A unique poem “written” by blacking out a newspaper obituary, done in such a way as to reveal something meaningful about the deceased hidden between the lines:

In Memory
~Rachel S.

She knows
Alzheimer’s disease
always demands
heart
time
and energy
and care to families as well.
With great difficulty
and great risk
it affects her memory,
unwelcome
in her end.

(click to enlarge)

Ending up in Hospital Room 403B
~anonymous

My face boasts an idiot’s leer.
My thoughts,
lucid as flame,
broken as speech, tangled in misfiring paths.
These limbs
once strong bearers of…
Now like trunks and vines,
both fallen.

A wish to lie under stars,
but enrapped in six sides of plaster.
Faces come and surely go.
None important
None worth the exertion
of smile.
Except the little boy
who stopped to stare.
A memory incarnate
worth the water and salt
escaping these wisdom worn eyes

straining to feed my head
with the incoherent news from the window
yet slipping ever so subtly into
an exhaustion so profound
even light gives up sometimes.

*

a small victory
~c.m. mclamb

It is three weeks
after being told of
his newly risen counts,
two weeks
after my official
undetectable diagnosis,
and the first time
we’ve returned to making
truly passionate love.

We are once again
full of each other
as we lay down to rest,
coiled around curves,
nestled into folds,
fingers entwined,
caramel skin pressed
against soft, wooly hair;
safe for the moment
from the fire fighting
to spawn within.

*

LEFT INFERIOR FRONTAL GYRUS
~Art Stewart

Today my left inferior frontal gyrus went wild choosing
one word over another, again and again –

ant in amber over bug in sap: note
the color of the ant is black as anthracite; the ant

is suspended
in buckwheat honey solid while a bug

could be anything, a blob, not clear
as a nine-spot ladybird beetle immobilized

just so in a gold drop
of resin on a leaky branch of the peach tree

out back, decrepit with age, but in spring
oh yes, in spring, the tree comes alive

again, choosing
to push forth

delicate leaves, pure petals.

With credit for this poem to Circle, Turtle, Ashes.

Red Giant
~pantoum by Jon Dean

When the Sun explodes
in whorls of warmth,
with outstretched flares,
it will embrace us all.

In whorls of warmth
pulling our faces to brightness,
it will embrace us all –
distinction lost in its radiance.

Pulling our faces to brightness,
our shadows will burn into the ground,
distinction lost in its radiance,
our dreams will fade to silhouettes.

Our shadows burnt into the ground,
dancers in the dimming darkness.
Our dreams will fade to silhouettes –
we will spin to ashes.

Dancers in the dimming darkness
with outstretched arms,
we will spin to ashes
when the Sun explodes.

*

Sea Change
~Claire M. Jackson

The loudspeaker squawks,
Bringing to a close tonight’s
Visiting hours.

I take her hand, then.
Kiss her wrinkled forehead; the
Skin is soft and cool.

She’s at her twilight,
Of the day; for the year;
Of her brilliant life.

Rheumy eyes meet mine
Full of helpless, frustrated
Doubt and confusion.

“I know you, don’t I?”
She’s adrift, searching my face
For safe harbor.

I can hear it, then.
The susurration of waves
On entropy’s shore.

Washing her away,
Carrying her out toward
Icy black waters.

I have no vessel
Able to navigate these
Dark, poisonous swells.

Might as well try to
Drain the Pacific with a
Ladle and a sieve;

Might as well try to
Raise the Titanic with a
Dime store rod-and-reel;

Might as well try to
Build, with seashells and white sand, a
Fortress ’round our hearts.

*

On Call
~Greg P.

Restless nights, sudden arousals,
dreams which seem like some
festering sore of unfinished,
incomplete evaluations
of a rough-hewn history.

Sometimes waking in a chill,
others in a sweat.
All managing to underscore
how there is no refuge
in slumber.

So I keep piecing together
daytime events and daytime time,
when silence is no safe haven,
and only underscores that
anything can happen at any moment.

An Exhortation
~sonnet by M. C. Yang

The guy with HIV is in bed nine
The breast cancer woman is in bed two.
The hyperglycemic person looks fine
And the head bleed went to the ICU.
The same drunk has returned again today
The demented woman will scream all night.
Another pneumonia is on the way
As are eleven wounds from a knife fight.
This guy plays piano in a jazz band;
That man was a college basketball star;
She writes books that are read across the land;
Do you even know who your patients are?
Doctors: Ask about their identities;
Patients are more than physiologies.

*

Surgeon’s Song
~Sid Schwab

I’ve touched you places none can touch,
Known of things that can’t be known,
Seen the unseen.

This is given me by you
Weighty trust that’s built on air.
You have granted me your life
Neither of us knows why.

Delicate brutality, transgression deified.
An act I cannot understand.
The space between the two of us
Will disappear impossibly
At one end.

If I could, I’d be your eyes,
Teach you what you’ve let me learn.
Earth and coils, a robin’s egg,
Architecture built to fail.
The beauty here’s for none of us.
But here I am.

If you heard the words I spoke,
If I were to help you know
The breath I held when we were there,
Would you recoil and wonder how
You ever said yes?

*

From Pluto, to the Scientists
~Jason Cohen

Dear Sirs,

It has recently come
to my attention that my status
as a planet in your fine
solar system has been
revoked.

While I have the utmost respect
for your commitment to impartial and
methodical inquiry, I cannot
help but wonder whether in
this particular case, you
might have acted somewhat
hastily.

For the sake of intellectual
thoroughness, I implore
you to reconsider
your decision, and invite
you to visit
me personally before passing
final judgment.

(I trust that this will not
be difficult for you – I mean,
since you know so much
about science and all.)

Look, I’ll level with
you: I have three
moons to feed, and
I’m still paying off
the loans for their
accretion. That I’m suddenly only
pulling plutoid pay hasn’t
made things any easier.

Yours happily last and least –
but no less – among the planets,

Pluto

P.S. Plutoid? Yeah, that really
makes up for it. Thanks a lot, @ssholes.

sucCessFul
~Scarlett

Waiting by the phone.
My life is on hold
Twenty two and dying.
So many things to say
but I’m running out of breath.
Coughing. Praying. Struggling.

The phone starts to ring.
The call I waited for.
The call they never expected.
A family losing their son.
Healthy new lungs for me.
Mourning. Praying. Rejoicing.

Two years pass by quickly.
Living boldly to honor your son.
Studying to become a doctor.
Your family is always on my mind.
Your gift has given me a future.
Breathing. Praying. Loving.

*

Untitled
~Barry Carter

I observed myself for the
first time in a dream,i
was looking through a
telescope viewing dried up
streams of Mars and preserved
in my static face i could see
lines created by the earth this
strange pitiless place. I didn’t
want to see wars only my face
and that of the sun, in the street
i could hear guns as i looked up
at the night time sky, gun runners
and drug dealers couldn’t see this
cosmic mystery. Vainly i tried other
telescopes hoping to be given sight
and on a bridge at night below me
was water of red, i put some money
in a telescope and could see the
empty streams of Mars with dried
up river beds.

*

Death Watch: Haitham
~Bronwyn Winters

We sit together and hold our silences,
Your eyes fluttering against such grave
weight- lids like tiny wings-
struggling rapidfire to regain the nest,
whipping
The void with fine dark feathers.
Drops skim off your frantic lash-wings,
and with my fingertips I press a kiss
into that salt.
Insh’Allah, soon, my tired child, you will
catch the updraft- Find the
Eagle’s purchase, and trace each new
wingbeat’s arc
a weightless infinity from where we
sit.

If I Were Frida Kahlo
~Amanda Hempel

Perhaps a ten percent chance, he said.
My heart slid across his perfect white wall
and I shrank under my paper sheet.

If I were Frida Kahlo,
I would paint my cystic ovaries
in a pale green thunderstorm sky.

If I were Frida Kahlo, my uterus
would hang in churning clouds
raining blood above salted earth.

With no god to blaspheme,
I cursed traffic, potholes, the fact
that I already knew her name.

*

Pas de Deux with Tiger
~Suzanne Edison

In hungry silence air feeds sparks:
my child’s body wrestles itself, predator
and prey, night paws

my mind. In dreams
I am orange-tongued fire
squealing through unsealed cracks.

I am split, a hard cone exposing
seeds, scorched brush that should
bare fresh ground but I wake

like Demeter wanting to banish
the Sun and blue-belled hyacinths,
command Winter strangle the world.

Ash dawn cracks the morning, strains
of my child’s breath rise
above sleep’s surface,

a canyon wren’s riff,
notes whole and held, counter-
point to my insistent roaring.

*

An ODE to Radioactivity
~Rahul Dandekar

One fine day, the century before last,
Henry, a Becquerel, found himself aghast.
The photofilm that he hath so carefully shielded,
To some mysterious radiation had somehow yielded!

But he could protect it, he found, with some layers of lead,
The scientist began to think himself not too right in the head.
The clue lay in an adjoining drawer, a salt of the rare uranium,
Bequerel, satisfied to the core, thanked profusely his cranium.

Scientists soon pounced on the element, and happily played,
It emitted three rays, it seemed, and the emission decayed.
The three types were then baptised, alpha-beta-gamma.
Alpha was the heavyweight, but gamma did the harm-a.
(The radiation, though exciting, was indeed damaging,
Not all the researchers met their deaths by aging.)

The part of radioactivity that’s most weighty
Is that you can write a very simple O D E
Although you have to reason a little bit
About the atoms per unit time go oblit.

It’s random, jumbled, fumbled, culled,
Poisson being the god of that world.
But watch! If there be more atoms,
More must undergo the swat-ems.
If there’re fewer for the guillotine
Fewer than previous ‘ll be keen.

We lay down a new Law this day,
A law that decaying atoms obey.
The number that goes kaboom,
Every fleeting second of doom,
Is proportional to it’s brethen,
The number that sec breathin.

And thus, more to see them,
Means more to disappear,
And The Law so ordained,
Is an exponential – swear.

And thus, the atoms die,
One after another, sigh,
Often the offsprings,
Atoms so produced
Decay themselves,
A Little bemused.

But in the end,
Every single
One mingles
With dust.

Or Strong
Ol’ Lead.
The end
result.

Tonight’s selections!

Untitled
~Elisabeth Greenwood

When they asked
that I write poetry
I died.

You see,
the words dried up
a long time ago.

Before doctors.
Before tests.
Before pills
and chemicals
and long vials
of blood.

Before,
I wrote books.
Published poems.
Scribbled madly
on paper scraps.
Spoke
to hushed crowds
and applause.

But something
in my spirit
became sick,
long before I learned
something in my body
was wrong.

So for long,
long,
there were no words.

There were notes
in many scripts.
Scripts
in many hands.

And there was loss.
And confusion.
And sadness.
And pain.

But there were no words.

Then.
Slowly.
Slowly.
There were
different words.
Plain words.
Kept alone.

They were not like
the old words.
Not like
these words.

But the words
slipped out.
A stream.
Found others’ words.
Who shared.
Who knew.

Those words
led to these words.

Maybe the spirit
is stronger than the body,
after all.

*

Tired and Afraid
~Chris Nickson

The curtains pushed aside
Show an old man in bed.
Fear lives in two dark eyes
Staring from his tired head.

His knuckled grip is strong,
He shakes like a sailor,
But his next breaths are long,
Payment for his labor.

Underneath his sun-beaten shell,
Sliding sinews bring bones upright.
What his muscle memory might tell
Given time before the birth of night.

The chart shows no sign of fever
And his heart beats just as it should,
The numbers say he’ll live forever,
All of the peaks and troughs look good.

My gut knows the answer,
But I ask anyway,
I am here to help you,
Why are you here today?

He says, my problem’s this,
Then looks me in the eye,
I’m just too tired to live
And I’m too afraid to die.

*

The fall.
~Impactednurse

And she lifted for a while, her eyes staring out with addled dryness from a place of dust and fallen leaves. Yellow sclera wide. Belly round and hard like an emu egg.
Lips dark as slugs.
Desperately drinking in the room, breathing it in, gulping it down.
The sights, the sounds, grasping at every detail as she grasped at my hand.

No that’s not quite it. She grasped as if at a rope. Like those men I saw in that old black and white newsreel who were holding the tethering ropes of a giant balloon, and held too long, and were carried aloft high above the field,
holding the rope,
knowing the cost of release,
and finally,
inevitably,
dropping. One,
by one,
by one.
Into dust and fallen leaves.