Featured Topic: Dreams

Sunday Morning Lethargy

It's Sunday morning; I don't make the bed. Somehow worn from an oversupply of sleep, I feel empty and overfed all at once. Should I eat or should I try a second cup of coffee, or the tea? I am too weary to decide and I tire of this mush of humid luxury. The night held...

The Icebox

In my dream, I held too many things in my hands and my fingers grappled and fumbled with the load afraid I'd drop one as I stumbled down the road for I'd balanced several things atop an icebox and my dream-drunk brain was slow, weighted down with sand until I knelt to...

Ephemera: Beauty Lies

"It is the failing of a certain literature to believe that life is tragic because it is wretched. Life can be magnificent and overwhelming — that is its whole tragedy. Without beauty, love, or danger it would be almost easy to live." "Beauty is unbearable, drives us...

All This Juice and All This Joy

Alive and heavy with health,      syrup swells the root, and sun-dappled fields are filled      with walking flowers: the blossoms of the body      and the promise of fruit. We know, and delight, and dream      away the hours; let us have sweet Summer's cream    ...

Spider Dream: a Limerick

I saw a spider fall into my bed right onto the pillow beside my head. Now I'm hunting him, like preachers hunt sin, and dare not sleep till he or I is dead.  

Tooth by Rotten Tooth

Legs stirring before the alarm's tormenting beep, I wake from strange dreams in the autumn of my youth, and choke on broken promises I meant to keep-- a sludge that settles to the bottom with the truth where bottled thoughts belch the foam of cold fermented sleep and...

At Torrey Pines

A cruel salt wind molests the twisted pine who grovels on his gnarled knees for rain; his futile prayers won't mend his broken spine nor will he stand, as in his dreams, again. The cliffs themselves all crumble in the sea and the tumble-down rocks resent the mocking...

Dream After Making 300 Valentines for Lifelong Aids Alliance: by Amy Doran

We sat, pasting crows from construction paper waiting for them to come to life. They did come to life, shuddering with breath, flapping cautiously, realizing. Jesus could be a camera watching over us when we're sick with letters sick with names, lying on a hospital...

A Child’s Sleep

I wonder if the tearful child, not yet perceiving what it means to fall asleep, might believe she dies each night. Afraid to go alone, she chokes on her goodbyes, "Please don't forget me! O please leave the door ajar!" But the swallowing Unknown will not share her...

Featured Product: Seasons

Walking One Spring Morning

Walking one spring morning I weighed the cherry blossoms all brimming with new, full with such impossible hues that every petal, every blade, was like a schoolgirl at her promenade adorned for but an hour or two in reds or purples, pinks and blues before it's shorn...

All This Juice and All This Joy

Alive and heavy with health,      syrup swells the root, and sun-dappled fields are filled      with walking flowers: the blossoms of the body      and the promise of fruit. We know, and delight, and dream      away the hours; let us have sweet Summer's cream    ...

December 21: an Advent poem for the Winter Solstice

 Long lay the world in sin and error pining      Till he appeared and the soul felt it's worth. A thrill of hope, the weary world rejoicing      For yonder breaks, a new and glorious morn. -John Sullivan Dwight  All the nations grope about in the dark to find some...

Praying in the Sanctuary of Snow

These twirling billions born in storms of grey descend forever from such unseen heights that Summer's sons are hypnotized to pray for Winter not to waste her wealth of white. 

Not One of Us Tried to Remember by Duncan King

Not one of us tried to remember what happened in that cave in the middle of tropical December The men burned to not less than ember villagers we'd tried to save not one of us tried to remember The two Portland boys in chain and fetter so long starved they could only...

Winter Makes Wonder

Winter makes wonder which summer will wake me last before I under? Grey will rain outlast this stink, sink, sourful mood when wince-wind will past. And I blood, burn, brood— what was said and wished unsaid— fat, fresh, fill from food. Pull the push loose thread; pluck...

Iron Sky

With a howl, October's winds shear the fiery hosts of their yellows and reds to leave the branches bare. Then the orphaned leaves are stained, like little brown ghosts, on the sidewalk before they're raised into the air again. A resurrecting tempest—they fall up and...

Notes from the Quarantine

Day 1 You tell yourself that you are going to learn French. Instead you make coffee with milk and tell yourself it's okay because they've yet to close the grocery stores; no need to break into the shelf-stable supplies. You tell yourself lies—that you'll use the time...

At the Wading Pool

The wading pool is shrinking with the wasted sun and the yellows of summer drain slowly away exposing red bricks beneath the glittering spray. With cast-off toys and leaves littered about their feet, the bone-soaked nine-year-olds will squeal, crash, and run through...

To the Grasshopper and the Cricket by Leigh Hunt

Green little vaulter in the sunny grass, Catching your heart up at the feel of June, Sole voice that's heard amidst the lazy noon, When even the bees lag at the summoning brass; And you, warm little housekeeper, who class With those who think the candles come too...

Featured Writer: poets better and more famous than me

Paradise Lost by John Milton (Excerpt from book 4)

Satan's speech upon finding earth and viewing the sun for the first time: O thou that with surpassing Glory crowned, Look'st from thy sole Dominion like the GodOf this new World; at whose sight all the StarsHide their diminished heads; to thee I call, But with no...

Rock of Ages by Augustus Montague Toplady

Rock of Ages, cleft for me, Let me hide myself in Thee; Let the water and the blood, From Thy wounded side which flowed, Be of sin the double cure; Save from wrath and make me pure. Not the labor of my hands Can fulfill Thy law’s demands; Could my zeal no respite...

Thou Hast Made Me, and Shall Thy Work Decay? by John Donne

Thou hast made me, and shall thy work decay? Repair me now, for now mine end doth haste, I run to death, and death meets me as fast, And all my pleasures are like yesterday; I dare not move my dim eyes any way, Despair behind, and death before doth cast Such terror,...

Mad Girl’s Love Song by Sylvia Plath

  "I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead; I lift my lids and all is born again. (I think I made you up inside my head.)The stars go waltzing out in blue and red, And arbitrary blackness gallops in: I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead. I dreamed that...

Immortal Sails by Alfred Noyes

Now, in a breath, we’ll burst those gates of gold,     And ransack heaven before our moment fails. Now, in a breath, before we, too, grow old,     We’ll mount and sing and spread immortal sails. It is not time that makes...

Excerpts from Ecclesiastes 1-2

What do people gain from all their labors at which they toil under the sun? Generations come and generations go, but the earth remains forever. The sun rises and the sun sets, and hurries back to where it rises. The wind blows to the south and turns to the north;...

Sonnet 75 by William Shakespeare

So are you to my thoughts as food to life, Or as sweet seasoned show'rs are to the ground; And for the peace of you I hold such strife As ’twixt a miser and his wealth is found; Now proud as an enjoyer, and anon Doubting the filching age will steal his treasure; Now...

New Loneliness by Sarah Harmer

There is just one apple on the tree It isn't like I'd hoped it'd be. Yesterday when there was still you I looked, and I swear that I saw two. Maybe a wandering white tail deer came in the night to make it even more clear and left me just one, a spartan no less, to...

Elegy 20 To His Mistress Going to Bed by John Donne

COME, madam, come, all rest my powers defy; Until I labour, I in labour lie. The foe ofttimes, having the foe in sight, Is tired with standing, though he never fight. Off with that girdle, like heaven's zone glittering, But a far fairer world encompassing. Unpin that...

Youth Gone by Christina Rossetti

Youth gone, and beauty gone if ever there Dwelt beauty in so poor a face as this; Youth gone and beauty, what remains of bliss? I will not bind fresh roses in my hair, To shame a cheek at best but little fair,-- Leave youth his roses, who can bear a thorn,-- I will...

Featured Form: Rondel

Where is the Boy? a Rondel for Stephaun

"Look at the picture.      Where is the boy?" "Use your finger, like this, and point right here." Some sounds come out of the scowling man, "We're wasting time. Better to let him enjoy himself, stare at the sun, fondle a toy." "When we talk, it's like he can't even...

Yes, I Was Once Afraid of Bees

Back when I was afraid of bees with a fear most grave and sober; I would flinch when they'd flyover, would shrink and beg my mother, "Please let me stay inside away from these!" Whining from May to October. Yes, I was once afraid of bees but now I see with eyes more...

You Violated Right-of-way: a rondel about how I hope you die in a fire.

You violated right-of-way when you cut in front of all of us-- a hundred drivers and a city bus-- to be the first car parked on the freeway. There were a few words I wanted to say but it's Lent and my wife growls when I cuss; you violated right-of-way when you cut in...

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Iron Sky

Iron Sky

With a howl, October's winds shear the fiery hosts of their yellows and reds to leave the branches bare. Then the orphaned leaves are stained, like little brown ghosts, on the sidewalk before they're raised into the air again. A resurrecting tempest—they fall up and...

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Cider by Rusten Walter Harris

Cider by Rusten Walter Harris

Three rungs from the top of a rickety four legged ladder My entire body straining to grasp those clustered King apples Mostly green, with flecks of red on their skin facing the sun Reaching further than I ought I put a little weight on an old branch Knowing very well...

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La Petite Mort

La Petite Mort

The body delights in its own travail, both teased and tortured by a pulsing strain with claws of pleasure resembling pain. She prophesies but cannot pierce the veil; she approaches but cannot breach the pale. The end she sees and struggles to obtain with breathless...

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Yes, I Was Once Afraid of Bees

Yes, I Was Once Afraid of Bees

Back when I was afraid of bees with a fear most grave and sober; I would flinch when they'd flyover, would shrink and beg my mother, "Please let me stay inside away from these!" Whining from May to October. Yes, I was once afraid of bees but now I see with eyes more...

read more