From the category archives:
by Paul Hostovsky
For all his bluster
there was a sweetness
of surrender about him
that rose up like a shrug
when he rested from being right
the way the bulldozers and backhoes
at a construction site at dinnertime
are all finally perfectly still
the tines of their buckets
pointing upward from the ground
Originally posted 2008-11-10 12:45:02.
by Allan Peterson
Some trees have rubbed themselves raw
from each other
Like us both will die from such loving
but that takes years
Meanwhile we are doing the ordinary
looking for horse mint
for architectural detail  for bodies of dog flies
smashed with my hat
Originally posted 2008-09-12 22:47:54.
by Oritsegbemi Emmanuel Jakpa
Like life
Vice begets vice.
Watch with prudency
You do not get it.
It could just be the penicillin
From the pharmacist.
Originally posted 2008-04-27 11:23:08.
by Joseph Milosch
The pine window frames shrunk in the cold.
Snow, the poor man’s insulation, drifted
between the storm and our permanent windows.
Dad left the house at 6:30 am.
He’d return fifteen hours later
with frozen pastures smooth
in his face lines, a bull’s
butt to the wind in his right eye.
Fifteen hours of coffee, cigarettes,
two lane roads, paved or dirt and selling.
Reheated meatloaf and mashed potato dinners.
A few words with mom.
When a father has his hands
crossed, will his belt
forget its looped past
and become a belt?
Finding my chisel on the work bench,
I took a bite of the dog that bit me;
unwrapped the memory of the whipping I received
the day dad found his chisel where I left it
on his work bench.
[keep reading…]
by Persis M. Karim
It isn’t the dark circles
that underscore the eyes
or lines that break out
in latticework at temples
not the deep
grooves that signal
the constancy of smile
or frown
resting on the face,
or heaviness
of chin
bearing the weight
of difficult decades
but the pinch of skin
just below the ears,
like the apricot
whose golden, taut skin
settles into softness
after too much ripening.
Listen to: Signs of Middle Age
Originally posted 2008-09-15 19:07:10.
by Margarita Engle
Descending
into the land
of childhood
a yellow-walled town
on the coast
of light
memory’s
turbulent landing
each rediscovery
of time flow
and place love
always new.
Originally posted 2008-04-27 10:41:05.
by Dretta Grace White
Snow-Birds settling
Made all the difference
She thought of their
Settling
And of the light they gave
And became in her way
As grey
As they
by James Eric Watkins
embracing wind
encircles the universe
swirls the planet
consumes my senses
panoptically caresses the tall grasses
that sway
all around me
and night lies quietly against my skin