stock up now with a small long sleeved white nightie a coil of wire and a liberal amount of tinsel
darkening sky
the way a feather sinks
touches the earth unseen
Diana Webb
haibun
Art School
The monk makes it all look plausible. His beatific smile is in itself an aspiration.
butterflies between the brows stillness darts
The mind makes notes of all the things that need letting go.
After five days, realisation dawns. Clinging looks appealing. Nirvana is best in small doses.
And anyway, from what he says, we all probably have a zillion lives before we can levitate.
morphine shots
halos behind
every tree
Shobhana Kumar
TWINKLE TWINKLE TIPPING POINT
New Year’s Eve. Scanning the ether for something beyond
another decade’s weight in fireworks.
telescope poised
lest Betelgeuse croak
700 years before us
Helen Buckingham
Come Back Alice
Ginkgo trees Pic courtesy: Costfoto / Barcroft Media / Getty
Elucidating
Last night, you dreamt that seven of your ten well-tended fingernails had fallen out. Completely. Painlessly, for you no longer have the capacity to experience your own hurt. The soft tissues shiny without protection, yet soon to dry with exposure to air. Come morning, after checking your hands in the sunlight pouring through the slats of the bedroom blinds, you claw the tattered Dream Bible from the shelf, flipping through the pages until you come upon the appropriate entry. And swear you will never let this happen again.
parlor game
a four-letter word
for goodbye
Kelly Sauvage Angel
Working
I was called for a consultation in an intensive care unit. I visit the patient, I prescribe analysis and I say that I will return to re-evaluate tomorrow. I’ll be back if the patient is still there.
shop –
the flowers
all sold
Antonio Mangiameli
The wind carries away the fog
I have realized my mortality! I have told my story! Have I found peace? Sporadically, in acceptance that I am divided in my belief in whether the earth is on its way to a new ice age, or on the contrary.
Finding peace is the same as allowing it . Am I not allowed to drop the fight, surrender to my flower life, and drink nectar?
my head is
openly filled with cells
a beehive
Mona Larsen
Dusk
Dusk. As if someone had placed a paper bag
over the sinking sun’s head. Deserted streets.
On the corner, a small diner with one man
inside, sitting in a both, a glass of ice water
near his right hand.
Snow begins to fall. The man in the diner
stares out the window, his face, a bulb
without a lampshade.
Down the street, a barrel full of fire.
Three figures huddled around it.
No one speaks.
The man in the diner puts a dollar bill
on the table and leaves. The empty diner
shines like someone about to go to sleep.
The houses are all dark. One of them
is mine.
close to no
flat and fatherless
there is
Keith Polette
On the Road
The blackberries are blighted, but we managed
to make jam from them anyway. Even though
our teeth have been vandalized by age,
and our socks have lost their twins,
we walk into a world stubborn as a mirror,
where the low sky scrapes our backs.
We hold the road like a clarinet, our blackened
tongues searching for the reed, the only music
the treefall behind us. Our faces etched
and angled like keys, we are searching for
some mystery to unlock, knowing that
when we do, one of us will vanish, one
of us will stay.
wolves in the walnut tree
doubt
wild vista inside
Keith Polette
The Wagon
The desert skies were clear,
except for the apostrophe of cloud
that hung over the mountains. In the village,
a boy took possession of the day
and hauled it in a red wagon,
until he was called home for dinner.
The sun waited all evening
and well into night.
except for the apostrophe of cloud
that hung over the mountains. In the village,
a boy took possession of the day
and hauled it in a red wagon,
until he was called home for dinner.
The sun waited all evening
and well into night.
red-eyed dog
nose
the world
Keith Polette
the other bunny 