From a bridge, the inverted vanitas
Of a swan drifting down a black canal
Between two corrugated warehouses

*

Frances Leviston
(from the poem 'Industrial', with kind permission)
Frances Leviston

She reached out again, one last time, to touch his heart through words. Her words found and touched the broken hearts of others, but not his.

*

Julie Alston

Soft rain on a Friday night -
People wear their loneliness like a shield.

*

Odessa
freefalling me

1
voices from around the fields
and the ticking sound of olives hitting ladders

2
black olives in yellow boxes
the little red robin is angry

3
the olive tree looking larger in the moonlight
- little blue owl

*

Kirsten Nørgaard
Stensamler (stone collector)

one small striped flip-flop rests on the curb

*

Barbara Hollace

stop lights and tail lights make red satin stripes slither over rain slick asphalt

*

Charlotte Babb
Miss Charlotte's Babblings

The warmth of your body against mine on cool white crisp cotton sheets, the early saturday morning breeze lifting the curtains as we doze to the birds singing outside.

*

Jo Cooper
Reason, Season or Lifetime

Skinny-arsed bee on a rainy morning, disappointed at each stop – leaf, thistle, thorn.

*

A. F. Harrold
A. F. Harrold

Waiting for the ferry, we watched the rain pocked water. A sudden otter's head. The slide of its back. The flick of a tail. Again the head. The sound of the ferry approaching.

*

Juliet Wilson
Crafty Green Poet

Autumn

Our house is turning russet red and gold.
Engulfed.
Virgina creeping ever onwards and upwards.

*

Claire Arnold-Baker

a tunnel of powerlines and sparkling colors nestles in cloudy darkness

*

Will Collum

Curry for dinner

...and the squeak! of paneer on my teeth.

*

Andy Fryer
A Half-Remembered Life

Car wash

Rumbling ghost train tunnel of blue feathers

*

Matt Westwood

The squeak of chamois on glass - the coaltits are chatting in the garden again.

*

Marysia Wojtaszek

And so the season has arrived. The sun shines thinly at autumn’s strength. The soft wind bites – just a little. The water moves gently, waves lapping in practised rhythm.

*

Kristina Meredith
The Apprentice Writer

Miscarriage of justice

The coppery smell of blood hung in the air within the narrow, blighted birth-chamber. "Not salvageable," was my father's judgement carelessly declared over the dying body of his youngest wife--some thirty years his junior--on the occasion of my emergence into this world of pain.

*

S R Schwarz
cosmic rapture

Why don’t I send you my poems?
Because I don’t want to read yours.

*

Martial: Epigrams
Translated by Ian House

a hail of hickory nuts released by the wind

*

Alice Pettway
Curiouser and Curiouser

Kenmore Bay

waves lap; flap; slap; clap

*

Gordon Mason
Catapult to Mars

A full bodied garden spider, sat surrounded by crystal droplets of autumn dew which sparkle in the hazy morning sun.

*

Jo Cooper
Reason, Season or Lifetime

I hold my hands to light as if light could help me understand my hands.

*

Dana Guthrie Martin
my gorgeous somewhere

The lift so old it feels like a time machine.

*

Juliet Wilson
Crafty Green Poet

a black and grey pig wearing a tartan ribbon is walking down the hill towards Antibes town centre, behind a woman who looks surprisingly like her

*

Lynne Rees
an open field

happy birthday to me

: )

*

Fiona Robyn
a small stone

Azure skies washed with
a splash of Payne's favourite -
Pierrot's painted face.

*

Rachel Green
When The Dogs Bite

first frost warning
tomatoes still green...

*

Merrill Ann Gonzales

After two days of antibiotics the lame Indian Runner duck suddenly finds her feet again and she falls into line happily keeping pace behind the drake.

*

Caroline M. Davies
Advancing Poetry

They all take turns pinching the Space Needle in their tourist photos.

*

Paul E. Nelson
American Sentences

As the Atlantic Ocean roars into view,
white-topped breakers lap at a small shoe; ripples of giggles as
he digs deep, scooping up the sand,
fills his bucket; pats it down with chubby hands,

builds a castle
for the sea to wash away.

*

Anna Reiers
My Writing Life

memories of people smiling at the deep lake spin faster and faster away from the lions and cheetahs who watched them drink from the other side

*

Aja Bella Cimino-Hurt

In my dream a plaza opens out to meet a dark horizon, where the head of a man spins, his face contorted. He has short ginger hair and jowls. He yells, "Come on, take the acid. Take the acid, come on. Come on, take the," A one-note diatribe. Why is he goading me? I wake up singing, "come on baby light my fire," a mantra in my mind.

*

Christine Swint