by Carolyn Gelland

The gutter of New York grounded me —
that’s my kind of space.
There are streets here too
that give me the same feeling.

There is a time in life
when you just take a walk,
and you walk in your own landscape,
hovering on both
sides of yourself.

I’m in my element
when I’m out of this world,
then I’m in the real world.

You should always be drunk,
that’s the great thing.
Drunk without respite.
Drunk with what?
Wine, poetry, virtue . . .
But get drunk.

The last stanza is a paraphrase from Charles Baudelaire’s Paris Spleen.

by Carl Little

I know these, too, from the pond
I skirted as a child, the green
cake knives clustered along the shore
doubling in shallows

where I cast hula popper hoping
the weed’s namesake might snatch
and tug the line into nearby lily pads.
Oh lovely slime of thrashing fish!

And now I find them again — the weeds —
in a corner of Somes Pond where Wylie
once paddled her canoe and spooked
at a vision of red–faced natives,

pickerel weed spiking the air,
water bugs scurrying among stems.
They hold the pose through summer,
a few blue blossoms adding to the thrill,

part of an overall green that we greet
with affection after a long winter.
Elsewhere, water lilies are more prominent
in the waterscape, but haven’t a clue

about the subtleties of beauty. Weed, yes,
but such a exceptional one cutting
the air this way and that in a light breeze
that animates us all.

by Carl Little

Small Green Grass Snake
          Great Spruce Head Island, Maine

Slithers through the grass, although
slithers doesn’t do its movements justice —
maybe glide or ripple or shape–shift,
so delicate, thin, moving up the path
ahead of my footsteps.

God or someone saw the shape in the grass
and called it green grass snake, an easy
ID compared to, say, Bactrian camel
or nudibranch or ocelot, all part
of Paradise, which makes me think

of the poor snakes of St. Croix
enjoying reign of a virgin island
looking up one day to find mongoose
in their path, which proceed to rip them
skin from skin, brought in

to clean up Eden, a Rikki–Tikki–Tavi
nightmare for the serpent crew,
a kind of injustice played out by man
playing god, and the ghosts of those snakes
rattle dry corn shakes while here

on this island a slim slider of a light green hue
that wouldn’t know a mongoose from a mole hill
heads off to the left in search of edibles
in the northern kingdom of Great Spruce
where no one holds dominion over nothing.

by Hamish Danks Brown

Ocean asserted itself all night
wiping away sea–grassed sleep
then drain–dreamed until light
and dumped my waking heap.

Slumber–jacked, spilled overboard
into taut tentacles, sharp shoals,
again times again a furies’ fjord
and the flapping of poetic scrolls.

Am I really but another tear
falling from your eyes shut
fast with thunder borne fear
of my lightning in your hut.
You unearthed me siren–nurse
yet there’ll never be twice.
Our storm must soon disperse
o’er this floatation device.

Currents shifting further away
from all those gone down below
the shelf out from this shallow bay
while Dad so holds me in his tow.
Between soundings and the helm
under blindfolded starless sky
pitching, rolling, upon bunk realm,
wishing your Nay! would be Aye!

Am I really but another fish
flailing to ascend your stream
flowing stronger past my wish
to reach reality, breach a dream.
You forth–firthed me my jeune–nurse
yet there’ll never be reprise
Our storm must too soon disperse
and release us from pack ice.
Were we to sail out together again
and rebuild our ardent armada anew
with your blessing as the coxswain
for whom I’d be your rowing crew.

Thus my mutiny invites your scrutiny.

This deck is yours…….