Kayaks

photo: richard purinton

Kayaks

by Patricia Wellingham-Jones

Each spring they swoop

down the creek on snowmelt—

red and yellow, emerald green,

ultramarine with purple stripe.

Each kayak so fragile

the paddler lifts it

in one hand, this thin-skinned

shell of safety

flicks them down Mt. Lassen’s flanks,

around Black Rock, over rapids.

Swirls them through Mill Creek canyon

where boulders choke the angry stream

to flash by my house

in a final flurry of speed.

They whip a right angle turn,

slide each boat up the bank.

Leaving their fish-bird realm

behind, paddlers reel

light-headed, dense-bodied

onto the land.

~ previously published in The Horsethief’s Journal

Eminently Well Met

artwork: charles altamount doyle

Eminently Well Met

by Gary C. Busha

(Honoring drawings of Charles Altamont Doyle, father of Arthur Conan Doyle)

O death,

one day we shall meet–

perhaps we’ll hook elbows in polka

or grovel knee-deep in mire, feet to feet–

perhaps we’ll shudder at our reflections

in a pond, or share some space

under a plum tree as the fruit falls

and rots and disappears.

O death,

shall I have time to straighten my tie

(before I die) or on a moment’s notice,

be yanked from life, too late to settle my estate?

Will it be cancer, a sudden spasm at night,

or the likely accident on the road

while trying to avoid the rotting skunk,

and by doing so swerve into a semi carrying 60 tons

of frozen beef to supermarket, the driver drunk?

Is there time to reflect the fast forward of one’s life?

Here I was a slobbering newborn,

there acne-faced in high school, then on the road,

driving somewhere, getting the cob without the corn.

Was I one who reached old age, sitting in a rocker,

staring at a blurry page? Did I ever have one single,

original thought? Or, was I computed and managed

by what I bought?

When we meet, O death,

how shall we greet? Shall I doff my hat? Must I bow

at your feet? Or, can we simply meet–

and meeting be eminently well met, hand to hand,

glove to glove, boney fingers laced, yin and yang?

~ previously published in Poems from Farmers Valley

   (Prell Publishing)

Existential Eclipse

photoart: ralph murre

Existential Eclipse

by Erik Richardson

Your mother lived

in the shadow of unraveling

unbeing

they cut it out, the absurd,

except for the fear,  

and it spread to her children

darkening all their days

while they pretended

their small talk candles

could light the way.

Your father died

four years gone

blown out with the last hot breath

of late summer wind

unreal

now the hole in your family

can at least scab over at last

dying was the only thing

he ever saw through to its end.

one day you see the lie

has grown, swallowed sunlight.

In some possible worlds

the test comes out o.k.

untrue

even in those, in yours,

all meaning is being erased

and you don’t know how

to teach your wife or daughter

to hold back the eclipsing dark

with lighted, wax-dipped talk.

~ first published in Sein und Werden

Museum Skeleton

photo: ralph murre

 Museum Skeleton

                                                 by Susan T. Moss

                                                She doesn’t say to shed

                                                one’s skin.  She doesn’t say

                                                to burn brighter, work harder,

                                                pray more.

                                                She says nothing, stands erect,

                                                raised from another era

                                                when daily life had to be

                                                gathered by the handful,

                                                protected from others

                                                who only wanted their share

                                                of what became obsolete

                                                and unfathomable.

                                                We can see further,

                                                collect more, button ourselves

                                                against fierce winds that stir

                                                what she too

                                                might have felt on joyless nights

                                                with only a spark to reveal

                                                the insights we keep at arm’s length –

                                                and still the fear of the dark.

                                               

                                                ~ first published in After Hours

Huck Forever

photoart: ralph murre

Huck Forever

by Lisa Vihos

He comes round to my place

time and again; but won’t stay long

a night or two at most, then gone.

Traveling light, he always finds me

in the dead of night, he always

brings a trinket—found or swiped—

remember, it’s the thought that counts.

You can’t pray a lie, he says. I know,

I tried. I tried to be civilized. He is afraid

of rattle snake skin and the new moon

over his left shoulder. But, he can catch

a catfish and fry it up in a lick; lay back

with his pipe and me for the longest hours

on a summer day. The boyish eyes that gaze

from his weary face bust my heart in half.

In sleep, he mouths the names of old ghosts:

Mary Jane, Tom, and Jim, always Jim. Awake,

he tells tales of floating down river on a raft

with a runaway slave, a duke, and a king;

dying more than once to take a new name,

with con men and preachers, all the same,

in a voice that melts butter. How he survives

in between times, I’ll never know, but I suppose

he has one like me every place he goes.

~ first appeared in Big Muddy

WINTER'S END

photo: ralph murre

WINTER’S END

by Cathryn Cofell

So this is March. 

So this is why we forgive

the unforgiving state.

We turn our melting faces

to the sky and forget

about extra wool blankets

and surrendering to Arizona.

Yet, still the sun sputters

and still Christmas lights hang

and still the air is

as we are still

waiting for winter

to pass.

We are Caesar,

betrayed by the warmth

of friends and days

without heavy jackets. 

Undaunted

uncertain

of the dull knife of weather

we remain

still

that same crazy blade of grass

that forces through

the bitter ice each year

and grins.

 ~ previously appeared in the Aurorean 

Emerging Light

artwork: remedios varo

Emerging Light

by Estella Lauter

              after a painting by Remedios Varo,

            “luz emergente”, 1962

There is another woman

            lovely in her bones

                        delicate, determined

Face feet and hand

            emerge from a

                        fissure in burlap

Her body waits

            for the vaginal tear

                        of natural birth

Her right hand holds the lamp

            so full of precious fluid

                        it overflows to christen

    

the unknowing one

            who peers in awe

                        from his dark place beneath the floor

The wall will mend when she comes

            when her being quickens

                        when her pallid face

is joined by the body

            the bones we only imagine

                        to carry the lamp calmly

gently into our jagged lives.

~ previously published, in slightly different form, in

Pressing a Life Together by Hand  (Finishing Line Press)

I'd rather walk . . .

photoart: ralph murre

by CX Dillhunt

I'd rather walk with

you in this rain than stay

home to write haiku

~ first published in Hummingbird

Daily Like Water -- RE/VERSE post # 300

artwork: ralph murre

Daily Like Water

by Bob Wake

Splashing is everything;

and everywhere, like your

laughter, water ascends.

The sponge is useless, bloated

with ballast: we salute its sinking,

and then we return to splashing,

which is everything.

Water adores you, chasing

the shifting shoreline of your

belly’s rise and fall, gaining

millrace momentum

at the elbow waterwheel, and

turning to rapids o’er the

Koshkonong kneecaps.

You take to water like a

Baptist, your spirit sopping wet

and gleeful. God is a soap-bubble

bursting and rebirthing himself

splash upon splash.  

We are made innocent here,

buoyed by newborn lungs.

Neptune is your godfather,

but you are my son. You are

here. We have splashdown.

And like Neil Armstrong

back from the moon, you

have arrived to remind us

of unlimited possibilities.

~ previously appeared in Caffeine and Other Stories

   (Cambridge Book Review Press)

Our Way

cover art: emmett johns

Our Way

by Charles Rossiter

Outside the American dream

we haunt highways and streetcorners

through dirty blues and doo wop days

barrooms and coffeehouse nights

we search for friends, for truth, for love

on feather beds and oriental rugs

in dim cafes

barefoot on burning sand

we raise a glass

to electric skies gone crimson

we honor the days, the times

the ways of ancestors long gone

     who made us who we are

          who we are

~ previously published in Back Beat

   1^st ed. (Cross + Roads Press)

   2^nd ed. (Fractal Edge Press)

The Mourning Dove

artwork: ralph murre

The Mourning Dove

by Constance Vogel Adamkiewicz

Exists on half a ration -- the charity of sparrows'

seed dropped beneath the feeder

where she nestles in the grass,

stretching her wings.

Even a nudge from the old dog's nose

or a launching pad of my cupped hands

does not make her fly, only skim the ground

before returning to the hollow she created.

Why has she stayed, these long days,

repeating her same sad coo,

risking hunter hawk or cat

when she could fly away?

What keeps her from taking

that one grand liftoff

before winter's white hand grips her

and all she can do is look afar

to the place she might have reached a long time ago

and her eyes close under the weight of snow?

~ first published in Moon Journal

Consuela and Sean

photo: ralph murre - sculptor: unknown

Consuela and Sean

by Donal Mahoney

Through the nursery glass

Carlos Montero peeks at Consuela,

his twelfth, in the arms of a nurse.

Pink as a peony

with brilliant black hair,

Consuela is raw, bawling.

The nurse takes Consuela

away to be washed as Carlos

digs deep in his denims,

locks elbows, gleams,

turns to me. I feel odd

in a suit and a tie as I

wait to see Sean, our first.

When the nurse brings Sean to the window,

Carlos Montero whips off his sombrero,

makes a bullfighter's pass and beams. 

"Senor!" he booms like a tuba. "Ole!"

Suddenly I'm as happy as he.

~ previously published in Encore Magazine

Godot Goes to Montana

photo: ralph murre

Godot Goes to Montana

by Ellaraine Lockie

My farmer father waited to see

if crops would hail out or dry up

If coyotes would tunnel the chicken coops

If the price of grain would keep

me out of used clothes

If the bank would waive foreclosure

for another year

After hay baling and breech delivering

from sunrise to body’s fall

He slept in front of the evening news

Too worn out to watch the world squirm

Too weary to hear warnings from ghost brothers

who were slain by beef, bacon and stress

Too spent to move into the next day

when he couldn’t afford to forget

how Brew Wilcox lost his left arm to an auger

How the mayor’s son suffocated in a silo

Too responsible to remember the bleak option

my grandfather chose for the rope

hanging over the barn rafters

Never too lonely because every farmer

had a neighbor to bullshit with

To share an early a.m. pot of Folger’s

To eat fresh sourdough doughnuts

To chew the fat of their existence

~ previously published in SLAB

   (University of Slippery Rock)