Elation

If tires could score patterns into pavement
then these would be indelible whorls,
fingertip prints dancing like
overburdened bunting,
stretched until tight,
then released
to snap in rubbery tangles,
twisted and perfectly unplanned.

Everything’s reflecting
as visible music,
an evening composed in motion,

all the shining eyes aglow,
waypoints, lit fuses,
blurred meteors blinking
over darkened sidewalks

as I nod my ragged head,
frayed heartstrings
rubbed thin and ringing,
dilated gaze anchored

onto an uncommon image,  
gleaming up from blacktop water,
shimmering in joyful ripples
while earth flies by below,

constant and faithful, steadfast
as the path is abandoned
under shorn sycamores,
as the solitary garden patiently bears
a flattening weight, the fallen body
of a man in love with the moon.

by Joshua Herron

Changeling

Variegated strands of weather weave

their magic tapestry on my mind.

I revel in their changing voices,

interpretative attire, and cacophony.

 

I look forward day to day, no, even

every moment, to their malleability.

I love sun, blue sky and light breeze,

but no less mad tempestuousness.

 

The splendance of the greyest dawn

smiles, blows scudding across my day.

It is dramatic change I seek, almost

as the leech smells out fresh blood.

 

Fastening tenaciously, I suck the

marrow of the barometer’s change.

I meter not my days, but greet each

a new acquaintance, friend or lover.

 

I extend my soul in welcome as a

knight did his in visual declaration.

Holding no weapon, bearing no

malice, I am seeking no combat.

 

I wish only to enwrap, submerge,

enjoy weather’s spirited vagaries.

Each changeling child of revolution

brings her own unique enjoyments.

 

No doppelgangers exists in this with

the parting curtains of each dawn.

Regardless how low the light or loud

the music, my day is a unique option.

 

I tease out deeper meaning, affinity of

an All: earthly, ethereally, spiritually.

Therefore: every day is acquiescent:

geographic, atmospheric, temporal.

 

I, too, add or subtract from each day

by the attitude and demeanor I bring.

 

by Rick Hartwell

 

Rick Hartwell is a retired middle school (remember, the hormonally-challenged?) English teacher living in Moreno Valley, California. He believes in the succinct, that the small becomes large; and, like the Transcendentalists and William Blake, that the instant contains eternity. Given his “druthers,” if he’s not writing poetry, Rick would rather still be tailing plywood in a mill in Oregon.

Music

Have you ever felt music?

have you ever felt a sound?

have you felt it swirl through the air

until in penetrates you

stirs up the past and present

show’s you the future.

 

And you’re no longer numb

you’re alive, you woke up

the sounds come from within now

you’re the player

and the instrument

you’re the audience

every note is powerful and strong

every note has meaning.

 

Don’t listen – feel,

let it penetrate

let the sounds fill you

music is magic, it’s sublime

and listening’s too rational

feeling is the key of every piece.

by Jonas Cimermanas

Buddha Minds On Fire

Surrounded by the Buddha’s bounty,

a calming serenity hushes the crowd

as a docent provides a brief biography . . .

 

The bump of knowledge crowns his head with

Tightly bundled curls of second-growth hair,

Framed by long lobes stretched by gold earrings.

 

“Only real Buddhas have these three things!”

I hear her, but I wonder if it’s truly those that

make Buddhas something more than . . . men.

 

It is this “something more” in which to bask,

a golden warmth of subtle majesty renounced,

to shoulder the suffering of the world at large.

 

A larger world was what he sought,

the world of intense introspection,

in order to understand . . . himself.

 

With minds on fire and pillars of intellect,

exposed, crucified, pinned as for dissection,

performing mundane exercises, shoveling shit;

 

Bodhisattvas exchanging thoughts for actions,

expiring moment to moment in Phoenix flames,

waiting to be reborn . . . endlessly.    

 

by Richard Hartwell

 

Rick Hartwell is a retired middle school English teacher living in Moreno Valley, California. He believes in the succinct, that the small becomes large; and, like the Transcendentalists and William Blake, that the instant contains eternity. Given his “druthers,” if he’s not writing poetry, Rick would rather still be tailing plywood in a mill in Oregon

A Room

This was not just a room – it was

A milestone- a first communion,

A crisp suit, a new car, a fresh haircut-

A blank set of blueprints on how to be human.

It was a field where shoes aren’t needed-

Where you break curfew and don’t care about

Time or memory, where everything stands

Still because your mouth can’t keep up with

Smiling it wants to do. Eyes speak more

Than hands because they meet others and know

That there’s no need to hide and blow lines

Off of picture frames holding the dead eyed stares

Of mistakes and regrets. This was a room,

Where a beautiful girl and I first met. 

 

by Michael Murray

Cinnamon

A spicy seam, unraveled in a café, brunette with streaks. Jittering fingers unstitch brown and red; a smell like mad-heat buried in cheeks, flesh wild and fever-drenched. His lips are swollen on warm treats, but he stretches the peppered vein and drinks.

 

by Janae Green

 

Janae Green is a recipient of the 2nd Annual Gypsy Sachet Awards in Letters and Biography from Fiction Fix. Her poems and short stories have appeared in Atticus Review, Eunoia Review, Fiction Fix, Paper Darts, Poetry Quarterly, scissors and spackle, The Ofi Press, The Salmon Creek Journal, Turk’s Head Review, and forthcoming in various online and print literary journals. She lives in the Pacific Northwest with her partner, artist Shea Bordo.

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