a soft, slight flicker of hope today
touched lightly near my soul

strangely filled an emptiness
—then quickly by me stole.

a certain awareness startled me
—I knew you once before,

a promise, not quite legible
surged in me once more.

yesterday stirred as tomorrow
splashed across your eyes

and something echoed infinity
and long-ago goodbyes.

a welcome fleeting moment,
a microscopic glance,

today our paths converged to bring
reunion—quite by chance.

Suzanne S. Eaton is an author and marketing consultant. She has written many corporate stories and marketing materials. She authored “Chinese Herbs,” and has written for various magazines and anthologies. Most recently, Down in the Dirt Magazine, Writer Shed Stories, Seaborne Magazine, The Purpled Nail, The Silent World in Her Vase (TSWHV), Scarlet Leaf Review, and Rue Scribe have selected her work for publication.

The whales smile
as still crews gaze
with lowered sails while
the whale calf plays.

Paulette Callen has returned to her home state of South Dakota in retirement, after 30+ years in New York City. Varying degrees of culture shock in both directions — but always, the space she returned to has been made home by a dog.

the mind gathers truth
catalogues it
and keeps an access file.

such truths shape beliefs
guide actions
weigh in on decisions.

some truths are written
some inherited
some discovered in solitude.

truth is passionately defended
so staunchly argued that
somewhere, someone is dying for truth.

why then is my perception of truth
not the same as yours,
If truth is truth?

Suzanne S. Eaton is an author and marketing consultant. She has written many corporate stories and marketing materials. She authored “Chinese Herbs,” and has written for various magazines and anthologies. Most recently, Down in the Dirt Magazine, Writer Shed Stories, Seaborne Magazine, The Purpled Nail, The Silent World in Her Vase (TSWHV), Scarlet Leaf Review, and Rue Scribe have selected her work for publication.

Quelle demoiselle the man next to me says. He
keeps the rhythm with one hand, taps his foot.
Want to dance? he asks me. I quake

with passion unspooling.
No, I say I don’t dance, don’t
think, don’t blink.

I take a sip of tipple to the music.
Are you here for me? dapple
my hips and smile,

Let’s ride the pony the appaloosa the
stallion I say, let’s play the beast
with two backs. He says, do you want to pavane waltz

rhumba with me, I will dip you trip
you. Kiss you. We Spanish flu flamingo,
Malaysian gavotte tie the knot, Viennese cakewalk.

Karen Miller is a 76 year old retired lawyer living on Lake Champlain in Vermont with her cranky but lovable husband and Izzy the cat. In the summer she gardens and swims. In the winter she looks out the window.

Balancing the giving and the taking,
Measuring the changing and the growing,
Coming… going…
Patiently waiting, quickly accelerating,
That careful toing and froing.

Our movement merges together
In unison rhythm like waves,
We caringly form our landscape,
We patiently carve out our caves.
We carefully set our intentions,
Dream of the wonderful life we will have,
In this space of connection we’ve nurtured
Our hearts cans do nothing but laugh.

Time passes changing the balance,
Tilting the scales, roils and disturbs;
I try to rise to the challenge
But in your mind thoughts do perturb.

My soothing no longer is wanted,
My arms around you no longer are craved,
My essence under your pressure relented,
Destroyed are the paths that we paved.

To hope I whispered my plea
but the waves continued to slam.
How can one halt the forces of the sea,
When in these turbulent waters we can’t even manage to stand?

I tried,
Oh, I did try…

But no longer can I be that wave that follows,
No longer shall my swaying match your motion.
Enough of these murky waters have I swallowed,
Enough of being adrift in your emotions.
I change from drop, to sea, to ocean.
Far from those shallow, stormy waters shall I be,
Released from its injurious erosion,
I have let go of what was us, was ours, was we.

Viviana Doyle is a Venezuelan-Irish who tries to creatively translate the rawness of emotions to poetry. As a constant seeker of new experiences she aims to deepen her understanding of our complex world, delicate human relationships and the resilient interconnectedness between the two.

Alive and, well, crowded.
Peck or scratch about in dirt,
make a meal of almost anything,
poop out some foul response
that splatters, that hardly matters.
Try not to lose your head.

Originally from Saskatchewan, Allan Lake has lived in Vancouver, Cape Breton, Ibiza, Tasmania, Perth & Melbourne. Poetry Collection: Sand in the Sole (Xlibris, 2014). Lake won Lost Tower Publications (UK) Comp 2017 & Melbourne Spoken Word Poetry Fest 2018 & publication in New Philosopher 2020. Chapbook (Ginninderra Press 2020) My Photos of Sicily.

Freestyle, free of constraints, let yourself go,
does it make any sense, who’s to know?
Express yourself, let yourself be known.
Let others feast on the words that you have sown.
But there are those who choose a bizarre form,
something way outside the norm.
They call it Freestyle.
If you have some kind of style, or no style,
it doesn’t matter you can get real wild.
Some can get real crazy, maybe even act like a child.
It might mean something to you,
but for anyone else does the meaning come through?
Would there be any touch of reality,
would it ever mean a thing to me?
With seemly no rules and no real structure.
Trying to find meaning or sense of it is torture.
Random words in some random composition,
mere ravings with no relevant revelation.
To be complex, intellectual, and “deep”.
It moves me not, instead it puts me to sleep.
Freestyle, what does it mean to me?
It’s got to be so mindless and quite easy,
putting any words down in any way at all.
Just throwing words out, let’s see where they may fall.
Freestyle, the weirder the better,
the strangest is prophetic, the “smarter”?
Viewed and sometimes read by the Elite, the “Top”,
-the cream of the crop!
Exclusively they eliminate the rest,
they’re selections are only for the best.
The commoner might care their emotions to share,
the commoner might enjoy common words to hear.
But for the ones who controls the pens,
or at least where their word ends,
this realm is not accepting new friends.
No, no one is allowed in at all,
don’t call them, they’ll call you- not at all.
Don’t tell them your words, upon deaf ears they will fall.
Freestyle so much the rage they say,
it’s what’s hip and in vogue today.
Still, trying as hard as I could,
no matter how many I read I found not one that was any good.
I couldn’t understand one single one,
and I could only be left with one conclusion when I was done.
It appears that the real meaning of Freestyle,
is ultimately having “no rhyme or reason” and no style.
Some people have some gall,
but I don’t care, Freestyle poetry to me isn’t really poetry at all.

After a successful career as a Senior Designer working with international mining companies, William David is retired now and living in Tucson, Az. He likes spending time now devoted to his passion: writing poetry. William writes for his pleasure and for the pleasure of those who might read his poems.

Off this shore
the lake is deep.
The loon’s cry floats
like rune of ruin—
startlingly close—
the cry of someone
who shakes the bones.

Paulette Callen has returned to her home state of South Dakota in retirement, after 30+ years in New York City. Varying degrees of culture shock in both directions — but always, the space she returned to has been made home by a dog.

When you say this poem,
Know you will read it when you know nothing of how you will say it later.
How it will feel under a cool sky of clouds in twenty years.
How it will edge along the bone.

Kate Bowers is a writer based out of Pittsburgh, PA. She has been published previously in “The Ekphrastic Review,” “Rue Scribe,” and “Sheila-Na-Gig.’

It strikes my soul
with crackling voltage,
leaves me trembling,
lost in space.

I feel you pass
and without looking,
I magnetize to pull
the current back.

You shoot through me
—shock and polarize
my power source;
suspended, still….

I search for pulse
for energy, a slight vibration
—your touch—at last,
regeneration.

Suzanne S. Eaton is an author and marketing consultant. She has written many corporate stories and marketing materials. She authored “Chinese Herbs,” and has written for various magazines and anthologies. Most recently, Down in the Dirt Magazine, Writer Shed Stories, Seaborne Magazine, The Purpled Nail, The Silent World in Her Vase (TSWHV), Scarlet Leaf Review, and Rue Scribe have selected her work for publication.