From far-out depths they come,
swell swelling swell,
'til cresting they salute the sky
and tumble towards sand that waits immemorially
to receive them.
Summer u
Poetry
Donald W. Shriver Jr. 8-01-2007
Rose Marie Berger 7-01-2007
The narcotraficante commanded me
in gestures, take off your blouse.
Then he jerked it, scattering buttons—
smooth and pink—along the ground.
Murray Bodo 6-01-2007
As if it matters
- noticing the migrant workers—
- two to a wheelbarrow of concrete—
- mending the walls of the rich
- that exclude them
Clifford Rivera 4-01-2007
"The wind blows wherever it pleases." Word?
The scene is played out. We need some Eden!
Were Abba the DJ, He'd spin hymns
To slay.
Byron Rempel-Burkholder 3-01-2007
This afternoon, sir
we nailed God down
He's at the back of the property
He's going nowhere, sir
His feet are stuck
to a block of wood
we nailed God down
He's at the back of the property
He's going nowhere, sir
His feet are stuck
to a block of wood
It's comical, sir
Deb Baker 2-01-2007
I went there once,
to the place you’re imagining.
It was purple, with wild geraniums
under green-bright stars.
All the constellations spelled
words, like &
Michael Borich 1-01-2007
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
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