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• Cristina Alberto • Bill Beaver • dean creighton • Dancing Bear
• jeff filipski • layne russell • zen sutherland • Colin Will

The magic' s gone
Now something put out this light, the sea
becomes wider in the night.

Our eyes were used to the lighthouse,
the way it drew the line
between the soft glitter of the waves
and the rocks' black silhouette.

Little boats pass by this place in the dark, now -
that fantastical twilight is gone.

Cristina Alberto
Lisbon, Portugal
A Wake With Michael
michael and i

are in the front garden

i am pounding a big hunk of granite

making a powder to adhere to the rock face

of a waterfall/pond i‘m building

and i wonder if michael is really

here

in a cognizant sense

i entertain the fantasy

that as i taste the scotch

he tastes it

and i take a good slug for him

probably michael

no longer has a cock

nor acquired

a pussy

but maybe

he is sitting with

a 30 year old Sophia Loren

and letting her convince him

to fuck her

these thoughts taste nothing like scotch

but I presume

that they are all absolutely true

and false

so i pick the ones

which make me feel good

and try to figure

chaotic odds

that those are michael

and then i think

about the truth

of chaotic spasms

of tears

but i know

he would have dug

the waterfall.

dean creighton
Maple City, Michigan
To Michael McNeilley

your words your soul
as big as life
a sense of love in velvet tongues
you speak
we spoke
in the air of cyberspace
distant brothers
of the mind
of the pen
the kindness spread
from friends and lovers
your light
is their light
beyond the planes of common existence
to the thralls of the astral palace
like a flower in bloom
like the buzz of the hummingbird
like the wind through the trees of forever autumn
all an angels melody...

thank you, Mike,
for your infinite light
and may the grace of immortality
fall upon your wings....

filipski
Buffalo, NY
for Michael
a gray sky
in the middle of July

my cat catches a small bird and
leaves it on the walk

one deep purple chrysanthemum
blooms early

the death of a poet
ripples on the wind

layne russell
california
website
on coming home finding that Michael McNeilley has passed away

the soul is a bird
flown South
unknown climes

bird song
babbling brook song
pencil paper inkflow printsong
electronic tapping keyboard rhythm song

song
tell the world
a man is singing

wind passing through tall grasses
waves & prophecies
time's season flowers
blooms quick
fragile
easily crushed

beauty pauses
takes a breath
continues on

Bill Beaver
Tucson, AZ
Cut
for McNeilley
In a dream
you cut my hair
just enough to make
a difference.
Your long hair
a gold and silver
irony in the sunlight
moving through
the crack in a window.
It was so natural
the way you held the locks
over me and shaved
close to the skull.
A gray cat
followed the strands
like strange feathers
to the floor.
I stood up
remembering my lover
runs her fingers
in my hair.
The shears buzzed
in your hand and you
pushed your glasses
back up your bridge,
You can't walk around
like that.
I felt the newly cut path.
It'll grow back.

I had to leave. I knew
her hand waited to begin
its healing.
I felt young and stupid again.
You smiled,
Least I could do for a friend.

Last night, as the news
of your death deepened,
I read your poems
and waited for another dream
with you.

Dancing Bear
Editor-in-Chief, Disquieting Muses
San Francisco bay area
Mitakuye oyasin (All my relations),
Host of FM91.5, KKUP's "Out of Our Minds"
Dancing Bear's Lair
Flowers for Michael
Into the vase goes a vertical,
say a blue belled spike which goes up
but hangs down, because that way it balances.

Then two horizontals, towards you,
and to my side, and one should be purple,
and maybe berried, fruitful and giving.

The other, a single rose, red and truthful,
simple, yet not so, for complex things
can be said with the simplest of petals.

In the back, a furnish of leaves,
fronds for fecundity, startling spikes,
generous palms, and everything evergreen.
Colin Will
Edinburgh, in Scotland
WIND WHISPERINGS
Cold winds blow thru me,
and questions begging why
does emptiness resemble sorrow
when friends and lovers die?
We stand on cloudy towers
our pockets full of screams,
and hope a distant sunrise
will somehow warm our dreams
with it's streaks of golden light
arching past a filmy blue;
but a very rosy morning
means clouds are waiting too.
to curse the day, to curse the night
is wasting precious breath,
that embracing life, we not lose sight
of the mystery of death.

we miss the one's who've left us,
yet know they're waiting still
for our arrival soon is coming
beyond that windy hill.
Morn not the dead but weep for those
who live with resignation and with blame
and sadly who forgets the wind
is whispering their name.

zen sutherland
North Carolina
website

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