Alan Britt - 1 Poem

DEAF WIND

Den of inequity rocking waves
of absolute resolution.

A ceramic gull cries,
dirty as a handkerchief
stuffed in the breast pocket
of the deaf wind.

Cries laundered in a gyroscope
of filthy socks and hospital gowns.

Gull, perhaps, or filthy tomcat
scaling the palace walls
via Elizabeth’s placenta-stained nightgown.

Out, out, damned angel of retribution!

The only salvation is the salvation
of nightmares!

Care for a gentle sip?

BIOGRAPHY: Alan Britt read poems at the World Trade Center/Tribute WTC Visitor Center in Manhattan/NYC, April 2012, at the We Are You Project (WeAreYouProject.Org) Wilmer Jennings Gallery, East Village/NYC, April 2012, and at New Jersey City University's Ten Year 9/11 Commemoration in Jersey City, NJ, September 2011. His poem, "September 11, 2001," appeared in International Gallerie: Poetry in Art/Art in Poetry Issue, v13 No.2 (India): 2011. His recent book is Alone with the Terrible Universe (CypressBooks 2011).

 

John Swain - 1 Poem

Red Calligraphy

The door to the sea

opens under the moon

like the ghost of words

I wrote to reveal

your understanding

of death’s impasse.

There is a distance

of ships like widows

veiled and unveiled

in the process

of a summer woman.

Between our hands

twists a red calligraphy

of apple branches

for each year

we served eternal

to love the way

we were made to rise

from wheat and fire.

I will always live

in your life

looking through

this arterial night.

BIOGRAPHY: John Swain lives in Louisville, Kentucky. Crisis Chronicles Press published his most recent chapbook, White Vases.

Diane Webster - 1 Poem

AROUND THE CORNER

Some mankind built this wall

stone upon stone higher

and farther around the corner

now draped in vines

seeking root between cracks

widening by winter freeze

spring thaw every-expanding

sycamore roots pushing

this wall into forest assimilation

forgotten by some mankind

around the corner gone.

BIOGRAPHY: Diane Webster's challenge as a poet is to remain open to poetry ideas in everyday opportunities as well as those moments of epiphany. Then to allow her imagination to evolve that idea into a poem. Diane's work has appeared in “Philadelphia Poets,” “The Hurricane Review,” “Illya's Honey” and other literary magazines.

Stephen Jarrell Williams - 1 Poem

Soon

Soon
to come,
a beginning new,
this world
gone
with its endless
pain and tears.

Forgiveness singing
in the wind,
a breath of everyone
together
under stars and sun.

A dream
that has always been,
soon
to come.

BIOGRAPHY: Stephen Jarrell Williams loves to stay up all night and write with lightning bolts until they fizzle down behind the dark horizon.  He is the editor of Dead Snakes at http://deadsnakes.blogspot.com/