Stephen Okereke Micheal writes

MY LAST SPEECH

My son,
Draw nearer and hear with your ears
As a chick, I lived in crony with an eagle
Who furnished me with faded wings to fly.
I folded my wings and schooled in the den of lions
Therein my head was fashioned with a crown of bravity
I served in the hilly temple of an ant
Where beds are laid today for tomorrow's rest
My son,
Pick a leaf from my leaves,
Walk and work with your eyes plugged on the sky
Fetch wings and fly, fly high like an eagle into the sky
Beyond the reach of the cruel hands of doubting gravity
My son, fear not, but fear fear.
Good night.

Joe Haldeman says

This piece of art is valuable, and so is this orgasm, and so is this crumb of bread. The bread crumb connects to the artwork through the artist's metabolism, which connects to orgasm. Then through a fluid and automatic mixture of logic, metaphor, and rhetoric, the bread crumb links to soil, sunlight, nuclear fusion, the beginning and end of the universe.

Laurie Kuntz writes

A fallen frangipani flower

the fragrance still

strong

 

Robert Lee Haycock shoots

Epiphanous

Tom Sterner writes and shoots

~wind shouter~

~into her evening tides~

~younger than morning~

~delivered on dusty wings~

~arms of the wind~

~its mortal voice a howling thing~

~awful & wondrous chaos~

~exciting birds to rise~

~on sleeping wings of dawn~

~great sweeping shadows~

~joyously aroused~

~breaking stride across morning~

~writing messages in wind-speak~

~rustling trees’ shaggy heads~

~to wakefulness sifting~

~sighs of leaf children~

~sweetness in celebration~

~the mountain & its person~

~a rage of wanton whimsy~

~prelude to ever-seek~

~each later peaceful step~

~prayers on the bottoms of feet~

~speak to a wandering path~

Timothy Spearman writes

THOMAS SEYMOUR's Soliloquy before his execution
(from THE LUNATIC, THE LOVER AND THE POET)

Forgetting God
To love a king
Hath been my rod
Or else nothing:
In this frail life
Being a blast
Of care and strife
Till it be past.
Yet God did call
Me in my pride
Lest I should fall
And from him slide
For whom loves he
And not correct
That they may be
Of his elect
The death haste thee
Thou shalt me gain
Immortally
With him to reign
Who send the king
Like years as noye
In governing
His realm in joy.
And after this
Frail life such grace
As in his bliss
He may have place.



[detail from portrait by Nicolas Denisot]

Laurie Kuntz writes

Under a torrent of rain

flowers are never angry,

but I am.