Including: Suchoon Mo + Rupert M Loydell + Tamara Fulcher + Lynn Strongin + Ashley Welch + Mike Burch + Jervis Martin + Paul Curtis + Paul Tanner + Paul Davidson + Frances LeMoine + Darlene Logan + Josef Lesser + Carol Fenlon + Wolf Lawson + Bill Yarrow + J. J. Steinfeld + Jesse Freeman + William Taylor Jr + Brian Blackwell + Kalium Edwards + Colleen Totz + Ursula Hurley + Dee McMahon + Harry R. Wilkens + Matt Fallaize + Melanie Faith

Flowers for Chopin

(Pere La Chaise Cemetery, Paris)

My eyes see where thousands do not
Linger awhile on the fallen leaves
October yellow amongst the blood red
And the houses of tombs of Famille
Resting and subsiding.
The pathways twist with marble veins
Grayed beneath clouds descending lightly
On white maps and white hands gripping
That circumference of peace
Weighed and sold on passing shoulders.

Victor Noir lies brassy
Fallen flat on a back above turf and stone
From an island in the verdigris of rain
Shine genitals smiling from touches
Protected and paled from bloodless lips.
A nose smells what thousands cannot
Searchers glide past the full boned earth
Clasping a single rose down a muddy aisle
Breathing the mist of scented air to
Fill a shop of flowers for Chopin.

by Jervis Martin

River Ouse

River Ouse(im Virginia Woolf)

No arsenic two stones
in equal
pockets. Buttons fastened

The edge
squelches, right
foot down, slipping
toes first
left breaks
the surface

Ankles deep
separating
cold

Water, fast
push forward
chest
soaking the

Shoulders, lower
thin lips part
last breath and
goodbye

Head under whirling
thoughts of
Classics and Bloomsbury

Drifting in
silence… No
ripples but
hours

by Ashley Welch

II.

Now, leave
me. I

go my
way alone.

I must
go out

for I
have work

in hand
and insects

waiting for
me to

talk

III.

Now
LEAVE
me
I go my way
ALONE
I must go
OUT
for I have
WORK
in hand and insects
WAITING
for me to talk
BUSINESS.

Sun battles fog: fog wins

An etcher has been abroad
this night,
burning ferns into windows.

Pigeons swarm around a slurry
of rice and gravy.

He moves to avoid me,
I move to avoid him:
we touch.

Red cars line the gutter,
one with smashed lights,
paisley rabbit poised on dashboard.

The blue of distant mountains
brought close on laminated
buds.

by Ursula Hurley

Autumnal Equinox 2005

Like an opera—
Mozart’s Figaro in lighter moments,
Verdi’s Otello in darker—
  at times our marriage was.
At best, my words could be an aria,
at worst, sharp staccato.
Seventeen years since our Santa Fe marriage,
three since your death.
  What remains is
a lingering melody –
no words -- simply
the final chord.

by Darlene Logan