NIAGARA FALLS JUMPER EXPLAINS

photo: ralph murre

NIAGARA FALLS JUMPER EXPLAINS 

by Karla Huston

It was just there:

the water and the falling

music of it.  I was in need

of that sort of rush,

a kind of deathsong baptism

like I had the day I drove across

the Holy Island Bridge

with an urge to accelerate, aim

for the side, dive over

the abutment and rush past

every temptation. 

I simply closed my eyes

and mouth and let the water

take me, the cold cocoon of it

tumbling, throwing me

against everything

that had ever gone wrong.

                       ~  first published in Anthills V (Centennial Press)

Georgia O'Keeffe Looks . . .

source unknown

Georgia O’Keeffe Looks Over Her Shoulder
by Sr. Anne M. Higgins

Just when she thinks she’s painted all her fear,
When bleached skulls turn to poppies red as lust,
The sound of something wild attracts her ear.

Black jacket, white soft collar curving near
the place where desert sunset turns to rust
awakens in that neck a prickling fear.

The haunches of dead lovers gleam as clear
in skulls as in the orchid’s velvet crust.
Dry rattling of bone curls back her ear.

Her upswept silken hair declares the year
in shades of gray and tortoise brown as dust
just when she thought she’d painted all her fear.

Her thin pink pearl of seashell curves to hear
the desert’s voice, more fierce, more dry than just
as three fine wrinkles flow down from her ear.

Such gaunt grace turns her, luscious and severe,
containing bones and orchids, fruit and crust!
Just when she thinks she’s painted all her fear,
the sound of something wild attracts her ear.

~ first published at SpiralMuse.com

Deshacer

photoart: ralph murre

Deshacer

by Donna Hilbert

I open the garage door

and our dog bounds free

across the street

disappearing down the alley,

her black form unmade

by the moonless night.

I panic, run in circles with the leash

but you calmly cross the street

calling her name.

Because she loves you

she lets you bring her home.

I won’t repeat the dream

in which you leave me.

Let’s just say I know the world,

how it alters in an instant,

that I awaken sick

in remorse and dread.

I can’t face again the dinners

with other lonely women,

then late-night TV

until the dog and I can bear

to go to bed.

I don’t need again to learn

the bitter lesson

that everything I love

is a flame between two fingers.

~ first published in Beggars & Cheeseburgers

Harvesting Pumpkins

artwork: ralph murre

Harvesting Pumpkins

by Donal Mahoney

From villages in Iowa,

Indiana, Minnesota and Nebraska

and from towns in the Dakotas,

Wisconsin and Michigan,

there stream to Chicago in spring

parades of lithe girls

looking for boys 

who will look at them

but who find instead

the men who will wine them

through summer,

who will wait until fall

to thresh in the fields

one summer can ripen,

the men who will watch

till a pumpkin falls from the vine.

This is the courtship

village girls dream about,

laugh about, hope for.

Come fall, these are the men

who fill silos of girls

from Elkhart and Davenport,

Ely and other small places,

lithe girls who in spring

come to Chicago looking for boys

who will look at them

but who find instead

the reapers, the men.

                       ~  first published in The Kansas Quarterly

Pumpernickel

artwork: vincent van gogh

Pumpernickel

by M.J. Iuppa

If the color yellow runs out

with what will we make bread?

                      ~ Neruda

Without sun’s warm buttery light

spilling onto the kitchen’s table–

without lemons resting side by side

in our mother of pearl bowl–

without candlelight sputtering

surprise– yelp of the yellow dog

lying across the threshold, listening

for slow footsteps returning

to an hour that’s groundless

in its long wait– the clock’s tick

unlocks the world mimicking

other worldliness– when all we wanted

was to break bread. Forgetfulness

sounds like forgiveness when yellow

runs out in the way  fields of winter

wheat sway in question . . .

   

See how dark mahogany rises–

coarse swell of sourdough–

this steaming loaf found

in the hands of strangers.

~ first published in Tar River Poetry.

photoart: sharon auberle

SONNET

by Sharon Auberle

I asked you, once, what happens

when dreaming comes to an end.

When light that falls through the trees

no longer seems able to tend

to those dreams into which we leapt

long ago, now grown cold

and autumn closing in,

brash, blustery and bold

and wind stripping leaves bare

from trees once sheltering us,

life and death beneath my feet

now become just dust.

Oh my heart, help me remember

in every cold fire remains an ember.

~ previously published in Crow Ink

  (Little Eagle Press)