By Fred Zirm

Ode to Prostate Cancer

Thank you for getting me
in touch with my feminine
side through hot flash
hormone therapy,
periodic bursts of
shitstorm sadness,
and, after surgery,
a single sphincter
left to guard the gate
against moist mortality.

Ode to the Mosquito

Praise be to all who thrive
without demanding our respect
with no apparent purpose but to
annoy and to infect. There is a
sort of purity to their whine and
bite and itch. So aloof from our
approval, they love it when we
bitch. They only crave a bit of
blood, when we have so much to
spare — plus an ounce of our
attention when they feel as
invisible as air.
Thus they rule the summer
with circumstantial pomp
’til drone–driven mad,
we pledge to drain that swamp.

Ode to the Night Light

Not those brighter bulbed ones
calling attention to themselves
and their own brilliance
when turned on each evening
with their seashell shades, cartoon
faces, or faux Victorian gaslit look,
only to burn out just when nature
calls and we need them most.

No, I prefer those pale turquoise
panels that are never turned off.
Dim but durable, they seem to last
forever, their more modest glow just
enough to tell the secure flat floor from
those steep stairs disappearing into the
dark, just enough to guide us safely
back to bed after we have done
whatever we need to do.

In Praise of the Erasable Pen

Less than indelible, it admits
all permanence is pretense anyway
while its eraser top proclaims
perfection is a ruse as well.
Mistakes have been, are being, will be
made. Aye, there’s the rubber that meet
the written word, promising to expunge
error after error so that even this poem
may be pardoned as part of a perpetual first draft.

By Nina Serrano

I see my fellow poets on zoom
and fill with anticipation and happiness
All creative people
eager to read our latest works
even if they are old and spent like me
or young and just beginning
The herd excitement is present
Poems on paper in hand or in a book
or on a phone or computer screen
waiting to be shared
It is the sharing itself that makes the excitement
Seldom are two poems on the same theme
Yes, love, nature, and death, keep repeating
but everyone is so different
Every possible or improbable subject
is the subject of our latest poem
or our oldest
Poets unmute themselves to read
to a raring–to–go receiving audience
of stampeding poets waiting for their turn to recite.

By Nina Serrano

A 106 year old Filipna is on the cover of Vogue
This means that we are now declared
officially “beautiful”
In the next few months and years
our shift in societal perception
will become noticeable
Less face lifts and less hair dye
Soft folds will emerge on faces rather wrinkles
Breasts will have lowered rather than sagged
Our words will be perceived to be wis
rather than “old fashioned”
Our slipping memory will become poetic wisdom
when we can no longer be relied on
for the details of the facts
Granny styles will emerge again
Our old out–of–date dresses will become the latest retro
Retro will hold great value
as we evolve into a beauty symbol
Our involuntary naps will be declared
“beauty rest”
So we may even have to give up rest
and find the energy for our new status
as beauty queens
crowned as wise mature and eternally beautiful!

By Steve Luttrell

Birdsong
sounds like Morse Code
No message

Late Spring
in White Mountains
dark shadows lengthen

A few words as
poems given to Mountains
only echoes now

Those peaks were named
for Presidents, Not Poets.
What were they thinking?