Invisible Sun

Steven Gelberg

My humanity’s skin

Fits me.

I am its strengths

Its weaknesses.

From a childhood

Of secrets,

Being good,

Invisible, the good girl-

Comes this ability-

To see and hear,

To not be seen,

To be the observer.

Yet, in the hidden

Corners lies danger.

The soul risks slow submersion

When hidden in the dark.

When the good girl

Becomes the grounding,

The listener, the receiver,

Obscured from the light,

Death begins its

Slow creep.

Innocuously, like

Mitosis, splitting

The self from

Self, light, and air.

It is insidious and

It is death.

She becomes a secret.

She becomes the lie.

She becomes others lies.

She becomes invisible.

Turning towards the

Dungeon’s door,

The tearing of tectonic

Magnitude, she walks away,

Into the light.

kimsmith

Dancing in the Sunshine

Manolis Tsantakis

Exhaling

 

So ugly,

You were beautiful

In your elegant stubbornness;

Your life gift

 

Sitting on the porch

I rocked you in my arms;

The prairie house

Held us in the

Big sky.

 

The cornfield,

Harvested, stubbled,

Enchanted as the

Ladybugs swarmed

 

The only moment

Of distress, the prick

Of the needle-

Irritated you.

 

So, I told

You stories of

Being a baby

About shots myself.

 

I told you love.

I told you goodbye.

I told you, it is okay.

And, you knew.

 

So, we rocked

 

As we

 

Exhaled

In

Love.

 

kimsmith

Stationery

Dominic Arizona Bonuccelli

Accordionist For Alpine Wedding Riffleber Switzerland

The
moon did not become the sun.

It
just fell on the desert

in
great sheets, reams

of
silver handmade by you.

The
night is your cottage industry now,

the
day is your brisk emporium.

The
world is full of paper.

Write
to me.

 

Agha
Shahid Ali

 

 Manolis Tsantakis

I Do Not Love You Except Because I Love You

John Running

John Running Salina Old Farmhouse Northern Arizona Salina

I do not love you except because I love you;
I go from loving to not loving you,
From waiting to not waiting for you
My heart moves from cold to fire.

I love you only because it’s you the one I love;
I hate you deeply, and hating you
Bend to you, and the measure of my changing love for you
Is that I do not see you but love you blindly

Maybe January light will consume
My heart with its cruel
Ray, stealing my key to true calm.

In this part of the story I am the one who
Dies, the only one, and I will die of love because I love you,
Because I love you, Love, in fire and blood.

Pablo Neruda

Making a Statement David J Nightingale

Chromasia David J Nightingale

Fire

Gold Nude

S. Rungis

I am fire

in the water

falling over

the air

that breathes me,

annihilates me.

Dividing me,

divining me

from the

fog that

held me

once.

Now I

swim in

flames screaming

truths

I cannot hear

the sound inside me;

its silence

overwhelms me.

kimsmith

Flaming Love

Doris B. Lambling

No Words

Steven Gelberg

Landscape

 

 

i have no words for this pain

that takes me from life

the living

the agony

 

 

has no outlet

no comforter

no listener

no compassion

 

 

this wordless soundless

wailing pain

that was so held

before this night

 

 

gone is the holding

gone is the loving

gone is what i

thought i had

 

 

i thought i knew

 

 

yesterday i knew

i could trust

i said allow yourself

to be loved

 

 

today

i am left

today

i do not

 

understand anything

 

 

myself

the news

the world

the leaver

 

 

my friends

yes, my friends

i have no friends for this moment

unless you count the dead

 

i am a shitty friend

reaping what is

scattered and returns

as my due

 

i trust that he had to go

i trust that he loved me

i trust that i drove him mad

i trust that he too is just as scared as i am……..

 

or at least i dream this

 

i cannot speak for someone else

 

though i try

though i wish

 

to box it all up

to make sense of the senseless

 

this mind that cannot grasp

being told

 

i never wanted this love you give

i feel self hatred

 

i do not know why

i do not know the source

 

i sit here in nothing drowning

 

 

what is this place?

 

i do not know it

 

road map please

 

or just take me away

 

 

now……..

 

 

 

kimsmith

march 2008

 

Search

Q T Luong

Fountain Stanford University SF Bay Area California

 

 

 

I search

For my

Face

In front

The Mirror

 

 

As it

Was

Behind

Me

Then

 

 

Beside

Me

Also

Is this

Searching

 

 

Belongings,

Not the

Act,

Being

 

Is this

 

Moments

Action

In a

Water Drop

 

 

kimsmith

 

 

 

 

 

Expect Nothing

Khuki

Anwar Hossaim

expect nothing. live frugally
on surprise.
become a stranger
to need of pity
or, if compassion be freely
given out
take only enough
stop short of urge to plead
then purge away the need.

wish for nothing larger
than your own small heart
or greater than a star,
tame wild disappointment
with caress unmoved and cold
make of it a parka
for your soul.

discover the reason why
so tiny human midget
exists at all
so scared unwise
but expect nothing. live frugally
on surprise.

Alice Walker

 

Ahmend Al Safi

Is Not

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Creep into

My Maze

Leave me

Lost and Found

 

To see the way

Is truncated

Bifurcated

Desiccated

 

Until I see

That all is

Found in

All that is

 

Lost.

kimsmith

Stranger

Darek Banisek

Image19

 

 

Our strangers

Dance their masks,

Swaying at the ball as

Drummers beat out

 

Secrets.

 

This self’s enigma-

Inhalation, faith,

Clarity, confusion-

Speaks loves mystery.

 

We wander in what is left…

Quivering in places~

Choices, walking blind

In the living fog,

Hearing the voices sigh:

 

Be

 

Action

Grasps

Towards

What is not

What never was

What never will

 

Be.

 

See.

 

 

 

kimsmith

 

 

 

Tree Pruitt

Restrictions