Emily Kedar
I come back
to find my grandmother’s
pink geraniums dead. The only
living being
that knew us both
and had no tongue to lie.
I drag my finger
across the glass face
of the coffee table. My thumbprint
warped and elongated, presses
down into dust.
I rearrange the stones
I’d left on the window sill
back the way they were.
The coffee grinder’s bust, so
I head out
into the light snow
of morning, my feet landing
step after step
in someone else’s footprints.
Tylyn K. Johnson
let this momentary experience be
for us, to turn ourselves
into a messy painting
on your wall, made of
our skin and flesh and
sweat and laughter
Kersten Christianson
I want to pen a note about spring.
Not the dead alder, rain after rain after
rain despair of it, but the rose
gold sheen of storm having passed,
dissipating at the knife-sharp edge of outer coast
where blue herons and mallards frequent
the estuary’s ebb and flow.
I want the medicine of tender greens
the tangle of blooming branch,
squall of cherry blossoms adrift
under patches of blue-sky canopy
with supple heart and thoughts of you,
I want the spring that snaps winter’s back.
Karen E Fraser
delicate petals creak open
slower than snowflakes falling
in an airless, lavender sky.
wide-eyed stamens quiver, waiting
patiently to be pleasured by bees.
stems of ear-shaped leaves
silently unfurl a lush fullness
in blinding verdant greens.
the light of life remains fully switched on,
fizzing with moon-neon phosphorescence,
ever emergent, ever consuming, gifting and
receding in waves that spiral through
an inescapable fragrance-
a constant, unnameable
yet deeply known by the gentle heart.
Ed Brickell
The world where I live is in slow secret.
The old bird feeder, forever hanging,
Lies on the ground. Its branch is gone.
The fallen leaves from the nearby oak tree
Creep by inches to the back fence.
The sun sneaks near the horizon all day.
A new boy seems to have arrived by himself
In a house sold in haste a few doors down.
He never wears a shirt, runs instead of walks.
The other children have agreed to his rule,
Cheerfully doing the most dangerous things.
New screams fill the air.
A lot, leveled at the top of the hill,
The house erased. No memory
Of what it looked like, who lived there.
Dogs I have never seen before snarl and snap.
All these polite strangers – names of confusion,
Lives of utter mystery.
I want to move somewhere,
Be the question mark –
The one whom no one has seen before,
Who changes how their days happen.
Suddenly inhabiting the scoured hill
Where something was they can’t remember.
Poetry Contributor
Vikki C., author of ‘The Art of Glass Houses’ (Alien Buddha Press), is a British-born writer, poet and musician from London, whose literary works are informed by existentialism, science, the metaphysical, and human relationships. Her poetry and prose have been published or are forthcoming in Across The Margin, Black Bough Poetry, Acropolis Journal, DarkWinter Literary Magazine, Spare Parts Lit and others.
Frances Boyle
I am new to this dancing, no more
the child who darts like rain
in and out of the circle. A woman
now, I follow the others, trip along
as grandmother shapes the steps,
shift and bend like she does, begin
again. We young women shimmer
in motion. Grandmother leads,
we all follow fascinated, take up
grandmother’s dance, we echo
the moon, little lights in our steps
we shift sideways, bend waists.
In the row following grandmother,
I am learning her steps, making
each move shiny as I can, side turn,
step, clap and bend. Sun-shadow
pivot, bend and bow, side and back
forward now, with the shifting beams.
And the mothers weave their steps fantastic
no longer following but embroidering
dazzling threads in steps and hops, shimmies
and shudders. Yes, sometimes, a shudder
of colour will unstitch one of the mothers’
prisms within the dance’s warp and weft.
Variety in how we quilt the world, needing
the comfort of cloth. Conjure a cake box,
crushed, a lindy hop, tango tour
de force, two-step, or flamenco clap
and stomp. Step and sidestep, step and slide,
shift spectrum a nudged inch towards new.
We heed the slide of lightning bolt,
its rusty screech and creak. Grandmother
dances beside us, with us, close enough
for comfort, approximately equal
but never identical. But, close enough
for jazz, we improvise starbursts freely.
A. K. Shakour
some may say the future is Rosé
bottled from the south of France,
but i just care about how the grapes feel
when they hit my heart. truthfully,
i really don’t know what i want out of life
i wish i could uncork the answers to my questions
scream HAPPY NEW YEAR every single morning
because each day has 1440 minutes for my use,
lifetimes exist in the dirt under my fingernails,
how can i just pour this hope into my mouth?
i want it all, the big beautiful house and the babies
that i breast feed with the ease of a soldier.
i crave a wrap-a-around porch, purely for the aesthetic
since it’s the prettiest place to sit during the sunset,
but more than that i want to pack all my belongings
drive across the border to Vancouver, become
a nomad with a pen, scribble until i stop breathing.
i want to spend every last penny i have on plane tickets,
i’d be the main character in the movie, just for a second.
maybe i could be a baker in Europe, kneading bread
in a quaint cobblestone town. i want more experiences than
what will fit within the tight glass neck of a wine bottle.
meanwhile, i do nothing.
i sip the prophecy out of a sunflower mug given to me
as a gift on my birthday. i wish i could be reborn each day,
live in a mutant ninja turtle shell. be invincible,
or perhaps invisible. what is the difference?
the lines are fuzzy, pink panther mysteries,
do i want a diamond or a cat? i could explode.
i don’t want red or white, i want to bleed bubblegum pink
