Nightingale & Sparrow

Author: juliette

  • birds, opening act

    birds, opening act

    Caroline Grand-Clement

    birds, opening act: one year since my chest / cracked open / into police sirens / & a riot of birds. / moi aussi / & the wreck.

    Caroline Grand-Clement

  • Jessalyn Johnson

    Jessalyn Johnson

    Poetry 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

    If Nothing Else

  • Kristin Ferragut

    Kristin Ferragut

    Poetry 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

    Leaves of Late November

  • Charlotte Hamrick

    Charlotte Hamrick

    Poetry 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)

  • Arlene Antoinette

    Arlene Antoinette

    Poetry 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

    Flight

  • Glenn Bach

    Glenn Bach

    Poetry 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

    (The crow) from “Atlas”

  • Elisabeth Horan

    Elisabeth Horan

    Poetry 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

    Thankful

  • 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.

    Justine Akbari

  • In Flight

    In Flight

    Joan McNerney

    Shy autumnal bird
    did you brush against the moon
    to get that pale down?  

    A tree waves wooing
    birds who fly from branch to branch
    looking for a home. 

    Congregations of wrens
    winging off to choral practice
    stop at bird feeders first.  

    An outdoor concert.
    Which is sweeter, the flute
    or bird song in woods? 

    Sparrows recite litanies
    in wood. Trees
    greener every rainfall
    their leaves growing longer.

    Joan McNerney

  • 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 untold

    Silence 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 eyes

    Silence, a deep soliloquy with time
    you press ears to the
    throbbing heart
    else would miss the pain

    Silence is neatly tucked
    in the palm of a stillborn
    dissolved in its muted stench

    Silence is the only conversation
    for the reticent mind
    as the moon brushes across my face
    dripping the verses
    picked neatly by the time

    Silence is a lost art
    so sublime.

    Megha Sood