A Poem by ayaz daryl nielsen

 

Otiose

 

Often I go up the mountain

and rest against a quiet

rock that rose from the earth

millions of years ago

 

Again, this black brim hat

for a light mist this quiet

rock as my back rest

under dry aspen leaves

among the pasque, aster,

columbine and penstemon

 

Maybe there's more I can do

beyond what I have willed

and may have accomplished

 

Resting beside a quiet rock

under aspen leaves

among pasque and aster

Plenty enough for this day

 

 

ayaz daryl nielsen, poet/editor/husband/father/veteran/x-roughneck (as on oil rigs)/x-hospice nurse, is editor/custodian of print pub bear creek haiku (20+ years and 110+ issues), has poetry in awesome homes including Lilliput Review (ed. Don Wentworth), Barbaric Yawp (ed’s. John and Nancy Berbrich), Shemom (most favorite person ed. Peggy Dugan French), Yellow Mama (check it out online/Cindy Crosmus most exotic of editors), Lalitamba (possibly coolest print pub in existence), ayaz has three collections of poetry in print, blog site is bearcreekhaiku.blogspot.com (which translates as joie de vivre).   

A Poem by Bob Bradshaw

A Man Whistling in the Semi-Dark

The surf beckons
with her muffled voice,
but the baby sea turtles move
toward a fog bank of hotel lights.

Forty years ago we stood
under a sky powdered with stars.
Today we commute
in a haze of headlights, and return home

to well-lit evenings, our souls
as washed out as the night sky.

I wander outside for a smoke.
The stars have vanished, like the nightingale.
Can I still mimic its whistle?

How did it go?


Bob Bradshaw is a big fan of the Rolling Stones. Mick may not be gathering moss, but Bob is. Recent work of Bob's can be found at Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, Eclectica, Chantarelle's Notebook and Slow Trains.  

A Poem by Michael H. Brownstein

COME STAY WITH ME AND BE MY NIGHT

 

Come stay with me and be my night,

We’re done with dinner’s clutter

As stars blister through the moonlit light.

 

Water anchors moon streams white

Across the wake, across the cutter.

Come stay with me and be my night.

 

The children at peace, everything’s right,

Goat milk, huckleberry bread, apple butter.

Stars blister into pimpled light.

 

The children dream, the wind grows slight,

The storm is but a mutter,

Come stay with me and be my night.

 

Now comes a fullness full and bright,

Leaves skip across the gutter

As stars blister into moons of light.

 

My love is strong. It knows to fight.

I no longer need to stutter.

Stars blister through the moonlit light.

Come stay with me and be my night.

 

 

 

 

Michael H. Brownstein has been widely published throughout the small and literary presses. His work has appeared in The Cafe Review, American Letters and Commentary, Skidrow Penthouse, Xavier Review, Hotel Amerika, Free Lunch, Meridian Anthology of Contemporary Poetry, The Pacific Review, Poetrysuperhighway.com and others. In addition, he has nine poetry chapbooks including The Shooting Gallery (Samidat Press, 1987), Poems from the Body Bag (Ommation Press, 1988), A Period of Trees (Snark Press, 2004), What Stone Is (Fractal Edge Press, 2005), I Was a Teacher Once (Ten Page Press, 2011) and Firestorm: A Rendering of Torah (Camel Saloon Press, 2012). He is the editor of First Poems from Viet Nam (2011).

Two Poems by Damien Healy

Summer

 

Stifling heat subdues even the firefly.

Lime greens sucked dry by the inferno.
Stems weakly bent over like a centenarian.
High pitched buzzing cicadas notched down an octave or two.
Hot air rippling up from the tarmacadam.
A cacophony of air conditioning hums.
Sweat dripping from knuckles.
The psychological cooler chimes now and then.
The bamboo beat of the water trough.
All life secluded in shadows.
Nothing to do but wait for dusk’s reprieve.

The winter morning

The rush of wind like an icy blanket.

The visible exhalations of breath.
The faint traces of dawn on the horizon.
The damp carpet of dying foliage underfoot.
The distant rumbling of moving trucks.
The reflection of street lights on the dirty grey road.
The rustling of wind through the naked branches.
The smell of freshness in the air.
The taste of coldness in the back of your throat.
The rhythmic spatter of raindrops from the bus shelter roof.
The expectation of things to come.

Damien Healy was born in Dublin, Ireland but has been living in Osaka, Japan for the past 20 years. He holds an MA in Applied Linguistics and teaches English language at a Japanese university. He has written three textbooks for Japanese university students and has published several papers on language teaching. He has recently found the time and energy to start writing poetry again. He has had poems published in "The Weekenders" and "Ofipress".

A Poem by Emily Strauss

Hiking the Storm

On the cliff, blackberry bushes tumble

Down the gash cut by winter run-off
While clouds fill the void below
Waiting to catch the falling fruits.

The cries of swallows rise from the rock

Face, wings beating against the air
Currents, the wind licks the edges
Of the crumbling limestone like
Needles in a smoke stack, tears
The vines off their moorings, dashes
Green berries against nervous mothers
Vainly pulling fledgling chicks
From beneath the rock ledges

As the storm tears bits of oak leaves

grinds them with rotten acorns
And throws them at the base of the cliff.
I hike with my head down.

Emily Strauss has an M.A. in English, but is self-taught in poetry. More than 80 of her poems appear in public online and in anthologies. The natural world is her framework; she focuses on the tension between nature and humanity, using concrete images to illuminate the loss of meaning between them.

A Poem by William G. Davies, Jr.

Troubling

The woods

against the grey
of morning
are like a dark,
open mouth
full of rotten teeth
and mossy breath
that comes through
as if in church
it were at your nape.

William G. Davies, Jr. has published in numerous literary reviews such as The Cortland Review, Wilderness House Review, Gloom Cupboard and most recently,Miller's Pond and Absinthe.  He lives happily with his wife on ten acres in rural Pennsylvania. He is hoping to publish his very first book of poems in 2013.

A Poem by April Salzano

Battle at the Birdfeeder

Blue jays are bastards,

deceptive in their coat of contrasts, the first

to be admired by those who have spent less

time observing their terrorist tactics.

But I’m on to them. I know their tricks: steer

the cardinals away from the corn, pretend

the suet tastes better, then dive

bomb. Strength does not come in numbers.

They hate indiscriminately. They are not working

as a team, but by lunch, ten cardinals

are losing to half as many jays.

Red blends with the remaining dead

leaves so that the cardinals look like decorations,

poised in defeat, waiting for leftovers.

 

 

 

April Salzano teaches college writing in Pennsylvania and is working on her first (several) poetry collections and an autobiographical work on raising a child with Autsim. Her work has appeared in Poetry Salzburg, Pyrokinection, Convergence, Ascent Aspiration, Deadsnakes, The Rainbow Rose and other online and print journals and is forthcoming in Inclement, Poetry Quarterly and Bluestem.