Refugees by Ray Sharp

We carry our sorrows
in tin cups
and leather-bound journals.

Ink tracks the yellowed pages
like foot steps
on a barren plain.

At night
we stir the red coals
of dying fires.

This is what stars
would look like
fallen at our feet.


Ray Sharp, Michigan, USA

the critic by Ed Higgins

a house fly mildly attentive 

in winged black spandex

lands on the bookcase

above my desk, preening

cleaning the red compound 

mirrors of its eyes

she leans toward

my computer screen

reading this poem about her

wondering what metaphors

a random curious fly

might possibly contain.
.
 .

Ed Higgins, Oregon, USA

Resignation #1 by Len Carber

When I was younger,
I dreamt of writing like Camus,
thinking like Sartre,
living like Hemingway,
and all in God's constant grace.

I thought I suffered India's hunger
And America's affluence,
but actually,
I was carefree-- and careless.

Now, though still a young man
(31 is an odd age, but safe)
I want less, much less:
fame, fortune, knowledge, passion,
even hope....

If the world is indeed doomed,
I will love it till its last day--
and if the world is blessed,
I will still love it till its last day.

If I cannot create like a giant,
then I will write with a smaller hand
and utter noises in a lower tone.


Len Carber

Radio Universe by Josephine Shaw

What if we could see radio waves, a radio sky?
Lighthouse pulsars, a web of egg white floss
from that first explosive micro moment?

These days we believe in rivers, in their sources
and in how they melt into sea. In ageing trees,
and we cry when they fall. Or in a tumble of birdsong,

or the key in a door and in warmth beyond.
Or in Jesus on Sunday. But this is really
to believe a fairy tale, seeing our beginning,

seeing our fourteen billionth year, seeing 

no Moon, no Sun, seeing supernova remnants.
Seeing it over and over and no dark left.

And what if I saw you out there, as radio?
Show me your brilliant pulse, your rhythm.
Is that you inside a splash of stars?

Or are you fainter, a blinking grain of sand,
dancing away from me, away to a new Galaxy,
fusing into the clouds of white noise?


Josephine Shaw, London, UK 

Creek by Taylor Graham

What's more joyful

than running water? After rain,

our little creek leaps 

and giggles, blows bubbles, chatters

over rocks whose moss opens

all its green mouths to sing

the river song. 

And the old willow leans over the bank 

to see his own reflection 

wrinkled and riffled

with moving, ageless water.

What's more joyous?

A backyard puppy 

who's never seen a natural flow - 

only stainless bowls and faucet, hose, 

and pipes.

Here's free water 

on its great adventure toward the sea. 

What's more joyous

than a puppy tentatively wading out 

then drenching herself 

in that journey, 

splashing as each droplet leaps 

the stairstep falls; finally 

dashing back out

to shake

creekwater all over us

sparkling, joyous in April sun.

Taylor Graham, California, USA

Mirrors by Darrell Petska

The stream through the trees

weaved and pooled about

my boyish reflection: you there,

what shall you become?

A half-lifetime passing

I return to find in place of

arching shade and water's flow

a plant distilling ethanol.

I'm alright with that, I guess.

What are mirrors for, although

once my face in the stream

wore a speckled brown trout.
.
.

Darrell Petska, Wisconsin, USA

Recycled by David Chorlton

Bottles are all equal here, whether they contained

the Haut Brion from eighty-nine

or something cheap to swallow quickly

for the buzz. A written declaration of love

means no more than a shopping list,

and science fiction is a match for the complete

works of Shakespeare. Once the caviar is gone

the can is no better than the one opened up

to feed a stray cat. There it all goes

with the pop of a cork, a sigh, a purr

a kingdom for a horse, before it returns

newly labeled with a twist

in the plot that brings the dead back to life.
 '

David Chorlton, Arizona, USA

Animals by Kevin Cadwallender

Animals don’t do heaven,
That’s just us frightened apes,
Building the persistent myth
Of continuation which means nothing
And haunts us all of our beleaguered
Lives.

Animals don’t do heaven
And it suits them,
Honestly breathing in and out
Over their allotted existence.
A philosophy that brooks
No philosophy other than
Being, and they are content.

Animals don’t do heaven,
But we do, in denial, in fear,
In case it’s there, in situ, indecisively.
Look at the T.V., it’s all there,
Our pettiness, our terror of being alone,
Of not being alone. It makes no difference.

Mourning the loss of the intangible,
The animal that died inside of us
And made us this stricken, bone-bag
Riddled with guilt and excuses.


Kevin Cadwallender, Scotland

Elegy for Piper by Taylor Graham

In the last days she was leaving

into the place old dogs go,

when love of master's hand and the daily

joys of walk and dinner bowl

become forgetful; 

when without wishing the ears

muffle over master's voice,

and curtains silver-glaze the eyes against 

daylight - painless 

but wandering from her life

into a new one without us. Solitary

unless every cell 

of fading body feels at its walls

the tremor - the soft pad 

of others on the far side, their heads 

lifted to an unworldly 

breeze that already 

bears to them her approaching, 

her remembered scent. 

Taylor Graham, California, USA

the naturalist by Micah Cavaleri

(for Anne Gorrick)

I have finally come around

to write this book
of yellow and red illustrations
of green palms
only centuries late

How have I forgotten what I discovered

on a ship as if I was on a ship I forgot

Fried (green) plantains taste like (yellow) honey
although I did not
sit down to write
a cook book. These
illustrations are
illuminations of
a voyage I never
expected to make
until I saw the boards
of the hull. Now
I am lost at sea.


Micah Cavaleri, USA