A Poem from Andrew M. Bowen

In Green

In green, there is peace
and stillness deeper than the seas.
The leaves filter the sun's fierceness
and damp the rains into
softly falling motes of life.

In green, there is love:
A man must kiss a maid
and the child will grow--a human acorn.
The birds and bees and trees and tigers mate
in splendid strength.

In green, there is wisdom
of peoples and of butterflies,
of the Voice that sings in all,
and of distinct songs that sum
into a chorus of the many.

In green, there is strength.
The futile wars will come and go
and none but tenured professors
remember the dates and names.
The trees outlive the cannons
and feed the birds and squirrels and wasps
after generations feed the worms.

In green, there is solitude,
a place to stand aside and feel
the roots of Earth give birth
to coal and cucumbers, to deserts and daffodils,
to martyrs and maggots, to cats and cretins.

In green, there is God
and His hand traces the veins of maple leaves
and shakes the foundations of mountains.
His breath blesses the baby robin
and births hurricanes to vex the cities.

Andrew M. Bowen works as an insurance salesman in Bloomington, IN.  He has published 71 poems and recently submitted his first two novels for publication.  He is also an actor who has appeared in eight independent films, seven stage productions, and two radio teleplays.

Three Poems from Ken L. Jones

Never Before Seen

The newborn river leads a very monastic life out by the farm bunkhouse
that is a figment of its imagination and the trajectory of its hallelujah is so heartfelt
while storm clouds that rumble with midnight pan flutes coagulate about like caged animals circling warily.



I Dreamt Often Of

The frozen reefs remind me of peacock feathers.
The quick limed air seems misty with ant hills
while I listen to the forest's melodies on this foggy morning.
Gazing down into the roiling rainstorm that slowly creeps in from the sea.



Picked Like Ripe Avacados

Midnight's glow upon the meadow makes it look like a seafloor
and the ghosts who haunt its poetry are burnished blackbirds.
Yet this blue ice nightscape is a withered harvest of abstracted found and recycled objects
and its soundtrack is a mandolin long evaporated.
Yet till dawn arrives in a golden kimono shivering dilated and copper hot.
It will murmur low a long lonesome sonnet
more poignant than the brooding weathered strains of As Time Goes By.

Ken L. Jones has been a professionally published writer for nearly forty years.  At the beginning of his career he became well-known as a cartoonist and had such work appear at Disney Studios and for the New Kids On The Block singing group.  In the last ten years he has concentrated heavily on writing poetry in various genres.  He has appeared in Kind Of A Hurricane Press' many anthologies and blogs.  His poems have also appeared in Phil Yeh's Uncle Jam Magazine, Dual Coast Magazine, Red Ochre Press, Poetry Quarterly, Circle of Light, and Tulip Tree Review.  His most recent achievement was a poetry chap book called Dreams of Somewhere Else published by Prolific Press.

A Poem from Richard King Perkins II

Out of Nowhere

Into the skirt of the woods
we skip and shuffle and spin

lengthening the lit hours of evening
into something

more breathtaking than a yellow flower
rising out of nowhere

Richard King Perkins II is a state-sponsored advocate for residents in long-term care facilities.  He lives in Crystal Lake, IL, USA, with his wife, Vickie, and daughter, Sage.  He is a three-time Pushcart, Best of the Net and Best of the Web nominee whose work has appeared in more than a thousand publications.

Three Poems from A.J. Huffman

Arctic Butterflies

Portraits of fragility echoing definitive

definitions of strength spread

their darkened wings, gather sun’s warmth.

Dorsal basking, lateral basking, mid-flight V,

every move is designed to harvest heat

as they flutter and dance their way across

summer fields, becoming, in visitor’s minds,

flash-bulb moments of nature’s possibilities.

from Flamingo this Vision

of self-containment, internal

flight.  Movement stifled, re-routed,

released in flutter of pink

feathered eyes seeing beyond

sky.  Balance

can be extended.  One leg

bending between two planes.

Hosak’s Cave

A crack of light,

of life, brown but not out

of the cycle. 

The walls are breathing,

breeding

a carpet fit for the king

of beasts.

A.J. Huffman has published thirteen full-length poetry collections, fourteen solo poetry chapbooks and one joint poetry chapbook through various small presses.  Her most recent releases, The Pyre On Which Tomorrow Burns (Scars Publications), Degeneration (Pink Girl Ink), A Bizarre Burning of Bees (Transcendent Zero Press), and Familiar Illusions (Flutter Press) are now available from their respective publishers.  She is a five-time Pushcart Prize nominee, a two-time Best of Net nominee, and has published over 2600 poems in various national and international journals, including Labletter, The James Dickey Review, The Bookends Review, Bone Orchard, Corvus Review, EgoPHobia, and Kritya.  She is the founding editor of Kind of a Hurricane Press.  You can find more of her personal work here:  https://ajhuffmanpoetryspot.blogspot.com/

A Poem from Susan Dale

Leaving to Promises

If mom left when spring was arriving
What does that say about life?
For while we were committing her to eternity
Violets were unfurling their purple capes

But how do we accept the thrust of blossoms
On bare branches
And the smiles of daffodils
At the same time
She was taking her place
On the top of a hill
Where the winds of heaven
Were meeting the promises mom could not break

Nor could we halt the jubilant feet of spring
Dancing into our collective sorrow

Susan Dale's poems and fiction are on WestWard Quarterly, Mad Swirl, Penman Review, The Voices Project, and Jerry Jazz Musician.  In 2007, she won the grand prize for poetry from Oneswan.  Two published chapbooks, The Spaces Among Spaces from languageandculture.org and Bending the Spaces of Time from Kind of a Hurricane Press's Barometric Pressure Chapbook series, have been on the internet.

A Poem from Heather Gelb

Under the Tree

Supine on a spherical covering
Of buttery flowery petals,
I gaze up through the feathery branches
Of a flowering tree,
Each twisting branch sculpted from a
Solid center and reaching towards a light
I can still see when I close my eyes to hear
The soothing hum of bees that fill the spaces
Between the ephemeral and the enduring.
Beyond the bee song I hear
The light tread of gazelle leaping through
A nearby field, finding space between
The stalks of golden grain . . .
And still the golden petals rain down,
Released by the light touch
Of dancing bees.
I am aware of a slow mounting marvel
That fills the spaces between
The holy and the mundane.

Heather Gelb grew up in Colorado and Ohio before leaping off to distant hills in Africa then Israel.  She is an aspiring writer, poet, yoga instructor, tap dancer, banjo player, holistic nutritionist, world traveler and long distance runner who is raising her five children among the Judean hills in a house that her husband built.  Heather Gelb feels most fulfilled leaping from hilltop to hilltop as she writes in her published memoir about her journey from Rwanda to Israel:  https://www.amazon.com/Hilltop-My-Path-Rwanda-Israel/1937623076  Her poetry has been published in such diverse works as Poetica Publishing, Deronda Review, Green Panda Press, Pyrokinection, Dead Snakes and NatureWriting.

Two Poems from Phil Wood

Snap

No zebra crossing, close-by a menace
of lionesses; flies swarm, wildebeest fidget.

And then the rain.  The river's rain-happy.
A flock of pink flamingos flight a sunset.

I take a photograph.  The guide and you.
A hippo yawns.  The crocodiles smile.



Forester

That canopy of russet forest
beguiles the crowd.  On Cannop Ponds
a cacophony of mallards,
moorhens and coots, a herring gull;
along the track the herds of bikes
and hikers, kids and dog walkers;
an oak, squat like grandma's clock,
dazzles, unthreads his hooded tale.
Her weathered cloth warms his morning,
the dreams of wolves whisper once more.

Phil Wood works in a statistics office.  He enjoys working with numbers and words.  His writing can be found in various publications including:  The Open Mouse, Autumn Sky Daily, London Grip, Ink Sweat and Tears.