Nicholas Alexander

After rain

After the rain: the gnawing of crickets,

sun-scorched leaves.

A bird harrowing far away inside

the drier hemisphere of your mind.

Earth wet with the after rain 

dankness of blessing

Snails sliming slowly through the thick

forest of this cerebral haven;

their silvery trail said to hold healing within.

You watch it grow like shrub

in the fertile ground of your heart-

days well spent, shivering in the dew

and drop of Golden Hill's schizophrenia-

the glitter of this bipolarity

lighting dark days.

Kevin O'Cuinn

Post finger-quotes 

After Dave’s Top Ten Most Annoying Things That 

People Do With Their Fingers, you got a semi-colon 

tattooed on one palm and an umlaut on the other (your 

sister asked if it was a dieresis; your lover

where the third dot was).

Cheek-puffing was my thing

The commute was shuffling madness –

head-shaking, eye-rolling & watch-checking;

some people did all three in sync (I tried

but couldn’t get it down).

Orthros

The line for coffee resembled ∞.

I couldn’t but dwell,

and glory in the shuffle.

Wake-up call

With me in bed,

a mammoth and a fly

(one in ice, the other in amber).

I wonder when they

stopped being metaphors

and squeeze for space