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…….

by Justin Patrick Moore

I went fly fishing with Sun Ra last night.

We waded into particle fields of ice
to sit on the edge of Saturn’s glistening ring
and drink the venom of the Desert
while we talked about gravity

music is what really holds the world together
he says, pointing his finger, an electric conductor

of the spheres in their orbit, of the satellites spinning
the old band leader grinned as we cast our lines

Sun Ra’s bait danced on the surface of the cosmos
his fingers were fly, on the black and white keys
shifting harmonic perspectives, rippling in the drift
a whippoorwill of melody, his piano a vortex

our civilization is like Atlantis, ya dig
caught in histories undertow, human larvae
only just now awaking, percussive rhythms shaking

off the sorrow, awaiting a great tomorrow.

Ra tells me about his time as an ambassador
of Fibonacci thought forms, of his work
on asymmetrical equations and alien syntax,
as a musical guide, to the stars in the underworld

          all he has to do is flash his badge
          to Anubis at the security checkpoint
          and we pass between the pylons
          guarding the moon

and so angle in the stream of stars
as we carry baskets woven from cattails
traveling down strange celestial roads
to the sound of a sistrum, as the cymbals shift
and vectors change, we lift off to an other plane

we haul in our last catch

always leaving enough spawn to regenerate the Nile
so decide to catch a rocket skipper,
stow away our gear and go trawling
across the arched body
of the heliocentric worlds.

by Klaus Gerken

Canto II

Riverrun
Locksmith
Flow of lava that destroys
but replenishes the earth
Life was not possible
without the lava

Building block
Lego
Hills of garbage
Excellent chateaus
towns
cities
are built on

To find civilization
look for garbage

The extension of art
is its foundation
thus for life
a journey
not a resurrection
but a continuation
star matter formed us
so eventually
we will form
stars again

The great nucleus
swallows
swallows matter
crushes it
in an elongated
everlasting
time continuum
however we don’t
like it
it is so
we can
approach
but never get
to zero

There is purpose
in everything
otherwise
the universe
would not exist
otherwise
no thought viable
we would be matter
without formation
thought without
repatriation
all envelops all
our petty egos
entangle the
entanglement

Flash flood
where the watershed
collapses
and the cardboard boxes
crumble in succession
displacing without
judgement
nature’s beauty
is its existence
not the artificial
vanity of gods
Nature does not pretend
it acts and then
amends
the cycle of forgiving
not collusion
where collusion’s rife
with explanation
Only a fool need to explain
what nature has no
need to

Life is a flash flood
over Gaia’s raped body
she is our foundation
she is our mother
there is no god no other
she suckles us
her milk is our sustenance
and sol is our existence

When the morning comes
we will awaken to the glory of the sun
rising in the east
otherwise we will awaken
to the cool nurturing
rain
grow grow
always grow
whether mind or body
always grown
new that tends
the future
you will never see

Canto III

I have no possibilities
other than being
a possibility myself

by Justen Ahren

          “what times are these / when to write a poem about love /
          is almost a crime because it contains / so many silences /
          about so many horrors . . . ”
                                                                              Bertolt Brecht

Above the skyline of the city, an orange flash
black smoke, minarets,

shattering glass — I rise and bring my lips to hover
above my lover’s navel, inhale

her sweet, wet morning scent, the alarms, and fires. These things happen at once,
they happen

far from one another and no actors were used in the making.
     The television news
recaps another overnight bombing,

the probable number of casualties, the Dow Jones is up 1%. When I look up, I see
spheres,

clear bubbles floating around my lover’s head, circling her shoulders.
In each, something witnessed,

or televised, or perhaps, too, in real life I saw a girl carrying an
     ember on a leaf
through the gray drizzle of dawn,

blowing upon it to keep it alive. A boy shits in the rubble, a dog sniffs and eats it.
In another bubble,

chunks of snow are rocking down in haloes of streetlight, blending
     with the black avenue
of a woman’s hair. Soldiers slump

in trenches, the snow building on the rifle barrels. A father searches
his grave hands. A wad of paper tumbles

on an escalator. A mother knits her fingers over an open fire. And there are more,
many more. In one, Ash

trees lining the river are strewn with plastic chairs, and clothes.
     A family gathers
around a table in a house with no front wall.

Visible, they eat. In a field, a boy writes his name with a sparkler. He doesn’t
know the bombs his country spends

in other places, he doesn’t know I lay with my lover,
a frightened electricity

flickering in the wires of me. How easy it is to kill
out here among smoldering stumps, in desert cities,

among cows grazing on scraps of cloth, and in here,
the weatherman says we should expect snow

before it changes to rain. And I finish my small violence, occupying her with my
lips,

while the latest scrolls across the screen, twenty –four confirmed dead, with the
score of Sunday’s game.