Dream After Falling Out

You took all 

the yellow pills:

destroyed the place.

I took the 

lift to escape:

found myself

on the old flat roof

with a How To book

and a man

with a colossal tongue.

by Kathleen Kenny

Core

I GOT!

Limbs!.  Teased back by

three chains of mercury.

Speeding on the surface of grey matter

in a bowl turned upside down.

A pit to be connected

by a column of bone.

Visualize that!

In your rough ways.

by F.S. Hillard

The First Rain of the Season

The first rain

Of the fall

Crept in stealth

Just at dawn

In a tap

On the glass

What I felt

On my bones

Was a flow

Anapest

Of wet life.

by Santiago del Dardano Turann

High Road

Empathy sits on cinder blocks;

imagination lacks transmission.

Reliable greed starts its ingrates,

while a bench seat cradles

a rusted fly wheel.

In the rear view mirror,

compassion idled in jeans.

by Rich Murphy

Brief Refreshment

Life is but a sip

of a sparkling beverage,

youth its froth

shining atop the glass.

by Michael Keshigian

My cousin refuses to cross over

He keeps showing up at holiday gatherings

Not everyone realizes that he's dead

    and that's why he steers clear of me

by David McCoy

I Will Drive

Tonight I will drive

to Sarasota to Sacramento

to places of forward movement and

backwards

thinking.

This is what I will write

but actually I will go down

the street for a two dollar something

and 

a sandwich.

by Joseph Goosey

The Chinese poet Lin Pu never married--

     never sought an official career

With his wife--the plum--he taught

     their children--the cranes--how to dance

by David McCoy

The Daughters of Man

I'm high up on a ladder that's noisily being circled

by ravens and crows. Somewhere below, my daughters

have exchanged names. I call to the younger one,

but the older one answers. I should've known this is

what happens when you marry late. They laugh

at my confusion and then head off though the trees.

It isn't that they don't love me; it's just that

they love other things more. I begin to climb down.

I'm halfway to the ground before I ever notice

the man in the skeleton mask pacing at the bottom.

by Howard Good

Morning Lake

trout breaks stillness

starts the ripple pattern to

end on polished rocks.

by Scot Young

All-Around Cowboy

after the rodeo

at cottonwood falls

we drank beer

out of my Stetson

danced on brick streets

to Bob Wills

the Texas swing

leaving my hat on

after too many longnecks

we made love

beside that old truck

like I was the last

cowboy on earth.

by Scot Young

Velzy

 Venice surf rumbles

thinking of pig boards

 as the hawk lies still.

by Bradley Mason Hamlin