Creative Edge Letter Box On Line #26

The following poetry was written while in St. Mary's 2 North Psychiatric Unit, where I was locked away from fresh air for 16 days, March 13 thru the 28th, yesterday.

I wrote all of these poems in stir. Did someone say "when poets bleed, they bleed poems not blood?"

My wife had me committed there for observation (two weeks until a hearing in this great State of Arizona, then, for me, a couple more while I "stabilized"). Her complaint was that I was not taking Lithium Carbonate as has been prescribed for me. The Court ruled I am not a danger to myself or others, but that I am acutely and persistently severely mentally ill, and shall take 900 milligrams of Lithium Carbonate daily for one year, failure to do so having the consequences of being kept in a locked psychiatric unit away from fresh air for a period of 180 days.

NIGHT SHIFT
I have flashbacks
To another incarnation
I was a prison guard
In the Roman Army in Palestine
In the First Century
I was stationed in Jerusalem
Under the command of Pontius Pilate
One night I was told to take
Five picked troops
And take them with me
To guard the sealed tomb
Of an executed prisoner
I myself with two trusted men
Was on watch while the other three slept
When the likeness of a man in angelic form
Struck the three of us waking
Down asleep as if dead
When I awoke
The tomb was unsealed
And the body had been taken
Pontius himself ordered my five men killed
But spared me
But not my family
I was transferred to Rome
And hid in a jug
Of the purest red wine from Nubia
MURDER IN THE RUE MORGUE CATHEDRAL
(written during the wee hours of Saturday morning
following Good Friday 2008)
Twas a night like no other
No other would know
Save the silence of the bells
KING OF THE MENTAL PATIENTS
Like the King of the Jews
He kept a vigil at night
Twas the night twas the night
So long it was dark
So long and lonely and cold
I look out the window
Of St. Mary's 2 North
At a row of blinking red lights
Between me and the Tucson Mountains
In the dark I look out
From the Ward at 2 North
Locked here in worlds
All our own
THE AGE OF RADICAL SCEPTICISM
When Carl Jung asked Groucho Marx
"Do you prefer your cigars medicated or unmedicated?"
He recognized the right of the patient to choose
What Groucho answered is unknown
But from looking at his films
I suspect he was smoking something
The traits of a king:
Wherever he goes
Women love him
and men follow him
If you can't laugh at yourself
You are lost
An existential situation or dilemma
Forces us out into existence
Born of our own choices and free will
The existential dilemma
Forces us to choose freedom or perish
Will reason turn on itself?
CAUGHT IN THE TRAP OF LOVE
(for Rubi Carmen Sanchez)
Like a bear reaching for honey
And leaving a bear claw in the trapper's line
Of mangling spring-loaded snapping shut jaws
My Mother told me sex is nasty
Back in the days when L.A. air was clean
She did not know she had fallen into
The cultural conquest of Native America
I spent my life caught in between
My abusiveness . . . and my guilt
Til a letter fell from the Angel's Tower
And told me what it's all about
She said "I caught you in the trap
Of my angel love, and
That's where you're going to stay,
For my love for you
Is as yours for me
And is forever and a day"

Christopher Lovette
cwlovette@cox.net

Carmel Valley, CA

TREE
In this one lifetime
you will have to choose
over and over again,
this way through the forest
where shadows are caves
or that path along the sea
where sunlight strews chips of gold
over the blue surface.
You will have to choose
which child to comfort
when many more than one
are wailing out their fear.
A thousand times a thousand
choices each day,
this much food on the plate,
one or two handfuls of seeds
for the flock of quail on the slope,
dust the furniture or read
that half-finished novel.
Already you are exhausted
from making decisions,
all the momentary this's or that's.
Your mind is full of larger choices
at the same time, the ones
you cannot make in haste.
So you go outside and sit
under the diplomatic old oak and wait.
You wait for the quiet to enter,
for the tree to breathe in duet
with your breath, for the questions
and the choices to go silent.
This moment of stillness
the only choice you make.

Laura Bayless
ctblaura@redshift.com

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Section C: .................................................................. March 15, 2008

Monterey, CA

ODE TO NOTHING
In times that are obscured by judgment's cloud,
I search for words that somehow shine or please.
I strive within, then ask for help out loud.
Nothing comes to me with gentle ease.
I listen for my muse to hear my plea
And send me an idea of substance.
I cannot see what's right in front of me.
Nothing arrives entirely by chance.
And so I yield to all that is not
Within the space of all material.
Nothing was as simple as I thought.
And nothing could make everything more real.
In the void, there is one thing I am sure,
That nothing is as free as it is pure.
VERSE OF INERTIA
In the shiver of a chill,
In the downpour on my will,
I lie heavy without reason to move.
When the passion has all drained
Down the creek bed with the rain,
I see the flow, but cannot find my groove.
Out the window I can see
Raindrops clinging to a tree,
Dripping with gray light as they let go.
When the drizzle nears its end
I will venture out again
To explore what was encouraged to grow.

Laura Carley
lcarley11@yahoo.com

Pacific Grove, CA

Insights from India

As we circumnavigated the Mahabodhi Temple built to honor the Bodhi Tree, an off spring of which still shades the temple grounds, we were chorused by the shifting accents and tones of monks from Burma, Tibet, Vietnam, Laos, etc. The energy is strong and divers, the devotees as multitudinous as the hawkers and beggars surrounding this holy place of pilgrimage. There is much to see and take in. Obviously it is often overwhelming.

FEAR IS MY TEACHER
The gut clutch that takes over my breath,
the feel of sun and breeze on skin,
the sight of weeds arranged beautifully,
the curve of an ancient Bodhi branch
covered in soft elephantine skin,
all fades, subsumed into sussiant slither of fear
riding the tide of my veins, a slow smothering.
sharp blackness controls my nerve endings
blocking East, West, South and North,
draws me into a vortex outside earth's orbit.
If mind can cling for an instant to sanity
before chemical floods wash tsunami style
through my veins, I can crawl
slowly back into my fuller senses,
return the world to color and music,
quiet and simplicities weaving
their patterns into me.

Varanasi, City of Light

We leave behind the sun rising over the wide slide of water, bathers praying, lifting goddess Ganga (the Ganges) overhead, blessing her with flowers, candles riding leaf cups filled with marigolds. We walk up steep steps of the ghat, enter one of many narrow, narrow alleyways leading to the blue Mosque and a gold-plated Hindu temple standing side by side, surrounded by army with no-nonsense rifles aimed at preventing religious differences from flaring into violence. Along the narrow passage way, orange Ganeshe, elephant headed son of Shiva and Parvarti, adorn door jambs, tuck into candle-lit shrines.� Also Shiva with his trident and Ganges springing from his head at her source, her birth in front of Mount Kailash. Or Krisna luring cowherd girls with his flute. Real life cows, dung, debris, dirt, smoke fill the alleys. Orange of marigolds against patina metal, worn blue painted walls and doorways, green shutters. Overhead balconies block the sky. Decay of metal. Decay of stone. Decay of marigold petals. How to keep body and soul intact walking among too many people for earth to absorb—like a membrane split open, spewing forth what it cannot hold, what it cannot heal into itself. A sore that blossoms into limbs of many hues, rainbow wealth that fades and falls as ashes into Ganga, Mother river of life, of death.

HELLO SISTER
Walking up the path to Kalachakra Cave
(where Buddha meditated taking no food,
no water for 6 years)
"Hello sister, hellow sister." rushes past my ears
like river water tumbled stone.
Dark bodies of the earth arise
small and wrapped in dust.
In their laps, babies held like melons.
Ragged children hold out hands
"Hello sister. Hello madam"
One breaks loose, trails beside,
"Hello hello hello hello..."
finally falls away.
Another with polio legs
wrapped in deformity
around his skinny arms
scoots arachnid style
interceps my path.
Another feigning blindness
rolls his eyes upward
calling "Blind blind"
Around him girls giggle
behind their hands
at his pretense
"blind, blind..."
Their sorry lives tug
my sense of shame.
I want to wash and feed
them all or sweep
them clean away.
Instead I walk in stoic haste,
escape inside the tourist bus
beyond their plaintive wails
"Hellow Sister. Hello Sister."

Sharon Davies
sharondavies@sbcglobal.net

Colorado Springs, CO

CRY OF THE WOLF
In this
dark night
the cry of
the wolf
calls to me
human ears
stand at attention,
senses heighten.
A familiar smell
fills the air
I inhale
remembrance
as animal instincts
rise in human form.
Somewhere
deep inside a
mournful howling
breaks free and
pushes through
human lips as
I call out
to that
which calls to me.

Patricia Ann Doneson
padoneson@earthlink.net

Tucson, AZ

NOW AND THEN
Then I was young and in love with myself
You were neither young nor old, mine yet not mine
Insisting on being nobody but yourself
You played the piano for me
"Little Boy Lost" while you sang it
And I drank your martinis dry
I hurt you
Not as much as I hurt myself
But I was young and asleep and could stand a lot of pain
I can't anymore
And what else about now?
Now we are only each other's memories
You in your parallel universe
I in mine
You back in New York
Me in the desert
Neither of us ever wishing we had never taken that first picnic to Topanga Canyon

Christopher Lovette
cwlovette@cox.net

Del Rey Oaks, CA

RIPPLES
As the ripples expand
From the spot on the water
Where you entered the pond.
Your soul slipping through the reflection.
Moon light dancing among the reeds
Purling toward the shore.
Sailing the raft of love and care
Standing in the bow
As the ripples expand

Stephen Brown
SteveArtis@aol.com

Carmel Valley, CA

THE BANDWAGON
I've come much too far
and grieved far too much
to join the Hero of the Month Club.
I listen politely as praises
falter in the air around me
extolling gurus of meditation,
Deepak Chopra, whatever politician
is the underdog in an election year,
someone from Indonesia
whose name I cannot pronounce.
If it isn't exactly a person,
living or dead,
it's a new paradigm,
workshop at Esalen,
book about gratitude
or simplifying your life
that's THE answer.
I'm just not the jump
on the bandwagon kind,
always more than half suspicious,
not ready to face east and chant,
change my name to Shakeela,
which means something significant
in another language.
I don't worship at the altars
of athletes or actors,
distrust the piety in divinity.
I always seem to find
the flaw in the newest fad,
toning for the tone-deaf,
past lives for those
who are simply on their first.
MEANWHILE
(Meanwhile the world goes on...
Mary Oliver— Wild Geese)
Something terrible has suddenly trespassed
in your otherwise customary existence.
You become stunned, unable to collect your thoughts
into any resemblance to reason.
Vaguely you remember what life was like
before this moment and
will never be quite the same again.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
The sun rises and sets, long-grass grows
in the meadow in spring, turns to straw in fall,
other people show up for work, the phone rings.
You are angry in spite of how much you hurt.
You are functioning in a trance.
Meanwhile the world goes on,
continuing conflict, poverty, and genocide
in third world countries, political debates,
stock market losses, tornadoes in the mid-west.
You can't dredge up the energy to care,
to move from the corner of your couch.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
The moon is in its third phase and sailing
in and out of wind-driven wooly clouds.
Nocturnal creatures hunt in the corridors
under the greasewood and sage
and the barn owl flies from the pine.
Though you believe you are lifeless
you go on. Your breath travels in and out
of your lungs, your eyes blink, heart drums.
Whatever misfortune has come will play out
with time and the world goes on.

Laura Bayless
ctblaura@redshift.com

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Section B: .................................................................. February 15, 2008

Monterey, CA

[Drum] [Drum]

THE MOON DRUM'S TALE

It was in the first month of autumn when I was conceived, near the time when the Caretakers of the Earth honor those who have walked the red road before them, then left their skins behind and returned to live among the stars.

As the Full Moon was making Her journey across a Starlit Sky, my maker was given a vision from the heavens. Before slipping away into the Dream World to receive his gift of renewal, he saw the phases of the Moon orbiting around a sacred shamanic drum with a white goatskin stretched across a golden Cypress hoop.

On the following night the vision came again and was clearer. With it came the knowledge and inspiration to shape and shift his vision into reality.

My sacred hoop, which represents the journey of all life, was created from hand-timbered Cypress, the resting place for many crows thought to be the keepers of Sacred Law. The healing oil of Cypress relieves fatigue from sore muscles and joints.

The Eastern Maple Moon and Stars follow the path of a Redwood sky shadowed by strips of Black Walnut. Redwood is my conifer cousin. We are known as the Standing Tall People who help shelter the Creature Teachers. We sing the Wind's song, and breathe life back into the sky.

Red is the color given to the South on the Medicine Wheel of life and the place of trust, humility and innocence, a time for blossoming and growing.

Eastern Maple is honored for its strength and beauty, and gives its gift of sweetness to the two-leggeds. East was given the color yellow by the ancient ones. Its element is fire and its power is illumination and higher vision.

Black walnut is rooted in the west, land of the setting Sun, direction of introspection, intuition, change and transition, a time for going within, knowing oneself, and listening for the Great Mystery's guidance.

The white goat whose hide was lovingly worked and stretched across my sacred hoop, danced its own sure-footed and sacred dance within the circle of life, giving of itself to those who were giving and to those who were not. This Creature Teacher speaks to us about seeking new heights and perseverance.

White is the color of North and represents the season when death comes and things no longer needed fall away, making space for new beginnings. The North wind purifies and cleanses. The Spirit of the North is rest and renewal.

The Black Acacia Turtles that follow the path of the Moon and support my Cypress cross bar, are my maker's Clan Totem. These Turtles are a symbol of stability and our connection to the Earth.

My Cypress talking stick with its hand-carved Owl is a gift from my maker to the Shaman who inspired my creation. May the Owl medicine guide Her and others in following their own wisdom and uncovering their hidden truth.

I came into being with the purpose of healing the spirit of those in need by inspiring them to dance to the beat of their own hearts and to follow the path of their own true nature.

Patrick Maiorana
patshirl@mbay.net

Monterey, CA

WARRIOR WOMAN

Deep within the layers of my skin there is a woman I know. She is quiet and watchful and waiting. She is listening for me to call. Waiting for me to speak her name.

The space that her silence occupies inside me is growing. It grows within me such that I now feel I am pregnant with her position inside me.

She is wise and understands the dreams of a wounded bird. Like a mother, she has cared for my broken wings. Like a sister, she has bathed my soul many times in the tears that flowed from my heart. Like a midwife, she understands that the tears of pain will water that which needs to grow. And, like a friend in need, she is a phoenix rising from the fires of my illusionary world and she carries me in safety to the top of the mountain.

I do not know what she looks like but I do know what she feels like. I feel her in the flash of a moment when my arm is straight like an arrow, and dripping, with sweat, and my muscles quiver to sustain my gaze as it travels the length of my arm. She is beyond my fingertips as I focus upon the wooden wall. She is siting my dreams at the end of steady fingertips. I feel her fire and I know her strength and in that moment I am this woman inside of me.

What shall I call her? Surely not mother or sister or midwife or friend, for she is more than that to me. She is the Cry I have longed to shout from the top of the mountain. She is the Fighter I became long ago when life taught me how to survive. She is the Strength I know I suppressed in order to shelter those weaker than 1. She is the Fire I feel for the child who was frozen in deceit. I shall call her Warrior Woman. And I shall dress her in garments that flow in the wind. A ribbon of rawhide around her waist and a necklace of abalone shell remind her of those with whom she shares the earth. Her spear of light pierces the emptiness of the past and protects the power of the present. And woven within her black hair is the feather of her future.

As I turn to greet her, she holds her hand up like a mirror for me to see. I look for myself in the reflection, but I only see her. I press my hand to hers and an eagle emerges from our fingers and soars circling above us. She lifts her spear into the air and ribbons of light cascade across the sky. She moves her bare feet upon the earth and slowly circles in place. She chants softly as her head drops first to greet the earth and then lifts to greet the sky. I am calling her now and she is smiling. She is my Warrior Woman and she is dancing.

Elizabeth Schonwald Jannasch
ejannasch@mac.com

Carmel Valley, CA

SHE'LL BE AS GOOD TO ME AS I LET HER.
These words, spoken across the miles,
my son talking of his girlfriend,
linger on my pillow before sleep
pull me into dreamtme.
Barely three decades, his life,
and he already unwraps the secret,
one that it took me so many years
to unfold from protected layers.
It is oneself that creates one's life
not the whims of others on our path
nor the flow of random chances
as our years unfold into lengths.
The door we open within ourselves
allows entrance of enhancement and
we may choose to open wider or shut out,
easily, an uncomfortable intruder.
So I paint with these words in mind
"She'll be as good to me as I let her."
and find the colors flow, embrace each other
gracefully, clearly becoming a bouquet.
A Valentine at the end of January
full-fashioned to allow love to impress
no matter that the stormy season
strongly holds the breath of cold.

Illia Thompson
Illia99@aol.com

Carmel Valley, CA

DIAMONDS AND PEARLS
She's got diamonds on the soles of her shoes—Paul Simon
I find a calling card
in the form of a red maple leaf
long before autumn's arrival.
Often I hear humming,
some long forgotten
tune from childhood.
Something else is there
in the crunch of twigs under my feet
when I amble along
without intention on a trail
by a stream.
It's a passive thing,
simply waiting nearby
for me to notice.
Bits and pieces dash by,
a Scrabble board with a few xyz's
no consonants.
So many other affairs
on my mind, I decline
to pay attention,
though I know
one day, like the bothersome
grit in an oyster,
it will be something more
than a stone under my shoe.
THE EXTRA ROOM
The extra room is where the gray fox my grandson named Scoutv shows his face at my glass door after dark,
where the old yellow bobcat waits
at the corner of the deck post for me to leave in the morning,
and flocks of quail hide in the dense chaparral.
This is where the sticky monkey shrubs grow wild
on the weedy chalkrock slope, their yellow-orange trumpets
standing out from long brown stems,
where all the different shapes and hues of green leaves
and dead leaves assemble frames for snapdragons
and geraniums in pots and planter boxes,
where red-capped woodpeckers, iridescent green hummingbirds,
Lake Tahoe blue scrub jays, and pint-sized gray titmice
with their regal crests show up for seed and nectar,
where a lounge chair sits empty and an Adirondack chair too,
because I cannot sit in two chairs at the same time,
where the brown hillside, the neighbor's garden below,
and an entire valley doze in the spaces between the deck slats.
Rows of roundhead nails raise up in dry floorboards,
a symmetrical pattern under my feet, and deck beams and joists
form a ceiling, light sifting through thin gaps...
and on three sides windows without glass,
the squeaky lip of the stairs an open portal I go through
each time I leave the room and return to it again.

Laura Bayless
ctblaura@redshift.com

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Section A: .................................................................. January 15, 2008

Del Rey Oaks, CA

This poem is an Homage to the American Surrealist Joseph Cornell, written while admiring an exhibition of his work at San Francisco Museum of Modern Art in December 2007.

JOSEPH'S POEM
climbing the
     stairs
toward
Utopia Parkway
Flushing, New York
into Joseph's
          mind
Poor people
     try
     to
explain
in
ciphered
     digital
          detail
why
     what
for reasons
unexplained
boxes
and
     dancers
ballet
a way to place
things in space
and time
eternal
glow in the dark
bits of graphite
falling 3 floors
...climbing the stairs.

Stephen Brown
SteveArtis@aol.com

Pacific Grove, CA

Yesterday I took the beautiful trek to Mount Madonna... to witness David Whyte again for the day. He had just returned from Ireland where he had attended the funeral of John O'Donahue who had died suddenly in his sleep...Today, as my unconscious seeped in the experience, I wandered to my computer and found myself writing for the first time in over a month. I would like to share... with a wish for blessings and wealth of experience in 2008.

UNTITLED
It isn't that I don't want to write,
to open myself to the great
movement within.
The tides pull sharply
draw me in an undertow
almost like fear of darkness
leftover from childhood,
an unknown monster
lurking beneath my bed,
shadowy ghosts stirring
curtains before myopic eyesight.
I find other things to do.
Games to play.
Tasks of relative unimportance.
But sometimes, in the lull of my mind
sorting numbers or letters or color,
a great pull within me moves
up from my belly into my chest
and words seek to burst forth,
some form of management,
understanding of the emotional tide
swamping me from within.
And so I write, or take a walk,
or simply continue sorting numbers,
card suits or words into a crytogram,
a game of solitaire with myself.

Sharon Davies
sharondavies@sbcglobal.net

Santa Paula, CA

Homage to my Father & Mother.

THE MORNING AND THE EVENING STAR
(by Rock and Roll Spot.)
Augustine speaks in dialogue:
Adeodatus, do you see the two fold division of your life?
There are THINGS and there are SIGNS
THE MORNING STAR,
The land cries "Holy" ever crying "Holy"
Great consecration is the banner,
Desert stones all hold within them children of God,
Grandchildren of God.
"Let's put two stones together and watch the beauty burst open like sunrise!"
The morning star, at once a lord and magistrate, has ever
Like an earthquake breathed his great body
Down rivers and canyons,
Calling to himself the oils of anointment,
The oils that within seven days leave little pink fingerprints
We'd gladly never see again.
My father, the morning star, anoints himself like a king in California,
With the prophets oil pressed Prom. waxy three-leafed oak,
And the holiness of where he has set his life
Pours down his beard
(this a high mystery, the oil of Chrism in the beard of Aaron)
What a wild winding road is my father,
Tracing the patterns of his rising at the dawn,
Across a thousand landscapes, across a thousand beautiful creations.
Now I see that though I think in maps,
My father has his eyes upon the cliffs,
Upon the architecture.
My father has made his heart to hold the desert,
The valley,
The mission,
The ghost town,
The ruined saloon,
The long cathedral.
My father has said:
"See, this is beautiful, this thing is beautiful, look here, it is beautiful."
My father has taken all things and he has set them up as monuments.
All things are the stone of Bethel, propped upright in memory,
All things make altars:
Caves are altars,
Broken arrows, altars",
National guitars and reservations, altars,
Old indian men who love menudo, altars, the seat of angels.
My father, the morning star, sees clearly to the quick,
Bounds like a lion to the highest point of everywhere,
Wants all things, and keeps them holy for the mind of God.
And in holding, willing all that is beautiful,
The morning star, my father, is the basket or the strong clay jar,
That keeps forever in his heart,
The beauty of the works of God.
Amen.
THE EVENING STAR
(to honor my mother with the sight of my MIND'S eye),
She who named me Gabriel,
She who said "Just give this boy a trumpet, give him a trumpet and kick him outside
     or he'll crawl across my free time like slug,"
She who taught me to speak, who first took me on her lap and said "SPEAK,"
     and I did),
She who first unraveled the word bandages,
She who said "The mind is a creature that creates, the mind bears the form of God,
     (the pictograph is: ARIEL and air),
She who said the word is a creature that consumes,
She who is my Rome, my senate, who is my Cicero, my marvelous advocate,
She who is my Athens, my symposium, who is my Heraclitus,
She who knows that all things burn with significance and the way up
     is the same as the way down,
She who first said "A river is a thing you communicate,"
She who knew the answers,
She who was my Alexandrian, the keeper of my great library,
Holder of the scrolls (Ethics, Politics, Poetics),
She who built my house in much of the classical sty1e,
She who told me the MYTH: When the children were in pain,
     the giver of intellect descended with a torch and touched fire to the mind. She who is bright-eyed, cunning and sparkling
She who is Owl and Mentor,
She who filled my agentiality with alpbabets and cyphers (and this is the diagram:
     The line between two points, Epicures and Puck, is Graceland,
          And such is bounded by a CIRCLE)
She who is the circle is the evening star = my mother.
Q.E.D.

Gabriel Mamola
Mungthekilted@yahoo.com

San Jose, CA

GRANITE TIME
Ascending, the mountain rises before you
meeting your foot in mid-air.
Shifting the back pack over your knee
you make one breathless step up.
Always already the mountain waits
to meet the other foot,
Until at last, heart pounding,
you must stop and rest.
Descending, the mountain raises behind you
falling away from your foot
suspended in mid-air.
Knee flexed to absorb the shock
when heel pounds onto granite
again and again.
You sleep at night
on granite gravel
pushing into shoulder and hip
until you wake up once more
in a cold and bright landscape
without color, without sound
suspended in the light
of the full moon.
For days you ascend,
you descend and sleep.
Once more you stand on the shoulder
between two mountain peaks.
Cloud's Rest rises close by
today without clouds.
In the middle distance
the polished granite of Half Dome
rises timeless
over Yosemite Valley
crowded by visitors
reduced to a harmless illusion.
Surprised you notice
Mumbay, Madrid,
London, Babylon,
New York and Jerusalem—
all man made places—
erased from your mind
against this endless horizon.
Time stands still.
Shattered granite, polished granite,
marks of changes
your eyes can not see,
your bones have absorbed.
You have found that place in mind
where being there, out of breath,
is enough and bliss.
ORION
The bow of Orion lies broken
in the black pine trees
on the Eastern horizon.
The rusty ship of the old Moon
is sinking fast—heavy with umbra.
Cassiopeia struggles hard
to make her shiny crown
stand out against the Milky Way.
He closes his eyes and sees
the starry sky behind his eyes.
Invisible—he may not exist.
To find himself
he travels to Orion.
Here the Sun is a faint beacon
among so many,
Gaia a minute disturbance
of the Sun's radiation.
The chill of the immense silence
settles in his bones
like a familiar friend.
He steps through the membrane
of their tiny tent,
dives deep into the warm pockets
of their sleeping bag.
Her warm breath on his cheeks
blows out the starry sky
behind his eyes.
The chill in his bones evaporates
when she pulls him closer
into the warmth of her body.

Franz Spickhoff
franzox@gmail.com

Colorado Springs, CO

POETRY
Where do you go
for these words?
Into dark places
you would not care
to enter, or would
you care to see.
In this space
souls have
been lost
and are
screaming
to be free.
I sit, as others
have before me,
looking into hidden
parts of self.
Steal,
as a thief
would steal, all
the pain of the past,
all the hope of the future.
When I have gathered,
without judgment, all
that I can hold
Then
and only then
am I released to
set my pen to paper.

Patricia Ann Doneson
padoneson@earthlink.net

Thank you for your creative offerings!

I invite readers to share their own creative works (poems, stories, images, comment, etc.) in Letter Box On Line (LBOL). I look for work and comments I feel support understanding and encouragement of the creative process, and hence, the process of life.

The Editor

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