Today’s choice

Previous poems

James Benger

 

 

 

Out of the Ash

We tore it all down
just to watch it burn,
standing in that alley
of forgotten refuse.

No one wanted it,
no one needed it,
so boombox and cigarettes,
bottles and pipes,

we ran riot with the fire,
unrestrained screams and smoke
rising higher than
our collective ambition.

And it was a forgotten place,
so the only light
came from us,
and we lit up the world

as though we were saving it
instead of destroying that little chunk.
But maybe in our wanton annihilation,
we were creating something new,

something intangible,
something infinite.
Flames burned down,
and we exhaustedly flopped

onto moldy abandoned couches,
recounting the glory that was us,
and never once to our own ears
did any of it sound hollow.

 

 

James Benger is the author of several books of poetry and prose. He serves on the Board of Directors of the Writers Place, and on the Riverfront Readings Committee, and is the founder of the 365 Poems in 365 Days online workshop. He lives in Kansas City with his wife and children.

Dharmavadana

She barely glances at you when you chink
your spare coins in her upturned cap, but still
spreads a spell among the pavement footfalls,

Tim Dwyer

      Shedding Annamakerrig It begins high up the chestnut tree with leaves on the twigs on the tips of branches where sap has slowed. Turning amber carried by the breeze they touch the earth, rest on the grass where autumn begins   Tim...

Sandra Noel

The sea happens to me today

not because I’m the woman in the bakers
brusque turned rude
or the peaches              still hard in the bowl

Grace Lynn

Sunlight saunters in long, thin wires through the fallow field
of my bedroom. You approach, a migrating heron
in a runny yolk collar and suntanned shorts, a white-light emissary
of hope. . .

Miriam Swales

I’m waiting for news I don’t want to talk about
and scrolling through old photos to escape.
After some swipes, I see you walking away.