A Poem by Larry Jones

The Goddess of Creativity

The studio is empty.
Strasberg's in New York.
The Goddess of Creativity
stands on the balcony.

She wears a wide brimmed hat
a Salvation Army dress
with brown leather boots.

The Observer is invisible.
Lust
at first sight.

A Poem by Natalie Crick

The Garden Outside the House

She was out there again that morning.
Talking, laughing, singing,
The garden filled with sweet birdsong
And the aroma of summer.

The sunset leaked red blood,
Annihilating him.
A love gift or a
Romantic invitation.

She had one eye, he had two.
He was waking from a fitful dream.
It soon became dark,
The sky full of storms.

He saw her solemn death dance,
Wet and electric,
An Autumn widow wearing grey.
It was starting to happen again.




Natalie Crick has found delight in writing all of her life and first began writing when she was a very young girl.  Her poetry is influenced by melancholic confessional Women's poetry.  Her poetry has been published in a range of journals and magazines including Cannons Mouth, Cyphers, Ariadne's Thread, Carillon and National Poetry Anthology 2013.

A Poem by Nancy L. Meyer

The Tongue Settles

          i

We strew our animosities
in fistfuls, like fertilizer
flicking greenish swerves left
and right.  Word by word
each syllable a propeller
kicking dust.

Where is the berry pie,
whipped cream to cut the acidity?
Tongues check the corners:
no sweet quiet, no
let up of this wagging muscle.

          ii

Lips clamp.  Parched
clay in a court-
yard.  Sun scrubs anything
that moves.

          iii

From some untended gutter,
from a forgotten cranny
seepage through a crack
in the adobe--
damp inkblot we stand
and stare at,
each decipher
our own way.  Inhale
a hint of cool.

          iv

And our tongues
settle
like puddles
in the soft gullies of our mouths.

Avid cyclist, grandmother of 5 and End of Life Counselor; Nancy L. Meyer lives in Portola Valley, CA.  Sitting with a blank page, she says, is her greatest thrill and terror.  Published in:  Colorado Review, Tupelo Quarterly 3, Bitterzoet Magazine, Poet's Touchstone, Wordland, Kneel Downe's Stolen Indie as well as five other anthologies.  Forthcoming in Bitterzoet webzine, Persimmon Tree, Indolent Press HIV project and Tupelo Press 30/30 chapbook.  Finalist in New Orleans Poetry Festival 2016.

A Poem by S.E. Ingraham

The Ghost Corps

It was the flood of the century, everyone said
And I felt foolish at first, worrying about the zoo
But the more I thought of the place
built on an island, and the waters rising
ever higher--the sicker I felt--
But it seemed like all was well, at least
it seemed that way until I heard about them.

Them, being the giraffes, the gangling goofy
big, lumbering, spotted, long-necked mammals
that have no distinctive sounds and ugly black
snake-like tongues.  They, it turns out, really
hate change, and aren't too fond of cold and wet.
Imagine, as I couldn't help doing, how these
almost domesticated ones must have felt,
locked in their pens, with no fresh water or food
appearing, for days and days--it ended up being
over a week--and no light at night, which they
were used to, no human voices or touch
which they were also used to . . .

I couldn't help picturing these gentle giants
with their long-lashed, doe-eyed faces
looking so perplexed-- and they can,
I've seen them--looking askance when
the male lions are upset and making
their grunting noises that can be heard
all over the zoo.  I'm betting there was lots
of that going on, amongst other perturbed
animal sounds.

Did you know there are many varieties
of giraffes in the world?  And all of them
endangered of becoming extinct?
Some can only be found inside the pseudo
protection of zoo enclosures
and many cannot be found anywhere at all
now, hunted or starved off the earth already.

In my dreams these long-legged ones
from the flood gallop silently as if racing
with eternity; they look peaceful.
I get the sense they think they're winning.

S.E. Ingraham continues to pen poems from Edmonton, Alberta.  Her work of late has tended toward that of poet of witness, and she is pleased to announce her poem, "The Inevitability of Light" appears online and in print with, Poets 4 Paris, plus several poems from her "Baby M" collection appear on the I Am Not a Silent Poet site.  Ingraham remains committed to honing her craft, and to that end completed the MOOC's The Art of Poetry, plus, Sharpened Visions, recently, and has been selected to attend the Home School Hudson this summer.  She will also remain a CTA with the ModPo MOOC out of University of Pennsylvania.  More of her work may be found here:  http:thesoundofthewordnight.blogger.ca

A Poem by Evelyn Deshane

Wax/Wane (Meditation)

The journey is two sided:  looking back
& coming home.  The moon waxes and it wanes.
You are surrounded, then alone.
We dance like an acrobat walking the tightrope
when we don't know where we're going
forward or backwards.  Nothing or something.
But it is all the same.  I see the sun over
the horizon; the dawn, the daybreak.  I flex
my toes & dream a little, knowing there are
too many places still to go.



Evelyn Deshane has appeared in The Fieldstone Review, Black Treacle, Vine Leaves Literary Journal, and in The Human Echoes Podcast.  Evelyn received an MA from Trent University and is now attending Waterloo for a PhD.  For more information, please visit:  https://evedeshane.wordpress.com/

Two Poems from Eric Dodson

For Being Old

To be old
is to wonder
how much older
you would be.

To be very old
would see your
friends disappear
slowly from reality
into dreams.

To be very very old
could be like
a Tudor pot
appearing at an auction
unscathed and admired.

To be very very very old
is to be asked
for the recipe
for being old.



Benign

Adagio

The word thumped him in the heart
cruised through the crises in his life
brushed shadows from the way ahead
and gave his earth the gravity of a moon.

Trio

He tiptoed an imaginary waltz
beamed grinning white teeth to the crowd
put money in a box, grasped hands,
developed an impetuous laugh.

Grave

Doctors rushed to explain
that although benign, the tumor--
its ultimate design . . . in that position . . .
but nowadays . . . possibly can . . .
comfortable . . .
for the few
weeks
left.

Eric Dodson is retired in Tauranga New Zealand, a quiet backwater where things happen in a thriving poetic atmosphere.  His work has appeared in many NZ literary magazines.

A Poem by Henri Bensussen

The Problem of Heat

Pale puffs of fog
like smoke
from long-ago cigarettes
Luckies, Pall Malls
          appear,
                    disappear
                                  vanish

What's left when a cigarette
burns to nothing but a stub
red lipstick on thin paper
   a silver tray of ash.

Parked at the bluffs, window down
as far as it will go halfway and not enough
to sweep out heat trapped inside--
you wouldn't think that a problem
   on the foggy north coast

Ice-plant a thick smothering mat
spills down the sand headlands

Cold and foamy ocean gorges
on what's left, gnaws
tunnels and blowholes steady
waves of there-ness a reassurance--

To know even as the sea ebbs
its slam-back comes on schedule.

          Grateful for a steady truck
          even as its aging body shreds itself
          steel bumper rotting in sea air
          flaking rust, we together in this.

END the sign screwed to a thin pole
leaning away from its imminent fall
as if crawling up that eroded edge
to a wavering mirage of dates and camels.

Ocean churns below, bowled stones
grumbling, tumbled tight.

Shedding rounds of heat,
                    they settle into cold.

Henri Bensussen serves on the board of the Mendocino Coast Writers Conference, and manages its blog (blog.mcwc.org), is a Colrain Conference survivor, and has a B.A. in Biology.  She writes humorous stories and tragic poetry that seems to turn out humorous anyway.  Her chapbook, "Earning Colors" was published this year by Finishing Line Press, is a collection of 21 poems whose subjects range from being lost in Chicago to the dark side of love affairs.  They are contemporary, and written from a place of truth.  Her poems have been published in So to Speak, Sinister Wisdom, Blue Mesa Review, and other journals.