I deserve good things
Like kettle corn
And the promise that
Seeds I spit will grow
Laying shoulder blade
To shoulder blade
sometimes
Summers on top of
Your comforter
And comfort
In knowing
The heavy softness
Of knowing
You

It’s 8 am
And I was writing
Poems in my sleep
Perfect prose
If every
Mundane minute
Was at least
A year
Coffee stirrers
And reaching
Into the glove box
For ribbon

8 am and it’s
The third morning I’ve had today

A misty breeze…the birds’ songs,
the aroma of coffee brewing,
easily disrupt a new day’s
diaphanous veil of quietude,
to give way to morning rituals.

Stubborn, newly-woken arthritic
hands start to stretch...it takes
longer now for tight fingers to
uncurl or straighten each sunrise.

Palms open and close gently, and
then abruptly...fingers move in a
circle…clockwise, counter clockwise,
blood must flow, even when they hurt.

Some of these hands have worked
through water and soil…through
pen and paper…through rain and
sun…building, creating, moulding,
withstanding fire, getting burned,
toughened by time…..honed by
nature’s elements, and life's
many implements.

Veins are protruding,
knuckles are lined and wrinkled,
swelling with the many sketches
of life…good and bad stories,
lessons from daily existence.

It's sad, these wayward fingers
will one day…care no longer,
will turn stiff and cold...their
untold stories, kept forever.



sally b

Copyright Rosalia Rosario A. Bayan
August 17, 2022

No grave could contain him.
He will always be young
in the classroom
waving an answer
like a greeting.

Buried alive -
alive he is
by the river
skimming stones down
the path of the sun.

When the tumor on the hillside
burst and the black blood
of coal drowned him,
he ran forever
with his sheepdog leaping
for sticks, tumbling together
in windblown abandon.

I gulp back tears
because of a notion of manliness.
After the October rain
the ****-heap sagged
its greedy coalowner's belly.

He drew a picture of a wren,
his favourite bird for frailty
and determination. His eyes gleamed
as gorse-flowers do now
above the village.

His scream was stopped mid-flight.
Black and blemished
with the hill's sickness
he must have been,
like a child collier
dragged out of one of Bute's mines-
a limp statistic.

There he is, climbing a tree,
mimicking an ape, calling out names
at classmates. Laughs springing
down the *****. My wife hears them
her ears attuned as a ewe's in lambing,
and I try to foster the inscription
away from it's stubborn stone.

It's getting dark early again. The
street lamps are on by dinner.
Soon the memory of piles of
leaves, the smell of Fall and
the call to jump in the whispering

auburn heaps of my youth
would jolt me.

I am old now and fat.  The
ritual of Autumn's call to
the dark evenings that were
an invitation to the holidays,
is a calling cocktail.

The rains drained the ashes
into the sidewalk gutters.  The
hopscotch grid fades as day
light melts and I lose the
game.

Games are like drifts of scents
across the light post's shadow.
They are the ephemeral
recipes of my New York
youth. I walk to the edges
of the grass reading the
folded paper fortunes that

told me I would marry Jack
someday. I didn't. I threw
the lined prediction in the
leaves, scuffed my brown
shoes on the sidewalk

never dreaming that real
life would crinkle like the
ruled paper forgeries.



Caroline Shank

Living in the shadow of Babel
Where nothing makes any sense
Confusion set in because of man's sin
Bringing with it certain death

We've built for ourselves a tower
Of media and government
Our innocence we've deflowered
Not holding to God's promise kept

Lost compassion and understanding
Arguments on either side
Tongues let loose spouting so-called truth
Last to realize it all could be lies

We look at each other dumbfounded
Wondering how this could go on
All the while over time we've allowed it
And now we are dry to the bone

All this in the shadow of Babel
Where the tower swings as it sways
It almost would be laughable
If we hadn't given our souls away

Living in Babel today...