Sunday 26 August 2012

A Small Thing by Kathleen Brewin Lewis

In second grade
my daughter fell in love
with origami,
her fingers becoming
more and more adept
as she folded and pressed
the brilliant paper
into whales, frogs, cranes
the size of her fist,
then began to make the cranes
smaller and smaller
until she had created a bird
as tiny as her fingertip.
It seemed impossible to--
would be impossible for--me,
but she rose
and walked with great grace
to come and place
her delicate masterpiece
in my hand. 



Kathleen Brewin Lewis, Atlanta, USA

Sunday 19 August 2012

Physics by Angelica Joy Romans


She pressed flowers,
Calla Lilies, Scarlet Pimpernel, Bindweed
In her physics book, page one hundred
  and thirty-four
where forces defined motion

"Weightlessness is not zero"

she skipped that sentence,
of reason and explanation
and settled for the crumbled
mummers of Biology
snug in the corners
of her physics book

Angelica Joy Romans

Sunday 12 August 2012

Werrikimbee by Joe Massingham


The brown earth snake winds up the hill.
We travel on it, ants in space
held in by tree upon tree upon tree,
one dropped by bat or bird to mark
each year since the start of counting
four hundred million years ago;
and ferns for festivals and feasts
in case the months go unremembered.

Somewhere in a green curve
the firework bursts of two hydrangeas
dazzle the eye, pull in the breath, attract
butterflies, their very familiarity
reminding us we both are strangers.


Author’s note:  Werrikimbee is one of a number of rainforest National Parks on the north-east New South Wales coastal escarpment.


Joe Massingham, Australia

Sunday 5 August 2012

Stopwatch by Jason Sturner

Everyone is dead.
Slumped against steering wheels,
on the floors of kitchens and bedrooms,
face down in swimming pools.

Bodies litter the malls,
the halls of prestigious universities,
they're in hospitals and sports bars,
at desks in corporate offices.

In the center of the oval office
lays the body of our president,
maggots crawl out
from beneath her eyelids.

The rats beneath the streets
lift their heads and twitch their noses.
Vultures fly off trees
into waves of decay.

Remnants of humanity crumble,
are buried, eroded and grown over.
We are dust and fossils; we are history.
The planet is lush and productive.

Out in an unnamed ocean
a new breed of dolphin is born,
its flippers more like modified claws.
One day, it will use them to grasp the shoreline.


Jason Sturner, Illinois, USA

This poem was  first published in Down in the Dirt Magazine, June 2009