Latest World Poetry Movement Winners

Winter 2011 $1000 Grand Prize Winner

Samantha Sargent / Vineland, ON - Virtue

She tasted like lemon Halls and death.
There was a burning smoke smell—
and they were drowning even in sunlight.

It was cold.

Somewhere behind their guffawing chicanery
there were wrong things
like narcotics,
or too many dead years.

They look under their eyelashes like mechanic beings.
She twirls her hair around bones
and he shifts his eyes to something just past—
her legs and words curve towards him
and he smiles to scrunch up his features and make her laugh.

Envy and magnetism pull through the inches and miles,
until they are almost electrocuting one another

but still gurgling the saltwater in two entirely different oceans.

They could be dancing

sliding around paths of free speech and idealism
with the universe pressing in,
mirror shards raining down
everything, and yet still nothing.

And she pounds on Time's doors trying to spite its cruel designs,

fearing it still for so many reasons other than skeletons or
death. Because their lifelines don't intersect,
even with his leather all over her blue eyes.

And yet they are not lost.
Today, they just are not.

First Prize Winners for Winter 2011

Sarah Anderson / Whistler, BC - Floating

I am curious, as to whether or not I am hollow.
Beneath translucent skin, faint teal runs towards my palms,
I can feel the strength of muscle and the burden of fat.

Inside me lies a thick pink layer of moist velvet, and eventually,
a white cement of marrow.
If you were to cut me, crimson blood would pour wildly from every crevasse.
Why is it, then, that I am so convinced of my emptiness?

Catherine Aur / Austin, TX - One Night

Stopped at a traffic light one night,
I turned my head at a faint glow,
Reflecting back something most bright.

I honked my horn, a very sight.
She didn't seem to hear, although,
We were stopped at a light one night.

It was with good intentions, right?
For her to put it down, let go,
As I saw the reflection, bright.

I honked my horn with all my might,
Now thinking back to years ago
Stopped at a traffic light one night

She finally turned to face her right.
I noticed two gleaming trails flow,
Reflecting back something most bright

I couldn't help her out that night.
There was more for her to let go,
Stopped at a traffic light one night,
Reflecting back something most bright.

Richard Beach / Lupton City, TN -Oscar Wilde

words built up to form a play
imagination runs wild on the scene of today
an ideal question for the masses of illusions
between the marrige of men and beasts
causes confusion in the up most form
what harm can be done by questioning gods morals
for we were made in his undying image
and the images can run like paint in the hands of an artistic child
drawning lines between the old and the new
casting relections into the void of unanwered questions
a little bit of light can shine in the darkest reaches of my mind
and will someday end with a furious end to my life
goodbye my lover and my wife, for there is no time to cry

Sarah Beam / Platteville, WI - Higher Education

September creeps up and nabs leisure from our sides.
Caffeine slurps, over the counter bursts, can only do so much
To cast light down a road of obstacles
Deadlines and late nights unveil.

Kiss the birds goodnight as they sing,
"Rise and shine little fools"
We blame those harpies for our lack of sleep
Yet continuously exercise our retinas to pink exhaustion.

Housemates will serenade us morning lullabies
With their dynamic alarm clocks,
Tickling our ears with jazzy ring tones
And sketchy soap-box raps.

Harmonious microwaves will
Steam sunrise javas
For lucky neighbors fresh off their beauty hours
Or recovering from the night's events.

In six hours our sergeants will buzz.
We've already planned our wakes
before sleep even calls,
mentally acting out each minuscule task.

Dustin Benson / Windsor, ON - Paper Priest

It has given us strength
And fleeting me now
Leaving a shell of what was

Can I sum up the strength to shine?
Will I turn to dust and flow into time?
Maybe the fortunate path would be to melt to sea foam

The black pianist dress in dignity,
On the broken keys he inspires,
The honor of lifeless lanterns,
Is the adoring vengeance of
A timeless cripple;
An ensnared fate

Is this what we speak of in books,
The time of gold and silver?
Perhaps it will fade away when we open it

I soak up the blood in the mindless things I occupy.
Licking all the droplets left is misery,
Waiting for my company,
It has left my seat warm for me.

Ronald Bergquist / Campbell River, BC - Spring Melt

Egg cartons
glued with pop bottle lids and straws
made our ships—

works of art
from the hearts
of three little boys

dressed in rubber boots
and spring coats.
The sun sets on the horizon.
We sailed our ships
down the raging rapids
of melting snow
along the country roads
where culverts guzzled run-off.

Cold water
soaked hands and feet
but still we smiled
and laughed
as we ran after
our mighty little ships.

Icebergs tore them up
and smashed them to bits.
Casualties
of the great spring melt.

Betty Betty - North York, ON - The Lullaby of the Sea

Heavy eyelids peel open to a flash of blue.
In the abysmal trenches, the calm ripples wrap me
In a blanket of heavy satin.

Gilded scales caress my palms,
As I step through corals that shift in rhythm with the sea,
A ritualistic dance that moves my body in time.

With a jolt, I see it;
A single ray that blinds and seduces.
It beckons and flits like a flutter of lashes.

I fly, I glide, I climb the arduous waters.
Warmth batters and beats against stone skin,
And for that lone moment, euphoria intoxicates me.

Clawing desperately towards an unfamiliar surface,
I crave to feel whole, to take ahold of the yearning
That laces dainty forms throughout my body.

Suddenly, a break in the waves,
And I emerge, bathing in glowing gleams of gold.
My lungs fill as my head pounds
To the steady drumming of my heart.

Above, the heavens revere in daydreams;
Below, the ocean bed laments in the murky shadows.
And I know this is where I must lie.
Here, where the sea meets the sky.

Jackson Beutler / Arlington, MA - The Day I Made My Sister Cry

Don't look at me with those
two chocolate pools
tattooed with heartbreak
and brimming with water
like the drops that escape
from the bottom of a glass.

I didn't know it was your cupcake—
your own little treasure
buried at the bottom of a pastry bag,
the highest of hopes for
any three-year-old.

This is too much—
I'd rather inspect
the palms of my hands
up close...
Do I dare look up now?
I do,
and I'm saved from your gaze
because you've hidden it from me
under cover of Mama's shirt.
My face must've been a worse sight.

And I don't blame you.
And I'll handle your
three-year-old dreams with care
from now on,
and repay you with
a bakery of cupcakes if I have to.
I'm sorry, Ansley.

Kat Bormann / Rancho Cucamonga, CA - Helpless Feelings

The light fades
And with it the noise drops
To an almost unintelligible whisper
Voices stop
Their last words an echo resounding in your mind
Faces blur in front of your eyes
In your mind they are clear
And you reach out to touch them
Simply to feel
But there's nothing there
And your fingers close around empty air
In that moment, the darkness presses close
A deep velvet against your eyes
And fear grips your throat
A viscous vise
You try and try to scream out
But your voice is as lost as the light in your eyes
A thought explodes in the back of your mind
Pushing itself front and center
Suddenly, you have a terrible clarity
The light won't shine again
The voices that you heard
And the faces that went with them
Are forever gone
Suddenly you know you're not going to make it
Suddenly you know you'll never make it out alive

Maggie Brown / Upper Moutere, R D 2, Nelson - Requiem for a Donkey

With delicate hooves she picked
a careful way
  up through the rocks
    to purple pastures,
and with the scent of flowers
    tumbling down
  she lay to rest.

she, who had been so sure of foot,
 entrusted with unborn,
now, no longer pained
by bristling crowns
or mankind's heavy burdens.

Nor heeding creak of bones
against the parchment of her hide,
but soft muzzled felt the blooms, and
tasted milk of thistles,
 growing through
the spaces of her frame.


Brian Buchanan Nashville, TN
Hawthorns Cold skies like scraped stone
Granite glaciered to furrows
Freezing my blood as the hawthorns
Shake in their winter berries
Red on dark twigs edged
With snowflakes floating by
I feel the dark limbs

A sudden deep terror and happiness

That no
Snow branch berry or sky
Can explain.

Lena Bugriyev / Roseville, CA - In Time Alone

Fingers ironbars enclose
My impure face
Unspoken
Unclose my eyes
Hollowcavity cageribs
Shaking Breaking Waking

Stained feet tramplebruise
Writhingwavy paths unknown
Coldbone fingers press cushionsoftlips
Rigidstiff gaze stolen, undress
The waves closing upon me as a blanket
Waking Shaking Breaking

Bruised spiritsweeps the floor wither
Long hair downcast gem eyes
Leave undiscovered longing disposed
Groweak scarlet cheek untilifted
Dirtdust picked clean of wings her dreams
Breaking Waking Shaking

Sara Bursch / Buffalo, MN - Pharaoh's 4T1

An ancient monarch gifted in mind
searched beyond his kingdom to find
unspoken secrets of the grateful dead
documents once written now left unread.
Mirrored with perfection, tooling powerful projection,
refracting skillfully the moon's pure light,
his eye angle, triangle, drew past sight.
Diamond the edge of deadly strength
micro beam of focus immeasurable in length,
black velvet visions silhouettes at first sight,
a kaleidoscope of colors erupting before light.
Twisting, turning, spinning, yet free, invisible arms of gravity
held picture after picture without a frame,
face after face without a name.
Voltaic velocity stemmed and unstoppable,
desolate the destruction beyond his human conception,
manipulation repeating itself, defeating itself.
It struck him down like a warrior's mallet,
brushed him with passion as a painter would his palette.
Within this atom so broken, he saw the unspoken.
Then blinding and burning the unseen flame,
cast its lasting reflection through teardrops of rain.
Lightly touching the crest of the deep blue sea,
silently drifting into space, disappearing without a trace.
He rushed to his throne, and let it be known
truth if told, by far outweighed all riches and gold.
Justice is indeed for those freed of torture, suffering, and pain.
He left his reign, never to be seen again.
This one ancient secret of the grateful dead,
document once written he had read
in a world not long ago,
in a world very few know.

AJ Cerami / Saint James, NY - To E.b.

You’ve walked through a world of pinks purples and grays,
consumed by the sunrise of each idle day; the mourning of blood
that was vanquished by flame; and the rising of smoke that
drifts gently away. And to bear the burden of two other hearts,
“Violet,” he says, “You’d better put your hair up.”

In another time filled with white lakes and dark pearls,
you sought sanctuary in dreams and in the bond between girls;
to purify a house benighted by blonde moans, you wielded that
same flame as your own; that eternal sign of the departed;
"I did exactly what you said. I finished what I started."

With your mind torn apart by loss and despair, you danced
through to another world, crafted layer upon layer. Fiction
and reality merged into one, and the shadow of abuse became a
blade and a gun. Four things to escape, and the fifth, a mystery;
"It will be a deep sacrifice," he says, "and a perfect victory."

You left that fantasy to dwell in a darker; to dance in an erotic ball;
a fragile, petite, corporal porcelain doll. Maleficent's curse manifested
in sexuality, the experience of death in perpetual clarity; you sought
to be loved and for those around you to be close; but as you say,
“Death is the number one hoax.”

You've portrayed a struggle on screen, an ineffable suffering;
a journey that began and has ended with nothing. The portrait of
a girl who yearns for identity; a labyrinth of loss and despair and
despondency. But through each challenge you've come out the stronger;
continue on your path and you'll be lost no longer.

Angela Cichosz / Carol Stream, IL - Soda

Grip, pry, snap the stubborn metal tab from its enclosure,
Hissing and spitting as it collapses into darkness,
sucked into a chasm, a vacuum, a black hole
through which the gases of Jupiter escape,
minuscule bubbles dispersing into the oxygenated atmosphere,
fizzling, sparkling, popping,
like fluttering maracas, chattering chimes, spastic snares.
Creamy suds, white tidal waves rapidly rise,
engulfing the succulent substance in its rage,
wildly foaming at the mouth,
a rabid beast with sweet saliva,
nectarous drool spilling from its gaping orifice,
aggravated by the subtle shaking of the hand.
Slowly the turbulent tide recedes, ceases to be,
disintegrating into the body of the ocean,
the pressure subsiding, crackling spasms hushing.
Calm, stale air hovering over stagnant water
in a flat sea, a lifeless planet, a mute symphony.

Brian Cioni / West Dundee, IL - Ink & Stone

Flesh in Ink, stone to speak;
A master craftsman shows the link
Between the vain and immortality.

Stone lives, never forgetting;
Ink aligns internal settings—
Wedding tradition to ancestral blessings.

Fresh Ink: fresh life—uninhibited minds
The cracking of stone, uncontrollable as time
Is the process that brings out the gems we refine.

Ink may burn and stone may crack;
To bring about times where provision lacks
But this is what brings new ages to task.

With stones to design—life is defined.
While each mind has a voice— with ink to bind
And combined, immortality we may find.

Ink of thought, voice of the stone;
Fluid harmony of flesh and bone
Seamlessly united in density and tone.

Amidst perils and dangers that threaten the being
Of Angelic deception beyond what is seen.

Cole Comstock / Bethel Park, PA - Whiskeymen

My father used to talk with me here. Your sulfur creek
rotted the oak bridge once used to carry the men across.
I remember their headlamps burning against the hollow
like stars in the sky—how beautiful their blackened faces

telling how they became the mine.
Their feet, heavy and shackled, echoed as they crossed the bridge.
Soon the mine called the hoot-owl, my grandfather to return to night shift.
Three days later we're burying a hollow casket, shoveling

dirt over pictures of him as our father poured whiskey
as if it were water for flowers. My father toasted your glory,
"The mine is the mouth to Hades, jagged and torn from the earth."
A week later he's licking whiskey off the barrel

of a revolver, and we're crying as we watch him leave.
Now I stand at your gate, with a fifth reflecting gold
in the moonlight. I have been told no man is immortal.

Daniel Conley / Sapulpa, OK - From Sunset to Sunrise and Forever In Between

From sunset, to sunrise, and forever in between
Your hope in your heart, max the stars
The hope from the light as a fading sheen

I am a wall for you to lean
Cause I am never too far
From sunset, to sunrise, and forever in between

The space between the stars, I mean
As if I went from the edge to mars
The hope from light as a fading sheen

The ocean as fierce as a fiend
But more calming then a ride in a car
From sunset, to sunrise, and forever in between

Your heart is pure and clean
Your love will forever trap me like prison bars
From sunset, to sunrise, and forever in between
The hope of light as a fading sheen

Christina Couch / Gilbert, AZ - Apology Poem

Dear ebay
I'm sorry
That I abused your site
Along with your users
I was so oblivious
I didn't know....
It's just all those rare vinyls
And all those vintage movie posters
I couldn't control myself!
They were all so rad!
And I didn't know it would be bad
To bid
So I did
Eventually I won almost all
Making my inbox not at all small

Dear efunk55
With the Pretty in Pink soundtrack on vinyl
Sorry I did not respond back to your threatening emails
Reading them made me feel hostile
Sorry I did not purchase this album
Or any of the other items

Dear self
I am so sorry
That user PeppermintCouch
Is forever banned
Along with your gmail
What you did was such a fail
But you moved
Thank God you moved
And there are other emails
Other odd usernames
But next time
Bid if you are willing to pay in purchase

Ryan Coyle - Hull, MA / Icarus, to a Son

Bruegel is Icarus to me, son.
William Carlos Williams
And I
Are one
On the matter.
And yet, on the other side,
A great clatter
(Art deco and Ayn Rand covers)
An overblown imagination hovers

On the other side of cerebral pain.
A vast emyprean of wonder, to speak plain.

Your father is an educated sort
But lacks the conviction to utter a retort.
He works his day in warehouse labor
He works away for you to savor
The great works, the great things—
I hasten to remind you that living stings.

Jane Davidson / Cincinnati, OH - Graceful Fox

With a slight breeze in the air,
Your elegantly long auburn locks brush your beautifully freckled alabaster skin,
And your long set of eyelashes reach out to the crying snowflakes.
A swirl of mesmerizing warm breath
Escaping dangerously from your poised lips
Encircles us tauntingly—
Winter has finally crept up from the cooling ground beneath our feet.
Sea green eyes flicker towards the oncoming traffic,
Following a red car, a yellow car, a black one.
Ready to dig your heels into the icy road,
You set yourself,
Waiting for the final tan van to pass,
And you dash off,
Like a graceful fox from an approaching hunter.
It's funny sometimes,
How you,
My best friend,
Can make such gloomy settings,
Crossing a simple, busy road,
A very magical and welcoming place to be.

Taylor Davis / Glendale, AZ - Hera

A deep sigh escapes my slightly parted lips,
I gaze through the clouds down upon a new mother,
She cradles her infant in her arms,
cooing and rocking it glently;
a yawn overtakes the small child,
a smile streches across her face.
I turn away, overwhelmed with evny.
I step back into the nursery from the balcony
and stroll over to the far left corner of the room.
As I set my hand upon the soft ivory bassinet,
it cools my sweaty palms,
and I follow the swirling etched patterns with my fingertips.
Another sigh leaves my body,
my shoulders slack with a deepening sadness.
I take a backwards step and slink into the cushioned rocking chair,
my gazed still fixed upon the empty, hand-spun, silk blankets.
After a few moments,
I let my eyes wander around the dim room,
taking in every miniscule detail:
The Alencon lace drapes that fall graceully
framing the oak framed windows,
the egg shell ivory walls,
the white diamond and gold trimmed hood
resting above the basonet to shade the baby,
and the dangling lightning bolt mobile.
My hands still firmly grip the arms of my seat,
I shut my eyes,
take a deep inhale,
and Isuppressthe undying want for a newborn child.
But, instead of sitting here to sulk,
I draw myself up,
find a sense of composure,
and I exit through the marble archway.

Jon Deline / San Mateo, CA - Saturday Soul

Full blown soul drives through my sedentary mind.
Stale situations and boring conversations I leave behind.
Toe tapping rhythms grove,
as I engage the curvature of my spine.
To dance the night away,
Lead my cares astray,
and turn tomorrow
into yesterday.
James Brown ain't got nothing on my good foot.
Care to look at my vivacious undulations
that have more slither than a snake.
Waiting to take,
the mandrake
for posterity sake.
And let mystical magicians make
potions to imbibe and set aside
for tonight's wild ride
through the undying beat
of true soul music.

Emily Doll / Cincinnati, OH - I Am a Cannibal of the Lamb

The air is chilled and thin
I am a Cannibal of the lamb
There are light whispers surrounding me
Questions and announcements echoing through the room

Pain stings through the skin
Itching to crawl out of the dark green plaid
There is giggling
The end of a six hour day is near to come

Generations run through the time line
Jumping and skipping their way into legacies
Heavy hearts weigh down focus
Things made of metal

People have engraved skin
Scars of every color
Natural is almost nonexistent
Indecisiveness at it's peak

Cecilia Drummond / Vaughan, ON - Transparent

A dove poised on a bed of marble
Incandescent and blinding
Swathed in white satin robes
Pure and cool and opaque

So silent in your hollow eyes
So still your frame in light
Trust the feathers that grace their way to earth
Trust your hold is tight upon the ribbons round my wrist

A vulture on the steps drinks blood
Savage as the image on his lips
Soaking in the guilty yellow of a flashlight
Alone and ugly and transparent

So silent in your hollow eyes
So black the bruise around my guts
Trust the acid ripping my naivety to shreds
Trust the ribbon's cut , really I'd rather fall.

Sylvester Eaves / Aurora, CO - I Still Wanna Move

I wanna move—
ligaments in my brown flesh
to extend arms
in the air that speaks.

I wanna move—
beyond the thunder that moves
to strike me
like rain that covers my eyes,
like darkness in tunnels,
covering the brown of my skin
like Vietnam in my heart.

I still wanna move
when passion crushes my pump
in every decibel,
when the London Bridge comes,
balanced on my cranium
and my feet fall to pray.

I still wanna move
when joy is bleak
like the white narrow lines
down a curved highway road,
through the days of darkness
when the fight is a shadow,
breathing heavily, afraid to sleep.

I still wanna move
until God—judges me.

Alisha Ellis / Sierra Vista, AZ - Overcome

Fear keeps you from the destinations
Love makes you want to be better
Fight between the two emotions

Love makes the foundations
It's as fragile as paper
Fear keeps you from the destinations

Pass it to the generations
Spread it on with butter
Fight between the two emotions

What a congratulations
For the love of a baker
Fear keeps you from the destinations

Love can give genus impatiens
Just writing a letter
Fight between the two emotions

Love and fear are the only two classifications
You can rape it in a sweeter
Fear keeps you from the destinations
Fight between the two emotions

Elisa Emley / Portland, OR - Sputtering

In a full nature of disbelief,
You are the one who is crashing through seams.
Untied at the ends, suspected to fray
A planet abided by this crucial delay.
Selfish reasons for a selfish gesture
Courted by seasons of Earth's new pleasure.
Hormones cast themselves into light
No telling who's safe and whose heart may delight
In a cannibalistic crawl to the finish
A mundane race for all who win it.
Held back by truth, love, commitment
Will be the death of this crude, sinned commencement.
Fire the guns, we'll be there by nightfall
Hammer the winds, you can't see in a mind cell.
And they rise, and they rise, and RISE!
Fallen, one million soldiers we are.
Fallen from scaffolds of Godly attire.
Peasants, we look from barred up doors
To the Kings among us, who've brought on the war.
Knights of all ages know not what they do.
When barters from angels are shown up askew.
Take what you need from us, take what you will.
The treasures are in us, among strength and good will.
Bravery sounds blank in a sky filled with smoke.
The cans of gasoline are now brought on as a joke.
Flames twitch wildly at calm rosy cheeks.
But the ones of most wise, now called out as meek.
Say do you now, sir say what you please.
Your men all filthy bastards with blood on both knees.
And smiles on their faces, obnoxious and clear
Take everything we own, but we've got all we need here.

Melanie Eulberg / Lakewood, CO - Tyeramembrance

A flaxen-haired girl
In an over-sized sweatshirt
Slim legs made skinnier still
By black stretch pants
And sporting the red boots
That have become
Her signature
Caped with a towel
And flourishing
A cardboard sword
King, not Queen,
Of the Realm
She jousts with her brother
Amid the rubble
Of couch cushions
Defending the stapled crown
She created
From a simple sheet
Of notebook paper
And her delightfully
Inventive mind

Erin Farrell / Doylestown, PA - Plight of the Flightless

I watch as my books hit the floor
Pages falling like ivory-winged butterflies to the tiles
Wings—so diaphanous, fragile—trampled by the feet of the bystanders
Eyes and lips smirk at me, watching as I struggle to pick up the pieces
Pieces of myself that have been ridiculed
Pieces and wings that have been clipped, that I know will not
Cannot
Fly again
I can only sit, immobile
Knowing I have no one to help me in picking them up again
Who would help me? Who would dare take that risk, infamy of association
Can I blame them? I'm sure they want to
I can see it in some pairs of eyes, the sympathy
But then I see, too, the inaction
The passivity
Feel the watching and staring of agog eyes
The brains churning beneath those irises and thinking,
Thank you, Lord, that that isn't me
Well, it is me
And I matter, too
My wings once were extended like yours
And I was unafraid to soar
Feel the blistering sunshine penetrate my skin
Making stencil shadows upon the ground surrounding my opaque veins
But the skies darkened and the murky miasma ensconced me
And the condescending laughter tore the transparent film
Denigrating remarks slashed the brittle membrane
Into unrecognizable shards
The clear skin scarred and cavernous
Shimmering once, now battered
Tattered
And unable to fly

Nick Flynn / Richmond Hill, ON - More Beer

He holds a sign
Demanding, nay
Decreeing
More
Beer
Highly intoxicated transient sits
Against a chainlike fence
Professing his desire for
More
Beer
With a delightful smile
His eyes teem with excitement
At his chance to be viewed
For the shame and degradation
That has become his life
Hiding his failure
Within
A damaged smile
Underneath a scruffy beard
And still behind these pearly whites
And uplifting eyes
Lies a true desire for
More
Beer
Sunglasses perched
On a hollow cranium
As if
Staring at the sky
For redemption
His eyes have been permanently
Thrust upwards
From the toxic excess of
More
Beer

Matt Frati / Cumberland, RI - One for the Road (for Jack Kerouac)

Thinking of you as you are now,
safe in Heaven, dead, as you once said,
on the gloriously sunny August day
streaked with crisp tinges of autumn,
when I found myself in old, red brick Lowell, MA,
strolling casually down Main Street, my eyes
sampling the humble array of sleepy shops,
the drowsy local diners, and those liquor stores
you supported so vigorously, dotting the street.
Finding Edson Cemetery sprawled out before me,
I make my way through the maze of graves
on hushed feet, trying to compete with the silence
of Lowell's deepest slumbering residents,
all the while searching for your current address,
that flat grey plaque shared with wife Stella,
surrounded by a bare naked patch of dirt
as if it were the long lost home plate
for all the world's weary runners to come.
It lies barren except for some meager
sprinkles of confetti from a long abandoned party:
four cents worth of scattered pennies,
the gnarled stub of a pencil retired from writing,
cigarette butts that have claimed the ground,
all this a far cry from the bottles of French wine
generously offered by fellow hip flask enthusiasts
and the hubcaps left by passing highway wanderers
eternally hungry for the promise of the open road
that unrolled like a red carpet before your feet.
I leave my humble offering, a slim pocket notebook
beneath the pencil, in hopes that someone else
will pick up the journey where you left off.

Alanna George / Alberta, Calgary - The Gateway of Memories (Haiku)

Bloodied and broken
You slowly walk down the aisle
Alone, so it seems.

Your hands are just bone
A veil hides your mangled face
Skin stretched taut on arms.

Spidery wings stretch
From your back, so thin and worn
And twitch back and forth.

Sunken eyes gaze at
Your brittle hair, cascading
Across thin shoulders.

You walk, faster now
The aisle seems so much longer
Than when you began.

Memories of life
Play on the stagnant church walls
You're getting closer.

You are running now
The dirty stained glass opens
And you lope on through.

Your dead friends greet you
With sympathetic glances
Though they've missed you dear.

And one last look at
The gateway of memories
Lets you say goodbye.

John Giberson / Nashville, TN - Cracks

Cracks in the asphalt driveway,
Cracks in the open road
Fill with dust, like wanderlust
Between event and episode.

Strange that one should remember
Anecdotes to revive
Youth misspent, when truth is bent
Where those memories first derive.

History's seamless sequence
Carries, in man, one curse:
Details flow, then off they go
Through a crack in the universe.

Grandchildren oft come listen
When I've a yarn to spin.
I, their bard, Lord of the yard,
Never know where to begin.

Cracks in the bedroom ceiling,
Cracks in the old porch tile
Need repair; but this rocking chair
Has invited me stay awhile.

Suzannah Godwin / Rio Rancho, NM - Nightmare

The blindfold comes off
And I see your secret,
The dark force of your eyes
Seem to pull me in
Something about your smile
Makes my breath catch
And my soul chain itself tighter

The sights all around
Combined with the sensation,
Of your arms around me
Have my head spinning

Dead vines hanging from stone walls,
Forgotten by history
Burnt, ashen rose bushes
Ancient, knotted trees
Their branches torn in all directions
Tell of a love story gone dark
And yet, it’s still beautiful

This secret garden,
Time’s own testament
History’s forgotten
War torn love story
Of undying love
That destroyed everything

Suzanne Goudreau / St-lambert, Quebec - Inland! Sonnet!

Chaste of charm, our born contented spirit
Stands, grasping pondered, physical limits
Where we cast long memories of childhood
In modest places near the firewood

Bonded, our souls linger, recollecting
Warm woodsides and treasured lessons chanting
And our soft corner, near our gleaming stream
Where we sought a trout, a clover, a dream

We recollect the wild field as our own
The proper spirit, near home, where we roamed
And the perfume of the sweet garden rose
Every spring, glimpsing color bestowed

Are we not the loyal Inland People
Proud and noble, soaring like the eagle?

Jayde Graber - Johnstown, CO - Ice Blue

You are
Ice blue
I step to the water's chill edge
Admiring its frozen beauty
Afraid to disturb the stillness
Needing to be completely drawn
Into its serenity
To know its silent depths
To ache with the cold it promises
Breathtaking
Consuming
Inspiring
Deadly
Ice blue…
Blue
The color suits you
Blue again
It's a lasting chill to leave you
As cold as an icy winter's night

Bryan Graff / Kannapolis, NC - Portsmouth Island

Today we walk Portsmouth Island.
My head and feet meander through the salt marsh paths
framed by spears of sharp grass.
We haunt the island, and it haunts us.
And the grey, time-worn houses look on with their
dusty, glass gaze as I pass.
The white, weather-peeled church seems still to issue
a thready breath of sermon, a caught echo,
the faint pulse of a hymn,
if only I pause and listen.
Its steeple stabs proud, skyward.
The stern one-room school, Miss Mary's school,
with its hard floors, hard inkwell desks,
its black barrel-chested stove,
iron, like Miss Mary, perhaps.
I can scarcely hear the scratch of chalk,
the crack of the maple switch, the rote
exchanges.
I find a loafing spot, good as any, on George Dixon's porch.
I hope he doesn't mind that I'm here.
The wiry marsh grass stirs with the wind.
The post office and general store await the next transaction,
with the patience of the dead,
while behind it, a graveyard sprouts its markers,
white and tooth-like, and beneath me
sleep the island's only residents.

Art Griswold / Gaines, MI - Scallop

A lonely grey frog sits facing west in the morning sunshine
The dew still glistening on his feet and face
He holds in his embrace a clay pot filled with dirt
The dewdrops run down his cheeks, resembling teardrops
No flowers grow in his dirt
No weeds dare approach
He sits very still
Awaiting perhaps a grasshopper or fly to light on the edge
Deep in the recesses of his mind
He may be thinking of the rays baking him into finger food
All we know for sure is that he sits very still
He faces west
Cracks are showing on his face
If only the birds hadn't eaten his seeds
A flower might have brought color
Always he sits, ignoring each new day
Saying goodbye to each old one
Ironic is the grin eternally frozen on his face
A lonely grey frog sits
Loving the mermaid birdbath across the street
Sadly, she also sits facing west
Perhaps someday, she'll turn around so eyes can lock
Love, not spring, is in the air
Unrequited, he endlessly stares at the horizon
His heart breaks over and over again
She will never know of her admirer
Still, they both face west
Lost in their own thoughts and worlds
Never ending

Debbie Gross / West Pittston, PA - Sabianism with a Scorpio

Extend an awkwardly bent wrist;
One digit lit and prominent
Sheds moonbeams on an einkorn eye
Where chaos liquefies
Fingers weave the constellation
A supernova for the pallid faces
Comets for minds
Craters for voids
Gasping blackness for those earth eyes
Where star-ways and sidewalks collide

A galaxy caged by these fingertips
Five pressed to corresponding five
Still can't recall who owns this sheet,
Those eyes, this field of wheat
Where we lie dissecting reveries
Tendon by tendon

Codi Gugliuzza / Hyattsville, MD - White Cars

One left muted with a blonde-haired broom,
the other stayed stand-still in the Macy's,
looking for garter belts with a virginal smile.
One stopped in January, no more fuel, white
outside like the cold he layered up for.
The other liked cold, liked peace, liked me.

He left tire mark answers growing like his
black hair. She kept talking, shorter hair for
longer love, keys on the friendship counter.

Two-and-a-half hours is a car ride to good
laughs and a future dance of Burlesque
proportions. She stands center-stage proud.

June is now the month one steering wheel
won't be turning right street downward to a
turquoise door for a magic show.

There were two white cars I used to sit in,
carrying best, and the better low student,
the other language. He sleeps on the same
turtle campus and stays hidden, hating.
She, bumper-stickered here and always,
visits for full-speed weekends when the
hawk closes its less-populated wings.

Jenna Gunn / Mason, OH - Reminiscent Past

The ice-cold air sneaks into the
crevices of my parted mouth;
it feels like diamonds atop of my lungs,
wringing out my sins.
A billowing wind whittles
with its marker, rosy cheeks,
while the setting sun ignites
the evanescent trees.
Children jump into multi-colored leaves,
the many facets crunching with the falling of a foot.
It smells of my Grandma's house.
"Where's the apple pie?" I think to myself.
"And turkey, and mashed potatoes,
and gravy, and corn-on-the-cob?"
A shiver of pleasure runs
down my spine as the nostalgia
of last year's Holidays travel from
my head to my heart.
And it's that time of year,
once again.
No longer must I rest in my
reminiscent thoughts.

Kelley Hagen / Bensalem, PA - Grateful

The single mother's throat tightens,
three more bills.
She slips into the bathroom for two more pills.
Her head is pounding,
the kids are hungry, and there's little to fix.
"Mooooooom?" a voice calls out.
Two faces are filled with anxious looks.
She plays it off as she finds something to cook.
"It'll be ready in a few . . . you two have any homework to do?"
She is so grateful that pasta is cheap,
and that she hadn't used up all the frozen hamburger meat.
She sneaks off to the bathroom, to pee and to cry,
and as she sits for a minute, lets out one long sigh . . .
another month, another day, and expectations still high.
Tomorrow it's Friday, short day at work.
She'll stop by the college, pick up some stuff, won't hurt.
"Can we make cookies tonight?" says the voice outside the door.
She smiles.
There's some change for cookie mix at the dollar store,
and she is grateful.

Taylor Hagerdorn / Tremont, IL - Rainy Day Rose

The petals shiver and hide,
creeping down below their knees.
The fog descends upon them
like a warning in liquid disguise.
The drops nurse the garden of despair.
Drip, drop
onto the faded blossoms.
Beauty is vague memory,
joy the faintest whisper,
laughter the silent fragments
of a dream.

The fence is worn and rugged,
sentries of sorrow.
Light doth not shine unto them—
light doth not shine unto you.

The whistles offer a medley of
cries of pain.
The tears float to the very bottom.
Hurt goes so far,
down with the deepest roots
it burrows and grows,
burrows and grows,
burrows
and
grows.

No gardener could weed out the pesky aches.
The nonchalant pessimists agree,
they do add some bland spice
to the monotonous field.
Nothing sparkles or glimmers
with the faintest of hope.
Crawling, I go towards Your voice
but I am so weak
I cannot make it alone.

Grace Hamm / Edmonton, AB - And The Rain Still Falls

She enters a cafe, holding her mail
She sits down at a table,
As people aimlessly pass by
While the rain falls on the windowpanes

Riffling through the junk mail
Carefully sifting out,
Sorting out the scraps
From the long waited letters

The pile has been made
The scraps thrown away
Slowly, she gently tears at the covers
Taking out each inked sheet of paper

Each one reads,
"Thank you for applying, but I'm sorry to say..."
"Thank you for applying, but I'm sorry to say..."
"Thank you for applying, but I'm sorry..."

Her heart
Stops beating;
Her world
Stops
Spinning.

She lifts her head and looks around
And the people keep passing by
And the rain still falls on the windowpanes.

Dawn Haveman / Cadillac, MI - An Early Morning

Down rightly rude, induced, interrupt ending dream.
Down quite late, half past midnight, up again by five.
Old meandrous clock cries eye-reaming sputtering scream.
Already, dawn is early to take a dive.

Down rightly rude, the induced, the wakening seems.
Down on might, tired muscles, stumbling out of bed.
Oh, the start of the day unsatisfactory deems.
Already, I carry the weight of day, a heavy head.

Up now I am feeling somewhat cranky and rude.
Up quite late, half past midnight, once I laid me down.
I induced that what I am feeling now, for I,
set the alarm, laid down late, placing the heavy crown.

Helen Hawaz / Brooklyn, NY - Lost Veins of the World

We will live in the same world
full of purple leaves and toxic grass,
brown air and even browner water,
enclosed spaces filled with just a little love
and the eyes of the fallen looking up to us
with hearts just as weak as their veinless arms.
We will house our perfect souls
with our imperfect bodies,
we will betray the limelight with our bizarre personas,
and we will dance to the vivid beat in our heads
with an intention far beyond our comprehension.
So eventually, once the sun sets
and the moon encompasses our universe,
while the only source of light is in one another's eyes,
and when belief in something deeper than the earth's core strikes us,
we will be accustomed to what is,
pay our respects to what couldn't be,
because in the end that is the beginning that is the end to another's beginning.
We deem freely,
our souls intertwined.
We are happy,
no longer is the zephyr
demeaning our flight.

Tara Hayen / Poway, CA - Neverland

Fire trucks with little zebras
Rocket ships that swim through air
Ladybugs who crawl in circles
A child and her teddy bear
Spinning shapes around laughing flowers
Butterflies with gumdrop hair
Swirling figures on the ceiling
Blur together as I stare
For hours dreaming never moving
Never speaking, for I dare
Not say a word to disrupt teacher
The ferocious Ms. Dellatere
Blackened bruises from her fingers
Dark blood spattered down the stair
Muffled screams of horrid pleasure
Bound upon her wooden chair
Leather straps and chain-linked fencing
Little girls so young and fair
Broken bodies rest in corners
Drowning in my own nightmare
Dolphins swim across the treetops
Where they go I do not care
My only wish for them to hear me
Whispering"Please take me there?"

Bing Jie Fu He / New York, NY - Royal Psycho

I came from the earth, mother said.
Three realms of royal blood run through my body
Like an electric pulse. It came from my father.
One Manchu, an emperor's late-afternoon dream;
One Tibetan, an old man's wine sack on the cold plateau;
The last Romanov, a refugee.
But I need none of these, for the three combined
And mix poison in my veins.
I reject such ancestral heresy.
I came from the earth, my mother said.

I would rather have three types of earth mixed
In my brain: one grassy, one volcanic, the other
Sky-high. I would rather come from the water
Of Sicily, and roll in the hot crest of its sand.
I would rather be Roman, singing nursery rhymes of
How Caesar crossed the Rubicon, and play with
My gold coins like dice: one face Augustus, the other
A cold imprint of Roman numeral. I would rather hide
In the dusty pages of Cicero and Tacitus, than
To face my royal blood again.
But father is waiting for me across the ocean of
Actium.

Father kidnapped me and put my sanity in hospital gowns
In my own psych ward. Mass produced pictures of
Dorian Gray stare at me on the white-washed walls.
Father forced me to wear birthday hats, then
Greek comedy masks; father, this is no way
To treat a royal prince, the blood of
Genghis Khan cries and shouts in my already emptied
Heart. Father, exile me please, I beg of you,
Then I would hide myself as a winter stone, and wrap
My poisoned body in my own purity of thought.
In 49BC Caesar crossed the Rubicon,
Yet it is snowing in Gaul.

Rae Anne Henwood / Victoria, BC - That's Pretty Far Out

The way you conduct our lives
with your funky voodoo
in the way that only you can.

We wait, on edge
breathless
for your Starman
failing to realize he is already
here
walking among us

Such confidence should be
outlawed:
that dashing swagger,
that incandescent grin

You charm us all, and we're
splendidly swallowed up
in the spell of your
imperfect gaze

Redolent of class
and unflinching conviction
you are the very Prince
of Pulchritude

And we bow to you
gladly

Jozelyn Herrick / Catonsville, MD - House

The cane creaked under him,
mahogany isn't sturdy,
yet he dragged the unstable leg
with muscles that withered
under the surface of his skin.
For he bathed in the glory
of being, and drenched his
face in the acrid swig of challenge.
He wore the battle armor
of the sickly, and shrugged
off the raised eyebrows that
accused his thriving intellect.
No one ever thought he would
spend a night with silent tears
running down his concave cheeks,
black and sticky with regret.

Jessica Hesse / Derry, NH - November Poem

i see scarlet
smeared across gods bedroom walls
and the devils cheeks rosy like
a slice of cherry pie
on the table of fire that we call passionate love
flames bright from a malicious sun
shooting daggers like a
pissed off porcupine cornered
dying, a last attempt at
poking out an eyeball

i see scarlet
until I am blind on the floor
of my friend's basement
5 AM the light of the television
slaps me in the face
choose your weapon the box screams
needle, cyanide, pistol, baby
suicide
how will you ruin the world today?
stand closer to the well tie
a brick to your leg jump off
jump in jump up jump down
feel the wind on your teeth as you smile fall
like an albatross swooping across the tearful sea
so beautiful, so disgusting
so hoary, so bold
see scarlet, tie that ribbon around
your eyes take a swing at that pinata, boy
bust its candy brains and claim your treasures cause I won't
stop you who would dare try?
you deserve to live you idiots
you deserve the world on your
fingernail to flick like a crumb onto
the floor to be stepped on, slurped up
by the dog, rest
inside his intestines until your
beautiful birth into the bright lights
and dark downfalls
of a scarlet, scarlet, scarlet tomorrow.

Andrew Horaceglenn / Maplewood, MN - Somewhere There Is a River

Somewhere there is a river death cannot cross,
Mounted there on his horse called time,
Riding hell-bent through a landscape divine.

Somewhere there is a river
A blazing ribbon winding through a green plain,
Dividing creation in two parts:
The love of man and the arts;
Second, a dark place where all is thirst,
Where loss is shell that has burst
And desire turns to dross.

Somewhere there is a river death cannot cross,
Where he drops his reins letting his horse drink.
Time shall whinny and toss its mane
In an arc of spray, each moment supreme and gay.
I would pray the sun let go its hand
To let lovers gallop free in this new land.

Noelle Horton / Georgetown, GA - Red

I have a bleeding heart: red on a worn out notebook,
and little dribbles of pain on a Microsoft Word document.
I say to myself,
"Enough is enough,"
and pretend to stop hurting,
to stop caring.
I pretend to giggle, to laugh
a defensive morsel of a
lie,
pretending that laughter comes easy for
a person like me.
No one ever stays,
and I always cry
with words still pleading,
always screaming,
internally bleeding:
why would you torture someone
who doesn't know anything
about not hurting?

Laura Jacka / Calgary, AB - The Offering

I followed the breadcrumbs to your door
As many had before;
Deliberately placed with concentric magic and, device, that
would put the Sun to sham€¦.
Yet I follow in reckless pain.
Gossamer spun around the house, the door ajar; a glow apparent and bright;
I now see your form
Exquisite, chaotic but, too tame; it bends and, twists against the light;
Still I stoop.
I step
I put before you an offering- of gentle honesty, a feather soft-of a dove;
This I offer as my love.
You stand.
You step
upon the feather with boots solid and, stride away.
I turn to face another day

Kym Jenkins / Columbus, MS - Hush Now

His hair, dark chocolate truffle, fell into her mouth
just as it opened in a tiny o,
the most dangerous of all letters.
His brown eyes infected her own,
leaving her intuition helpless to scream:
INFECTIOUS!

Without her intuition she could not manage
as the Siamese cat she always had been.
Her whiskers cut she became a monstrosity
of an alley cat,
no more refined than raw sugar.

She landed on her back
rather than her feet for you see
she would fall each time the two would meet.
His heartbeat hypnotized her into
the sheets.

Five weeks later...

at the clinic
legs wide open
her toe flips the vacuum switch,

disposable bio-toxic material.

Cathryn Jordan / Lampasas, TX - Amulet

I tuck a amulet of fear inside and wait, barely breathing
for light to come inside.
Hollow echoes of quiet desolation
and deliberate sorrow cry silent in the night.
Lovely voices, winged intruders sing a capella in the light.

I watch through spread eagle fingers as
Miniature Buddas dance beneath a banana moon,
nodding and breathing, they light the night and
give the darkness a sweet glow in their flight.
Fever conjures sweet melody, rumpled dreams cast their vessel out to sea.

The wind cries out, awakens the past,
doors open and erase shadows that doubts had cast.
Lovely, lilting lilies floating by. I lift my veil;
regret, remorse no longer imprison me.
My arms, once held strong in front of me,
now lifeless limbs fail and fall to my side.
allowing light and love to come inside.

Free will escapes. I wonder whose face will be the first I see,
John Lennon or John Kennedy?
I glance back, only once, and see a woman, a child;
ten perfect fingers and ten perfect toes,
Mysterious, patient, soothing light walks with and guides me as I leave.

Art Judd / Santa Fe, NM - Pucci

From three shelters
in Houston, then
finally a home.
Pucci, the night walker
unique animality
growing dependency;
a source of pleasure
and pain as well
went missing one evening
while looking for me
picked up by a driver,
the worry was hell
not mine officially
though he held a view
I cannot disclodge
he was my master
and I, his dog.

Hee Kang / La Crescenta, CA - Mortal Bride

Soft footsteps through the amalgam gate
Trace the stony path of stygian streams
As raven tresses flutter and wave
Above shadows cast by leaves of yew.

Driven on by winds of autumn late,
Frail legs clasped on the loosening seams
Of cobweb veils plucked from Somnus' cave,
The dayflies crown her head two by two.

Acidic green eyes meet obsidian
And she halts before Him, burning Death-
A black maelstr├╢m. He slips a ring crafted
Of holly on her thin, pallid finger.

Strewn in the day's meridian,
Ashen petals on a bed of teeth.
A brush of lips, the last breath wafted.
Silent whispers in the breeze, to linger.

Terra Kincaid / Hillsboro, OH - Upstairs Spider

I was aware
Of a spider scuttling by,
Scratching the cardboard ceiling
In the dark.
It was audible only.

Every careful step,
like a pellet ricochet,
I knew it was there.
So did he,
I wonder of me,
He is aware,

Keeping me from sleep,
Making a heated chill
Without recover,
Deep despair
Of cardboard acoustics.

Home had quiet above my bed.
Stingy light
Without dawning perception
Is better perhaps that way.

Shuffling, tipping,
Scratching,
Slipping closer,
With hairy rattles,
Creeping marauder,
Nightmare spy.

Roger Kudeba / Waterloo, ON - A Table Of Two Spirits

A man of power and learned in scope,
sipped a glass of spirit.
The wine was bitter and the weather cold,
the chatter failing attrit.
The hour was dire and the season coarse,
leaves were ugly browning,
while beyond the window a peevish child,
stood forever frowning.

A man of heart and of humble home
drank of that same spirit.
The drink was strong and the weather lively,
the room calm and quiescent.
The hour was great and the season fining,
leaves a belle marooning;
when lo outside there stood a pensive child
basking his surrounding.

A glass half empty and a glass half full
opposite the table,
A life of sorrow and a life of hope
underneath the gable.

Benjamin Kutner / Rockville Centre, NY - Pillow

Byzantine sun, accomplice to the sky,
held court above the steepled top of St. Agnes church,
playing paddleball with a a tall man
whose shadow tugged the cement
like bare feet on carpet.
The winner earns a bouquet with leaves
drawn blue with colored pencils,
and orange juice squeezed that morning
with hands that rested earlier
under the cold side of the pillow.

Charles Lamadine / Surrey, BC - Walking to School

Walking to school,
The days were many
And so were their toils.
Life was normal as it appeared
While its happening surreal as the seasons.
We were the school kids,
Some of us tough.
Others were the neighborhood wanderers;
Yet some more were destitute hostages.
Walking to school was tiring and endless,
Yet the garments didn't fit every kid.
For the most, the walk was a docile path.
Our needs were less and suffering was more.
Yet some parents eyed the distant future
Others didn't for reasons too big to pull.
But walking to school
Was never priceless nor prizeless.
With the sun on our back,
Our feet ate their dust.
With the rain,
Our heads drenched in its pouring.
The cold penetrated our coatless bodies.
Despite all odds,
Our zeal embraced walking to school.
Breakfast and lunch were never a must.
One meal a day saw our stomachs famished,
So we scrambled and fetched
And eluded the injustices of hunger.
Walking to school—
Our covering-headline a non-fiction;
And the cure met battered faces.
Harshness embraced us on countless fronts,
Dried tears marked our faces with constancy.
Walking to school, yesterday's battle must win
And bring today's manifestation.
In retrospect, a realization pops.
Walking to school,
With feet of perseverance and commitment,
Yields no regrets in today's world.

Aurilla Lawrence / Jackson, MO - The Force Newton Couldn't See

All unsaid words weigh upon hopeless souls
While the restless lie, grievously awake.
The force leaves our hearts as nothing but holes.

When you are alone, you just play the role
Of savior. The truth puts too much at stake.
All unsaid words weigh upon hopeless souls.

Falling in love was not one of my goals,
But dwelling in hate was too much to take.
The force leaves our hearts as nothing but holes.

I slowly shatter, while my heartbeat lulls
Me to slumber just as night to dawn breaks.
All unsaid words weigh upon hopeless souls.

You say you live free: the pain is the toll
Of liberation. Bliss you cannot fake.
The force leaves our hearts as nothing but holes.

Walked so far in life, you've worn down your soles.
Barrell to skull your one final mistake.
All unsaid words weigh upon hopeless souls.
The force leaves our hearts as nothing but holes.

Kathleen Linger / Katy, TX - My Gentle Sky Of Morn

Where is my gentle sky of morn
That cloaked o'erhead when first I woke?
My plan through crags and hills was torn
When lightning flashed and thunder spoke.

To walk along the water's edge,
My heart's desire since first I saw.
And maybe tarry on the ledge
To be amazed and filled with awe.

The peace I sought when on the hill
Above the water and the trees,
Destroyed by Nature's charge, yet still
She might turn back and gift me breeze.

Please not the tumult bursting black
Nor gust that bends the trees to break.
The threat of deluge and attack
Saddens my heart with angst and ache.

Play out your dance upon the land!
Shout loud your voice and be well spent!
Pelt down your rain and make your stand!
Then be gone! Depart with assent.

Return my gentle sky of morn
With air so calm and trees upright.
For if the dusk be cloudless born,
While sought at dawn would find at night.

Jessica Livermore / San Luis Obispo, CA - Heartbreak Is a Yellow Rug

He reclines, in that black swivel chair,
As she grounds her knees into the rug.
She would fire scorn into his eyes,
But she is distracted,
Looking for strips of bleeding heart upon the floor
To put into a napkin
(Just for now, till she finds a better place).

He starts to roll, wheels flecking scarlet,
On that black-swivel-chair-like darkness.
A boulder propelled forward by relentless anxiety,
He is liberated,
Trapping her in the sanguine revolutions
Of that speckled carpet
(Just for now, things will get better).

She rebels, fingers clutching at the inky leather,
As the wheels drown her deep into yellow floor.
She would reveal the potency of her madness,
But he has made up his mind
To deny air to the slivers of heart choking in the napkin.
It's just for now--and now is forever and forever.

Tim Mattingly / Batesville, IN - A Wealthy Businessman Reflects on His Poor Upbringing

Which came first
The phoenix or its ashes?
While sweeping up my past,
This bird of upper class has
filled dustpans with milk jugs
filled halfway with water
from the sink by our Mother
Here, have mine, little brother.
The car she saved up
For five years to afford
And the tires she had sold
For money instead to go towards
our education and our jerseys
for our little league teams,
our busted blue jean seams,
and our childish dreams

These Birds of Paradise
unlike us, Birds of Prey,
like to romanticize
our prior poverty
but when little brothers die
at the ripe old age of five
and mere medical expense
could have kept them alive

please do not ask us
to kindly show you our lashes
just work and be glad
you weren't born into ashes

Maegon Mayes / Jonesboro, AR - Love and Work

Her husband is loading split wood,
the furnace choking it down on the back porch.

The whole lot smells like his work.
They will say one day
how everything smells like his work.
Pages in the stacks of books.
Babies clothes.
His love's red hair,
Her fresh-knit scarf.

Now, the air is warm enough on its own.
"My boys are outback broadcasting buckwheat for the bees,"
she says, smiling for their work.

John McIntyre / FPO, AE - Pray

Unveiled we sit alone
Indignantly encompassed,
Embodied by misguided perceptions of peace;
Anger becomes our refuge
Making us numb.

Complacency deafens our ears,
Our souls, lost in prevarication;
The truth translates to fiction
Excreting through our pores as waste.

Our eyes are deceived white with Oleander
Subtle and sensuous as the setting sun.
As we exhale our last bit of breath—
Demise is immanent.

Timidity becomes our casket.
Entombed in a shell of ignorance
We are embalmed ambiguously,

And all we had to do is pray.

Anna Meulemans / Black Creek, WI - Maple Tree

Dwindling leaves wither in the fall
Without a sound to be heard the last leaf falls to the ground
The gaggle of geese overhead with their unending call

Leaves hang in the air with a stall
Landing on the forest floor without a sound
Dwindling leaves wither in the fall

The naked maple stands tall
As the leaves cling on for dear life and create a crown
The gaggle of geese overhead with their unending call

Weeds and branches stand as if a hall
As the dark clouds float around
Dwindling leaves wither in the fall

Big and orange in the sky, the sun hangs like a bouncing ball
Its brilliant colors do astound
The gaggle of geese overhead with their unending call

Such beautiful nature is so far from it all
Nature's grace is so profound
Dwindling leaves wither in the fall
The gaggle of geese overhead with their unending call

Destiny Miller / Pittsfield, IL - Dehydration

Miles of rough terrain keeping me captive
Direct sun rays torturing my olive-toned skin
Degrees Farenheit rising past three digits

Skin boiling, burning red with blisters
My dried, chapped lips cracking open
The rustic taste of blood conquering my swelling tongue

Suffocating on my own breath
Each inhale grinding down the walls of my throat
As if I were swallowing a piece of sandpaper

No longer keeping my eyelips separate
I do not want to see the bird flying in circles above me
Zeroing in on my body like my seconds of life

Limbs stiffening, becoming immoblized
My heartbeat weakening, my life ending
No feeling of the bird's beak tearing into his supper

Hannah Mitchell / Garner, NC - Hiding in Silence

Hiding oh so quiet
Scared of making one noise
In fear someone might hear
We do not talk we do not walk
I sit in silence as I watch my mother knit
Dad is making an emergency kit
Peter is trying to be a mime
Margo is reading and turning pages one day at a time
I look out the window and I can barely see
A big oak tree staring back at me
Like the man who ruined us
He made us hide in such a fuss
Its limb is an arm
Pointing to the air
Just like the horrible man
Who did us all this harm
Four lines like a knife
Stick out and try to take all life
It has its own glory
But we have our little star
With six points that stretch out far
A triangle and one more
I think that is better than four
Like those German swastikas
We are hiding and are quiet
Quiet once more

Arnold Morton / Bremerton, WA - His Skin Was Black but His Blood Ran Red

"I'm fighting for freedom", He proudly said,
At Valley Forge in the snow and the cold.
His Skin was black, but his blood ran red.

My father by the lash is dead,
So I'll march against Dixie, a soldier bold.
"I'm fighting for freedom", He proudly said,

At Gettysburg, he took some lead,
From a rebel who had his brother sold.
His skin was black, but his blood ran red.

"The Great War" they called it as graves filled with dead
He was there with the dirt and the mold.
"I'm fighting for freedom", He proudly said.

In '42, failure was his only dread
As his Jeep into the battle rolled.
His skin was black, but his blood ran red.

In a march that Reverend King had lead,
In Alabama, it did unfold.
"I'm fighting for freedom", He proudly said,
His skin was black, but his blood ran red.

Xye Nelson / Omaha, NE - Our Drug

Our drug was poison,
You said,
And we rolled recklessly.
Purged of our sins,
We were lilies,
Breathing in the heat of July
Swaying in the fragrant breeze of delusion

Our song was tragedy,
You said,
And we played tragically.
Stripped of our marbles,
We danced like imps
Around the head of authority.
Naked and Raw.

Our drink was fear,
I said,
And ran away from you.
My frenzied footsteps leaving a trackable trail,
my hurried heartbeat a solid sonar.

Our sport was apology,
You said,
And wove a fable I fell through,
Rich in color and detail,
As good as any Illustrated Man.

Our season was summer,
I said,
And the thick red leaves of fall
Interupted our green haven
Piercing our hayfever faze
And consumed us separately.

Chris Niday / Dubuque, IA - If Winter Could Have Stayed

When you climbed upon the chair
And looked out through the window
To see that trees had become bare
And the grass replaced with snow
Did you feel as cold
As the lonely winter air
Or when you saw the frozen ice
Was there no time to spare
Did you stay inside and wait
For the crystals to melt out there
Did you rush outside and thank nature
With a gentle prayer

Did you find enjoyment
Skating on the ice
A freedom like no other
When television wouldn't suffice
When the days were short
I would not have thought twice
Winter's duration
Was too precise
And ignoring the chance
Held too great a price

There was an angel on the ground
Where your body had once lay
Surrounded by the shoeprints
Where other kids had played
Count up all the snowmen
And igloos you had made
How great the days would've been
If winter could have stayed

William O'Keeffe / Santa Rosa, CA - Theory

Dark blood stained
the transit freeway and
from the sulphur desert
a small liquid galaxy
eclipsed the battleground
in shades of yellow

Towards nightfall blue
en route to the perimeter
an electrical storm
of unknown origins
would congeal and illuminate
the captured fluid

Within the phials

Karlynn O'Neil / Lakeville, MN - Generational Things

Three orphans waved beach towels from the shore as the pilot flew overhead.
"Dad won't be back 'till tomorrow,
he has important things to attend," Grandma said.
You hid in the hem of her house-dress, hands tangled in her apron strings.
Your little brother paddle-boated his way upstream,
took what was given, put his name first on the billing.
Is that why the corned beef is dry?
Are you still looking up ladies skirts? Trying to find her eyes?
Same as mine, the woman who left without explanation.
See her on the cover of glossy biker magazines,
under the life jackets of the lake girls,
in my genes—the color of my hair—the way I walk.
Did they sparkle? Did they gleam?
Were they shiny, Dad,
Like stones passed from mother to daughter to daughter-in-law?
My grandma's diamond becomes my brother's branch.
She put a pie in the windowsill for her three gold investments.
It's been decades. You and your sister should really take your slice.
Perhaps, she rang the dinner bell too softly.
Round and blue like my iris, like my last name.
Generational things so light gray,
makes it hard to see when you dock the boat at night;
makes it easy to shield out the sun.
I feel like I was undersold, Dad.
Undervalued inheritance.
It's an authentic suit, been in space and everything!
Underpriced on the garage floor,
quite the find for a naïve bargain hunter.
I think you know what that's like.
The Abandonment issues of Hustler.
Did you find it between those pages?
Squinting, appalled, I tried to find it too.
I looked on Santa's lap.
No luck.
Took the canoe out to Woods Bay,
dove deep, met the wreckage of the Boston Wailer.
No luck.
Swam to the surface gasping exhausted.
Climbed to the top of our family tree,
No luck.
We're not actually Irish, are we?
Now I can see that I should have been digging at the roots.

Sophia Paffenroth / Cornwall On Hudson, NY - Lingering August

Our tongues taste of the lingering August
When we'd lay in empty rooms.
Dusty tranquilities, still unfamiliar.
And the rocking chairs would rock out
on the old wrap around porch.
Shadows cast about, shifting in the sepia light.
Voices flickered faintly, out from the forgotten, cobweb sheltered radio.
He watched, as she pulled her ponytail out,
Letting her hair fall softly on her shoulders.
Cascading down, like weightless feathers, it gently fluttered in the wind.
Messy, untamed, windblown, wild.
Our tongues taste of the lingering August.
When we'd dust off the old picture frames and smile.
Our lips would whisper silently of desires longed for endlessly.
The curtains would dance in the gaping windows
As the twilight sky streamed in.
The space composed of a bare silhouette.
The vacant rooms, the nameless house,
And still, our tongues taste of the lingering August.

Patrick Patton / San Antonio, TX - Love's Endless Journey

Standing underneath a flowering chinaberry tree
we talked as centurys of dust collapsed.
Something dramatic was happening downstream.
I can see shadows of people in a courtyard.
The feeling of the springtime of our land burns
our heals as a sudden slight smile talks silently.
Floods of untrammeled joy pass through our speech.

As the conversation mingled, flashes of light strike the ground.
You fell into my arms beside a banana and orange plantation.
Sounds of weeping, wailing and shouting pierce our ears.
A tree over a tractor fills the vision ahead.
We became overcome with tenderness and admiration
as life lays on daisies in a field of grass.
Sitting comfortable on the sand near the praising family,
I glanced into eyes of tenderness and light.
Giggling, laughing and speculating creates cries in the night.
A crazy longing persist to travel to the people
in the courtyard.

She spoke to me about sometimes balancing on rocks.
He thought of a thousand things as he listened.
She talked about times of bitterness and beauty
which spread like memories of laid groundwork.
We stood astonished by some modern buildings;
while deep in discussion, a tearing earthquake brews.
They stood hand in hand meditating on ecclesiastes
with just a poetic fancy and patience
of their dream to reach the courtyard.

Dougal Pentleton / Sydney, Nsw - Cohesion

Caved in
Strewn I lay
Rubble
The fragments of megalomania
An incohesive whole
Time abated
Boredom sated
A seed in silence
A blind hope
Waiting, for the cool waters of fruition
To seed and sprout and grow
To push through that top soil
To feel that light,
Stuck between the twilight
A choice, to be made
A hard path or to head back.
Where I came
To swallow the hardship or to retract
To believe every new start
Has a seeded potential
Or maybe the whole time
The growth was there
Not as a tree or flower magnificent
But a weed
Small and insignificant.

Chivaun Perez / Valdosta, GA - Sour Towels

She uses two towels when she showers—
one for her body and one for her hair;
she always explains like it should be obvious,
and I'm not sure why that matters
except that each morning when I see one towel hung carefully on the hook
and one left carelessly on the floor to sour
it reminds me of her presence in my life,
in every facet of me,
in all the ways every day that I see our two lives becoming one.
In the combination of her shirts and my socks on the floor by the hamper
and color-coded toothbrushes by the sink,
in a grocery list on the fridge we've both added to
and the two-hour negotiation on coordinating the upholstery and curtains,
it's the things that tell me she's mine
and I'm hers
and whatever we're becoming
we're doing it together,
soured towels and all.

L. I. Pierce / Bend, OR - Sad Earth

Crawling through a dark forest,
a tattered creature, grim reflection
emerald limbs covered in November
frost, selfish snow bunnies.

The sun peaks around the corner
with warm regard, smiling like
a fresh little girl with pigtails
who comes up quietly behind.

Angry winds, rushing in and out
of the illuminated creases, pushing
its coldness into the gorgeous yellow
rays of sun. Painful penetration.

The moon's sleepless nights, churning
stomach, glowing blue silk coveting
its limbs like milky rain in a
summertime brawl, shivering.

Hours of tears, as big as the earth,
streaming over beautiful things
dead and alive. Droopy leaves of
orange and yellow, sullen moonbeams.

Angelique Poragratti / Northumberland, PA - Hypothermia

High mountains in winter
Watching it snow on the ground gently
The snow slightly smudging the sea green grass
The cold winter winds howling
Making my lips go numb
My legs are frozen
I cannot move my arms
I open my eyes one last time
My breathing is shallow
And my heart will soon be hallow
I know that soon my heart will stop to thump
And my eyes will close
Then I say goodbye earth
I wish one last thing
Dear readers of mine
That you know
Nothing is more and more is nothing
I bid you farewell
My eyes are shuttering
My breathing is slowing
I close my eyes
One last time
For the world I once knew
Has faded into darkness
And now I am gone

Alfred Preciado / San Jose, CA - Rising

Impeccable clouds peeled pale clean
Parading like aircraft-carriers filling charcoal sky
into the cracked eggshell, sink-hole of my heart,
healing, even as it wants what it wants, it beats on
Mists color faraway mountains ultramarine
These Utah mountains are the mountains of the summer
of my long trek east to Colorado
Wheeling alone across gold and camouflage hills, valleys
Plains, salt lands, up the thundering, massive Rockies
Carved brutally like an old dog's teeth
Century-hammered islands of stone mirroring
my own solitude, my recent exile from regret and despair
This is my long voyage into the looming, beautiful emptiness
of the frustrated terrain of my pining soul
I am the perennial passenger, bearing the cargo of
excruciating solitude and exquisite salvation
Long journey filled with sudden, bright rainfalls
Falling quick, heavy, hard, fat raindrops
ricocheting back like ping-pong balls, into the
endless abyss of pewter sky
The heart wants what the heart wants
Even if it is a sickness
A helpless surrender to the virus
of improbable love, impossible love
This self-inflicted flu of desire is infinite incurable
The disease of choice without hesitation
The ache wants what the ache wants
Here is what I want
Her gaze flaming torch gaze blazing back at me
Adoring, Unflinching, unyielding
The sweat of my fingertips smearing a wet path
on her upturned, flushed face
Her legs, slender, fragile spreading, splaying
Butterfly wings slow-motion beaconing

Geony Provido / Upper Marlboro, MD - October Snow

It should have been the dead leaves
Dry inside and out, convulsing and
Hopelessly defying gravity. Instead
It’s the snow coming down on trees and
Hedges stained by turmeric and saffron
Swirling, levitating like a possessed
Being, long enough to paint a Seurat
In every window of the city.

An unwelcomed guest, it harries kids
Coming out of a Halloween party—
The cold piercing satin and spandex
Jumpsuits under the faux-silk capes.
Inside the hall the nuns scrub and
Scrub the floor and sink to remove
The memory of the event as the
Weather channel reports it’s
Serious up north with upstate
New York getting at least a foot
And more than twice that
In New England.

It is an afternoon of the sad clowns
Might as well, as we remember the dead.
The squirrel too, scurrying up a
Branch, remembers its heap.
Regurgitating blended ice and dirt
The street still memorizes every
Fleeting touch of tread. An alarmed
Buck scampers nearby, wisely off it.
It’s a day to wonder especially for
The snowman, with its carved
Pumpkin head.

Melba Remedios / Toronto, ON - Imperfect Cadences

Fragments of recurring dreams
Nebulous, unformed, broken.
Hazy ideas creep slowly through
Veils of semi-consciousness
Trying hard to break through to
That remembered state.

Bewilderment!
Incomplete thoughts
Float through the mind
Like flotsam on a grey sea

What gems of creativity lie hidden
  beneath those depths of brain fog?
Fragmented images tantalize and torment
  as the inner turmoil continually struggles
to piece together these
scattered nuances
Imperfect Cadences.

Chris Rhinebolt / E. Lansing, MI - Shooting Star

Hear the frogs calling out
While the crickets answer back
Their haunting melodies
Echo all around

A pink satin dress flutters in the breeze
The jar waiting to catch the tiny lights
Goosebumps blister across cold bare feet
Clever fireballs gently floating past

The trees drink from the river
Breathing as she does
Growing to see the sun
Slumber as they must

Make a wish on this firefly night
As the wind blows the soft meadow grass
A crisp breath carries the dream
To rest upon the star-studded sky

Time for rest
She knows it is
But she wishes
For one more moment

Gil Rivera / Inglewood, CA - Release

Bent over a stove.
I stare into the radiating heat,waiting for an answer.
Voltelas guey se queman!
I flip them making sure I don’t scorch the edges.
My fingertips brush up against the griddle.
I don’t use tongs; they are too slow and leave creases.
My digits would never approve.
My fingertips caress the griddle.
Tall,beautiful and brunette wearing over sized sunglasses,she orders.
"Burrito de asadi,pro favor" dance out her cherry lips.
Everyone admires her,but my fingers stay faithful.
I turn my head to admire her properly.
My fingertips rub the griddle.
She pulls her glasses down exposing her green eyes.
I steal a smile.
My fingers push up against the griddle.
I get commendations and encouragement to talk to her.
She removes her sunglasses and curls her hair around her finger."Hi"
My Fingers grasp on the griddle.
My fingers have been making love to stainless steel for far too long.
My fingers pulse with every heartbeat,
toasted yellow skin that do not allow blisters to mature.
They limit me.
My hand needs a new lover

Emily Robbins / Paris, TN - Not Bow Knots

Whip me up buttery blue
Lash lesions welping fluff
Concupiscent foaming between
Uninhibited restraint
Thin twigged switch rakishly grey
Bound around bubbly round dull
Quackless stagnate hovering duck tape
Scabrous inmate unchasted Lais
Debauched thoughts looping tightly hung death
Freshly cut-off vulgar, lewd from freedom's
Life sentenced scatologic quest
Tied knot, not bow tied busting neck split
Whip me through buttery blue
Lashing lesions welped mess.

Jo Robbins / Phoenix, AZ - Squaw Peak Is Renamed in Memory of Lori Piestewa

Native Americans have a higher risk
for reasons I don't understand
of imbedding spore inhalants
in our own lung lining. Like fungus,
for instance, grows
in my tissue not different
than a petri dish
shaped to make things easier
to arrange in varied configurations
while culturing to a thrive for only
then can it be researched.
But what do we make
of those that don't culture on?
Coccidioidomycosis, you say,
but for you, Disseminating Valley Fever.
You laugh, and without hesitation
you tell me I'll die
if ever I stop the medication
that already I've stopped.
There's a lesion in my lung,
I've lost my hair, Doctor,
and I'm tired. I want to have babies,
name them for myself, the way
scientists name what they create
after people, like, Julius Richard Petri,
or sometimes, what's found
already existing, after
ideas of people.

Sydney Robbins / Avilla, IN - Leona

Her house smelled of cinnamon and
Musk.
Old records sat
Alone
In a desolate corner.
Clutter lined the
Walls
And counters.
Her bibles written in German hide in
Shelves.
She was so fragile,
So frayed.
Wrinkles dressed and adorned her face.
She spoke sternly,
Utter conviction.
The name God blessed upon her
Rang out with
Truth.
Courage.
Brave as a lioness.
But
Years of loneliness carved into her
Bitterness.

I should have walked into that house
That smelled of cinnamon and
Musk.
I could have picked up her favorite
Lawrence Welk record
From that desolate corner.
She would have spoken in
Immaculate German
From those bibles.
I might have
Learned
How to be
Just as strong
As she
Was.

Jasmine Romero / Miramar, FL - I Told Him the Truth

One day you're pouring from your seams,
almost unimaginable, almost unstoppable.
One night, you're wincing from the pain,
questioning the severity, trying to find the stains.
It's like
internal waterfalls, scratching at the moss of boulders;
everything you've ever been told,
their meanings, they fade away.
It's like
a cold front creeping, sweeping through;
the smell, the thick of air,
the heat, changes,
quietly.
Everything you've ever told yourself,
their meanings, they're gone astray.

Lee Rorman / Fargo, ND - Same Place, Different Day

I was nestled down
looking at the television
when it happened.

A horse walked through
me & I smelled
his furry scent

& his sweat
recently acquired
by hard running:

I sensed—no
felt—the leather
boot of Custer

blood-covered
Indian blood
still wet & warm.

My history juxtaposed
a future he would
never know.

Distance in time
divided – related
only by geography

I blinked twice
as a commercial
appeared on tv.

Kimberly Roy / Rochester, NH - Love for Him

Mustard sun chiseled cheek and chin
So sturdy were you now and then.
Flat-bottomed shoes soled with sharp tongue
lead me up a path murked by some
kinda nat'ral inclination.
Needed seize of situation
From clenched clasps of detonation!
But sometimes, in suffocation,
I resort to hesitation.
Mirrored smile-restoration.

Though ill-mannered thank you kindly
Glass clacks like porcelain—finally.
Not the reason but a shiver
Lead me in to nestle thither.
Lips more separated than sill
And it's just breath but it could kill—
In me those veined limbs come heavy,
A shovel scooping paths of slush.
Powdered shades drenched in cocktail sweat,
Orange peel smile—infinite.

Zip-tied, no hush but rhythmic breath
Tangled and drowsy, kiss to death.
Undecidedly patient, sweet
Drizzling honey from unsewn leaks.
Upright on that bench, a splinter
Scratched my pinky (stay for winter).
While dreaming, we are together
Float with the breeze, like one feather.
Know me, hear this, see you I say;
Thunderstruck forever—Love, K

Jen Scott / Courtice, On - Gate One Hundred

Sunsets bleed, and your eyes reflect gold
for a moment, little treasures. Melting coins
in the cups of your hands, spilling over your
palms holding out to me. But I can't.
The air exhales out of the sails and I'm
trying to set down the ropes that are binding you,
lay them down quickly before the wind picks up again
and you're carried away.

I won't be a thief for you.
The wood is too slick and I'm
sliding still farther behind,
splinters under my skin make me
heavy and I can't lift my hands,
can't get a grip; you're anchored but
I move with the waves.

It's no good. This semi-sweet permanence
that is snapping between us like a physical
thing.
Can't you see I'm sugar laced with gasoline?
Vanilla scented kerosene with nitro in my veins.

(I was built to consume)

I so badly want the candle you offer, with its glow like the sun and moon,
but if I reach from the water to grasp it,
I'll drown—caught—while watching you burn.

Shannon Scott / Bathurst, New Brunswick - Only at Night

My favorite time
The most beautiful destruction
My branches hugged tightly by leaves
only at night.

Swaying fluidly leaves in a puddle
Drunk from hilarity.
Affectionate doves fly inebriated.
Subwoofers booming, shaking my leaves

Dance, be exultant leaves
Fear not tomorrow
Fear not autumn's deadly chill,
Savor now

Ignorance!
Brittle are leaves
nocturnal chills, stolen water.
gathered into piles,
deeds of the stiff arm.

Sprawled on top cold surface
Third eye wrestle open
Doves separated in flight
menacing dark sky.
wrenched by the stiff arm,
Trees grasp for leaves
Gray, black, and white
Only at night

Red, yellow, orange
radiate leaves no longer unaccompanied
Your tree is calling
Only at night

Sarah Seguin / Kamloops, BC - Gasoline Rainbows

He skips rocks down the broken pavement
Cracked and dented and grey
Once-upon-a-time canvases for hop scotch contestants.
Purple ninjas, yellow sharks
A tye-dyed parade of creations only seen in the imagination—
The chalk brings them to life on the driveways as he passes by.
Once seeing the world as an infant does: as beautiful, unharmed
The image of perfection
Now he sees his reflection in broken windows,
Cracked from the rocks thrown carelessly in its direction.
Stops to take a sip from a water fountain
There's blood drizzled on the porcelain white -
Proof of a scuffle between the children who grew up together,
Now divided by age into enemies without reason.
A neighbourhood that used to resemble a Polaroid of values
Now a blank negative with nothing to prove.
He sighs; he knows in his soul
That someday, the purple ninjas and yellow sharks
Will be washed away with the rain, as if they never even existed.
The pavement will just resemble another stretch of asphalt.
Cracked and dented and grey
Once-upon-a-time canvases for little van Goghs and Monets.
With carbon dioxide sunsets, and gasoline rainbows,
Swallowing up the essence of what was
Without even a courteous goodbye.
Treading through a path of trash
(The empty garbage can pleads for company),
He breathes in the air
Still trying to hold on to that essence of what was
It is sweet…Clean…Fresh. For now.
He leaves, knowing his heart will not follow

Anna Shive / Myerstown, PA - Orb Weaver

The eager saplings reaching for the sunlight to catch
in their knitting's net, swallowing acknowledgements
to befriend and water the roots.
Oh, the moisture!
'Tis an extension by the gulp; come dance as golden strands
woven around my being, fair heaven! They nod with the wind.
The better of me, wrap me as a babe in thy cloth.
Thy cloth that doth blow my frail to a frosted feather.
Into the soil, a leaning sapling.
Spat out, the golden tree.
Luminous leaves, a fingerprint in process. Lay under me
and stare into it through the shimmering ovals, you earthen shade.
Transparency for how the blind men see.
A blind man once I was, but how my fingers do dance,
dance upon the texture on that face.
If sunlight was a solid's embrace,
then I have found; I swallow down.
My considerate Father golden, now it's my turn, lovely.
Ha! This throbbing heart.

John Simonds / Honolulu, HI - Roadside Tribute

The light stops us all
at the crossing of life and death.
The door of the van in front of us opens.
A driver in camouflage gear springs out
placing a basket bouquet on the medial strip,
then slides back in behind the wheel.
Rush-hour blossoms with wreath and ribbon
sparkle in saying good bye at the scene
to the woman who just a few days ago
backed out of her driveway
into an oncoming end,
another Kalani moment on a highway
named for leaders and blessed by the heavens.
Same intersection, different light,
another day, a signal missed.
The guardsman has done the job
maybe his family or unit requested,
while traffic has paused for the red,
fatality flowers to show we remember.
Our thoughts stand attention as well,
though after the fact, keeping us safe
when the blood dries and crusts
of flare ashes remain.
The signal greens, and we're moving
ahead with our lives in drive gear.
Another surge of the homebound
flutters the ribbons and petals
in the sun of a late afternoon.

Hannah Slinger / Kent, OH - The Walking Hopeless

My life has been depleted to a machine,
fits in my pocket, trying to null my pain.
But I joined the walking hopeless, no grieves redeemed.

Doctors lined up ready to resurrect and clean,
replaced filing cabinets for innards of my brain.
My life has been depleted to a machine.

Weak outside hospital doors, dignity demeaned.
All my wasted life I have waiting rooms to blame. So I joined the walking hopeless, no grieves redeemed.

No locks on bedrooms, here nothing goes unseen.
Single-serving nurses, zombied all the same,
still, my life has been depleted to a machine.

Tuning out their voice with the IV's beeps so serene.
How sick am I of this man telling me I'm insane.
So I joined the walking hopeless, no grieves redeemed.

We watch through barred windows drenched in green.
Days are like minutes confined behind doors, so mundane.
Yet, my life has been depleted to a machine,
and so I joined the walking hopeless, no grieves redeemed.

Kathryn Smith / Pasadena, CA - Persephone Reincarnate

In Hades' solitary palace,
A legend through me has been reborn,
Now I am forever bound to a life of malice.

A poisonous pomegranate stings my hand like a thorn,
Bloody tears pool at my swollen feet,
Frightened by my captor's scorn.

Demeter's cries to the heavens no longer discreet,
My mortal lover lost to his own grief,
My rescue a priority to the Olympian fleet.

Happiness to me now is like a crushed leaf,
My heart longs for his with an ache,
Hope no more a belief.

My sacrifice to save him my heart does break,
Suffering a consequence of a decision,
A mother's ignored warning a wrong path I do take.

Suffer I do now as dreams are an illusion,
The forbidden field I mistakenly frolicked about,
Not heeding advice as freedom is my delusion.

My soul's mirror forever devout,
Not knowing of my retched flaw,
For I am reincarnated as princess of death and doubt.

Caitlin Spillane / Vernon, NJ - Living a Lie

The man on the corner, that nameless creature.
Prowling the streets that he's come to call home.
A menacing shadow, yet harmless enough;
Pallid, starving, and chilled to the bone.

The clouds in his mind darken and roar.
A storm soon ensues, a torrential downpour.

His hood drawn up tight;
Cold eyes stare from an empty shell.
Praying one person
Can save him from Hell.

His family despairing this fiend of the night;
Turning their backs after one final fight.

His only relief, concealed on the streets.
Prying eyes are not fooled as they pass quickly by.
A torn paper bag, clutched in his fist.
And yet he denies; keeps living the lie.

Fallen from grace,
This soul shambles on.
The bottle, the trigger
For this ticking time bomb.

Stephiane Stovall / Durant, OK - Jennifer

Juncos return with their dark eyes,
Effusion unrestrained in blue skies.
Ningal, you nurture the reeds
Ningal, my bride to be.
Incandescent reflection
Fornax desperate for selection,
Exigency lasts infinity...
Recusant as the waters of the sea.

Jeff Summers / Fletcher, NC - Night Walk

moonlight sifts through the dark branches
filtered silvered shadows haunt
remembrances of walks past
long ago eves spent not in velvet silence
without the missing puzzle piece
but in blissful synchronicity

life as a full chapter
to be followed by yet another
promise of a grand novel
we wait as critics
reread all the words
seek for hidden meaning
knowing what will be found
a tale of loneliness
dark days spent
along the gothic seashore
the music swells to a tumultuous pitch
but the love we hope to find
running fevered from the lighted towers
is never there

Solitary midnight
keeper of dreams
dare we place a wish
on the ancient oak
now but a faint gray shadow
we look up at the vaulted heaven
somber stars depend crystalline
shimmer in the cold of space
waiting ever patient
for our wish

Yichen Sun / Union City, CA - Unbeautiful

You, with the broken smile
Dress in the same old clothes
And move through life with fractured ribs.
Your hands, cut up from sorting your worries,
Dyes mine red when I try to keep you from falling.

You, with a million masks
Hide behind your graceful
port de bras.
Which one of you is you?
A ship lost at sea,
And you won’t let me guide you home.

You, standing on a house of cards
Look at the world with eyes of jade.
Your heart beats a phantom rhythm
That no one but I can hear.
Your body decays in the absence of your mind
Which wanders somewhere above your head
Trying to fly to a better place.

You, the
Little butterfly stuck in my glass box
On a foamy cushion made of regret.
Pinned down, unmoving,
Unbeautiful.

Andrew Usjak / Guelph, ON - To the Raven

We had supper together.
You look dreary in black
As appearance of an undertaker
Who bodes a near death
And sees one who follows,
And to whom he is a cause
Of a fate road
From morgue to the graveyard
And back to a new death.

After supper we disappeared
In the night and flapped away
Each following his way.

In my dream you visited me, I know.
On my forehead I felt flowing,
As when someone waves with wings.
It is good that I wasn't alone.
It is good to know you have someone
Who is a good hunter but doesn't hunt you.

In the morning you will be at the rooftop
Breaking leaden sky veil as a granite obelisk.
You will fly to hunt those who slither,
For whom is nice to be in twilight
In mire and muddy water.

Maybe we will have a supper,
But maybe you will in darkness,
Fed with your daily catch,
Dream about the world of slithering ones,
About those who are your food.

Milton Wallis / Corinth, MS - Darkness

Darkness drapes a raven embrace
Over weathered pine thick woods
Where nocturnal creatures serenade
An ancient ballad to the moon
Crickets chirp with tom-tom rhythm
A bullfrog croaks like a bassoon
Amphibian piccolos
Treefrogs sound a frenzied chorus
Below the universal glow
From a sequined scattered cosmic tide
As barn owls and possums pause to listen
To this primal performance of night.

While midnight cuddles with the stoic pines
Critters canary the hours away
'Neath stagelight shadow of moonshine
Luna moths boogie to tempo of song
And fireflies flash dancing through the air
Brings this haven a feeling of calm
With twilight moving on towards sunrise
Another native ritual begins
A choir of birds warble "rise and shine"
With a joyous glee club buzz
As this show of Mississippi wonder
Sings sacred homage to the sun.

Tse Shuen Wan / Mississauga, ON - Nephilim's Flight

Chonos' inquiry hollow and vain.
A doctrine, judged but yet distinctly stoic.
Our memorandum remains vividly and explicitly wrought,
A stigma, tainting the austere arras of events past.

But the morrow is also to be contempted with,
A mesa, its apotheosis and vitality blunted.
The nugatory toil for naught spurns and burlesques ascenders;
Termination but arid and devoid of its antecedent promise.

Debilitated and crippled by the verisimilitude,
She comes to us, lilting, flitting through the air.
A messenger skirting from the realm yon,
Arms convivially welcoming and receiving us into her embrace.

Divine wrath crowning, immolating and exhilarating;
She comes to cleave us asunder of the shell we are shackled within.
Her erudition vitiating the sanguine bond that tethers our mortal coil,
Assuaging, placating the affliction that blights our souls.

Lips adumbrated cerise, florid and luscious,
Locks tinged hazel and onyx eyes stolid.
Her charming ballad reverberates subtly.
Elegance and grace unrivalled and unequivocal.

An alluring smile,
She shrives us of our culling desires,
Ameliorating us with her munificent charity.
She will be our escort, the sculler that conducts us.

Take me in the night,
For I am still waiting...

Alex Weinstein / Lockport, NY - House of Lab

For call'd things of sullied mind,
The House of Lab I do find.
In truest throw of sole means mine,
The House of Lab I come to know.

Majors go, as minors grow.
A season's fall sees no victor.
Eddied flow, if you may show,
Is best seen at winter.

Moirae the Spinner, the greatest hinter,
Spells the line of rest.
Is hallowed the sinner, of ultimate inter,
Who seeks infinite jest?

A cast springs of newest tide,
The House of Lab I do fide.
Avastly so, I will not bide!
The House of Lab hums a row.

Karen Wernecke / Hoffman Estates, IL - Early Spring

Savoring solitude,
Turning the leaves of the brooding chronicles of March
These last sullen days wedged obscurely between
The final chapter of winter
And the poetic prelude of his successor.

Conspirators stacked upon a dusty shelf
Uncertainties in fallen particles of dust.

And where, where do we fit in?
We interlopers of a still life afternoon?
Our voices filtering from room to room?
Imprisoned in a hazy somnolence
Of mellowed wine and faded manuscripts

These walls reek of stale silences
And musty memories, more bitter than sweet.

Beyond the window glass, April
Chants her vernal incantations
Trumpeting new revelations,
Prophesies and births.

March, stay with us!
We are quite content to draw the shades
And sip our wine
And stoke the dying embers in our hearths.

Stephen Wilson / Stockton, CA - Strangers in This Place

We stalk you through fallow cornfields
whose cylindrical paths of maize,
now refracting reserved dooms,
were once our greatest gift to you.

Your spirits are broken like the stalks
souls the stigmas of rotting silk; hearts
scattered anemophilously. You question
ever-y-thing. You no longer dance.

What little time you have, you clutch
to withered breasts in hopes of
retaining your once fluid movements
through time and space and existence.

We gave you gold and hope and the stars,
the mathematics of the universe. You returned blood
and bombs and pestilence, cutting out the hearts
of your children to soothe the loneliness.

We have watched you through millennia
as you've lost your smiles and your compassion
Now your story approaches its final chapter,
and we return with one small comfort:

You were never alone.

Ashton Wisken / Sydney, New South Wales - Hope Found

Whispering winds and harrowing heights
Light that's dim beneath the cloud;
Keep a firm grip on the fight
There's an opening in the crowd.

Don't look back and steel your nerves
Remember all the half-healed scars;
Commit to the climax they deserve
Perchance for peace amidst the stars.

Parting clouds, blithesome song
Search and think and strain to listen.
One small cardinal come along --
And your heartbeat seems to quicken.

Dance it out in ballroom waltz
Greet it as a long-lost friend.
Keep its flaws, keep its faults,
Keep it €˜till the bitter end.

Robert Wood / McHenry, IL - In Country

Water cane is my architect of purest necessity. In country,
The wicker bathes only at night, dividing cicada counsel
With their careful bedside neighbors to the West

In country, coyotes carve their emerald baths with the finest milk
Honey—honey profit found only in rainbow seen at dusk;
On Sunday evenings under the eaves of summer peach

In country, Miss Quill's plum cherry shirt splits its time with
Shock silk nylon pickled in the finest oils of quantum twilight,
Cloaked in a brown cotton skirt as she carries out the Tango

And in good conscious, a murder of crows pick at the remains—
Chancing the Disco Fox with their bloodied bloodhound cousins.
In country, the coiled clock is always set just so

Alena Woods / Ramsey, NJ - Identity

Porcelain and gleaming
Staring with cold eyes and an indifferent smirk
Gold specks reflect the sun as it pours itself onto the misshapen creation
She reaches forward, snatching it and raising its glassy face to her own
The ruined mask covers a ruined face
With wet tears and an irreversible frown
Furrowed, frustrated brows are concealed by the icy glass
An incognito being, wanting to hide from the cruelty of everyday life
Heading for the door, she defiantly steps out
As the person she wants to be
Violently thrusting the mask to the ground
A cascading sea of sharp pieces strewn across the floor