Three Poems by Karla Linn Merrifield

With the Dark Touch of Global Warming

You Are Sentencing the Trees of Florida

I want to know exactly which tree.

Fungus-ridden sweet bay?
Beetle-riddled spruce? The ash borers’
hoards of ash-host trees? The Earth’s
warming Ocala wildfire trees? Chain-
sawn Osceola trees? Young, soft Pinus
elliotti pulp-to-be trees? Old-growth Pinus
palustrus trees reduce to clear-cut stumps?

Recite for me every genus & species

of extinction. Torreya taxifolia,
the blighted Apalachicolan yew?
Be explicit about mangrove trees of spiders,
and lysiloma trees of snails swallowed
whole in their forests as the peninsula
falls below rising oceans of salt.
Cypress, cedar, oak, palm, myrtle—
all the green tree people
in these blue latitudes drown,
sentenced to burial at sea.
Your darkness touches bottom.

                           with words from Chris Crittenden

 

 

 

Liver

 

The blood hole

in the white breast

is open to blue sky

& my brown eyes,

as the gull

of the gray back

& whiter breast

wields his yellow bill

to open another hole

in another murre,

another death for life.

 

 

Ta-home

 

Where are we on the map? the young girl asked her father

at rest stops on their family summer hegiras to the ocean.

All the while, the older brother prodded his calssic, nasty,

Are we there yet?

 

The girl cared less about destinations, so much less.  It

was the route that counted, names of towns, distances

between them, river ways & bridges.

 

So she was not surprised years later to be asking the

Tahoma's captain, Where are we on the chart? & Is there

a separate scroll for Grenvill Channel?  How did you

come by such patience to navigate whirlpools & eddies,

to navigate this vessel through the treachery of Queen

Charlotte Sound? More than three thousand miles & as

many years from childhood & boys despised like her

brother?  Why such urgency to get someplace?

 

The calm, deliberate pilot in his wheel house of trust

steers her toward a steady-paced place of further

forgiveness.

 

Moored safely in Horsefly Cove on Green Inlet,

anchored, she lets herself go to his guiding hands at the

helm, knowing exactly where she would be on any

map, every chart, by land, at sea:  She could come home.

 

 

 

A seven-time Pushcart-Prize nominee and National Park artist-in-Residence, Karla Linn Merrifield has had nearly 300 poems appear in dozens of journals and anthologies.  She has eight books to her credit, the newest of which are The Ice Decides:  Poems of Antarctica (Finishing Line Press) and Liberty's Vigil, The Occupy Anthology: 99 Poets among the 99%, which she co-edited for FootHills Publishing.  Forthcoming from Salmon Poetry is Athabaskan Fractal and Other Poems of the Far North.  Her Godwit:  Poems of Canada (FootHills) received the 2009 Eiseman Award for Poetry and she recently received the Dr. Sherwin Howard Award for the best poetry published in Weber - The Contemporary West in 2012.  She is assistant editor and poetry book reviewer for The Centrifugal Eye (www.centrifugaleye.com).  Visit her blog, Vagabond Poet, at http://karlalinn.blogspot.com.

 

 

 

A Poem by William G. Davies, Jr.

A Gush

A cigarette butt is lifted and somersaulted over the shoulder of the road in the wake of a speeding car, then another.

The butt as though a baton is handed over to a bridge where centrifugal forces are greatly diminished.
There, in warm grit against a sunny abutment the relay has seemingly ended until a fisherman peering over the side of the rail,
stubs the grit and butt into a drainage pipe and it, ahead of contrails of dust falls into the green water like the Gemini capsule.
The fisherman playfully spits after it but misses. Water spiders skitter about its sinking as if marking the spot until the fantail
of a catfish loosens the surface and all is sucked into the murk.

William G. Davies, Jr. has been happily married for 38 years and lives in a valley of birdsong and wildflowers. He has published in Jellyfish Whispers, The Cortland Review, The Wilderness House Review, The Blue Lyra Review and others. He eats PBJ sandwiches everyday for lunch!

Two Poems by Sarah Flint

Bracken Air

 

On a June morning

I swim in slow motion through thick bracken air

The day encircles me

Kissing me gently awake

Licking night sweat from my neck

Making me clean

Rousing me from dreams of midsummer

Chasing grass pollen from my eyes

Running its fingertips down my spine

And

Tasting the dew on my lips

On a June morning

I swim through thick bracken air

 

 

 

Moon Raker

 

Gold morning following Dorset curves to

An ozone breeze above a fallen beach.

Under the Diamond Slab

The sea snapped at my toes

Jokingly.

I hugged the rock
Lovingly

And felt the warmth.

Gulls played in the wind,

Sea shell wings against a ceiling of

Blue blue.

I smelled sea on my tongue

And closed my eyes to see the view

Of walls and waves

And a beach that went on

Forever.

A pearl moon hung in fullness

Over fish and chips

On our fingers and pink sketched sky.

I danced in moon shadow

And drowned in my feather bed

Peacefully.

 

 

 

Sarah Flint has been trying to put words into good order for a while. Originally writing about all things green and horticultural she now has had success in the world of poetry and flash fiction. She has been runner up in the Scottish Mountaineering Council poetry competition for 2 years running and is a regular contributor to The Pygmy Giant.

 

 

 

 

Two Poems by Diane Webster

AFTER RAIN

Weeping willow’s limbs

bow in saddened strands
reaching like a grieving mother
toward the separated leaves
lying lonely and wet on the lawn
glazed over by the passing storm
rumbling farther and farther away
like memories regressing
from now to childbirth.

 

BLUE SKY DOLPHINS

One moment on mountain road

sparrows fly up and down
in front of the car’s grill
like dolphins leaping
before a ship’s bow
as I, the captain, navigate
wave after wave of washboard road
keeping eye on blue sky horizon.

Diane Webster, like a cat, enjoys gazing out a window to watch squirrels spiral up and down weeping willow branches, to watch sparrows and finches push and shove for the choicest eating spot on the bird feeders while junco ground feeders peck at the spillage, and to watch nothing while she daydreams. Diane's work has appeared in Conceit Magazine, The Rainbow Rose, Calliope and other literary magazines.

Three Poems by Jeffrey Park

ANIMAL INSTINCTS

The cock crows at sunrise – a novel idea.

Here it comes, round and yellow
and warmth-giving like a brand new space heater,
oh boy, the excitement of it all!

Not like yesterday or the day before,

not like tomorrow or next Wednesday.
Ah, to share in his exuberance! In fact, I crowed
at daybreak twice last week myself,

just to give it a go. Didn’t seem to work for me

though, like howling at the moon
or scuffing the smooth turf with my heels
or rolling over and over, just can’t quite manage

to scratch that itch with compulsive

animal behaviors. Think I’ll try
running circles around the porch light tonight.
See if maybe that does the trick.

PREDATORY PRACTICES

She looks out onto a grey-green landscape,

all blocky structures and angular shadows

populated by small things that alternately

freeze and run for cover, and she gives voice

to new feelings, imaginings, itches that will

presently be scratched. In such a place and time

it’s good to be a predator, lovely to be alive,

lovely to be the object of communal fear.

 

REFLECTION ON THE WAVES

Reflection on the rolling waves, looks

like an albatross flying backwards

fleeing upwells, chop, stray lobster pots,

reflection and shadow soaring on

in place, rising above the surface of

the sea, surging upwards like a fighter

jet, like a missile, set to explode into

a roiling school of high altitude sardines.



Baltimore native Jeffrey Park lives in Munich, Germany, where he works at a private secondary school and teaches business English to adults. His poems have appeared in Requiem, Deep Tissue, Danse Macabre, Crack the Spine, Right Hand Pointing and elsewhere, and his digital chapbook, Inorganic, has recently been published online by White Knuckle Press. Links to all of his published work can be found at www.scribbles-and-dribbles.com.

A Poem by Neelam Shah

Camping in the night.

By the whistling hallowing trees,

Blown by the subtle winds,

Stars shine ever so brightly across

The North sky.

The moon sneakily peeks in from the grey

Clouds, trying to shed his share of

Light onto the land.

Surrounded by the blazing fire on simple wood,

A group of friends partake in giggles,

Burn marshmallows, gather

Warmth and smiles on a chilly

Night.

Hours go by, the wolf howls,

The sounds of zips are heard

closing ever so quietly.

All is silent, only five blue

Tents are seen.

The camp side fire is blown out.

 

 

 

Neelam Shah is a second year International Relations with Media Cultural Studies student at Kingston University.

She is passionate about creative writing, Journalism, writing and research.

Her hobbies include blogging, reading, photography, traveling, volunteering, visiting museums and exhibitions and playing badminton.

A Poem by James Owens

late in the year

shelterless bird song

floats through rain,

darkens clouds

 

still, you can find me

 

the dandelions I dedicated to you

shine in wet grass

 

*

 

like young girls, one after another,

trembling --

 

each skittish tree

lights and rustles

 

under the sky’s

reckless caress

 

*

 

still in the mind of the beloved

the leaf is trembling

 

green on the black branch

even after

 

this sky swallowed

the winter wind

 

 

 

James Owens divides his time between Wabash, Ind., and Northern Ontario. Two books of his poems have been published: An Hour is the Doorway (Black Lawrence Press) and Frost Lights a Thin Flame (Mayapple Press). His poems, reviews, translations, and photographs have appeared widely in literary journals, including recent or upcoming publications in The Cortland Review, The Cresset, Poetry Ireland, and The Chaffey Review. He blogs athttp://circumstanceandmagic.blogspot.com