Jackson Street Idyll

by Deborah A. Bennett

the old women's eyes bloom
like daisies fingers lift
like lashes like the caterpillar 
sliver of light against the tree's 
hollow heavy with fruit
i hide beneath the folding table
fearing i too will be changed
toes buried in lemon grass
in the sound of sirens &
dominoes their voices beside
my head like the cicadas
undressing beside the willow bark
butterflies like ghosts in the
cigarette air behind the bodega
the green stamps the subway 
tokens the weight of wings
between my fingers the 
taste of yellow apples. 

Romanian Calusarii or Man Dancing With Horses, a Pantoum

by Patricia Furstenberg

Days fall behind on this life
Even a donkey pulls the carriage with dreams
Dusty road tamed, time creased
Men dancing like horses came our way.
 
Even a donkey pulls the carriage with dreams
Tell-tales ribbons, walnut staffs hold meaning
Men dancing like horses came our way.
Freezing mid-air jumps the ancient tale.
 
Tell-tales ribbons, walnut staffs hold meaning
Festive shouts or war-cries tamed
Freezing mid-air jumps the ancient tale.
Fearless warriors turned dancers with chiming bells.
 
Festive shouts or war-cries tamed
Sun draws shadows lost in iconography
Fearless warriors turned dancers with chiming bells.
We witness life winning over death once gain
 
Sun draws shadows lost in iconography
Tell-tales ribbons, underfoot crumbling hells
We witness life winning over death once gain
Fearless warriors turned dancers with chiming bells.

Tell-tales ribbons, underfoot crumbling hells
Perpetual cycle keeps death away.
Fearless warriors turned dancers with chiming bells.
Days fall behind on this life

Haiku 3

by Andrew Collinson

Bare gnarly oak, bank tied
boulders, white water clean
Newly torn limb, gone.

Lines

by Chen-ou Liu

street camping
alongside one stray
... then many

Lines

by Stephen A. Rozwenc

In the church of the starving
Crucified bread
Never goes stale

At Marineland

by Chris Daly
 
I was most amazed by the way the 
Attendant used the word. 
 
For their next behavior forky and gorky 
Will goose each other in mid air. Please 
Remain silent for this difficult behavior. 
Good behavior, forky, gorky and good 
Behavior, you folks, too.  
 
If they are going to capture words 
And train them to go in circles 
Why not call it Wordland?  
 
Good behavior, fish man repeats,  
reminding me of jail. 

The Birds

by Arianna DelMastro

I wake to the birds
Already singing. 
Like they haven’t seen the burning trees.
Like they didn’t watch us
Make our breakfast with their young.

They just sit
And sing.
Like the sun rises just for them.
Like the trees shot up from their seeds
Just to cradle them, gently.

Even the caged birds,
With clipped wings
And rugged beaks,
String together melodies
(Even if they’re elegies).

I watch them through my window
While my coffee gets cold.
They dance through the sky
Like the air around them
Isn’t poison. 

They bathe in the oil that we’ve spilled,
Preen their feathers with pollutants.

And still they sit, and still they sing,
Like the day isn’t really breaking.
My little sister calls them “morning doves.”
It seems no one wants to acknowledge
The “you” in their mourning. 

The Monsoon Asks

by David Chorlton
 
How thirsty is the mountain?
A hummingbird suspended in rain
looks in through the window.
Does it consider life’s meaning or just live it?
Summer is progressing with the end-
of-season sales selling off surplus.
Would it help the Polar bears
if we returned everything we bought?
Whose fault was the Industrial Revolution?
Will we need umbrellas today?
What is the sound of sunlight falling?
Why else would a buzzard appear
near Forty-eighth Street if not
to symbolize the natural world?
The four peaks sixty miles away
seem to be moving this way.
Are people prepared for them to reach us
and do they know why glaciers disappear?
Will there be enough cigarettes
for the journey to Hell? Does the route
cross the river  that flows north
from the border. Can the Border Patrol
arrest a river with no papers?
What nationality is a jaguar?
Today the trucks come by to pick up
recycling: how much of it will reach
its intended destination? Should we have
addressed it? Now there’s lightning
running down a lizard’s back
on the backyard wall. If he keeps going
he’ll be climbing moonlight soon;
another day and he’ll be crawling
through the stars.

Full Moon Over Big Sur

 by Timothy Resau
 
The pine branches
in the fog—
 
The moon across
the window.
 
The moon
in the fog
across the branch.

Lines

 by C.X. Turner

a buzzard
circling slower
than clouds

Lines

by Katherine E Winnick

pleasure rain
the pink moon rests
- nights edge

Colonias

by AE Reiff
 
This is what the sages wrote
When new age Eras tore the coasts
to remyth ships of Homer out
when Delphi emptied Greece that month
of dark sea trade of masks and tusks 
and all its whales to Prouts Neck made
ecstatic over rock and ledge
the Mareotic piscine lake.
 
Mystics hid in slabby mists
the hillside brush that emptied Greece
and marched to the golden age.
Harbor captains bent to slump
their water jar swift governments.
Behemoth lept and Leviathan,
chief magistrate to found a state,
made new oaths repatriate.

Applause

by Sean Monett

This episode of 
The Harmless Mistakes show
Is brought to you by
Crushing Regret
And produced by
The Traumatic
Memories Group

Promotional consideration
Provided by "Probable
Future Deterioration" and
The Sorrow of Premature
Disillusionment Company,
(A division of Broken
Childhoods, International.)

Without more ado,
It's time for another
Unappealing Reflection
With your host
Scant Motivation
And musical guests
Those Who Are
Avoiding You.

This week, our panel will
Discuss the downhill
Course of human history.
Plus, a friend of the show,
Chef Tedious Routine, will
Teach us all how to make a
Tedious poutine from
Only your unused ambitions.

We have Dr. Unearned Confidence here
With tips on enduring the endless pain. 
Later, we'll play a game of
"Ignore That Disaster"
With our studio audience, 
And stay tuned, because you
Could win a life-threatening
Atrocity of your very own.

The views expressed by
Our guests do not represent
The views or policies of the 
Traumatic Memories Group
Or its parent corporation, 
Selfish Gratification Entertainment.
This program was formatted
To fit a smaller worldview. 

Harmless Mistakes
Is a program narrated by
The Voice of Reason
Theme song performed by
Spiral Depression and the
Unrealistic Expectations
Special thanks to
Past Indiscretions, LLC

Summer Holidays

by Lynn White

We all holidayed in Britain
when I was a child
and no one swam in the seas.
The water was empty beyond it’s edge
even on the warmest of days.
Parents sat in deckchairs closely packed
wearing overcoats for the wind
and a newspaper hat in case of sun.
Paddling was as adventurous as it got.
Nothing wetter was allowed,
nothing wetter was desired
in that cold, cold water.

Affluence and climate change
changed our traditions.
It was the costas for us now
in clothes purpose made 
for playing splash,
for warm water swimming
and stretching out to sunbathe
on closely packed sun loungers.

Then we’re back in Britain.
Sent home by fear
of infection and contamination
carefully keeping our distance
from each other
as we scurry to British beaches
only to be sent home again
as travelling was not allowed
nor was paddling 
even though the sea is warm,
nor was sunbathing,
or beach games
on the warm sands.

Soon we’ll really feel the heat.
We won’t go anywhere then.

Countdown

by AE Reiff
 
You can be unspeakable every day
and question breathing back.
Beginning to be winter folk
began to untangle rope
like water from their feet and swim
downstream where human forms array
to walk an hour before dark had come
when countdown starts and wisdom
in the ears glides shapes of brazen sea.
Plunging wave amnestic hearts
diverted in the midst of blindness knew
the most dangerous work was coming next.
 
The prophet fool and spirit mad
Orange Sea of rock mesh nets,
internet hemlock farms engulfed
potential melee, swallowed riots,
to slide into the sea of fever pitch
ready, salvationists as well,
leucoplasts in Hummers:  
all administrants to personnel!
Photo cells turned red lights on.
The sun stabbed arms in a purple gown.