by John Michael Mouskos

“I hear Gordon’s been painting;
He must be feeling better in himself.”
“No, Gordon’s busy dying;
The cancer’s spread.
He’s at home in Ireland,
Somewhere by the sea.”

High clouds ever more distant;
The low horizon glares
With promises it cannot keep.
A wave collapses into itself,
Another follows,
Memories torn off,
Again and again,
In the dying sea.

Grief hangs in the air,
Kisses flesh it craves;
The mind hurts and horrifies;
So close to oblivion,
Condemned by fate.

by Pamela Twining

I laughed at Death again today
I laughed as only Life can laugh
snatched tomorrow from the jaws
of the bone collector
burning torment music scorching veins
the Dance not done the feet still pound
the red road, swirling cosmic dust
not bound to Earth so much
as leaping flying through
the round of days

Fell sorcerer wielding wand of endless sleep
sends Winter’s Aweful minions riding Hard
down frozen corridors of time unspoken
screaming imprecations
hooves striking blue steel sparks
from her milkless breast
they aim to take us Down
but at last moment we dodge aside
wresting bubbling Springtime
from the mouths of their Dreadful weapons
and chuckling rills guffawing mountains
dancing hillsides clothe themselves again
in vibrant hued defiance

creating the universe again and again
from a wisp of idea to the plunge
over the lip of the abyss
a Thousand tiny deaths!
a Hundred Thousand!

grasping at Life like the ring
on the merry go round
following golden promise and
Completion

I laugh at Death, not hubris
Celebration of the life and love
of this here /now
born again in every instant
Explosions among the planets
giving birth to Stars

by Pamela Twining

as i slough off another piece of you
i still sometimes wear your skin
see through your eyes
walk journeys my legs have never traveled
            on the wings of your tales
deep in the jungles, high in rock–strewn wildernesses tapping
into the rhythms and bowels of the fertile Mother
her vast wastelands throb of waterfall and avalanche
            clear purity of uncharted Nowhere
Amazon basin to Sagarmatha’s unconquered heights
too hungry for words
and words are all existence, no digital flatness
words are flesh and winds have teeth
to tear from you everything familiar
— which was the point —

where are the Loves? the forgotten children?
placentas of the Word giving birth to meaning
future artisans molding the clay of our belonging
from the flesh of our words

possessions once so dear to you
only dear to me now because of you
and every hour every day a little more
            another bit
                        floats out of reach
your face, the feel of your skin against mine
found now mostly in dreams
sometimes all i want to do is sleep
have you come again to fill my days and nights
with the small pains and pleasures that we were
            and know for once the essence of you
                        so deeply hidden in the Wanting
life attachments and detachments wrestled screaming
to earth in marching meditations
            climbing
                        reaching
for a heaven unattainable until the ashes spread
and sink again into the body of the Mother
            you always sought
offered in a blinding jewel to the chariot of the dawn
i ache with the loss of you
whose heart was never mine
whose spirit dodged and danced among the aromatic green
the Orinoco fronds and heavy air so wet and fragrant
            you could drink it
who scaled unnumbered heights
stone fingertips piercing through the bellies of clouds
making no obeisance to the sky
their craggy fingers grasping Light
a scissor slicing deep into the vitals
hot nutrients for those seeds
those words
that flesh

i lost another piece of you today
but still i sometimes wear your skin
see through your eyes
taste your words in my mouth
and kiss them forward

by James Reidel

The inspiration here is too window shopped,
But the cat arches against the glass,
Getting comfortable after the long winter,
Finding some interest in its own fenestrated canon.
Or you would take the devil’s offer,
For what glitters in all his towers,
All that the eye can see that is yours.
Those all made of glass.
The greatest show on earth.
Where the straw is spun for you.
From which the hair is let down.
For no one else but a man in a wheelchair.
And then the desert returns in the bargain,
That which was promised to be “beach,”
Shingles, sand and pitch, the half roof — and waterfront town,
Gets washed out by a wall of spring fog,
A real, cold Conn. Riviera simoom of a bank blowing in curds
     and tufts,
And the starling tacking into it,
Lording over the far ridge of a gable,
Where it must see to the next ridge of this realm,
To the next wall.