Jamie Fiano 11/21/24 Jamie Fiano 11/21/24

Abyss by Jamie Fiano

You do not have my consent to label me

I have not so much as muttered the words required for you to put me in the boxes which shape your reality.

If you seek clarity about my identity,

you may ask me an open-ended question.

You may invite me into conversation where you will expose your mental limits, and I will expose mine.

I will hope for the lines of my limits to intersect with the lines of yours,

that we might co-create escape routes to different dimensions

and we will dance and play in dialogue and nuance.

Burl Battersby 5/19/24 Burl Battersby 5/19/24

Roble Madre, Bellota Hija by Burl Battersby

From: An Ode to the Trees of Tacoma

Roots against the cosmic churn
Forming here a hallowed ground
Tethered to tierra’s perpetual turn
Roble Madre’s essence is firmly bound

Stalwart in both the rain and gales
She sips deep from a sunken river
In between each sweet taste she tells
Her tales to those who’ll outlive her […}

Hannah Trontvet 9/20/22 Hannah Trontvet 9/20/22

Backstop to a Rumble by Hannah Trontvet

Little neighbor girl, your head once bounced above my fence to the creak of trampoline springs. That night your neck bent down below your kitchen table to shelter from the shell shot. One grazed your abdomen. They say you are okay, but your trampoline is still quiet.

Michael Haeflinger 8/7/22 Michael Haeflinger 8/7/22

Trash Day by Michael Haeflinger

Rainfall, a broken piece of floor, linoleum,
recycling to the rim with beer cans,
two neighbor girls off to school,
someplace behind the pull of sky,
a line of buildings dark all day.

Erik Carlsen 7/18/22 Erik Carlsen 7/18/22

Extinction by Erik Carlsen

Nobody will ever tell you
How your voice sounds like a Passenger pigeon
Or that your legs are long like a Javan lapwing

Lornas McGinnis 6/5/22 Lornas McGinnis 6/5/22

A Touch of Shade by Lorna McGinnis

Clouds cast shadows like hawk’s wings,

Breathing down my neck when the wind turns cold.

The gloom elongates, stretching up the brick walls,

Dimming them so their flushed redness fades to gray.

Erik Carlsen 4/27/22 Erik Carlsen 4/27/22

Advice From My Father by Erik Carlsen

Only paint when the weather is just like this,

Don’t bother remembering their names because

They will always tell you, everything in your hands

Is a hammer, no part of any animal should go to waste

Bill Fay 12/20/21 Bill Fay 12/20/21

A Glorious Darkness by Bill Fay

color pots of fairies
spilled
at November’s end
toward the certainty
of winter
ochre of oak leaves
rattling the teeth
of the breeze
exhales
farms and forests

Trevor Williams 12/20/21 Trevor Williams 12/20/21

An Act of Arson by Trevor Williams

The air

creates sparks from friction

with the earth.

The salt in our sweat

transmutates into nitroglycerin

while we lay on a funeral pyre

piled up against a red dawn backdrop.

Richard Wilkinson 11/16/21 Richard Wilkinson 11/16/21

From the Earth to the Moon by Richard Wilkinson

Heather Pilder Olson 11/16/21 Heather Pilder Olson 11/16/21

Aftermath

Earth tilts on its axis.

Disease takes away life.

We’re still here, we are trying

to rebound after strife.

Tyrean Martinson 6/21/21 Tyrean Martinson 6/21/21

Two Skinny Poems by Tyrean Martinson

Shift

After eight attempts, the poem begins to
Shift
Weight.
Words
Considered
Shift
Places,
Refract,
Distort.
Shift
To the poem begins after eight attempts.

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