Monthly Archives: December 2025

Night Flight

Two hours of the year to go
and one step from the back door into darkness.
Quiet except
                      for trial fireworks as the mountain
counts down. Time on a tightrope.
Across the wash a few windows
still awake and streetlamps on their toes
straining for a view into the future.
There’s an owl
                           perching in the yard
and when her moment comes
she flies at barely shoulder height,
dipping first then rising,
on the way
                   to where spirits meet
with a wingspan twelve months wide.

David Chorlton lived in Manchester and Vienna before moving to Arizona and beginning to learn from the desert and its creatures. He occasionally returns to his other long term pursuit of painting. The Bitter Oleander Press published his book Dreams the Stones Have in 2024.

We All Had Other Plans

“My humanity is bound up in yours, for we can only be human together.” 
						Desmond Tutu


Nobody planned 
to be here tonight,
nobody, nobody, nobody,
yet the waiting room is full.

I rolled out of a nap
into a head on collision 
with the night stand,
lost that argument.

Patients on crutches, 
holding ice packs, 
some sitting in wheelchairs.
Faces grimace, masks torn off. 

Loved ones rub arms, 
hold hands, slump in chairs,
escape in phones. 
TV on, white noise.

Two walk in off the street,
they want a place to sleep.
Five more are announced 
by wailing siren, they get a room.

After a while, we start comparing notes, 
how long we have been waiting, 
for test or result, even the other plans 
we had for the evening; finally farewell.

Michael J. LaFrancis has been a trusted advisor to business, government, education and technology leaders and teams for over 20 years as they design, develop, implement and manage strategies to become more responsive to those they serve. He has worked for global technology leaders including Red Hat (IBM), Gartner and Digital Equipment. He has a B.A. in Psychology from Saint Leo (FL) University, is a graduate of the Organization and Systems Development Program at the Gestalt Institute in Cleveland.

The Dark Knows


I send my friend love and light in the coming year—
she replies loving the dark with an owl emoji. 
I too love the dark, like a letter tucked away 
to open in secret, the one I was waiting for, the one 
making all the difference. Night bleeds the body 
of day and its dailiness, chirrups full-throated 
to the wingbeat of owls. The other night, the one 
deep within, the two-faced Janus of passages, 
is no less a coin of opposites, no less a bodhisattva 
who knows what the dark knows and stories on 
anyway. I may steer toward light, but alligators 
are there, at my footboard, just as my father said 
to keep me in bed. All I can do is flip the coin, 
end to end, surrender anemone to its frail leaving, 
knowing winter glows blue in the moment 
of snowfall.    

Poet, playwright, essayist, and editor, Linda Parsons is the poetry editor for Madville Publishing and the copy editor for Chapter 16, the literary website of Humanities Tennessee. She is published in such journals as The Georgia Review, Iowa Review, Prairie Schooner, Southern Poetry Review, Terrain, The Chattahoochee Review, Shenandoah, and many others. Her sixth collection is Valediction: Poems and Prose. Five of her plays have been produced by Flying Anvil Theatre in Knoxville, Tennessee.

Pneuma IV

I breathe in
	Everything-
The sun
Flower spray,
	Flames and gas,
Art and
	Love-

Everything becomes
	A part of me
When I inhale.

Idaho exhales 
At the mouth of the Columbia,
	Everything that was there
	Is part of me-
And I exhale
	Simply breathing
	And let the breath
	Encompass the world.

What is there left to say about Marc Janssen, other than he should eat more vegetables? Maybe his verse can be found scattered around the world in places like Pinyon, Orbis, Pure Slush, Cirque Journal, Two Thirds North and Poetry Salzburg, also in his book November Reconsidered and his recent book collaboration A Resurrection of Trees. Janssen coordinates the Salem Poetry Project- a weekly reading, the occasionally occurring Salem Poetry Festival and keeps getting nominated for Oregon Poet Laurate. For more information visit, marcjanssenpoet.com.

Kelp

Jeanette Stickel’s poems have appeared in Spiritus, Sojourners, Fathom, Ekstasis, Todd Point Review, WayWords, The Orchard’s Poetry Journal, Canary and in an anthology published by Wiseblood Books entitled, Homage to Soren Kierkegaard as well as the Mendocino Women’s Poetry Anthology. She also received a first-place award for a collection of poems at the Mendocino Writers Conference and was nominated for a Pushcart Prize.

Feast of the Holy Family, Within the Octave of Christmas
	
	Arise, and take the young child and his mother, and flee into Egypt…
 for Herod will seek the young child to destroy him. KJV, Matthew 2:13
	

And, as told, Joseph escaped the tyrant’s 
Grasp, with his wife and infant son.
But what about the children

Whose fathers did not dream,
The not-so-lucky little boys of Bethlehem,
Whose blood still flows in bitter tears?

Lights now hang merrily on our own
Window frames, holly wreaths on our doors, 
Reveling in the joy of Christmas,

The startling midnight clarity of a world 
Dividing into before and after, 
God’s brazen flight into Time.

Shibboleths against another slaughter 
Of innocents? Our daughters and sons 
Spared another year? While we celebrate, 

In the gift of a Son,
This unimaginable rent of worlds? 

Maryanne Hannan has published poetry in both ALL SHALL BE WELL: A POETRY ANTHOLOGY FOR JULIAN OF NORWICH and THIN PLACES & SACRED SPACES. A resident of upstate New York, USA, she is the author of ROCKING LIKE IT’S ALL INTERMEZZO; 21ST CENTURY RESPONSORIALS.

Mysteries 

Jackie taught me how to make
toasted peanut butter and margarine 
sandwiches so everything was
melt in the mouth perfect.
She always knew the important
stuff. She told me I was born
in the time vortex between 
the northern and southern
hemispheres which seemed
as plausible as any explanation.

She said there was a whirling mass
of air that ushered in calves 
who waited for me to open my eyes.
On that day of celebration
their brown and white bodies
cavorted in the meadow.

Kristy Snedden has been a trauma psychotherapist for forty-plus years. Her poetry has been nominated for Best of the Net and for a Pushcart Prize. Her poetry appears in various journals and anthologies, most recently, CV2, storySouth, Door=Jar, and Gnashing Teeth. Her debut collection, That Broken Tooth, That Blue Tattoo, is forthcoming from Indolent Press in 2026. When not working or hiking, she love hanging out and listening to her husband and their dogs tell tall tales. She writes poetry because she can’t stop herself and loves connecting with other poets and creatives of all kinds.

Mountain Peace

The mountains where I walk
instil me with a deep sense of peace,

a shimmering lightness 
of relief and bliss in a place 
where my lungs can inhale 

a green breath of delight. 
My green hiking boots laden 

with mud stains, similar to 
the palate of a rainy day painter.

Each day for the past year, 
I have climbed this hill, 

ears snatching the sounds of chirping 
blue jays and other secrets whispered by nature.

To the left, a sleek stream flows, 
a gentle reminder of my own call of nature, 

as I meander between the bushes 
of the rocky path, squat in its magic, 

wipe and cover up, like my ancestors
did way before I had a chance to notice.

The silence and fresh air massage
my neurons and every moment here

is cherished as I rejoice in the wonder 
of what the creator whoever he or she is,

has left here for me to enjoy even 
if I must return to earth tomorrow. 
 

Diana Raab, MFA, PhD, is a memoirist, poet, workshop leader, thought-leader and award-winning author of fourteen books. Her work has been widely published and anthologized. She frequently speaks and writes on writing for healing and transformation. Her latest book is Hummingbird: Messages from My Ancestors: A memoir with reflection and writing prompts (Modern History Press, 2024). Raab writes for Psychology Today, The Wisdom Daily, The Good Men Project, Thrive Global, and is a guest writer for many others. Visit her at: https:/www.dianaraab.com. Raab lives in Southern California.

After the lambing 

I’ve seen photos of you 
in your father’s, mother’s arms 
 -one day, five, seven days old- 

but until I run 
my fingers round your toes
in, over crease and fold 

feel the warm weight of you
musky sweet 
fresh as the winter rose

I am like an old ewe looking 
for a lamb she will not find 
missing the trail of afterbirth 

pink cirrus in the snow
no, until I see you with my own eyes
I will not believe.

Jill Husser-Munro grew up in the north of Scotland and has lived and worked in Strasbourg, France, for over thirty years. Her work has been published in Poetry Scotland, Amethyst Review, The Alchemy Spoon, Wildfire Words and Dreich Magazine, Causeway Magazine.

Sunflower Sea Star
Old Home Beach, Trinidad, California, June 17, 2007


Luminous on dark wet sand, like a tiger lily 
in redwoods’ shadow. Left behind by low tide, 
over two feet wide.

A central disk and twenty arms 
radiating from it, moving in graceful ripples, 
while the tube feet on their underside extended and retracted.

A dance, I hoped, not a cry for help.		
Awe, and a wish to wash away 
the sand on your surface,

bring out the bright orange dotted with white spines,
willing the tide, just turned, 
to rise faster, kiss your arms, take you back.			

Six years later, a wasting syndrome appeared, 		
spread, wiped sea stars from the West Coast. 
"Functionally extinct" scientists say,

and search for a way to reverse your decline,	
so you can swallow purple sea urchins,  
sea urchins stop devouring kelp,
and the kelp forest can survive.

I must record this	
or I will soon think you were a dream. 

Why didn’t I wait to see you off? Did I leave 
to avoid being saddened by your departure?

No beachside breeze foretold that first encounter 
would be, to date, our only.

I still look for you at low tide, luminous 
like a tiger lily in redwoods’ shadow.

Simona Carini was born and grew up in Italy. She writes poetry and nonfiction (memoir, food, the outdoors) and has been published in various venues, online and in print, including the Amethyst Press anthology Thin Places & Sacred Spaces (2024). Her first poetry collection Survival Time was published by Sheila-Na-Gig Editions (2022). She lives in Northern California with her husband, loves to spend time outdoors, and works as an academic researcher. Her website is https://simonacarini.com