Binary Philosophers: A Poem

In the Desert of the Real

We are the creatures

Who lope, crawl, and slither

But here

On the circuit board

We are noesis.

Binary philosophers

Espousing 1 and 0.

We ask the screen:

When we are zero

In the hard drive of our souls

Do we lose mass

And become antimatter?

Or in the vacuity

Of nothingness

Do we escape the desert

And touch the infinite?

About Laurie: The author of the recently released Finding Joy as well as The Pharaoh’s Cry, Portal Shift, Kidnapped Smile, and Dragon Sky of the fantasy series The Artania Chronicles, and Forests Secrets. Laurie Woodward is also a screenwriter who co-authored Dean and JoJo: The Dolphin Legacy. Her poetry has been published in multiple journals and anthologies and she was a collaborator on the popular anti-bullying DVD Resolutions. Bullied as a child, Laurie is now an award-winning peace consultant, poet, and blogger who helps teach children how to avoid arguments, stop bullying, and maintain healthy friendships. She writes on the Central Coast of California. More about her work can be found at Author Laurie Woodward — Next Chapter ia.net

(Photo by David Stroup)

Openings: A Poem

Openings

First a door

Then a bottle

And blinking eyes

Shyly probing

With wonder.

Later ears ensnared

Opened

To aerial refrains.

And awkward hands

Fearful of smoke smoldering

In pans

Gliding deftly into

Epicurean entrees.

And uncertain skin

Long draped in fabric

Uncloaked.

Opening a

Woman’s essence.

Opening her

To love.

Ascension: A Poem

Heart pounding my

Body quivers in

An enveloping mist

Of love.

I am in a dream

Where

I see your face

And feel your probing hands on my skin

Calloused yet gentle.

I take a breath

And fill my lungs with your

Man and musk scent.

Cocking an ear

Your moans

And whispers

Enter me

An ethereal figure

That is my ascension

Into the beauty

Of your soul.

About Laurie: The author of the recently released Finding Joy as well as The Pharaoh’s Cry, Portal Shift, Kidnapped Smile, and Dragon Sky of the fantasy series The Artania Chronicles, and Laurie Woodward co-wrote Dean and JoJo: The Dolphin Legacy. Her poetry has been published in multiple journals and anthologies and she was a collaborator on the popular anti-bullying DVD Resolutions. Bullied as a child, Laurie is now an award-winning peace consultant, poet, and blogger who helps teach children how to avoid arguments, stop bullying, and maintain healthy friendships. She writes on the Central Coast of California. More about her work can be found at artania.net

Unspliced: A Poem

Mind in pieces

Disjointed thoughts

Strips of film

Hanging from

An editor’s rack

35 mm images

Waiting splicing

From an ancient machine.

Burning Solstice: A Poem

With Winter Solstice looming near

And summer a long gone mariner

He finds power in the darkening malcontent

That traps a gaze this autumn

Above an umbrage of blazing ice clouds

Lucifer burns in the frozen star

Grinning as he weaves the death shrouds

For men’s hibernal coffins

Oh for a voyage ever southward

To a kindred hemisphere

Where azurean waves

Reflect the waxing moon

And ice surrounds no heart.

But setting sail is no easy task

In hoary waters

And dimmer skies

Where even the breath

Of mermaids’song

Hangs suspended

Like frozen desires.

For smoldering long

In the soul of man

Lingers the cryogenic star

Waiting for a time

When glaciation reigns

And the Arctic Age returns.

These celestial collisions

Bear fireballs

To illuminate and warm

A mortal sea

Eroding ice floes

That bar the way

For the long journey

Homeward.

(Photo by David Stroup)

The author of The Pharaoh’s Cry, Portal Shift, Kidnapped Smile, and Dragon Sky from the fantasy series The Artania Chronicles, as well as the middle-grade Forest Secrets. Laurie Woodward co-wrote Dean and JoJo: The Dolphin Legacy. Her poetry has been published in multiple journals and anthologies and she was a collaborator on the popular anti-bullying DVD Resolutions. Bullied as a child, Laurie is now an award-winning peace consultant, poet, and blogger who helps teach children how to avoid arguments, stop bullying, and maintain healthy friendships. She writes on the Central Coast of California. More about her work can be found at artania.net

Gaslit: A Poem

Odorless gas wafting from room to room

A noxious message within a tonic

Of sweet embrace

Tangled limbs

And connected flesh

Eyes droop

Pupils dilate

And fear begins.

The poison takes hold

With malevolous mantras

She chants again and again

Until she is a quivering shade

Of her former self.

**About Laurie:** The author of *Forest Secrets* and the soon to be released *Finding Joy* as well as The Pharaoh’s Cry, Portal Shift, Kidnapped Smile, and Dragon Sky of the fantasy series The Artania Chronicles, **Laurie Woodward** co-wrote *Dean and JoJo*: *The Dolphin Legacy.* Her poetry has been published in multiple journals and anthologies and she was a collaborator on the popular anti-bullying DVD *Resolutions.* Bullied as a child, Laurie is now an award-winning peace consultant, poet, and blogger who helps teach children how to avoid arguments, stop bullying, and maintain healthy friendships. She writes on the Central Coast of California. More about her work can be found at artania.net

Mismatched Shoes: A Poem

Standing at the offramp

Mumbling incoherencies

He huddles into a hoodie too thin

To block the winter wind.

Head cast down, his gaze

On mismatched shoes

One black and muddied

The other orange with a once white strip

Both torn and worn

As if pulled from a dump heap.

When did his life become mismatched?

Was he born to disfunction and despair?

Did chemicals fill his youthful mind

Starting small then growing in need

Until that rush of liquid in veins

Became heart’s beat.

Perhaps delusions set him

Wandering down paths unknown

Stumbling over cracked and broken concrete

Until his feet were bare.

Maybe he is a victim

Of an abandoning economy

Seeking employment.

Finding none.

Cleaved from the life he once knew.

I am blessed with pair after pair.

Black, red, tan, blue, satin, and sparkling.

While the homeless man

Shuffles to nowhere

In his mismatched shoes.

About Laurie: The author of Forest Secrets and the soon to be released Finding Joy as well as The Pharaoh’s Cry, Portal Shift, Kidnapped Smile, and Dragon Sky of the fantasy series The Artania Chronicles, Laurie Woodward co-wrote Dean and JoJo: The Dolphin Legacy. Her poetry has been published in multiple journals and anthologies and she was a collaborator on the popular anti-bullying DVD Resolutions. Bullied as a child, Laurie is now an award-winning peace consultant, poet, and blogger who helps teach children how to avoid arguments, stop bullying, and maintain healthy friendships. She writes on the Central Coast of California. More about her work can be found at artania.net

Etched Invocation: A Poem

In the lonely quiet

Of empty sheets

That no longer rustle

I whisper his name

And reach out

To caress

A back that

Isn’t there.

Enduring the cold silence

Of phantom forms

With an invocation

Of a name

Etched on my skin

About Laurie: The author of Forest Secrets and the soon to be released Finding Joy as well as The Pharaoh’s Cry, Portal Shift, Kidnapped Smile, and Dragon Sky of the fantasy series The Artania Chronicles, Laurie Woodward co-wrote Dean and JoJo: The Dolphin Legacy. Her poetry has been published in multiple journals and anthologies and she was a collaborator on the popular anti-bullying DVD Resolutions. Bullied as a child, Laurie is now an award-winning peace consultant, poet, and blogger who helps teach children how to avoid arguments, stop bullying, and maintain healthy friendships. She writes on the Central Coast of California. More about her work can be found at artania.net

Nebula Dreams: A Poem

Lids fight the trumpeting

blare in predawn

Longing for a return

To Hypnos’s arms

That place

Of twilight

Where stars and nebula

Inhabit the id

And quasars

Forever pulse

About Laurie: The author of The Pharaoh’s Cry, Portal Shift, Kidnapped Smile, and Dragon Sky from the fantasy series The Artania Chronicles, as well as the middle-grade Forest Secrets. Laurie Woodward co-wrote Dean and JoJo: The Dolphin Legacy. Her poetry has been published in multiple journals and anthologies and she was a collaborator on the popular anti-bullying DVD Resolutions. Bullied as a child, Laurie is now an award-winning peace consultant, poet, and blogger who helps teach children how to avoid arguments, stop bullying, and maintain healthy friendships. She writes on the Central Coast of California. More about her work can be found at artania.net

Ripped Away: A Poem

My rose-colored glasses

Were ripped from my face

By distant flames

And an unseen

Organism

Born on air.

I reached for them

Groping through smoke

And ash

But only felt

The charred remains

Of what was once

My beautiful

California.