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SOLO POETRY
GHAZALS
TOUCH
Mary Cresswell
the island breathes out against its skin
we smell old bones beneath its skin
seeds lie for years and years in the mud
they sprout in the swamp and break its skin
dem bones rattle as dem bones must do
around them we build a camouflage of skin
sparks collect and the mountain grows
it explodes with fire at the touch of skin
shrunk in body and mind, we turn away
the gales from the ice assault our skin
Autumn Rain by Ramona Linke
EARTHQUAKE WEATHER
Mary Cresswell
Search for your roots, they said back in the day.
No one noticed that ghosts slip back in the day.
We queue up for pleasures – the party rolls on,
champagne for breakfast, arrack in the day –
and bloom in the evening, diamant and dreams.
We don’t always get the knack of the day.
Daisies and dahlias inhabit bright fields.
Night-blooming jasmine falls slack in the day.
In a secret cold crevice it’s the start of the end –
fault lines emerge. They will crack in the day.
Seagulls stop screaming, the wind-gauge hangs still:
we are waiting – pulled taut on the rack of the day.
WAITING ROOM
Mary Cresswell
Days turn dark and (I reckon) judgment calls.
Is it time for us to make some judgment calls?
The world is sere and withered, a poet said,
watching drought-torn Niagara without the falls.
These things are important. Don’t forget
the succulent goddesses who inhabit marble halls.
Too many arguments, too many words!
Truth is lost in soul-destroying brawls.
Frightened men go fighting, fighting, fighting.
Deep down they know time has got them by the balls.
Night is cold and coming faster than we’d like.
We sit and shiver under thin and wear-worn shawls.
I assume I’m exempt because I sit around all day,
reading thrillers, writing predictable ghazals.
KANSAS NIGHTS
Gene Doty
meadow on a ridge between creeks: frozen grass
reflects the shimmering billows of aurora borealis
neighbors on a night journey in a horse-drawn corn-wagon
the old woman points up, calls “Orion” “The Tea Table”
my first lesson in naming: the Bear, the Wain,
the Dipper Cassiopeia's Chair shaped the initial of our name
midnight in the Flint Hills, coyotes call under moon
and stars bright & brighter, yet silent, Sirius leads the chorus
look, Gino, at this January night: no clouds, no moon Kansas sky,
every star a gem shining in Indra's net
TERCET GHAZAL
Gene Doty
writing a ghazal in thirty lines or less but always an even number,
never odd unless the ghazal is Arabic or tercet or feckless
sometimes a ghazal never has a mono-rhyme but even then words will
always rhyme because we insist on patterns of sound
reader, did you hear what I didn't say? the voice in the flood
has its own way chains of syllables give
meaning away
THE INCANDESCENT JACAMAR
Steffen Horstmann
Blue starlight welding the moon's scimitar.
Silver rain laving the palms of Malabar.
Fluid light in the mirrors of the Charminar.
The flight of the incandescent jacamar.
The Ganges, the Sind, the Jamuna.
The indigo shoals of Kathiawar.
Mirages shimmering like lucent mandalas
On the road to the oasis of Qarqar.
The winged dance of a ballerina's shadow
Spinning in the marble porticoes of Sennar.
A spectrum shone on bridges of vapor,
Arced above bamboo groves in Shinar.
Paisleys forming in sunlit water, arabesques
Wind-sketched in the pulsing sands of Qatar.
The note reverberating from a sitar.
The flight of the incandescent jacamar.
The night's quilt of needlepoint constellations.
White lightning woven into blue gazar.
Diamonds of starlit rain glinting
On the gold minarets of Dhankar.
Shiva materializing in heat waves
Rippling on the road to Madar.
The comet propelled from a burnished horizon.
The flight of the incandescent jacamar.
The sacred herald. The spectral dance.
The flight of the incandescent jacamar.
The evanescence. The elliptical night.
The flight of the incandescent jacamar.
The still waters. The vortex of light.
The flight of the incandescent jacamar.
The liberation. The transcendent dream.
The flight of the incandescent jacamar.
Colossal clouds. The holy enchantment.
The flight of the incandescent jacamar.
The white corona. The ecstatic dissolution.
The flight of the incandescent jacamar.
SYMBIOTIC POETRY
POTTERY SHARDS
Steven Carter
So the Pueblos took to the trail—not a trail of tears; their inner and outer worlds were too dry for that!—which led to—what? The edge, I suppose. But still they had hope.
—The voices of shamans, chanting for rain in the dark; if not on the trail then at their destination, wherever that might be.
But the Darkness followed them, caught up with them, and—
Not one postcard from the edge.
500 years later, 1500 miles from the Deadly Desert—”my dark moods babysat by the lake—these words cross my mind: earth; air; fire; chardonnay
And these:
Lift up your eyes unto the hills—
I do. And clouds from last night’s dream re-appear on the
Mission ridge, murmuring:
Gods (for by now the Lost Ones assuredly have become gods)
don’t send postcards.
With the clouds come two Irish accents from down the lake.
Tis dark—
—Usually is at night.
—thirsty
How have we offended?
moon<
Sun and Flurries by Adelaide B. Shaw
THE WORLD UNFOLDS WITH FLOWERS
Gerard John Conforti
the world will unfold in love and flowers in the morning sunlight
the spring rain unfolds in the sun as the day unfolds with an embrace
buttercups pour with the dew of golden rays
at this hour early in the morning I sit facing the wall in a chair
writing, the only sound is a wall fan blowing against the paper
as I write on turning part way open
the ink fades from the pen no more writing
tonight, once again, I cannot sleep
the world overlooking my shoulders
the burden is heaving not knowing
when there will be peace and no war to come
I touch her lips with mine love is greater than war
I sit on the steps of the house
gazing into the garden where the
flowers are silent in moonlight
the dew forms on the bricks tonight
ICE DAMS
James Fowler
Four A.M. I lift my head from the pillow and climb up to the attic, stretch out flat, and tuck towels into the eaves. When I close my eyes, the sound of the freezing rain, sluicing down the roof three feet above my head, reminds me of water rushing along the hull of the USS Worden, three feet from my bunk. But here, war arrives disguised as winter. Too much snow, temperatures too warm, then too cold, too warm again deploy to create a line of ice, not just along the eaves, but halfway up the roof as well. Yesterday, while I cooked supper, I noticed a dinner-plate sized dark spot in the ceiling. An hour later, my wife came out to yell at me as I raked the roof, “Sweetie, there’s another spot in the living room.” I raked the other side too. Every two hours, I swap towels between the eaves and the dryer.
Punxsutawny Phil
doesn’t see his shadow
early spring
CHICKEN
James Fowler
At seven, one of my chores was feeding and watering the hens. I pretended I was Festus taking supper to the prisoners in the jail. Sometimes, as I passed the sheds, something appeared in the halo of my flashlight. The skunk or hedgehog became the town drunk as I circled around them. In the coop, I filled the water can, scooped grain from the barrel and counted the prisoners. When I neared the house, Matt Dillon’s voice whispered from the back porch, “Well done,” and my father and I would go into supper.
insomnia
nothing on TV
except reruns
KEEP
Penny Harter
~ v. to be faithful to / not swerve; to preserve or maintain
We keep the hours, mark them on our walls, wear them on our wrists, hoard them in the chambers of our ticking hearts, faithful to the cycles we’ve ordained for sun and moon.
each year a higher
mark on the wall—
history
I keep your memory in cabinets of papers, on shelves of books, in drawings and photos, while the dust you’ve left behind has settled in a pillow that no longer keeps your head beside mine, though I embrace it nightly.
tide table
the old fisherman
doesn’t need to look
~~~~~~
~ v. to tend, as in sheep or garden; to watch
over, defend from danger, harm, or loss
n. British: pasture for grazing
I have seen sheep—wandering white puffs glimmering in hillside pastures—though I have never tended them. My mother kept a garden, spoke to the earth with veined hands, raised smiling pansies. Years ago, I tended vegetables, worked to stir good topsoil into clay. Pole beans, squash, and ripe tomatoes tutored me in rhythm.
morning rain
worms float up
from the dark
I have watched over husbands, parents, children, and dear friends, kept dogs and cats, and would defend from any harm those whom I love. But what of dangers that brook no defenses, losses that outrace the wind?
after the storm
an old hornets’ nest
for compost
Our words, a flimsy hedge against their aim, may fail to hold them in restraint, may crumble in our mouths.
boundary wall—
every stone dug up
by human hands
~~~~~~~
~ v. to restrain from divulging; to withhold
I never told you that after you fell ill, I often woke in the night and turned to lightly
touch your back, confirming breath. Or that I entered the child’s room, leaned over the
crib, and did the same, before I could sink into sleep.
spider-web
on the window-sill—
the evening breeze
What else would I keep back from those I love? That when we wrap our arms around each other in the dark, we hold light—hug the flickering atoms that define our flesh? Or that our eyes have descended from stars?
meteor shower—
so fast the dying
trails
PORTAL
Penny Harter
~n. a short passage to another room
Once a strange door hidden in a wall came out on wheels to divide one room from another. I don’t remember that it closed off grandmother’s dining room from the living, yet it does so now, emerging from its cavern like a fall of water between me and that table set with stone utensils on white linen—no, not stone, only seeming so as I reach through to lift them.
lost in the estate sale
that green glass globe—
my mother loved
As we advance in any air, we enter something other, layers shimmering as we pass. Sometimes, strands will brush our cheeks as we move from here to there, from now to a time we don’t remember; from one world to the next through the wormhole that awaits us.
buried in sand, my feet
emerge again— grains
falling one by one
Alzheim by Beate Conrad
FOOD FOR THOUGHT
Alexander Jankiewicz
It's a warm spring evening and we're on a date. We're seated on the outdoor patio of a Chinese restaurant. A little boy at the next table is turned around banging on the back of his chair. I don't understand why his parents can't control him. He becomes completely annoying. Just when I'm about to say something to them, my wife turns around and faces the boy. She simply makes eye contact and smiles. She doesn't say a word. He transforms into the most well behaved kid a person could ask for. When I ask her how she did it, she just shrugs her shoulders and wonders out loud what Chinese pickles taste like. It finally sinks in that "my date" is the mother of my child to be.
on the menu
a list of baby names
from a to z
starting with my own
indecision fills my plate
IN BETTER COMPANY
Adelaide B. Shaw
In a local bookstore, in the back, there is a café. Amidst the clatter of cups and the rolling fragrance of coffee and cinnamon buns, people read and talk and eat. Most of them probably never even notice the mural high up along the walls. Poe, Shaw, Dickenson, Elliot, Shakespeare, the Brontes, Falkner and many more. The list is long and varied.
faces of the great
looking down on me
as I scribble words
their works humbling me
when I think I can follow
SEQUENCES
FRANZ KLINE, NEW YORK 1953
Ed Baranosky
Wonder of black strokes
healing the wounds of space
in the color of the sky
sliced by steel girders
moving cranes between.
Hidden traffic
moving across windows
of wounded souls
girdered in this threshing circle
the shadows of giants.
We remain transfixed
seeking words to mail into
unredacted silence
impenetrable sounds
to hear their echo.
There are no weak dreams
in the glare of the winter sun;
unadorned branches
trace the dark labyrinth
under a raven¡¦s wing.
CLYFFORD STILL, 1949 NO. 1
Ed Baranosky
You can turn the lights out. The paintings will carry their own fire.
Clyfford Still
Clyfford.
There is no wind.
The turning flames of color
rotate as mind ignites.
In the thick of 1949
No. 1 engineers depth of field.
The doorway turns
on an invisible hinge.
A ghost of electricity
exposes the fallacy.
Yet your Star-gate burns,
Still.
AD REINHARDT, ABSTRACT PAINTING, 1960¡V66.
Oil on canvas, 60 x 60 inches (152.4 ¡Ñ 152.4 cm)
Ed Baranosky
In 1967, he wrote: “ free, unmanipulated, unmanipulatable, useless, unmarketable, irreducible, unphotographable, unreproducible, inexplicable icon.”
Ad Reinhardt
Unforged fame
the sailors disembark
without ambition,
desire furs, gold, trade,
and themselves untouched.
Their uncertainties
of paradise are unmatched
by the uncertainties of earth;
the Titanic presence lures
them away from complacency.
And still we daydream
as we sleepwalked into birth;
allowing the gods
to settle their grandiose affaires
with mortal artists.
Take a shaman’s advice
to paint your own footsteps
back to the cave’s mouth
where the dead live still
infracted by fractal dreamers.
PIET MONDRIAN; VICTORY BOOGIE WOOGIE 1944
Ed Baranosky
The artist makes things move, and is moved. He who makes
things move also creates rest. That which aesthetically is brought to
rest is art.
Piet Mondrian, De Groene Amsterdammer 27 March 1920
(A)
Syncretic:
The algorithm
turns a Foxtrot into Jazz
Boogie Woogie;
toe and heel and toe fades
now that you can see the dawn.
(B)
Synesthetic:
Shared ideal Broadway,
a lost dance in a lost dream
in danger of forever,
falling weightless out of time,
the evenness of mortality.
(C)
Synergistic:
Your eyes that feature
more than the sum of its parts,
light without chroma
borrow a raw color
in a leafless season.
(D)
Synchronistic:
What is the new weight
from the center of light
that you carry? Absence
sees you in the early dawn,
the Victory unfinished.
.jpg)
Island by Maire Morrissey-Cummins
TARTAN PASSION WEEK
Ralf Broeker
airport shuttle
outside they fight
the wind
fish’n chips
so difficult to get some
malt vinegar
Mount Royal Hotel
the friend I do not know
recognizes me
tramway construction
we talk about
haiku-blogs
walking along
Grassmarket
Molly Malone
Tempest
oak smoke rye juniper
you
Haggis
unfortunately
it’s nice
***
One O’Clock Gun
tourists set
watch
all these stories
about my father’s father
in the War Museum
firth of forth
poet
snow covered hills
Jenners
I can’t find
the exit
bought some dino’s dung
my wife is keeping
our son
Whisky Experience
most of them
I know
Rosebank
bottle 3801
has been waiting
***
through the Highlands
black fields amongst
dry heather
Edradour
there seems to be a spring
nearby
scent of yeast
the old guide remembers
a Chinese millionaire
students
singing songs
we refused to learn
don’t you want me baby
I ask a would-be swinger
who did that
blues music this beer tastes like home
Kirkyard
at Harry Potter’s grave
two boys kiss
***
Royal Mile
a Japanese girl pushes down
her tartan mini skirt
High Street
hen laugh
and laugh
Scottish Parliament
a toddler does not want to see
the Queen’s Home
bursting for a pee … now we talk about politics
last order
our fair
haired waiter
tries to hide
THE CELEBRATION
Owen Bullock
the celebration
cups of tea
after the funeral
the celebration
Father puts his pint
in front of Gran
the celebration
mother of three
doesn't want kids there
the celebration
lost in the crowd
all his guests
the celebration
hoping they'll come
knowing they will
the celebration
sunrise
over Bowentown head
the celebration
his life in
sentences
the celebration
song and craic
every night
the celebration
his first birthday party
aged nineteen
the celebration
WOMAD comes to life
with the people
the celebration
a family friend, never met
just as welcome
the celebration
tears in his eyes
as you open the album
Unnamed Grasses by Maire Morrissey-Cummmins
HEARING UNSPOKEN WORDS
Sonam Chhoki
is this an awakening
this pitting of cleaving halves?
to the west
the gods clang the Dharma bell
summon with their mournful conch
the east
beckons with lime white lilies
yet to bloom
rainbows still to be traced
under the archway of stars
shrouded faces
crowd the edge of night
sleep is now
the ebb and swell
of incoherent voices
soaked with darkness
karmic wounds bleed, bleed, bleed
but at dawn
the sun is still adorned
with Samsara
'death and impermanence' —
the mantra reverberates
in sacred caves
by moss-blackened lakes
on prayer wheels and banners
nascent dreams
fall through my fingers
like water in a sieve
like the autumn wind
in a winnowing basket
Lama Kheyno!
We each had another birth
long before we met
we might not meet in the next
what of our dreams in the bardo?
WINTER SLOUGH
Elizabeth Howard
a chilly breeze
my usual path
growing shorter
hoarfrost
all the trees sport
dazzling white beards
whiteout
an eiderdown nest
in the birch’s crux
snowbanks melting
fairy rainbows pirouette
in the sunrays
a long walk
counting wildflowers
violet, primrose, buttercup
PACES CHARACTERISTIQUES (No. 9)
Ruth Holzer
deathwatch days a cloud of gnats
April breeze grieving for the living
Thursday’s child she doesn’t know it’s there anymore
so often crying wolf now the wolf crying for you
no more lovable when terminal
nursing home wing they call it Transition Care
at journey’s end another journey
disappearing into the light spring rain mother
BLACK BAMBOO
Marilyn Humbert
The garden is strangled
beneath wisteria and jasmine.
Bamboo clumps cast shadows
where crows congregate
within the wire and star picket fence,
and summer’s breath
snaps the bare earth
in honeycombed delight.
Tears aren’t enough
to keep the creek trickling.
Twilight splashes scarlet
on the tin and pine board shack
snug in leathery peppercorn arms.
I trip in an empty pond
days gone, tossing stones
ripple rings skating the water-pane
disturbing the sun’s radiant face.
A screen door bangs
moths rise in homage
and circle in confusion
dogs howl … sirens scream
shattering rivers of star-glitter.
You dangle
near the black bamboo.
And my voice rattles
like a pebble
in a brittle hollow husk.
ROADSIDE AWAKENINGS
Mark Kaplon
In strange dawn light
I wake under strange eaves
in such certain
such perfect-fitting skin—
now whose life am I living?
leaning off the porch
into colorless-white petals
the fragrance of frost—
it was chill distant moonlight
all night on the empty stairs
indiscernible
in the dappled shade and shine
of the moonlit glade
my mottled shrub-mushroom tent
sitting somewhere in the moonshine
old worn-out brown boots
how can I say what you are
to me? in all these years
the mountain roads and the dirt
do the talking for us both!
shouldering the load—
together through it all
the two of us still
as we move on, rucksack,
to yet another condition
draining maple trees
dye out bright and fiery
to flame-patterned veins
while across the freeze of air
the sun sinks, further away
gazing awhile up
at the thin, cloud-gusting sky
radiant in the late
afternoon light— and below:
hairy, velvet-textured earth
further down the road
into the cool green country
when my footsteps slowed—
tall, lofty eucalyptus
sway so soothingly and soft
awash in the drowsy
malaise of my eyelids on a
cloudy afternoon—
I wake up to solid rock
to wild rock, the shock of the real
DESOLATION CITY
M. Kei
no signs say
"Welcome to Baltimore"
along the train tracks,
just the littered debris
of ruined neighborhoods
traveling by train,
I arrive behind the mask
of the city, and it is I,
the stranger, who looks out
at you from the familiar face
the problem of cities
lies in the broad boulevards
and potted trees,
forgetting the narrow alley streets
and all the people hidden within
Baltimore's brown fog
reaches all the way to
the Eastern Shore . . .
smog warnings and asthma attacks
in the green aisles of the countryside
traveling by train,
I see the rears of stores,
warehouses, cities;
undeceived by their bright facades
I find the places we have truly made
trains, like ants,
crawl across
the scabs of cities,
you'll never find America
in a limousine
A YEAR OF SOLITUDE
Chen-ou Liu
to leave or to stay. . .
the light and dark
of a spring wind
childhood summer . . .
learning the language
of butterflies
ninth autumn . . .
facing the Pacific
I undress my thoughts
a winter sunset
over the Rocky Mountains
I am not myself
New Year's Eve
after the fireworks
a moonlit cobweb
THE SPRING SUN ALSO RISES
Chen-ou Liu
her soft, wet body
leans into mine
her legs, her thighs
move against me...
time and rain fall on
standing hand in hand
before our 3-bedroom house
now, we own
two Acuras
. . .and a golden retriever
autumn gust
blowing off my heart
her last words
You're like an onion;
the more layers I peel. . .
the distance
between sun and moon…
the apparition
of my ex-wife’s face
in the rush hour crowd
in the mirror
Father's face and mine
overlapping
on New Year's morning
I take an ice-cold shower
MOURNING
Sergio Ortiz
I smell my anger,
tell my story, and people
turn away. . .
this tongue
bound by ice
life
clenched in my fist. . .
people assure me,
nobody dies from
brittle eyes
blue knives glint
through breathless autumn's
misty drizzle. . .
I scrutinize sepulchers—
who wouldn’t call on the wind
there are days
when thirst runs dry
and prayer lips harden. . .
nameless days
when rivers flow straight up
SUMMER
Pravat Kumar Padhy
billowing cloud—
summer rain makes
a tentative halt
summer morning—
the old man gathers
early warmth
burning hot—
the village pond
with wrinkles
brief relief
a thin patch of
summer grasses
Indian summer
passers-by gossip
under banyan tree
ARCTIC ARIA
Debbie Strange
on the tundra
a caribou river
surging past
my inukshuk arms
carrying the midnight sun
beluga ghosts
undulate beside our boat
sea canaries
and whalebone harps
singing the horizon
seeing
with my snow eyes
opening into
negative spaces between
the ptarmigan and polar bear
blue glacier
calving into the narrows
a bloodless birth
our letting go of progeny
that too soon drift away
aurora
lithesome spirit walker
shimmering
above the taiga
rainbow ribbons in her hair
SUMMER INTERLUDE
Liam Wilkinson
summer cups its hands
around me
its fingers painted
with a paste
of soil and sweat
I can smell the death
of a hundred lawns
it drifts into my window
like a bee with the breath
beaten out of it
my trusty old jacket
in all its pockets
hangs stiff from a hook
the shape of an old self
beneath its creases
listening to the applause
in a glass of lemonade
lonely
in his burning room
this writer of bare branches
cold morning air
rattles my pipes
I lie into the ear
of a typewriter
slick with sweat
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Autumn Woodland by Maire Morrissey-Cummins
AUTUMNAL FEEL
Tamara K.Walker
midnight excursion
the crunching over fallen leaves
in suddenly frigid air—
walking past a daycare center
decorations bathed in florescence
feeling forms and patterns
of lyrical vessels
washing through my arteries
the gestating silence permeates
nests of slumbering birds
at an intersection
returning again to the signs
and scent of cinnamon bread
stretched out before me—
the long, wide path of winter
the pleasantly familiar smell
of baked goods and firewood
in the cold—
sensations of others' homes
prompt me to return to mine
sleeping underneath
a thick comforter again
for the first night—
lulled by the musty fragrance
of the storage shelf
AUTUMN SONATA
Liam Wilkinson
let us try walking
the tightrope I've suspended
over the chasm of
darker memories
see if we can't make it across
scarf of a harsh word
unraveled and chucked
I guffaw into familiar hands
suddenly under autumn cold
unburdened
grief made a rock of you
a rock that refused
to rupture and reveal
its lines and lines
of memory
I'll write and write
all night
if I have to
just to find that one poem
with my tongue between its teeth
you play the rim of you
bang out a beat
on your voice box
when all we require is
the song of your usual self
I play the battered pianos
of old notions
and though they've lost their tune
a few notes shimmer
like the dark around the stars
these months ensnare me
with flourishes
of rusty wrought iron
I'm the heart of the sculpture
of the poet I'd rather not be
what I take to be
a barn exploding
is a murder
of crows
taking off
the present like a wine glass
shatters
into tiny blue shards
of the past
no receptacle for what's to come
the fish of my mind
swims away
and night is a bell
struck starless
black
SIJO
SIJO
Gene Doty
Tender monsters sport in wet chaos, curvet and cavort before Yah.
Behemoth and Leviathan, tease the Angler with fluke and flank.
Flimsy pages turn wetly, blown from the empty Center.
Cosmos by Maire Morrissey-Cummins
STETHOSCOPES
Tamara K.Walker
a strong purveyor of maternal medicine, you use it now through this
iconic tool, narrow canal of sound, I whisper-- timorous confessions
among beats of my vulnerable heart
listening softly to my heartbeat you gaze up into my eyes we join
mouths for a slow and drawing kiss as you transfer the ears pressing
it to your chest I link my eardrum with your pulse
I hear the essence of your being as fragile and brave as mine your
innocent giggle breaks the philosophical silence fear not, for as long
as it thumps, we shall forge on ahead
SINGLE POEMS
beneath fat clouds
a man with no umbrella
dryly waits
for rain to lose
interest in falling
Robert Annis
after the flood
a library of drowned books
bleeding poems
the wounded words dissolving
into the memory of water
Debbie Strange
I breed sparrows
that build altars beside my bed
wake to the smell
of his hair without recalling
his name or my own
Sergio Ortiz
holding hands
on the sunlit beach . . .
our footprints
trail us till the end
of where we go
Nu Quang
the seagulls
circling above the nests
in the cliffs
Tatjana Debeljacki
strong winds
flying past my face
yesterday's news
Rachel Sutcliffe
graduation day
classmates pose for photos
with their parents . . .
I imagine Mother
smiling at me proudly
Nu Quang
ghost of my mother
once upon
a moon
winter dreams
a tired smile
Steven Carter
silence
found a tongue
to haunt me. . .
sweat between the breasts
of sloe-eyed strippers
Sergio Ortiz
I’ve forgotten
the name of every star
strong enough
to shine through
suburban light
Robert Annis
realizing
you've been dead
a third of my life—
milkweed flung
from the pods of my soul
Sergio Ortiz
Memorial Day
he puts a pot of carnation
on his grave . . .
a father he's never seen
a stranger so close to him
Nu Quang
hill walking
weaving my way
to the clouds
Rachel Sutcliffe
patiently
draws blades of grass with bronze
a firefly in the night
Tatjana Debeljacki
a certain kind of Eden
holds me captive. . .
your eyes
are a green twine,
the saddest of rope
Sergio Ortiz
before baldness
overtakes me
I comb
a hand across my skull
and find you
Robert Annis
he touched
my hand and for moment
I was a woman. . .
his trembling lips
whisper lies in the dark
Sergio Ortiz
side-yard orange
wait among leaves
tomorrow
for breakfast
I’ll pick you
Robert Annis
open bakery door
a pigeon
joins the queue
Rachel Sutcliffe
I burn
in the dark fire of
ambivalence
. . . suffering
is one very long moment
Sergio Ortiz
on a high ledge
a squirrel is nervous
enough to jump—
you speak of the discomforts
of love
Robert Annis
I manage terror
by examining how things work,
count my sins,
and grip your rhythm to me
in the perfect form of stillness
Sergio Ortiz
out back
jasmine dreadlock
in tight knots
the fence is lost
to wild-green leaves
Robert Annis
autumn leaves
the time
we have left
Rachel Sutcliffe
I can wait
longer than sadness,
standing
for hours in my garden
among the sweet narcissus
Sergio Ortiz
white scarf tested
by wind that whirls the thunder-
storm—black
thread and ears shadow
sheer cloth
Robert Annis
holiday downpour
buying postcards
of a sunny day
Rachel Sutcliffe
across the bay
city purple in sunset
just off shore
fish breach the wind
and fall to splash slow
Robert Annis
long queue
at pathology-
her endless chatter
Rachel Sutcliffe
up to roof
circle of city light
there is no wind
I can see
only one star
Robert Annis
castle ruins
sheep graze
in the kitchen
Rachel Sutcliffe
from hidden swale
a sapling trespasses
each day up more—
closer to robbing the sun
closer to burning away
Robert Annis
railroad crossing
a train passes through
my feet
Rachel Sutcliffe
a silver keychain
holding onto your house key
for months after
the divorce becomes final
when you remove the TV
Joann Grisetti
in the beauty of the dusk
with the morning dew
breath me in
Tatjana Debeljacki
Wildflowers by Maire Morrissey-Cummins
THE MIND'S SHADOW
Gene Doty
a bar of wet soap the mind eludes the hand's grasp, rides on bubbles
a bee drifting from plant to plant the mind's quest for nectar an
old dog at the window, barking at shadows . . .
JANUARY LOVE SONG
Gene Doty
moon glowing behind high vapors
as the earth rotates its shadow
stringed instruments haunt the tune
oh, my Rosie, how hard to be
so far apart on this cold cold night
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