Poetry - Year V - Number 31 - December 2019

BALM by Pitambar Naik BalmPitambar Naik Remember the havoc in your thick apple-red heartyour journey finishes in the middle of the rainy kisses   how to coin a new emotive reaction in the autumn season your solitude is a bony...

HEARINGby Diane Webster HEARING My hearing intensifieswhen I lay me down to sleeplike feral cat dozingon top of abandoned shelfwith sounds ticklingdelicate ear hairs like train whistle miles awaywith wind I am in my bedroomat my parent’s...

ALTEREDby LB Sedlacek AssemblyPlace theframeon a flatcleansurface bend tabsbackremove protectivefilminsertpictureartworklifebend tabsforwardandpresstosecurehangframeon aflatcleansurface. Nobody’s PlaygroundI noticed the slides first, hidden in thetrees, trees grown up around camouflagingthe unused abandoned playgroundthe utility building red with doors wideopen – it is empty,...

LISBONby Byron Beynon   WAVESFirm muscles of watermove deliberately across the boardpumping the air with sounds;a panoply of waves,the preserved overlapin a mind of curling whisperscome to blend with the shore.Complex characterswith a fickle strengththeir joints...

SWALLOWBy Keith Hoerner  engrossed with millions of americansin others’ misfortunes       movement distracts me       from the nearly two-hundred pound nine year old on tv       you carry a juicy earthworm in your bone-colored beak       to feed three tiny,...

AFTERNOON MUSINGby Steven Gerber     I gaze from my window,side-tracked from thevolume of Mythology,open on my lap.My notebook nearby,I am now impacted.I wallow in the shadowsof West, Steinbeck, Fante,and all others whom havegraced this great state.I...

WOMEN IN LOVEby Karen Deaver Women in Love Her art, his mine, saliva minglesin the Midlands grass cut sweet andtongues lap to the rescue of the drowned. No one wasto know their hearts were promisedbetween mountains and...

SHADOWS AT NOONby Terry Brinkman                                                                                                                 Shadows at Noon Swift wings no longer serveShadows at noonLike sailboats along the horizonClouds shadows quakingA flock of birds crashes pastNow calm returnsAn arrow quivers the airLike sailboats along the horizonWith...

LISPby Jean-Luc Fontaine  Ode to the Old Naked Man in the Gym Locker Room Have you ever seen a throng of half-naked....muscled men turn their heads in shamelike little boys during the nude scenes of an...