Sunday, January 30, 2011

January 2011, a New Year

January Selection #1


Trades


like a moss or algae on the water
the neon grass rolls over the cemetery lawn
after icy winter rains

She makes little trades –
"if my friend comes through surgery,
I won't fuss about the stolen art piece – "

it was the best piece she ever made
and she knows it's random but feels better
calling it a take-and-give

why begrudge the person
who took it from irresistible impulse?
She would have sold it for money, right?

it would be more mature, she recognizes,
to forgo the thread of cause and effect
but it offers such small consolation


--Ellen Skagerberg

January Selection #2


January Selection #2


I’m Expecting to Wake Up Out of This Year Long Dream Any Day Now


Black electrical lines against a purple sky
a pink piano out of focus
with an open book of music that no one knows
how to play.
A crimson chandelier catches the light and the crystal beads glitter
to what has always been a nostalgic glow.
This was winter.

So we escape to lush green
cold beers on white beaches
a black galaxy of stars that break us down
strong currants and mornings we wish we could take back.
We say goodbye in a language not our own.

I return to Spring, gin, confliction.
I hide from the stars
June, July, and August
and I hide from the moon.
I swim nude in murky waters
while my heart slowly goes to sleep.
Before the leaves have fallen,
I am gone again—
flying west over rolling hills
beaches too cold to lay my head upon
and so many birds.

A broken compass guides my days now
through a place that should be so much better.
I check my reckless heart for life,
and watch myself disappear.
I’m expecting to wake up from
this year long dream any day now.

--Ashley Warren

January Selection 3

January Selection #3

In the dark

The dew collects on the hundred grasses.

Then the rising full moon

Lights the garden,

Reflecting on the glistening blades

Cutting through the moon shadows.

The tips of my shoes

Are shining too.

--Gregory Wonderwheel

January 2011 Selections 4 & 5

Selection #4


O you ghosts!

O you spirits and ghosts - -

Forgive me

if I neglect

your ancient whispers

for this green moss,

this bright sky.

--Amos Clifford


Selection #5


Plucking mu from my Buddha bowl

- long December shadows

taste like rice

--Amos Clifford

Tuesday, January 11, 2011

December 2010

Hi everyone - here at the end of 2010, we have a glorious new website in addition to this blog. The website is reaching a broad readership, and we have some exciting new contributors. Our first December 2010 selection comes from Chelmsford, Mass.

Deanna, Brian, and Amos

First Selection, December, 2010

Looking

forward from

where you

are: the

moon-light

masked by

the

manufactured

haze hangs

amidst white

clouds like

doubts that

linger in the

mind. You

can’t touch

the light cup

it like water

that slowly

seeps

through

unsteady

fingers . . . no;

you can only

think about it

wave your

hand before

your face

watch the

moonlight

peekaround

the corners of your hands

their deliberate gestures

and try to understand

that even

light must

find its own

way through

the human

murk that

drifts across

the smoke-

smothered

sky.

--Michael Patrick McSweeny