Good morning, evening or afternoon and welcome to Lightwood magazine, Summer Issue #18. We hope the coming summer or winter will be good to you and filled with creativity. This issue features poetry, short fiction. reviews and our Artists in Space series.
In the coming issues we hope to explore new ways of presenting the work of artists and writers. Please contact us with new ideas and directions.
Thanks for visiting Lightwood and we hope you’ll spread the word about the magazine and the wide variety of writing and art that we offer. And think about submitting your work to us. We don’t solicit for submissions; we prefer to work through the creative grapevine/network with creators telling other creators who we are and where we are. And any donations are always welcome.
And after 5 years of continuous quarterly publishing, the magazine has sustained its mission to bring quality writing and artwork to readers and viewers worldwide.
Please continue to join us, and of course, any small donations are welcome to help us move bring even more writers and artists to our pages.
Stay well and keep your positive energy moving you forward. And when you can, turn your thoughts toward peace. Laurence Carr, Publisher
“A Nation that destroys its soil destroys itself.” (Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1937)
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Nautilus and The Oyster Man/ 2 poems by Freida Feldman
NautilusThe chambered labyrinthGoes deeper into darknessRound and round and round,Until the last small spaceHas no exit./////The Oyster ManThe oyster man walks the bayToday, he has waited for the tide to shift,And the moon to release earth from her embrace,He does not hurry, oysters do not run,They rest in their bedsWhile he moves slowly, with his…
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Arched Eyebrows and Kiva: 2 new chapbooks by David Appelbaum. Reviewed by Laurence Carr
Arched Eyebrows and Kiva (2024): 2 chapbooks by David Appelbaum (published by Cyberwit.net) a review by Laurence Carr)I’ve read David Appelbaum’s writings over the last 25 years. Poetry in every form, prose poems, essays, memoirs, nature studies and his more layered philosophical works. (David is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the State University of New…
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Ceremonies of Planting/ poem by Lucia Cherciu
Judicious in yearning, squinting in the sun, drenched in impatience. The antidote:a blanket, a notebook, a pen, a cup of tea.May twines through the heart: lollygagging through nurseries for discounted perfumed mock orange, deals on goji berries most likely to survive in the garden, to defythe odds. Why does a view shinewhen you see it…
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Madame Curie’s Notebooks/ poem by Laurence Carr
Madame Curie’s Notebooksare still too radioactiveto touchto readto seethey lie in lead lined coffinswaiting for their halflives to endwhile poor Marie has moved onher full life gonebut still aglow out in the darknessthe lamppost at the crossroadsnow to whom all things are knownand to whom no secrets are hiddenMarie, our incendiary loverMarie, our starry night(This…
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These Have Been Impossible Seasons/ poem by Bruce Weber
These Have Been Impossible SeasonsHe saidLighting a matchOn the side of the barnThen watching it flitter in the wind and go out.These impossible seasonsHave tied up your mother’s mind in sailor’s knotsHave scurried for shelter in god’s humble houseHave delivered bread when death stood by the door.These have been impossible seasonsHe saidFingering through memories of…
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the big splash/ poem by Mike Jurkovic
the big splasheternity’sthe big splash the biggest splashof allbut when you landin this poolbabynot a ripple’s madeoh yeahnot aripple’smade///// Mike Jurkovic is a frequent contributor to Lightwood as a poet, music critic and creative writer. He has numerous publications (American Mental, Luchador Press) in a variety of forms and is one of the creators of…
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Haunts of the Barely Heard/ poem by Ken Holland
You can fairly hear the deepbreath of dawn, its shoulderto the night in a deadlockof timeAnd the sea shifting beneatha crush of ice, up heavingits mass as thougha drunken swimmer.The sky is starless and singsof that loss, threnodyof the spheres, carouselof the blindWhile here, the winter shoreholds close its own tongue,dispassionate as the stonefrom which…
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Once in a Lifetime Remix (after the Talking Heads)/ poem by Mary Beth Hines
We bellowed with Byrne in the shotgun shack—triple-decker, third floor, to be exact. Miller Light, Winstons, 1981—best song we’d ever heard—again and again. Mack was the man then. Lured me to my feet.Nuzzle. Whirl. We swayed to the beat. Drifted on water flowing under stones.Woke up years later in our beautiful home. Three kids, two…
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Solar Eclipse: Hudson Valley New York 2024/ poem by Mary O’Melveny
At last, people gaze up at day’s vast sky,enamored, amazed by the latest thingephemeral, yet thrilling. Dark clouds shyaway at last. A distant sun stays shiningjust enough to tease near totalitytoward our point of view. Aligningjust so, the moon rises, moves highacross that fire-stormed face, definingspace in ways not formed before. Whyare we arrayed here?…
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Checkout/ poem by Matthew J. Spireng
Sometimes I know the personin the checkout linein front of me and sometimesI don’t. And sometimes if I don’t knowthe person in front of me,I imagine their life, what their houselooks like inside, what they believeand don’t believe, wherethey go when they go on vacation.And sometimes if I know the personin front of mein the…
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A Dirge to the Sea: A Fable/ by Anne Celotto
It’s been said; if you want to lose something forever take it to the sea and let it go. No one knew this for better or worse than Alverino Tidone. Some say he lost his love to the sea, others say he lost his soul to it. No one loved the sea more than Alverino.…
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News Hair/ poem by Frederic Harris
The newscaster’s hairGives his skullA crisp geometric shapeIt’s streaky blond hueOf grainy oakCommunicatesSolidityGrips his faceShining aboveWars and catastrophesCalamities and chaos,So that we can feel secure—Not a hair out of place/////Fred Harris sees poetry as a natural skill suppressed in industrial society. He has encouraged individual expression in collective arts through experimental theatre and collectively-written video…
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Artists in Space: Lise Prown, Functional Ceramics
Lise Prown is a potter (and quilter). Her studio is at the Hat Factory in the Peekskill Clay Studios in Peekskill, New York. I have been pursuing ceramic work over the last 20 years. I make functional pottery with bold decorative patterns that reference modern design history and surface design from diverse sources from fabric…
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Welcome to Lightwood Summer Issue #18
Good morning, evening or afternoon and welcome to Lightwood magazine, Summer Issue #18. We hope the coming summer or winter will be good to you and filled with creativity. This issue features poetry, short fiction. reviews and our Artists in Space series. In the coming issues we hope to explore new ways of presenting the work…
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Wedding China/ poem by Cheryl Rice
Where hay string garlands of glittered pine cones, cards hung over between, there was no wedding chinato pass down from daughter to daughter, nothing like that carried on the boatfrom Poland, Ireland, Brooklyn. If that had been among the family’s possessions, there would have been no exodus to begin with. They carried rags on their…
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Gettysburg and 9/11//. Two Memoir Essays by Gregory Abels
“Barbarism may lie only a small distance beneath the skin of civilization” – Fergus Bordewich “We cannot forget history.” -Abraham Lincoln At the Gettysburg battlefields. In early November (2023), Janet and I made a first-time visit to Gettysburg. Visiting the battlefields was one of the most compelling and solemn explorations of our…
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Summer Visit/ poem by Dennis Doherty
Hummingbird, bumble bee, butterfly, grasshopper the katydid, monarchsOn milkweed, yarrow, black-eyed susan, prim rose, hosta, coneflower, phlox, spirea…From wet green groundblades, from neighboring fronds, heliotropes in sunwaved air kinkingLegs, wings, antennae that pop upon need, approach, licks of desire.Optics bleed into compound swirl of wet purpose above,Videos of a confined kid’s candy-colored hormones,No longer cosmic…
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Desert Crossing/ poem by Emily H. Axelrod
We drove toward a night-black skymy husband and I, crossing the desertwith mesquite, tumbleweed and sage, tawny grassesbent to the ground.Then sudden snowflakes splattering the windshield,falling fat and wet dripping in icy trickles.It was just usand an occasional truckhauling nameless cargoacross the high plain,caught in a desert squall.When we reached Las Cruceswe traded lightning flashing…
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