Early Morning Love Song

Despite the moon, nearly full, gliding
six inches above the western horizon
where that faint line of a Great Lake lies,
my couple of cardinals
amidst the etched grey of sunrise
say it’s morning,
and all the little birds believe them.

Despite me, nearing fifty, holding
two inches before hitting the midway
in a life as long as it ought to be,
my tired, allergic eyes
below a grey sketch of wild hair
see it’s morning,
and all the giddy cells believe them.

Despite this near-miss at late love, that the
last quarter-inch could not have slid down
like a pane shattering for joy,
my old sorrows roll over
in their fetching grey failure,
sigh, “It’s morning,”
and all the silly feelings believe them.

Vast

Just out of Minneapolis-St. Paul we seemed
briefly to stall as if to shadow
all those wispies drifting below.

The mazes of cul-de-sacs had given way
to assorted squares of barren fields,
their whiskered homesteads glued

to odd corners like stamps, wide ribbon
slipping backward and away, silent terrain
under a lazy canoe. Now the sun

has cast a grey ghost of our plane
down and to my right, framed it within
the awkward porthole, its sliding shade,

an unaccountable halo of rainbow—
and this ridiculous filigree of angels,
filmy leagues camouflaged in ether,

special recruits that mingle and network
like secret agents: the FBI of the sky.
But when we soon tilt and ascend

to the high status toward Denver, I know
all this silliness will vanish, angels fading,
becoming the thin air, and these fields will retreat

to compose vast sheets of stamps, re-impose
perspective, that inevitable severance
from everything that’s then re-imaginable.

Now

Once upon a then not long ago
enough the nows became
delicious, and every other then
took on its flat feel of “My,
how I have wasted…” Yes,

yes, you are who you are
because of blah, blah, blah—
all that dullness, too, that
boredom. But now you can
love the nows, love those

who show you, look forward
to a better later, even risk missing
this now or the next. Today’s
faint sun struggles to cast
yesterday’s delicate warmth—

but because it is now
here’s its half-fazing glow
through filtering clouds
and its more mottled effect
on water and the water’s still

steady sound and this alighting
bird who fans the translucent
arc of her tail feathers
through which you can see
the occasion you call now.

Butterfly Solipsism

A butterfly’s flapping over Costa Rica,
it’s sometimes considered, could initiate
the chain that leads to tornados in Toledo,
hopping and ripping the heart
from every-other quotidian home.

Or maybe its deft stretch-and-glide
could instigate the violent Mississippi’s
surprising rise beyond its subtle, stolid realm—
the dainty queen behind that vast rebellion.

So I suppose I could blame this monarch
that reigns today’s thermals—that just
licked six purple puffs in beach grass
then juked my breezy mind—
for the nicknamed waves of catastrophe
soon to sweep a sleeping Gulf,
the nightly news even proving it
via weather patterns green-screened
before the stocks and sports.

But instead I’m turning my grateful face
toward the nor’easter just breaching
the stony coast of my brain: when it
rattles shutter to sash to rafter,
I’ll unlatch the deadbolts, throw open
the windows, and ready my heart’s
musty guest bedroom in welcome.

If Hearts Know Best

Not wanting to disparage your heart (after all,
from its involuntary seclusion it pounds out
three trillion beats by the time it dies), but at best
it boasts only a sixty-percent ejection
of fresh blood from its left ventricle, out
its aorta, and into that vast vascular
network invented to re-oxygenate you.

And not meaning to disparage your sense of
what’s acceptable, but this sixty percent
is excellent, a D-minus that commends you!
Any greater rating and that concavity
would collapse, just like a kiddy pool sluiced
of too much water, or like when the sails deflate
and maroon the little schooner that is you.

What if such barely passing productivity
typified a few of our other endeavours,
a submediocrity chosen to achieve more
than the bleed-out of high achievement?
Imagine our ruminations running at only
sixty-percent efficiency. Or what about
sixty-percent modification to all our
manipulations? Over-identifications?

What if our self-doubt and over-reactions
were reduced to a measly sixty percent?
Or perhaps a forty-percent reduction of our
ambition to be liked? (We might become
likable!) Likewise, losing forty percent
of our judgment of judging, preaching
against preaching, desiring the return
of our adolescent desire, thinking
we know what we think we know?

And what if our love-sickened hearts sort of
met each other a little over half-way,
almost always gave each other a mere
sixty-forty benefit of the doubt, supplied
the minor nudge that’d tip our teeter toward
the other’s totter to strike the delicate
imbalance that’d barely make the difference?

Tracing Your Two Lines

There’s the one that goes round and round
with each revolving day, sunset to sunset.
For that, your eyes, looking west, would
streak the long exposure like faint tail lights
arcing away over recurring hills. The other

is different. It doesn’t depend on
where you stand, which way you face.
No matter, it releases from the daily spin and
wanders, a twirling girl’s sparkler in the dark.

Try pointing to any spot on a globe. Make it
the capital of any troubled country, and
after that miniature world turns your finger
in perfect circles, watch your fingertip trace
the course it takes as you continue your trail

from here to eternity. You’ll see it zigzags
a singular presence over the earth’s assorted
surfaces, drawing its own conclusions—

like you in this world, scratching out
a meandering, your own universe, your own
one-line sketch of this far-fetched existence.

D. R. James, retired from nearly 40 years of teaching college writing, literature, and peace studies, lives with his psychotherapist wife in the woods near Saugatuck, Michigan. His latest of ten collections is Mobius Trip (Dos Madres Press).

You can find more of D.R.James’ work here on Ink Pantry.

Irony

In liminal space,
Epiphany blooms
Then fades in eclipse,
In ennui.
The serendipity feels like a chimera.
Leviathan in Metropolis,
This totem of confusion
Transforms into mosaic rhapsody,
A labyrinth of alchemy.
Epitaph carved on the monolith.
The mind becomes a quagmire,
A parallax of what is real,
What is true.

Harbinger

The red mirage from the hearth,
looming, cascading, 
echoing an ember glow from the solstice,
under the celestial canopy.

A turpentine mucking haven,
with silts and shards
chiseling the pinnacle—
a verdant glade of hollow,
where meadowlarks chirp.

In the thicket,
in the tundra,
beneath the dune,
through mire and glade,
the tempest orbits.

First Place

I saw a smooth surface beneath my soft palms 
that once awkwardly held a pencil.
Glossy green-blue or cotton candy pink,
sometimes scarred with little scribbles.
A rectangle whose sharp edges 
were softened for small hands.
I trace the thin grey lines,
feel the rubber lining,
soothing me from inside.

The ceiling saw blocks of rectangles forming
a blueprint for a square.
Gaps in between some,
some crooked,
some deviating from others.
But always together.

The carpet saw the underneath, where no one pays attention.
Ancient gums that hardened into fossils,
boogers pressed into corners.
Drawings of stick figures,
words carved with defiance–
“Stupid,” “Dog poop”–
rebellion in permanent markers.

The windows saw blurs of identical shapes.
A line of possibility.
Where the soft brains were hardened.
Where the soft hands learned how to find themselves.

“I like my life,” it whispers,
through scratch surfaces and wobbly legs.
“I know I’m loved. I know I’m needed.”
“They come and go, but I stay here,
ready to be a second home.”

Once so big,
not intimidating but
embracing.
My place in the world,
solid and certain.
Thought it would never change.
Now it fades in memory
when I sit—if I could sit—
it would barely hold me.
Reminding me of the distance between who I was and who I’ve become
The time between it and me.

Alexis Lee is a high school student and emerging poet who finds inspiration in fleeting moments, music, and the quiet details of daily life. Her work explores themes of memory, transformation, and human connection. When she’s not writing, she enjoys reading contemporary poetry, listening to indie music, and exploring local bookstores.

Loretta

She feels close to depth,
Like a necklace, you notice after looking for a while. 

She changes the feeling of the room without meaning to,
Grey suits her. 
Her smile is small and unforced, like it’s just where her face settles.

Arched eyebrows, not to impress anyone.
Eyes with softness, not emptiness. 

She doesn’t remind you of anyone else. 
No earrings, no necklace, the crashing waves of her hair, 

Not trying to be seen, 
And doesn’t demand attention

Silence is her language, 
She understands it as well as speech. 

Thin oval-shaped lips, bottling up words of wisdom
Forehead showing experience more than worry

If she were part of a story,
She wouldn’t be the centre of it. 
She’d be the depth underneath,
The part that connects things
And make everything else feel real. 
Like a bluer story, if present.

Umbrella for Two

Standing in the rain
Beneath the sky that weeps 
An elegy for one

Holding an unopened umbrella
A silent companion 
to the storm
A quiet witness 

The rain speaks gently
The way a mother may 

Standing still
The air and rain learns my shape

Each drop a promise
That breaks apart before it reaches me

Still, I look up
Just in case the clouds might remember
The child they left behind

Diamond in the Rough

From Within
Plastic green trees
Green Snow that never escapes
A glass dome,
Holding a tiny world
Foggy glass
No cracks, no scratches
Just a wall 
That separates their world from ours
On the bedside table for years
A mere shape 
Brand new once,
Now a diamond in the rough

Serena Park is a high school student who writes poetry and creates visual art in the quiet corners of her day. When she’s not working on a piece, she’s usually listening to music—especially rock, with a special place in her heart for Kurt Cobain.

Cosmos of Mind

Through the tomography’s tungsten lens, 
I saw a strange constellation, like that of the cosmos —
It was shaped like a labyrinth.

The ephemeral nature of the scene drew a paradox 
to the striking intricacy of the view— 
And a myriad of nebulae flashed beyond my sight, 
pulses send here and there.

Its flashing vista encapsulated me 
in a state of utter perplexity,  
And caught me mesmerized
by its ever-enigmatic nature.

Then was when, amidst the cascade of vividness, 
where I witnessed a wild tempest, 
an enigmatic oblivion, the cosmos of my mind.

A Matter of Perspective 

All that could be seen was a glimpse of light 
breaking through the metal wall. 
There was a room
one covered with red paint, yet shallow.
Coated with slick mahogany paint on the outside,
its surface reflected a smooth brilliance. 

Hovering across the horizon, 
all that could be seen was a square of red, 
standing alone in the midst of an intersection.

Bikes, cars, and children sped fast through the road
And the city bustled with vivacity, 
Yet it seldom had any visitors.
Only when men dressed in blue caps went by
was it ever visited
 
Lying on the ground, nothing could be seen but darkness
the wall was illuminated from its left, right, front, and back,
and a slight hue of red. 

Wind was bustling through, in and out
as if it were to tickle the empty hollows 
of the lonely red box.

Here

The middle-aged men
wearing a fuzzy, apricot hood
and a brand-new purple hat
waves towards a child
who is running across the street 
with a big smile on his face 

The young man,
leaning towards an old wall
made of reddish bricks and grey stones
is wrapped around a brown leather jacket
and a white turtle-neck. 

crossing the street light 
with a crooked expression, 
A teenage girl with her right eyebrow lifted
both her ears are covered
with a set of headset 
that is decorated with stars-stickers 

A student wearing a uniform
is riding bicycle across the river,
her hair fluttering golden in sunlight. 
Holding a briefcase in one hand 
and a light-blue  duffel bad bag behind her back, 
she closed her eyes
sniffing the soothing smell of soil and grass; 

A street-singer
wearing hot-pink skinny jean
recites her song atop of a brisk cardboard box. 
Holding her guitar one hand 
and a bottle of water on another, 
she looks up into the sky, 
up into the baking sun.

Alina Lee is a high school student at an international school in Seoul, South Korea. Her writing explores memory, identity, and the quiet moments between people. When she’s not writing, she enjoys hiking, running, and playing the ukulele. Her work is inspired by the natural world and the rhythms of everyday life.

The Ring

I bought it because my hands looked unfinished,
because silver means something to people who notice hands.
The jeweler said it would age beautifully.
I wanted people to forget I had fingers without it.

I practiced talking with my hands,
the way people do when they’re certain,
the way I wasn’t. 
I couldn’t stop adjusting it

At the meeting, I left my hands on the table
knuckles up, like a small declaration.
No one mentioned it.
That meant they noticed.

Then one Thursday, I forgot to wear it
and still took up space at the table.
My hands still worked
The reassurance I was looking for
was never in the silver

Checkout Line

The woman in front of me is placing her groceries on the conveyor belt
while the cashier, maybe seventeen, hair up in a messy bun,
keeps her eyes on the register screen
The woman’s bag is canvas, reusable, expensive looking
and she’s pulling out coupons from a shiny leather wallet,
each one unfolded carefully
The cashier’s shoulders go tight when she sees them, 
I can’t tell if she’s annoyed by the coupons, the extra work of scanning,
or if the woman said something while I was still choosing between checkout lines, 
something about expired sales or wrong prices or the way things used to be done.
The woman probably said something about organic foods, 
and how she always buys organic in this annoying voice,
using an uncomfortable amount of vocal fry and the word ‘like’
the cashier nods but doesn’t look up. Maybe the cashier is tired of women like this, 
women who need everyone to know about their stupidly expensive, pseudo-healthy
diet choices. The woman taps her credit card against her palm 
one, two, three times while waiting for her items to ring up. 
The rhythm says hurry up, says this is taking too long

I decide she’s the type of person who thinks the cashier is incompetent, 
too slow, not meeting whatever impossible standard she’s invented
for how quickly her organic quinoa should be scanned. 
The cashier still won’t make eye contact
Good for her, I think. Don’t let this woman make you feel small.
The woman tilts her head, says something I can’t hear
the cashier pauses over a bunch of kale
The woman’s voice gets louder “I’m sure it was two-for one”
There it is. I knew it. She’s going to make a scene over 50 cents, 
over needing it to be right, over needing this teenager to admit she knows better
The cashier calls for a price check and the woman crosses her arms. 
I want to say, Just let it go, just pay the extra dollar and stop making her day harder,
stop needing to win. 

But then the manager comes over and snaps something at the cashier,
not at the customer. The cashier’s face goes red and she ducks her head.
The transaction ends. The woman takes her bags, glances back at the cashier, says,
“You’re doing great,”
and leaves. The cashier exhales. I step forward with my items: 
frozen meals for one, a can of soda,
the same kale I was so sure would be the problem.
I don’t say anything. I swipe my card. She bags in silence.

Outside, I see the woman loading groceries into a sedan,
careful with each bag, and I realize I needed her
to be careless. Needed her to be the villain
of someone else’s shift so I wouldn’t have to think
about how I move through the world
which lines I hold up, whose patience I test,
who’s been kind to me when I was too wrapped up
in my own small urgencies to notice I was being difficult.
The sedan pulls away. I stand there holding
my single bag, the receipt already crumpled in my hand.

Rubber Band

I’ve kept a single rubber band 
Looped around my bedpost for 3 years
It’s gray now, rimmed with rings of dust and lint,
Stretched thin in places where my thumb
Kept worrying it during conversations
I didn’t want to have

It was there the night before my presentation
when I couldn’t sleep, when I wrapped it
around my finger too tight
Counting how many seconds until 
The tip of my finger turned white

It was there the morning I got the acceptance email
when I snapped it across the room
At the wall that heard me rehearse 
the same hopes twenty times
It slid behind my bed
But I dug it out with a broom
because it belongs on my bedpost, not there

My younger cousin held it once
And I showed him how to weave it 
between his fingers into a star
He wore it on his wrist for the rest of the day,
then set it down on my desk before he left
Like he knew I couldn’t lose it

Sometimes I think it’s waiting 
to be used for something ordinary
bundling the stack of photos on my shelf, 
keeping a crumpled page from escaping,
looped around a moment
I’ll need it later

Today I moved it from the bedpost to my pocket 

It weighs almost nothing, but carries what I cannot

Katie Hong is a high school student based in Seoul, South Korea, whose love for poetry is surpassed only by her passion for baking and spending time with her puppy, Loki. With a gift for words and a keen eye for detail, Katie weaves intricate tapestries of emotion and imagery in her poetry, inviting readers to embark on self-discovery and introspection. When she’s not immersed in the world of poetry, Katie can be found in the kitchen, experimenting with flavors and textures to create delicious treats that delight the senses. With a zest for life and a boundless imagination, Katie is committed to sharing her voice with the world and making a meaningful impact through her writing.

You can find more of Katie’s work here on Ink Pantry.

Shadow Limbs Search

Shadow limbs
of the dead tree
stretch across the barren dirt
in search:
they descend into burrows
where dark meets dark,
reaching for a neighbor
but the sun moves
so touch never happens.

Shadow limbs rotate
sunrise to sunset;
a sundial ticking seconds
like bug tracks stitching
hourglass sand.

Snagged

It’s painful for the cottonwood tree
to grow beside the wooden fence.

Posts planted in the ground
with no hope of spreading roots.
Planks nailed like fake branches
with only splinters as leaves.

When the wind blows, when the boughs
brush against lifeless boards,
the tree caresses the fence
and doesn’t mind leaving
snagged leaves behind
quivering on splinters.

Below Morning

Sunset on top of the clouds
shines brightly like snow-capped
mountains with darkening
valley in gray below.

Below in the cornfield
rows of irrigated ditches
reflect last rays of sun
stretching toward the highway;
car headlights brighten
like shafts of morning
attempting dawn.

Leaves Down

Over the bridge
across the river
to stand under trees
where leaves fall down.

Squirrels scamper
up wrinkled tree trunks
when rafts float on top
of rapids following gravity
beneath cliffs jutting outward
in a valley seen from above.

Stand Still

If I stand still,
will my feet sprout roots
and dig into the soil?
If I raise my arms,
will bark crust over my skin
and branches solidify?
Will my open eyes
change into knot holes
staring at cousin trees?
Will my hair grow leaves
or pine needles depending
on my choice of trees?
Will I hear a tree fall
if I stand still?

Diane Webster lives in western Colorado. Her poetry has appeared in North Dakota Quarterly, New English Review, Studio One and other literary magazines. Her haiku/senryu have appeared in failed haiku, Kokako, Enchanted Garden Haiku. Micro-chaps were published by Origami Poetry Press in 2022, 2023, 2024 and 2025. Diane has been nominated for Best of the Net and three times for a Pushcart. Diane retired in 2022 after 40 years in the newspaper industry. She was a featured writer in Macrame Literary Journal and WestWard Quarterly. Her website is: www.dianewebster.com

You can find more of Diane’s work here on Ink Pantry.

The ocean is like us
It carries storms inside its chest
and still learns how to shine.
It holds whole cities of feelings
Beneath a calm face,
Seeing the sea wearing sunlight
Like a crown of blue daylight,
Tides pull the way memories do,
Back and forth, and never gives up
Just watching for the moon to speak.

JoyAnne O’Donnell is author of five poetry collections on Amazon. JoyAnne loves to go out in nature and write poetry. Her latest poetry is in Ultramarine Review.

Before I Wake

Before I wake,
the crawling dreams learn to sleep.
In the rain shadow of mind,
light becomes a shade of darkness.

Wild flowers dance on graves, unbothered,
and I carry the wreath with thorns, unperturbed.
Grief, bright as a bug zapper,
glows in my room like religion.

The voice inspects the house, then leaves —
noisy breathing, unfinished thoughts.
Only memory remains, pacing.

Border/lands

Seeing the child                                          draw a squiggly chalk line,
I realise that borders are                              just squiggly lines,
drawn on maps                                            from a hundred years ago.
A hundred years ago                                    was before radio, before phones.
The squiggly lines                                         remain like mountain ranges.
Cutting people into shapes,                          slices, into teams, into enemies.
The child erases the squiggly                        line with the back of his hand
and I’m amazed.                                           All borders are dotted lines.
There are gaps that we are                            trying to squeeze our way into,
And out of, aspiring for a better life,            beyond the bottleneck of borders.

Falling with Buoyancy

Where others sail with ease, I strain to stay,
choiceless tides deciding my course.

Hope, once bright, dissolves
in moth-white spray,
a ghost of faith dispersed upon the air.

Like turtles turned, I flail against the ground,
yet learn to fall before I dare to glide.

Wrists clasped close,
lest brittle bones be found;
odd snow-angels mark
where dreams have died.

Still I drop as autumn petals drift,
as fading blooms whose sighs dissolve in frost.

A silent grace, the only final gift,
when sound and shape
in winter’s hush are lost.

If fall I must,
let the end be mild,
as though the earth
embraced her fallen child.

The Ship

Vaishnavi Pusapati is a physician poet nominated for the Touchstone Awards. Her work has appeared in Dreich, Prole, Roanoke Review, Presence, Ink Pantry, Molecule, among others. Her haiku book, Afterlife:haikus, is forthcoming.

You can find more of Vaishnavi’s work here on Ink Pantry.

This Place

            From a place of trust
I glimpse your magnificence,
your harnessed race of complexities
in harmony, slow moving, more
powerful than a hundred suns
conjoining.

             From a place of faith,
being wrong is just as exciting
as being right – a longing to know
you, knowing I will never know you
only know the minute aspects that flip
and twist and rewrite as my knowledge grows,
while keeping some laws fundamental.

             From a place of love,
your love is gathering in
bright awe-inspiring displays,
terrifying in their brilliance and
in their magnitude.
Nothing is personal. Everything is individual,
overreaching galaxies into galaxies,
twin dreams.

            From a place of exploration,
finding inspiration
where paradox consumes,
invigorates, illuminates
all places, gloriously shifting.

Surrendered

In the middle –
steady, harsh waves,
salty flavoured ocean,
stranded, treading.
Love comes smiling.
It is a ghost.
Joy comes and passes by.
Purpose comes but floats by
like a jellyfish riding the momentum.

In the middle, tired of treading,
no escape, just the ebb and flow, surging,
retreating waters. What lies beneath makes
no difference because nothing is above
except the burning brutal sun, cloud cover
occasionally, and only air to eat.

Skin cells, bloating. Eyes, unable to keep
open. In the middle
of an endless abyss, all my happy days
behind me.

I hold my hands in prayer position,
arms raised over my head.
I stop struggling to not go under,
I go under and let that weight, the peace
at last, take me down.

She

Fear is splendid
in making the body inflamed,
bloated on trepidation at the news
of many meadows burning.

She hurried and found a healer
inside herself, willing to go
the distance and forfeit
personal power for a greater
acquisition.
She understood the traveller and
the sit-at-homer as one in the same,
especially on a stormy day or a year of upheaval.

Faith is the bullseye with no point-marks gained
unless hit dead-centre, directing every focus
to only that centre.
Faith is the wave to ride to the shore,
removed from other moving sources,
like wind and arm-strokes.

She opened herself to fear
not denying it but seeing it
as just another entity
under the canopy, smaller
than the giving sun.

Out

I asked to be let out
from that unwanted accomplishment.
I asked to shed my shame, my duty
and the hard-core call of doing time.

It was taken down and away from me,
along with so much more.
Guilt, and worldly bondage
also fell along with security,
along with a strange, twisted pride.

Knuckles down, hands still folded.
In my head are ghosts of patterns dissolved
but are still haunting. Ways of being I don’t have to
carry are dropped, but my empty arms are stalled
in position, humbled by uncertainty.
Set free and starting over, but not yet started,
just starting to try to etch out different
possibilities, a solid surging becoming.

Whiffs of passing currents,
rich aromas that entice briefly then fade.
Whiffs I cannot capture and keep, not now, maybe never,
let out, dumbfounded,
helpless, screaming, just born.

Allison Grayhurst has been nominated for “Best of the Net” six times. She has over 1,400 poems published in over 530 international journals, including translations of her work. She has 25 published books of poetry and 6 chapbooks. She is an ethical vegan and lives in Toronto with her family. She also sculpts, working with clay; www.allisongrayhurst.com

You can find more of Alison’s work here on Ink Panty.