Poems for Persons of Interest

Jeffrey Rensch  has been writing poetry for 50 years.  Previous poems of his on Poems for Persons of Interest include " Being ,"  " Carol of disarray , " and " Thank you for the shivering ," which won the Thanksgiving Poetry Contest last year. Courage Courage, come when you can. Courage be mine, don’t make me Show you in order to have you. Courage, show at night from nowhere, The last alternative to terror, The only viable thing besides. When there was peace we put Our courage in a drawer and closed it Tight and the key got tossed And the side fused with the desk itself And soon our fingers slipped When we tried to tease it open. We grew afraid of the drawer. In a far metropolis I was mugged. They ran down an alley.  Somehow I Went after my life without a thought And grabbed it.  I was like a thief Myself.  How had I managed it? There was no drawer, only the thought Of losing felt like a death. Courage was nowhere till it was. Only when something else was ...

Liv Ross is an urban monk, a poet, a storyteller, and a student of Christian spirituality. When she’s not writing, Liv practices gardening, pipe-smoking, leather-working, and mischief. In the Spirit of Bezalel I take a breath. I breathe out a flame, for Your flame has been breathed into me. My eyes are on the prize, gazing at the gifts held in these hands rising to the task of creation. Art is born of abundance, and abundant are the ways in which to amend awe into the soil of civilization. It all begins with beauty. Yes, beauty. For you best believe that life and laws have limits when nothing guides our gaze or grips our guts, holds our hearts safe against the world's weather. Beauty lies in the eyes of we who behold it. Daily, we drink of deep drafts like dewdrops and tip out the tenderest of threads - slender, silver spidersilks - woven into the warp and woof of wonder. Consider. Even the carrion crow carries iridescent radiance in a certain slant of light. Or amethyst and gold....

Andre Demers is a poet and fictionist from  the  Okanagan Valley in British Columbia. He enjoys reading long poems for  the  Short Poetry Collection on Librivox.    The Gardener Mind Tonight the sleepless at their windows moan, "How sweet it would be to shed the spectacles Of language, learning it all again with eyes Fresh in the morning when my thoughts may matter, And concepts, that need no words to carry them, Would also leave me unperturbed. Please scatter Over my searching eyes a dreamless sleep, That neither memory or imagination Disturb my practice at the dying thing. Maybe the flashing over of our life Occurs at once, or over all the nights We spend a span in poking through the past In seeming needfulness, whether it be A memory aged a decade or a day." And the wind says, as a sandman singing to us, "The trouble with thought is that its object is Not clearly a free choice, since habit has Begun its bundle of conjunctive choices So very long ago whe...

Stephen   Bauhart  is a poet, a father, and a PhD student at the University of Calgary. After a twelve year writer's block he's back trying to make it all make sense in verse and rhyme Alberta Prairie Breeze A million million stalks of grass Sway and whisper, bend, and flow, Murmuring ‘round those who pass – Bid they “welcome”?  Bid they “go”? Just walk, my friend – you’ll never know. That murmur’s not for you, my friend – The secrets prairie breezes said, And say and say without an end Will still be whispered when you’re dead, To swaying seas of grass, instead.

Grant Shimmin  is a New Zealand poet born in South Africa. An editor for   Does it Have Pockets? , he has work in journals globally including   Roi Faineant Press ,   Bull ,   The Hooghly Review ,    The   Hemlock Journal ,   Blue Bottle Journal  and   Cool Beans Lit. This poem was originally published in KUDU . Spring song There’s a bird whistling a tribute to the reddening sky I think it’s a warbler Grey According to the bird books which don’t list the colours of its song  or that it rises above the criss-crossing, chattering chorus of the avian commoners-by-comparison  It’s the song of fast-coming Spring putting on a preview before Winter has a final wet whirl Of grades of gorgeous green grasping gratefully at hillsides where gorse bursts buttery from its buds Of pink and ivory blossoms  Of crisp mornings of blue and lightening hues of gold Grey royalty, this warbler Musical monarch of the verdant valley Would that...