“Time will not fill my teacup, will not come / To me with cucumbers in early spring.”
True Rhyme
ERNEST HILBERT
“The wind’s so hard the timber groans. / Bright newborn blossoms blow like snow.”
ISABEL VANDER BLEEK
“I gave up alcohol for Lent / And took up cigarettes. / My choice was met with loud dissent, / In vaguely loving threats.”
E. M. KOMISAR
“She found her faith in static broadcast stations, / The grainiest and blurriest were best”
SCOTT RAY
“We smelled the smoke before we saw the fire”
JOHN POCH
“Don’t touch it yet. The gun is not a toy. / This isn’t home, or church, or work, or school”
PEDRO POITEVIN
“I will remain here on the sidelines where / each Saturday I witness my son glide / over slide tackles with a cocky stride .”
MICHAEL BROWN
“Like Job, he kneels, hands placed before him on the ground”
QUINCY R. LEHR
“Up late. The wife asleep, the laptop screen / a nightlight of sorts, I semi-surf the web— / a Twitter deep dive—another angry teen / was shocked by murder into eloquence.”
JEAN L. KREILING
“The palette loses warmth: the hair gone gray, / the teeth not quite so white”
MARYANN CORBETT
“Perfect: the singers, strings, and keyboards. Perfect // Bruised sky above the tents of the squatters’ district”
LISA BARNETT
“Propagate and fornicate, / procreate and copulate: / Latin for our base desires.”
CYNTHIA ERLANDSON
“My last red rose-of-sharon / Is slowly curling closed”
PEDRO POITEVIN
“It springs from mystery like window dew. / It glows in the abrasion of a match.”
SUSAN MCLEAN
“The first thing she requests post-surgery, / awake but drifting in the morphine glow, / is that my sister turn on the TV”
CAROL FRITH
“My neighbor’s motion lights ignite, / light up the privet tree, the dying firethorn hedge”
ROB WRIGHT
“I wish that all the hours I’ve spent with bores / in heated arguments were mine again.”
RICHARD WAKEFIELD
“An old man at his kitchen window sees / by winter light”
