POETRY PACIFIC

  TROUBLE IN RIVER CITY”                                                             Well,                                                  ...

  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. ...

  Conversing With Gods                     after Jericho Brown   Pit perception against cognition. Keep your ears out for the invisible voic...

  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'...

  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...

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 stoo...

  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, ag...

  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 p...

  Silence of the sea nothing satisfactorily explains why we’ve come to view this last transference of light on clouds – at the couple pictur...

  DAILY DIARY All day,   every day, through the night while you sleep, dust floats upon airy parchment to silently describe the moment and s...

  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...

  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 a...

  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 j...

  SOLITARY GATE Gate, solitary unto itself, summer cloud puffed from existence in expanse of blue sky -- no fence attached left, no fence at...

  Circus of the Sun               Robert Lax                      Imag                          i                      n                trap...

  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 ...

 

  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 b...

  The Brazen Age The time loop swings backwards in autumn the green of renewable leafing reverts to the September red of iron then to Octobe...

  Climates Change: Dance Music Ekphrastic Muses Lovely children once played below our bedroom porch: now post wildfire decayed wild oak just...

  Chemo Mindfulness Now my mind is slowed   in thought, in memory, in remembering location   and direction. Here is the gap that mindfulness...

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

  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...

  the trees wear the winter snow on branches winter lace . . .” “white on white winter sky caves of winter . . .” “winter knots in the trees...

  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...

  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 ...

  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 ...

  Leftovers Spaghetti-stained and bottom-scratched my tupperware and I. Our lids don’t fit quite right, our insides deflated, cold, and some...

  PRAYER for Gretchen (An Acrostic) Prostrate before golden birds whistling among the cattail— Rookery echoing the dim, dull day as if eaves...

  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 lo...

  Unsweetened The bees will lead you to goodness. They will grant you mercy against wickedness. The path they show you is steeped in evil, c...

  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 impo...

  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 Christm...

  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 drownin...

  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 tim...

  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...

  The Writer At night he dreamt of birds, thou­sands of them, impris­oned in his house. Ravens screamed in the attic. Spar­rows pan­icked in...

  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, s...

  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 ...

  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...

  Parrot Talk My sentences are getting shorter, vocabulary shrinking. I make guttural shrieks. Sounds like I'm calling to you from the b...

  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 smi...

  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 ...

                    POETRY PACIFIC     [2021 edition] backcover image: Kate Emily Yuan

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 i...