A long time ago for reasons
I no longer remember I got it
in my head that every star in
the night sky was a note played
by Eddie Van Halen throughout
his stellar career, and now,
as I look up at this patch of dark
space my impulse is to cry out
to the cosmos, hey Eddie,
come back, you missed a note.
Ian Willey has a really hard time writing about himself in the third person.
The year’s breath lines the window
its subtle crystal embroidery
reaching inward like a hand
as days begin the march toward equinox
daubing a little color ‒ a little light ‒
painting the world out of darkness,
out of fear.
Marc Alan Di Martino is author of the poetry collection UnburIal. He lives in Italy.
The nickel should be two-faced,
should not have a tail,
should have the real tale,
should show the two Jeffersons,
should show the Declaration Jefferson,
should show the slaver Jefferson,
should be two-faced like Jefferson.
J.R. Solonche is the author of 23 books of poetry and co-author of another.
Lucinda, the muse, was half right,
singing “maybe” while looking
east toward the bridge with
its sky reflecting pink then turning
west to see the delta’s flat out
purple sunset joy.
Jon Densford of Memphis, Tennessee crossed high bridges over the Mississippi River more than a hundred and thirty times in 2020, but never once felt tempted to stop and then jump.
Snow covers up the
letters of the alphabet,
preserving for the moment
the purity of words and
sentiments underneath.
George Salamon is trying to maintain his sense of wonder as an octogenarian.
Who knows why I dreamt
that I could start my Ford
by crawling underneath it
and lighting votive candles—
it was car repair for poets,
staring at the cold
baffling machinery
in the little darkness,
admiring the perfect
curve of the crescent wrench,
which recalled the dance of starlings
spelling something in
the alphabet of dusk—
not an answer,
not a question,
hardly an equation,
though possibly a page
from a manual we have lost.
Mark Jackley lives in Purcellville, Virginia. His poems have appeared in Fifth Wednesday, Natural Bridge, Talking River, and other journals.
Until that autumn evening
when I walked the deer-cleared trails,
I did not know
my sister was a prairie
her flaxen grass swaying
to join the wind
in mourning the sun.
Krishna Lewis lives in the Boston area, close to trails, cafes, and a famous cemetery.
I am writing
at the kitchen table,
or, rather,
struggling to,
when my wife
excitedly calls me
to the window
and points down
into the yard
where a doe
with a coat
just a shade
from golden
is browsing
on fallen leaves
that if it wasn’t
for the hours
I spend trying
to make poems,
I would have
burned long ago.
Howie Good‘s full-length poetry collection, Gun Metal Sky, is due in early 2021 from Thirty West Publishing.