Bleary-eyed at nine o’clock,
I struggle to stay awake,
book slipping from my hand
as I climb out of myself,
wander in moonless dark
toward the pond,
where a million frogs
break their throats in velvet air.
Steve Klepetar‘s three-year-old granddaughter looked out the big window at the back of his house and said “I love your view.”
You couldn’t have convinced me at 17
that 40 years later I’d be raking leaves in my front yard
stopping to talk with the old guy
who walks his cocker spaniel by my house
about how our dogs are getting old.
Michael Estabrook, retired finally, writing more poems and working more outside, just noticed two Cooper’s hawks staked out in the yard or rather above it which explains the nerve-wracked chipmunks.
It takes me thirty-one years to see
the green heron’s shape in the shadow
of leaves, a bright spot in the sun’s softness
the tree limbs still calling the child
in my shoes to climb skywards, the nesting
hummingbirds flitting past dragonfly
also flitting past this lake is home
where my mother’s water broke with me
I revolve around this pond, as autumn swirls
in her crisp wind, as an osprey circles.
Kelsey Bryan-Zwick is a Spanish/English speaking Pushcart Prize nominee and the author of Watermarked (Sadie Girl Press). kelseybryanzwick.wixsite.com/poetry.
The art of repairing pottery with gold.
I offer my broken body, time and time again
upon the operating table, as rapid hands shine
they pour in rare metals, trying to keep me whole
enough to hold my own water, my own blood.
Kelsey Bryan-Zwick is a Spanish/English speaking Pushcart Prize nominee and the author of Watermarked (Sadie Girl Press). kelseybryanzwick.wixsite.com/poetry.
The milk comes out
a little bit at a time,
slowly,
like the days.
Greg Hill turns off all the lights in the morning after the kids head downstairs for breakfast, and at night when they’re tucked into bed.
Shoes on cobblestones
make such a noise,
not loud
but old.
John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident.
When we got married
I vowed I would not become
furniture in your home
yet here I am now
sitting around
a bit threadbare
and fading.
Ian Willey, originally from Akron, Ohio, resides in the Inland Sea area of Japan where he teaches, does research, and writes.
Advance fire like thunder
rattles windows and dogs’ souls
weeks before the sky is illuminated
in an oxidized display of democracy
that, in our tranquilized state,
we still eagerly await, hungry
for our piece of the pie.
Betsy Mars and her canine companion are both startled by loud noises.