Chasing Butterflies

The ballet has gone on since dawn

--longer--roles scripted in genes.

She's the graceful butterfly, vibrant,

enticing; he, the hunter, confident, strong,

lured by her rhythm, lumbering in

her rainbow contrail with a clumsy net.

How clever she is, though,

deftly dancing out of reach

while desire climbs its peak

before slyly settling on a leaf,

never betraying surprise

at her capture, letting him believe

their union had something

to do with his choice.

(c)Bill Glose              2007

from The Human Touch

San Francisco, CA

So Sorry

you slumped into the chair
rounded shoulders
soft as the pillows
at your back

mumbled excuses
out of gas    just one time
traffic    death    birth
unavoidable acts of god
roll down the front of your shirt
each one adding a new stain
flat tire
didn't think

no names
no one to protect
no innocents here

a test pattern
thrown out
seeking pardon
to kiss and make out

but I know this story
consider finishing your sentences
having misplaced any outrage
long ago

returning to my writing
silently wonder
when you will leave

(c)Donna Campbell                    2009

published in Skipping Stones, Vol VI

Mindworm Press, Chesapeake, VA

North Street

I was happy in the small neighborhood,
our home wedged between
the other two-story white houses.

Narrow driveways threaded
like ribbons to gardens bursting
with tomatoes, squash, and eggplants.

I rode my bike for salami
and bread past porches heavy
with honeysuckle vines.

My mother, waiting,
retraced her steps over
the worn linoleum floor

as the sewing machine stitched
dresses for me by a grandmother
who spoke no English,

planted jonquils turning
the afternoon air yellow,
tethering me to home.

(c)Ann Shalaski           2007

from World Made of Glass

San Francisco Bay Press, San Francisco, CA

Like Praise

Sometimes I worry a line of poetry
Like a dog hassles an old shoe,
     Shaking the words,
               Pommeling them.
Growling in my throat
Until they tumble out
And rise from the paper
               Like Praise.

Then a word finds the key to my melody,
Singing soft as snow water over stones,
     Murmuring the tune,
               Rushing the rhythm,
Pushing in my mouth
Until they ripple out
And glow on the paper
                Like Grace.

(c)Philomeme Hood                         2003

from Ride Home Through Scented Grass

Pearl Line Press, Zuni, VA

Woman, Witch

"Raven hair and ruby lips, sparks fly from her fingertips.
Echoed voices in the night, she's a restless spirit on an endless flight."
                                                       - The Eagles, Witchy Woman, 1976 -

Moonlight pale skin.
Long, tangled black hair.
Flowing clothes, flashes of silver.
Dark eyes looking into you,
knowing you, and all your secrets.

Considering you for...what?
For a new passion?
A fellow traveler?
A dalliance?  An amusement?
Or a shelter of warm arms, a sage interlude?

The challenge is there.
Take it, if you are man enough.
You know there is a price;
the fire can't be quenched,
It will always burn     and burn.

And that is why they were burned?
In fearful Salem, or in Catholic Spain.
The dark eyes leave a hunger,
it hurts, it consumes,
and sleep is stolen, never to be returned.

So the night becomes yours,
long after she is gone.
To watch the dark, to wait,
to thirst in body and,
in that soul you'd gladly trade.

Give eternity away,
for the touch of those pale hands.
And the lips that are never still.
The fire that burns in porcelain limbs.
Brother, I know,     I wait,     and I tremble.

(c)Jim Meehan

published in Skipping Stones 2005

and in Ripples

Mindworm Press, Chesapeake, VA

Helen

The soft rasp of skin against skin,
hands, waltzing through conversation or
palms like chests,
melding, communicative.

In the Afterwards --
while he, on the edge of the bed,
exhausted but replenished
cradles his temples in his own hands,
droops his head between his knees.
   There is the shadow of sensation
   in the valley of his shoulder blades

During --
those were the palms,
cupping the balls of my hips (inside
that grip my joints rocked,
rotating within themselves like our
flesh within flesh).
Behind me he formed the vortex of our angle --
we felt strong enough
to support walls.
   We could have built the Parthenon
   over and
   over.
And days later --
in the Afterwards --
just talking to men would birth them,
tight flashbacks where
I felt entire cities erecting within me --
memories of our garden of pillars.

Indirectly, in his hands
forms solid as marble were burgeoning
(definite as rhythm or gasping)
Rome and all her colonies like capillaries
beneath my skin,
blooming and inverting
blooming,
stone peonies.

(c)Katie Panateo

published in Skipping Stones 2005

and in Ripples

Mindworm Press, Chesapeake, VA

the cherry picker

steven's cherry was the sweetest because he was.  a silent
afternoon in the stillest apartment, brown furniture and the last rays
of grey winter sun.

steven tanned so thoroughly in summer, with lively hair burnishing
and smooth cheeks matching.  green-gold eyes and long shy
eyelashes.  it seemed he'd never lost his baby teeth; his permanent
ones had the spaces between like a child's, and he smiled lots.

we were quietly crazy for each other; best friends guarding a secret,
but we didn't know what the secret was.  it was a bond of class, of
poor white child and striver brown girl in a crowd of
accelerated-track geometry jewish kids who really liked us but
couldn't really have us over.  we kept each other up on the tele-
phone many nights, daring curfew givers to stem the flow of conver-
sation about
teachers and camping, politics and friends.

such a delicate alliance, and completely unspoken.  i don't
remember ever kissing him before then, full on the mouth, or after.

he was anxious at the beginning, acting as host to his own
coronation -- or execution --
ushering in quite deliberately this critical rite.
and he trusted me to make it painless, harmless, to be his ally.
          laughing a little,
               gasping,
     working,
making our way
          to the other side
we stayed naked under blankets for a long time, knowing that we'd
never lie that way again.  recognizing my need for flashier lovers and
knowing his demons were just at the door.  such a sweet, still time.
sticky and cool.

i told most people everything, but that afternoon was religion,
meditation, and could not be translated to the profane.

i'd like to do it again.

(c)Toni Wynn                    1993

from the place within where the universe resides

the Shakespeare Press Museum

Her Twelfth Summer

- for Jade Nicole Richardson -

In Her twelfth summer
the after shocks of Her birth
still rattled the earth
And the seven waves of a tsunami
made way for the generations
She would soon birth
The hearts of the prophets skipped a beat
which lead to temporary confusion
about Her destiny
But Her bloodline was royal
and the consistency of mercury
Her failure would mean a world calamity
Her fight to regain composure
was like a prelude to the apocalypse
acid rain fell in a futile attempt to
erase Her beauty, the sun and the wind
came to Her rescue

Then on the dawn
of Her thirteenth summer solstice
the universe shifted on its axis
a new moon joined the earth's rotation
and a star born thirteen light years earlier
seemed to appear out of nowhere
on the dark horizon.

(c)Nathan Richardson

published in Skipping Stones 2005

and in Ripples            2007

Mindworm Press, Chesapeake, VA

silent space

words stumble over each other
like children learning to ride a two-wheeler
as we struggle for conversation without confrontation
my heart feels bruised and scarred
we've collided before cold air and hot air
crashing into thunder
angry words tossed about
branches swirling in stormy winds
our hearts split into wedges
trees struck by lightning
when my sexuality took issue
against her religion
from across telephone lines
we stand my eyes scan my living room
searching for a word any word
to place into the silent space
that sits between my sister and me
although we live in the same town
she's never seen my apartment
or any of the furniture i now own
the only words that come to my lips
are used to describe my new bookcase
how beautiful are the brass knobs glass doors
and the mahogany stained wood frame

(c)debbie lass     2003

from gaily forward

Keith Enterprises, Inc

Lola Weeps

She shakes as if her
bones were dice tumbled
from the gambler's hand
tears spurt like blood from
a sliced artery
her face swells into
a revealing mask
she turns from the lamp
though she's alone.
Darkness breathes
around the house like
the stomach of
Jonah's whale.  The clock
hands march with loud clicks
but her sorrow won't
scab   she weeps the
river in which
Ophelia drowned   she
weeps the acid brewed
in her uterus
she weeps flames and
the night burns.

(c)Serena Fusek          1991

from The Color of Poison

A Slipstream Publication

Niagara Falls, NY

Must We Break Our Hearts Again?

Here
There is nothing     to uphold     or hold back     or fear

Something so easy     as making love
So so good
Eyes     your eyes     swim in mine.

Hands     on skin
Warm     on warm     on warm
And yes and yes     yes.
This moment     we are so much greater
This place     arrived at together.
This     Now
This brilliance
Wide awake
Our horizons break     open
To glimpse     something     on the other side.

Don't write a song about it
There aren't enough words.
Words only complicate.
Trust
We will remember the way back
To each-other          ourselves.

(c)Amanda Hart Cravotta          2008

published in Skipping Stones, Vol VI

Mindworm Press, Chesapeake, VA

The Last Love Poem for the Love of My Life

When we would lay
like we used to lay
your cheek would rest over my eye perfectly
matched
like we were once Siamese twins in a womb
our heads molded to one another

Shockingly the most important thing I learned from you
is not related to love or marriage
It is not emotional
because smoking is a habit
not an emotional response

If you let the cellophane slide through your
forefinger and thumb as you hit your
palm, just so
You'll hear a smack
like the tobacco is
screeching its last breath
If you do this six or seven times
turning the pack in your hand each stroke
the paper will form a dust ruffle around the tip
It burns right off
but you won't lose your cherry when driving

You taught me how to pack my cigarettes
and our sleeping cheek filled
my eye socket
That is all I remember about our intimacy
That is all I remember about the love I had for you

(c)Cheryl Snow White     2007

from snow white lies

New Car Smell

When love's touch was new
It was a treasure that came for a while,
Like puppy's breath or new fallen snow,
When every touch was limned in fire
And every conversation an orchestrated symphony,
When I would drink your spirit
And live upon your sweetened kisses.
Then was when you heard what I said
And we slid our thoughts together into one note.
Then was when you pondered my emotions
And caressed my heart with fingertips dipped in love.
Then was when words were always tempered with reverence
And the sharpest disagreements dissolved like sugary candies.
"Love lasts forever," you're not the first to say--
So intense was your gale
Beating upon the doors and rattling the windows--
"Love need never change;
It's the people who decide not fate nor time."
That was when our love was new.
Yet no matter how clean you keep it,
No matter your energy and fervor
Nor good intentions of bottling it up forever--
The magic of that new car smell always fades away.

(c)Lisa Kendrick                    2009

published in Skipping Stones, Vol VI

Mindworm Press, Chesapeake, VA

One Less Color

dedicated to Lib

Furniture fills the house
carpet paves the floor
lamps flood the rooms with light.

So many things
and the house is yet
empty.

Material things
are simply the silent mediums
of a world of memories.

How many stories
inspired laughter?
How many gathering
filled vacant evenings?

Once vibrant mirth,
sent from this house
by unforgiving silence.

In times yet to pass
this will be forgotten
by the names and faces
of the future.
This will be unknown.

Unremembered memories
aborted before possible
conception in the heart
an unlived past
unwittingly haunting
shadows of the future.

Courses change
and with them
change the
venues of potential.

Raindrops of the past
soon evaporate into
rainbows of the future
with one less color
to brighten the sky.

(c)Allyson Jacobs

published in Skipping Stones 2004

Mindworm Press, Chesapeake, VA

Mount Fuji Blues

The saying goes that one who never climbs
Mount Fuji is a fool, because its views
are glorious--breath-stopping majesty
awaits the traveler to its ice-kissed peak.

But so also the saying goes, that one
who climbs Mount Fuji twice is twice the fool,
because it's painful and exhausting work:
too hot, then cold, and hellfire on the heart.

So that is why, my dear, I leave you now;
we tried our hands at love, and it was grand,
but scaling once that dizzying height was too
soon followed by the treacherous descent.

You say that next time we'll enjoy it more,
But I say, Darling--I've been there before!

(c)M. Lee Alexander     2007

from Observatory

Finishing Line Press, Georgetown, KY

Tuesday Morning Breakdown

She saw it black and hard
through the air before it hit
her face, a smacking thud
pancaking her packwards
against the wall, her ear
splitting open on the picture
framing a farmhouse, a meadow
green, where fluffy white sheep
were grazing, peacful.  Splotched
now red molasses-wet,
it etches a new scene
of heavy breath and vacant eyes.
Lucidity loses in a time warp
wavering before her, the cast iron
frying pan dangling, useless,

until it's time to cook the eggs.

(c)Nancy Powell          2007

from How Far Is Ordinary

Mindworm Press, Chesapeake, VA

The Cinnamon Peeler's Wife (2)

I did nothing but think of cinnamon, searching
for that insistence, the fragrance of a word
I never found, delirium.  You knew nothing.

When we arrived home from the airport
we made love that late afternoon,
dusk light.  Fear slowly settled around me.

"Do you smell cinnamon?"  "Yes," you said,
"it's a surprise."  Downstairs, in the kitchen,
you removed the bread from the oven--

cinnamon-raisin.  butter melted, we took our first taste.
I told you about the Cinnamon Peeler's Wife.
Then it happened again.  After I left home for my office,

what would I need to survive the day?  I hurriedly picked
out several stems:  daisies and one black-eyed susan
for  five dollars.  While I saw my first patient,

the florist delivered a basket of daisies
with your unsigned note:  I forgot to tell you
how good you smelled this morning.

(c)Elaine Walters McFerron     2004

from Double Solitude

Green River Press

My Ancester's Voice

Lately I've been withdrawn,
trudging the realm of identity.

Wacha, my ancestors, it is your
ash and manna that intimately

unveil the words of Torah.
I open my eyes, eagerness still

shines through.  Fig, almond
in bloom.  Curled at the edge

of my bustan, a starved soul
full of fragrance, so pretty!

(c)Michal Mahgerefteh               2009

from In My Bustan  [In My Garden]

Poetica Publishing Company, Norfolk, VA

Music for the Living

In Vietnam it is said
music is for the dead.

1.
From grief came a vow
to keep her voice low,
attuned to memory
of duets in G.

So unmelodic years
stretched, like a wound
steel string, silent and
unfretted over ebony.

2.
Once prone in shadows
of loss, rosewood and spruce
are again vibrant in deft hands;
a perfect tone is releaseed

from sorrow's restraint,
and rises up to console
the living mother
of another lost son.

(c)Allen M. Weber                  2009

published in Skipping Stones, Vol VI

Mindworm Press, Chesapeake, VA

Service

No bulletin for the first of the daughters, no hello.
Heavy doors, dim vestibule, temptation to yoo-hoo.
This dream of the holy place, all dogged week
of clotheslines and dust cloths, certain as the smoke
from burning barrels in the unison of wind.  Hardly
grace in their arrival, toes turned out, heels high.
But they study no doubt, sit as though thinking
in thanks for tributary streets, everyone walking.
The old tongue's children tread particularly
as though each season disguises ice in northerly
shadow.  Let them contemplate the font
that blessed their names, wait as they were taught,
and where.  It's approaching time
to hallelujah, jaws taut, fierce with volume.
Unwrinkle laps to rise one half beat ahead
of the organ the way the pull of the belfry rope, audible
the entire height of the steeple,
sets the sanctuary sounding like bones in the head.

(c)Jay Paul                           1999

from Going Home in Flood Time

The Ink Drop Press, Painter, VA

Dance in a Small Kitchen

Early in the morning
They dance in the kitchen,
Exchanging places with a twirl
From toaster to coffeemaker -
A sort of pas de deux -
Yet not really aware
That they are waltzing
Gracefully back to back,
Then face to face
With a sophisticated glide.
It's a curious choreography -
This morning dance -
And it is reprised
Whenever they meet
In their small kitchen ballroom.

(c)Beverley Isaksen          2007

from I'm Not Leaving Yet

National Geographic and Cosmopolitan

She wore her skin outside as natural cover
And crossed a glossy page of jungle stream,
So tuned to green and finding steady footing
That camera lens was just admiring gleam.

She caught the light in bronze and fawn and black
Inviting none yet turning no one back.
Her adolescent curves, both broad and lean
I've carried long for scent of something clean.

The sly cosmetics topping flash of flesh
Herald Cosmo's monthly cover girl,
An icon pushing breasts and other products
Pouting playmates pose in blush and curl.

Who's to guess the gap between innocence and pretense?

(c)Wayland Yoder          1997

Friday. July 3. 1942

Fickle faded.

Shades of love and

sweet eats.

Like hot cross buns,

a hot cross Daddy.

Out too late,

curfewed too soon.

Ten minutes

more or less.

Less time,

more freedom,

a soul confides

you're the one.

Fitting remark

following the

parental intro.

Love shaded by

blinders of

sweet biscuits of youth

and sweet times.

(c)Phyllis Johnson      2008

from being frank with anne

Community Press, Virginia Beach, VA

Woman in an Abaya

You look at me with envy,
disapproval, curiosity.
Returning the multi-layered stare,
I wonder if you, too, are having
a bad-hair day, if you're kicking
yourself for eating that extra
cookie last night.l  Lucky you--
hiding so much behind
your black facade.

How odd we'd each feel,
exchanging places for a day.
For you, how liberating
escaping all that black--
revealing your beauty for the
world to gawk at, finally asking
why only he--who in fact might
have one or two other women to
see--should be privy.

As for me, how luxurious to
disappear behind black--slipping
into it as if into a warm bubblebath.
Could keep pajamas on all day
underneath, go an extra day or two
between shampoos.  Nothing to loose.
Not have men gawk at me.  Get into
flaunting mystery.

(c)Diana Woodcock                2010

from In the Shade of the Sidra Tree,

a chapbook forthcoming from Finishing Line Press

Limbo

She's still asleep, the doctor said,
But it's not cancer,
I didn't have to take her ovaries,
Just cleaned up the endometriosis--
You see, the body regards endometriosis
As an invader, so tries to
Get rid of the accumulation
And that causes pain and inflammation...

He murmurs, Thanks, Doc,
Shakes the doctor's hand,
Suddenly sees the green pajamas,
Looks down at his black jeans,
Black shirt, black coat, the glittering
Metal brads, the black boots...
Taking inventory of himself...who he is.
He starts to tag along after the green pajamas.
But stops himself.  They won't let ya.
Don't go there.


She's still asleep.
There's nothing to do
But wait till she wakes up--
The nurse'll come get him--just keep
Pacing the floor, watching
The traffic through the glass of the atrium,
Eyeing the others in the waiting room,
Encased in pools of silence like jail cells.

Nobody to talk to.
nobody to listen to.

He doesn't belong here,
It's time to move on.
It's an alien hostile world
Without her.  She isn't here.

She isn't even his.
He can't talk to her,
Can't shake her shoulder
And say Wake up, Lorene,
Wake up, the baby's crying,
Can't send his hand
Snaking under the covers
Till he touches her flesh
Smooth, warm, ready.

So this is what limbo means.
You're nowhere, you're nobody
You have nothing to do
And no one to do it with.

He drops into a chair,
Stares through, past the atrium
doing that nothing

With that no one.
Till the nurse comes, smiling,
Some kind of St. Peter at the gate.
She's awake now.  Come with me.

(c)Anne Meek

published in Skipping Stones 2004

Mindworm Publishing, Chesapeake, VA

Whenever Possible

Whenever possible, drink
Sunshine from a buttercup.
Eat honey from flowers with the bees.
Swing on a rainbow.

Avoid reality.
Eschew mediocrity.
Ignore limits.
Turn a deaf ear to reason.

Ruin your shoes walking in a swamp.
Pull up Indian pipes.
Smear blood root on your face.
Hunt for animal tracks.
Lose your jacket.
Forget to go home in time for supper.
Bob on a raft on the ocean
Until you feel the waves
All night while you sleep.

Wonder which man to make love to
And consider each one in detail.
Imagine dancing Swan Lake while
You doze on your porch.
Eat toast with cinnamon sugar
Make fresh rhubarb pie.
Go to New England to buy apples in Autumn.

Paint a wild, terrible piece of art.
Hang it in your bedroom.
Squander money on a truly outstanding handbag
And

Stop trying to save your life.

(c)Wendie Donahue

published in Skipping Stones, Vol VI

Mindworm Press, Chesapeake, VA

Square Dancing

The little kids rush
the circle
toes squished like raisins
minus the sun
I used to rush the circle
grabbing sweaty hands
spinning past
no names
and prominent professionals
they were all the same to me
there are four corners to a square
this is where the trouble starts
little kids
rush the circle
never mindful of the rules
gleeful
without the corral
of someone else's idea
of fun
always better to
run...
every square dance
has a leader
an uninvolved reader
pulling do-se-dos
and alamand lefts
from his back pocket
like the memories
of third grade
first day
in a new school
let's square dance
gym class nightmare
I say he never forgot
the cootie covered hands
revenge is sweet
think of all those
bruised feet

(c)Angela Copeland                   2008

published in Skipping Stones, Vol VI

Mindworm Press, Chesapeake, VA

Sunday Morning

It is Sunday morning and a north breeze stirs
the antique oaks whose canopy hides the sky
to the West, gray night lingers, hesitant to depart.
in the East, pale dawn sends slender fingers,
probing the foliage of the oaks and pines.
the birds bestir and leave their nests,
seeking sustenance from the feeders in my yard.
quieter on this day of rest, the street, busy on other days,
would be filled with platinum lights and scarlet
heat from passing cars, sporadic colors seen
through the green of my neighbors' yards.
my gardenia bush holds aloft white scented blooms,
amid green leaves I see fawn feathers stir,
as wee birds who rest there suddenly take flight,
wheel and soar into this Sunday's morning light.

(c)Anna Alexander

published in Skipping Stones 2006

Mindworm Press, Chesapeake, VA

I Don't Believe in Fairytails

You are bent like the scar on my heart
into the shape of a question I cannot answer.
Perplexed, I can't help but wonder if we aren't

more alike than we both think, tiny dancers
tip-toeing away from what we know can kill
us, calm as the bloom of cancer.

How can you smother the unbridled and bucking will
of the animal in you galloping toward
the stars?  Your eyes, rusted as mars, betray desires unfulfilled.

Wind blows in your hair as you fast-forward
into a life where that hard stare falls apart
alongside the winding white cord

that choked you in the first place.  There is an art,
I'd argue, to peeling away from
the dead parts of yourself, separating darks

from lights and the long lonesome
fight to own what was never promised,
the sweet and subtle hum

of a lifetime you've missed.
But how should I know, I'm just
you, lost in the mist.

(c)Corey Nixon

published in Skipping Stones 2007

Mindworm Press, Chesapeake, VA

sugar lips

"what can I get for you, sugar lips?"
her flirty query casually cut through
a cluttered friday-almost-evening
at a bar overlooking houston street.

she was greenwich village stunning:
impossibly tall with a chestnut mane
that helped conceal her backless top
and big, scary blue eyes that never blink.

she didn't need to call me "sugar lips,"
even if they pout like james dean's,
underinflated a few p.s.i. shy of perfect,
since my honest bride never called me that.

while I let it slide, it was unnecessary;
with all her bending and stretching for beers,
she was well on her way to a great tip anyway;
she just moved in for the kill too quick,

like interrupting someone asking for your number
with a kiss, catching them open-mouthed like a
fish in a barrel, taking the fun out of the hunt
of this dark wood, smoke-free forest of alphabet city.

I ordered a "day-old" beer, laid out an extra buck
and watched her move on to "sweetheart" down the bar,
then "honeybaby" a few stools further, she the
robotic amazon warrior queen for a day.

standing out like she did on an island like manhattan,
enough to keep men three-deep and drinking deeper,
I'm left with the memory of her pet name, but not
her face -- only the scars she hid from me.

perhaps if she offered an outstretched hand,
and not her long limbs and supple insecurities
I could stop being "sugar lips"
and she could start being "herself."

(c)Tom Shachez Prunier               2008

published in Skipping Stones, Vol VI

Mindworm Publishing, Chesapeake, VA

Sanctuary

Curb all this technology!
We can't hear the poetry!
Who can hear Byron, Shelley, and Keats
If a jackhammer's screaming in the streets?
Who can take in Whitman and Frost
If a drill''s at work and the lyrics are lost?
Trees are falling -- it's getting worse
When you can't read a Maya Angelou verse
Who can hear Joni Mitchell singing
If some stupid cell phone is ringing?
A poetry open mic is the place to be
Come, let's camp at the library!

(c)Ann Catherine Braxton          2009
published in Skipping Stones, Vol VI

Mindworm Press, Chesapeake, VA

Mirrors

Detritus Shingles down by grain and grain.
Do we have all we need and want today?
The furniture has slowly gathered stains.
But do we have all items in array?

Do we have all we need and want today?
The moving van goes open in the rain.
But do we have all items in array?
The men begin to carry it away.

The moving van goes open i the rain.
The weather man said it might snow today.
The men begin to carry it away.
The snow and rain persist.  It's all in vain.

The weather man said it might snow today.
The truck is full and now begins to sway.
The snow and rain persist.  It's all in vain.
The road is opening the end of day.

The truck is full and now begins to sway.
The furniture has slowly gathered stains.
The road is opening the end of day.
Detritus shingles down by grain and grain.

(c)Dawn L. C. Miller

published in Skipping Stones 2007

Mindworm Press, Chesapeake, VA

Body

On the bed,
you look more like
a dark and mysterious
mountain range,
the candlelight casting
shadows on you like sunset.
I travel every trail,
stopping to hold
handfuls of earth,
warm and moist,
squishing between my fingers.
I sing and dance
in apple orchards,
lush and fragrant,
patches of undiscovered
wildflowers with butterflies.
I roll over your lands
like wind, like
a breeze,
a kiss across acres
of rolling fields,
a promise
of a summer storm,
of rolling purple clouds
and a gentle warning
of warm rain.
I imagine
a small village
nestled inside
your hip,
a close-knit community,
scrambling
as the ground beneath it
trembles,
and I almost hear
the villagers slapping
their shutters shut,
as the thunder rumbles
through their wooden shanties.
A couple smokes dope
close to where your inner thigh
slopes down,
maybe under the cover
of a plastic blue tarp,
sitting on a picnic table,
the heavy rain licking
their flip-flopped feet,
waiting for the storm to pass
for their inevitable return
to the world,
desparately hoping
this might be
the storm that lasts
all night.

(c)Jeff Jones

published in Skipping Stones 2006

Mindworm Press, Chesapeake, VA

Mirrors

Give me some poor reflection,
before the light changes,
Let little shoes dance me,
bright sparkles joy me up
from my bent fingers
and give me
a soft coat with a good name to frame my neck
with a warm concealing collar.
Let me draw it up
and look in the mirror
seeking some revelation past it all,
an essential truth
reflected by small shoes
and soft coat.

May these trappings conceal
and reveal
some truth of me shining
before the light fades too much.

(c)Dawn L.C. Miller

published in Skipping Stones 2007

Mindworm Press, Chesapeake, VA

I Remember You

Vacant eyes search for meaning
But the key is a tangled cobweb of highways
My voice sounds like a cottonball
Where the words are buried deep in a wreck
Called dementia.

A haze of ammonia scents your windowless room
I cradle your withered body
Someone whispers you are a prisoner
Locked behind stolen memories
Packed away on your dusty bookcase.

I glance up to your mantel
Littered with photos of a joyful past
A redhead of twenty-one on her wedding day
Full of future, full of hope.

Moments of lapse started at fifty
Laughed off over sips of chamomile
Until cobblestone roads led to dirt paths
Now sans a name.

I remove your dusty trophy to bring your past closer
Sparking the fire with my only match
As you grab my hand and say,
"That's me!"

(c)Carolyn Sanford

published in Skipping Stones 2007

Mindworm Press, Chesapeake, VA

Moon Minute

The day collapsed around me
in concentric rings
Like a traveler's old fashioned tin cup,
circles encircled,
a maze within itself.

Sunset poured wine across the evening sky
and stepped aside
to accommodate a moon.
I took flight past the shoulders
of Orion into the arms of the Seven Sisters
who do not forgive neglect.

The stars whispered,
"You linger too long!  Take care!"
One brushed against my lips,
"Neglect love, pay dearly!"
Another sparked twice and sang
before she danced away,
"Remember melody!"

Enchantment waylaid, for a moon minute,
but here I go again,
unfolding my empty cup.

(c)Philomeme Hood          2003

from Ride Home Through Scented Grass

Pearl Line Press

Suspended

"I cannot hear my own
voice."

A wild river
rages in my brain,
overflowing boundaries,
where thoughts struggle
to surface as sentences.

An ambulance screams
announces an emergency,
my emergency.

I see a wooden cross
on the wall above the door
as we enter.
I am comforted.

A nurse connects a heart
monitor.  It beeps assurance.
Oh, another cross!

My husband removes my rings.
His lips move silently,
perhaps a prayer.
Thoughts race.
How sick am I --
Our grandchild just born --
Our children so far away --
My elderly mother --
Damn, the new sofa!
I am only fifty-six,
helpless as a clock without hands.

God, my full bladder releases,
the sheet's wet as a baby's diaper.

I am caught in a tangle of time
               Where tic does not move to tock.

(c)Laniere Gresham                   2009

published in Skipping Stones Vol VI

Crossing Guard

light glints off reflective tape seen in the
mirrored toes of spit-shined shoes --

hurry

hands gensturing,
arms flying,
eyes snapping --

hurry but

take care

(c)Melissa Beebe 

published in Skipping Stones 2007

Brooch

A hundred miles
to where we spent
the rest of your life.
Did you call me here?  Why
today?

Twenty years
since you wished for
your wife, the unattainable
emerald, beyond a teacher's pocket:

White cameo kitten
in green mist.
I knew it on sight
today.

Estate Jewelry.  Some son traded
Mom's baubles
to the dealer, including
the brooch.

Twenty years
on a wealthier breast;
just displayed for sale
today.

Bargain price.  Snatched
up, in seconds.
Dealer will never
know what he sold me.

Seven years
I have mourned you.
Your fleshless kiss warms my lips;
emerald cat purrs silently to my heart
today.

(c)Patsy Anne Bickerstaff          2009

Moments of Grace

for teachers

in class
when the student
says something
you would have
but out of their
mouths it is
glass breaking
bubbles through
the nose, pure
oxygen

Sharon Weinstein         2005

from Celebrating Absences

It'll Be All Right

Do not forget to entertain strangers, for by so doing, some people have entertained angels without knowing it.

Hebrews 13.2

Sometimes a message
Plunges deep and clean as an arrow.

I looked left and there she was,
A tourist stranger like the others--
No gossamer wings with Gauzy feathers no
Harp glissandos,
No weeping clouds or silly halos.
That's not how it was.

Dim bulbs bathed the
Old Town's Kowerkorts Cafe in late March.
I sat alone on my tall bar stool
Pensive when she found me,
My restless soul yearning to stretch
Beyond the Baltic borders, the Nordic cities.
She came to me direct and unadorned,
Hair short and tinted, glasses thin-rimmed
Like her friend's and a thousand other Finns.

With a thunderclap,
Her simple words hit their mark,
Prophetic, so profound they stunned.
When I woke, the door was clicking shut.
"Wait!" I longed to shout.
I stepped outside onto the ice.
Nobody moved, no shadows nor retreating figures,
No movement left or right.
Only wind breathed along the street's canyon.
My stool sat empty.
I paid my bill, took my coat,
Headed home.

The angel's words found my soul
And set me free:
"It'll be all right.
It'll be all right."

(c)Christy Lumm

published in Skipping Stones 2007

Birthday Poem

Everything is easier in water

I can almost remember when
to bend meant nothing, its arc
jubilant, when a kiss was easy,

limbs in fluid motion, tended
to precise geometries, noses,
mouths put right immediately.

Fitting the bow of another's body
takes no thought, born aware, we
sense how to maneuver skin to skin.

The warm shower encourages
recollection, we are never closer
to birth than when we are wet,

some part engaged in gentle dance,
enough to create the longing ache,
then fill it, the earth's curve a bed.

(c)Shann Palmer                    2008

published in Skipping Stones, Vol VI

What You Said

You told me that a lie has no foot
To stand on or to run away.
It is an amputee, a cripple
Born of regret and pride
Lost time and rash decisions.
It is like an infant
Dependent and needy.
So we feed it to stop
Its crying, its tantrum
Its constant need that makes me
Want to hurl it across the room
Hear it thud against the wall
Watch it slide, neck broken,
To the floor.

This lie without a foot is in my head;
Hard to shrug this image, this deformity
Has a life of its own,
Breeding other hobbling lies.
Yet I settle in, and breathe you in,
Feel you near me, next to me, replacing
The nameless, faceless need.  My hope,
My Maybe has your face and your name, and it is
For this Maybe, I cup my hands and hold this lie.

(c)Kindra McDonald

published in Skipping Stones 2007

Photograph

The photograph is of my grandmother early in the last century.

She was a plain woman, but the camera found her smile

with which she’d light up a room and my heart

whenever we were together.

Where she got it I don’t know,

for her mother and mother-in-law were tough, stern women.

Oh, they were that way for good reason.

Her mother was the widow of a Confederate veteran,

and her husband’s mother came south after the Civil War

to educate former slaves and met my Great Grandfather Jacob

while he was being spit at on the streets of Lynchburg

for doing the same thing.

Her name was Louise

which she conveyed to a beautiful, brown haired daughter

who left it to my cousin, Nancy.

Unlike almost everyone else she loved me

simply because I existed with no qualifiers or fine print clauses.

She could have found lots of reasons to dim her smile:

her fractious sons,

her weird grandson who sometimes used her house

to escape the pressures of his own,

severe limits her society put on her conduct.

Instead she emanated warmth from her deep well of affection.

I don’t have a picture of her best accomplice in affection.

Her housekeeper, Sadie, was almost as free with love,

and hers had a more familiar, earthy feel.

I’m blessed to have known them both.

(c)Wayland Yoder          2005

Five Silences

When silence enters the body of the child
He speaks
And the crippled ghost dances

The beginning of time
Was a feather falling silently
Landing in the fierce river of a woman's hair

I empty my pockets
My pockets are empty
I am silent and I will die this way

My heart is a sleeping baby
My wish a dragonfly
Blooming on my silent tongue

Sweet woman, dip me
Into the silent boughs
Into the white swamp of your kiss

(c)Eddie Dowe

published in Skipping Stones 2005

and in Ripples

Class Picture

I'm the one who doesn't know
what to do with her hands.
The one wearing her mother's pearls;
front row, third from the left.

I want to freeze-frame the moment,
stay suspended under glass
and never leave.
Never have to say I know

where I'm going,
or what my purpose is.
The others, so sure of themselves,
are eager to take off

when the shutter closes.
But I know nothing of beginnings,
distance from here to where I fit
in the universe.

So I concentrate, fold
my hands, search the lens
for a place, and I pretend
to smile.

(c)Ann Shalaski          2007

from world made of glass

San Francisco Bay Press

I Wait for a Name

I wait to know my name
My fate in tiny hands
My future appellation
Locked in tiny lips.
I am so smitten with the boy
I do not care what I am called.
I only care my daughter's son
Knows grandmother loves him.

(c)Beverly S. Outlaw          2007

published in Skipping Stones 2007

Temple Rubbing

"Penny wise, pound foolish," my father liked to say.
I don't know how he came by this expression and its

mixed currencies.

It was the sixties:  buddhist monks set themselves
aflame with petrol, while Twiggy posed on the pages of Time
and Newsweek in miniskirts easier to copy than the way
other people lived.  We were six hours from the capital.
America and England, farther away--like snow in storybooks
where people dressed their skins in fur and skated on foolish ice,
buffed to the consistency of glass.  A heart could twirl
so effortlessly on its surface, hold hands with another,
as though the thinnest spot could know no breaking.
I knew he meant be careful, don't take unnecessary risks,
the reason my mother planned months and months
how she might wheedle for a row of sewing
machines against a wall, bolts of cloth her genre,
knotted frog closures and silk rosettes
her signatures.  Admiring bias cut or drape, her clients
thought Hong Kong or Manila, she glowed with pride.
She trained my eye to color and design, my tongue
to lexicon of ruffle and flounce, chiffon, raw
linen, the way a simple seam described the willful
piecing of parts so they could be what they were,
and also beautiful.  When the loan officer arrived
with papers saying here sign and countersign,
my father changed his mind, withdrew
collateral.  Since then she's returned to that moment
of risk, regretting how it wasn't all hers to take.
Years later I see I've taken after her, after all--
papering my walls with books though friends remind me
there are public libraries, hunting the poem's elusive
thread while everyone else sleeps.  I dream of what it's like
to skydive even once, of the view from a two-seater plane.
When it rains I hunt the grocery aisles for sunflowers.
Do you understand?  Extravagance and desire, not
necessarily the same.  One look, one touch can make
all the difference, the bow traveling an extra measure
across the throat of the violin to sing the notes that the wood
housed, before the instrument was made.  I think of an Indian
temple rubbing, the wealth of coppery detail the crayon transfers
from stone and the paper's heavy grain into your hand:
distance collapsed in the image of the woman opening
herself and bending at the hip to receive the radiance
of the god, his many arms, his dancing.  The mouth
that moves upon another mouth in silence, as if a torch
were being passed through darkness, as if
it were the only thing that mattered.

(c)Luisa Igloria       2005

from Trill & Mordent

Wordtech Editions, Cincinnati, OH

Magnitude

     -- for Terry

Friday nights we gather at
a Mexican restaurant
to whine about failed diets,
traffic jams, noisy kids,
mundane events we carry
like stones in otherwise
uneventful lives, wishing
for something--anything--
to scatter the span
of similar days.

Until it does.  Until,
one day, one of us
discovers a lump
in her breast, comes
to dinner with blue targets
tatooed on her sternum,
in her armpit, waits
for flesh to be cut,
chemicals to drip
through veins.

The mass--a mere dot
on a mammogram
X-ray--is large enough
to place normalcy
in past tense,
something we crave
and can't regain
no matter how
many margaritas
we sip.

(c)Bill Gloss          2007

from The Human Touch

San Francisco Bay Press

Pride

All the women inside me,
we mew for attention,
we purr.
Feed me now
me now
me now.

(c)Kara Norman Hill          2010

Bi-Coastal Break-Up

Alfred Stiegliyz once
kissed another girl
in front of Georgia O'Keefe.

She had just walked into his studio
on a trip back to New York
only to find him lip-locked.

She blew him a kiss
gave him the finger and
walked out calmly,
poised like a ballerina.

Georgia
was not the kind of woman
to cause a scene.

She flew home to New Mexico
gathered all the photographs he had taken of her,
put them inside a clean, white envelop,
and mailed them back across the country with a note:

Alfred darling,

this is the only me you can have.

The desert is full of bones

and I plan to stay here.

My empty rib cage feels more open now

against the vast blue sky.

Your lens was never big enough

to catch me anyway.

You should hve known

that I could not exist in

black and white alone.

(c)Cheryl Snow White     2010

from Snow White Lies

Last Dance

Let me at least sit back up
for this one, knocking the atoms
of the coffin awry, de-connecting
a collar bone, dropping a hip,
tossing wrist to sky and slipping
clean through this old costume
I've sorely outgrown.  Let me
learn the steps as I go--
no flesh to fool us, no panting
and moaning, no words between--
just the beat, without the bloody heart.
Grab me by the gleam this time,
the silver swing of soul unhinged
and baby, blast: blast through
gravity, tear up time, nuke
this dull earthly dish
Let me shine and rise
Let me ride the blue-gold pulse
of the universe divine
Beam me up, bounce me out
Warp me in, swing me through
Anything but dark
Anywhere but down
neutrons humming loose
protons sparking apart
electrons ringing
something new
High and light
Shimmer and flow
Sing it loud now
Pulse it on out
Oh sweet black honey
eternity on your hands
you done, finally,
this time
got it
all
so right.

(c)Vivian Teter          2007

from Edge by Edge

Toadlily Press, Chappaqua, NY

Offering

I didn't recognize you
at first.
scanning the airport awaiters
my eyes touched you
and almost kept moving
but my heart
had stopped.
you were formal, unsmiling.
when did you finally smile?
hours later when the ice floe had
broken away
and wawa market
held us in suspended animation
we finally moved,
bumped against each other,
grinned like we never did
in high school --
glorified in our escape,
snug as twinkies.

you tortured me at the
gas station, leaning toward me enclessly in your car
whispering,
I'm gonna get a map, okay?
leaning into me so I had
no space of my own.
me the audience just waiting
for the kiss and aching
from the torture.
wanting to
smash my way out of your car
and run back to our midnight
bed where interrupting the rush
and cascade of clothes in the dark
you moved to kneel behind me,
gently releasing the buttons
just below the nape
of my neck.
this treatment
comes easily to you.

pauses and negative space
balance the crowd of red
loving and blue blue memories.
you offer me drowning
and stillness
and I accept.

living with you
is a breathing experiment.
a musical measure elegant with rests.
starlight in peripheral vision.
breathing in the dark.
serious,
unsmiling,
never alone.

(c)Toni Wynn          1993

from the place within where the universe resides

The Ghost

Come to tea and talk with me
Talk of days gone by...
I need to recall the past we shared
Was it sweet and dear as I remember?
Now the days close in around me
And nights are lonely.
Grasp the memories and hold on.
So quickly they pass by as a kaleidoscope,
Mixing and stirring, reflecting.
If a song would help, I'll sing
No guarantee of return
To semblance of what has been.

Please, don't leave yet...a moment more.
We are together and I feel your warmth,
Your touch so gentle and I know you are near.
Have another cup of tea, my dear,
Stay close so I can hear your voice.
Tell of our times of joy, none of sadness,
not now.  I need the peace of your company.
The pleasantness, just knowing you came
To sit with me on my birthday.
We really should have some cake
But, no matter, we don't have to partake
Night is coming and we should go.

(c)Beverley Isaksen          2007

from I'm Not Leaving Yet

Harbors

                to Joanne

We reach them as a cat reaches, rolled
as long as it can stretch and yawning.  We want
the air--by which we mean the resonance
of the salt and breeze and any mammal leaping
too far away to hear--want that great space
against our pores.  Windows?  Want them open.
Clothes:  off.  Do we think film lurks everywhere
we have skin?  Photograph that one, we say,
and that, that.  It's possible in a village
laughing with gulls to forget the way we walked
or pedaled and gasp toward a laugh of our own
that, as often as we turn, we'll never
account for the long choosing that's kept us.
Remember the old man selling pastry
and fudge, the one who'd climbed the steeple
and seen the destroyer erupt, the U-boat
surface?  He had that to tell, sprinting the sand
and street of oyster shell, and still had,
counting the coins and bills back to us.  One day
we'll riffle through our common purse for who
knows what to hand as change when someone asks.

(c)Jay Paul                    1999

from Going Home in Flood Time

The Ink Drop Press

For the Wintered Bee

In my mind she rose from nightmare songs of the carnivorous

birds of spring; rather, it was the quickening sun of a newborn

faith.

She was a mad scout from a city asleep, testing the pane

between herself and a triumphant waggle over fragile white

blooms.

I pried the sash open to admit the bewildered Lazarus bee;

but the shamrock on the sill was neglected and root-bound

like me:  soon she'd find it yielded comfort less than her

enduring sleep.

How unkind I thought it must be to find so little of a past

in her post-resurrection world--no clover honey, no swarming

hive.

So for her I would bring yellows--vibrant daffodils--from beds

more reliable than my own; we would share droplets of honey

and sweet green tea; and in her gratitude, she could never ever

sting.

But she too was laden without a queen, and me, I was just a man,

a different kind:  soon she'd come undone by my failure to re-enact

her tribal dance.

It was only in her last second days that she found too much want

in an Australian shiraz, and perished into a bottle left carelessly

unfinished.

Oh, but didn't she live; wasn't she loved!  Surely none would tell me

it was all without a purpose.

(c)Allen M. Weber

published in Skipping Stones 2007

Mindworm Press, Chesapeake, VA

Classy-fied

Seeking females,
fifty-plus,
all colors and sizes.
Come join us.
Must have spunk
and lots of class
and toasting words
to lift a glass.
A love for fun,
a gift for mirth,
a yen for adventure
at their second birth.
Look good in red,
or purple
or pink
and like wearing hats
and feather boas
oh...one more thing
must like to eat out
so have no doubt
this ad attracts
a special type of passerby
it caught your eye...
now didn't it?

(c)Phyllis Johnson          2007

from HOT and Bothered By It!

Community Press

Descending

Isolated
she lies on
a single bed.

Not a waking ray
or a soothing song
is permitted.

She smiles
throwing her bony arms
to hold me close.

I caress
her hands and cheeks
with hope.

But the letters
on her chart
brandish thorns.

for her
the shechinah
is visible,

like descending pollen
in the wilderness.

(c)Michal Mahgerefteh     2009

from In My Bustan

Poetica Publishing Company

Cinnamon Peeler's Wife (1)

I am the cinnamon       

peeler's wife.  Smell me.

            Michael Ondaatje

Night.  My hands shadow yours along my calf,
across the space between my shoulders,
my breasts, my face.

Before marriage, I imagined,
your touch, the yellow bark dust,
the surrounding scent.

In the beginning I enjoyed that marking,
an announcement of your occupation
on me, of me.

I smooth your hair,
place my mouth on your forehead, taste
droplets of dust, residue from each poor.
Inhale the spice.

4 a.m.  The coolest hour.
Now, I must remove myself to seep
in rose, rinse in buttermilk,
sprinkle vanilla and saffron.

I stand naked in the melting rain.
Only a slight scent remains
on my inner thigh, the stain of yellow dust.

mid-afternoon.  My sweet becomes sweat,
your perfume, your private.
notice the blend, marking
a slight insistence of cinnamon.

(c)Elaine Walters McFerron     2004

from Double Solidude

Green River Press

The Bedroom Clock

Reads 2 a.m.
Red digital lines
of today.

The day closed,
still as a locked church
before even the stained glass

has come to life;
shut against the sunlight
and the news that will

break into my life, a thief
who steals my time,
measured out

in pieces.
They make no sound,
except to breathe,

intake of air so silent
my lungs hurt to stay quiet,
and then, rise only by degrees,

inches that cannot be heard
for fear the news will be bad,
and the alarm will sound.

(c)Nancy Powell

from How Far Is Ordinary, 2007

Mindworm Press, Chesapeake, VA

Remembering

I remember
nights of nonstop love-making
days of never getting tired of staring into your eyes,
nights of feeling completely intoxicated by your closeness
days of anticipating just one more touch from you
nights of kissing your sweet lips
days of feeling so special, so lucky to have you by my side,
nights of holding each other close the whole night through
days of just sitting together for hours holding hands.

Oh, how I wish I could have all of this again with you,
so I don't have to spend days and nights remembering.

(c)Sandi Ratcliff

published in Skipping Stones 2004

The Grocery Game

"You're so lucky!" she exclaimed
As our carts accidentally clashed,
Hers full, mine nearly empty.
"Just look at you, you lucky girl,
No cheerios, no pudding pops,
No handy-wipes or birthday hats,
Just dried figs, yams, and tofu,
Frozen peas and pickled beets--
I'd never dare bring that lot home.
Got to go now, thery're all waiting,
Bye for now, I envy you!"
So joyously she swept along
And left me to my happy task,
To clench my heart, and force a smile,
And linger down the baby aisle.

(c)M. Lee Alexander

from Observatory, 2007

Finishing Line Press, Georgetown, KY

Ebb Tides

He looks at her and sees
the pain of yesterday's existence
as her eyes reflect the darkness of his
illicit past, emotions crest and ebb,
like the tides along the sandy shore
when he can look no more he walks away,
recalling her eyes' reflection of the
stranger he'd become, knowing he's
no longer the Adam in her garden.

(c)Beulah G. Skinner

published in Skipping Stones 2004

Dark Lover

Dark skin
like steaming cafe latte
or sugared cinnamon-
my favorite treats
Dark eyes
between curling lashes,
a brown pool
in which I had to bathe-
Dark hair
softly curling
about your face,
i could not stop from grasping-
Dark Botticeli lover
with whom I never spoke
but whom I had to have.

(c)Lisa Kendrick 2009

Hill Medicine

She knew the sun
          the burnt crook of nose
the dirt of fingernails
          the voices on the evening wind

She knew the secret
          of the green leaves
the churning waters
          that carried fears away

She let the wind speak to her
          not always listening
the stout wood barn door
          shut out lots of noise

the force she felt flew
          from her slender fingers
inherited from the medicine
          in her mother's hands

Not all voices familiar
          some spoke from plants
some once bore children
          none hers

They rose with the smoke
          of campfires uncounted
they spoke to her soul
          in their own private language

It smelled in her nose
          tasted her tongue
the dust in her eyes made her see
          the hill was alive

The deer heard, rabbit too
          the bear and antelope,
snake eagle and fox
          they all understood

Understood nothing
          without her
the untangled umbilical cord
          returned to her unchallenged

What sacrifices could be offered
          to give the answers she needed
the waning moon so cold
          to a lonely woman

They found her--twist of dried root
          bowl of spiderwebs
nothing to claim
          riches in handfulls of dirt

Cleansing crept like a sliver of light
          into the sweat lodge of her mind
upward with a steaming prayer
          down again in the palms of her hands

In her but not of her
          belonging to the ancient mountains,
the far distant sea, a secret
          held in a rock in the river

Dirt, hair, bone and blood,
          behind the wheel, in front
geography unimportant,
          just home.

(c)Jack Callan and Mary Curro

published in Skipping Stones 2007

Athens

Nothing special in Athens except
about the Parthenon, the Acropolis, and outside the city,
the wind that blows across Poseidon's temple
onto blue sea, the coast.
We eat roasted lamb; we taste eggplant and garlic.
The coast is hot and blue, and everyone is nervous.
They live to be good hosts.
Remember Penelope?

In the city, packs of wild dogs roam the streets
terrorizing children.
If you remember, this is how the squirrels became our enemies,
they stopped fearing men.
The dogs think "What can man do to me?"

Red fox dog, the men bend over to offer me,
some teeth are rotten but most are white and unspoiled,
they bend to half-opened windows--
red fox dog--let me breathe, I say,
in the heat that presses down my soul and burns my skin,
I feel like saying nothing, getting into the shade,
luckily hot rock heat is blowing wind,
where they prayed to Poseidon on the red clay earth rocks
leading down to the sea and Aegeas first caught sight
of the black flag choosing his desperate ride
down through the wind to the cold blue sea.

Red fox dog.  Athenian night.
In the Dionysius theater,
one crumbled backdrop,
one blue night, one star above,
we hear the voices of the Greek people
and we know by their songs that they love their children.
This is Aegeas' curse.

Red fox dog, barking in packs,
the ancient dust, Athena's white face, stiffens my hair.
I am another pillar standing with my sisters and brothers
on a windy hill.

Red fox don, Athenian nights.
As the cab driver picks his nose,
sucks his sugared tea and replaces it in a plastic drink caddy
hanging beside the grimy steering wheel, shrugs,
he'd rather not take us anywhere, ashes fall lazily off the dash,
he doesn't shave or bathe,
he lights a cigarette in the warm blue night--
and yet the tiny women walk by
in short soft pink dresses with matching plastic pink purses,
their olive skin is perfect, immune to Athen's slow death.
This is Athena's blessing.

Red fox dog-Athenian nights.
On the mountain behind me, razed by speculators,
a pack of wild poodles is barking, enemy
of the nightwalk on the mountaintop cut stones
to the white orthodoxy where inside
God's fire paints maroon and teal and gold.

We eat Athenian nights.
We lick its dogs.
We drink the glue sky and sit on top of the white church
while wild dogs bark at our feet.

Red fox dog, Athenian nights.
Can you see in the distance a hearty stone Zeus laughing,
years of mischief and still the people of Athens are always late.
So spake Lysistrata.
The earth's own woman.

(c)Jill Winkowski                    2008

published in Skipping Stones Vol VI

Ut pictura poesis

for MRC

My mind's camera will dwell to keep

Images of moments so easy to share:

Your smile ethereal as grace,

Sparkling eyes like moonlight on the Gulf,

The soft topography of breasts,

Warm lips assimilating mine,

The strong sculptural curve of your back

Melting beneath my kisses,

As April snow beneath swelling sun.

All this for nothing,

Nemo, 

Me.

As if some better symbiant

Borrowing my lapsed body,

Spoke perfect syllables in an unknown tongue.

Why did I ask about your magic hair?

Words too honest and tender for my ragged mind.

What foolish prattle will next be uttered,

When my charmer has left me

And the real self sputters,

A motor without a spark?

Only now,

Without a claw to rip the fabric of the night,

Might I search for a fortress of eternity

To protect my livid newborn hope.

Instead just here I lie,

Letting you wrap me into a nest of minutes,

Unbroken and unstained.

Failure, exile thee to a distant land!

For if you return with armies of despair,

I will die laughing with remembrance

Under your sullied blade.

(c)James F. Gaines          2010

Christina's World

after Andrew Wyeth


Is she you or me or all
of us when we are
lonely, isolated from the world
of the living lying far beyond
our reach?  We struggle,
drag, and claw, helpless crabs
prowling for the ocean.

Art spectators mesmerized by
this vulnerable girl flung into the pinching
and pricking weeds the color of whites
after laundering with darks or the batter
of a recipe gone wrong.  Monochromatic
colors invade the murky, unmemorable
anytown New England.

Her dress is pink-blushing,
life where none exists:  hinting
at health and happiness not enjoyed.
Her legs sprawled
in a lifeless pose.
A slight, sheepish
light - a timeworn wedding band - encircling
the dilapidated farmhouse:  her promised land.

But she never gains ground:
Devoured - like the true colors
of paint mixed in rinse water - by
the bleakness.  The sky, the color of
city snow:  the farm -
a tomb to engulf her.

(c)Martha V. Maurno

published in Skipping Stones 2004

Hear

her back is turned to me.
I imagine I see where her
slightly pooched hair
hides her hearing aids.
she looks plain that way
like the back of an old building
without windows that
conceals all but its plainness.
from behind she is a movie screen
before the previews start,
an immovable parked car
stuck in silent snow.
when all I see is
the back of her head
I know I can scream
the way crazed fans do
or make battlefield sounds
and kamikaze crashes;
they bounce off her
as quietly as sunshine on sunglasses.
when her back is turned,
she cannot hear unkind whispers
that might rattle me
and sometimes do.
hers is a backless world
of expressive faces and
requests to repeat what
the rest of us hear the first time.
when her back is turned,
noisy streets are swept away
and she tells me the sound she hears
is the chatter of angels.
I ask what they say
I tell her I want to hear them too
and she opens her arms
to me

(c)B. Koplen

published in Skipping Stones 2005

and in Ripples

Innocent

Baby Blue the silent sky
Innocent her eyes
Baby green the garden path
Innocent her steps
Coffee grounds in hand
To place that dark and grainy
Homage of the morning
At the feet of the azaleas,
Petition for petals to come: 
          Shouting Cerise
          Singing Life Force
          Murmuring Forever

...Then On the firewood rack
She saw the Cooper's hawk
Talons gripping the iron rod

Eyes searching, head turning

Watchful, mortal, her steps
Backward

(c)Anne Meek

published in Skipping Stones 2004

and in Ripples

She Inherited the Morning Star

She inherited the morning star
and the hymns of purple roses
seduced my naive presumptions
dancing beneath stained-glass
twilight tarnished by centuries
of metallic rain.

Angels congregate over the passion-
seas of lust, shaping the daylight
in her image and blessing the indigenous
people crossing her liquefied serenity
in small rafts built from the essence
of high civilization.

She claims the sun as her husband
and the moon as her first born daughter,
the pulsating stars are her reigning sons
but before she can finish her ritual...

I wed the night, climb the tallest tree
of the pulsar, sing slave songs while sitting
on the shoulders of an eclipse before
returning to my thatched roof hut where
my wife stirs my dreams in a cast iron pot.

Clay statues of prophets meditate
beneath her timeless wind-chimes

Her message swings in the far corner hammock
humming divinity's mating call.

She folds her spirituality in black velvet
and places the honied residue on my lips.

(c)Synnika Lofton               2004

published in Skipping Stones 2004

and in Ripples

Muktar Bibi

Born into poverty.
Muslim child, daughter, innocent heart.
Pakistani village,
protecting a younger brother
punish the family name.

Dragged across an empty field,
screaming, kicking, begging.

Tears of shame,
unable to look at her father.

Standing outside a mud hut,
five men take their turn,
gun to head,
no shame,
their mothers unable to speak,
fear of reprisal.

Mukhtaran held to her faith in God,
not wishing to end her shame by taking her life,
standing up to those with power.

Raise the children under the lantern of truth,
teaching respect for all human life,
child of God, blessed with grace.

Mukhtaran Bibi,
a voice heard in the wilderness of pain,
screaming for justice in the morning sun,
Pakistani sun, world sun, knowing the truth of your faith in God.

Teach the children, free their hearts, raise their minds to a world

held bright.  Ride on the wave of

freedom, no longer hiding in shame, for you did nothing.

(c)Joel D. Marable               2006

published in Skipping Stones 2006

and again in Ripples