hope dances barefoot in the moonlight
in broad daylight
where people can see
WHAT WILL THEY SAY? fear wonders
but hope doesn't care
or at least somehow thinks differently about it
WILL IT LAST?
for now it is here
enjoy
and don't ask so many questions
- julie brunson

Love

Cherished like a crushed blossom I struggle
to open to the gentle caresses of the sun
tenderly trying to teach me of my loveliness
as though veins and stretch lines
are a beautiful variegation of color
on the petals of your rose.

Please, God, let it be true.
- julie brunson

family

clocks tick
or so we used to think
you're sick
for living in the pink
with me
when all along I'm sure
you see
you could've been secure
with words
and other forms of life
absurd
to think how dull the knife
that carved
our knotty little band
how starved
and yet how softly grand
- keith brunson

The Rope

And had this heart, in its delicate hope
And with flutterings of reluctant thought
Screamed the perpetuations of the rope?

Where first had been that blessed horoscope
Which then had known exactly what he sought
And had this heart in his delicate hope...

Then with his wiles sought for us elope
Before we, finally by time now caught,
Screamed the perpetuations of the rope.

Before I even knew that misanthrope
Or this prison cell where he had me brought
He had this heart, in it's delicate hope.

Then would that savior here descend the slope
Into this pit where now I sit distraught
And scream the perpetuations of the rope?
- derek hugen

Alive

The process of coming alive
Alive with the sweet nectar of joy
Joy that penetrates the bones
Bones which know great sorrow
Sorrow that resonates all the loss
Loss which cannot be regained
Regained love, emotion, pain, healing
Healing which opens fatal wounds
Wounds that cut deep to the heart
The heart aching to be redeemed
Redeemed from the loss of innocence
Innocence once in-dwelled this body
This body longing to be alive.
- cheryl russell

Seventeen

Swallowing nervous
I cover myself
With an awkward humor
Speaking whichever words will come.
Somehow
You melt these four and a half years
Like they never happened,
(although I see them in your gray)
and I am offended,
as I should have been
then.

Then you turn
From me
Like you know the power
The motion wields
To change the very construct
(blood flow, thought, and muscle tension)
of me.

You see me as the exact same man I was
At seventeen.

My mind sees what I have become:
Abstract thoughts
Which cannot fit into a form,
Awkward humor,
ADD impulsive,
Pencil doodlings on the edge of a notebook.
And finally
I realize that I am that exact same man I was
At seventeen,
Even to the hair and beard now longer,
And down to my hands shaking stupidly in the crowd,
Or when you turn away
Slowly.
Because you still can find no value
In anything that is me.

Stop shaking, hands.
Stop clenching
Over and over
'til your nails bite
into the flesh of your sweat-covered palms
sending your shooting impulses
to my frightened mind...

Realizing that I will never not be me.
And you will never not be you.
And we will always be led into this place
Where I am always seventeen.
- derek hugen