Blade of grass / Luisa Berne
My son holds a single blade
of grass between his small chubby forefinger and thumb.
He examines it with the same intensity
that I imagine captain cook mapped
Botany Bay – as if it’s the most wondrous thing and he is the first to behold
this blade of grass.
He holds it out to me, his great treasure. His face is pure baby fat joy.
I look at it, Really look at it.
A single blade with
A perfect point at the tip, perfectly creased in the center
the most luscious green.
Is It Even ‘People-Watching’ Anymore? / Scott Burnam
our slice of life
walks by; androidynous
evolving to silence and solitude
as a numbing salve of vapid videos
and callous content soothes us from the here-and-now
that, while warranting some escapism is also
too desperate for responses
but our segment of intelligent life is
lessening it’s carbon-based-computing footprint
in favor of silicon that invaded our bodies a few
generations ago and now stifles the snap of
the synapses and relays that we increasingly don’t need
for their old uses
our Time’s spotlights of suffering and floods of catastrophe
require the opposite of our growing disconnectedness and dehumanizing practices
but we are no longer sure what we’re seeing is real and equal
afraid and lazy to speak up; we’ve eschewed faces and
so lost face value
devolving to mere vessels and the boredom of all-knowingness
that plagues the Whatever-It Is-That-Put-Us-Here,
we are truly created in a creator’s image:
too many choices, too little control, and a shrug to suffering
that our indifference nurtures – just another generation of the
wrong kinds of gods
PTSD Martini* / David Estringel
—after the tornado (May 28th, 2024, Temple, Texas)
Come on down
to L’Étranger
and belly up
to the Bar
of Universal Indifference
where the shots are cheap
and nobody
knows your name
Take ‘em as they come
then another
and another
and another (More than enough to go ‘round!)
‘til it hits the spot (if tolerance allows)
Maybe
something cold
is your poison
with splashes
flashes
trashes
of harmony
and home
(shaken not stirred)
in shattered glass
that goes down
with a kick
and cuts
(de)personalization
a (de)realization
that hope
and words—
detritus littering a yellow brick road
someplace—
blow away
in godly breezes
somewhere
over the rainbow.
*Title inspired by Dario Cvencek’s poetry collection of the same name.
Live Music / Catherine Forest
Arboreal hand
Long lean tapering fingers
Strumming sky guitar
in the aftermath / Erika Seshadri
do not miss
this warbling moment,
your blood with a subtle shimmer,
carmine and gold—
ten seconds without
madness
are we burnished or charred
on the inside?
our gradual shedding,
rhythmic
revealed:
we are still alive
Keukenhof Gardens, Netherlands / Arthur Turfa
In the autumn of our lives we choose to
defy the chorus of cacophony
and fulfill as best we can those wishes
remaining in the conditional voice..
Early in Eastertide we boarded ship
to sail along places familiar to
me from years past and some as yet unknown.
All new for her, I took pleasure in how
she marveled in forests, small towns, cities
and castles, and finally windmills.
Then on a resplendent day, the tulips
extending in swaths of color before
and around us.in bright array. We let
that day no flower of spring pass us by.
