Three Poems by J.K. Durick

Glaciers are Melting!

We prize the tropics, cruise them,
Dream of beaches and slight breezes,
Warm ourselves with thoughts of
Escaping south, turning away toward
A constant sun, a sun to reassure us that
We deserve heat and comfort, that we
Were born for light and small shadows,
For beauty and bounty, for greenery and
Growth, deep flowers and dragonflies,
That we should float gently across the day,
Trailing a hand, a hand to write our names
In the warming water.



Humming Birds

If you watch to see
the solemn grace of them,
the face of them -
they're so hard to imagine -

they hover, move, maneuver,
a study of control this
small in proportion,
beyond explanation.

They sip the feeder
with a dignified calm
the other birds lack;

their wings blur, hold them
steady, like that.

Surprise us so quickly
we want to call someone
else to see them arrive,
then pause.

They seem oddly curious
so serious about their objective
to eat so daintily
and then they are gone.

 

Bats

They’d swoop and
stir the darkness –

one place
then another

they’d dive
attack like bees

but silent
unless we screamed

or our running
doors closing.

Their sinister intent
was vague at best –

catch in our hair
drink our blood

ruin bedtime
flapping the room

the stuff of dreams
and dark night

vampires and
willful witches

a part of the thrill
of innocent fear

easy to watch for
so easy to avoid

a childhood fear
so easy to describe.

J. K. Durick is presently a writing teacher at the Community College of Vermont and an online writing tutor. His recent poems have appeared in Third Wednesday, Four and Twenty, and Literary Juice.

Two Poems by William G. Davies, Jr.

Discovery

The day metamorphoses

by molecule, particle, atom
one collating with the other
in what we might
understand as pixels
and the more there are
the more expensive.
So I’ll look
out my window
a little longer,
I’m feeling
like a millionaire.

On A Windowsill

Their tiny, white petals

touch the cold glass,
a bargain is struck
if the flowery shamrock
can hold up
against an element
whose invisibility
is suddenly reflected
by delicacy.

William G. Davies, Jr. lives in a town surrounded by dairy farms. He has been happily married for thirty-eight years. His work has apperared in the Cortland Review,  Bluepepper, The Wilderness House Review, Gloom Cupboard and many others.

Two Poems by Anthony Ward

Symphony

I hear House martins like spitfires

Firing heat rays over roof tops,
Starlings mimicking a firework display of sound,
Swallows chattering upon the telephone wires,
The Nightjar croaking like a computer connecting,
Amidst the woods where the Chiffchaff chafes like a wheel
Stridulating against the Bullfinch’s metallic trill,
Where the Woodpecker raps impatiently through the day unspotted,
Only heard like the timbered calls of Tawny Owls throughout the night,
When the Nightingale practices rolling its rrrrs
Before the Song Thrush begins its overture to morning,
Back to the garden where the Robin gets fruity
Agitating Tits with their high pitched notes,
As Collard Doves chant united
Amongst a cacophony of crows that squabble and bicker,
Murdering the cheery sound of the Blackbird
Whistling the weather after the storm has cleared.

Winter

We witness the resilience of nature,

Bared to the bone as we layer ourselves,
Playing dead so that we may leave it alone,
Looking intensely beautiful amongst condensed afternoons
Where night lingers with crepuscule light throughout the timid day.

The silhouettes of solitary birds perched upon closed gates,

Attached to open fences
Exposed in their decrepitude,
While the robin’s breast,
Lacerated by the serrated leaves of holly,
Colours the berries with shades of intrepidness

While we reminisce upon those vibrant summers

Once apparelled in eternity,
Before the smouldering cindered embers turned to ash
Beneath the hoary fog-
The sky having decanted its delicate crystals
With the presence of life captured like light upon a film.

Anthony Ward tends to fidget with his thoughts in the hope of laying them to rest. He has managed to lay them in a number of literary magazines including The Faircloth Review, The Pygmy Giant, Shot Glass Journal, Pyrokinection, Turbulence, Underground, The Bohemyth, Torrid Literature Journal and The Rusty Nail, amongst others.

A Poem by Karla Linn Merrifield

Watershed Moment

Crossing wetlands

on parkway bridges
I travel June’s distances
in time to the Ice Age
its retreating glaciers
that scarred the landscape
creating Long Pond,
shaping Braddock Bay,
the “lakes” of Durand Eastman Park.
Did those swans first get their feet
wet in the Pleistocene?
Did geese pause in migration
parsing summers to come
as cold set free this inland sea
named Ontario? As if through
a geologic trick, I arrive
on Solstice Eve at the warm
watershed of grief,
with tears for my brother unfrozen
then dried by dragonfly wings.

Karla Linn Merrifield recently received the Dr. Sherwin Howard Award for the best poetry published in Weber - The Contemporary West in 2012. A seven-time Pushcart-Prize nominee and National Park Artist-in-Residence, she has had 300+ poems appear in dozens of journals and anthologies. She has nine books to her credit, the newest of which are Lithic Scatter and Other Poems (Heartlink) and The Ice Decides: Poems of Antarctica (Finishing Line Press). Forthcoming from Salmon Poetry is Athabaskan Fractal and Other Poems of the Far North, and Attaining Canopy: Amazon Poems (FootHills Publishing). Her Godwit: Poems of Canada. (FootHills) received the 2009 Eiseman Award for Poetry. 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 Christopher Kenneth Hanson

In Echo Bloom

As shadow blown
except entwine
in yonder breaks
Of drawn sea lurking
these, burst of dawn-
Comely, now rise-

In echo creeks-
Into the falls
Of lone sea groping:
Now eleasticity calls- in calamity fades-
Into the fall, into the falls

Oh, brandished kite:
Winds nigh the west
heed the land
As from the sea
As burnished now
In shadow bloom
As shadow fades
An echo would
now call.



Christopher Kenneth Hanson (ckhanson81)

ckhanson81@gmail.com

http://sites.google.com/site/ckhanson81
https://www.youtube.com/user/ckhanson81
https://sites.google.com/site/indieartsl/

 

Two Poems by Lance Sheridan and Barbara Sutton

winter flight

winter flight of the cold, of geese,

unfolds the frost, snow has no
forgiveness

the depth of the freezing temperatures

is in the reflected pond, the geese cannot
land

snow laden wings tire the unforgiving snow

below waiting to entomb the silhouettes of
autumn

the breath of the wind on the bough of the tree,

melancholy are sounds of warmer days
remembered

timelessness of the hills where inhabitants existed,

they feel the loneliness, the grip of frost, forgotten
footsteps

the sunset opens the window to the night, flurries

begin to fall like brittle glass, moonlight guides their
way

to dream of summers past

soaring, endless into
freedom.

sanctuary

wooded silence.

then,

chain saw cracks bark, cracks the spine;

trees measured out with yardsticks; after,

lay fallen like dead cotton on a homeless

man.

water fails to creep,

fails like a high school
dropout,

both, now unemployed

in a dead−end
job;

penetrating preachers arrive to give last rights

with pageless bibles,

more an exorcism…

boss man stands smoking cheap cigar,

tosses it, slow motion,
lands−smoke and fire

creep,

forest floor heats up

similar to a wood stove;

firefighters paid off

like street hookers…

wooded noise.

now.

heard,

“light touches the dead wood of

my soul and brings forth the
tender growth of hope.”

peace.

 

 

 

Lance Sheridan—Published writer—Bits and Pieces to Ponder/Self-Help/2002 .  Published poet—Poet Interview on November 8, 2012 by a Salisbury University Journalism Major/Salisbury, MD; poem 'Night into Day/Goodnight Till the Morning Sun'/11-12/napalmandnovocain.blogspot; poem 'Night into Day/Goodnight Till the Morning Sun' has been accepted for inclusion in the 2012 Best of Anthology, Storm Cycle.  blog—deadheadingpoet.wordpress.com; has received over 75,000 views since June 2012. One poet on my work, "Whoa … ur writing is incredible." April Pardocchi.

Barbara Sutton—Yet unpublished, she writes with great depth, emotion and feeling. Her imagery is exceptional. She has a style which I like to call, "a stimulating vibration"—one is greatly awakened by her words. Working with her helps me to articulate the necessity for change, to push the boundaries of conformity, to delve into a new poetic existence. You write more on instinct and inspiration, and you deliver that to the reader.

Two Poems by Gary Beck

Dead Zones, a poetic explanation

A dangerous process begins

when nitrogen-rich nutrients
from agriculture and sewage
spill into coastal waters
by way of rivers and streams
and stimulate the growth
of photosynthetic plankton
on the surface of coastal waters.
When organisms decay
they sink to the bottom
and are decomposed by microbes
that consume large amounts of oxygen.
As oxygen levels drop
at the bottom of the sea
most animals cannot survive.
Dependents of the sea,
human and animal alike,
suffer the consequences
of diminishing food supplies
as our oceans become sterile.

Hierarchy

The doves sit in the tree

afraid to come to the terrace
because big dove is here
and will peck any bird
who tries to share the feeder.
When he's eaten enough
the other birds land
and the struggle begins,
the feathers fly,
in the age old conflict
for dominance.

Gary Beck has spent most of his adult life as a theater director. His chapbook 'Remembrance' was published by Origami Condom Press, 'The Conquest of Somalia' was published by Cervena Barva Press, 'The Dance of Hate' was published by Calliope Nerve Media, 'Material Questions' was published by Silkworms Ink, 'Dispossessed' was published by Medulla Press, 'Mutilated Girls' was published by Heavy Hands Ink and 'Pavan and other poems was published by Indigo Mosaic. A collection of his poetry 'Days of Destruction' was published by Marie Celeste Press. Another collection 'Expectations' was published by Rogue Scholars Press, 'Dawn in Cities' and 'Assault on Nature' are being published by Winter Goose Press. His novel 'Extreme Change' was published by Cogwheel Press. His original plays and translations of Moliere, Aristophanes and Sophocles have been produced Off Broadway. His poetry and fiction has appeared in hundreds of literary magazines. He currently lives in New York City .