by Lara Gularte
I am tired of my own long story,
my blouse stained with vignettes.
The gold ring I lost can not be found,
my china teapot stays broken.
Familiar faces are stacked,
piled high in snapshots.
In this half-light of my life
I will cook a soup of claws and spine.
When my eyes fail I will eat more parsnips.
My skin will become bleached wood,
preserved by salt.
I want no candy hearts or sticky adjectives,
no flower ...
by Gary Short
Some strings of light.
Mostly absence.
Out the window, trees,
the narrow margin. The edges
carved in new sun.
I sway,
stalled at the warm window.
Out there the sweep of wings.
Out there wind's tangle.
I sway to the absence,
a disappearance like hushed flight.
Now the wind nods slack with sleep.
In the tree outside my window,
the scurry of wings
like a preface to arrows.
Latticed shadows of limbs
weave a net of the day.
The sway of the tree I depend on
to summon me.
by Jane Blue first published in Poetry Now
I feel peeled, coffin-ripped.
The worms of night sated now.
My spectacled eyes
tender as incubated babes.
Elms hang infant leaves
like minuscule laundry.
At a bus stop, a bird walks
high in a tree's new fringe,
pecking, sashaying
up the limb skyward.
It pauses to call "chip-chip"
into the Morse-code morning.
Soon, someone replies,
"chip-chip." The bird saunters
out on the attenuating branch,
then steps into air.
What soldier, what saint
will I be in this new life?
by Carol Frith First Published Tule Review
Lawn chairs like lateral road maps--
the grass scans blue. I won't go out
today. Bent light. Light like water spots.
Nobody walks here anymore: three apricot
trees and a peach. The leaves fill with
blue, separate into blank space.
Now, a man in blue grasses sits down on the
lateral slats. Answers turn over in the
middle distance. Think of the way
a blue vein of light remembers itself.
The man in blue glasses frowns
in his lawn chair. He listens to me.
I have a baker's dozen of blue words
to offer: azure, ...
by Julia Connor
hold what you have loved
firmly in mind
what is
bears also the tendency
not to be
bittersweet
the salts reshuffle
why not moisten
the fingertip
and write
the beloved name in air
right now
by Calder Lowe
Rising above the steady snore
of the purifier, a train whistle
from the nearby tracks scoops away
two metallic llamas and a solitary
wooden elephant plodding along the tops
of the bookshelves. In their absence,
camels from a caravan in a painting,
stumble, lose their footing in the sand.
The cats paw at their reflections in the window.
Time is restructured in that instant
of misdirected sound. Count back
one, two, three centuries.
Train whistles, bugles, church bells
thread through clouds.
My ancestors blow glass
in the Black Forest of Germany,
carry Lafayette off the battlefield,
make an error in judgement about
a new boarder from the coal mine.
Glass glows in the Von Eberhardt ...
by Joshua McKinney first published Tule Review Spring '01
Let the physician and the priest go home.
-- Walt Whitman
The young men haunt his days and nights
within the whitewashed wards. At last a bliss
though terrible. To those outside he writes,
"...there is no time to lose, & death & anguish
dissipate ceremony here between my lads
and me." Without the cloak of poetry,
he cures. He walks between the rows of beds,
his energy unchecked. At last he is free
to love. To give a gift, to dress a wound--
he feels the boys' needs as his own. ...
by Paula Sheil
A man entered the space. Hair. Black. Soft. Moved down his
back. All of his back. Moved when he moved. Kelp with the
tide. Moved him or followed him. I. Like a tiny yellow fish
darted into his hair. And out. No solid between us. Space
only clarified my having him and letting go. Interrupted by
concrete and glass.
A man entered the space. Picture him naked on a white sheet.
His skin the color of walnut oil. His fingers. Hidden. I
wanted him. Suddenly. To never forget.
A man entered the space. Not so many men are ...
by Don Campbell
Through the bedroom window
You are there in the morning
Filling every space with snow-like silence
Fooling the northerner with your whiteness
Covering the tops of trees and the roof line of tall buildings
You soften every edge in town
Drip off gutter corners into the streets
Leaving a trail the cats avoid
The valley surface thirsty from a long summer's drought
Is glad for any water...even yours now dirty
From the dust and grime you've trickled off
The leaves and the stone walls
The people are troubled because you break
Their speed as they drive to work
Hawks stay put ...
by William Barr
In late April each man and his
oldest son light the levee fires.
The night bridges are floated
from both sides and joined at
the center. Throughout the night,
I hear footraces, cheers, and the
squeak of old nails in old wood. I
smell crayfish, turnip pudding,
cabbage, and I can almost taste
the walnut prawns. No, I speak no
Chinese at all but the laughter of
the young men echoes into my
morning prayer. When the old
man finally speaks even the dogs
are quiet. There is one final
chorus, then their steps, their
soft leaving steps. At dawn the
levee ...
