Issue #42, Spring 2019

20 below . . .
talking fish-pepper soup
with the cab driver

Lew Watts
Chicago IL

night fallen hush
the soft sound
of my cat drinking

Cora Whitmore
Bangor ME

daybreak
a burst of pigeons
from the hayloft

Tom Painting
Atlanta GA

noon heat
catfish on the stringer
struggle as one

Bryan Rickert
Belleville IL

weathered oars
we fold our worries
into the river

Debbie Strange
Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada

rain puddle . . .
a refugee child stirs
the cold moon

Hifsa Ashraf
Rawalpindi, Pakistan

mom’s grave—
the breeze parts my hair
just so

Warren Gossett
Twin Falls ID

Issue #41, Fall 2018

pre-dawn stars . . .
plumes of breath
from a cattle truck

Paul Chambers
Wales, UK

first snow
pinned in place
with pine needles

Barbara Snow
Eugene OR

quiet prayers
fish gather at the mouths
of creeks

Glenn G. Coats
Carolina Shores NC

nothing
in the way
the spring sea

Karina M. Young
Salinas CA

snail shell
its pink
emptiness

Jeannie Martin
Arlington MA

dry village pond
the moon goes back to
the night sky

Vishnu P. Kapoor
Channai, India

dying embers
already morning
behind the mountain

David Gross
Pinckneyville IL

Issue #40, Spring 2018

against an old wall
a ladder waits for the sky
to climb down

Faiz Ahmad

Madras, India

summer morning
the sea washes
the old rocks

Slobodan Pupovac

Zagreb, Croatia

cemetery walk
a waning need
for revenge

George Swede

Toronto, Ontario, Canada

homesick
an empty bird nest
cups the snow

Alexander B. Joy

Bedford, NH

Blizzard winds
a single voice
is human

John Martone

Charleston, IL

my day in slow motion koi

Deborah P Kolodji

Temple City, CA

hilltop abbey
a midsummer mass
of fireflies

Tim Gardiner

Manningtree, Essex, UK

Issue #39, Fall 2017

coolness at dawn . . .
the stray dog’s shadow
somewhere in mine

Kyle Sullivan

Taiwan

temple gate—
the congregation
of worshippers’ sandals

Adjei Agyei-Baah

Kumasi, Ghana

empty street—
she stoops to pocket
a half-cigarette

Robyn Hood Black

Beaufort SC

winter passing the knife blade first

Cherie Hunter Day

Menlo Park CA

paper cut
I notice
she lies easily

Timothy Murphy

Madrid, Spain

monsoon dusk . . .
a butterfly settles
by the clothes clip

Kanchan Chatterjee

Jamshedpur, India

in puddles
stars coming up
for air

Elmedin Kadric

Helsingborg, Sweden

Issue #38, Spring 2017

zebra bikini
water drips from her
ankle monitor

Joshua Gage

Brecksville, OH

new cancer spreading the last of the grass seed

David McKee

Madison, WI

darkness
loosening itself
into dawn

Adjei Agyei-Baah

Kumasi, Ghana

tossing the ball
back and forth, a child
and the sea

Shrikaanth Krishnamurthy

Birmingham, UK

train journey
each one of us
a hula doll

Aparna Pathak

Gurgaon, Haryana, India

november
low
over
a
silver
birch
a
shifting
column
of
gnats

John Barlow

Ormskirk, Lancashire, UK

alone along the shore
the willet
in winter gray

Beverly Acuff Momoi

Mountain View, CA

Issue #37, Fall 2016

the eons I wasn’t here

the eons I won’t be—

winter stars

Billie Wilson

Juneau, Alaska

war zone . . .

amongst the rubble

an empty birdcage

Mohammad Azim Khan

Peshawar, Pakistan

muggy night

her swimsuit drips

from the open window

Nick Hoffman

Richmond Hill, Cork, Ireland

darkness . . .

her name slips

into it

Dave Read

Calgary, Canada

deep inside blue the sound of remembering

Jacob Kobina Ayiah Mensah

Accra, Ghana

setting sun—

a shucker’s knife

at the oyster’s hinge

Alan S. Bridges

Littleton, MA

bowl of persimmons

after a pause he says

I’ll think on it

pjm

San Jose, CA

Issue #36, Spring 2016

Father’s Day–

eating apple slices

off the blade

Chad Lee Robinson

tree crickets

all at once

the night sky

Kala Ramesh

Indian summer

her trip to the mailbox

barefoot

Rick Tarquinio

autumn hillside

a crow flies

as the crow flies

Bill Kenney

not by bread

alone . . .

cherry blossoms

Johnny Baranski

skipping

a stone across the sky

this world

Don Wentworth

August clouds

let the current take us

where it will

Jay Friedenberg

Issue #35, Fall 2015

the casket lowered

i wake daily

into the wrong life

Vivian Hua

You Are Here

the sunlit whirl

of thistle seeds

Christopher Patchel

our raft on warm sand

the icy river flows on

around the bend

Ruth Yarrow

starlings in her voice a winter’s worth of worry

Francine Banwarth

a wish list

for my next life

autumn blaze maple

Carolyn Hall

unplanned pregnancy

the hum of a beehive

beneath the porch

John McManus

night flurries

the express bus idles

by an empty bench

Joe McKeon

Issue #34, Spring 2015

ponderosa pine

what fog

makes of it

Cherie Hunter Day

post-op pain

the black crows

line up

Jenny Fraser

a passer-by

hidden in himself

falling rain

Ernest Wit

crack of dawn

the silence slowly

leaks away

Michele Root-Bernstein

Sunday morning

the distant clank of a train

some world or other

Philip Rowland

mirrored mountain . . .

in and out of the stillness

a trout’s silver skin

Robert Gilliland

sea otter . . .

the moon opens

on a stone

Debbie Strange

Issue #33, Fall 2014

empty park

two crows start

the world over

Robert Epstein

winter leaf–

how she cups the pills

in her hand

Marianne Paul

spring beginning

even the sound of the rain

is green

Alan Pizzarelli

bus stop

a plastic bag jellyfishing

in the breeze

Ben Moeller-Gaa

tulip stand

a tourist bends back

his phrase book

Sharon Pretti

flowing river–

the bereaved girl holds

a palm-full of water

Pravat Kumar Padhy

repairing the halo

around the streetlight

a flutter of moths

Stuart Bartow