New Poetry by James Piatt

The Oaks Trees’ Voices

I hear the memories of
Oak trees’ summer voices,
Theirs is
A woody whispering language;
Their words
Fall like brown leaves
Upon my soul,
Their
Acorn verbs float in the wind
Curling around
Drooping trunks,
Their nouns oaken, and
Sturdy,
Their crusty adjectives wind around
Protruding knots, and
Twisted, crusted limbs,
Their mossy adverbs
Swift as a gale,
Lift me
To heights,
Far above,
My wandering
Winter thoughts.
Then in the threshold of
The icy season,
The brisk winds, swiftly,
Denude the voices
In preparation for the
Long winter, and
The crushing snow, will
Blunt the voices
Until the wakening of
Spring, and
Then new voices of
Blossoms, will
Bring emerald poems
And rhythmic songs of
Praise,
To my yearning
Winter thoughts.


- James Piatt 2011

James earned his BS and MA from California State Polytechnic University, and a doctorate from Brigham Young University. He has had one hundred and sixty four poems published in dozens of print and electronic poetry magazines, journals and anthologies; Tower Journal, Contemporary American Voices [featured poet], Long Story Short [featured poem], Vox Poetica, Pens on Fire, Word Catalyst Magazine [featured poet], Kritya: A Journal of Poetry, Taj Mahal, and Phati’tude Literary Journal [Interviewed poet] are just a few.

New Poetry by Benjamin Dodds

My Sky

Sometimes at 3 in the morning
there’s nothing I wouldn’t give
to see an ovoid capsule

settle with an almost inaudible thrum
on Downstairs Lisa’s immaculate lawn
just below the bedroom window

of my first storey Petersham flat.

When I’m in that mood
I’d even settle for a did-or-didn’t-it-happen

flickering-out of my private patch of stars
that might have been caused
by the silently passing magnetic swell

of something slow and immense across the sky

but it’s only the knowledge
that this will never happen

that lets me enter the sleep
of these uneventful nights.

- Benjamin Dodds 2011