Tag: nostalgia

Five Poems by Andrea Potos

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THE FRIENDSHIP

The week
when she wrote:

You and I will
explore Truth together,

my heart
signed on instantly:

Yes,
though nothing followed–

they were words
only, after all;

I who am one who believes
in words, words

have rescued my life, after all.
Some say words are cheap;

I say, they
are costlier than you know.

*

SADNESS IS ON ITS WAY

I can hear the foghorns,
skies a drizzled mist,
clouds sodden
with grey weight
as if with so much
to let go of,
so much to say.

*

THE MOMENT I SENSED MY MOTHER WAS LEAVING

Standing in the mist-
drizzled green of Connemara,
the Wild Atlantic Way thousands of miles
from my mother in the rehab home,
I called to make sure she knew
I’d be back in four days.
I needed to ask her
how she was that morning– her voice
weakened and crackling across the vastness–
Just fair, she said,
Unable, for the first time in my life,
to offer the reassurance
for the daughter she loved so well-
it was then I knew.

*

WHEN MY WIDOWER NEIGHBOR INVITES ME
TO COME AND TAKE WHATEVER I WANT
FROM HIS WIFE’S WARDROBE

Three dressing rooms of voluminous wonder,
ballroom gowns, brocaded jackets
and scarves, leather purses and shoes,
and dressers filled with nightwear and tops.
I browsed and lingered, stayed for nearly an hour.
When I opened the deepest mahogany drawer, I found
a pale pink sweater, cloud-soft,
patterned all over with lipstick prints.
I thought of my mother, all the years
of her beloved Revlon shades.
I might have felt her then
tap my shoulder: Here is some love
from me honey–take it–
and I did.

*

WHEN OUR FAVORITE RESTAURANT CLOSES
         for Mom

Though you’ve been gone
nearly ten years now,
I’d drive the eighty miles
to go there–the glass doors still
opening for both of us.
I’d order our coffee
in their thick ceramic mugs,
then slices of their legendary
blueberry pie for take-home–
heaping with plump berries,
no crust on top, cold, with clouds
of whipped cream for later.
Each bite would remind me.
Now I must find
another place for us–
I want a location to point to,
to say, here, Mom, let’s go together,
I’ll pick you up at noon.

*

Andrea Potos is the author of several collections of poetry, most recently Two Emilys (Kelsay Books) and Her Joy Becomes (Fernwood Press). A new collection entitled The Presence of One Word is forthcoming later in 2025. Recent poems can be found in CALYX Journal, Presence, New York Times Book Review, Earth’s Daughters, and Poem. You can find her at andreapotos.com

Three Poems by Ginel Ople

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Esplanade

All these beautiful people
haven’t got here yet.

They do not see the water
that is slowly passing by

nor hear the great music
of their footsteps on the boardwalk.

Their thoughts are in a conference room,
listening to a colleague

drink tea out of a tumbler,
or in the park

where they sat on a bench
haunted by a late-night call.

Even now, as they hold each other’s
hands underneath the lights,

they are contemplating postgrads
and emergency funds,

provisions for a long journey
before the unstoppable river

brings them to a sunny porch
where they would think about today

and be here at last.

* 

Elephant Lighter

When my daughter was tall enough
to reach the shelf, she handed it to me
to ask me what it was.

For what must have been years,
I thought of you. That evening
we found each other in the fire escape
hiding from our twenties.

You worked in the office next to mine
selling shoe polish over the phone
when what you really wanted to do

was sing. When I asked you for a light,
you told me I could keep it. You said
you were trying to quit. Of course,
I didn’t tell my daughter any of this.

You lived in a time where I was young
which in her head isn’t a real place.
But she grinned just the same,

as I had a lifetime ago,
when I pulled on the trunk
and a little flame came out
where you’d last think possible.

* 

Subway Construction

This morning, I saw the workers
laying down the scaffolding,
and as if lights have switched on
in the long hallway of my life,
I began to see doors
that I didn’t know were there.
I thought of Tinder matches
that were too far away.
All those jobs I rejected
because I could not afford to move.
Brunches with friends
I haven’t seen since college,
the gin glistening on the piano
of a jazz club I’ve never been to.
The museums and urban gardens.
In seven years, I will make my way
to you. Here’s to believing
that nothing else will change.

*

Ginel Ople is a writer from Cavite, Philippines. His work has also appeared in Third Wednesday and Rattle.

DROPPING OFF TOYS by Vern Fein

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DROPPING OFF TOYS

Our first son was born, forty-eight years ago,
a deluge of plastic and cloth
poured into our home, piled up,
broke, lost and found again,
abused over the years by our privileged kids,
unlike the urchin in Baudelaire’s
prose piece who enticed his
rich friend with a rat toy in a wire cage.

This week, I drove to get a prescription
for my aging body. I hastily
dropped boxes of assorted toys
at the charity Center of a local church,
convinced our seven-year-old grandson
that he needed to sort through the last batch,
keep a few precious ones and share
most of them with poor kids.

The volunteer happily lugged
the packed boxes inside
filled with toys and books,
not left outside in the bins where
rain would wash away memories.

I thanked him, started my car,
pulled around the corner,
but grief stopped me in the alley,
an unexpected sob escaped,
nostalgia for those toys and boys.

Images of dragons and trucks,
Ernie, Bert, Big Bird, and Oscar,
transformers, Star Wars figures,
scads of little people, swords and knights,
loads of action figures flew through my mind,
charity and good will no panacea.

I drove on for my meds,
tiny pills that keep me alive,
but they are not toys,
only reminders.

*

A recent octogenarian, Vern Fein, has published over 300 poems and short prose pieces in over 100 different sites. A few are: Gyroscope Review, Young Raven’s Review, Bindweed, *82 Review, River And South, Grey Sparrow Journal, and Rat’s Ass Review. His second poetry book—REFLECTION ON DOTS—was released late last year.

Three Poems by Joseph Mills

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Party Planning in the Assisted Living Home

You ask what kind of cake they would like,
and they say, “I don’t know. I’m not hungry.”
You suggest cakes they’ve had in previous years
and they get annoyed. “Who wants an old cake?
Am I old and stale? Is that what you’re saying?”
You know better than to respond. You suggest
chocolate, and they grimace. You say, “Vanilla?”
and they recoil “What would be the point of that?”
You say, “I just want to make something you like.”
Their face changes. They lean in and whisper,
“I’ll just have whatever Clint has.” Their husband,
Clint, died years ago. You ask, “Does he like lemon?”
She nods, “Yes. With a lot of frosting. Too much.”
You promise her there will be a lot, even too much.

*

Nostalgia

More years than not
the tree got knocked down

because of dogs,
or parties, or fights,

but mostly because
the holiday season
was a drinking season,

and each time the tree
would be levered back up,
broken ornaments swept up,
decorations cleaned up,
water mopped up,

so the next night
the tree seemed as bright,

and maybe outside
no one could tell
anything had happened,

and maybe for some
that would have been reassuring,
things can be set aright,

but once you know
how it can come down,
whether by accident or anger,
it never seems aright again.

*

Veterans Day

Every year she buys him socks as a gift.
Warm ones. Thick ones. Thermals. Woolens.
He doesn’t need them. He has drawers full,
but he always seems genuinely grateful,
much to the bewilderment of the children.

For two years in that war, he felt he never could
get his feet dry and warm and he was sure that
he was going to die. He would write her the first,
not the second, but she knew, just as she knows
the shape of love isn’t a heart, but a foot.

*

A faculty member at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts, Joseph Mills has published several collections of poetry with Press 53, most recently “Bodies in Motion: Poems About Dance.”

Immune to Nostalgia by Joan Mazza

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Immune to Nostalgia

I’m not. I go back to ride
memories as if they were
peak experiences
of transcendence, pleasure—
the old summer bungalow
in Sound Beach, alone
with mother,
unlimited time to read
and read, and walk
the wooded paths
that are no longer.
Time to linger and watch
squirrels. No car or phone,
nowhere to be
except home for supper
and my mother’s cooking.
Clams or scungilli,
fresh from the sea,
over linguine. Wild
raspberries picked
in a thicket on the next
property, boiled into jam
and jarred for sweetness
during Brooklyn winters.
Even now, I try to grasp
that flavor in the air.
Some insomniac nights,
from the screened porch
I ride the thermals,
inhale the warm scent
of wet summer’s dark
and watch fireflies
flash in synchrony.
My button pendant
Life Protect 24/7
blinks back
with equal ardor.

*

Joan Mazza worked as a medical microbiologist, psychotherapist, and taught workshops on understanding dreams and nightmares. She is the author of six books, including Dreaming Your Real Self (Penguin/Putnam). Her poetry has appeared in The Comstock Review, Prairie Schooner, Slant, Poet Lore, and The Nation. She lives in rural central Virginia.