The day is filled with joy and laughter Children are running around the compound with careless abandon The women of the house roam the garden and stop to smell the flowers The drizzling rain envelops leaves   The rain increases its intensity and turns into…

Every day, I fall in love with something new, A face in a passing car, upturned in a smile, A dream, remembered long after waking up. A glint of red in my own unwashed hair, A tree in winter, looking as good as dead, A…

I take my burden cleansed fresh in the stream I clothe the body in a scented cloth I hide the stench and scars upon the flesh. Beneath the gloves lay broken dirty nails The fingertips now purple, curved tight. Face brown and yellow, bruised about…

Beth A. Fleisher Hour 5   Prompt 5: Choose a picture and use it as the jumping off point for a poem.     Sunrise on Spirit Mountain   I open my eyes to the first glimmers of daylight, reveling in the morning stillness, that…

First, sunlight peeking through the window A loud tumble out of bed The smell of sizzling meats A soft kiss on the cheek Then later, The sound of water crashing nearby, The coolness of it caressing skin The lightness of weight as we swim Then…

Dear 020298, I exist, at times just barely, for the careful ways you tear me open. You always find the truths I’ve left unspoken but I’m not hiding from you, I’m hiding from me. That last conversation left me raw stripped exposed and god knows…

The firelight glows amid the crackling embers and wispy gray smoke fills the cool, damp autumn air. My love hums a familiar ditty about our life together and as I look at the lines growing on his tired, aging face, the sight of a few…

The gentle sway of the boat, Cool skin warmed by the sun As it dries off the last swim of the day. Chilled champagne skids down my throat, mixing with the salt left by the ocean on my lips. My neck is arched as I…

More like a hard day’s year with almost 120,000 gone, the rest of us feel barely alive ourselves whether it’s gratifying or just plain irksome. where do we go from here? picks ourselves up, dust ourselves off and just pretend everything’s hunky dory. maybe you’ll…

They say to greet Death as an old friend, but when we should greet everyone as equals before Death’s kiss. It took a war and it took a movement but still we don’t see people as equals.When they ask for more, they were moved and…