POET'S NICHE . . .

Eyes Closed

what’s more difficult,
living within
or living without?

when it’s the wrong voice
on the other side of the table,
or the hand absent of the heart
once connected to

or the touch,
soft,
the sincere connection
under sun and moon

and the kiss,
like the first one,
eyes closed

Roger Singer
Englewood, Florida

The Sitting Tree

A little down the road from me
There's what we called a "sitting" tree;
It had a branch which grew out straight
And seemed just made for reverie.
I cannot count the times I'd wait
To quit my work and put my weight
Upon that seat by Nature wrought
And slip into that quiet state.
How many times I'd come there fraught
With fears and dreams which came to naught
And never felt a moment's doubt
It was that tree which cleared my thought?
It's been some years since I've been out
To see that tree and look about—
But if I did, I'm sure I'd find
No longer was my faith devout.
No more so young and not so blind
To think that Nature and mankind
Are so conjoined in sympathy
That we can share with her our mind.

Raymond J. Steiner
(1933-2019)
From Quarry Rubble a book
of Poetry published 1993

The Artist

Let your heart be opened to the verses that speak within,
let the music of your words glide through you, painting you open,
allowing the rush of inspiration to fill and refresh you like cool rain.
Let your mind relax into evenings spent with your notebook and pen,
let the moonlight slip into your soul, awakening
the poet, the singer, the dancer, the dreamer, the writer, the artist.
Let your spirit be nourished by that which calls to you,
let your hours be filled by that which stimulates and strengthens you,
bring your passions to the surface, bright brilliant creations bursting forth, Alive!

Stacie Eirich
Mandeville, La  

I didn’t try…

Because I’m not black
My cellie thought it safe to share his opinions of
N****s.

Because I pass for straight
My cellie thought it okay to share his views of
Faggots.

Because I was watching CNN
My cellie thought it okay to share his beliefs about
Fake News.

You can’t fix stupid,
so I didn’t even try.

I’m sure glad he went home today.

Matthew Feeney
Moose Lake, MN

Meaningful

For the first time in my life I could clearly hear, and
feel, every beat of my heart.
It felt like a hundred bricks had fallen on my chest,
yet at the same time the rest of my body felt weightless.
I tried to speak but no words came out.
How did this happen? What can this mean?
What do I do now? Countless questions flooded my brain
but I couldn’t think of any answers for them.
I then did the only thing that I could think of.
“I love you too.” I said, so sure that it was true.

Anthony Billings
Coalinga, CA

Lost in Space
(February 19, 2022)

We should have gone to Mars,
Kept striving for the stars.
Once Moon we reached, to halt we screeched.
Such goals no longer ours.

Once up the ladder stepped,
Ascending should have kept.
But cast aside, for Shuttle ride.
Down onto stepstool leapt.

With Solar System probes
We’ve toured our fellow globes.
But men remained in orbit chained
To Earth like xenophobes.

My generation thought
Its future would be wrought
In Martian skies where red clouds rise,
The prize for which we fought.

Alas, it’s not come true.
We’re left to only rue
A future lost when dice we tossed
And snake eyes only threw.

Raymond Gallucci
Frederick, MD

Love Lost & Regained: for Li Lan
Love Lost: a Rambling Sentence
(February 19, 2022)

How I sometimes wonder
Whether it is because you wear
Your years so well or because the years
Wear you so well that I fell in mad love with
You after as long as 42 years of separation without
Knowing each other’s whereabouts, again at first sight
With the whole Pacific Ocean between our shortening arms

Changming Yuan
Vancouver, BC Canada

________________________________________

Head Clearing
(February 19, 2022)

feeling lost
but not afraid
I quickly move
among levels
of nearby shadows
on a walk with
evening,
attempting
to wear out the
approaching
darkness
and uncounted stars,
as winds close in
on my heels
attempting to
push me
off center

Roger Singer
Englewood, Florida

I've Witnessed...
December 26, 2021

sunsets without sun
morning rain
mountain tops
unfamiliar streets
fire in songs
waters without healing
a country
divided by hands,
church doors shut
silent steeples
wounded soldiers
death and tears
coffin flags
families pain
taps played
and
loved ones weeping
for quiet blessings
and better days

Dr. Roger G. Singer
Englewood, Florida

Perseverance
December 26, 2021

Overstanding lifes obstacles
Possed with inner strength
Forever standing strong.

Cleveland Kenyon Kincade

_________________________

Egocenter
December 26, 2021

Through me all things are what they are
From closest thing to farthest star;
I never feel I am a tree
But rather that the tree is me.
I am the center of all things,
'Tis me who cycling season brings;
And I decree where beauty lies
While moon and sun for me do rise.
On me depends the earth and sky,
For me all things will or die;
The universe to ever thrive
Must pass through me to be alive.
The stillborn world this human needs
For I contain the living seeds.

Raymond J. Steiner
(1933-2019)
From Quarry Rubble a book
of Poetry published 1993

Vines
December 26, 2021

Insulated, autonomous and safe, I presume
to retreat, walk backwards through my doorway
as if it’s all a natural flow, journeys shift,
pathways part, people stop |
for just a bit and then move on
or fall away like memories
of flowers or leaves or bits of snow.

Then you knock on my door,
call in my ear, show up
randomly, persistently, reminding me
that present exists as well as past.

The vines that travel, mingle,
still mingle, still thrive
because you water them.
And I, for my feeble contribution,
tend to forget, forget to tend,
yet would never think
to cut them down.

Vickie Kapnas
New Carlisle, OH

Nearer the Bottom
November, 11, 2021

Deeper into the water
He went,
Looking at the fantastic
Colors
Painted all around him,
Disguised as aquatic life
Who whispered sacred songs
In between
The pull of the tides

Jim Fay
Paxton, MA

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Futility Rites
November, 11, 2021

As often as the
Tender shoot returns
After being killed by
Winter frost,
So also will my
Love return—
After being killed by
Your indifference.

Raymond J. Steiner
(1933-2019)
From Quarry Rubble a book
of Poetry published 1993

Water Calls
November, 11, 2021

the water calls…
I always listen and obey.
I am not much of a swimmer–
not much of a boater either.

Still, the seaside calls.
She calls.
I listen, standing with
water up to my thighs.

I am here now, but
you keep speaking and
the waves enforce your
theories.

After I die,
I have a place to go­–
to swim without breath
…where the water calls

Jason Waddle
Hamilton, Ontario

Rodin Museum, Pa.
November, 11, 2021

daughter,
in the photo we are sitting, chin on hand
two small figures in jeans and boots
posed on the steps of Rodin’s thinker

we got lost, drove around in circles
fought over which direction to take
finally, around late afternoon, we walked
in awe through the rooms where Rodin’s
ghost followed

the signs said DO NOT TOUCH! but my hand
reached out anyway to stroke the smooth
marble of the Danaid’s naked curve
you got angry, asked why I don’t obey signs
embarrassed, I shrugged, pulled my hand back

by the time we reached the art museum
across the way it was closing
and in a small crowded café we ordered
grilled cheese sandwiches, shared fries
counted our money, making sure we
had enough for tolls back home

we got lost again that day we spent
arguing, laughing, loving and becoming
two bookends set in stone at Rodin’s feet

Gloria Murray
Deer Park, NY

Ungulates
October 13, 2021

Last giraffes look down in earnest supplication;
thick feminine lashes over limpid eyes,
blunt velvet horns crowning heads,
upright ears alert for hope
not forthcoming. Spectators
crane to view them before
it’s late, to admire exquisite coats--
motley patterns each unique.
Not unique enough, not camouflage enough
to stymie extinction, to stop their lowering.
For now, towering nightly in waning moonlight,
they hum to each other a hymn, a dirge,
a chant, dua, kaddish, verse;
any prayer for their kind.

Dan Sieg
Teaneck, N.J.

The Ferryman
October 13, 2021

I watch him tie the ferry to the dock
A man in his sixties
Weather-worn
Time-worn
Worn down by the people who pass him by
Worn like the marble steps of a monument
Visited daily by thousands

The queue waits, chatting, for the short trip to the island
Cameras and binoculars hang around their necks to
Catch the Crescented This
And the Warbling That
And the Red Breasted What-Do-You-Know
None of them look at the Ferry Man

Single file they climb the steps to board
He offers his hand to steady them
One by one they take it
Without ever looking into his eyes

Sharon Dockweiler
Wantagh, NY

Listen Ezra Pound,
September 27, 2021

to say the fish were unclothed
is to look loosely—
rather, they are armor-clad
like all Delian Divers,
and for that, almost indestructible.
And what about the gills. . .
which seem to set off the whole outfit quite nicely?

Raymond J. Steiner (1933-2019)
From Quarry Rubble
a book of Poetry published 1993

Summer Tunes
September 27, 2021

Listen keenly
and drink of forests
and bubbling brooks
and leaves of trees
rustling in the breeze
Mark the paths
raccoons cross
And the very spot where
a kangaroo rat hopped
Revel in the daily
measure of beauty
heaped in tablespoons
Pouring forth the sunrise
the moonbeams
the hidden hills
draped in lavender

Frances Leitch
Los Osos, CA

Demise
September 27, 2021

Isolation,
kind of
half-death,
lingers
over
persona
like
of regret,
swallowing
self-esteem,
waking
nightmare
distinct,
relentless
in its
grasp--

Bobbie Saunders
Aurora, CO

Oak Woke
August 28, 2021

He woke with a start
and a shudder
No morning cheer
in the wintry
time of year
Then got up
to fill his coffee pot
gobble Cheerios
toast and butter
And in a cheerier note
looked out the window
to see
a tall stolid oak tree
Dressed in snowy white
Lit in sunlight
That reminded him
Of his rudder

Frances Leitch
Los Osos, CA

Unthinkable
August 28, 2021

“the muse holds me,”
he says,
as he stands alone on
the shoreline of a
place,
reaching up
as if to pull night
down like a blanket,
covering the
the unthinkable,
the remains of a
cavity where a
mountain collapsed,
and a town is
empty of the living
he shakes his fist
in waters reflection,
angry,
yet unable to
un-ring the bell
which tolls his
loss

Roger Singer
Old Lyme, Connecticut

First Crocuses
August 28, 2021

Don’t you know yet?
One morning, when you are wrapped
in winter’s dark blanket, barely alive,
our slim buds tipped with violet
will appear, like tropical birds
in your brown garden pocked with snow.
And how we hurry
to burst into scalloped bonnets—
wider, wider.
We are tough. Frost and snow—
we outlast them
until the canary-yellow bells of daffodils emerge
and we know, it’s time to go..
Next year, remember—
when winter turns all to white and brown
and you are lost,
early one morning,
from under winter’s dark blanket
we shall return.

Jacqueline Coleman-Fried
Tuckahoe, NY

In Secret Known
July 26, 2021

Green-golden glades of liquid form
You ride on waves in secret known;
What magic hand has had you sown
To toss you so in private storm?
Is movement, then, your only act
Midst mossy rock and muted gloom?
Was silent dance wove in that loom
Which plies all fates in holy pact?
Was it for me your flowing show
Or for some arcane mystery?
I'll find no words in history
To answer me and that I know.

Raymond J. Steiner (1933-2019)
From Quarry Rubble
a book of Poetry published 1993

Month Four
July 26, 2021

Life is
like
treading
water,
its depth
murky,
screaming
with
emotions,
isolation
the norm,
familiar,
constant,
unforgiving,
pale version
of life
before--

Bobbie SaundersAurora, CO

The Beach
July 26, 2021

She left the edge of the water
walking sideways, moving slowly
touching the sand with its hills and valleys
and she climbed.

The sun beat down on her back
and with gritty motion
She plowed on,
feeling crusty but not spent.

A sudden respite came in the
shape of a cloud.
Shadow engulfed her
and for a moment she rested.

She cocked a watchful eye
and scanned the beach
for just the right size shell
to hide in and make a home.

Holly Rom
New York, New York

“Et Tu, Judé”
July 25, 2021

Did he do it out of love
For a higher cause?
Something noble up above
Common human laws?

Was he Brutus trying to
Save Republic Rome
From Empire with its new
Caesar on the throne?

Can we know what Judas thought
When he Christ betrayed?
Any inkling what he’d wrought
With that silver paid?

Easy to condemn him now –
Victors history write.
Any chance he was in doubt
On that fateful night?

Raymond Gallucci
Frederick, MD

Ode to Lile, pronounced “Lee la”
July 25, 2021

In the house where my father died,
the young woman who cared for him
is moving out.
A large stuffed bear
sits on the bed in her old bedroom.
A painting of her sister in Tbilisi with liquid eyes
hangs on the wall.
For seven years, my father was more constant
than any man she’d known—
more than her father and grandfather, who died young,
more than the husband who left her with a child.
My father adored how can-do she was—
coming to this country by herself,
performing jobs citizens won’t take.
At least with Dad, she had a pretty house
and kind man to talk to.
Though my father couldn’t toilet or walk,
with her, he still had much to give.

Jacqueline Coleman-Fried
Tuckahoe, NY

On The Reopening of the Met
with Restrictions for Social Distancing
June 4, 2021

Palace of art—
where has been gathered man’s finest works
from kohl-eyed mummy masks
to a Frank Lloyd Wright room
laid out in geometries of the prairie,
to Degas’s fourteen-year-old ballet rat—
starved and defiant beneath the pouf
of a real tutu,
and Jackson Pollock’s skeins of dripped paint.
O, Met, you make New York
a landmark on the map of the world.
Perhaps I will behold your treasures—
one living thing confronting another—
up close, if I push aside fear and walk again
through your door.

Jacqueline Coleman-Fried
Tuckahoe, NY

Age in the Hands
(Fragment)
June 4, 2021

The sunlight is on my hands showing,
Old veins, knurled,
Shapes that remind me of the years,
Now vanished,
And love and pity as they reform,
Aged machines,
Transcribing the goodness of this day,
As the blood,
Makes its way through my body, my mind,
Almost as strong,
As the thought of the distant years that were,
Like Plato’s ghosts,
And yet this afternoon is like
An ageless day,
And I watch it pass me not seeing
Any motion.

Charles Mann
Omaha, NE

On Reaching Middle Age
June 4, 2021

I had just remembered the blossoms!
    But . . . when I reached out
    to gather them —
A golden-brown leaf slowly
    fluttered to my feet . . .

Raymond J. Steiner (1933-2019)
From Quarry Rubble
a book of Poetry published 1993

____________________________

homeless
June 4, 2021

sprouting under the over passes
clinging to the sidewalk
like climbers of El Capitan
the cast-offs collect
beneath a mocking sign
‘Do Not Give Money to Panhandlers’
providing passers-by with permission
to ignore what they were going to ignore
anyway

Dave Bachmann
Upland, CA

June 4, 2021
The book of poetry
is a steel-wire cable-stayed suspension bridge
floating over the East River containing adjectives,
verbs and nouns that Hart Crane used to connect
the boroughs of Brooklyn and Manhattan, a name
derived from the word Manna-hata, a Lenape
locution meaning island of many hills that was sold
by Native Americans for twenty-four dollars to Peter
Minuit who thought the sellers were Indians though
they were not from India or composers of mystic
and symbolic ancient Vedic verse that if I read it
would be Greek to me like Plato’s desire to ban
poets from the Republic. Twenty-two hundred years
later Keats dubbed poetry’s departure from logic
negative capability, an expression I sometimes
employ when my writing goes south and wish I
was Walt Whitman, who knew how to celebrate
himself; or Robert Frost, who knew the right
road to take; or Ralph Waldo Emerson, who
knew It’s not the destination, it’s the journey
I’m taking you on with this poem.

Martin H. Levinson
Riverhead, NY

Questing
April 21, 2021

Each whitened skull of every man long gone
Once housed the turmoil that we also find
Within the dark recesses of our mind;
They too sought God before their day was done.
The Light they tried to comprehend within
Their narrow scope had surely turned to white
That inner part of mind that shuns the night
As evil counterpart of Adam's sin.
And yet within each grinning head of death
Lie memories of failure which belie
That smile eternal shown to every eye—
How many tears were shed before last breath!
And still each age gives birth to certain men
Who know this yet take up the quest again.

Raymond J. Steiner (1933-2019)
From Quarry Rubble
a book of Poetry published 1993

A Harbinger of Spring
April 21, 2021

I spied a blackbird on a pond reed
Perched at a steep incline
His dazzling red and yellow shoulders
Bespoke of the divine
Of winter's end
His migration attested
Now spring is here
And he is rested
His notes are few
But sweet his song
Like honey dew
And all day long
O wondrous bird
Of common sight
Remain with us
For our delight

Thomas Joseph
Singerlands, NY

A Writers Dread
April 21, 2021

Sitting in the quietness of the dark
Inside my finite mind ignites a spark
Write it down before I go insane
Getting it out requires so much pain
Trying to find words I must write
The crossing of ideas I fight.
What I want to say to you
Thoughts are there but words are few.
Love, hate, many ideas are rife
These are the things that fill my life.
Must get them out of my mind today
To express what I think, come what may.
No matter my many words that you’ve read
The thoughts of my mind can never be said.

Johnny Wooten
Lovelady, TX

Personification Ennui
April 21, 2021

The day kindness took a vacation
we were stuck in traffic on the I-5.
And when empathy and sympathy
stormed out of the room
we were busy watching the nightly news.
Compassion took a cruise
optimism cowered in a corner
hope packed her bags
but we did not notice
because happy hour did not bail.

Dave Bachmann
Upland, CA

Afterglow
April 2, 2021

Time drags on longer
than a Monday, and eye contact
is avoided.

The first appointment: the layout.
Game plan for the future.
Subsequent appointments will
indulge these plans.

Q & A puts the mind in a semi-panic.

The drive home, quiet –
except for the radio blasting out angst. Traffic backed up for miles.

Accidents waiting to happen.

Cathy Porter
Omaha, NE

Rumpelstiltskin Crumpled Napkins
April 2, 2021

For some folks the world is a
place without rhyme, a
prose led parade, a wrinkle
in time, a crumpled old hankie,
a filet mignon, a boiled potato,
a freshly baked scone, a day at the
beach, a night getting drunk, a run
in the park, at home in a funk,
a camel’s a logo and Caspar’s a ghost,
a short stack of sea lions, a side of
snail toast, a dog is a canine, a
rabbit’s a hare, when you rise in
the morning what will you wear,
was Othello a moor?
was Nell Gwynn a whore?
is that a gun in your pocket?
je suis un voyeur?
stones on the trail,
rocks in my drink,
life is a mash-up,
where nothing’s in sync.

Martin H. Levinson

March Winds
March 29 , 2021

With winter's footprint in the past
And as snows begin to melt at last
With longer days and shorter nights
The wayward winds of March take flight
The zephyrs she holds within her grip
She hurls from her finger tips
These wild bouts of gusty breeze
Roar through valleys, hills and trees
That shrill song she sings
Awakens earth and budding things
It gently calms as spring draws near
As when the crocuses appear
But I know she'll be back this way
Upon another cold, late winter's day
When the nights grow short
And the days grow long Listen for her whistling song!

Thomas Joseph
Singerlands, NY

Aluminum Gold Rush
April 2, 2021

A boomtown unfolds in the alley each night.
No pickaxes, rockers or sluices
for these modern-day 49’ers,
just fingers silently sifting through the day’s detritus.
aluminum – 35 cents per pound
glass – 5 cents a bottle
plastic water bottles – 1.24 cents per pound
They work each claim
then move on to the next yawning container
lugging their treasure in burgeoning, black bags.
With dawn, they dissolve into their encampments
as house dwellers replenish the ravaged receptacles.
They wait, wait, wait,
and reemerge with the insulation of darkness
to resume their mining operations.

Dave Bachmann
Upland, CA

Hope
February 18, 2021

Despair embraces all who lose the will
To face the world when failure rides supreme;
It saps the drive to live and tightly grips
The heart and downward drags to deepest pit
While cry of Job is wrenched once more from man.
   If it is true that God wants us to cleave
   To Him then why does He our hearts aggrieve?

And yet when it does seem that all bodes ill
And mind and spirit punished to extreme
Then does kind Hope deep, dark despair eclipse
If we to promptings of the soul submit.
Though mind know not, immortal soul can span
   Abyss 'tween God and man and yet perceive
   Its home and then the words of God receive.

Raymond J. Steiner (1933-2019)
From Quarry Rubble
a book of Poetry published 1993

Christmas Eve
February 18, 2021

Two chairs empty.
Grandpa Charlie sat in one
until he died, then Uncle Joe
assumed head of the table
until he died. Cousin Alvin
always sat in the back
so he didn’t have to serve himself
and could hassle everyone walking by
until he died.
Two chairs headstones
mark dearly departed.
Who will inherit them this year?

Diane Webster
Delta, CO

By That Raw Autumn Day
January 25, 2021

By that raw autumn day
The colored leaves had fade away
In the midst of the frigid air
The trees grew steadily bare
By that raw autumn day
Stronger winds had come to stay
Cutting through the countless trees
Scattering he leaves with unfettered ease
By that raw autumn day
The leaves whirled freely every which way
Until at last they came to rest
Where any crevice might provide them rest
By that raw autumn day
The trees were dormant and the leaves lay
Impatiently for winter's snow fall
To quickly obscure them one and all.

Thomas Joseph
Singerlands, NY

A Good Day
January 25, 2021

I discovered
a pocket
of dreams
in a bundle of
tied letters,
a black
and white photo,
a thank you note,
two shells from
the beach,
pink ribbons
from your hair,
the aroma of
walking under
tall pines,
and postcards
between the
pages of a book

Dr. Roger Singer
Old Lyme, Connecticut

Before Sleep
January 25, 2021

Before sleep,
tuck your happiness under your
pillow. Resting your head, a
cloud borrows the mind from
the body. The travel is light
and the dream is happy–
though the body twitches.
Sleep: An ever evolving echo
in a series of pieces.
The rest is like an
echo–the extension of
sound stretched within
the dream…nothing is heard.
Stretching for the outline
of the dream; only to pour
back into the imprint of |
the pillow. Lying peacefully
above the clouds.

Jason Waddle
Hamilton, Ontario

Budding Love
January 25, 2021

The blanched blue sky shines through
a tree high as a cathedral.
A lazy wind in one long breath moves
taffy pulled clouds behind the starry green leaves.
For a second, we lock eyes---
I wear a white dress of summer cotton
with a tiny rose pattern. We are destined for a journey,
perhaps not true love, but a destiny yes, of many whispered interludes.
On a brisk walk in the garden, all fragrance of spring windswept
around us, the change in weather, clouds swelling into charcoal
brought sorrow, blame, budding love thrown away like ashes
in bleating rain.
Why it smoldered, went up in flames, I do not know.

Judith Ann Levison
Doylestown, PA 18901

Road Trip
December 24, 2020

My wife tells me that the best road trip
Is one without a map involved
A journey without a destination
One that takes more than an hour
I much prefer the feel of the leather chair
The smell of burnt toast in the morning
The tea kettle almost boiling
Far from the white stripes and yellow lines
That lead me far from home on a trip to nowhere

Robert Phillips
Savannah, TX

Ah, But I Could Tell You Things
December 24, 2020

Ah, but I could tell you things you'd scarce believe,
Show you places one would never want to leave—
Places, words that only visions have revealed,
Dark, hermetic, secret things from man concealed.
Ah, believe in me so you, too, may receive!
Come, but take my hand and watch the magic weave;
Banish fears that unknown things but must deceive.
Come to witness laws germane to earth repealed—
Share in higher Truths and wonder at the yield.
But hear! I could tell you things you'd scarce believe.

Raymond J. Steiner (1933-2019)
From Quarry Rubble
a book of Poetry published 1993

Existence
December 24, 2020

Days
are like
sand
drifting
through
outstretched
fingers,
nothing
concrete to
grasp,
the mundane
paramount,
survival
the key,
future
vague,
floating
in the
mist--

Bobbie SaundersAurora, CO

The aging artist’s design
December 24, 2020

what is the pattern for her design
does she speak of her anger at the madness around her
Is she to paint the darkness
the whirling passions
Is she to speak of her understanding of the fragility of life…
her frustrations
no longer being able to fight the daily battles
understanding that the children might fall
and she can’t pick them up
will she understand that they have to create their own design
should she speak of the pain of war
the inequalities and injustices occurring around her
can she speak of her understanding of the small pleasures
of laughter, dance, music, love, a child’s smile
will she understand that all of this together
is the design

Sonia Stark
Hackensack, NJ

Discombobulated
August 13, 2020

My stomach rolls
liquid electricity courses my arms
spinning worlds still into one
silence so loud it hurts my feet
my teeth itch
my tongue wants to declare defenses
GIVE UP!
Screech my Harpies
I’m too drained to answer
the melodic bats in my belfry
softly singing lullabies
What the hell am I doing here?

more importantly…
How do I find my way home

Song From Solitude
August 13, 2020

Vera Haldy-Regier

Bukowski
July 27, 2020

Why do you think Bukowski was so popular
I don’t think it had anything to do
with brilliance
It came down to one thing

He spoke to people

He amused
those who were doing well
he mirrored
those who were struggling
and

he made
those who feel alone
no longer
feel alone

maybe that’s why
in this year 2020
he is still spoken of and outsells
those poets
out there
who live in a world
that would censor him

if he was on the submission circus
of today’s wannabe poets

Stephen Lynch
Kings Meadows, Tasmania

This is the Way
July 27,2020

the soft crosswinds
of whispered words
drift lightly
within heat waves
rising from back roads
as the traveler
walks,
blue shirt and jeans
scuffing tired work boots
his hands sway
like a porch swing
passing pastures
and billboards
and bits of trash
he moves proudly
shoulders straight
acting firm
as if her knew
where to go next

Roger G. Singer
Old Lyme, Connecticut

Pass Over
July 5, 2020

It’s already Spring
Trees, once dormant
Now wait on the cusp of
Blooming in full splendor

Sleepy little bees
Stirring slowly in their wintertime stupor
Dream of their tiny feet
Dancing on a mound of sweet pollen

But now amidst the lilacs and the crocuses
The morning glories on the vine
Another visitor has arrived

A virus, silent and stealthy
Winding its way like a smoke trail
Weaving through crowds
An unseen angel of death

Whose blood must I paint
Above the door frame
To signal the fates to spare us?

Pass Over

Pass Over
That we might admire the lilacs in June

Pass over
That we might make right
The pettiness of our former actions

Pass over
That we might see the world
As the beauty that it is
Through eyes now
Humbled by fear

Pass over
That we may one day tell the story
To our children and grandchildren :
Once there was cruel phantom
That came to gather its own bouquet

But we were spared
To inhale the scent of hyacinth
Another Spring

Therese Wood
Lansing, MI

Sephirot
July 5, 2020

Numbers, letters, strangely brewed—
Letters, numbers, close construed;
Joined in Godlock making world
Enter world then void-ward hurled.

Form in form and shell in shell,
Every act a parallel,
Hinting at the unity
Held in His community.

Numbers, letters, symbols all,
Lost since Adam Kadmon's fall;
Spiraling through universe
Lost since mankind's early curse.

Figured form in figured field,
Space of letters shaped to yield
Power to initiate
Taught to so appreciate.

Numbers valued, letters drawn,
Each a force from chaos born;
Loosed with magick darkly known,
Shatter vessels one by one.

Raymond J. Steiner (1933-2019)
From Quarry Rubble
a book of Poetry published 1993

_________________________

Authentic American Childhood
July 5, 2020

Sometimes, I check in with my old
imaginary friend. I only had the one -
even as a little girl, I was realistic.
She’s named Rosie, after my first friend.

Her face is just like mine but with a better
jawline, a less crooked nose, no acne.
Hard as I try, the real Rosie’s face
is a smear in my mind. We stopped talking
after kindergarten, but this Rosie stayed.

I let her follow me around my new life.
She doesn’t say anything, and I don’t offer
to reminisce. I remember the first time
I felt lonely. My first sleepover, a birthday party
for Rosie. Everyone in my class was there.

I had not known she lived in the blue house
of my dreams, the blue house my mother and I
drove past every day. Just that morning I had
reminded my mother I’d buy it. Watching

Rosie’s mother dish out cake, overwhelmed
by the smell of bare feet around me, I realized
I’d never belong in this house the way she did.
I could not be other people if I tried.

Anastasia Blanchet
Saugerties, NY

Three Sisters
June 22, 2020

Three sisters live in hidden home
Beyond the seas, beyond the foam;
All three are close yet not the same
And each are called by different name.

Three sisters live and rarely roam
Beyond the seas, beyond the foam,
Though Nefesh tries, the youngest one,
To strain the bonds and see the Sun.

Three sisters live 'neath heaven's dome
Beyond the sea, beyond the foam;
The second, Ruah, knows her chore
To bind the three for ever more.

Three sisters live aloof, alone,
Beyond the sea, beyond the foam—
And Neshemah, the eldest maid,
Is spirit pure in light arrayed,

Raymond J. Steiner (1933-2019)
From Quarry Rubble a book of Poetry published 1993

Hope these days
July 5, 2020

Is kept in a box,
Inside a cage,
Behind high walls,

Well guarded,
Surrounded by
Barbed wire.

It is hard to get at,
And so hard
To get out.
…
Counting the needles
On Frankford Avenue
While walking to the El,
I lose count.

All the lives taken
While still alive.

Forward always.
Step by step.
Careful where you walk

Hopeful as a whistle
In the morning breeze

Joseph Farley

Philadelphia, PA

FOR THE TIME, BEING
February 27, 2020

Complacently I pass my time
So confident my vision's right—
Lap up the luxury sublime
Not using might of stronger light.

But in those moments unaware
Come doubts and fears with chainsaw bite
To shred the veil and lay all bare
Philosophy made logic-tight.

I know that I can never know
And weep and weaken weakened sight;
So dreary ignorance does grow
That being must wish for the Night.

Raymond J. Steiner (1933-2019)
From Quarry Rubble a book of Poetry published 1993

DE-FENCE
(Based on the movie “Fences” [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fences_(film)])
February 27, 2020

Fences keep out; fences keep in
What you're about under your skin.
But through the cracks always will leak
Those hidden facts you'd never speak.

Inside the fence you feel the king -
Laws you dispense; all kiss your ring.
But you cannot bar with a gate
Baggage you got on your own plate.

Fences around each of us serve
To keep what’s bound inside preserved.
Dare we to share secrets we hide,
Always beware - no more denied.

Raymond Gallucci
Frederick, MD

LESSONS FROM THE TREES
February 27, 2020

It’s winters turn
and the trees stand sturdy
and steady, but naked. Their
fallen truths blowing blowing
breezily away while the barest-
trunked-truth, remains thicketed.
To your teaching lessons I am
listening assiduously as
your leaves fall deciduously
down upon barren ground.
Yes, I listen ever so softly. You,
still wearing what is worn through
all four seasons long, but human
truths are more bundled, for this
time of year pinches vulnerabilities,
yet you trees of oak and maple
dress down for the chill air.
How curious and cool you be;
how cultured and warm winter’s tree.
Then horizons exchange seasons,
and we dress down for summer’s
turn. Looking up without voice I say:
“Is this your cue to
bring out your full-closet?”
There you stand stern and stoic
receiving sunny rays. Your
nature of days is long lived and
your wisdom is never wizen.
You live your life in grounded
truth and this is worth a listen.

Jason Waddle
Hamilton, Ontario

PROTECTION
February 27, 2020

My daughter and I sat on her bed
hovering over my fine jewelry,
listening to the jingling sounds, intent
over each piece, pulling the twisted
necklaces apart, shaking the bangles.

Prom night had come and gone.
She bought two dresses, had them taken in,
sequins individually sewn.
But she did not go. There was a misunderstanding.

I never met the boyfriend, could not console
her the night her heart first broke.
I knew she would forget the boy, but not the feeling.

We seldom spoke, perhaps my illness burdened her,
or she was ashamed of my destitute Maine background,
offering no family to embrace and support her.

I desperately wanted to protect her beauty from men
who were polite, but dark prowlers behind fine suits.

She brushed back her long blond hair, fancied
my tennis bracelet on her thin wrist.

I saw then my protection of her was over.
Yet what protection did I have an evening long ago
when accepting this bracelet beneath a white chain arbor?

Judith Ann Levison
Doylestown, PA

THE GRAVITY OF MASS
January 19, 2020

Though long neglected as a useful form Of worship for communion with my God, I often feel the sway and think it odd
That cast-off ritual can yet cause storm

Within my mind and weaken logic's law.
Is it attractiveness of gravity
That 'suades my soul to listen at the door
When solemn sound fills Holy cavity?

Can choired chant or sombre Latin tone,
Mere sober sound, enchant a seeking soul?
Does not our reason have a ruling role
In forming us the way Thy will be done?

And yet the motive of the Mass I would not have
But mystery of gravity my votive in the grave.

Raymond J. Steiner (1933-2019)
From Quarry Rubble a book of Poetry published 1993

PRIZE INSIDE
January 19, 2020

Inside the front window
covered by Venetian blinds
so sunshine reflects shadows
of horizontal lines against glass
only geraniums grow --
reaching green palms
through pliable slats
to grasp sunlight
like a child's hand
squeezed into cardboard box
of Crackerjacks with fingers
scrabbling over popcorn and peanuts
feeling the foreign cellophane
of the prize inside

Diane Webster
Delta, Colorado

TRYING TO GET OUT
December 8, 2019

There's rain
in the desert
where lizards
and one eyed dogs
live
on the
wrong side of the
tracks
and bars with
tired neon's
blink onto
cactus and sand
where nothing
comes alive
except
lightening and
dry winds
as we try for the
right way
leaving behind
what tries to
hold us back
in the desert
where even the
water has no place
to go.

Dr. Roger Singer
Old Lyme, Connecticut

CHANGE
December 8, 2019

Gone, gone, my youth long gone
Spent on things I've soon forgot.
Past, past, and time rolls on
Changing all to what it's not.
Far, far, the friends I knew
Locked in dreams I seldom dream.
Fly, fly, my precious few—

Lose yourselves in Lethal stream.

On, on, I still go on
Claiming this or that must last;
But, NO! These, too, have gone
Like the rest—too fast! too fast!

Raymond J. Steiner (1933-2019)
From Quarry Rubble a book of Poetry published 1993

night 1575
December 8, 2019

sometimes at the hour of the wolf
i sit and stare into the abyss of my canvas
so much white in a field of darkness
that gestures for me to follow
and i raise my brush
like a glass of champagne
and celebrate the sounds of the night
which serenade me with their mysterious catcalls
in the other room a large canvas
exchanges blows with the night
edging toward a supernova
illuminating all memories
and shimmering for me to follow
at these times i submit to folly
and my brush marches on
painting an upside down world
that falls on its face like a clown
and i rush into enthusiasm
taking giant steps
galloping across territories of stars
drinking the night into my skin like air
before returning to my chair
before returning to my dreams
before returning to my foolishness
in the hands of the mischievous night

bruce weber
woodstock, ny

VAN GOGH: CHURCH AT AUVERS-SUR-OISE
November 24, 2019

Blue of windowpanes that do not see,
blue of midnight waiting for the moon,
blue of time growing thicker in love,
blue of the deepest layer of water become sky,
blue around which temples are built,
silence around which lives are bent,
aster-blue of winter stars growing without sound,
blue of the roots of music before they flower,
blue of a night without dreams,
blue of courage gathering like a storm,
blue of open irises, of thoughtful dresses,
blue of sapphires humming beneath ground level,
blue at the black edge of coal, at the rim of fire.

All of this you saw, because you sifted through moods
of color, lived the color as though it were your voice.
You who listened to the universe, who heard
the spaces between its bones of light, who painted
families, fruits of stars, secrets,
who heard winter rain inside your sleep
but did not become cold for the life always waking you--
who painted waiting selves we could not see,
who listened to light shifting in the oceans
of our quiet days--you knew the point
at which light breaks and becomes human.

Christina Turczyn
Midland Park, NJ

THE HAUNTING OF THOUGHTS
November 24, 2019

some evenings the ghosts arrive,
leaving ethereal feathers in their wake.
ectoplasmic couriers,
they simply seem like nervous energy.

neutrinos gone wild

in the sleeping darkness,
they enter my head,
performing some tragic play
where I am the character
always forgetting his lines.

James J. Koreski
Bridgeport, WV

___________________________

TRIAD
November 24, 2019

In the beginning there was Point,
And this it was which birthed the world.
Then simple line did make a joint
With other Point and this unfurled
Distinctness of Duality
Thus causing Being to be born
And joining in Reality.
At last, a third Point had been drawn
With joining line connecting all,
Obeying Canon of the Call.
Thus plane defeats Chaotic Void
And Order heeds the Living Word.

Raymond J. Steiner (1933-2019)
From Quarry Rubble a book of Poetry published 1993

GLACIER OR STONE
November 24, 2019

Glacier with millennium layers
fused by freeze/thaw tons
grinds, carves, whittles
tiny gouges into canyons
to fill its need progressing
by gravity gradations grooved
down mountain boulders
ground to ground thirsty
for the glacier's thin melt
of fossilized snowflakes
first fallen before memory.

Stone borne from earth's magma
in fluid fury expelled
to harden atop the mountain
until loosened and drowned
in doomed avalanche
of compression
and abrasive remains trailing
behind like uncut umbilical
from child to mother until
one grain survives to drink
and grasp sibling morsels together
to welcome seeds with roots
that bind a family united
in the wake of glacier and stone.

Diane Webster
Delta, Colorado

AMIS
October 8, 2019

Each misconception of the real
I've poemed as a record kept
And know I never know or feel
Enough of Truth to intercept.

Mere words, no matter how conjoined,
Must fail in trying to express
Those profound bits of life we've learned.
Most poetry is to impress

Unlettered readers with delight
Of sleight of word in sight and sound.
Which poet dares to claim the right
That it was he who Truth has found?

The poem, then, that's left behind
Is only 'Truth' to readers blind.

Raymond J. Steiner (1933-2019)
From Quarry Rubble a book of Poetry published 1993

SCALE OF AMENITIES
October 8, 2019

Wrap-around porches ease
like lazy constrictors

after a prodigious feast
on fat mammals that numbs

appetite for several months,
so satisfies the snake

into unwinding, lax and food-drunk,
atop which residents may recline

and rock to the summer evening breeze,
iced drinks, spirited or not, in hand

fearing no fangs or lethal squeeze.

John Zedolik
Pittsburgh. PA

MD-CENTURY MODERN
October 8, 2019

Threadbare, vulnerable,
my inner springs exposed
on a stuffy hot day I sit
waiting patiently.

My juice-stained arms
long to embrace
a new family,
to be the foundation
for a blanket fort once again.

Lounge lizard that I am,
I'd still like a handsome ottoman
to recline with
after the sun sets.

While on my curbside retreat
I seek a reupholstered
outlook on life,
some living room to breathe
and to cushion
my fall from grace.

Sari Grandstaff
Saugerties, NY

HANDS
September 24, 2019

My first photography class in college
the instructor wanted pictures of hands,
just hands, in black and white.
And later, in Freshman Art,
we drew hands; mine looked
more like cow udders.
My girlfriend back then
liked my hands, she could
see all kinds of things in them,
how long I'd live, the size of my penis,
whether I liked cats.
She'd work my hands up her blouse
over her breasts
down her jeans.
She took pictures of my hands
and said it was art.
But I knew better.

Gary W. Bloom
Pass Christian, MI

ONE DAY
September 24, 2019

Always looking
for the next bus
that would take him
to where he belongs
not sure which direction
and weather has no say
traveling with a good hat
and short story secrets,
the ones unable to explain
with just one line
roads have adopted him
pushing him beyond
crossroads
cant recall when he
started or why
just walked one day

Roger Singer
Old Lyme, Connecticut

GESTATING TO BEETHOVEN'S
FIFTH SYMPHONY
(as performed by an all-female orchestra) September 24, 2019

How sweet that women in the prime of life
should choose to carry on the lineage
of someone lacking progeny or wife.
For, evidently grumpy personage,
he'd scarcely win from one of them a date.
Yet, now they're bowing strings in unison,
infatuated by his fertile fate
motif as though he were a paragon
of every virtue that a girl could hope
for in a man. His love notes are the score
they look at as they amorously grope
through bars, delivering the spawn they bore
for many months before it's brought to term,
a godsend from the partner they affirm.

Frank De Canio
Union City, NJ

BETWEEN SNOWFLACKES
September 24, 2019

Between snowflakes,
Natures symmetry
A hope falling, dancing, leading…
Far apart
Close to the heart
Of Christmas,
Leading, dancing, falling…
An array of winter beauty,
Watched in a warm room
From a window
Snow
Falling, dancing, leading…
On to the spirit of Christmas
Snow scattered far
Creating a feeling of joy
In the hearts of every girl and boy
They are playing
Between snowflakes,
Thousands in view
Where a street light spotlights their show,
Featuring the first Christmas snow
Of the season
Falling, dancing, leading,
Between snowflakes.

Jason Waddle
Hamilton, Ontario

SELF-DICTATED SHIFT

August 14, 2019

5:29, within the minute-that is-less than
sixty seconds before it's time to rise and
begin dinner preparations, so I wonder how

much I can mine from this singular minute
and why I must surface in the next to take up
duty's motions in the kitchen and near environs,

since no bell calls me to move into domestic
pursuits. Only I have dictated I must change my
operations of afternoon for the next phase,

which I've also deemed begins at the end of
this aforementioned minute evaporating even as
I compose, bringing a self-imposed end to this
digging below for my own desires.

John Zedolik
Pittsburgh, PA

NUCLEAR PHRENOLOGY
August 14, 2019

They called it Phrenology,
Science of Pseudo.
It had its own Wanna-be's,
Chasing their kudos.
Akin to Astrology,
Cloaked by its rituals.
Awash with phraseology,
Non-filling victuals.
From bumps on the head
It claimed some secret knowledge.
Illusions up kept
By professors in college.
Is nuclear power
Phrenology now?
Its future so dour
Survive can it how?
Will all its practitioners
Remembered be
As lost science-fictioners
To history?

Raymond HV Gallucci
Frederick, MD

MONLIGHT SONG
August 14, 2019

I stand on the
shoreline of the
ocean
small palpable waves
feed on my ankles
as dusk yields
to night

a sound clear
as spring windows
tilts toward me
showering me in the
center of a
nightly orchestra

I wonder
looking around
if anyone nearby
senses the blessing
from the air
or am I the only
fortunate one to hear
the
moonlight song

Roger Singer
Old Lyme, Connecticut

CHEF-d'OEUVRE
August 14, 2019

Die Meistersinger's like a 5 course meal
that well-nigh's too delectable to eat
in just one sitting. Never mind the veal
fillet that garnishes the trio treat
in Act 3 with polyphony to whet
the appetite for more. This chef has craft
sufficient for the table to be set
for 6 including me, with one more draught
of intermission. That would make me stout
enough to gobble up the final act.
And though I don't have operatic gout,
regaling clogs my gastronomic tract.
Thus, lest such music dishes make me gag
on riches, I'd prefer a doggie bag.

Frank De Canio
Union City, NJ

DOES IT REALLY MATTER?
August 14, 2019

Does it really matter,
If life were nothing but a downward ladder?
I guess it doesn't really matter.
Earth let me in so a life can begin,
For some meaning is found tipping a bottle of gin.
But I guess it doesn't really matter.
Now I've climbed to the top of the ladder,
Only to look down the other way,
Now I know it doesn't really matter.
For my downs have been my ups,
And my ups have been my downs.
It really doesn't matter.
Time to get off this ladder with a frown,
In need of a change of scenery,
Oh my luck, a merry-go-round.

Jason Waddle
Hamilton, Ontario

ONE HUNDRED YEARS
July 27, 2019

a tanners’ town was awakened one day
by a structure near the Village Green
a century ago bold artists would fulfill
prominent painters’ precious dreams
known for their clear wit and creativity
they sheltered and shared when they could

at Byrdcliffe Maverick and the League
famous art havens amidst the woods
canvasses created from mind to brush
with luscious landscape-inspired colors
nature was theirs to reproduce in kind
as were the social conditions of others
great their goals - hearty their heritage
their toil - their flair- their artistic vision
their legacy - a colony of the arts - and
Woodstock Artists Association & Museum

Chris Collins
Woodstock, NY

BIG CITY
June 21, 2019

Curious to see
The homeless
Feeding birds
Last sliver of bread
Glimpses of kindness
Unsaid
Peek in why not-
Contrastingly
At the well-to- do…
Spoils
Yet never enough to chew
Lips that drip
Of wine
Elegant cars
And not a dime
Nor the time
To ponder
Or wonder
About the souls
Lost in pockets
Of city beats
The cold and hungry
Wearing the government's streets.

Jason Waddle
Hamilton, Ontario

MOONLIGHT SONG
June 21, 2019

I stand on the
shoreline of the
ocean
small palpable waves
feed on my ankles
as dusk yields
to night
a sound clear
as spring windows
tilts toward me
showering me in the
center of a
nightly orchestra
I wonder
looking around
if anyone nearby
senses the blessing
from the air
or am I the only
fortunate one to hear
the
moonlight song

Roger Singer
Old Lyme, CT

MESHUGANA DANCE
June 21, 2019

What stylized truancy is this?
A prototype of living dead
performers moving all amiss,
while, with their oscillating heads,
they move apace as in a trance.
I feel a little powerless -
considering their wayward dance -
to do much more than acquiesce
to what looms as subversive grooves.
For what's the use of my cache
of seasoned thoughts when they're removes
from reasoning. And thus, at bay
from doing much more than a child,
I cede myself to it, beguiled.

Frank De Canio
Union City, NJ

A SMILE IS CHEAP
June 10, 2019

A smile is cheap,
Cheaper than gloom,
It's absolute,
And it doesn't pollute!
A smile every day
Is a positive,
It adds beauty in a way
To the beauty in you.
A smile is fun;
It is painless;
And it's germ free.
So why feel blue
When a smile is
Oh, so, cheap,
And an easy thing to do!

--Peter LaVilla
Sunny Isles Beach, FL

THE LAST SHALL BE FIRST
June 10, 2019

"Better to reign in Hell, than to serve in Heaven."
Pluto knows this well now that only seven
Planets beside Earth count in Solar System.
Questioning its worth, "dwarf" it's been re christened.

But it's now the king of the minor planets,
Not just some runtish thing long taken for granted.
Smallest of the nine, lonely and discarded.
Now has come its prime, first among the farthest.

In the Belt of Kuiper, Pluto is the closest.
Hailed as the pied piper, gathering remotest
Of its fellow dwarves, ice balls cometary.
It's been metamorphed, crowned as their primary.

Raymond HV Gallucci
Frederick, MD

LIGHT SLEEPER
June 10, 2019

Is universe stretching, as physicists say?
Each galaxy running from others away?
The evidence that all the light's turning red
Convinces them even of space being spread.
Explaining it otherwise has been ignored;
Alternatives logical left unexplored.
And failure to kneel at the throne of Big Bang
Doth fatally sentence espouser to hang.
"It must be 'Dark Energy' stretching the void,"
Contrived explanation by mainstream employed.
But light travels eons before reaching us
And maybe "collides" with some rare bits of "dust."
If each interaction draws energy from
The photons, perhaps little "tired" become.
As light loses energy, frequencies fall
And spectra turn "redder," explaining it all.
So if you're proponent of cosmos' "Big Rip,"
"Big Bang" and "Dark Energy," time to jump ship.
For Razor of Occam says simple is best,
And light that grows "tired" with ease can digest.

Raymond HV Gallucci
Frederick, MD

MY MIND DOES NOT NEED A REAR VIEW MIRROR
June 10, 2019

The basement years -
dusting off old minutes and hours,
cleaning around the leftover seconds.
Retrace, repackage, repeat - stories
and mistreatment flogged in the
mind-square. I see the faces - all
in competition to alter the choices
I made long ago; everything I need
is already stored in the right location.
Hit the gas - check each side,
but do not stop, oh no - full speed
ahead, the best is yet to be.

Cathy Porter
Omaha, NE

A WINK
June 10, 2019

A wink
Is a blink
Of the eye.
It's good.
The message
Is widely understood.
Truth.
Affection.
Even deception!
A wink.
It's a beautiful thing,
Soft-spoken,
As a gentle wind in Spring.

Peter LaVilla
Sunny Isles Beach, Fl

DON'T PROMISE ME
TOMORROW
May 3, 2019

I'm tired of your tomorrow
Promises
I never see unfold

It's always your tomorrow
That remains a lie
You've told

I'm tired of your tomorrow
Full of fantasies
And
False hope

For one day
There wont be a tomorrow

No chance
For a second
Start

Raphael Vidal
St. Louis, MO

GRIEF CIRCLES
May 3, 2019

I stopped counting the days
since you passed; math was never my
best subject. I lay aside overdue statements,
watch for rays of sun to slice through
dark stones. Your face has dimmed - the graves
are talking behind my back. When I speak,
I hear your voice - the edges smoothed over
by seasonal changes. . You followed me
home last night; I let you inside. For a brief
moment, the world was chaotic in the only
way it could ever be for us.

Cathy Porter
Omaha, NE

DEEP-REST
April 6, 2019

(Based on "Bathyscaphe Trieste,"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Bathyscape_Trieste ;
and "Challenger Deep," http://en.wikipedia.org/Challenger_Deep)

The bathyscaphe came to rest
On the ocean floor beneath.
A seven-mile deep descent
To where none had ever reached.

From city where had been built
It went by the name Trieste.
When pressures unfathomed felt,
It proved to be at its best.

The Challenger Deep's as far
Down undersea we can go.
Though never may reach a star,
At least we'll our planet know.

And even at hellish depths,
Seems stubbornly life exists.
Along eyelessly it crept,
The king of its Stygian mists.

Though upward we always search,
Perhaps we should downward too
Might mysteries of our birth
Arise from the black, not blue?

Raymond HV Gallucci
Frederick, MD

THESE HAVE BEEN IMPOSSIBLE SEASONS
April 6, 2019

These have been impossible seasons
He said
Lighting a match
On the side of the barn
Then watching it flitter in the wind and go out.

These impossible seasons
Have tied up your mother's mind in sailor's knots
Have scurried for shelter in god's humble house
Have delivered bread when death stood by the door.

These have been impossible seasons
He said
Fingering through memories of his daughter's smile
The moment she surrendered to father time
Her face covered with grandmother's blue handkerchief.

Someday everything will be clear as old man Sumner's pond
And truth will tickle us under the arms
He said
Biting into a crab apple and spitting it out
Slamming a fist against the stomach of a mighty oak.

These have been impossible seasons
He said
Twisting a stick in the earth
Laughing as loud as a torrent of hail
Tapping the length of tobacco and paper
Against the barn door for luck.

Bruce Weber
Woodstock, NY

THE CLOSING FUGUE OF MOZART'S
JUPITER SYMPHONY
March 16, 2019

Canons unfold like limpid layers of fat
straining the bodice of this straight-laced
goddess as she bears the symphonic fruit
of her miraculous conception. The brood's dispensed
with fluid counterpoint from her embryonic theme -
first inverted, then eased outward
with deft, compositional forceps.
Melodic snippets trip on heels of kin.
Interweaving lines knit a warm,
incubating blanket of sound. I swoon from bliss -
as though the proud father of these sextuplets.
And well I know, they'd choke in polyphonic muscle
before completing life's cycle
were it not for art's dear sustenance.

Frank De Canio
Union City, NJ

LISTENING NIGHT
March 16, 2019

Tree tops leaned
away from
hard winds,
leaves
rustled like
sandpaper working
dark sky blankets
brushed out
a fading day
gray branch shadows
appeared human
footsteps scuffed
over loose dirt
raising a dust
in the direction
of my door.

Roger Singer
Mashpee, MA

EMPTY SPACE
February 21, 2019

Too much matter in this place,
Though it is tidy,
The empty needs its space,
So pulling the plug in the center of the room,
All things drained,
Even Emptying of the dustpan and broom,
Now all that is left to rid may seem absurd,
It is emptier still to throw out each word.

Jason Waddle
Hamilton, Ontario

WHEN I THINK OF FRIENDS I HAVE LOST
February 21, 2019

When I think of friends I have lost
rather than sag in silent despair
   I think of buying a piano
   and playing to them
   as they pray for me
When I sit to play a piano
I dwell in another realm
when pondering friends I have lost
who are also in another realm
   and praying for me
Can I weave all the good I recall
into a tender piece by Chopin ---
As my fingers move over the keys
will my tears be held in check?

(c) Amie Ilva Tatem
Staten Island, NY

HIGHER BY FIRE?
January 28, 2019

Do fishes fear fire though fire cannot
Occur in environment cold, wet and hot?
Except magma churning from undersea swells
Or metals rare burning like oil spills from hell?

Land creatures quite different - should fire approach
They flee in an instant once dares to encroach.
But deep in prehistory one species intrigued
By this magic mystery chose not to retreat.

Did Homo Erectus in Cave of the Hearths
Char bones we detect as humanity's start?*
Bedazzled by both light and heat that it gave,
It wondered if might capture inside a cave.

This spirit it harnessed that turned night to day
Changed species from harmless to hunter of prey.
It grew in dominion, rose over the rest.
Inflated opinion - deserved to be best?

Because controlled fire as none other would
It's thought itself higher than probably should.

Raymond HV Gallucci
Frederick, MD

ART
January 28, 2019

is the life gourmet's chief comestible;
filleted experience seasoned in spice.
It isn't some dry, indigestible
roughage doctors prescribe to force a nice
bowel movement while on the fast track to
success. It's neither a grocery list
that goes into the making of a stew,
nor a quick snack that's wiser to resist
before partaking of the heavy meal
prepared by corporate executives.
No. It's the staff and protein of life; real
fare that nourishes and helps people live
as though at lavish banquets fit for kings;
idling near bowers where the skylark sings.

Frank De Canio
Union City, NJ

TIME FADE SANPSHOT
January 5, 2019

Fall back into the water of words;
clear oceans and clouds offer favor.
Willing winds seek to create cover.
Salt stained windows and shutters
bend roughly with age.
Pine needles and sand mark the path.
The day moves under me; I am the
clock unwinding. Hands point to
morning and then drift toward night.
Songs bring me back. The visit is always
brief. Who knew at the time, all of this wouldn't
come around again.

Roger Singer
Mashpee, MA

WEEDS
January 28, 2019

Weeds still damp with dew
taunt me from the overgrown hill.
Standing tall, they call me to task.

Choosing my weapons wisely
I grab a pair of worn gardening gloves,
a sturdy, steel claw,
and a somewhat rusty spade.

Striding purposefully toward
the marred mound, claw in hand,
my eyes search out the pesky plants.
Determined to eliminate
their vile existence,
I reach, rip, remove;
This becomes the cadence
driven by the rage of the battle.

Sweat, soon dribbles down
my now aching back
as the lovely landscape
emerges from its tangled trap.

Michelle Howard
Newbury, MA

WINSTON ARTHUR BERRY
January 5, 2019

When my infant brother died at birth, I retreated to the rear of the red shed
near the tall, human-like sunflowers and smoked a cigarette.

Relatives were drinking quietly as if he would awaken. The little cinnamon cakes
and black berry crepes were untouched.

I had to crawl into my own grief, no one to take my hand. The old ladies
with large handbags dug into them for hankies.

When I breathed in the smoke, I felt strangely calm. Somewhere I was lost
in shock beneath the bent sunflower faces.

I had plans for him---rocking, picnics, spinning the old gyro top, pulling
my rusty wagon.

Then I realized he would still have a life, for angels have a way of weaving things
together as now a brisk wind made the sunflowers flap their leaves.

Seeds fell in a spray of bright confetti to the soft ground.
I had another cigarette and the visions for us flew with crows overhead.

I now sat, my back against the hot shingles, the loss did not seem real anymore
or was this a trick of grief ?

Judith Levison
Doylestown, PA

"HAPPY NEW YEAR"
December 17, 2018

Here's to a new one we can shed from the last
Another year is gone and seems it went too fast.
People faded from our circles replaced by ones anew,
Personal relationships developed and some loved ones left too soon.
You witnessed many changes and some things stayed the same.

New public figures emerged and became household names.
Every year comes with its own New Year resolutions;
We both can talk about them but only you can execute them.

Your time now is to shine and welcome all new roles,
Embrace what you become and start tackling your goals
And opportunities will come to let your potential unfurl.
Remember that every day you have a chance to change the world.

-Anthony Billings #G-50184
Pleasant Valley State Prison
STRH-169
PO Box 8500
Coalinga, CA 93210

WE ONCE WERE GREAT LADIES
December 17, 2018

It was October, fall's spices in the air.
A disease was attacking the oaks, acorns few,
Squirrels were eating apples.

A large box arrived in the mail from our great aunt.
It was filled with two rose silk dresses, high heels.
Beads of every color, hats that covered our eyes,
Evening gloves, brooches, faceless lockets and the
Most precious item: a large star to pin in your hair.

No room in the house, we dressed up in a murky garage,
Became Louisa May Alcott, the Bronte sisters,
Virginia Wolfe and other esteemed women. We forgot
Our real selves, never allowed to have friends over,
Going for a ride once a week.

Then one breezy day, when colored leaves
Fell in our hair, we saw the box in the pickup truck
To be taken to the dump. A gas scent was in the air.
Father said a can spilled on the clothes.

Conversation always discouraged, we said nothing.

In shock we walked toward the woods and our
Playhouses made of sticks, stones, and several stumps.
We sat in the houses and did not even feel
Like visiting one another.

Something in us died as so often did before.

Judith Levison
Doylestown, PA

FOR THE JUGULAR
December 17, 2018

In grasp of jaws of victory
Stupidity wins out.
How often repeats history,
What choking's all about.

Some merely curiosities,
No repercussions real.
Though sports fans scream atrocities,
Just bragging rights reveal.

Seattle threw when should've run,
So comeback turned to choke.
Pete Carroll morphed to capricorn;
His "genius" card revoked.

But failure militarily
To strike while iron's hot
And press advantage verily
Gives foe another shot.

Bush Forty-one backed off too soon
In first Iraqi war.
Saddam Hussein remained to ruin
His country decade more.

George Meade had Lee at Gettysburg
Defeated where he might
Have ended war as Lincoln urged,
Then two less years to fight.

When Shaka Zulu said to never
Give a foe reprieve,
Too bad advice both sound and clever
Sometime's not believed.

Raymond HV Gallucci
Frederick, MD

THE AGES OF ARROWHEAD
December 17, 2018

In the river bed beach
along the muddy living waters
we search for pieces of time
not ours
to hold

Our heads bowed down
breaking the wind
listening to the gulls
our friends
tripping,
lightly laughing
over each new discovery

We find a chip
a rusted knife
a stone that builds to a perfect point

Sifting through sand
with hand, foot and eyes
we'll keep time
as we make our own
which is ours standing still
until our pockets are full

Patti Martin
Torrington, CT

MASTERY
December 17, 2018

Worry, fear, and terror,
Stretching the brain,
Left and right,
Giving it a shake,
I,
As a wind able,
To a tree,
To make bare its leaves.
Worry, fear, and terror,
Landing on the ground,
Worry, fear and terror,
Looking up at me,
In…
Worry, fear, and terror.

Jason Waddle
Hamilton, Ontario

WHICH WAY
November 15, 2018

Roads are indifferent
accepting the mistaken traveler
the runaways
the anxious negotiating
a road without return
decisions become the
cutting of knives
where hands wait for you
and water is cool
where trees make breezes
just past roadside graveyards
where dreams are dust

Roger Singer
Mashpee, MA

________________________________

RED FOX
November 15, 2018

Along a row of junipers the startled fox
stared then quickly disappeared,
expecting me to find him.
It would take years since this was my first encounter.
From a car window I experienced most
of my early life.

I have a fairy tale life now-I love
and am loved. The first seventeen years,
except for school, I was nobody in a hostile,
drinking, violent, prowling familial pack.

When napping, I hide under a quilt and
feel safe as if living brings only harm.
Coming out of the fetal position, I see the soft
spring greens, images shudder in the breeze.

Branches drop fluffy clouds hung from strings.
The old folks are dead, I want to lie on the grass
and feel free as a red cardinal.
If I think hard enough for a long motionless time,
it might come true.
Seen in the downpours of stellar rain.

Judith Levison
Doylestown, PA

MUSIC IN THE FIRE PIT
November 15, 2018

Walking the grounds of the spiritual center
the fire pit at the lake
silent
filled with ash
cool, grey, weightless
evidence of prayer, purification, and release
a new white supplication
folded over, resting on top
scrawled with song and poetry
waiting for the next holy bonfire
the witnesses dancing salamanders
Its fierce message demanding
"Do it now!"

What would you burn?

Patti Martin
Torrington, CT

_______________________________

THE END
November 15, 2018 (reposted)

The End-
Two words with one curtain,
Could there be a new beginning afterword?
Finality put on hold to a boastful equal,
When the masses love you,
They push for a sequel.
But part two never continues the end,
When it's over twice,
The same ground is covered again.
Sometimes it ends at the beginning to start,
While allusions mime conclusions,
Polite are the doors of art.
No aim to please,
Just some paint and a sky,
Guiding through a stories summer's breeze.
Every story wind's down,
No matter where it start's,
This is the truth of conclusion,
Let us not be tempted to pretend,
When at first you start,
It's not beginning of THE END.

Jason Waddle
Hamilton, Ontario

COPYCAT
November 15, 2018

I'm a copycat
I steal from the works of gifted poets
whose published works must be looted
line by line, stanza by stanza
even sweetest verse by sweetest verse
don't you dare tell me about copyright
I say, "Let's wage a bitter fight!"
I'm a copycat, I'll steal your lines, stanzas
verse and prose; yes, prose too, lyrical prose
from it I'll borrow a line here, a stanza over there
then presto, Ginsburg's, Clifton's and or Poe's work
becomes mine!!!
now your work will really shine!
your lawyer says, "Copyright."
I say, "go fly a kite!"
I'm a low-down copycat.

Eugene Charrington
Philadelphia, PA

RECEPTION
November 15, 2018

Beneath the haze of chatter,
a moment of silence.
Here, we eat.
There, they die.
I think about friends lost, then consider
soldiers' loves never realized.
It is as though we live
in a butterfly garden of arrested wings
that any direct truth would startle.
Here, the cages we elect,
protect us from life,
keep us from living.

Christina Turczyn
Midland Park, NJ

DAMNABLE
October 18, 2018

Damned if you do; damned if you don’t.
Dance with the devil? End up as a goat.
They want your comments? Don’t you believe.
Their perverse pleasure? To you deceive.
Rules contradict? Par for the course.
Happy with beating of a dead horse.
Compliments always come with a “But.’
Slap on the back? Punch in the gut.
Do a good deed? Punished for sure.
Sleaze your way out – how to endure.
Realize you can’t win in the end.
Those whom you serve – never your friend.

Raymond HV Gallucci
Frederick, MD

I DON’T TAKE IT PERSONALLY
October 18, 2018

The cat
He loves to play with pens
Especially the good ones
My favorite black Flairs in particular
Fished out of pen holders or baskets
I find them tossed and scattered about on the floor
Underneath rugs, furniture, and appliances
Or sequestered in obscure corners
And so I reclaim them
To begin my writings once more
And when I’m not looking
Sometimes the cat
shuts off the computer, too
I don’t take that personally, either

Patti Martin
Torrington, CT

YOUNGBLOOD
September 28

Sixth grade class, eight o’clock Mass, a pew by pew life.
Innocent blonde mane midway down her back,
Diminutive power brought fire
As I glanced her down the aisle.
A kneeling waif, a doeful soul, her pain drew me.
I ached for her though only our eyes ever
touched.
Now I’m 70, yet embers remain among the ashes
Stoked when someone with her name has died. ****

(“doeful” is “doeful”, not “doleful” as the software so much would have it be.)

Ed Ross
Versailles, KY

GO AHEAD, LOSE THAT VOICE
September 28

bodies take a knee
and the band plays on
a collective gasp

we talk over each other
listen only to respond

every heart is a story
every beat a chapter

a fist in the air
does not have to swing

when someone asks why,
tell them – tell them history,
tell them fear

tell them until your voice
is hoarse from truth

Cathy Porter
Omaha, NE

HMO
Sept. 12, 2018

Outside the window of my doctor’s office
in suburban New Jersey
I can see a long line of lush treetops. At

the center of this line the tallest tree has no leaves,
whether they’ve died or been the first to flutter off for Fall
I couldn’t say. But the bare branches extend themselves elegantly

like a yoga master. Suddenly a bird glides into the vista
and rests effortlessly on the very tallest branch, it’s the easiest thing he’s ever done,
his silhouette a remarkable portrait of strength and grace.

And I think to myself: here is this creature with no earthly knowledge
of the human concept of beauty and he just might be, at this particular moment,
the most beautiful thing in the world. And how many of us can ever

claim that?

Seward Ward
West Orange, NJ

SURVIVING
Sept. 12, 2018

There’s a moment of shade for
everyone. A chance to reflect familiar breezes and
places of safety integrated from youth.
Deep nostalgia draws exiles of thought
searching for an outpost nearby,
though just out of reach.
It’s the thread left behind. A footprint
of passage, the search to discover
the end where there are layers of dust and
words. The space of ancestry is the void
between the lines, the shadow we carry
to the other side.
Enduring prevents the loss of soul.
Forever is only infamous if you survive.

Roger Singer
Mashpee, MA

BYOB (BRING YOUR OWN BAG)
Sept. 12, 2018

If I was a cashier
At my favorite green grocer
instead of asking “paper or plastic?”
I fantasize
I would reframe the question as
“tree or landfill?”
I like to think
it would give shoppers pause
because embarrassment
can become
an effective rite of passage
a blushing initiation
that leads
to enlightenment

Patti Martin
Torrington, CT

POETRY
Sept. 12, 2018

How exquisite my sorrows look neatly marshaled in a book,
Hung on the limbic line in an orderly design
See how smooth my trouble goes,
Printer, weed not on my woes,
Lest your sympathetic grief
Make a blot upon the leaf.
Sweetheart, sigh not for the drear,
Winter of my spirits year
Lest it vanish and I can’t
Manage the provable chant.
Let the winds of fortune blow,
To the meters that I know
There are always better times
Waiting to corrupt our rhymes

Doug Sandler 
Panama City, FL

AGELESS FUN
Sept. 12, 2018

Hide and seek was suggested,
We played with our hearts invested,
Looking for you,
We did,
But found you not.
Hours changed to weeks,
Years collected of a sadness no one now speaks.
With a giggle one remains in hiding,
A personal lost -and -found is where you have been residing. How do I know?
It is me in this spot,
Still playing the game to avoid being caught.
Heide, Iris, Daren, Erica, and the others have grown up,
As for me I stay hid,
Never aged,
Whoever finds me will find I am still a Kid.

Jason Waddle
Hamilton, Ontario

DEMURRERS
August 13, 2018

A stretch of Often is a strain;
A cask of Everything holds pain;
The only one who counts is Me;
‘Tis Negation sets me free.

Split from me’s my erstwhile bride,
Her residue undeified;
The less the more, is she to me;
‘Tis Negation sets me free.

I’ve stripped myself of those who care,
Of Chardonnay, of Camembert,
No glass to clink, no wedge to share,
No clothes with flair, no group to chair–

Lordy me! . . . such tedium I bear!                                 

What mood of Nothing’s taken me?
‘Tis Negation of Negation sets me free!

Harvey Steinberg
Lawrenceville, NJ

THE IRISH DANCER
August 13, 2018

she has a favorite chair
in every room

to sit and watch
afternoon shadows
dance across wooden floors

she reads, takes naps between
sunshine and howling rains

is time stealing youth –
or wisdom calling time
on foolish dreams?

she doesn’t ask
just sits and watches shadows
dances across wooden floors

like she used to –
long ago, when chairs were
pushed aside and rugs rolled up
every Saturday night

and some weekdays, too

Cathy Porter|
Omaha, NE

PASSION PAINT
August 13, 2018

He is the abstract of his drawings.
Nightmares are blank canvases. He
passions direction to fill in where
the common have no knowledge.
The frame is a restriction, but like
stonewalls, they set a boundary to fulfill
expression.
Sleep steals the moment of the brush.
He awakens with color and depth,
stretching out dreams into static images.
He suffers
the pain of indecision. His hands were
born with talent, a gift from angels.

Roger Singer
Mashpee, MA

THE BIRTH OF RAIN
August 13, 2018

When rain was born
in the solar storm
hot from the belly of the rising sun
your thirst began to grow
And the new rain tasted like the cool, sweet, wet fruit
offered in the garden by the serpent who knows us by name
Fire-quenching paradise
coaxing and soaking life
from stilted, unanimated matter

Patti Martin
Torrington, CT

THE STONE
July 28, 2018

Dad’s crusade for the stone was crazy; even at nine
or ten, I recognized obsession, his temples overwrought,
at the onset of gray, young wife, son, payroll, mortgage,
an infant daughter. One day, a single lunacy, was his
only opportunity to be unhinged. Where is that squeaky
door? Just behind the ears or beneath the shoulder blades –
when ajar, the arms flail. I was not prepared for his
expedition, digging clay shards at Pompeii, seeking
a rare fern or beetle up the Amazon, deep in the Congo.
Why drag me to an unremarkable field to witness
his small insanity? This stone, a fusion of quartz, flaky,
red mica, pink granite and a purplish, igneous cousin,
was thoughtlessly dropped by the glacier, pushed
about by the farmer; neither seemed to covet it.
But it gleamed in Dad’s mind, concealing enchantment,
cryptic answers, translating hieroglyphs to Greek.
In April, he came upon it hunting arrowheads
in newly plowed furrows, for months, fixated
on excavation. In November, in a frigid drizzle, the sky
wanting to spit snow, stuck in the mud, shivering,
a little horrified, all I could do was observe his mania,
his compulsion imprinted on memory. Unearthed, Dad
improvised a sling of fence wire that cut into his spine,
the penitent hauling it to the car. After years as garden
decor, after Dad died, the stone split in two, eventually
reclaimed as so much gravel.

Daniel David
Berlin Heights, OH

THE CHAIN I GAVE
July 28, 2018

The chain I gave was fair to view,
The lute I added sweet in sound
The heart that offered both was sad,
And ill-deserved the fate it found.
These gifts were charmed by a secret spell,
Thy truth in absence to divine
And they have done their duty well,
Alas! They could not teach thee well
That chain was firm in every link
But not to bear a stranger’s touch
That lute was sweet, till thou could think
In other hands its notes were such
Let him who from thy neck unbound
The chain which shivered in his grasp,
Who saw that the lute refused to sound?
Restring the chords, renew the clasp
When thou were changed, they altered too
The chain is broke, the music mute
Tis past, to them and this adieu,
False heart, frail chain, and silent lute

Doug Sandler
Panama City, FL

NOTICE TO THE WORLD
July 28, 2018

She wore a black wig
and bright red lipstick
and walked briskly through the parking lot
pushing a shopping cart
He walked beside her ---
his face contorted into a frown
his feet shuffling ---
but he headed for their car and waited
She popped open the back door
of the black jeep --- he helped her load the bags
they exchanged no words or looks
He frowned
her red lipstick screamed out to the world
from her pale face
all the more white
because of the black wig
He rushed to the passenger door
as a few drops of rain came down ---
and jumped in
She turned the key in the ignition
There was a time ---far gone --- when he would hold
the door for her
Her red lips and black hair
screamed out to the world ---
We're making it fine --- she never smiled anymore
They were about eighty-five years old
   the black jeep roared off
We're making it fine.

Amie Ilva Tatem
Staten Island, NY

GREGORIAN DESERT
June 21, 2018

Her voice broke through
the restaurant clatter
clinking of glasses
forks raking plates
intimate mumbles
laughter
a sneeze...
 
Her voice broke through
the polite droning din
chairs scuffing tile
napkins unfurling
"God bless you"
the passing of cream..... 

The incantation of dessert specials
vibrated through the room
her undulating tongue
flicking saccharine syllables
"meringue...shaved and glazed....double-chocolat..." 

A sugared Gregorian chant
awakening reverential ears

Patti Martin 
Torrington, Connecticut

IN THE ELEMENTS
June 21, 2018

Scattered limbs through
the fog, early Tuesday morning,
wheels on pavement. Fields and mile
markers peek through the mist.
I remember how you looked
that day – peace sprinkled with
confusion, as everybody left the room
and the quiet became part of the
furniture. We settled into our minds,
together yet separate, all the years
leading to this moment. I swerve
to avoid a drifter in my lane – no signal –
and regroup to a soundtrack of Springsteen
and hard-core rap, incompatible and
glorious like we always were. The mist
clears; I crest over the hills, slowing
just enough to meet the speed limit
on a Tuesday morning, as more limbs
sneak through the fog, almost swaying,
yet sturdy in the elements

Cathy Porter|
Omaha, NE

BE AWARE
June 21, 2018

Be aware there is colour out there
Be aware that you glow when you share
Be aware that someone will know if you care
Be aware you are you, not just one of a pair
 
Be aware that the wrong words will tear
Be aware that your parents won’t always be there
Be aware it’s ok to feel scared
Be aware there is help if it’s too much to bear 

Be aware that most people are fair
Be aware I don’t notice the labels you wear
Be aware there’s much more to your head than your hair
Be aware that you might if you dare

Andy Conner
Birmingham, UK

PATIO LUNCH AT A SCULPTURE GARDEN
June 21, 2018

Monet behind the flowers
he might have been another year,
a hundred years and more before:
the gentleman who sits there now munching,
vines behind and lady like a cameo beside,
his jacket open, his chat intent
on what was and what will be,
velvet murmurs.

Through the arch, rearing up the hillocks
across the bridge above a lily pond,
glyphs of stone, brass, steel, composite, glass,
which muse and muscle of their founders goad to life
conjoining all who pass and go.
But Oh!
Monet lifts Samsung phone to ear,
his throat extruding out metallic spears.
I steel myself for what I am
within my time and scope
bent over Miller’s and Roast Peppered Wrap
and a take-out box for storing Monet’s lilies.                      

Harvey Steinberg
Lawrenceville, NJ

WORDS
June 21, 2018

Words live inside each of us
Caged by fear, freed by joy and rage
They beg to escape
In every moment of the day
They can lift the spirit of any man
And cut deeper than any blade
Capable of changing the future
And burying the past
Words are heavy
And once loosed they cannot be returned
They give life
And take it away
So before you speak, think.
Your words have more meaning than your existence
So much so
That only they can grant it to you

Damian C. King
Van Nuys, CA

WORDY
May 24, 2018

You say “to-may-to,” I say “to-mah-to.”
Want it said your way? Hell, I don’t want to!
Such disagreements prompt caustic run-ins,
Though we are really speaking of onions.

Circle the wagons, bolster positions.
Both claim they’re righteous, facts from opinions.
No compromising, only one victor.
Not too surprising – strict leads to stricter.

How often are these battles repeated?
As in trench warfare, both are defeated.
If you’ve solution, we’d like to hear it,
Though we most surely only will smear it.

Raymond HV Gallucci
Frederick, MD

VANITAS VANTATUM
May 24, 2018

All the flowers of the spring
Meet to perfume our burying,
These have but their growing prime
And man does flourish but his time,
Survey our progress from our birth
We are set we grow we turn to earth
Courts adieu, and all delights
All bewitching appetites

Sweetest breath and clearest eye
Like perfumes that go out and die,
And consequently this is done
As shadows wait upon the sun
Vain the ambition of kings
Who seek by trophies and dead things?
To leave a living name behind
And weave but nets to catch the wind.

Doug Sandler
Panama City, FL

PERSPECTIVE
May 24, 2018

A full moon night
and I ride the light
upward on its silver track
to the star-studded sheltering dome
that caps our grieving globe.

Behold below the mass of man
brandishing swords of words
glinting off savage syllables while sparks
ignite fearsome flames
that foretell a glowing creep.

And in the comfort of quiet copses
gather those who seek stillness
in their earnest meditations
watched over by a stately owl
in tree contemplation
sending its questing call into silvered woods.

Hands meet and plead in prayer
or is it hope
that our tilting sphere
will face upon the morrow
renewal in the sun’s golden warmth
and live man’s moral awakening?

Only under my distant dome
can I believe that just acts
will dispel all warring words
and hands will join to lead us back
to the abandoned garden
where wounding words were never heard
for they were not needed.

Vera Haldy-Regier

THE HIP
May 24, 2018

I know this curve,
Often my obsession,
This supple turn.
I know this hip
In the night,
In the fog of sleep.
I know this crest,
Rising beside me,
Could be my own,
Narrow skeleton,
But she spreads wider,
A woman, her plain
A continent between
Summits. A passage
From belly to thigh
Surfaces upward against
Her skin, an eruption
Of stone against loam.
I could be blind,
My fingers charting
Familiar topography,
Reassuring contour.
I reminisce on this ridge,
A vast panorama:
Her hip pressing
My bones, a desire –
Her sacred ilium,
Cradled our babies.

Daniel David
Berlin Heights, OH  

SPECIAL PROVIDENCE
May 11, 2018

Nestled in fluff and woven twists,                       
hatchlings, a vibrating bloom of mouths,
deep diamond petal-points open,
held up like cups on bony necks.             

Four spider-veined, pale hinges of want       
yellow-yell demand, 
more sway and pulse than sound.

Bird mother feeding-frantic.                                   
Bobbing beak, and again - snips down throats.
Can she count? Equal shares; fill each cup....

Aside and under, a small bowed head, 
eyes still closed - mouth clamped. 
Opened perhaps briefly,
perhaps not. Need passed over, 
or too weak to even try....
An exhale, a stir... rest, 
against the nest,
beneath the nearest sibling mouth, 
adrift then half-capsized,
jarred by its energy. That waiting hinge of want.

Flapping feeder returns
to a too-full nest, 
    alights.
Imbalance on the rim, claw-catch reflex spreads 
and dips a wing 
that slips in, through the angled fault 
below the greedy, and above 
the the silent one.

No demand, no diamond opened to be filled.
The briefest brush of the thin skull-cap, 
the tender barely conscious dome,
against the soft of the outer wing. 
The single moment of contact
before swept over the edge 
by the lift of a re-tucked wing.

Theresa Landi Daniel
Kingston, NY

NORTH DAKOTA SUNFLOWERS
May 11, 2018

gray stalks
rattle

in the November blizzard

as bone
fields

bleach
in the snow

Sheryl L. Nelms;
Clyde, TX

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

GOOD TERMS
May 11, 2018

Its not that life passed him by
   he moved quickly enough
   to keep up the pace
   and never got fired from any job
   staying on track
He never wanted many friends
   managing to keep his home clean
   with an occasional
   flower ---
                           not real
Just to fill the vase --- a gift
if his brother ever visited
he'd be pleased to see it
   but he never did ---
And that was fine --- the flowers would stay
   at any rate he intended to remain
   on good terms
   with life ...managing
to keep fellow humans
at bay.

Amie Ilva Tatem
Staten Island, NY

THIS IS NOT A POEM
April 21, 2018

Treacherous fate exploded my dreams, a pipe
bomb to my hopes, with a little help, I suppose,
from my grand da Vinci schemes, my sonorous pipe
organ goals–with skills suited just for kazoos.
I applied my meager talents to glamorous pipe
dreams, determined pursuit of trivial glories,
fame and acclaim as cheap and slender as pipe
cleaners, the brash and arrogant illusions
of adolescence, primed and ripe for the pipe
wrenches reality flings at the flimsy wings
of fantasy, till I plunged into the pipe
line that feeds the deep and tawdry mainstreams.

Michael Skau
Omaha, NE

A MONTH OF YOU
April 21, 2018

October is hard
when the leaves scatter
over the fields

and the phone doesn’t ring
but I don’t miss the calls
that sent my heart sprinting

from chest to throat
the scene to avoid
at the party

the moments
you can’t walk back

and every star
becomes a diamond
just out of reach

Cathy Porter
Omaha, NE

RAISON D'ETRE
March 7, 2018

I have lived a life, fair by me
But the journey has been pained and long
The color which once filled my world
Has dulled like some forgotten song
I wonder when the days grew dim?
I've wandered far too long
In dreams that trump my lust for life
Raison D'etres vivid prong
But you destroyed my trudging
With the color of your eyes
Cause everywhere you look and touch
My ambivalence does die
I care not why or how
I care only that you can
I want to see the world like you
With color, sound and hope so grand
So, I'll follow every step
And be there by your side
If I can't find my reason for life
I'll watch yours until I can

Damian C. King
Van Nuys, CA

LOVE’S LOSINGS
March 7, 2018

Passage of breath before brain stores what’s said:
unhampered hints, blood’s rush, carouse, hair’s tousle,
plenteous meet of mouths, not overtried or denied.
Against the world, flush heart alone was shield,
though, so unguarded, we later dealt
the truth of selves – gestures turned to habit,
platitudes exchanged, false excuse,
resentments, subtle entailments of sly ruse.

When much is gone as though much had not been
and memory lies waste in canceled books
and I in search scrape with broken twig
what mind puts mind to, the branch itself
erasing as it seeks, for courtesy I underwrite
this debt, poeticizing love I half forget.

Harvey Steinberg
Lawrenceville NJ

SERENADE 
February 10, 2018                                                                                        

It wasn’t that toothless, lecherous old goat in Rome
with the wheezy accordion, who seemed to only serenade
and who tried to steal kisses from pretty girls. It was back
in Ohio, our usual haunt in the blackest booth. I couldn’t
read the damn menu. We just sat for our anniversary,
an empty table, no pasta, no lighted candle, no romance yet.
Where’s the bread and olive oil? Like a familiar, reliable
engine, our chit-chat idled: our day, our kids, reminiscing
our wedding, you reshuffling our guest list again after
twenty-eight years. A firefly came blinking, serenading
in slow, glowing pulses. Thinking it was a spider, menacing
ninja repelled from the ceiling, I brushed it from your shoulder –
so gallant! but with immediate regret as we ordered;
I sought it out and there it flew, crooning for another couple.

Daniel David
Berlin Heights, OH

A COLLISION OF HEARTS 
February 10, 2018              

Did you ever --
not to use a trite expression --
   fall in love with someone upon
   coming right up to -- and smashing --
those degrees of separation and
finding none --- So the closeness
is there
upon you
This kind of encounter
   explosion and you reel
and know he is reeling too and gasping
for air
amidst the world going on
around you.

Amie Ilva Tatem
Staten Island, NY

OMAR KHAYYAM
February 10, 2018

What to do is muddled on week-ends.
From wine, I mostly get sick.
I get fat on bread.
And thou . . . you are a little sweaty, my dear.
“It’s the poetry that counts,” we agree.
There’s no way to plagiarize the Rubaiyat, we add.

So Sally and I manage over to the couch
inspirited, fisted with cold-beaded cans.
Right soon we get horny love over and done with,
to punch in TV remote visions
“Sans Wine, sans Song, sans Singer, and -- sans End!”

Then what the hell,
my moving finger hits some buttons, and having
punched, punches on.
We missed the good part,
so that’s that,
but hey there! don’t cry.

Just shows you, there’s no good way
to plagiarize the Rubaiyat.

Harvey Steinberg
Lawrenceville, NJ

A RIVERY DAY
January 5, 2018

They drew a line across the trees,
The egrets diving up the river,
Riding currents we could not see
As they plunged through the air,
So thick to them, so fine to us
We could only feel it hurrying past
Or when we dashed along so fast
We had to be careful not to stumble.
It was that racing that set us apart 
From those standing still, and so the birds
Separated themselves from us at last.
They left our thoughts until this day
When we chose to look back.  
I like to think that we have control
Of the atmosphere in this way,
That we can decide whither we’ll go
Or if we’ll stay and judge if the currents
Are ones we’ll ride or fight against,
Even swimming upstream if we choose.

Millard Davis
Dunnelon, FL

HARSH EPIPHANY
January 5, 2018

Mahler’s resurrection bells resounded
a bit prematurely at the concert
I went to the other night. Astounded
by prescient bird calls, I swooned, a convert
to eschatological broodings. Boy,
was I surprised by my awakening -
not to horizons of heavenly joy,
but by godless Verizon forsaking
me with a beeping cell phone! “O believe”
the chorus intoned, imbuing each word
with harmonies to heal wracked souls who grieve.
But how could I believe what I’d just heard?
Was I delivered by chorales that spell
salvation just to heed a bagatelle?

Frank De Canio
Union City, N J

THE NEWS
January 5, 2018

I stand at the microwave at breakfast and think,
“I want to call up the world,
speak with all mankind out there,
womankind too,
over the phone, one vast conference call,
unify joys, mollify grievances,
deter war, delegitimate fear,
gather, in one swoop together,
ancestors, progeny, animals unlike us,
transcendentally everything.”
                    
Then the beeps announce
the coffee’s reheated,
my toast is on ready,
my apprehension says                              
the Sunday Times
is perched on the table
to scatter the world.

Harvey Steinberg
Lawrenceville, NJ

“1948-1959”
December 12, 2017

I’m a Doo-Wop-er,
There aren’t many of us around,
Not because of the sound,
‘cause many are under the ground.

But not me,
I’m here to stay,
Merely temporarily!
Harmonizing,
Vocalizing,
As though it was yesterday!

C’mon.
Sing along with me.
Your favorites and mine,
‘til the end of time!

“You’re A Thousand Miles Away”,
“Earth Angel”,
“Speedo”,
“Sincerely”,
I love you all so-so dearly!

Peter LaVilla 
Sunny Isles Beach,  Fl.

HUM
December 12, 2017

In the silence of the night
I am no longer me
No longer a man
But a collection of woes
I sit, in judgement
In fear
In pain
In silence
That which most take solace in
I cannot have
For all that waits for me
Is my decomposition
I must have life
Loud, brilliant, distracting
Perhaps a little conversation
petty, vain, sultry
Or at least some music
Any kind really
Even just vocals
A bird's song?
Maybe just some noise?
To keep me alert, awake
Or a hum
Please God, a hum

Damian C. King
Van Nuys, CA

LAST DAY
December 12, 2017

I take for granted there’ll always be
Vacation summertime by the sea.
It’s been a constant throughout my life
From parents, friends and since then with wife.

At sixty years I have less than more
Vacations left for me by the shore.
And still I never grow tired of,
For I feel never to have enough.

I know someday it may be alone
That I return to this comfort zone.
No friend or family will remain,
And only ocean to soothe the pain.

Why thoughts so morbid when sun shines bright
With ocean waves rolling left to right?
For surely I will be back next year.
Why contemplate what may not be near?

Perhaps because when tomorrow comes,
I leave behind surf and sand and sun.
Vacation annual’s at the end,
Another year till return again.

Raymond HV Gallucci
Frederick, MD

PALAZZO PITTI
Novermber 18, 2017

On the Palazzo Pitti payphone (a dearth of art near the men’s room),
after the operator’s “pronto,” static cleared, roar of the Atlantic,
five thousand miles between us, naively awed how our voices carried
intimately through wires, satellites, we described our vistas, our
respective hemispheres: in Florence, a Renaissance, I’d just gawked
at Raphael’s tondo, Madonna of the Chair, Mary and fidgety toddlers,
Jesus and John the Baptist. Did these boys throw tantrums?
Mary glared from the canvas, perturbed, “Won’t you tend one?”

In Ohio, a surrealist’s vision at ninety-five degrees, Dali’s watches
would melt (I recall a flaming giraffe): the garbage truck caught fire
during our conversation, I am certain, the result of spontaneous
combustion; the driveway impassable, no Vacation Bible School
for the kids – just as well as our son posed disconcerting
questions on the logic of Noah, arks, floods and longevity.

Daniel David
Berlin Heights

HIS DESK
Novermber 18, 2017

She stood by his desk
head slightly bowed   eyes down
as she waited for him
to get off the phone   He looked so
competent   a detail-oriented manager
On top of anything
that came across his desk
She waited
shifting from foot to foot
in too-tight shoes
Her long-ish black wig
caused her head to throb but she got it
because he was so much younger
and married – as she was
but she wanted to present to his eyes
a pleasing sight to rest on
for those few minutes
that she had to stand at his desk
with a question.

Amie Ilva Tatem
Staten Island, NY

October 30, 2017

The aging Artist
what does she have to say…
what’s the pattern for her design
can she speak of her anger at the madness around her
can she paint the dark, whirling passions
can she speak of her understanding of the fragility of life
can she speak of her frustrations 
     of no longer being able to fight the daily battles
can she speak of her understanding that the children will fall 
     she can’t pick them up
     they have to create their own design
can she speak of her understanding of the pain of the wars, the inequalities, the injustices 
can she speak of her understanding of the small pleasures
      of laughter, dance, music, love, a child’s smile
can she explain that together this is the design

Sonia Stark
Hackensack, NJ

WOODLAND STREAMS
October 30, 2017

You were wondering just the other day
If I were out to walk along streams
And looking into the blackest water
That I could find just to see if I
Could look in deeper simply by trying
To overcome the natural darkness
That come to waters when in a woods
Where rotting acids are taken in
As a matter of necessity, as if choice
Were not to be had so I was using there
What I had and then trying to look in
On what was deeper and maybe better
Than the surface film that might cover up
Without even knowing what it was hiding.

Millard Davis
Dunnelon, FL

DON’T GO GENTLY
October 30, 2017

Would you rather go
Calmly like the snow,
Or with memory
Of a crushing sea?

Ghosts seem seldom seen
If they died serene.
Most of manifests
Come from violent deaths.

Spectres who replay
How they died that day
Aren’t asleep in bed
Or perceive they’re dead.

Those who weren’t prepared
Likely felt quite scared.
Trauma from accursed
Death must be dispersed.

If there’s afterlife,
May require strife.
Peaceful ones who passed
Leave naught left to last.

Raymond HV Gallucci
Frederick, MD

HADRIAN
October 30, 2017

Little soul, you who will now
go off to places pale and barren, tell me –
how’s a man’s life measured? Do I pass?

I modeled discipline, killed
skillfully, ruled well.
Kept Rome in splendor. Walls fortified,
tall arches gleaming.
The Jewish rebels crushed.

Only happiness eluded me.
Yoked to a tart-tongued wife;
love swallowed by the sea’s cold throat.

In the end, what matters?
Have I won?
I have an empire, an army,
but no partner in my bed, no son
to give my crown.

Alison Stone
Nyack, NY

note: The first two lines come from a poem by Hadrian: “Little soul, wandering and pale, guest and companion of my body, you who will now go off to places pale, stiff, and barren, nor will you make jokes has had been your wont.

THE HUNTER
October 11, 2017

The hunter sees all that moves
As game to shoot –
Blood in the sky and creeks
Behind bushes and distant peaks.
The hunter and the hunted
Are bound by ancient ruthless
Rules of plunder
With no sense of natural wonder,
The glorified hunter
Seeks his prey
And creatures of the earth
Must pay his price and die
For the thrill and reward
From a bow or the bullet.

The rhino's horn
Sawed off for men
To feel manly again
And elephant tusks are hacked
For the carver's tool.
Oh yes, a reason
For every treason.

This time an albino deer
Is brought down
By a 10 year-old.
It's quite a catch
To talk about
Among his peers
At school today.

Bill Katz
Hartford, CT

THE SUBLIME
October 11, 2017

There was a moment when all obsession,
a maelstrom swirling about my head fell
away, an intoxicating irrelevance. A splendid,
instinctual logic took hold in the vortex,
the doctor’s waiting room. I found my footing,
dipping, rocking, tiptoeing about, cradling
my daughter, her limp, delirious misery, little
cub, fawn, kit, little chimp, limbs clinging, curls
and febrile brow crushed against my neck.
The weight of her helplessness was, simultaneously,
beautiful and terrifying (nevermind Romanticism’s
sublime) waiting for the diagnosis, a peek in furious
ears, wincing at grape syrup, her small sighs of sleep.

Daniel David
Berlin Heights, OH

SHARED BREADTH
WHOSE AIR IS IT ANYWAY?
October 11, 2017

The air you breathe
From where does it come?

How far did it travel
to get to your lungs?

What land did it visit;
what sea did it glide?

To avoid the Sun
in what cloud did it hide?

So…down from the sky,
or…up from the ground?

Is my next breath yours,
ours, both and or none?
And when you exhale
where does it go?

Joseph W. Neumayer
New Hyde Park, NY

A ROCK ‘n ROLL SONNET 
September 29, 2017

A rock ‘n roll sonnet,
Is a bonnet,
It’s food for the head,
Doggone  it,
Written by muses
Who are  now dead.

Petranka wrote  of Dark  Ages,
Medieval Times,
Shakespeare gave us beauty and  love
In fourteen  lines,
Browning and Whitman,
Milton and Keats,
Wrote with  heart and  soul,
Sonnets alas rock ‘n roll.            

Peter LaVilla 
Sunny Isles Beach,  Fl.

WORTH
September 29, 2017

The woman with the cropped dyed blond hair
mini dress and stilletto heels
paced up and down
on the tiles of the casino bathroom
phone to her ear --- she yelled, her voice shrill
"I need them this weekend!"
Women came and went
toilets flushed faucets spouted
someone was mopping the tiles
around the pacing woman in stilletto heels
"That's not enough!"
Her voice got louder --- the heels clicked faster
"We're worth more." The beat of the heels was staccato
the voice of the woman was hoarse as it resounded
throughout the ladies' bathroom
As women came and went --- she stayed and paced
"We're worth more", she whispered, her voice breaking ---
"We're worth more."

Amie Ilva Tatem
Staten Island, NY

ARACHNE
September 29, 2017

Every story starts
in the body.

A need felt.
Filled

or thwarted.
Pushed from the belly,

passions
string themselves out.

Lies unspool
their sticky silk.

Warp, woof
the crisscrossing threads.

Betrayals shimmer over intricate
patterns of loss.

Who can turn away?
Caught in the myth’s weave,

the listener – immobile,
rapt.

Alison Stone
Nyack, NY

THE POMPOUS POSSUM
August 24, 2017

Posit once the pompous possum
Who had praises heaped upon him.
Could he ever hope to blossom
Into more than fossil flotsam?

What about the squalid skunk
Who was always told he stunk?
Maybe could escape his funk
By pretending he was drunk?

Finally the fervent frog
Deep in thought upon his log,
Might he seem a bit agog
To be gone from boring bog?

Raymond HV Gallucci
Frederick, MD

WHERE I AM FROM
August 24, 2017

No one thinks I am American
My mirror is my name.
In quiet moments it reflects a tree,
or a lake whose surface I must fracture
to find roots.

How many times have I been asked 
where I am from? 
It is not enough to say,
“I am from a place where the wind 
has no road.”
They want to know its origins.

Christina Turczyn
–Midland Park, NJ

ROSES TO STARS
July 26, 2017

In the spring I held a quivering crystal star in the satin soft heart of my blossom and when the morning came to shoo the night I tenderly, reluctantly relinquished the warmth of my star and wept wistful golden tears of dew into the early earth in hopes that she would soon return… 

Mark Ellis
Syracuse, New York

LOVE IS LIKE
July 26, 2017

Love is like the ocean,
Full of promises and devotion,
Where ripples turn into waves,
Bringing happiness and emotion.

Love is like a new born child,
Bright-eyed, contagious-smile,
Pinky-fingers, twinkle -toes,
A button-nose, the color-rose.

Love is like an Eternal Spring.
Love is  my everything.

Peter LaVilla
Sunny Isles Beach,  Fl.

I KNEW THERE WAS A WAR
July 4, 2017

I knew there was a war
because we used ration books
I didn't know that children
were dying elsewhere
I knew there was a war
because there were blackout drills
my father was a warden ---
and wasn't the darkness fun!
I didn't know that children
were dying elsewhere
I knew there was a war
when I heard the radio news
over and over -- that fateful day
about a Pearl harbor and I walked
up to strangers on the sidewalk --- repeating it --asonly a four-year old
could -- because of my sister Pearl, of course
We were all doing fine --- my mother let me
tear pages from the ration book for corn flakes ---
I didn't know that children
were dying elsewhere.

Amie Ilva Tatem
—Staten Island, NY

CALIGULA
July 4, 2017

If I’m not safe,
no one is safe.

My meat poisoned;
now, like rain,

let blood wash clean
the streets of Rome.

Little Soldier Boot, my ass.
No part of me is small.

Only a fool
can’t see I am a god.

Sisters, lovers, rivals, senators…
so many ways

to make a body tremble.
So many little deaths.

Alison Stone
—Nyack, NY

TECHNICALITIES
July 4, 2017

Technical reality
Must pre-empt legality,
Lest become a fallacy
We’re assuring safety.

When regulate by letter
Despite all knowing better,
Become aid and abettor --
Just a sad enabler.

When politics the reason
To perpetrate malfeasance,
“Legalities” make pleasing
Façade behind to hide.

So honest must step forward,
Denouncing the untoward,
No matter if feel cowered.
Let conscience be their guide

Raymond HV Gallucci
—Frederick, MD

MARBLE PORTRAIT OF A MAN
(originally identified as Julius Caesar)
June 17, 2017

No fame, no venerated name.
No gold-bloated purse. No army
honored to die for my whim.
I’m a nobody, only notable
for the broad forehead, narrow chin,
and long, scrawny neck that mirror
his face more closely
than any blood kin.

Play up the resemblance,
I ordered, and the artist
did his work so well,
no viewer can be certain
if the sculpture shimmers
with my own or borrowed light.

Alison Stone
—Nyack, NY

1939: FOR BILLIE HOLIDAY
June 17, 2017

Proud voice
surfacing
like nothing
they had ever known,
beyond the calla-lily
blood-white cold
of dormitories, stars
turning soundlessly to stone,
you sang,
from the rising river in your
bone
until there was nothing  
until there was nothing      
to fear  
but depth  
dangerous and beautiful

Christina Turczyn
–Midland Park, NJ

RICHARD BURNS HIS DRAWINGS
May 29, 2017

That’s a nice one, I tell him.
Yeah, but I cut her legs off, he says,
shoving her excited arms through the black doorway of the potbelly stove.

Wow, I say, peeling another from the stack.

We’re on stained canvas chairs in his studio.
Graybearded and smudged, his thick body bends to the light.

There’s a lot happening in the torso, he nods. I love the breasts.
But I drew her neck too long. And her head’s a little small. Flames
fan her away, charcoal fluttering to ash.
   
         His mouth lengthens, eyebrows fly into pink creases.
This one I could work. Bring out the contrasts.
Deepen the values. Strengthen the lines.

Yes, I say. There’s something in that gesture. The way she’s turning, looking. Beautiful!

            It’s cheap paper, he says. It’ll disintegrate in twenty years.
           
            Twenty years? Hell, I’ll take her.

            But no. She goes into the fire.

Henry Hughes
–Monmouth, OR

“ROMANCING ROMANCE”
May 29, 2017

I like pasta,
I like beans,
I like butter,
On top of my greens.
A dish of jello
Red or yellow,
Topped with roasted nuts,
Or, melted marshmallow,
Happy-happy, happy fellow.
A beautiful woman,
Candlelight and time,
Chilled glasses,
Sparkling wine,
Soft music,
Whisper-like conversation,
A kiss on the lips,
Great expectations.
Happy-happy, happy fellow.

Peter LaVilla
–Sunny Isles Beach,  Fl.

MARBLE PORTAIT BUST OF A YOUNG MAN
May 1, 2017

Your nose is missing, proof
that what we put out into the world
is most vulnerable. Still, what remains
proves your good looks.
Perhaps you were a noble, modeling
for vanity’s sake. Or maybe poor,
grateful for the coins your face
could earn.

What happened after
you posed? Did you die
decades later, surrounded by family?
Or were you snuffed in youth
by a rival whose wife’s eyes
lingered too long on your strong jaw,
your pretty lips?

Alison Stone
—Nyack, NY

NO TURNING BACK
(Based partially on the movie “Sarah’s Key,” about the Vel' d'Hiv[er] Roundup of Parisian Jews in July 1942 by the French police, collaborating with the Nazis[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vel'_
d'Hiv_Roundup])
May 11, 2017

If you turn on your own,
It’s an evil you’ve sown
That you carry alone
Once your crime becomes known.

With the Vel d’Hiver
France conspired to wear
Nazi swastika bare
And promote their despair.

At some traitorous word,
Fellow citizens were
Gathered into a herd
And in squalor interred.

The unlucky survived
To be shipped half-alive
To where “Arbeit Macht Frei,”
There to finally die.

France forgot how in past
They to guillotine cast
Their aristocrat class
Like the Jews Nazis gassed.

They repeated their sin
When to Nazis gave in
With their own citizens.
Shamed themselves once again.

Raymond HV Gallucci
Frederick, MD

THE OSEBERG BURIAL SHIP, AD 834
May 11, 2017

Whose women’s bones were these, you wonder.
Which one the cynosure,
which the acolyte? A queen? Asa?

Crushed, scattered beneath centuries
of stoneweight and earthmound, I know
these two, sheltered in my ribs.

 I yielded to carvers’ blades, suffered
slam and hammer of builders who bent
and bound my oaken curves.

 I heard oxen protest, shriek of horse,
whimper of pet dog. I bowed
with the weight of women’s luxury.

 I suffered the rocky drag to earth’s grave,
where robbers pillaged and now
you pick my scattered bones.

 My wooden breast heaves deep
for breath to tell my tale.

Ann Taylor
—Woburn, Mass

A FEW STEPS BEHIND HIM
May 11, 2017

They used to walk as a couple
   hand in hand
   or hand through arm
And sometimes she'd rest her head
on his shoulder as they shared a laugh
   they used to laugh so much
Approaching the ice cream store now
he strides before her
and she tries to keep up
   Big with child --- a frown on her face
   and he is talking
flinging the words back at her                                                              
over his shoulder --
How can she answer ---
   a few steps behind him?
And why are they both frowning?

Amie Ilva Tatem
Staten Island, NY

BLANCHE DANIELS
April 16, 2017

Driving off without her
should have been a warning
but he doubled around
and came back
They laughed togetheryet neither really found it funny
Should I have been driving?
her mind grappled
and from then on -- she did
and he accepted that
and she wept
Then the phone call
and hearing him angrily saying, "Blanche Daniels",
again and again --
"There is no Blanche Daniels here!"
She wept --- and he didn't notice
"Happily ever after...?"
fifty years   two healthy people
       She wept
and wept --- and he didn't notice.

Amie Ilva Tatem
Staten Island, NY

FLOW ©
April 16, 2017

My weakness for sweetness,
I can outgrow,
If, by mutual agreement,
The calories are low.
Carbs and starches
Are a pain in my arches,
But nothing can compete
To the additives in meat.
It seems silly to own a car,
If you don’t go very far.
Walking and jogging to keep fit are
Healthy and wise, and not so bizarre.
Yes, sometimes there is a need to know,
Than simply going with the flow.

Peter LaVilla
–Sunny Isles Beach,  Fl.

DREAM'S LONG RIVER
March 17, 2017

If you want to know if there is love after war,
ask the sea. The sea has no grammar.
The sea is breath.
The sea
does not judge.

Cast a stone beneath its surface.
Think of water as your lover.
You will need to dive to that starless quiet
far beneath waves and their skin
where birth and death embrace.

What is right or wrong?
Ask the sea.
Ask dark, silent rivers of sky.
Ask blood.
Look for the difference between shards
and green glass,
survival and living.

Christina Turczyn
–Midland Park, NJ

KILLING PAINS
March 17, 2017

How did I kill him?

It was a pan:
I held tight and as he turned
In the kitchen – wham! -
I panned him and he learned!

No, it was a pen:
The long reach of writing extends
And letters hurt in their furious way -
So RIP, life ends.

Rather, 'twas a pin:
Three inches of stainless steel,
Sharpened to the finest point
Then through the eye and up till…

A 'pon
Killed him – he wandered into one -
Like entering a fairy story -
Time, time, time struck like once upon…

Of course, it was the pun:
Simple and deadly, groaning like a lover,
Wishing he had not heard she would be a nun
As he keeled over.

James Sale
–Queens Park, Bournemouth BH8

WHEN IN ROME
February 24, 2017

(The“Five Good Emperors” of the Golden Age of Rome were Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian,Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius.  They reigned from 96 to 180 C.E.  Rome fell to the Visigoths in 410 C.E., 120 years after Aurelius died.)

Quite well before it fell, Empire Rome went through a spell
Of five of finest emperors, who brought a Golden Age.
From Nerva to Aurelius, of glories still they tell,
But aftermath of slow decline, what might it ours presage?

The five spanned nearly century when Rome was at its height.
Our country, over twice as old, can claim such a quintet?
Perhaps on four from Rushmore most agree without a fight,
But have we missed the fifth, or are we waiting for him yet?

Though one can argue that we peaked at end of World War II,
Since then we haven’t won a war and watched our strength erode.
With Vietnam, Korea, Middle Eastern bugaboo,
And Presidents inept except the one from Hollywood.

The timing of our slow demise suggests that F.D.R.
May well have been that fifth of ours, so clock’s been ticking since,
Allowing us one hundred seventy till we depart
From strong position we once held to insignificance.

Raymond HV Gallucci
–Frederick, MD

CASHING IN
February 24, 2017

Small and slight
a fedora on his head
   in one hand a cane
He shuffles along
   and with the other hand, he pulls
a shopping cart laden
past its capacity --
past the toppling over stage
Small and slight
he shuffles along  
   moving the cane resolutely
   before him
and dragging the cart
full of bottles and cans stuffed into garbage bags --
behind him.
Only two more blocks.

Amie Ilva Tatem
–Staten Island, NY

MEANINGS©
February 8, 2017

She wrote: Love is happiness
He wrote:  Passion is  eternal
She whispered: My knight in shining armor
He whispered:  I’m a lucky guy
She smiled:  “Yes, I  do”
He smiled:    “Yes, I do”
She thought:  I’m no longer afraid
He thought:    I promise to  fulfill my vows
She laughed:  I  traded Mrs. in for Mommy
He laughed:    I have become my father
She reflected:  I am content
He reflected:   I noticed a silver hair in  my beard
She sighed:    Grandma is such a beautiful  word
He sighed:      I caught my first sea bass  today
Afterthought:   I love my husband like it was the first day
Afterthought:   I’m still that lucky guy

Peter LaVilla
–Sunny Isles Beach,  Fl.

BLACK DRESS BLUE
February 8, 2017

Your painting, Black Dress,
on a chair below my swan light.
I study its trim and sway
shared with the man who blames you
for his limp disgust, his dull rot.
But it’s not black, I say. It’s blue. Those butterflies
we saw sun-fluttering the pine prairies,
drinking wild lupine the fire revived.

In Sunday’s scorched afterlight,
you dress quickly and drive home
for his birthday. There, yes, I see the shadow
of arrival, of almost dark when you wear the night
for us. There in the supple strokes of warm oil,
the narrow velvet valley. Deep down,
I imagine all our bright parts look this way.

Henry Hughes
–Monmouth, OR

FORSYTHIA
January 15, 2017

Now January,
unassailable ice, snow,
bleakness of winter,
on my usual wont,
I am prepared
for largo, but here
is allegrissimo,
astonishing jubiloso.
The forsythia blooms!
Coveted in spring,
a brilliant, yellow reprieve,
neither mustard nor ochre,
no pigment mimics its hue.
Obviously I’m happy
to discover these petals;
still, I cannot dismiss
my apprehension
of perverse orbits:
the sun moves too close,
the earth tilts too far,
an augury, the skewed
trajectories of men,
arrogance rouses
blossoms from sleep.
I am bewildered,
forsythia confused.
Who contrived these tidings?
Who spread the rumor?
Apple and cherry follow,
then lilacs’ violet,
and certainly crocuses
will push too soon.

David Sapp,
–Berlin Heights, OH  

REFLECTIONS
January 15, 2017

I know about clocks,
words,
scrambling an egg,
driving a car.

I can scan a sonnet,
recognize Beethoven’s Ninth
and for a while, knew God,
then didn’t.

Love was a moment of faith
easily crushed or whispered away
like a smoking field of dandelions
ripened too soon.

Learning all this
was easy or hard
depending on good weather
and a mourning dove’s song.

But none of it matters,
for the crumbling nest
and lilac’s wilt
has told me that spring is gone.

Beth Staas
–La Grange Park IL

FOR THOSE WHO SCREAMED
(Based on the movie “The City of Life and Death,” about the “Rape of Nanking” [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_Life_&_Death])
December 7, 2016

For you of the bleeding heart
Condemning U.S.’s part
In dropping atomic bomb,
Why think you that we were wrong?

Perhaps it was justified
For all those Chinese who died
When Empire of Japan
Devoured that ancient land.

Because all Nanking they raped
(Atrocities few escaped),
And left less than half to tell
Of horrors they spawned from hell.

It took the United States
(Because of Pearl Harbor’s fate)
To finally retribute
Behavior beneath a brute.

So you with the hearts that bleed,
Whenever next feel the need
To fling on U.S. more mud,
Remember who drew first blood.

Raymond HV Gallucci
Fredrick, MD

CHAIN REACTION
December 23, 2016

The driver behind her
   went into cardiac arrest
   slamming into her rear
   with such force
that his front end crumpled
causing her car to plow intothe car in front
   (considerably smaller than hers)
Seeing the fire
she was able to push open
the door and fall out
leaving her purse behind
and spraining her ankle
   the driver in back was dead
the fire was put out
Four people lived
one sprained ankle
   And so it goes on the stage of life ---
End of the drama for some
   Intermission --- for others.

Amie Ilva Tatem
—Staten Island, NY

MOTHER NATURE
December 17, 2016

Hurricane
Thunder        
Lightning
Wind
Tsunami
Tornado
Hail
Sleet
Snow 
Pollen Galore
Too Hot
Too Cold
Too Humid
Storms
Floods
Earthquakes
Mud Slides
Flurries
Rain 

SOME MOTHER!

Maxwell Schwartz
—Freeport NY

THE KING OF KINDERHOOK
November 28, 2016

Toasting to Martin Van Buren,
A robust singer to those who knew him.
His campaigns were strong with sing-a-longs and rallies,
Votes back then, were meticulously tallied.
Intimately he spoke Dutch.
He enjoyed opera and theatre very much.
Always dressed impeccably
Having to turn over two tiger cubs to the zoo, dreadfully.
Retiring to the Lindenwald farm, growing potatoes on his lot,
Passing away before a political comeback he could plot.
A phantom, his story fades, a horse riding away, on a fierce trot

Todd Saukko
—Commerce Twp, MI

PROACTIVE LULU
November 24, 2016

Hello, I will introduce myself, my name is Lulu,
Although I am very pleased to meet you,
I do apologize if I seem distracted,
Perhaps you will think I have overreacted.

I am determined not to gain much weight,
To become full-figured I would hate,
If I become corpulent I will be in peril,
Be I domesticated or be I feral.

Although I look cute when I am chubby,
And though it does please my handsome hubby,
I must stay svelte, I must stay scrawny,
I will face danger if I am big, if I am brawny.

If I should eat too much, if I should over-indulge,
If I should develop a wobbly tummy bulge,
I will have no time to scream or cluck,
I will be totally **** out of luck.

They will come for me, I know they will,
They will come for me, and they will kill,
I will no longer be cute, feathery, and perky,
I will just be another Thanksgiving turkey.

By Julie C. Judes
—Glendale, WI

ODE TO A SWAN
Published October 2016

It was only a moment, maybe two or more
That captured me and held me its prisoner
For all that day, and the next and the next.

So slowly, and elegantly I have never been seized.
It was the power in the beauty of a single swan that
Overpowered me, its regal neck a gesture

Of grace and dignity in a roadside pond filled
With common ducks and geese, who could
Never capture one’s attention like the smooth

White feathers of the swan, the sun lighting them
Like a rare treasure, newly found, and who with ease,
Swept its legs backwards and swam the circle of pond.

Shari Morrison
—Santa Fe, NM

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

TEDDY, FOR SENTIMENTAL REASONS
August 2016
 
The asthmatic boy, who loved to draw birds and insects,
He once gave a speech with a bullet shot in his chest.
Eyes teared up during world war one,
Omnipotent plane crash that killed Quincy, his beloved son.
Drove out his fires,
Oyster Bay was where he retired.
Rough riding gun, a statesmen admired
Enough to fuel his presidential desires . . .

Todd Saukko
—Commerce Twp, MI

APPROPRIATE WORDS
August 2016

Then what can be said?
He was never late
She was
But what a thing to remember
they're both dead
Something noble
should be said
He loved good wine
She never respected him
How can that be said?
Instead -- Didn't they look well together!
no children
their legacy cannot live on
What legacy?
They died as they lived -- fast driving
him drinking
she berating him
then off the cliff
Something noble should be said at the service ---
But what?

Amie Ilva Tatem
—Staten Island, NY

A LESSON FROM ICARUS Published Summer 2016

…for he did fly,
wings stretching to the sky,
his sinew and strength
matching rhythm and pace
with mallard and goose
on a warm summer day.

And we did love,
our limbs lustrous with sweat
in the fading mist of tomorrow,
knowing that we, like Icarus,
didn’t fail, but simply arrived
at the end of glory.

Beth Staas
—La Grange Park, IL

LUST IN HIS HEART
Published Summer 2016

he hunches
in his
wheelchair
black gloved
hands
propped on
silvered
circles
both ankles
Velcroed
onto black
foot
rests
he watches
a blond
girl
strip off
her
sock
and wiggle
her
toes

Sheryl L. Nelms
—Clyde, TX

KINDNESSES
Published Summer 2016

I was feeding the birds today
reflecting on your kindnesses
how my food helps keep them sustained
yet you do the same everyday
for me you keep me fed with love and attention
keeping my need for adoration contained
It's you who blesses me with crumbs
like the sparrows I see
making sure I'm healthy and well with generosity
A true Angel of Mercy
I never return to my bed
starving for provisions
you are what God provided for me to love
better than I could've ever envisioned
I am your bird
you are my generous hand that feeds
I'll return forever to your kindness
because you're all I'll ever need

Jason Compte
—Cranbury, NJ