Category: Poetry

Space Cadet

Lisa Lerma Weber

I was called a space cadet,
because a question suddenly fell
from the yawning sky of my mouth,
crashing like a meteor
into the conversation at hand—
the alien eyes that turned on me
like giant craters, smoking
and hissing with irritation. 

My mind had drifted,
distracted by the distant twinkling
of so many wondrous “whys?”
Starry-eyed, I lost my way
as I floated untethered
through a nebula of curiosity. 

I wanted to deny my fitness for NASA.
I wanted to point to my feet to prove
they were firmly planted on the Earth.
But when I looked down,
I couldn’t see through the clouds. 

Lisa Lerma Weber

Akif Kichloo

A Murmuration of Starlings

Amanda Crum

In violet hush and
a shiver of weeds
we call down the shadows

narrow roads and
decay, melon slice of moon,
words stuck in our throats

watch the cloud form,
swirl and burn,
a dancer’s skirt shaking the stars

nothing is static here
we are together and apart
known and unknown

an act of chemistry,
as the starlings,
a mystery

Amanda Crum

before you leave

Prem Sylvester

my thoughts of you turn to birds
of light, aflight above sunlit golden water,
cascading over memory’s cliff. forgetting
is a mere matter of diving beneath the falls,
never coming up for breath. drowned albatrosses
wash up ashore, bearers in tow, shrunken. 

resting on riverwashed rock, we could peer
beyond the horizon. the dusk of our time colours
these cascading ends marine, sight skipping
over remembrance, till the gulls disappear beneath the crest.
flight will take you away, i know. all i ask is one final
pirouette. we tip our beaks skyward, drinking in being.

Prem Sylvester

Flight Response

Zoe Mitchell

I’m trying to make friends. She says, ‘Did
you know, research shows that vertigo
is your whole body flinching at the notion
that you might jump this time, that some part
of your heart can’t resist the urge to fly?’

I hesitate to reply. I didn’t know that. I am
afraid of heights and all of it makes sense
to me but I have square pegged my way
through enough failed introductions to see
any answer as a high-vaulted risk.

She lowers her pint and her voice as she adds,
‘Have you ever had that feeling in a car
when you’re going fast on a roundabout
and you could just open the passenger door,
lean out and fling yourself into orbit?’

Zoe Mitchell

Drive

Visar

Squirrels racing through brushes
watched the Volkswagen driving us in circles,  

Lights from dreams of Amsterdam
blinded us through the windscreen,  

from the Eiffel to china that splintered
in parties never started,  

we learned things we don’t do are
consequential as the ones we accomplish,  

As lights once poured in from the clerestory,
where we held silence that rattled  

the grisaille windows. Moon dined with us,
shedding skin cells in the moving car.  

In the night as black as the Neanderthal’s face
that understood its youth 

we shared Budweisers by the pool
Mars soaked in the suns of our eyes,   

Watched him roll tobacco and he said, “Leaving.
Leaving is a choice no one wants to make and it  

makes us anyway”. Then, smoke rose up.
Then, no one was there.

Visar

Superman With Angel’s Wings

Lynn White

It’s a place that needs a superman
a superman with angel’s wings
giant wings
big enough to fold
their soft feathers around it
encircle it
in a feathery hug
keep it safe
lift it up
paint out the grey
and bring it back to what it was
before
before the crash
took away the colour
took away the joy
took away the hope.
An angel alone couldn’t do it.
It wouldn’t have the strength.
Superman alone couldn’t do it.
He didn’t have the wings
to spread and circle
this place
to comfort it
to hold it safe
to lift it up.
It’s a place that needs
a superman with angel’s wings
to perform the miracle
and then fly away
to the next place.

Lynn White

birds, opening act

Caroline Grand-Clement

Caroline Grand-Clement

A Composition of Melodious Words

Justine Akbari

Through the noise I hear it
the string of words floating towards me
formulating before me—
slowly, methodically, categorically, sporadically
with pause
to test out each pitch, each decibel, each tenor
and resonance
on the tongue, in a thought, against another word
or an absence of one.
Melodies and mania surround the
delicate, dynamic, demonstrative
words that exist despite the
chaos and crescendo.
A thought disrupts the stillness of the mind
the way the mind disrupts the enchantment
of a thought. 

Reading music
listening to words
reading words
listening to music;
A melody of notes to an orchestration of words;
an arrangement of words to a composition of music.

I cling to these words
to make sense of the world,
to give voice to the world,
to communicate with the world.
Humanity’s babble mixed with the city’s grumble
and a grandparent’s garble
enhanced with life’s elixirs
swath the sky in a synchronous symphony.

Justine Akbari

In Flight

Joan McNerney

Shy autumnal bird
did you brush against the moon
to get that pale down?  

A tree waves wooing
birds who fly from branch to branch
looking for a home. 

Congregations of wrens
winging off to choral practice
stop at bird feeders first.  

An outdoor concert.
Which is sweeter, the flute
or bird song in woods? 

Sparrows recite litanies
in wood. Trees
greener every rainfall
their leaves growing longer.

Joan McNerney