by J. Conrad Smith
Dancing pepper specks
live limbs shimmering
tiny black flashes
bustling gypsy universes
shifting shapes of
hundred-year giants
distracting from nude
bones hollow holding
bent charcoal veins
stumbling skyward crossing
cold melancholy canvas
dreaming daily of
Dodger blue gobs
neon moss catching
cotton tufts falling
past cherry-stem toes—
more permanent tenants
that won't just
flicker and pass
Wednesday, July 31, 2019
Sunday, July 28, 2019
6.7.19
9.16 a.m.
70 degrees
by John Stanizzi
Preternatural this coupling and flying, this double-decker dragonfly, from an
otherworld, spectacular, and apparently tasty – the swallows dive trying to catch them
napping where they rest, bumping reed or water, and whether dragonfly or
damselfly, everyone is moving, flying, wary, trying their best to stay alive.
Preternatural this coupling and flying, this double-decker dragonfly, from an
otherworld, spectacular, and apparently tasty – the swallows dive trying to catch them
napping where they rest, bumping reed or water, and whether dragonfly or
damselfly, everyone is moving, flying, wary, trying their best to stay alive.
In the pond
by JS Absher
the mountain
is not a mountain
it is mountain with dragonfly
with overhanging trees
their leaves spotted yellow
with early summer heat
in the pond the mountain
is a spotted leaf
in the pond the mountain
does not have a backside
it is all there before us
dragonfly and leaf
under the mountain the minnow
cannot see the mountain
the mountain
is not a mountain
it is mountain with dragonfly
with overhanging trees
their leaves spotted yellow
with early summer heat
in the pond the mountain
is a spotted leaf
in the pond the mountain
does not have a backside
it is all there before us
dragonfly and leaf
under the mountain the minnow
cannot see the mountain
Wednesday, July 24, 2019
Crow Dead in a Field
by Ray Greenblatt
Crow on a fence
his eye a knothole,
spreading wings so black
they blend with tree branches above
that rise gracefully,
his observation static
as the length of fence itself.
Crow’s caw a nail down
a sheet of metal,
catching sifted light
his gray-blues of darkness
become parts of machinery,
long rusting like crow's blood
matting ruffled feathers.
Crow on a fence
his eye a knothole,
spreading wings so black
they blend with tree branches above
that rise gracefully,
his observation static
as the length of fence itself.
Crow’s caw a nail down
a sheet of metal,
catching sifted light
his gray-blues of darkness
become parts of machinery,
long rusting like crow's blood
matting ruffled feathers.
Sunday, July 21, 2019
Wednesday, July 17, 2019
Pieces of Eight
by Marc Carver
We went into the tropic garden
butterflies everywhere
I put my hands out hoping one would land on me
but none did.
Then half way round a big one came down and sat on her shoulder
like a parrot
I thought it would fly off but it stayed with her all the way round.
When we got to the exit she looked at me
If we take it out there it will die I said
So eventually I got it off and it just sat on a leaf.
Of course all it wanted was to die
I see that now
We went into the tropic garden
butterflies everywhere
I put my hands out hoping one would land on me
but none did.
Then half way round a big one came down and sat on her shoulder
like a parrot
I thought it would fly off but it stayed with her all the way round.
When we got to the exit she looked at me
If we take it out there it will die I said
So eventually I got it off and it just sat on a leaf.
Of course all it wanted was to die
I see that now
Sunday, July 14, 2019
Lines
by Sister Lou Ella Hickman, I.W.B.S.
breath of pond water
thunder lightning flash rain stops
an old frog singing
breath of pond water
thunder lightning flash rain stops
an old frog singing
Morning Glories
by Michael Estabrook
In my wife's garden at dusk bats flit above
azaleas and forsythias while below in the final
moments of twilight paper-thin pink morning glories glow
In my wife's garden at dusk bats flit above
azaleas and forsythias while below in the final
moments of twilight paper-thin pink morning glories glow
Late Spring Under Red Pines
by Marguerite María Rivas
In the Northeast Kingdom,
illuminated
by a rising gibbous moon,
the deep night-sky is swept
clean of clouds
by gusts and gales
that animated them
in the first place.
In the Northeast Kingdom,
illuminated
by a rising gibbous moon,
the deep night-sky is swept
clean of clouds
by gusts and gales
that animated them
in the first place.
Saturday, July 13, 2019
Three Photographs
Karla Linn Merrifield
From out of the Fog
Glubokaya Bay, Kamchatka Peninsula
On the Beach
Kamen Ariy Island, Bering Sea
Remains of War
Attu Island, the Aleutians
Wednesday, July 10, 2019
Shadows on Moss
by Patrick Flynn
I remember these woods from a photograph of snow
around a stage; overgrown space that became forest.
Moss shadows cover the pines,
at night, as a cold shiver speaks now:
pinesap hardens each winter. Branches chill.
Leaves scatter or blow downwind; sap,
like flesh and blood once captured this band
for a magazine shoot; pages yellowing
before turning brown in a closeted room.
They live in weeks past sleeves of shelved music:
before it snowed all day, on harvest fields
outside, walking over broken branches
fallen on a bowed, mildewed stage,
performance worn in the faded pictures;
old songs and melodies snapping
like frozen ice in a field; songs fading now
as the moon crosses the night sky; shadows
and moss on one side of a tree, in light
that does not meet the snow anymore.
I remember these woods from a photograph of snow
around a stage; overgrown space that became forest.
Moss shadows cover the pines,
at night, as a cold shiver speaks now:
pinesap hardens each winter. Branches chill.
Leaves scatter or blow downwind; sap,
like flesh and blood once captured this band
for a magazine shoot; pages yellowing
before turning brown in a closeted room.
They live in weeks past sleeves of shelved music:
before it snowed all day, on harvest fields
outside, walking over broken branches
fallen on a bowed, mildewed stage,
performance worn in the faded pictures;
old songs and melodies snapping
like frozen ice in a field; songs fading now
as the moon crosses the night sky; shadows
and moss on one side of a tree, in light
that does not meet the snow anymore.
Sunday, July 7, 2019
Land Inventory
by Janet Sunderland
The county appraiser sent a questionnaire
and a topography map, wants me to update
our family farm value, asks about changes
to acreage or productive capability of the land.
Ignore the appraiser’s flat gray map, see,
instead, the sapphire sky, white-striped
like zebras in Grandpa's National Geographic.
Airplanes flying high to Africa or China maybe.
Walk the field of milo - stacked red heads
flaming on emerald stalks. With one swift swing
of the machete, sever a sunflower’s head,
wipe sticky black resin from the blade –
The map won't show Great Simba, now rotted
to a termite's meal, won’t capture hazy afternoons
we picked gooseberries, or our clamber up
the peeling bark to ride a gray husk to India.
Legends lie hidden in the appraiser’s map—stories
held by the wind, borne by cottonwood seeds, flung
free, as we were all flung free. Memory our property.
I sign the questionnaire; affirm no changes to the land.
The county appraiser sent a questionnaire
and a topography map, wants me to update
our family farm value, asks about changes
to acreage or productive capability of the land.
Ignore the appraiser’s flat gray map, see,
instead, the sapphire sky, white-striped
like zebras in Grandpa's National Geographic.
Airplanes flying high to Africa or China maybe.
Walk the field of milo - stacked red heads
flaming on emerald stalks. With one swift swing
of the machete, sever a sunflower’s head,
wipe sticky black resin from the blade –
The map won't show Great Simba, now rotted
to a termite's meal, won’t capture hazy afternoons
we picked gooseberries, or our clamber up
the peeling bark to ride a gray husk to India.
Legends lie hidden in the appraiser’s map—stories
held by the wind, borne by cottonwood seeds, flung
free, as we were all flung free. Memory our property.
I sign the questionnaire; affirm no changes to the land.
An Oasis in the Badlands
by Jan Wiezorek
Breeze swallows the bend
in the back along a meadow
slope where wild sorghum
blows seed foggy
unseen except
that hazy
white reaching out
in a single pan of blue,
thinning in strands
and hollows.
Breeze swallows the bend
in the back along a meadow
slope where wild sorghum
blows seed foggy
unseen except
that hazy
white reaching out
in a single pan of blue,
thinning in strands
and hollows.
Hempstead Plain
by Janet M. Powers
This flat space, exposed to shifting sky,
horizon unrelieved by undulating hills,
their blue haze always comfortably there,
is vulnerable to ocean, more so to man.
Here, the land makes no requirements
(no place not to put a road);
parkways stripe this space flowing east,
plaid counterparts move north to south.
Walking the waste places of Long Island:
risk no hill-born child should take,
except chance set her down, and dice
dictate a half-hour daily walk.
What she sees are fences, anchor chain,
to keep some people out, others in,
yet trap the rich effluvia of their lives:
bags, newsprint, plastic-lidded cups.
Three old pines escape man's hand
in both the planting and the cutting,
huddle next to garbage humped with
used concrete. The sign says "No Dump."
A clean trill breaks the hum of engines
purring down the six-lane avenue:
bird I've never met, gold and red
and gray, gives out a brave new song.
This flat space, exposed to shifting sky,
horizon unrelieved by undulating hills,
their blue haze always comfortably there,
is vulnerable to ocean, more so to man.
Here, the land makes no requirements
(no place not to put a road);
parkways stripe this space flowing east,
plaid counterparts move north to south.
Walking the waste places of Long Island:
risk no hill-born child should take,
except chance set her down, and dice
dictate a half-hour daily walk.
What she sees are fences, anchor chain,
to keep some people out, others in,
yet trap the rich effluvia of their lives:
bags, newsprint, plastic-lidded cups.
Three old pines escape man's hand
in both the planting and the cutting,
huddle next to garbage humped with
used concrete. The sign says "No Dump."
A clean trill breaks the hum of engines
purring down the six-lane avenue:
bird I've never met, gold and red
and gray, gives out a brave new song.
Wednesday, July 3, 2019
Two Places
by Ron Geigle
moist heat haze
Uber
then Penn Station
the mass stinking
Platform 2
dead sprint
soot life
fingernails
hard in the pine needle slope
motionless
glacier water
30 feet below
lapping
on dead fir
moist heat haze
Uber
then Penn Station
the mass stinking
Platform 2
dead sprint
soot life
fingernails
hard in the pine needle slope
motionless
glacier water
30 feet below
lapping
on dead fir