withered reeds

by Tony Williams

withered reeds
a crow rinsing its beak
in the Kelvin

Bali Metamorphosis

 by James Penha

rainy season replenishes
little Yeo Ho
to become a river raging

John Berryman's Splash

by Jerome Berglund

Washington Bridge
takes a step
poet sound  

River cairn

by Randy Brooks

river cairn
come spring will it
remember me?

Sentried against an unrelenting foe

 by Herb Tate
 
Sentried against an unrelenting foe 
    Of ice and wind, hail, rain, and baking sun; 
    Each battle drawn but, oh, so wearisome, 
That now the Juniper, once proud, bends low.

 
And etiolated limbs that long ago 
    Propped up the sky reach down instead undone, 
    In strength, by time, yet all still needed so 
This tree may be, in this place, ever known. 

Would people cling so stubbornly and trust 
    To single spot against such force, or wilt 
In their resolve and seek another haven? 
    Some do find cause and fight the craven 

Impulse to survive untouched, their inbuilt 
    Sense that suffering borne is noble and is just. 

Listen, You

 by Ingrid Bruck

blue sky repeats repeats blue water
it's hot enough for summer but it's fall
and Novemeber's not the time to pick blueberries in Wisconsin 
a pileated woodpecker bigger than the feeder 
swings and pecks 
two carolina wrens and a nut hatch watch
sky glowers gray
the mistakes we made with everything 
a cloud choke
a cold and hot front clash 
a torrent
in the octoraro watershed
creek banks overflow
from east branch & west branch 
from pequea creek & midle creek 
from the conestoga to the susquehanna river 
mud flows in the run 
death before death
wind pummels leaves off a pussy willow bush
heat pelts late fall
a litany of climate change
the chance / to stand on the corner & tell earth goodby
listen you, wake up!

(After: Lines from Amy Miller's "To Whoever Inherits the Earth" at Rattle: 
listen, you
the chance / to stand on the corne & tell earth goodby*
the mistakes we made with everything 
death before death
*Amy Miller credits her poem being inspired by William Stafford's Poem 'Waiting in Line': 'the chance / to stand on a corner and tell it goodby!' )
https://www.rattle.com/to-whoever-inherits-the-earth-by-amy-miller/

Lines

by Susan Bonk Plumridge

a different trail
through the winter woods
a V overhead

Lines

by Ceri Marriott

open season over
the pheasant tries his luck
across the road 

wandering days

 by Milan Rajkumar and Christina Chin 

wandering days –
near a wayside hut
ripening plums 
across the fields 

squawks of parakeets 

Iowa River

by Jerome Berglund

river or field
through dim trees and snow
hard to say

Lines

by Randy Brooks 

following the Kanawha river
through the mountains
the only way

American Sonnet (After: Nomad Poem by Pierre Joris)

by Ingrid Buck

baby boomers, a multitude
on the move from one other to another other   
we steal and cheat in match-girl's story, 
we are rocks in pockets of medicare, social security, young workers
los jóvenes. sin zapatos, sin comida, sin centavos
   la pobre niña tiene hambre y mucho frio

so many viejos 
our world on fire 
each body, a suitcase, 
sits packed at the door

a comet streaks
greed fans iceball flames
age speeds time 
       
wetravel        onebyone         light into the night
wewalk         alone                 upthemountain  
freezewrapped in the same half-blanket we leave our children
no food or water needed this trip       
no time to douse fires we started

what we leave behind 
  under a bleak winter sky
     pockmarked with stars
         ¡Pobrecito! poor cold child
       
            little match-girl
         flares and drops

Crisis Actoran oral history

by Steve Straight

I started out legit, doing those drunk driving crash demos
at the local high schools.  In the van I’d change
into my bloody shirt and ripped jeans.  Did my own makeup, too,
got really good at gashes.  I could tell I had something
by the looks on the kids.  They couldn’t keep up
their cool faces when we brought the real.

I was too old for a Sandy Hook kid,
but I could pass at Parkland, they said,
and sent me a first-class ticket.
I played three different victims for that one,
just changing my shirt and hat.
You have to be careful of cell phones now.
Word could get out, like it did for David Hogg.

Then the big one, Vegas in ’17, what a logistical nightmare,
hauling in the full stage, all that equipment,
building those huge hotel sets.  Took weeks.
Two more victims that time, carted off on stretchers.
Damn guy playing an EMT whacked my head
swinging me into the ambulance.  Bled for real
that time, needed three Advil.

It’s so simple to get parts now with a supposed
mass shooting every month—like that would really happen.
I did that church thing outside Charleston in ’15,
played my first cop.  Orlando was cool,
that nightclub one, but we went through blood packs
like water.  Those clothes are permanently stained.

The guy who played the perp in Boulder
let me handle his AR-15.  Told me the ammo fires
at three times the speed of sound!  Man, just holding it
made me want to shoot someone.

Hold up, gotta check that text.  It’s them,
all right.  They want me down in Washington
again.  More Antifa bullshit.

Lines

by David Josephsohn

the creaky warnings
of dry limbs
—slow reflexes

Lines

by Tom Lagasse

hiding in grasses
the peepers announce it’s spring
the pond warms and trembles

Dawn Delicious

by Radomir Vojtech Luza

Tiger flashing
Across bubble gum sky
Like witches lost in lies

Clouds like alabaster islands
Floating towards cobalt orb

Oaks like sentries
Guarding royal entries

Olive bushes near poppy meadows
Like raspberry rushes on happy willows

Opening the shimmering light
With comets, stars and a neon mars

Early hours embroidered in rain
Crimson flowers masked in shame

Heatwave

by Lavana Kray

City suffocated by heatwaves and face masks. Early in the morning, already on the road, to the mountain, we get stuck in a traffic jam that pushed drivers out of their cars, yelling by the roadside. A few cyclists overtake us, some slow-moving sheep pass us by, while a cloud grows crane wings. I close my eyes and turn ambient music with rain sounds on, leaving my thoughts to wander barefoot in a glade of wild mint, birds, butterflies and ozone.

village on fire –
two storks chop up
the sky

Definition in the face of an unnamed grief

 by Deborah A. Bennett 

to know it is to know your own hand
opening, to exhale to be bodiless
whether mad with joy or sorrow
steeped in vine or briars 
all reason glows in simplicity 
the world is out of your eyes
it is always june & you are walking
in the cool of the day
hearing its name in the wind
in the root light sings, laughter
breaks in its stems, fills the
petal folds with music old as sun
& dew & summer
in the heart makes flesh of heaven
spirit of earth
in the head tangles round & waits
in the mouth blossoms with thorns
& with leaves sweet & ripe
as an apricot 
broken open.

Lines

by  C.X. Turner

full worm moon plucked from the soil

Lines

by Chen-ou Liu

algae blooms ...
beneath the surface
of his anger

Lines

by Maria Mathai

Ripples of wind
Shiver the leaves of a willow tree
Rain drops speckle wood

Lines

by Ulrike Narwani 

scorched hillside
fireweed
ablaze, ablaze

Lines

by Hifsa Ashraf

April morning chill 
a bamboo partridge’s call
rippling the stream 

Three Photogarphs G. Tod Slone

 

Lines

by  I.W.B.S. Sister Lou Ella Hickman

an old frog singing 
a flash of green startles 
winter now is over 

Through the Desert’s Eye South Mountain, Phoenix

by David Chorlton         

The bones roll loosely underneath
a coyote’s skin, the spine a tangle
with his ribs and every limb
a lightness strong
enough to carry him where
he needs to go.
                           The ice has fallen
from the moon
and South Mountain warms
from a yawn to a smile.
                                             A fallen
saguaro is part memory
part earth, and asks
whether the coyote
was actually here, or turned
from fact to mystery
                                     when he stopped
looking left, right and inward.
There’s hidden chatter
in the mesquites and cholla
of mockingbirds and thrashers
seeking out the starting point
of spring.
               The sky is balanced
on the ridgeline. Each ascending trail
winds its way to where
nobody can follow except the hawk
with shadow
                       for a wingspan
who spirals into nothing
                                           and disappears
the way illusions do
when the Arizona desert blinks.

Lines

by Ron Scully

upper Merrimack
the gull out of scent
of the Gulf of Maine

Lines

by Hifsa Ashraf

late winter afternoon 

slipping into the dust haze
a junglefowl’s crow

Lines

by Douglas J. Lanzo

Mountain elk
graze snow-brushed grass
tilted antlered sky

Lines

by Michael Riedell   

bear creek valley—
three old cows corralled
in winter rain

Lines

by James Kangas

bedroom floor shadows
of two frigid legs walking
in windowed moonlight

Lines

by Carl Mayfield

footprints leading
to the sandstone cistern
filling with snow

Lines

by Chen-ou Liu

job interview
winter morning darkness 
at the bus stop

Motus Plantis

by Moray McGowan

Indignant pines stare down the woodsman 
Shame him, till he hangs his yellow helmet on a branch 
And shuffles back to camp 
 
Wheat stalks cup their ears 
For the harvester’s throb 
Then blind the driver with a storm of phosphate dust 
 
Furtive carrots couple in the soil 
Their blissful misshapen children 
Send packaging robots into tantrums of despair 
 
Roses mourning their beheaded offspring 
Put away their pretty pastels for the nonce 
Their next dull blooms, unplucked, set seed 
 
Poodle-clipped privet grows steely stems 
Bouncing the shears back on their own cable 
Banish the bandaged gardener to a bench. 
 
Potatoes shrug off their mounded earth 
Greened, inedible, 
Sun-worshipping sprawlers on the soil 
 
Lettuces, though, throw themselves flat  
Overacting in their green doublets 
They let the slugs raze every last leaf 
 
Celery and rhubarb 
Sick, to their pale cores, of the blanching pot 
Up sticks in the early hours and hammer on the bedroom window  
 
And the lawn, the lawn! Aching for buttercups, 
Aching for clover, daisies, dandelions, 
It sends the mower slithering into the pond 
 
One night the pond too eats its own underseal 
Lily roots follow the seeping water 
Long-lost lovers reaching with blind fingertips for the earth  

Lines

 by Douglas J. Lanzo

sockeye salmon
steely-eyed resolve
spawning red, upstream

Tidal Flow

by Gary Beck

When I walk on the beach
I see the loneliness
of the Florida surfer,
who waits and waits
for the big wave
that never comes.

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