Three Poems by Ken L. Jones

Cream of Remembrance

Lush gardens caught in the rhythm
Of enraptured ballerinas with bird wings
I crave something very much like fog
In the still shady redwood grove
Remembering horse pastures
That now largely do not exist
But still there is heavy rain to look
Forward to if the clouds chose to cooperate
And later the sun fading on the ocean
As it performs magic tricks that only I will notice.


A Cantata of Forgotten Orbits

Late August is worn away
Mist on the lilies trembles on the wind
As the night comes on like Mardi Gras
And I feel like I'm gardening in an episode
Of the Twilight Zone that I don't quite recall
As I stand here dumb struck trying to take all of this in
Even as the crescendos of the Milky Way's cello like panoply
Causes me to dream of winter nights soon to be
And of which no human hand will be able to write of adequately


Gilt Enhanced by Light

The barebones sound of a hot buttered trumpet
Huddles in the jealous shadows
Where toads blinded by the distance
It takes to reach a dead tree
Throb like some kind of harlequins
Sculpted from the ripest of wild blackberries
And from what kind of seed comes such cherubs
In the cathedral of my dreams
Where all paintings are hallucinations
That dance like seahorses across
A classical guitar's finger plucked strings?

Ken L. Jones has written everything from Donald Duck comic books to dialogue for the Freddy Krueger movies for the past thirty plus years.  In the last three years he has gained great notice for his vast publication of horror poetry which has appeared in many anthology books, blogs, magazines and websites and especially in his first solo book of poetry Bad Harvest and Other Poems.  He is also publishing recently in the many fine anthology poetry books that Kind of a Hurricane Press is putting out.

 

A Poem by Anne Richmond Wakefield

This is how it starts:
A misplaced promise.
Old light tearing heaven.
Where the pieces land,
You're born.

Each wide, a mountain
Because of the others.
All motherless,
One way or another.
All mothers.

Marking time in the sky,
Bearing histories through
distances.
Witnessing
The drag.  The skip.  The mystery.

Go on, seven sisters.
Burn, muting Orion.
You ancient test of vision,
Love's beautiful ambush,
Where darkness dies to light.

Anne Richmond Wakefield lives and writes in Austin, Texas.  When not painstakingly composing her first novel, she's enjoying the outdoors with her husband, two sons, and decrepit Lab-mix.

A Poem by Joanna M. Weston

I Have Seen These Stones Rise

an illusion of waves on the cliff
where gloves lie waiting for frost

fall of sunlight as winter spins
bleak tides under oak and elm

gulls soar over ragged stones
watching spiders linger in moss

night rubs grains of roiling sand
through cave of polished pale bones

steps broken in waltz-time to place
on kelp falling under an ebb-tide

these rocks have been stifled by fog
thrown against ears ringed by guitars

short messages traced by slim feet
balanced green under the solstice

broken keel slides into short grass
seaweed tangles between prayer and altar

pockets of faith in mapped oceans
dispersed in a salt-sprayed cemetery

Joanna M. Weston.  Married; has two cats, multiple spiders, a heard of deer, and two derelict hen-houses. Her middle-reader, Those Blue Shoes, published by Clarity House Press; and poetry, A Summer Father, published by Frontenac House of Calgary.  her eBooks found at her blog: http://www.1960willowtree.wordpress.com/

Two Poems by William Davies, Jr.

The House of Erly

The shadow of a leaf
dances across the sunny bark,
a rollicking corps de ballet
whose director could not
have accounted for
such loyalty when
the principle had been
so easily seduced by autumn.


Harvest

The tomatoes, crestfallen
along the sill.
Sallow, green Tetrarchs
ousted, in the all
but conquered garden.

William Davies, Jr. lives in a town surrounded by dairy farms.  He has been happily married for thirty-eight years.  His work has appeared in the Cortland Review, Bluepepper, The Wilderness House Review, Gloom Cupboard and many others.

A Poem by James Diaz

A Note for the First of January

First thing
holding it's own light
where the water would pool
the Geo-sphere itself
choked on expansion
a crevice where stray chords
caught
coral surmounted
it's most obvious companion

I became weak in the knees
knowing that I lacked
a certain degree of faith
to witness
without touching
surfaces that should be protected
often the world stretches
downward
towards a companionship that could never be

To adore doubt
in others is to have missed it
inside ourselves
the cure-all is a salve for wind stuff
closure of and pulling toward
offshore where the uninspired begin their rise.

James Diaz lives in New York.  His poems have been published in Ditch, Collective Exile, Orion Headless, The Kitchen Poet, and most recently in Red Fez.

A Poem by ayaz daryl nielsen

Where are You Going?

 

Assess the density

of rising mist

as sunrise

embraces

early morning’s 

dampness 

once more?

 

The wild blueberries 

and toadstools,

their moment

 

A crow stretching 

stiff wings in 

first light,

his, too

 

Cawing

 

the sound

is canny 

and 

everlasting.

 

 

 

ayaz daryl nielsen, husband, father, veteran, x-roughneck (as on oil rigs) and hospice nurse, editor of bear creek haiku (24+ years/116+ issues), his poetry’s homes include Lilliput Review, Yellow Mama, Verse Wisconsin, Shamrock, Kind of a Hurricane and Shemom, he has earned some cherished awards and participated in worthy anthologies - poetry ensembles include Concentric Penumbra’s of the Heart and Tumbleweeds Still Tumbling, and, in 2013, released an anthology The Poet’s of Bear Creek - beloved wife/poet Judith Partin-Nielsen, assistant Frosty, and! bearcreekhaiku.blogspot.com (translates as joie de vivre)

A Poem by Joseph James

And Now

the moon lays over the snow

and seems to know

that i am gone.

loneliness and cold

snuggle my bones

and warm me.

shallow comfort's 

in the night's

calm whiteness.

joseph james cawein is a young poet from southeastern pennsylvania

A Poem by William Davies, Jr.

A Wynken, Blynken And Nod Moment

When I woke this morning

there was white everywhere

as if the moon had spilt, or,

having not been secured

to the night sky, fell,

and shattered to pieces

like a china plate,

then I remembered,

its only snow,

the world was still intact.

 

 

 

 

William Davies, Jr. lives in a town surrounded by dairy farms. He has been happily married for thirty-eight years. His work has apperared in the Cortland Review, Bluepepper, The Wilderness House Review, Gloom Cupboard and many others.

A Poem by Mike Cluff

    Pieces


              I.

bonsai tree
centered in mid-museum
grows alone.


            II.

main thoroughfare
a tennis shoe equilateral
to staring headlights


        III.

a bit of brick
embedded in tire tread
and burqa now slightly moist.


      IV.

a pepper switch
behind the diploma
Junior never displays


          V.

jacaranda shits down its flowers
onto my freshly pressed suit, cleaned car,
I will chop it down with relish.


        VI.

plywood tree house
draped in flag
confederate in nature.

Mike Cluff is a writer living in the inland section of Southern California. He is now finishing two books of poetry: "The Initial Napoleon" and "Bulleted Meat"-- both of which are scheduled for publication in late 2013/early 2014. He believes that individuality is the touchstone of his life and pursues that ideal with passion and dedication to help the world improve with each passing instance .He also hopes to take up abstract painting in the next several months.

A Triptych from Theresa A. Cancro

Metamorphosis -- A Triptych

metamorphosis 1

stretched butterfly seems to know too much
about us as it pumps its wings,
then tiptoes around the grass
where family once met,
can no longer grasp
why it should cleave
to the grub cave,
long soft beats
roil astray
now.

metamorphosis 2

small tadpoles wriggling no knowledge
of the miscreant tattered footfalls
muddled on the bank dropped underneath,
in slick form, cropped without water.

bull frogs taunt at the end of the rock-strewn
ledge, recoil legs and bulging throats
that rumble; I watch them destroy numb flies
of decked love with the tips of their tongues.

metamorphosis 3

katydid mythology takes me into
its folded wings, a panoply
of leafy bits, remnant pupae
loam flicks an acrid odor
while new summer arrives
at the top of the trees.

tsunami song engulfs last light,
ever glib and dipping over
the deep night breeze, a wonder
grip I want to see as
well as hear; nature would rather
simper under the cloying vine.

Theresa A. Cancro (Wilmington, Delaware  USA) writes poetry and fiction.  Several of her poems have been published or are forthcoming, in print and at online sites, including Three Line Poetry, Dead Snakes, Napalm and Novocain, Pyrokinection, Kumquat Poetry, Storm Cloud Poets Anthology, A Handful of Stones, A Hundred Gourds, and Shamrock Haiku Journal.