What’s For Dinner, Son? / Scott Burnam
i arrive – aged, burdened, and
plagued by the oddest hunger
because they don’t have dopamine IVs figured out yet
and as i march toward my decorative urn
with all my prescription-subscriptions
to palliative boredoms, i wonder:
what should i hope from
the generation i saddled
with unchecked entertainment?
will they feed me any better
in my sunset than i fed them
as their sun was rising?
Dirty Back Road / David Estringel
Moonlight
fingers
cutgrass, tying
rice seed into
silver braid
as Night
gobbles miles
from dirt road’s
muddy hand.
Waves of pale blue
kiss the doors of
an ol’ 55
with a swish
and a sway
to the rhythm of
crickets’ electric song and
a synchrony of bullfrogs
having a midnight
splash. Clouds
pass overhead
and fireflies—
like headlights—set
the stage for
a long
Naugahyde slide
as Night’s eye
sleeps.
It’s just us
here
now
behind cover
stories
and sweating glass—the
King and Queen of the Heap
discarded beer bottles
and well-worn
prophylactics
at our beck and call.
But
you’ll go your way
I’ll go mine
and no one
will ever know…
…except the moon
and those fireflies.
They know where all the bodies are buried.
abuzz / Catherine Forest
The bees are threatened
Democracy as nectar
Watch California
How Much Do You Plan to Take from US? / Erika Seshadri
there is a slow burn
underneath the guard tower
smoking and rising
Reconnection / Arthur Turfa
I
We yearn for reconnection to places,
people, to those times partially remembered.
Those once loved recalled by something passed down,
by resemblance mirrored in descendants.
Places lost to disrepair or disuse,
torn down for things irrelevant to us.
What we create by inspiration, that
remains: songs, sonnets, colors or carvings.
II.
A Zoom session on Rilke, two dozen of us
strewn over the map, brought back memories
of a seminar room with a dozen people.
Time of transition for me- the muse was silent,
and I prepared to move on. When later her
voice I heard, I sought to recall those evenings.
Then an hour or so in a dorm room
with my California Girl with her own
time of closure (she came from Hong Kong).
III.
My angels held no terror. They reminded me of
beauty and light, things I passed on to others as
I shared Orpheus’ sonnets while writing my
own . All the strands of my life, the people,
the places, the times, now weaving together
in unimaginable ways of wonder and joy.
