A willow leaf’s silver back looks up at a mountain. Behind iron gates panning for water I want to be a bridge. A mouth filled w/ frost stutters over rusted brambles.
‘There’s a chink in the iron gate.’
Below a sheet of stratus a gorilla preaches miracles.
above the words
of a cloth drum
waxing moon
Michael O’Brien
“Please, don’t do it. You are not used to…“, she said. In my twenties I demonstrated my love driven by the exoticism and of course, by stupidity.
end of fasting
in the cicadas’ cry
the tea’s aroma
Andrea Cecon
It was over quickly. A little too quickly. Like lightning without thunder, a cake without icing, a novel with the last page torn out: a little too… unsatisfying. How arduous the work was as first, and how dedicated you were to the requisite time to prepare. How you dropped to your knees as if in prayer, hands clasped and breath held, ready to take on the world. Yet, somehow, you failed. The question remains: who is at fault? But this equation has no solution; the variable remains unknown. Now, sitting outside, alone in your chair, watching the smoke curl upward, you wonder again how you wound up here. And with a cleansing cough, a graphic expulsion of air—and every feeling you have ever felt, forcing its way out—you grip yourself steady and reach for your glass, thinking: Yes… somehow, this too shall pass.
waning moon…
another night without
the muse
Elizabeth Alford
She climbs the rickety stairs of this mottled building: half-willing …half-unwilling. The walls smeared with layers of tobacco sputum. Stench of the urinals wafts, like vile green fingers, beckoning her to a dinghy room located at the end of the dark corridor. Retching away in her perfumed handkerchief she clumsily mounts atop the examination table, and a clandestine sonography of the fetus’ gender is conducted.
On this ninth night of Navaratri, the daughter and many others like her, awaken from their tiny caskets, leaving the monochromatic swirl of the sonogram monitor. With kumkum smeared foreheads they enter the alleys of a patriarchal society as Goddess of Shakti: Amba, Durga,Chandika and Kali. Their Trishuls glint silver in the moonlight as they dance, trance-like, to the drum beats around a holy fire.
They surround the demons, who denied them the privilege of human birth. Blowing their conch shells; swirling their long black tresses round and round, these unborn Goddesses behead the culprits. The tips of their sickles dripping red, they return to claim what is rightfully theirs.
forget me nots…
the bruises
on a lost rag doll
Yesha Shah
not typical for your average psychiatric social worker. The man had come in to the ER with some vague medical complaints, hoping to get admitted to the hospital. Unfortunately for him, his problems proved to be too fixable, not up to the powers of modern medicine. This was depressing as he was kind of a feeble old guy. Not really able to defend himself on these mean streets and having nowhere else to go, he had been staying at the rattiest, most drug, crime and vermin-infested homeless shelter in town. You know the one they all talk about, the one the mayor has been threatening to shut down for years but never will because it would mean dumping hundreds of homeless back into the open streets without the political will for a tax hike to pay for new shelters (I mean look how much the new stadium is costing!)
honey in the hive –
we keep pouring even knowing
there’s a hole
Anyway, this old guy – the last thing he said to me as I shook my head in the negative to his pleading to be admitted, was that he thought he had pending charges, out of county. Sir, I said, why not just turn yourself in and go to jail. Then you’d have food, shelter, clothing, TV and healthcare, all at taxpayer expense. He considered for a moment, rolling over in his mind the likelihood of surviving for many more nights on the increasingly cold streets and shelters, and agreed he’d surrender to police. A quick check with the police (one of the calmest 911 calls I have ever made) revealed this to be so and just like that, he had the cuffs clapped on him and a big smile on his face.
the old wolf
settles down with the thrown bone
–moonset
Eric A. Lohman
I read something interesting at the bookstore today. Someone had written on the restroom wall: “if you think your poem sounds boring or dumb, just throw in a rhyme… bum.” I’m sure he or she was sitting on that one a long time.
adding my two cents
to the take-a-penny
leave-a-penny tray
Elizabeth Alford
I had a dream
For one or two seconds the world seemed to be perfect just the way it is.
No questions.
No answers
No need to change anything …
Now I’m sitting here with my freshly sharpened pencil and some blank sheets
missing the deadline december roses
Eva Limbach
Yesterday I removed -1000 emails from my computer. In a sense I exterminated them like the vermin they are, infesting every aspect of my life. Where do deleted messages go? Are they like space debris destined to forever encircle our fragile earth? And what of those trillions of social media and app communiques as inane as ‘having a great time, wish you were here’?
In this age of instant texting what meaning do these messages carry? George Orwell, H.G. Wells, Jules Verne, Carl Sagan have all had their say, now it is Stephen Hawking and Nostradamus.
Humanoids with huge thumbs are programming humans – so yes, Your honour, I plead guilty to cybercide, systematically deleting 1000 people from my cyberspace … message by mess… age…
black umbrellas gone
just one drips rain …
into the open grave
Angelee Deodhar
Andrea Cecon
A comma. I don’t pause very often. I pause too often. An ear. I gave up listening a long time ago. A cloud trail. Is there an end? A cloud-tail. Fast disappearing like my sense of self.
I remind myself that nothing is constant. Except maybe for this. A score of nows.
in a funk my muse and i
Shloka Shankar
the other bunny 