Driftwood Journey by Chris Crittenden

stout flute
carved by salt,

stops dug and squatted
by living pearls,

birthed as bough,
brined in waves-

some gust cast you
from nurturant ledge,

christened you flotsam,
adventured you,

a galleon bolder
than Magellan,

wrestling greater seas,
until you learned

to ride water's
frothy manes.

you rode liquid chariots,
wizened and raw,

to murmurous landscape,
felt beneath you once more

the patient world.



Chris Crittenden, Maine, USA

Brooch found at Redcar by Sally Evans

Redcar, a hinterland,
unlandmarked coast of sand,
flat sea, small dunes, but yonder,
in un-grassed Saxon graves,
a brooch, a bullion find,
worked gold, red stone, a wonder
of burnished art. A hand
might hold the contraband
that gives back to this town
two thousand years of depth
in such fine contour. Found,
truth's road we can go down,
marauding yarls behind
the quiet field around.


Sally Evans, Scotland

Shore at Evening by Chris Crittenden

light tinkers with the beach,
honing dents, preening
chiaroscuros

while kelp trusses the wrackline,
outweaving the verve
of Sanskrit.

crab bones and periwinkles
clatter in a moaning log.

the nude, fissured wood
seesawed across Cobscook Bay,
awkward in exile,
ruddered by a lost storm.

not even a narwhal
knows why the husk murmurs
like an engorged bassoon,

or why waves
topple to the music,
absently proffering
their deaths.


Chris Crittenden, Maine, USA

By Elizabeth Lake by Ashok Niyogi

I weep profusely
into the cockeyed sofa

this blue sky
is a roof without relief
lilies
dance on raw red mince

this is strip-tease on the trapeze
these grapes I have forbidden myself
for liberty’s sake
for meditation on very young
suburban third-world love
so arranged
that comets
herald the rising sun
in eccentric orbits around a setting earth

for this loss
I shamelessly weep
for these bloodstains
on my snow covered chimney sweep
for crows that are not jackdaws
for cardboard jousting-spears
and tiny electric cars
for bedraggled eagles
at last shorn
of my eagle’s pride

of wing sweep shifts
that geese make
to fly into afternoon wind
before they land
for this relearning of alphabets
abandoned on arthritic sand


Ashok Niyogi, California, USA

Majesty by Amir Elzeni

Peeling a cucumber
staring out
the kitchen window
it's 92 degrees
but all I see
is snow

falling down
on sculptures
fountains
gargoyles angels
black iron fence
calm
silence

it's spring
in my snow

red roses with
white flakes
blue butterflies

humming birds
kissing honeysuckle
rows of purple lavender
arbors of climbing
white roses and
orange morning glory,

I light
a lilac candle
pour
a glass of red wine
put a pillow
behind your back,

I gently crush
a cucumber
with fresh mint,
sage, jasmine
and rose petals
to massage and
kiss your feet.


Amir Elzeni, USA

senryu by Christine Bruness

This winter~
how much colder it seems now
without my father.


Christine Bruness, New Jersey, USA

The Opening by Davide Trame

We were on the valley road
in the chattering crowd of the market stalls
when I suddenly looked up over the hill
where silence was pierced
by a single call like a whistle,
a buzzard I thought, at one with
the blue breach in the clouds
along a line of trees.
I kept gazing but I could see
only the skyline.
Then one more time the precise
needle of a sound, a keyhole
into vastness.
The breath of an eye.

A cleansed breath. Alert and quiet like
the unwavering candle of meditation.

You tapped my shoulder and said:
“ Let’s go, you won’t see it, it’s gone.”
I walked on in the strewing chatter
and smiled
at the luminous gap which by leaving
we confirm.



Davide Trame, Venice, Italy

Yang Chung's Poem 70 by Duane Locke

Mandarin ducks, ascendant gray splash of
Side feathers,
Circle the fallen, stick pine, rust-fuzzed bark.

...................................................................The wake
Left behind the quivers of tail feathers
....................................................................Is scissors.

.................................The air is cut
Into scraps,
......................Stitched,
.......................................To become quilts of
Multicolored Matissean odalisque tin
..............................................That taps
The kimono wind
To twist tight over contours.


Duane Locke, Florida, USA

The Sailor's Ear by M Kei

the trees
begin to talk,
tossing their green heads
and whispering
about the weather


sailor’s ear —
I hear the trees
whispering
and feel the cold touch
of premonition


the wooden ketch
and the old schooner
know the winds;
I watch them
watching the clouds


ashore,
Mardi Gras beads rattle
against the lamp
and remind me of
halyards in the storm



M Kei, Maryland, USA