Kevin Patrick Hodgkiss writes

The Word Emily Dickinson Never Used

I can be confounded 

It’s an easy excuse 

For lack of effort and thought. 

I have no idea why 

Certain things get dismissed 

While others sought. 

I can’t identify any difference 

Between supposition and truth. 

I want my nickel back 

From my visit to Lucy’s booth. 
 

Emily Dickinson says

If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold no fire can warm me I know that is poetry. If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry. These are the only way I know it. Is there any other way?

Arlene Corwin writes

The Man Who Killed My Brother #1

Wanna hear a story, all? 

The man who killed my brother 

Went scot-free. Not exactly. He 

Got three years in the cooler, for 

Such is the law.  

They found my brother’s blood 

On wall and floor. 

God knows what more 

There was than wall and floor!

The prosecutor told me 

That the judge was sympathetic. 

Family wrote supporting letters, 

Loving letters, caring letters, for 

My brother was no orphan.

He was gay. 

The family had to pay 

A mammoth sum 

To have his body come 

Back to New York. 

They didn’t trust his aids-free health.  

My brother was fit as a fiddle.

After years they found his killer. 

All the proof was there, and still, 

The trial went in killer’s favor. 

He was free in three.  

Detectives, in their stab at comforting 

Said, “He’s a bad egg.  He’ll be back. 

Inevitably, his kind are…” 

So I was left to trust. 

One day the killer will be back behind those bars, 

His freedom left to rust.

You have to trust in justice.

 

The Man Who Killed My Brother #2 

Got off with slaughter – slaughtering: 

Manslaughter.  One can only 

Laugh in irony. 

Slaughtering is butchering. 

Decimating, wiping out, 

Murdering and killing off, 

Annihilating, 

Putting man or Man to death.

Nowhere in the dictionary 

Does it warrant or suggest 

A measly three year sentence. 

The man who killed my brother 

(blood on walls and floor…all over…) 

One could call that massacre. 

I would call that massacre. 

And all he got was three small years.

I thought about it just today 

And thought I’d say it. 

Alex Krivtsov shoots

Sumita Dutta

Loose Gravel

Loose gravel under my shoe.
I skid, fell
Hard on the hand holding my phone.
Nothing hurt.
I sat on the road
Looking through a new point of view.
The world looks quite different
Once stature shortened.
Brushing dust I stood up,
Stepping gingerly, walked away;
Mental gravel collected earlier
Scraped head and heart.
No damage, I consoled myself;
Later noticed the cracked glass.
The phone still works.

Paulette Spescha-Montibert writes

A boy on a tree

Orb of fire above the hill
the sun was rising
as the boy looked
at the men
binding his fists
enough light
for him to see
he could expect
no mercy from them
they would pull up the rope
hang him at the nearest tree
they would start beating him
as soon as his feet
had left the ground
they wanted him to confess
to give names of
people and places
the boy knew
but
the boy had nothing to say
there was no yesterday

there was only now
now the sun was high
white
in the midday sky
the boy was hanging
empty
empty of words
empty of thoughts
no anger
or rancour
no pain in his heart or body
slowly
so very slowly that day
the sun
came down again
to set
gold and round
behind the hill
as an empty man
was hanging
unscathed
on a tree



Hanged Man -- Will Worthington

Ken Allan Dronsfield writes

Will Write for Coin

"As a Poet and Writer,
I'm your imagination's engineer;
a fabricator of fantasies and dreams;
the puppet master to your mind's recall;
a sculptor of your faith and hopes;
the musician to your heart strings;
and yet, I have not the coin for even
a double mocha latte with extra cream."

  

kai as the puppet master -- IBER1S (Tiffany Darmawan)