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 Feb 2018
Jonathan Witte
A close read
reveals that
I am nothing
but a rough draft
riddled with
misspellings—

a work in progress
watered down by
superfluous adjectives,
non sequiturs, and
smothered verbs.

Love is an editor.

She courts me
with a pocket of
sharpened pencils,
blue and red.

She marks me
up meticulously—
dele, stet
dele, stet.

Decades punctuated
by intermittent edits.

Sunlight slanting
through an hourglass.

Her hair as white
as the final page.

When the end comes,
will she love me enough
to give me another pass?
 Feb 2018
L B
Took this down, but I'm putting it back up after reading a letter by another teacher, deeply questioning his own courage and what has gone wrong In America.
___

Anger, sorrow....
They sometimes converge
in children
The wind explodes them in our hands
and
I hate the world that kills 17 kids
with American Senseless  

Peace--
Impossible possession
The angle of declination
Breath of a moment
  
A violet thread pulled from the hem of day.
They were doing all the things I taught my students to do. I also taught them to be absolutely silent. Door locked, window covered, lights out, kids on floor along the inside wall. I told them they were not to make a peep-- even if someone broke in, so as not to call attention to themselves. We could hear the dogs barking, SWAT team running, voices blazing over radios.  The looks on their faces as they processed this new fear-- and the question I knew was coming: "Ms., What are you going to do?"

I fell asleep that night with my answer still echoing in my head, "I would hope that I could...."
Keep distance, the Snail said,
I don't feel safe with humans around
and my pace makes me so vulnerable.

He took a deep breath and added,
do you ever feel my toil
to move from place to place
while the winds blow in gusts
and the world passes by like a storm?

My minutes tick like your hours
and hours days
as I climb the mountains of walls
cover furlongs of ground
rest and restart
never really knowing
where the path ends.

And you only add to my woes.

Your prank of a kick
rolls me back and down
all the way
to beyond from where I began.

A teardrop gathered in his opal eyes.

But it really doesn't matter,
a smile broke through the tears,

I see with all your pace
you're so far from happiness.
 Feb 2018
Francie Lynch
I couldn't help but wonder how the day began.
Did he spend precious moments on his knees,
Searching for the toothpaste cap.
Perhaps behind the toilet.
Meanwhile, the wife was going on about her job interview
While changing the baby, when, from down the hall, she hears,
Aha!
I'm sure he looked out the bathroom window and cursed
The snow-packed driveway needing shoveling
Before leaving for the forty minute commute.
His older girl was talking about her weird gymnastics coach,
And he rubbed his cheeks after shaving.
He hardly noticed the clink of coffee brought to rest on the baby-blue  sink.
He was glad he clipped his nose hairs, but paid no heed to the softness of his facecloth.
He poured a re-fill after shoveling, kissed his wife perfunctorily,
And poked the kids.
When I saw the crushed metal at the crossroads,
I wondered if his day began like mine.
We never know the time or place.
 Feb 2018
spysgrandson
I found you

lone brick, of a million, one part of a mortared whole

your brothers now buried by time, without benediction  

progeny of clay, shale, you were born in a kiln as hot as all creation

dragged to this plain by spoked wheel and mule--sweat of the honest illiterate

long before the dusters blew the crops to hell, and Tom Joad's kin to the promised land

the mason who laid you in a proud straight row is now in the ground too

not a mile from you, where the county put him the hot Friday a man set foot on the moon

the bricklayer’s days with the trowel long past, his memories of you, your place in all weathers interred with him  

I found you , and you are the man’s legacy, he yours
 Feb 2018
Vale Luna
(read forward, then backward, line by line)

I ran.
Not knowing what else to do
There was so much blood on my hands
It was mine
The kitchen knife
Caught in my chest
Guilt
Consumed by
Fear
I was heightened by
Adrenaline
But running on
Wasn’t enough
While trying to stay calm,
Losing control
It was me that would end up
Dead. Because
He was
In front of me
The whole time
It was too late
Trapped
I found myself
Locked in chains
My fate was
Death.
Forward: from the victims perspective.
Backward: from the murderers perspective.

This TOOK ME FOREVER TO WRITE
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