INSIDE THIS ISSUE:
Chris Lord
Joseph McNair
Duane Locke
Lazlo Slomovits
Alan Britt
Shutta Crum
Tolu Ogunlesi
Jerry Blanton
Paul B. Roth
Fred Wolven
Felino Soriano
Sharon E. Boyd
Joanie Freeman
Jumoke Verissimo
Running Cub
Jeanpaul Ferro
S. P. Flannery
Kristina Marie Darling
Gary Beck
Dike Okoro
Karyn M. Wolven
Crazy Horse pressed his red hands
against his pony's muscular hips,
then caressed her neck.
A black feather falls
from a Druid instrument
made of lynx gut
and balsa.
And old dog, much younger than several generations
of gilded mantle clocks,
trips over five, felt-tipped hammers
vibrating a kitchen clock's brass rods.
More than 120 years after Little Big Horn,
a green tyger
prowls the lush green lips of silence.
ODE TO A WEST NILE MOSQUITO
This ankle is not for sale,
my friend,
even if
you gently rest your wrinkled legs
against my white cotton sock,
incognito.
You see, Nilly, I'm wise
to your shenanigans
of pulling blood through a tube.
This is not how I quench
my imagination,
or my iguana soul,
for that matter,
clinging to its barnacled rock
of lost faith.
THREE-YEAR-OLD
The ancient philosopher tumbles
from his giant, wooden rocking horse
into a vat of quicksilver.
It's the Tang Dynasty
and he has about 64 years or so,
if he's lucky, to invent the water clock
then learn how to swim.
Alan Britt, Reisterstown, Maryland