Laure-Anne Bosselaar: Lassitude
the stars barely visible above the oil rigs off the coast,
aglow like phantom ships
Audio: W.S. Merwin reads “In Time”
and started to dance without music
slowly we danced around and around
in circles and after a while we hummed
when the world was about to end
Jordan Smith: Tattoo
The tattoo place was in the strip mall
Between the pizza shop and the liquor store,
Where all during Covid he bought
His tequila because the owner played
Old blues on the stereo and kept his distance
Robinson Jeffers: Night
Over the dark mountain, over the dark pinewood,
Down the long dark valley along the shrunken river,
Returns the splendor without rays, the shining of shadow
Wilson R. M. Taylor: Two Poems
Today I said goodbye to my mother
for a few weeks. Five months ago,
the doctor estimated she had six to twelve
to live. I fly back and forth to replace futures
we’ve lost; I leave long scars in the atmosphere.
Jianqing Zheng: Dreaminations
[…] young woman with a basket in her hand walking down the road, her long skirt swaying like sunlight rustling with shriveled leaves. Is she taking lunch to her husband harvesting cotton or going berry picking in the woods?
Jerome Bergland: The Dreaminations of Jianqing Zheng
Jianqing Zheng long ago established himself as one of the most thrilling and gifted writers of haibun and tanka prose.
Cynthia Atkins: When Harry Met Sally
A light quaked on earth, because when the waitress
gasped and blushed, we gasped and blushed,
sitting in the plush dark aisles to our interiors.
Robert Hayden: Those Winter Sundays
What did I know, what did I know
of love’s austere and lonely offices?
James Crews: The Slightest Kindness
We were walking the icy streets,
talking about the ways our country
has betrayed us again—promises
unkept, laws broken beyond repair.
Rose Mary Boehm: Poinciana and then some
Green canopies aflame with
an unreal red, lit by the dying sun.
Yonhi in the plastic chair, blue baseball
cap pushed back. He’s seen it all.
Michael T. Young | The Secular Sublime: An Appreciation of Gerald Stern
Stern’s poems are deceptively simple. He writes in a language completely devoid of pretense and yet dignified with the elegance of profound meditation.
Edison Jennings: One of Many Melodious Songs
An ivy educated American male,
bespoke suited but modest and sincere,
once seated and lighted to good effect
and confident of his look and manner
will, when gently prodded, confess
Alison Hurwitz: On Resilience
In 8th grade English class my son’s assigned
a sonnet, asked to find an image, select
one metaphor that can expand to bind
disparate thoughts together.
