Spring 2023, Volume 34

Poetry by Diane Webster

Reject

Ocean waves reject the walkway
as an intruder into its house.
Picked up by nailed-down slats
and tossed onto the rocky shore
the walkway lies paralyzed.

Vertebrae splay
in deconstructed destruction.
The ocean bulges its surf
into door-slamming affirmation.

Sentinel Guard

A bump of trees stands sentinel
like a grove of lighthouses
grown beside the shore.

Crumbly granite boulders
morph into sand millennia
from now to display a beach
ready for footprints erased by
each back and forth of waves.

A mound of trees grays
into spooky-fingered stumps
with nothing to protect them,
nothing to watch out for
like a lighthouse
succumbing to the sea.

Snow Crumbles

The snow crust crumbles
like parchment in amateur hands
thrust into pockets
in not-me fists as the man
strolls in constrained flee
trying to look innocent
when fractured flakes
flutter disintegration.

Plan B

The mouse is set at the start
of the maze to see how fast,
how far, how many turns
it runs before capturing
the cheese at the finish line.

Yeah, I smell it, stupid people.
It’s over there a ways.

The mouse rises a look
over the maze walls.
Its nose twitches the direction
as it tightropes, shortcuts
across the tops of the boards.

It jumps into the finish line
cubicle and nibbles cheese
good enough to lick its paws
and yawn a job well done.

Sand Dune Shadows

The slatted fence paints
zebra-stripe shadows
across the sand dune
until a herd gallops
in blurry wind gusts
into the sunset.

Shadows blend
into the night
like bedded-down prey
safe from the predator
that sleeps in its den
during the dark.

 

 

 

BIO: Diane Webster's goal is to remain open to poetry ideas in everyday life, nature or an overheard phrase and to write. Diane enjoys the challenge of transforming images into words to fit her poems. Her work has appeared in "El Portal," "North Dakota Quarterly," "New English Review" and other literary magazines. She also had a micro-chap published by Origami Poetry Press in 2022.