Barbara Hamby: Ode on Dictionaries
A-bomb is how it begins with a big bang on page
one, a calculator of sorts whose centrifuge
begets bedouin, bamboozle, breakdance, and berserk,
one of my mother’s favorite words, hard knock
clerk of clichés that she is
Sandy Solomon: On a Visit to Friends
I’m drawn to the window where the hummingbirds
come; the shrill sound of wings precedes them;
then they hover at the red sugar water,
feeding before they’re gone.
Dante Alighieri: Sestina of the Lady Pietra degli Scrovigni
Yet shall the streams turn back and climb the hills
Before Love’s flame in this damp wood and green
Burn, as it burns within a youthful lady,
For my sake, who would sleep away in stone
My life, or feed like beasts upon the grass,
Only to see her garments cast a shade.
Judith Baumel: The Last Judgment in which Enrico Scrovegni is Seen Presenting a Model of His Chapel to the Blessed Mother
Like a litter of mice born bare and squirming
the resurrected emerge from the cracked ground,
their bodies so very pale and hairless
so small and scrawny, stunned and scrambling
to comport themselves.
Video: Though There are Torturers | Michael Coady
Though, at this moment,
Men are screaming in prisons,
There are jazzmen raising storms
Of sensuous celebration
Elsa Gidlow: A Happy Song
Heaped sweets and a treasure
For a new sin to play with,
To pass a night and day with––
Heaped sweets for a pleasure.
Michael Simms: You Taught Me
you pointed
At the bubbles rising in the pitcher
Of beer to explain consciousness
Which was blurred by that time
Of evening
Rachel Hadas: That Patch of Warmth
August. Midday. Look up: flawless sky
until a cloud sprouts; sidles; suddenly
blots out the sun. Wind troubles the trees
Neil Shepard: Mating Behaviors of Storks, Egrets, Humans
We’re out of love again and wandering
with other birdwatchers over the cedar shakes,
spying on spring nesting sites where great
migrations end and settle into familiar patterns
of rearing and weaning.
Molly Fisk: Austerity
I love the bare, the necessary: tree without leaves,
man with no clothes. Muscle and skin, bark, knot,
scar, and stubble. Dignity planted before us without
apology.
Al Maginnes: God in Retirement
A little more wine before the sisters
of the scarlet moon perform their ritual
dance again.
Angele Ellis: “Raised Incorruptible” | In Book of Entangled Souls, Richard St. John tests the boundaries of life and death, compassion and spirituality 
St. John looks deeply and compassionately where others might glance away or move on, and draws the reader along with him.
John Greenleaf Whittier: Forgiveness
My heart was heavy, for its trust had been
Abused, its kindness answered with foul wrong…
Doug Anderson: We Get Old, We Get Sick
How we stumble, are glib
in the face of our fear
when we might show
our own raw heart
Vox Populi 