Blood, blood, blood. I have it. You want it. I don’t want to give it. Buddhist. Buddhist. Buddhist. Not Buddhist. It’s only three millimeters, three milligrams, and one proboscis, but there is so much more to fear. It won’t kill me, but what it passes on might: malaria, dengue, West Nile, Zika, seven hundred fifty thousand viral deaths a year. Too late. There’s the sting. I’ve been had by the world’s deadliest animal – again.

a buzz inside
some thoughts won’t go away
itching and scratching

John Paul Caponigro

Halo wakes me, curled up against the base of my spine; my dog is dreaming, and his twitching wakes my dreaming wife, who shifts, waking him, and no one remembers the dream that was having them. We all return to dreaming: she’s making love to her wife; he’s packing dresses for our trip to Paris; I’m chasing squirrels.

awake and dreaming
the inside gets up
and walks outside

John Paul Caponigro

Long ago, mountains of snow bury the house. Inside it is so dark. The kitchen light
is always on. He is inside a spaceship, sometimes inside a submarine.
Now he is a groundhog. The window in the upstairs hallway is the new front door.
He climbs out onto the roof, shades his eyes from the glare.

enough snow
for an army of snowmen
not enough coal

Dorothy Mahoney

I walk alone in the 9-to-5 crowd through Foley Square, where the courthouses are clustered. I glance at the inscription above the entrance to the New York State Supreme Court building: “The true administration of justice is the firmest pillar of good government.”

“A feel-good Hallmark quote,” I murmur to myself. Just up the block, in a courtroom on the fifteenth floor of the Manhattan Criminal Courthouse, the value of this inscription is about to be put to the test.

Alone in my office cubicle, editing and writing, I’m anxious all morning, as if walking through a maze blindfolded. I know there is a way out, but the twists, turns, and obstacles leave me feeling overwhelmed. All of a sudden, I hear one ring tone after another from other cubicles, then my ring tone comes, sounding loud … and louder. No one says anything until the end of our longest work day ever.

unconditional discharge …
I walk with winter gales
into the gathering dark

sleepless again …
I count Trump’s crimes backwards
into oblivion

Chen-ou Liu

There is a lightness to the wind today. It tips small branches and tilts their leaves. Insects don’t seem troubled by the gentle nudges. They know that somewhere, beyond the off-white miasma of tempered cloud, lies a blue sky.

sun trap –
a butterfly bathing
in warmth and silence

In an act of curiosity, I open windows. Offer the invisible guest a chance to explore my living room. It creeps in, gently lifting a curtain. Yet, once inside its manner changes, from cat to kitten. It races around. Rattles spider’s webs in all the high corners. Drags dust bunnies from beneath heavy armchairs.

dandelion clock
the time it takes to become
another sundial

Once the guest has their bearings, attention turns to the host. It works its way over every exposed surface, gently tweaking each hair it encounters. This close inspection might be an assessment. Or simply an invitation to join it outside.

crossword clue
the tickle of an answer
dancing out of reach

In its wake, an entourage arrives. A neighbour’s house alarm blares. Their small dog has bumped the window, while trying to chase a passing jogger. A bumblebee, the size of a wren, blunders in. Like the neighbour’s dog, they can’t find a way out. Then, a small boy, near breaking point, tips over the edge as their mother fails to concede on a crucial point of universal human rights.

careless gear change –
the learner’s frozen panic
as their engine squeals

Two was company, but now I’ve had enough. I usher the bee back to its point of ingress and firmly seal all windows. The harsh house alarm diminishes. Perhaps a UN representative has been called to mediate on behalf of the child. Their wailing becomes steadily less passionate, before stuttering to a stop.

a shaded body
gently rises and falls
the cat’s silent breath

David J Kelly

Don’t worry. The coffee shop aisle is full of noises sounds and sweet airs of fresh baked buns that give delight and hurt not all the sleek-haired wheelie-luggaged latte- limbered students filled to the brim with excitement for a contest of the dance

polished pavements
a huge low sun
spills out the lights

Diana Webb

When I first saw you, on a crowded suburban street, I stopped and stared. You shone like a polished jewel in that plain setting. It wasn’t passion that moved me. It was deeper. Like the unexpected discovery of an overwhelming peace.

a new notebook
that brief perfection
before my words

It wasn’t long. I went out of my way to see you again. Everything was darker, downbeat after overnight rain. In that gloomy setting you were somehow plainer too – no longer hypnotic – your brilliance tarnished by myriad bruises.

last year’s bestseller
turning dog-eared pages
with less care

Ah, the might, or might not, each passing moment carries. Life intervened and it was some time before our next encounter. Quite by chance. How I wish I’d missed you. Your twisted, broken beauty was almost too much to behold.

this treasured tome
cradled in my hands
its broken spine

David J Kelly

Like a cliff. A clean-cut cross-section through petrified time. The edifice stares blankly back. Time has not been entirely static. Countless ripples wrinkle the weathered skin of this frozen, vertical sea. Raised coastlines ramble, then dip and disappear into the monochrome monolith. For so many others, an unremarkable wall. Yet, for me, a near-constant companion. Without meaning to, I have attained suspended animation. Waiting is no longer a penance, but an act of defiance.

adding one more notch
to the sum of wasted days
my thumbnail stylus

David J Kelly

Between Trafalgar and Waterloo, clouds drift by as the foreground trees stand tall on a slope of the downs with their fans of leaves, all stilled by the brush. On the horizon ridge a single tree and a clump stand out at a distance.

On time’s horizon a woman sits and watches a dance. John Constable seems to stand close by in the wield of his brush around those grey-blue-off-white shifts he favours so much. Unstilled by the freeze of a hogshair tip, the foreground trees at the base of the hill interlink boughs in the sway of Terpsichore’s use of the storm as entre deux guerres continues to moan…

a bird through and through
the frame of the glass
unseen whisper

Diana Webb