POETRY PACIFIC

Wednesday, 5 May 2021

2 Poems by J. H. Johns

TROUBLE IN RIVER CITY”

Well,
it’s not a city,
and
there is no river,
but,
somewhere,
in, dem, dar,
near-to-hills,
there’s a-trouble a-brewing;

a micro brew
of two;
distilling
what had taken
years to grow;

emotional hops
and
psychological grains;

mixed;
refined-

and served

over
yesterday’s
expectations…

ME AND YOU AND ME

Me and you and me,
I mean,
what else can there be,
besides,
me and you and me?

Bionote

J. H. Johns “grew up and came of age” while living in East Tennessee and Middle Georgia. Specifically, the two places “responsible” for the writer that he has become are Knoxville, Tennessee and Milledgeville, Georgia. Since then, he has moved on to Chicago- for a brief stint- and New York City- for a significantly longer stay. Currently, he is “holed up” in a small town where when he is not writing, he tends to his “nature preserve” and his “back forty.” His goal is to surround his house with all sorts of vegetation so as to obscure it from the gaze of the “locals.” He is assisted in this task by his coonhound buddy and companion, Roma. Most recently, J. H. Johns has appeared in Former People Journal (2), The Five-Two Poetry Journal (6), Odd Ball Magazine, Syndic Literary Journal (11), The Pangolin Review (Mauritius), Vox Poetica (2), Zombie Logic Review, Grey Sparrow Journal, Muse- An International Journal of Poetry (India), A Virtual Shabbat in Poetry, “A Poets Siddur” Anthology, The Bitchin’ Kitsch (2), The VGP Literate, Literary Orphans, Peeking Cat Poetry (U.K.), Pilcow and Dagger, FishFood Magazine (2), Rat’s Ass Review, The Ibis Head Review, Torrid Literature Journal, Parody Poetry (2), Ygdrasil (Canada), The Poetry Super Highway E-Book (Chapbook) Free-For-All, The Rain, Party & Disaster Society, Poetry Super Highway (2), Pour Vida Zine, The Potomac (2), Foam:e (Australia), Literary Juice, The Lost Coast Review, Syndic Literary Journal- Publisher’s Favorites, ken*again, The East Coast Literary Review, Exercise Bowler, Four and Twenty, Commonline, Danse Macabre Du Jour (2), The West Wind Review, Smokebox, Word Slaw, Wizards of the Wind, Alura, and is forthcoming in The Five-Two.

2 Poems by Hilary Mellon

OBSESSION

The cinema is dark, it’s where I dream
I tear your clothes and tie you to the bed.
Each night I rip your image from the screen.

I make a list of where you’ll next be seen.
I file it, like those films, inside my head.
The cinema is dark, it’s where I dream.

I stiffen in my seat each time you scream.
I wish that I could frighten you instead.
Each night I rip your image from the screen.

I’d like to kill those men who get the cream.
They touch your skin, your lips. I want them dead.
The cinema is dark, it’s where I dream.

I watch dust dance in each projector’s beam.
That’s how I’ll end up too, but feel no dread.
Each night I rip your image from the screen.

I trail you like a shadow, long and lean.
I watch you till my eyes are burning red.
The cinema is dark, it’s where I dream.
Each night I rip your image from the screen.

'Obsession' was in The Lake (September 2019)

SOMEWHERE NEAR NORTH WALSHAM

Somewhere near North Walsham you missed the sunset
Glancing up and through
the carriage window, you
were just in time to see the very last lick of it
ice-lolly red
vanishing
inside the earth’s dry mouth

'Somewhere near North Walsham' was in LONDON GRIP (Summer 2019)

Bionote

HILARY MELLON has been involved in the poetry scene for many years, read at venues all around the country and judged several poetry competitions. Her work has been published in over ninety different magazines and anthologies, four pamphlet books and one full length collection. She runs writing workshops in Norwich.

2 Poems by Rikki Santer

Conversing With Gods

after Jericho Brown

Pit perception against cognition.

Keep your ears out for the invisible voice.

Keep your ears out to the invisible voice.

Spectral whistling may get you closer.

Spectral whistling will ease you closer.

Talking Bibles with velour tongues.

Talking Bibles with felted tongues.

Gospel ventriloquists fortify the Script.

Gospel ventriloquists seduce the Script.

Ancestor belly prophets made anything talk.

Ancestor belly prophets coaxed everything to talk.

Testament in statues, streams, perky vulvas.

Testimony in statues, streams, perky vulvas.

Against cognition, pit eavesdropping & perception.

Experimental Ventriloquism

Suppose before you throw your voice

angels salt your punchlines

then you should grease all audience

pretense with fresh / creamery / butter.

Jackson Pollack’s on your knee with

a maelstrom of confetti expletives so

warn your audience calmly

to adjust their raincoats.

Throw your dummy into the crowd

& if it comes up snake eyes

crawl into your top hat & cower

until Duchamp taxis you uptown

for absinthe & bento boxes.

Smoke more cigarettes than the stage

manager then stuff your clove butts

into his shoe lifts for an extra high.

Hail deadpan as your dummy’s religion

amen to whatevers & I dunnos from

potato heads / soup cans / minimalist

pizzas with newspaper clippings.

Suppose you guzzle on stage seven

energy drinks then you should hurl

to the footlights your lantern jaw

as a viable contour to finale.

Bionote

Rikki Santer’s poetry has received many honors including five Pushcart and three Ohioana book award nominations as well as a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Her next, full-length collection, How to Board a Moving Ship, is forthcoming from Lily Poetry Review Books. Please contact her through her website: www.rikkisanter.com

2 Poems by Ken Allan Dronsfield

War

The Hell where our youth
and laughter were taken away.
Leaving us the monsters that
don't just sleep under your bed;
now they're hiding in your head.

Revelatory

In this cold world of heartless consumption
the waste of human life to the whipsaw;
of children shot dead while at recess;
of bombs exploding in the markets;
never did so little mean so much
then when two deer in a field
saw you and you saw them
nothing else mattered...
as neither blinked.

Bionote

Ken Allan Dronsfield is a 66 year old disabled veteran, prize winning poet and author from New Hampshire, now residing in Oklahoma. A proud member of the Poetry Society of New Hampshire, he has three poetry collections to date; 'The Cellaring', 'A Taint of Pity', and 'Zephyr's Whisper'. Ken does not have an MFA or Creative Writing Degree but, he once road a dirt bike on woodland trails from southern New Hampshire into Canada. He's been nominated three times for the Pushcart Prize and six times for the Best of the Net. He was First Prize Winner for 2018 and 2019 in the Realistic Poetry Internationals Nature Poetry Contests. Ken loves writing, hiking, thunderstorms, and spending time with his cats Willa and Yumpy.

2 Poems by Sophia Vesely

The Kite

String six feet long.

Just enough slack

for you to bury me

with the caskets

and still have one hand

grasping the leash.

The other, conveniently privy

to the shadows of these nights.

But on those brilliant, cloudless days,

you erect me in the sky

at the mercy of a dance

I so fiercely despise.

My customary cloth

ripples and undulates

by the command

of your wily fingers.

The sun casts light

and illuminates the red coloring

of my fresh rage.

But I’ve been watching the ocean swell,

and I can smell the impending rain.

I promise you…

when this hurricane comes,

I will billow and surge

with brazen force.

And your fingers will have nothing left

but a shredded tether.

Shadow’s Night

Shadow’s fingers

shred the cloak of midnight:

starry security for my fragile temple.

Shadow’s nails

incise the white porcelain of my neck

with deepened lines of red.

Shadow’s palm

suffocates my breath

and muzzles the wailing cry.

Shadow’s eyes

bore holes into my secrecies

and widen them for ill use.

I’m acquitted only by the sun’s rays.

The fierce irony: handsome night betrays.

Bionote

Sophia Vesely is 19 years old and a class of 2020 high school graduate from St. Petersburg, Florida. She is currently taking a gap year before her matriculation to Swarthmore College in the fall of 2021. Her poems have recently appeared or are forthcoming in W-Poesis, The Bitchin’ Kitsch, The Fiction Week Literary Review, The Blue Marble Review, Writer’s Egg Magazine, Bandit Fiction, Brown Bag Online, Girls Right the World, and Bridge Ink. She also has a published poetry collection on Amazon.com entitled “The Road to Amour de Soi” that explores the complexities of first loves and heartbreak in order to empower young women through the notion of self-love.

2 Poems by Eli Dunham

A GOD SAID SORRY

a god fell right through my roof
down my stairs all the way the smell
of greatness and B.O., I wanted to kiss him
so I stood still
the god looked at me
like I was the God
life after
my golden silence
the god said sorry
for the mess
this was not his day

FINALLY

gather the eggs
teach them
to be

to obey

finally

i learned to
be comfortable
living

inside of your
loneliness

bionote:

Eli Dunham is a queer, neurodivergent poet living in Sacramento, CA. You can find their work in DreamPop, Gramma, Gasher and YAWP. They have poems forthcoming in Redactions and Indefinite Space.

2 Poems by Vincent Sergiacomi

untitled (makeup)

The dust you put on your cheeks

disrupts the way their oil

can catch and throw back light;

like rings on tree stumps,

age is hidden.

Jesse's blueberry wine

brewed in rainboots:

dark like the Bering Sea

or clouds which follow you home

Bionote

Vincent Sergiacomi is a poet from New York, currently pursuing a degree in English from Arcadia University. His influences include Pablo Neruda, Larry Eigner, and Joanne Kyger. He enjoys concise sentences.

2 Poems by Scott Davidson

Fall Back

The clock in the bedroom upstairs
doesn't hang off a screw. There's a tube,
a sleeve that fits over one. There's a point
having risen from the daybed annoyed this
clock wasn’t already changed when the room is
still an hour ahead. There’s no seeing between
the clock and the wall, no feeling your way,
no catching an edge of the sleeve. I'm stuck
imagining points in space, expecting each to be
the one, accepting an undefined number of
failures. I don't dwell in the backrooms of all
that’s wrong. I don’t wonder for long if there’s
wisdom to be gained, experience unique to this
moment I’m missing by choosing not to know.

Wise Translucent Hands

Mostly I was smiling because a professor once said the rationalist
argument that you can’t really make it from here to the door because

space is infinitely divisible was the same as masturbation. In college,
the standard smart-ass response was, Watch me. When the schism

found a body and couldn’t stop talking in his office, he had no
idea what I was thinking. Even with all the math you can stuff into

formula bars, the joke is the same. Theories and all their conceptual
ballast fail in practice on their own. When they fall from the sky like

stones with dreams of being birds, falling short can't be blamed on
an imperfect world. Too much of success depends on rising above

work, above people who look conveniently small from the 25th
floor, perfect for spreadsheet cells and the vector-coded groups

handed down by wise, translucent hands. With proper leverage
and motivation, people find they want to be improved. This gets

forgotten too often. When you no longer cut, hammer or lift, you don’t
get to say, without crossing your fingers, it’s not about me but the work.

Bionote

Scott Davidson grew up in Montana, worked for the Montana Arts Council as a Poet in the Schools, and – after most of two decades in Seattle – lives with his wife in Missoula. His poems have appeared in Southwest Review, Hotel Amerika, Valparaiso Poetry Review, Terrain.org, Bright Bones: Contemporary Montana Writing, and the Permanent Press anthology Crossing the River: Poets of the Western United States.

2 Poems by Iain Britton

Silence of the sea

nothing satisfactorily
explains why we’ve come to view
this last transference of light on clouds –

at the couple pictured

we carry with us

stories & chants of forests & deserts - of sod villages –
people - who live by peat & stone - we are

killers & lovers - druids & cult figures
surrounded by winter fires

how far the morning seems
how far the city - which pulses with the buoyancy of children

trees rustle - small conversations

i grapple to understand the purpose

of your body close to mine - i want

to suffocate the spaces between us
squeeze out the folds of wildness

despite difficult intentions
we need to walk these gardens - these parklands

we need to pause for a time

to feel the silence of the sea

The late-night girls

send me to the town’s

bruised core

to the late-night girls
caught out by the early sun

an implosion of grace
& the last owl - tunnels home

the first magnolia opens

let me find

alternative routes - lived-in dioramas
souls dyed in red iridescence - fag-ends
attached to the mouths of brothers & sisters

like a born prodigal – i walk

through kaleidoscopic patterns
that bedazzle paths

that keep halving - quartering

*
curled up in my hand - a message

stains & smells - won’t rub off

a person unknown - reads to me

amputations of sagas washed up on a beach

Bionote

Iain, an Aotearoa New Zealand poet, has published several collections of poetry, mainly in the UK. Poems have been published or are forthcoming in Harvard Review, Poetry, The New York Times, Poet Lore, Wild Court, New Humanist, The Scores Journal, Stand, Agenda, New Statesman, Prototype, The Fortnightly Review, Poetry Wales and Poetry Birmingham. THE INTAGLIO POEMS was published by Hesterglock Press (UK) 2017.

2 Poems by Michael Keshigian

DAILY DIARY

All day,
every day,
through the night
while you sleep,
dust floats upon airy parchment
to silently describe the moment
and soon
another page is complete.
Early, when it’s quiet,
the faint sound
you think you hear
is a streak of sunlight
that sings
the chilly dawn breeze
into a story.
Even snowfall covers
a page of barren countryside
with white ink,
transforming blank to verse,
rain erases most mistakes.
On a bright day
you may catch hand shadows
swirling fair weather fonts
into words
in front of the sun,
creating a gust
that inspires leaves and twigs
to choreograph the landscape.
When the inkwell runs dry,
the rattling pen resounds
a thunderous clap
and the dark hand pulls
upon the spigot moon.

VERNAL CLUES

In the cool fragrance
of Spring breath,
minute buds
and tender seeds awaken,
splashing trees
and barren landscape
to a verdure froth,
the fertile air of renewal,
invading the blue dome on chariots
which dash toward the gold medallion
well beyond the green arrows
of giant white pines.
The lingering snow melts,
awash with winter memories,
a river of arctic mornings,
frost bitten windshields,
and dangling icicles,
which like transparent pens
of invisible ink,
scribble disappearing messages
upon the emerging sidewalk.

Bionote

Michael Keshigian, from New Hampshire, had his fourteenth poetry collection, What To Do With Intangibles, released in January, 2020 by Cyberwit.net. He has been published in numerous national and international journals and has appeared as feature writer in twenty publications with 7 Pushcart Prize and 2 Best Of The Net nominations. (michaelkeshigian.com)

2 Poems by Marc Ten Low

A HEART INSIDE-OUT

In mental hospital,
Patients are issued with
A blank canvas.

The pouring of anguish
From the soul to the page,
Ugly and wretched,
Makes for embarrassment:

--Not good. I've no talent.
Inside out, a heavy heart.
Silence. Perspective. What does that mean?
These people are sick,
Sick, sick. Painting the walls,

Vomiting into toiletbowls,
Urinating on walls of shared dorms,
Followed by a mopping janitor
Swaying against the planted feet

Of us mouthing victuals,
Bleeding sarcasm in
Pronouncement, through thick lips and
Large unattractive eyes,
Hospital gown, nose, hair--

Who stalls
Beside the bucket pushed to move along,
To tell a sorry tale
Even Van Gogh couldnt ear,
Into time's endless corridor.

AN EYE

funny, but not funny
an eyeball could fit perfectly
inside a shotglass
and not wobble

ugly

Bionote

I am a poet and multitalented artist living in Brisbane, Australia. I was a street magazine vendor for The Big Issue in Australia, in which I have been published several times. I remain an involuntary client of Mental Health Authority, and have been involuntarily hospitalised on about 20 occasions. I enjoy writing at strange times of the night and have also been previously published in journals such as Quadrant, Shot Glass Journal and Australian Children’s Poetry. My online blog is at

http://fb.com/marcustenlow.

2 Poems by Tim Gavin

DIVINE PROPERTY LXXXVII: PIGEON

I am nothing more than a fat pigeon

Living in the waste of my own luxury

Not having earned or worked

For any crumb or nickel

As I move from one curb

To another. I am no longer my own

Advocate – just a scavenger of spoils.

My wings, silent and pale,

The things that make me

Me, are useless as I try

To lift but only suspend for a moment

And drop like a grey thing

Heavy and graceless to the ridicule

Of the sparrow and wren, dishonorable

To both humans and my rich heritage

As I scurry to pick up bread pieces

And corn kernels thrown toward me

in Harrowgate Park from aging men,

Flapping away the squirrels

for me and my welfare.

DIVINE PROPERTY LXXX: CHAOS AND CHANCE

I left order and the ideal of certainty

And stepped into chaos and chance,

Chance being an imagination all its own

And there is static and interference

From one valley to another but no

Conceit because there is consent

For redemption, vulnerability –

Like a divine fiat of some sort – while

I embrace an archangel who encouraged

Me to uproot a mulberry tree and

Plant it in a place of my own choosing

And with authority I did while waves

Crested and fell, crested and fell.

Bionote

Tim Gavin is an Episcopal priest, serving as head chaplain at The Episcopal Academy. Prolific Press Released his chapbook, Lyrics from the Central Plateau, in November 2018. He is currently developing a manuscript: Divine Property. His poems have appeared in The Anglican Theological Review, Blue Heron Review, Blue Mountain Review, Cape Rock, Cardinal Sins, Chiron Review, The Cresset, Digital Papercut, Evening Street Review, Magma, Poetry Quarterly, Poetry South and Spectrum. He lives with his wife in Newtown Square.

2 Poems by Yumiko Tsumura

when daffodils bloom

going through passage of
loss and grieving
I was
sunk to the ground
crawling

in sorrow
there was no days and nights

just then
you appeared in my path
handed me a bouquet
of Van Gogh’s yellow
daffodils
saying “I want to be
your sun”

we sang our love song
for fourteen
Renaissance years
in radiant
sun color

museum of memory
“Death, be not proud”- John Donne

when we merged
our life together
a colorful unit
expanded to
infinite horizon
we cloistered ourselves
in a honey pot
of our time

walking though
our footprints
I bow to
your gift
for pottery
pit firing
in the field
of San Juan Valley

the stream of your mind
hands in clay
palpable, radiating
warming me
through each pot

Bionote

Yumiko Tsumura was born and raised in Japan. She has a BA and MA from Kawansei Gakuin University in literature and has an MFA in poetry and translation from the University of Iowa Writers Workshop. She taught American Literature at Baika Women’s College in Osaka, and Japanese Language and Culture at Santa Clara University, San Jose State University, Foothill College and three other community colleges in the SF bay area. She has been a long time member of the American Literary Translators Association. Her books of translation includes Kazuko Shiraishi’sLet Those Who Appear (New Directions, 2002), My Floating Mother, City (New directions, 2009) and Sea, Land, Shadow (New directions, 2017). Also, her books of translation with Samuel Grolmes include Tamura Ryuichi Poems 1946 -1998 (CCCbooks, 2000). Her own poetry has appeared in anthologies and journals, including Kyoto Journal, KantoPoetry, Eastlit, Manoa and Wisconsin Reviews. Her book of early poems The Green Scream was published by Quixote Press. Woman of March, a book of her selected poems was published by Fisnishing Line Press, 2017. Her most recent book is Man of Peace, published by Black Mountain Press in November 2020.

2 Poems by Diane Webster

SOLITARY GATE

Gate, solitary unto itself,
summer cloud puffed
from existence
in expanse of blue sky --
no fence attached left,
no fence attached right,
only the gate.

If one should exit
from one side to the other,
would neighbors see
a crazy person going through
a gate leading nowhere?

Gazing about
with Alzheimer’s amazement
or disappearance where the one
stepping through experiences
lilac-scented landscape
lush with ponds rippling
in fish movements,
butterflies tickle
upraised hands,
meadowlarks sing
your entrance through the gate
solitary unto itself.

ORB TWIN

Drip drops
into puddle,
emerges
in a blink
as orb twin
surrounded by
ripples echoes
into conglomerate
surface.

Bionote

Diane Webster's goal is to remain open to poetry ideas in everyday life, nature or an overheard phrase and to write. Many nights she falls asleep juggling images to fit into a poem. Her work has appeared in "Philadelphia Poets," "Home Planet News Online," "The Evansville Review" and other literary magazines.

2 Poems by Michael Belongie

Circus of the Sun

Robert Lax

Imag

i

n

trapeze

r act

t c r

i h u

release self &

t t

i

n

flight.

Enlightment

a

y

sojourn

e

d

with

l

l

u

s

i

o

n

just as I s-

m

merse.

Bionote

Michael Belongie, poet of seven chapbooks and whose home is imbedded within a limestone quarry on Beaver Dam Lake shore remains active in poetry and writing, past president Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets, emeritus Poets’ Calendar editor, Pushcart nominee of poet Antler and life-time WFOP board member.

2 Poems by Roy J. Adams

I&thou

Crush together
Chunks of clay
Shape of you
Shape of me
Add water
Reshape you
Reshape me
We’re hotter
Than potter’s
Fire
You in my body
Me in yours
Forever

(From a poem by Guan
Daosheng, 13th century China)

Soul

Fish-like she inhabits
Deep seas and plies
Among obscurities
Threading her way
Between boles
Of giant weeds
Over sun-flickered spaces
On and on into gloom
Into cold, deep, inscrutable

Then, suddenly
At the surface
She sports
On wind-wrinkled waves
Brushes, scrapes,
Kindles herself…gossiping

Adapted from text in Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf

Bionote

Roy J. Adams, for many years a university professor specializing in industrial relations, labour law and human rights at McMaster University and the University of Saskatchewan has had work published in literary magazines in Canada, USA, UK, Ireland, Australia, Singapore and Germany. The author of one book of poetry, Critical Mass, and a chapbook, Bebop from Beau’s Caboose, he is a full member of The League of Canadian Poets.

5 Photos by Tao Zhijian

1 Poem by Casey Killingsworth

Multiple choice

Sometimes now I cry more
over the news, even knowing we
all have only a certain number
of tears, but other times I can’t
bring myself to give one shit when
some hurricane lashes itself
against us or more people go missing
in this week’s war, so I plan
to study to be a scientist so
I can reduce the news to one
big number because nobody
gets emotional over numbers,
or maybe a professor so I can
discuss the news in a lecture
and use it in a pop quiz
where the answer, “D. suffering,”
is always the right answer.

Bionote

Casey Killingsworth has work in The American Journal of Poetry, Kimera, Spindrift, Rain, Slightly West, Timberline Review, COG, Common Ground Review, Typehouse, Bangalore Review, Two Thirds North, and other journals. His book of poems, A Handbook for Water, was published by Cranberry Press in 1995. As well he has a book on the poetry of Langston Hughes, The Black and Blue Collar Blues (VDM, 2008). He has a Master’s degree from Reed College.

1 Poem by Wayne-Daniel Berard

The Brazen Age

The time loop
swings backwards in autumn
the green of renewable
leafing reverts to the
September red of iron
then to October bronze
soon we resee the fall
of the Brazen Age
all becomes stone and ice
we huddle in nouveau
caves the rest of the
living world grateful
for our absence
for temporary asylum
from us

Bionote

Wayne-Daniel Berard, PhD, teaches Humanities at Nichols College, Dudley, MA. He publishes broadly in poetry, fiction, and non-fiction. His latest full-length work of poetry, The Realm of Blessing, will be published in 2020 by Unsolicited Press. He is the co-founding editor of Soul-Lit, an online journal of spiritual poetry (www.soul-lit.com). Wayne-Daniel lives in Mansfield, MA with his wife, The Lovely Christine.

1 Poem by Gerard Sarnat

Climates Change: Dance Music Ekphrastic Muses

Lovely children once played
below our bedroom porch:
now post wildfire decayed
wild oak just sway among
my ennui fancies of Henri
Matisse’s scorched ladies.

Bionote

Gerard Sarnat won the Poetry in the Arts First Place Award plus the Dorfman Prize, and has been nominated for a handful of recent Pushcarts plus Best of the Net Awards. Gerry is widely published in academic-related journals (e.g., University Chicago, Stanford, Oberlin, Brown, Columbia, Harvard, Pomona, Johns Hopkins, Wesleyan, Penn, Dartmouth, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Baltimore, University of San Francisco) plus national (e.g., Gargoyle, Main Street Rag, New Delta Review, MiPOesias, American Journal Of Poetry, Clementine, pamplemousse, Red Wheelbarrow, Deluge, Poetry Quarterly, poetica, Tipton Journal, Hypnopomp, Free State Review, Poetry Circle, Poets And War, Wordpeace, Cliterature, Qommunicate, Indolent Books, Snapdragon, Pandemonium Press, Boston Literary Magazine, Montana Mouthful, Arkansas Review, Texas Review, San Antonio Review, Brooklyn Review, pacificREVIEW, San Francisco Magazine, The Los Angeles Review, Fiction Southeast and The New York Times) and international publications (e.g., Review Berlin, Voices Israel, Foreign Lit, New Ulster, Transnational, Southbank, Wellington Street Review). He’s authored the collections Homeless Chronicles: From Abraham to Burning Man (2010), Disputes (2012), 17s (2014), Melting the Ice King (2016). Gerry is a physician who’s built and staffed clinics for the marginalized as well as a Stanford professor and healthcare CEO. Currently he is devoting energy/ resources to deal with climate change justice. Gerry’s been married since 1969 with three kids plus six grandsons, and is looking forward to future granddaughters. gerardsarnat.com

1 Poem by Jeffrey L. Taylor

Chemo Mindfulness

Now my mind is slowed
in thought, in memory,
in remembering location
and direction.

Here is the gap that mindfulness
teaches, where karma stops,
pauses, offers a new path
where previously
there was none.

I have been offered this gift, gratis.
Others have struggled for years
on and off the cushion to find.

To whom or what do I give thanks?

Bionote

Jeffrey L. Taylor's first submitted poems won 1st place and runner-up in Riff Magazine's 1994 Jazz and Blues Poetry Contest. Encouraged, he continues to write. Serving as sensei (instructor) to small children and professor to graduate students has taught him humility.

1 Poem by Alamgir Hashmi

Woman

She just passed through here,
a meteor burning bright
in the emptiness
where breathing time
is a happening, period.

Oh, but what am I to make
of your smile?

Bionote

Alamgir Hashmi is the author of numerous books of poetry and literary criticism. He has taught as a university professor in North America, Europe, and Asia. His poetry and prose have appeared widely in journals and anthologies.

1 Poem by Azam Bulbulia

The Soul’s String

In one more crowded moment,
I scanned the chaos of life
for a fleeting sight of you,
my heart quickening around
its warm, flesh-fresh scars.
A splinter blurred my vision,
so terribly afraid of seeing
beauty deflect time again.
And, strung too fervently,
my soul’s last string wound
tightly around old delusion,
a warping, overplayed harp
plucked one touch too many
at the stroke of seeing you.
Of knowing you free of me,
resiling at reluctant memory.
So, broken, the string sings,
in coils discordant, as ends
fray to fall from the bent nail.

Bionote

I have been writing poetry for many years, although I have only recently started submitting my poems for consideration for publication. I work as a lawyer in Sydney, Australia, although my dream is to one day devote my life wholly and solely to literature and poetry. I am also currently finalizing my first [novel-length] fiction manuscript for submission for publication. I have not been published in any form to date.

1 Poem by Rebecca Anne Banks

the trees

wear the winter
snow on branches
winter lace . . .”

“white on white
winter sky
caves of winter . . .”

“winter knots
in the trees
snow and snow
falls,
falling . . .”

“and snow
the quiet
falls,
blue . . .”

Bionote

Rebecca Anne Banks (Poet, Singer, Songwriter, Musician, Writer, Artist, Philosopher, Counselor, Activist) lives in the New Age Renaissance Republique of Poetry, within the Spirit of Romance, writings of the Muse and the hidden love stories of the blue island. She is the Poetry Editor at Subterranean Blue Poetry (www.subterraneanbluepoetry.com), the CEO/Artist at Tea at Tympani Lane Records (www.tympanilanerecords.com), the Book Reviewer at The Book Reviewer (www.thebookreviewer.ca) and the Quilt Artist at Kintsugi Art Quilts (www.kintsugiartquts.com).

1 Poem by Andrew Shields

Break

Sometime around 4:20 a.m.
somebody wakes up to see

how long there is to sleep
until dawn shatters the night

into daytime pieces
that scatter into hours

like dust into the air of
sometime around 4:20 p.m.

Bionote

Andrew Shields lives in Basel, Switzerland. His collection of poems "Thomas Hardy Listens to Louis Armstrong" was published by Eyewear in 2015. His band Human Shields released the album "Somebody's Hometown" in 2015 and the EP "Défense de jouer" in 2016.

1 Poem by Alexis Beale

Toxic Honey

You said you wanted me raw:
Emotions and all.

I can’t give you that baby.
You should know me better than that by now.

I don’t do that, not anymore. Close your eyes
And we can pretend

That I’m her
And you’re him.

You love the idea of me, but
Not much more. And that’s okay,

This isn’t something
Anyone prays for.

Bionote

Alexis Beale is currently a graduate student at the University of Southern California. She has had the privilege of having her poetry published in the Blue Monday Review, Apprentice Writer, and Off the Coast Poetry Journal.

1 Poem by Juanita Rey

IN THE WET

The storm rages
like a dozen of my parents’ arguments
combined.

I flip on the outside light.
A visitor is expected.

He runs up the stairs,
into my apartment,
as if the weather outside
is as calm
as an oxygen tent.

He says, forget
the bulb burning on the outside,
that I’m all the light
he’ll ever need.

He’s at the point
where downpours don’t matter
while I’m still
at the glow through
heavy rain stage.

Bionote

Juanita Rey is a Dominican poet who has been in this country five years. Her work has been published in Pennsylvania English, Opiate Journal, Petrichor Machine and Porter Gulch Review.

1 Poem by L. R. Harvey

Leftovers

Spaghetti-stained and bottom-scratched

my tupperware and I.

Our lids don’t fit quite right,

our insides deflated, cold,

and somewhat clammy,

the fresh and heat

since dissipated into steam

that long ago went floating out

to somewhere we cannot seem

to find. Spin us around

to nuke our atoms from

the inside working out

and we will warm,

but do not be surprised

when something, still,

is never quite the way it was

the time the cook first set us on the table.

Bionote

L.R. Harvey writes and teaches in Chattanooga, T.N. A graduate of Covenant College, he holds his BA in English and his MA in teaching, and currently teaches high school English. His most recent work has appeared in Red Eft Review, Better Than Starbucks, The Write Launch, Light: A Journal of Photography and Poetry, The Road Not Taken, and more than a dozen others. He writes to provide a window into the Transcendent and a glimpse into the Mystery.

1 Poem by Wendy Gist

PRAYER

for Gretchen

(An Acrostic)

Prostrate before golden birds whistling among the cattail—
Rookery echoing the dim, dull day as if eavesdropping
Angels are singing away perdition with wing-wind birdsong
Yabber, like bubbling wine in the belly—she awakens to the
Existential miracle evinced in the bright-red death of day promising
Return of luminous moon, full once more forever this night .

Bionote

Wendy Gist was raised in the forest of the Southwest on the outskirts of Flagstaff, Arizona. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in For Women Who Roar, Fourth River, Galway Review, New Plains Review, Oyez Review, Rio Grande Review, Soundings Review, St. Austin Review, Sundog Lit and other fine journals. Gist has worked as a professional contributing writer for many leading publications including Better Nutrition, Caribbean Travel and Life, eDiets, New Mexico Magazine, Pilates Style, Today’s Diet and Nutrition, and numerous others (national and international). She is a Pushcart Prize nominee and the author of the chapbook Moods of the Dream Fog (Finishing Line Press, 2016). She was named semifinalist for The Best Small Fictions, 2017. She currently serves as Poetry Editor for the Red Wheelbarrow Review.

1 Poem by Gayle J. Connolly

grey zone

not dark not light
nor black or white
not day or night
it's lovers time

shadows threaten
glow consoles
they fought they loved
who is to blame

not her nor him
indecision
in transition she stands
waiting for an answer
in the grey zone

Bionote

Gayle J. Connolly, a poet and artist from Hamilton, Ontario has numerous publications to her credit, some of them prize-winning. They appear in local and international periodicals and journals. Her collection of poetry, Lifelines, which she also illustrated, was published by Serengeti Press in 2015. Her background of several ethnicities, love of art and travel and devotion to social justice are reflected in her work. She believes in the ability of poetry to capture and clarify moments of our lives, be they everyday occurrences or major events. Her readership includes Canada, The United States, Mexico and India. She is past President of the Tower Poetry Society in Hamilton and has been active in poetry groups in Mexico. She is at the moment working on her second book for which once again she will provide her own illustrations. As a change of pace, she is trying her hand at short story writing inspired by her childhood years in rural Quebec.

1 Poem by Linda Sacco

Unsweetened

The bees will lead you to goodness.

They will grant you mercy against wickedness.

The path they show you is steeped in evil,

careless hearts, wrapped in walls of arrogance

that live to serve and protect their reputation.

I am waiting, forever waiting,

for the sting of revenge,

for the giant to revert to flea,

the proud to be revealed as incompetent and

my truth to be told, unsweetened and real.

In the meantime, I will not run away.

Whatever happens here, we remain.

Bionote

Linda Sacco’s poetry has recently appeared in Ariel Chart and Bluepepper. Her first poetry collection is Waves. She is also the author of the Which Is Your Perfect Pet? series with titles on Dog Breeds, Designer Dogs, Cat Breeds and Birds.

1 Poem by Vyara Kozareva

FREE-HAND

In the morning

The rooster has the moon in his peak

Before hiding it under his pinion

Outflanks the farmyard

With an air of importance

Lofty in his carmine charm

Clears his voice

With refinement

And straight of the cupped hands of the fate

Pecks out the new day’s hours

In their peculiar alternation

Between the allotropes of carbon.

Bionote

Vyara Kozareva is located in Bulgaria

1 Poem by Joe Balaz

CHRISTMAS TALE

Gaddah dress like wun layered cake

and walk like wun penguin—

Dats da way to be foa da South Pole.

It must be da Christmas season

dough wun misplaced Santa Claus

in wun sled

being pulled by wun visiting polar bear

looks kinnah strange to me.

Da famous fat man in his holiday suit

lights up his corn cob pipe

wit wun blowtorch

and exhales

wun kaleidoscopic cloud

dat floats out ovah da ice fields

and rains down green and red snow boots

on da distant mountains.

Too bad dere wuzn’t

any indigenous Antarcticans around

to benefit

from all da different shoe sizes.

Santa must be losing his touch

wit his gift giving dough.

Maybe he’s going senile

and da amyloids in his brain

are clogging up his good intentions.

Rudolph Valentino

realizes someting is not right

and he appears upon da scene

wit wun ruby glow searchlight

dat cuts through da confusion

to help Saint Nick make his way

through da unseen blizzard.

All da silver bells

on da silent screen

are ring, ring, ringing,

as Jimmy Stewart

jumps up in da theater audience

and lets everyone know

dat it’s wun wonderful life.

Dere’s hope back in da toy factory

wit his announcement

while wun necessary operation

wuz being completed.

Wrap it up

and put wun adhesive ribbon on it

cause da procedure wuz successful

and Santa is making

wun full recovery.

Dats wat all da brain surgeon elves

are saying

aftah dis story is said and done.

Bionote

Joe Balaz writes in Hawaiian Islands Pidgin (Hawai'i Creole English). He is the author of Pidgin Eye, a book of poetry. NBC News featured the book for Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month, as one of the best new books to be written by a Pacific Islander in 2019. Balaz was honored in July, 2020, with the Elliot Cades Award for Literature as an Established Writer for 2019 for his many literary works through the years The award is the most prestigious literary honor in Hawai'i. Balaz presently lives in Cleveland, Ohio.

1 Poem by Dante Gray

I Never Trusted Charon

I dreamt I fell in the River Styx—
Unfortunately, for me,
Water won’t wash away my sins.

I tried my luck at drowning
My desires in carnal design—
At least it keeps them down, sea

The currents course roared coarse,
Before Charon pulled me up,
and handed me an old set of oars—

Bionote

Dante Gray is an English teacher currently working in Kyoto, Japan. They received their degree in English Literature and Language at Tennessee Technological University in 2019, and their work was published in the university’s literary journal, The Iris Review.

1 Poem by Geoffrey Heptonstall

TO BUILD A WALL

There was a dry summer silence
the other side of the wall.
The stone there was quarried
from the hollow of measureless time
to build a wall, a farm, a village
where nothing is for ever.

The world was moving
when the rocks went down,
returning with the motions of the earth,
breathing sighs of remembrance
for another world to be found
in stone’s frail consciousness.

Bionote

Geoffrey Heptonstall is the author of a novel, Heaven’s Invention [revised paperback edition Black Wolf, 2017] and a collection of poetry, The Rites of Paradise [Cyberwit 2020].

1 Poem by Cindy Rinne

Mother Owl Speaks to the Rain

I carry the moon as we mirror each other
and hide from the sun uncountable days.

I drink the sky during soft rains
of glacier’s tears. The blue drops mark
smudged stones after my daughter disappears.

The cottonwood’s secret, my child’s
new home or her death—

trying to erase her, language ceases.

Bionote

Cindy Rinne creates fiber art and writes in San Bernardino, CA. She was Poet in Residence for the Neutra Institute Gallery and Museum, Los Angeles, CA. A Pushcart nominee. Cindy is the author of several books: Knife Me Split Memories (Cholla Needles Press), Letters Under Rock with Bory Thach, (Elyssar Press), and others. Her poetry appeared or is forthcoming in: Anti-Heroin Chic, Unpsychology Magazine, MORIA, several anthologies, and others. www.fiberverse.com

1 Poem by Eric Robert Nolan

The Writer

At night he dreamt of birds, thousands of them,
imprisoned in his house.

Ravens screamed in the attic.
Sparrows panicked in the hall.
He sat at his desk. A Jay pecked
Frantically at his shirt sleeve.

The basement door revealed
Torrents of finches, erupting in the dark
A loud gray storm
Of beaks and tiny claws.

Seagulls suffered in the cupboards.
Parakeets in the rafters, trapped,
Raged in Etruscan.

He crossed the room.
Owls
Moaned under the floorboards.

Twelve red cardinals
Lined his kitchen shelves –
A discordant jury.

Peacocks plead in the oven.
In a jar of sugar
Titmice struggled for air.

At his desk were
Photographs, letters
Pens and a half dead Marten.

He reached for his old brown afghan but felt
Bone and feather
The heaving brown breast
Of a starving eagle.

Sometimes the scratch
Of pen against paper brought
Respite from birdsong:

Two less wings against the silence
One less voice in that
Troubled aviary.

A parrot perched
Upon his paper stacks.
“Remorse,” it offered feebly.
“Regret,” he answered back.

First published by Dagda Publishing in 2013; in Dagda's poetry anthology, Threads, also in 2013; in Illumen Magazine in 2014; by Dead Snakes in 2016; by UFO Gigolo in 2016; by Poetry Poetics Pleasure Ezine in 2018; and by Every Writer and Down in the Dirt this past year.

Bionote

Eric Robert Nolan's prose, poetry and photography have been featured by more than 30 print and online publications throughout the United States, Canada, Britain, Australia and India. His debut novel was the postapocalyptic science fiction story, The Dogs Don’t Bark In Brooklyn Any More, published by Dagda Publishing in the United Kingdom in 2013. His work has been included in six anthologies, he was a nominee for the Sundress Publications 2018 Best of the Net Anthology, and he is a past editor for the dystopian arts and literature journal, The Bees Are Dead.

1 Poem by Danielle Page

The Messenger

Have you ever seen the wind carry a message?
Through the turning of leaves or a rush of
tufts of white dandelion
Swirling, seemingly incoherent
Across the void of water and rock
Straight to you?

And you can listen
Just this once
To the point that the wind is trying to make
to all of us.

The presence of a force much greater
than our own raises the skin to what
would be a mountainous path to an
arthropod.

And you can feel the wind’s breath withdraw
The courier moves onward to a better place
to impart its knowledge
And the inhale you make
Brings scents of how the world should be.

Bionote

Danielle Page is an emerging writer from Chattanooga, Tennessee. She hopes to pursue a doctorate in rhetoric and composition to foster a love for writing in college classrooms. When she’s not reading up on composition theory, she’s scribbling in her moleskine journal or hiking a mountainous trail. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in the Whale Road Review, Speaking of Marvels, and The Voices Project.

1 Poem by Michael Estabrook

Philosophy

When I was younger
I’d walk the train tracks beyond
where we lived pondering
the direction of my life
where have I been?
where am I going?
what am I doing or not doing?
what could I be doing better?
Even though I’m older now
and still have no answers
to these my life’s questions
I no longer tread the tracks
to ponder them
because those big trains appear silently
from around the bend awfully fast.

Bionote

Michael Estabrook has been publishing his poetry in the small press since the 1980s. Hopefully with each passing decade the poems have become more clear and concise, succinct and precise, more appealing and “universal.” He has published over 20 collections, a recent one being The Poet’s Curse, A Miscellany (The Poetry Box, 2019).

1 Poem by James Thurgood

vagrant

raining to beat hell -
under garage eaves
on the light over the door
it huddles

not quite the picture
in the bird-book: too plump
with feathers puffed up somehow
- for warmth maybe, a thousand miles
from the tropics
on a perch out of the rain

crouching though, head down
he is spied: a large magpie,
plumed natty as the rest,
swoops down and scares him off -
struts and stares on the light
then back to his perch high in the trees

magpies have their case: they were here first
and you let in one, next it’s a hundred

still, you can tell he enjoyed that

vagrant: a stray bird far from its normal ecological range

Bionote

James Thurgood was born in Nova Scotia, grew up in Windsor, Ontario, and now lives in Calgary, Alberta. He has been a labourer, musician, and teacher – not necessarily in that order. His poems have appeared in various journals, anthologies, and in a collection (Icemen/Stoneghosts, Penumbra Press). He is also the author of His Own Misfortune, a work-in-progress.

1 Poem by Gregg Shapiro

Parrot Talk

My sentences
are getting shorter,
vocabulary shrinking.
I make guttural shrieks.
Sounds like I'm calling
to you from the belly
of a giant that swallowed

me but forgot to chew.
Other voices are on the line.
I feel like a whisper suffocating
on busy signals. I can write
my name in the steam, but
the subtlest breezes erase me
and I sink, heavy as breath.

Bionote

Gregg Shapiro is the author of seven books including the 2019 chapbooks, Sunshine State (NightBallet Press) and More Poems About Buildings and Food (Souvenir Spoon Books). An entertainment journalist, whose interviews and reviews run in a variety of regional LGBTQ+ and mainstream publications and websites, Shapiro lives in Fort Lauderdale, Florida with his husband Rick and their dog Coco.

2 Poems by Chad Norman

DARING TO LEAVE THE CAVE

Before
the Spring
is really
the new season
I feel
so alive
when
a great song
causes me
to weep,
& then
to smile.

THE NOISEAHOLICS

Listening to the endless racket
of old men in love
with their leaf-blowers,

how I would love

to throw a rake
in their mindless piles
destined for the plastic bags
they set at the curb in order
to magically vanish;

the idea of them making noise
obviously escapes any mental

capacity they should have,

the simple thought, perhaps,

missed out on
due to their hearing aids
all being turned off
or requiring new batteries.

Bionote

Chad Norman lives beside the high-tides of the Bay of Fundy, in what is known as the hub of Nova Scotia. He has given talks and readings in Denmark, Sweden, Wales, Ireland, Scotland, America, and across Canada. His poems continue to appear in publications around the world and have been translated into Danish, Albanian, Romanian, Turkish, and Italian. His latest collections are Selected & New Poems ( Mosaic Press, Oakville, Ontario, Canada), and Waking Up On The Wrong Side Of the Sky (Grant Block Press, Truro, N.S., Canada). A new collection, Squall: Poems In The Voice Of Mary Shelley, is due out Spring, 2020.

1 poem by Heidi

Covid

when this is over
i am fleeing
when this is over
i am swimming, flying, running, soaring
to you.

when this is over
i will breathe with you
sighing and finding places in you
you have craved.

when this is over
your quiet hands
will be like the rain again
on my face
in the early morning
bringing me to life.

when this is over
the world will not be the same
the oceans will be cleaner
and the skies will be bluer
hands will hold hands
and we will run into the arms
of those we have longed for
and feel the sweet pulse of kisses
on our tongues.

when this is over
we will not return to the way things used to be
for we have grieved
and shouted and screamed
in our homes
at the tops of mountains
alone.

when this is over
it is stunning to think of the moment
when this is over.

Bionote

Heidi is a classically trained violinist, having played the violin most of her life. In her writing, music is almost always present, in the words she uses, in the themes she describes, and in the essential fabric that underlies all her prose and poetry. Her publications include: Her most recent novel, The Four Seasons, published and released by Sapphire Books on 1 July 2018. One of her memoir pieces, "The Wild Horse," published by Shanti Arts, Still Point Arts Quarterly, Spring 2018. A short story entitled "The Garden", published by Shanti Arts, Still Point Arts Quarterly, Spring 2019. Another short non-fiction piece, "Taking Your Time", published in the August 2018 edition of The Sun Magazine. Honorable Mention: her novel, When Paris Was Her Lover, 2019 Landmark Prize for Fiction, Homebound Publications. She has a huge reader base, and a strong social media profile.

POETRY PACIFIC (10): BACK PAGE

POETRY PACIFIC

[2021 edition]

backcover image: Kate Emily Yuan

Saturday, 1 May 2021

5 Poems by Yuan Changming

Between Yin & Yang: All Set to See

1/ Yin: The Mare in the Rain

Standing still on a huge rock
The pale horse holds its head high
As if it had been running fiercely
On a wild prairie, looking up afar
To the most distant mountain

Its eyes glittering as raindrops
Keep falling from heaven
Straightly down to hell, &
Water-carving its paleness
Into a demonic statue of history

2/ Yang: The Pause for (R)e.volution

Long long before long ago, Earth
Was originally set within a koru

Unfurling at every antlike moment
Directly towards the sun, until
Now it is too overloaded
With evil spirits & viruses

To continue revolution as it
Tries to return to itself

Sonneting to the Other Side of Night

Since yester twilight
Along the borderline of darkness
With fits of thirst & hunger
Among storms of pain
Under attacks of evil spirits & viruses
Between interludes of insomnia
Beyond both hope & expectation

At the depth of darkness
Amidst the nightmare
Through one tiny antlike moment
After another…
Against deadly despair
Until awakening
To the first ray of dawn

All That Glitters

Is not just gold, but also the teeth chewing
The bitterness of life at twilight; the bones

Excavated from a lost civilisation; the roof
Tiles glazed with the rain of last night; &

The rock standing firm in the gurgling stream
The broken mirror in the debris of history; &

The disk hung like a scarecrow in the garden
The wings of a raven flying in the storm; &

The coal close to a furnace; the forehead
Of my late father in my dream; as well

As the scales of a fish jumping out of water
Against the starlight; the glacier protruding

From an unknown peak among Rocky Mountains
Or, the eye looking beyond the darkness of tonight

Getting Along: A Bilingualcultural Poem

In Chinese, 朋友，恋人，& 爱人 are all
12-stroked characters, just as their counter-
Parts friend, couple & spouse are 6-lettered
Words in the imperial vocabulary of English

Though they are all underlined with human

Love and loyalty, the former entails twice
As much input or effort of the heart
As the latter to maintain a disparately
Similar humane relationship as a speech act

In Self-Isolation (against Covid-19):

‘I Want to See You': for Li Lan

Says Bell to his assistant when he was making
The first human call over a telephone, ‘Not even

Your video, much less your picture,’ one of his
Descendants might echo. But it’s the authentic

Presence flowering out of your inner being
That can satisfy my skin hunger, allowing

Me to sniff at the space and time your body
Occupies, to inhale the same air released

From the grove along the stream that I want to
Look at, to be with you in a full contact sport

Of feel instead of a spectator one even though we can
Never make love on the one & same antlike timespot

Bionote

Yuan Changming, 11-time Pushcart nominee and 9-time winner of poetry awards, is probably the world's most widely published contemporary poetry author who speaks Mandarin but writes English. Growing up in an isolated Chinese village, Yuan started to learn the English alphabet in Shanghai at age nineteen and authored several monographs on translation before leaving his native country as an international student. With a Canadian PhD in English, Yuan currently lives in Vancouver, where he edits Poetry Pacific with Allen Yuan. Since mid-2005, Yuan has had poetry appear in more than 1,800 literary outlets across 46 countries, which include Best Canadian Poetry (2009, 2012, 2014), the Best of the Best Canadian Poetry (2008-2017) & BestNewPoemsOnline. In 2021, Yuan published his first poetry collection in Chinese《袁昌明诗选》and served on the jury for Canada’s 44th National Magazine Awards (poetry category).

Poetry collections by Yuan Changming:

1. Chansons of a Chinaman [Paperback]. Murfreesboro, TN: Leaf Garden, 2009.
2. Landscaping [Paperback]. San Jacinto, CA: Flutter Press, 2013.
3. Mindscaping [e.chapbook]. Halifax: Fowlpox Press, 2014.
4. Origin of Letters [e.chapbook]. Beard of Bees Press (US), May 2015.
5. Kinship [Paperback] Seattle: Goldfish Press, May 2015.
6. Wordscaping [e. Chapbook]. Halifax: Fowlpox Press, 2016.
7. Dark Phantasms [Paperback]. San Jacinto, CA: Flutter Press, 2017.
8. East Idioms [e.chapbook]. Cyberwit.net, 2019.
9. (R)e.volution [Paperback]. LA: the Wapshott Press, 2021.
10. 《袁昌明诗选》(Selected Poems of Yuan Changming: 2005-2020) [e.book/kindle edtion]. Vancouver, Poetry Pacific Press, 2021.