Poetry by Gale

Poems

2025 “That feeling when”
Moonstone Arts Center Anthology Freedom To Do What, To Whom
Link (scroll down)

2024 “Pierpont Beach, Ventura, California”
Our California: Poems from Ventura County
https://capoetlaureate.org/ventura-county (scroll down)

2023 “When I Am Very Still”
Calliope-on-the-Web, Spring 2023, Issue 179
https://www.calliopeontheweb.org/issue_179/PoetryPage10.aspx

2022 “Planetary Love Affair”
The Jupiter Review, March 2022, issue iii. 
https://jupiterlitmag.wixsite.com/home/copy-of-issue-ii-1
(scroll to p. 37)

2022 “conditionedresponse” 
in concataverse: Anthology 2022, edited by Trevor Maynard.
Willowdown Books. (Amazon link)
(see below)

2022 “Noxious Spiders” 
in Let’s Begin Again: Anthology 2022, edited by Ruchi Acharya. 
Winglessdreamer.com. (Amazon link) (see below)

2021 “Fog”
Haiku Hub (Medium.com)
https://medium.com/haiku-hub/fog-f7f539cbb75b

2021 “Trees”
Haiku Hub (Medium.com)
https://medium.com/@galenaylor/trees-

2020 “Dominance”
The Ekphrastic Review
https://www.ekphrastic.net/the-ekphrastic-review/dominance-by-gale-naylor

2020 “Grandfather Clock”
Across the Social Distances (Tumbler)
https://acrossthesocialdistances.tumblr.com/page/3 and below

2020 “Target”
Havik, Las Positas College Journal of Arts and Literature
(see below)

galejnaylor@gmail.com

conditioned response. yes heimlichs through my diaphragm escapes my mouth and commits me to actions even when I want to say no
concataverse: Anthology 2022, edited by Trevor Maynard, WIllowdown Books.
Grandfather Clock. Slamming back and forth between two extremes, but this is also me because I have yet to find my balance. Is buying a 2 pound bag of decaf espresso privileged—yes—and hoarding—maybe—or is it helping to keep some small business alive? Is it okay to be comfortable so far and be able to eat normally so far when I see so many are suffering and have been TBH when I know it's going to get so much worse, or should I be depriving myself—wow, purposely depriving yourself—also very privileged. Survivor's guilt—privilege again that I even get to pretend this in the face of a long war that no one is guaranteed to survive as I cling to the pendulum the only thing scarier is if it stops.
Across the Social Distances (Tumbler)
Target. Draw guns. Surround the enemy. Angrily shout commands. Ignore onlookers. "Let me take the babies. Calm down, let's deescalate." Pull the enemy from the vehicle. Handcuff them. The enemy complies too slowly: Kick the father's legs apart. The enemy is subdued. The job is done. And we are safe—from a little girl who took a pretty doll on her way out of Target.
Havik 2020, Las Positas College Journal of Arts and Literature
Noxious Spiders Speak in husky voices; set delicate, translucent traps; wrap you in strong, sticky, nearly invisible silks; paralyze you; liquify you; suck you dry; then, in the morning, look at you, and ask you to pass the cream.
Let’s Begin Again: Anthology 2022, edited by Ruchi Acharya. Winglessdreamer.com
The Jupiter Review, March 2022, issue iii. 
That feeling when … reality becomes a mirror when right is left & breaking into the capital with confederate flags & baseball bats is patriotism & chanting on a sidewalk with signs is terrorism that feeling when… half the country believes people are consuming their neighbors’ pets & can’t see that a president is eating all the checks is eating all the balances that feeling when… all the threads unravel at once & instead of an emperor with no clothes you discover it is you without protections without recourse without a safe trajectory through a thicket of thorns channeling you toward defiance detention incarceration & you wonder if you are one drip in a flood that will scour— or a single drop evaporating in the heat from an insanely orange sun
Moonstone Arts Center anthology: Freedom To Do What, To Whom