Ghosts in the Drive-Thru – Christian Garduno- November 2021

Ghosts in the Drive – Thru – by Christian Garduno

You’re a Nachos BellGrande Combo
I’m just a Grande Nacho Box
chasing ghosts in the drive-thru [open til 1 a.m.]
on those nights we had to triple layer the blankets
I made the mistake of wanting everything, too
loving mas
plans crumble apart like a 3-day-old mexican pizza
we’re halfway to nowhere
Forever ago for me was just yesterday for you
our love is a 7-layer burrito, all mixed up inside together
you were keeping the beat with your teeth
our hearts swirling around in a large cup of Baja Blast
blue lights blue candles blue dreams
the curtain’s falling on our last invincible season
time has really pulled a number on us
the further we want out, the deeper in we go

Bio

Christian Garduno edited the compilation Evolver and his own solo poetry collection Face as a History undergraduate at the University of California, Berkeley. His work can be read in over 40 literary magazines, including Riza Press, where his poem, “The Return”, was a 2019 Finalist in their Multimedia contest. He is the recipient of the national Willie Morris Award for Southern Poetry 2019. He lives and writes along the South Texas coast with his wonderful wife Nahemie and young son Dylan. His newest work is a poetry chapbook, “Love Above the Armstrong Limit”.

Hint of Rain – Amanda Ellis – October 2021

A Hint of Rain – Poem of the Month by Amanda Ellis

I sense a change in weather,

Eagerly awaiting the sign of rain.

A constant spell of dry and warmth builds

Until I dream nightly of

An elusive perfume

Tantalus

Ancestral memory

Drives my amygdala

A craving only to be sated by nature,

The gods reminding us of their superior role

Thousands of years past their days

Deigning to allow minor humans the merest

Sniff of rocks and ichor

Remembrance of who we used to be

A reminder of a distant past

And a hope

Of petrichor.

Recalculating

In the absence of apparatus

I hear the footsteps of my ancestors.

Whispering moccasins echo,

Resonating along lushly overgrown trails

Will we remember what we have lost?

The return of stillness to nature,

Triumphant in the gap.

Greenery our only salvation

Until the diggers return.

Will the birds still sing so sweet?

Bio

Amanda Ellis is a writer of settler and indigenous descent. She has had poetry published in the journals Valiant Scribe, Ponder Savant and Rabbit. She recently attended Sage Hill Writers’ Workshop and is a member of the Saskatchewan Writers Guild. She does not live in Saskatchewan, but enjoys rural vistas of cabbages as she wrangles ideas and her side hustle as a Social Justice warrior.

Yungas Eventide by Lorraine Caputo – Sept. 2021

YUNGAS EVENTIDE  by Lorraine Caputo

A last flame of sun
flickers beyond the shrouded
jade mountains where now
is falling twilight.

Only there, in a
distant valley of cloud glows
a gentle mango.

A wind begins to
strum leaves. The song of frog &
bird drifts through cobbled
streets & plazuelas.

To the south, ashen
clouds smolder, threatening the
jungle sierra.

Bio

Lorraine Caputo is a documentary poet, translator and travel writer. Her works appear in over 250 journals on six continents; and 18 collections of poetry – including On Galápagos Shores(dancing girl press, 2019) and Escape to the Sea (Origami Poems Project, 2021). She also authors travel narratives, articles and guidebooks. In 2011, the Parliamentary Poet Laureate of Canada honored her verse. Caputo has done literary readings from Alaska to the Patagonia. She journeys through Latin America, listening to the voices of the pueblos and Earth. Follow her travels at: www.facebook.com/lorrainecaputo.wanderer or https://latinamericawanderer.wordpress.com. 

Catina Noble – Book Promo

Book: Everest Base Camp: Close Call

Author: Catina Noble

Synopsis:

“Everest Base Camp: Close Call is a gripping and fascinating story about Everest told from the perspective of a brave woman who openly shares the triumphs and disappointments of reaching for a dream. Catina Noble pulls the reader in with the warmth from a stove in the dinning room at a teahouse, the humorous attempts at using squat toilets, the delicious comfort food and the kindness of people in Nepal in contrast with the achingly cold conditions and uncertainty felt on her trek. With vivid and absorbing passages, Noble offers a heartfelt reminder that the journey is as important as the dream itself.” Sonia Saikaley, author of Allspice Bath

Author Bio:

Catina Noble is an Ottawa writer with over two hundred publications including books, articles, short stories and poetry. Her work has appeared in several publications including but not limited to Woman’s World Magazine, Chicken Soup for the Soul, Bywords, Riverview Park Review, PEN, YTravel Blog, The Mindful Word, Mojito Mother, Baby Post and many others. She is the author of eight books and three chapbooks of poetry. Her poem You Can’t See Me won first place in the Canadian Author’s Association Poetry Contest in 2014. Two of her books have the Reader’s Favorite Silver Seal of Approval; Vacancy at the Food Court & Other Short Stories and I’m Glad I Didn’t Kill Myself. 

Links:

Available at Amazon

http://www.catinanoble.wordpress.com

http://www.fiddlesandscribbles.com

Twitter: @CatinaNoble1

Same as the Sea by rp verlaine (Poem for January 2021)

Find me in the dark
with your kisses
and wetness
the rain outside
knows nothing of.

Let us investigate
boundaries the same
as the sea.

We’ll go out
further than
It’s safe.

Return to sand
each embrace
mocking the chill.

Tell me before
the eavesdropping moon
all you want
from sex
Is to come in waves

Bio
Rp Verlaine lives and writes in New York City. He has an MFA in creative writing from City college. He taught in New York Public schools for many years. No longer teaching, he continues to write and do photography in New York. he had a volume of poetry – Damaged by Dames & Drinking published in 2017 and another – Femme Fatales Movie Starlets and Rockers in 2018. A set of three e books began with the publication of Lies from the Autobiography vol1 was published in November of 2018.

Transcending My Personal Apocalypse – By Linda Imbler

I wage all hope against the day I fall.
My leaden halo slipping,
my blood turning to bitter wormwood.
King Abandon feeds his locust constituents from my flesh,
yet, I stay breathing even beyond that plague.
A scorching blaze offers no quick sell to glory,
and no inland waters can now host relief.
It’s shocking how quickly the sea dies once it turns red.
No way now to pay against Armageddon.
The worst we feared was so much more severe,
with hate’s nova’s flare putting the sun to sleep with one burst.
So many of us made that sun lapse into darkness,
but the terms of my salvation cannot be now laid silent.
The illusory satisfaction that I’ll survive makes me bold,
so I offer my hand to lay between all other’s burdens,
and thus try to transcend to my own apocalypse.

Bio: Linda Imbler’s poetry collections include five published paperback; “Big Questions, Little Sleep”, “Big Questions, Little Sleep” second edition (expanded with 66 additional poems), “Lost and Found”, “Red is the Sunrise”, and “Bus Lights, Travel Sights”. Soma Publishing has published her three e-book collections, “The Sea’s Secret Song”, “Pairings”, a hybrid of short fiction and poetry, and “That Fifth Element”. Examples of Linda’s poetry and a listing of publications can be found at lindaspoetryblog.blogspot.com. In addition to writing, she helps her husband, a Luthier, build acoustic guitars in Wichita, Kansas, U.S.A.

Looping for Art’s Sake – By I.B. Iskov

I delve into a busy place
illustrated in my mind,
groping for the link

to loop everything together
long-short fast-slow
tender-struck
indefinable and cultural.

Imagining myself an artist,
I envision an immense blank canvas.
Round is the predominant mood.

With tired fingers,
I spiral my pen
for a strong therapeutic effect.

Looping can be very beautiful
in just the right light.

Circles become complex acrobats,
empower the paper-stage with
confrontational comic calamity
never fracturing their naiveté
lest they transform themselves
into something truly grotesque.

Stylish looping is an acquired skill.
An inordinate amount of time is spent
repeating the basic fundamentals
to fulfill true penmanship.

I manage to pronounce with O with enthusiasm
without compromising the metaphor.

I want to be in the loop.

Bio: I.B. Iskov is the Founder of The Ontario Poetry Society http://www.theontariopoetrysociety.ca. Her poems have been published widely in anthologies and literary journals and she has several poetry collections. Visit her Profile Page at: http://www.theontariopoetrysoicety.ca/Memberprofile002.htm.

Update to Submission Guidelines

Fiddles & Scribbles accepts submissions from poets around the world, but preference is given to Canadian poets. Unfortunately, we will no longer be able to provide an honorarium for the poems that get published.

We look forward to reading your poems. Submissions are on an ongoing basis. We only publish one poem at the beginning of the month.

Please ensure your poem is no longer than 36 lines and includes a bio no longer than 75-100 words. In your bio feel free to add links to your website etc. but that is included in the word count.

**Please do not send an attachment and please send one poem per email, a maximum of three poems.**

Send submissions to: fiddles.scribbles@yahoo.ca. Please allow at least six weeks for a response.

Thanks for your patience.

Managing Editor,
Catina Noble

Last Update Wednesday September 8, 2021

COVID-19 by Jagjeet Sharma

August Poem

COVID-19.    by Jagjeet Sharma

Today is the same

as yesterday

tomorrow no different

 

COVID-19 stole it all

body, mind, and soul

 

stay at home restrictions

insanity on the loose

 

lazy paint brush strokes

on a blank canvas

color their way

a wayward Picasso,

or a mangled scenery

 

porch watchers

count sunsets

or sunrises

they look the same

after a while

 

wind chimes

dance to their tunes

a windstorm

on the horizon

 

Jagjeet Sharma is a freelance journalist, poet, and author. She hosts a weekly radio show along with her team of dedicated volunteers on CKCU 93.1fm. She has two collections of poems to her credit. Nature’s Subtle Seductions published 2018; Fragments published 2019. 
 

 

 

 

 

testari by Joseph Farina

testari (*July’s poem up a week early)

the homeless heroes on the streets
bivouacked under cardboard and blue tarps
paper cups at their feet hoping
to be filled by your sympathy
endure your impatience and betrayal
they wear their infirmity silently
their eyes seeking yours
both cast  in familiar patient pain
suffering withdrawn gazes
and the imperious stares of authority
who sometimes drop their pennies in their cup
stop for a moment to admire their generosity
then wheel and quickly cross away
no longer stunned by withdrawn victims of combat
ignorant of the love needed to end this error
of public despair and faces pillowed
against outside walls and sidewalk sheets as shelters

BIO

Joseph A Farina is a retired lawyer in Sarnia, Ontario, Canada. Several of his poems have been published in  Quills Canadian Poetry Magazine, Ascent ,Subterranean  Blue  and in   The Tower Poetry Magazine, Inscribed, The Windsor Review, Boxcar Poetry Revue , and appears in the anthology   Sweet Lemons: Writings with a Sicilian Accent , and in the anthology   Witness  from Serengeti Press. He has had poems published in the U.S. magazines   Mobius, Pyramid Arts, Arabesques, Fiele-Festa, Philedelphia Poets and   Memoir (and)   as well as in Silver Birch Press   “Me, at Seventeen”   Series. He has had two books of poetry published— The Cancer Chronicles   and   The Ghosts of Water Street.