Category: Poetry

Red Flag is so much more than just postcards!

We also publish digitally, every other month, via the Poetry Express. This format gives us the freedom to publish work that won’t fit on a postcard but still needs to be shared with the world.

On this page, you will find all of our past Poetry Express poems with information about their authors. If you like these poems and want to get even more poetry delivered directly to your mailbox, head over to our subscribe page!

4/2/2024 Comments

Meredith Davidson: "Some Man's Folly"

Some Man's Folly

Somewhere between the teeth
grinding & the lines snorted in the
bathroom to foil the cries of drunk
girls mishued & the full on
constriction of the dichotomous –
we would like to rename the Prime Meridian.
And the land mass and the
conceptual “space” and the spin of a
CD worth thirteen dollars and fifty-two cents
we sought to speak sense
with all the sensibilities of all the east
of Eden, but all the idealism too.
But the speech was blinding in its
wax but in its wane.

I marvel at the cycles.
The thresholds to repeatedly cross to
expect anything but a blind cliff
upon foretold arrival.
I’m just drowning in the same verbs

I don’t approve of lakes without
lifelines to the oceans.
Is it so much to expect a foyer
or at least a foundation
something consistent with
blueprints, please, or what did we
hire you for?

I was in Ireland.
And at the bed & breakfast where my
sister spilled tea all across the fine
Irish linen there was a foyer.
Beneath the table directly across from
the entrance, a taxidermized
fox. And on the table to the left, a
bird of prey, and to the right another
immortalized corpse of a creature
and yet nowhere for one
to seat oneself.
Now, I’m not one to question
the recreation of psychopaths
––in fact I rather support it
in spite of the implications––
but it’s speckled the fine splayed
hairs of this lung with resin
and not even the craftsman can
recreate the original organ.
These creatures may rest in this
place, but have you prescient heart and
beating mind–you may not stay here.
Move through, your room is upstairs.

After arrival but before that
fine Irish linen’s destruction,
the innkeeper and I took a walk about
the property & came upon a
prodigious stone tower not unlike the
ruins of castles I’d come upon along
the inverse roads of the home country.
Marveling at its height and
architecture and plain existence, I
inquired as to the origins and
purpose of the tower.
“Oh that?” The innkeeper scoffed,
penetrably, “just some man’s folly.”

Meredith MacLeod Davidson is a poet and writer from Virginia, currently based in Scotland, where she recently earned an MLitt in Creative Writing from the University of Glasgow. Meredith has poems in Propel Magazine, Cream City Review, Frozen Sea, and elsewhere, and serves as senior editor for Arboreal Literary Magazine.

Comments

3/16/2017 Comments

Corey Mesler: "We Wanted Loose Change"

We Wanted Loose Change

We spent long darknesses
over greasy food
in cracked booths and
washed out glasses.
We learned the difference
between lay and lie,
and between Susie who loved
and Laurie who never
would. We were full of
pain because we
felt better listing to one side.
In our fists we
carried the fight into the
light. We tried to make
poems out of whatever
we were holding. We
tried to make love out
of whatever we were holding:
phone numbers, cigarettes, loose
change. We wanted readers
and chums. We wanted loose change.

Corey Mesler has been published in numerous anthologies and journals including: Poetry, Gargoyle, FIve Points, Good Poems American Places, and Esquire/Narrative. He has published 9 novels, 4 short story collections, and 5 full-length poetry collections. He has been nominated for the Pushcart many times, and 2 of his poems were chosen for Garrison Keillor’s Writer’s Almanac. With his wife he runs a 141 year-old bookstore in Memphis. He can be found at: https://coreymesler.wordpress.com.

Comments

1/20/2016 Comments

Shawn McClure: LULLABY

Lullaby

you: conjured
with a
lover's prayer
so real i can
feel your
long arm reach
the length of me
stroke the pink tinged
hills and valleys
and smooth away
the miles
you: still the
heaving land
and silence
lips with a finger,
breath laced with
low sounds
that steam
cotton and skin
touch the tender
and livid streams
you: spread me
like cloud shadows,
a tapestry of light
and dark across
untilled fields
and quiet the beat
of want that throbs
inside me
like a second heart,
so i can sleep secret,
sacred

Shawn McClure is a visual artist and writer who resides in central New Jersey with her husband and two children. She has a passion for nature, science, and beauty found in unexpected places.

Some of her writing can be found at:
http://freshkeko.wordpress.com/

and her photo journal can be seen here:
https://tookapic.com/shawn

Comments

10/20/2015 Comments

JOHN DORSEY: icarus Revisited

icarus revisited

juan stood chatting nervously
trading his dreams
for another lost love
& a glass of diet cola
with some poorly mixed spiced rum
as guests danced around
his problems like paper thin shadows
awaiting an
invisible sunset

christina & i handed him a card
wished him a happy birthday
and turned to leave
when he started taking out his hearing aids
& walked out onto the penthouse patio

learning to fly from eight stories up
in the philadelphia skyline

like a swan on fire
he almost made it
look easy

an outsider in
his
own heart
blowing unrequited kisses
at the pavement

where ex-lovers looked like ants
swooning to a silent ballet
only he knew the words to

making beautiful music
composing his melody

in blood.

John Dorsey is the author of several collections of poetry, including “Teaching the Dead to Sing: The Outlaw’s Prayer” (Rose of Sharon Press, 2006), “Sodomy is a City in New Jersey” (American Mettle Books, 2010), “Tombstone Factory” (Epic Rites Press, 2013), “Natural Selection: Early Poems” (Kilmog Press, 2014) and most recently, "Imaginary Foxholes" (Rusty Truck Press, 2015). His work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. He may be reached at [email protected]

Comments

YOUR CART

Meredith Davidson: "Some Man's Folly"

Corey Mesler: "We Wanted Loose Change"

Shawn McClure: LULLABY

JOHN DORSEY: icarus Revisited

Authors

Archives

Categories