First Thought will be on hiatus effective now through the holiday season. I’ll send an email out when operations resume and will remove this post, but will not be reading or accepting submissions until then. I hope you all find the holidays inspiring this year.

Kevin

Congratulations to Howie Good, one of First Thought’s regular contributors, on the publication of his poetry collection “Lovesick,” which is now available through Amazon. Here is the link:

Lovesick

Waves

“You’re interested in making

waves not in feeling them,” my wife

said to me. But I’m not really

sure I understand why

she said it or what it means.

SIDE EFFECTS MAY INCLUDE

waking in the morning still drunk,

problems with zippers,


dull visits from the better angel of your nature,

self-attempts at a heart tattoo,


occupation by an army of mercenaries,

a neighbor who keeps goats,


fear of drowning in the bathtub

curiously fat fingers, and, in severe cases,


a soul like a broken shoelace.




Howie Good, a journalism professor at the State University

of New York at New Paltz, is the author of eight poetry

chapbooks.  His first full-length book of poetry,

Lovesick, is forthcoming from The Poetry Press of Press

Americana.

PASSERS-BY

We stay here only for a while

Passers-by

We come in for a cup of tea

And leave when it gets cold

Leave to oblivion

So don’t pray to your gods

They have nothing to do with it

Katarzyna was born in Poland and brought up in the city of Krakow. She graduated from the Jagiellonian University with an MA in Oriental Philology. She traveled extensively before marrying and settling in London in 1999. Her work has been published in Angelic Dynamo.

Hand-in-Hand

You have held it in your hands too:
the mist of evening’s falling,
and know that calling now
can never raise the palms,
too heavy for the memory.

Richard Spuler is the Senior Lecturer in German at the Center for the Study of Languages, Rice University. Spuler’s writings have appeared in numerous literary magazines. Someday he’d like to write a book.

1964/2004

Screedmetalling  “For  Sale” signage
Sings a strange song in the wind,
Billowing up the Mardyke Road .
Jet airliner in evening sky
Trails sun-tinted cidonate,
As I begin to feel the chill of years gone bye,
Again listening to my fathers voice,laying
Down law to my eldest sister,
On those sixties dance halls, boyfriends,
And all that hippy-hippy-shaking stuff.

Patrick Walsh is from Cork, Ireland, with works published in ezines and print journals, most recently in The Ugly Tree, Sharp (Univ. of Galway) and Tintean (the Australian diaspora journal).

Discovery

When you come up for air, young friend
you will discover
the sparkling beauty in your pain
creating self
a well of depth
unparalleled strength
and endearing connections
unknown
undiscovered
without it

Bio: Elizabeth writes short fiction, haiku, and poetry. She has been published in, or has work forthcoming in RKVRY online journal, Ascent Aspirations, Roadrunner haiku journal, Shamrock haiku journal, First Thought, Spotlight on Recovery magazine, Word Riot, Mastodon Dentist, Flashshot, Midnight Times and more.

BLIMP

“I didn’t think
they
could sleep in
a blimp,”
she said watching
it floating high
in the sky
over the ball field
like a bloated old turtle.

NOTA BENE

even the time you were gone went quick

even the hurt in your place in me

did not make the days any longer

maybe to you on the trail they were

when it led you from time to mountain

maybe I’m out of your memory

Rodney Nelson’s work continues to appear in a variety of electronic journals and a few print. See his entry in the online Poets & Writers directory. A book titled Fargo is due this year, also Mere Telling, a chapbook. Nelson lives in the Great Plains.