After the olive groves at Samothrace and fog
which billowed up from a green sea,
the rocky sheep path and bleating ewes,
wind and sun—there w
Poetry
Michael Borich 1-01-2007
Kathleen Gunton 12-01-2006
She left
with her sack of stones
and one dying rose,
fragrant as Pinot Noir.
Amanda Rogers 7-01-2006
Your letter through the slot
slid to the floor and lay quite still
all day, until returning home from work
I seized and tore it open.
Newton Miner 6-01-2006
If ever you have wakened in the night—
the steep blue night, and waited for the tears—
then I must tell you—
Katie Chilton 5-01-2006
Driving east on Jackson Street one morning,
only a couple of blocks from the bungalow on Abe Street
where a few years ago hundreds of people claimed
to see the reflection of the Virgin in an upstairs window,
I noticed that the diner with the orange awnings
was advertising “fish wings” and found myself wondering
whether fish wings might be some Asian delicacy
Michael Borich 3-01-2006
Was the cry they heard a kestrel’s or a distressed gull
or a passing soul or one not wanting to, a disciple
asked as fog burned off the harbor and left the water
glazed with fire: Jesus roused from dozing lightly. Sun
turned the shore rocks ocher. A bee thrummed near;
they watched it hover. John, who squatted to mend a net,
Murray Bodo 1-01-2006
beneath debris and stench
a hand
your hand withered
stretched forth
waiting for someone’s
be healed
Debra Rienstra 12-01-2005
my mother bleeds for me in a barn
she gives birth in a tree as the flood waters rise
she is a refugee
my mother bends and gathers
she pounds and sweats to quiet many hungers
she is a worker
my mother calls for mercy
she forms pieces of sky into shapes that heal
she is a maker
Debra Elramey 9-01-2005
Drive north down Highway 301, past
the school where, weekdays, deaf children
run wild on the playground. Keep going until
you see the sign, "Snake Man," then turn left
into Camper's Lodge and swing on around
past the turquoise pool in front of the
Laundromat and park your car. Get out and
go inside-any wayfaring stranger is welcome
here of a Sunday morning, rain or shine.
Take a seat in one of the six pews painted
white as the washers and dryers lined up in
Kristin Berkey-Abbott 8-01-2005
In this month of dehydration,
we keep our eyes skyward, both to watch
for rain and to avoid the scorn
of the scorched succulents who reproach
us silently, saying, "You promised to care."
And so, although we thought we could stick
these seedlings in the ground and leave
them to their own devices, we haul
hoses and buckets of water to the outer edges
of the yard where the hose will not reach.
Louis Templeman 7-01-2005
Against the ugly annals of
Bible-thumper politics bounce the echoes
of Bad-Eye Thomas' lonesome cry.
His tears collect against the
coffers engineered by Robertson's broadcasts;
the retention walls defined by Falwell's broadsides.
Such rhetoric trickled down from
palatial headquarters (funded from small contributions)
to the votes of the faithful tithers.
Mrs. Thomas, Christopher's mother,
having deposited her social security check,
found his money coupon, kept neatly between
her phone bill and her monthly offering
Barbara Crooker 6-01-2005
Its a sweet June day, and the mockingbirds
are singing, as are the rubber tires of cars
on the road, and both of these sounds reverberate,
echo, the jazz of early summer, with the muffled
percussion of wind in the trees. A crow
twangs and plucks his big black bass,
Joel Kurz 4-01-2005
I have climbed out of the depths
where human ash and soil
comprise a pyramidal mound
covered by the green of life.
Here women, men, and children
Louise Murphy 3-01-2005
The earth is eating all the little birds.
It feasts, grows fat. Their eyes are stones, black jewels
we rattle in our pockets. Mouths are blurred
Scott Cairns 11-01-2004
Availing space in which
we live and move and come
to glimpse the import of
our being. Opening
occasion of our brief,
expansive guess that when
were after meaning, more
is always likelier