GLASS RAIN – a poem by Margaret Roxby
“THE OTHER SIDE OF SPACE” is included this week for National Science Fiction Day, Jan 2. The subject fascinated the author. Her daughter often heard her mother say that she would love to travel into the future. Margaret Roxby was a great fan of science fiction.
REFRACTIONS—by Robert Roxby
“LONELINESS” is included this week for Jan 2, World Introvert Day. The author himself was an introvert, but raised in a family of 15, he was not intimidated by crowds. The poem first appeared in his collection, Reflections on a Lifetime.
THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS—a poem by Kathleen Roxby
“INVISIBLE” is included as a companion to “Loneliness.” It was written during the poet’s long struggle with depression and is one of several poems exploring her feeling of impotence and alienation.
#National Science Fiction Day
#World Introvert Day
SPLINTERS FOR JANUARY 2023
INVISIBLE
Is my being so unlike,
Unknown, unseen
that like some dark star
only a subtle change
in the pattern of the others’ lives
suggests that I may be?
Is there no astrologer
no physicist
no mathematician
who might at least
suspect the hint of me?
Or shall I cease to be
before even one
briefly dreams
that I once was?
LONELINESS
If loneliness is a place
High on a mountain top
Or in the dungeon at Calais
Why not also at a bus top
Is loneliness a fearful thought
Perhaps a time to wonder why
Or is it a moment when caught
That allows the mind to fly
THE OTHER SIDE OF SPACE
What if we should break
a greater barrier
move like light and then
cast upon black sea of space
like pin-points search tri-zillion miles
of night’s glassglow moons
and reddust planets and distant suns
and never voyaging there
find another race?
Will we returning once more adrift
upon this opal starship
sink back to death
and dead men’s worship
make gods for our unholy restless days?
Or might we then make peace
with our aloneness
and new-born and strangely strong
set heart and soul and sinew
on a course sail outward bound
within our inner ways
and like a sleeve indrawn into itself
find that once lost:
the other side of space
AUTHOR NOTES
GLASS RAIN – a poem by Margaret Roxby
“THE OTHER SIDE OF SPACE” is included this week for National Science Fiction Day, Jan 2. The subject fascinated the author. Her daughter often heard her mother say that she would love to travel into the future. Margaret Roxby was a great fan of science fiction.
REFRACTIONS—by Robert Roxby
“LONELINESS” is included this week for Jan 2, World Introvert Day. The author himself was an introvert, but raised in a family of 15, he was not intimidated by crowds. The poem first appeared in his collection, Reflections on a Lifetime.
THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS—a poem by Kathleen Roxby
“INVISIBLE” is included as a companion to “Loneliness.” It was written during the poet’s long struggle with depression and is one of several poems exploring her feeling of impotence and alienation.
#National Science Fiction Day
#World Introvert Day
SUBMISSION GUIDELINES
Readers who write in response to one of the prompts listed each month in Splintered Glass, may see their work presented here on the last week of that month. Though poems are preferred, short prose work will also be considered for publication.
Guidelines for submission:
SPLINTERS FOR JANUARY 2023
SUBMISSION GUIDELINES
Readers who write in response to one of the prompts listed each month in Splintered Glass, may see their work presented here on the last week of that month. Though poems are preferred, short prose work will also be considered for publication.
Guidelines for submission:
THE DENOUEMENT
After such a promising start
What a sad ending this is,
Without even one curtain call—
Just a single word
Riding the crest of a sigh
Into silence
good-bye
NOSTALGIA
Remembering
the summer rose, I sigh for me
Decembering