Poem by Alan Catlin

GUARDIAN ANGEL

His guardian angel must
have been packing some
serious heat, must have had
a small arsenal and enough
ammo to take out a small
army secured beneath her
flowing black robes.
She used a flaming sword
instead of head lamps to show
the way on dark, moonless nights
patrolling the deserts of his
life, a life that was soon-to-be
a ravaged wasteland
of stripped malls, gutted wild
animals hunted for their tusks,
their fur, then discarded and
left to rot beside lost pitted
highways that lead South
into the unknown.

Poems by Keith Nunes

ON THE EDGE

Standing on the precipice
With his back to the cliff
Eyes closed he feels the
Invitation of emptiness,
It’s a gentle, cordial invite,
A vague promise carried on the breeze
Curling around him, a promise that
If he lets himself fall he will
Experience a sensation of heavenly nothingness,
An immersive peacefulness entwined with
Intense excitement,

There’s a light-touch-hand on his chest
Pressing him backwards, then
It’s as though the hand is around his heart
Holding it so he doesn’t have to hold it himself,
He’s weightless, a spirit-form desiring to remove itself
From this redundant body rooted to this tortured earth,
An unfamiliar serenity pours over him like a watery shroud,

He’s tilting, marginally, forward and back,
A slight nudge either way and
A decision is made,
He wants the decision to be unwitting, made by itself for itself
Without conscious thought or effort,
Let it happen,
                        Happen!


IN ASKING FOR SILENCE

Vertical finger at the lips suggesting silence,
Demanding silence?
Is the gesture implicitly forceful, or is there room for playfulness?
Do you choose to ignore the gesture, or
See it as conspiratorial, inclusive?

Are you today the type to be annoyed with a command?
Are you today the type to be humoured by a suggestion?

Does the gender of the person influence your reaction?
What if the fingernail of the finger is chewed down, or if it’s nicely manicured?
If there’s an accompanying shoosh, does that affect the response?

Do you mirror the gesture to show support?
Do you waft a hand across your face dismissing the command?

Do you pantomime tip-toe movements as if displaying your quietness?
Do you exaggerate bullish movements to ridicule and rebel?

Do you sit gingerly, pick up a book?
Do you jump up and down and shout Nirvana lyrics?

Is this a serious moment,
                                          Or is it silly?

Poems by Joseph Cooper

OFF THE PIANO ONTO THE ETHER

Dear Radioland, hello. It’s 5:45 a.m. I squat here
watching the whole thing from the position
of watching television. Pitying the morning light,
the ringing of the telephone, the blowing of the wind,
the infant screaming in its crib renouncing all limits
of a musical coda. It’s anyone’s story as beautiful and
inscrutable as a young person from Mars in love
with memorable endings. Werewolves seeking exotic
friendships. I want to go home and immediately
become a message in a bottle. Anything to not be
omitted. Meditating on the cold holes in my socks.
I am molten, stupid, dangerous driving out of the city,
past farms, river and fields, just waiting to be heard.
I don’t need to know every moment you consider leaving.


TEATIME ON THE SHOWBOAT
                for Andrew K. Peterson

Tap damp cigarette along the tub edge
like someone in a terribly sophisticated play
proclaims, “I don’t need a piano to sing!”
My soul is a small boat lost at sea, a crude
radio going full-blast all day drumming
its energy medicine as I grow old by the great
whale of the piano’s immortal solo. The sinking
oar of a colossal adagio an inch or so above
the waterline adorned by a suppressed heaven
of kisses. The marvelous starlet’s beautiful despair
setting axiomatic waves over this absolutely ceaseless
saga. I can hardly see what good it would do
to cry out darling, darling, to cry for the sorcery
of the open sea, the stoic Romeo of the shark.