A straw poll was taken and the leading candidate is Getting lost in someone else’s dreams.
A surprising, distant second was Taking out the trash barefoot in a Midwest snowstorm. It
seems frostbite complements of a frozen Fargo tundra isn’t the challenger one might
think. Something about living out someone else’s aspirations deeply resonated within
the voters. When asked why she selected that, a middle-aged, single woman who
directs Hallmark movies said, I couldn’t stand the guilt I’d feel knowing this fantasy isn’t
mine. An octogenarian who enjoys days of Dominoes and Bonanza marathons
confided, It’s just not right. Not everyone imagines tending to the Ponderosa alongside Little Joe
and Hoss. I understand the dynamics of being stuck in a world rooted in a make-believe
where the fiction is written without the protagonist in mind.…
...continue reading
Fangorn never smelled so sweet
beneath the looming hemlocks,
heavy with untouched cones.
Maple leaves drop, then gather at the bottoms of hills
as September’s heat and October’s rains blanch
all colors from their veins.
Saturated tree trunks tower above the soggy bog
like obelisks from a time never known,
as if keeping watch over all things unseen
while releasing nutrients for their young now grown.
Wood rings whisper stories in each creak,
an ancient code, an old stand Rosetta stone
warning each passing soul of winter’s approach
despite the distant chainsaws that encroach.
– Donny Winter…
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Dòng, Dòng—Dòng,
Zī—Zī-zī—Zīzī
Pèng——
first, a sharp sound pierces my ears
leaving me gasping for air.
my soul seems to leave my body,
as if the Black & White from the hell
are here to take me away.
my heart pounds wildly,
almost leaping out of the chest,
& my legs become floppy—
one word: panic.
like an earthquake is coming,
the life is slipping away. i’m filled with fear.
my lips instinctively turn into pale,
losing their colors.…
...continue reading
~inspired by George Mason’s “The Harvest Moon,” 1877
Harvest moon glares, jagged from clouds grinding
their glazed edges against her.
Harvest moon bleeds in colors of oak & maple,
her face round as a hazel leaf.
Landscape burns in a blur of garnet & tangerine
peppered with people & dogs
& scythes.
Landscape drowns in bellowing & howling
& the hiss of metal crescents
against grains.
Frayed cats slink over blades & between
the pauses in lusty laughter.
Frayed cats patrol this field of autumn’s
benediction—fleshy broth
of limb & spine & belly.
– t.m. thomson…
...continue reading
I think I was naive envisioning aliens
as somehow native to the aerial realm.
They are like us
probably belted to a crater
with its own share of showers and sorrows.
Aliens also must’ve done the aerodynamic calculations
necessary for metal to become airborne
flying machines produced by a foreign science.
Surely, they understand that asteroids blaze
at a certain rate, a fraction of one alien unit to another.
Otherwise, how could they enter our orbit?
– Lillian Tzanev…
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My mother’s patience
looks like
a flower bed,
practiced fingers
dipping into the earth
with each seed
between forefinger
and thumb.
Weeks of coaxing
and water push
new plants
into the world,
blossoms swaying
in the breeze. …
...continue reading
I know the wavelength of soft grasses in
eastern winds. Fireflies blink in the
balloon of a sundress, and when I set
the table and forget the napkin, you
capture and pin me as a fraud.
But I know trees sound like oceans
in the shadow of a new moon.
July is fresh bronzed and unconditioned
fed with berries and barbecues, summer
vacations of lasers in the eye and sore
spines, and you dare to question
what I am worth?
It’s July—I am a statue housing
a robin’s nest in my elbow and the warmth
of my parents in my chest.
Taking up space, in debt to field mice
incapable of trapping.
Do not call yourself comfortable to imply
that I am not.
– Leah Skay
…
...continue reading