by Joe Richey

mottled butterfly
alights on a rock
to roar

*
ancient pond
polluted frog
belly up

*
o star
o powerful western star!
are you a star?
or another big well–lit house
perched high in the foothills?

*
songs to sway
between
the lines by.

*
Sitting at an outdoor café
I am gunned down
by Chilean boys w/ sawed off broomsticks

*
half asleep
in broken English
a good life you.

*
who’s to say
the sky
can’t see?

*
fireworks
five hundred light bulbs
fall from the sky

*
small bamboo day
the sky
on a stick.

by Gary Lawless

today the blueberries
taste like pine.
I look across the field,
to the cemetery, see
horses, running,
prayer flags
in the breeze.
Nothing is settled.
Smoke covers the hay.
We are waiting
for your call.

by Gary Lawless

i
blue below our
feet blue field
field full of berries
blue bay below
clouds, crows,
wood lily under
blue sky,
on our way
to blue  

ii
maple to oak
beech to sumac
goldenrod, ferns,
bees and butterflies
bird at the edge then gone
bird entering light

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

late and the light
stays, longer —
we wander the fields
count the stars
listen for loons
if there is wind
we thank it —
carried away

by Jack Collom

nosebleed sonnet

Gore Pour

The nose . . . when I was young I used to be
A picker. “Blow that mess!” Investigate
That obstacle. Then boogerflip; set free
The inwards of nose passage, re–create

My registry of odors. . . . (Nasal bother
’Mid the flow ’tween brain and smile — or sneer.)
By now, the site is haunted: YEA, I’d rather
Bear one marble prow of import dear

And clear. But now, the ravages of age
Have gouged a habit; tenderness is rife,
And bubbling blood has grown to All the rage.
          It’s like the intimacy of man–and–wife.

At last, the world’s problems come to rest
Within this laughable fouling of the nest.