—Timothy Sandefur, Rescue
Here was the brink of all they knew:
—Patricia Wellingham-Jones, Tehama
The silent bell tolls
the last hours of the year.
A kestrel keens across an ice-blue sky.
In the sycamore grove a great horned owl
calls the night in soft murmurs.
The big white dog turns limpid eyes
on invisible walkers near the live oak tree.
From the rough roadbed a perfect round stone
splotched gray-green with lichen maps
pulls me.
Talisman.
(First pub. in Rattlesnake Review, 2007)
—B.Z. Niditch, Brookline, MA
You imagine
with a perfected
ear drum
at seeing my task
in my solitude
of voice
drawing a blank
on a space
of snowy
white-out,
trying to recall
what intention
rounded my
computer's
orbit of words
crossing my notes
with the sound
of syllables,
waiting to be scanned
and read out
of the existence
on a gag of lip
hungering for
cold apostrophes
at burning language
in my gnarled mouth
catching eyelashes
of proverbs
and a spectrum
of wrangled notes
with a patch
of tiny adjectives,
imprinted commas
nagged in
an arrangement
on a doubtful page
of vagabond labor.
_________________________
KEPT SECRETS
—B.Z. Niditch
Opening files
for the new year
on a mouth
left open
to flesh out
the past
swallowed in time
wanting
how it happened
before the war
after a plane crash
shipwreck
or scandal,
keep it simple
it says on
your holiday shirt
as a memory
was once created
and imprinted
in all of us.
—Olga Blu Browne, Sacramento
Let's go behind this hour, and
let yesterday begin again.
Never till today did I dream
of tomorrow.