Painters' Exhalations 370

—after Lois Graham’s Yellow Triangle XII

Fingerprint curl,
U-turn deviation
fully clothed magnification
unveiling language of textured
grooves, talking toward access of
lyrical wonderment. Blur-tones,
a whitewash extract barely visible
vanish, northern lift upon wind’s
guiding kite string, maneuvering
monarch butterfly across tangled
dangles of yarn length light.

By Felino Soriano

Azaleas

Fat azaleas red pink purple

azaleas shaking in morning sun

as children call children to play.

Oozing from thick bushes delicately

perfumed azaleas fat azaleas

bees spinning spinning spinning.

Children singing out names while

chameleons crawl in shining grass

lustrous azaleas bright satin.

Azaleas fat azaleas starlings slip

from branch to branch gliding to

bushes stretching red pink purple.

By Joan McNerney

War Fever

on shaved skull, red
measles scrawl faces
in infected Arabic

the blood-blinded bird
in periphery hooks
eyes, swallows dry tongues

bloated carnivals of meat
blasted metal, sand-basted 
desert birds, carnivorous spiders 

feast on the dead and the living
and the street so quiet now
that its echoes explode in our ears

By Robert C.J. Graves

Rain

does rain make a sound, 
or is that just the sound when
the rain hits the earth?

By Max Reif

Weekend

on your mark, set, go: 
racetocatchupfromtheweek!
now start the next one

By Max Reif

Crab Apples

Pity the crab apples.

They cannot

 

fall from

the crab apple tree

 

without

their cheeks

 

burning from

embarrassment.

By Joel Solonche