One Poem by Kristal Flaming

Misleading Alice

Your skin is like something raw
and ripe. The taut
red of an apple
I am not allowed
to bite.

Under my illusion
I think I can taste
nourishment
seeping out.

You sleep beautifully.

I feel you twitch.
Perhaps tumbling
at the beginning
of a dream.
Down the rabbit
Hole. To the space
in between

you and me.

We are a fragile
facade. Carefully paired,
a Goddess and her God.
This image I hold
in my humanlike clenches.

Shift
too close
and I begin to tremble
slipping sobs.
You are engulfed in a land
of contorted figurines
and lucid colorful schemes.

I led you there.

When light
escorts you sweetly home
it’s likely I’ll have disappeared.
For now

I’ll cast a bewitching spell,
breathe with you and wish
to sing a rhyme you know.
One day to be without
transformation and know that

I am loved.

{Poem by Kristal Flaming}

One Poem by James Webb Wilson

Crystal of Dark Reserve

In the midnight crystal of dark reserve
A timid heart must never swerve
In the balcony of theaters there,
In warm aromatic April’s air
Distilled perfume of her mystique
In my imagination become unique
When fantasies at last come true.

There when the lights seem so tender
Two snuggled souls are the kindling
My heart became a master ages old
In a flood so sensual and bold
This ready flush in a redden blush.

Then there behind the ivied wall
Behind the evergreen shrubs in privacy
We’ll share our thoughts and utmost dreams
If Love is all that it seems.

{Poem by James Webb Wilson}

One Piece by Ed Beller

What Epictetus Knows

Epictetus says he will know
You are a good man by looking at you.
Maybe.
I know you can always know a crazy man
By looking at him,
By his eyes looking into an inner distance.
But a good man?
I know more about the eyes of a good woman
Wide, and mild, and love softened
Directing a stranger to the right bus.

{Poem by Ed Beller}

Two Breath* Poems by Patrick T. Randolph

Flower Embrace

Dawn's fingers
Peal back birth—
Petal-kissed Sky!


Walt Whitman

Poet ghosts
on the tip
of my pencil.

{Poetry by Patrick T. Randolph}

* Breath Poems = This is a particular kind of poem that I have created which requires the reader to be conscious of his/her breathing while reading the poems. The syllable count is 3-3-4. Ideally, you inhale the first three syllables, exhale the next three and inhale the last three and exhale the last syllable. The meter is more strict than haiku because you only have a 10 syllable framework within which to work.

Poetry by Darren C. Demaree

Black & White Picture #159

Define the precious
in the stone.
I no longer can.


Black and White Picture #157

When the land went off
the weather vane, took the weather off
the question marking
& slung it all back to the chaos
did we panic as much as we are now?
When all of the air, super-charged
as it is, becomes about guessing
how can we prepare for the sparks
that burn through the low-valley?
If the world is not a rooted system,
connecting weed to tree to vine,
then is it an animal? What new best,
what new burst will come with Belle?

{Poetry by Darren C. Demaree}

One Poem by Jonathan C. Holeman

Unrepairable

Many things I'd like to do.
Holding your hand at the final dance,
and seeing that smirk, and glitter of your eyes.
Tongue between your teeth,
as you grinned at me in the dead of night
over your shoulder, with me behind,
and nothing to cage our lusts.

There was a time when you looked to me,
and the look on your face was pure.
Yet over the years, I'd crushed your heart.
Your will became dust, beneath a starless sky,
and your hatred burned for me so well.

There's never been a place for us.
On Earth, or Heaven, or Hell,
too much pain, and sorrows caused,
some things can never be repaired.

{Poem by Jonathan C. Holeman}

Two Pieces by Ron Koppelberger

Belfry Doves

Into the pause of reflection and storms of utter
Pretense, a careful secret in amusements
Of confession and possession, a nightingale
In sweet songs of contrition, ethereal in bonds
Of unimpeded bliss. The succulent morning-tide
Dew in gentle rolling beads of prismic allure,
Descried as the tears of belfry doves.


The Thrall of Youth

An ambrosial season of wheat
In the course of scarlet alliance and seized shores
Of grain, a tender field of furrowed welcome
Defined by the rare wellspring rush
Of wild beasts and tame entrance to magical calm
And solstice, a serene quiet in the wills of balance
And the attested thrall of youth.

{Poetry by Ron Koppelberger}

Three Poems by James E. Roethlein

When She First Knew a Man.

A sigh
for her husband,
moaning, as he knew her,
her wide eyes, silently asking
for more.


The Flower-Scented Air

The flower-scented air,
masks a road of broken glass and thorn,
and I, the fool,
walked it barefoot for miles,
unwilling to take a safer road,
for fear of the pain of repentance.


Poets

We, the mythmakers and dreamers of dreams,
keep a sleepless vigil
in the lonely watches of the night.
Pacing the floor
in the silent realm of our room,
we give voice to the inexpressible thought,
speaking of patients etherized upon a table
and how she bowed to her brother,
of Daddy; of crystal stairs and the road not taken.
The world may sleep soundly tonight,
knowing that a poet is wide awake.
For it is said the world will end,
when the last poet awake, falls asleep.

{Poetry by James E. Roethlein}

Two Poems by Emily Deardorff

The Home, Seeking Shelter

We are proud of our heat. The desert's clatter of bone. We disagree
with your island--who needs that much water? The point

was not to lose teeth, you see, but to chew dirt and dig
a home for your sorrow's many rooms.

The dogs know this, and burrow down.
But we lose sight of things:

The summit, with the mountain underfoot.
The rain, with a river overhead.
The hot, with no horizon but the blue that the eye
bends back.

A fit started by a vibrant sound, and you like a fitful child suddenly distracted by a spoon catching light. You'll have to be weary and never winded. You'll have to find
a door for your regret and trust--

It's the house I lived in once and, I won't lie, still run to
every day.


Dishes in the Sink

And I suppose you're starved,
and from there the soul would tread softly to

break whatever silence, to admit a bit of bread or milk, and next

the doctor said glow
but you heard go

and did, the hunger of the week
worn in your face. So weakened, you might not have

the strength to seize each moment as it comes, or battle sick-nursing abundance when it's knock-knocking

at your door. He'll ask
for only what he needs. Which is to say

everything.

{Poetry by Emily Deardorff}

Two Pieces by Hanna Leiter

The Colors

All the colors blend in together
Colors that wouldn't go good together
Go good now with others mixed in
Different colors show different emotion
An explosion of color and emotion


Alex

Small, Little, Baby, only six and a half weeks old
All your cries make me sad, but they make me want to smile
And laugh at the same time because of all the cute little faces
you make, so cute

{Poetry by Hanna Leiter}

One Piece by Mitchell Cawley

In Shadow

You always said it was best
To leave it alone

They always said, you never know
What you have till it's gone.

My head follows orders,
My hearts only hand,
As the current flows,
Forever moves the sand.

You put me up to pull me down
How can it be?

The channels run together,
Connecting us as they can,
As the current flows,
Forever moves the sand

If you're going to drown me,
Don't take your hands away
Just leave me there
Forever moves the sand.

{Poem by Mitchell Cawley}

Two Poems by Linda Surratt Troxler

Escaping the Attic

Call me no name other than my own:
Woman –
hear how the sound of it rises and swells like ocean waves—
or else leave me nameless.
Do not call me Bertha, because you think it suits.
Call me Antoinette –
bold, full of life,
wearing red because it deepens the color of my eyes.
Call me Edna –
walking through Kentucky wheat.
Call me Jennifer –
stitching a legacy of tigers.
Call me no other name but mine,
because I have opened my arms,
leaving my attic tower –
not lending the use of my hair –
capturing wind, sun, sky, sea,
winging upward toward the sound of my solitary name.


Crossing into the Wild

I only need to take a few steps
off my front porch
to cross into the wild.

Some ladies,
dressed in cool linen and silk,
sip iced tea in glass sunrooms;
but I spend early summer mornings
and late balmy evenings
mowing wild grass,
wishing for a Ballentyne lawn:
cultivating wild daisies and
dandelions instead.
Tossing fallen brown pinecones
into the wood’s edge,
tugging honeysuckle vines
entangled in underbrush,
taking breaths of sweet perfume
as I pull at stubborn roots,
cutting green life short.

Pricking my finger on a briar bush thorn,
I wait on a prince
to break the spell
as I sleep in old white tennis shoes,
with no laces,
tainted red with clay
and bloodstained leather gloves
that reek of mown grass and gasoline.
Sweat trickling down my forehead
mixes with tears as I
cross into the wild
once more,
footprints leading to the middle
of the wooden bridge in the backyard,
then no further.

{Poetry by Linda Surratt Troxler}