sun-drunk yellowjackets tease
tag-you're-it boys

*

Angie Werren
the space between words

LOVE-SLITHERS

You are alluvium; even the river desires you.




How many ladders? The heart wants to know.




Love confession. Fire alarm. In that order.




The mistress. A bird nest in her throat.




Tenterhook dock. The way his voice ends a poem.

*

Michelle Leber

I KU #2 "Things"

You're unhappy you
Lack things. Get them, sad still, learn
Things aren't worth a thing.

*

John Burroughs
The Crisis Chronicles

Teacher, teacher, what’s the score?
Student, student, I know no more
Than you.

*

Amber Burton

paper cut
even the thought hurts

*

Gary Wilson
Writing Dramatica

the moon a tethered dish of milk

*

Tim Nees

Nearly tomorrow. The candle’s waist
bends lower. I watch wax drip.

*

Seán Dagan Wood
Seán Dagan Wood

salesman's desk
hides two bottles
of BIG THICK HAIR

*

Ted Simkins
Coldspring

ducks unhurried among the rushes

*

Mark Holloway
Beachcombing for the Landlocked

splash of white paint
what a mess
of cleanliness

*

Jeff Klooger

Haiku

Little silver fish
darting between and around
aquatic lovers

*

Tony Renner
Contraption

Mangoes and melons
sell side by side
crowded beach sands

*

Ankur Agarwal
The Virtuoso

This is the corner of the garden
where nothing grows except the
spaces between where I am
and where you used to be.

*

Emily Smith
Sparkbright

At the sixth station of the cross, a blackbird watches from the bare branches.

*

Jon Summers
Hums

urban pond -
the only duck
is plastic

*

Juliet Wilson
Crafty Green Poet

for one small moment
I was gathered
in
a lifting and a settling
if not for the red bird
and the bee buzzing
I might have
returned
empty-handed

*

Regina C. Green
The Red Bird Chronicles

Mockingbirds mimic the fire alarm
until the siren turns to music.

*

James Brush
Coyote Mercury

day dies in the arms of night.

*

SRS
cosmic rapture

crescent moon -
curved needle poised above
torn sleeping bag

*

Corey Cook
Corey Cook

first light / the beginning of a shy poem lifts its skirt

*

Laure Krueger
uncommon ordinary

Just before the water simmers to a boil,
the bottom of the cooking pot
becomes spangled with tiny glass baubles.

*

Cynthia Cheng

I reach for the blade
when there's no hand to hold.

*

Cassandra Key
Ophelia Blooming

Sunning
in the garden

among the unsure
sprouts

of early spring

our cat sits
and licks

its murderous
paws

*

Howie Good
Apocalypse Mambo

Words

A payphone's split open
receiver.

The pavement stained black
with secrets.

*

Christian Ward
Christian Ward

erasing chalkboards
residue
wiping tears
residue

*

Robert Louis Henry
Leaf Garden

White speckled light
on fresh cut grass.
The tree leaves
slice and spray
sunny rays
like a prism.

*

Tom Rendell
Changing our attitudes towards change

rain washes aphids clean
- rosebeams

*

Tim Nees

Rocks; stones; pebbles:
geology's pecking order.

*

Luigi Pagano

Dawn unfolds the flowers from their sleep

*

Chloe Jayne Waterfield
Chloe Jayne Waterfield

the brittle pop of floorboards
as my mother slips downstairs
for some ice water at midnight

*

Isabela Oliveira
beautyisinthedark

remembering still
those blackberries
that were out of                             reach

*

Mark Holloway
Beachcombing for the Landlocked