Nightingale & Sparrow

Category: harmony (Issue No. X)

  • Glove on a Fence

    Glove on a Fence

    Hardarshan Singh Valia

    A jogger picked up a fallen glove
    From the snow-covered ground
    Pinned it to a wire fence near the trail
    For it to be claimed by its rightful owner.

    On last round of jogging
    She stopped by the spot
    Placed glove from her right hand
    Next to the lonely left-handed glove.

    During next week of jogging
    She was surprised to find a right-handed glove
    Placed next to the original left-handed glove
    With a note awaiting to be read.

    Curiosity got hold of her,
    “Thanks for giving company to my hand;
    I will not need these gloves anymore
    As tomorrow I’ll be deployed to a desert.”

    She gathered the three gloves
    Walked slowly to the parking lot
    And encountered the silence being pierced
    By the siren of an ambulance speeding by.

    In the gray sky above she watched
    A perfect symmetry of flying geese
    Being disturbed by a goose
    Seeking to get back into formation.

    Hardarshan Singh Valia

  • The bathtime song

    The bathtime song

    Lauren Aspery

    my mother’s watery lullaby
    returns to me whenever I take a bath
    emerging from the plughole
    and reverberating off the tiles

    I like to swim in the water
    I like to swim in the water
    I like to swim in the water, oh
    swim swim swimmy I swim

    though I no longer swim in the company
    of Do-Re-Mi dolphins or
    Winnie the Pooh’s Splash ‘n’ Bubble treehouse

    I soak and recall
    out-of-tune plastic whistles
    and the sharp sting of “no more tears” shampoo

    Lauren Aspery

  • Letter from the Editor – harmony

    Dear Reader,

    Welcome to harmony, the latest issue of Nightingale & Sparrow Literary Magazine! After a chaotic few weeks on a personal front, our team has come together and brought this issue to life. And, as a result, this might just be our favourite issue yet.

    For this submissions period, we asked writers and photographers to “surprise us with your own unique harmonies. Share the songs that intersperse your life. Show us the places where discord unites. Let us hear the chords in each image and every line.” As always, our wonderful contributors have brought that vision to life.

    From “Morning in the Village” by Donna J. Gelagotis Lee and A. S. Callaghan’s “Baby Don’t Hurt Me” to Lindsey Pucci’s “Rolling In” and “Stuck in the Tape Deck” by Hannah Madonna, you’ll hear harmonies arising in songs both literal and figurative.

    Thank you, as always to our N&S team, submitters and contributors, readers, customers, and other supporters who’ve made this issue and all of our efforts possible.

    And so, without further ado, welcome to harmony.

    Juliette Sebock
    Editor-in-Chief, Nightingale & Sparrow

  • harmony – micropoems

    In the leadup to our tenth issue, harmony, we shared a series of micropoems from some talented submitters:

  • Louis Dennis

    Louis Dennis

    Photography Contributor

    Louis Dennis learned photography in a chemical darkroom. He finds surprises where they are least expected. His photographs have recently appeared in The Positive Pandemic experiment, The Hopper, and The Burningword literary journal.

    Works in Nightingale & Sparrow

    Little Crooner

     

  • Lauren Aspery

    Lauren Aspery

    Poetry Contributor

    Lauren Aspery is a school librarian from the North East of England. She is a two-time winner of the Terry Kelly Poetry Prize and was named the poet-in-residence commendation at the 2020 Chester Cathedral Young People’s Poetry Competition. She also won the inaugural Loft Books International Poetry Competition. Her poetry has been published by Fragmented Voices, Aloe Mag, Slice of the Moon Books and others.

    Works in Nightingale & Sparrow

    The bathtime song

     

  • Donna J. Gelagotis Lee

    Donna J. Gelagotis Lee

    Poetry Contributor

    Donna J. Gelagotis Lee is the author of two award-winning collections, Intersection on Neptune (The Poetry Press of Press Americana, 2019), winner of the Prize Americana for Poetry 2018, and On the Altar of Greece (Gival Press, 2006), winner of the 2005 Gival Press Poetry Award. Her poetry has appeared in journals internationally, including The Bitter Oleander, Cimarron Review, Feminist Studies, The Massachusetts Review, and Nightingale & Sparrow.

    Works in Nightingale & Sparrow

    Morning in the Village

  • Arrangements Made in a Pandemic

    Arrangements Made in a Pandemic

    Susan Barry-Schulz

    I’m thinking pussy willows
    before they lose their sheen and puddles
    of forsythia shouting yellow
    from the darkness
    at the curb           the music
    might as well be the blanketed
    horse neighing softly at the barn door
    behind a swaying fringe of weeping
    willow           and far away a rooster
    crowing no matter the time
    a swarm of gnats
    a bit of humidity see to it

    unless its summer when it happens
    in that case maybe watermelon and American flags
    fireworks and fireflies          a familiar
    laugh floating through the screen door
    from the front porch where someone
    pulls a cold hand up from a cooler
    stocked with ice and root beer
    while the drone of the neighbor’s lawnmower
    rises and falls with smoky trails of citronella on second thought
    cancel the American flags

    but if it’s fall let there be acorns
    and oak leaves crunching beneath
    suede shoes             fat squirrels
    zipping through rows
    of whispers and folding chairs
    hot cider cinnamon sticks
    branches rubbing and in the distance
    the high school football game announcer
    raising his voice a bass drum

    and if it’s winter
    just play for them       the sound the snowflakes
    used to make
    as they turned to gold
    before our eyes flying
    under the faithful street light

    all those precious nights
    back home.

    Susan Barry-Schulz