Guest Poet

She swam across my window
Against the cloud current of
fast-moving, wispy white dolphins.

The full brightness awakened me,
I couldn’t fall back to sleep.

It’s as if she treaded there with purpose.

A climb to the highest diving board
To be seen before sinking below earth,
A cavernous snorkel unknown to me.

A friend is obsessed with her.

Even when she dips skinny in the sky,
Her various shapes hold meaning.

My eyelids flutter kicked eventually
Until I plunged into deep sleep,
A drowning soak away from her.

– Marie Higgins

(five single-line senryu)

scent memory trigger my autonomy severs itself

ing ing ing she escapes from neverhere

enunciating a nameless grief schwa

nowhere fast rain drops her outline

hear t be at she breaks down in
syll
a
bles

– Kat Lehmann

My biased eyes marveled upon my own creation,
the moonlight illuminating her perfectly flawless skin,
glowing, pale and bright as the moon itself,
perfect and iridescent.

Her eyes a canvas of blue skies and birds in flight,
as she searches the night sky but is
lost in imperfect thought and wonder,
impatiently waiting to feel whole.

Her lack of confidence seems unnatural
in a place of beauty, for a girl of beauty,
I with an eye of bias revel in her perfection,
her only imperfection, blindness to my sight

She shines bright in my dark night,
illuminates the dark passage of my time.
She shines bright through every phase,
but only my biased eyes can see.

– Mandy Gilsenan

Set a bounty,
hang it high
over her,
$10,000,
incentive
heavy as
a sledgehammer,
her chances
skitter away
like a mouse.
Sort through the
circumstances
like the bloody
endometrium,
looking for
the victor
sperm.
Yet for so
many the
effort is
too great.
Vie for the
punishment
of Eve.
Forced labor.
Banish her from
the garden all
over again,
this time to
till the soil
alone,
its dust rising.
And how many
pass this by,
seeing nothing!

– Melissa Chappell

I wanted to be a mariner,
but recall you bore me on land.
I wanted to be a flyer,
but again you never taught
me how to land.

So I became a poet and now sit
here under your sapphire table,
grabbing whatever crumbs
you choose to share.
I try to learn how to make
a difference from where I sit.

I still dream of your
yellow kitchen.
Thank you. Don’t argue.
The broken, the filthy, the incorrect.
All of it is wrong.

Even on this burning day,
when the most lethal radiation
will pierce many walls to touch us.

– Will Reger

matthew and michael and morgan and mark
went down to the beach (skipped school on a lark)

and matthew found grass that smelled so sweetly
he couldn’t remember his troubles, and

michael befriended a Rasta-man
with dreds that became a head full of sun;

and morgan was chased by a crusty old cop
who sputtered they shouldn’t be where they were and

mark beach-combed a Roosevelt dime
from long-ago lands, and golden-days’ time

for whatever we’ve lost, my country tis of thee,
it’s always ourselves we find in the sea.

– Laurie Byro

My mood fluctuates
In the flying evening.
Of course, I like flowers.
Abundant variety
From dear friends.
But the dwarf lemon tree
Is my favorite.
It makes me happy
Radiating freshness
On my writing desk.
Mother,
I remember you telling me
Lemon juice is high in citric acid.
That may cause my teeth to lose calcium.
What a willful teenager.
Admonition again and again.
Mother,
Do you think
A few of these pellucid lemon tears
In my refreshing water
Will be capable to bleach
All the irretrievable offences
My mouth uttered.

– Vyarka Kozareva

At the office given work
to be done by a certain time
I struggle, other things come up
people hindering me
I stand at a wooden door
of Angkor Wat

My dead husband brings home a crocodile
I put it in a safe place
he keeps letting it out
I am afraid

A phone call for my husband
his claim to have authentic Beatles’ regalia
and originals of songs from Grease
written by his cousin’s husband
worth millions they tell me
explaining to the children
their father is lying

My Apple watch wakes me with a lullaby
tears fall on my cheeks
do I cry for myself?
or are my tears for the world.

– Bernadette Dickenson

sat on stone steps w/ cricket
under red august moon
other crickets singing
but this one moon-quiet
unlike my foolish head

– Rob Plath

Pulsion bears a driven force,
pro, like jet stream, prefix com,
impelling urge, expelling air,
that irresistance in the blood,
against the pulse, pump beaten heart,
repulsive to the grace of choice.

For that I hear a blackbird sing,
rings hardwood, hammer, pecker trunk,
see guppy flutter fantail bling,
arachnid fling, feast widow fate,
a baby wail for hunger, clings
to mother’s empty, swing drained paps.

– Stephen Kingsnorth