Detour

photo: ralph murre

Detour

by Stephen Anderson

Driving home that day

On the bleak, otherwise

Deserted road,

The man, trance-like,

Remembered deep green forests,

The picnic-worthy riverside

That was ever so pleasant with

Warm human touch, shared drink

And food, laughter – afternoons

Since lived and forgotten

By the aging man, now

On this isolated road across

His glaring current reality,

Across this path not of his choosing,

Not really sure where he’s heading

In what seems like time-travel so

Distanced from those memories that

He now feels courted by

A siren, seductively singing from

The other side of his river memory,

A call to go to that river’s edge and

Slide into its cool embrace, Zen-like,

Not pushing the water at all,

His fingers open-webbed like those of

A fetus free-floating in the womb.  

~first published in Free Verse

Where Water Might Be Blue

artwork: vincent van gogh

Where Water Might Be Blue

-after Van Gogh’s Rhônebarques, 1888

     by Kristin Alberts

Boats float easy in the thick river.

Ropes are heavy and hand-twisted,

made by some old man with leather palms,

half-blind from gazing at rising suns and

braiding frayed string ends

that bind the floating to the steady,

boat to shore, man to land.

Planks lay crossways flat, paths

between boats and docks, waving walkways

where sea-legged men stagger under

piles of supplies, filling the vessel

with all the land can offer the sea as sacrifice--

armfuls of wood for fires at night,

trunks of dried meat, drinking water kegs,

and heavier loads of dreams and wishes

for where waves would take them,

only the ropes holding them back

from finding days and places

where water might be blue.

~ previously published in Where Water Might Be Blue

   (Wm Caxton Ltd)

Praying Mantis

Praying Mantis

by Steve Tomasko

Fish gotta swim and birds gotta fly; insects, it seems, gotta do one

horrible thing after another.   — Annie Dillard

The horrible thing is not

that she eats his head

while he’s mating with her.

And it’s not that he moves

faster without his head.

Well, actually,

that is the horrible thing.

~ first published in Verse Wisconsin

photoart: sharon auberle

MARRIAGE

by Sharon Auberle

Nocebo:  I will harm

I will harm you

by the silence

that may fill our rooms

silence more enormous

than a star.

I will harm you

by not seeing

you--across the table from me

or your arms, silvered

by moonlight, reaching out.

These will hurt you more

than the piercing blades

of words thoughtlessly

hurled in anger.

I will harm you most

by rendering you invisible.

Placebo:  I will please

I will please you

with my breath, warm

on the curve of your neck,

with the respectful intake

of your words into my heart.

I will please you with my eyes

my touch, my fragrance, my taste

as you have pleased me.

I will please you with all

this body, blood and bones.

I do not mean to harm you, ever,

yet—in love—it is inevitable

that I will.

~ first published in Fox Cry Review

On Lake Butte des Morts

photo: ralph murre

On Lake Butte des Morts

by Gary C. Busha

She speaks through her beauty

unaware her silence is perfect language,

while I speak careless rivers.

My voice penetrates her innocence,

lingers blatantly in ephemeral silence.

She watches lake waves ebb

against the rocky shore.

She sighs as we walk the wood dock,

while the wind flattens her blouse to breasts.

She had known all she wanted to know

about me from my very first word.

~ first published in the Wisconsin Poets' Calendar

You Teach Me the Night Sky

artwork: sharon auberle

You Teach Me the Night Sky

by Jeanie Tomasko

Don’t say Milky Way

say River of Heaven, stars

like stones, woodsmoke.

No, not stars, say myths

of fire, say Cygnus, say — oh

the sky is filled with

sadness – don’t say sad

say moon, say orange, say —

the moon is an orange

tonight, Love, tonight

Aquarius brings water

for us the sky is

an old god in blue

and a boy with an orange

in his coat pocket.  

~ previously published in Sharp as Want

   (Little Eagle Press)

Our corner spruces

artwork: ralph murre

by CX Dillhunt

Our corner spruces

fingering the snowy sky

counting on each flake

~ first published in Hummingbird

Exchange

photo: ralph murre

Exchange

by Nancy Rafal

I will give you my laughing eyes

            if you will caress my weary face.

I will give you my warm embrace

            if you will smile across the room.

I will give you the key to my heart

            if you take care to oil the lock.

I will give you the world on a string

            if you give me a ride on its ups and downs.

I will give you a map to places I’ve never been

            if you promise to drive carefully.

~ first published in the Wisconsin Poets’ Calendar

Good Dog

artwork: ralph murre

Good Dog

by Robert Nordstrom

 My dog’s a liar and she isn’t very good at it.

Chin resting on her paws, she looks up at me

with her cartoon-cute eyes as if to say — Who me?

I have no idea what happened to the cracker.

But I’m not falling for her mendacious ways.

The soup cracker on the table was there

when I left the room and gone

when I returned. She has no alibi,

no sentient ravenous being to blame

so we lapse into a meltdown stare down,

which I know I’ll win because she,

like her peers, can’t bear confrontation

unless prepared to do something about it—

and she isn’t.

I step outside and light a cigarette.

This morning I told my wife I had quit

for good. Looked her dead

in the eyes and said — that’s it.

She smiled sweetly and gave me

a patronizing pat on the shoulder.

I flip my butt deep into the ferns

and go back inside. Dog lies

in the same spot, cracker

on the floor under the table

not two feet from her quivering nose.

Shameless, I pat her head,

Good dog.

~ first published in Rosebud

Do you know what it means . . .

artwork: ralph murre

Do you know what it means to miss New Orleans?

by Albert DeGenova

Downstairs my son plays boogie woogie

Professor Longhair Dr. John

New Orleans-style stride piano.

It is Mardi Gras week.

He’s practicing for those

Fat Tuesday parties.

His foot stomps on the floor,

vibrates through the walls and up

to my desk. My head sways in time

to the rhythmic pulsing of his left hand

the dizzying parade of his right

sends serious thought into a funky pirouette

puts a smile on my face a reminder

of that old bouncing gait, of Bloody Marys

and Hurricanes mixed with rum and trumpets

and street dancers with bottle-cap taps on their shoes

a reminder of what this kind of blues can do

to a Dad who knows his son knows nothing

of Lenten sadness, only the joy of dancing,

a Dad who knows his own success

through the songs his son chooses to play –

Big Chief, Stagger Lee, Tippy Tina,

Laissez les bons temps rouler!

~ first published in The Blueing Hours (Virtual Artists Collective)

Long Bones

photoart: ralph murre

Long Bones

by April Michelle Bratten

She said she could smell the

strength from within you,

could feel the red climb your meat

like a ladder

as you flew down the stairs,

your breath coated in beer

and the euphoria of wings.

Mother,

how thick was your marrow

as your head bent like a god,

and split apart from itself

as you crashed into the wall

at the bottom of the steps

in front of your young daughter?

Was your heart as swollen

as a bare orange in the hand

of a little blues singer

who thought the moon

was too bright in that moment,

slicing past the window,

a reflection of your chaotic speed?

She was right.

It was all too brilliant,

the light just perfect

for this head-dance,

and it was just an instant,

she said,

with the flapping of great wings,

you,

at the top of the stairs,

being the angel,

becoming the devil-bird,

cracking the air with your long bones.

 ~ previously published, in slightly different form,

    in It Broke Anyway (NeoPoiesis Press)

A CLOUDY DAY

artwork: william marr

A CLOUDY DAY

by William Marr

Even with a gutful of sorrow

he is unable to cry

The listless, unopened umbrella

becomes increasingly

a burden

~ previously published in Autumn Window (Arbor Hill Press)

photoart: ralph murre

if god were an impressionist

     by Erik Richardson

 

if an impressionist had designed the world

there would be no edges sharp enough to cut

and letters and books would be far too blurry to read.

water would be made of blue and white cobblestones,  

of course. our hair would look like bird nests

as the fun-house mirrors would never show true.

there would be no rainforests or deserts

only lilypad ponds, and manicured parks, 

and fields of poppies or wheat spreading to the edges.

everyone would live near the bumpy water,

like the sea coast and the river’s edge,

riddled with sailboats or steamships or both.

and what night sky fireworks there would be

with every planet and orange-white-hurricane star

twisting and twirling the dark around it

while all along the street, smudged ballerinas

would sit in sidewalk cafes with gray-bearded men

with umbrellas and top hats, murmuring in french.

~ first published in Stoneboat

Under a bushel

digital negative from argentine flag: ralph murre

Under a bushel

by Marilyn Zelke-Windau

Under a bushel

she hid the moon,

the neon city in a candle,

the year colored green, yellow, red.

A white-black wave of flash

exposed the switch,

and dimming the fire

of the night beam

she came, blinded, to the bright

and stepped into the ray.

~ first published in Verse Wisconsin

BACKBENT SCRIBES

collage: daniel abdal-hayy moore

 BACKBENT SCRIBES

 by Daniel Abdal-Hayy Moore

An underwater oceanographer looks through his

round porthole and sees a

celestial city riding on silver clouds

An astronomer glues his eyes to a telescope’s eyepiece and

sees a convoy of whales just heading out

from a lunar orbit after a meeting of the Shoosh Clan

I look down at this page in the

act of writing and see

millennia of backbent scribes trying to

get it down in words before it

all turns back into sugar

The downpour is ceaseless but as we

glance out through the falling strands of water we might

catch a glimpse of the pearl necklaces God

dangles down from The Beloved’s neck

just near enough to earth to

entice us both forward and upward

with a glitter in our eyes only

magnified by the sights we see

A thundercloud that opens on Odin’s Peak

A rainbow backdrop to all the oceans

clapping their hands for joy at God’s

fishy banquet day after day

and at night when moonlight spreads its

elegant silken tablecloth out on the waves

~ previously published in Sparks Off the Main Strike

   ( The Ecstatic Exchange )

Roosters and Hens

artwork: ralph murre

Roosters and Hens

by Wendy Vardaman

At bedtime Mother told us about growing

up on her grandparents’ farm, chasing chickens

across the yard, peering into their dark home.

How Grandfather got the axe when Grandmother

wanted a bird for the stew pot and the time

she saw a crestfallen rooster on his feet,

the head cut off. Terrified at eight or nine,

she ran blindly in the other direction,

only to have him turn and chase her toward

the fence where she set one new white-sandaled foot

on a fresh cow pie. Grandfather roared, doubling

over his blade while she cried, hopped up and down,

tried to shake the shit from her toes. The sandals

were never the same, despite Grandmother’s “Good

as new,” when she finished scratching at the straps.

Mother said she could never wear open shoes

again, and left the farm, still a girl, to work

in the city, marry my father, and buy

painted porcelain roosters that collected

there, props from an unfinished childhood. They hung

from avocado walls, crowed at the sink, caught

grease and dirt near the stove, presided over

the orange island counter top where my dad

also roosted with soliloquies and beers

he never got himself but called for from his

bar-stool perch, demanding that we leave our ranch

house coops,  yelling no matter how long it took,

Mother clucking, “Wouldn’t hurt you two to help.”

~ previously published in Appleseeds (Sacred Fools Press)

Bird: Avis

artwork: cassie marie edwards

Bird: Avis

by Joseph Briggs

beak

rostro

-an instrument used for opening up the once-living & partaking in them for nourishment

head

caput

-holds all the innate wiring that became connected time out of mind

plume

superbire

-a large showy feather the August wind rips off & thus becomes flotsam & jetsam

belly

venter

-the furnace no one sees, only hears

throat

faucibus

-a tunnel, a maze, a rabbit hole

wattle

palea

-a pendulum of skin closer to the dead leaves than the neck

~ first published in Black & Blue

Second Thoughts, a call and response

cover art: kenneth koskela

On Second Thought

by Ralph Murre

You know that conversation where they ask

who you want to be with on an island,

and you say Gandhi or Walt Whitman

or Slim Whitman or Penelope Cruz

or, maybe, a guy with a big    boat?

Well, nuts to that –

I want to be with the person

who first put a snooze-button on an alarm clock.

I want to be with the person

who first put an eraser on a pencil; that little,

curved, undo arrow on my computer screen.

I want to meet the guy who invented reverse.

Wouldn’t it be pretty good to meet the person

who figured out what to do

when you’d put too much salt in the soup?

I want to be with the person who found the antidote

for some kind of snakebite,

and I want that person to like me very much.

I want to be able to change my mind

if this person plays banjo or prefers Lite beer.

I won’t get all Henry VIII about it,

but I want to be able to change my mind.

On ‘On Second Thought’
by Amy Murre Klemm

Yes, my uncle –

These are all well and good –
and you’ve got me wondering why
it is always one,
What are the chances of just one?

But if it must be, if that’s the game,
and if like you say we can’t choose
the guy with the boat or the
one with a good shortwave radio or the
genius with a matter transporter or the
mama who can change you right quick
to one of the mer-people,

then it is time to ponder.

Your second set may well be better, for
Would Gandhi be too political, even way out there?
Would Walt be forever after your favors?
Would Slim yodel endlessly for help?
Are we sure of Penelope without her makeup?
Of Penelope at all for real?

Instead you want the innovator,
the second chances and thoughts,

And just so,
I believe I want the escape artist,
not the magician, but the pleasure artist,
the master of stupid and lovely acceptance.
The ancestor of all those who say, Ah,
Well, fuck it –
He who first said, Nah, I ain’t shook.

The master horticulturalist,
the builder of stills,
one who can stay alive but not too much engaged,
and teaches it well.
Falling ass-backward into fresh water and
simple little foods as elsewhere
he might have into money,
reminding you that you’re fine.

I want the guy who first decided on
staying up all night drinking and
sleeping past noon,
who will ask me, with real lidded eyes,
What else do you have to do today?

The inventor-of-the-hammock type,
the discoverer of naps in the shade.
A builder of great fires. A dancer. A drummaker.

The bather in springs,
the gazer at horizons.
Quite possibly a tamer of small friendly animals.

Not one to panic when our hair gets growing
out of control, when our noses burn a little red.
The one who says, with a tip of the head, and
not long after you’ve washed up on the shore,
Well –
here we are.
So what do we do
while we wait?
and smiles,
and passes you a bottle,
or a little rollie, or both.

I wouldn’t even balk at the banjo.
Might even help him carve a rocking chair
for the porch on the little shack we’d build,
not too quickly or too well.

~ these two pieces first published as a pair,

  a call and response, in The Cliffs “soundings”