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His speech is rough,
his work is smooth.
Wait.
Don’t make him talk.

His tools can maim
or make an angel.
He has wrinkles like wood grain,
memories like wood scraps.
Wait, and he’ll carve one.

The stories come
gnarled, with knotholes.
Listen.  
He chuckles like a chisel
working old walnut.
Dedicated to James Adams of La Honda, California

first published in Indian River Review
Our function is to question all
To challenge the bitter , the sweet , the very footprints we leave
We lay in Spring primrose valleys requesting the dirge of hard Winter with odd forethought
We pen the macabre , the obscene and the refusal , providing a chart for the self righteous imbecile , the lay and the lost , we are new today but very well called upon tomorrow* ...
Copyright October 6 , 2016 by Randolph L Wilson * All Rights Reserved
 Oct 2016 Sam Temple
a m a n d a
i like the way
cats fight.*

slow,
methodic,
orchestrated,
precise.

a dance
entwined in
invisible
thread

magnetic,
graceful.

the utmost
dignity.
O , the talent of an October day to
thrill and delight , to correlate with the painted
pages in the wonderful volume of life* ...
Copyright October 6 , 2016 by Randolph L Wilson * All Rights Reserved
 Oct 2016 Sam Temple
Emily B
Sometimes I wonder

if I even survived
my childhood.

Maybe some part of me
is sleeping
up on the hill.

One of those
Nightmares
That I couldn't escape
Carried me off
In its jaws

and so maybe
I am planted.
Looking down
At all the people
I can't remember.

I hope that I am ashes.
I never wanted a stone.
O Devi, awaken the good in all,
there's no demon, nor devil
but in our mind, our will.

Raise our spirit, O Devi,
to the mountain's height
so we can use our might
to leave narrowness and rise above,

learn to live in amity and love!
On the auspicious occasion of Durga Puja (08.10.16-11.10.16), the greatest festival of Bengal, I wish all my poet friends at HP happiness and peace.
I remain grateful for your love and kindness.
(cover photo: image of Devi Durga, 2016)
 Oct 2016 Sam Temple
Fay Slimm
The breast of the sea swells tonight
as her efforts to rise, heightened
by great heaving breaths, break her skin
like inflated balloons, topped thinly
with spume, sea bursts in labour.
She roars, tries suppressed pitch to gain
the shore, finds her efforts are checked
then sweeps out once more, tumbling
somersaults over herself, grumbling
with submarine thunderly sounds.
Begets disorder by flinging herself round,
sea bloats, yet moving no slower,
bellows ignored, her foaming tears flow
down watery frills and rollers make
naught of revealing  her saline-stained face.
Sea-swell intends to bare all this night-time
in majestic embraces with Spring tide.
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