Koi Pond Daze

by Sam Dixon

At the edge of a koi pond in Taipei
I am sitting on a large rock
staring at what lurks in calm water,

only a mother and child are across the way,
chatting on their rocks

pulling pellets from my pocket
I toss one into the pond
several koi levitate to the surface
their brilliant orange patterns as if painted on with Day-Glo

the most agile snaps up the morsel
so I pelt the ripples with more
when a hundred dazzling fish materialize
as the peace becomes a frenzy.

Leaning over, a flowering plum tree
blushes fragrant in a breeze,
it releases a succession of blossoms
the beauty of petals
fluttering like Taiwanese girls,

some of the flowers land simply on stone
some reach the pond to float among the grandiloquence.

Patrons of the Arts

by Emily Polson
 
We hiked to the Crow’s Nest
where my father told stories
of his unfinished art degree,
while my mother and I created
a Goldsworthy circle for the sparrows
made of twigs, rocks, and bark 

Lent in the Desert

by David Chorlton
 
One wing brushes morning light
from the rocks along the high trail
and the other reaches
for a hold in the air
as he flies through Lent,
coming daily to the mountain
which exists beyond faith and fasting.
The hawk follows
                          paths as invisible as God.
He doesn’t know the way to Heaven.
It never rains there.
And seldom in this desert
where the brittlebush is blooming and
the portals of the Earth
are open.
              They offer just
a narrow space through which
to pass, appearing as the entrance to
an arroyo where the thorns shine
and stones speak to each other
of their long and arduous
journeys through high tide
and flood
               to their own
tiny portion of eternity. They are just
the beginning; one day
they will rise on  thermals
to the height where nothing is impossible.

Unwelcome Visit

 by Jonathan Acampora

A silent trek up West Mountain until
birds. A crow's call, then masses
squawking, shouting, raging
against the intruder on the path.

The wind stirs

by Mathieu Debic 

Sunlight muffles speech
at noon - even birdsong stops.
Only the wind stirs.

Red Protest, the Natural Condition of People

by Maid Čorbić
 
Everything is still wrong in this world
In this natural state of this nature
It’s so strange for my sense
Where this world came from today
It’s getting worse and worser than ever
We are sinking more and more
From garbage, from pollution, the axis of our lives
it’s late in the end for everyone
when we one day die
with suffer and big pain
which kills next generations
and also for me, young boy

I want to give peace and not dismissal
Since peace gives me a strive
That I am still majesty beautifull
And I always wants to say that
I still believe I have a say in all of this
I want to be stronger more than ever
All we build is nature for next generation
I am still in the majesty flow of hope
that everything will be fine if all work together
because working is a best place
to be endless happy in this world
which deservs only goodness for humans

I’m just a decent man again in everything
I still believe
I have faith
I don’t think I’m a pure man
I am the greatest culprit in Bosnia and Herzegovina
Because I serve justice and freedom
I always want to share issue with the people
Because red protest is alarmating zone
And I want to change in Bosnia and Herzegovina
Thinking that pollution and big people behaviour
Can be good; I want freedom and new hope
That my country can be cleaned again
From hell which young and adults makes
I am best 22 year old boy in Bosnia because I am saver

Lines

by Mona Bedi

forest trek
the sound of whitewater 
from each tree

Lines

by Deborah A. Bennett

war news -
whenever i pass 
the crow on the ledge 

Lines

by Veronika Zora Novak

the sadness
of cormorant fishing . . .
Nagara River

Horizon

by David Chorlton
 
Along a late sunbeam
crossing where the tall trees stand
with a wing for the left
and one
leaning right, the Cooper’s Hawk
stirs apart the flock
of pigeons gathered for protection
against the sky.
                         The west
is a blush spread wide
and the east
is open to receive the shadows
passing over the land with nowhere
to rest. This is how
the day glides with the knife blade
drawn, to its
concluding ring when
the bell swings one
last time
against the steel horizon.

Lines

by Veronika Zora Novak

burdened
with a dark dew . . .
plum blossoms

Bean Creek

 by Jeff Burt
 
They belong as one life,
water, rock--
one is not one
if one is another--
for a water’s swirl, an eddy,
requires a boulder’s resistance--
without backwater, no crawdad,
no steelhead, no kingfisher,
no egret, no dragonfly,
no frog.

LInes

by Deborah A. Bennett 

the moon tonight 
over george floyd square -
light of the yellow mums

Two Photographs by Morgen John

Snake River, Idaho

Sunset from Sunspot, New Mexico

A Call to Arms

by Michael H. Lester
 
His uniform festooned with ribbons, medals, awards
four small bronze stars on his epaulets
the ghost of General Armii Nikolai Nikolaiovich Prespelnikov
more bone than skin
wafts into the auditorium
of the Mariupol Donetsk Academic Regional Drama Theatre
up to the podium like a stiff breeze
from the remote Siberian tundra
 
His throat parched from the dry, acrid air
he puts his bony hands on either side of the lectern
pauses for effect before bellowing
in his sweet undulating baritone
the oath of allegiance to the recruits
occupying one-hundred, or so, seats
at the rear of the auditorium
 
Ahem! General Nikolai coughs
in a bid to gain the attention of the nervously rattling skeletons
whose murmurings cause a devilish din
throughout the cobwebbed expanse
of the once grand but now dilapidated and musty auditorium
which murmuring, melancholy and morose
echoes off the walls and ceiling and through the rubble
like the screeching of so many startled belfry bats
bursting comatose into the harsh light of day
 
a war hero
a martyr and a saint
General Nikolai
leads the legions of dead
in their battle for survival

sunset

by Carol Farnsworth

fiery light streaks east
two cardinals fly
aglow in the dark.

Lake Avenue Brook

by Jeff Burt
 
August warm
wild blackberries,
fragile, falling
apart, a gift
from a brook, sun,
and seclusion.
Some wasps hang
adhered to the berries
nibbling the juice
thick as jam.                     
Others swarm.

Lines

by Susan Bonk Plumridge

trout lily sprouts
poking through
dry maple leaves

Spring Evening, Sunrise Drive, Garden Valley, ID

by Yash Seyedbagheri

Waxing gibbous in a slate-blue sky
shines on muddy roads
Ponderosas blackened in shadow
leaning

Lines

by Ram Chandran

morning mist

a flock of herons 
lifts slowly

Night Fishing

by Terrence Sykes

planted by the sun
watered by the moon
ancient tea trees
cling to the steep
craggy mountains
that confine this
meandering tributary
amidst silent waters
night fishing with
cormorants & lantern
in the shallow Li Jing River

I, Theologian

by Randall Rogers

I would rather
a beautiful soul
extol
the glories within
when reasoning
beyond description
fueling fires of
kaleidoscopic
emerald, sapphire,
ruby, and diamond
swirl
worthless among
the brilliance
of be-knighted Being
though I’ll parley
what I am able
into reasonable
facsimile of
eternity’s Paradise
dangling by each
comic
thread connecting
me to earthly life.

Lines

by C.X. Turner

fallen apples
fast disappearing
muntjac deer

the sacred white elephant

by Stephen A. Rozwenc

the sacred white elephant
charges up
the tousled green mountainside
with a tiny sliver
of Buddha relic bone
tightly clutched
in his trunk tip
 
his sole purpose
to collapse
and die on the sheerest cliff
to signify
where a temple should be built
 
fashioned
from the millions of voices
in the world
crying out for peace

Lines

by Roberta Beach Jacobson

lakeside
early morning cries
of a loon

Four photographs by G. Tod Slone

New Brunswick, Back Bay

Newfoundland, Indian Burial Ground 

 

New Brunswick, Grand Mahan 

Newfoundland, Seal Cove

Lines

by Marilyn Dancing Deer Ward

morning sun 
yet the sparrows peck
at frozen puddles

The Oak Grove in April

by Pepper Trail
 
Beginning spring, too early for the songbirds
but the oaks are humming, inhaling the sun
through the warming earth, up their coiling
passageways to the vibrating buds, green
swelling with the sound and the soil itself
is bursting, the sandy brown gopher mounds
patterning the ground, pushing aside the new
grasses that vibrate in the breeze like strings
of guitars, as the dusky skippers dart, black-furred
against cold mornings, now warmed by the afternoon
sun working the petals of the lilies too fast to follow
as they dash, leaving the yellow drumheads
of the buttercups to the heavy-footed flies
and all this silence is so full of sound
I just don’t know what will be left for the birds
when they finally get around to getting here, to say.

Lines

by Douglas J. Lanzo

bluejay cries
below circling osprey
scanning for brook trout

Lines

by Marilyn Dancing Deer Ward

heavy rain 
twisting the river bend 
a kingfisher 

One Earth, One Life

by Darrell Petska

Even to zoos come wars:
blaring sirens, bursting bombs,
bullets and shells that savage
the woven fabric of life—

Kiyv’s western gorilla, Tony, is depressed,
Horace the Asian elephant must be sedated,
Juto the giraffe has lost his appetite,
Christina the Asian lion is a bundle of nerves
and baby lemur Bayraktar must be hand fed
because his mother deserted him.

Fear, stress, loneliness—
provoking the pelicans to destroy their eggs,
the zebras to crash their fences,
and the remaining 4,000 innocents to endure
food shortage, daily disruptions of living
and the constant, debilitating awareness

of war’s clangor
tearing from Earth breath-filled throats
that trumpet, roar, and bray their right
to exist beside their human compatriots.

Lines

by Christina Chin

a rush of harmony 
the catbird song 
in a chorus of frogs 

About the Grampians

by James Aitchison
  
I came to unbreakable rock, 
Rock that was young and cooling 
Before any woman gave birth. 
 
Rock that will never be quarried, 
Where sand-dust grows a thousand trees, 
Nurtured by bushfires and rain. 

Lines

by Marilyn Dancing Deer Ward

spring breeze 
a sudden downpour released
cherry blossoms