Six
by Ted L Glines

you are born at six
on the sixth of June
you need not fear
the phase of the moon
for no amount
of holy water
will ease the fate
of satan's daughter
there is no love
not anything bright
for you are the dark
which eats the light
and yours is the voice
sighing in the deep
of forest dreams
where children sleep
for in the night,
the creaking night,
you have a name
and your name is fright,
but it's too early
too soon to mourn
for your time is coming
your time to be born

the phase of the moon
will bring new fear
and all too soon
when the clock tolls six
on the sixth of June

6:6:6

Slash
by Ted L Glines

Coffee sipped from a paper cup
dry paper feel on lips
cooling coffee - stale

memory shards

thick pine forest brown dark green
sharp scents pine sensual
needle carpet treads softly
soft shadowed welcome place
fuzzy ferns wild berries
thickets full of bird racket
squirrels scurrying chasing
(hear them laughing)
mother's nurtured home nest
eagles hunting scream
calm fishing hole croaking frogs
(deer come each dawn to sip)
all of life lived here
then

coffee cup refilled
thermos hotter - stale
paper cup rim now soggy

landrover windshield picture window

barren grey dust white powdered rock
dryrotted black stumps
stunted twisted green sprouts
trying - hopeless - trying
hot flashflood gullies
blinding reflected sun
squinting seeing endless death
where shade used to live
not a sound but empty wind
or is that Mother weeping
nothing moves lives
no birdsong anymore
no scurries croaks laughs
fishing hole is gone away
grey barnsized mounds
slash piles of blackened logs
barrow mounds for ghost pines
too twisted not shaped right
piled to dry and rot to bones
forest dreams in slash piles
sunbleached Weyerhauser sign
on its side - dead like the land
dry handfull of dust
hot and dessicated
sifts - dead - blows away

empty browned paper cup
on it's bottom rim it says
"Weyerhauser"
tossed away
life

Sister
by Ted L Glines

What is different about today
makes me smile and say “Hooray!”

I never missed my lack before
no siblings in my days of yore
no pesky brothers - sisters either
no lack was felt - missing neither.

Out of nowhere - here she came
just a client - another name
but my heart was surely peeking
finding something I'd been seeking
all unbeknownst to thee or me
a hug was waiting to be free.

Now she greets my dawn with smiles
emails - phone - across the miles
sometimes tears and sometimes glee
 just as wild as silly me.

And I wonder where's she's been
for all those years since I was ten
but I know - she wouldn't have liked
the way my early life was spiked
too much wildness - I do not jest
so now is right and now is best.

So I am thankful - glad and proud
say it grinning - right out loud
it does me good - like nothing other
to sign an email “Loving Brother”

What has changed, I ask you Mister
suddenly I have a sister.