In solitude, I sit
Looking at my hands.
Palms, scarred skating ponds
Carved with creases;
Timelines, criss-cross;
Lifelines, cut;
Lovelines ... persist,
Like the laughlines on my face;
Fingerprints, indistinct
At fingertips—
My identity fades
With age.
Kat Mortensen, Ontario, Canada
Not abstract existing within obtuse,
limned real and sold to popular
periodicals for everyone to skim
the surface,
social commentary we lost to esoteric
indulgences, Caligula reborn
to preside over a modern bacchanalia
of forget, escape the confines
and problems, critique from distant
mushrooms eaten
because of instructions written neatly
with black ink on white paper.
S P Flannery, Madison, USA
I am feeding on sunshine
and fading moon light,
pouring my poems into bottles of wine
and later find them on the bottom
I walk;
I lick the morning mist from
the street-cars and dream about their
desire
most of the times I am lazy like
Sunday morning,
and at some other times I pace across
the projects and the gutters of the city
where all the stars of the world blazed
for the first time
but
where are you right now Allen G. to show
me how to smoke joint or roar Ommmmm;
where are you dwelling Robert F. to teach
me how to shake hands with the big wigs;
where are you Ezra P. to find out how not
to go mad or speechless or old or dead;
where are you smiling Robinson J.?
I know-with your sun and eagles and loneliness.
I will try
not to be like you
when right now I don’t look even like myself.
You wrote the right words
and I will drink this bottle right now
without thinking of you for the rest
of the day.
Kanev Peycho, Chicago, IL, USA
I spy a universe of leaves
what is under the ice in me?
Conversation suspended still
no more warmth to break the chill.
Autumn partially thawed
will never exist again
for you were right.
We construct
and deconstruct
our constellations of hate.
Until the maps of them
are plain
against our broken skin.
Andrea DeAngelis, New York, USA
Beneath the open air tents, vegetables tempt like
penny candy or beckoning bins of polished
stones, five dollars a bag. They glow in shades of want
- small hand want, desire confused with need.
Want to hold those circus hues crying, Sweet! Want to
heft the weight, to possess. Want to envelop in
sweaty palm, the disco ball gobstoppers, gummy
bears bejeweled, the agates and the humming ribs of
tiger-eyes, burnished sight of malachite. Even then,
it was never about nourishment or need, but
a rodent crusade to have those lovely things.
Even then. Even now.
The market throngs are festive and intent. Wiry,
naked faced women scurry past, canvas bags and
picnic baskets harvest heavy. The weight of their
wealth measured in ostrich orb eggplants, taffy striped
cream with violet and lace dancing frocks of carrot
tops. But then, all your colors are waning, sliding
from stands like drying sand. Currants effervesce in
bubbles of Champagne, apricot tomatoes are
yanked from the stage by crooks of comic summer squash.
Minutes more and to churned earth, they’ll return. That bud
of cabbage head, chanterelles wrapped in copper ruffles.
Hurry! Hold them, eat them, possess them, those
lovely, lovely things.
Christie Isler, USA
vegetable seeds
were planted
at exact
measurement
in peat pods
for an early start
on mother nature
as the first leaves unfolded
each were transplanted
to larger pots
eventually
to raised beds
built just for them
treated with miracle gro,
weeded weekly and
provided hours
of sun -
they grew
spring turned
to summer
green peppers and
tomato plants,
attacked by beetles -
cucumbers
survived the assault
with broccoli, lettuce
and potatoes thriving
until the drought…
and at last,
my garden was dead –
this fall
as i mow my lawn
i kick at the onions,
strawberries
and mushrooms
that grow wild.
Casey Quinn, USA
Bolted in its room we kept a mountainside
Of black scree waiting in avalanche
Its gradients too steep to clamber
Up to the distant square of the hatch
Where men, strength bowed by the weight of the rocks,
Lugged upon their supplicating backs,
Poured thunder into the hungry dark
And took away as limp bodies, the sacks
You rasped the shovel’s tongue in at its base
Let the mass of the mountain do the work
Rock rumbled forward to heal the erosion
While, two-handed, you heaved up the load
The nuggets gleaming, sleek with treacle,
Be careful not to drop any on the rug
But you threw it the last foot into the flames
For the satisfaction of the crunch and wumph
The stunned fire smoking pencil-grey
Then roaring back to hungry life, the
Alchemy of the rocks a miracle, lighting
To faces that peer from the glow
While we, heliocentric, return to our orbits
Bask in the heat of carboniferous suns
Arrayed as planets and the moons of planets,
Huddled in pairs for the passing warmth.
Simon Kewin, Herefordshire, UK
(Khe Sahn, 1968)
Winds ruffle
the Ho Chi Minh trail
again
where aromatic marsh
vies with forgotten
bones
mildewing beneath
soldier's gear
bats visit when the sun
ambles down from distant
horizons orange-tinged
to groan like the last
man on earth now
winds escape
a forgotten fossil
underneath remnants
from nature's evaporating
cache warm monsoon
rain sheets baptize
blurring the last footfall
of human retreat
from spectral edges
of razed villages
moldering forlornly
in nondescript grey
shadows
night will whisper
false silent comforts
around this vista
of dark dismay
yet tremulous with
earth songs
of omnipresent insects
& tread of tigers
waiting to take
another platoon
to Heaven's Gate
Peter Magliocco, Nevada, USA
Consider now the lilies of the field
And then consider, too, the field itself,
The coarse high grasses wet with rain that catch
Against my calves as I pace the path to the pond.
Consider, too, the dark filled pond, the just passed rain,
The smooth-slipped rocks that line the muddy banks,
The slippery mud that sucks at toes
Of shiny frogs that jump and plop at my approach.
They neither reap nor sow, these lilies nor this field.
These frogs that hop at my approach, kings of this small pool,
They neither reap nor sow. The floating moon,
Only floating, shines up on me as light from some
Unseen deep new world. I must consider then the moon,
This same, riding gently on the ripples of the startled frogs
And glittering jewel-like on the rain stained grass.
I must consider then and hold this moon, this night, this field,
These lilies closed in prayer, these creatures deep.
I must consider what I did not sow and wonder if even Solomon
Could know what it is I reap from this array, what it is I reap
From this deep new world, this bright and shining deep new day.
Karen S. Nowviskie, West Virginia, USA
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