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POETRY

THE ENDLESS VALLEY FAR AND WIDE

Ethan Sabutis

​

(Ekphrastic Poem for "American Progress" by John Gast)

With holy guidance on our side, An endless

    valley far and wide

This vast new world is ours for keeps, As the

    native people quickly sleep

​

Rivers, Mountains, Plains and Dunes, All will

    be ours very soon

With holy guidance on our side, An endless

    valley far and wide

THE MOURNING DOVE STILL SINGS!

Riley Mayes

Red light seals the sun
lifting from the water like
a dog raising its head.
It burns away the ash
that drifts over the marsh at night sends clouds
wisping towards
the top of the
sky,
or nowhere,

​

I guess.

NO MORE

William Joel

This circle grows smaller,

losing spokes with every turn

yet turn it does, again, again,

until, one day,
stop.

MOTHER'S CLOTHES

William Joel

The land was lush and full of expectation
Till we came and practiced excavation,
Peeling back the clothes that mother sewed
Through blood-stained fingertips.
And we have yet to see eternal flame.

LOVE

Cynthia Patton

Some days my toddler

shrugs off my touch,
days when we scream,

days when we cry,
days when even the weight

of fairy princess panties

must be cast off

as a snake sheds its skin.

THE ARCHITECT

Sahna Das

i am sure you have wondered, as we all have, if we are
part of a simulation or a game or some grand design
if someone has fashioned us in their likeness or dislikeness and forced us to live in this shell in this frame in this cracked little snow globe in order to—
(in order to what ? to experiment ? to play with ? to explore ? to control ? or to)
see what would happen.

 

EIGHTEEN

Robin Michel

An expensive car
in the driveway
of a many-roomed
mansion protected by gates. A boy waving a gun.

He watches his mother's eyes.

A MURMUR IN THE DARK

Shae McKoen

Press a stethoscope against my chest
and you will hear a concoction of cacophonous sounds,
the creaking and clashing of heart valves trying to open and close,
and backwashed blood leaking through the cracks.

ITI MANU - MOST
UNFORTUNATE

Low flying , frantic flapping .
Chaos calms quickly
within a moment - mid swoop . Whirlwinds of dusty feathers
Melding with cracked bones .

Donna Faulkner nee Miller

BURN SCAR

Jessika Morrison

I pull in a breath of old tobacco

ground with earthy pine,
a tinge of citrus and hold it.
The river glittering below mumbles

life secrets to me. Sweat slides
down my brow as I exhale.
Blackened stumps tell stories of

childhoods erased and damaged lungs.

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