might by Rob Plath

i might see spring as a charlatan
but still i plant flowers in may
chinese lanterns & morning glories
beneath the beige chipped shingles
& the gray cracked foundation
outside my tiny apartment

i might see the sun as a giant zippo
under our flimsy flesh britches
but still i walk about & light cigarettes
& flirt w/the flames by blowing smoke
back at its towering lethal tongue

i might see silence as the only real language
but still i humbly mumble these lines
to the landscape & to any creatures within ear shot
in order to gently break the lonely lull


Rob Plath, New York, USA

Nikki by Michael Lee Johnson

Watching doves
peck away,
all day long at
a full bowl
of mixed seeds,
out on the balcony
of my condo-
the cat curls
up on the sofa,
after a meager
meal of house flies-
and dreams of
sparrows with
wide soaring
wings.




Michael Lee Johnson, Chicago, IL, USA

Dove Poem by Michael Lee Johnson

I hear
scratch of
little dove feet.
I hear peck
of little dove bills
in bird seed basket
on my balcony-
in near silence
on rain-filled
afternoon-
lightning,
thunderstorm
overhead darkness,
cramped up with rage,
holds off a minute
so I may
hear these sounds.



Michael Lee Johnson, Chicago, IL, USA

Woodpigeon by Davide Trame

You liked remarking the four lines
its cooing was divided into, the last line
just a single coo, a full stop
or maybe a question mark suspended
between the sky and the maze of branches;
its call the first sound of the day
promising a canopy of leafy alleys
and shading tidy ochre brick walls
with rows of beeches, oaks,
clusters of rowan berries.
Now that you are far away
you know its marvellous monotony
is a further example of the unattainable
eternal present that allures you:
when you feel you are flashing into the past
all you’ll long for will be just one more coo
lasting in its suspension.


Davide Trame, Italy

Meadow by Gordon Mason

We walk together through
an invisible wall, a soft bruise

of jasmine on our skins.
Scorched on her mind,

this is early morning
in the meadow when sleep

and dreams have been sold.
In the meadow where light

floods her face, love embraces
dew drops and the river

overflows with the spring rains.
In the meadow where fragile blossoms

are poised like delicate moths
amid the hum of carpenter bees.

In the meadow where the evolving day
awakens her hidden dancer within.


Gordon Mason, Scotland and Spain

Dead Bees Sting, Too by Howard Good

It feels more like summer, everyone says,
though only the naturalizing daffodils

have bloomed as I drag the garbage cans
around back, and then you’re there,

a peculiar, black-striped pebble of gold plush
that I nudge with the toe of my shoe,

half-suspecting some kind of ruse,

but the rebels in burlap masks have struck,
and the royal escort has fled,

and the gilded coach lies overturned and burning
on a remote road through the dark forest.


Howard Good, New York, USA

Reflections by Duncan Fraser

Driving down to Bellbird Corner,
whippet tense with anticipation on the seat beside me,
sun shining down from a nearly cloudless sky,
yet it’s winter next week.

The dew’s still on the grass
but the earth is dry without the fickle rain,
it’s different now to when I was a boy on Bellbird Farm,
the weather’s changed.

Along the wombat track
the sound of spinebills’ beating wings is all around us,
the mistletoe’s in flower on dying blackwoods,
sweet nectar for the birds.

We’ve reached the river bend,
where riding in to school so many years ago
we heard bell tones, and looked to find the songsters in the trees,
they’re not there now.

Newry Creek is barely running,
a gentle trickle through the roots and logs,
clear tannic water green azolla frosted, soon to meet
the river’s muddy welcome.

A faint call lifts my head,
my first known raptor, a Whistling Kite,
head down, weaving lazy circles in the blue,
we called them eagles then.

Open the gate to let Jock through,
he doesn’t like the tight-strung wires,
the Golden Wattles by the fence are budding up already,
yet it’s winter next week.

To home now through the dips
once spanned by white-railed timber bridges,
it must be twenty years since they last saw a flood,
the weather’s changed.

Pause for a quiet look out north,
old Ben, rising blue on the far horizon,
whippet still hunting, like Toby sixty years ago,
some things never change.

Duncan Fraser, Australia

Sun Setting Over Dunvegan, Cape Breton Island by George Anderson

My mind is awash of thought
as breaker after breaker foam up
and caress the beach at sunset

Behind me clumps of quartz
rock ablaze in orange & yellow
hues the familiar becoming strange

The colours now rapidly changing
the textures red the sounds symphonic
the sky interconnected with open sea

We lie in the sand holding each other
the suns illuminating the crests of our
doubts becoming apparent time splintering

*
We return to our tent site. I use a solid
cut of oak from the woodpile to hammer
the bent steel pegs into the hardened earth.


George Anderson, Australia

Moon...Tides by Melanie Bishop

pale cold light
spun quicksilver
on gossamer leaves.


moon tides ebb then flow
as men's hearts...
ride the luminous waves





Melanie Bishop

Humwichawa by Pam Olson

Let me follow
the moonlight across the rocks
along the wind-marks of the sand

Follow the sweet scent of hope
in the cold night air
of the high desert

Follow the gliding wings
of the yucca moth
searching for the perfect womb
to lay her eggs

Lead me
O moth
to your nursery
in the desert

Lead me
O moth
to the tree called
humwichawa

Can you hear the call
of the desert
to follow the yucca moth
to the Joshua Tree?


Humwichawa
giver of sparse shade
mother of moth
sign of water in the desert


*Humwichawa is the Native American Cahuilla tribe's word for the Joshua tree


Pam Olson, USA

A Pollen by Chris Major

Hai, hai, hai, haiku,
haiku,haiku,haiku,hai
hai, hai, hai, haiku...........


Chris Major, Staffordshire, UK

Cloud Atlas by Kate Burrows

It’s dusty, this almanac of dreams.
Yellowed pages crinkle under the weight of
shape shifters swords
and seraphim inhabit the same page
before unicorns but long after
castles and labyrinths.
Spring grass against our warm bodies,
see my daydream dance before the world.
My mother morphs into my lost dog
then just his tail remains which sticks to
the letter A, making it A-tail.

Book of liminality it taunts us unreachable
from a cloudless canvas.
Nothing to be written on blue skies
devoid of white ink
missing dancing hippos and princesses cavorting
until the fairy dust again returns,
creating new pages in a compendium of better worlds.


Kate Burrows, New Jersey, USA