it occurred to her by Regina C J Green

a small hand finds a pair of glasses

and there's a wayward shoe next to
a ribbon of early light bending its way
across a dark carpeted floor

a yawn is stifled along with the realization
that waking up next to someone can either be
a blessing or a curse

she considered asking for directions to the front door
but that would mean disturbing the sure-footed peace
that settled in next to her

she was here
she would be again tomorrow
the alarm would go off
just as it always did

she would wait for that


Regina C J Green, USA

LOST GLASSES by Howie Good

Why hope someone finds them,
steel-framed, plum-colored,

or regret you can’t make out
street signs without them,

why not consider yourself
freed from the necessity,

the situation as you know it
turning back into shadows,

and the shadows into gunmen
in topcoats and derbies.



Howie Good, USA

False Spring by Robert Demaree

Flowering fruit trees, cherries and pears,
After a false spring and late March frost:
Blossoms a dingy pink and white
Against a cold sky the color of dishwater
And woods still gray with winter.
I pass an abandoned convenience store,
With plywood windows like bandaged eyes,
Its solitary pump a sentinel
By the side of the road,
A sign, among many, of things,
Like some people’s marriages,
Which had offered promise
But didn’t work out.





Robert Demaree, NH, USA

Spring Light on Bressay by Nat Hall

Sign,
signal,
beam of change,
as if low cloud lost a battle,
grey of the ghost looks so aghast,
it’s got to shift, shoooooo through the shaft –
shackled to the ship of winter…
Shambolic as rollers & tides,
tired of lingering so long onto our hills & TV masts,
ointing every call of shalders, sleeping petals inside sepals.

Bio-rhythm in equinox,
as sun & moon rock onto scales,
through my window on the fourth floor,
I imagine earthly contours, familiar shapes freed from sky lace
and feel water filling our Sound, pull of our faithful satellite –
blue overwashing bridal dress, fresh epidermis of her skin,
eager to unveil to a sun her every charm through sighs & dreams.

There,
on the wings of each black back,
it is written.

Nat Hall, Shetland, UK

An Abandoned Hour by Gareth Trew

Today, I dropped an hour
by the side of a busy road.

I did not pause to reconsider
but simply left it lying there,
abandoned amongst butts, crushed cans
and spat-out wads of gum.

Later – through the evening news – I learned
that my hour had been found and used.

A young boy – an aspiring
traffic-window-washer –
had spotted it, pocketed it
and spent it straight away.

An extra hour in his day
and he'd bested fate; defied
his high-stacked odds.

He smiled widely, but his grateful face
held great contempt as well: for me.

I sat, unmoving,
no longer watching,
but musing on my hour, gone;

wondering – shamefacedly –
with it, what could I have done?


Gareth Trew

Train of Thought by Claire Smith

What are we, if we have not the eyes to see?
The god of progress has brought us to our knees.
As beings, have we forgotten how to be?

As we rage with glass and steel velocity
The mad-dark crows do battle in the trees,
What are we, if we have not the eyes to see?

The kingly pheasant in the rutted field is free,
When we have the jangling furies to appease.
As beings, have we forgotten how to be?

A cell-phone taps a stale soliloquy
As gondola swans are drifting on the Tees,
What are we, if we have not the eyes to see?

Hermetically sealed in dry-eyed mediocrity
As a sheepdog bristles and a fox, diagonal, flees.
As beings, have we forgotten how to be?

That scudding bracken-colour, the sheer intensity
Of breakneck, life-in-the-fast-lane ease!
What are we, if we have not the eyes to see?

As beings, have we forgotten how to be?




Claire Smith, North East England.

Making their Point by Stephen Jarrell Williams

Spring
birds chirping and darting
tree to tree,


diving into the backyard
like little speed planes
on an obvious mission,

zooming
house to house
over our redundant fences.




Stephen Jarrell Williams, California, USA

Listening to the Symphony by Joanna Ezekiel

(for Pat)

Against an elastic sky
a rainbow curves
the notes bloom into prisms

each rest quivers with light

the notes bloom into prisms
a rainbow curves
against an elastic sky




Joanna Ezekiel, UK

Flight Dream by Chris Crittenden

slide along the curves of the sky,
effortless and smooth,
until you meet a cloud and bounce,

soaring back toward the highest seat,
laughter your wings,
to sit where all things can be seen,

the Earth a paisley
of blue-green hyacinths,
the sun a jewel on your chest.

the clouds come to you
like sheep on a ledge
that turn into silver coins and fall;

all life below riotous with color,
reaching up with eager stalks
to celebrate.



Chris Crittenden, Maine, USA

Redemption by Chris Alba

The morning after the great storm
as broken branches litter the battlefield of lawn

a titmouse finds the birdbath
brimming with stormwater

and all sorrows cease
as it bathes.


Chris Alba, California, USA