Bone-dry
by Tom Sheehan
(after Frost)
This is something to make you cry,
Eagle with wings that cannot fly,
But strangest of these bits of quirk,
Baritone’s voice gone bone-dry.
This makes him emit a smirk
Letting us see the dainty perk,
Trying to get him back in trim,
Doomed forever to thereby lurk.
It’s something to keep him slim,
His face ever full of winsome grim,
Nevermore that sound to reap,
As this creature will never creep
From a valley, the sides too steep,
Making us ever long to weep,
Voice stretched, gone too deep,
Voice stretched, gone too deep.
Bio: Sheehan, in his 93rd year, (31st Infantry, Korea 1950-52; Boston College 1952-56), has published 48 books, multiple works in Rosebud, The Linnet’s Wings, Copperfield Review, Literally Stories,, Frontier Tales, Green Silk Journal, Rope & Wire Magazine, etc. He has 16 Pushcart nominations, 6 Best of Net nominations (one winner). Latest books released are The Grand Royal Stand-off and Other Stories and Small Victories for the Soul VII and Poems and Reflections for Proper Bostonians. In submission cycle are Beneath My Feet This Rare Earth often Slips into the Far Side of Another’s Telescope and Back Home in Saugus and Fables, Fairy Stories, Folk Lore and Fantasies.
The Traveler
by Beth Duncan
You had a window in your room
but the view was just concrete.
You breathed through a cannula,
yet spoke with great clarity
on the Eightfold Path of Buddhism.
I know I distracted you from fear
that the sacred time capsule
of your life was almost full.
And then I got the call. Dead.
What the hell does that mean?
I’m not musical so don’t talk to me
of harps. Or clouds (you’d fall right
through, land six feet under).
Is it like cutting a telephone wire,
sending sound waves somewhere
into an undefinable ether?
Do your last thoughts land on Mars?
Or, like television, does a god turn
the channel when he gets bored?
I awake in the night. I sweat.
I shiver. My heart quivers. When
will it be my turn? My body
screams for survival. I am
not faithful, like a worker bee
that follows unseen orders.
I can only breathe and clutch life.
Bio: Beth Duncan holds an MA in writing from the Johns Hopkins Krieger School of Arts and Sciences. She has two published books of poetry and her poems have appeared in The Best of Spiritual Writing Network and The Green Silk Journal. She lives in Frederick, MD with two feisty cats and one ghost kitty.
Arrival of Old Age
by Satyananda Sarangi
Little do I know of how old age creeps in
Through the fanlight above the doors of youth;
How its scent has deceived the masters of time
Withering their crisp sapience into its truth.
Not until by the fireside, holding a book
And failing to keep a count of unread pages;
One would admit his face has outlived the charm,
Once irresistible in those bygone ages.
Not until a forgotten friend's found again
Whom memories have disowned with passing time;
Yet shall trick one to think over and over
That not remembering is the greatest crime.
Not until he rediscovers an innocence
Ruined by wild torrents of responsibility;
An inordinate love to accompany him
As unchanged as years ago it used to be.
Bio: Satyananda Sarangi is a young civil servant by profession. A graduate in electrical engineering from IGIT Sarang, his works have been featured in The Society of Classical Poets, Sparks of Calliope, Snakeskin, The Green Silk Journal, WestWard Quarterly, Page & Spine, Glass: Facets of Poetry and elsewhere. Currently, he resides in Odisha, India.
PUT THE ARGUMENT TO BED
by John Grey
So do we sleep
or argue about stuff
that doesn’t matter,
subjects as far removed
from consequence
as we are from the Middle East.
I’m weary.
Not even the truth
can keep me up any longer,
whether it’s my version
or your version.
If I lie down,
pull the sheets up over me,
then the world
with all its pathways and positioning,
its light and dark,
is of no consequence to me.
I surrender my stance.
Now please surrender yours.
We can cuddle close,
become all there is,
overlap to the point
that who I am,
and who you are,
are a matter more of conjecture
than certainty.
So let our points of view
follow suit.
They will thank us for it
or they will take us to task.
No matter.
We’ll be asleep by then.
Bio: John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident. Recently published in Sin Fronteras, Dalhousie Review and Qwerty with work upcoming in West Trade Review, Willard and Maple and Connecticut River Review.
