Three Poems by Susan Dale

San Francisco to Seattle

Cathedrals of Redwoods
Whispers of mist
Circles of clouds
Sighing across the skies

Fog moving in -- fog moving out
The cold thunder of the Pacific
Pine-arms uplifted to the heavens

Waltzing with the Pacific off to the side
A dance of tides
Weather-beaten shanties huddled together
Shivering in the rainy gloom

Green, green; gleaming green

Skies through the branches
Pools of sunlight
Meadows weaving garlands
Of foxgloves and roses
Winks of poppies
Golden flashes of broom
Ribbons of daisies
Mosses rushing to cover all

Mountains rising through the mist
Rock beds dotting rivers
Carpets of moss smothering forest floors
Fern fronds
Buttercups hop-scotching down hillsides
Indian drumbeats echoing across streams

Streams rushing to rivers
Rivers flowing into lakes
Lakes flowing to the ocean
The Pacific waving greetings to the Atlantic
Watery arms joining to embrace the earth


Slices of Spring

Wave willow fronds
Your tender green arms
         To spring

          *****

A thin coat of color
On the cold stare
         Of Winter
         
           *****

Overlapping of colors
        White to shy
To green-eyed spring

          *****

Ink sketches of branches
             To
Wide-shouldered trees

          *****

The moon full
with sacred rite
The sacred rite
      of spring

          *****

Spring wings
    a' chirping
through the clouds

         *****

With rainy eyes
And pink-slipper feet
Spring dances
      over the hill


The Song is Gone

A 60's waltz
the song
     slipped into quietus
The dancers gone too
Their footprints washed away
by the heartbeat of a lake, persistent,
          ever flowing onwards

We danced our days across the Lake's currents
Rainbow seashells, driftwood sculptures
Broken glass scrubbed gentle

Behind this rock, that
water chants
answered with a chorus of remembering
Walking across thin sands of seaweed and bloated fish
to grimace our way into rocky waters
And further
swimming
     past a broken pier
          into a sunset horizon
               falling into twilight rising

Slivers of shadows creeping thin
The soul of remembering
Wrapped tight in the tides of yesteryear

Susan Dale's poems and fiction are on Kind of a Hurricane Press, Ken*Again, Penman Review, Inner Art Journal, Feathered Flounder, Garbanzo, and Linden Avenue.  In 2007, she won the grand prize for poetry from Oneswan.  She has two published chapbooks on the internet:  Spaces Among Spaces by languageandculture.org and Bending the Spaces of Time by Barometric Pressures.

A Triptych by William G. Davies, Jr.

The Sunflower Chronicles


Straphangers

Sunflowers cram into the morning bus,
they unfold yellow newspapers
and droop their heads reading over
each other's shoulder.


Sunflowers

They crowd about me
as I open to the Gospel,
their yellow heads
wait for that moment
when Jesus speaks
and only as they can,
bow their heads
in prolonged adoration.


The Countenance of a Sunflower

She leans towards the Virgin Mary
her yellow Stole swept back,
two Queens in an earthly garden,
one hastening to the other
in a peaceful acquiescence to radiance.





William G. Davies, Jr. is the 2013 Poet Laureate of Perry County, Pennsylvania.

Two Poems by Jeff Burt

Jay's Jangle

A drop, a drizzle, a driving rain,
a stellar jay mocking mockingbirds

out on a wire in the monsoon, jeering
at the catcalls, the coos from the cover,

sings tough-guy talk, schoolyard bully-brag,
bold enough to ignore wet wings, cold, death.

On this day the stellar jay is the only shiny
and winged thing--it struts,

a stain the rain cannot wash away.
It shoots through wind, grabs the highest line

of the staff of telephone wires,
heckles the throng of sparrows that flicker

in the shrubs, jangles a grating key
as it stands king of concrete on the walk

trilling, drop-speckled, spackled
by the downspout foam.



Possum

He heard the mountains ring hammered by the sky,
the driving head of thunder with forked claws of rain,

was not afraid to travel the road.
It was when he faced the interrogating glare

of headlights that he learned to fear
the whining saws of tires unimpeded by a sudden turn,

the certain aiming of lights which reduce the world
to muffled cries in murky shadows.

For this he came to value the knowledge of pipes,
fissures, gulleys, the first quick step

into foliage and culvert the lights
will not, cannot, investigate.




Jeff Burt has published works in Dandelion Farm Review, Nature Writing, and many others.  He enjoys plum blossoms, eating plums from the branch, and listening to them plop on the soil.

A Poem by Kit Zak

Enchantress

you beckoned to me beyond the first set of waves
raven hair trailing your back
I felt my heart crash open in the roiling deep

surprised by the liquid alarm in your grey eyes
I could see the sea
its bottomless possibilities

she and sad, like the goddess Atargatis,
you disappeared into the billowing brine
I followed you wave after wave until the twilight held you

Kit Zak and her husband retired to Rehoboth Beach, DE after a lifetime of teaching and raising a family.  She is pulled between writing poetry and working on environmental issues; consequently, many of her poems deal with mankind's destruction of the environment.  She has been selected three times to work with the poet laureate of her state, and has poems published or forthcoming in an NPR Anthology, California Quarterly, The Broadkill Review, Newviewnews, The Blue Collar Review, A Time of Singing, and Avocet Quarterly.

A Poem by Brenton Booth

Hijacked

trees stretching
footpaths tanning
oceans hanging in the sky
caught in a vice
on a sunday afternoon
philip glass offering no relief
while the mind wanders through decades
settling on the worst times
nothing but pain filling my vulnerable eyes
remembering all those that i have loved
remembering all those that i have lost:
and all that got lost with them.

Brenton Booth lives in Sydney, Australia.  Poetry and fiction of his has been printed in a variety of publications including Modern Drunkard, Poetic Pinup Revue, Nerve Cowboy, Tree Killer Ink, Lummox, Regardless of Authority, 3:AM, Van Gogh's Ear and Lit Up Magazine.

A Poem by Patricia Hanahoe-Dosch

Driving through Utah

Cracks and wrinkles in blue skin
sliver across the desert sky
like streaks of clouds.
The left and right horizons
are fractured jaw lines and coffee stained teeth.
The desert seems flat
but beyond the asphalt
lumps of sand spotted with tufts of grass
rise and fall:  the moles and pores
of Utah's skin.  Then a butte
and ridges, a wall
like shards of dark glass slicing into a brown back
bent forward at the waist from hard labor.

The acrid air abrades even human skin.
Funnels of wind
rise and dissipate
in the distance:  rust red,
burnt orange sand and gravel.  The turn
to Moab and the National Park
promises fossilized dunes, like layers of stretch marks
and cellulite across the belly,
and geologic fractures,
beauty framing the blue,
leaking sky and tears of sunlight
between round windows and arches
of granite and sandstone,

formations like ogres, like trolls,
like abstract sculptures and sand paintings
defying the world's evil spirits,
to balance the spirits
of breathing creatures.
Tourists' car radios, cameras,
caravans of RV's and plastic water bottles
leak the world into this space,
a hot wind billowing out of the horizon,
a haze that distorts the landscape
into photos and family vacations.

We are all guilty of anthropomorphism.
The arches continue to stretch and lean
despite the humans hiking and posing around them.
Snakes, lizards and scorpions, ravens
rabbits, yucca, pinion pines, prickly pear cactus,
live despite us.  The sands burn and cool, shift
and erode, despite us.
The asphalt road circles back to the entrance of the park.
The desert and mountains
stretch and streak and wind and drop and rise
despite us.

Patricia Hanahoe-Dosch has been published in The Atticus Review, War, Art and Literature, Confrontation, The Red River Review, San Pedro River Review, Marco Polo Arts Magazine, Red Ochre Lit, Nervous Breakdown, Quantum Poetry Magazine, The Paterson Literary Review, Abalone Moon, Apt, Switched-On Gutenberg, Paterson:  The Poets' City (an anthology edited by Marie Mazziotti Gillan), and MALALA:  Poems for Malala Yousafzai (a Good Works anthology by FutureCycle Press to raise money for teh Malala Fund), among others.  Articles of hers have appeared in Travel Belles, On a Junket, and Wholistic Living News.  Her story, "Sighting Bia," was selected as a finalist for A Room of Her Own Foundation's 2012 Orlando Prize for Flash Fiction.  My story, "Serendip," was published in In Posse Review.

Two Poems by Susan Dale

January

White wrapped 'round white
   into winds wild
      to curvet and blow
Drumming deep-song snow
Threats in throats
Primitive call to
Soul of winds
A bloodless force
From skies a'tremble
Tentacles of snow
They seize and thrust
   to twist in mist
Winds scream a god's revenge

Down, falling
   burying earth's bones
Thick to mount
a night, black
Drift to deep
beyond breath
a sepulcher sleep



November

Hold autumn close
When the sun strikes broadside
Reach into its heart of gold
One last moment

On the path of summer's glory
Plunder her golden orb
A whispered lullaby
To rock cradle of sleep long
November--above the crest of summer dream
Drink deep the poem of autumn

Susan Dale's poems and fiction are on Kind of a Hurricane Press, Ken*Again, Penman Review, Inner Art Journal, Feathered Flounder, Garbanzo, and Linden Avenue.  In 2007, she won the grand prize for poetry from Oneswan.  She has two published chapbooks on the internet:  Spaces Among Spaces by languageandculture.org, and Bending the Spaces of Time by Barometric Pressures Authors' Series.

A Poem by Fanni Sütő

Greening

Spring is still sliding on the strings of a guitar
waiting on side-roads
to flash
to splash
the world in
every kind of
green.
Envious ivy -- chains
Cities of glass moss
Yawning grass after a lengthy nap
The lawn-mower is resting in the shed
Jaded rings of melting puddles
Jade drinks of rain-wet maples
Willow, oak, poplar:  sleeping giants
but their frosty lips are already
greening with spring

Fanni Sütő is a 24-year-old writer, poet, dreamer who believes in fairy tales even if they are dark, disenchanted and deconstructed.  She writes about everything which comes her way or goes bump in the night.  She has been published in Hungary, the US, the UK, and Australia.

Three Poems by Ken L. Jones

Halfway Across

Spider webs like harp strings strummed by the breeze
A moth like mildew at odd angles spasmodically wings
Heat wave mirages shimmer and ebb
The summertime heat creeps with thirst
Until all is brown and dead
Winter is lost and can't find its way home
And it cries out for its birthright and the time that it is owed



Into the Welcoming Arms Of

The crimson silky birds
Are spontaneous phantoms
In the brazier of swirling mists
That turns the sunset into
An Aladdin's treasure
That glows in frosty nectar
Like a snow covered hibiscus



Blossomed and Thrived

Once when my blue winged sorrow
Took a ferry ride to flip-flops clomping
On clam shells beneath an autumn sunset sky
While blue jays whispered in the fall sunset
Nearby a beachside pumpkin patch
Gathered in a lingering flock
Like some centuries old sacred dance
While under the boardwalk there
The metallic gold of ocean sounds
Turned the seashore all to peppermint
Till night became frozen
And poured all of this wonderment
Into the most tasty of Popsicle molds

For the past thirty-five years Ken L. Jones has been a professionally published author who has done everything from writing Donald Duck Comic books to creating things for Freddy Krueger to say in some of his movies.  In the last six years he has concentrated on his lifelong ambition of becoming a published poet and he has published widely in all genres of that discipline in books, online, in chapbooks and in several solo collections of poetry.  

 

A Poem by Diane Webster

Busy Notice

Did hummingbirds leave
because the feeder reflected empty,
but I was late for work
and didn't want to take time?
They could wait
until tonight or go
to the neighbor's feeder.
So I filled the feeder and expected
instant gratification
like "thank you" "you're welcome"
instead of desertion,
unless mornings
changed into freeze mode,
and empty feeder signaled
migration urge,
and I was too busy to notice.



Diane Webster enjoys the challenge of picturing images into words to fit her poems.  If she can envision her poem, she can write what she sees and her readers can visualize her ideas.  That's the excitement of writing.  Her work has appeared in Kind of a Hurricane Review, Eunoia Review, Illya's Honey, and other literary magazines.

Three Poems by Bam Dev Sharma

December Chill

Benign butterflies
hide under tulip flowers
and wind is in gentle ruffle.

Morning galore beckons
eastward widening shore
beetle in mazy weedy push
engrossed in dilemma
dragging their lanky legs
like the cart's wheel.

Eagles on the elm branches
lost in frenzied whims
striking beak
waiting a swirl of dove.
Bygone days ensue
rainy droplets in move
bluish carnival is spreading.

Pervading snowfall
and the seals are in meandering falter
across lunatic path.
This bodes the December chill
and the cool wind is restless.



I Sing

When afternoon drizzle
fully drenched
sensing rainy spasm
underneath of cloudy siren
and windy baffled
hawks swiftly soar
resounding over rainy snuffle
children in the fence
teasing squirrel
sing
love in the rainy voice
in the shattering of light
muffles in the thunder
anointing heart.

Mooney light impetus and immaculate
encroaching upon the grassy thick
lulling the pervasive grasshopper
into benign amazement
dragging febrile hind leg.

When in the nightly clamor
dewy drops trickle
like the mother's nipple
for the poised red mouth
of the newly born baby,
for any numb heart
trickling passion
in the longing rhythm
wooing of clasp and firm
in sigh of joy
in the language of unspoken myth

I would desperately sing.



Budding Flowers

Blue and red moths
Are in headlong suck.
Shriveling petals and sepals
Numb and trenched like a modest girl
As if waiting across aisle.

Budding twigs
Fall in the dimpling wan
And the sunny galore
Is there yet to usher.

Resented robins ans sparrows dart
In their angry glare
And are ready to peck
Before the blitzing wind
Finds its pass.

Flowers in their sprightly glee
Wave with coy glance
In lurid assurance.

Astonished sparrows
And vicarious doves
Fly way,
Leaving budding flowers
In their waltz
Teasing the dumbfound sky

Chased by whimsical clouds.

Bam Dev Sharma, resident of Dang Hekuli Village Development Committee, Nepal, started writing poetry in the year 1996.  He has published a collection of poetry jointly with American poetess Martine Reis Newberry, entitled Bunyan and the Alder in 2007.  Besides, his poems have been published in several national and international poetry journals across the glove.  By profession, Mr. Sharma is teaching at Campus of International Languages and currently is Head of English Department.