Category: flight (Issue No. I)

Halycon

Hilda Coleman (Jupiter)

I am kindly haunted by
the colors that dress my mind
of purple,
pink, and yellow,
a swirl of the trix-yogurt
I used to like as a kid

at 6am today
the morning was fluorescent,
intrinsically connected to
the city,
the palettes of color
aligned to resemble art

it was simple.
it was just like when we hiked this
together, except now

I was mixed
into the sky,
adopted by nature
All I needed were wings.

As I hiked that mountain myself
my hand laid on my chest,
echoing vibrations,
blood pumping
thump, thump,
My breathe shortened, then
rose up again,
like a thermometer
up and up
I was so alive.
my wrist beeped, as it read

“200 BPM”

and all I could think about
was how alive I could feel,
without you.

Hilda Coleman (Jupiter)

Journal Entry:

War blew in, blew in savagely
against and with sway. March 8, 2017

Judy DeCroce

green soldiers of March
tipped, tipping to a fall
in a theatre of engagement
uprooted casualties 

their twist and snap
swelling piles of death
bullied to the last 

by a weapon unseen
falling without grace
branches, lost limbs,
tangled or straight 

yet there stands victors
victors among them—distinguished
in wind’s accent

Judy DeCroce

the tricks of bandages
A.H. Lewis

It’s like a free fall
and your marrow becomes wind and your eyes are parched,
but down isn’t a direction and up is a beating heart.
The hollow parts of your lungs where breath no longer hides:
the questions arise from there.
Did we jump? Was I pushed?
Midair, it matters little.
So many pretenses, now this one of flying.
How long is the fall? Where is the earth?
These are the tricks of bandages,
the sweet poison of empty philosophy
like a pacifier for newborn screams.
We have to be close, what else could there be?
Despite the view, it dawns:
we weren’t meant to fly.
I dare to peek our progress—
there is no stitch of ground; we cast no shadow.
But my, how far we’ve fallen.

A.H. Lewis

Writing is a kind of monsoon

Satya Dash

It seems futile
to attempt a poem about rain
knowing well that everything that is to be said
has already been said.

But then writing isn’t as much about saying
as it is about feeling. And percolation of that
feeling – the blood and bone of a poem 

into every vessel of your porous body,
slowly building its empire of fluff-
a redolence where to beg
is to demand
turning you slowly
knob after knob
into a floating canopy
of fleece 

By the time you see a boy emerge from the mist
near a window in an aeroplane
and wave at you,
you’ve realized you’re
nothing
but
a quintessential cloud.

You suck in your stomach in vanity and wave back.
And once the plane is out of sight,
you exhale
and
rain.

Satya Dash

Little Bird

Kristiana Reed

There is something
in the way you soar;
a love which is visceral
extending beyond
all we could ever hope for

You refuse to give up
even when your wings
are tied and you take flight
on the ground
searching for your ocean sky. 

Your eyes always
watching the great above
believing it is
within your feathery touch 

and little bird –
it is. 

In your metamorphosis
from sparrow
to hawk to eagle. 

You fly ever higher,
grow ever brighter
although you are alone
and far from home.
You leave a breadcrumb
legacy shimmering
in gold; 

the little bird
who did not listen
to what she was told
but pursued the dreams
she felt deep in her bones. .

Kristiana Reed