A Poem by ayaz daryl nielsen

days of rain glide
under our bridges
pluvial acolytes and
disciples of rivers
an older us whome
wonder embraces

ayaz daryl nielsen, x-roughneck (as on oil rigs)/hospice nurse, editor of bear creek haiku (25+ years/125+ issues), homes for poems include Lilliput Review, SCIFAIKUEST, Shemom, Shamrock, Kind of a Hurricane Press, and online at bear creek haiku poetry, poems and info.

A Poem by Sydney Peck

Sunrise

I rise from bed and open the window
Stars of Cassiopeia and small aurora are still visible
Venus hangs like a lantern in the eastern firmament
Goddess unmistakably beautiful and strong
Dominating the dark velvet void
Dawn is a yet unborn child following the black drama of night

In the uncertain hour before dawn
In the twilight zone of heaven's half-light
Dawn seems fragile and may never succeed -- still
A young half-awake day is turning back the dim
Dark cloths of night in a timorous start
As I light my flickering candle

Candle shadows on my wall:  myth and reality changing constantly.
As the pressing sun rounds the curve of the horizon,
The vault turns to dappled lighter shades of pastel.
I finish shaving and wash away the soap and the sleep
Steady air not yet heated and land is black
Ever-changing, embroidered
With golden and silver light across the azure blue

As I put on coat and step out into the day
The sun peers cautiously at me over the whitewashed wall.
Out of the blue, dabs of sun tip the mountain peaks and spread down
The warmth starts to drive away small clouds
Lit underneath with their glowing gold edges.
The empty empyrean floods with gold, becomes alive and certain.



Sydney Peck has been a school teacher for thirty years, teaching English in the UK, Ireland, Canada, and Russia.  He spends his spare time playing musical instruments (mostly fold music) and writing poetry.

Two Poems by Barbara Gurney

Conquering

I sink beneath the waves
Disregard thoughts of survival

Air-filled bubbles ooze from me
Each reaching for the blue of the sky
Where clouds drift
Like me

The caress of the sea
Scolds me with cold
Embraces, then threatens
Touches my thoughts of oblivion

Inevitability seeps into each pore
Gently accepting without question
This watery grave
Tosses aside consequences
It lets me be

I claim this moments
To stay beyond reality
Possess solitude
A moment of liberty

The sun shivers across the surface
Peeks through the azure
Smiles without assurances
Promises a tomorrow

I surface and gasp at life



Haiyan

Cruel winds fling everything from its path
Shattered houses sprinkled across the landscape
   like condiments
Possessions sink into mud

Grief not yet claimed
Shock still hovering
   waiting to land

A huddle of children cling under a sheet of tin
A flapping tent
    a luxury

And when the typhoon stops . . .
    heartbreak stays

         Malaysian typhoon - November 2013

Barbara Gurney is based in a southern suburb of Perth, Western Australia.  She writes across several genres including fiction for adults and children, and free verse poetry.  Although an optimistic person, Barbara's poetry often explores the mournful side of life.  Her unpredictable thought processes are an advantage when creating short stories.  Barbara's novel Road to Hanging Rock was released in November 2013.

A Poem by Dawnell Harrison

Blue-Brazen Turquoise Sky

There's a creaking of wood planks
near the water in this small

Idaho city under a blue-brazen
turquoise sky.

The little flames of perky
red tulips burn in circles and

seduce me with their bloodied lips.
The sweet yellow tulips hush

all that is noisy --
trains full speed ahead

with their line of breath
and hot metal bearing
down on the tracks.



Dawnell Harrison has been published in over 200 magazines and journals including Poetrymagazine.com, Queen's Quarterly, The Fowl Feathered Review, Danse Macabre, Mobius and many others.  Also she has had 5 books published entitled, Voyager, The maverick posse, The fire behind my eyes, The love death, and The color red does not sleep.

A Poem by Theresa A. Cancro

Tree Grief

I pass a fallen
oak on the path.

Into its hollow core I fit
my stripped heart, slip in,
lying on my side, I peer out

a knot hole, tannin tips
my eyelashes, myopic
tangled branches snag

what's left of my coat-
lining, chewed, spit out
by careless larval forms.

In my mouth, the worm-
wood taints my lips.

Theresa A. Cancro writes poetry and short fiction.  Her work has been published in many online and print journals, including The Artistic Muse, Kumquat Poetry, Birds by My Window, The Rainbow Journal, Lost Paper, A Handful of Stones, Cattails, Chrysanthemum, Shamrock Haiku Journal, and Presence, among others.

Three Poems by David Chorlton

Leaving Portal

The road slides from under snow
and away toward the frozen grasslands
lying pale against clouds
that have settled between the Peloncillos
and the Chiricahuas, barely higher
than the telegraph poles
from which hawks watch the stillness
before they thaw their wings and fly
into the day's breath with talons
sharpened by the cold.



New Year's Morning

A narrow road cuts
left and right between

the frosted trees
before tracks

have been made in the snow
that fell in the night,

and disappears
where an oak steps forward

with a whisper
at the tip of each branch.



A Study of Starlings

Holding to slender branches
that sway against the dark day's clouds

three hundred starlings wait
a second before they rise together
in the rain, as do

three hundred more
in the adjacent tree, and all combine

with grace, following
a common purpose.  Palm

to palm, they broaden and narrow
as they come down to take the hanging fruit
and then return

to the ominous light
as one mind in many hundred pieces.

David Chorlton is a frequent visitor to the Chiricahua Mountains in southeastern Arizona, and observer of birds in and around the city of Phoenix.  One of his poems appears in the anthology, BIRDS, from the British Museum and is available this year in paperback.

Three Poems by Kelsey Bryan-Zwick

Murmurations

As a silhouette in concert
with the blue above, starlings
swarm, swoop, dive

A dark flock forming
patterns in movement
a shadow that shapes
and heralds dusk
called the black-sun
called murmurations

These birds
speak like parrots
whistle like car alarm
click, rattle, and sigh

Called the fool
called the jester
originate reverb

In 1890 at Central Park
common starling are released
to celebrate its appearance
in plays of Shakespeare

These birds thrive to over
a hundred million fold
and make their way
to the West Coast
where I see them now

Three of them, perched on wire
had I always mistaken them
for crows in the distance

Is this what the red-shouldered hawk
is after as it circles, did I pray for this
for something like passenger pigeons
to blot out the sun, to sing of
to reorchestrate the stratosphere

To be full again of sounds
murmurs so like cowbird, magpie
gradation of blackbird, raven, crow
the click and rattle, gibberish

Remixed, oh! to dance
at the starlings' eclipse
that scatters the light
as an inversed disco ball



Adelpha californica

the wetted wings
make dank and dizzy
circles, tampered loops
weighted down

orange and bespeckled
in stalled motions
bullied in the breeze

a final gust carries
brown matted velvet
flap across the lake
at the mercy of the wind

adrift sky plankton
swallowed whole
in the whale blue
mouth, disappears



Synthesis

I dye my hair red; shades of copper, brass, amber
in the hopes that a hummingbird will mistake my braids
twisted and pinned, for the plastic flowers of hummingbird feeder
the profile of my exposed neck, for the clear glass jar
of sugared water; evoke tropical punch, nectar rush

That those tiny birds might possibly dart
half a millimeter closer, in confusion might pause
in a double take long enough in front of me
that I might, in real time see the details of this speck
of a bird, actual spectacle, small vibrant

Not in photo, not from afar
not faster than comprehension
instead, as magic pulled from
the sky

I would go so far as to weave my hair into a nest
with twig and olive branch, sit in stillness like a stoic
trying to coax them into laying their pearly little eggs
above my left ear, let them perch on the rim of my glasses
if I was not so scared of crushing them in my sleep

Kelsey Bryan-Zwick is a poet, a bookbinder, and an artist from Long Beach, CA.  As a child she lived in Spain where she fell in love with green olives, the smell of fresh bread, and learned to speak Spanish.  At UCSC she received a B.A. in Literature/Creative Writing-Poetry.  Kelsey participated in Write Bloody Publishing's Dirty Dozen Workshop and she is a 2014 Pushcart Prize nominee (Cadence Collective).  Her poems can be found at CadenceCollective.net, in A Poet is a Poet, No Matter How Tall:  EPISODE II Attack of the Poems, and in Poems by Sunday.  Kelsey's recently published chapbook, Watches Synchronized to Awestruck, is hand-bound by the poet and available at Gatsby Books.  Her next collection is due out in 2015 by Sadie Girl Press.