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Posts Tagged ‘Kakalak’

Kakalak – Malone and Fox

Posted in Imagery, tagged , , , , , , on January 16, 2026| 9 Comments »

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[2 poems from Kakalak 2025]
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Milkweed
 . 
There will come a day in Autumn when the pods
open like eyes and weep into the wind little brown
teardrops that do not fall to the earth without first
being born by strands of silken hair, white like mine,
and I who cannot fathom the god
introduced and re-introduced to me all my life
know that I must search instead for the fine
intellect, the playful imagination, the deep-felt
biophilia of the goddess who created this
 . 
tuft-winged drifter, tiny parachutist, one
among thousands, that has climbed up onto the wind,
now sails by my window, clears the fence, crosses the road without
looking both ways, floats across the barren field, up, up, caught
and flung by the Anemoi up and onward, sailing,
sailing, until the breezes abate, then, like a maestro’s arm
sweeping back and forth with the lyrical measures, lowers
 . 
itself, bit by bit, until it settles onto the earth where rains
will ruin its magnificent floss and time will rake
over it a blanket of soil. It will sleep all winter, cozy
hibernator, await the magical marriage of warmth and rain,
awaken ++++++++++++ then reach
+++++ with root, ++++++++++ then shoot,
+++++ down, +++++++++ +++ then up,
search for Hydro, +++++ for Helios, +++++++++ stretch.
 . 
Become.
 . 
Gina Malone
from Kakalak 2025, Moonshine Review Press, Harrisburg NC; © 2025
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❀    ❀    ❀
 . 
Molasses Melodies
 . 
When I hear a sweet Southern drawl,
I feel that slight twinge of shame.
My heart pines for the ease of
slow molasses on my tongue.
There’s a taste of it, way down.
Like a valley crick tumbling through
shady woods, full of oaks and hickory.
I yearn for smooth vowels in words
shaped by hills in the distance.
Rolling over and over to enjoy
the way sounds feel in my mouth.
 . 
Without knowing it, I sold my heritage,
plum ruint my Southern soul
with every g added on to:
fixin’, fishin’, fussin’ and fightin’.
Turned all my cain’ts to can’ts.
Traded my Piedmont roots,
so people didn’t have to taste
the red clay in my words.
 . 
Maeve Fox
from Kakalak 2025, Moonshine Review Press, Harrisburg NC; © 2025
 . 
 . 
❀    ❀    ❀    ❀    ❀
 . 
. . . the way sounds feel in my mouth. A poem is a song, a duet of heart and mind. A trio when soul joins the chorus. Maybe the poem conceives itself from words and story and form, but the poem lives in the wedding of music and meaning. A throaty rumble in my gut. A bright lance in my mind. The poem is the way sounds feel deep in the core of me.
 . 
Each of these two poems in its own way rumbles and trembles me. The earth goddess loves all creation enough to send feathered seedlets dancing. The root and spring of a person’s source never go dry but bubble to the surface. I find joy and celebration in these poems, and joy finds me.
 . 
And these poems are personal. Last week my granddaughter and I found dried pods at the edge of the garden – dogbane, cousin of milkweed – and peeled them apart to watch their delicate floss rise in the wind. My mother, born and raised in Winston-Salem, kept that faint sweetness in her voice for 96 years until her death last year. Whether she lived in Delaware, Michigan, Ohio, when neighbors would comment, “Cookie is from the South,” when she spoke all I ever heard was Mom. Thank you, Poetry, for connecting me to precious moments and to memories I need to live.
 . 
❀
 . 
Gina Malone (Waynesville, NC) asks What Does Anyone Know About Goddesses? in her new chapbook from Kelsay Books, 2025.
Maeve Fox (Hickory, NC) is a mediator who writes about LGBT and Appalachain life, and she has a new book from Redhawk, Letting Go of Me.
 . 
These poems (and author bios) are from the newest Kakalak anthology of poetry and art, published annually. Voices new and established. Songs of longing, songs of celebration. Purchase Kakalak HERE and consider submitting your own work in 2026.
 . 
❀    ❀    ❀    ❀    ❀
 . 
 . 
Thank you for visiting Verse and Image:
. . . . . every Friday I present one or two poems I’ve read this week that particularly speak to me;
. . . . . every Saturday I present one or two poems submitted by YOU, my readers.
 . 
If you would like to offer a poem for consideration, either by a favorite author or your own work, please view these GUIDELINES for Saturday Readers Share:
 . 
 . 
If you would like to receive an email each time a post appears, please SUBSCRIBE to Verse and Image using the button on the Home Page.
 . 
If you have a hard time finding the SUBSCRIBE button on this WordPress site, you can send me your email address and I will add you to the subscriber list. Send your request to
 . 
COMMENTS@GRIFFINPOETRY.COM
 . 
Thanks again for joining the conversation.
 . 
– Bill
 . 
Doughton Park Tree -- 5/1/2021
 . 

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Kakalak – Gilchrist, Doolittle

Posted in Imagery, tagged , , , , , , on January 2, 2026| 4 Comments »

 . 
[2 poems from Kakalak 2025]
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My 78-Year-Old Father Learns to Play Old Maid
 . 
Everything in the photograph is Christmas red. My father’s
flannel shirt. The rims of the cordial glasses, unpacked
 . 
once a year. My four-year-old’s fingernails. The light
from the last of the tapers, reflected on their skin. She’s leaning in,
 . 
hand forming a small swan’s beak – reaching to pick from the wide fan
of cards in his hand. Once, fathers like mine left early for tall buildings.
 . 
Home late. Whiskey and water and a few minutes to encircle us – clean
pajamas, wet hair – in cigarette smoke on their laps. So little time,
 . 
those fathers, even the good ones like mine. The bicycle-lesson fathers.
The Field Day fathers. Little time for tiny games of patience. For slowly
 . 
matching silly pictures into pairs, heads close. Is that what it is
about my father’s black glasses that catches me here?
 . 
Their stern perch halfway down his nose, as if reading stock report
after news article, year after year. But this night, narrowed to a child’s
 . 
game. As if nothing else matters. As if the whole world hinges
on which card this little girl will choose.
 . 
Paige Gilchrist
from Kakalak 2025, Moonshine Review Press, Harrisburg NC; © 2025
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❀    ❀    ❀
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Sleeping with the Window Open in an Old House
 . 
Funny how the screen keeps the dark
back along with the mosquitos.
 . 
The curtain sheers resemble ghosts
trying to climb out of their night
 . 
gowns. It helps that no one died in
this room. Because of all those stairs
 . 
it took to get up here. They slept
below, where my great aunt sleeps now,
 . 
climbing into her nineties. Sounds
slip through the mesh like gasps for breath.
 . 
The clock ticking on the bedside
table. Who could sleep in this heat?
 . 
Apparently, I do. Morning
slashes through the cool pools of air
 . 
puddled around my feet. My dreams
interrupted by one hundred
 . 
songs from one hundred song birds. Songs
of oranges and lemons. Songs
 . 
of coffee in the kitchen. Songs
from the garden in the yard. Songs
 . 
from my childhood, only deeper,
more tender. Blossoming together.
 . 
Deborah Doolittle
from Kakalak 2025, Moonshine Review Press, Harrisburg NC; © 2025
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IMG_1705
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❀    ❀    ❀    ❀    ❀
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Each of these poems captures a moment and holds it up to savor, lyrical, soft and clear as candlelight or morning sun. Each tells an expansive story as well, stretching across generations to bring the years and the people close, to cherish, to illuminate. I discover myself playing Fruits with my granddaughter. I feel this morning’s hubbub of family visitors giving way to a quiet second with Linda beside me.
 . 
From the swirl of confusion that threatens chaos – becoming father to my own father, father again to my grown son moved back home, grandfather to three approaching thresholds of uncertainty – from all that movement and clamor these two poems bring me to a center of stillness. They invite contemplation. They are songs sung in the clearest tenor, and in their melodies I can pause and begin to hear my own song, and hope to understand.
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❀
Paige Gilchrist (Asheville, NC) writes poetry, teaches yoga, and has been published widely, including Amethyst Review, ONE ART, Autumn Sky Poetry Daily, Heimat Review, Rattle, and Juniper.
Deborah Doolittle (Jacksonville, NC) has lived in many old houses. She is author of Floribunda, No Crazy Notions, That Echo, and Bogbound, and edits BRILLIG: a micro lit mag.
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Additional poems by Deborah Doolittle at Verse and Image:
 2020-03. 
Sample BRILLIG at Verse and Image:
 .2025-07 
These poems (and author bios) are from the newest Kakalak anthology of poetry and art, published annually. Voices new and established. Songs of longing, songs of celebration. Purchase Kakalak HERE and consider submitting your own work in 2026.
 . 
 . 
❀    ❀    ❀    ❀    ❀
 . 
Thank you for visiting Verse and Image:
. . . . . every Friday I present one or two poems I’ve read this week that particularly speak to me;
. . . . . every Saturday I present one or two poems submitted by YOU, my readers.
 . 
If you would like to offer a poem for consideration, either by a favorite author or your own work, please view these GUIDELINES for Saturday Readers Share:
 . 
 . 
If you would like to receive an email each time a post appears, please SUBSCRIBE to Verse and Image using the button on the Home Page.
 . 
If you have a hard time finding the SUBSCRIBE button on this WordPress site, you can send me your email address and I will add you to the subscriber list. Send your request to
 . 
COMMENTS@GRIFFINPOETRY.COM
 . 
Thanks again for joining the conversation.
 . 
– Bill
 
2016-10-17b Doughton Park Tree
 . . 

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Prost Neujahr!

Posted in Imagery, poetry, tagged , , , , , , , , , on December 27, 2024| 9 Comments »

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[with 3 poems from Kakalak 2024]
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How to Hold Small Things
 . 
You were this big,
Mom used to say,
cupping her hands
as if to keep a bowl
of holy water
from spilling.
 . 
Is that why I love
to hold small things?
Ladybugs. Twig tips.
Clover petals. Auger shells.
 . 
It’s in the way
we hold small things
that makes them precious,
how we tender moments,
keep them warm
and safe in our clutch –
the newborn kitten,
the wounded bird,
the crab shell that might blow away
if we’re not careful –
as if holding our breath
as we carry them
might keep something
inside of us
from breaking.
 . 
Tonight,
I hold you, baby girl,
cradle you against my chest,
your quick breaths
like scissored whispers,
your tiny fingers
thimble pinches,
and those blue eyes
dreaming with the fury
of newborn stars.
 . 
Michael Beadle – Raleigh, NC
from Kakalak 2024, Moonshine Press Review, Harrisburg NC; © 2024
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❦ ❦ ❦
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God Bless You! Whether I’m at Food Lion, the post office, Dad’s nursing home, even at church, whenever I sneeze some friend or perfect stranger invokes God on my behalf in that benediction. And I sneeze a lot (I even sneeze when I chew peppermint gum). God Bless You! comes a small voice from around the corner in the condiments aisle. Why?
 . 
A medieval superstition is one explanation. When you sneeze your soul is expelled from your body and a quick invocation prevents the devil from snatching it. Even earlier is a tale from the bubonic plague of 590 CE in Rome – a sneeze or cough might be the first manifestation of that fatal affliction, and since Pope Gregory had implored the populus to pray without ceasing for delivery, benedicat Deus was no doubt a universal refrain. When I sneeze, those three words are raised as a warding or talisman to protect me magically from death.
 . 
What about Gesundheit? It simply means health auf Deutsch. Raise a glass of lager in Frankfurt or Bonn and your companion will likely toast, Sei gesund! (Be healthy!, as in To your health!). When I was a student in Berlin, however, the standard invitation was Prost! I never actually knew what Prost meant and just assumed it had origins in some dark Prussian drinking tradition, but surprise!, it’s Latin – a contraction of prosit, may it be beneficial. Another kind of blessing.
 . 
But here’s my problem – I don’t want you commanding God to bless me. It’s not just because I enjoy sneezing. It’s not because when you say those words it feels superstitious and almost pagan – a little pagan is fine with me. I disagree with God Bless You at a fundamental level. God is not a jurist who bestows or withholds blessings depending on whim or quota or petition. God who is universal and who is the universe has already blessed me in the simple fact of my existence. The greatest additional blessing I might seek would be to recognize the goodness of this earth and of every creature, every person, around me.
 . 
I am already blessed. What if the phrase on everyone’s lips were God has blessed us! Or even better, God is blessing us! Could this become an antidote to consumerism, tribalism, the culture of resentment and entitlement? Could I be healed of my feverish striving for more and more blessings and my coveting of yours? Contrary to my nature, I feel pretty pessimistic about the state and the fate of humanity as 2024 approaches oblivion. Is there any good that will survive our human perversity? Instead of wishing a Happy New Year, I might rather wish for you and me both to discover one good thing and hold on tight. The beneficial, the good, is around here somewhere. It always is. As my Prussian friends would proclaim, Prost Neujahr!
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 . 
❦ ❦ ❦
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Upon Hearing U2’s “The Sweetest Thing” at the Harris Teeter in Friendly Center
 . 
I’m rushing through the grocery store on a Friday evening
after a long week, filled with deadlines, with news of another
sick friend. All I want to do is pick up a bottle of chardonnay,
a rotisserie chicken, and disappear into the weekend. I consider
buying some cookies too, and then among the masses pushing
their grocery carts, I hear the first chords of “The Sweetest Thing,”
on of my favorite songs, and stop, lean against the Oreos
and Chips Ahoy, and listen, at first only humming, then Bono’s
voice has me swaying in the aisle, and I start to sing louder
as people step farther away from me. But I don’t care. I need
this song, on this day, in this grocery store, and when I look up,
there’s a woman, about my age, staring at me, lip-syncing
the words. She steps forward and somehow we’re dancing
in the snack food aisle. I can’t tell you what she looks like
because we’re in motion, and The Edge is strumming his guitar,
and the whole damn week washes away as we hear a man
in a striped shirt, whom I assume is the manager, say Okay,
that’s enough now. She grabs my hand, and we run along
the back of the store, where the seafood counter guys smile
at us, and this one guy, who reminds me of my long-gone father
because of his graying beard, starts to clap, and my God,
his clapping, her hands in mine, this trip to Harris Teeter
feels like the sweetest thing in the whole wide world.
 . 
Steve Cushman – Greensboro, NC
from Kakalak 2024, Moonshine Press Review, Harrisburg NC; © 2024
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❦ ❦ ❦
 . 
One good thing that arrives as the New Year approaches is the annual Kakalak anthology. It grows each year and has become a gathering of almost two hundred artists and writers; this year there are dozens of names new to me. I especially appreciate the skill with which the editors curate micro-collections within the greater work, often placing several poems in sequence that share a theme or image, complimented by the art. Thank you to Julie Ann Cook, Angelo Geter, and David E. Poston for Kakalak 2024, and to benevolent deity Anne M. Kaylor who makes it happen and gives it life.
 . 
Purchase Kakalak 2024 HERE:
 . 
❦
 . 
Michael Beadle teaches kids to love poetry, to write poetry, to speak poetry.
Steve Cushman works in IT, which does not inhibit him from finding poetry in everything.
Jessi Waugh is well on the way to having everyone on Bogue Banks engaged in poetry.
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❦ ❦ ❦
 . 
Canopy Disengagement
 . 
The year is closing and won’t come again
 === this day, the way the sun slants shadows
through the space between leaves that will fall
 . 
and never grow again, the ones next year
 === will be different on a changed tree, you can’t
step into the same river twice
 . 
We look for patterns with our primitive minds
 === searching the space between leaves for meaning
and when there is none, we relax and drift
 . 
let the chaos of a system with a thousand variables
 === wash over us and defy explanation, why try?
O sweet surprise, oh symphony of endless instruments
 . 
My child grows taller by the day and further away
 === The tree watches each lost leaf with a sigh
We’ve done our jobs, these rules aren’t yours or mine
 . 
Only the space between leaves and the moment
 === the sun shines through us and the blaze of blood
orange fire as the wind plays with your hair
 . 
I lose the pattern and accept the asymmetry
 === heart lightened by knowing there’s nothing more
I could do, nothing more would make you stay
 . 
We step into the everchanging river your palm in mine
 === and a red sweetgum hand lands like a swirling gem
Your fingers disengage to catch it, the wind blows
 . 
And the space between leaves shifts slightly above us
 . 
Jessi Waugh – Pine Knoll Shores, NC
from Kakalak 2024, Moonshine Press Review, Harrisburg NC; © 2024
 . 
❦ ❦ ❦
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