It’s November 15, 1980. I am nine years old. I listen to Casey Kasem’s Top 40 countdown for the week on my radio while I play in my bedroom. It’s yellow and green, my bedroom, with flowered, embossed wallpaper and a yellow shag carpet. My uncle had just given me the hottest toy of the […]
Forty Years Between — Jill Ocone
I take my first steps into today’s morning, and my feet are immediately submerged. The water, it rises second by second and minute by minute. The sharks, they start circling then snap at my legs as a jellyfish entangles my ankles with his long, slimy tentacles. He stings my skin something fierce, the discomfort searing […]
Capsized — Jill Ocone
Sometimes, There are No words To describe The incredulous Beauty of Our world. The rising sun Stretches her hues To dapple The current, The ocean’s color As the light Shimmies And dances Atop the waves Divine. How could I Have been Created by The same being Who built And I bask in Such beauty? The […]
Sublime — Jill Ocone
I awoke yesterday morning to pouring rain pelting the house and a slew of notifications that had nothing to do with COVID, the Yankees, or politics, notifications that stabbed my soul and made me audibly gasp with sorrow. “Actor Chadwick Boseman dies from colon cancer at age 43” Rarely does a celebrity’s passing shatter my […]
Long Live The King — Jill Ocone
When all of this started in March, I foolishly believed that society was perhaps moving towards healing and entering a new era of empathy and wellbeing… I was wrong. Dead wrong. Instead, together we’re traveling alone through uncertain waters brimming with sheer hatred and hostility. And I hate it. The self-centered outnumber the selfless, and […]
Nobody is Listening — Jill Ocone
Today I thought I’d share a poem I wrote a long time ago that I needed to read again. I hope that, after you read it, you allow your younger self to come out and play today, too. Happily Ever After – A Poem by Jill Ocone She twirls on the playground In […]
Today I’d like to tell you about Postcrossing, the postcard exchange I’ve participated in since 2013 after one of my students told me about it. Postcrossing is fun and allows me to learn about other cultures while connecting with fellow humans across the globe and seeing new places, especially now when so many restrictions limit travel […]
via Making Mailboxes Happy, One Postcard at a Time — Jill Ocone
I’ve officially titled the summer of 2020 the “Un”-Summer as it’s been the strangest summer of all my forty-nine years. But I don’t mind. Summer is my season, face masks required or not. I’ve always been a summer girl, and despite the abnormalities of this particular summer, I’m reveling in its magnificence. The sunshine and […]
I am pleased to announce that three of my poems were accepted for publication in American Writers Review 2020, which is now available on Amazon. My poems are titled “Policy of Non-Discrimination,” “Nightfall,” and “Wayward-A Sonnet.” American Writers Review is a multi-genre literary journal published by San Fedele Press and includes short stories, poetry, creative […]
via 3 Poems Accepted For American Writers Review 2020…Now Available on Amazon! — Jill Ocone
