Moon
Evening Observations - Hail Broken Boats
by John Laue
Hail broken boats and
Shipwrecked people. All save and
Treasure what remains.
Medley
by Ankur Jyoti Saikia
Besides the wailing waterfall,
I piously pour out my pain –
Midnight on the Riverbank
by Isabella Melians
Everybody’s dancing in the moonlight/ Souls in a euphoria of freedom/ We live in this everlasting night/ Thriving in the Garden of Eden
Trees bow to us, surrender to the riot/ Silver rain drips down our faces/ Heartbeats strum, undoubtedly reliant / I live in nature’s graces/ Stars blanket us in clarity/ Voices ooze melodies of sincerity
Hands intertwine, bathed in opalescent grey/ We have found our sanctuary/ Please, can we stay?/ To frolic carefree, no rule to obey/ Eternal midnight on the riverbank/ Liberation runs through our veins
Here we run wild, here we are alive/ Actions forgotten in each passing gust/ Do not waste life begging to apologize/ Our hands pour gallons of stardust
Tonight the old gods have come out to dance/ Footsteps gliding in an airy prance
Eyes shimmer beneath the falling stars/ Galaxies plummet from our lips/ We can fly to Mars/ Pupils dilating in a total eclipse
Currents wash away our humility/ Droplets hover on our bare skin/ Reflections stare with a smile of fragility/ Water falls deliriously from our chins/ We have found our sanctuary/ Please, can we stay?
Eternal midnight on the riverbank/ Liberation runs through our veins
Unconditional Love
by Michael Estabrook
When your brother calls
tells you she’s gone
an avalanche of nostalgia
loosens from the hills
She’s only been gone a month and already I’m missing our weekly phone calls:
miss hearing her mispronounce sandwich, breakfast, toilet, saying milky milky milky whenever she poured herself a glass of milk because she thought it was funny
miss her asking me if I talked to Pam, Cousin Sandy or Cousin Linda
miss her telling me how losing a son is worse than losing a husband and she kisses Kerry’s picture every morning
miss having to yell into the phone because her hearing is going, “I’m almost 93 you know”
miss her saying why me, why am I still alive when all the others are gone?
miss her asking me if I think she’ll see Kerry again and Daddy and her sisters and . . .
miss her telling me she didn’t want her second husband’s name on her headstone or obituary, she divorced the bastard after all
miss her saying if I win the lottery I’m moving back to Cape Cod, I loved it there
miss her reminding me to not lift heavy barbells and to stay the hell off of ladders
miss her asking me if I remember playing with Sandy down in the Gulch at the Fox Hills Army Barracks after the war
miss her asking me to look up something or someone for her on the Internet
miss her laughing because she got confused tried to call Regina on the TV remote again
miss her telling me she’s saved all the poetry books and poems I’ve ever sent her in a box at the top of her closet
but most of all I miss her saying: Do you know how much I love you? This much (can see her stretching her arms out on the other end of the phone) because you’re my number one son.