The Sleeping Cat / Luisa Berne
The cat sleeps stretched out
like a snapped rubber band.
As if gravity is simply too
much for her.
Her body draping
over the edge of the
couch cushion.
Making me wonder
if she is not in fact
more of a liquid than a solid.
Cholla Day Meets Hummingbird Spirit / Scott Burnam
my Sonoran-dry eyes amplify the sweet sway of Sleep
urging me back to bed but instead i break away
taking the chance to seize another day that
from first-look-weather distance sneers like a teddy bear cholla
that won’t be getting any intentional touch from this guy
i sleep-stumble through the house, mumble-dropping words, my feet
accosted by hungry cats and the “Ball is life!” dog until i
leave them behind, monotonously declaring “Sanctuary.”
as i escape to the morning-quiet patio, starting
day seventy seven with no alarm clock required
I’ve never wished Free Will to be a cruel illusion more
than in this freshly rehearsed and sacred moment
as the 5:12 AM Hummingbird arrives on-time to flirt with me,
her devil-over-my-shoulder hover deafeningly, definitely saying
“Just take the day off, Joe…” before she glides over to the feeder
and though I don’t know who the the fuck “Joe” is, today or ever,
i decide in that moment to take her seductive advice
while she guzzles nectar furtively making and breaking eye contact
knowing she’s already done good work today
by convincing my itinerant soul not to do any
Down the Bermuda Highway / David Estringel
David-12
look up / Catherine Forest
A Doctor Seuss tree
Only visible who
Look at sky
you are my child, i am his / Erika Seshadri
he couldn’t remember the name
of your childhood school
or how you got there
every morning
he could only remember
Nowhere and
Nowhere became Nothing
and Nothing became you
but to me,
you are Everything
my breath
my smile
the whole world inside my heart
Everything woven into each muscle fiber
Everything floating in each cell
now he remembers
yes, now
he remembers
and rips us apart from the outside
making you Nothing again
but I crawl through the barbs and shards of Nothingness for you
again/again/again/again
untitled ghazal / Arthur Turfa
On the grassy meadow, in light sublime.
Lovely limbs move as one in the this sight sublime.
Cool is the evening, at Castalia rest I.
Under leafy green boughs spend I a night sublime.
Long and arduous the way that you must follow,
Until at long last you behold the height sublime.
At times speak I in different tongues, however
with tact and honesty as does the knight sublime
