by Steven R. Weiner

The single throat in the painted wood car
Screamed for adventure
Defying gravity’s intense external response
Rejoicing in the divine internal sense
Of weightlessly falling
Climbing to the edge of fear
             Falling
From the highest wooden towers
                          Falling
Flying
Through the sediment layers of air
In a capsized boat
                                        Failing
Through the gritty liquid of air
From heaven to hell
And like Orpheus, rising
                                                     Then falling
Holding the bar like a harp
Or an oar
Like a wave in a Japanese anime print
                                     Rising                    and falling
From frightened
To death
             Again falling
Forward rising on circles and dizzying loops
Feeling wickedly good
                                      To fall

Screaming for   more     more
The bottom drops out of the one
                                                    We’re
                                                          Going
                                                                  To die
Voice
And the prophecy was true, falling
Through a river of stick
Down to the line waiting

                          For you
                                      To do it again
                          Failing
                                      From birds to the fish
                          Crawling
                                      On earth at the end
                          When you try to stand up again
                                      You fall.

by Richard Martin

It pays to sleep in a warm room
And review poor decisions
Before nodding off
The mind in a stew of mind
Casts shadows of light
A parade of symbols marches by
There is an outside world
Of snow and romantic leeches
Doctors refuse to make house calls
The walls whisper

When I was child I folded
The narrative of my life
Into a paper airplane
It had wings of sun
And mimicked the flight of baseballs
It soared through forgetfulness
While the Cold War sold tickets
To the subconscious
Dolls spoke in tongues
And mom and dad slept alone

Once the grand canyon of love arrived
I drove my car into the drink
Or brink
I lost faith —
Cold knees shriveled
Into the dust of awakening
Eyes married form
I was silent as atoms on holiday
Until she talked of rivers of paint
And the bliss of indigo trees

by Mark Hedden

By catsup, by fish, by coffee bitter and black,
My mind this morning a shredded cobweb.
O Woman, lean back.  Be quiet, one moment more.

How it springs, this nothing, out of things.
A hedge of leftovers, china and glass by light
Dappled, made to dance,
               involves us
                    as the curtain
Weaves the street in its blue stripes.  Be still, be quiet.

What is not or shall not be, I care not.
But, this morning, you, blue in that sweater
And white where my eyes would touch are more real
For my not knowing, more lasting for not having.

Be still, be quiet, one moment more.
Let me finish this cup, black as the pot
You never wash, and bitter enough.  I shall
Go.  This much
          I have.

by Mark Hedden

It is so easy to forget what brings you here.
For three years now I have been sitting in this room
Listening to the sounds projected from the street.
The idea I had was that I would come as an explorer
To map out the city, to learn the customs and games,
And as much of its darker side, the irrational heart
As an explorer could learn.  But I had not reckoned
With my own heart of darkness, the loneliness
Of an observer, the malignancy of inversion.