by Steve Luttrell

Machines are our companions
where we’re going
machines are our companions

all stainless in their
steely skin

cold, and so
conclusive in their sadness

already we are not alone

Machines are our companions
in an age of information

all clockwork, inconspicuous
machines are our companions
in a landscape like no other

Machines become our witness
as we’re going
Machines become our witness

and Machines will keep
our history, after all

by Steve Luttrell

Is sadness then
the sound of a sonata

the blue chill
of loneliness,

in the black
nightfall sleep?

The soft sound
of the mourning dove

in the mid –
summer twilight.

The boy has
grown old with

the weight of
his words

and death takes
the tone of his dreaming

in the gray dawn
of a new century.

by Steve Luttrell

Let’s leave it here
that whole thing

come like a shy intruder
(a souvenir of waiting)

in the unending night

two days of rain
and this again
           this heavy
morning mood

Let’s leave it here
no more either/or

no more more
           thought on thought

that whole thing
that unending circle

Let’s leave it be
once and forever

by Russ Sargent

Dreaming of Petrarch’s world
with its mountain laurels and
green water in those streams
running through the Vaucluse
where Acteon caught forbidden glimpses
and Char said every sowing was hated
in this land where the poets sleep
with vines binding their inebriations
to the night and I am so anxious
to get out into the countryside
to breathe the oxygen from white flowers
sampling gentle ambient touches
of golden air and birds in the sun
because that’s why I came to Avignon
a genuine locus amoenus of the mind
knowing I’d be where real poets walked
until I woke up too early this morning
on cardboard on a floor in the
train station where the guards
kicked me so I wouldn’t fall asleep
so close to their feet.