I’m in a dark labyrinth,
following the echoing footsteps
of a beloved,
long vanished by time.
I’m in a warm enclosure,
being watched by a jaguar
that’s pacing with eyes agleam,
and I notice the smell of straw.
Leaning in the shadows
under the stairs,
I hear the notes
of unspooling melody
from a Spanish guitar.
On a day blue and sparkling,
I’m standing on a beach,
gazing at a shell
over the white sands.
Heather Sager
(For fans of great art and Tony Dawson, we have something for you!-The Eds,)
This canvas of an old lady in profile
was painted in London in about 1871
and became one of the most famous
American portraits of modern times.
The artist, described as larger than life,
pursued the poetry of sight while his
contemporaries, Manet and Monet,
devoted their energies to capturing light.
The portrait of Anna only came into being
because the young girl who had been posing
for a lucrative society portrait ran away.
The austere nature of the canvas, depicting
an old woman in Puritan bonnet and dress,
the minimalist background of a Chelsea
studio with no colours other than black,
white, and grey did not impress the critics.
Probably because Victorian taste preferred
riots of colour, one went so far as to say
it wasn’t a picture. I doubt Whistler’s Mother,
as the panting is generally known, would have
agreed as she rested her feet on her stool.
Tony Dawson, 19 May 2026
(Header images is of the poet)
I already live where I want to. I’m already at
where I want to be in terms to placement and
residing. A ten, fifteen minute walk down the
street I once lived. Several blocks west. A few
blocks feeling like an entire planet away; and
that’s a good thing. I’ve returned; after a twelve
month jaunt in Hyde Park. God returned me to
the neighborhood where I’ve been for the last
thirty years; but on the other side. In a space
nicer than I could ever dream of. After several
nights of opening my eyes in the darkness and
forgetting where I was, a formation of months
tinged in hurt and transformation, I can finally
say I’m at the place I’d most rather be. For that,
I’m both happy and grateful.
Shontay Luna
The river is swollen,
a bloated, reckless
raging race
A muddy brown
rampage
Ripping
at its
banks
Carrying away
and consuming
all in
its path
A flood
Seeking
the
solace
of the
sea
Frederick K Foote
(Image by DWB; Starring Boo)
(Ed note–We are pleased to publish a second work by Diane –We feel that it will be welcomed by the readers–LA)
Dominos pretend
a horizontal staircase
bridging the beneath
until the crosser
rocks the boat
and falls.
Dominos ripple
left and right
while the middle
calmly acts normal
in the disguise of,
“Not me!”
Diane Webster
(Today we welcome Diane Webster, a poet you will seeing more of on this site in the future, as in this Thursday!-LA )
On the lake’s shore
the bare tree looks like
a naked woman — her hair
tangles around her head
as wind shifts east to north,
back again in circling
rage of imprecise journey.
Her arms flail
dance moves forgotten
after execution, after elbows
jab the wind for space.
Diane Webster
storm rising wavelengths of white ibis
pulsar the tern’s wings in the Atlantic sun
zarzaparilla
brown pelicans trace
the Folium of Descartes
where the waves are the end of the beginning
neither shadow
nor reflection
sanderlings
my best days behind me the waves of the Atlantic
her wings
a laughing gull spreads
the stratocumulus sky
sea dune
pennywort stolons stitching together
the earth
a quarter moon in the seaspray lavender dusk
starstrand
the new vowels
the Atlantic teaches me
Joshua St. Claire
deep spring
the elm chooses
the crow
pineshadow
over the chicory field
mackerel clouds
storm-broken hemlock
the lanternfly’s proboscis deeper
into the blood
spruce in cone
the lengthening blueness
of its shadow
white clover
expanding to the forest’s edge
crowcaw
maple leaves
skittering across asphalt
autumn’s voice
a yellow oak leaf
flittering into the cold
last monarch
quidnuncs
the starlings light
on a bare hickory
the mountain ends the forest ends winter rain
winter stream
a birch tree falls
into another self
ice-glazed pine
those years
I held myself in stasis
a single sycamore
in the center of the woods
first lightning
Joshua St. Claire
white oncidium
the sun splitting
into her infinities
graduation day
sunlight lingering
in dusk clouds
a billion suns glistering
in the parking lot
nameless galaxies
last sun
the scent of oleander
in luminous pools
the wingspan of a white ibis sun
sunburst
through the stratocumulus
Adam’s needle
from the throat of the robin sun
iron sun
a vulture unmoving
in the heat
the sun disk behind shifting the stratocumulus clover meadow
storm over
shards of sun shatter
from the sycamore
the sun’s scarlet
dips behind the distant hills
first cigarette
Joshua St. Claire
(Image by DWB)
(Dedicated to the useless gentrificationers of genuine pain)
Nobody wants to admit it
But we are ashamed of our past
‘I did not grow up poor in deep shit
And my fun parents made me laugh’
My happy childhood is the death of me
How dare my parents mock my artistry
Goddam daddy who didn’t drink
And mom who didn’t fuck the town
What was I supposed to think
When they failed to let me down
My happy childhood is the death of me
How dare my parents mock my artistry
Gramps didn’t stick his hands down my pants
Ain’t no hood profit in picket fence life
Credible people don’t stand a chance
Only the damned know how to bleed right
My happy childhood is the death of me
How dare my parents mock my artistry
(Artifacts of a past well remembered–both establishments these came from have been replaced by parking garages. The fuckers.)
(This is a neighbor whom I call “Da Blues.” He is a gregarious Russian Blue, his owner is very nice–but, for the love of God–do not dress your pets!)
(Pieces of the Twin Towers at The Evergreen Park 9-11 Memorial, Bremerton, WA)
Saragun Springs 