R A Ruadh

Cold sleep

winter solstice moon
waxes poetic with tales
of snug tight windows

there are few birds now
coyote songs sift through
the double glazing

northeast winds hammer
shaking the house
snow and sleet on the steel roof

nights draw in chasing
ever later sunrises
casting long shadows all day

as the weeks count past
I keep watch on the maple outside
icicles melting into buds

waiting for the moment
when sap rings chimes
in the sugaring pails

spring peepers weave rhymes
magicking me back to life
through the now open windows

Donna Hilbert

 

click on to enlarge image

Michelle Smith

An open window

Has me to daydream of you.
My heart is worn on my sleeve.
The glass pane square
lifted from my hands, arms, and shoulders,
I crave for us to meet:
your frontal body naked
pressed onto my sagittal plane.
You the seething iron
I the wax paper.
Our crafting is the middle pansy flower
melting into yellow and purple blooms.
Awakening breezes
fresh and airy
coolness to fuel all of me
from the steamy mist of those iron holes.
Not to be shaken or stirred,
the daydream escapes as the window closes slowly.
My heart is worn elsewhere.




Bubbles on my saucer

And a cup of Joe
Clouds in my coffee
The scent and steam
flows through an open window.

Joseph Nicks

Through A Window

 

you can see it in the distance,

as clear as it ever was –

the horizon slipping

over the horizon

 

like pixels fizzled out

in the mosaic

of every portrait,

every landscape

you’ve laid eyes on

 

like notes plucked

indiscriminately

and discarded

one by one

from the melodies

of every song

you’ve treasured

 

like hope now giving way

to consolation

in those agonizing days

of post-diagnosis

and pre-dementia

where consciousness

writhes and twitches

on the stony cold frontier

of no tomorrow

with the timeworn

fog of ages rolling in

 

dulling all the edges

and robbing every shape

of its distinctness

until everything goes blurry

and translucent

Mira N Mataric

 Through the Window

 

“If I open the window,

I become part of the world,

behind the window

only an observer,

unknown.

 

Barred by the window

it does not matter

full open window is reality.

behind the window never complete

we choose the limits of exposure.

 

Life is a dialogue

between our minds

and the world.

We are the missing spice

transforming reality

each time we look

with a tear or a smile

it changes all the time.

 

The world offers

equal opportunity

to do what you want:

open the window,

breathe deeply

jump down,

become one with the humanity.

 

Use your imagination,

live and enjoy life.

 

 

Open the Door

  

Throw open the door

let in the fresh air.

Open all windows

get an abundance of freshness.

 

Do not merely dream

go to the beach or mountains

try to beat the heat

one hundred degrees

and growing.

 

Go swim at the beach

or sit in the shade

under a big old tree

where two old women

and a baby already sleep.

 

Little kids run in the surf,

racing toward their mothers

who will lull them to sleep.

 

They will dream

about a soft flowing river

and its melodic gurgle,

that will lull them to sleep

like their mothers’ lullabies

Beverly M Collins

Window of the Eye in Black and White

Pane

 

I sit-time drips as careless as the slow

leak from the kitchen faucet.

My pain-on-pane centered in a front window

like a broken sewing needle near thread

feels pointless-yet-holds-space.

 

Can they hear me waiting? My

breath amplified against the glass.

 

Can they feel my eyes longing to see

them step upon the walkway?

 

The moments pass as another promise splinters.

Sun creeps without apology down the hillside.

 

Forgotten has its thorny grip tight around

my name.

 

 

 

Until Now

 

Until now it was fine to gaze out a window,

make the best of shallow water and not

challenge life above the knee.

 

As we hunger for afterglow, we step as sure-

footed as a walk on thin ice can guarantee.

 

The naked, the raw, the boldly

ungraceful also reach for the new and

make the best of a willingness to step

bold then fall through.

 

Yes, small fish in a drying lake can

hear the belly-laugh of the sun.

Life on the edge-cut with dull

scissors-until now, was so fun.

 

 

(First published in Mud in Magic, Moonrise Press)

 

Jeffry Michael Jensen

OPEN WINDOW POLICY

 

it took me by surprise as someone at my back

bullies her way to my door forcing a blunt response

open to the thigh of a regretful lover drowning

no one close to Heaven will take blame bulging

a purple touch forces its way into view living in a scream

I could be throwing a plea between danger and the sky

my heart has no room left for living the good nightmare

it was a titanic shattering of language that felled my jazz

trembling holds the last grip I have on daylight

my prism policy pulls dopamine through a straw

disembodied prayers plow into the spooky broken hisses

that churn back-to-back with a smoking Bible curse

I abandoned the outside evergreen religion

for a fresh twitching throated memory of a sun shattering reflection

 

Thom Garzone

EACH HOUSE, WINDOW, AND MIRROR

            Waters speak to me, a song that leads to a wondrous knoll

to highways, avenues, and alleyways cobbled, free, to find cornices that fill my heart,

            and whisper myths forming mental snapshots, mirages drawing me home

 

            I escape thru skies, opened hopes upon grace and largess, yet swings like a pendulum

all over again where I follow a dream embedded in depths I named myself after

           

            These texts of my mind fill with pages of the soul, steps forever returning to doors, sidewalks,

backyards, and outdoor cafes, their maps printed with desire,

            where perseverance shows its landscape to me, clear and harmonious

 

            When insight comes with a sorrowful aftermath, overwhelmed struggles follow

one such illuminated glimpse slips from the clouds, shines on grottoes, rains upon arid soil, and then

within an eclipse of nothingness does promise spit back at me,

            echoing in tribute, dancing wildly on my stake in earth

 

            Then where else do the prophets and princes find me? But on the heels of redemption,

fighting rush hour traffic, paying for work on my townhouse, publishing books no one will read,

            writing essays no one can understand

 

            So this light reveals its city of gold I’ve lain, creates mountains from vapid ideas,

paints figures who chant colors of pasts, haunts me like a demon to offer

 me these sacred chronicles

GLIMPSES FROM MY ROOM

Like slices of bread are my bookshelves

food for thoughts, chewing and swallowing

words that come and drink the water of imagery

Volumes line windows which I peer from

moored by a mentality of bizarre forms

floating down on rays of sunlight glinting thru the blinds

 

Empty cases that crowd the room

overwhelm the sense of ideas

woven in knots of bardic triumph

 

I look at my laundry like followers

who’ve ignored their hygiene

in putrid rows of sanctuaries

 

My guitar rests against a bookcase

 

The graduation photo of my brother becomes swarmed

by honor society plaques, a broadside contest winner

and added certificates to my symphony of services

 

To gaze into an uncle’s vision of the El, the Fulton Fish Market

in the shadows of the Brooklyn Bridge, gulls swooping

in a crafted mosaic of the city,

and it’s here I pause beneath such ornaments

embodied with what I still see as purpose

THEIR TURN

 

            When they gather in droves we see their colors, the truth in their eyes like windows to the world

            They lead me to open country, paths to deconstruct with the frailty of my being

            Yet one day my wings fall like Icarus below the sun

            I can concede with each comrade whose color move these bounds of my existence

            I devote my words to the darkness of their complexions, factions of humanity,

checking out of a hostel harboring images weeping in its secluded space

            There spirits turn on me to see their God

            Here Richmond’s suburbs spread in a genesis no one could comprehend

            For more myths will be scrawled with my pen, more dreams crafted from engulfed illumined sources, ascending to the wondrous legends of our birth

            Truly, my parting was like a disappearance of a magician, a final performance in August 1980,

the first and second act during the sixties and seventies

            No map could guide them to my destination, remaining in the Western wilderness

marooned on an island of my senses

            From once engaged by the color wheel, dimensions of rainbows that becomes the course I took

            Silent whispers of roots kindle faintly in flames, warmth that spills of fate forming glorious patterns

            More ladders to climb, roads to reform, recalling shades of society who leased me their aura

            Then thriving beneath a prevailing sun, I simply sail on to enter new shapes that compose concepts I’ve never known

Lori Wall-Holloway

Wildflowers

As my spring flowers die

off in summer’s heat, I take joy

when wildflower blossoms

emerge just before fall

Tiny blue Forget-Me-Nots

balance pink and lavender

star shape asters

to give me a fresh view

from my balcony window

 

One Morning

 

I look out my window

one morning to see dark

grey clouds envelop sky

As negativity brings darkness

a bright shaft of light cuts

through the haze

It displays how hope

can still prevail

 

Larry Jaffe

GLOBAL DEFENESTRATION*

There is a window that circles the globe

it is perpetually open

and awaiting the departure of souls

 

This window enables others

to rid themselves of guilt

and quiet desperation

 

It is a long way down

there is no rope ladder

and air is not water

 

one cannot swim in it

or sail one’s way down

one splatters not floats

 

Chuck away your cares you say

toss friends and enemies out of the way

remain corporal or stay

 

Defenestration an imperfect solution

to mental monogamy and myopia

blind oblivion of matter, energy, space and time

 

* Defenestration is the act of throwing a person or thing out of a window. assassination by defenestration. from modern Latin defenestratio(n- ), from de- ‘down from’ + Latin fenestra window

EMPTY WINDOWS IN BAGHDAD

 

I try to get to the window

to yell leave us alone…

 

Unshouted screams torment my throat

my head pounds, leave us alone…

 

— the voice drowns inside me

 

The first sound I hear—

an almost gentle wind gasps at impact

explosion silent, I cannot hear

explosion invisible, I cannot see

 

My children have stopped crying…

leave us alone…

SHADOW OF THE WINDOW

 

I stood in the shadow of the window

it did not reflect my image but that

of another token son

 

my mind bruised and battered

I wanted love on a clam shell

I wanted someone to share my destiny

 

I looked out the window

into the corporal sunshine

it was not quite noon

a blonde stood in the street

hair flowing almost to ankles

it almost seemed

sunlight glinted over

blueberry eyes

 

where’s Lenny she

wisecracked to me

from below somehow

seeing frosted countenance

cataloging her desire

ain’t no Lenny here I whispered

in morning drunkenness

 

oh yeah, she said

I shrugged

c’mon up and see for yourself

if I am wrong, you owe me

a kiss or two or maybe more

I said all this silently

under held breath

 

something about a blond

on whiskey summer morning

something about this blond

painted into my coconut mind

something like sargasso sea

pulled at Columbus heart

 

trooping up stairs one at a time

my pilots heart wanting to fly away

request liftoff instructions

clearance so I could get out of the way

I had no mirrors

the universe reflected her beauty

I had no paintings

the universe drew her perfectly

and etched her in my mind

she came to the room

without walls

we both did

James Farrelly

 

Winter’s Song

 

I am  . . . stillness . . . hidden in the green god, 

blended in a medley of falling leaves. 

Each drifting leaf marks the Sun-span of its striving;

Aurora’s sighs quaver in sea-tones only a goddess may sing. 

Within, a child looks up from a candled window,

enchanted by the celestial night for the first time. 

Without, Old Hiem breathes out his whitest atomies–

the softcrisp icy ciphers of first falling snow, 

all leaf-lined and frost-tangled in the tumbledown. 

 

I am.

 

“Winter’s Song,” from Sun Wind Silversea

©2022 James Farrelly
All rights reserved.

 

 

“Psyche”

 

Here—every night

with all these stars that clothe the sky.

Our wanting is all;

a sidereal turning, 

consummate, a forgetful counting of every pleasure;

liquid weft and warp, a

slipping into skin to make our bodies 

spun sparks, waking heartwild 

the woven waves of liquid fire,

feeding on what our silvered selves consume. . . 

‘Til our eyes,

close over in light. . .

and we come into being again,

all water and stars . . . 

 

Forgetting and remembering 

even in waiting, in the long absence,  

when memory unclothes separation; 

and time coalesces its embers; warming 

the thralls of letting go, sea-sweet in goddessness,

without shame or fear or worry— 

a love tremulous in helpful breaths— 

a yesness, raining in shivers, 

‘round our silvered cloud, 

sighing out, letting in the light and heat

of our turning . . . opening

all-blossomful suns. 

 

“Psyche,” ©2022 James Farrelly, All rights reserved.

“All Water and Stars”

…Whenever we find a clearing, let us rest there.

Together we will build a fire and make a home 

in the forgiveness of grass–a home

made new through remembering 

ancient music–sustained in its sky

the way moon pearls through broken shadows 

to summon fireflies;

their wings flitting, 

freeing silence to consecrate our whispered song.  

 

And when morning dreams us to open our eyes 

we see the same light there encircled, 

shining in and above the woodland round.

Our first night’s woven memories of frenzied stars 

will make lamps in the dewy grass 

and plead our book of love be read again…

(February 14, 2022)
 

“All Water and Stars,” © 2022 by James Farrelly,

All rights reserved.