Elections, legislation, human rights, time spent, truth told, and tolerance can all measure how things went this year. Our heads jerk side to side as we watch this absurdist tennis match. The consequences are real. People’s lives are being devastated. The whiplash is tearing the social fabric of this nation. It’s impossible to imagine our democratic system razed. We are incredulous, as we watch the dismantling of social safety nets that keep our vulnerable citizens cared for and fed. The nation is walking in murky water, toes feeling the way along the slippery bottom, uncertain if we are going to fall into a hole.

When you speak to folks in recovery, they will often talk about needing to hit their rock bottom before rebuilding their lives. And those of you who have been reading the PonyXpress may recognize how the activities of reading, discussing, and writing aid folks inside as they rebuild their sense of self and find a way to prepare for their lives once they release. This week, I have selected writing that reveals the messy bottom and the optimism of revision. It takes courage to not only sit in the stew and reflect but to then make meaning and share those thoughts with the world.

Solitude (Not Today) by AM Morrow
I let the undertow drag me, to the bottom of the lake
A weight tether to my leg, I lie and wait
No attempt to escape, I accept my fate
My mind’s made up, I’ll die this way

Beauty in the Loss by Ray’Eena Giles
In all the things I’ve lost,
There’s a lesson to be learned.
Sometimes to open doors,
There are bridges to be burned.

Bestowed by Austin Clark
It was not until a time of resolute desperation
that I understood that the act of supporting
this crushing weightlessness
was conditioning my mind and my spirit
to withstand life’s inevitable trials

Greener Grass by Jai
Gravel, more gravel than soil
All of it hard scratch
His endless battle waxes and wanes
Freedom expressed through
Grass producing lanes

Childlike Eyes by R. Miranda
To seek the unknown
is to venture not into darkness
Rather into light …
Enlightenment

A World of Woe by Christopher Lewis
“This is our planet,
a place we call home,
We must go on.
We will go on.
Our time is now —
be strong together
For a new beginning.”

Folks in prison come to the PonyXpress workshop, take classes, become peer-to-peer mentors, learn a trade because they are determined to do something with the time they serve. The reset is a deliberate process to forge a new beginning. Danny teases me incessantly about my compulsion to end a conversation with a summary. Yes, I like to tie a string around an unruly set of ideas to hold things in place. It settles my mind — well, until I release the string and resort the bundles. I suppose it is the natural part of my reset process, as evidenced in the weekly wrangling of this writing. And so here I am at the bottom of the post, at the end of 2025 (the year of the dumpster fire) with no tidy summary statement. We feel the political, social, unraveling, the sliding, the losses. I wonder how each of us will approach the inevitable changes ahead. Reset? Rebuild? Reorganize? Imagine new systems and structures?

How will you start over again? | TDS

Although it’s true
You don’t have to lose to gain
Sometimes a great loss
Can bring about great change.

In all the things I’ve lost,
There’s a lesson to be learned.
Sometimes to open doors,
There are bridges to be burned.

Nothing lasts forever,
So enjoy it while you can,
Keep memories like treasures,
Trust in the larger plan.

Know the only love
withstands the test of time,
But love without loss
is brittle not refined.

Loss can build you up,
or loss can break you down,
Accepting loss for what it is,
There’s beauty to be found. | RG

RAY’EENA GILES WRITES FROM COFFEE CREEK CORRECTIONAL FACILITY.

I let the undertow drag me, to the bottom of the lake
A weight tether to my leg, I lie and wait
No attempt to escape, I accept my fate
My mind’s made up, I’ll die this way
I tried to contain, a life of pain
As the water filled my lungs, I unlocked the chain
By God’s grace, I won’t rot away
Feeling hope, having faith – I say, “Not today”
Pressure on my chest, and the thoughts remain
Questioning what’s left, I begin to pray
With my last bit of breath, had I fought in vain,
Breaking free of the torment, I will not complain
I made it to the surface, heard the church bell rang
As the choir sang, my spirits drained, I said again, “Not today.” | AM

AM MORROW WRITES: AGELESS, RACELESS, ONE-OF-A-KIND, WRITING IS SURVING, ART IS AIR, CONSTANT AND EVERLASTING FREEDOM.

The unknown be great
The “Great Unknown”

To discover the unknown is beauty
Beauty observed through childlike eyes —
eyes unblinded from expectation —
expectations that seldom manifest

To seek the unknown
is to venture not into darkness
Rather into light …
Enlightenment

Shed the clothing of life
use not it’s tapestry as a comforter
To provide warmth on a cold dark winter night
Dare to be bare

Bare your heart
Bare your soul
Bare you mind …
Be open to all that is possible

For to search the unknown
With thoughts of what you’ll find
Is to blind yourself to the awe and wonder
ever seen through childlike eyes. | RM

R. MIRANDA WAS BORN IN SAN JOSE, CALIFORNIA. HE IS NATIVE AMERICAN (MAYAN, APACHE, YAQUI) AND SPANISH/ROMANIAN. HIS WRITING IS A FORM OF POSITIVE FOCUS AND HEALING AND EXPRESSION.

Imagine —
The sky falling
upon our heads.

Crashing —
Into earth below
almost destroying humanity
In just one blow.

Life —
Flashes before our eyes.
Temporary stasis
Causes chaos
all around the world.

Beneath the rubble
Scared and frightened
Trapped in darkness.

Waiting —
to be heard
Waiting —
to be rescued.

Those unscathed
Pour out onto this street,
Gather hand to hand
in unity.

“This is our planet,
a place we call home,
We must go on.
We will go on.”

“Our time is now —
be strong together
For a new beginning.”

CHRISTOPHER LEWIS WRITES TO EXPRESS HIS FEELINGS IN A POSITIVE WAY INSTEAD OF ACTING ON NEGATIVE IMPULSES.

The burdens of my youth
had been bestowed upon me
to crush and destroy my childish will.
The heaviest of which possessed no weight at all!
It was not until a time of resolute desperation
that I understood that the act of supporting
this crushing weightlessness
was conditioning my mind and my spirit
to withstand life’s inevitable trials,
and be thankful for the hard life
I’ve been lucky enough to live. | AC

ORIGINALLY FROM SOUTHERN OREGON, AUSTIN CLARK IS A MUSICIAN AND VISUAL ARTIST.

His hands are calloused
Skin cracked and leathery
From working the hoses
The water, the tools, and the rocks
Gravel, more gravel than soil
All of it hard scratch
His endless battle waxes and wanes
Freedom expressed through
Grass producing lanes
The hardest on the yard
Looming, implacable,
Scars and scrapes of brown
Exposed earthen flesh
Nothing and the naught
Conspire against him daily
As the sun creeps longingly
Across the miles wide sky
Sometimes blue and beautiful
More often cankered with clouds
A melancholy also beautiful
Making all things glisten
The brooding sky and the man
Share this timeless freedom
Ever rankling with naught and the nothing
In the fight to make grass grow through
Scrabble and scrap, manifesting splendor
And comfort for the rabble
Who may never even notice
The man, the sky, the water
And the work, with care
Consistently and constantly managing
The hard places | JM

JAI WRITES FROM OSP. HE IS A CONSTANT GARDENER.

Today is the winter solstice. The planet tilts just so to its star, lists and holds circling in a fixed tension between veering and longing, and spins helpless, exalted, in and out of that fleet blazing touch. Last night Orion vaulted and spread all over the sky, pagan and lunatic, his shoulder and knee on fire, his sword three suns at the ready—for what?

ANNIE DILLARD, PILGRIM AT TINKER CREEK

Dillard’s winter day quest contains the urgency of a young writer (just 27 when she wrote this masterwork) as she fills the final chapter of Pilgrim at Tinker Creek with fresh blasts of air and the deep water of contemplation — tying story and landscape into messy bundles that spill out in haste as her mind moves from one place to the next. It is an internal toll that draws to Shadow Creek.

A cast-iron bell hung from the arch of my rib cage; when I stirred it rang, or it tolled, a long syllable pulsing ripples up my lungs and down the gritty sap inside my bones, and I couldn’t make it out; I felt the voiced vowel like a sigh or a note but I couldn’t catch the consonant that shaped it into sense. I wrenched myself from the window. I stepped outside. (Dillard, p. 266)

This chapter is included in our final writer’s workshop newsletter to spark contemplation during Winter Solstice. We ask our writers to take time during the longest night of the year to consider that resonate sound (Dillard’s long syllable) inside of each of them. Locate the energy, that brightness. From this point: How do you write your life forward from this place? To extend our workshop’s reach, Lakota Club Chief Matt Reyes will send the newsletters to folks in solitary confinement. Very strong writing has trickled back to us from the hole, and we want to encourage folks to stay connected.

It is likely that you too are distracted by the gifts you have yet to purchase, wrap, and distribute this year. Prisoners have little personal space and few material possessions. Any goods come from the commissary — books and magazines can be ordered by someone on the outside and shipped directly from the source. Anything that is not approved is contraband and can be taken — this can include artwork that a person has made. As part of the writing project, we are able to provide certain tools (such as notebooks and drawing paper, and reading material) with pre-approval. The materials can be donated to the culture club at OSP, or through the volunteer services in other prisons. The materials are then distributed to each of the people engaged in our programs. We give each other the gift of our time and the sharing of our words. In that spirit, we have selected these pieces as gifts to you.

STARTED WITH A SEED BY CAROLYN STICKLEY
”The ghosts of fallen leaves
Decaying yet providing
Warm compost for the seeds
Far below.”

SEED: FAITH BY GINA BAKER
“Faith is a seed of positive action. Faith is a seed that emerges from hope.”

SEED BY MANDA MOONLIGHT
“I feel the beckoning
to release above
this soil”

FOUND SEED BY DANNY WILSON
“I found this seed in my pocket ten years ago, maybe more.
I left it there in the breast pocket of this old denim jacket, hidden from light, kept dry. The jacket usually only makes it out of the hallway closet in the fall for gutter cleaning, leaf gathering, and trips to the yard debris dump. I forget about the seed during winter, spring, and summer, only to touch it again after most of the trees have let us see their inner selves once more. This time I see that this cycle — shedding the old, laying bare for us to see, starting fresh without knowing what will grow — repeats and repeats and repeats. When spring comes again, I will plant this old seed and see what we will become.”

GERMINATE
As seedlings sprout out of the ground in the spring, solitary beings will appear. But of course, seeds are surrounded by the life force of micro-nutrients in the soil heated by the sunlight. The seeds work in harmony with a world we cannot perceive — does that make it magic? What is magic but an explanation for worlds beyond our first knowledge? Understandings are based in our most concrete and immediate senses. I see the seedling. I smell the first rain. The sun heats my skin, I taste the soil. This is how I explain the magic, through observation. What of that burst that comes forth? The open-armed seedling calls out: I am here. How does she harness the energy to survive?

Here is a memory from last spring: It is dark when I reach home, I am ruminating about dates for the next writing workshop and details I need to note before I forget. My headlights hit the driveway and reveal the shadow of light rain. When I open the door, a thick fragrance fills the car. It announces itself in high floral tones with the deep bass of humidity. My first thought is daphne, but ours is too small to be so assertive. I get out of the car, turn and look up. Against the dark sky I see a riot of white blossoms in the overhead tree. I turn and look down the darkened avenue. The moonlight reveals what I could not sense in the bustle of daylight. In one upward sweep of the conductor’s baton, the symphony has commenced. | TDS

Last week we published Le’Var Howard’s We Are Here. Be Present. His ideas seem simple. Sometimes simple ideas are the hardest to live day after day. How do we put aside our past self and future self to be present? How do we see the people in front of us and give them the respect they deserve? In this piece, Le’Var writes his “golden rules” — the beliefs he uses to navigate his life.

I’ve been thinking about belief as a cloak that we throw over our shoulders. It is protection from stormy weather as we negotiate difficult situations and people, losses, and trials. Over time (or during a deluge) even the finest cloak is permeable, leaving us questioning the very beliefs that have held us to this point.

Last week, one of our participants shared a free write about the loss of her child. She feels rage when people suggest that she must acknowledge this loss. She asks: How can I do this? In no world do I believe that she is gone. This dissonance between the fact of the death and the understanding of the death is profound. The gap is so unreal to this young person, she simply has no organizing principle to help her negotiate the loss. In another conversation last week, one of our writers talked about the loss of a great love. With tears streaming down his face, he questioned: If I stop feeling the pain of this loss, what will I have left of the love? Both participants believe holding the pain is better than accepting and releasing the loss.

It’s all tricky stuff. Perhaps belief needs to be woven into the very fabrics of our souls to hold us through all kinds of weather. What and how we do this … well, I don’t have an answer, but I like the question. Let’s read what some of our writers believe.

Alone by Melissa Black
My negative thoughts as I inhale, they begin to
expel. I replace them with …
- Unchaperoned in silence, I still can hear my soul calling.

My Endeavor by David Sankey
It is my “Warrior Way” to be fearless — to implant instructions into myself, whenever it is useful, and to be so humble as to recognize teachers in all capacities.

Restoring, Full Circle by Fernando Pelayo Brambila
Be first and sustain or increase your kindness
Know that you are not working for others
Nonetheless, your shade will be cast on those near you
You will be a reason to rejoice and to give back

No Man by Manny Cid
No man should be ashamed of shedding tears.
Tears bear witness to a man’s greatest courage —
the courage to suffer and overcome his fears.

Man with No Conscience by Anthony Crow Linebaugh
Man with no conscience
Here’s something to know
You’d better slow down
Before you lose control

Tested. Untested. The stories we tell about ourselves are another framework for our belief systems. In this case, we create a narrative about what we believe to be true about ourselves. The narratives have the power to impact how we move through the world. The past two months, our writers have been diligently working on a project for next year, Letters to a Younger Self. We asked our groups to come up with a project to benefit youth in the community. They decided to write these letters so that we might share their reflections with area kids. Our only instruction: Be tender with your younger self. Tucked into these letters, we’ve read some heartbreaking stories juxtaposed to deeply held belief systems. We look forward to sharing these with you in 2026. | TDS

Wasn’t the Almighty alone at the beginning?
Now being worshipped as the creator and ruler
of the universe, our Supreme Being …

My negative thoughts, I will push out of my mind,
the distant sound of words whispered like:
- Separated from the ones I love the most.
- I’m without aid and support, as the months have passed, not sure how long I can last.
- I am unaccompanied, and can feel my heart bleed in pain, for my soulmate.
- Unattended I sit and wait, only for the sun and moon to rise and set, they are my safest bet.

My negative thoughts as I inhale, they begin to
expel. I replace them with …
- Unchaperoned in silence, I still can hear my soul calling.
- Solely, my spirit sings inside of me, reminding me that I’m special and unique.
- As supremely singular, I hold on to my allegiance and sing.
- I know with my alliance, anything is attainable. | MB

MELISSA BLACK IS A MEMBER OF THE COFFEE CREEK CORRECTIONAL FACILITY HECATE’S LANTERN WRITING GROUP.

No man should look down on another man, unless
that man is reaching down
to lift that man up.

No man should judge unless he asks himself
if in a similar situation,
he might not have done the same.

No man should be ashamed of shedding tears.
Tears bear witness to a man’s greatest courage —
the courage to suffer and overcome his fears.

No man should lose hope, even when he’s fallen so low.
There is wisdom in knowing how to get back up
and grow stronger

No man should be afraid of taking steps that are not on the map.
Taking first steps (despite his fear) make the difference
in carving a new path.

No man should forget human kindness. For kindness
can be found in all groups, even those who
could be easily condemned.

No man should simply exist, but should always decide
what existence will be, who he will become the next moment
for every human being has the freedom to change.

No man should lose sight of his dreams. For it is
only when he loses everything that he can
truly see everything that is important. | MC

MANNY CID WRITES FROM OREGON STATE PENITENTIARY.

Don’t wait for others to be kind to you
I found a solid place to set my foot
In the desert, my thirst was quenched.
I ran with a torch and burning coals.

The race is not over yet.
If you do not know it, it’s harmful
If you know it, it’s profitable
If you do it, it’s beneficial

There is not a day I dread.
Monday to Monday and Moon day to Moon day,
They all bring motivations,
Lo the opportunities to plant, to water, and to harvest.

May your strength come from above
Before the walls is the foundation
Whether you remain or head out
You can help edify East, West, North, and or South.

Be first and sustain or increase your kindness.
Know that you are not working for others,
Nonetheless, your shade will be cast on those near you.
You will be a reason to rejoice and to give back

Strengthen your heart and be a blessing.
The Creator says to affirm His Word/ message.
Our hope shall stay alive, mindful of justification.
Four our future glory is multiplied by grace. | FBP

FERNANDO PELAYO BRAMBILA THANKS THE PONYXPRESS FOR BECOMING A MAZZARD, A GRAFTING STOCK TO MANY. HIS INTEREST IN READING AND WRITING GROWING UP WAS MINIMUM. HE NEVER BOUGHT A BOOK, NOR READ. WRITING WAS NOT AN AMBITION. TODAY, HE IS DEVELOPING A LOVE FOR RECORDED WORDS, BUT SPECIALLY FOR THE SCRIPTURE’S MESSAGE. HIS HOPE IS TO RETURN TO THE LORD.

Looking in the mirror
I don’t like what I see
There’s a man with no conscience
Looking back at me
Man with no conscience
Here’s something to know
You’d better slow down
Before you lose control
You lived a fast life
Up under the gun
You’ve lost many friends
Cut off all places to run
So is it worth
The price you pay
To live your life this dismal way
And what will you do
When you wake up at night
With voices still ringing
With your mama’s cries | CROW

A. CROW LINEBAUGH WRITES FROM OREGON STATE PENITENTIARY.

I endeavor to proceed as a scholar — to attach myself to teachers, to my inquiries, to all kinds of people. I endeavor to elaborate theories that apply to life, and appeal to sense as I inhabit the role of pupil. It is my “Warrior Way” to be fearless — to implant instructions into myself, whenever it is useful, and to be so humble as to recognize teachers in all capacities. To love God, live rightly, and love mercy.

To prowl and punish like the arbiter of the arboreal forest, the grizzly.
To seek, scavenge, and congress like the crows.
To speak with illusion, like butterflies.
To change like a chameleon.
To strike and assess and slither as a snake with a rattler.
Never letting others ignore threats. To be a strong as a Komodo dragon. | DS

DAVID SANKEY WRITES FROM DEER RIDGE CORRECTIONAL INSTITUTION IN MADRAS, OREGON.

When should we mourn?
We think time is always time.
And place is always place.
Bottlebrush trees attract
the nectar lovers and we
capture, capture, capture.
The thesis is still the wind.
from Where the Circles Overlap by Ada Limon

Our workshops circle the state, overlapping as writers are moved from one facility to another. About a year and a half ago, Nolan James Briden was shipped to Snake River Correctional Institution in Ontario from Oregon State Penitentiary in Salem. A founding editor of the PonyXpress, Nolan is a strong writing mentor and leader. His presence in our weekly workshop was sorely missed. He relies on the rhythm of writing with others to keep his pen moving and his reserved charisma encourages the introverts to stand up and read. In October, Nolan and his fellow prisoner at Snake, Geoff Seymour, contacted us through the Chaplain’s office located in the 3000-person medium facility. (The first time I drove up to Snake, the phrase human warehouse came to mind.) Geoff and Nolan said that they could recruit a few guys if we were willing to run a workshop.

At the beginning of last year, we made the three-hour trek to Ontario from Pendleton to build a writing group in the 200-person minimum Snake facility, it’s a small and appreciative group with a tremendous advocate in advisor Toby Baigrie. So, in October with freshly pressed Department of Corrections volunteer badges that included Snake River, we arrived to meet with Geoff and Nolan in medium. We were impressed to start with the six people they had gathered for the workshop, knowing that it can be difficult for people to move out of their comfort zone and try new programs. We quickly learned that this group of eight was only the welcoming committee.

Rather than meet about a workshop, it made sense to just get started and so we read Ada Limon’s poem Where the Circles Overlap and the men responded. Jade Chandler wrote: The thesis is still the wind, feeling peace and the sun shining down, skin feeling the warmth and letting it flow through the body. Listening to the water as it calms me down and put my thoughts at peace.

The Four Directions by Geoff Seymour
The winds of language can carry you in many directions. Sometimes in directions you want and sometimes you don’t. Wind then can either be a metaphor or something exact.

When Shall We Mourn? by Nolan James Briden
Home is where I find kindship with my relatives as I learn — relearn how to look for them. The relations to the earth, sky, universe. The thesis of my life is yet to be told. The thesis of my life is to have an end.

To Chase the Dream by Michael Stepina
It calls us: Chase Me! We chase, we run through things to be — only to find that the perception of glory is a never-ending thirst.

Right away, we knew we had met a special core group of folks. Yes, we knew Nolan and Chris Lewis from OSP and these men are loyal PonyXpress enthusiasts. The addition of Native leaders Michael Stepina and Geoff Seymor along with excellent support from Chaplain Clig encouraged us to sort our schedules and accommodate this additional monthly workshop. When we returned to Snake in November, we stuffed ourselves into a classroom space with little elbow room and tried our first workshop with almost 30 people. We were elated to have so many folks willing to give it a shot, and submissions trickling in over the course of the month. Meanwhile at other prisons, we read Ada Limon and marveled at the way her worked inspired such diverse writing.

The Thesis … by Buddha
Pay attention
because the wind will naturally do what
it does and flow here and there and
back and away again.

We are here. Be present. by Le’Var Howard
This is the golden rule as we evolved in life:
Hold a respect for each other to grow.

The Original Joy by Dustin Smith
No end is the end
Even the dying
Impulses of our bodies,
Carry on to the next;
The electric heat
Of our biochemistry
Echoing forever
In sparks of immortality.

A Thief and His Monster by Jai
Absolute reckless joy
The run, the hunt, the search for
Speeds embrace
With a whhhrrrr-whooshhh
The constant urban rollercoaster cruise

Supernal/Infernal by Richard D Owens
How can one escape,
without,
into fresh cooling waters,
machination of year innerworkings?
Hold a respect for each other to grow.

As Danny and I drove back to Snake Tuesday of this week, we prepared ourselves for the usual attrition. One size does not fit all, especially in prison. Generally, we will see a large first meeting and our second gathering is cut down to about 18-20. We walked down the hall and were joyfully directed to Snake’s Chapel where the Folgers was percolating. You have never seen a room set up and broken down any faster than in prison. Sure enough, men were pulling long tables and chairs from a storage space to create our “circle.” Men arrived dressed with their chambray shirts tucked into their jeans until the tables were filled and we had well over original 30 folks, drawing mostly from the Native, Asian, and Pacific Islander communities. Right away people distinguished themselves: Mike Stepina who opened the workshop with a prayer to the Creator; the giant man called Tiny who is certain to be mischievous; quiet Osmus the horse trainer who read his piece though he was uncomfortable; and a special guest in Susan the 25-year veteran volunteer who leads yoga and meditation at Snake. As I stand in the middle of the group, I imagine the energetic circles carried in the wind and along the river and I feel the link between us all.

Let’s close here. Recently Mike Webb moved to Two Rivers Correctional Institution, during our workshop at Snake he responded to Ada Limon: I walk through the valley looking to the sky feeling the earth movements, looking to the colors and imagining my breathing as I do. Watching the clouds move and wishing, I could feel the air and the wind blowing through the earth, chasing my thoughts through the wind and running to chase my dreams. | TDS

The sun beats down
On the mountain top,
Warming the bones of the world,
Easing the ache of eons
Spent shouldering the sky;
A natural Atlas.

Eventually, the heat disappears,
Lost in obfuscating clouds,
Diffused in the infinitesimal
Drops of water,
And the ache returns.

Joy is fleeting.
So is warmth,
Like the heat generated
In the electricity
Of our bodies
Dissipating
In the end,

But the thesis is the wind.
The thesis is the river.
The clouds slowly pass,
Letting the warmth
Wash over the world
In currents of
Heat and Life.

No end is the end
Even the dying
Impulses of our bodies,
Carry on to the next;
The electric heat
Of our biochemistry
Echoing forever
In sparks of immortality.

The thesis is the thesis.
The original joy is chemistry;
Life, heat, warmth.
It just gets lost
In the clouds sometimes. | DS

DUSTIN SMITH WRITES FROM OREGON STATE PENITENTIARY, HE MAKES VIRTUES OF HIS VICES.

Where can one wander,
beyond,
in virgin green lands,
your clutching grasps?
What can one think,
outside
in dangerous periphery,
your ready-made ideas?
Who can one trust,
within,
while sacredness lies denuded,
Your ring-webbed networks?
How can one escape,
without,
into fresh cooling waters,
machination of your innerworkings
When can we go,
back,
to the litter fires made from your stylized decades
And relentless present fashions?

Words become failings, rasping like gramophones
Shrugged off as a relic imperfect
uncomfortably, I’m reminded of
dirt well-established under cracked fingernails
pangs of acne, visibly raw
disease as unease
while we-waxed shells collect fading whispers
thinned down by chemicals

I’d rather forget you exist as a painkiller
Voids recalling your noticed absence

Just leave us to stack worthless coinage
And bills overprinted, diluted
While we drain all our rivers,
Stranding the helpless
and level the mountains,
top all the trees,
And poison
then harvest
The oceanlife wilds

Try hiding from metal-tipped heroes
desperately venturing to edges on maps of confusion,
Imposing explosions to eek out the brink.
And bribe village edlers
With top-down prescriptions
Of operative lies. | RDO

RICHARD D OWENS IS FINDING MEANING THROUGH POETRY. HIS WISH IS OTHER MAY FIND MESSAGE HE PRODUCES THROUGH HIS WORK.

Information, Interpretation is ever changing,
evolving into a formless form almost ready
to be told then unfolds into a new direction.
a new story still connected but different —
same, same, but not the same. Pay attention
because the wind will naturally do what
it does and flow here and there and
back and away again. What will it tell
you? | VTP

BUDDHA, VISITH TOBY PHANDANOUVONG IS A MEMBER OF THE ASIAN PACIFIC FAMILY CLUB AND A PONYXPRESS WORKSHOP EDITOR.

The clickitty-snickitty of
Claws on paved paths
Faster and further as
Trust and wanton abandon
Grow together
The two entwined
Unison of purpose and pursuit
Absolute reckless joy
The run, the hunt, the search for
Speeds embrace
With a whhhrrrr-whooshhh
The constant urban rollercoaster cruise
What an unforgettable gift
Steely and surreal absolute
Freedom — A coarse tether
Undulating stretched far
Beyond slack — A tow line into
The eternal concrete waves
The effervescent smile of
A dog finding peace in
Its purpose — The perfect companion
Uncontrolled rush of emotion as
Joy becomes liquid sleeting
Across windblown audacity
Like the boy and the dog and
The long board — Escaping
The destruction (of a life)
Now only tears go clickitty-snickitty
Across cheeks hardened by time
Home is where the heart is
With the dog, and the long board, and
The midnight slick of fog laced
City streets — They will never see again. | JM

JAI WRITES FROM OSP. HE IS A CONSTANT GARDENER.

Thesis-River-Kinship-Mourn-Exhiled

The thesis is still the wind.

A collective of tears that blow in the winds, I watch the day take shape. Shapes that form into light out of light. Lights that shimmer in the daylight. Rivers and rivers that flow across times, divides. Rivers that connect lands.

Home.

I’ve heard it said that home is where the heart is. Home is where I find kinship with my relatives as I learn — relearn how to look for them. The relations to the earth, sky, universe. The thesis of my life is yet to be told. The thesis of my life is to have an end.

The thesis.

I remember my mom wanting to go back to school and in her lifetime she never did. I think maybe I can. I mourn the ones who have passed on. When should I mourn in these long corridors that reflect a version of myself, as I walk the miles of complexes. Reflection shout out with each step that I take. Perceptions of what, of who, of me, of life. Exiled into where I’m supposed to be at the time I’m supposed to be. I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be. | NLB

NOLAN JAMES BRIDEN WAS RAISED IN PORTLAND, OREGON. HIS ROOTS BLOOM FROM RICH CULTURES, BLACKFEET AND IRISH. HE WRITES: “I’M JUST GETTING TO A POINT IN THE EXPLORATION OF WRITING TO BE ABLE TO SAY IT IS A RELATIONSHIP THAT I UNDERSTAND; THEN, I READ A DIFFERENT STYLE, FORM, OR WAY OF WRITING AND MY JOURNEY RESTARTS TO UNDERSTAND.” NOLAN IS A MEMBER OF THE LAKOTA OYATE-KI CULTURE CLUB AT OREGON STATE PENITENTIARY AND HE IS A FOUNDING MEMBER OF THE GROUND BENEATH US WRITING GROUP.