Elemental Rhythms
Elemental Rhythms began as a mini-collection of four poems by Brandi Lynn, including Earthquake, Thunder, Rain, and Storm. We asked the Scribes to respond to excerpts from Brandi Lynn’s poems and seek inspiration in the forces of nature, the elements, and time. What resulted is a powerful expansion of poetic conversation – a dialogue between poets who may or may not know each other in real life, but share connections through place, emotion, and experience.
Like lightning, the poets present a carefully-crafted fractal reply, bending their energy into repeating patterns that mirror & reflect the endless possibilities contained as tiny images within the whole. The smallest detail is an exact replica of the complete picture. The vast universe is composed of microscopic worlds, existing in perfect mimicry of infinity. Perspectives begin to overlap. The far-away becomes familiar. From earth to water to fire to air, fractals are found reaching beyond all limits, uniting all in a place beyond substance – in structure, instruction, divine design.
Call and response. Question and answer. Antiphony and litany. All voices an imprint of the infinite. All souls connected to source.
Join us on the journey, and enjoy a selection of poetry that speaks to the ever-spiralling nature of everything.
Featuring the following poets:
Brandi Lynn
Olivia Gilreath
Joshua Walker
Amethyst Drake
Dane Osborne
Brandy Warren
Brian Seadorf
Frances Denise
Diona Marie Gwyn
Sheena Fry King
Bryanna Licciardi
Angelia Ross
Cheyanne Leonardo
Brandon Thorpe
Rhonda Kendziorski
Angelika Shelley
Gary W. Crites
𖤣.𖥧.𖡼.⚘
Before you read Elemental Rhythms, we want to let you know about a few ways you can support and engage with the Scribes this month! Here is some information about our upcoming projects & special events in March 2026:
We are hoping to raise $800 to help with the costs of running our community-based poetry publication, as well as publishing & printing our very first Dandelion Scribes anthology, with over 20 chapters written by our locally-based core contributors!
Donations will help cover the following costs:
Yearly website fees, keeping our online publication FREE & accessible to all readers as well as poets who submit their work for publication
Upfront publishing costs for our first print anthology, set to be published this summer, such as ISBN number and proof copies to review during the editing process
A complimentary copy of the print anthology to be gifted to each of the 20+ individual contributors that will be published in the book
Hosting a book launch event, in which all contributors will be invited to read a selection of their published poems in celebration of the book's release
Please head on over to our donation page to learn more, or go directly to our fundraiser via GoFundMe to give a little gift to our local poets!
All contributions of any amount will be acknowledged on our website as well as in the final print anthology. Thanks so much for your support!
—
Speak of the Devil … and the Devil shall appear! Join us for a night of LIVE spoken-word poetry, music, and dancing on The Black Cat mainstage, March 18th starting at 6pm.
Featuring local poets & performers including:
the dancing dithyrambler, Frances Denise, Cari Lynne Wilson, Amber Sparks, Olivia Immitt, Sheena Fry King, Amethyst Drake, Brandon Thorpe, and Dane Osborne
With music by Stephen Phillips & surprise guests!
This show will explore the mythological figure of “the Devil” in its many forms, from local legends & folklore such as Devil’s Jump, to world religions and BEYOND!
Advance tickets are $10 per person and can be purchased in the shop any day before the event. Or $15 at the door the night of the show!
The Black Cat is located at 250 S Main St, Oneida, TN 37841.
***Please keep in mind the stage is UPSTAIRS***
To view the flyer and share with friends, please head on over to our events page!
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A Place for All Voices – The Traveling Bloom Stage is coming to Rugby, TN!
Historic Rugby presents the next traveling Bloom Stage show entitled A Place For All Voices to be presented at the Rebecca Johnson Theatre, in celebration of Poetry in the Boro’s brand-new community poetry anthology!
Through poetry, story, music, and performance, this special edition of the show produced in historic Rugby, Tennessee, will highlight poets affiliated with Dandelion Scribes, alongside the amazing & inspiring poets of Poetry in the Boro.
The event will take place March 28 at Historic Rugby’s Rebecca Johnson Theatre, 1331 Rugby Parkway, Rugby, TN, inside the Visitor Centre. Doors open at 6:30 pm Eastern time for the 7:00 pm show.
The event is free, thanks to support from the Tennessee Arts Commission. A suggested $10 donation at the door supports Historic Rugby’s preservation and arts programming.
To view the flyer and share with friends, please head on over to our events page!
ELEMENTAL
RHYTHMS
after Brandi Lynn
𖤣.𖥧.𖡼.⚘
EARTHQUAKE
The Earth broke itself.
An angry, necessary cleaving.
It could no longer contain
the weight of the grief,
the compressed sorrow of the soil.
It only screamed,
pulling desperately toward the void.
Shards of consequence fall—
the rain is just witnessing the decisions.
A tear, deep as the core.
A scar left open,
swallowing the fragile fact of our living
under the shadow of an unpredictable collapse.
I am here.
Only the silence,
and the pieces to gather.
–Brandi Lynn
⚘
FAULTLINE HYMN
The Earth broke itself.
An angry necessary cleaving.
Not with apology—
but with the sound of mountains forgetting
how to stand together.
Stone split from stone
like teeth from a jaw too long, clenched.
A red seam opened—
not wound, not birth,
but something older than either.
Deep below, pressure had been praying
in the dark for centuries.
Heat pressed its forehead to granite,
whispered: Move.
And so the crust answered.
Continents shuddered apart,
their forests staggering,
their rivers flung sideways mid-sentence.
Cities trembled in their borrowed geometry.
Glass learned the language of surrender.
It was not cruelty.
It was a correction.
The plates had carried silence too long—
a burden of swallowed fire,
of tension layered like an unspoken truth.
Even mountains cannot hold forever
what the core insists on saying.
When the rupture came
it sang.
A bass note through bedrock,
a hymn of friction and release.
Faultlines lit like nerves.
The ocean reared back, startled,
then rushed in to memorize the new edge.
Afterward—
dust, and a ringing
like the world had struck a bell too large
for human ears.
But in the fissure
steam rose soft as breath.
Magma cooled into black glass,
sharp and newborn.
From the split spine of land,
a valley opened its palms to the sky.
Seeds will find this scar.
Rain will rehearse its descent.
Wind will file the edges blunt.
Time—patient archivist—
will label it mountain, or basin, or plain.
We will call it a disaster.
Or miracle.
Or both.
Yet beneath our naming,
the Earth will continue
its long, muscular thinking—
breaking where it must,
joining where it can.
An angry necessary cleaving—
because even a planet
must sometimes fracture
to remain whole.
–Olivia Gilreath
⚘
THUNDER
The crack
the jolt
the bolt
the flick.
A breath caught,
held—
suspension of light
caressed by the hollow sky.
It makes its presence known,
not a whisper,
not quite timid,
but a hard slap upon the darkness.
They fear you, this magnificent
unfolding, but you are only
misunderstood.
Count the time in between.
One. Two. Three.
A bellow of deep interruption.
You’re close. You’re far.
The air vibrates with your promise,
this awful, beautiful truth.
Do I dare wait for silence,
or lean my head against the sound
and finally stop hiding from my own heart?
–Brandi Lynn
⚘
UNFOLDING
They fear you, this magnificent unfolding,
but you are only misunderstood.
They mistake your widening for ruin—
your bright insistence for threat.
When you open your ribs to the sun,
they call it exposure.
When you shed your husk of winter skin,
they call it loss.
They do not see
how tightly you were folded before—
crease upon careful crease,
breath tucked into corners,
color hidden like a secret
too radiant for small rooms.
Unfolding is not violence.
It is geometry remembering
its intended shape.
Yes, there is sound in it—
the soft tearing of old seams,
the sigh of thread giving way.
Yes, there is risk—
air touching places long untouched by light.
But nothing breaks
that was not already too narrow to hold you.
They fear the span of your wings
because they measured you
by the cage.
They fear the reach of your voice
because they memorized you
in whispers.
But you—
you are simply answering a call
older than doubt.
Sap rising.
Tide turning.
A door long swollen with rain
finally yielding to the push.
Look how the horizon expands
to meet what dares to move toward it.
Look how the body knows
to grow toward warmth.
Even stars begin as a collapse—
a gathering so fierce
it ignites.
You are not chaos.
You are a process.
Petal by petal,
truth by trembling truth.
Let them shield their eyes
from your widening.
Let them name it too much,
too loud,
too soon.
The bud does not apologize
to the spring.
Unfold.
–Olivia Gilreath
⚘
RAIN
Rain washes the air clean.
A single seedling,
unfurling a silent scream towards the sky.
Colors spill from the clouds,
a fractured stained-glass window on the wet ground.
A broken pane of glass
A rustle in the leaves.
The scent of soil rises,
a perfume of something not yet born.
The sky weeps on,
and the ground breathes out new green.
A blade of grass, bent and torn.
A single twisting root,
a grasping hand feeling for a way.
The ground, a mother’s tired lap.
The world exhales and the new life reaches,
an open palm in the air.
–Brandi Lynn
⚘
AFTER THE STORM
Colors spill from the clouds,
a fractured stained-glass window on the wet ground.
The sky has dropped its cathedral—
shattered panes of amber, bruised violet,
rose and molten gold
scattered across the asphalt.
Rain still clings to the air,
a hush between heartbeats.
Puddles hold the light like trembling hands,
each one a small, temporary heaven
touched by passing tires,
by the cautious step of a sparrow.
The clouds hang open—
their gray robes parted—
and through the seam
sunlight pours like confession.
Red loosens into orange.
Blue dissolves at the edges of green.
The whole horizon breathes in prisms,
as if the storm, unable to speak plainly,
has chosen instead to paint.
Even the gutters gleam.
Brick walls drink in fire.
Windows blink with liquid color.
The wet leaves of sycamore trees
turn coin-bright and holy.
For a moment,
the world is remade in fragments—
every shard radiant,
every broken piece
carrying the whole sky within it.
Then the light shifts.
Gold thins to pale.
Violet folds itself back into a cloud.
The pavement darkens,
closing its jeweled eye.
But somewhere beneath the drying streets,
the memory remains—
that even storms
can scatter beauty at their feet,
and that broken light
is still light.
–Olivia Gilreath
⚘
STORM
You hear it,
distant,
in that space between birth and death.
It’s gentle at first,
a quiet rumble that only the birds gather,
but then it builds,
the lungs open up,
like a deep breath before a final wish fades out.
Its presence,
known.
The sweet musty smell,
The twirl of the leaves,
The silent exhale of the trees.
The reticent, sudden shift.
The sky billows,
a haze of black smoke to the west,
a bewitched celestite to the east.
You wait.
–Brandi Lynn
⚘
BETWEEN
You hear it,
distant,
in that space between birth and death.
Not a voice—
not quite a sound—
but something like the tide
breathing behind a closed door.
It hums beneath hospital lights
and under the hush of graveyard trees.
It lingers in the pause
before a first cry,
and in the quiet
after the last exhale.
You hear it
in the marrow’s listening.
It is the soft machinery of becoming—
cells dividing in secret,
hair silvering by degrees,
bones knitting themselves back to trust.
A rhythm without percussion,
a current without riverbanks.
Sometimes it grows louder—
in the sleepless hour before dawn,
when the dark feels less like absence
and more like waiting.
Or in the instant
a memory returns unbidden,
bright as a struck match.
It is not a warning.
It is not a promise.
It is the great between—
that narrow bridge
suspended over nothing
and everything.
We try to drown it
with clocks and headlines,
with the noise of wanting.
But it persists, patient as gravity,
threading through our days.
In laughter, it flickers.
In grief, it deepens.
In love—
it rings like a bell
touched once
and never quite still again.
You hear it, distant—
and for a moment
you understand:
Life is not the edges.
Not the arrival
nor the departure.
It is the trembling span between,
where the unseen hum
keeps singing
through us.
–Olivia Gilreath
⚘
BAPTISM BY LIGHTNING
No one warned me
that the sky keeps records.
I was looking for water
something borrowed
something clean enough to say I tried
when the air split its teeth.
There is a sound
before lightning
that feels like being recognized.
My name
not spoken
but extracted.
The strike did not fall
it arrived
already knowing where I kept
the soft things
the old lies folded like letters
I never mailed.
Fire does not forgive.
It inventories.
Every belief flashed once
then vanished.
Not erased.
Proven unnecessary.
I remember standing there
smoke rising off my shoulders
rain unsure whether to touch me
or apologize.
No choir.
Just the smell of metal
and a silence
that felt contractual.
After,
people asked if I felt changed.
I was still shaking.
I was still alive.
The sky had taken everything it wanted
and left me breathing
like a warning
that hadn’t decided
who it was for.
–Joshua Walker, The Last Bard
⚘
JOHN PRINCE KING
There’s a rumble in the void tonight
which shivers through my soul.
A tall man in the darkness
pale blue colored eyes
devilishly handsome,
devilishly cruel.
Whispers in the shadows
No flowers where you lie
just cold, hard earth.
Stark.
They say you walk here still
in more than memory
something tangible
like a book
bound up with human skin.
What is evil
if not the absence of good?
Like cold is the absence of heat.
You are defined by your emptiness
as hollow as your eyes.
Blood of my blood,
under your influence
I am terrified
that I am just like you.
–Amethyst Drake
⚘
WHAT DO YOU DREAM ABOUT.....
What do you dream about
whenever you sleep in comfort allowed only
by white magick performed
beneath the kinetic glimmer of pale lit glow?
I see your eyes are sensuous with ebony and envy
for the peace you forgot along the passing days.
You may throw away the syringes and mascara
and discard the lipstick and handful of high powered Lyrica.
Just come as your are
towards this dirty prophet with today's sin in his heart
and our every prayer will be a poem about the sky.
Outside on a spring day,
we stroll in quiet along abandoned cars, yellow hydrants, and young faces.
You shine like the last angel here under blue light and white clouds.
Don't you already know?
–Dane Osborne
⚘
GLORY
Into the summer's night,
my bare feet
move toward him.
Concrete steps, brick path,
and poking out its cracks, grass,
its green scent rising up, for me to breathe.
I'm drawn to him
like fine, metallic dust,
pulled to his magnet.
He sits, wood sawhorse beneath,
him smiling, his legs open,
arms pulling me into his grasp,
his man's musk wet, warm—like the night.
We look eastward,
the sky black,
its stars specks of silver dots.
In the blackness,
hot, moist air enfolds us,
him caught to me,
him wondrous as the night,
us quiet, at peace,
now like the stars,
come together to shine.
Like them, to unfold over time—
but now enfolded in each other,
melding in the summer night's spell.
–Brandy Warren
⚘
CLOUDS
How many of us spent time
staring at the clouds,
not being fascinated at
the different shapes or
how quickly they were moving,
or how blue the sky was
but waiting for Him to come back
like they told us He would.
Any day now.
–Brian Seadorf
⚘
FAMINE, DROUGHT, AND OTHER BLESSINGS
They called it a hard season
as if it were weather
and not a verdict.
The cupboards learned to echo.
Plates became ceremonial.
Hunger trained the body
to speak in smaller sentences.
I prayed once for daily bread
and got very good
at dividing it.
Famine teaches math
no school will admit to.
How long a body can argue
with itself.
How dignity thins before it breaks.
How silence starts sounding edible.
The drought came later
or maybe first.
Time rearranges itself
when nothing grows.
Even the clouds
looked embarrassed
passing overhead
with all that unspent mercy.
You learn things in dry years.
Like how thirst rewrites memory.
How the mouth forgets sweetness
before the mind does.
How faith becomes a discipline
of not asking why
out loud.
They said be grateful.
You’re alive.
As if survival
weren’t the most exhausting task
ever assigned.
I watched blessings arrive
disguised as endurance.
Disguised as lowered expectations.
Disguised as learning to praise
the absence of worse.
People love stories of resilience.
They clap for it.
They frame it.
They sell it back to you
with better lighting.
They never ask
what it costs
to be the kind of person
who can live through famine
and still say grace.
Here’s the secret no one prints:
Scarcity is a god
that keeps receipts.
It remembers every compromise.
Every time you called hunger humility.
Every time you mistook deprivation
for virtue.
I survived.
Yes.
But something in me
still flinches
when abundance knocks.
I don’t trust gifts
that arrive full-handed.
I’ve learned what blessings look like
when they mean
stay.
–Joshua Walker, The Last Bard
⚘
THE WEIGHT OF REALITY
There is a friction to reality;
A tightness in the chest
that develops when confronted
with the true nature of the world
we all helped to create.
There is a cold, calculated
meanness in the status quo
that stems from
A basic lack of empathy.
What is the worth of a person?
Has she any intrinsic value?
No.
Not in this society.
Success is measured in Dollars
and the American Dream
is a zero sum game.
–Amethyst Drake
⚘
WILDFLOWERS AND THE DYNAMICS OF PETULANCE
Wildflowers are living beings.
They know about pain like the rest of us
and of course that's enough to make you alive.
I am alive as a petulant upright walking mammal
Who still has enough moral sense to communicate
With the sky
And listen to the answers given to me
By the hissing sound of wind.
Human truth is found between the margins
Of what you will buy and sell
In order to survive
In a jungle made of gray concrete
and advanced technology which thinks smarter
Than what we poor animals can think.
Other than such?
Not much truth is found outside of survival.
(Survival is more important than truth)
–Dane Osborne
⚘
READING
I am reading your poetry
Out loud to myself
The vibrations
Are so resonant
I fall into tears
I cease to speak
Words touch
What I need to feel
The rhythm, familiar
As if from a dream
Nightmares and monsters
And the gardens we grow
From the dirt that we mix
And the seeds that we sow
The compositions we study,
Smell,
And sort through
Squeezing moist earth through our fingers
Because it just rained –
It rained
And we're letting the sun through
–Frances Denise
⚘
THE SHADE OF WILLOWS
Small branches sway in slow motion easy
against the backdrop of conscious trees lost in centuries
to be seen across the long distance.
The shadow of cool shade beneath the willows
disrupts the shine which emits from the glowing eye
of the Light God who speaks no language
and we are lost and free with no pain
here alive breathing in this kind hour.
Tell me, do you talk to people in your dreams and then remember their names and everything they ever say about innocence and mystery? Violence and honor?
Do you believe these people in your dreams to be invisible angels who follow you and protect you along the path of every burning day?
Talk to me, I see sadness that comes from love in the white glare of your eyes and.....I want to make you feel the safety of yesterday's laughter by using words and colors.
All I can do is try and it would take my mind off falling bombs and electric disaster.
(She dances under the cool shade of the willows and her laughter destroys silence and she smiles lost and free with no pain here alive breathing in this kind hour)
–Dane Osborne
⚘
RENEE NICOLE GOOD
Ghastly color fades midday
in the narrow winter light.
A frozen landscape disturbed only by
the flash of blue lights
and sirens piercing the scene.
She was in the way.
Being in the way cannot be tolerated.
A group of trolls told us that;
With their flash-bangs and pepper balls.
Force feels like pleasure
in their tiny hands.
Oh to feel like a real man!
But why not show your face?
She was scared, you see,
from all the chaos YOU aroused;
The acrid smell of gunpowder
still fresh in the air
from the murder of a mother of three,
a poet, a living, breathing person
lies bleeding out on the ice.
–Amethyst Drake
⚘
SUNDAY MORNING POEM
Behind our masks we are free from the evil eye
but a thumping heart still gets taxed by the taxman.
Harmonic vibrations from brains of the future
Altered by discrete signals from a dirt cheap quantum contraption.
A key to the mystery of why red-faced citizens sob with
no joy after conversations with the funny green man
who lives inside the TV box.
Gospel truth fallen on deaf ears
creates godly death squads in designer suits.
–Dane Osborne
⚘
FLOOD
Lovely thunder storm, does trouble
And tumble my head, as
Geodes in the quaking
Wake of Earth,
Mother is crying, called out
And begs her children, please:
I'd see you well to do,
I'd see you lovely, kindly,
Yes, thrive and thrive,
Yet, I hear your brothers screaming.
I hear such awful shrieks
In fire on the back
In four score times four lashes
And in fire in the skull
When brother puts brother
On his knees in the streets.
It's a disaster, a flood indeed
As the tears just keep coming;
No, the flood is not outpaced
And the geodes have been freed up
Out the muck
As all her children drown;
And crack a geode like an innocent skull
As the frigid men, we'd pray will melt
Quake and tumble, mountainous,
Effervescent flames, you'd consume
Soured champagne
When the clouds roll on,
We'll sniff the spring blooms
Of a new home;
When the sun shows again,
The flood will in time subside.
–Diona Marie Gwyn
⚘
WHERE THE STORMS KEEP THEIR STORIES
In the hollers and hills where two states meet,
The weather has a mind of its own—
A restless spirit pacing the valleys,
Never content to stay quiet for long.
One day the sky is gentle,
Soft as a quilt Mamaw might stitch,
And the next it’s a fist of wind
Pounding on doors,
Twisting barns into memory.
Tornadoes drop out of nowhere,
Spinning through fields
Like they’re searching for something lost,
Their roar drowning out every prayer
Except the one whispered in the dark.
Rains come heavy,
Filling creeks until they forget their place,
Spilling over roads and porches,
Turing familiar paths
Into rivers that carry away
What folks spent years building.
Floods rise fast—
Too fast—
And the land holds its breath
As neighbors wade through muddy water
To check on one another,
Because that’s what people do here
When the sky turns mean.
Winds tear through the ridges,
Snapping trees like matchsticks,
Scattering shingles across yards
As if the storm wanted to rearrange
The whole world overnight.
Yet somehow,
After every wild night,
The morning still comes—
Sunlight breaking through
Like a promise kept.
Blue skies return,
Brighter that they have any right to be,
And folks step outside,
Boots sinking into wet earth,
Grateful, shaken, steady.
Because in Kentucky and Tennessee,
The weather may be wild,
But so is the resilience—
Rooted deep,
Like the oldest oak that still stands
After everything else has fallen.
And every storm leaves behind
A story worth telling,
Etched into the land
And the people
Who refuse to be moved.
–Sheena Fry King
⚘
THE RAIN KNOWS OUR NAME
I love it when it rains
Really strong and loud
When the skies open up
And tell me
It sees what I grieve,
What I long for quietly
I cannot paint you a clear picture
Of all the love I carry around
And how I sing lullabies
To sins and open wounds
I would fall so short
My voice cracks and
I feel paralyzed when I try
But the rain, she sees it all
Insistent, consistent
She brings me wonder and awe
How she washes and envelops
My doubts, my fall
How when she drums the ground
I feel everything that is real
Rise up from my bones
For a miraculous moment
There is magic
And no more thirst
For she belongs to me
And I belong to her
She says, “Tell me all you want
How you keep failing
How you keep falling short
And I'll keep reminding you
That you are a gift to this earth"
–Frances Denise
⚘
IN DEFIANCE OF THE HOURGLASS
I will build a place of worship
beneath the glare of daylight and here,
finally the lamb heart souls of tomorrow’s age
can breathe safely far away
from the eyes of vultures in command of the hills
who calculate the probability of explosions.
To sing with mirth under the warm sun
and sleep like stone beneath the moon glow.
A challenge in defiance of the hourglass
and its control over raindrops and drought.
–Dane Osborne
⚘
THE FOUR WINDS KEEP THE CLOCK
The storm begins where silence breaks,
a shiver in the bones of Earth—
soil tightening, roots listening,
stones remembering what they’ve endured.
Rain gathers its silver armies,
marching across rooftops and rivers,
soft at first, then insistent,
as if reminding the world
that nothing stays untouched.
Wind arrives like a restless storyteller,
whirling old tales into new shapes,
bending trees, lifting dust,
teaching even mountains
the art of bowing.
Fire sleeps beneath it all—
in the heart of the sun,
in the spark of every living thing,
in the quiet promise
that warmth will return
after the coldest night.
And time—
time is the unseen conductor,
steady hand raised,
guiding each element
through its ancient choreography.
It stretches storms into memory,
turns floods into fertile ground,
smooths the sharpest winds
into gentle breezes,
and carries fire forward
from ember to dawn.
Together they shape us—
the rains that cleanse,
the winds that test,
the earth that holds,
the fire that drives,
and time that gathers every moment
into the story of who we become.
–Sheena Fry King
⚘
THE LONG HANDWRITING OF TIME
Before the clocks were carved from bone and bronze,
before the first name was given to dawn,
the world moved only by breath and hunger—
and the patience of Time.
Earth stood first—
ancient-backed and listening.
Mountains rose like sleeping giants,
their ribs veined with iron and fire.
In her deep chambers, roots whispered
to stone older than memory.
She bore the weight of forests,
and the quiet architecture of bones.
Then Wind arrived, unbound and restless.
It combed its fingers through tall grasses,
tore secrets from cliff faces,
howled across deserts in long, unfinished sentences.
It carried salt from sea to shore,
pollen from bloom to bloom,
and sometimes—when angered—
it wore the voice of a storm.
Water followed, silver and shifting.
Rain stitched the sky to the soil
with a thousand bright needles.
Rivers rehearsed the art of surrender,
curling around stone,
learning patience from resistance.
In tempest, the seas rose cathedral-high,
their thunder speaking in tidal tongues—
and ships remembered humility.
Fire was never born—
it was awakened.
A spark in the marrow of wood,
a molten hymn beneath the crust of Earth.
It crowned volcanoes with fury,
wrote lightning across the dark
in a script too brief to read twice.
It devoured, but it also remade—
leaving ash rich with tomorrow.
And over all of them—
unseen, unbroken—
moved Time.
Time, who braids wind into canyon,
who teaches mountains to kneel into sand.
Time, who turns flame to fossil,
and ocean to salt-veined memory.
Storms rage, rains fall,
forests rise and burn and rise again—
but Time does not hurry.
The elements quarrel and embrace:
Earth drinks Rain.
Fire chases Wind.
Water silences Flame.
Wind sculpts Earth.
Again and again—
a circle without an edge.
And we, brief as sparks in the weather,
stand beneath their endless labor.
We name the storm
as though naming tames it.
We measure the years
as though counting binds them.
But when thunder breaks the spine of sky
and rain drums wild on waiting ground,
when wind claws at the ribs of houses
and the horizon burns—
we remember:
We are not masters here.
We are witnesses
to the long conversation
between elements—
and the slow, deliberate handwriting
of Time.
–Olivia Gilreath
⚘
A LIST OF MY IMPULSES, IN ORDER OF THE ELEMENTS
Earth—
loving dead men
whose voices coat my skin
like dust, and isn’t dust mostly
the skin we shed?
Fire—
wanting so badly
to prove my heart
still works that
I’d peel open
your wounds just to
be able to say
it’s okay, I’m here
for you. To stop in
Water—
drowning in the middle
of last week’s writing class
wanting to ask if anyone else
thinks there’s no scarier word
than burden.
Air—
flinching from
echoes in large rooms
picturing sound
erupt in my ears
like a tidal wave of
bruises and then, oh
no, I can’t stop
imagining how
blood sounds
bursting beneath
all my skin.
–Bryanna Licciardi
⚘
A DREAM WITHIN A DREAM
Emotional Vampires who pretend to be humans
who pretend to be Emotional Vampires.
Behold
What a torrid state of astrological woe here
in this Dream
within a Dream
within a Dream.....
One Consciousness splits into infinite perceiving brains
in order to manifest the choice of Love.
Once the choice is made, then Love becomes a conscious entity which leads you through the world of Modern Ritual and Ancient Happiness.
One becomes the other: As Above, So Below for the miracles of one thing.
In my world, I see no more sin as forgiveness means forgetting which also means evaporation for the sake of something New....New.
This Evaporation is perpetual Motion
thus New Beginnings are the source of original language.
The Cleansing Is Destroyed By Memory But Fixed By Truth.
Nothing's Gonna Change My World
in this Dream
within a Dream
within a Dream.
–Dane Osborne
⚘
THERE UP HIGH
There up high,
Is the evening star
In all of her glory,
Twinkling a greeting to the sun,
As his last rays disappear
From the western sky.
Meanwhile, in the East, the moon
Rises to join her sisters,
And there they spend the night,
Keeping each other company,
Until the sun once again rises
To greet the day.
Then the girls will merrily
Twinkle on their way.
–Angelia Ross, from Shadows of the Heart
⚘
THE FIREPLACE
we sat legs-crossed before a dying fire.
frail embers burned and took their final breaths
then perished. even swirling smoke grew tired
and ashes asked the heaving haze to rest.
that’s when you said my love was somehow flawed,
the ground unsound, just beguiling belief
in something powerful, akin to god –
fantastic or fictitious, illusory
and crudely imagined. yet you recall
the magic now that i sit with my back
to roaring flames, these four prismatic walls,
the scene the same. what must this love have lacked
for you to question my sincerity?
the point is not to answer that. i say
instead: thank god you feel the gravity.
finally! passion sways and stokes the blaze.
–Cheyanne Leonardo, from angel falls
⚘
OXYGEN (O)
Our lows are the same, afraid of losing something
or mourning what’s already lost.
Even mundane activities that bring superficial pleasure
take on a purple luster that carries more weight than the
irresistible vices which first brought you low.
To be only in your own bed, or to share air with those
taken for granted, driven low enough to
pine for even your own bathroom.
Why is it so hard to maintain such gratitude
when those things are well attended and within reach?
When standing above your sleeping child, waiting for a breath,
and in relative provision there are parents waiting to see
if their child can even breathe
when they take them off the ventilator.
If everything is in its place
why don’t I feel the immeasurable joy that comes
from securing that which was threatened,
or retrieving that thought lost?
There are few opportunities to be grateful
for a breath of air.
You are living in an unnecessary miracle
–Brandon Thorpe
⚘
WHEN THE NIGHT ROARED
I was a teenager,
sleeping at Mamaw and Papaw’s
like I always did—
a house that knew my footsteps,
a bed that smelled like clean sheets
and safety.
The storm had already spoken,
thunder pacing the night,
rain tapping its knuckles on the roof,
nothing new.
By the time we turned out the lights,
it felt settled—
just another Appalachian lullaby.
Then the dark grew louder.
At first, it was familiar—
wind pressing its face to the windows,
trees whispering secrets to each other.
But the sound began to rise,
layer upon layer,
until it became something else entirely.
A roar.
Not thunder.
Not wind.
Something alive.
Something angry.
They say tornadoes sound like freight trains.
I never believed that—
not really.
But belief doesn’t matter
when the noise is bigger than your body,
when it shakes the walls
and fills your chest
until fear has nowhere else to go.
I was already awake,
already moving toward my grandparents’ room,
when the house shuddered—
a tree slamming into the wall
right where I had been sleeping.
Instinct took over.
I ran.
Barefoot across familiar floors,
heart in my throat,
terror loud in my ears—
and there she was.
Mamaw,
running toward me at the same time.
We collided in the living room,
arms wrapping tight,
as if holding on could anchor the world.
Papaw was right behind us—
steady, present,
a wall against the storm.
And then—
just as suddenly as it began—
it stopped.
The roar faded back into rain.
The monster passed us by.
The night exhaled.
Morning came quietly.
When the sun finally rose,
the sky was impossibly blue—
the kind of blue that feels like a promise,
like the world apologizing.
Trees were down.
The house was scarred.
But we were still standing.
Still breathing.
Still together.
Safe and sound—
with a memory etched deep,
the night fear found its loudest voice
and learned it could not take us.
–Sheena Fry King
⚘
WEATHER REPORT FOR A BODY THAT REFUSES TO BEHAVE
Inside me,
fire keeps scheduling meetings
with water
they never attend.
My lungs think they’re a coastline.
They pull air in like tide,
push it back out
full of salt
and unfinished thoughts.
The earth in my bones
won’t stop shifting.
Small quakes.
Hairline fractures.
Nothing dramatic enough
to evacuate,
just enough
to keep me awake.
I check the forecast
every morning
to see which element
is planning to win.
Wind has opinions today.
It rearranges my sentences
mid-thought.
–Joshua Walker, The Last Bard
⚘
CARBON (C)
A generous fire, that wanted to live
but needed to eat more to survive
than it could ever give.
So it starved itself till
only carbon remained
and left the consumables
to be consumed
by nicer things.
–Brandon Thorpe
⚘
A PLEA
Yes, I will give you fire.
But you must take care of it
and do not tell any one of these
finders of lost children
about their second chance
on the blue Earth.
The son of white light's reign
starts with a blind man's war
and will end with pale roses.
–Dane Osborne
⚘
RED ROSES THAT FADE
The sun is setting quietly-slowly.
The wind blows not,
And the Earth is so still
And cold as I sleep.
Suddenly, the thunder roars,
As it chases streaks of lightning
Across the ominous night sky,
Then rain begins to fall
Upon the red roses that fade,
And stain my bed.
But as hard as I may try,
I cannot escape these earthly things,
For I am already dead.
–Angelia Ross
⚘
RESTLESS
Tired, always tired
Mind, body, spirit mired
Through the daily toils
Under the surface it boils
Rambling, rumbling, thoughts abound
In my mind the endless sound
Whirling, crashing, never free
All the thoughts engulfing me
Slivers of memories
Lacking true remedies
Choices haunting
The future daunting
A moment’s peace I cannot find
In this ever tumbling mind
Static, crackle, strain
Always roaring through my brain
The quiet is elusive
So many thoughts intrusive
Let me rest, set me free
Loose the chains and let me be
–Rhonda Kendziorski
⚘
LITHIUM (Li)
In the anxious wake of Ritalin casualties,
Risperdal facial tics,
& depakote tragedies
get your levels checked
every
month at the same time
pick it up a day early
but always stand inside.
The wait is too long in
the pickup line
and it seems like
the car shakes when it idles
Nystagmus eyes
twitch in sequence with
time
you never have to doubt it
because if you go without it
you start to feel excited.
Start to get big ideas that don’t
really make sense, but you can
understand anything when your
brain is like this.
You find the similarities
and start to think celebrities
are talking about you on the screen
You’re seeing all the signs
so you can trace the lines
that all easily fit between
you and yourself and your
precious mental health
that seems to shield you from the
truth you’re searching for.
You get one or two hours
of sleep, don’t need anything to eat
and you wake up ready for more
ready to find out what it’s all for.
But the answers never come, not the
ones you’re thinking of,
the warnings never seem to be about
you
but you watch and you wait
you stay up real late
knowing that it’s true,
there’s something you’re supposed to do
the clouds in the sky were put there
to warn you.
–Brandon Thorpe
⚘
CREEK PEOPLE
Getting away to nature
was the best decision
I’ve made, not because
of the yard in the woods,
but because of creatures
that float the creek
behind my house.
They pass along soft
currents each sunset
with long pinkish limbs
and wave at me like
we’re best friends
and remind me of the
inflatable balloon people
at a used car lot.
I’ve added the creatures
to my list of secrets
because no one would
believe me anyway
because now it’s my favorite
way to end the day
because now I’ve taken
to giving them names
– Smokey, Paris Jr. –
before they leave me
for nature & small fish
desperate for a bite.
–Bryanna Licciardi
⚘
EARTHING
Stillness of the lake
Flowing of the river
Power of the ocean
Washing through my veins
Magic of the stars
Glowing of the sunrise
Dancing of the flame
Blazing through my heart
Whispers of the wind
Fierceness of the cyclone
Freedom of the exhale
Blowing through my soul
Strength of the stone
Cycles of the soil
Weaving of the roots
Pulsing through my bones
–Angelika Shelley
⚘
MELISSA, PLEASE
This strength I see, is new to me..
Such strength I can’t devise..
Especially what your cover hides, much stronger, deep inside..
To the very depths in you, with strength, beyond belief..
It’s quite the subject, what you bring..
Those far too close, just can’t believe..
As you approach, this land they live..
With anger, much perceived..
I beg of you, to please turn back, and minimize their waiting needs..
That of what these people feel, their lives that won’t retain..
As simple as it was before, if life in them, will still remain..
Within your eye so round, and so much strength around..
Pull back these winds, that builds in you, this fury that astounds..
Nobody should deserve, for when your fury builds..
Creating moments they won’t feel, until your fury kills..
Please, don’t let that happen, with loving grace, let go..
Release this land, within your path, and let your brutal violence know..
That strength is something special, depending how you use it..
The proper thing for you right now, is learn to not abuse it..
–Gary W. Crites
⚘
AFTER THE WIND
In the dark before the dawn it came,
A ribbon of fury across Kentucky plains,
A roaring born of thunder’s name,
Unseen, it carved its winding veins.
Homes once warm, now battered shells,
Where laughter lived, the silence dwells.
In Laurel streets and Somerset’s roads,
A story told in broken loads.
Trees bowed low like whispered prayer,
Power lines hung in tangled hair,
Windows shattered dreams away,
Night turned sharp as fractured day.
Voices rise amid the dust,
Hands reach out, rebuild we must,
Neighbors shoulder every load—
Hope in every cleared-off road.
Names etched in the county’s heart,
Lives broken where the torn winds part,
Yet from the rubble courage springs,
Hands join hands, and the church bell rings.
For though the storm laid claim to fear,
Among the ruins, love is near—
In quiet strength, in tears, in grace,
We find our roots, we find our place.
–Sheena Fry King
⚘
SPRING
The sun rises and the birds sing.
The gentle breeze stirs,
And the blooming flowers smell sweet.
The sky is blue and the new leaves green.
The butterflies flutter
And the bees buzz.
The frogs croak and the
Crickets chirp.
The sun sets and night falls.
–Angelia Ross
⚘
DOMESTIC COMPLAINT FILED DURING A SNOWSTORM
The snow arrived like an accusation.
Too white.
Too confident.
Already certain it was staying.
The dogs stared at the door
as if I had personally invited it.
I opened it anyway.
They stepped out
one paw at a time,
each touch followed by a look back
that said:
Explain yourself.
The yard had been replaced
with a hostile document.
Cold underlined everything.
Wind added footnotes.
Business was conducted
with professional urgency.
No wandering.
No sniffing memoirs of summers past.
Just the grim efficiency
of bodies filing necessary paperwork
against their will.
Snow hit their noses.
They flinched like they’d been insulted
by a stranger.
One of them squatted
glaring at me the entire time,
maintaining eye contact
as if to make sure
I felt this.
Then the sprint back.
All dignity abandoned.
Paws skidding.
Breath sharp with betrayal.
Inside,
they shook themselves dry
violently,
as though erasing evidence.
Then they sat.
Stared.
The kind of stare
reserved for gods
who have failed basic duties.
No barking.
No drama.
Just disappointment
settling into the room
like another weather system.
I stood there, coat half-zipped,
holding the leash,
on trial.
Somewhere outside,
the snow kept falling,
innocent as anything.
Inside,
two dogs waited
for an apology
they knew
was coming.
–Joshua Walker, The Last Bard
⚘
THE WESTERN FRONTIER
On the vast plains,
The fearless brown buffalo roams
Until his heart is content.
The gentle breeze walks hand-in-hand
With the tall golden grass,
While the green-eyed grey wolf
Pads silently on his way.
In the pale blue sky,
Soars a free eagle,
Who is waiting patiently for his prey.
All of this beauty
And all of this freedom
Can only be found in one place –
A place of dreams –
The Western Frontier.
–Angelia Ross
⚘
A PROPHECY BEFORE THE SUMMER MORN
Big White Mammals with cryptic mouths
have been conspiring for years
to put my stars behind bars and
eradicate the evidence of my astrology.
I live and breathe both night
and day and experience the birth and death of years
for the creation of mathematical visions
so that I may destroy the future of deranged melodies
summoned by talking machines who wish to turn flowers into weeds.
The Revolution shall be televised
before the passing of Saturn and the reinvention of Love.
The Big White Mammals will run and hide in underground caves but will face judgement from the conscious sky above.
I have seen this inside my head and it will come to be.
–Dane Osborne
⚘
TIME BLURS
In my youth,
I heard the elders say
That “time didn't wait for anyone."
As a child, I never
Understood the meaning,
But that's different now.
Time marches on,
To the beat of its own drum.
Never slowing down
For a single second,
And before you know it,
The day is suddenly gone.
Then a week, a month,
Everything is in a blur,
Until the first day
Of a new year pops up.
For half a century
I have been on this Earth,
My hair has greyed,
My chin has doubled,
And my eyes are not as sharp
As those of my younger days.
And the beauty has also faded.
Yes, time marches on
To the beat of its own drum,
Never waiting for anything at all.
The Earth turns on its axis.
Winter becomes Spring,
Spring becomes Summer.
On and on they go,
One melting into the other.
And all the while,
Every living thing is birthed
From a seed – an egg.
And if it is fortunate,
It will grow for a while.
Serve its purpose,
Then cease to exist.
Yes, time marches to the beat
Of it's own drum,
Waiting for nothing at all,
Not even itself.
–Angelia Ross
⚘
SODIUM (Na)
It came from the ocean, evaporated out of its water
scraped up by a machine, processed.
It was licked up by a hereford cow, stored in the
fibers, and carried through the halls of a slaughter
house and into a supermarket.
Eaten by a man, if you ask him who he was,
he’d name his profession
and add that he’s a father.
The little molecule is absorbed into the bloodstream
from the small intestine
to be stored in the lacrimal gland.
“How would you like to skip school today?”
he says to his son.
“For what?”
“Nothing. We could go to Somerset and go shopping.
Or go to the Lake”
“The Lake?” the boy answers.
The kid’s wet clothes are shrink wrapped around him
and the father, regretfully admits, he forgot to bring
a dry set
“You can sit beside me up front” he says
“and cover up with my shirt”
It’s bright and hot, but the father blows the heater.
The sunlight flickers behind the leaves,
the father drives slowly and fills his eyes
with all offered. The boy lays silently
his breathing phasing into long sleepy
breaths. The father positions the mirror
at his face, watching the son’s eyes
blink slowly, then close.
He feels pressure in his throat, his sinuses
squeezing shut, pressure behind his eyes
looks at the little sleeping face again.
The little salt molecule shakes free
welled up in the eye
rolls down the cheek
and lets go, splattering on his shirt.
The father checks the mirror again to see the
gleam of a little eye quickly closing.
He allows this deception, and lays a hand
on the boy’s shoulder.
It was the first time he saw his father cry,
but didn’t even have to ask why.
The tear dried and left minute salt crystals
cradled in the fibers.
It was laundered, with one of the child’s muddy shirts
from another
precious memory, and it went off, somewhere else
it could end up back in the ocean
or in a super market
bag of chips
but for a minute it was on fire
seeing things other salt never sees.
–Brandon Thorpe
⚘
THE SHAPE OF STRENGTH
i will not become unbending
will not rival the rigid
will not clothe myself in stone
for the greatest strength
belongs to the softest heart
able to withstand
the merciless heaviness
the unwieldy weight
of any giant
however malevolent
and refuse to break:
the malleable marrow
of the poet’s soul
simply shifts its shape.
–Cheyanne Leonardo, from death deceived
⚘
MACHINE PEOPLE AND REVOLT FOR THE FUTURE
I cleave with severity the dishonor
Which is begat by the misprogrammed idiot children
Who design the inevitability of the future
With fury and passion.
With strict respite,
Plan the revolt against this order
As furious spiritual vengeance against
The Machine people who turn flowers into weeds.....
That is who killed those children's hearts
Who go on to kill the future.
It's substantially important you risk
The Glory of being destroyed for the sake of honor
To protect the breath and the innocent music
Of other minds who live on conscious planets.
Your name will be written with fire in the sky.
–Dane Osborne
⚘
SOAK
I soak it all in
Thirsty, like dusty cracked earth
I close my eyes and feel myself swell
I don't know anymore
How to take anything for granted
Not anymore, when there seems to be shorter breaths
Between sprints, between storms, between excavations
My world spins ever faster
I hold the pauses as sacred
As the first rays of sun
–Frances Denise
𖤣.𖥧.𖡼.⚘
With endless love & gratitude,
the Dandelion Scribes
