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Marilyn Annucci And The
​Noiseless Patient Spiders

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Marilyn Annucci
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​Arachnida Neurotica

Then there’s that spider
indoors in a corner of porcelain near the tub
acting like there’s no such thing as summer,
suspended in a web of little buggers
small as Oreo crumbs. All eight legs
cringe when I raise my plastic cup
his way, planning to carry him outdoors
to where it’s really happening.  But no go.
The Grave's a fine and private place.
Same with the one in the wooden
corner near the broken stereo. 
She spreads her limbs like a goalie.
Where are the scientists when you need them?
Arachnida neurotica, spinning silk
for safety, months before winter’s cold.
 
Sometimes I carry one out, tough love,
make the critter live a full spider’s life
in a patch of green leaves by a fence.
Other times I let them spin and spin,
whisper Rumpelstiltskin in their invisible ears. 

Read the poetry of Marilyn Annucci
Read a profile of Marilyn Annucci

 _________________________________


​Judith Brice Expresses An 
Inexpressible Suffering

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Judith Brice
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These three years--
 
dark days, deceit of meaning
month after month--
weeks of winters wrenching
their bare, foreboding arms.
 
No chocolates, no sweet
potatoes, nor magnolias,
daffodils come spring;
only the coldest winters of snow.
 
Words too many
for doctors to write
in tomes of tattered pages--
long since torn, scattered.
 
Days and months--
time and seconds taut,
while answers absent, elusive
float only in doubt.
 
Waiting rooms broadcast
show after show: Wolf
the View, the Talk
camouflage all agony, all angst.
 
My doctor suggests a walker,
 ‘exercise equipment,’ he opines--
while I hold my mask, place it
with care around my face.
 
More anguish
than a soul could know
more struggle
than a poem can own. 

Read the poetry of Judith Brice
Read a profile of Judith Brice

 _________________________________


​Leslie Philibert Brings Two
​Poems Of Aura And Change

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Leslie Philibert
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​Morendo on Sunday


a basin of white chipped enamel
tips the wash over the pale streets;
lights appear in the random order

of secret intent, confused stars
in an untidy sky light the northern stone:
hours slip behind a rook’s shadow;

a rain curtain falls, we sigh with routine:
we are waiting for a small, clean death,
trapped between the sun and the moon.

                      ♢


A Night in Tenerife

the sea the skin of a wet dog,
black the beach, a ruined church,
the coastal lights a string of lesser ways;
we are as empty as a dropped shell
pulled across the ebb, a ripple of salt.

and as the night gets deeper
a dragon breathes like the tide:
no mistake, the dark needs its hours.

Read the poetry of Leslie Philibert
Read a profile of Leslie Philibert

 _________________________________


​Marianne Szlyk: Art And Setting

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Marianne Szlyk
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​
Blue Green and Brown
​(Rothko 1952)

 
She wonders what is intimate
about an enormous canvas hung
up on a museum wall.
Museums are silent except for
garbled conversations, docents’ lectures, spills
of sound from someone’s device.
Nothing is intimate, not even
silence, the pristine space between
each person in a public place.
 
She sits at home with
the image on her screen,
all other lights off.  In
twilight, blue, green, and brown
envelop her, keeping her company
in this humidity.  Cicadas call
each other.  Indoor and outdoors  
blend : buses’ wheeze, the washer’s
slosh.  She feels the space
between her and them dissolve. 

Read the poetry of Marianne Szlyk
Read a profile of Marianne Szlyk

 _________________________________
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John Grey And The
Hardships Of Hardship

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John Grey
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​My Hard Times

I have so much to tell you
but let me make myself comfortable first.
The fire's been lit
and I've never seen a brighter,
felt a warmer, flame.
And I'm seated on this couch.
Let me just say that
if these cushions were any softer
they'd be breath.
My legs can touch the floor
if I want them to.
Or they can float in mid-air.
I'm in robe and slippers
and, had I been born a hundred years earlier,
I'd no doubt be reaching for my pipe.
I pat that soft fur of the spaniel
at my feet.
Does that count?
And here comes my wife
with two steaming cups of hot cider
that my nose has already succumbed to
while my taste buds are licking their lips.
She cuddles up beside me
and the beat of her heart
takes center stage
while, in the wings,
her head drops gently onto my shoulder.
Now...where was I...my hard times...
let me begin...

Read the poetry of John Grey
Read a profile of John Grey

 _________________________________


​E. Michael Desilets:
​Attraction And Deterrent

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E. Michael Desilets
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​Noon Rush

Andrea
always carried a bag
of red-dyed pistachios
to the Common
and gazed at Officer Burke
directing the stalled traffic
on Concord Street
till half-past one
 
Maurice Slocum–“Slow Moe”
to those who bothered
with his existence–
loved what the nuts did 
to her nibbled fingertips
as she sat and stared and pried
on the bench
nearest Newberry’s
 
Andrea was Moe’s
crimson-fingered enchantress
his one gnawing obsession
and if it hadn’t been for that cop
he might have said hello

Read the poetry of E. Michael Desilets
Read a profile of E. Michael Desliets

 _________________________________


​Lynn White Imagines
The After, The Voice

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Lynn White
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​The Breathing Days


In the days when I still breathed,
the days before 
living took my breath away,
the days before 
I knew my soul was there.
I thought about this time,
this time of no light,
the forever night time
with no breath, no air 
to breathe.
Just dust and darkness.

And I pondered.

Would there be slow decay 
or fast.
Stillness or movement.
Now I know.
I know everything about
the dust and darkness.
But I can't tell you.
Not now
in these days 
of no breath, 
no air
to speak.
Only my soul can speak.
Can you hear me?

Read the poetry of Lynn White
Read a profile of Lynn White

 _________________________________
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Don Krieger
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​Don Krieger Explores
Family Contrasts, Heartbreak

Breendonk Generations
 
1.
Anna and Isaac met in an orphanage
where they were hidden as Catholics.
They married in Antwerp. The house door
was six inches thick. Two great bolts
shot into the frame. The floor safe held half a million.
 
Their son, Len, drove me to see Breendonk,
Belgium's only camp, a feeder for Dachau,
dorms filled with wood bunks, a museum,
gallows outside.
 
I felt only faintly what it was to live there
yet I will not visit another.
Len waited for those hours in the car.
 
2.
An hour after Leah gave birth
her room was filled as they do in Belgium,
eating and laughing.
She lay in exhausted sleep. Bobby was in an ante room
absent fingernails and eyebrows, asleep like his mother,
too small to be held, they felt. Knowing no better,
I was the first, held him with these hands.
 
I bought a crib, clothes, everything
the next day, as they do in Belgium. That evening
we sat together, new family, full with each other.
Anna, Bobby's grandmother, showed an old picture,
her father and his 5 brothers
murdered when she was a girl.
 
Bobby is 18 now,  his sister, Amy, 10.
Leah and Len are divorced.
We're all on Facebook.

Read the poetry of Don Krieger
Read a profile of Don Krieger

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