The Awakening
Here I am, once again,
Frailty exposed to the impudent dawn;
Rude birdsong only offends unwilling ears
Soaking dew lies cold on the lawn
Devil-red sun serves to warm my fears.
Frozen in my empty bed
Body heat merely perfunctory to a friendless rest;
No lover's arms cocoon my mind's activity
I shudder in the sunlight
and endure the new day's bite
Beauty compliant with misery, forever wed.
God, that I should feel your breath on my cheek,
Slowly melting into my dejected skin
Your scent no longer tantalises on the neighbouring pillow
Who would think that freedom can become sin
and emptiness an intruder, unwanted bedfellow ?
David Woods
Guarded
hearts,
wrapped in sharp barbs,
bleed mournfully
through each beat
tapping into the feral heat
of a wilderness wild
where only the kindred roam --
side by side, yet always
alone.
Valerie Noir
PATIO-PARTY XMAS
The ultimate dream envisioned
by your childhood friend interpreted
in a mother’s extravaganzas: palms
and tiki torches illuminating the cut-
out Santa and his deer. Glittery
white froth sprayed like snow, like
organza dresses that make every
young girl beautiful.
Your own mother trimmed a gaunt tree
with old glass balls in red & blue.
She baked orange-peel bread
and bought one pound
of mixed nuts, one orange
per stocking. One special toy.
She never let on
Christmas was more
than a cold season, a few candles,
a long night and a star.
HOLLY FOR A GRANDMOTHER’S MIRROR
Narrow, gray-toned with a severe
scroll along the arched top
and leaves etched like a laurel crown
across the noncommittal face;
plain brass studs knuckled in
to hold front to back: it hangs
eye-level on its thin
twisted wire. Remember how she
tipped up on the toes of her old-
lady shoes to straighten her hat
and fix her outer smile.
Now you reach up to place
the wreath, to make festive
every aunt and nephew who looks
into the silvered face.
INTO THE NEW YEAR, DIVIDED
The news was never so bad:
the other half celebrating
its bonanza, our defeat; our worst
fears; the anchorman repeating
the results each half hour,
drilling disaster into deafened
ears. And then, confetti flying
as the clock ticks down.
The slogan of an echo:
choose. This is how we’ve come
to lose heart. At the next
table, someone keeps fiddling
with his shoes, undoing velcro
straps with a sound like rip-
ping good cloth apart. Our
country. The New Year.
COUNTING DOWN
I don’t want to hear the TV
celebrating with champagne,
or the turn of the cork
or the tick of the clock.
I want to go out under the night sky
and listen for a breeze in pines
and way far down the river mumbling
over stones, in voices
of people whose words never needed
a name for me to know them.
I want to listen for something
even more distant.
A message from way up there,
the rhythmic click
of planets in the cold,
or souls moving on
across the Milky Way.
A signal. Open the door.
That tick tick tick I hear
is Time.
Its pulse still running.
Taylor Graham
David Woods
Lone
souls howl
against the backdrop of an Eternal Now,
They are sounds cloaked in cold autumnal shrouds
waiting . . .
for mourning to come and go.
against the backdrop of an Eternal Now,
They are sounds cloaked in cold autumnal shrouds
waiting . . .
for mourning to come and go.
We
stalk wild
in self-imposed
sanctuaries
where not even an eagle
can eye the storm inside.
in self-imposed
sanctuaries
where not even an eagle
can eye the storm inside.
Leaders
of sorry packs,
we find ourselves in solitude,
ever retreating into long shadows.
we find ourselves in solitude,
ever retreating into long shadows.
wrapped in sharp barbs,
bleed mournfully
through each beat
tapping into the feral heat
of a wilderness wild
where only the kindred roam --
side by side, yet always
alone.
Valerie Noir
PATIO-PARTY XMAS
The ultimate dream envisioned
by your childhood friend interpreted
in a mother’s extravaganzas: palms
and tiki torches illuminating the cut-
out Santa and his deer. Glittery
white froth sprayed like snow, like
organza dresses that make every
young girl beautiful.
Your own mother trimmed a gaunt tree
with old glass balls in red & blue.
She baked orange-peel bread
and bought one pound
of mixed nuts, one orange
per stocking. One special toy.
She never let on
Christmas was more
than a cold season, a few candles,
a long night and a star.
HOLLY FOR A GRANDMOTHER’S MIRROR
Narrow, gray-toned with a severe
scroll along the arched top
and leaves etched like a laurel crown
across the noncommittal face;
plain brass studs knuckled in
to hold front to back: it hangs
eye-level on its thin
twisted wire. Remember how she
tipped up on the toes of her old-
lady shoes to straighten her hat
and fix her outer smile.
Now you reach up to place
the wreath, to make festive
every aunt and nephew who looks
into the silvered face.
INTO THE NEW YEAR, DIVIDED
The news was never so bad:
the other half celebrating
its bonanza, our defeat; our worst
fears; the anchorman repeating
the results each half hour,
drilling disaster into deafened
ears. And then, confetti flying
as the clock ticks down.
The slogan of an echo:
choose. This is how we’ve come
to lose heart. At the next
table, someone keeps fiddling
with his shoes, undoing velcro
straps with a sound like rip-
ping good cloth apart. Our
country. The New Year.
COUNTING DOWN
I don’t want to hear the TV
celebrating with champagne,
or the turn of the cork
or the tick of the clock.
I want to go out under the night sky
and listen for a breeze in pines
and way far down the river mumbling
over stones, in voices
of people whose words never needed
a name for me to know them.
I want to listen for something
even more distant.
A message from way up there,
the rhythmic click
of planets in the cold,
or souls moving on
across the Milky Way.
A signal. Open the door.
That tick tick tick I hear
is Time.
Its pulse still running.
Taylor Graham
by Len Bourret
(Copyright 2004)
Inspired by Maureen
Dowd's 'Slapping the
Other Cheek' (The
New York Times,
Copyright 2004)...
Do Not Let Yourself
Be Perished by the
Sword.
Love thy Neighbor,
Turn the Other Cheek,
Good Will Toward Men,
Blessed Be the Peacemakers,
Judge Not Lest You Be Judged.
Peace, Charity, and Tolerance
Vibes, and Not a Vengeful
Individual or Mob,
Not Revved Up by Rectitude,
and Running Around Bearing
Guns, Knives, Torches and
Hatchets,
Not Waging War Against
Heathens, and Pagans,
and Infidels.
Not Supporting the No-End-In-
Sight Atrocities War of Prejudice,
Discrimination, Oppression and.
Repression's Terror.
The Christian Prodigal, George
W. Bush, is Not Infallible and
Infiniturn.
Even a Prodigal is Quite Fallible,
and a U.S. Presidential Term
Lasts Only Four Short Years.
Although Time, to Man, Seems
to Be Infinitive and Quite Long.
Our Time is Precious, but Only
a Brief Reference in a Star's
Glittering, and Not So Glittering
Accounts, Rising and Falling in
History's Universe.
In a Universe, So Gigantic and
So Vast, All Common Men and
All Prodigals are but Significant
Infini-Zillion Seconds of Infinity's
Time.
Cinderella Man
Dreams
by Len Bourret
(Copyright 2004)
'Finding My Way',
the Ending Has
Changed.
Sky Dancing
in Available
Light,
After Image
of an Alien
Shore,
Before and
After,
Beneath
the Sun and
the Moon,
and Beyond.
Bravado.
Count Down,
Cut to the
Chase,
Distant Early
Warning,
Dreamline
Driven,
Emotion
Detector,
Entre' Nous,
Getting My
Glory,
Finding My
Way,
Doing the
Best I can,
Chemistry, to
Hemispheres.
Climbing via
Jacob's Ladder,
Finding Limelight,
and Losing It.
Time and Motion,
Time Stands Still,
Vital Signs,
Xanadu.
Fly by Night,
on a Stairway
to the Stars,
in a Twilight
Zone of Tears
and Territories,
to Red Sector A.
Mystic Rhythm,
Spirit Radio,
on a Witch Hunt,
with the Camera
Eye.
Rivendall,
Red Barchetta,
Red Leses,
Anthem,
in the Bluest of
States,
a Marathon,
on a Mission,
Finding My
Way,
to experiencing
Cinderella Man
Dreams.
Hear, as Well as Read 'The Promise', by Len Bourret
(Copyright 2004), in 'Dreams Alive Magazine'...Click
On the 'Hand' Image...
Hear, as Well as Read 'The Promise', by Len Bourret
(Copyright 2004), in 'Dreams Alive Magazine'...Click
On the 'Hand' Image...
ADVENT
The wind
Blows cold from out
The north and days grow short
And nights grow long and hope is born
Again.
---------------------
HOUSEPLANTS
Looking
Out the window
At the howling snowstorm,
Only one thing is staying green:
The Jade.
------------------
CHRISTMAS SHOPPING
People
All about me
Rushing, pushing, jostling;
In the midst of the throng, I am
Lonely.
---------------------
white smoke
pouring out of chimneys
this cold winter day
I turn up the thermostat
and forget about fossil fuels
--------------------
my old dog
is snoring contentedly
this early morning
I am up long before the dawn
the week is heavy on my mind
CW Hawes
C W Hawes is a bureaucrat by day and a poet by night. He regards as his Muses Shelley, Whitman, Basho, Issa,
Ishikawa Takuboku, the Imagists, and Millay. His favorite living poet is Wendell Berry. He has had more than 250 poems
published in print and online in the USA, Canada, Phillipines, and the UK since 2002; over half of which have been in his
favorite form, tanka. He was chosen to be the featured poet twice on PoeticVoices; was guest editor of a Japanese-form
issue of The MAG,which appeared Summer 2004; and was a winner in the 2004 Tanka Splendor contest. He lives in the
mid-western USA with his wife, daughter, dog, and cat.
Again the Autumn leaves us.
What for to shout: " the Trouble! Misfortune! "
We shall not accuse a wind,
Which has torn off all leaves.
Autumn go away imperceptibly,
As the wife who any more does not like:
She only, will nod affably,
And from a rain, as from vine
We are already drunk.
Leaves fly from trees, as birds.
We want to sing and love,
And to take a shawl from a laughing blizzard,
That To put
on it on the frozen linden.
Dina Televitskaya
I received some art work
from Bremandy
Beal, I am pleased to present to you :
Beacon of Hope