Thank you to Editor Glory Sasikala for publishing my poem in the June Issue of GloMag.

https://view.joomag.com/glomag-glomagjune2019/0602885001561778993?short

Thank you to Brian Geiger at Vita Brevis for publishing my poem.

https://vitabrevisliterature.com/poems/changing-lanes-poem-by-linda-imbler/




Photo Courtesy of Vita Brevis
"Figures in the Street" by Pierre Bonnard

Changing Lanes

As one breathes in
the beauty of nature,
and life’s greatest treasures,
another breathes out,
and all becomes still,
as they go into memory.

One falls down,
the fault of such action
being tricky to discern,
the wayside becomes the lover
as the faller clings to the ground.
Another stands up,
rises to greet the day
and to face adversity.

All of us on life’s great footpath,
going the same direction,
albeit at different speeds.

Thank you to Editor Jessica Brant for publishing my poem in Blognostics.

https://blognostics.net/blognostics-an-innovative-experience-in-literature-poetry-and-art/2019/06/26/pink-flamingo-by-linda-imbler/




Pink Flamingo

Pink flamingo,
stretches her long neck skyward.
Soft touch,
feathery.
Flame colored,
calls are uttered.
In places of captivity, their wings are clipped.
Chicks that do not stay inside their creches
could be vulnerable to predators.
But they really are miraculous birds,
and very capable flyers.
Pink flamingo,
well fed,
ingesting much,
vibrantly colored,
flies so high.

Thank you to Brian Geiger of Vita Brevis for posting "Literary teapots."

https://vitabrevisliterature.com/poems/literary-teapots-poem-by-linda-imbler/

Literary Teapots

Pour a cup of thought,
gulping words as you tip the book,
and ingest
some witty phrase
or concussive publication,
until the liquid saturates your brain,
as you contemplate the weight of snow and rain
and the airiness and lift of sun and light.

All manner of heroes and monsters,
drunk from that large cyclopedic cup.

Thank you to The Literary Librarian for publishing my cinquain.

Echo (Cinquain)

Echo

distant and tuned.

Reflects back all you’ve said.

You feel glad your words have import.

Response.

Puzzle

Please do not try

to unravel the puzzle of me.  

Just accept me, and if you

discover my truths,

just smile

because I’ve done the same

to those who are my friends.

I found the courage

not to tell them

I know their secrets.

The Man in the Derby Hat

The man in the derby hat

hears his songbird tweeting

but it evokes no joy for him

because today is a dark day.

That’s pronounced de-pression.

The man in the derby hat 

walks the hills and villages 

around where he lives 

but it evokes no wonder in him.

Because today is a gloomy day.

All colors are dull.

Music and laughter are grating.

Food is tasteless

and the air is stale.

The man in the derby hat

sees the cliff

and decides that is

a good place from which to fly.

Like his songbird,

he sends his last tweet.

And. 

Ahhh, memories!

Summer Vacation Memories ‘66

Bicycle card spokes fluttering with ticking thumps,

sunny afternoons under sheets as tents,

the click of go-go boots dancing on pavement

the sound of pop music adding depth and cheer

bleeping from transistor radios

the lilting ice cream truck,

the snap of freshly laundered damp sheets on clotheslines

in the summer breeze

the rumbly engine of the bookmobile

saving us from ennui,

telling tales in books we read,

transporting us to new world 

when we get bored

with the same old street

the doppler of cars passing by 

as we whiz around on roller skates

porch lights now shining, 

telling us the day is done

and the tired trudge home must begin.

Music of the Spheres

When you are passionately musical, 

sound can be ecstacy. Life is holy.

  

Dissonance is a deep, corporeal gash.  

Every piece of sheet music is gem-encrusted, 

a potential or attained nirvana.  

Sour notes are tooth jangling and cacaphonic, 

and cause your pores to seal.

But the soothe of mellifluous melody 

penetrates like God straight into your bones.

Thank you to The McKinley Review for posting two of my poems in their Summer Issue #6.

https://www.themckinleyreview.com/issue-6-summer-2019

Here is one of them:

Paper Dolls Left in the Rain

By: Linda Imbler | Posted on: Summer 2019

​

I must remember to grab the right half of truth,

that clarity sometimes breathed at dawn.

And remember the radiant substance 

of our friendship.

Knowing you long ago,

and all the colorless girls and boys,

and what transpired 

within a mere fraction of my life,

might seem to others as weak,

but what power it held.

Hearing of your silent death

throws such wistfulness my way,

and I can no longer truly feel

our reminiscences without you at the other end.

And though I wish to stop 

and really relive my best years,

the ritual of time is pulling me along,

pulling me beyond 

the demarcation line 

between childhood to adult.

Thank you to Yvonne Brewer for publishing my poem on Y's Words.






(Painting from Etsy by Theresa Stahl, Owls Flight Artwork)
Courtesy of Theresa and Yvonne Brewer

Breaking the Sound Barrier

Make each day your own as each morn’s begun.
Heeding the glory of the sound before
the worst is set to fall, like salmon run
upstream and butterflies must deplore
the trap of the cocoon wherein once stored,
they’re held tightly no more.

Thank you to Sunil Sharma for publishing my two poems in Setu Bilingual Journal.

https://www.setumag.com/2019/05/poetry-linda-imbler.html




Clear Window

My early admiration
of dawn’s neon vibrancy,
through cold window panes,
on a crystalline morning.

The normal thick traffic
of feathered creatures
which passed across the yard-
absent.

What lay on the ground,
a small bird,
clearly in need of rescue,
its tiny wings semaphoring at me-
someone’s abandoned child.

In time, I healed it without naming it,
and on the day of its release
wondered to where it might now fly.

And although present time is unique,
thus, it is so for later days
my hope, that some echo of kindness
will fly into my future.

This is paid back yearly,
when my plumaged friend
returns each Spring,
and peeks through
my clear window,
and waves at me.





Beautifully Broken

I dreamt last night,
but never slept,
unfolding my story
as loose images,
without plot,
without resolution,
trancing along to the blur
of the ceiling fan above me.

The woeful shatter
of my soul,
felt and heard,
above the dissonant void
of this room,
as relevant tears.

I, beautifully broken.

A big thank you to Sorina Ivan and the Editorial Team at Universul Culturii for publishing my two poems.

https://universulculturii.wordpress.com/2019/06/01/poetry-by-linda-imbler/

History’s Outlaws Revised

Once upon a time,
the knowers knew,
then devotion to the written word
was squelched.

Once used for remembrance,
there was birthed a forbidden bloom of ink,
and truth, as king, was tumbled from the throne.

The tendency for reflection became lost
as we gave over to the inconsequential,
never more imagining our potential.

It’s easier to hold on to today
than to reach for tomorrow.
And with our history lost
in the dark abyss of forgetfulness,
our destiny will be set by others.

And we’ll go where we are taken.

And all the songs you,
as an individual, now sing
silently inside the now,
will come to fade.

Without convictions,
we stand as cogs
within the clocks
as time marches forward.

The Shades of Smoke

The smell of burning leaves and ripened apples
as Fall closes in

displaced.

Chicago cracked,
the blast of pin on cap,

while goodhearted tramps sleep atop empty knapsacks.

Lay your pen upon the stone,
for now, all colors will remain unwritten

and every child,
lucky enough to have the nutrition
of a bowl of alphabet soup,
will still spell the word “despair” with the letter noodles
as the liquid grows cold.

And they will carry the enduring inelegance
of stiff upper lips
into the future.

Dreams in decay,
while the new Rome burns.