Heather Sager ______________________ poem

Bring the night I, the poet, did walk around that day living like I was actually alive. And the next day, I the poet lived rather like I was dying. The morning birds robotically echoed each other amid spring trees, and I gaped at my hands, swearing butterflies had flown from them. In the lazy afternoon, insects buzzing over the meadow, I saw the shadows of sunset beaming from my hands. I didn’t want to bring the night, and so in dismay I covered my face.

John Grey _____________________ three poems

CONFINED TO BED WITH BOOKS A-PLENTY

The heroes, the heroines,

the casts of thousands,

made themselves comfortable

on the blanket top.

Then they went to work.

It was December.

The trees outside were stripped bare.

Head cocked on my elbow,

I reported to the protagonist

as he scampered across the hillside,

pursued by soldiers.

Shots rang out.

He tumbled down the side of a hill,

Thankfully, the bullets missed.

Wind picked up,

rattled the windows.

It began to snow,

even in in my room,

but only for a page or two.

 

I KNOW IT’S STILL FEBRUARY BUT…

 

Another fake spring.

Some melting.

A bud here and there.

A sun worthy of the name.

But then temperature drops.

More snow falls.

Thawed liquid freezes into ice.

Buds retreat.

Old Sol is more trickster

than benefactor.

The calendar givers orders.

Eventually, weather does what it is told.

 

 

APRIL-TUDE

 

Wild rain and better things to come.

Bird calls from all over the globe

not just the wintry residents.

 

Inspired by wind,

I'm whirling and twirling again.

I can still be cold

but not the kind of bitterness

that moves in for the kill.

 

The nights don't smother the day any longer,

fit neatly into their appropriate hours.

The full moon is fuller.

The new moon is newer.

The half-moon ignores the other half.

 

From meadow to forest,

wilderness is wildness once again.

 

Soon enough, pollen invades my nostrils.

Long, languid days drag me sunward.

An old song sings in my mouth and my skin ripens.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Three poems ____________________ Julie A. Dickson

 

Not like the Classics

[nods to Catcher in the Rye, The Member

of the Wedding and The Fox]

 

I don’t remember Holden Caulfield,

never read of his disillusionment, dead

brother, phony adults and failed schools

until I met a real life Holden, nothing

like the classic novel, full of wonder, I

 

was a member of a wedding, a bridesmaid

twice, never felt part of a group as a teen,

indeed struggled for a place among adults,

not like the classic, runaway begging to

be accepted, sat on the wooded edges like

 

a fox, observing life, no jealousy, just

marched on, few women friends, men

entered and left, some without incident,

others leaving heartache, not like them -

classics where a tree falls atop a friendship

 

 

 

Julie A. Dickson

Exeter, New Hampshire

 

Role Reversal

 

She suddenly had the feeling that she

was somehow older than her mother

Gram died only weeks before, not even

time enough to grieve for herself, but

mom was obviously lost, after months

of hospital visits, time was empty now,

a hole where her vigil used to be, daily

phone calls from mom to gram, gone.

She naturally stepped into a new role,

checking on mom often, welcome calls

filling a void also allowed them to bond,

a new relationship was forming, a kind

of role reversal; now she felt as mother

  

Julie A. Dickson

Exeter, New Hampshire

 

waiting to die

 

foot turned in

stroked out look

on her pallid face

holds the same book

 

for hours

 

blank expression stare,

without seeing words

going through motions

familiar yet absurd

 

stumbles

 

through endless day

even longer night

sits weary

no more does she fight

 

to speak

 

no one hears

her strained voice

barely a whisper

given no choice

 

waiting to die

 

 

 

 

Julie A. Dickson

Exeter, New Hampshire

 

Poem _______________ David Gilmour

 

DEPTH GAUGE

 

Standing on the sunlit bank

Throw yourself into the stream, shadow and all

If you are in substance ready to plumb the depth.

The experience you suffer daily is enough to appall;

Immersion in that material swamp—contents not forms.

Viewing the off-season family theatre from the crack

In the stage door; star-struck neighbors hanging round,

Stiff with drink, animated bags, stalking before the flood-

Lights and backtracking into the barren set.

There’s furniture, sure, the place is packed,

Furniture and pictures just for the sake of mood.

 

You are seeking contact with the wild world,

Aren’t you? I mean beyond the daily tragedy,

Where unnerved Furies can be temporarily tamed

By gutbusting laughter, or where a saint, crowned

By an atom-bomb blast, stands as an icon on a knoll,

Glowing like the beaming Dalai Lama in Dharamshala.

Hey! Forget those black-light dashboard skeletons.

In this scene The Presence smiles a happy refugee.

 

Do you really need the wisdom of bombastic Agamemnon?

Foreverafter fearful of the backyard bathroom?

That cannot help much.  Noooooooo!

For the scientist and the poet,

Creative data abounds

To study humankind in ways beyond the norm:

You know, fragrant thoughts of forests in Borneo;

An FM-band humming B. B. King, the blues bard,

Singing “Hummingbird” just on the verge of twilight

Greening.

 

Come on then!  The horned Bull has been sacrificed,

The Ram has run,

The Fish have played upon the horizon

In spring morning’s celestial stream.

If you are going to enjoy the Waters,

Fall, sun at your back,

Throw yourself in, shadow and all.

 

David Gilmour

 

 Koon Woon in Quail Bell Journal:  http://www.quailbellmagazine.com/the-unreal-20/poetry-seattle-3-poems-by-koon-woon

Julie Dickson ________________________ three poems

 

Earth sadly

 

I am the earth sadly waiting to die

below a vast canopy of green leaves;

flee from here into expansive blue,

revel in the view, expanse of kestrel

wings, shimmer of sun in knowing eyes;

he sends me back, time not yet over.

 

Sit upon my rocks far out on sea

island, jagged edges biting flesh, raw

memories run marathon, overlap,

collide, reality crashes - the past

cannot separate until a whale breach

sends spray, sea mist awakens; stand

 

high on melting glacier, feet frozen, boots

rated for below zero don’t cut it, won’t

feel toes nor fingers, numb like each time

gunshots heard, screams of children, knives

slice silent shouts of protest, unappeased

masses, more weapons amassed to destroy

 

what semblance of calm remains as blood

drains, rivulets careen down streets, footprints

mark path of humanity, destined to

destroy species without habitats, elephants

perform under duress, bears feast as birds

peer down from canopy of leaves, I expire

 

slowly, painful floating waves of plastic,

discarded refuse in belly of sharks, oil

slick pelicans suffocate, death on sand –

no matter ancient commands of worship,

humans once knew my worth; still progress

into state of ruination, await my demise.

 

Julie A. Dickson

Exeter, New Hampshire

 

 

freezing to death

 

if i lie down in snow

will fire still burn,

harsh embers

igniting

a frightening

explosion, white flames

erupting, disrupting

coherence

will fire still burn

if i lie down in snow?

Julie A. Dickson

  

Vigil

 

Barren the dunes,

landscape of emptiness,

devoid of humanity,

lighthouse keeps vigil,

watchful over ships and sea birds,

blue horizon meets sea of hopefulness,

lighthouse calls out, answering the waves

 

 

Julie A. Dickson

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Poem __________________ David Mason

 

A Mathematical Abecedarian Poem

 

A problem is to calculate the

Beta function at alpha = 1/2, where it is

Continuous, has a transcendental value and is

Divisible by Beta at 3/2.

Easy enough using

Familiar properties of this function.

Galois theory does not come into play nor do

Hilbert spaces and their special properties.

Indivisible numbers, as well as,

Jordan curves should be avoided. You might get sucked into a

Klein bottle and never get out.

Latin squares may befuddle you or

Manifolds on Lie groups.

Never try to understand

Ordinary differential equations without

Practice in Fourier analysis and knowledge of

Quaternion valued matrices.

Riemannian metrics are essential in talking about

Space that is very curvy.

Time and time again they are

Useful in describing unexpected worlds.

Vector spaces are helpful too

When defining one’s place in space.

Xeno did not know about them when he fashioned his paradox.

Yet it confused philosophers long ago. By the way,

Zeno came up with the famous paradox, not Xeno.

Poem _____________________ Koon Woon

 

When you, when I …

 

When you catch me writing,

when you catch the wind,

a warm breath is blowing, &

birds flock over the land.

 

Though the political is absurd

and men often pitch dirt,

a raindrop of the good

portends a brotherhood.

 

Take this feather, my friend,

it’s preserved from childhood.

Recall fondly the days and nights

in this undertaking we call life.

 

When you, when I are far awake,

an opulent music we shall make.

And we will laugh and dance, as

Providence bestows another chance.

 

Koon Woon

E. Martin Pederson _______________ four poems

The Beauty of Books on a Shelf

 

pinetrees at the edge of the forest

ready to be felled

pickets in a fence

always white

dandelions in the grass

in a seaside town

in salty Maine

creases in a thick curtain

in the projection room (industrial marketing shorts)

the bored room

junior & senior yes women & men yesyesyes

coats on a rack

in the room in the back

where I am sent

for snickering

during story-time

in Miss Soite's fifth grade

and in the scoutmaster's mind

boy scouts ideally rigid

baseball bats leaning on a cyclone fence

then tall glasses on the bar

bottles in a supermarket with cartoon labels

in alphabetical order

one by one.

 

The Chill of the Sierra

 

is not cold

the sun's out

the night was damp

and the night was cold

the frost is cold

but now there's only a chill

the brisk air

the smell of granite

floor of duff

air you'd want

to share

in advertising

 

I can feel that fresh air

anywhere

everywhere

any and everywhere

 

 

Curse Immortality

 

There’s a sad sigh of relief at the end of every job

Like summer

Like a sealed vault at the end of a hallway

I’m glad to move the train, leaving another station behind

I only wish it would never end

This curse of immortality.

 

A Life Saved is a Life Earned

 

Everything around us is dust

we’ve only got each other

I will never let you out of my sight

ever again, all my days.

 

You are mine or I yours

proper and appropriate

went down with the cathedral

on the believers’ heads.

 

Never to separate, claustrophobic

two as one inside the other

I will never break my promise

you wear yellow rubber boots.

 

 

 

 

 

Koon Woon reading

 

Poem _____________________ Deanna Scott

 

Changing Seasons

 

Trampling on shining sumac 

Sitting at the edge of the meadow

The trees hummed a soft melody at the end of fall

Winter responded by grabbing the baton

I didn’t know I was ready

The last of the shrubs forming a colony with shiny leaves Resembling the birds flying 

Stop worrying

I will always protect your gentle footsteps

A cluster of red berries fell on my head

Silly girl

This is the easiest transition

Fall leaves turn scarlet red

Allow things to come

Accept the universe’s treasure

As nature rotates 

The gift of seasons. 

 

 

David Gilmour __________________ two poems

 

 

DREAM-DOG

 

 

Say, it was vivid! -- akin to something --

Someone alive and kicking.

I know I should have caught that 4:11 am

Dream lingering at the empty platform,

When I sat bolt upright, I saw myself

As if myself saw me in the high-

Density reflective mirror of that world.

A crisis whether to arise,

Dress, eat, and climb aboard the blank page;

Whether to drop back down the rabbit's hole to sleep.

 

Had it, fed it, bled it, died!

Alas, that frisky puppy of a dream-dog

Up and abandoned me. Carried on a carriage,

Taken on the brain-train,

Chuffing on down those serpentine tracks

Until the rails went skew,

Now's blowing smoke in distant fields

Where poetic frogs used to croak.

 

Through channels reamed by rumination,

The barge hangs by some mooring post,

Along by now a narrow ditch, a psychic lair

Where something more than frog was spawned,

Where it's at home,

Like simple souls a while ago,

Who chattered, smoked, and sipped green tea

Over yellow formica breakfast tables,

Morning sun in streams of gold,

Through the hazy kitchen windows.

 

 

 

TRANCE FORMATION

 

The cosmic picture or the uncosmetic chaos

Is pressed by the spirit of Life

Upon the walls of its own awareness.

Rainbow arcs, moon above the pyramids,

Cliff faces, glassy mountain ribs.

The listener might see a spectral fragment,

The large red,

A lamp glowing upon a triangular plane,

A rough stone, tragic ledges,

A dead drop into blue chasms.

 

Nature’s mass can be reordered:

Coherent line, measure, form, and word.

The singer’s synesthetic eye,

A wild iris, savage thought.

A maelstrom of meanings:

Pristine is white,

Black is pure, men are wheat,

Women violets with a deep, deep core.

Raven, a nightjar,

And a sign of spring—cuckoo!

 

All concocted transformations,

Laden galleons sailing across classifications

To an unknown shore,

The blades from bristling pines

Palming the foaming eddies,

Skimming across orders

To an ineffable shore,

Down to earth experience,

Amber and frankincense.

 

Out they fly from the cave of dreams,

Carlsbad-like gusts of plumage,

Beauties once worn by cargo cultists

Now extinct in paradise

In faraway Sarawak.

 

Soaring,

Focusing on all divine planes,

Swift squadrons,

Drawing evening in,