By: Bruce Levine

The Storm

Rain spattered on the window pane
Making patterns like geometric drawings
Before the droplets released their molecular hold
Forming abstract lines like a Pollack painting

Flashes of lightning illuminated the maze of water
Held against the glass as if by magic
And tinted into a rainbow of color
By the refraction of ionized air

Trees bowed to the newly born vision
Before the wind erased the storm’s creation
As if an artist applied gesso over a painting
To refresh a canvass and start anew

The lingering shadows over oceans turned to blackness
In the depths of historic graves
Of shipwrecks filled with treasure
In a hunter’s paradise and dreams of glory

‘Til dawn erased the mem’ries of fantasies
Like the waning of the storm erased the rain
And the wind decreased from miles per hour
As the new day moved forward in perpetuum ordained

One More Time

Fortune had not been kind to him. He’d come within a hair’s breadth of huge successes and then, at the last second, the rug got pulled out from under him. Through no fault of his own, but because of some incident or decision on the other side, he always remained holding an empty bag. Fortunately he was not the type to wallow in self-pity, but picked himself up and, somehow, managed, each time, to land on his feet.

Now he’d shifted gears again and was trying something totally new and, this time, was determined to succeed. But it meant learning a whole new set of rules to play a new game. This time, he hoped, success would be kind.