April Salzano

Brontophilia

Grey skies wake me. A low distant
rumble brings me alive. Darkness
is strobed by electric currents
that split like impulse.
Forks and forms
I cannot touch speak to each other
in a language I would just as soon
ignore if it did not require the bass,
the roll, the echo to translate.
From the eruption, I can make it rain.

Jeffrey Zable

The Last Time I Saw Fidel 

The last time I saw Fidel was at his home in Havana.
We smoked cigars, drank rum, and talked about the future
of Cuba. “Cuba will never again be a colony of slaves and
whores serving a master who would keep us in bondage
for all eternity. We’d rather swallow the ocean or slit our
own throats!” And as I could tell he was now pretty drunk
I decided not to engage him any further but changed the subject
to Hemingway, wondering about their friendship, and if
The Old Man and the Sea was really set off the coast of Cuba
as everyone said.

Michael Amitin

Marooned Bells

Marooned on the couch brown raft –rocking l’ile de paris
Sullen blackbeard blackboard jazz blowin from across the navy new orleans seas

slo-mo angels doing slo-mo somersaults on my torn red curtain
in these broken domestic halloween bones and mask
I rummage through the ashes that crashed me into this pink– new golden dawn..

lost love is something we can never afford
head stuck on the starboard mast
crashing through storm waves painted in dead dreams

And feeling that familiar regret again that we never consummated
The close quarters then,,, what are regrets other than dead sea gulls
Floating in a ghost soup sea

Mercedes Lawry

Comparison

I’m not going to the dogs
though dogs generally like me.
I’m going out of touch.
Deep sleep. Obscure.
Past the moors and the mossy boulders.
I doubt the rain will make a difference,
no matter how hammer-loud, how cold.
The windows are shuttered.
The door, locked.
This is not a forsaking, but a finish.
In some ways you may not understand,
there is a greater darkness and a lesser darkness.