Recycled by David Chorlton

Bottles are all equal here, whether they contained

the Haut Brion from eighty-nine

or something cheap to swallow quickly

for the buzz. A written declaration of love

means no more than a shopping list,

and science fiction is a match for the complete

works of Shakespeare. Once the caviar is gone

the can is no better than the one opened up

to feed a stray cat. There it all goes

with the pop of a cork, a sigh, a purr

a kingdom for a horse, before it returns

newly labeled with a twist

in the plot that brings the dead back to life.
 '

David Chorlton, Arizona, USA

Animals by Kevin Cadwallender

Animals don’t do heaven,
That’s just us frightened apes,
Building the persistent myth
Of continuation which means nothing
And haunts us all of our beleaguered
Lives.

Animals don’t do heaven
And it suits them,
Honestly breathing in and out
Over their allotted existence.
A philosophy that brooks
No philosophy other than
Being, and they are content.

Animals don’t do heaven,
But we do, in denial, in fear,
In case it’s there, in situ, indecisively.
Look at the T.V., it’s all there,
Our pettiness, our terror of being alone,
Of not being alone. It makes no difference.

Mourning the loss of the intangible,
The animal that died inside of us
And made us this stricken, bone-bag
Riddled with guilt and excuses.


Kevin Cadwallender, Scotland

Elegy for Piper by Taylor Graham

In the last days she was leaving

into the place old dogs go,

when love of master's hand and the daily

joys of walk and dinner bowl

become forgetful; 

when without wishing the ears

muffle over master's voice,

and curtains silver-glaze the eyes against 

daylight - painless 

but wandering from her life

into a new one without us. Solitary

unless every cell 

of fading body feels at its walls

the tremor - the soft pad 

of others on the far side, their heads 

lifted to an unworldly 

breeze that already 

bears to them her approaching, 

her remembered scent. 

Taylor Graham, California, USA

the naturalist by Micah Cavaleri

(for Anne Gorrick)

I have finally come around

to write this book
of yellow and red illustrations
of green palms
only centuries late

How have I forgotten what I discovered

on a ship as if I was on a ship I forgot

Fried (green) plantains taste like (yellow) honey
although I did not
sit down to write
a cook book. These
illustrations are
illuminations of
a voyage I never
expected to make
until I saw the boards
of the hull. Now
I am lost at sea.


Micah Cavaleri, USA 

Die Back by Gram Davies

Over ale, he tells me, 

Ash burns wet. Downpour. 

Trains in disarray, villages 

silenced. The English seem 

forever unprepared. To reach 

a bus stop needed waders. 

A website showed you 

how to spot the rot: patches 

in bark like porter soaking

shirtsleeves; twigs’

black fingernails bared

above canopies. 

We fought flash floods

on roads which closed like zips 

behind us, to this inn fire 

under these ceiling beams. 

Some things appear changeless;

we have no tales of tomorrow.

But in lanes, overhung by ashes’

banana-bunch branches...

a creeping flame. Another ale –

he tells me there were fewer

floods, back in his day.

Gram Davies, England

When the Sun Rises by Doug Draime

I want to hear
the bird’s song, that’s all. The
meadowlark in the dense dark oaks,
or the whippoorwill crooning
to and fro in the sun
of the sycamores. I grow so damn
weary of the human sound,
flashing on with its artificial light

and the rat-tat-tat sound
of the collective Ego,
spinning on its
perpetually bloodied,
nowhere wheels. I want to hear
the blue jay high up
in the maple tree, squawking
a shrill celebration. A thrush singing
to me from the birch tree.

Doug Draime, Oregon, USA

Merlin by Gary Every

The snow is piled deep in the narrow canyon.

            No footsteps precede mine

            and I enjoy the solitude as snowflakes fall.

            The wind races ahead

            carrying whispers of the chill frost.

            Suddenly a pine tree stirs

            white powder sliding off the green branches

            as a small blue raptor launches.

            This hunter flies low and swift,

            straight towards me

            and so close that he passes through

            my breath vapor clouds

            parting the fog like a misty shroud,

            slicing my breath with his wings. 

            For just a brief instant we stare eye to eye

            he fierce, proud, merciless, and curious;

            me amazed and surprised,

            too slow with my camera,

            and glad that I am not a mouse or rabbit,

            wondering if a bird named after a wizard

            ever goes hunting for souls.

Gary Every, Arizona, USA

Birdwatchers by Chris Crittenden

we freeze as one into scarecrows,
enduring a brisk woolen day.
a char of juncos
in an orange copse taunts us.
soon we are blurry again,
cautious within Van Gogh fields,
hunkering like sandhill cranes
over snaky ground.

our clothes strive
to unleash themselves
in a muddle of fibrous fits;
but we slog with gusto, ankles
sucked by muddy mouths,
our binoculars leading us on
with the flair of rumors.

Dunson glasses an owl
scrunched in a crook like a forest gnome.
whatever it dreams,
our rude surprise will not cater.
we chatter at the jpeg moment
as it glares back at us with feline gall,
contemplating our apish ruckus
and the threat of crows.

later, through a swale
of gusty hisses, dead grass
shunts around our flappy gait.
wind seems to have scooped up all the birds,
cast them from our meander.
we watch precious wings
disperse with the aplomb of peppercorns
into a sunset roan.


Chris Crittenden, Maine, USA
 

Sunset and Sand

back

         drops

                   the walk of the herd.

Elephants on parade

for the picturesque view.  Panorama

and paranoia rule

this range, ruined by drought

and time.

                  To display emotion is

beneath them.  Their losses

are their own.  To remember,

they march . . . days . . . weeks . . . months

pass in silent . . . meditation?

Prayer?  Maybe

                          their movement

is the ideal.  Commemoration

through continuity.

What a thought to settle.  On

into night!

A J Huffman, Florida, USA

No later than tomorrow by Jan Harris

Persephone will place her hand on the ewe’s side
and feel the lamb quicken
snowdrops and alium will light the ground where she walks
her footsteps awakening snails, snakes,
a multitude of microbes
all stirring the earth-smell of spring.

*
As she slips through tomorrow and tomorrow
apple trees will shower Persephone’s hair with blossom
silken petals will barely-kiss soft skin
her hand will slice the lake’s reflection
as surely as salmon glide and leap
but the past leans over and casts its seeds.

No later than tomorrow
the lamb will become the ewe
snakes will slumber and snails burrow deep
before earth and water turn to stone
and in the darkness, swaddled in sorrow,
Persephone will close her eyes and sleep.


Jan Harris, UK