Amita Sarjit Ahluwalia writes

FB HUNGER

Sank like a stone
In the Facebook Pond
Left no trace
Behind

Hungry thirsty
Twittering Bird
Chirps -
Will no one
Be kind?

Just a Like
Or Two
Will do
Dear Sir/
Madam
Don’t mind

What!
No comments?
And
No response?
The Poet’s in
A Bind

But then
Consoles
Himself / herself
By saying
They’re all
Blind

Arlene Corwin writes

Thinking Clearly

Simply trying to think clearly -

Times and destiny against me;

Not alone, it is we all.

A world of digits and addiction,

New temptations,

It admittedly an effort,

Tiny hippocampus shrinking ever.

Worlds and words that curl around reality

Like smoke from chimney.

Chronicles of global sadness,

Headlined news chronically bad.

A world of digits and statistics of a world on fire,

World that cultivates desire.

Ergo, 

Ego mine is trying, as a consequence, 

To change the sequence. 

No veneer or scornful sneer.

Pensive, clear, fully sincere -

Harder, probably, than ever.

John Grey writes

THE PREMIERE AND ELSEWHERE

As I recall,

we didn’t step

out of a limo,

stroll down

a red carpet,

faces speckled

with glitzy lights.

Nor was I in tux

and you in a

figure-hugging

sparkling red gown

with a plunging neckline

and slit up to the thigh.

We didn’t smile for

the crowds,

pose for the photographers,

small talk with celebrities,

attend a gala party after.

In fact,

it was a suburban multiplex,

mid-winter,

and we parked beside

a snowbank,

stumbled across the

icy lot,

wore jeans and jackets

and high boots,

bought tickets

and went inside.

But, the thing is,

we all saw the same movie.

John Grey writes

YOU DID NOT ALWAYS LIVE ALONE

all the sporadic sounds

of the house

vocalize presence

the radiator

is not just a radiator

but someone who once occupied

these very rooms

who exposes the heart

to the ear

the feelings

even in the fingers

to everything beyond touch -

a rattling window

stops just short of embodiment

and a rustling curtain

near enough

puts flesh to bone –

and something is leaking

            not what

            but who

John Grey writes

THAT CRIPPLED KID

What did our elders expect of us?

We weren't the ones badly constructed. He was.

Coming from homes where everyone was reasonably well put-together,

imagine our shock to share a classroom with someone so malformed.

The teacher instructed us to act like there was nothing wrong with the kid.

That merely encouraged our callousness.

Wasn't it enough that we ran while he hobbled,

that there was never a game in which he could join in.

One leg was wrapped in metal.

Both feet were fitted in ugly brown boots.

He walked like one limb was a shovel digging in the dirt

while the other came down stiff as a fencepost.

Those were days when we caught lizards by the tail,

picked mulberries, swam in the lake,

anything it seems to make that kid feel out of it.

We had the bodies to go with our hearts and minds.

Good jobs, happy families, were our God-given right.

Not so the one that God took his unfairness out on.

How it must have seemed to him as if the rest of us

had more good health than we needed,

as if there must be a cripple in every crowd,

so everyone else can walk upright on two legs.

Is it the cussedness of luck

to have the one take on the pain of the many?

For the hale and hearty to not thank him for it

but ridicule his sacrifice?

Since then, I've felt some of what he went through,

but more in the moment, not all the time.

My down moments don’t make war with my body.

I still feel whole. I see no reason to avoid me.