Penumbra Online
Penumbra Online
Summer 2025
Blossom
Table of Contents
***Pieces marked with three asterisks have been chosen as staff favorites.
Art
Snow Plant (Tahoe National Forest, 2019)
Poetry
To Bluebonnets and Especially to Poets
You Can’t See the Mural at Tenley Automotive Anymore
Sometimes the scent creates the bloom
Corpse of a Lesser Spotted Woodpecker
Nihombashi Station, Early April
Outward Appearances Can Be Deceptive
***Ekphrastic Poem for Point Lobos
The Green Tide’s Patient Promise
Hybrid
Colloquy on Death (Blackout poem of a tombstone)
Fiction
Non-Fiction
***Ode to Sam Langford
(in which things were noisome but not unpleasant)
by David Harrison Horton
My neighbor has reached
his Toulmouche’s Delicious Dolls stage
of his story telling career:
everything sounds beautifully spun
but there’s nothing behind it.
I tell him he’s being charming
in a Tristan Tzara kind of way.
And he laughs with abandon
because he cares and doesn’t
at the same time.
So charming & delicious
how he just carries on and on and on and
***Gratitude
by Cleo Griffith
It is true. All those things
older people tell you, how
your attitude changes
as age advances
and you learn
to grasp
the day, the minute, the second.
The taste of food more pleasurable,
each day better than the last,
brilliance of sunlight,
softness of shadow,
utter joy of children
at play.
You never want to leave, never.
But look back, you did enjoy
life as it passed, you held it
and savored, did not waste
all those years,
you learned.
And now you join us, knowing
what you love so much today
took a lifetime to appreciate.
***Ekphrastic Poem for Point Lobos
by Schuyler Becker
There is peace
in the bonsai skeleton
of a cypress tree
in the gentle waves
leaving trails of white
to mirror the sky
Carmel’s horizon
stands serene
and otters float
on their backs
upon the sea
The occasional stone
tumbles down with
the crunch of gravel
Barking sea lions
punctuate the day
of salt and sun
Dudleya farinosa
clings to the surface
like cloaks or lace
amidst the grove
and clam shell trails
Outward Appearances Can Be Deceptive
by Jackie McClure
As if a mousetail
in a pungent patch of sneezeweed,
she has been known to hide,
to close up:
clamp tightly
like the leaf of a sundew
feigning gentleness
when inside
she was breeding poison –
not the kind where
cupid’s dart conjures
a loving heart
from a stone,
from a stump or
even a lamb’s ear –
but the kind that emerges
like a thorn in the devil’s backbone,
its howl scattering hens and chicks,
hawk and wren
when all the while
the lady on the inside is naked and pale
as a ghost pipe on the forest floor,
cowering in the cup of the fairy bellflower
as she strives to remember to save a breath
for the imperceptibly slowly spinning earth star
ever re-assembling at her feet.
Awakening
by Mathew Harrison
Medium: Photography
Resurrection
by Mario Duarte
If only we were more like
the resurrection lily,
that in early August, leafless,
cast as dead, suddenly
blossoms from a slip of stem,
but you and I are not so
miraculous, no, instead
we grit our teeth, bare the sweat,
stench of summer, while crows
dance around a dead squirrel.
When we close our eyes, we
already dream of a cool
autumn day, harvesting pumpkins,
or picking warty-looking squash
from a roadside stand for Halloween
but smoke lassos from Canadian
wildfires thousands of miles away
twist our skies ashy and dull
and as dismal as dirty snow
we no longer see, just endure.
Resurrection lily, teach us
how to rise from death, sprout,
flare into pink, touch the eye
with a tender light, air
that cools every overheated life.
Meadow Miniatures
by Douglas Twells
for Don Sessions, MD –
“They are amazing. And you can still enjoy the large ones too.”
At last come off the list,
the list I’m forbidden to see,
the things I never notice,
never know I’ve missed,
just before my eyes.
So common I suppose,
no commercial value,
these miniatures underfoot,
everywhere, overlooked,
never picked, never sold.
Slow down! Stop! Just there.
So tiny. Do you see them?
To detect more than color,
intricate form and feature,
bend, take a knee.
Wood violet, meadow violet,
purple flower, white throat.
Leaves left from autumn
make the drab, burlap back
for this carpet of color.
Herb Robert, chickweed,
woodsorrel, cranesbill.
I’m okay with $80 bouquets,
but now—Thank you, Don!—
I can see mouse-ear for free.
Sometimes the scent creates the bloom
by Jean Janicke
The pool pulls like the light blue waves
on the 1970s swim team Speedo
of the Briar Flyers. After April showers
drizzle into May, blue and yellow
terry cloth petals unfold from a dormant
winter on closet shelves. Beach towels
reunite with goggles and sunscreen bottles
in woven tote bags. Worn-out turquoise
flip flops squish with each step. Wooden
fence slats play peekaboo with the view.
The shouts of eight-year-old experts jump
to judge after a splash. That was a three!
At the first whiff of avobenzone in sunscreen
with a hint of soft chlorine, the Briar Flyer
deep inside surfaces to press against your ribs.
Fledgling
Inspired by Cathryn Kuhfeld's wood engraving of the same title
by Christopher Horton
One false move might lead to death,
or injury, but you have fledgling status now
and by rights this walled garden,
where the clematis pushes out
its many whiskers and colours-in the gaps,
is there to use as you see fit.
The odds increase the longer you sketch yourself
across this haven space. All value
is measured in relation to robustness
of support, the proud extent of elevation.
Hear and sync what keeps you here.
You kind of fly, at least enough to break
a fall, still you’re fooling no one
with that awkward jive and lindy-hop.
Just be deft enough to hide
from human hands in the knowledge
that to be helped in such a way is to break
the species code. Sight predators
from a vantage point they cannot reach.
Only tilt your head if that helps to capture them
within your visual field. Please, fledgling,
I beg of you, never stray too far from the octaves
of an old family song.
Snow Plant (Tahoe National Forest, 2019)
by Mark Ifanson
Medium: Photography
Cactus
by David Milley
I find you in the greenhouse today. You slump
a little, looking old, looking sad. You gaze,
glumly, at the potted cactus in its huge clay pot.
I stand beside you. You do not lift your eyes.
You never look sad. You never sit still. Many years,
I’ve watched you till soil, plant seed, pull weeds.
I once dragged in a dried cactus in a broken cup;
now, it boasts pink blooms all through its spikes.
I wrap my arms around you. I hold you.
I kiss the balding spot atop your head.
You made a garden of our life. You peer up,
into my face. So, at last, we’ve come to rest.
Lovely as Spring
Kore, at the edge
by Christie Buchovecky
It’s another evergreen dress day. Mother said the red one is too much—
that I should save it for the summer solstice. I didn’t argue but ran the
smooth silk through my fingers anyway—just to check if it held the
heat I imagined. She wove violets into my hair, tight enough to make
my scalp sing. Said I looked lovely as spring itself.
I tried to smile the right amount.
When I could slip away, I met the nymphs to swim. Boys were in the
orchard again when I passed, flinging sticks and weaving through the
rows. They seem to be lingering longer these days. Sometimes they
climb into the branches, where we can see them clearly from the
stream. Thaleia dared me to dive to the bottom. I did. Came up gasping
and giggling. Daphne’s wild laugh rang out behind me. And the boys
peered over. I sank back into the water—there were too many eyes.
My voice felt borrowed after that, like it belonged to someone braver.
I hesitated at the fork in the path home; it was getting late. The orchard
is kept so neat, it’s hard to believe anything could go wrong there. Yet,
the long way—down past the hollow—called to me.
No one trims the alders there. Their roots split stone just to stretch.
Fallen branches feed the undergrowth, and everything smells of damp
bark and bruised ivy.
I almost stepped in.
But Mother doesn’t let me stay out past sunset. Says that’s how daughters
get lost. Sometimes I think the only shade she likes me lingering in is her
Own.
Still, I stood there a while, watching how the vines reach toward
silence, curling through the wreckage of last season. Made me wonder
what I’d grow into—
if no one told me which way was up.
Watering
by Bob McAfee
In June heat’s throes
you water your garden
unfurling your crepey hose
curling like a black snake on the ground
carefully make your rounds
among the demarcated rows
of garlic heels and tomatillo toes.
On a day of ninety-eight degrees
you water your garden
constant conversation with the bees,
dialog with yellow butterfly
who hovers over zinnia’s darkened eye
supervising the drenching of English peas
the quenching of bush cucumber knees.
A month of no-rain-in-sight
you water your garden
working your way slowly from left to right
arriving at the strawberry patch
you remove the bird-netting, snatch
three red heads, round and slight,
smile broadens with every dripping bite.
black lamb and digitalis
by Sarah Tait
in this peltering
that same drizzled gaze -
the gap of years snagged tight
as wool,
the patience of foxgloves
swaying the squall
Blaze of Nature
by Joshua Colon
Medium: Photography
Alchemy
by Tamara Sellman
The ancestors... if only they’d simply let me give away the Black Houses.
There were five in all: Mud House. Cloud House. Blaze House. Tide House. And...
where Brigid was born... Spirit House.
It’s the only one left.
The sinking of Mud made that plot easy to release; the earth swallows irreversibly.
November winds blew down Cloud House, turning sticks back into their truest forms, with Blaze
shattered by lightning during that same storm. The floods that followed reclaimed the Tide
House.
Yet here I am, Charles Piggotte VIII, still bound to Spirit House. It persists inside its dark
fir thickets, chokers of hedera helix, thorny canes, and ironwood, overgrown beyond what’s
acceptable even to a witch.
Brigid is why I’ve not yet dissolved this claim on me... Brigid, the child birthed within
who honors her mother by keeping the grounds township legal, staving off condemnation by
mayor’s decree. So I remain tethered to its biomass, for rules I must abide; the lifespan of the
Piggotte family curse is as long as the universe is wide.
* * *
This dawn, of the vernal equinox, I float the halls grateful for morning light to cut the
mote-filled ectoplasm I normally struggle to navigate.
Winter’s a heavy, low frequency season for earthbounds. It feels as if I walk waist-deep
through thickening pinesap. With spring here, the quickening in its atmosphere is undeniable.
Clip-clip-clip.
Brigid’s at it already, the girl fanatic with her blades and shears, her trowels and trugs,
her mycorrhizals and whispered spells to the roots of trees—that last tool an inheritance not from
me, but her mother. She squats here, a young woman having passed through all five of the
Pentacle of Black Houses, a process ordained for every soul in the Piggotte line to resolve our
generational curse, which upon completion sets our bloodline free to join Source after death.
Such a beautiful young maiden, Brigid, daughter of my lost love Greta–herself a squatter
in Spirit House two decades prior. I was new then to the stewardship of the Piggotte curse. If
only I could sigh... Those magical dusks when Greta and I danced the worn wooden planks on
every floor of the house, lighting up each chakra. Nine months later, Brigid slid onto the kitchen
floor smelling of honey, her umbilical cut by gardening shears, the only blade Greta could find
sufficient to the task.
Had I wed my dear Greta before the material world turned her, ancestral law would’ve let
me gift this house to Brigid upon my own passage. Through our nexus of blood, my daughter
could’ve become its heir organic.
Now, it is natural catastrophe ending in baptism, or rebirth, which remain my sole means
for liberating the entirety of the Piggotte line from Spirit House. But how to achieve this as the
thin wisp of energy in perpetual limbo that I am?
Spirit is flame, light, gas, vapor.
As a phantasm, I possess no way to generate these elements vital for completing the
Vanishing of the Pentagram of Black Houses.
Four times prior, I succeeded, after which a sudden and unheroic fall caved in my skull
and left my task unfinished. Without a corporeal body, I’m merely a revenant, unable to enact
this last glamour.
* * *
Brigid ties back her coiled ribbons of bronze hair with a black bandanna printed in green
paisley teardrops. She’s risen on the robin’s schedule to tend the earthen children: the birches
and rhododendrons, luxurious swaths of little bluestem, wild onion wherever it walks, hollies
planted from berries shat by cedar waxwing.
She sits drinking iced nettle tea now, tossing her dewy bandanna to the ground near the
naked legs of trellised clematis vines leafing out in tiny chartreuse glimmers.
I walk through her body.
The moment of my passage through her aura gives my own energy bank a tingle.
She rubs her arms against the prickles, smiling, before she rises to return to work,
forgetting her head wrap.
The afternoon blazes under the sun’s bare eye wheeling across the sky. She sweats,
prunes, digs, pulls, buries for hours. Dusk finds her propped against the house’s cool stone
foundation under the shade of an elm, asleep.
On the other side of the house, strong beams of sunset refract off the window of a nearby
house in an intriguing sacred geometry. The hours-long magnification of heat and light on the
absorbent black of her discarded bandanna hits at just the right angles.
A thread of smoke rises from the wadded kerchief when the sun finally drops behind the
Hill.
First, I’m curious, then alarmed: it transitions from smolder to full orange flame licking
the clematis’ bare legs. Whooompf and the entire vine ball explodes, tongues of fire racing up the
side of the house, catching black cedar planks, the shakes along the roofline.
Before I can think what this signifies, the house is alit.
Brigid! I swirl my way to the other side of the property, peering through leafing trees to
check the growing maelstrom. Brigid’s napping body remains in repose. I want to walk through
her again, awaken her, a doting father protecting his daughter. But I wait and wait. The
crackling, the clouds of ash boiling from the other side may be powerful, but not more so than
the intensity of her dreams.
Sirens, after many minutes. The hungry fire devours the shutters, scorches the windows,
chars the crumbling chimney. Whistles, roars, licks, laughs.
Baptism by fire.
A miasma of dark energy—the one I have seen before, every past generation of
Piggotte witness to its profane visage—sits outside the corner of my eye; its many heads nod.
I kneel and lay my ghost’s hands on Brigid’s sleeping cheekbones, kiss her brow, startle
her awake.
* * *
The spinning that follows disorients me at first, foreign to the stagnant energy I’ve
endured, quiescent, in this in-between place. But, like stepping onto a moving carousel, I find my
footing in the spiral and am swept up, above the majesty of green that is Spirit House, the Black
House where all things Piggotte are born or go to die.
Brigid now dances in fear, not knowing my rise into the stratosphere reconnects me to
Source, the house a sacred burnt offering of familial inheritance by both worldly and ancestral
law.
In the morning, she will find in her mailbox a skeleton key and a document with her
name and a notarized signature—elegant loops on the Gs, firm strikes on the Ts—bequeathing
her the deed to the last of the Black Houses—a pile of blackened rubble transmuted to earthly
and ownable treasure.
-end-
You Can't See the Mural at Tenley Automotive Anymore
by Jean Janicke
Battleship grey paint buries the brushstrokes
where the mural used to be, right there by the air
compressors, until the neighbors complained.
Someday archeologists will excavate layers
on the north wall of the mental hospital in search
of lost art and find a sand yellow band at the base,
then a tangy orange horizon under a dark universe.
Ruby tire track treads trail up the bricks to the deity,
a sun of wrenches and spark plugs, radiant beams
of the mechanic’s imagination. Today the only signal
that beauty and an oil change can mingle is right by
the gas pumps. A chest-high row of roses
stands in alternating hues like a drugstore
display of lipstick from Romantic to Red-Hot
tempting you to stop and look closer.
Maytime
by Annie Wright
Don’t bring those in here!
What had I done? She loved posies
I gathered from hedgerow and common.
Not wildflowers, the hawthorn sprigs,
those creamy pink curds,
blousy and rank with the promise
of summer. I laid them outside,
around the back, perplexed.
Mothers could be so hard to fathom.
Inside, she explained, a country custom
learned as a child not to bring May
flowers indoors? Why? I insisted.
Because it means someone in the house
will be dead within a year. Only then
did I hear the fear in her voice.
My ten-year-old sister nightly struggled
to breathe; wheezing rasps, my parents’
worried voices, the doctor’s frequent visits
woke me in the small hours. Her meagre
frame thinned, lips perpetually tinged
with blue. It never occurred to me
to consider she might not survive
until that moment at the kitchen sink
holding back the sting of tears.
Something warned me not to tempt fate –
whether or not I believed it, but never
again would I bring May blossom inside.
Hedgehog's Nest
Inspired by Cathryn Kuhfeld's wood engraving of the same title
by Christopher Horton
Like any craft or trade, nest making gets passed down
and anyway such knowledge lives in the blood,
is programmed into the marrow. Autumn now,
the busiest season. There is no hanging about
and nothing goes to waste: bracken, bramble,
reeds, leaves, twigs, blades of grass, all combined
into a woodland home of sound structural form.
No finer example of design and build can be found
in this thicket where other beasts sleep rough.
Spy into this nest and find two hedgehogs lying there
in foetal position, descending into vivid dreams
of worms, ground beetles, fruit, and the thick yoke
from sparrow eggs. If we were able to access their minds,
to dissect each unconscious thought, we might also come
to know the joy of discovering those fallen eggs,
or the satisfaction gained from snuffling-out new prey.
It’s a different world inside the nest and that’s half the point.
This is where sleep takes over to cure all their pains.
This is where spines replenish and skin replaces itself.
It will hit them weeks on – emerging into morning,
stunned and bug-eyed – that everything has changed.
Bloom
by Mathew Harrison
Medium: Photography
To Bluebonnets and Especially to Poets
by David Blumenfeld
Jesus, there are so many poets I love, just the ones still living or only recently dead
take up many long bookshelves in my office, like Kim and Sharon and Billy
and David B (poor David, gone last year like brilliant blue Louise) and scores
of others I haven’t begun to mention, poets long dead who would occupy a large
roomful of bookcases. Once in Texas, I saw a field of Bluebonnets, big fulsome
almost purple Bluebonnets, a quarter of a mile wide and half a mile deep, almost
as deep and wide as Texas itself, it seemed to go on and on forever, my two beautiful
little daughters with their wondrous brown eyes, and I went into that field outside
of Austin, sure we were in heaven, we would have rolled around and made Bluebonnet
angels and sang a song together (off-key ‘cause no one in our family except Danny
can sing worth a damn), rolled around and sang if we weren’t afraid we’d flatten a patch
and spoil the sheer blue perfection of it all, but beautiful and spectacular and heavenly
as it was, that vast blue Texas field, that Blue Blue Blumen-feld, was all one color,
and the flowers were singing the same blue song and yes, the three of us could have
fallen right into that deep blue song and lived there happily forever, but the poets
on my bookshelves are singing a multitude, a virtual infinity of songs, each with
its own color, some blue but a million shades of blue just for starters, and all the other
colors are there, including some that don’t even exist, ones lovelier than those that do exist,
since nonexistent colors are so captivating, but so elusive it takes a poet to bring them
into this world, so here’s to the poets, singers of many colors, real and unreal,
and though everyone loves flowers, I say:
let hundreds of thousands of poets bloom.
Pink Delphinium
by Sarah Tait
That joy of soil
and how a seed can thrive, despite.
That power of choice
and the worry of silent need.
The purpose of leaving a mark
and how petals yet unroll the dawn.
The ecstasy of rain
and the joining of that chain
through earth to light
and the blooming that becomes
(for a blink) the all.
The Vigil
by Amanda Rackstraw
All morning with nodding heads
the buddleia and I wait.
Heavy with sweat of lilac stars
we hope for exotic species.
Can it be true
they’ve become scarce?
Or do they choose
to sup elsewhere?
The bee explores each
four-petalled stud and, nearby,
cabbage whites dance in pairs,
like ghosts of former lovers
tugging at their tethers.
On this too hot, high-summer day
we wait for an Admiral, Peacock,
or friendly Meadow Brown.
We long for the unannounced visit,
intimacy of stretched wings,
display of sun-lit colour and pattern
that lets us know we’re alive
to this day when the butterfly
settles weightless,
heavy with all it has to show
concerning the art of ephemerality.
Go out and adorn the day,
believe in the moment when
you will find forever
in the wing’s eye.
Symmetry
by Rye Miles
Outside my window,
the wind murmurs secrets
to the summer-full trees
in a soft, whispering song.
How funny that it
almost
sounds like the tides
when they run watery hands
over the pebbled shore.
The pink-petalled roses
who grow in the honeyed June,
are the same which blossom
in the cheeks of my love.
Rain falls from our eyes,
dew rises from flushed skin.
And the sombre clouds can cry
above the grass stalks who sweat
in the early morning sun.
A realisation unfurls within me,
as the waterlilies embrace the dawn.
We are mirrors of everything we love.
Tulip Sleep
by Terry Birkham
Medium: (Acrylic Paint on recycled cardboard 5xx7)
Afterbloom
by Penille Bruhn
Watch the wind
blow dandelion seeds
over green grasses,
and barren land,
across open meadows,
or into cracks
in the curbside cement,
and remember—wherever,
whoever, you are:
To spread the seeds
of life and growth
you must first
let yourself bloom.
Then, offer
your gifts to the wind,
and let go of knowing
whether you are flower,
or seed,
or naked stem.
One Petal Opens A Window
by Jackie McClure
Petal pales-
eventually
loosens its grip-
which was always
meant to happen-
revealing,
as the remaining
petals sustain
their chalice pose,
a suddenly
breathtaking window
into the cauldron
of foam,
and filament
and light
that lives inside a tulip.
Ode to Kerstone 15
(in which the circus wagons stopped during the night)
by David Harrison Horton
I don’t look at the bottom of my tea cup
expecting a fortune
but I wouldn’t mind a little guidance
every now and again.
It’s almost July,
so the weather’s hot.
No need to consult the I Ching for that.
Even our greatest achievements
will amount to nothing soon:
Ozymandias, Beckett, etc.
Is this the rock we’re rolling, Camus?
Is it the lemon slice in the pu’er
that makes this morning quite nice
and bearable?
To Spring
Inspired by John Keats
by Bob McAfee
O Hopeless World, interred beneath hibernal snow,
Blinded by antediluvian night,
Deafened by the silence down below
The horizon’s hollow hint of light,
Boost your spirit eyes to celebrate
The return of clamor to the reticent earth,
A time for fecundity to calibrate
The reformation and rebirth
Of verdancy and caterwaul,
Infant voices responding to a parent’s call,
Thrusting stalks below the canopied sprawl.
Somnolent Beings, I summon you awake,
Wipe the gravel from your stony eyes,
Overcome the idled hours and undertake
The reclamation of the sunrise.
Daffodils and Tulips, poke your heaving heads
Above the now-receding snows,
Mark your presence in your bulging beds,
Signal to the brambly rambling rose
To rise and raise his quiet voice
Along the forest floor, urging trees to make the choice
To spread their leaves and vines their tendrils hoist.
Soporific Souls, from your burrows rise,
Issue from the honey-hungered hive.
Ruby breasted Robin, rhapsodize,
Sing Reveille so raucous and alive
It moves me to arise and say my daily prayer,
Wash my face and comb my shock of hair,
Get me quickly down the kitchen stair,
To clothe me in my linen suit and saddle up the mare.
It’s time to join the music of the land,
Enjoy a concert by the vibrant, vernal band
Now that Winter’s gone and Spring has made its stand.
Enlightened
by Mathew Harrison
Medium: Photography
May Day
by Schuyler Becker
Sandy dunes
paved by gentle hands
and rubber fumes
All grit and no grid
Just a patchwork
of vacationers amid
traffic maps
and plastic caps
A long-stemmed rose
crimson stem,
wilting leaves and all
turns a valiant
carmine face
away from the gusts
of waves seeking
to reclaim
Like a soldier
turned survivor
There is no better place
to forget.
Cloverleaf at Pleandale
by Cleo Griffith
We watch the slow progress of the cloverleaf
being constructed at our usual on-ramp to 99.
There is a huge transfer of earth,
creation of deep valleys,
high new hills, on which, in spring
poppies do their cheerful best
to put on a pretty face.
It isn’t to be only earth and concrete
but more complete, with words of impact
so exact, specific, from another source,
and we who live here, where land is flat
from north to south, and sere
from drought now in its long fourth year
see the quote somewhat ironic:
“water wealth contentment health”.
The structure blossoms more each day,
the strict-plan play of engineers:-
all new and gray and scalloped edges.
Pelandale overpass appears in slow rejuvenation
and next year will claim its place
as landmark in this realigned space.
Welcome to Modesto, friends,
you’re on the road, beginning or end
or passing through like loads of corn
and commerce do, we hope
you like our atmosphere:
we welcome you.
Delivery
by Kat Stepanski
Morning, Mother’s Day wilted delivery of gloom
A stranger carried a mum bouquet to the door
No light angle can disguise flowers past their bloom
Stinky pollen discharged, withdrew from the bedroom
The card bore shaky cursive, black ink scrawl
Morning, Mother’s Day wilted delivery of gloom
I love you more than all the stars in the universe -- plume
To Mom, Love Tara—a daughter she prayed would birth buddhas
No light angle can disguise flowers past their bloom
Like a handpicked gift of pity for a mom without a groom
Presented in a clear, glass vase...nothing special, just because
Morning, Mother’s Day wilted delivery of gloom
Like compost discards spread across a placard tomb
Edges twisted inward, petals shriveled by the sun
No light angle can disguise flowers past their bloom
Upon arrival to the legitimate dwelling, it will be exhumed
Unexpected, at the doorstep a surprise misconception
Morning, Mother’s Day wilted delivery of gloom
No light angle can disguise flowers past their bloom
Hellebore
by Riley Turner
There is a flower, emerging
from the silver midsummer soil.
Just beyond the blighted outline
of the blank-eyed angel’s wings.
You always were too human
for divinity.
Your breath exhales into five petals,
framing a yellow-green core.
You took the colour of new snow,
a perfect hellebore blossom
with your riotous golden heart.
The grey stone sits stoic above you,
humourless in the sweet summer light.
But you dance in the riant wind,
evergreen leaves waving, smiling
at the world you so loved.
Vibrant Blooming
by Joshua Colon
Medium: Photography
Not The Slightest Shy
by Pernille Bruhn
You just pop up wherever
you can: hillside, curbside,
across my street, in an empty lot
that’s been left wild—
perhaps not by lack of love
but by love—
you sway and sway
among the tall grasses
and tangled vines, and open
your bright orange cups
to the summer sky.
Dear Golden Poppies,
I’ll join you! I’ll turn my heart
towards the sun, and say, Kiss me!
Flowers from Ashes
After Katsushika Hokusai*
by Judith Rawnsley
The bonfire is a window into time:
the logs are from the cherry tree that fell.
I watch them burn. Remember how I climbed
it as a child; hung by the knees upside down
— lost in blue and clouds of blossom—
like the bullfinch in the print by Hokusai.
Child, bird and flowers blend to one, the way
flame enters flame, gold melds to red
and summer cedes to fall. It’s hard to tell
when a thing really begins or ends.
Memory’s log shifts and sighs a plume
of fireflies into the navy sky—
as my mind wanders into tomorrow
when I’ll rake the ash blossoms of tonight.
*Bullfinch and weeping cherry blossoms
Nihombashi Station, Early April
by Sam Illingworth
we said
we would not take photos
but the light
through those blossoms –
you shook your head
like it hurt to admit
how perfect it was.
the salarymen
were drunk again,
petals in their ties,
and I thought:
how foolish
to need this
every year.
and still
we stayed
until the last
train called
Butterfly-wings 'Ifs'
by Émilie Galindo
Remember when ‘Outside’ was packed with potential / when you would curl your voice into a
whiny wave / into a pouty lip / ‘5 more minutes’ / How everything ached to be climbed,
explored or raced to / how flowers were everything from a bouquet, bracelets to ingredients
for potions or perfumes / how trees could temp as goal posts / Butterfly-winged ‘Ifs’ fluttered
through lisping baby teeth or budding adult ones / ‘Ifs’ with bright-eyed wings.
Then, as leaves shrivelled and were reborn / Many times over / ‘Outside’ faded / becoming
one-dimensional / a corridor between two ‘Inside’ places.
Or maybe it’s you / maybe since those adult teeth really kicked-in your ‘ifs’ have become
wiggly and earth-bound / maybe their wings have become so moth-thick they make you
squint
Colloquy on Death (Blackout poem of a tombstone)
by Adrian Oteiza
Medium: Photography
The Green Tide's Patient Promise
by Marcio Maragol
A luscious green forest gently
Wraps and comforts red and black
Gleams of a future’s distant promise,
Undeterred by the cold grey
uniformity that stretches past the indifferent confine it creates.
The innocent gleams wait patiently
for their chance to fall, connect, and grow,
surrounded by a desolated sea of red and black bark
that litter the soil, ready to suffocate and contain.
The red-draped gleaming silver geese
Frolick as though still enjoying the primordial past’s patient delights,
Extending the realm of Nature’s grace in harmonious ignorance.
Lined up green, red, and brown mixtures repeat in uniform patterns.
They stand as culled and manicured imitations
of The primordial promised paradise,
Repeating their seasonal promise of renewal...
Patiently waiting.
Corpse of a Lesser Spotted Woodpecker
by Christopher Horton
This corpse of yours is arranged like a devoured meal
or a morbid exhibit in a museum of anatomy.
It’s not your best look. Still, you’re a showpiece,
naively brazen on this display shelf, alongside
other creatures, or at least their spectral left-overs.
I could lift you to the wind and your bone wings
would crumble. I might convince myself that death
is final, that your frame is pathetic here, behind glass.
This isn’t what I’m left with. You hold it together.
Sure, your red cap and body’s white stripe have gone
and with it your justified vanity, your joie de vivre.
Beyond the fall from grace, there exists defiance.
Your resilient and vocational headset is not what it was
yet there is a hint of it in the hard-nut skull.
Your chest and legs remain, gelled together
by ossified skin, dust, muscle sinew, dried blood.
Then there is your most prized asset: a sharp beak.
If I had to put my finger on it, I’d say your spirit
is imbued in your bones and cavities, binding your body
more than matter can, and that a better part of you
is reconciled in this afterlife as an example to us all.
The Start Of It
by Derek Ferguson
He rattles into the village
spinning earth
on steeliness and battered frame
unbowed and bent into
a fierce-won legacy
I try to hide myself
he smiles at me
as if I’d been expected
and bursts with words
that slip away from me
the others try to place
the nature in him
iridescent jewel beetle
mysterious fogbow shroud
dangerous spine of rock
marking the way that leads to here
that leads from here
he holds up something alien
A dragon fruit
its licks of fire try to ignite
Here try a bit
they beat it from his grasp
crush its exotic flesh beneath
his pride, he climbs back on
My work is done
he smiles again
Don’t go, I have the taste!
but no one else can understand
I peel the layers
from on the spot
where any of its fallen seed might grow
amongst those that failed before
the dragon stirs
its breath awake
to breathe new words - new world -
to light the way
Secondary School
by Schuyler Becker
Protect the children
even those faux-adult
teenagers that feel
trapped in school walls
when they’re really
a haven
from life’s realities
known by none
except an enlightened few
Blossoms cannot erase
the cracks woven between
dream and reality
All semblance
of glued together
dissolved by
absence and saltwater
They move slowly
but exist as in
a race
joking, jabbing
careless, crass
Children new to the stage
still learning how
to perform
for the masses
Dead Fl0wers Feed Us All
by Jackie McClure
Feed us all
faded blossoms:
duty done, dispersed,
fruit swelling
where once
petals framed
an aspiration
so miniscule
all but traveling insects
were fooled
into believing
it was only
about the pink,
our ineffectual senses
barely noticing the orb
soon to be swelling within.
Into Green
by Cleo Griffith
Let’s walk this path that varies from the road,
it parts a bit and wanders into green,
pulls us to see life’s natural episode.
Just feel the coolness as the branch grows wide.
The slightest breath of coolness bathes our brows.
The city’s gone, all quiet lies inside.
Beyond are duties we will not neglect,
but here our momentary respite lies.
To earth and sky we lavish our respect.
A minute here is time to visualize
our lives made richer by this land so old.
I’m grateful when a friend will realize
my admiration for green nature’s boldness,
that parts this path and varies from the road.
Transfigured
by Joanne Maybury
In this place of tumbled minds and rubbled lives,
where words are lost between the seats,
moans, unmoored drift across the carpet,
and memory is a tangling fractious trap,
she turned her tooth-stumped smile on me.
It was as if she heard the pop of corks, applause and cheers.
It felt like the O that rises to your lips
when, as you come to draw the curtains,
you are captivated by the moon’s pearl-bright disc.
It was as if a flock of egrets rose like mist from a lake.
She shone
and I thought that she had graced me
with a glimpse of God.
lovely young
by Erin Gottwald
Oh, well, aren’t you blossoming into a lovely young woman?!
I recoiled from the leathery face staring down at me. The woman was related to me somehow.
Stooping over, patting my shoulder. I was eleven years old. We were at my aunt’s bridal shower.
I was a Junior Bridesmaid. There were so many women there. Blossomed women, I guess.
I wonder what Georgia O’Keefe would say about the phrase.
Oh, well, aren’t you blossoming into a lovely young woman?!
Flowers and petals and layers of femininity just waiting to unfurl into the world. What is the
equivalent of the phrase we use for boys? I am unsure. But I have a proposal.
This morning, my son stood on the carpet in the middle of the living room. Naked from the waist
down. Always naked if he could have his way. “Like animals,” he says. Anyway, there he is in
his alphabet-collaged pajama top and he’s stooped over looking down at his four year old penis
which is sticking straight out at a 90 degree angle. Parallel to the floor. He’s neither frightened
nor amazed by this feat of random physicality. It’s that he is perplexed. His older sister is
coloring in her unicorn notebook at the kitchen table and does not notice. My husband and I look
at each other out of the corners of our eyes and follow her lead. We turn back to the French press
and pour our cups of coffee.
And I think:
Oh, well, aren’t you erecting into a lovely young man?!