We are pleased to offer our Poets Read series in honor of National Poetry Month 2019 and will run it throughout the month of April.
Every day in April, our website and our YouTube channel will feature the voice of a poet whose work has appeared in our pages over the past year. On Sundays, we will offer two poets for your enjoyment.
Today’s poem is How It All Started by Mary Ellen Shaughan and it appeared in the Spring 2018 issue of Gyroscope Review.
How It All Started
by Mary Ellen Shaughan
No one is sure how it started.
Someone, no one can remember who,
tossed a burning vowel into
the conversation knowing
that it would probably
spark a fire, but was either too
slow or maybe unwilling
to retrieve it before
the entire dialogue went up in flames.
It caught the rest of them off-guard
and for what seemed like hours
but was actually minutes
they tossed their own smoking
syllables into the fray and yet
they seemed surprised when
stored resentments snapped and popped,
shooting burning invectives
searing and sizzling deep
into vulnerable hearts, eradicating
the site where trust once lived.
About the Poet: Mary Ellen Shaughan is a native Iowan who now lives in a hotbed of poetry in Western Massachusetts. Her poetry has appeared in Foliate Oak, Gyroscope Review, Califragile, A Quiet Courage, Page & Spine, Blue Moon, 2River View and others. Her first collection of poetry, Home Grown, is available on Amazon.