Tag Archives: RR Ewart

Poetry

There’s a Thunderstorm in the Attic.

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By RR Ewart

It pounds against the ceiling 
and makes the house shudder.

The rain pours down the walls 
and soaks the carpet.

Swirling clouds seep down to the floors below 
and fill the rooms with cold fog.

Lighting strikes a wooden joist. 

For a second it catches fire

-A small flickering flame

but is quickly extinguished.

The crashing thunder shakes the stacks of boxes 
that fall to the ground
The forgotten contents scattering.

It’s hard to think here with the thunder
And pounding rain.
Music helps a bit
But the storm grows louder 
It wants us to listen to it rage.

RR Ewart (she/her) is a writer and artist from Reno, Nevada. She works as a high school English teacher, is an accomplished book-hoarder, and a recovering procrastinator. She is completing her first novel and chapbook publication. Follow her to read more of her work on Instagram.

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Poetry

She kept her life in a box

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By RR Ewart

She kept her life in a box always close by.
Her memories and useful things sleeping together 
Under a cardboard lid.
When she was young, the box lived under her bed
Away from the prying eyes of parents and siblings.
Back then it was filled with colorful marbles,
Her favorite wooden pony with painted gold hair,
And the tooth she had lost on the playground at school
That the tooth fairy could not have.

As she got older, the things in the box changed.
A photo of her with her friends,
A dried up flower from the boy who sat behind her in class,
The lipstick she snuck from her mother’s bathroom drawer.

There was a time when she forgot about the box.
Still sitting under her bed waiting for her to come back.
Her mother asked her to clean out her old things and take what
She wanted to keep.
That was when she found the box the top covered with dust
And she remembered the things she had forgotten. 
She did not show it to anyone, just added it to the pile
Of stuff in the back of her car, and drove away with it tucked
Safely on the seat. 

Now the box is old with wrinkles around the corners
And frayed edges.
It lives prominently on a shelf in her sitting room.
It is full of photos of her children, husband and grandchildren.
It contains letters from cherished friends and seashells from past vacations.
She keeps a deck of cards and a small roll of betting money
On top of a Fleetwood Mac CD that she sings along with on Sunday mornings.

Her life is in that box.
Always close by.
Her memories and useful things sleeping together 
Under a cardboard lid.

RR Ewart (she/her) is a writer and artist from Reno, Nevada. She works as a high school English teacher, is an accomplished book-hoarder, and a recovering procrastinator. She is completing her first novel and chapbook publication. Follow her to read more of her work on Instagram.

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Poetry

This is what I remember most

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By RR Ewart

Granite counter

-White, gray, and yellow

Covered with a dusting of flour,

A bag of brown sugar,

Rectangular butter sitting under a glass lid,

The cookie jar, newly refilled.

The sweet scent of sugar coming from the oven.

This is what I remember most.

The photo of me

-2 or 3 years old,

Stuck under a magnet on the side of the microwave.

The glass cupboards full of the good glasses-

Used on holidays.

Watching a distant lightning storm 

from the window above the sink.

This is what I remember most.

The lake water, shining in the sun.

Me perched on a green vinyl chair

Sharing spoonfuls of coffee flavored ice cream

-Our little secret. 

This is what I remember most.

RR Ewart (she/her) is a writer and artist from Reno, Nevada. She works as a high school English teacher, is an accomplished book-hoarder, and a recovering procrastinator. She is completing her first novel and chapbook publication. Follow her to read more of her work on Instagram.

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Poetry

Letter out of Belfast, 1972

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By RR Ewart

Brother, I dreamt of the strangest thing.
I went to the wall atop O’Connell Hill.
I watched you hit a man and my fists felt the sting.
The mob surrounded you with screams so shrill.

I ran down the hill as fast as I could,
To pull you out of the bloodshed.
In the middle of slaughter, you stood.
The bodies on the ground were already dead.

You looked up at the sky,
Covered in a bloody shroud.
Your arms were stretched high,
I thought you were praying out loud.

The pictures in the paper look like my dream in gray tones,
I fear, brother, that this will only end when we all turn to stone. 

RR Ewart (she/her) is a writer and artist from Reno, Nevada. She works as a high school English teacher, is an accomplished book-hoarder, and a recovering procrastinator. She is completing her first novel and chapbook publication. Follow her to read more of her work on Instagram.

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Poetry

The Famine Statue at St. Stephen’s Green

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-A Reflection

By RR Ewart

I never heard you cry
But I see the tears in your eyes as you hold a cup to my lips.

You tremble when you walk dear mother,
Will your child be as ghostly as you?

I see the angel stretching its failing limbs in a scene of pleading 
As my body begins to break in my deepest heart’s core.

The blithe under our eyes and behind our lungs
Eats away at the soul like the leaves beneath our aching feet.

RR Ewart (she/her) is a writer and artist from Reno, Nevada. She works as a high school English teacher, is an accomplished book-hoarder, and a recovering procrastinator. She is completing her first novel and chapbook publication. Follow her to read more of her work on Instagram.

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