Joy Olree

To Dance

My light it shines for all to see,
I am translucent yet fully seen.
My spirit it bids me dance, my
feet they follow suit. I am for
whatever reason a servant of
what is.

But, if in Gods’ wisdom it was
never meant these feet to move
then let him to my soul speak,
because it is for him, I worship
this way.

{Poem by Joy Olree}

Jeff Steinle

Beginning Alone

We look out to a cosmos of gargantuan expanse
Willing passage into night’s starlight dance
Wise nephilim through technology reveal
What histories thieves waive and conceal
Canals on Mars were proof at the last centuries turning
Chime in the millennium at a comet cult of lost souls learning
Consider crop circles two guys, two hours, a board, and a six
Crazy, silly, weird times and people humanity shall never lack
Iconoclast astronaut ingest the ambrosia via the ajar adytum
Inquire off the pale blue dot for isles of forgotten wisdom
Inhabitants valiant venture off verdant earth to the celestial
Skyward toward the face and ruins on Mars evidence of alien
Sanctum sanctorum awaits, satori, the ephemeral, the golden
Splendorous contact will raise God’s subtle and divine
shrouding
Stellar enormity belies eminent humanities imminent fated saga
Epochs will pass on emerald planets in the ebony void of space
Eclipsing ancient evidence keeping the enigma of a solitary race
Echoes of past revelations where vast galactic alibis will
astound
Eternally an Eden of stars and vestal planets will be found

{Poem by Jeff Steinle}

Robert D. Lyons

As Daylight Fades

Minutes become hours.
Hours are sprouting to days.
Time slowly withers away with the beating of my heart,
But spreads like my fears,
Which have now become phobias.
Even a stopped clock tells the right time twice a day,
And to my utter dislike, I am indeed drifting into the arena of the unwell.

Truth is the first victim of the fires of ill perception.
The match has been struck and flames spread like a wildfire in an isolated forest.
I try to embrace the sweet melancholy burns and guide them to caress the fires of my heart:
My inner anguish that turns even the robust rose I touch to the reminiscent atoms of ash.
The scars born from these foreign flames branch off throughout my once pale body,
Hiding my soul like clouds to the March sun.
The wounds of my past have reopened,
And I am watching all my insecurities leak out like a secluded spring.
The scent of blood is in the air,
And my predators are on the prowl,
Thirsty for catastrophe.
Uncertainty has engulfed my goals of bliss
As my thoughts follow these hollow catacombs,
And with terror, I believe myself lost in a world of intangible horrors.

A world in compassed with shades of blue
Where even the tiniest flaw is brought into sight,
From a haze of fluorescent light
Far more perilous than heavens gate.
I am at the mercy of wretched fate!
I never believed in ghost, until I became one.
Sitting in reflection of all the clashes that are far from done,
For I have sat idly by as daylight decayed,
I have yet to see a day without an ambiguous raid.
Helpless, I must stand, as if I am being toyed;
Destined for destruction, never to fill the void.

{Poem by Robert D. Lyons}

Kristyn Marie Taylor

Cartography

I grew out of this--
brackish water, heat and oak trees.
I grew out of soybean soil,
under cotton fields beside Choctaw burial grounds.
My sweat tastes the same as my tears
and my blood, unseen, is
the color of kudzu in April.

{Poem by Kristyn Marie Taylor}

John Grey

These Driven Ones

They wrote and they wrote
while ignoring the lives
they could have lived.
They ate to write. They made love to write.
They grabbed brief snatches of sleep
so they could write while awake.
What they didn’t write didn’t happen.
Who they didn’t write about
couldn’t exist.
But really all that happened was writing.
The only ones who existed were them.
They were snakes chasing some abstract tail
and every length of its body
was the stuff that poured out of them.

From birth to death,
they wrote about themselves writing.

{Poem by John Grey}

Donal Mahoney

Wound in Cellophane

The older women come to coffee
with cookies wound in cellophane.
They talk of children

or their children’s children
or their garden.
Or they simply sew

and watch the young girls trickle in,
buy berry rolls and coffee,
nibble, sip, lick fingers, blow

small parachutes of smoke,
and laugh a young girl’s
world of willy-nilly.


Widower

In the miner’s shack
the vase on the dresser
squats beneath
a giant cactus
planted by hands
flinty and callused.

“When Mona was here,
this vase got roses,
and lots of water.
After she left
I gave it this cactus.
It never needs water.”

{Poetry by Donal Mahoney}

Kenneth Soares

As the Mirror Shatters

As the mirror shatters, the glass falling like rain. So beautiful, So sharp. Like nothing I’ve ever seen. I lose myself, as it cuts me a shower of crimson blood. I don’t notice the pain as I see you over there my perfect angel. You walk over and protect me from the rain. As I see your blood I cry, my perfect angel in pain for me. You hold me tight as I cry in your arms; you’re always there for me. I try to push you away. You’re too good for me. You deserve someone ...better, but you just hold me tighter. You say "You'll love me forever.", and I want to believe. As the rain lets up and I can see your beauty. As I look in to your face I can see the truth. We stayed there til you feel asleep. I picked you up and carried you away with me forever.

{Poem by Kenneth Soares}

Matthew Rodgers

Time as a Dancer

Do not touch the rain forest
even for oil
the blood of the earth
the trapped light
makes shadows upon the walls
of butterfly skulls
and the gecko’s eyes
are like a rainbow
as the sound of rain
lulls restless souls
into escaping the darkness
but the shadows that follow
the phases of the moon
cannot be gotten rid of
and the solar flares
exploding in outer space
move through you
like wind passing
through the trees
vibrating effortlessly
as a myriad of peacocks
singing of beauty
shooting stars
remnants of past galaxies
flickering fireflies
like the pulse of time
and the heartbeat
of everyone
everything
the earth
the universe
free falling
through the sky
like a bleeding heart
that cannot be stopped
but bleeds and bleeds
letting go forever.

{Poem by Matthew Rodgers}

Bobbi Sinha-Morey

The Scent Of Love

On a day when the sun
flowered above I breathed
my soul back into me and
a roseate dream beckoned
me. The scent of love
brought me the sun's
warmth even nearer.
Today I will look in front
of me when before I
looked back at where
I'd been. It's a blessing
God's light shines in my
home, and every day
I live in the present.
I leave my heart ajar
for heaven's glow.


Rhapsody Of Shadows

Tonight's lazy rhapsody
of shadows have lit upon
my block and now I am
no longer afraid to let
you see where I live.
You'll never see a flower
grow in my backyard or
by the sidewalk, but the
fine under bone of hope
is inside my home and
the tangled evening
sunlight dances in the
street. Now I've nothing
more to hide for love
heals from the inside.
Memories of living
alone are pages of
dust blown away by
a silent wind and,
on the golden edge
of my sleep, my heart
hums a song now
that you are near.

{Poetry by Bobbie Sinha-Morey}

Susan Marie Davniero

A Garden Tour

A garden tour
Flowers galore
The garden gate
Floral beauty await

A flower bath
Lace the path
Bouquet beauty
Garden variety

Pansies in a row
Marigolds aglow
A sweep of peonies
Field of daises

Fragrance there
Pervades the air
Lavish greens
Poking between

Blooming find
Nature’s design
A visit today
Then, away

{Poem by Susan Marie Davniero}

Maria Arana

A Place for Me

This is a nice place to be
To roam above the sand
Talk to moving crystals
Enjoy the mud

This is the place where others come for
To lean on the dune
And cry for the waters
This is a nice place
A place to catch me
To tumble over foamy coasts
And lie with shells on the sand.


Stolen Love

To claim one’s love is to take its soul
Return it now
The pain is great
Claim another and my heart will weep

{Poetry by Maria Arana}

Johnny Sale

If I Should Go

What eyes may gaze, may lust and love; amaze
My soul if mine must learn to look away?
What heart may grow, may learn to thrive, to stay
If mine should die amidst a cold malaise?
But banished I reach beneath a gaze
For unremembered love that flew away.
Confined in barren homes and bleak array
I yearn for touch; what white incessant haze.

When moon should cease to glow on distant beds
And darkness hugs pink lady slipper’s hand,
Should Luna dim her light and opt to dream:
Reminiscence rings a golden band
Withal to lose and love is all instead
Of empty eyes, a hollow heart to scream.


Till She Gave Her Love to Me

I once loved her like nothing else
Till she gave all her love to me.
I wish that I could love myself,
I once loved her like nothing else.
I made her cry; heart on a shelf
She tried so hard to make me see,
I once loved her like nothing else
Till she gave all her love to me.

{Poetry by Johnny Sale}

Sebastian Lopez

Sarah

My symbolic queen and prayer.
I love your dawning tiny feet
and lizard membrane, your
slivered sugar towers
without sparkle that take
a man’s beige hand without
soft or firm affront...

{Poem by Sebastian Lopez}

Alan Britt

A Little Poem About Grief
(For Maura Gage Cavell)

Words sometimes seem inadequate in times
of grief, but poems are made of words,
and sometimes they're all we have.

You see, grief hovers above an unmarked grave
like a bleached membrane, or a filament dancing,
tilting left before losing its balance.

Exhausted, it tightens…trembling.

A voice removes its shawl of silk, wool, and salt,
and places the shawl above unmarked bones fast asleep
beneath graphite roots of moonlight digging with picks and shovels,
hoping to reach China, unless, of course,
they’re already in China,
whereupon the sun rises in the East
and sets behind a yellow mountain.

{Poem by Alan Britt}

Adam Dolewski

Travel

What a sight to see
A spot on the plane
One for you and one for me
All around the world we go
Stopping at different places we know
Bangkok, Bangladesh, Lima, and Rome
We visit all the best places within the bio dome.
But if you ask me where my favorite place will be
In Mile Square park with me family.

{Poem by Adam Dolewski}

Susan Marie Davniero

My Mother's Songs

My Mother’s songs
Her music belongs
The lyrics known
For her to own

Writing the verses
As songs emerges
Hear, so shall be
My Mother’s melody

As we listen to
Her musical menu
Forever long
My Mother’s songs


Easter's Lily

Easter had seen
Burst of green
In garden’s room
White lily blooms

Pure as white
Point of light
To grace the way
This Easter Day

Awakens spring
Hear Angels sing
Each Easter gives
Behold, God lives

{Poem by Susan Marie Davniero}

Holly Day

The Footsteps Overhead

at night
the thud of the dishwasher upstairs
sounds like voices. I crank
the baby monitor
way up, listen for monsters
in my daughter's room.

sometimes
I hear something on the back porch
behind my head
can almost see
the deranged face pressed up against the glass
hands ready to smash through
I won't turn around.

if I just pretend
everything's all right
it will be.
If I cover my ears
and close my eyes
it'll be all right.

{Poem by Holly Day}