HAIBUN:
HAIBUNIC CLUES by
Debra Woolard Bender
WORK OF THE WEAVERS by Marjorie A. Buettner FIREFLIES by Gary LeBel
LANDFILL Larry Kimmel
AUGUST 17, 2001 Jane Reichhold

WITHOUT CLASSIFICATION:
RED CHASM by John M. Bennett
SPREECH by John M. Bennett
STAGE FRIGHT by Sheila Murphy OUNCES by Sheila Murphy
SILHOUETTE by
Sheila Murphy, CYBERNETICALLY by
Werner Reichhold

THE EARTH AS EGG
David Clink

This snowy evening I live out a meager life
getting change for what I buy.

I am a poor scratch mark on Earth's surface,
haunted by the collision of our lives.

My body is a shell lying on a frozen beach,
and I can't stop now, take a breath.

I am empty and tired, my drifting eyes
making it clear - I know I don't know you.

Breathing in cool air, exhaling tenderness,
your poetic voice falls on cold shoulders

and I can't let you go.
I look at the Earth as egg, as mother -

pick me up, and listen to me.
I want you to hear my wants, desires,

I will share with you what is left of me,
and I will listen to you read Frost's

Stopped by Woods on a Snowy Evening, our
paths crossing again on this cold January night.

SOLITAIRE
David Clink 

There are hundreds of games
that can be played at the cottage.

Sand and water create their own fun.
Adults watch over children.

In Huntsville, the local beer store
has a line-up that doesn't end,

the Canadian Tire is busy and
the Nutty Chocolatiere is crowded.

I have spent too much money, again -
charcoal and ground beef are staples

along with crossword puzzles and
solitaire.  There are a hundred games

of solitaire that can be played.
After a rainy day

I think I have played them all
and lost most.  The rain may

bring an end to the drought,
they may lift the campfire ban,

but all we have to do for now on this
rainy day is play solitaire and look

out to the dents being made in the sand,
water impacting the lake.

COLLATERAL DAMAGE
Gene Doty 

In the news today: The Pentagon says "no collateral damage";
protesters stand in the rain as they seek to shatter all damage.

Cruise missiles swoop in from the gulf, skim from submarines,
British and American forces plot courses to pattern all damage.

Midnight screeches in the sideyard: The tom cat assaults
an unwary bird under a tree, cat's claws splatter all damage.

"Gunfire exchanged": Where? Does it matter? The world's loud
with gun shots, dying shrieks, life becomes a clatter of damage.

Now we admit the deaths of civilians, workers incountry
to remove old land-mines become ironic collateral damage.

Ah, Gino, the news breaks your heart, but your skin's still whole.
"Allahu akhbar," true, but will God's greatness master all damage?

JEWEL BOX GHAZAL
Ruth Holzer

Six strippers writhe onstage at the Jewel Box,
a dive densely packed as a queen's jewel box.

You wonder as they peel their gloves, chiffon scarves,
net stockings, and toss them to the crowd at the Jewel Box.

The puzzle ring is a love-knot that comes undone,
forever relaxing its silver ovals in your jewel box.

A brass sextet plays, braying the next steps
to reveal desire glittering through the smoky Jewel Box.

Those women, to your delight, Ruth, are muscled men,
each bared to his divine belt buckle and tool box.

LINEAL
Sheila Murphy

see sway the divans porchward if and when and if again
the leisure tames the tonsure twice

tease the sway out of the fixity and soon
the essence will be tainted with due north consortia

slender goes the drabmost day until a cinch of evening
graces the surpassive entity we temper what is waived

ACHE
Jennifer Pearson

After a bone-weary hike, the mountain lake:
a place to rest, shed clothes, numb the ache.

The this and that and here and there of work.
To escape: find a quiet room and ache.

Stand and wait, stand to greet, stand to fetch,
stand disrespect and lies and ache.

A man can be like a hardwood forest:
play of light and shade to dazzle the ache.

A man can be like a cedar forest:
bare ground in the dark, soft bed for the ache.

This man's green eyes, ah, like a snow melt stream.
But no relief.  How they make me ache!

This man's commitments: they stand, a thin wall
through which we blush.  We do not touch; we ache.

Light some incense, read philosophy,
hit the roughest trail to purge the ache.

Jen pauses before a mountain lake-
sometimes it's best to pass and ache.

HAIBUNIC CLUES
Debra Woolard Bender 

plastic pyramid
3 dimensional
puzzle pieces

a quest   ancient mysteries
secret codes on the internet  a face on mars
recurrent dream   signs in the stars
2 am  the phone rings   a stranger's voice
darkness   thick words in a foreign accent
look out the window     streetlamp shadows
unmoving moth   hat and trenchcoat
bare feet down cold stairs   the open door
empty street   hissing steam
yellow eyes  cat behind a curtain
lost   left without a clue

sphinx
riddles from a city
of angels
lampstand branches
lit in alignment

government conspiracies   a present danger
sensational hype   enquiring minds
viking probe   an old picture frame
a big comeback   rolling stones fired up
low hum in desert places
vibrations from another plane?
snakes in the grass   channelers
teenage hoaxes  another crop circle
roswell revisited   alien abductions
tales from the edge  hybrid children
genetic engineering   quantum subtraction

missing links
t.v. watchers
play detective

treaty a sinister peace: those marked for slaughter fall away
sacrifice resumes daily in a temple rebuilt by man
declaration of divinity breaks into a living hell

end time prophecies
an unveiling
tents on rooftops
the bridegroom steals away
with his bride

WORK OF THE WEAVERS
Marjorie A. Buettner

Yesterday, while I repaired your crocheting, I found myself looking down to feel the tying together of the old and new, of ourselves with ourselves with each other.  It was as if you were there, Grandmother, guiding my hands, retracing the pattern to see the design. Grandmother, you tried to teach me how to crochet, how to knit thread to thread with my own hands; and it seems as if I am still trying to learn how to weave together with words what I could not weave with thread, words out of silence for which I must wait.  Tonight, the house wraps me as if it were your shawl; it feels like an old woman, sitting on a rock, learning, as I must, how to listen, how to grow old.  And I hear the healing that silence brings and I hear the repair that only waiting allows, while I retrace the pattern to see the design.

full moon at sunset
floats above the pastel clouds
as if lost in thought
your face appearing in dream
and knowing it as my own

FIREFLIES
For Christopher
Gary LeBel 

        There are so many things in the world that flare up and vanish between the firings of a thought; mine are still too slow to grasp even one properly.  I’m reminded of a Jimi Hendrix lyric that stated this so clearly:  "I wanna hear and see…everything."

        I would like to be that person who remembers with relish chasing fireflies when young, of running barefoot over a cool lawn with jar and net, a man who recalls fondly a parent taking them out to sit quietly on a stone to greet the edgy world of crickets and late spring warmth, or of being asked to hush and enjoy them if only for their own sakes.  But the lure of insects is a questionable priority in some family circles, though I hold no brief as the southern saying goes, for their exclusion in mine: the darkness beckoned but I was asleep.

        Years later I am amazed each day I live by things which seem to enter without my knowledge, directly, as if inhaled, and in so doing they signal an inclusive sweep of mind that tries to invite one more piece of the mystery, however small it may seem at the time, into my life.

        Looking at my son’s face now fully visible in the moon’s radiant light, I recall an evening his mother and I had left him sleeping in his grandparents’ care while we’d gone out to enjoy a moon not unlike this one.

        It was then that I noticed the beauty of fireflies for the first time.  There was a hayfield full of them and the way they spiraled their quietness into long glissandi of flight if you cared to follow them, was a revelation.  And here we are, thirteen years later.  Such a wonder is time!

        Now each year I look forward to fireflies as if they were a threshold through which the house of spring opens gloriously into room upon room of flowers and ferns, of warm evenings and honeysuckle; a time to take walks just to seek them out.  In giving them your full five senses and thus leaving behind the troubles of the day with the noise of the supper table, it seems fundamental: we were made to pay attention, to be integral and not separate, to share in the world’s evanescence.  In reading the ancient court poets,  Komachi, Shikibu, Tsurayuki or Saigyo in verse after verse, I find their intimacy and footing with things speak as if less than one hour had separated their vast abyss of time from ours.  Poems, or rather the sense that drives them to be born, must be those vessels in which the ungraspable takes a brief hollow form such that we can at least glimpse its luminous outline long enough to honor it.

        Stopping by an ordinary patch of woods which this night has transformed into a depth of grotto, I say to our son "Let’s step in here and sit."  He seems to know what we’re after and he climbs briskly over the banking and in among the slender pines, for the moon makes it a simple task to walk and find a clear place to sit.

        The pine needles are soft but the ground is cold, the days being still too brief to carry the sun’s warmth on into the night.  Having settled, we sit quietly and admire the spot we’ve picked for they are abundant.  Their flames are so bright they illuminate the riven texture of the bark as they pass.

        Their "floatingness" is marked by slow, languid spurts of effortlessness, and their mating hungers are lashed to the most sublime of silences.  Lit up with their glowing bodies, the scene becomes magically animated with their pulses, and strangely, it seems as if silence itself were a solid thing, a dark mountain through which the insects wander like underground streams.

        His attentiveness holds longer than I imagined and I can say with some assurance that one of the lessons of parenting is to try to master the art of duration.  Neither of us speak as we rise to go, both having found it appropriate to tiptoe as quietly as possible out of the fireflies’ domain, as if we feared disturbing their delicate countries.

        On the way home, we stop for a moment before a tiger lily bloom soaked to its veins in moonlight.  How it seems to glow, its orange daylight color now a deep voilet-blue.  How cool and soft its petals are!  He, too, finds one to rub gently between his fingers and I can feel his reaction in the air.  Having recently become a teenager, it’s no small victory that he’s come out with me tonight and has slowed down his young heart long enough to sit still and enjoy casually what might come next.

        In the last stretch of road as I walk beside him, I can see in my many failures his potential triumphs.   Finally at home with everyone else asleep, he says his good night and thanks me for our midnight walk.  Sitting down then with ink and paper, I find I can’t write a word and put my pen away.

In the grotto
the lights of fireflies form
a small constellation,
though here, too, are light-years
we cannot yet bridge

Saturday morning – bumper to bumper, coming and going, cars at the landfill, like two trails of ants, and then – "WHAT the fuh. . . .?" – My mind could not process fast enough what my eye took in instamatic ally. I thought the whole landfill had been covered with crumpled newspapers, but no, these gray-toned tundra machè was ten thousand gulls from the coast. I had never seen anything like it. And this far inland. And so many. Thick as penguins, they covered the dump like a mildew magnified.

light snowfall
in the pick-up truck ahead
lolling from
the deer’s severed head
a purple tongue

I was awakened by such incredible beauty today. My eyes opened to see, just skimming the dark edge of the row of Bishop pines across the road, the slender silver ship of the moon with Venus at its side. In the blue of a sky still holding a few stars, the two bodies gleamed with a similar brightness. Their light sparkled with the hardness of diamonds set in platinum. They were so close, and the slant of the curved moon, made it seem as if it was being pulled across the sky by the eye of a dolphin.

As I lay there watching the two marvels, they would occasionally blur as if an Adobe tool had been dragged across the sky. As the dawn gathered speed in its coming, I could see it was the wisps of ocean fog drifting over the picture. Still watching, still fascinated, these north wind driven creatures changed from their pearly white nature into rose, gold, and finally into a deep red orange. The play of colors between clouds and sky was in constant adjustment; as if the darkness from the sky was given to the hue of the clouds as it became a lighter blue and the clouds grew in mass and red energy. I felt I could see the color flow out of one aspect of the view into the other. And higher and higher rode the wisp of moon with its bright companion until it crested the top of my window, sailed off into the universe and I slept again.

Today was publication day for the Psalms of the New Testament. I thought by simply putting them up on the web instead of tucking them under covers, I would by-pass publication jitters, but that was not to be. When I took the first bite of an early lunch my innards turned over in that sickening lurch I know so well. And I thought I was over this kind of nonsense. Maybe my mind is, but the dear old donkey has not given up its muscular methods yet. Disregarding a pile of mail on the counter, and plans for working on the web site, I fell into a funk on the couch. I held a book by Virginia Woolf before my face, but had no idea of what I was reading. Finally I was able to sleep with the hope that would wipe my nervous slate clean but I woke up as frazzled as before.

Werner offered to take me to Mote Creek Beach. I was wondering why he was so insistent that we go. Only later, when that visit failed to change either my guts or my head, I realized he has often seen how going there completely changes my mood and was trying to help me out of my pit. I had not been in my prayers and the ancestors did not bother to notice them so the beach remained a pile of rotting seaweed and rocks. A bit more thankful for all the times this place had feed me, but still vacant and lost, we came home. Again the couch claimed me. At some point I told my donkey, "well, you can have this one day to grub and gruzzle, but tomorrow I expect to be back to work!" and tried various tricks to restore myself to myself. I even tried to crochet potholders – my lowest activity, but it was just too much work to sit upright.

Before going to bed, I began to feel a curiosity of whether anyone had even looked at the Psalms. Wouldn’t it be a proper joke if I had felt all this insecurity and defenselessness and no one in the world had even bothered to read them? Ah, there were three comments.

From Connie: "How very awesome that on my haiku path I would encounter words dealing with the concept of God!  I have not read all of your writings but I certainly embrace what you are saying.  I have been feeling unsettled for some time about my religious background and 'accepted' beliefs.  I have been moving away from the dogma of religion to a more spiritual connection. Thanks for having the will to share this.  I believe the God Spirit in all will expand, and this work of yours is a blessing."

With one breath my mood did a 180 degree flip. Gone was the gut pain, the vague lost feelings in my head, the emptiness of spirit as if no one was home in me. One person had been touched in a positive way and all the work was now worthwhile and there was no need for my funk. Galloping and charging again, riding into the wind again I read the next email from Gene:

"I've only had a chance to glance at your Psalms and bookmark them, but they are lovely. I read the first two and am very impressed. Over the years, I memorized a number of the Psalms, so your version resonated with the Jerusalem Bible and the Grail Psalter - and stands up very well, especially in the tone, the attitude that you capture. I really suspect that David would approve of your work. Your introduction sounds really close to the way Quakers talk, by the way. (I don't know any Quakers who use "plain speech," BTW; no "thees".) I plan to tell people who will appreciate your Psalter about it. Thank you for doing the work and making it available."

One person’s approval had seemed enough but now I had double riches. And I got a smile thinking of King David reading my hack of his songs! And I liked the word "Psalter" – salter. What a great idea. The salt of life, the songs of thanksgiving. I had read the Grail Psalter, on the internet, but seeing the word from Gene, it took on all new meaning.

And then I opened the third email which said in part. ". . . Although I realize and can appreciate the amount of work involved in putting together your version of the Psalms, it is of little interest to me personally. I am a Jew who prefers the passage below (from "Gates of Prayer") which epitomizes my belief system. ‘Behold, I have given you a good doctrine, My Torah: do not forsake it. It is a tree of life to those who hold it fast, and all who cling to it find happiness. Its ways are ways of pleasantness, and all its paths are peace.’"

As my oldest grandson would say: "okaaaaay." and my smile grew wider and wider. The longer I thought of these words, their incongruity with the actual words and philosophy of Old Testament Psalms, and the person who sent them, my face felt as if it was that morning moon as it shined against the darkness of a new day. I could hardly brush my teeth for the smile on my face. I went to bed and slept the sleep of those granted great happiness.

L'AIR DU TEMPS
Debra Woolard Bender 

For all great music not yet played, masterpieces wait unpainted.
Mix words with color, notes with light and silences in between.
How will you write the blueness of a Matisse nude?

A POSSUM . . .
Gino Peregrini 

A possum comes to our back porch to gobble the cats’ food.
The calico backs away growling softly at the intruder.
Sunset shows all its colors, but twilight is coming fast.

HOT KISSES . . .
Gino Peregrini 

Hot kisses taken from her cheek in a meadow of spring grasses
Wild lilies in the breeze of a Kansas spring, cool and sweet
Both child and man, I desire cool soft lips, cheeks sweetened by wind

~!~

Pacing loose-limbed, white on white;
I am alone on bleak ice.

A nomad in arctic landscapes,
always hungry, I watch for seals.

How strange this sensation
that I've been...a polar bear

Kirsty Karkow

Snowbound greenhouses cascade
with red Hibiscus, frilly ferns.

Nature lovers wander dazzled
by vivid colours, sultry scents.

Discard your coat--let us relish
this early taste of spring!

Kirsty Karkow

Yesterday this hoary oak
was a sapling swayed by breezes.

Weathering storms, droughts and floods,
it grew strong on adversity.

Now - children climb it's limbs
and oldsters love the shape and shade.

Kirsty Karkow

winter wind -
between bare oak boughs
the distance grows
although you tightly wrap
your strong arms about me

             an'ya

Shadows cough up the
profiles of the kindred souls.
They encase the fate
of unwitting angels that meet
dark princes in tight alleys.

        Dino Bryant 

Reading your letter
under the varnish tree,
seed pods turned pink;
yet without fanfare
the cicadas have gone

           Debra Woolard Bender 

Southern heat;
magnolias perfume
cicada song,
now rising, now falling
on every breeze.

           Debra Woolard Bender

Removed
my straw sandals
quietly
I pour out steam
from a kettle

             Debra Woolard Bender

Have you also heard?
to become a great writer,
be a great lover
not only of the cherry,
but of fine whiskey and tea

            Debra Woolard Bender

what is this need?
for one song I'd give away
a summer night;
the moon half-hidden, half-
between venus and mars

            Debra Woolard Bender

BRUSH MIND
Edward Baranosky

all night long
the landlord's new kittens
chase each other,
rumbling across my ceiling -
one Kat's ceiling is another cat's floor

thunder rolls
across Lake Ontario,
a downpour at last -
above migrating geese,
roaring formations of fighter jets

playing solitaire,
lost to myself, meditating
upon the breath
inner silence numbers forms
over the bowling alley

solitary pond,
frogless, flooded by moonlight
echo of skates scrape
a pair of silver traces
spiraling into infinity

sage, sweetgrass,
tobacco blend with cedar,
ancient of trees, four
sacred herbs healing wounds
after the dance of death; slow, fast, slow

THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS EVE
Marjorie A. Buettner 

the sound of wind
through bare branches
our fighting again
is there anything at all
that will save us from ourselves

moon sliver
a draft of winter wind
through the door
how to repair the ruin
that accumulates with time

grown faint with distance
the calling of these wild birds
through cloud-obscured skies
when did this emptiness start
and when will it ever end

suddenly the snow
takes over the night sky
with illumination
so why should my heart feel dark
this night before Christmas eve

Quatrain:

at night I search the sky for the moon
then wonder how the world has changed
will this accumulation of sorrows end
while the snow and silent light mount up

~!~

out in the yard
the crow caws crazily
as if it knows my life
quite like
the compost i leave...

       Tom Clausen 

with my son
we pass the house where
he was conceived -
   a certain run down look
   weeds in the window box

         Tom Clausen

not much celebration
to this winter solstice
but the neighbors maple just big enough
for a squirrel
and two bird nests

      Tom Clausen

the deep blue  sky
goes so far
yet the photo has borders
like those we come to
in our love...

        Tom Clausen

its a little flaw
i've come to accept
as it may be...
these overmatched feelings
loving too much

        Tom Clausen

cold rain
in another town
the streets empty -
from one house
a gift of wood smoke

     Tom Clausen

this complete enigma;
of me wanting more solitude
then company in turn
on my terms
at just the right time

     Tom Clausen

I have seen the cat
sleep most of the day
and yet seem satisfied-
my calendar says to show
a cat a piece of gold 

      Tom Clausen

when you were ill
the stars cried down upon the sea
the sorrowful winds
wept through the pines
and the rain flooded the earth

I did not know how to help
and felt your pain in my heart
which grieved each night
I watched over you
there on the sofa asleep

when the summer
turned to autumn then winter
the ice on the bare trees
reflected the beauty of the stars
the warmth was there in your heart

at times you wept all night
each awakening brought tears
flowing like streams
down the meadows of love
where the flowers held the rain

then there were times
I did not know where to turn
to ease the suffering
which was greater than sorrow
which tore at the both of us

then the spring blossomed
into a flower of warmth and love
which could not tear us apart
and each passing day
the sunlight became brighter

the sea is not a sleepless dream
there are always the tides
in the mist of sadness
which beats the shore with grief
til the moon gathers the tides

and then there is you
as beautiful as the mighty stars
gleaming with love
and hope, and care and compassion
for your earthly human beings

and there are those
who don’t care, but love
in their own devious ways
to get what they want and need
in their own selfishness

but, do not despair
the world is right for you
to give yourself
the joys and happiness you deserve
which you earn through trust and love

and when people are cruel
and mean and hateful
I know it breaks your heart
but is them and not you
who betray only themselves

because the truth
is always present in you
the one who stands
higher than the others
who try to bring you down.

JOANNA ROCKS
paul conneally 

no time for streams
or those that look at hills
you learn to love
passing your early youth
amid the smoke of cities

lofty firs
taller than the old steeple
village news

the vicar's collar
a house big enough
for ten rough sleepers

autumn shadows
spray-painted on a boulder
by the rail-track
in huge red lettering
Joanna Rocks

~!~

the withering leaves
of the old chestnut tree
whisper a farewell
our summer dreams will scatter
like the chestnuts on the ground

       W. Flohr

at the junction
the sudden rush of a dove
in the foliage above
makes me redirect my steps
to follow my heart's desire

      W. Flohr

A rat scurries
To find a hole to hide in
Near the subway tracks.
Moments later there’s the train,
Yellow lights winding

When we married
I was in my fifties.
You were sixty;
From the street we took in stray cats
And made a family

the garden cat
walks with me
through slacks and left sock
I feel four of her teeth
telling me she is hungry?

my garden box
becomes over-crowded
I dig a new plot
forgetting to wear gloves
my right palm is torn

squirrel carries nuts
twice up the tree to eat
then buries the third
I leave for the poetry reading
not late after all

Palm Sunday
a little boy passes his
frond to me saying
he already had enough
his mom confirms – I accept

November sunlight
never very strong
fails utterly
"all day in the one chair"
I sit, like Yeats.

cricket in the sink
looks fundamentally dead
but I take him outside
to enjoy the sun
just in case

at the credit union
I wait in a snaking line
to cash a two-dollar check
my net earnings
from poetry this year

At Durobrivae
firm Roman walls
a glass vase of ashes
white alders by the river
shiver as my ghost passes

CREEK SONG
Elizabeth Howard 

where zucchini waits
for the chopping board
I dream rows of blue catfish -
golden, steaming on a platter
grandmother’s fish fry

the photograph,
me on the bluff rocks
overlooking the valley farms-
no image of the chemo
poisoning mind and body

a livid scar
where the chestnut oaks stood
red mud flowing into the creek -
in the Philippines
rivers of lava

wrenlet in a bucket
of nails on a barn shelf -
recalling the mouse nest
in that old chifforobe,
squeaky little wrigglers

blue butterflies,
dragonflies, sunrays,
myriads of sparkles
crisscross the creek,
its song unchanging

by the creek’s left fork
under the bleached sycamore
where the trail branches
a classic pair of antlers –
so many paths to follow

sitting on my lap
she shows a wobbly tooth;
we talk about pain
and bloody excisions -
my scarred chest aching

car lights crossing
the ghostly bridges
over the river
in the river
in fog like a specter’s breath

~!~

Written from Acapulco, Mexico, for her sister city of Sendai, Japan, where for the yearly winter Pageant of Starlight, hundreds of thousands of tiny lights are strung on two hundred and more trees that line the streets of Sendai:

Their boughs twinkling
with fairy lights:
zelkova trees
along the boulevards
of our sister city.

Time was
when I thought I could love
only her;
now I've come to cherish
even what stands between us.

karma tenzing wangchuk 

LONG YEARS    LONG STRUGGLE
Larry Kimmel 

after all these years,
again the grey-weather
of her eyes -
then and now touch
like circled thumb and finger

tugging at the ribbon
of the gown's bodice
just a little
and again    just a little
her coy eye holding mine

in a breeze
from the window her nightgown
opens -
a glister of suspicion
before the candle gutters out

a storm is brewing
leaves show their pewter backs
against the wind -
alone
not knowing where to turn

hopeless now
the escape from an old sorrow
like a sink-trapped spider
what's left me
but the struggle

the ball and chain
of long years      long struggle
cast my dust
from a high place
where the wind blows widest

ruins of a desert city
no roads lead here or away
temple bells
the cry of the market
tongueless in a dry air

restless i thrash and turn
so much depends upon tomorrow
sleep
precious as water
to a desert traveler

mountain high
looking down into mist
into void
glad of the moment but already
weary of the descent to come

more than the worst dog fight
you ever heard
coyotes hunting
nature is what it is
life feeds on life

at the violet edge of a long day
traffic terrific
that sense
of being released like a virus
into the neon night

~!~

attic shelf -
a row of fairy tales
filmed with dust
bedtime stories read aloud
to my children long ago

   Kirsty Karkow

a shearwater
soars above blue waves
riding the wind
I lean from the boat's bow
eye to eye with dolphins

    Kirsty Karkow

after months
of frozen snow and ice
warm flagstones
tiny signs of spring appear
a bug, a bulb, a green shoot

     Kirsty Karkow

how the past
clings to me these days
even in the park
the sound of dry leaves
scurrying close behind

    Thelma Mariano 

the streets
glitter with Christmas lights
once again
I find myself wanting
to believe in fairytales

    Thelma Mariano

so many footprints
smoothed over by the rain
as daylight fades
my growing need to leave
something tangible behind

     Thelma Mariano

a pomegranate
shrinks all winter long
our verbal fencings
from red to burnt umber
fading, extinct

      Giselle Maya

blowing bubbles
his breath floats away
in different sizes

grandfather's pipe
laying in my hands

      Emile Molhuysen 

The rising river
floods the forest bottom trail.
Their paved paths submerged,
        people, lost for the first time,
        must swim the roads of muskrats.

     Jennifer Pearson

Take the recliner,
flame orange like a poppy,
and dream like a bee,
        legs perched on a black cushion,
        head dusted with dark pollen.

     Jennifer Pearson

SPUN
David Rice 

pishing and hooting
through the red fir forest
I play chickadee and owl
first I'm prey
then I'm outstretched talons

hummingbirds zing
between penstemon and paintbrush
I watch their movement
up and down the slope
briefly released from my voice

a large bee lands
on the stunning violet
of a shooting star
  as this sweet hive keeps spinning
  we all become honey

~!~

Swirling spiral
of her skirt spills tides of dream
and memory:
I breathe fire in the dance
forgetting bends and twists

       Ram Krishna Singh

    John Stevenson

     John Stevenson

      John Stevenson

     John Stevenson

in your embrace
quiet of the rising sun
seeps through a window
this moment's perfection
in the sparrow's long clear trill

     Maria Steyn 

squatter camp
between two shacks
a thin space
filled by the wind
left by the wind

     Maria Steyn

winter afternoon
a curve of rainbow
in the silver birch . . .
my solitude bright
in its leaflessness

    Maria Steyn

early spring
a scent of freesias
at the window
I wait with the setting sun
for your footfall on the path

    Maria Steyn

blue sky
in the branches
of an oak
one last colored leaf
holds against the wind

      Maria Steyn

this day
of sky upon sky of spring
slowly ends
in the faintest scent of blue
from irises at the hedge

     Maria Steyn

Big as boxcar,
Chandra, chaser of x-rays,
shot out by quasars,
black holes and supernovae,
a space observatory,

meant to reveal the
elusive x-rays, making
them skip across its
mirrors shaped like a barrel,
coated with irridium,

and nested inside
one another to increase
their capacity.

The x-rays will be
focused, when gathered, into
a sharp camera,
gathered into an image -
creating spectrometer.

It will sail at a
third of the way to the moon
to peer into the
cores of active galaxies
in which x-rays so abound,

where we guess black holes,
much like massive, gaping mouths,
suck in the hugest stars,
emitting on x-rays
crumbs, and it may be we’ll see

dark matter, the glue
of the galactic clusters,
and we may, at last,
through great Chandra’s eye, look at
our galaxy’s own deep heart.

~!~

relentless summer
cracked creek mud
kingfisher waits -
heat lightening reminds me
many dreams go unfulfilled

     Tim W. Younce 

january morning
in the hollow
coal smoke hangs thick -
rooster's crow
falls to the ground

     Tim W. Younce

slanting fall sunlight
brown corn husks
clatter in the wind -
the rustle of your raincoat
as you turn away

     Tim W. Younce

on this subzero morning -
it will take two blocks
before flat spots
run out of
the tires

     Tim W. Younce

on a summer morning
the dew reveals
spider webs -
dusted fingerprints
at a crime scene

    Tim W. Younce

fray chasm it's     gray pattern subformation
unh decay seizures    worn echo "desire"
fallow set stop    truck swatter punjabi
beefeaters heaven dives    blong slang gritty
worm job, fossil    neckwear basso chalk
erased rug moon    ascribed to barque
futile scribes capture    glass remains "control"
imploded elusive blind    center winged hyphen
backwards buzz humm    kunst eaten divorce
moth sub anguish    division flickers chasm

red flakes division    anguish rim surrendered
hooded buddha filters   underhose maternity wrap
turban afire boo    wings miniature pudenda
microphone crotch chants    blank woof libraries
cienaga style ululation    fake sampan platform
attach interrupts oval    end number slings
yeasty hooks "pidgin"    pronounces tagging manuals
stygian whisper brick    bartering lip sore
alabaster mechanics curtain    trance meer fuge
outer feet estate    lobe hell slivers

SPREECH
John M. Bennett

Be lunger shape be
knobber be a bee
nlotion tlust dramp co
relentment nor an ocean
"salpicado" mit uns. er
plomo. stall the sindicato
trade time pur ah
nogguts dance on blade!
brame leur môde leur
objéct (pall a name

STAGE FRIGHT
Sheila Murphy

Freight all of a sudden lengthens, widens,
so the load becomes too much.
I look out into a future as though permanence were equal to the fears of it
I have / to hold.
Afraid, even of pasture, even of work,
my bodyguard is penniless in muscle.
I take the earth to heart.
My hearth is damaged.
I pray for pieces of it to have coalesced sometime.
Strange new north gives gluten its raw reputation.
Someone outside paints the wood. I wish it were this simple.
Pace myself in what appears the natural order.
A distended fracas shears the wake.
I tremble to afford the places I must walk, one tender at a time.
Fictitious norms will fail me when the clatter comes.
I do not want to hear the fortified new roster of commandments.
One tether at a time, I paint, I play, then coat the atmosphere with speech.
But what is there to pattern after.
Pater noster qui es in chalice full of midline blood.
A comma splices weeds of language in a chalk font.
Bless me father.
There are tunes too fallen to have milked our spree of dominance.
I hide here in a room behind the stage.
I want to walk off images I am afraid to see.
A screen behind my conscious mind is red with what is real.
One spark added to another
Spawns the vectors caustic as once comatose, lingering the full shorn region.
When I speak, it will be toward a wilderness unkempt and lacking population.

OUNCES
Sheila Murphy

Not just another, more
Beyond a single one,
At first, all by itself
Then added to the others
To form beverages

So are you thirsty?
Is there anybody else?
Then I will pour you one,
Each one, another

The days are dropped into
A flavor of the sea,
And this is what is how
Our notions pass,
That we are full in summer,
And in winter, fall,

The spring semester, when
The lavish afternoons are bathed
In said amazement, vibrant
Strings are plucked, the hand
Is swept across them,
Each eventful afternoon
After eventful afternoon

SILHOUETTE
Sheila Murphy

I learned to read
so I could see
your face against
the backdrop simply
as your face and not
the backdrop

and I learned to see
the distance between
your face and what
presided in the background
now the tall trees capture
wind prior to escaping
wind before the work sets in
to be dismantled

lines require the dimming
of the light, and lines
are pressed against
the darkness also
lines take on
the whole of what they are
and live beyond themselves

I learned to read
beyond your face
the lines, the wind,
the light,
darkness, also

Scene one

on the beach
she says
       imagine sea light
                salt crystals                (time circular)
    hardening the view

Scene two

Walk on a neighbors path
one stone edged sharply
                         obsidian
more we dare to touch
            in charge of fire       (time moving in all directions,
                                             intermittently)

Scene three

Dark matter, in her eyes the health of distance
when the plane lands in a burst of flames.

Barefaced in transformation, starboard first touch
of essential ground; temporarily not embodied

a soul enters the mosaic of a time shredding reptile;
it is mushroom, hot consistency rooming with a taste

of sudden entry. No disc preformatted, abundant energy
offers a first tickle to Anna's guts:

her three months old fetus rebuilding its watery boundaries
into the unnamed. Slip, slid, sliding of an unlimited

stream of fear. The pilot on his nomadic journey,
the navigator's needle oscillating

to a picture in his wallet: there, his daughter, nineteen,
college, with the breast of a young surfer bursting leeward

where the transparent sail's move changes all speed.
There lingers a logic of no withdrawal from storms

in advance, a manifold of encounters

Scene four

-       Since you seem to ask, yes, holding a save distance,
           I was to stay on a roof filming both planes
      curving closer and finally right into the towers.

-       Did you know anybody working there at the time it happened?

-       No, well, only Prom.

-       Who?

-       Prometheus.

The TV running without interruption. People watching the tragedy of the two towers burning and crashing for several times daily. After a while, their thoughts and gestures begin to change. In one way or the other they feel and act like participants.

Scene five

Rain gutter, we listen to rust moving on                      (intertwined
                                                                              material / matter)

Blurred perspectives along the roads leaving lower Manhattan.
Talks under coercion deepening a fold around peoples' mouths.

-       Nothing you would leave simply for its size?

-       Would you go please on your knees, 
        deeds and maps are in the lower drawer-
        I know it's jammed.

-       Because of your heavy flint collection.

-       Developing their own identity further, 
        the animals put under pressure becoming stoned survived.

Scene six

Life going on
forty: love   both play                              (space as an interface,
as if their rackets                                                     an interval)
gather the pressure
of a ball     that hits
since the wind doesn't want it

Scene seven

late exchange
the mail box door
keeps squeaking

Discussing already planed trips extensively because oil
is precious, seducing people to live up to an overheated rhythm.

The couple bridging
                        the night over the rim of years
                                                      their names' skin.

(curtain)