Nightingale & Sparrow

Author: meganrusso

  • Susan Barry-Schulz

    Susan Barry-Schulz

    Poetry Contributor

    Susan Barry-Schulz is a licensed Physical Therapist and poet. Her work has appeared in The Wild Word, SWWIM, Shooter Literary Magazine, Barrelhouse online, South Florida Poetry Journal, The New Verse News, Bending Genres, Anti-Heroin Chic, and elsewhere. She grew up outside of Buffalo, New York in a house full of books.


    Works in Nightingale & Sparrow

    Arrangements Made in a Pandemic

     

  • The poetry of song

    The poetry of song

    Ivanka Fear

    The audacity of it, really,
    hubris of poets, actually,
    thinking song lyrics aren’t poetry.

    Poem
    Intense emotional outpouring
    Beauty of images
    Rhythm of language
    Art of expression
    Enduring
    The story of life
    open to interpretation.

    Song?
    Ditto
    Plus…
    The haunting sound
    of repetitive refrains
    spinning round and round
    our heads, pulling us in,
    song and listener becoming one.

    Fused with
    explosive sound,
    not resounding silence.

    If I can dream…

    Music and lyrics
    Beethoven’s 5th,
    Jackson’s Thriller,
    symphony.
    The sound of silence…
    Imagine Lennon,
    Mozart’s unfinished
    requiem.
    The day the music died…
    Vivaldi’s Four Seasons,
    Elton’s Candle
    in the wind.
    Blowin’ in the wind…
    Handel’s Messiah,
    Zeppelin’s Stairway,
    to heaven.
    Hallelujah…
    Brahm’s Lullaby,
    I will always
    love you.
    Where do I begin?

    Killing me softly…

    Lyricists and musicians,
    I bow down to you
    mere poet that I am.
    The power of words is great;
    the power of song is
    overwhelming.

    Ivanka Fear

  • Double Indemnity

    Double Indemnity

    Lindsey Pucci

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    Lindsey Pucci

     

  • Kinstone I

    Kinstone I

    Lindsey Pucci

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    Lindsey Pucci

     

     

  • Stacie Santillo

    Stacie Santillo

    Photography Contributor

    Stacie Santillo is a writer and photographer living in Pennsylvania. Most days she can be found either floating in her kayak harmonizing with the wildlife or letting her fingers ripple on the keyboard while harmonizing with the stories floating in her mind.


    Works in Nightingale & Sparrow

    Alone Together

  • Nature’s Symphony

    Nature’s Symphony

    Christina Ciufo

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    Christina Ciufo

  • Ivanka Fear

    Ivanka Fear

    Poetry Contributor

    Ivanka Fear is a former teacher now pursuing her passion for writing. She lives in midwestern Ontario, Canada, with her family and cats. Her poems and short stories appear in Spadina Literary Review, Montreal Writes, Adelaide Literary, October Hill, Scarlet Leaf Review, The Sirens Call, The Literary Hatchet, Wellington Street Review, Aphelion, Muddy River Poetry Review, and elsewhere. You can read more about her at ivankafear.wixsite.com/mysite


    Works in Nightingale & Sparrow

    The poetry of song

     

  • Susan P. Blevins

    Susan P. Blevins

    Poetry Contributor

    Susan P. Blevins was born in England and has been a happy ex-pat for the last fifty years. She now lives in Houston with her cat and her garden, writing stories and poetry based on her life experiences. She always tries to see the big picture and to embrace all points of view and through her writings hopes to bring people together in the realization that we are all one human family.


    Works in Nightingale & Sparrow

    At-One-Ment

     

  • Stuck in the Tape Deck

    Stuck in the Tape Deck

    Hannah Madonna

    The car ran fine, though the air conditioning was spotty, and the floor mats were gone. They spun the knob of the radio dial trying to find a station to listen to. Neither liked silence, and they’d both agreed they needed to spare their phone batteries, just in case. But they found more static than music, a thick, crackly blanket of sound almost worse than the quiet. There was a tape deck in the car, though, and their hands moved idly over the console, half-interested, and when they hit the eject button, a cassette tape popped out. It was hard, clear plastic with no label, and the shiny black ribbon was spooled all on one side. The day was hot, and the road stretched across the dusty landscape like a worn elastic band, loose and crumbling as it sagged over the gently rolling hills.
    Fingers with shiny black nails pushed the tape back in.
    It clicked into place and then a quiet, rolling static filled the car. A voice broke through. Rough and sad, a deep, aching loneliness —I’ve been searching for you, it sang. Searching for all that I’ve lost. No music played, only the voice, filled with a longing that sank like a dull knife deep, deep into their chests. Molly pressed the eject button before she could stop herself, but that voice was etched, permanent, into her, like the dolorous clang of a bell that would never be unrung.

    There had been too much silence. Before they left, it was nearly all silence —hands unclasped, words unspoken, the very breath and beat of their bodies dimmed and contained. After Jasmine shaved her head, she got a tattoo just behind her ear. Lines of thin, scrawly, looping black wound together to make the head of a sunflower. Molly traced the petals with the tip of a finger and held back laughter and asked, very quietly, if it tickled. Jas said yes and cupped her hand over the flowers, to keep the ghost of the touch from leaking away. Molly heard everything she meant, everything she couldn’t say —and they ran, together and never silent again.
    The car was silent, more oppressive than the heat, a choking cloud around them with no life or noise. As though it had been an accident in the first place, as though neither had wanted to stop the sounds of that voice, they pushed the tape back in together. It clicked on. That voice played again, heartbreaking and bare and raw. With no music behind it, the voice felt bottomless, a baritone reaching down for something always out of reach. Jas put her hand on Molly’s leg, on the soft bright skin above her knee. Molly clasped her hand and they listened as the tape played, intimate and painful, until the voice whispered to a halt and the sound rolled back into quiet static. Then they rewound the tape and listened again.

    The sweltering heat sizzled out as night fell, and the sky was black and cool when they pulled into a motel, dotted with stars that dripped pale light onto the world in strings of gauzy silver. They tripped over each other into the room, buoyed by the high of travel and the strange, demi-magic sound of the tape. They took turns showering, ate the protein bars they’d packed, and then lay together with the lights off, on the top of one of the twin beds. The other stood like a stranger in the room, its only personality the bright, geometric print of the bedspread, washed by the darkness into a slab of dull gray.
    Jasmine curled her fingers into Molly’s as they stared up at the ceiling, a crack of light from the half-closed curtain like an orange slice across the soft beige. One of them started to hum, or both of them, together maybe, their voices soft and fleeting and conjoined. It was the song from the tape, the haunting melody of that lost, lonely voice.
    I’m still searching, the voice had sung, its echo all around them. Molly moved closer, nuzzling into Jas’s shoulder, their hands in a knot between their bodies. The mass of Molly’s curls sat soft in a pillow around them as they sang about searching—and thought not about what they had lost, but all that they had found.

    Hannah Madonna

  • Out My Window

    Out My Window

    Marianne Brems

    Bluebirds feed at a birdfeeder,
    heads jerking about between bites.

    A struggling cyclist sits tall
    after a climb up the hill.

    A man unhurriedly walks his dog
    as if without losses or appointments.

    Dandelions soften edges of cracks
    on the sidewalk.

    A child walks through a puddle,
    stamping her feet in the middle.

    Cars travel by at neighborly speeds
    without hiss or roar or vexing exhaust.

    Harmonic minor scales trickle lightly
    from the house next door.

    A hopscotch grid in uneven yellow chalk
    occupies a driveway, waiting for small feet.

    Two squirrels chase each other with fluid dexterity
    on a tree trunk.

    The broken glass bottle in the street yesterday
    is gone.

    Branches of trees bend toward
    the middle of the street like an archway.

    For the moment, the rest doesn’t matter.

    Marianne Brems