Three Poems by Diane Webster

SPRING LILT

Lilacs lilt the air
with alluring scent
for honey bees
to home in on
while iris bloom
beneath the buzz
and snapdragons birth
bumblebees daily.

 
BIRD BRAIN

The bird calls
“kitty, kitty, kitty!”
through the trees,
and the cat
twitches her ears
as if annoyed
that a bird thought
it could fool a cat --
“Bird brain.”


SNOW BENDS

Climbing the steps
to the post office
the metal hand rails
support an inch of snow
until near the top
thawing curves the line
still attached but sideways
like a little girl searching
for her father while upside
down on the monkey bars.

Diane Webster's goal is to remain open to poetry ideas in everyday life or nature or an overheard phrase and to write from her perspective at the moment. Many nights she falls asleep juggling images to fit into a poem. Her work has appeared in "Philadelphia Poets," "Illya's Honey," "River Poets Journal" and other literary magazines.

A Poem by Marianne Szlyk

The River Always Captures Me

The Blue Line train crosses the river—
on one side the city,
the power plant, and rows
of brick houses, on the other,
the park with its paths
like veins of a broad leaf.
Below a tiny figure walks
a tinier dog.  Someone else
bikes alone.  No one rows
yet.

Soon the river will begin
to smell like spring.
More people will walk its paths.
Then it will reek like summer,
a regatta of rowers sweating,
dogs dripping,
tadpoles dying in
drying mud.
In fall, the leaves
will cover the ghosts
as the last rower skims past.

Still later the flat opaque water
will freeze in patches.
From the matching sky,
snow will fall
past the tiny figure
and the tinier dog
that trace the paths
that are like
veins of a leaf
by the river
below the Blue Line.

 

Marianne Szlyk is an associate professor of English at Montgomery College, Rockville as well as an associate editor at the Potomac Review.  Most recently, her poems have appeared in the Blue Hour Literary Magazine and Aberration Labyrinth.  She has also read her poems at Montgomery College and the D.C. Poetry Project's open mike.

Three Poems by J.K. Durick

Dog

She lives in this moment, like any other,
noting every shade of meaning in my tone
and gestures, reads me seriously, a book
she knows well, dog-eared, grimy, almost
biblical, the first of the things she consults
mornings and nights. She has seen me in
my weakest moments and easily forgave me,
has seen my best and easily forgave me. She
quietly watches for hints about what’s next,
peeks around corners like a spy, follows me
like a stalker, shows a patience so Job-like,
so dog-like that I’ve spent hours trying to
imitate the immediacy of it, her endurance,
how being so perfectly in the moment can last
so long, can stretch out just like she does on
the floor right here, while I write poems, poems
she is always the first to hear.

 

 

Squirrels

 

I’ve slammed on the brakes so hard,

risked a rear-ender, to save them from

their childlike lapses,

found myself shouting warnings after them

as they bound away defiantly –

indifferent to my caring.

 

 

 

 

Trimming the Bushes

 

We counter nature’s progress this way.

We like to say, hey, they look shabby, as if 

they were homeless waifs we have taken in,

rebellious children we must tend to and

shape to our notion of a proper fit to

the lives we play for the neighbors, for

the world driving by. They should merely be

part of the scenery, a backdrop, a prop,

an extension of the script we’re playing out.

They should be a glimpse, a whisper, a little

out of focus, almost unnoticed, as subtle as

an earring, or a slight accent, a part of the

whole, without a separate role to play, with

no lines of their own to say. They should

conform to the norm we’ve set, like the lawn

and the deck chairs do, like the flowers and

the robins do. They need us this way, ask us,

call us to come out to play, a barber this time,

or like an ax man, a crazed tax man cutting

and pruning back to almost nothing. Why, I

have gone after these babies with a chain saw,

like some serial killer let lose at last, their worst

nightmare. Why, I’ve stood on my step ladder

and cursed the sun in my eyes, the fall I might

take, and the one last branch they put out there

just beyond my reach –  way the hell out here

just beyond my metaphoric reach.      

 

 

 

J. K. Durick is a writing teacher at the Community College of Vermont and an online writing tutor. His recent poems have appeared in Literary Juice, Napalm and Novocain, Third Wednesday, and Common Ground Review.

 

 

A Poem by Steve Klepetar

Somewhere

Somewhere there are horses
loose in a canyon of clouds.

I listen for hoof beats wreathed
in silence, for whinnying cries

and the harmony of many colored
manes. I listen for the northward

flight of birds and all their rainbow
song.  It’s April and still snow

crowns every hill. Eagles fall
from the sky, feathery meteors

of hunger and lust.  All over
America the auctioneers have

started the bidding for spring. 
Money changes hands. 

Somewhere there are waves
and dolphins leap through distant

surf.  Somewhere whistles blow
and streams swell; tributaries flood

their banks.  River towns hang
in the rising tides. Our bridges

are lost, they cannot hold; our canals
were never made to hinder the sea. 

Waters thunder around our ears.
Somewhere a pebble rolls down a hill,

gathers dirt and rocks; whole mountains
shiver and skip and crumble into dust. 

Steve Klepetar teaches literature and creative writing at Saint Cloud State University.  His work has appeared all over the U.S., as well as in Canada, England, Northern Ireland, France, Australia and India.  His latest collection is Speaking to the Field Mice, recently released by Sweatshoppe Publications.

Three Poems by Emily Strauss

One Hundredth Meridian

 

Where the West begins:

mountain slope frontier

where the tall grasses end,

the first rise of red maples

after the treeless death plains

they walked through for

months losing cows and

children, the old and weak

 

and inland there is no beginning

or end

there is only light, dust and red

rock in endless mazes

invisible rivers below,

wooden fences wavering

into a heat-warped distance

the center of the West

doesn't know its boundaries--

 

cold deep waters

      warm shallow seas

                  the small creeks draining

                  the bluffs eastward.

 

Where the West ends:

at the ocean's lip scattered

with driftwood, sheer cliffs

brooks alkaline from the redwoods'

roots hiding under sword ferns

and alders in the dim mists,

sea stacks and natural bridges

elephant seals sleeping

in a bright sun, dried kelp

before a deep canyon in the bay,

harbors facing only toward sunset

the sand reflecting a setting moon

leading off the edge of the earth.

 

 

 

 

Redwood Summer

 

We climb from the ridge

over 1600 feet down

into the redwood canyon

to the stream still flowing

in late summer

down to the cool ferns, the last

columbines and larkspurs

beside the pools in deep shade

through the mid-day glare,

heat eddies redolent of native

square-stemmed mint, past

Pearly Everlasting like warm

honey swirling around our feet

 

then back up

laboring as we transcend

the same redwoods

back into the sun, marching

slowly past dusty oaks now

spider webs caught among dry

leaves, sweating, breathing

carefully, sips of tepid water

not counting the steps, dirt

lifting at each foot fall, we

ignore everything now, just

walking

hot.

 

 

 

 

The Wind Hits

 

The wind hits in tight fists

like a boxer, circling, quiet

then suddenly striking from

the north, now the east

 

it fools me when I set a cup

down, unfold a chair

it doesn't like cups--

that's in the bush--

 

or chairs-- that's knocked

flat, or dish towels drying

or wash basins-- the soapy

water flies into my lap.

 

If I were more patient

I could out-wit the wind

dodge its icy punches

eat warm food, watch

 

the full moon rise over

the dark desert. Instead

I retreat, let the gusts bow

my tent like an accordion

 

a cold bellows, not for fire

but a sub-zero night.

I wear four layers to sleep

and hope for daylight.

 

 

 

 

Emily Strauss has an M.A. in English, but is self-taught in poetry. Over 100 of her poems appear in dozens of online venues and in anthologies. The natural world is generally her framework; she often focuses on the tension between nature and humanity, using concrete images to illuminate the loss of meaning between them. She is a semi-retired teacher living in California.

A Poem by Deborah Guzzi

A Stream of Laughter

The sunlit water frolics

over a stone-strewn base.
Chattering waters,
playfully tumbling like children
on a high hill, rolling down.

Both translucent and opaque

the blue and greens magnified
by reflection and refraction,
the silky wetness laves the colored stone,
beginning where,
ending where
I am not to know.

High mountain waters

strained of impurities by crystalline sand
purveyor of bountiful imaginings,
leave boats with twig masts
brilliant red-purple beetles
floating like lost sailors.

The sunlit waters dance

smile breeders
laughter seekers
The water falls
ever
on.

 

Deborah Guzzi was first published at the age of sixteen, she has continued writing for the past fifty years. She as been published in the literary journals of Western Connecticut University and self- published two illustrated volumes of poetry, The Healing Heart and Heaven and Hell In A Nutshell. At the present, she write articles for Massage and Aroma Therapy Magazines. Since 2003 she has traveled to Nepal, China, Japan, Egypt and Peru. I was studying in Nepal during the last civil war and was in Egypt two weeks before the Arab spring uprising which over threw Hosni Mubarak, much poetry came out of these memorable experiences.She owns and operate Empathic Touch, acting as a healing facilitator, specializing in the Eastern Arts of Shiatsu, Lomi Lomi, Thai Massage, Feng Shui and Reiki energetic healing.

A Poem by Jonathan Butcher

 

The Morning Journey

 

Over cast white skies, offer a blanket

that connects both clouds and ground,

and offers this fragile cocoon, as I pass

the rail side gardens littered with rusted

beer cans, over turned tables and Union

Jacks flying at half mast.

The muddy bankings sprayed with rabbit holes

like a field of eyes, that seem far to shallow

to hold any kind of life, offer little shadow,

over the empty green bottles that are piled

up like old ruins.

Those extra two hours, that stretch out my

shift, like a stubborn thief upon a rack, they

force me to avoid the faces still incased in

the vastness this place offers, despite its

limitations, their hands just as idle as ever

form fists, that still remain as brittle as ever.

And the slight breeze here, that carries

any yells away from me, allows that keyboard,

dusted with dead skin and boredom, to fade to

the back of my head, and lets me walk just that

little bit lighter.

 

 

 

Jonathan Butcher is a poet based in Sheffield in the North of England. He has had work appear in various print on on-line publications including: Underground Voices, The Rusty Nail, Electric Windmill Press, Black Listed Magazine, Dead Snakes, Turbulence, Gutter Eloquence, Dead Beats, Popshot Magazine, and others. His forthcoming chapbook 'Concrete Cradle' is to be published by Fire Hazard Press.