HOLLYHOCK MOON
by Kenneth Pobo
The moon drops onto a red hollyhock
which opens slowly and takes it all in,
every canyon, dust fleck, massif and rock.
The moon drops onto a red hollyhock,
when the doors of night suddenly unlock,
morning far away, waiting to begin.
The moon drops onto a red hollyhock
which opens slowly and takes it all in.
Bio: Kenneth Pobo has a new collection forthcoming from Wolfson Press called Raylene And Skip. His work has appeared in North Dakota Quarterly, Mudfish, Nimrod, and elsewhere.
Woodsman
by John Grey
I carry a book into the woods so I can match the names
with wildflowers, trees and birdlife:
viburnum, red spruce, northern shrike, hawkweed, ailanthus.
The language is a way in, I figure.
Without it, nature is but the one thing.
But in its crab apples and blue dashers, it is made up of infinite parts.
The book is an instrument like my eyes and ears.
Sure, cabbage white is not a handle the butterfly gave itself.
And I could never convince that tall, imposing behemoth
that it's an eastern white pine.
I'm human enough to open the page and go with man in every instance.
A blue-gray gnatcatcher is what the words reveal.
No thin wheezy warble could convince me otherwise.
Slowly, I know what I see without plunging into my reference.
And beyond that, I distinguish more instinctively
without having to point and speak like a university lecturer.
I become less separate then, though I still keep my field guide with me
just in case something rare and strange interrupts my hiking grounds.
Truth is, I'm developing instincts just like everything else in this wonderland.
I'm just another body with a way of procreating, of surviving.
The vireos. the buckthorn and the hemlock aren't naming me.
Nor need they. Nor should they.
Bio: John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident, recently published in New World Writing, North Dakota Quarterly and Lost Pilots. Latest books, ”Between Two Fires”, “Covert” and “Memory Outside The Head” are available through Amazon. Work upcoming in California Quarterly, Seventh Quarry, La Presa and Doubly Mad.
FLOAT AWAY
by Diane Webster
Weathered log nailed
into the fence post
yearns for the sea
to rust the iron
pounded into its pulp.
It breathes salt into cracks
to splinter its fibers
around the spikes.
Wiggle, wiggle with wind
to escape and tumble
down the cliff into surf
rehydrating wood grain
enough to float currents
away, just away.
Bio: Diane Webster's work has appeared in El Portal, North Dakota Quarterly, New English Review, Verdad and other literary magazines. She had micro-chaps published by Origami Poetry Press in 2022, 2023 and 2024. One of Diane's poems was nominated for Best of the Net in 2022. Diane retired in 2022 after 40 years in the newspaper industry.
