can’t tithe a pittance

toward inner truth

so by avoiding your void

deepen it

disporting gotten gelt

as an unmelting heart

devoid

beggared for calming warmth

and the alms

of encircling arms

misapprehending

net worth for

an enmeshing web

of things

a midlife midas of much

bereft and untouched

elegant liquid

entraining containing

the most intimate form

of self expression

conforming the evolving

body of water

small seas of

self-possession

posiedon’s daughters

and sons comingled

enwombed

anew begun

engulfing and embracing

the conception

of conceiving

a crown around

a failing world

the circlet girding

ever tighter

disarming every

inner fighter

the enemy

from within

the king of

following sheep

reaping ego's

sorrow sown

to keep the power

of dumb sleep

and in the pitiless

grip of pyretic fear

pyrrhic loss

for pathetic

personal gain

pathogenic seeds

that by division gain

ascendance over

any sane morality

that remains in

the once and future

fraught kingdom of

thoughtless humanity

corona

ebola

marburg

flu

hanta

bubonic

hemorrhagic

pneumonic

too

a plague

a pox

on all your houses

ahchoo

the epithelial

chalkboard

where whites

write prejudicial rights

In their dotage

asteroids become

meteoroids

and flaring

under the gaze

of advancing age

we attempt to predict

their erratic final path

through the expanse

of the sky's night

trove of

treasured words

woven and

measured unheard

kept in mind

for those

born unburdened's hearing

their second sight crooning

the birthright horn

taking note of

an awakening

Summer's Eve

on your birth day

the apple of your Eden's eye

a welcome to earth day

We hope you take long to leave

and enjoy it all

along the way

bundles of joy

both an obervatory

and a laboratory

for mixing

the sweetness and spice

of life

Summer’s Eve

your birth day

is the apple of our

eden’s eye

A welcome to earth day

Sunday’s child

born bonny blithe

merry and gay

We hope you

take long to leave

enjoying it all

along the way

Bequeathing

baby bouquets

bundles of joy

posies of poise

Becoming both

an observatory

and a laboratory

for harmonizing

the sweet

the savory and

the spice of life

Love,

Proud Grandpa Pat

Oiling through the weeds

flick fin fin flick

scaled mail missile

kraken maw

scything jaw

minnows scourge

frog bite

gosling bane

insatiable

voracious carnivorous

anything appetite

Adrift on

the sensory

deprived raft

of deep sleep

unbound spread eagled

in the dark levitation

and distracted recall

of realities Past

preferring

hibernating

illusions

to the daily disenchanting

rude awakening

Winter cold

skeletal

snow marrowed

mind numbing

white penumbra

whimless encasing

desiccating

shivering dimness

Tiptoeing on the

emotional eggshell

of the full hormone moon

passions spate

and in flood spent

stretched thin as

high strung violins

keening small

mental voiced violences

between the sharp

equipoised silences

anticipating the mutual climaxes

Willowy woman

weaving and bending

grasses into yarns

warm to the weft

and joyful warp

of your harmonies

deftly fingered harp

Leaves hula

insects sway

the scents of

botanicals

waft into play

in hues of the

coming shining day

We, the rumor mongers of Athens protest. The willingness of the people to suspend disbelief has exceeded our ability to produce gossip. The public is eager to believe anything. Green socks increase fertility. Red Sox will win the pennant. So, we propose peddling the truth; always more plausible than fiction. We think that if you look into another's eyes, and exploit the paranoiac eagerness to believe, it is unfair to take advantage of such gullibility. It threatens our republic. So to protect juvenile society, we will desist from bombast. It is too easy. We will not be the shills for our own dissolution.

Name: Patrick Bonadeo

Title: Native Sons

Category Name: Poetry

Native Sons

Three fisher's sons

sailed to the east

where the sun

would never rise

Instead they found

the thunder's sound

and lightning in their eyes

Then the waves rose up

and wound them

in a trap net not their own

and the lake leapt up

to grave them

and so save them

from growing old

Kin and Ken

enwrapped then

cold in

Lake Michigan’s folds

No, not just boys

but brothers

seined warm from

the same father's vein

Yes, today they might

still be living

to the lee

of Paradise returning

had the Judas sea

not betrayed them then

to become a fisher of men

The air is blue

and so is

the sky

something catching slips in your eye

a plaguing question

to do or die

the dreaded reply

answered everywhere

as everyone's heard

and spread the word

join the herd

Lost

in the individual fog

mistaken for democracy

where the dismissed truth

is missed

and demagoguery

revered as pedagogy

no glowing ville on the hill

only monotony

of the plain

playing field

of moneyed monopoly

where your lost will

is the last testament

to the freedom you squandered

while squabbling over

undisputed truths

>

Every woman man and

infant is

found wanting

foundlings haunting

the formless dream

of happiness whose

spectre of perfection

is a pursuit fraught

with grasping and

failing to grasp

from first wail

to last gasp

that the womb warmth

is lost and evermore at

arms length

from our unsuckled

babe in the manger

strength