Wake in dark
Look for light
Stumble to start

Steven B. Smith

hedge fun

the atmosphere grainy
rife with warmth
like old-time photographs

outside the window
a sparrow pops her head
out from a manicured hedge

Marc Mannheimer

Landerhaven

In winter,
The drainage ditch
Across from the medical
complex freezes over
Becomes a pond pretty enough
To live in Vermont-
The cattails and thistle
look like rusted
Metal sculptures in a
crazy artists front yard-
The sun is a white cotton ball
Trapped in wet grey lint-
I don’t care what they say
Winter is god damned beautiful.

Celeste McCarty

I’m looking out the window, husband asks,
“Do you see a poem out there? Are they
flying around out there?”

“Maybe,” I answer

Today the window contains
Saturday, December 23rd snow
sticking to wizened tree branches
on a gray paper sky

Snow drops whimsically down, each flake
small and oscillating as a gnat.

The apartment building
across the street is a squat vintage
brick monolith, wet and cold and rough
to the mind’s touch

An occasional sputter of a car

Birds wherever they are

Radiator ticks, cat sleeps,
husband smoking like a chimney
in a chair

i

Black Cat Scat

Black cat ignored my lap
for couch rub next to Lady

When I got up
black cat took my ass warmed place

When I sat down and put her in my lap
she left me for a fly

When fly got away
she went back to Lady couch

Where’s my I in this food chain?

Steven B. Smith

Winter Garden
For Kathy on her birthday

Evening snow has fallen
And covers the past year
So it may sleep

I look out the window
And dream about the New Year
When you and I will go for a walk
Searching for snow drops
That lift their heads to
Sing to the sky

Each morning the Earth waits
For us to be surprised
At the small gifts it has hidden
For us to find

You always find them because you look and listen.
I want to hear their music
In my own way as you do.

Let us open the gate and walk
Through this winter garden

Heather Ann Schmidt

Waiting Room

Overheard Doctor walking by
cell phone to ear,
“I’m not supposed to tell you…”
pause
“I’m not supposed to tell you…”
pause
“I’m not supposed to tell you…”
pause
“You’ve got to swear not to tell anyone else.”

Steven B. Smith

No doubt

I’ve been waiting for a day like this
the crab apple buds have just added
pink back to the garden palette

before
the rock that blocked the grave
was rolled away

there was
Persephone’s promise
Seegwun’s ringlets
wine and unleavened bread

the reminders
change will out
painted, sung
regeneration
and life eternal

even as the questions
feel more complicated
the answer is simple

I dance today
because I can
dance today
I eat because I am hungry

I had forgotten it
was not that I have been forgotten
it was that I forgot
there could be a day like this

and there it is
the crab apple tree

Kimberley Bones Diamond

SALONI KAUL
SALONI KAUL’S SONNET MISCELLANY
SPRINGBOARD OF SENSATIONS
by Saloni Kaul

Loud visual rhythms all depicting dimensions,
A host of moods and bands of bright colour,
All generate a springboard of sensations
Where swift each turn each twist the whole alters.
The composition linear and compactly ordered
Acquires curves, curvacious all aspects ,
Banished are the unseemly hems bordered
Becoming sinuous, dynamic in prospect.
With those inclusions of extraneous elements
The world view stretches and perimeters lengthen stark clean.
We have beautiful unpredictable movement ,
And see from far what’s round the bend unseen.
Who can predict, with all that dash , all that verve,
The directions exact precise of the next curve ?
Saloni Kaul

SALONI KAUL

Solstice Night

Dusk descends muting the light of day
Autumn waves her languid arms
Whispering her farewell
Snowflakes fall tatting a layer
Of delicate lace, onto rolling hills
Hushed evening, stillness won
Clouds drift
Shadow dancing, on the darkened sky
Revealing the Mona Lisa moon
The shifting twilight
Enlists moon and earth
To engage in hide and seek
Playful moonbeams
Awakened billowing hillside
Flakes sparkle geometrically
Sporadic glimmer,
Stars glisten a response
Answering their earthen sisters call
Dispersing spirit’s message
Snowflake twinkles to the south
Northern star sparks a return
Orion releases his bow
Igniting a quick gleam below
Ursa major sparkles
Coldscape east
Then west glint in reply
Heaven and earth speaking
In crystalized Morse code
On this the longest night
They sing a prism verse, without voice
Converting light to faith
Solstice speaks
Through the silence of the night’s dream

S. Renay Sanders ©

*
this fire is for you.
may it warm & warn you
of the cool times to come.

make U do what you haven’t done.
make U imagine with Passion won
like the Light when U challenge the Sun.

May your Balance come
& bee comb your honey
black hair
& send you out there
for every Grand Affair
& have you wear the Air of
what U came to become.

Maxwell Shell

and it is barely

the owl sails directly, cuts the
dark. i am left with so many
woodpeckers, it seems like a
conspiracy- and i watch a brown
creeper puffed up against the cold.
i look as long as a joke. then a
hermit fits into a tulip- i forget about
thrushes until i see one. its
suspecting, vibrant and lush- one
titmouse lands, gives me a look like
shock and moves on. downies small
as the chickadees, i dont bother with
the focus- i let the thousand songs
subside my little grief, which is this
marcescent leaf curling.
it is red, and it
is barely.

Bree

DAVID SANBORN ON DA LOLOUILA

I got David Sanborn
on da lolouila

blowing his saxophone
like wun screeching eagle

to wun funky upbeat—

Da jazz man has me grooving.

Anadah morning is dawning
in da neighborhood

and I stay willing
to simply be chilling.

Looking out of my window
at wun street in Old Brooklyn

da masterful musician
is giving me wun varied soundtrack.

He’s getting kinnah mellow now

as I watch wun guy
shuffle down da sidewalk

bundled up foa da wintah.

Da trees no moa leaves
and da sky is wun watercolor gray

while David’s notes
are melancholy and revealing—

Dose coincidental jives
and strange synergies are so cool.

As it begins to snow again
da next track is on anadah upbeat

and da sax man’s instrument
is blazing like blowtorch.

It doesn’t mattah how cold it gets

cause da songs on da  inside
are warming me up just fine.

I got David Sanborn on da lolouila
via wun shiny compact disc—

I can dig it, brah,
I definitely can.

Joe Balaz

lolouila             Computer.
brah                  Bro.v

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– fin –