Deven Walker
November 9, 2015
The Pain of Leaving Home
I ignored the door knowing opportunity knocked
It began with faint thuds
Swelling to loud, thumping plops
Inviting me to unexplored ocassions
I swore I was sure I wasn’t up for persuasion
But, it rattled my mind’s box
So I opened the door
Leaving my third eye sore and bloodshot
Samar Abulhassan
November 8, 2015
Here
O creature of blue yearning,
hear beyond the space of this room.
Figments of home are too scared to go
barefoot. A delicate turn
blooms ancestral
whiffs
caught in a fence. Scent of alley, song, sigh
swirl into salve.
Don’t dissipate this blurring.
Meera Mittal
November 7, 2015
Waiting
Home waits
in the shadows of my dreams
the neglected corners of my heart.
Watchful and patient
home waits
to be remembered.
Home found me
before I found myself.
It unfurled me
like a slumbering flower
wakes at night
reaching
to embrace the stars.
I have left
but
home waits.
Yvonne Higgins Leach
November 6, 2015
Why I am Complete
In this cove-tucked cabin I call home,
I begin the last third of my life.
My young adult daughters
breathe steadily in the next room.
The man it took me a lifetime
to find does the same beside me.
All this breathing — in and out — here, with mine.
Rachel Delmar
November 5, 2015
361
A Brief Poem in which I [Ask You to Stay].
My heart cannot hold the love I have for you.
But do not swim away in its overflow.
Stay here with me & let the waves soak away our scars.
Xuan-Ha Hoang
November 4, 2015
Inseparable
Passionately I write
Dear Home!
Where my heritage is rooted
And skin color is given.
My skin complexion
Reflects to the sun
With its radiance
Emits through the universe.
Thanks my motherland
For who I am
You’re thousands of miles in distance
In me, you’re a heartbeat away.
Michael Schein
November 3, 2015
Arc
Like curve and fast balls
thrown in every weather,
some long and arcing,
some snap into leather,
our lives rise and fall.
Now, more stall than momentum,
I wobble slightly wild, feel
like every ball ever thrown,
the pull of where I’m from,
the call of home.
Victoria Rolph
November 2, 2015
House Key
Home is a place
hidden in a cul-de-sac
of my heart.
Take a right turn
at the cherry blossom tree
and come on in.
I have your key
kept in the cracked pot
on the porch.
Stay as long as you like,
but wipe your feet
on the way out.
Wendy Call
November 1, 2015
After Most Words Have Left Her
Three days before she dies,
Mom says,
I’m going to be lost.
Later she says,
I talk to myself about
different houses.
All kinds of houses.
Houses that I don’t know.
One day before she dies,
Mom says,
I come home.
Rumi once wrote:
This being human
is a guesthouse.
Deborah Williams
October 31, 2015
My Mother’s Eyes
The look in my mother’s eyes, as I hug her goodbye at the airport, is tender, gentle and kind.
With a look she gives me her heartfelt joy, for the times we laughed and cried together.
We then ponder the next time we will look into each other’s eyes.
Lai Huynh
October 30, 2015
Quê Tôi
Quê tôi có lũy tre xanh
Có đồng ruộng lúa hiền lành
Có đôi môi thắm như cành thiên hương
Quê tôi có những thửa vườn
Có đồng khoai sắn, có nương hoa màu
Dù rằng đồng áng ruộng sâu
Nhưng quê tôi đẹp như câu thơ vàng
Michael Dylan Welch
October 29, 2015
half moon
traveling with me
away from home
Joy Brauning
October 28, 2015
On the Bus
I can write
that long over-due letter
to Grandma
Or thank Grandpa
for the new book he gave me
Next I’ll text Sis
to tell her what’s up
And maybe write Mom
with “I Love You”
All this because I have time-On the Bus
Anthony Warnke
October 27, 2015
No. Sno., fall
Life, once
for the humpy
runs. Now, nothing
but safety
nets. Our honey
moon’s over
the still still
Stilly. Our river
boat’s cast
out in the past
tense.
I can go
home again,
technically.
Seth Zuckerman
October 26, 2015
Enclosures not permitted
Sun blazing
muggy air babbling with unfamiliar tongues.
In the house, cool and dark, I scribble to my grown sister.
Lucky one.
She got to stay in California.
I’ll fold the blue sheet into an envelope
wishing I could wrap myself inside it
and mail myself back home.
Derrick Charleston
October 25, 2015
HOME IS
“Home is”
Home is … A temple of Peace and Tranquility
A place of Safety
A place of Love and Beauty
Home is …
A welcome sign at the front door
Home is …
Where memories are made
And they never fade away … Come stay
By
D. Train
Vladimir Eremin
October 24, 2015
My home
I feel my home like rising tide:
It goes with me when I do step outside.
It rises higher when I’m far away,
And grumbles: You will need return to bay!
When I’ve came back – subsides gale
And calms… and tempts again to sail…
L Morgan
October 23, 2015
I’m home
I’m home here
Where I sit
Comfortably inside my head,
like soft gaze, recliner.
Although, honestly – often…
twisted on the spot
like looking out the window after shadows.
You do something else.
What will my next thought be?
Breath, chest rise, heart beats reverb
if I AM,
I’m home.
Violet C. Aesquivel
October 22, 2015
Home Remains In My Heart
Precious dwelling built with courage, love and faith,
where life’s burdens, trials and blessings meet.
My first guide to learn about things, people and places;
the seat of my early dreams, hopes and fantasies.
When twilight comes and stories are told,
Home remains in my heart to cherish and behold.
Deborah Caplow
October 21, 2015
My Mother Gave Them To Me
The dusty pages sent to me, piled in a box
Remind me who I was then, not how I would be now.
Wrote about the gray, wind, rain, how chilled I was.
Feel soft cold air again, in letters to my future self.
I didn’t know how long I’d stay.
Valerie A. Gray
October 20, 2015
Home
Where I am free
To laugh
Watch movies and nap
Listen to music, write
Watch hoop games
Eat ice cream at midnight
Home
Where romance lives
Unencumbered
Where kisses bloom
Peace reigns and hope resides
No matter the address, structure or journey
The need for home
Spans across humanity
Lindsay Little
October 19, 2015
Perdóname, Is This Home?
Perdóname.
Mi mama ha aprendido
el ingles,
y ya,
Estoy aprendiendo
el español.
Y ya,
Estoy
perdiendo
todo lo que pensaba
perdiendo
todo lo quería ser la verdad
perdiendo
mi mente, mi corazón, mi alma-
para encontrar
que
hogar
No puede ser un idioma.
Uma Rao
October 18, 2015
Amma, Where Is My Heart?
I saw the light shine green through the glass and I stared.
I looked away and I saw her.
I think her eyes were smiling at me, I heard pieces of chocolate pour into a bowl.
I wondered—is this the sound of my heart melting?
Kathy Heffernan
October 17, 2015
Standing Stones-County Cork, Ireland
Some say Stonehenge
is spectacular, but that’s not
my line. No crowds
in this silent valley.
Altars from unknown ancestors
circle round me. Here,
where blood calls
to blood, I hold
memories not my own.
This is home
where the stones
hold up the sky
Douglas Lidz
October 16, 2015
I Am Not Of This Place
I am not of this place,
but it is in me now.
I am not from this place,
but my daughter is.
Before this place there were other places,
but my roots did not grow deep enough to hold me there.
But now, when I write HOME, I write…
SEATTLE.
Shreya
October 15, 2015
My Home
My home is where I belong
Where I have my loving ones
There is a grandfather clock on my wall
Where it sits, all day, so long
The fire burns bright in the fireplace
There are cushion-y chairs you can sit in
Where you can watch the fire,
burn bright
Tobin Marsh
October 14, 2015
Sacrament
God is a tree in the forest
behind my house
but I am not given
to know which one.
A bent sapling
or a great Hemlock —
it’s all the same,
in the evening
when I am walking
the narrow green path
with my thoughts
and a cup of wine.
Rachel Thorn
October 13, 2015
Where I Belong
Home is the people who miss me
When I am far away,
The place I think about
Every minute I am gone.
It is fresh baked bread
And laundry on the line
And kitten paws
And four walls that are my own.
Home is where I belong.
Suzanne Bailie
October 12, 2015
Refrigerator Door
Home is where the heart is.
Really?
Hearts, in jars, on a glass shelf.
Gross.
Hearts, on tattooed arms with bloody drips?
Uh no.
Hearts, by teenagers, their folded fingers and palms touching?
As if.
Hearts, drawn in purple crayon on paper, taped to the refrigerator door?
Yep, like that.
Deqa Mumin
October 11, 2015
Home is Broken
Home is the place I call broken
The pieces of love and hope scattered in the heart of memories
It is happiness
Home is not whole glass shapes
It is beautifully broken
My one broken happiness
Because why have pieces shaped perfectly
When they can be shaped beautifully
Thoa Nguyen
October 10, 2015
Proud of where you are from
Home is where I am safe and cared for
Home is where I learned to be me
Home is a place I can dream all the time
Home is where you just know it when you see streets
Christina Finley
October 9, 2015
a soft breath
it’s that place where
(the flowers grow sweet)
when you press through the mountains or come by the hills
you breathe easy
where your feet rooted eternally
home is (softness and beauty, tangled in your heart) safely north
of where life can rip you
you are always welcome here
Thu May Tran
October 8, 2015
QUÊ HƯƠNG TÔI
Bình Đại quê tôi đẹp mỹ miều
Hàng dừa soi bóng thấy càng yêu
Mục đồng nhóm trẻ vi vu sáo
Chim lượn cò bay rộp cánh đồng
Lúa xanh mơn mởn tình thôn xóm
Thiếu nữ thướt tha mái tóc thề
Vắng bóng xa quê mười năm lẻ
Nhớ hoài Bình Đại xóm thôn tôi.
Tram Dang
October 7, 2015
Home is…
Home is an adjective,
an adjective that describes a sense of belonging.
Home is a verb,
a verb that stirs people to act – to fight for it, to protect it
Home is a noun,
embodying the idea of love, the people that matter and places dearest to our hearts.
David Tookey
October 6, 2015
Pots of Gold
There, a rainbow outside the window-touching gently in the north and south-causing
mischief during the 5 o’clock rush hour, tempting drivers with pots of gold, distracting
people from the serious business of getting home. Rain reminds me of rivers my father
and I fished for salmon long ago.
Shelby Handler
October 5, 2015
The Moon Lays In Bed With Me
and we compare definitions of home.
Moon croons of gravity,
pull and cycle.
She swings into my window,
I give her the scent of latke oil
and Shabbes candle wax.
I show her the orchard
of split tongues.
A sway settles in us:
the shiftinginfinite home
of diaspora.
Tara Hughes
October 4, 2015
Oasis
Home.
The oasis in the sandy desert of a suburban wasteland.
Crowds of people around but loneliness doesn’t go unseen.
Heading to the place more familiar to these eyes than the empty seat next to me.
Although there are less people here I am less alone.
Home sweet home.
Duncan Gillepsie
October 3, 2015
Home is
Home is a space
A very nice place
To dance and to sing
You are always the king
You would like it a lot
You can be on stage or not
Home is a very nice place
Community Poetry Workshop Participants
October 2, 2015
La humedad de la tierra
La humedad de la tierra
La humedad de la tierra
Que yo persivo
Toditas las noches
Toditas las noches
Que estoy contigo
Ay arriba y arriba
ay arriba y arriba y arriba ire
yo no soy marinero por ti sere
yo no soy marinero por ti sere
por ti sere
Darcy McMurtery
October 1, 2015
The Proposal
After the war, orders sent him west.
In tidy lines he wrote:
Come see the ocean, stay for dinner.
She packed his photo and her best dress into a single suitcase.
As waving wheat stalks slid past train windows,
she closed her eyes and smiled at
dreams of a home.
Talena Lachelle Queen
September 30, 2015
Wild Berries
Here the blackberries grow wild,
they get wacked and treated like weeds.
There ain’t no fallen berries
on the curbs back home.
I picked some blackberries for you.
I’ll put’em in a pie or custard or something
sweet ’cause you always liked
blackberries and I always liked you to smile.
T. Clear
September 29, 2015
Here
Where a chickadee nest hangs
outside your window,
comfort like a soft sock.
Where sweet peas twine
with morning glory in heavenly blue.
Where tomatoes blossom
their promise of August fruit.
Where you walk in the door
and sigh, weariness slipping loose.
No place else to be.
Anna Mortensen
September 28, 2015
Front Yard
The red white and blue flag
hangs outside the window
above the wild green shrub
dancing gracefully in the wind.
The thriving garden grows
next to the old wooden swing set
and the clucking chickens.
Cluck! Cluck! Squawk!
Sunny Balfour
September 27, 2015
On The Roam
Home is on the roam
A pilgrimage, gold dome
Alone, solo out of Show Low
Solace chasing moving quick, though
Face masks blast past, twilight zone
Heart is on the range
Sunset fire grilled flame
Never remaining unchanged, thanks to pain
I remain
On journey, the gurney for my soul
Faith Allington
September 26, 2015
Dear Mom
The sun has traveled
from you,
following California’s coast
and nearly vanishing in Mt. Rainier’s icy fog
before being rescued
by a sea breeze.
The city is rejoicing,
the fountain at Seattle Center
busier than during the 1964 World’s Fair.
Thank you for sending me something
for my new home.
Mercedes García
September 25, 2015
Mi Casa de Cañas
Desde lejos vine y traía
sol y cielo jóven,
recuerdos de caña que crecía
en tierra que germina.
Verde de cañas adorado
olores de azúcar y mieles
con campos de fruta sembrados,
y la sonrisa noble de mi gente
geografía mental que se limita,
porque cabe en mi alma.
Stuart Greenman
September 24, 2015
If You Were Awake
I would write you if you were awake,
But the door has turned to stone,
And the woods encroach, encroach,
And lying on your marble bed,
You smile and smile that secret smile,
Just to think you’ve left me behind.
Stuart Bloomfield
September 23, 2015
New Home
Today I bused home with mom from the post office.
She was inside a box, CREMATED REMAINS stickers slapped on all sides.
She’d been shelved in a mildewed apartment’s closet for a decade.
I pointed out landmarks in her new neighborhood as she rested comfortably in my lap.
Steven Buckminster
September 22, 2015
A Piece of Home
The first time I left home, my Grandma gave me a quilted writing tablet which she called
her “little Piece of Home”. I have since taken that quilted “Little Piece of Home” everywhere,
so no matter how far I roam, I always have a “Little Piece of Home”.
Sarah Baker
September 21, 2015
Homing
Home is spun, a sticky
body bound—made
more maker, less stead,
more land. I want
to be base-
less so I’m always
in the stretch
of free, sweet leaving.
I run away;
how a pigeon finds
her page—can’t be
sick if I’m grown
from a home with range.
Danielle Miller
September 20, 2015
Cave
Home became a place I could not leave
Tiny warm bodies synchronized breathing
Chests rise and fall robed in fur
Shrouded deliciously in blankets of darkness
We wrap ourselves in down
Invisible
Shaaron Droke
September 19, 2015
A WIDOW’S WINDOW
Home once was an Idaho river valley,
the foothills warm with deer and sage,
red-wing blackbirds atop backwater reeds.
When did it become this ashen Northwest sky
of pining winds and gulls that screech?
My compass points north and south,
crosses borders—Canada, Mexico—
searches for the sun
Susanne Sturm
September 18, 2015
This Waltz
I knew my father was home by my mother’s quick tuck into the vanity,
to apply fresh lipstick.
He’d hang up his coat, toss back a shot, then turn to kiss her hello.
Her face, flushed from cooking, turned up to his.
Whatever order the steps, this waltz was theirs.
Susan Rich
September 17, 2015
Missing Home
Eight hours. Enough for everything
to run tired ~
Whenever I step away
from my swath of sky, my water-lush
lip of the planet, I wonder
will my house survive
the alley cats of rainstorms, the monarch filled streets ~
When did I convert to domesticity with a house key?
Daniel Taylor
September 16, 2015
Lost
Power up, accept these terms,
Rapid acceleration closer,
The bridge carries me.
Staring out at the water.
How is my darling?
B u f f e r i n g,
Connection lost!!!
Severed from my love,
An endless ride home.
Just need to write her…
Perhaps I’ll use my phone.
Brenda Skinner
September 15, 2015
Morning on the Farm
Breakfast with Gampy
Plain donut dipped in sugar
Orange juice carton
The kitchen dinette
We eat and drink quietly
Mother cat meows
Feral kittens in tow
He pours the milk in lipped bowl
I fill the Friskies
Anna Vasilevskaya
September 14, 2015
Саммамиш
Вот олениха идёт с оленёнком,
Под гору мчится мамаша с ребёнком,
Бак перевёрнут, и сорвана крышка –
Значит, наш бак инспектировал мишка!
Зайцы и кошки, кроты и собаки,
Птицы и рыбы, зелёные раки…
Люди и звери ‐ мы все живём рядом
В городе, схожем с большим зоосадом!
Steve Potter
September 13, 2015
Anniversary
I’ve been living for two years
in this small, cluttered studio
full of books, beer bottles
and rock and roll records
living the odd life
that has always suited me,
sitting quietly for hours
staring out at the interstate,
dreaming it’s a river
and writing small poems
like this.
Megan Snyder-Camp
September 12, 2015
To create the distance a frontier demands.
Green hunger splitting the husk of our lives.
The husk turned from.
To seek out that turning, that distance.
To set it loose. To watch it learn to walk.
To build a home beside it.
With what wood we found.
Michele Gill
September 11, 2015
Voices
Home is the sound of voices I have loved;
my mother’s French accent, asking me for lemons
to squeeze into a pot of boiling grape leaves,
her hands tattooed with their fragrance,
my grandmother’s strained whispers,
like the simmering garlic cloves,
my great uncle’s laughter, as wide
as a vineyard.
Susan Casey
September 10, 2015
Smokehouse
Inside, summer goes dusky, cool.
Floor-to-ceiling ovens:
fires below, apple wood glowing.
Above, links of kolbasi.
My grandpa, his greasy work clothes.
White hairs swiped across his head.
On my tongue: garlic, pepper, ash.
I’m well-seasoned—
the flavors of his other world
deep in my veins.
George Miller
September 9, 2015
Writing Home
Better that I take advice of a melodious dream
Enlightening every way
Dude sneezes behind me because collie’s gleam
Got time for a breakfast’s entree
Perfume of roses, cinnamon and vanilla bean
A steak-jerky embracing a late brunch
Jimi’s Experienced is a hysteria satisfying NIRVANA’S fien
Catch-of-the-day, crispy baked crunch
Lisa Noble
September 8, 2015
Thursday Nights In Burien
Farmer’s Market, salsa and sunflowers
B-Town Beat and the Art-walkies are walking
Visionaries planing Arts-A-Glow:
Let it Shine, glitter happens
Pipers pipping Highland Daydreams
Winding road with Sound view glimmers
Wisteria Draped mystery: Narnia and Stout Ice-cream
Bag-pipe Music follows you home
Rebecca Loudon
September 7, 2015
Morning brought wetsuits draped like soft skins across the rhododendrons
Gone are my forbidden Saturday Cheerios,
cartoons, lazy lounging in pajamas, in bed.
Surfboards propped against the garage
signal get up! get up!
Oh wild children, have you returned to vex me?
Did menacing thunderheads drive you
from the rocky shores of La Push?
Did a shark spit you out?
Flora Cummings
September 6, 2015
My Home
Home seems to be pictured
in my mind
as,
my favourite place to eat,
the safest place to sleep,
and the perfect place
for my imagination
to grow
and for my dreams
to fly.
Sumaya Ali
September 5, 2015
Hobyo
Xaraf lagu amaaniyo Dalku xiiso kala mudan
Midka xoorta taaloo Xareediyo udgoonka leh
Xoolahoo barqanayaa Xiskin ugu tagayaa
Xikmadiyo aqooniyo bulsho xeersan lagu dhaqo
Xeebtii hobyoodiyo Ximman baan u baxayaa
Xukuniyo sinaanshiyo Xeer wanaag u dagayaa
Sibyl James
September 4, 2015
Letter from Grandma
“Icy sidewalks going to Mass.
I stuff the window cracks
with rags, but the draft steals in.”
Home was her father’s house,
then her husband’s, both now
only photos pinned above her bed.
Fine mesh secures her curls
against the disorder of dreams.
” Always, I am loving you. Grandma.”
Laura Shoemaker
September 3, 2015
Cutlass
Two miles down a dirt road
and still no sign,
no mailbox to pin
everything into place.
The engine purring,
inside, everything shimmied,
the tape deck, our touching.
Where we always went
when we didn’t go home.
That back seat, a universe
where nothing hurt us.
And the river swelled.
Shin Yu Pai
September 2, 2015
Ballard haiku
Hagar the Horrible
wheatpasted on concrete blocks –
nod to old Ballard
Claire Zhang
September 1, 2015
Hold On
Home is rest, home is peace.
A place where
all worries are overruled,
you can dream of your ambitions
and feel triumph
like you’ve accomplished something great.
Something to say ‘Don’t stop dreaming’,
to give belonging,
love,
joy,
Home is your rock in the sea of life.
Anh Phan
August 31, 2015
Memories
Before age 11, home was an old wooden house.
Dad just came home, tired, sweaty, but smiling
“Dinner is ready, everyone!” Mom shouted.
Days of innocence, we munched away happily
The greens & rice prepared by loving hands.
Later, we fell asleep, listening to the rain
Drip, drop… drip….drop…..
Sheryl Shapiro
August 30, 2015
Telekinesis
If she placed herself just right
she could move beyond the walls
past the concrete and brick
the asphalt
the scuttling of vehicles
the sudden siren
the screeching child
A shimmering of leaves, a sighing of tiny wings
The soft river of wind
Barefeet dancing on the wires
Community Poetry Workshop Participants
August 29, 2015
La humedad de la tierra
La humedad de la tierra
La humedad de la tierra
Que yo persivo
Toditas las noches
Toditas las noches
Que estoy contigo
Ay arriba y arriba
ay arriba y arriba y arriba ire
yo no soy marinero por ti sere
yo no soy marinero por ti sere
por ti sere
Catalina M. Cantú
August 28, 2015
Reflexiones en casa
Escalando pétalos de rosa,
rosas como las orejas de mi gato,
susurra, bienvenida/o.
Mamá y yo
plantamos esas rosas,
hace cuarenta años.
Yo, impaciente por andar en bicicleta,
para arremedar los ecos de los pajaros
mientras me hablaban los árboles.
Hoy, entierro a mi madre,
con pinos y rosas.
Te amo mamá.
Shannon Apo
August 27, 2015
Rainy Day At The Ridge
It always rains here’
I follow her disdainful gaze
Toward a sweaty window
Evergreen trees circle the ridge
Dancing so slightly
To the tune of darkening sky
A dusting of snow waits
Patiently to be reborn
In rivers and streams below
I wrap her purchases and smile
‘Yes’ I reply
Courtney Hudak
August 26, 2015
Daughter
She started out so light
a mist, I barely noticed her.
Over time, she gathered strength
against the mountain that was me.
Water over stone, she wore me down.
How surprised I was to find,
mist to rain to river,
she carried us both to sea.
Shane Guthrie
August 25, 2015
Dear Dad
When I was not a parent
I could tell you what you were doing wrong
And exactly what you should do instead
But now that I have kids
I’ve lost that power
Paul Mullin
August 24, 2015
Instant Messenger
Don’t let not knowing who to mail it to
stop you from sending praise. Just drop
gratitude anywhere, everywhere.
It’ll get where it’s going.
Praise the connections and contingencies,
the blocks and bruises, the stupid choices
that led to this dreamy-eyed kid kissing you.
Praise every worn corner of concrete.
Shahani Sainulabdeen
August 23, 2015
Monsoon memories
Through my ancestral house’s jalousie panes,
I witnessed the seductress supreme;
A drenched monsoon siren
with black and blue hues,
who descended in June
and vanished in August.
But now from this high-rise,
All I see is a graying lady.
Mumbling almost every day
in a foreign and pacific tongue.
Sean O’Connor
August 22, 2015
Missed Connections
Being on the way home
Can get in the way of
Really being on the bus.
Can get in the way of
Really seeing my fellow homeward-bounders.
Connected by a pull-cord
Competing to be the first
To pull the cord
That stops the bus
That brings us home.
Ian Mortensen
August 21, 2015
How to Climb a Tree
Pick your tree
Reach up to the rough, gnarly branch
Fall down
Get up again
Grab the branch and pull yourself up
Smell the strong sent of the tree
Get covered with the sticky sap
Be bold
Climb higher
Reach up to the sky
Hold on tight
Enjoy the view
Richard Clemons
August 20, 2015
Home
HOME
How I miss the protection.
Genuine laughter.
The museum full of past achievements.
My best friend waiting to listen.
First steps.
Lasting memories.
Where my body desires to rest.
The place where all my dreams started.
Its where my heart desires.
How I cant wait to come back home.
Sara Brickman
August 19, 2015
Returning to Michigan’s Woods, the Author Makes a Discovery
Rusted car, you are a colony
of bees. Colony as in not belong
here, blooming
under dogwood branches.
Buzzing thrive
in a mountain of skinned blackberry,
swarm
set in your leather with a song,
broken-seeming stinging-honey, how
have you been my mirror
every day
of my feral life?
Robert Zverina
August 18, 2015
Round Trip
You board the bus a child, step off as an adult.
In between, years flash by like skipped stops
on an EXPRESS route. The you you were waits
back there, fare in hand, asking, “Did you forget?”
You can’t go home again because part of you never left.
Katharine Ogle
August 17, 2015
Home So Small Far Away
The front door was red then.
When I had to wait I thought
of cicadas. When I had to cry
I went to my spot by the creek.
There was no smell without taste.
I had a thing for rain. To be alive
in the throat of a flower.
Claudia Mauro
August 16, 2015
Occidental Park
Those parking meters
used to be red cedars.
There were long tides.
The salmon turned
into people here.
You can still see
our silver quarters
flashing
with the sun.
Lois Van Leer
August 15, 2015
Home
Seven years a refugee.
“Home” I scrawled on the tiled shower wall
in the red of a child’s crayon
leaning into the wet of my sobs
cradled in the pounding water:
“Home, I want to go home.”
But is there a land of return
for the broken heart?
Rebecca Landa
August 14, 2015
Thin Walls
One “thunk” and I’m awake–
My upstairs neighbor’s baking cake.
Flipped the pan, spilled the bowl,
Sent the pieces out to roll.
I fall back to sleep but not for long.
A radio… what is that song?
Alarm nextdoor every morning at six
Is a problem I just can’t fix.
Rayshawna Mack
August 13, 2015
To you From Here
No matter where I go
when I think of home
it changes everything
from the time flow
to the aura
and I write my letters to you
Lucille Chang
August 12, 2015
The Paradise Of My Mind
Sitting on a mottled seat
while waiting for an e-mail to open,
I glance at the construction tower cranes
dotting the skyline
above the cars humming by
in tandem formation.
Home,
however,
is within;
it exists as
the steadfast companion traveler
cradled inside
the paradise of my mind.
Raven J. Demers
August 11, 2015
Yama on Ice
The delicious crunch
Red hunting boots
tread frozen soil
Lord Yama in lady’s dress
fur-frocked and eager-smiled
to bite through deathly
Winter’s chill
The bone hush of boughs
breaking first green
then red. Then white.
Nhan-Kiet Ngo
August 10, 2015
Đi Về
Gập ghềnh lăn xả trên đường
Quanh co khúc khuỷu tìm phương đi về
Bốn mùa lèo lái mải mê
Nhịp đều lui tới trên lề thời gian
Rachel Tyrrel
August 9, 2015
Uprooted
I used to be a solid oak
Now I am uprooted.
Torn from the ground
Against my will
Now I lie in shambles.
Branches that once reached toward the sky
Strewn against cold hard concrete
A gaping hole where I once lived
Now fills the home I once called mine.
Zach Miller
August 8, 2015
Window
In November, Russia
invades the apple limbs:
a sliver of ice,
and three gold leaves.
Japan bleeds
into the blue inscriptions
of the porch bell.
This afternoon the last
leaf fell into the creek,
became a fast black ship
spun out to sea.
How could I go home?
Andy Rodriguez
August 7, 2015
My home
My home is where the wind yells
and the clouds cry.
My home is where the trees grow
and the seas roar.
My home is where fun is around the corner
and memories are created.
My home is where history was
and history is made.
My home is Seattle.
Maria De Lourdes Victoria
August 6, 2015
Somos todos y somos uno
Granos de maíz
En el mismo olote.
Somos todo. Somos uno.
Conciencia compartida.
Pensares autónomos.
Gotas de mar
En el mismo océano.
Somos charco y pizca de agua.
Médula líquida.
Huracán y chispa.
Somos grano. Somos gota.
Himnos exiliados.
Víctimas o fuerza capaz
de partir aguas
y endulzar la mazorca.
Devin Miller
August 5, 2015
Barnacles are my welcome mat
The beach still smells like salt,
mud and stones and sea stars.
When I was little the corner of the bulkhead
had more limpets.
But it smells the same,
and a sand dollar still pays my way
from woods to sea
and home again.
Megan Helmer
August 4, 2015
suki plays with leo
i dream of you sick at home
on a plane i ride to the other side
in the east coast sun i run
smiling free with rest
you home on break out west
i dream of you
giving comfort sweet blossom
to our wild lion
i will be home soon
Michelle Peñaloza
August 3, 2015
Imprint
The melody of a first song vibrates
through the cochlea’s staircase;
a fetus stirs at the sound of her father’s voice.
Return to whatever you never knew
you left, to the immediately recognizable
unseen like the message within a tree,
revealed only when sawed down
and split the length.
