Kaitlyn Park Writes

Lost Road

The GPS is not working
because we are too far removed
from the rest of the world,
and the baby is crying

We don't even have a baby, I'm
talking about myself, I guess,
because I remember the sound
of my whine and now pity you

We drove bass-ackwards all over
and never found or destination,
finally seeing the welcome sight
of a few dotting lights, and I never
rejoiced at the sight of a Denny's
so much in all my life.

Good Morning Baby

I hear the bed creaking, which
tells me you're awake, even when
you aren't here

I go sniffing for you in the middle
of the night, reaching and not finding
but occasionally you are there

That's a welcome moment in my life
and I don't want to miss those times,
want to collect them and pile them up

Comforts in a far corner of the room
for the huddle up in.

Snorrible

I know, I know, on the outside
I look like a ballerina.
The doctor tells me I'm too small.

I should gain some weight, but
the pounds of ice cream don't seem
to help.  I'm sure it will catch up.

In spite of my petite being, you
should hear me snoring.  I recorded
it once, like the secret weapon, like
the late-night sneak attack.

Kaitlyn Park

Robert League Writes

Terrible Gas Mask Man

Hopped from my bed
to the other side
of the room,
the terrible gas mask man
hidden at my feet,
but he was not there,
no fumes, no vapors,
no grating sound, just
an empty wooden land
with a few curls of dust.

Real

It was real
that distant space
we landed on, we
knew it, and should
have stayed up,
but look at us here
now, me remembering,
you forgetting,
and both of us
somehow regretting.

Blink

Small popping sound
and we are gone, gone,
going to a new place,
one where you can
speak, I can finally
listen, and stop pretending,
except I know when
we get there, through
those blue portals
and green mazes,
through the ice lands
and over hot lava,
I will still be pretending,
always.

Robert League

Alan Inman Writes

Incomplete Sentences

Sort of like...

Wish I could...

Almost as good as...

When I get back...

Sometimes when I...

I only I had...

One time I almost...

Sort of like...


Tables

Anyone could tell
he's got too many tables
perspiration all over his life

Suddenly he begins to like
it, spinning on his heels,
a dancer, a majestic spinner

of salad dreams
and salsa songs

That is until the plates
come crashing down.


Supplements

Health professionals
keep on dispensing advice
like they are filling a quota

take this supplement
this one will boost you
so the first ten minutes
of my day is an exercise
in pill swallowing

I buy special devices
to arrange them, imagining
as I push each down
a day added to the calendar.

Alan Inman

Peytin Grider Writes

This is where we began

This is the town and this is the car
These are the words you said to me once
This is the place my father shook your
Hand and the rest of you
            This is the version of me
            You knew and tasted so long ago
            And now I am someone else

Mouse man

He’s got a brown and furry nature
A scurry nature
A nest-building nature
A chew it up nature
And I’ve got a fresh trap
With some lovely cheese
Just for his neck to break on

Losing the game

In my defense, by the time they told me
It was a game, it was much too late, so
To my chagrin, I lost the game
And I’m still trying to figure out
What the rules were to begin with.

Peytin Grider

Camille Clark Writes

Rabble

I do not know about the rabble
that keeps some people busy,
but I know about the perfect

green serene moments of clarity,
when it is just me and a wine

glass. Not the fast dazzle of
drizzle traffic, not the loners
who cross bridges and beg for
coins, but the small instant

when the mind closes in on true

beauty and leaves chaos behind.

Side Notes

I have a dear friend
who writes her notes
on the side, tiny characters
tattoo either rib cage.
She is her own walking
lexicon, an ambulatory
autobiography with truth

covered by flowery blouse.

Clothesline

Grandmother took all
our history, relics, first
kisses, moments beautiful,
hours tragic, and hung them
on the line in her last
late in life fit of madness.
So now we have to hide
them quickly from our
prying neighbors, or else
explain decades of skeletons

dancing in our closet.

Camille Clark

Edgar Law Writes

Mediocre

The self-proclaimed
Scholars sit and complain
Unwilling to read
Unwilling to think
Only existing to take
Instead of read, understand,
Grow and heal.

Sabany

White socks, gum
chewing… easy to love.
Broad smile, crow’s
hair… a nice observation.

A new life wrapped
up like an ornate package,
a kiss… the bow on top.

Scarf

I am seduced
by the darkness of the image
again, pulled back into
what I used to be

A scarf flows in breeze
inviting me to a new
world

But I keep returning
to the old one
turning over stones.

Edgar Law

Russ Cope Writes

Operative

He's got a bullet
and a trench coat, some
figure from a pulp novel
cover, masquerading
as a real person

I expect the world around
him to go a pale shade
of grey, shadows here
and there, and a glowing
lady of cinemas to dip
low in his arms

but all he does is order
a bagel.

Fashioned

I have been made
and fashioned out of old
drapes and spit and polish,

out of daddy's booth leather
and the stuff at the bottom
of whiskey glasses after a
long evening

I have been made from the
matter on the bottom of boots
mingled with the substance
of heaven

I have been made.

Bitters

Infused with herbs of nature
and filling the mouth with sour
scent

Mingles with the sweet, the over
powering, to water the soul
and create a new flavor.

Russ Cope

JD DeHart Writes

John Ramm 
(appeared at Eunoia Review)

When first domesticated, John was given
A power tie and a mug with antlers
He was informed about corporate life

Now he paces in the offices
Snorting and bucking, attempting to climb

The heights are sheer
This is what his hooves are made for

They talk about him at the water cooler.

The Ballad of John Ramm

Munching twigs, scenting
the air, hidden in a thicket
of leaves, brambles, thorns,
agile feet take him to flight
but not soon enough

Hailing a cab, trying to make
his way to work, he remembers
distantly what it was like to be
in the wild, but that was so long
ago, it seems like a different
animal lived then

While others preen, he pummels
While others rant, he rams.

John Ramm's Retirement Party

This poem is for the recently departed
Mr. John Ramm, a dedicated co-worker
who was found one day grazing in a field,

and who now exists in the halls of this
great company’s memory, a horned figure
once stuffed into a business suit, now
mounted upon the wide victory wall.

JD DeHart

HR Creel Writes

Sane

Of course, I'm
mostly sane, which is half
the point of why it's mad
that I'm in here in the first
place.

I hear this and a number
of other mutterings
all night while I'm trying
to sleep, silencing the voice
that calls my name.

Carapace King

Shiny black armor
decorates his outside
making him immune
to the conditions
that always weather us.

HR Creel

Roger Still Writes

Drawings

I have been rendered
by a casual watcher, a figure
of lines and dots
amassed to represent me,
now wrestling with flattery
or violation of privacy.

A Horror Poem About Words

Beware the word
with its hidden
sinister violence
Beware the suggestion
the utterance
the manipulative syllable
A site of language
production, blocks and
shards of meaning
falling from the sky
threatening to bash us.

On the Radio

Standing was for the living
room where the record
player was and before that,
an 8-track, then cassettes,
voices confined to thin
shiny brown tape, click,
rewind, sing, click, rewind.

Roger Still

Donal Mahoney Writes

Adopted Daughter

Miss Goody Two-Shoes'
sweaters aren’t too tight,
skirts aren’t too straight
and heels aren’t too high.

She’s a swan gliding
in this small town library
where old men sit at tables
reading newspapers
from all over the world until

Miss Goody Two-Shoes
has another cart full of books
she must wheel between them
so she can put them away.

And when she does, the men
stop reading and smile
as their adopted daughter,
another Audrey Hepburn,
gracefully glides by.

Adversaries

If a marriage doesn’t work out
you get a divorce and look
for someone else.

If a poem doesn’t work out
you put it in a folder and
make love to it again.

A Poor Woman's Best Friend

Story in the paper this morning
almost ruined breakfast.

In a rural county far from where I live,
the natives shoot stray dogs on sight.

In my city, an agency picks up stray dogs,
gives them shots, offers them for adoption

and kills them when they aren’t adopted.
In the county where stray dogs are shot

there’s a lady who takes them in
but she’s too poor now to feed them.

The agency in my city sent trucks
that brought back 17 starving dogs.

They say they never saw such poverty
as the dog-loving lady lives in.

What will happen to these dogs if they
aren't adopted? And what will happen

to the lady too poor to save them?
No trucks have been sent to save her.

Donal Mahoney

Cattail Jester Writes

In Other Words

I got up this morning
and dressed in someone
else's words.
The collar was much too
tight and I kept switching
to my old suit.
But the effect was immediate.
Cheers rained down,
babies wept joy,
and beautiful ladies came
running.  Then they noticed
the threads tucked
underneath and it was all
down hill.

Assumption

They walk by
me, tucked up in
my ball of uncertainty,
and pass judgment.
Dropping coins.
They act as if they
are so far from
where I am.  They
could never be
brought low.  Not so.
This sidewalk is for
everyone.

If That's Not Nice

Now, if that's not
nice.  The neighbors
are looking for
a wounded bird
in my bushes.  Trampling
my carefully planted
flowers.  What the hell
will they even do with it?
Take it to a wounded
bird shelter?  Crush its
broken form further
in their chubby hands?
They run away when
I walk to the window, as
if I do not know they
are there.

Cattail Jester

Chelsea Howard Writes

Cost

I am afraid I have given
too much of myself away
too many times to stand
to reason any longer,
I cannot even remember
my name from birth.

Chelsea Howard

Izzy Noon Writes

Bitching

It's hard to watch
life go by
when all they do is stand
around and bitch.
They are complainers,
negatives, dark thinkers,
all I want is a strobe
of light.

Irritant

My skin is smooth
untouched until
the burn begins to sink in,
an insult cast across a room
of random noise.

Limits

Each choice has a consequence,
my options are now limited,
I don't think the others
knew what was coming off, but
my mind was made up
many centuries ago.

Izzy Noon

Joker Ragtag Writes

Globe

the globe is not
so round as one
might think
rather flat in places
rising and falling
where we can
easily taste it
differences
not so great after all.

Tunnel

I do not know
the way the tunnel
goes. I will
find my way
where I
need to be. Some
force may guide
me. I am not sure
what to do with
the teacups.
So I break them.

Joker Ragtag

Tandem Writes

Epitaph

here lies
the poet
you once
knew, now
the verse
is closed

while living
the poet
gave us
rhymes,
words to drape
around our
cold shoulders

now we must
bring flowers
and a few
lines of our
own.

Emma Stone

today’s the day
I’m supposed to be working
but I’m watching
Netflix instead

writing silly poems
I wish could be read in
a smoky sometimes
sarcastic voice.

Biter

Nubbins, the biter
with sharp teeth, look out, because
those molars crunch
Parents tried
to teach her not to, but the canines
kept sharpening
I love her
but she puts marks all over
me, bringing out blood.

Tandem

Donal Mahoney Writes

Arranging Things

She’s at a flower show
miles away
arranging roses
in a vase
very carefully.
Soon judges
will decide.

I’m at home
miles away
arranging words
on a screen
very carefully.
Soon I
must decide.

Blind Artist

The blind artist paints life
as he wants it to be

a tranquil sky
a big sun smiling
everyone laughing.

He hangs his paintings
on the walls of his mind

and the gallery is open.
No visitors yet but
admission is free.

Funeral in Mississippi

Roscoe and two cousins rented a van
and drove to Mississippi for the funeral
of another cousin they grew up with.

It took six hours to get where
three old men didn’t want to go
but they had to bury their cousin.

Roscoe’s grandma raised all of them.
His grandpa, a preacher, always
had the four boys recite a verse

of scripture before every meal.
That helped the day they heard
Emmett Till, a town away, was dead.

Donal Mahoney

Alan Inman Writes

Almost Extinct

I sit in my tree
Scratching, alone

Knowing there are
not many more of my kind
roaming this earth

Letting out my hollow
call to see if I can sustain
an answer.

Mistake

My lovely lady
of glass and slipper

this is no misplaced
fairy tale
or a mistake remembered
in the morning

after a late night

This is as it is intended.

Pretend

Let's play pretend
like I've always been
a nice guy

Let's play pretend
like this is a crib
and we are all just
learning

Let's play pretend
that you are in charge
or that I always have
been

Just pretending.

Alan Inman

JD DeHart Writes

Puff Adder

He’s, at best, a puppet,
displaying, showcasing, insinuating
the orders passed down to him.
At worst, he’s the evil held in the world,
the serpent in the garden,
offering fresh fruit like a salesperson.
Try a plantain, he offers.  They’re so
sweet and delicious.
Now let us meet, he adds, about the rest.

Counting a Freedom

Story of an elephant
felled, a travel guide back
to reality,
trial after trial,
another culture spread
through words and syntax,
given the hollow voice
of a native tongue, thick
and still rounded out,
a world I have not seen,
a place I have not been,
seeing my world in a new
lens at the last page.

String Bean

He is polite society
bow tie and mask,
champagne glass and
tails, stretching on and
on into the evening.

It is a wonder, at his
furthest extremity, he does
not snap in two,
committing unforgiveable
faux pas.

JD DeHart

Ken Maxon Writes

The Box

Life has its fill of worries and fears
They stack up in my mind over the years
Taking a toll on my happiness today
When all that I want is a quick getaway

So I’m taking my thoughts of negative things
Placing them in a box all tied up with strings
For there’s far too much baggage I have collected
Too many things in my own life neglected

The jobs that I worked way back long ago
Where there was no appreciation to show
The bosses that wronged me whenever they could
Promising me gold but delivering wood

Relationships that ended for no reason apparent
I’ll admit I contributed to the situation aberrant
The friends I have lost over differing views
Mistakes from my youth that still bring the blues

The box will be large, of that I’ve no doubt
But once they’re locked in I’ll remove those fear’s clout
It seems like the best way to begin
To enjoy my own life and let happiness in


Untitled

It was so long ago but still I recall
The moment we met and I took a fall
Your eyes held a fire as bright as the sun
‘Twas the moment my life had truly begun

Our hearts seemed in sync with the very same song
But you were involved, the timing was wrong
A couple years later the shoes were reversed
Sadly for us, our romance was cursed

But the memory remains after so many years
You taught me to live without all the fears
To follow my dreams where ever they led me
Unchain my heart and always love freely



Yesteryear

Sometimes I’d like to return to the days
Of my lost carefree youth and wandering ways
Where the future was nothing but some faraway place
And yesterday was gone from my mind with no trace

A time when I loved without all the scars
Always looking upward and staring at the stars
Back when I had time to sit near a fire
Thinking about to what I could aspire

Friendships came easy and time passed by slow
Very little of the world back then did I know
I didn’t know hatred, had no use for fear
Knew that I’d live for forever and a year

Each day was new and warm like the sun
Full of possibilities before it had even begun
Perhaps ‘twas a time when I was naïve
But I always back then had an ace up my sleeve

I knew what was right, I knew what was wrong
If I missed an opportunity, another would come along
Sadly, I know that the world’s still the same
I just let the fire in my soul become tame

Ken Maxon

J Ash Gamble Writes

Sass Me

Don’t sass me, mama told
us, but these kids today
don’t seem to listen, don’t
seem to mind much,

Hearth

Here is the home
I promised you and you
promised me, just a little
too late
Here is the man
you wanted me to be
arrived the day after.

Getting Ready

She's been getting ready to leave
for years now. Scratching at the door
like a lonely, amorous cat.

She pads along the hall at night,
smothers herself sometimes in her
own memory, and fights me tooth
and nail.

One day, she wandered down the street,
fully nude, and the neighbors had to help
me catch her.

I'm looking, she keeps saying, looking
for him. I have to wonder if I am him.

J Ash Gamble

Russ Cope Writes

Kiss Off

She gave me the kiss off,
a fine pucker of not yet.

She gave me the kiss off,
puffed lips that couldn’t stop
spreading half-truth.

She gave me the kiss off,
the story was over, and I
moved on like a White
Snake song triumphant.

Tidal

My courage comes in waves,
washing me away in the ebb
and constant flow, erasing

the features of my face, rubbing
free the crags of my being,
breaking my sharp edges into

smooth and polished places.

He Died Of

He died of the lack
of care he gave himself.
He died of old age,
slumping.
He died of not learning
enough, not reading enough,
his mind said, No more.
We all die of something.

Russ Cope

Logan Gilley Writes

Even Though

Love me even though
my world is quaking.
Find me stable
even when the earth
crumbles beneath us.
We are the solid ones
in a world of liquid, we
swim restless against
the current of thought.


Little Bits

Little Bits, a tiny man
in a bright tuxedo, watches
me from the carpet.
He is my imagination
come real, a gentleman
to accompany my woes,
speaking words to supply
my quiet moments with
infusion of wit.


Ye Gods

How the gods must be
crazy, I think when boarding
the plane, when considering
the parchment land beneath
my window.
How they must have scattered
lots to win this world.

Logan Gilley

Nate Maye Writes

Monotone

speech bubbles
in the same
pattern

drifting over
my head
through my ears
never touching
down

a series
of sounds
sliding
away to
nothing.

Minotaur

The beastly
minotaur decided
one day to take
a brief vacation

dropping his chains
he tried to escape
but the blade
would not let him

so he snuffled
back to his place
among legends.

Protector

Let me be
your solid protection
your lead blanket
your heartless wonder

let me be
the ground you stand
on, and the rain
that pelts down,
baptizes you in spring

let me be
your history, your
personal tragedy,
your vestment,
an armament, let me
be your childhood
makeshift fortress.

Nate Maye

HR Creel Writes

Outcome

I am not worried
about the outcome,
I'm more worried
about the income,
paying careful attention
to the contents,
disregarding the rest
of the shocking earth.

HR Creel

David Russell Writes

Fast Lane

Let’s get in the fast lane –
Rip off the doors and slice the breezes;
Let’s get in the fast lane –
Thread the highway through a needle.

We can loop the date-line
In a coral reef-knot;
Turn our jet-lag inside out,
Inverted, oblique, reversed.

Let’s fly an exploding plane,
Turn on our parachutes –
Chrysanthemums of fire
In the fast lane.


Clouds

In chroniclers’ minds
Past wars all went full circle
Making great urban filth destroy itself
So that the finest flowers and shrubs
Could sprout at random.

And birds, in exultation
Or happy in their ignorance
Made rills of melody
Now man had passed them by.

But now, with ice and poison
For one full year enthralled, embalmed.
And after that, growth’s circle
Jarred shuddering in mid-turn

Can even a worm
Or an amoeba celebrate?


Disintegration

The bottom fell out
And all things gathered,
Reverted to their origins
In skips, on pavements,
Fell to casual hands.
But at the pit
Of all exhaustion,
The bottom of grip’s loss
Are seeds and roots
Of restoration
Which in throbbing cycles
Breathe out on pine and belt.
The bottom stood solid.

David Russell

Ridley Flock Writes

Propped Up

I would prop you
up soft
on a pillar
or pillows

But you would
slide off
letting me down.

Snarl

Hi there, Blondie,
so cute and so clean,
a dream

Until I get up close,
your mouth sneers,
beauty made ugly
by inner nature.

Ridley Flock

Tempest Brew Writes

Invitation Only

this is a party
you have not been
invited to see

so close the door
on your way downstairs

turn up the radio
to drown out the sounds
you are not allowed
to hear.

Shotgun

I call shotgun
so do you

let's ride side by side
down the road
until we are too
tired

to see straight
coming to a new
reverse town.

Gift

It's a gift with a hook
inside
a delicate baked delight
with a tooth chipping quality

A handshake with a hidden
jolt
A hug with a sudden
twist of the arms
in the wrong painful direction.

Tempest Brew

Alan Inman Writes

Father-in-Law

He sharpens his weapon
He sharpens his sword
Come watch me clean my gun
he beckons
Which is fine
You can watch me clean mine
I respond.

Excremental

I squirt the leftovers
of being Human
onto a page.
I leave behind particles
of who I am, who I used
to be.
I make my apologies
for a nasty little poem.

Marabaggio

This one doesn't even get
a mention in Dante's Inferno.
It's absurd, his crimes.
Resting as he now is on
the devil's left shoulder.

Alan Inman

Carter Vance Writes

By Hand, By Air

It takes clock paces for bearded barley stalk,
that way your lemon dress shade kisses
the pool hall veranda’s hinky hinge gates,
that way you animate spare evenings with
whiff of whiskey mill bottler’s breath.

As you do, by crying losses kept brief,
by Bakerloo Line’s furuncle-jutting presence,
swinging on empathetic crossed tourist maps,
it’s made so simple by prune of pen,
by heatstroke sickness in EastEnder passion.

The clocker’s pace is ten-fold reason’s,
ten-fold a leisure stretch desire,
ever quicker with the limey brine of
fervent freedom at twenty-five,
and thirty times middle age’s soft regret.

Cross-square stitched a penance salt lick:
there are some things Limerick girls can’t
tell you off-hand, but some way, by air,
they make the nights swallow smother,
it it’s all about you, and selfish spirits.

Might be all of emerald fantasia
something sketched by bloodline, recorded to tape,
but it tastes of flippant fire, tossing
amusements on pyre as one-two punch-up:
summer-holding skin, fiddling collegiate fingers.

In becoming, melded gold plate,
resume embellishment taken too far,
that makes something so resistant, so quickened
from saunter of early hours’ wax paper chip crumb
conundrum: the ever-beaten drum of heart.

Fortune leads: it steels worldly changing winds,
propellers in azure,
we take to slip these same old fleshes.
Powers in allegiance like last time we held
in arms and breath, by air glanced knees, elbows,

But taken by the hand
to be.

On Fainting in Tube Stations

I don’t want that smart bomb sort
of love, that painless thing all
beset with clang of rust knife,
mouse click, screen swipe, before you
meet to touch.

I wish us not to belong to modernity’s
gold-laced bars, that hedonist’s
psychology of the thing,
but rather in some futurist’s fashion,
reinventing risk in step.

To pass time with pine needling
observance, vain seduction
of pictures waiting in turn,
runs its course as long as rivers
flow, grass grows green.

Revealing stares of Platonic
shape, shoving awkwardly in
slumber party chatter, imagination
of wedding cake decorations
at fifteen and vine hanging solemn.

Can’t let the clock hands drop
mania of wording tongue;
buying books of Badiou
and Sartre to make sense
of name.

Like opening of lips to
accept chest breath, resigned
laying, light pollution obstruction
for North Stars on south-facing
youth spit-shine ball diamond.

There aren’t five couplets for that
stringing lamppost memory I’ll
write in old age about it, these
summery flings between accolade pages.

Or, then again, with bonfire we make
of address books, of phone records
like some desperate Polish secret police
archivist on the walls’ last day:

I’ll forget
but,
no, couldn’t
that clumsy kind of love.


Wigilia Dinners

A muddy patch on Greyhound windows,
scraping clean in claret bath lacquer
mulling heat rash ruddy amongst
the stomach pain swirls inky acidic
markers as testament to what gets
left as unburned kindle, as untested steel,
as chalkboard theory, as textbook framework.

Embrace of asphalt arms, the model
sparkling monuments to welfare states past
which guide as gilded wire to weary dawns
forward in militia march of white faced
hours, leaking pavement shades in buckets
for trenchant timing up is the strongest
suit of cardstock to have handed.

Plastic cups, plates of precious silver,
like a mismatch of Wigilia and milk bar,
wash against each as sandshore rocks
the barring remove of aparting ocean;
as still as life mural painting, stand
up personable, but it’s not the
sort of supper you have until you’re

older, able to make sense.

Carter Vance

HR Creel Writes

Distress

When you are in need,
wounded one,
call on me

Be my One
and I will hear you
and rescue you

from whatever fires
rage around.

Mailbox

I'm going to make a mailbox
in the shape of my face

So I can chew up junk mail
and digest love letters.

Terminal

invalid
I am approaching
a season of ending

who will amass
my family photographs
when I am gone?

HR Creel

Mary Bone Writes

Flatlined

The doctors told me
I flatlined on the table.
“Code Blue”, was yelled
Aloud, scaring me into
A zombie existence.
Two large clamps
came down on my chest
And revived me.
I was called back
By someone calling my name.
Part of me wanted to venture to
A new place,
Devoid of pretense and makeup.


Organic Gardenias

Organic Gardenias
Vines and blooms
Thrive in my flowerbox
Outside my window.
The smell is heavenly.


Chasing Waterfalls

Chasing waterfalls
In my dreams
It is breathtaking.
The cascade of my thoughts
Is spectacular.
I slide onto a slippery slope
Into a coma.

Mary Bone

Stephen Mead Writes

An Art like Praying

Wings bring ease
for the pain in painting,
the intention's effort
releasing the testament
to love and to faith.

Aging, the thievery of Time
is naturally neutral
to the mortal plight
of turn, turn, turn,
the seasons under heavens
hope of consoling skies,
but we might anyways strive for it
with palette-knife layering,
the brave instinctive swirls,
the raw cutting into and away.

Tears are brushed
with such desperate gentleness,
the souls and bones in a cleft
when the betraying body
cages life,
yet light is left
like the textured floor
of some petrified sea garden-----
Earths' eons of oceanic dust to dust,
the foam of cells fossilized
in tectonic plates.

This is how my best friend paints
of her mother's long sojourn to Passing,
energy-lit, for Comforts' great urgency
when healing takes
the patience of rocks
weathering an Eternity
Chance plants
magical with minerals, mica,
the celestial angelic travels
of star-sparked specks.

(for Maureen and Mary McCabe)
Paintings "Angels Hand" and "Wings" by Maureen McCabe Available for publishing with artist's permission if interested

Cherishing the Gift

Driftwood you brought back
All the way from a cove
Somewhere in Florida.
That wood, petrified, that sand-seasoned bark,
This is your honeymoon memory, & how could
You know it’s exactly what I’d need?
It must be, as we always joked, that
You truly are psychic, doing all those
Fortune tellers one better when they
Threw down their cards & warned
You could---no---could not just…
My love, you surprised all of us
& perhaps even yourself
Standing there in that registry
With all those traffic offenders,
Each witnessing jail bird.

The driftwood you returned with
Now sits on my mantel, a faithful
Good cricket.  I rub its solidity.
I place a taper in every knot,
Make a candelabrum of the branches
& think of Liberace, think of
The Elks.

This is a poem started more than 2 years ago.
You have the original but I feel from that draft,
Returned to the shelf, did myself over.

Your driftwood has been a touchstone
For all the tides that have not wrecked
Either one of us since.

Bonsai

Snow-rose, I did not know
What a real tree you were, there,
Small shaped on your hill of moss.
I didn’t also know that your tray
Was a steppe, your branches,
A horizon, that there was guidance
In just looking at, scenting
The precise smell of woods…

Now all else is so quite temporarily
Leveled, those other globe concerns,
Your ancient, your oriental spell
As large, as largest fulfillment rooting
Through to each pleasing leaf,
Every snow-rose petal mist kisses
From my very own spray, the tilted
Bottle, the all-thumbs gardener’s hand

I now know as coming
From the mother, the father of god,
To be, as you, the creation of an earth

Stephen Mead