Lyrical Passion Poetry E-Zine

her frayed scarf
a comfort
wound three times






a Schubert quintet ––
my black mood lifting
tonight






we all look up
a woman walking a donkey
on seashells

           by  Neal Whitman








guest room
your bookmark
still in place

          by Joanna M. Weston









Visitation Hours    by C. William Hinderliter

It was a sudden death, the one that finally came to take my son. He’d been sick for some time but some hope always remained… at the doctor’s, at the clinic, at the hospice. And then it was gone.

I can barely remember the endless hours between making the final arrangements and arriving at his viewing. Wracked by grief, I stand here in stony silence; numbed to the soul, yet trying to appear strong for the family. The room we chose is carefully lit, filled with the sight of flowers and the sounds of softy music, yet all I can think of is the pungent smell of the antiseptic and sweat that filled the hospice, and of his final moments. But even that doesn’t last.

With a word from a well-wisher, I am brought back to the present; trapped in this moment, and all of its formalities. Broken, I find myself trying to stand guard – a useless figure still trying to watch over his child as the visitors file past to give their condolences; …an unending line of friends, partial-friends, neighbors and relatives shuffling past his coffin, each trying to get through their own uncomfortable moment as they speak to us, never realizing that half they say is stabbing me through my heart, to my soul, again and again.

winter frost
I start to count the guests who say
he looks so alive
                           









drought season—
only wind
rushing downstream
           (Mariposa No. 21, Fall/Winter 2009)







hydrangeas
nodding off …
afternoon heat

                      by Nancy Nitrio





Bus stop-
swiped shopping carts
turned over on their sides
so that they may serve as extra
benches



Bus ride-
a man walking
in the left-turn lane stops,
then uses his cane as a turn
signal

                        by Michael Ceraolo (cinquain)







the swelling bay ––
hovering over the otter
one gull






half a blood-orange sun
over the hill
swaying hollyhocks

              by  Neal Whitman






the sky
in the water
I look down on myself

              by Brett Nicholas Moore







shadow and flutter
on the stonewall
one dove, then another

               by Neal Whitman








autumn dusk
the scent of the fireplaces
as I rush home







dry lightning...
counting the seconds
between raindrops

              by C. William Hinderliter







grass soup
and mudberry pie
dining with my granddaughter

                by Carolyn M. Hinderliter
                     (first published in Frogpond; Winter 2007)








too pretty for the house --
granddaughter's bouquet
of wild onions
 
                 by Carolyn M. Hinderliter








turning over
a new leaf—
spring breeze

                 by Nancy Nitrio
                      (The Mainichi Daily News, June 22, 2010)

Dancing
to the tune of foxgloves
summer breeze
 
 

Light rain
the pin drop scent
of jasmine

                   by Claire Everett







saving the web of
an old house-spider
from my wife's broom







almost a pond
almost frogs
tadpoles







a long dry spell
tumbleweeds
still tumbling






a single man's thoughts -
beneath the ice
a lone mitten

                    by Ayaz Daryl Nielsen







Christian's new tattoo --
organic chem molecule
for l.s.d.

                     by  Richard Stevenson









baseball field
a drifter asleep
on home plate






dusk at Harpers Ferry
a bearded homeless man
shouts out in his sleep







shantytown
children with dirty faces
build a snowman

                  by William Cullen, Jr.