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Nancy Foley: of Valentines and vampires

The product of SDSU creative writing classes

Heart of Gold

  • It is only with the heart that we can see rightly.
  • What is essential is invisible to the eye. – Saint-Exupery
  • Get to the heart of the matter
  • The eternal cry of a wife, mother, woman
  • Whose heart
  • Throbs when her husband brings roses
  • Feels the pain of her baby’s bloody nose
  • Melts from her daughter’s sweet kisses
  • Races when her son scores a goal
  • Beats like a drum when he misses curfew
  • Pounds while waiting news from the hospital
  • Breaks for the neighbor suffering chemo
  • Hardens after a friend’s betrayal, but
  • Forgives the friend over and over again
  • Pours out with help for the homeless
  • Works overtime – dilating, contracting
  • Suffers sudden pain, heart attack
  • Stops in the end due to blockage
  • Rests as loved ones, with heavy hearts,
  • Celebrate her heart of gold.
  • Super Species
  • We hang around stagnant streams
  • floating like drunken tadpoles.
  • You call us weak, wobbly
  • thin-legged lightweights.
  • Our time has come.
  • From tundra to tropics
  • freshwater to marsh
  • in ponds or puddles
  • we dodge danger
  • Cluster like clouds.
  • Torrential rain
  • rising sea levels
  • global warming has
  • expanded our breeding grounds
  • Move over Covid-19.
  • Despite fragile wings, slim stature
  • our virus-armed cadets
  • wipe out scores of humans
  • with toxic host-to-host bites.
  • We want your blood.
  • Vampire weapons make us
  • the most dangerous predator on the planet
  • causing millions of deaths each year.
  • We are the Super Species – Mosquito Power
  • Our rallying cry – Climate Change!
Nancy Foley

Nancy Foley earned her Bachelor’s Degree from the University of Dayton. She and her husband moved from Indianapolis to San Diego in 1982. After raising four children, Nancy enrolled in creative writing classes at SDSU. She has been a member of the San Diego Community College Writer’s Workshop since 2007. Her poetry appears in the 2019 San Diego Poetry Annual, 2018 Escondido Municipal Gallery Poetry/Art Summation, and in four anthologies: For the Love of Writing, A Volume of Voices, Fruit & Fig Leaves, and The Stories Start Here as well as a self-published collection In Her Own Words. She was the featured poet in both the 10/06/16 and the 5/10/18 issues of the San Diego Reader’s Rhyme & Verse section. On 2/5/17 Nancy was the guest poet at the monthly gathering of Poets Inland North City, SD. Her nine grandchildren provide ample material for her essays and poems.

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Heart of Gold

  • It is only with the heart that we can see rightly.
  • What is essential is invisible to the eye. – Saint-Exupery
  • Get to the heart of the matter
  • The eternal cry of a wife, mother, woman
  • Whose heart
  • Throbs when her husband brings roses
  • Feels the pain of her baby’s bloody nose
  • Melts from her daughter’s sweet kisses
  • Races when her son scores a goal
  • Beats like a drum when he misses curfew
  • Pounds while waiting news from the hospital
  • Breaks for the neighbor suffering chemo
  • Hardens after a friend’s betrayal, but
  • Forgives the friend over and over again
  • Pours out with help for the homeless
  • Works overtime – dilating, contracting
  • Suffers sudden pain, heart attack
  • Stops in the end due to blockage
  • Rests as loved ones, with heavy hearts,
  • Celebrate her heart of gold.
  • Super Species
  • We hang around stagnant streams
  • floating like drunken tadpoles.
  • You call us weak, wobbly
  • thin-legged lightweights.
  • Our time has come.
  • From tundra to tropics
  • freshwater to marsh
  • in ponds or puddles
  • we dodge danger
  • Cluster like clouds.
  • Torrential rain
  • rising sea levels
  • global warming has
  • expanded our breeding grounds
  • Move over Covid-19.
  • Despite fragile wings, slim stature
  • our virus-armed cadets
  • wipe out scores of humans
  • with toxic host-to-host bites.
  • We want your blood.
  • Vampire weapons make us
  • the most dangerous predator on the planet
  • causing millions of deaths each year.
  • We are the Super Species – Mosquito Power
  • Our rallying cry – Climate Change!
Nancy Foley

Nancy Foley earned her Bachelor’s Degree from the University of Dayton. She and her husband moved from Indianapolis to San Diego in 1982. After raising four children, Nancy enrolled in creative writing classes at SDSU. She has been a member of the San Diego Community College Writer’s Workshop since 2007. Her poetry appears in the 2019 San Diego Poetry Annual, 2018 Escondido Municipal Gallery Poetry/Art Summation, and in four anthologies: For the Love of Writing, A Volume of Voices, Fruit & Fig Leaves, and The Stories Start Here as well as a self-published collection In Her Own Words. She was the featured poet in both the 10/06/16 and the 5/10/18 issues of the San Diego Reader’s Rhyme & Verse section. On 2/5/17 Nancy was the guest poet at the monthly gathering of Poets Inland North City, SD. Her nine grandchildren provide ample material for her essays and poems.

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The latest copy of the Reader

Please enjoy this clickable Reader flipbook. Linked text and ads are flash-highlighted in blue for your convenience. To enhance your viewing, please open full screen mode by clicking the icon on the far right of the black flipbook toolbar.

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Submit a free classified
or view all
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Latest effort has the most local vibe
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“I had to extract the elements that spoke to me and realize them on my instrument”
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4S Ranch Allied Gardens Alpine Baja Balboa Park Bankers Hill Barrio Logan Bay Ho Bay Park Black Mountain Ranch Blossom Valley Bonita Bonsall Borrego Springs Boulevard Campo Cardiff-by-the-Sea Carlsbad Carmel Mountain Carmel Valley Chollas View Chula Vista City College City Heights Clairemont College Area Coronado CSU San Marcos Cuyamaca College Del Cerro Del Mar Descanso Downtown San Diego Eastlake East Village El Cajon Emerald Hills Encanto Encinitas Escondido Fallbrook Fletcher Hills Golden Hill Grant Hill Grantville Grossmont College Guatay Harbor Island Hillcrest Imperial Beach Imperial Valley Jacumba Jamacha-Lomita Jamul Julian Kearny Mesa Kensington La Jolla Lakeside La Mesa Lemon Grove Leucadia Liberty Station Lincoln Acres Lincoln Park Linda Vista Little Italy Logan Heights Mesa College Midway District MiraCosta College Miramar Miramar College Mira Mesa Mission Beach Mission Hills Mission Valley Mountain View Mount Hope Mount Laguna National City Nestor Normal Heights North Park Oak Park Ocean Beach Oceanside Old Town Otay Mesa Pacific Beach Pala Palomar College Palomar Mountain Paradise Hills Pauma Valley Pine Valley Point Loma Point Loma Nazarene Potrero Poway Rainbow Ramona Rancho Bernardo Rancho Penasquitos Rancho San Diego Rancho Santa Fe Rolando San Carlos San Marcos San Onofre Santa Ysabel Santee San Ysidro Scripps Ranch SDSU Serra Mesa Shelltown Shelter Island Sherman Heights Skyline Solana Beach Sorrento Valley Southcrest South Park Southwestern College Spring Valley Stockton Talmadge Temecula Tierrasanta Tijuana UCSD University City University Heights USD Valencia Park Valley Center Vista Warner Springs
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