“If you have an apple and I have an apple and we exchange these apples then you and I will still each have one apple. But if you have an idea and I have an idea and we exchange these ideas, then each of us will have two ideas.”

(George Bernard Shaw)

Armillary Sphere ~ Justin Tunley

Snap and poem by Mitch Hicks

I wish time would stand still
There is no time
Your time ticks away
My time moves me to tears
Many moons pass over
Shadows mark footsteps
Thoughts spin around
Time has me truly bound

when you find it

it speaks to you

there is a soothing voice

a touch, a sense

of belonging

the uncertainty of yesterday is filled with passion

grace and Light

it illuminates your every breath

when you find it

the covers come down from over your head

your feet slip into the shoes

that once didn’t fit

and you can walk forever

with a new attachment to the earth

beneath your feet

when you make the discovery

a warm shawl is wrapped around

shadows of doubt, fear

and disbelief

you take on a new stroll

a saunter, a strut

you are able to enter doors

that were once closed

open windows that were hammered shut

look through curtains that allow you to see

the view, for the very first time

when it comes to you

welcome it, answer it, embrace it

ride the magic carpet

ride the wave of fortune found

take the joy ride

home

Poem & Photo by L.K. Thayer

Edit by Giempe, France

© 2012

“Ink runs from the corners of my mouth
There is no happiness like mine.
I have been eating poetry.”

~Mark Strand,

“Eating Poetry,” Reasons for Moving, 1968

“It is, in my view, the duty of an apple to be crisp and crunchable, but a pear should have such a texture as leads to silent consumption.”

- Edward Bunyard

the house 

They are building a house
half a block down
and I sit up here
with the shades down
listening to the sounds,
the hammers pounding in nails,
thack thack thack thack,
and then I hear birds,
and thack thack thack,
and I go to bed,
I pull the covers to my throat;
they have been building this house
for a month, and soon it will have
its people…sleeping, eating,
loving, moving around,
but somehow
now
it is not right,
there seems a madness,
men walk on top with nails
in their mouths
and I read about Castro and Cuba,
and at night I walk by
and the ribs of the house show
and inside I can see cats walking
the way cats walk,
and then a boy rides by on a bicycle
and still the house is not done
and in the morning the men
will be back
walking around on the house
with their hammers,
and it seems people should not build houses
anymore,
it seems people should not get married
anymore,
it seems people should stop working
and sit in small rooms
on 2nd floors
under electric lights without shades;
it seems there is a lot to forget
and a lot not to do,
and in drugstores, markets, bars,
the people are tired, they do not want
to move, and I stand there at night
and look through this house and the
house does not want to be built;
through its sides I can see the purple hills
and the first lights of evening,
and it is cold
and I button my coat
and I stand there looking through the house
and the cats stop and look at me
until I am embarrased
and move North up the sidewalk
where I will buy
cigarettes and beer
and return to my room.

Charles Bukowski

“Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces,

I would still plant my apple tree.”

- Martin Luther

In honor of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday

Rain hazes a street cart's green umbrella
but not its apples, heaped in paper cartons,
dry under cling film. The apple man,

who shirrs his mouth as though eating tart fruit,
exhibits four like racehorses at auction:
Blacktwig, Holland, Crimson King, Salome.

I tried one and its cold grain jolted memory:
a hill where meager apples fell so bruised
that locals wondered why we scooped them up,

my friend and I, in matching navy blazers.
One bite and I heard her laughter toll,
free as school's out, her face flushed in late sun.

I asked the apple merchant for another,
jaunty as Cezanne's still-life reds and yellows,
having more life than stillness, telling us,

uncut, unpeeled, they are not for the feast
but for themselves, and building strength to fly
at any moment, leap from a skewed bowl,

whirl in the air, and roll off a tilted table.
Fruit-stand vendor, master of Northern Spies,
let a loose apple teach me how to spin

at random, burn in light and rave in shadows.
Bring me a Winesap like the one Eve tasted,
savored and shared, and asked for more.

No fool, she knew that beauty strikes just once,
hard, never in comfort. For that bitter fruit,
tasting of earth and song, I'd risk exile.

The air is bland here. I would forfeit mist
for hail, put on a robe of dandelions,
and run out, broken, to weep and curse — for joy.