5 micro-poems by Ethan McGuire “Home” “Good Weather Bad” “The Warm Front” “Burnt World-Heart” & “Thorn & Shout”

“Home”

Cross-legged 
alone, 24,901 
miles from home.



“Good Weather Bad”

Red sky at night, 
     sailors delight; 
great, gray billows 
     brush over good news. 


“The Warm Front”

A dirty, cloudy night turns into morning.
New morning reveals a sickly, sepia sky.

A cold front lumbered through this way a week ago.
A wicked sort of weather approaches now. 


“Burnt World-Heart”

I think the whole world has gone crazy.
             Or maybe it's just me
             who's found what it is to be
                     the world.
I fight the fire,
but the flames burn me to the heart.


“Thorn & Shout”

The Queen, my queen—
the Queen of the South—
inspires our love
and some kind of shout.

The King, my king—
the King of the North—
sits on a throne
of thistle and thorn.


Bio: Ethan McGuire works by day as a healthcare information technology professional and by night as a writer, whose poetry, fiction, and essays have appeared in Better than Starbucks, The Dark Sire, The Dispatch, Emerald Coast Review, New Verse News, The Poetry Pea, and Vita Brevis, among others. His debut poetry collection, Apocalypse Dance, releases through BSC Publishing in the Summer of 2022. Ethan McGuire, his wife, and their new daughter live in the Florida Panhandle near the Gulf of Mexico. You may connect with Ethan on Twitter @AHeavyMetalPen or at TheFlummoxed.com.


Salt by Ethan McGuire poetry entry for Avalanches in Poetry 2 Writings & Art Inspired by Leonard Cohen