4 AM dreams
I hang upside down
an unseen monster
claw-gripping my ankles
I silent scream until I can’t breathe
my voice dies first
I witness a man hurtle his child
pummel his wife
every phone I use to
call the police does not work
I don’t know how to help
It’s 4:54am when I look at the clock
on my cell the white-light numbers
in and out of blurs
I get out of bed
pee a long pee
crawl back into bed
my body’s warmth still baking in the sheets
I’m afraid to close my eyes
repeat over and over
It’s not real
It’s not real
It’s not real
but it is
NPM: Windsor’s Resilient Voices
The City of Windsor put out a call to poets to write six-line poems about resilience for National Poetry Month. Poems chosen will be posted in vaccination facilities and on buses throughout the city. Congratulations to the poets whose fine work will now grace our city and offer hope and love to the community.
To read the poems and see who wrote them, CLICK HERE.
Thank you to the City of Windsor for creating this literary gem!
SUBMISSION WHIMS
Sometimes I submit my writing on a whim. That is…I see a submission call or the name of an agent and something inside me squeezes me to a stop, says: submit to this. Yesterday as I was attempting for the millionth time to get a handle on my inbox, I read quickly through an email from Brian Henry at Quick Brown Fox. A literary agency in New York is looking for YA manuscripts. I scanned the names, saw the word ‘poetry’, and thought, hold on, this agent is a writer and she has poetry published too? It was enough to get me deep-searching in the bowels of my laptop for my Hangman manuscript. Haven’t submitted it since 2019. In any case, I tightened up my synopsis, revised my query letter, and without thinking too hard about it, I sent my query and 10 pages of the manuscript off to this agent who is also a poet/writer. The trigger was ‘poetry’. Sometimes, that’s all it takes to turn an ember of courage into a flame that moves you into action. Follow your whims. They’re part of the living the dream, no matter what the outcome.
VANESSA SHIELDS, writer 