Selected Works, 2024 edition
Cosmic Clock
By Haley Fecher
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I lounge within a cosmic clock
That hides its ticking powers.
I feed its stellar streams with thoughts,
Inadvertently idling away its hours.
My feet dangle from a star
I created in my room.
I browse a far away bazaar
Where made-up flowers bloom.
I play a tune on a guitar
Whose strings are beams of moon.
I teeter upon its star-lit seconds
Fishing in my stellar streams
For Jupiter breams–
Yet reality tumbles in and beckons;
Always one to ruin my good thing, it seems.
Moonlight
by Joshua Greenwell
Slouched under a brilliant moonlight,
Surrounded by loved ones,
He drifted into a terrifying eternity.
Petrified by visions of squalor,
Released by a veil of lavish reality,
Upon my awakening a specter stood
Beside my deathbed. It beckoned
Unto the fog of my past.
It guided me through my hometown,
Showed me my family home.
I followed it to my 18th birthday in the Somme,
Shielding my nose from the smoldering ash,
Expertly guiding the specter through No Man’s Land.
We watched in awe as the first steel eagles fell,
Then watched in horror as the war ended.
Following it to my gleeful wedding,
And to her gloomy funeral,
I guided the specter through the harsh city,
Passing street-side tents, fires, and soldiers.
Resting outside of an endless mile of storefronts,
I saw a sign reading Jobless men keep going.
I followed the specter to my first worker’s strike
And led it away from the chaos following.
It gently comforted me
When the war was all I could see.
It dragged me to my first child’s crib,
And to the incubator desperately fighting her Polio.
The roar of the incubator brought me back to the Somme,
Diving away from shrapnel, avoiding only her.
The specter kneeled beside me,
Patiently waiting for the attack to end.
I wandered away from the creature,
Into the run-down apartment,
Where I abandoned my second chance,
Leaving the child to rot as I rotted in a chair,
Drinking myself into slumber.
I begged for the specter to return.
I begged for it to release me.
I begged myself to get up,
To take care of her.
After hours of shouting, I noticed a bright moon,
And my daughter standing before me.
As I slouched under a dying moonlight,
Surrounded by no one,
I drifted to the terrifying end.
Alone
by Joshua Greenwell
I chartered a path through the city,
Leaving behind a glass tower.
The deafening cry of vehicle engines
Drowned out my thoughts
And the thoughts of a million others.
An army of people, shuffling forth,
Leather briefcases in hand.
All marching in chaotic unison
As the cars did the same.
The grime and smog choked the air,
Squeezing all light from the city.
Day turned to night,
But none of it paused.
Yet all of it ceased upon my discovery:
A vine pushing through to the surface.
Gently cracking the concrete to lay claim
To a home where it lived as an outcast.
Bright green under a thick, dusty business suit,
It was forgotten by a million eyes.
The orderly pushed past,
Stomping the outcast into submission.
Oh, what it would have been
To keep life in a concrete jungle.
Mes Etoiles
by Juno Faas
True love is sleeping on the couch.
true love is relearning
the alphabet,
an aching chin,
pirated articles on quantum physics,
and the number
3,101.
It’s crying at two
four
eleven
eight,
shaking chests and stained fingers.
True love never stops.
It’s in every sunrise and every snowfall and every glimpse of
clear water.
True love is... calm.
And a blazing fire and a supernova and a crowd
screaming at the top of their lungs,
and being safe,
being devoted, being faithful.
True love is sleeping on the couch.
True love is waking up.
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Lake Arrowhead
by Samuel Larson
Leaves in the breeze
almost blend,
orange, yellow, fiery red.
Descending stairs,
I watch their dead
fall upon their solemn bed.
I reach the dock
that creaks and sways
beneath my feet.
I gently place
fishing gear into the boat,
And then depart
with paddle stroke.
In daytime hours, the windy water, harsh,
at sunset, glass,
even in the marsh.
Art above, as real beneath,
hues of gold, purple and pink.
All is silent.
All the worries of the years are quiet,
and suddenly
the world loses violence.
Passing between the islands,
I find tall pines looming there.
Listening to my paddle,
the splashing sound is fair.
Reaching my favorite lily patch,
I throw my lure across
the sunset-painted water,
a picture without cost.
The final rays of sunlight,
consistent with the trees.
The hues of fall with temporary awe,
the dying of the breeze.
Darkness brings the beauty of the hundred sacred lights,
of porches where multicolored candles
are stranded in the night.
And the clouds clear
as if they fear
the sparkling final frontier.
Voices
across the water
I overhear
someone’s grandfather:
“One more year you have to last.
“It all goes by so fast.
“Pretty soon it’ll all be past.”