Old Haunts by Jay Coral

Every year
two lovers meet
before the birdhouse
and peek through the hole
to examine twigs, droppings and eggshells
and not to their surprise
they always find an empty house
as if their leaving is consensual
and then they talk (always have)
about how sweet the air is that day.




Jay Coral, Los Angeles, California, USA

I Found You Sleeping by Luis Cuauhtemoc Berriozabal

I found you sleeping in
my fevered dreams. We
were no longer apart.
I tried to wake you. In
your dream you were at
sea and I was drowning.


Luis Cuauhtemoc Berriozabal, CA, USA

*Runningwritten moon* by Brad Frederiksen

If there was no internet
I would runningwrite you
a crescent moon with negligee.jpg

I’d fold it near the bottom
and I’d fold it near the top
into a little runningwritten
circle envelope.

Upon a piece of stretchie string
invisible but true
I would fly my runningwritten crescent moon
across the sky to you.

It would spill in through your window
and light upon your hair
with all my runningwritten love.jpg
for you.


Brad Fredericksen, Sydney, Australia

Ode to an Oaken Desk by Taylor Graham

They drove two hours in the rain for a bargain.
Solid oak that keeps, without polish, its sheen,
its fingerprint of living tree-grain under a tarp
on the porch. No room in this new house.

They came from a Green Valley with a parrot
singing in its cage. She loved that we, too,
live in a Green Valley. Her husband read no law
of physics or fortune in coincidence of names.

Stars hid behind stormclouds, downpour
on the way. Just in time, the desk
fit perfectly in their Odyssey SUV.
Serendipity, parrot singing an epic voyage.

From Green Valley to Green Valley
across a hundred miles of asphalt,
how many poems may yet leaf out
of this milled, transplanted oak?




Taylor Graham, California, USA

my cathedral by Karen S. Nowviskie

my cathedral, green
butresses a deep blue southern sky

my cardinal, red
sings hymns that raise

a host of finches, gold


Karen S Nowviskie, West Virginia, USA

Angel by Amir Elzeni

Too many words
when I only need one,

even the right look now
saves me,

don't lose me trapped
in life,

I know about your
wings.


Amir Elzeni, USA

Ants by Amanda Joy

Sometimes,
I feel we communicate

like ants.

Tasting the air
with our antennae.

Tapping each others
hard heads,

Then off we scurry
In different directions

in search of food.





Amanda Joy, Australia

The City by Emily Smith

The city reeks of loneliness and regret
(OK, I’m lying about that – it stinks
of cigarette smoke and stale urine,
but it lingers just the same).

Trains pass on the line and the fish-
eyed man stares at me through glass
and I can’t figure out if it’s me or him
who is living in the goldfish bowl.

The paint is peeling on the walls
that face the train line, and the city
tastes like sorrow. Nothing lasts.

I am counting minutes between trains
and counting months between lovers.
Trains pass on the line and it is quiet,
there are words but no-one listens.

The city tastes of loneliness and regret
and stale cigarette smoke that fills
this goldfish bowl and maybe I should
stop, and maybe I should listen.

Emily Smith, East Anglia, UK

Suicide Lane by Mather Schneider

Yesterday I was walking down the sidewalk
and at the corner of Dodge and Grant
there was this young blind girl,
one arm full of books,
the other holding the leash
of a seeing-eye dog.
They were walking slowly toward me.
Grant road was busy as hell
stinking and crying with rush hour.
The horns blared in the no-man’s land
of the only suicide-lane left in the city.
The seeing-eye dog didn’t know
what the hell was going on,
it must have been his first day on the job
because he was darting all over the
place, and the girl kept yanking
the leash and cursing.
When we came closer to each other
the dog veered at me
across her path
with his tongue hanging out and a big dumb
smile on his face.
“God DAMMIT!” the girl cursed,
“HEEL! ”
The dog didn’t seem to mind
being choked back
because in the next instant he was focused
on the redolent and wild joy
of a hamburger napkin
blowing feral in the cars’ crosswinds.


Mather Schneider, Arizona, USA