if ever I sit
beside calm waters
surely
this flying beetle
will smack my face
~Sharon Ferrante
Growing Pains
I laid down in the grass today,
but it wasn't the same
as it used to be
when I was a kid.
I couldn't sense the Earth
spinning beneath me
or imagine anything magical
beyond the flat sky.
It just felt like I was waiting
for the worms to take me.
~Gabriel Bates
Minutes
evil thoughts
tall shadow on a
detached garage
Mildly
schnockered ranting with adorable senior neighbors never in my
lifetime would I ever
have thought I’d hear these old conservative
white people decrying: “My God, they
shouldn’t do that!”
Indeed!
That’s all we
were ever saying!
~Jerome Berglund
eight years old
investing all my money
in sea-monkeys
~Roberta Beach Jacobson
Brook Lint
six degrees of pancetta :: ombudsperson
Long Island entire and enough
by Asclepius I swear – bread and multiplication tables
beyond rye the fool’s journey
candlelight vigil :: ownership of thunder
~Jerome Berglund
in the beginning
I’m the breath
of
a dinosaur
~Sharon Ferrante
Insurgents
prehistoric
shield bugs
slip through the chinks
~JL
Huffman
Apostate
Learn
today that most tire places are closed on Sundays this I must
question as people get
flats on
that day as often as any we’d rather be praying and resting too
assure you but
vehicles must be made drivable.
the manager smashes
one dish after another –
everyone cheers!
~Jerome Berglund
poets say
they can read minds
I wonder
could I put words
to
your screams
~Sharon Ferrante
Fruit Pies
mostly garbage dog food begat begat begat
Owatonna best budget inn
moon past a chimney forced perspective
the prologues to epaulettes
writing with motion a migrant
~Jerome Berglund
your
thoughts and my thoughts
appear simultaneously
moonlight
~Nani Mariani
lobotomy
morning
sunlight’s golden honey drizzled decadently, so abundant even
Venetian blinds’
shadows can look promising in such a light graham
crackers and candy corn sandbars with
exposed shoulders girl with
lilies by Rivera every speck of dust and scratch on the table
glass comes into startling clarity
pine cones decompose
the crack has gotten
wide and green
~Jerome Berglund