Today's poet

[XRunner]

Just for Stef F

Ants
(By Joanie Mackowski)

Two wandering across the porcelain
Siberia, one alone on the window sill,
four across the ceiling's senseless field
of pale yellow, one negotiating folds
in a towel: tiny, bronze-colored, antennae
'strongly elbowed,' crawling over Antony
and Cleopatra, face down, unsurprised,
one dead in the mountainous bar of soap.

Sub-family Formicinae (a single
segment behind the thorax), the sickle
moons of their abdomens, one trapped in bubbles
(I soak in the tub); with no clear purpose
they come in by the baseboard, do not bite,
crush bloodless beneath a finger. Peterson's
calls them 'social creatures,' yet what grim
society: identical pilgrims,

seed-like, brittle, pausing on the path
only three seconds to touch another's
face, some hoisting the papery carcasses
of their dead in their jaws, which open and close
like the clasp of a necklace. 'Mating occurs
in flight'— what better way? Weightless, reckless
rapture: the winged queen and her mate, quantum
passion spiraling near the kumquat,

and then the queen sheds her wings, plants
the pearl-like larvae in their cribs of sand:
more anvil-headed, creeping attentions
to follow cracks in the tile, the lip of the tub,
and one starting across the mirror now, doubled.

[Stef F]

Aww thank you. What an unusual and lovely piece

Just for Stef F

Ants
(By Joanie Mackowski)

Two wandering across the porcelain
Siberia, one alone on the window sill,
four across the ceiling's senseless field
of pale yellow, one negotiating folds
in a towel: tiny, bronze-colored, antennae
'strongly elbowed,' crawling over Antony
and Cleopatra, face down, unsurprised,
one dead in the mountainous bar of soap.

Sub-family Formicinae (a single
segment behind the thorax), the sickle
moons of their abdomens, one trapped in bubbles
(I soak in the tub); with no clear purpose
they come in by the baseboard, do not bite,
crush bloodless beneath a finger. Peterson's
calls them 'social creatures,' yet what grim
society: identical pilgrims,

seed-like, brittle, pausing on the path
only three seconds to touch another's
face, some hoisting the papery carcasses
of their dead in their jaws, which open and close
like the clasp of a necklace. 'Mating occurs
in flight'— what better way? Weightless, reckless
rapture: the winged queen and her mate, quantum
passion spiraling near the kumquat,

and then the queen sheds her wings, plants
the pearl-like larvae in their cribs of sand:
more anvil-headed, creeping attentions
to follow cracks in the tile, the lip of the tub,
and one starting across the mirror now, doubled.

[stevefoster]

Cheers Hes', Im amazed how well ive recovered, legs feel only a little sore which im pleased wit

Great time Rev. A bloke at work joggled it round, juggling and running at the same time in about 4 and a half hours, not a bad time for that, raised a load of brass for a kid's hospice. I can't juggle stood still!

[freckle]

Morning
Deborah Ager

We are what we repeatedly do.
—Aristotle

You know how it is waking
from a dream certain you can fly
and that someone, long gone, returned

and you are filled with longing,
for a brief moment, to drive off
the road and feel nothing

or to see the loved one and feel
everything. Perhaps one morning,
taking brush to hair you'll wonder

how much of your life you've spent
at this task or signing your name
or rising in fog in near darkness

to ready for work. Day begins
with other people's needs first
and your thoughts disperse like breath.

In the in-between hour, the solitary hour,
before day begins all the world
gradually reappears car by car.

I can really relate to this today Mossy what a great choice..."your thoughts disperse like breath" what a line....and "you are what you do" just makes me want to run more, think I might adapt that as a mantra! x

[freckle]

been feeling nostalgic today......sigh


if you like poems let them
walk in the evening, a little behind you
then people will say
"Along this road I saw a princess pass
on her way to meet her lover (it was
toward nightfall) with tall and ignorant servants."

e e cummings

[TheReverand]

Sitting with guitar in hand
Playing in my own one man band
A rambling melody
A strum two three
A virtuoso performance
Ladies and Gentlemen please stand
An Ode to A legend
Dylan 70 today

[freckle]

and......

somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond
by E. E. Cummings

somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond
any experience,your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near

your slightest look easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully,mysteriously)her first rose

or if your wish be to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully ,suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;

nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility:whose texture
compels me with the color of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing

(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens;only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody,not even the rain,has such small hands

[TheReverand]

Great time Rev. A bloke at work joggled it round, juggling and running at the same time in about 4 and a half hours, not a bad time for that, raised a load of brass for a kid's hospice. I can't juggle stood still!

now that is impressive

[freckle]

Sitting with guitar in hand
Playing in my own one man band
A rambling melody
A strum two three
A virtuoso performance
Ladies and Gentlemen please stand
An Ode to A legend
Dylan 70 today

yes i heard that today on the radio...what a fitting and nicely written tribute!

[Hes]

Just been admiring my overgrown herb garden, it always reminds me of when I've found the herbs in the wild on mountainsides or mint by the river.

Wild Mint

Did you know that in my hand-sized guide you are shelved
among the Blue odd-shaped flowers? You, the purple coyote
in the field-your feet licking the moist soil, releasing

the slow and the sweet. And did you know in the volcanic slide
of the red and solemn hills there is a gully grinning between broken
teeth and in the palate of light where you and I live, foraging

among the brittlebush and saxifrage, I have peeled the dark earth
for a mad glimpse of your pure white flesh? Have you not also
felt the blue mustangs wrapping the rivers of their hooves

through our canyons, the cottonwoods closing in around us—
indeed, the entire mountain dropping its shoulders to green shadow?
There is nothing to reference the long roll of the melancholy night.

nothing except perhaps for the passage on page five-hundred
ninety-seven: The dark teas made from the leaves of this intricately
fragrant herb treat ailments and pause the pain of childbirth.

Even now we hear the coyote's howls, low from beneath the hidden
ledge, followed by the sudden yips of blind and naked pups.

Simmons B Buntin