Stanzaic Stylings

The Memory of Dolphins Remember, I ask, the dolphins or porpoises, their beautiful shadows cavorting in the waves? We felt so lucky to see them then. When, you ask, when was that? It was just a few years ago when we went walking one morning, getting our toes in the lukewarm water. But the memory is gone, a photo that has been destroyed, an event that may as well have never happened. Such is reality, I suppose. ( first appeared at Verse Virtual.) JD DeHart is a writer and teacher.  He blogs at  jddehartpoetry.blogspot.com .

Nice to Know at Last What Is Meant Yes, it’s nice to become acquainted with sound and reason of other beings, makes one feel like one belongs to an invisible club – the lines were always drawn, but it’s helpful to know they were not imagined. It's remedy for the sanity. Finally nice to know what is meant by all these chuckles, to get the inside joke, to speak the vernacular, try it on like a glove on the tongue. Practicing in the mirror three times this morning alone. There now, doesn’t that feel better, or does it make matters worse, now with a heavy mouth? JD DeHart is a writer and teacher.  His writing has recently appeared at Cacti Fur and Oddball Magazine.

Ballad of the Fish  he swam upstream slapping his body against fate they called him Sammy soon he wondered what dry land felt like and put on some sandals flash forward Sammy is married and has two children (modest amount for a fish) he hides his gills in public but they all know there’s something about him – you could say something fishy, but that would be too obvious Rita, his wife, especially suspects his secret every time they go the river or to the ocean or to the sink she lives in fear that what she suspects is true and then also lives in fear that Sammy will discover her secret she is a sharp-beaked predator at war with herself. JD DeHart is a writer and teacher.  His writing has recently appeared at Cacti Fur and Oddball Magazine.

Vapor Trail following the path of what has been left behind a brief memory splash or flock of memories there was a wooden ship, the biggest toy imaginable, so big it was not a toy, but it was treated like one the smell of smoke, a confluence of ash trays there was an old man like a father, but not a father, the memory of his death now lost, an old lady who might or might not have been sane there was rain, an uncomfortable time, digging a grave, feet splashing in mud that's where the vapor becomes wisp and disappears with nothing but a name barely used anymore. JD DeHart is a writer and teacher.  He blogs at  jddehartpoetry.blogspot.com .