by Jeff Hardin  
(Phoenix, Arizona)

You and I at the crossroads,
One leading down the path of submission,
The other pointing to still another fight.
Both routes bear the evil seeds of misunderstanding.
Don’t you want to close your eyes?
Let your loves and hates and hope
Be scattered by the great winds of chaos?
Better for the emotions
To be decimated
Into oblivion,
A nothingness,
Splintered and fragmented
Into the nameless recess of black night.

by Jeff Hardin    
(Phoenix, Arizona)

Carrot of immortality, stick of perdition.
Candles in cups, sprinkly waters in gaudy bowls.
Smoke in bags, colored glass, statued scenes.
Ancient tongue telling you to kneel.

Baubles to woo, crutches to hold up bodies
Already straight.  And mists to dull the mind
In search of fruits from a tree we will explore,
Regardless.

Jeff Hardin    
(Phoenix, Arizona)

Arrived late from a wedding,
I walked outside to the porch
Of her parents’ place, still dizzy,
And lit a smoke.

Line of light nearby.
Zip of yellow – green across the way.
Starts and stops at impossible angles,
In the air and all around.

Parched eyes clumsily rubbed,
I staggered through the lawn.
With each step, a greater fear.
With each flash, a sickening glimpse of the insane.

Her hand slipped around my arm,
In caress, as she leaned against me.
A warm breath in my ear:
“Do you like the lightning bugs?”

by Susanna Lang

And if I do call the right name, if woodpecker
is the name I’m searching for,

then is the rapid drumbeat I hear
down by the river

an answer to my call?  Who does the cardinal
summon

with that sweet falling note
sung over and over?

I should be able to find a cardinal among these bare
branches

but even those flames are hidden.  And the sparrows,
hidden;

all but their bright voices.  Sometimes a branch
will dip and rise,

as if a weight has settled for a moment.  Sometimes
I can almost

see a wing out of the corner of my eye, too quickly gone
to say what color, much less a name.