Winter Breakfast

The last spoonful
of sunlight hits
the leaf covered lawn.

*

Christian Ward

rusted gurney whispers towards infant incubator
“never really knew anyone the whole damn trip”
and incubator says,
"but love anyway, right?”

*

Steve Myers
Broken Bats

Spider web

Pinks and purples shimmer along thin threads.
A lifeless fly bobs up and down.

*

Kylie Dinning
Pausing to pick up small stones

Dried fruit in glass cups
a tea-pot by a nut pie,
autumnal picnic

*

Claudia Messelodi

Monuments

‘The problem with this country,’
                                    he said
‘Is we haven't any pyramids.’

*

Jody Porter

Winter wraps this land loosely
With an icicle fringed lacy, lethal shawl
Disguised as snow drifted friendliness

*

S. E. Ingraham

Christmas stocking
a boy pretends
he hasn't caught Santa

*

Christine L. Villa
Blossom Rain

when the door rattles
she hides under the bed sheets,
hearing the wind laugh.

*

Debbi Antebi

The same rain on my window
as on the wrinkled
face of the man
under the bridge at night.

*

Samantha Duncan

Bright neon flashes unknown messages. The undulating crowd fills the
night. On the second floor a fat man in a vest opens his curtains and
stretches, yawning.

*

Bob Hale
The Hitting The Road Again Blues

Found clinging to a branch of my Christmas tree: a small, bewildered frog.

*

Kelly Eastlund
Stars and Willows

rain falls quietly
onto mint leaves -
they shiver together.

*

Mark Sargeant
Light shines in my window

SWEETTALK

Hold your hammer, honey, your board, your wood hauled from the lot for Harry Woodman’s saw. Back from the field, honey, and look what I’ve got! Smell my fingers, honey, and look at my full bowl! That tickles licking my fingers, honey, ain’t this some great luck? Pine. Fruit. Fine pickin’s, don’t you think, honey?

*

Patricia Ranzoni

In the meeting

markets
prices
coffee.
above our heads on the lime green wall
a sticky-footed gecko undulates across

*

Kuvalaya
Petals on the Wind

bedbound...
three finches take turns
in the bird bath

*

Kirsten Cliff
Swimming in Lines of Haiku

The strand of her hair
was coiled stark red in the dawn's
new bar of white soap.

*

Guy Duperreault
egajd

a pinprick
of a man,
buffing up
the silvery hat
of a sail-less
windmill

*

Annie Rapstoff
31momentsintime

Drops of sweat

Drops of sweat, leaning into the garden work
imprint themselves for just a moment
on the stones

*

David Fraser

Everyone in the crowd sang the lyrics in synchronisation as rain drizzled on our upturned faces.

*

Ruth Stacey
mermaids drown

The dragonfly trapped in the garage smacks repeatedly into the window covered with privacy film, insistent on following the false light even though the garage door is open wide to the world.

*

jeannine peregrine
four rooms

at the beach two old men,
their stiff-legged dogs

feigning exercise.

*

Molly Guy

black top hat

oddly out of place in broad daylight
makes the day seem an occasion to celebrate

*

lara simmon

Plump raindrops
Leave spots behind
On clean windows

*

Lori Lipsky

tossing and turning –
not enough light to find
my glasses

*

Stella Pierides

Two weeks of each year
these hills burn

into cherry blossom
fiestas--memory turns
into ritualized
pyro-practice

*

Lee Sittler

whirling from chimneys—
bats and evening swallows
join eager supper crowd

*

Melinda Tennison

209

The soft nap grass brushed by blasts of sun

                 in June.

*

Jody Porter

bouquet of flowers
the name on the card
not mine

*

Christine L. Villa
Blossom Rain

Three teenage girls strike poses in the rain: photographing each
other. The curlicue roofs of Yangshou form their glamour shoot
backdrop.

*

Bob Hale
The Hitting The Road Again Blues

Red-eyed night reading
forgettable prose alone
on a plane from Rome.

*

Guy Duperreault
egajd