poetry journal

My light is shining.

~ Ali Grimshaw ~ 12 Comments

A big thank you to Susi Bocks for sharing my voice on, “The Short of It.” I invite you to visit her site, iwriteher.com, for a reading of my short poems including this one. Thank you to all the readers that keep poetry alive.

Photo by Andre Furtado on Pexels.com
Thunderstorm Conversations

Lean into the loud
hold curiosity’s hand
consider this thundering
consider it may not mean what you thought.

This crack clashing boom 
only an illusion of danger.

Maybe it isn’t a disastrous end
but a calling of resounding strength
a breaking through from your ancestors
reverberating out across the sky,

“We are with you.”

Ali Grimshaw 2020

If you’d like to be featured on The Short of It, click here for the submissions guidelines.

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Poem up on Visual Verse

~ Ali Grimshaw ~ 9 Comments
artwork by ali

My poem, A WHITE WOMAN ASKS HERSELF IF SHE IS THE ONE, is up on Visual Verse. Click on the link to read it. The photograph offered as the prompt brought up deep emotions for me. I hope you will visit Visual Verse to see it for yourself and read the many poems that it inspired.

Thank you to Visual Verse for sharing my words.

Visual Verse is a collaboration. An anthology of art, poetry, short fiction and non-fiction. Each month we supply a compelling image and invite writers – published or unpublished – to submit a piece in response.

Visual Verse is a celebration. Of the drama of seeing and the desire to express it. Of the things that inspire us, move us, and that we find hardest to articulate.

Visual Verse is a challenge. We offer you the chance to experience the rush of writing without overthinking. Sometimes strange, sometimes beautiful, let the picture be the start of something you can’t predict: your own response.

Poetry Over Panic Online Writing Group

~ Ali Grimshaw ~ 17 Comments

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“Poetry gives you permission to feel.” – James Autry

As the world shifts, I am looking for ways to give. With all the emotions swirling, we are faced with finding healthy ways to process them. Reflective writing using poetry has met that need for me and others I have written with. This is why I have created some group writing circles to provide this for others.

My hope is that, by writing and reflecting together, we can learn from this unusual time, and face it with loving curiosity. It would be especially wonderful to write with others across the globe. If this calls you you please click the link for a free ticket.

Poetry Over Panic: Women’s Writing Circle for Positive Self Reflection

“Poetry provides guidance, revealing what you did not know you knew…” John Fox

We are stronger when we lean on and learn from one another.

Join me as we continue forward into the unexpected.

Love,

Ali

 

Thank you Right Hand Pointing

~ Ali Grimshaw ~ 27 Comments

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I am honored to have my poem, Absent, in the current issue of Right Hand Pointing, Issue #135 Sneak Attack.Thank you to Dale Wisely and Laura M. Kaminski for sharing my voice. Since 2004 Right Hand Pointing has been providing a fulfilling combination of short poetry, very short fiction, art, and other things. I have been inspired multiple times by their past issues.

Tomorrow – Poem by Ali Grimshaw

~ Ali Grimshaw ~ 13 Comments

image

We can not walk

without placing our

feet upon a past life.

Leaves layered, give

way to decay

to nourish the next.

What ground can I

cultivate with shelter

for those neglected seeds

that are tomorrow’s hope?

© Alicia Grimshaw 2019

Thank you Howard – Poem by Ali Grimshaw

~ Ali Grimshaw ~ 15 Comments

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Without you, Howard

I may have forgotten

these ten fingers of mine

are printed like no other.

 

Like a tree with many sturdy limbs

who has forgotten

that it gives shade to smaller ones

where nests reside holding blue eggs.

 

Don’t ask what the world needs.

Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it.

Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.

– Howard Thurman

Threads – a poem by Ali Grimshaw

~ Ali Grimshaw ~ 16 Comments

Thank you to Amethyst Review for sharing my poem, Threads. If you are a poetry lover please give this site a visit.

Amethyst Review

Threads

I am
just one
frayed
wound tight
coarsely made
tested by force
twisted resiliency
bound to others
strained with weight
threatened by blades
mended from attention
unequally created companion
equally essential thread
of the human fabric
crafted with care
weakened by wear
the loss of one
compromises
the whole
tapestry
to tear.

Ali Grimshaw is the author of Flashlight Batteries, https://flashlightbatteries.blog/ a poetry blog for those struggling in darkness and tough times. Her poems have been published in Vita Brevis, Poetry Breakfast and Ghost City Review.

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Recycled

~ Ali Grimshaw ~ 34 Comments

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Seeing them together

caused my pause

to write a gift for you

on scraps found. My pen

pulled my hand along

(it is braver than I).

It knows how to lay

my heart wide open,

like a prairie to the sky

nowhere to hide

expansive and still,

miles from adequate

for what I wish to give.

© Ali Grimshaw (rewrite 2019)

d’Verse Open Link Night #238

ON A SPACE CALLED LAND

~ Ali Grimshaw ~ 15 Comments

The voice of a poem can pull your feet from the muck and this one did so for me this morning. Therefore, I am sharing it forward with the hope that it free your feet as well. It comes from  SINGING HEART POEMS, STORIES & MUSINGS BY KAREM BARRATT

ON A SPACE CALLED LAND

And so it happens that we are all walkers:

Runners, joggers, skippers;

Trail blazers, some of us.

Path finders.

And that is the answer of the ages.

Of the “who am I” and “what am I doing here.”

We are machete wielders, creating

The path unique to ourselves,

To our laughter and our tears.

We are charterers of the unknown

Jungles that our lives are, similar

To many, yet different in every sense.

We do not travel the road less travelled:

We create the way.

We build the bridge, draw the maps,

Write the memoirs that the

Next generation will forget or

Misunderstand, because I am not

You, nor you I, and my yellow

Brick road is  blondish, buttery white,

Whilst yours is coppery gold.

And so, like the Spanish poet

Said, dear walker, there is no road.

The road is rendered by your feet when

You start your walk.

And that is life. And who you are.

A walker of dreams on a space called land.

By K. Barratt