eternal notes crashing into unwilling surfaces

by Justin Hyde

Justin Hyde lives in Iowa, where he attempts to rehabilitate criminals. He can be contacted at jjjjhyde@yahoo.com. Justn appears more than once in "Enthalpy."

the trucker in a booth behind me flirting with a
woman in cleavland ohio on a headset phone and
finger-fucking a woman in dekalb illinois on his laptop while
his wife in yankton south dakota
folds laundry
listening to karen carpenter and
praying for her daughter
living with a paroled arsonist
who beats her
and the waitress just refilled my coffee,
there is a new bruise behind her ear, and
the sky will never come crashing down;
god's wrath is
a rubber snake on a summer roof
and this wooden indian with two flasks in his coat pocket
is lashed to the four winds
drowning in the
curse of sight.

I remember you on tip-toes

by Dan FloreDan is 29 years old. He does poetry workshops for people with serious mental illness, lives In Pennsylvania. Dan has several poems in "Enthalpy."

come to me
I dream
but touch nothing

only you remember
the forgotten hymns
could you sing one to me
like the night
hasn't froze
deep in my stomach?

I am a silent drum
a cloud
that hovers
against starlight
my eyes gasp
I remember you on tip-toes
can you reach for me now
before I melt
into the river?

The Stroke

by Don Schaeffer

It came to me almost in a vision that the victim of a stroke may see the event as a miracle and may see themselves as travelling far away to a world without others.



Part of last night
was a miracle. I
felt the shiver
of change. My head
lifted and the sky
was not the morning
on the earth.

I know how you
watch each other
and listen for words
and wait, but I
am going on a
journey beyond that.
My departure is now
and I don't care.

Away, everything is
new and mine, so I nod
only agreeably and
look away. I will
no longer satisfy,
transformed am I
into a far flung
wanderer.

The Finality Of Sparrows

by JR. Pearson



J.R.Pearson is a poet living and writing in Dalton Gardens, Idaho. He has published a few choice pieces of writing forthcoming online as well as in print from The Cherry Blossom Review, Dogzplot, Ditch, & The Indie Underground. Much of his poetry can be found here: J.R. Pearson .

This poem was recently published in "Ditch." It is used with the poet's kind permission.

"I love it."--Don.



It is enough for the woman to be
a pallid barn in Ohio.
Leaning over
...........wheat fields,
watching the sun lift
and moon descend,
like sinking ships,

their path a bright wheelbarrow rut.

The farmer formerly
housed his tractor
in her body.

Now her paint bakes
dandelions grow up & burst
with bubbles,
and the whole countryside quickens.
Maple & Oak blink autumn on & off
in field-lit neon,
crabgrass rockets from the earth
to an immediate white out,
snow haunts the scene as an attic,
boards bend & ache
to match the withheld horror
of petrified spruce.

Her roof leaks a fine light
shivering cobwebs on a space
where something once stood.

In morning
the farmer finds
her beams collapsed over
the fields,
...............ghost gone
gray
......in arcs of
.....................gold

...........Finally

Sparrows
...............fly
.......red
...........................from
....her
.............ruins.

Connection

Why I Am So Smarmy

by Don Schaeffer

I go ga ga over girls.
I don't know what to call them.
Girls are in
the audience of all my nightmares.

I ran away from girls
when I was just starting to feel their tug,
even though
they never chased me.