WINNING POEMS FROM 2nd ANNUAL KAREN TRUJILLO POETRY CONTEST for high school poets in Las Cruces, NM 2023

First place Straight Jacket society Jayna Marks Can you hear the six white walls? Padded and plastered in cement They don’t creek, they speak They don’t leak, they screech Do you listen? Do you listen? Do you hear? The drowned voice of your reflection Or see your thoughts play a movie like your eyes are […]

KATRINA BANDELI – MAYBE EVEN PRAY

Maybe Even Pray You invaded her lymph nodes, slowly taking over the white blood cells. A small bump nearly hid, until noticed by doctors. Cancer, lymphoma tainted our tongues. Spreading to destroy B and T cells, doctors poked and prodded for their tests, while cancer, lymphoma tainted our tongues. Leaving me, to pray. Doctors took […]

Paweł Markiewicz – 2 poems

The quire of the sheep We are calling for your soul for a benevolent autumnal source May the hoary times arrive full of sunny gloom endlessly dream! with a fancy coming from tender sea we are conjuring you dreamer your mythical pearls Come propitious birdies from Olympus-mountlet! Recite my songs about the mellow dawn about […]

JEFF LEWIS – HOMEWARD BOUND

Homeward Bound The world was younger thenwhen things seemed larger than today.You tried to dodge the flaming swordthat guards the gates of Paradiseand get back to where you once belonged,but it’s no longer what you remembered.All Dorothy kept saying was she wanted to go home,but her house wasn’t there anymoreshe’d left it somewhere in Oz. […]

Ramzi Albert Rihani – LOUD WHISPERS

Loud Whispers In the realm of their senses, They create a ripple of excitement Spreading through the listening crowd To deliver a message of mind and heart They stir the blood and grapple the mob They take the wind out of the storm With raunchy voices, sometimes they whisper To deliver a message of passion […]

TORI BERELS – I’ve Heard It All Before

I’ve Heard It All Before I stride across sticky floors, cup held lightly between loose fingertips, the low lighting making me all the more alluring and my smile all the more inviting from across the room. But my smile doesn’t match my tired eyes and you don’t catch how it teases you. How, Can I […]

MIKE GORDON – WHEN WOMEN BUILT THE CROSS

When Women Built the Cross, 01 November 2021 Teleran, Costa Rica Damp red clay roofs Angled against green hills Where white cows graze in in the rain A looming cement cross on top of the tallest hill; erected a decade before by three men who searched for a task to display their faith filtered through […]

D. R. JAMES – THE USUAL, PLEASE, ON CRACKED WHEAT WITH MAYO

The Usual, Please, on Cracked Wheat with Mayo The tanned woman in the Midwest deli yesterday re-convinced me I’m superficial. Not that I needed re-convincing since regularly I’m the irregular normal person at the international annual convention of practitioners who see things differently. Whenever they feature that multi-humped camel in their closing ceremonial parade shaped […]

BRADFORD MIDDLETON – YOU KNOW YOU’RE ANTI-SOCIAL WHEN YOU PREFER A LIFE IN QUARANTINE

YOU KNOW YOU’RE ANTI-SOCIAL WHEN YOU PREFER A LIFE IN QUARANTINE I spent 14 days in quarantine which i Saw as being potentially 20160 minutes Of just sitting staring at my four walls Worried that slowly I’d be going out of My mind but it passed easily in a haze Of smoking words and films […]

Dr. Peter Scheponik – HOLDING ON

Holding On Oh, but I am not about death. I am not about rejection or letting go. I want to open my soul like a pair of arms and embrace it all– the beauties of this world– to gather them in like lovers or little lambs. To hold on, to hold on, to the sun-kissed […]

Cacti Fur

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