Poet's Ink Review

The thick, white water,
still, frozen—a bit of red string
snakes through to the wet,
the blurred shiver of currents,
the crumpled shadow
of a drowned kite.

Kenneth P. Gurney

Kenneth lives in Albuquerque, NM. To learn more about Kenneth, visit www.kpgurney.me.

A cold late December night
I rise from bed to go to the bathroom.

After, I drink from the spigot,
icy, a delicious long drink.

Returned to bed,
I conjure a full glass,
clear and still,
easing my mind toward sleep.

Michael Lewis-Beck

Walking snow,
deep snow in new boots,
stiff and rubbing the left ankle.

The land rise is not much
but long and, hard to lift the feet
I measure my steps.

Each step steady, breath in, out,
lungs fill with cold, a rhythm of ice and air,
I arrive.

Michael Lewis-Beck

Michael is a professor of political science and gardener in Iowa City. He began writing poetry in his “whiskey shack,” a timber retreat. He has published in Albatross, Lyrical Iowa, Daily Palette and with Bun Fight Press. His poems aim to “capture moments.” Recently, he completed a novel, Deadly Walks on the Riviera, forthcoming at Catstep Press.

break a minor bone,
be assigned to bed

and death a bear
napping out the winter

rises in his lair,
instantly aware

here is Spring
and ultimately honey.

Donal Mahoney

Donal, a native of Chicago, lives in St. Louis, MO. He has worked as an editor for The Chicago Sun-Times, Loyola University Press and Washington University in St. Louis. He has had poems published in or accepted by The Wisconsin Review, The Kansas Quarterly, The South Carolina Review, The Beloit Poetry Journal, Commonweal, and other publications.

Juncos fat-hopping the snow
Beneath an Illinois feeder—
The loyal tourists

Jason Sturner

Jason Sturner lives in Geneva , Illinois and works at an arboretum. He has published one full-length book of poetry, titled KAIROS, and two chapbooks: 10 LOVE POEMS and SELECTED POEMS 2004-2007. Please visit www.jasonsturner.blogspot.com.

Dec. 23 rd,
alone,
40 below zero,
he died a cold
winter death
on 105th Street
near North
Saskatchewan River.
In his steel casket
buried beneath
rooted frozen earth,
squirms the
lifeless breathing
of winter.

Michael Lee Johnson

Michael is a poet and freelance writer from Itasca, Illinois. He is the author of The Lost American: from Exile to Freedom. He has been published in numerous journals and has been published internationally. You can visit him at his website at poetryman.mysite.com.