Tora Estep
“Ruddy Crow”
Inspiration piece

Night Mood
By Lisa Bloom
Response

I listen for his coos
and wait for oxygen.
He signals his next move,
then I’m at peace again.

Then he turns on the night
like a faucet, tidal
and unrelenting, right
as I hit survival

mode. Dressed in tails, as though
we’re at a party, late
into the evening glow,
he takes my hand. Deflate

my lungs, I’m begging him.
I draw him into my
airspace, a moonlit swim
inside this mind. I sigh

and trace my finger through
the onyx mood. He’s just
a hologram, a clue,
a vision, soon to dust.

Is it all a disguise?
I’ll scream at the sky
until we’re wrapped in blue
atmosphere, and brand new.

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Jonathan Ottke
Inspiration piece

Don’t Trap Me
By Lisa Kilhefner
Response

You want to lure me in?
I’ll need directions.
You want to chain me up?
Well, I’ve got questions.
You’ll pull me in and force me out.
I’ll fall asleep, I’ll toss about.
This trap will only hold me ’til I’m weak
enough to lose my will.
This tension is the fragile kind. You speak,
but, quiet now, be still.

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Lisa Kilhefner
Response

She Will Sing
By Stefanie A. Shilling
Inspiration piece

speak not of ruby rivers
coursing through veins
they said

dare not light a candle
in a darkened room

hold your breath
while they wrap their fingers around
one by one
by one
by one
thumb upon carotid
in touch with their pulse, not yours

voices boom
from roots of great oaks
bubble up
from beds of deep seas

swallow the fire
again and again
growing the beast
inside your belly

there’s no taming an inferno

I’d rather burn my tongue
than bite it

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Paula Lantz
50”h x 40” acrylic and collage on canvas
Inspiration piece

Lisa Kilhefner
Response

I’ll race you to where the night sky meets the waves,
where cerulean melts the moon.
We can watch the colors, lying quietly side by side
(not a dance or rhyme or wiggle,
so careful not to quiver)

We roll over the cliffside, chasing those nocturnal coos
and whispering to no one.

Yellow glow starts seeping through
as though it has some permission slip,
like it could ever be blue.

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Lisa Kilhefner
Response

You’re tough // You can handle it
By Amy Souza
Inspiration piece

Blackberry brambles
are impossible to kill
But the fruit they bear
hangs tender on the vine

You’re tough someone
told me the other day
You always get back up
I don’t want to get back up I said

But they couldn’t hear me scream
When the dog was dying
she tried to hide
behind my nightstand

I shouted no and pulled her out
Does it matter that I held her for
hours before finally calling the vet?
She’d grown quiet in her old age

I hadn’t heard her voice in so long
I would have taken all her pain

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Jackie Wood
Inspiration piece

Pick up
by Lisa Kilhefner
Response

Pick me, pick me, pick me

Pick me up

Pick up, pick up, pick up

and go.

Pick me up and don’t put me down

Pick up, pick up, pick up

and up you go.

I can barely see you in the night’s complexion:

Heavy with mood,

Gloomy and heathered,

Sullen and dry.

Pick me up, pick me up, pick me up.

I’m moving in circles,

etching the atmosphere,

changing my mind.

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“Erosion”
Lisa Kilhefner
Response

The River in Me
By Amy Souza
Inspiration piece

The last time
I was a river
I dried up

The next time
I overflowed

Neither time could I
Figure out why
Which forces imposed
Themselves upon me
What reason
What pattern

As a river I
Learned to abide
Though that took time

I’d thought before
Becoming one
That rivers held sway
That they carried
Landscapes
Not the other
Way around

I thought as a river
I’d be in control

And then I dried up
And then I flowed over

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Sharon Murphy
“Finding Myself”
Response

Lisa Kilhefner
Inspiration piece

He looks like
something
I
want:

Sunset balloon ride in Cappadocia.
Buttery glide through a moonlit Venetian canal.
Tranquil slide down the Napa countryside.

But the sky is heavy with rain,
and the local water too murky to navigate,
and the drought has whispered adieu to the grapes.

And
I
want
something, else.

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Sharon Murphy
Inspiration piece

The Flourish
By Lisa Kilhefner
Response

You’re getting lost in her again, her lush
and ruby layers, sensual perfume
revealing more than you had sought. A blush
is coming through your skin, as now this room
is hot with summer sun.

There’s honeysuckle hanging in between
the day and evening glow, the small bouquets
in peaceful sway, so absolute, so clean.
You’re captivated as the blooms, ablaze
in gold, have just begun.

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Linda Sorrells-Smith
Inspiration piece

Lisa Kilhefner
Response

It was late in the evening,
trunk in the closet,
bourbon in your glass,
journals writing themselves,
Kentucky sky.
We’ve been cooped up here together for
too long.
Will you sew me up, my ripped leather skin
and bruised knees
and broken latch?
I can close but I get stuck and refuse to open.
Where is the library from years past,
from a generation that didn’t know so much?

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Note: All of the art, writing, and music on this site belongs to the person who created it. Copying or republishing anything you see here without express and written permission from the author or artist is strictly prohibited.