Leviathan by Amanda Joy

The whale that invented me is dying
The rescuers are unable to rescue him
and resign themselves to allow nature its course
and I wonder at that map
its invisible design where
..............................................we follow
...........,......................................................or are taken

the rocking, lulling eye so small
in the lolling bulk of blubber
too large to thrash, too moored to its own weight
Rolled again and again against the beach
until the flesh is sanded down to pink
the colour of my flesh
a crowd has gathered at the crashing edge to see
what it is to be an animal
..................................................so close to death

Seven tonnes heroically proportioned
If we had met on the water
if he surfaced and I hovered above the waves
would he have accepted me as his
creation or swallowed me as Zeus swallowed Metis

Now though he is dying and so I will not take my lantern
and my packed lunch
.................climb through the balein to the cave of his belly
I will not be reborn through this


Amanda Joy, Australia

Oil Spill by Justin Wade Thompson

there was an oil spill
in the Gulf of Mexico
and some counties in Florida
had been considered
to be in a state of emergency

my mother-in-law lives in Saint
Petersburg. my wife calls
it St. Pete

that
drives
.......me crazy

but i guess St. Pete wasn't affected.

my wife went back to sleep

slept until noon, in fact,
we'd stayed up late
watching medical dramas

not much else
to watch on the old tube

and i guess TVs don't have tubes
in them anymore
but we still call them that

hell, even the little TVs on the
internet are called tubes, right?

i wonder if they've got coverage
of the oil spill

black oil, bird soup
and dying flamingos stuck to dead stingrays and
all other sorts of carnage and death.

they cover it all, these days

every second every minute every hour on the hour

satellites stuck in the
black oil of space
screaming S.O.S. to the blue sky and sea

i trust the mother-in-law is well.


Justin Wade Thompson, Texas, USA

Phoenix by Russ Kazmierczak

the welder
wields lightning

a defibrillator
pressed against the city's chest

she spasms
gasping
it's working

she's coming out of the dark

passers-by stop in awe
as she rises
rises

sparks

still flying


Russ Kazmierczak, USA

Piebald by Chris Crittenden

gyre of swifts
tangled in dizzy swoops
of black and white,

unstable
as aerial Celtic knots,
zestful as hummingbirds
beguiled by noon.

lust elates
their little chests,
makes them weave
like gears of a magic clock

until many of them
plummet
and the rest stream away,
leaving no signature.


Chris Crittenden, Maine, USA

Every time I see Swifts by Matthew Friday

I look up and fly with them. I am
up there, swarming and swerving,
screaming in delight. I am part-air,
part-sea: wind and waves wash through
me. I am a traveler who comes home.
I am light and free.
...................................................................I am swift.



Matthew Friday, UK