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