His Unroyal Lowness

                    
                    Quean Lutibelle

                       
                       proffers

                   instant notoriety

               to all magnificent moguls

                   willing to march

                    in his parade.


          
          Cocktails afterwards in Gethsemane
               Informal, but wear taps.

                       R.S.V.P.


By Louie Crew


To learn more about Louie Crew, click here!

Typhoid

A brown crust covered my lips and tongue
like dirty words. When the rose spots
came out on my belly—that was the omen
the doctor told us—Mother cried.
All night the doctor sponged and sponged
with spring water. I shivered and moaned.
Days passed, and Father said, What
God damned luck, when the red spotted his side.

More days pass, weeks. A dry gust blows
the maple’s crown inside out, like Mother
throwing wet hair over her bowed head.
Thunder growls and rattles the windows.
I rise from bed, called by the banging door.
Stinging rain welcomes me from the dead.

By JS Absher

Blue

There is the ample door
             to heaven
we believe we’ll pass through
             after a lifetime of good
and there is the blue heron
             that bathes and stalks
a secluded pond
             for sanctuary.

By Michael Keshigian

To learn more about Michael and his poetry, click here!

Where He Found Pluto

Needles tucked away
like fading postcards of
South Dakota sunsets.  He
              fingered the syringe—
              Not needing
to tie off, sky blue stars
tattooed on ready tracks.

By Rachel Marsom-Richmond

And It Was Autumn

It rained while I slept.
I dreamed quiet ponies
grazing on a hill.

In the morning,
the orchard grass
smelled damp and fresh.

Red apples glistened, heavy
on low-hanging branches.

By Terry Martin

Harbor Portrait

Daily the spring water fowl strike poses
that hold me entranced

The ivory white feathered Egret
walks a delicate elocution of phrased movement
that cajoles the shallows and gives signature to the mud


by Ruth Juris

Covered Fountains

Loitering by the gardens

Watching tug of war between

The children of here and there

Is our umpteenth happiness

Walking through the streets

Of the covered fountains

With a smile by another

Tug of rope under our jaws.

By Matyas Sirokai

Elixer of Life

            Altitude sickness had begun creeping through Jeff since the ascent from Paloma Blanca.  He’d had a pulseless, steady headache and starry vision since 8,000 feet.  The night before, he’d taken the elixir.  You will feel better afterward, the shaman had said.  And tomorrow you will climb Santa Clara and look for a sign in the sky.    

            They looked out across the scalloped ridges of the mountain chain that ran north to south.  Ryan grinned and squinted into the firmament. 

The elixir was not working the way Jeff had hoped it would.  The horrific visions from the night before seemed only to be pulling him closer to the knot that lay hidden in his groin, as if his entire being were contracting into the cancer, like a supernova collapsing into a dwarf star.

            “Do you see anything?” Ryan asked.  Ryan seemed younger then, like he had when Jeff had met him three years earlier.  Ryan had been looking for a partner who knew the difference between love and the fear of dying alone.  Jeff had said, I know.  Now, every step in elevation provided Ryan a kind of physiological regression while Jeff sank deeper into the awareness that, in six months time, there would be no need for his sign.   

            Jeff’s face fell into his palms.  A finger of sunlight broke through the clouds and ran across the ground and up his outstretched legs.  Then the sky in the east turned plum and frenzied, and the patch of blue that had been the portal for the remaining sunlight squeezed shut.  Rain came, and when it did, Ryan held Jeff’s head in his lap, and although he did not know why, Jeff turned his face to the sky and let the rainwater pool in his mouth, thinking, Now, I am actually drinking. 


By Norah Charles