Three Sisters

We lie on the grass, in a sphere of stars
shrouded by the fabric of night
in liminal space suspended by heat
falling mercurial away from the sun. 

Three sisters’ limbs dance entwined;
weedy minarets, reaching like tendrils
toward the southern cross,
flickering beyond our finger tips. 

We are lunatic kids—moonstruck
skinny silhouettes, wild from the sugars
of plumped apricots; skin reddened 
and poached on sandy beaches.

Our luminous playhouse
is charged with giggle, 
leaf crackle and call of birds— 
night airs played on timeless lutes. 

We thrill in unison with bold
ideas and fierce intent, affection
flowing through our pert silliness, 
its purpose played on our green needled stage.

Our mother’s gaze steals across the window sill. 
Her affection shivers in heat’s shadow,
and rejoins to the call of our wish
to stay, another while. 

Maggie Slattery
Adelaide, South Australia
maggieslattery@gmail.com 

Meditation with Dog, for Piper

I stroke her chest. She smiles, and veils her eyes
to amber slits in pupils dark as dream.
Fingers on fur - sparks, static. Old dogs rise
to memory, living still, or so they seem.

And yet it's just my present dog. Some say,
only Man lives in God's immortal scheme,
while dogs must die at end of Dog's short day.

She smiles. See how her muzzle's turning gray.
I stroke her chest. Her heart in mortal guise
still opens doors. She'll find a passageway.

Taylor Graham
Placerville, USA
poetspiper@att.net

Hermit's Confession

So I never go out
but I'm never at home
so that's why I never
answer the phone.
You can believe me.
I'll tell you why.

The caller might be
someone I never
want to see,
someone who never
wants to see me.
Or so we agreed.

The truth can remain
hidden for years
till hung in the sun
along with the wash
to startle the neighbors
like a red brassiere.

So I never go out
but I'm never at home
so that's why I never
answer the phone.
You can believe me.
I've told you why.


Donal Mahoney

donalmahoney@charter.net
Donal Mahoney lives in St. Louis, Missouri. He has had poems published Ancient Heart Magazine and other publications in the United State, Europe, Asia and Africa,

The Bookcase

The bookcase
has been replaced with
another bookcase

The new thing is made in Sweden
and assembled
in the wet dreams of code breakers
and psychiatrists

I try
all the bits are there
I thumb tiny pieces of metal
into crude wooden holes
the ‘designated ports of joinery’ I believe they’re called

Before we know it
we have a coffin shaped box
in the middle of the floor

The inevitable heated exchange ensues
planning ideas are slung back and forth
with the girlfriend
she’s flustered and gorgeous
I’m half erect and inappropriate
- which is more than can be said about the cheap furniture

and then I pause

Wow
look at us all grown up
we’ve made it
we’re finally fighting
about things
that don’t matter


Danny D Ford

Bergamo, Italy
theunfoldinghead@hotmail.co.uk
www.theunfoldinghead.co.uk

Running

Your stepdad’s in Intensive, 
horizontal, hooked to tubes. 
He won’t 
even know we’re there. 

But we set out anyway, past the neighbors’ 
bay gelding pacing his paddock –
horse that’s never known a halter, never 
been led out into fresh green morning. Forgotten 

steed. He whinnies, pricks his ears, 
listens to the herd in free pasture down the hill. 
His hooves have churned bare soil to mud. 
He does a one-horse dance against his fence. 

This first Saturday in May – Derby day, 
a fleet field of colts and fillies – 
but there’s no chance the hospital will be tuned 
to paddock-parade at the Downs. 

I need to see horses running. Look at this 
solitary gelding. Snuffle against his muzzle. 
Slip onto his back. Muscles slack – let’s kick. 
Remember how to lip-flick a latch –

the gate hangs open on its hinge. 
May means spring. 


- Taylor Graham
Placerville, CA USA
poetspiper@att.net 

Low Fat Cheese

Goats give the lowest fat milk to drink and eat
processed into white acrid cylinders,
they may take all sorts of shapes such as
smoked stones, ash powered dungs.

A sharp knife slices a roll of cheese,
a white, creamy patch keeps stuck on its blade.
I lick it carefully
my craving tongue avoids the cut
of the metal carving tool in my hand.

With my fingers I pick up the slice:
a thin white washer pure as snow,
I could bleat as I eat this tiny titbit
but I hum and I my tongue spits saliva
outside my mouth, on the verge of my lips.



Walter Ruhlmann
http://lorchideenoctambule.hautetfort.com
Nantes (France) 

The Metamorphs

When she and I in clowning coltish forms
Full spun with laughter, every atom splayed
Went spitting ecstacy; our foaming tongues
Trod home together leaning side by side
Collapsed into platonic beds of sleep
‘Cross our flesh would creep a blighted smut
So restless squirmed as dawn began to drip
Not every night, but every other night

Not every night, but every other night
The buried sunsets rise again, again
Through broken vessel eyes, through waking drought
Hold hands and ache for sleep and cringe and groan.
The world is cheap, we have our games of dice
And now and then we’ll lose and end up stung
We play at things, personas yoked and spliced
Dissolved in morning light – the metamorphs.


D.P. Laker 
daniellaker@hotmail.co.uk