Dementia’s Innards   Talc rains down on him in slow storms in every room of his house.… Read More “Poetry by Teresa Sutton”

The Excuse: an Email   Still not certain how my schedule will unfold   I am confronted by a roiling combination of previous promises weather events   miscellaneous omens now conspire to leave me dealing in a world of 18% grey.… Read More “Poetry by R. A. Lucas”

Unexpected   What do I do with this love, lighter than air?… Read More “Poetry by Moira Walsh”

Her body squat, solid, thick, a Three Pigs’ house of brick, Lissa leaned heavily against me flute thin taller by a head both of us, seventeen, the pair of us a listing ship as I steered her down steep hills cobbled streets to local doctor then translated English to Spanish Spanish back to English.… Read More “LISA, 1969 AND 1979 SUMMERS by Ellen Ritterberg”

Some days you forget despair’s tractor-pull long enough to see some little boy go vroom vroom with a toy car.… Read More “OPTIMISM by Chris Banks”

During the waxing of the sturgeon moon the bay stretches and contracts with ever-increasing drama.… Read More “THE ARGUMENT by Edward Miller”

What can you do with a line in your mine in your mind mined maybe full stop maybe perhaps not.… Read More “POEM: WHAT CAN YOU DO WITH by Ellen Ritterberg”

Your success depends Squarely upon how much you Value playing fair

State Your Specific Intention Here I’d like to go back to an ordinary Sunday afternoon where we played pinball on a Sopranos-themed machine in a dark bar in downtown Detroit.… Read More “Poetry by Michelle Brooks”

Pink wet robin, a baby perched on the end of a shoe, plucked right back into the nest, to be rejected if the oils on my hand aren’t too human.… Read More “GROWING WINGS by Mickie Kennedy”

‘Steada perusing for the next latest greatest killer application to count my pulse or blood oxygen level now we are looking for that newfangled savior app which waved in front of folks registers if they have coronavirus.

An unease tries to clamber up stainless-steel sides, will not drain with the dishwater.… Read More “SILENT TREATMENT by Joseph Hardy”

When, thrust out of, rousted from billowy somnolence, while nuzzled, nosed into by heat-seeking missile while asleep, their protestations, imprecations ignored, and   all demurrals having failed, some women do what they feel they must do and give in.   The giant enters.   Once goaded, Compliant, docile bulls, they remain silent except for maybe a snort or two which may just be breathing.… Read More “LEAVETAKING, A GUIDE by Ellen Ritterberg”

A dear but distant friend sent me the link to a camera on the Platte that captures, live, during sunset,   upwards of 100,000 cranes returning from far fields to roost midstream on sandbar sanctuaries.   Countless chains of gliding shadows cross a red bandana sky, swing  back, hover, drop, safe in numbers.   How astonishing to see so many birds becoming islands in a river while I, far removed, anticipate a virus flocking in.   Last April, I saw songbird silhouettes fly across a bright midnight moon, counted shad on underwater video   heard the first redwing trill from branches high above a parkland pond.… Read More “THIS SPRING by Raymond Byrnes”

When the crow pixilates the bricks of the building no longer look bricks or even brick-like or some approximation thereof they look like velvet or is it velveteen wish I knew Wish I could create a word for every word that autocorrects creates for me opportunity for self-exploration or if not that then clarification of what I might mean counterintuitive though it might be autocorrection qua thought howsoever non-original it may not be The writing of it, the simultaneity of it, the whole hog full engagement thereof in the writing that is if you dig if you follow me that forces me to formulate the meaning of trees not the oxygenation or other life forms and humans the gaseous cycle or however that CO2 oxygen exchange tap dance works, the oxygen just out there for the taking or was or used to be with emphasis on the past and if not, what function might the term urban blight serve except to remind we are oxygen deprived clean air as dodo bird air as unwonted speck in the eye particulate matter perpetual glacial calving magma stewing.… Read More “WHEN THE CROW PIXILATES ON THE IMAGE by Ellen Ritterberg”