bird: morning/evening

 by Ingrid Bruck

in the woods 
the robin's song 
cocooning dawn

on the shore 
a seagull’s silence
wrapping sunrise

early evening 
egrets wheel west
chasing sunlight 

twilight 
blackbirds wing east 
racing darkness

Crow City

by Maureen Teresa McCarthy
 
Light shimmers
Shadows flare 
Ghostly ribbons
Beyond my window
            Crows                                                                                  
Soaring wing to wing
Dark shining as night sky
Settling on bare trees
Plump rich winter berries
Close community
Stalking ground proud
Calls loud tossing heads
Stars in a dark eye
Young are tended
Old are not exiled
All ride the wind                                                                           
 
Murder of crows?
Unkindness of ravens?
                                                           
Earthbound as we are
Strangers to each other
We name them so.           

Lines

by Chen-ou Liu

shelter entrance
under the snow moon
shards of glass glinting

Rita Hayworth, The Dragon-Slayer (Line from: Post-Modernism by James Galvin)

 by Ingrid Bruck

Cloud Dragon, you wake devils and bring doom.
“Rita Hayworth was taped to the bomb that fell on Hiroshima.”
Big Boy never asked, “Wanna be a destroyer?”
No, it’s, “Pretty Lady, come ride with me.”  

In the name of woman – I call you Monster. 
Fury poisons atoms, even water rebels. 
Ocean Shaker lifts a tsunami. 
Sky Thrasher hurls torrents of rain and floods. 
Strangler traps a catch in a riptide.
Ice Heart churns snow to an avalanche.
Desiccator sips rivers, lakes and streams to desert. 
Fire Breath charges inland on waves. 

Cloud-Lady shape-shifts and rides.
A stallion kicks a mare in the side, 
his hooves pound and drum her ribs, 
beat flesh like a drum skin.  
She cringes at each hollow blow, 
follows each crash and boom. 
Sorrow sings in drumbeat and flute, 
chant and cheramie echo,
rumble shakes the air, 
  vibration courses in raindrops
rivulets stream down her cheeks. 

She-Dragon blesses each day's gratitudes. 
Griefs, she limits hers to three:
one for each story-doll under her pillow,
they work out problems at night.  
Heavy sand lifts on gusts,
sharp edges shave off,
harsh notes sand down, recombine & sweeten. 

Witch. Bitch. Slut.
Life Force. Life Taker. Baby Maker. 
She forgives what she can’t control
but shears Solomon’s hair.
Rita Hayworth sleeps
with angels. 

Morning Dramaby Christi Kochifos Caceres

Little Green Men

by Chris Butler

 
In metal stealth birds,
invisible to radar, sonar
and the naked eye,
unidentified flying objects
traveling at supersonic
speeds around the globe
before slowly touching down
in the town square,
emerging from a door,
backlit with bright lights,
metallic mushroom tops
upon their hairless heads
and camouflaged suits
with attached gas masks
and night vision goggle eyes,
with vests on their chests
impervious to bullets,
with weaponry
light years ahead of
the pitchforks and torches,
speaking some
language foreign
to the local townsfolk,
that have come to invade
and enslave your people
and claim your land
in the name
of their strange State.

Lines

by Royal Rhodes

at first light
on top of the snowbank
a black feather

Lines

by Sarah das Gupta

silver birch bends
wren hops over
deep drifts

Lines

by Mona Bedi

calm sea--
a cormorant lazily
dries its wings

Winter Hosanna

by Meg Freer

 
The usual dawn praise of life dances
at the horizon above the valley.

A saline seep flows down the hillside
into the brine spring.
 
Sun dogs scatter light from ice crystals,
diamond dust drifts until the colours
merge into white, a halo overhead,
rays skewed from horizontal.
 
The sun dogs move away from the halo,
day moves on in earnest. Deer walk
across the valley, up the other side,
and taste salt on their tongues.

Snowfall Steliana Cristina Voicu

 

Lines

by Bri Bruce

cows
out to pasture
dawn frost

Lines

by Farah Ali

broken ice
floating downriver…
letting go

Lines

by C.X. Turner

the slow slide
across a frozen river
blues guitar