-colored plastic.
Late afternoon, we’ll plug back in,
fill ourselves with air, sway a little
as the stars come out to see us.
If we topple over, knocked
by winter winds,
have faith that every season
strength needs help to rise,
the sun, a song, a friend
to flip the switch, pull you upright,
tall and beaming on the winter grass.

*

How to Do Holiday Mail

Pluck from the crush of bills
and catalogs the stiff squares
and rectangles, gold embossing
making every return address
an elegance.
Do not open them–
Stack them instead.
Wrap them in red.
Add to the pile every day.
Late Christmas morning,
after the gifts have been pillaged
and the floor tumbleweeded
with boxes and tissue,
sit near the tree, near the family
installing batteries or reading new books,
Sit with your glass or holiday mug
and unwrap the gift of the familiar and beloved.

*

Holiday Calendar

Nevermind the garland sparkling
over the Butterballs
or the panettone crenellated
over discounted bags
of Halloween candy.
Keep your own calendar:
A day saved for baking or
an afternoon of wrapping,
on the floor with ribbon and tape,
a bow stuck to the dog’s paw.
The night time car ride with the kids,
milkshakes thick with peppermint,
Mariah Carey on the radio.
Look at those lights!
Stores, ads, all the oiled machines mean
to spin your time into coin.
Toss the catalogs. Stay away from stores,
keep your hand in your own pocket,
on your own golden hours.

*

Originally from the Blue Ridge mountains of Virginia, Hilary King is a poet now living in the San Francisco Bay Area of California. Her poems have appeared in Ploughshares, ONE ART, Salamander, Fourth River, and other publications. She is an editor for DMQ Review, and has been nominated for multiple awards. Her book Stitched on Me was published by Riot in Your Throat Press in 2024.

On Thanksgiving no one wants to hear poetry by Linda Laderman

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On Thanksgiving no one wants to hear poetry

I ask my son; would you like to listen to a poem?
Not really, he says, do you want to hear football scores?

His newly divorced friend says you know I should read
poetry. I liked it in college, though he says he doesn’t recall

which poets he read. It’s too long ago, but I liked Frankenstein.
I remind him that it’s Mary Shelley’s novel, not Percy’s, the poet,

My granddaughter, the swimmer, scrunches her nose when
I mention how she could have fun with sonnets, write 14 lines,

or take lines from other poets and create your own poem, a cento.
Think of it like swimming, each stroke builds on the next one.

She rolls her eyes and takes another bite of mashed potatoes.
Everyone explains why poetry holds no metaphor for their lives—

how they never liked verse, except maybe Mother Goose,
and who has time to learn to read or write poetry when

they’re busy with work and kids? My daughter-in-law
says, I remember a poem by Emily Dickinson, about a feather.

That gives me hope, so I ask my grandson what he’s read.
We read Keats and Poe, sophomore year, but I’ve forgotten it all.

When the dishes are cleared, we sit near the fireplace.
I’m going to read a poem, I say, and pull a paper from my purse

After I’m finished, my daughter-in-law’s eyes well. My son fidgets
with his watch and asks if anyone knows who’s winning the game.

*

Linda Laderman is a Michigan writer and poet. She is the 2023 recipient of The Jewish Woman’s Prize from Harbor Review. Her micro-chapbook, “What I Didn’t Know I Didn’t Know” will be published online at Harbor Review in September, 2023. Her poetry has appeared in The Gyroscope Review, The Jewish Literary Journal, SWWIM, ONE ART, Poetica Magazine, and Rust & Moth, among others. She has work forthcoming in Thimble Literary Magazine and Minyan Magazine. For nearly a decade, she volunteered as a docent at the Zekelman Holocaust Center in Farmington Hills, Michigan. Find her at lindaladerman.com

Passover by Ann E. Michael

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Passover

The first holiday without,
grief burns like anger.
Irritant. Tough fibers
scraping at skin raise a rash,
sore during celebration.
Empty ritual this year.
Empty place at the table–
bitter, bitter herbs.

*

Ann E. Michael’s upcoming chapbook is Strange Ladies, slated for publication in 2022 (Moonstone Poetry); she is the author of Water-Rites and six other chapbooks. She lives in eastern Pennsylvania and blogs at https://annemichael.blog.