The Lost Notebook

I looked for it everywhere I could think to look. Under chairs and beds. In the clutter on the kitchen counter. Behind cushions. No luck. I’ve lost my notebook or had it stolen. The notebook is nothing fancy, a simple assignment pad like the ones we used in school. But I might as well have lost my soul. The notebook contains notes for poems and explosions. I’ve been unable to proceed without it. Words won’t obey like they once did. I’m a mirror without glass, a rocket ship without blastoff, a donor heart without a box to put it in.From Guest Contributor Howie Good

Howie's latest poetry collection, True Crime, is scheduled to be published by Sacred Parasite in early 2026.

Raking Leaves

Raking leaves

is an exercise in the good-enough.

You will never get them all.

You come to prize

the strong, steady stroke of the rake,

the appropriate armful that you lift

into the waiting wheelbarrow.

The maple leaves which from a distance

appear two-tone, red and silver,

reveal a soul-satisfying palette

from crimson to lavender.

A leaf falls in your hair and tickles your neck.

You cover the lily beds

with their winter blanket,

a gorgeous quilt

in five-pointed patchwork.

You’re no good at quilting, but it doesn’t matter.

Raking leaves is an object lesson

in Lamott’s “shitty first drafts.”

From Guest Contributor Cheryl Caesar

Cheryl lived in Paris, Tuscany and Sligo for 25 years; she earned her doctorate in comparative literature at the Sorbonne and taught literature and phonetics. She now teaches writing at Michigan State University. Last year she published over a hundred poems in the U.S., Germany, India, Bangladesh, Yemen and Zimbabwe, and won third prize in the Singapore Poetry Contest for her poem on global warming. Her chapbook Flatman: Poems of Protest in the Trump Era is now available from Amazon and Goodreads.