While anxieties and thoughts
Tumble and twist like acrobats
The brown bird on my balcony
Sits waiting

*

mr oCean
The Electric oCean

AUTUMN’S KINGDOM

A flock
of blackbirds
beat about
in a gale.
Trees
splinter.
Everywhere,
the empty
eyeholes
of a skull
watch us
closely.

*

Howie Good
Apocalypse Mambo

the owl
finally sees me
harvest moon

*

Melissa Allen
Red Dragonfly

Centenarian
called octogenarian
a whippersnapper.

*

Dan Simmons

New baby sleeping on my chest
wrapped like a burrito
in a blanket of pink and green circles

*

Candyce Carden-Deal

The small boy tells me he wants to be a cat when he grows up. We miaow at each other for the next hour.

*

Ruth Stacey
mermaids drown

Map: from heart to head only one straight route
but hundreds of leaf-darkened dirt roads and
underground passageways dripping and slippery.

*

Gregory Luce
Enchilada's Salon

Sparse

Like a priest in a stuffy church-
the lawn sprinkler dispenses sparse blessings
upon the parched grass.

*

Teri H Hoover
a small stone gathering

TWO RED WINGS

All that’s left to glow
of the cardinal

that my across-the-street
neighbor’s cat killed

*

Howie Good
Apocalypse Mambo

Still watching my step for a tail that sits as ashes on my dresser.

*

Jessica Negron

the evening still hot -
fullness of a moon
on my walk home

*

gillena cox
Lunch Break

Melts Away

when will I ever learn
love, delicate and new
like snow melts away

*

Melanie Bishop

the planted garden done for the season, only wildflowers persist

*

Scott Owens

It is a hot day, dry as an old bone,
and suddenly
I want to be swimming,
my shoulders covered in cool water,
my hair solid and dark.

*

Kathleen Brewin Lewis

Waikiki beach—
arrival of tourists
in high heels

*

Christine L. Villa
Blossom Rain

the baby
on her mother's bare back
learns through her skin
the way
things have always been

*

James Newton

seed holes
I say hello to the neighbor
I quarreled with

*

Melissa Allen
Red Dragonfly

It's my birthday tomorrow...

So I'm giving myself a week off : )
Normal service will resume on the 15th of October.
Thank you all for reading/contributing. Keep coming back.

in a break from our usual programming...

if you'd like to get some support to have a go at writing your own small stones, try Kaspa's seven day 'experience' with quotes, encouragement and a place to write your small stones. it's free... thanks all for reading & contributing, fiona

A hoard of fat daises spring up from the horse cropped grass.

*

Kaspalita
another small stone

melts away

when will I ever learn
love, delicate and new
like snow melts away

*

Melanie Bishop

dreaming of Gogö-an

Reading Ryokan before
sleep--
I hope to dream of
his hermit hut
high in the misty mountains
with its pine needles, bamboo,
and white asters

*

Carla M Wilson
wet leaves

the green walls
of the C & D Canal—
no trace of
the men and donkeys
who dug the cut by hand

*

M. Kei

Flags

Tethered colours flap and fly, shape-shifting against the sky.

*

Maria Marcaigh