As my favorite aunt is put to rest my mother lay in oblivion in some east coast hospital after multiple tumbles from her aged horse’s back, and all the while, I meditate on death. Tonight, I think of how death teaches us the gift of how to live— crocheted family mortalities cupped by answers to... Continue Reading →
Omnipotence by James Croal Jackson
Your laugh could knock civilization out but you are too modest. I spent time at the cafeteria alone at school. Red trays quivered. On film sets I can’t look up. How tight is the lighting rig? When I apply that logic to our place in the universe– it’s too cold a stone to live alone.... Continue Reading →
Honest Enough by Lynn White
You ask me how I am, how I feel, what I’ve been doing, if it is me that I write about. Is it honest what I’m saying. Well, what is honest and how would I know. There are many sides to honesty. It’s impressionable. My impressions, yours, someone else's all joined up by me. Redesigned... Continue Reading →
Failing, Failing by Peter J. Dellolio
This man with the salt and pepper mustache, the soft grey folds of hair, my father...failing, failing to respond to the comforting phrases. The same words uttered routinely: Relax, relax they say, but the bed sheets are knotted, his arms tied keeping tubes in place. And he struggles, he remains in bed, tied to the... Continue Reading →
Foggy River by Marius Alexandru
The dreams flew shrouded in gray, The mist settled like a quilt of smoke, A magic veil that obscured the way as the river whispered secrets as it spoke. A mirror reflecting the unknown, Like a cloak of mystery hiding the truth, The fog disguises what it has shown; the sad memories of my wild... Continue Reading →
Into this Subtle Light I Stare by David Dumouriez
Night is only night - the years will tell us that. Dark, in all its many shades, is more a constant presence than an overlooking threat, the pointer to that subtle light ahead that focuses our thoughts, diffuses dreams, and frames our current truths. And so, and so I look, and I construct and deconstruct,... Continue Reading →
Painful by Brian Hardie
I’m strolling about the city deeper now at a calm… inside the handsome sunglass setting swung roses like a blind planetarium kindness now you will obtain numb syntax expressive to wit perhaps a breath pencil it in death was thrown last evenin' frosted by a smile with burden creating the end/ putrid breath from across... Continue Reading →
Insomnia by Scott Thomas Outlar
I stared at red digits on the alarm clock for months, slowly going crazy as I tried to fall asleep. I turned around in the bed, trying to find respite down at the foot board. I read books trying to become drowsy, but wound up ripping them apart and smashing them into walls when the... Continue Reading →
Lux Aeterna by Donald Sellitti
A death knell rung in light, not sound; pealing from the surface of a rust-stained concrete smokestack in a sky that seemed had never been without them. Flashing red on foggy nights and moonlit ones; on days that always felt like Sunday. But for the most interior of rooms there was no refuge from their... Continue Reading →
Slowing Down
Dear Readers, I just wanted to send a quick note to let everyone know that Ephemeral Elegies will be slowing down and going back to one poem a week for the foreseeable future. It's been great to be able to produce more content over the last few months, and I'm so grateful for all the... Continue Reading →