Lines

by Patricia Furstenberg

goofy ghostly grin-
still life art in orange
under October moon

Lines

by Kimberly Kuchar

Halloween moon
a scarecrow reaches
for trick-or-treaters

Throwback Treat or Treat To the Children Invited to Build a Border Wall at Trump’s White House Halloween Party, 2019

by Joanne Durham

Dear Children,

in the sugar high of fantasy, 
tigers waving speckled stripes,
peacocks in flannel feathers 
your Mom sewed 
late into the night,
in the whirl of bats 
dancing in eerie light,
they gave you a paper brick
to build a wall. 

I’m sorry, they tricked you.
Long gone all shame, 
they called it a game, 
B is for blame, who can make
the wall high, who 
can block out the sky? 
Etch your name, lend the grace
of your loopy S or sideways d
to a tawdry wall of infamy. 

Lungs breathe, hearts beat,
but growing up means
learning almost everything:  
what’s trust, what’s hate - 
it’s tricky enough with even 
the best of guides. Leap 
for the treat of truth. Be wary
of walls, who they trap inside.

Lines

by Katherine Simmons

coyotes run through
October moon shadows
predawn dreams

Eerie Orange of the Wild Photography by Morgen John

 

Homegrown

by Marcie Wessels/Margaret Walker

fried green tomatoes just enough late summer thyme
corner café blue plate special vegetable platter
magnolia scent lingering over coffee
tourists scurry by another sight to see
bourbon street zydeco two-steppin’ around the homeless
hurricane shelter under the bridge
floodgates the held-back storm urge
fat tuesday mask expansion
new year a new suit that’s a prayer
okra and rice soul food music preservation hall
white page without the black note rhythm out of time

Lines

by Chen-ou Liu

early leaf drop ...
from one house to another
couch surfing

Lines

by Douglas J. Lanzo

floating kelp forest
translucent hues of green
glint in eye of storm

A Norfolk Pond

by Ceri Marriott 

Lost pond, ghost pond,
Old pond, new pond.
Slimy fruited stonewort, buried in the dirt
Extant, just dormant,
Lurking, bursting into life,
Stirred into waking, only a century in the making ...
No brain, yet again
More resilient than man.

silent prayers

by Stephen A. Rozwenc

 silent prayers

for betrayed autumns

these remaining New England trees

conceal nothing

 

their projected limbs

climb skies to eat sunlight

only punch air in bitter winds

scheme no species death masks

and utter the soundless Ommmm

that lets go pain

of never again released beauty--

treetops crowned the highest right

between wrong

and we

 

still glowing coals and embers

of dying lives

their all-seeing leaves

are miniature orange robed Buddhist monks

doused in human gasoline

to set themselves on fire

as flaming ghosts

who chant purple crimson supplications

to feed the earth

as they drip down hillsides

Lines

by Douglas J. Lanzo

balanced on old shipwreck
reddish egret
fades into rust

Lines

by Chen-ou Liu

gray-haired exile
the waves ebb and flow
in a conch shell 

Woody Point, Newfoundland Photograph by G. Tod Slone

Glenburnie, Newfoundland Photograph by G. Tod Slone

 

The Ways of Nature

 by Ceri Marriott
 
Shrouded in cloud, the trees stand like silent ghosts,
Guardians of this naked land,
And rain falls heavily, persistently
To the ground, soaking through the earth beneath,
Plants and grass sodden to the core.
 
Elsewhere a mist hovers a few feet above the ground,
A swirling whiteness swathing the early morning
So that trunks seem split in two,
With branches suspended in the air.
A sudden burst of sun diffuses through the mist
In a faint, translucent yellow,
Portent of a finer day to come.
 
In the hazy sun before the world begins to wake,
A deer ventures from the fields into a meadow overgrown and neglected,
Sheltered by the long grass and the dense, entangled bushes
Around the drying pond.

Lines

by Tom Lagasse

Parts of stone walls stand
Men’s effort to tame nature
Another god at work

The Mayhem

by Kathryn Holeton

Mayhem filled children
prancing through a field of corn
with the harvest moon.

Lines

by Ram Chandran

starlit night
the river flows
towards autumn moon

When the Stars Come Out a Billion Miles Away

by Arthur Sadrian
 
It was cool the night I stole away. My naked feet 
    tiptoed over fissured asphalt, buzzing skin pressed 
 
between stolid cracks like how our living room 
    illuminated the slumped hillside. Here, our house is
 
ablaze with mercury windows and humming generators and 
    the time that brother slipped and splashed bright red paint 
 
across the doorstep. Here, the heartbeat is waning, 
    drowned by the gentle rustle of craning pine needles. 
 
I am guided by the hair upon my legs – 
    guided from uneven tarmac to moonlit grasslands to silted shores – 
 
guided until stupored vines outline inky carpets. 
    I feel their breathlessness: stiff like the ripple of daylight hours, 
 
shimmering like the reflection in my pupils,
    whispering as we unite. And now we wait.  
 
I watch as they float to the surface in pinpricks of effervescence 
    that fizzle with the truth of a billion mile journey.
 
I follow as they train their glow upwards, pay recognition 
    to forefathers that spit them into existence 
 
moon, after moon, after moon. 

Lines

by Tom Lagasse

Birds chatter jazzy lines
The stream gurgles a bass line
I hum along

Lines

by Ram Chandran

the songs of rains-
not alone
in this monsoon night

wooden knots

 by Geoffrey Aitken
 
news reports
global change
affects people
 
earlier for children
and adolescents

who we’re warned
may adopt guilt
or tenacity

a reflex response
 
my own memory
does not recall 
how laces were tied
 
only of shoes

Monarchs

by James Kangas

 
Queen Elizabeth (Mountbatten-Windsor) 
ate jam sandwiches at teatime. I need 

to go back to the park where I collected
milkweed seeds and plant them 

for the dwindling numbers of monarchs 
that fly through these parts

so they can have their equivalent of her
jammy snack, her ambrosia, and maybe

come back and turn the sky a brilliant 
orange in the next twenty years.

Lines

by Tom Lagasse

Pine trees sway in time
a chorus of bullfrog song
The rocks meditate

Lines

by Ram Chandran

star gazing-
I remember 
mom's story for each star   

Androids Do Fleece Sheep

 by Geoffrey Aitken
 
this day to day
 
of breathe in and out
for continuing life
 
is difficult to support
and more difficult to follow
 
with its inconsistent
walk with me prompts
 
by assumed authority
 
knowingly confident
their own success
 
also measures ours

Batty Attic

by Kathryn Holeton
 
Sleeping in sunlight,
Bats in the attic window-
hanging upside down.

Lines

by Daipayan Nair 

the dragonfly 
on a sunflower
...till I give up 

Lines

by Chen-ou Liu

a crow
perched on the bird feeder ...
foreclosure sign

Lines

by Joshua St. Claire

black raspberries
the deer
leave some for us

Blue Jays Aren’t Blue

by Ann Chiappetta
 
The phenomenon of light scattering is An artifice
Filtering and fooling the eye
Muting the spectrum except for blue
 
A crushed cardinal feather
Is red through and through.
But the wind cannot be fooled.

Tide

by AE Reiff
 
Plenty of variables above the peaks
discover cliff sheltered bays
to equivocate both eye and mind
above the tide of those
who keep their heads to plunge
Simple rectilinear, curvilinear pi
the mind sees, not the eye.
 
Homonyms for nouns
Emboss in holograms the sea salt thing,
down by the waterside, backs to land,
undersea curves and planes of change
five-fold crest the waves.

What arm binds the restless wave?
O hear us when we cry
For those in peril on the sea,
I wept tears from my eyes.
 
When the sun parched seven times
to call the whirlpool throat,
the whitened devouring world,
teeth of iron and nails of brass
devour underfoot the others slain
for those beliefs that got them there,
like pilgrims fall from grace.
 
In the world of water, land or oil
do not grudge that same soul wind
to blow the time to sail.
A commonwealth invades its own,
sneaking up behind 
Ossian in the grass, scales Pythagoras.

"My waters are polluted"

by Jayashabari Shankar

My waters are polluted,
All my treasures have been looted,
Plastics and trash are everywhere,
They capture my fish with a snare,
The birds and turtles mistake plastic for food,
My oceans are dying, I must conclude.
Acid rain and chemicals kill the corals,
Yet all they do is quarrel.
No fish, no ice, nothing left for the polar bears,
Yet nothing is offered but tears.
Neither is my land left untouched,
Full of landfills and chemicals, crushed,
The other planets jeer and mock me,
“Why do you harbor life? Be free like us, can’t you see?”
The same questions I asked myself,
Yet my reason I shall give shall speak for itself,
I offered a home to animals, plants, and humans too,
With hope they can make the universe better for all- me and you.

Yet when humans hurt other life and my oceans,
Sadness, anger, fear- come out all my emotions.

Each piece of litter gives a heartache.
Yet some acts I witnessed stopped the heartbreak,
Activists tried to protect me,
They pick up litter and plastic from my sea,
Others march for change,
Demanding that animals and nature be saved,
Yet what touched me the most,
Was people who picked up trash one by one, near the coast.
Even though their contributions seem small,
To me, it is the biggest of them all.

I realize that being a planet full of life is quite rough,
But having others to help makes the journey less tough,
Never doubt someone’s contribution however small,
We can save my oceans and land one by one, that's all.

Yes, this poem was written by your planet Earth,
I am alive too, and with words, I have no dearth.

Lines

by Douglas J. Lanzo

refreshing mist

remnants of thunder claps

from white-frothed sea

Lines

by Joshua St. Claire

tea ceremony
a raccoon dips an apple
in the Susquehanna

Lines

by Ceri Marriott

Chilling summer's day
The oaks have always been there
New owner prefers stumps

Voices

by John Valentine

I an old man,
A dull head among windy spaces.
-T.S. Eliot
 
Sometimes quick clearings
in the night.
Palimpsest, traces trying
the language 
of illumination. A time, a moment.
Then the sudden dark
of forgetting. You are like a blind man
tapping a cane
in his memories. Alas, the armature and its
shadow.
Stand up, quickly now, quickly. Here come
the voices, dry
whispers in the wind. Scarecrow, beware.
Where is the contract,
the guarantee of eternity?  

Aureate Locks

 by AE Reiff

Lost trains along the track
convey the draft in flames
from farms below the lines.
 
Giant cubes of steel
out-plane and form
the old world round
with one intent to burn.
 
Drop by drop on aureate rock
ducks in their coal-neuks discern
A double strand of long legged thrones.
Toes with feet hang down,
Turpitude grows endless
commentary where I go.
 
Call them bridges over mouths,
call them gates grotesque
bobbling on corded strands
one foot in vacant space.
 
Eagles nest on road signs there
and firefly wishes rise,
High season down high road wears
different color thoughts,
yellow hats and chartreuse scarves.
 
The crowd is singing, tongue in Mouth,
Throne rulers create the lords,
moon chained villages suspend below
radium pyre words.

The love-bugs

by Rongili Biswas 

 

Love-bugs, I call them, though they have nothing to do with love. They come in late Autumn. Hordes of them. And go round and round in circles around a source of light. They want to singe their wings, burn themselves to death, they make the buzz of their circling sound unreal.

 

Dark moths, I call them. Though they have nothing to do with moths. They come when evening descends. Or at nightfall. Over the shoulder of a neighbouring tree that has splayed its hands towards heaven. As if in votive offerings. Its avid religiosity clasped in a gesture of genuflection that has gone awry.

 

They live in dark corners in the hounding daylight. In musty leaf litters. Or, in crannies of the bark that nameless trees offer them. Almost whispering, I call them – ‘pappataci’. Though I know more than anyone else that they have nothing to do with those wilful midges. Both my whisper and the soughing of the wind are lost on them.

 

Their whirls seem an act of atonement, for some wrong they have never done.

 

I find them stricken with a grief that they do not know how to shake off. And I see grace oozing out of their tiny bodies in the gathering dusk.

 

I think of an unusually quiet night. A blue one like none other. ‘Over strand and field’. Over the clear sky, the transparent wind, and the forlorn shrubs. Reddened with bruises. Teeming with sighs. And blackened with immured pain.

 
The love-bugs, going round and round in circles,
                                        move towards eternity.

High Force

by Andrew Collinson

Where the Tees falls off the edge
Natural cold boiling guinness
Violently tumbles between rocks
Blundering rapidly down stone blocks
Suiciding noisily off the tops
 
Massively more so in full spate
Filling the ancient vertical gate
Fell water & pure turbulence meet
Wet misty cream, gravitates in rough sheets
 
Rolling plundering, vertically thundering
Heavy constant feed, for the dark velvet pool
Calming the torrent, waves to ripples go
Deep pools distant edge, brackish flow.

Lines

by Ram Chandran

except under a lone tree
meadow full of
morning sun

A monostitch

by Elancharan Gunasekaran 

dune upon dune sand gales grasping but never catching the hawk in flight

Lines

by Jerome Berglund 

why man invented fire
      to cook meat
Laughing Buddha

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.