Wintersphere

by Rainbow Angel

A blond, long-haired beatific wild and crazy wander, Rainbow Angel is a true beat poet. His recent born-again discovery of Jesus just increases the emotional tug of his writing. He has made an appearence in "Enthalpy" a couple of years ago (my that seems a long time) but under a different name which I can't remeber now.

I was thinking, I. I The lightning glow wasp tongue, eel razorocatalyst to(ornery)om Murmers a Heart of Perfect Truth of Jesus Christ the Lord:

could write a poem.

Hurt and dancing Bears.

With burning flame Feet.

too only remember what then

other shaded diamond sided teardop

pure as A elephant tusk child womb brrr.... (wintersphere): OM:

Gobekli Tepe

by

Lloyd Douglas Knowlton

Doug Knowlton was a mental health social worker for twenty years before opening The Village Bookshop in Bradenton, Florida's Village of the Arts. He is married to Valorie, a cardiac R.N. His daughter Arianne, lives in Athens, GA, and he is owned by a Wheaton Terrier named Finnegan, and four cats: Sammy, Nikita, Toots & Tink.

Today, the mound overlooks
the lights of Urfa, as Klaus
and his crew comb with care
through the rejected heap, they
brush away the dust and sift
the artifacts. Suddenly, this is
the new navel of the world. The unknown
artists carved their megaliths
with a tinge of Halloween
and brought the frightening denizens
of their world: buzzard, snake and scorpion
to life. Yet, just beyond
the labyrinth, the camera eye
records the sweeping waste, once
upon a time a garden of rivers
and beasts. A comfort, perhaps
to know we are not alone
in our efforts to master
the fear. "From here," Klaus declares
"the dead are looking out at the ideal
view. They're looking out
over a hunter's dream."

On Being Rejected by a Baby

by Don Schaeffer

When they are
eight months old
they temporarily attain
the ability to look
directly into your
internal record
of evil and good.

They accept you
and reject you as if
they were standing
behind the desk
of Puritan heaven.

Oh tiny Hannah
why did you spurn me
and pass your
darkened face my way?
I worry that
the neighbor woman
who brings about your smile
will record a
bigger deeper heart
than I.

Shuffled into Eden

by Dan Flore

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

striptease queen
missing her teeth
they're gold in heaven
who are you gonna run to
when your toenail polish
gets in the blind man's eye
I'll pray for you at the bridge
where everything
was shuffled into Eden
then to an insane
meteor broom
I will sweep your blood
stained spell book
clean

Statement to a Shadow

by Don Schaeffer

When I close my eyes, images of common things
play on my inner dream eyelid,
movies of talking to you.

But you are a dream I had in the past.
You are the fresh face on the brand new street.
You are the shared touch of hand on hand

I was not entitled to then,
and much less am I
entitled to you now.

You Did Not Attend Your Funeral

by

Lois P. Jones

Her work has been published in state quarterlies, anthologies, ezines and internationally in Argentina and Japan. In 2006, she co-edited A Chaos of Angels (Word Walker Press, 2006) with Alice Pero as well as completed work on a documentary of Argentina’s wine industry. You can find her as co-host at Moonday’s monthly poetry reading in Pacific Palisades, California and hear her in recent and upcoming interviews on KPFK’s Poet’s Cafe and kbeach.org, the university station of CSULB. She is Associate Poetry Editor at Kyoto Journal.

Your ashes in a red velvet bag, so lonely
on the scratched wooden table. And the yellow petals
of the roses we scattered, seemed to spoil before my eyes.

I took the three wing-backed chairs on the stage
and placed a photo of you in each one. My favorite leaned
against your urn. A picture of you with your arms in the air
looking like you’d just returned from a fiesta by the lake.
The "so what" smile so you.

You wouldn’t have liked the rabbi in his ankle-length coat
and wingtips, who constantly asked the time. Brevity, he said
was the keystone of a Jewish funeral. He’d critique
your daughter’s eulogy and my poem—suggest a word here
or there. In the end, he read my notes—a synopsis of you.
He took $300.00.

There was your daughter’s ex-lover kicked out.
The beautiful granddaughter with her smoky tears, the ones
who never visited—the ones too old for winter. And a frail Louie
who came with his portable breathing machine, the sweetest mourner of all.

It was the grandeur of a decayed chapel, flowers and dead relatives
that never arrived—only the pure light that reached us high
across the dome. In the end you left your body
like an old wallet; silk shredded into gauze. Plastic windows
slightly dingy,
beautiful,
spent.

She screams because she needs, proving that she is. Her laugh grows out of her cry like an errant branch that should have been pruned. I see edges of it rising from the mass of tears. Her face, contorted with the being of want stops. And lumps of articulation grow. At first, her sounds blossom out of a knot of sobs, consonants with cries between instead of vowels. But it takes leisure, a free breath to practice speech.

American Sentences Bus Boys Build

by Rodney L. Eisenbrandt

Owner of two Adult Foster Care Homes, Rod took care of the elderly for twenty-two years. He designed and sold specialty jewelry, for thirty years. He is also a machinist who owned and operated a machine shop for twenty years. Now a retired sixty four year old, he I considers himself self a rouge writer of poems about life and life’s journeys.

Bus Boys Build

Bus boys build big bunk beds, bringing bits back, by bussing boarders buffets. **

bunk [ bungk ]
noun (plural bunks)

Definition:

1. simple bed: a simple narrow bed built on a shelf or in a recess
2. FURNITURE Same as bunk bed
3. sleeping place: any bed or place to sleep ( informal )
**4. regional AGRICULTURE pile of vegetables: a heap of vegetables, usually potatoes, covered with earth and mulch and sometimes stored in a shed

I Can No Longer Feed You My Love

by Don Schaeffer



The nurse cringes
when I move up beside you
using your old wheelchair as a seat
and you lay in half recline.

I put the food
into your mouth
to bring back to me
the house that you have slipped from
just months ago.

As I reproduce
a warm vestige
of what we had
just over
the thinnest wall of weeks
it stuffs your lungs.
I can no longer
feed you my love.