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      Today everything is on fire & it’s dangerous the wind claws crimson back & forth running across grass trees catch leaves ember & cinders *** I pray please rain save some green there’s a grasshopper poised for flight at the bottom of...

      Where you took me I had never cut my fingernails; would only retouch occasional casualties – cracks on thumbs, hooks on index fingers, too long witch-like pinkies. Not once did I sit down with a pair of tiny curved scissors to trim down all ten....

      Cold Cream If there’s a record for the consumption of celluloid, you’ve made it a life goal to break and, of course, there is a record for everything on the planet from smallest fish consumed by a tiger to most daffodils snorted by a Catholic...

      what is missing is touch — is cotton to wool, sheer to slub is holding hands is hug — forms moulding each to each, body to body rise to hollow what is missing is skin warm against cool, is the cheek-scuff of familiar stubble is rough sunbrown...

      On the Dangers of Re-entry on my long list is the “borderline” thing— it is said that there are few male versions of the species (my experiences in group therapy can attest to this) maybe most are locked up— a fate I’m not sure how I managed to...

      from The Woman in an Imaginary Painting Do not stretch your imagination so far the world flattens. Do not stray farther than your promise reaches. State only your belief about true matters. Light is light -- don't stretch it. Color is color. Line....

      Nika is the pen name of retired educator Dr. Jim Force. His haiku and haiga have been widely published in print and online journals and anthologies.

      Daylight and Dust The real horror is a body like an empty glass slowly forgetting itself – trying to remember how to hold anything but daylight and dust. This is how men are taught to feel pain, learn which parts are allowed to break whilst they...

      Corner Block Vigil in Cowboy Hat I’m five years old, crouched on the knee-high brick fence next to the letter box. I’ve scraped my legs getting up there. I’m wearing a cowboy hat and a man’s striped dressing gown with long red beads, and watching...

      At the Royal Ontario Museum Four hundred pounds of rose pink muscle, the dead heft of a whale’s heart, a mass worthy of Rubens, worthy of Moore. Visitors lean in to feel the quiver of sea, pinned and plinthed under glass, the thought of Arctic...

      Turned Injun I Turned Injun, didn’t yeh. Riders whoop across the screen, red skinned, paint, and painted Paints. And the boy’s jolted by her cheers – outlaw to his young years, music to such green ears: Auntie Val’s rooting for the baddies. More...

      beltane (may day poems, glastonbury 2019)   pale- moon sun: slow,   heavy drops on the site                         of arthur’s tomb (his                                     queen in small   print!) – a quarter of a millennium, the...

      The Farmer’s Prayer He lies across the cow’s prone side and prays for healing. Smooths her flank, half-expecting some bright heat, a glowing surge to match his prayer, a vision of angels, a chorus of song. Beside them lies her calf, warm and...

      Faceless extinctions A moth arrives like a small hand passing over my face and when I open my eyes a heartbeat thuds against my bedside shade. Leave your window ajar and your lamp lit – why, that’s an invitation, says he. White ermine, little...

      Waiting I am in the room, waiting to be called, with several ahead of me in the queue. Vincent’s iris on the wall droops from a vase of others, not much perkier. With each buzz and change of light from red to green, someone gets up, approaches the...

      Placenta Laid flat on the floorboards it’s an autumn tree crown with boughs rising skyward from a severed trunk. It’s a glistening viscus grown by mother and daughter, brought home in a carrier bag, preserved in the freezer, planted out in spring,...