Nightingale & Sparrow

Author: juliette

  • Bright sky

    Bright sky

    Carol Alena Aronoff

    dispels black thought;
    fear slips away–wisps of cloud
    dissolving into azure silk.
    I look south for solace, search 
    for sun’s fire in my waning
    inner life, seek to rekindle
    a clear path to spirit.

    Threads are still there–
    frayed from trying 
    too hard or not at all.
    Confusion has been woven
    in my outer fabric
    yet I know there’s a clarity
    that shines from the heart,
    so close, so luminous,
    it is easy to overlook–
    to look elsewhere. 

    Opening past habits of dead 
    wood, the voice complaining
    like lazy wind blows 
    this way and that
    without saying anything.
    I find space to breathe,
    take flight with geese
    in endless lemon sky, 
    soar blissfully
    back into my self,
    knowing that I never
    lost anything. 

    Carol Alena Aronoff

  • Joan McNerney

    Joan McNerney

    Poetry Contributor

    Joan McNerney’s poetry has been included in numerous literary magazines such as Seven Circle Press, Dinner with the Muse, Moonlight Dreamers of Yellow Haze, Blueline, and Halcyon Days. Four Bright Hills Press Anthologies, several Poppy Road Review Journals, and numerous Kind of A Hurricane Press Publications have accepted her work. Her latest title is Having Lunch with the Sky and she has four Best of the Net nominations.

    Works in Nightingale & Sparrow

    In Flight

  • Country Boy

    Country Boy

    Jack M. Freedman

    Tapping in his Tony Lamas
    Wiggling in his Wranglers
    Stimulating in his Stetson
    The wind propels him
    Twisting and spinning
    As the guitar strums
    He is a centrifuge
    Defying gravity
    Never succumbing
    To earthly limitations
    This cowboy soars
    Grabbing his belt buckle
    As if launching himself
    Into the atmosphere
    Propelled in alignment
    Embraced by acoustics
    Born in the USA
    Stature of the
    Colossus of Rhodes
    Love child of deities
    Product of divinity birthed
    As if Icarus and Terpsichore
    Conceived him
    As he glides across dancefloors
    He could make himself
    Levitate in midair
    Knowing full well
    He was born to fly

    Jack M. Freedman

  • Linda M. Crate

    lindacrateLinda M. Crate

    Poetry Contributor

    Linda M. Crate’s works have been published in numerous magazines and anthologies. She’s the author of six poetry chapbooks, the latest of which is: More Than Bone Music (Clare Songbirds Publishing House, March 2019). She’s also the author of the novel Phoenix Tears
    (Czykmate Books, June 2018). She has published three full-length poetry collections: Vampire Daughter (Dark Gatekeeper Gaming,
    February 2020), The Sweetest Blood (Cyberwit, February 2020), and Mythology of My Bones (Cyberwit, August 2020).

    Works in Nightingale & Sparrow

    malignant dystopia, what’s left, crow song & solitude

  • Claire Loader

    Claire Loader

    Photography Contributor

    A writer and photographer, Claire Loader was born in New Zealand and spent several years in China before moving to County Galway, Ireland.  Recently published in Pidgeonholes, The Bangor Literary Journal and Crossways, she spends her days seeking enchantment in ruins.  You can find her work here: www.allthefallingstones.com

    Works in Nightingale & Sparrow

    Soar

  • lift off

    lift off

    Britton Minor

    lift off

    Britton Minor

  • we wait for something beautiful then we destroy it

    “we wait for something beautiful then we destroy it”

    Stuart Buck

    lying in the inch of fairy floss snowfall in the car park
    of the abandoned hardware store but we don’t feel the cold
    oh no, we are boiling mercury in our veins and the beautiful
    thing is that the sky isn’t falling, we are soaring up to meet it
    so I kiss your hand as we hit the screaming brilliance head on
    becoming fractured perfection for those endless seconds but
    oh god, we wake as only dust on the pavement and your frostbitten
    fingers curl up as a dying plant in a desert of unanswered prayers

    Stuart Buck

  • Devil’s Den No More

    Devil’s Den No More

    Zoe Philippou

    Devil's Den No More

    Zoe Philippou

  • Akif Kichloo

    Akif Kichloo

    Poetry Contributor

     Akif Kichloo is a poet of Indian origin currently alternating residence between Saginaw, Michigan (USA) and Kashmir, J & K (India). With a bachelor’s degree in Medicine and Surgery, he has been eating shoelaces for the past year because he gave up everything to write poetry.

    Works in Nightingale & Sparrow

    Dreamers Dream Dreamers Do

  • Kite Flying

    Kite Flying

    Arian Farhat

    with a sheath of golden
    feathers guarding its underbelly
    and a feared reputation
    the golden eagle soared over
    the dusty dry lands  

    perhaps my family looked
    up once in a while and
    saw it circling overhead,
    a blessing, a curse, or a spell in reverse 

    but they must not have seen it

    my father would have had his head
    swirling with stress over the paperwork
    for his family to journey to the New World
    my mother was in another neighborhood
    studying, working at a smaller office  

    my aunts were
    too tired and dehydrated
    from the long walk from school to home
    passed bazaars with the aroma of turmeric and kabob
    scarves dangling around their shoulders
    as they fought for the chance to learn  

    my grandfather
    had much anxiety
    over whether or not he
    could travel to the office for work
    if he was caught…  

    my grandmother was
    worried, raising her kids in such a world
    knowing she wasn’t able to get up to help
    her youngest as they stood on a stepstool to
    make dinner when they should have been out
    playing 

    no, my family was chained to the
    ground, souls bound to the duties
    they had to themselves, to their family
    their only hope of flying was when they
    occasionally passed the kite flyers
    for in all that sorrow,
    one thing
    let them soar above their worries:
    the Afghan art of kite flying

    my father was a champion.
    when he wasn’t studying,
    he was kite flying, kite rising
    he took his place among the golden eagles,
    soared to infinity and forevermore 

    it would be many years after
    my family would fly
    to the New World, leaving behind their home
    in hopes of a better one
    a new beginning 

    and then I was born.
    and for them,
    for my father who worked
    from the morning sun to the evening moon,
    for my mother who came to this
    harsh New World with a pocket full
    of English words,
    for my aunts and uncles,
    who defied everything in order to study
    and catch their dreams,
    for my grandfather
    who sacrificed everything,
    and for my beloved grandmother,
    who dared to do the
    difficult, the dangerous, the impossible
    in the name of love,  

    I fly for them.

    Arian Farhat