Poetry Page 5

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Poetry Page 5

		ORCHARDS: SESTINA by Nadine Gallo Apples used to be the whole story there Northern spies, Macouns, Macintosh, others Peaches, too, from orchards nearby – sheltered By the hills on the south, a bit warmer So the frost wouldn’t kill the buds in spring Now they have year-round fruit from far away. It comes on ships from places far away People like to shop and eat, browsing there You can hardly find a car space in spring They come from everywhere—Holyoke, other Towns to celebrate Easter—it’s warmer Apple trees bloom, children gather, sheltered. Days are longer now, people are less sheltered, So they come on bikes too from far away. Students and old people, keeping warmer Under the blossoming apple trees there They sit together with coffee. Others Glance over them to see some signs of spring. We hear the music playing—Rites of Spring It seems to come from very far away The pink orchards sparkle – we are sheltered. Bio: Nadine Gallo has been previously published in the GSJ, also: JIR, writers eye, Boston Literary, Interstice (2010) South Texas College journal and Wolf Moon Journal

		Retina Shadow by Daniel Wilcox The blinding resplendent brilliant blaze of sunfiring In the translucent window at the top of our old stairs, Lighting to my eyes glaring defects In the polished stairstep well-walls. And afterward, for an hourglass, The irised rectangle of remembered light Luminous shining Like an euclidic spirit in front of my vision, The 'optic mystic' nerve gleam Of photoreceptors Turned into images in my mind As I trudge about the hectic scurry of my day, That brilliance of aperture at the center Blaze-blinding Me (In this pit-caved depression Of emptiness, and not.) Yes, The after shadowed light of One Far brighter Than nature's harsh survivored death glare Or the gray-dusted rituals of this culture of shame; Look, not to this dark cavern, But to the sun-resplendence, Now allegorizing-- Oh, the after-glowed radiance! Bio: Daniel Wilcox earned his degree in Creative Writing from Cal State University, Long Beach. A former activist, teacher, and wanderer from Montana to the Middle East, he casts his lines out upon the world's turbulent waters and far shores in The Copperfield Review, The Centrifugal Eye, Lunarosity, Moria, Crossing Rivers Into Twilight, Unfettered Verse, Writer's Ink, Oak Bend Review, etc. "The Faces of Stone," based on his time in the Middle East, appeared in both The Danforth Review and Danse Macabre. A book of his poetry, Dark Energy, was published in 2009 by Diminuendo Press. Daniel lives with a second volume of poems Psalms, Yawps, and Howls, a speculative novel, The Feeling of the Earth, and his wife on the central coast of California--not in that order;-).http://psalmsyawpshowls.com http://lightwaveseeker.weebly.com http//seaquaker.com

		An Unwritten Law by Robert Laughlin The laws of physics that exist Aren’t always written down to read, Including one that shoppers for A home would benefit to heed: The noise that thoughtless people make Steps up and up as you recede. Your landlord didn’t say a thing About the tenant right next door. She sleeps by day; at night she screens Her DVDs till three or four. Her giant speakers generate Vibrations in your bedroom floor. You chuck the flat and get a house In a suburban cul-de-sac. The neighbor kids are metal fans; They form a band and then attack. Their daily jams are arguments For banning aphrodisiacs. A ranchette next, two acres worth. Just lots around, no perils lurk, No neighbors yet—-but soon a man Puts up his house. And then this jerk Tows in a hundred cars; his lust’s A different kind of body work. This time you’re in the hinterlands. The only house but yours would seem A quarter mile away. You sleep And have a sadly shortened dream. Your neighbor’s training, dawn to dusk, For the Olympic rifle team! Bio: Robert Laughlin lives in Chico, California, in a Craftsman bungalow that awaits restoration by some well-heeled future owner.

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