Paula Colangelo

Untethered published in Stone Canoe My old habits return as villagers who rise in the night . Grief is exhausting , my sister says, a quiet dismantling. until the movers arrive, I hover over the final load— half-finished bottles, a chipped table, clothes familiar with my body's weight. Fake berries remain stoic in a pocked, weathered vase. Piece by piece the house disassembles. Once on a rural road two horses harnessed to each other barreled into traffic forcing the cars to h

“The Face of a New Storm,” #56 Spring/Summer 2023, published in Salamander The Face of a New Storm with a line by Fred Marchant There have always been storms Earth born from storm. The landscape, a particular haunting I flew toward the epicenter after many fled. Met flooded canals, felled trees. Tumors. All kinds of tumors. My mind can’t comprehend moving off planet No greenery or sunlit fields My language wreaks of blame until I try to imagine a world completely merciful.

“The Bay Island Inn” (retitled “Far from the City”), published in Sugar House Review THE BAY ISLAND INN It is a kind of illness to be this tired. This sleepless. Far from the city, seven ferries lattice the harbor. I lean into the back porch, survey the field and countryside beyond. The proprietor contemplates his hound patrolling the perimeter— she has the body of an old horse, but takes her job seriously. It’s getting cooler—ferries asleep in their slips now. I lift my glas

"Saudade" published in Comstock Review | Summer 2024 (nominated for The Pushcart Prize) Saudade after Jared Har’el At times I too was lonely and a little bored living in Binghamton, NY, a pocket carved in the Southern Tier where rain or snow pooled year-round. It was a destination where cars spun in 360s in winter on I-17 just to get there or to leave. It even snowed in April when I stayed for Easter one year to be with my boyfriend in lieu of home. On a slow day I gave blo

"Let’s Review," published in Lily Poetry Review Let’s Review Let’s say my parents live on, watching from a balcony. Both blinded and backlit, I imagine them applauding, an exercise in object permanence. Accident that I was/am, accident of language—how I never understood until old enough, until I learned to project my voice.

"Caprice," Published in Feral: A Journal of Poetry and Art Caprice Or is it indifference— I wrestle while another engine crushes tiny islands. In a boarded, robust, sea level, I hold for hurricanes— what they dredge up— shells and coffins. Kept in dark, rains come, I abide. In paintings of the deluge—humans cling naked to the sides of the ark.

“My Father’s Autopsy,” 2022 published in Connecticut River Review My Father's Autopsy What we learned you didn’t know yourself— enlarged prostate, swollen heart, aneurysm that claimed you. What we learned I didn’t know when I found you. Your clothes set out for the next workday when the sound of collapse drew me in to check. I was younger than my youngest child is now unaware I couldn’t save you as I stumbled to recall CPR. Forgot to tilt head back, check airways. It took ye

“In the Morikami Gardens I Leave Coins at a Stone Shrine,” Spring 2023 | Published in EcoTheo Review IN THE MORIKAMI GARDENS I LEAVE COINS AT A STONE SHRINE Praying to gods I don’t know, I surrender three quarters and hope it’s enough. If only it were this easy to heal your lungs. Bamboo pipes remind me of the patch that thrived behind my home. So untamed, it sent shoots running into the neighbor’s yard and I worried they’d complain. Rusty herons ignore visitors who make th

Published in Passager and featured in “Burning Bright: Voices from Passager ” podcast, December 13, 2022 https://www.passagerbooks.com/?s=midnight+under+the+artificial+moon MIDNIGHT UNDER THE ARTIFICIAL MOON A Chinese company has announced ambitious plans to put a “fake moon” into space to brighten the night sky. —BBC News online Lovers will not pass under its gaze, croon to its blue-ness, want to fly there. Nor will this hanging lamp enhance bonfires, boardwalks, or dewy l

Published in Passager Books: https://www.passagerbooks.com/?s=midnight+under+the+artificial+moon

Publisehd in: https://www.indolentbooks.com/copy-of-second-coming-no-89-april-18-2025/ A poem-a-day protest against the threat posed to our democracy by the current occupant of the White House In Dark Times for Cory Booker While I lay slung in the water a sailboat aground one man stood and spoke for 25 hours. His point— It’s time to speak out for all to rise and stand upright, our moral moment, unyielding to hold the room for as long as our legs will support us.

Published in: https://reideasjournal.com/paula-colangelo-cnf/   Driving through Long Island en route to a friend’s wedding, I’m reminded of the trek out here after prom. My first would-be love agreed to be my date after a friend said no, then asked someone else. At three a.m., all I could see were headlights on the forgotten end of the highway, landscape shrouded as it is now. He was six years older. Owned an olive-green Dodge. We drove too far and U-turned back on the empty

“Apartment Logic for Night Owls” (Once I Slept) and “Little Elegy” (Paris calls to me) Issue 23, published in NOON: Journal of the short...

“November 9, 2016/November 6, 2024” | "No Birds," published in The Marbled Sigh : https://themarbledsigh.com/2025/03/03/no-birds/ ...

Published in Rain Taxi https://raintaxi.com/volume-24-number-2-summer-2019-94/ Volume 24, Number 2, Summer 2019 (#94) To purchase issue #94 using Paypal, click here. INTERVIEWS NANCY STOHLMAN: Clowns, Flash, and Lounge Metal | interviewed by Zack Kopp ED PAVLIĆ: If the Dead Could Speak | interviewed by Ken Walker MICHAEL JOYCE: The Telling Falls in the Full of Time | interviewed by Erin Lewenauer FEATURES Widely Unavailable: Northrop Frye Unbuttoned | by Richard Kostela

Published in The Marbled Sigh https://themarbledsigh.com/2025/03/03/november-9-2016-november-6-2024/ We woke stiff as chairs in a funeral...

“Dumb Fires” (retitled “Small Fires”) and “Little Elegy for Silence Among the Living”, published in Slant A Journal of Poetry...

Published in Amethyst Review https://amethystmagazine.org/2022/09/05/benediction-a-poem-by-paula-colangelo/ You may not share the belief of a half-starved scribe, but when the panic of insomnia won’t be quelled, enter the raw night; look up. Although you can’t see inside the moon, it pulls pliant water within you. Its unavailable light summons. Be the angry drunk and rail against the stuttering wind, but still bet the pot on such a thing as grace.

Canaary published in Canary https://canarylitmag.org/archive_by_author.php?id=635 Not far from where Paula currently lives in the Lake...

“Trying to Fathom the Akashic Record” March 2019 published in Connotation Press: An Online Artifact https://www.connotationpress.com/hopp...