the quiet light of the chandelier sways above the guest's bowed heads.

*

Najah Parker

Addiction

Nineteen eighty six,
last day of Edinburgh Fringe,
Fred starts on Bobby.

*

Kayo Chingonyi
The Train Set Lifestyle

crows: metallic nightmares
bursting from subconscious

*

Matthew Haigh
blue horse poetry

a copper hawk rests
the telephone wire like a low-cut neckline
across the firmament's décolletage

*

Regina C. Green
red bird chronicles

Haze

mutes the light today, but the carpet of yellow leaves reflects it back, bright from the ground.

*

jessica kramer
jessica kramer

a break in our usual programming

No small stone today. I wanted to take this opportunity to say a huge thank you to all the small-stone-writers who make this blog possible, and to all the readers, without whom there wouldn't be much point. Here's to another year of cracking small stones. Cheers, and happy holidays.

in my neighbor's yard
illuminated reindeer
graze green grass

*

G.R. LeBlanc
Reflective Ink

first snow storm
they cancelled all the flights
to Florida

*

Monika Thoma-Petit
MoHe's Xanga site

DUSK

Like a roadside flare
still burning

hours after the accident
has been cleared away

*

Howie Good
Apocalypse Mambo

A frozen pond
framed by glowing rowan berries;
redwings take flight.

*

Michelle McGrane
peony moon

circular sparrows
    swerve into twilit weather
       accidental wheel


*

Janann Dawkins
Third Wednesday

first attempt
to bake Spekulatius
failed

*

Monika Thoma-Petit
MoHe's Xanga site

rain haze tickles
winter garden
naked
the shrubberies
chill lovers' sensorium

*

Tim Nees

In the attic
two hired hands
pallbear the grandfather's clock.

*

Jay Coral
BlueJayEye

All these people
Hanging upside down from the clothes line

*

Andrew Stott
Fragments

Lone cello note
deepens: dark, reverent,
unhollowing me.

*

Emily Rose Cole
Emily Rose Cole

First Winter

Their Fur was cold and smelled of ozone

*

Emma Kehayas
tangledally

headteacher's conference
the back row boys
talk all the way through

*

Matt Morden
Morden Haiku

Cuando la criada bajó del camión,
el moyote enorme le siguió,
aferrado a sus hombros
como malas noticias.

As the maid descends from the bus,
a giant mosquito follows her,
clinging to her shoulders
like bad news.

*

Joseph Harker
naming constellations

A full pink moon attaches itself to the water in a lacy crocheted line, all the way to our canoe. We are tethered to the moon by the light.

*

Sarah Selecky
Sarah Selecky

Forever

Sometimes I doubt that
I want to see your hair turn
grey and grey and grey.

*

Jenny Adamthwaite
From the Living Room

Snow:

Every flake that falls
is a tiny world
of crystallized chaos.

*

Tom Rendell
Changing Our Attitudes Towards Change

(this)

this idea of abundance of
days of space

this promise
of

*

dorothee lang
blueprint 21

Warmth fights through
the gutsy breezes
and then
is blown away again.

*

Jeff Fleming
nibble - a poetry magazine

My body fills
any given room,
breath bound by rafters

*

Beth Balousek

Blue trees
white ankles
sudden summer.

*

Kay Fletcher
Inextinguishable Spark

Our pond

A bowl now covered
By winter’s transparent lid
Summer greens frozen

*

Patricia La Barbera
Patricia La Barbera

he fidgets in his ill-fitted suit
thrust in the midst of
bereavement

he hopes no one notices his shoes

*

Angie Werren
woman, ask the question

A snell wind chips
its words into my head
like a stonemason.

*

Gordon Mason
Catapult to Mars

In the black forest
the moon hangs ripe
on its cloud branch.

*

Kathryn Good-Schiff
Dragon's Meow

Always with the footsteps of a dancer, eyes hyacinth-blue
The sky above the tumbled columns, the darkening sky.

*

Christophe Riesco
Christophe Riesco