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 Jan 3 K E Cummins
Nemusa
You, boy,
A black sun in my sky,
Stomping through my soul,
Leaving craters where love once stood.

The ashtray’s a graveyard—
Cigarette corpses stacked high.
Whiskey whispers in mason jars,
Coffee cold as my heart.

Red lights, stop signs,
I’ve been stuck in this motionless grind,
Unhappy for years,
Dragged down by your weight.

Your heart, left at the door—
A cruel offering,
A beast hiding in your skin.
You sprung bitter tears like a broken fountain.
Time ticking, killing,
Till you become a man.

Will you shake me loose,
Like the spare change you never count?
Burn me out like yesterday’s Polaroid,
Edges curling, my face fading.

I’ll drink to tomorrow.
I’ll drink to forgetting.
But your shadow, boy,
Still lingers in the cracks of my mind.

I am the fire.
I am the scream.
And you?
You’re nothing but a dream dissolving in smoke.
 Dec 2024 K E Cummins
Mike Adam
Now is the hour
Of Hibernation


Rest grey muzzle soft
Into rotting bole

Living on belly-fat
Of Summer

Snorting Sleep
 Dec 2024 K E Cummins
S R Mats
Vestigium, a Latin word meaning "footprint, trace."

Day hides behind a curtain of white,
So hides the night, the fading night.
The fog that descended before the light
Moves and curls around the lights brightly.
The earth is swallowing the memory of the sky.

With pressed-tight lips and dreary-eyed
I am staring into the obscure day, forming
As the fog leaves a footprint, a trace
On objects and roofs, then slyly drips down.
Its soft coolness covers me, as well.

Where is the context of things barely seen?
An ephemeral blanket closes in on us all.
Unsettling until the day is elucidating sight.
The lights all have halos like a holy thing.
At least it gives each one a certain clarification.

Still, the fog is closing in.
 Dec 2024 K E Cummins
Nemusa
He eats at my soul with a lover's slow hand,

Each bite a hymn, each wound carefully planned.

His silence, a gospel, his shadow a prayer,

I light every candle, but he's always there.

A feast in the dark where no one can stand.
the bantering of rain
the insinuation it might snow
the mirage of moonglade
the mountain drink
the desert thirst

everything
resolves with flowers

a withered realm
a crestfallen kingdom
their copper queen withdrawing
from the bitter harvest
in the spirit of Persephone

everything
dissolves into flowers
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

              About That Beautiful Lady Sipping a Cup of Earl Grey

You’ve noticed her, I see – just a word of advice:
I was chatting with her over cups of tea
I mentioned that Earl Grey also tasted nice over ice -
There was ice indeed as she turned away from me
 Dec 2024 K E Cummins
betterdays
Mid-day heat beats down
Shingle-back lizard lazes
On old rotting log

Termite smorgasbord
Dinner in pink tongues reach
Warm sun lies above
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