birds, opening act
Caroline Grand-Clement
Author: juliette
Adrift
Adrift
Robin Anna Smith
Sunday, the day we go to visit Grandma—the day I dread all week. I ask my mother if I can go to a friend’s house or stay home. As always, she rejects my plea, states that we are the only family who visits, that Grandma’s lonely and looks forward to seeing us.
Grandma lives in a tiny apartment in a building that looks like a run-down motel. The gravel parking lot matches the tone of her voice—rough and uneven. Her apartment is hot and stagnant. It has a signature scent: cigarette smoke is the top note, floating above the heart note of a neighbor’s meal cooking, and the base note of cockroaches.
At thirteen years old, I’ve never known Grandma to be happy. Her smiles look like lies, her cackle unconvincing. As someone affected by depression, I recognize it plainly. Thin and frail, I rarely see her stand. Sunk into a nicotine-stained couch, she chain-smokes and sucks oxygen from a green tank that I’ve never seen her without. Her commitment to smoking speaks to her infidelity to life, to us.
When she’s taken to the hospital, family comes from all over. Outside the ICU, we sit and watch the clock as my relatives argue and assign blame.
After she passes, we take her ashes to scatter in the Gulf of Mexico. My family cries for our loss while I sob with relief for her escape.
beach baptism . . .
a seagull swings
from a sunrayKristin Ferragut
Kristin FerragutPoetry Contributor
Kristin Kowalski Ferragut is a regular contributor to open mics, at such venues as DiVerse Gaithersburg Poetry and Words Out Loud. She participates in local poetry and prose writing workshops, in addition to reading, biking, hiking and teaching. Her work has appeared in Beltway Quarterly and Mercurial Stories.Works in Nightingale & Sparrow
Charlotte Hamrick
Charlotte HamrickPoetry and Photography Contributor
Charlotte Hamrick’s poetry, prose, and photography has been published in The Rumpus, Literary Orphans, Connotation Press, Eunoia Review, and numerous other journals. She is a Pushcart Prize nominee and was a Finalist for the 15th Glass Woman Prize for her creative nonfiction. She is Creative Nonfiction Editor for Barren Magazine. She lives in New Orleans with her husband and a menagerie of rescued pets. Follow her on Twitter @charlotteAsh.
Works in Nightingale & Sparrow
Wingless (flight)
Morning Moon (renaissance)
Hidden Magnolia (renaissance)
Fantasia (renaissance)
Spring Rain (renaissance)
Brilliance (renaissance)
Jessalyn Johnson
Jessalyn JohnsonPoetry Contributor
Jessalyn Johnson is a writer from Central Florida currently living in Brooklyn, New York. She recently graduated with a degree in English Literature and currently attends The New School’s MFA Creative Writing Program. You can find her on Twitter @jessalyn451 and visit her at jessalynjohnson.com.Works in Nightingale & Sparrow
Arlene Antoinette
Arlene AntoinettePoetry Contributor
Arlene Antoinette is a writer who enjoys dabbling in poetry, flash fiction and song lyrics. Additional poetry by Arlene may be found @ Foxglove Journal, Cagibi Lit, Better Than Starbucks, With Painted Words, London Grip, Literary Heist and Your Daily Poem.
Works in Nightingale & Sparrow
Glenn Bach
Glenn BachPoetry Contributor
Glenn Bach lives and works in Southern California, with brief stints in Milwaukee and Brooklyn. His long poem, Atlas, has been excerpted in Dusie, jubilat, Otoliths, and others. Glenn publishes an interview blog, Imprintable.org, and documents his other activities at glennbach.com.
Works in Nightingale & Sparrow
Elisabeth Horan
Elisabeth HoranPoetry Contributor
Elisabeth Horan is an imperfect creature advocating for animals, children and those suffering alone and in pain – especially those ostracized by disability and mental illness. Elisabeth is honored to serve as Poetry Editor at Anti-Heroin Chic Magazine, and is Co-Owner of Animal Heart Press. She recently earned her MFA from Lindenwood University and received a 2018 Best of the Net Nomination from Midnight Lane Boutique and a 2018 Pushcart Nomination from Cease Cows. She has books coming out in 2019 with Fly on the Wall Poetry Press, Twist in Time Press, Flypaper Magazine, Hedgehog Poetry Press, and Cephalo Press.Follow her @ehoranpoet & ehoranpoet.com.Works in Nightingale & Sparrow
A Composition of Melodious Words
A Composition of Melodious Words
Justine Akbari
Through the noise I hear it
the string of words floating towards me
formulating before me—
slowly, methodically, categorically, sporadically
with pause
to test out each pitch, each decibel, each tenor
and resonance
on the tongue, in a thought, against another word
or an absence of one.
Melodies and mania surround the
delicate, dynamic, demonstrative
words that exist despite the
chaos and crescendo.
A thought disrupts the stillness of the mind
the way the mind disrupts the enchantment
of a thought.Reading music
listening to words
reading words
listening to music;
A melody of notes to an orchestration of words;
an arrangement of words to a composition of music.I cling to these words
to make sense of the world,
to give voice to the world,
to communicate with the world.
Humanity’s babble mixed with the city’s grumble
and a grandparent’s garble
enhanced with life’s elixirs
swath the sky in a synchronous symphony.Silence – a lost art
“Silence – a lost art”
Megha Sood
Silence is neatly tucked
between the layered wings of the soaring eagle
the shifting angle of his wings
holds the distance between
the spoken and the untoldSilence has its own semantics
the lexicon of the unspoken
I can carry the debilitating
pain in my marred soul for eons
before you see the
tears trickling from my eyesSilence, a deep soliloquy with time
you press ears to the
throbbing heart
else would miss the painSilence is neatly tucked
in the palm of a stillborn
dissolved in its muted stenchSilence is the only conversation
for the reticent mind
as the moon brushes across my face
dripping the verses
picked neatly by the timeSilence is a lost art
so sublime.
Kristin Ferragut
Charlotte Hamrick
Jessalyn Johnson
Arlene Antoinette
Glenn Bach
Elisabeth Horan