My Father’s Map

by Beverly Osborne

He had a briefcase full of maps,

and on old slow days,

the kind of days when it seems  

your history might be forgotten

he would take them out,

unfold them gently,

trace routes to places he’d never been,

places he’d been a thousand times,

places far too distant to ever drive.

His maps were his books –

novellas from which he could read

knowledge long misplaced,

memories contained on the marked

blue and red routes –

this is where he broke down for 27 hours

here where he shared coffee with a race car driver

this road where he backed the 18-wheeler 2 miles on ice.

The backs of his hands were mottled with age –

purply blue veins in stark relief to paper skin.

Wrinkles and laugh lines crisscrossed his face like tributaries.

On his right foot the two cliff-deep scars

from toe to heel that hurt his whole life.

Scars I never saw until he was old & ill –

hidden like a secret.

Old wounds that kept him from war at 19

but kept him missing a part of himself –

that twisted like a river from his foot to everywhere.

Those veins, lines, wrinkles and scars

were my father’s road map –

one that I barely read when I had the chance.

Written over 80 years and more experience 

than I can yet imagine,

they were the path he left to his children.

Written in his blood, his leathery skin,

his booming voice and gap-toothed smile,

it is a map I can no longer read.

I re-fold it gently, properly, the way he taught me,

and on my old slow days to come

I’ll pull it out and read my father’s map.

~

Bev lives in Tribes Hill, NY. She started writing poetry in 8th grade and has continued, in fits and starts, since then. She works full time for a large federal government agency, and works even harder to retain her sense of humor and sense of justice.

(four haiku)

by Tom Gilroy

piercing the grey mist

and the roar of the waves—

a cell phone

between two icicles

on the funeral parlor sill—

a burning cigarette 

2 black crows & their chick

peck bugs in the lawn

unbothered by the groundhog

flattened rat

in a puddle

in front of the courthouse

~

Tom Gilroy is an interdisciplinary artist whose work spans still photography, theatre, writing, poetry, and music, with film at its center. His feature films and theatre pieces have been presented all over the world. He has produced several haiku projects, including 5 years facilitating limited edition pieces for The Renssealerville Haiku Project, as well as his own the books the haiku year, Someone Else's Nowhere, and Haiku, Not Bombs. His haiku work can be viewed on Instagram at @justuttergarbage and @thehaikuyear25.

The Stairs at Marian Lodge

Pyramid Lake, NY

by Susan Oringel

It could have been a hundred years that prayers went up

and down this place. - Margie Bock

Fifteen blue, buckled wooden steps

up the narrow staircase named the “thin place”

in a poem framed above the stairs that you

could read as you trudged your way.

Fifteen ancient painted steps that seemed

a mountain at first glance, high and tight

with Mother Mary at the top, arms open

with downcast eyes beside a tarnished mirror

that made me a wraith.  What would I find

at the top, in my little room overlooking

the lake - where the poet claimed God

was to be found - but no, I wanted

God everywhere, in my room,

in my heart, on the blank page, 

in the women I met, in the caroling

loons, the restless trees, the gravel

paths, even in smoke from wild-fired

Canada. Especially in this thin place,

which is the place of struggle, creation,

birth, which is the place we need Her most.

~

I am happy to announce my full-length book of poems Carnevale was published December 2023 by the David Roberts Books Imprint of Wordtech Communications!

Perpetua's Apocrypha

by David Gonsalves

About one god.  About many.  About swimming and

the shore.  About your eyes when one god sings.  Bad

luck, white lies, eight and forty gates.  About the things

a god must do.  About a great unpolished tombstone.

About a thirsty horse.  About the streets of Charlottesville.

About the secret celebrations of the gods.  Bee hives and

blood loss.  Photography and failure.  About a grace note

lost in a cask of chaos.  About greed and a gray-eyed god.

~

David Gonsalves should have been born in Nepal, but wasn't.  If, by chance, he is forced into exile, he will no doubt end up in Kingstown, St Vincent, his paternal grandfather's birthplace.

January Trees, Lake George

by Francesca J. Sidoti

Ice reflects an amber fire 

friends in a photo 

pine next to willow 

rooted in winter 

in summer 

cooling the celadon 

of each other 

filtering air and light 

of tropospheres 

recall the first trees

374 million years ago,

wrapping around to now,

family arms 

jacket-clad,

fronds side by side,

savor respite in unity of leaves 

forming safe shade from torching sun 

in heat waves, catch snow 

and frozen glaze to brace February  

reminding that we live, 

fiber of cells, 

our folia, co-constructed

cut down or diverging my leaves 

and yours twine 

to coax a canopy 

forest habitats unbroken 

faces in a photo 

reach the January lodge

laugh silently through cold lakes

hands and smiles folding 

terminal and lateral 

branches overtaken 

burnished with flaws

in woodworkers’ seasonal frames

~

Francesca J. Sidoti is a writer in Albany, NY.

For Emma

by Rachel R Baum

The breeze whispers salty secrets into open windows

Of this gracious house, greening in summer’s warmth.

 

Its whitewashed walls shine with welcome

Anticipating glorious childhood memories to be.

 

Then she arrives, wispy curled and beloved,

Fragrant as laundered linen, neatly folded.

 

In the sturdy, perfect boat that is her home,

She is rocked in flannel seas, leeward sailing,

 

Dreaming of vast oceans and wild places, safe

In the golden beam of her lighthouse, her family.

~

Rachel R. Baum is a Best of the Net poet, and the editor of Funeral and Memorial Service Readings Poems and Tributes (McFarland, 1999). Her poetry has appeared in Journal of Expressive Writing, OneArt, Poetica Review, New Verse News, The Phare and Raven’s Perch, among others. She is the founder of the Saratoga Peace Pod, a group of crafters who create warm items for families in crisis. For more information, visit https://www.rachelrbaum.net.

Wonderland . . . or Alice's Rabbit

by Francine Farina

Tick Tock . . . Tick Tock

Down the rabbit hole

I go

Falling in darkness 

Then landing with 

a thud

I open bleary eyes 

and see him

He wears a vest

and is all white 

He is looking 

at a watch,

twitching his whiskers 

and keeps repeating 

"I'm late, I'm late, oh

dear I shall be late!"

~

Francine is a local poet who has been published in Misfit Magazine and Caregiver Magazine. She has also authored a collection of poetry, Old Bones, which is available at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. She co-authored a novel with the late Shawn M Tomlinson entitled Time Book 16, Cataclysm. She lives in Amsterdam, NY, and shares her home with three adorable rescue cats.

The shortest days.

by Dan Dial

The snow lay soft upon the boughs,

Breathtaking in its simplicity and beauty.

The air so fresh and clean.

Like lemon zest with scintillating touches of cinnamon.

The swirling flakes dance and twirl in the shuttering light

As they make their slow descent,

while the wind caressed one’s cheeks.

The northern realms of this vast world, 

nearing their shortest days

Turn a verdant and multicolored world

into shades of green and grey.

Yet,

In this darkest of times a snowflake falls,

Then another and again another.

Until the sky is glistening, reality and fantasy

Dance in a waltz so graceful and magical

That even the wildlife sit up and take notice.

It is always at such times, when two worlds collide,

That we ascend to the heights and all is possible.

That is what I wish for you this year as the darkness settles in for a stay.

I wish you magic and fantasy and mystery and joy and peace and health.

And above all, love.

~

Dan Dial was born in Anchorage Alaska, moved to Presque Isle, Maine when but a babe, then on to Texas and back to Presque Isle, Maine. This is where he started his school years and stayed through high school. Perhaps it was these early moves that created the wanderlust that remains with him. He has been writing prose and poetry for many years and feels he may hold the record for number of “no thanks” to his many submissions. He co-wrote “A Trail of Two Brothers” with his brother Doug, but he asks that you don’t hold that against him. He lives in Middleburgh NY with his beloved, Laura Lee Daisy Wyman.

I Have Danced With Druids

by Sally Rhoades 

In my slumber as my muscles twitch, strengthen,

awaken in all of their glory. I am smitten with the

Attitude of my hometown druids who dance and spiral

North and south, east and west as they gather the gold

Of voice spoken through others as I am engulfed in 

Joy and its lasting timber. When all is said and done,

I bequeath my knowledge so others may dance a fraction 

Of their heart. There are no words to speak when the body

Has it right, glimmers in starlight, moon light, the often firefly 

That gathers dusk. I am myself, I am when the druids dance

All of my awakening to their sweet succor and chariot to lift

Me to the sky and back on that night when music played

In my ear and catastrophe kept its distance in the open air.

Ah, to dance with the druids is oft compare to starlight.

~

Sally Rhoades, a poet, playwright and performer, has been putting movement to words and words to movement for the last thirty years. She has been featured at most of the area’s open mics and is a frequent contributor. She was featured on Charlie Rossiter’s podcast Poetry Spoken Here and interviewed by Andrea Cunliffe for the Hudson Mohawk magazine at WOOC105.3 FM, a Sanctuary for Independent Media. She has been published in various anthologies and in on-line publications. She received her MA in Creative writing from the University of Albany. Her chapbook, Greeted by Wild Flowers, is available from Dan Wilcox's APD Press.

Thoughts on a Cold February Night in Lower Manhattan

by George Grace

 

The loneliness cut through my soul

Like the unrelenting cold air

Blistering through the canyons of lower Broadway

Shaking off its granite restraints to lose itself

in the whirlwind of New York harbor

Those hollowed streets where ticker tape flew

For reasons both pedestrian and sublime

Our paths crisscrossing over decades

Each person lost in their thoughts

Their worries tailored to their particular vulnerability

Our connection displaced by time

If I could only tell them now that their life mattered

That their little heroisms where not in vain

That the river of humanity runs through each one of them

And now I shiver, at the apex

Like them I leave my invisible imprint on the hard, blue slate below

But I am comforted by the warmth that they shared,

The warmth that never dissipates

An ember of love, given

A smile

~

George E. Grace is a commercial real estate broker and consultant by day, and an avid poet and writer by night. George is a graduate of Fordham University School of Law (JD), University of Chicago (MBA) and Cooper Union (BE). He is the son of William J. Grace, Sr., a published poet and Shakespearean and Milton scholar, where he credits his passion for words, ideas, and the art of communication.

Basement Aspirations

by Rhonda Rosenheck

My basement boasts sprays, 

saws, a lathe, brushes, and task lights 

clipped to a pegboard hung with 

hammers, chisels, screw drivers,

drill bits, and dad’s old folding ruler.

A bentwood chair with torn cane

sags against the seeping foundation

and hosts sticky old cobwebs 

beneath a bulb too dim to warn 

against stepping in the kitty litter.

My workbench is layered with scraps,

shards, chips, and the flat, round, 

colorful practice doodads that I rub,

wishing for a table, bookshelf, and my 

pregnant niece’s nursing glider to appear.

~

Rhonda Rosenheck lives in New York’s Capital Region. Her publications include editing Thriving: An Anthology (multiple genres, Exsolutas Press 2024), for which she won a NYSCA individual artists grant through Saratoga Arts. Her two poetry publications are The Five Books of Limericks: A chapter-by-chapter re-reading of the Torah (Ben Yehuda Press 2023) and Looking (Elephant Treehouse Press 2018). She also wrote Yiddische Yoga: OYsanas for Every Generation (humor, Ben Yehuda Press 2016) and several chapters and articles in the field of teacher education. Rhonda’s poems have appeared in Heirlock Magazine and Kings River Life Magazine’s e-newsletter, The Paragon Press, and anthologized in A Book of Sonnets (Poets Choice Press 2020). Her poem MakerSpace was theatrically performed at the Fenimore Art Museum’s Glimmer Globe Theater, Cooperstown, NY. In July 2023, Rhonda was the resident poet at the Fish Factory Arts Centre in Stöðvarfjörður, Iceland.

Red Clovers

by Dana Jaye Cadman

If you can remember only some parts of your life

why can you remember those parts

why picking weeds

in the field the sound of my dad's whistle

to come home

but how did it go? the high pitch

cracked through the absence

the space over the tall grass

breaking the sky

Where are you?

Holding red clovers

and talking to myself

the screeching snap of wheat I twist

and pull from the stem to gather:

a muted flute.

~

Dana Jaye Cadman is a writer and visual artist. Her work appears most recently in Southeast Review, The Glacier Journal, 2River View, and Dialogist, is forthcoming from Vassar Review. Find her on danajaye.com.

I am, you lonely one*

by Christy O’Callaghan

Didn’t you see me listening to you sing

that song you learned from your mom’s van radio?

Watching you swing from energetic static

to a melted pit of anguish when your power got cut.

Didn’t my reaching open hand

show you I was here?

Am I only the sister you searched for once the others burned out?

But my hand’s grown cold 

holding onto your rainbows, hearts, and green clovers.

Objects turned into candy-coated plastic

once bright enough to obscure our view.

Could you ever truly see me

past the pain you needed to escape?

And with that question suspended, I know

someday you will tell me when we meet again

among the stuff of stars.

*Inspired by Rainer Maria Rilke’s poem “I am, you anxious one.”

~

Christy O’Callaghan is a writer and developmental editor in Upstate NY. For two decades, she was a community organizer and educator. Christy loves strange stories, plants, and lore. Her work has appeared in The Los Angeles Review, Great Weather for Media, Trolley Journal, Under the Gumtree, Chestnut Review, among others. Visit christyflutterby.com for more information.

Tree of Life

by pmboudreaux

i was born in a tree

in a nest on a limb

my parents made for me

my siblings and me

sometimes it was rough

sometimes tough when they left me

one by one to venture forth

from the limb from the tree

the first sound i made was

'weeee, weeee'

whenever in trouble i sing

'tweet tweet tweet tweet, tweet tweet tweet tweet'

and others come to help me

i was born in a tree

'weeee, weeee'

~

I wrote this poem for my new great-grandson, James.

The End

by Edie Abrams

I stayed with my mother 

day and night, curled on a chair,

my head on the bed by her feet.

I repeated her life story

to nurses, cleaners, and

cafeteria workers, and

held her hand, caressed

her forehead, kissed 

her face all over,

called her “mommy,”

whispered to stay with me 

longer or be free to go…

They say hearing’s the last 

to fail so I played operas, 

Beethoven, and Fiddler.

Eyes closed, mouth locked open,

breath wheezy, her face

translucent as porcelain.

I found a Polish song 

she used to sing to me

“Maryna! Maryna, gotuj pierogi!” *

When young, I had laughed at “monkey” 

only now to find out it’s really “maką.” **

As the song ended, so did she…

just like that, life vanished

imperceptible and gently.

I climbed onto her bed and 

held her in my arms, my angel.

* “Maryna! Maryna, cook me pierogi!”

** pronounced “monka” (flour)

~

My mother almost made it to 96. Her death was the first bedside death that I experienced.  It was not at all how I expected it to be. Even though it was in a hospital, it was beautiful . . . and awesome.  My daughter Addie commented that, after her Grandma heard the Polish song, it was as if she returned “home.” Although we are not a religious or mystical family, concepts from religion or spirituality are apropos to our experiences.

More Beautiful

by Tom Bonville

The forest,

climbing the sides of mountains,

each peak, expansive, noble, solemn,

each tree laying its roots

deep into the earth,

being one with the earth,

living in peace,

ageing with grace,

the passing of years, inevitable.

I see the trees,

I speak to them, my voice soft as moss,

I am one with the trees,

knowing, no tree stands forever,

each tree having a life all its own,

as well as a passing.

I see myself among the trees,

standing tall, waiting,

not afraid now.

~

Tom Bonville lives in the Hudson Valley, has had poems published in Chronogram and Up The River, and regularly participates in various poetry groups and open mics.

Poem for 9/19/22

by Bob Sharkey

The day she got off the train

at Union Station,

she was wearing carnation pink.

Dress, hat, shoes all the same tint.

I was only seven, but I sensed

trouble as soon as she looked

from my grandfather to me.

“You will be ok,” he said.

The day before I headed west,

she asked me to take a chimp

and a pair of parrots out to

her parents east of Tuba City.

She was wearing a crown of dandelions,

said the parents were worn out,

the animals would perk them up.

I wanted to visit the Monuments and

come into the Grand Canyon from

the east and best entrance.  So, yes!

Now they are all gone, 

the last aunt died two years ago.

Even the diamond crowned young Queen

whose face in profile graced so many

of the stamps I collected as a boy

has departed.   

~

Bob Sharkey writes prose and poems.  He is a long time board member of the Hudson Valley Writers Guild.  Bob is the editor of the annual international Stephen A. DiBiase Poetry Contest now in its 9th year.

We Knew

          for Jeffrey

by Ann Lapinsky

Your first gift to me was

a bottle of wine

wrapped in Christmas

wrap, tied with a string,

taped with white 

artist’s tape.

It was February.

On our first trip 

to the tea shop

you asked for the 

thing in the case with

the sesame seeds 

all over it and did not

want to know what 

it was. When you ate

the mochi cake, you

told me it was way 

too sweet but that 

was OK.

During our first home-

cooked meal you thought

the black sesame seeds

I placed on the roasted

carrots looked like mouse

turds. You ate them 

anyway.

When we wanted to connect

on a Friday evening and 

could only think of going

to a Dunkin Donuts,

you told me it was one

of your favorite dates.

And a year has gone by

and you still give me gifts

wrapped in Christmas

wrap all times of the year

and we still go to that tea

shop but get macarons instead

of mochi and you still come 

to my house for dinner

and we still laugh about 

Dunkin Donuts and the

mouse turds.

Still.

~

In her retirement, Ann is facilitating a meditation group, leading meditations for lawyers, teaching yoga dance, taking lots of walks,  putting in her hours as a member worker at the Honest Weight Food Coop and writing poetry.

Coming to light

by Katrinka Moore

as if your mind were a house 

and wind blew in     

flung open windows 

winnowed

cast away thoughts

as if chance could clear

as if the world were a restless swarming

always coming to light 

and disappearing

as if it were made     not of things 

but relations

no border between you

as if     lost    you kept walking

stopping to listen 

stumbling on 

as if a glimpse were enough

as if stillness

~

Katrinka Moore is the author of five poetry books, three of which include her visual art. "Coming to light" appeared in her latest book, Diminuendo, and was first published in First Literary Review-East.

Jacket

by Cheryl A. Rice

I could wax romantic about 

how beautiful he was, 

dashing around LA on his Vespa, 

filming the planetarium, the valley, 

but truth is, after 18 he was

mostly a mystery to me. 

Godmother to his only son, 

I have now lost my god and my brother, 

one imaginary from the start, 

born of a need for companionship, 

fully formed in beard and heart; 

the other trapped in my mind’s loop, 

if anywhere, hellos, goodbyes, 

only the phone a constant. 

Our sister finds tickets 

in the pocket of his heavy leather jacket

for flights, concerts, movies 

at the Chinese theater, 

that we never heard about.

Like me, after giving our home a go,

he sprang across the continent, 

false hopes fueled by a high school friend. 

It’s fuzzy for me from that point on, 

third-hand updates, quick calls

from a telemarketing gig, surveys I would complete

over and over, just to hear his voice. 

I hear him now, when I cross the bridge to work,

calls about our sister’s illness, 

brief, funny, and yet, 

he is the one who dies first.

He is the one at the edge of another beginning, 

fallen into the chasm

we are all fated to achieve. 

He was beautiful, he was bold, 

a sort of hero for me in a family

of fear and lost horizons.

Off he goes into the sunset, 

silhouette of someone I used to know, 

steam rising from the canyons before him.

~

Twice a Best of the Net nominee, Cheryl A. Rice’s books include Dressing for the Unbearable (Flying Monkey Press), Until the Words Came (Post Traumatic Press), and Love’s Compass (Kung Fu Treachery Press). Rice can be reached at dorothyy62@yahoo.com. For updates on the Poetry World of Cheryl A. Rice, go to: http://flyingmonkeyprods.blogspot.com.

The Betrayal of Objects

by Philomena Moriarty

The sidewalk moves up to trip

       the peas fall from the fork

The vase shatters dangerous

       the engine refuses to turn

The screen freezes

       or grows dark and unreachable

Like Gulliver we are tied down

       by Lilliputian strings

Of closets that bulge, drawers that crowd

       surfaces of chaos

The papers rise everyday

       out of control on the desk

We yearn to rise to a mountaintop

       release spirit among the trees

But what of these insults

       the liver, the lungs, the legs failing

And finally the heart, that phenomenal  heart

       finally that too

       betrays us

~

Philomena Moriarty is a local poet living in East Greenbush and author of My Moon Self. You can find her at several open mics. Her poems often have psychological and spiritual themes. She is psychotherapist in private practice in East Greenbush who specializes in trauma work.

In the Beginning

by Howard J Kogan

 

In the beginning seems like a good way to start a poem

it has a familiar ring, a vague profundity, an authoritative tone.

Of course, what follows matters,

in the beginning of the third inning lacks the gravitas of

in the beginning God created …

which reminds me of … in the beginning was the word,

an idea poets like;

that’s the Apostle John talking

about God’s word becoming flesh.

 

It’s a trick we keep trying to learn,

but until we do, we’re sentenced

to use words to make sense of our lives,

and keep us from feeling alone and unknown.

It’s difficult talking about words with words

but what else do we have?

 

Anyway, it’s about time someone walked into the room

and noticed the white lotus blossom encircled

by orange and blue koi, each koi a single brush stroke

practiced for years so it appears effortless.

 

Or we can stand at the edge of a high cliff

looking down into a painted canyon watching

a paint stallion galloping with his harem.

A vulture, riding a column of warm air,

lifts above the rim and eyes us,

its head is the color of meat.

Or we can watch a gazelle being chased

by an unchaste lioness with cubs to feed.

 

Let’s ask Mother Teresa to pray for them,

she’s standing there in the shade

fingering her rosary beads

laughing and whispering with Princess Diana.

They’re as real as the lion cubs you see

waiting quietly in the shade of an Acacia tree.

 

Each … a word in a poem,

in a world we’re creating together.

 

Though this poem is not about flowers,

horses, lions, gazelles or Mother Teresa.

They’re only words that glide in and out of the poem

like Olympic skaters, who are poets themselves

inscribing their poems on the ice while judges wait for them

to execute the required double axel and follow it with a spin.

Spinning faster and faster until they’re a blur

bent on drilling themselves into the ice,

which they would do if this were a cartoon,

but it’s all words, no pictures.

The pictures are yours.

You’re the only one who knows

if the skater is a man or a woman,

how tall they are, the color of their hair,

or whether they landed that double axel.

 

Eventually the skater stops spinning,

masks their face in a practiced smile

and skates backward around the rink

gracefully acknowledging the applause of fans.

Now the skater steps off the ice into the arms of

a Russian trainer, one look and you know she’s KGB.

 

She wears a silver fox coat, bears little resemblance

to Mother Teresa though she might be the lioness

and the skater the gazelle or be the gazelle

and the party apparatchiks the lioness,

or it’s something else entirely.

 

That’s the problem with words,

they can deceive as easily as inform.

 

Truth is beauty,

but lies are always dressed to kill.

 

Or perhaps the poem stems from seeing a woman

wearing a lotus blossom kerchief with a koi border,

like the one mother wore after chemo.

So thin she could have been in a photograph

of a concentration camp, a photograph

because that’s as close as the word can get to life.

 

That’s the sort of poem we’re writing,

complex, even confusing, and one that inevitably fails.  

Because words can only carry you so far,

the possibilities are endless, but in the end 

only one possibility can be lived.

 

In the beginning 

was the word,

in the end will be a silence

that speaks with an eloquence

words can only envy.

~

Howard J Kogan is a retired psychotherapist and former resident of the Capital District who now lives in Ashland, MA.  His books of poetry, Indian Summer, A Chill in the Air and Before I Forget are available from the publisher, SquareCirclePress.com, your independent bookstore or Amazon.

In the Snow Cold Night

by Charles Rossiter

It’s past midnight, deep winter,

snow higher than hubcaps

covers the chopping block.

In a beach chair in the yard

I look to the lonely moon,

and watch my breath

rise and disappear.

The sky is like Idaho

it’s so dark.

Spirits of the past drift in:

Erika, Nan, my old roommate Fred.

I’m relaxed but not tired,

in that pleasant state

on the edge of sleep.

I open a beer,

adjust my expectations to zero,

lean back and look up

at the ink black sky.

~

Charles Rossiter, National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship recipient, has been featured on NPR, the Chicago Blues Festival and at the Geraldine Dodge Poetry Festival in NJ. He has traveled the country as 1/3 of 3 Guys from Albany, performance poetry group, and his latest collection is Green Mountain Meditations from FootHills Publishing. He lives and writes in Bennington, VT. Find out more at poetryspokenhere.com.

The Witch's Necklace

by Dan Wilcox

The crackle of ice as it hits the driveway

is like hearing you tiptoe in the attic

not that you are there, I’ve looked

you’re not, but I listen until I fall asleep.

Your breath in my dreams is like what the night 

smells like ruffling your hair as dark as the sky 

with a scent like your body unwashed 

in the morning when you evaporate into the Sun.

The pages torn from your journal are cursives

in a language we haven’t learned to speak 

where your voice falters with hallucinations 

sounding like desire or lessons for daughters.

I put down my book, climb the attic stairs

there is silence when I flick on the light

nothing disturbed, then I see the sparkle of light

on the floor, a necklace I’ve never seen

the chain tarnished, the glass beads glisten

like pearls of ice. I bring it downstairs

put it on, dream you come back to claim it.

~

Dan Wilcox is the host of the Third Thursday Poetry Night at the Social Justice Center in Albany, NY and is a member of the poetry performance group "3 Guys from Albany." As a photographer, he claims to have the world's largest collection of photos of unknown poets. His book "Gloucester Notes" is from FootHills Publishing. He was named one of the 2019 Literary Legends by the Albany Public Library Foundation and he is an active member of Veterans For Peace. You can read his Blog about the Albany poetry scene at dwlcx.blogspot.com.

(four haiku)

by Barry Kuhar

The yellow of his eyes

Hey there Little Red Riding Hood

Howling at the moon

Hoarfrost with the sun shining

Frozen glass of water

The ice booming at 10 below

The slap of the tail

The beaver house sticks and mud

Black 5X cowboy hat

A big 10-point buck

The velvet dripping from the horn

The clash of antlers

~

Barry farms and writes in Rensselaerville, NY.

I must have been looking for birds

by Kennedy Coyne

We’re talking about Joy Harjo. This must have been yours, she says. We’re on the phone for the seventh time today because I like to talk and she likes to listen and I tell her about our dog who she hasn’t met yet but is still hers and she tells me about our cats who are my cats but not as much as this new dog. She’s been writing about birds - eagles and owls and peregrines - but doesn’t realize it until I say, hey you’ve been writing about a lot of birds lately. In capital letters she says WELL I DON’T MEAN TO. While we talk about Joy she pulls out How We Became Human, shuffling pages over the phone, three eagles on the cover. She insists it’s mine, and I say no. I’ve never read her. She flips to page 100 - The Flood - where inside is a slip from Raven’s Used Books. It is hers. I must have been looking for poetry, she admits. And my dog chews on Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings. Teeth marks in the corner of For a Girl Becoming.

~

Kennedy Coyne (she/her) is a writer based in upstate New York. Her work can be found or is forthcoming in Indiana Review, Colorado Review, Gulf Coast, Michigan Quarterly Review Online, and elsewhere. She was a semifinalist for The Adroit Journal's 2023 Anthony Veasna So Scholars. She received her MFA in Creative Writing and certificate in Arts Leadership from Virginia Tech. She is working on her first novel. Find more of her writing at kencoyne.com.

The eighth annual POEM-A-DAY PROJECT
celebrating National Poetry Monthopens April 1with the first of 30 poems!In its seven years, PAD has showcased210 poems by 125 poets with 15,000+ pageviews!To participateemail your poem & brief bio totjc123@midtel.net before March 15!". . . yes I said yes I will Yes."