Poetry - Year VII - Number 54 - 2022

I. Soft, Dead Leaf The night that you killed yourselfI walked down to the clearing whereAs boysWe had built a settlement,As pioneers we cleared the trees,And when the land gasped outWe leaned logs against bouldersAnd...

A Lover’s Song come to mefor comfort and for warmthcome to me for lovefor friendship and for trustfor understanding and for care come to me for lovefor sunlit days and star filled nightsfor laughter and for...

Painting Party at an Indian Buffet I am scumbling a cataract waterfall with underhanded oils,ad-libbing the lilac current and dysmorphic October Glory maple trees.Feeling prolific and pioneering, I fashion a festooned mermaidheadlining shamrock curls, gaudy...

Trading Post at the Edge of Known Empty more mistaken pearlto curl fate and find oneself somewhere withno starsand no fear,no knots andno ends The varied cost not haggled,just peaked and tipped Traverse naught and koan, andtrust the seed...

Whether or not Ram was thereI don’t know. Whether or notRam would come one day,that also I don't know. But then,the only thing I know is thatthere’s one Ram Lalthere’s one Ram Prasadthere’s one...

Where are you going? Where are you going?So late at nightIt’s way past bedtimeIt’s long past midnight Are you running from some turmoil?Did you see a terrible fight?What causes you to be out?Or to take this...

Leaves My wife told me,that her sister,the one I barely knew,when she got her pair of glassessawthat leaveswere their own selves, not the rowdy bunchof veinsand greenshe knew. Imaginehow irresistibleher joy waswhen she met them. My Father Smoking The ceremony...

Parting Is Sweet Sorrow she leftanddidn’t leavemuch of herself—a blond hairdropped without care,frayed golden threadon a worn and stained carpet,a cup of coffee,half-filled, unstirred,and a smell lingeringon the morning sheetslike a winter fog lying lightlyover...

Transcontinental How do you take it? She says.Clouds have rolled in, drawn thinend to end like cotton pantieson high-tension wire. Below the seaof non-native grasses is Lincoln,then below alkali flats,the lost golden tablets of Joseph...

The Runner On feet of dreams the runner’s headed to land’s end.She knows the horizon keeps receding while she’s running,but she runs as though it didn’t.A finish line is not her aim.Along the pathway time’s...