Jesse S. Mitchell

Sheridan Road

I stand almost upright

And nearly lost

Halfway a prisoner

Roughly between Emerson and Sheridan Road

Frozen in the explosion,

The sound drops out,

Things fly around my eyes

I stand in the middle of the passing-out-calm,

The quiet echoing melting-down-tunnel vision

I stand still and Looking up,

Naked souled and with a reckless restless spirit

And not yet blind…blind…blind.

I stand right here, silent and never moving

I will stand right here between Earth and Heaven

Between hearth and battlefield

Bloody bloody hero but well fed.

I will stand here, grass growing around my feet

And moon light pooled around my head

A halo, a burn…

I will stay right here

Let the Zunis keep their war gods

Let Aztecs keep their water gods

Let the Christians keep their words of peace

I will stand here

Helpless

Godless

Nude souled

Reckless

Right here between Heaven and Earth

Never moving.

I will begin to breathe

Breathe it all in as

It collides behind me

As it blows to dust in star powered explosions

I will begin to breathe standing here

As it, all turns to air.

Never moving.

Ande Enochsson

Saturation

you say you forgot

the low chroma

same hues between houses

inside awareness

constant low value

sandwiched between

various levels of fullness

it's phosphorescence karma

they will chew you according to

richness but

not the ripened concord grapes

there must be a limit

regret for disappointed male

this season made no breasts

elation is the bomb

under the Pashto's

chest

laughter is an older man's privilege

not because he's better in any way but

because he got lucky.

Gordon Mason

Aberfeldy

A frenetic firebird

fills the skies,

with a philharmonia

of Stravinsky strings

as we plunge from

Meall an Lochain

into a footbath

of fermented froth:

a veiled vacuum: a fungus

of microscopic crystals

that festoon Aberfeldy.

Flickers of streetlights,

stooped and scrunched

lonely figures,

unaware of the light

and life above,

creep past as we form

a crawl, a worm of drivers

in this ephemeron

clinging to the ice cold Tay.

Akeith Walters

Stopping at the Beach


A tug
at the lure
of floating in the splash
and black sparkle of the city
after dusk,

fishing for moments
around the slow ebb of traffic,

catches a Volvo parked
salt-streaked on sand.

Two pale feet,
sock-soft from an air conditioned summer,
perch beside the open door

while waves break in lazy stretches
across the brown bay and gutted channel.

Canned root beer warms in melted ice
and gulls,
fed scraps from a tuna sandwich at sunset,
still screech in hovering circles,

the skies ruby black above them,
their beady eyes a reflection of red

as the car pulls away

leaving large seaside mosquitoes
to crash the party,

ending the sandy feast.

Joe Massingham

Terns

Terns climb and wheel incessantly

mewing a lament for lost chicks,

painting patterns on the cliff face

that artistic periwinkles

can study from their seashore studios

and copy in the sculptured shelters

in which they enclose themselves.

Each night the wind wields

nature’s scouring pad

and scrubs the cliff face clean

so that in the morning the terns

must undertake their task again.