Transitions

Betsy Joseph

January 28, 2024

It’s time for all to bid adieu

to a year now wholly spent

and think upon the deeds now done

and where they’ve left us since.

For those who now fare better

than they fared the year before,

let us lift a cup of gladness

to what has been restored.

For others who have keenly felt

an altered state in health,

may the coming year bring hope and faith

and calm the fears that illness dealt.

May we breathe free with open hearts,

sing truth throughout our land,

stay deaf to that which makes no sense

and on no balance stands.

Betsy Joseph lives in Dallas and has poems which have appeared in a number of journals and anthologies. She is the author of two poetry books published by Lamar University Literary Press: Only So Many Autumns (2019) and most recently, Relatively Speaking (2022), a collaborative collection with her brother, poet Chip Dameron.

In addition, she and her husband, photographer Bruce Jordan, have produced two books, Benches and Lighthouses, which pair her haiku with his black and white photography.

Annus Novus

Antoinette F. Winestead

January 7, 2024

Last year resides in memory

sepia-tinged and crumbling

faded afterthoughts 

reduced to nostalgic wonder

if not captured with pen and paper

or in photographic image

like so many, soon forgotten.

Three-hundred-and sixty-five days

all but a handful remembered

time lived with little recollection

sped through in anticipation

of greater, better

that no longer matters

yet seemed so relevant.

Ahead lies an annus novus

of unspent days, weeks

through which to speed

or creep

seconds collected into hours

either wisely pondered

or foolishly squandered.

When the calendar ends

twelve months hence

what memories will remain

of the three-hundred-and-sixty-five days?

In hopeful calculations

let not one moment be wasted

in unremarkable recreations.

Let this new year be well remembered

as none before

recollected for time spent with a miser’s reserve

on only that worthy of remembrance

long after ink fades and photos lose image

each day remembered as overfilled with moments

of joy and laughter – love exceeding nostalgia.

Antoinette F. Winstead, a poet, playwright, director, and actor, teaches film and theater courses at Our Lady of the Lake University where she serves as the Program Head for the Drama program. Her poetry has been published in The Ekphrastic Review, Langdon Review of the Arts in Texas, and Voice de la Luna.  In 2022, her poem “Life Is” was nominated for a 2022 Pushcart Prize by the editor of Jerry Jazz Musician.

Seasonal Nostalgia

Milton Jordan

December 31, 2023

We showed interest then in things local,

still read our small city Daily Press 

each evening after supper, commented

on the newly hired school superintendent,

our downtown department store closing,

took the Houston papers Sunday only

with their expanded color comics sections,

Our sports pages then headlined local rivalries,

buried national rankings on page three,

bowl games began after Christmas, majors

on New Year’s Day when your hand-shelled blackeyes

simmered and my cornbread sat oven-ready,

our radio tuned to Lindsay Nelson

broadcasting live from a Fair Park press box. 

Milton Jordan lives with Anne in Georgetown, Texas. He co-edited the first Texas Poetry Assignment anthology, Lone Star Poetry, Kallisto Gaia Press, 2022.

Dirt

Vincent Hostak

December 31, 2023

Keep the dirt a little longer.

Your people knew the broom should wait.

So early in the year is not a time for toil.

All the tiny particles of luck cling to its molecules,

journeyed on cat’s paws and plumbers’ shoes to be here,

riding every tiny cyclone that passed your threshold.

You should be so lucky as to travel on a sigh,

to have met the Queen of the Prairie,

known the love of the grass you nourished, living unsettled,

content to briefly colonize the corners of a cottage.

If this is not enough, think of the riches in every clump:

fragments of silicon, calcium, iron and salt.

Your elders stayed the urge and hid the feathered cornhusks,

while the natal year began to blink and curl and rise. So can you.

Vincent Hostak is a writer and media producer from Texas now living near the Front Range of Colorado south of Denver. His recently published poems are found in the journals Sonder Midwest and the Langdon Review of the Arts in Texas and as a contributor to the TPA. He writes & produces the podcast: Crossings-the Refugee Experience in America.

Pot of Black-Eyed Peas

Kathryn Jones

December 31, 2023

We eat them for good luck on New Year’s Day,

a Southern tradition dating to the Civil War.

Also called a cowpea, Old World plant 

from Africa, food of survival. 

My slave ancestors added rice and ham

to the dish, called it Hoppin’ John. 

They seasoned it with memories, all

they could bring with them across an ocean. 

I pull out my grandmother’s old bean pot, 

hammered aluminum, lid with wooden knob, 

iron handle, blackened bottom from years of use.

The ritual begins: soak the dried peas overnight, 

sauté onion and celery, toss in bacon or ham, 

add plumped peas, chicken broth, simmer.

Cook a side of greens, symbol of money. 

Bake a pan of cornbread, symbol of gold.

Hope simmers in the pot of black-eyed peas

even though we cannot consume enough of them

to counter all the evil in the world. 

We eat them anyway, salted with wishes

for prosperity, equality, an end to division.

Afterward I wash the pot, store it away

until the ritual begins again and I make 

another batch, strength for another year.

Kathryn Jones is a journalist, essayist, author, and poet. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Texas Monthly, and in the anthologies A Uniquely American Epic: Intimacy and Action, Tenderness and Action in Sam Peckinpah’s The Wild Bunch (University Press of Kentucky, 2019) and Pickers and Poets: The Ruthlessly Poetic Singer-Songwriters of Texas. Her poetry has been published on tejacovido.com, in the Langdon Review of the Arts in Texas, and Odes and Elegies: Eco-Poetry from the Texas Gulf Coast. She was inducted into the Texas Institute of Letters in 2016.

A New Start

Donna Freeman

December 17, 2023

I’d like to begin again.

Like spring’s earliest hours 

I’ll burst forth fresh,

grow from tender sprout

to full flower

all under the watch

of a caring sun.

My legs will jump high

over hidden rocks, 

kick away thorny twigs,

last year’s doubts.

ready to face all obstacles

that can lie ahead. 

This time around

I’ll walk the path

eyes wide open,

stopping to greet,  

welcome all,

young and old

big and small.

The New Year, new time

to make amends,

do penance for the past,

I will, if I can,

do it right again and again.

Please join me on this trip

I’d love your company.

If I see you

I will welcome you.  

Gratefully.

Donna Freeman is a retired elementary teacher and clinical social worker. She has been writing poetry since age twelve. Her poetry has appeared in journals, several ekphrastic exhibits, as well as previous Texas Poetry Assignments. Donna was born in New York but has lived in the West, the  Midwest, and New England, and she has traveled through most of the country. She presently resides in Rhode Island with her husband who to prove that opposites attract, was raised in California.

Solstice Somewhere

Thomas Hemminger

December 10, 2023

Winter Solstice starts the stretching

of the daylit hours. 

But, it is the longest night. 

We must endure the darkness

for a time, 

before the light returns. 

It is always solstice

somewhere. 

Someplace, someone 

is enduring their 

darkest night. 

Hold on.

Thomas Hemminger is an elementary music teacher living in Dallas, Texas. His personal hero is Mr. Fred Rogers, the creator of Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood. It was through America’s favorite “neighbor” that Thomas learned of the importance of loving others, and of giving them their own space and grace to grow.