Illinois State Poetry Society
Quarterly Poems 2026
One of the many benefits of membership is being published on our website. Each quarter, ISPS invites a segment of the membership, designated by last name, to publish one poem and/or haiga on the website.
Clouds
by Jim Hanson
Enthralled eyes look up to see
clouds drifting across the sky
as white cotton balls in blue
floating free from gravity
mere puffs of water in air
high and sleek, low and round
shaped by fantasy in forms
of mountains and flowers
yet seen close and real within
their majestic appearance
vanishes to gray vapor
having no form or substance
shapeless yet vibrant and violent
with energy of fire in water
when lightning streaks across the sky
and storms assault the earth below
from gods angered by transgressions
upon the sanctity of nature
and purity of its elements
air water fire and earth avenged
white and blue turn gray and black
as once docile winds bring
life-threatening torrents
of apocalyptic force
raining anarchy down
upon transgressors who
plead for clemency from
the sixth extinction to come, yet
in the early morning sun
clouds reappear calm and clear
to reform their shape and resume
passage from dark horizons
another day seen bright
before the coming night
as hope appears to do
seen from a point of view.
On Memorial Day
by Cielo Jones
Remember me
when you take your evening stroll by the lake,
and the flower moon is on the water,
just sitting there undisturbed in its solitude,
not minding your intrusion into its quiet night.
Remember me
when you step into the street on Sundays
and you hear birds
singing, announcing
your presence in their cool morning.
Remember me
when you get in a crowd and no one wonders
who you are or what you’re up to.
You smile and wave at each other
as you hang about
free and uninterrupted.
Divine Sculpture
by Dr. Emory Jones
He sculpts the earth with water, wind and fire,
Sends the roiling stream, cutting soil
With force of rushing flowing water
Sends sand to sculpt the sandstone with the wind.
Through this sculpture garden glides the wind
As sun beats down on desert, hot as fire
That spreads like a shallow river across the earth
And like molten silver beneath the water.
Up in the mountain over rocks, the water,
Rippled by the fingertips of wind,
Resists the glowing warmth of orange fire
To cool the surface of the waiting earth.
The rocks in pinnacles arise from warming earth
As now the flowing river gives its water
To natural bridges, carved by rushing wind,
That arch and leap as if they were on fire.
He blesses earth, refreshes it with water
And on the wind renews eternal fire.
Burning Truth
Golden ore pours from the mouth of an oracle,
the whispers of truth singe and sear the lips.
Truth pouring out, the cannetille
melting across the horizon,
its filigree spilling over golden sumac,
painting honey-colored hornbeam,
encasing tamarack pines in gold-leaf.
Unphased by the fire in the words,
the truth still permeates the globe.
Young Soldier
Drafted: Viet Nam
Pulls into the trainstation
Walks to a gift shop
Two beautiful dolls
He has two nieces backhome
Must send them thesedolls
The man makes boxes
From some old, dirtycardboard
With his machete
They are packed away
Ships them to America
Wishes himself there
Sad, he remembers
The love of his family;
The horrors of war
Being Born Through
by William L. Lederer
I’ll wake up tomorrow knowing what to do
the same as yesterday asking for you.
to tell me how to live
as if death were nothing new.
Because of our past
I’ll think of the future
as too long to last
in past present or nurture.
So I’ll have to choose one
more than one time
and still exist then
in a better frame of mind.
Night Cruise-Lake Michigan
by William Marr
Standing on top of a skyscraper
one can no doubt pick the stars with ease
yet from here it seems more likely
that the stars descend from the sky themselves
to decorate the Magnificent Mile
Shining bright in the fabulous windows
or growing pale in the darkening sky—
what a choice
Near McCormick Place the ship turns around
farther down are ghettos
pitch-dark
not much to see
The Circle of Life
by Rafael Lantigua Medina
I keep wondering about the circle of life.
What’s my question?
Is it an urgent question we all ask
or a never-ending quest?
So often, to justify our actions,
we ignore answers.
But really, do we know…
Do we search for them, or even care too?
Is it that we do not know
what to give back as needed,
for fear of standing up, walk-the-walk,
and speaking clearly to answer essential questions?
Tell me-oh, I want to hear voices!
So, I wonder.
Because when I try to recognize
reality from dreams —or otherwise—
I wish I could invent, or at best,
discover an alphabet to answer this paradox.
So, many people in the world
still can’t answer this question,
and still say, “It’s not my problem.”
And still cannot find answers,
Preferring, instead, to walk away
from their own circle of life.
Blue Ribbon Express
by Monty Mittleman
from Recalibrations. Finishing Line Press, Aug. 2026
Holding hands, bear and rabbit hopped a ride on the Blue Ribbon Express. Blue ribbons can do magical things. Blue flag of an armada, snapping in the breeze. Blue sash of the King’s
Guard. Blue scarf of a brigand with malice in his dreams. Made of the toughest stuff in the
universe: love. Fields of lava and red bellied dragons, beware! The warriors are coming.
Faithful centaur, jump up! Join this merriment but look sharp and guard our flank. Hoot of the
night owl lets us know we can sleep in peace. Rounding the edge of the badlands, a
moonscape of secrets. But these upstarts, these muggles, are on a journey. Chasing down
secrets is one mission on their sacred scroll. Bear and rabbit, two peas in the King’s garden.
Blessed with sun and cool evening breezes. Riding the Blue Ribbon Express until the world ends.
for the curious
and the afflicted lost
any ol’ bookstore
Somedays, I Hear the Ocean
by Tom Moran
I’m at my old playground
and my spirit is at recess
playing with ghosts of children.
Classmates I laughed with,
learned kindness from.
Wisdom we took home,
at least enough to stagger
through life with.
I’ll never be a child again.
But I need to resolve
this soulless anger
I picked up
like a hitchhiker
as an adult.
I’m wondering about
when I pass
like an untethered kite and
have often imagined
what Heaven will be.
A beach where I
watch waves slip ashore,
each wave a day of grief
absorbed by the sand-
until only the waves remain.
I walk back to my car
and drive away.
After the Circus
by Wilda Morris
-from Capper’s. Aug. 2005, p.25
See the little boy
hopping beside his mother,
chattering about the pony
that could add and count.
Chickens cackle and squawk
as he runs across the field
toward the outhouse,
shaking the stick
that holds his large red balloon.
He laughs out loud.
The circus will move on
to other small towns
but for eighty, ninety years
Orville Kessler will see
the circus train, tent,
caged animals, the pony
moving numbered blocks,
the red balloon on a stick,
cackling chickens
at the end of Third Street
in Solon, Iowa, and his mother
beside him, smiling.
Spring 2026
Poems listed by poet name
Exposure
by Jacob Erin-Cilberto
firefly
scutter by
the stem
alight
in the
between
love and war
it’s all a bore
flashing power
no plan
and soon all of the flowers
will be extinct
and there will be
no place to rest.
Tribute to Spring Love
by Michael Escoubas
(after The Rose Garden at Wargemont, by Pierre August Renior, 1879)
In that April week
as flowers begin
their spring emergence
two lovers meet
one hand takes the other
they lean into
each other, her skirt
and fan brush lightly
against his muscled thigh
and fragrance enters in—
the moment becomes
a composition as the body
slows, colors take on voice
as they rest there
and for a moment
a kind of Swiss perfection
comes . . . a balance
an awakening, in which
they rest on the edge of silence
fingers touching ever so lightly.
Kintsugi of Old Hearts
by Karen Fullett-Christensen
We have lived long enough to require repairs
to become acquainted with imperfection
experience teaches and sometimes breaks
Wisdom brings the recognition
that broken hearts are often stronger
when they are mended
With the lacquer of friendship
sometimes love
always joy
It’s the sharing of pain
the holding of hands
that strengthens the broken
The imperfections
that illustrate
just who we are
Horse Dream
by Jim Hanson
It is behind as I drive
down the road ahead, alone
to find refuge from the end
and weary from disquieting thoughts
and the light of day now gone
I stop to sleep and find some rest
to dream about wild horses
running over parched prairie
in flight from tireless predators
and at dusk of day, quietly
they seek the solace of sleep
yet stand alert to traces
of scent and sound in the wind
coming from above
where the mountain lion
looks through hungry eyes
to hunt and to kill
the colts who stray alone
too young too late to run
down the highway ahead
he has taken for himself.
I wake to a whinny
shimmering through the night air
perhaps real, perhaps dream
then nothing again heard
but for crickets chirping
near in the dawning woods
and sun beams light out to
the field where the horses
graze green grass, quietly
as I resume my travel
knowing it will still be well
for yet another day.
Relief in Relife
Does evening raise a fear of no more dawns?
Does autumn’s chill forever kill our lawns?
If not, then why dread gray hair in a mirror?
If dawns and lawns recur, is death to fear?
Is body all I am, a soft robot
conditioned by blind chance, then left to rot?
Is heaven just a slide shone on the sky
to keep believers honest till they die?
To think extinction ends our too-short life—
to think a void replaces child and wife—
to think a shroud blanks out all consciousness—
all far too grim for me, I must confess.
I’m reassured from deep in bone and heart
that when I and my body come to part,
I’ll slip it off and leave it like a coat,
retaining what I know, but free to float.
Our breath comes in, goes out, and so do we
who end each earthly life, but then are free
to roam bright inner realms with opened eyes
which see through physicality’s bleak lies.
We thrive in heaven’s symphony of mind
uncounted blissful years, until we find
we thirst again to join the physical
where atoms quickly teach what’s practical.
Like gravity, a pull of destiny
reels in our soul from near infinity
and helps us choose as home some mother’s womb—
what most call birth, our trammeled soul deems tomb.
Then choice and aftermath on earth are learned—
like school, where each promotion must be earned.
With open-hearted deeds we all progress;
with selfish acts we duly retrogress.
If death is no more end than western sun—
if Soul appears through bodies, one by one—
then life is no more opposite of death
than breathing is the opposite of breath.
Heart and Soul
by Teresa Harris
Give me a kind heart
That beats in time
Butterflies in my stomach
Send chills down my spine
Leave me breathless
Make a long lasting bond
Lend me a strong shoulder
To rest my weary head upon
An ear that listens
Like a whisper in the wind
A mind that is understanding
A steady reassuring grin
Eyes that look deep into my soul
A compassionate and caring gaze
A mouth singing a beautiful song
That creates a passionate blaze
Let me breathe in beauty
Like a delicate flower smell
Uncover hidden truths
Experience trust that never fails
A hand that cradles my hand
Tells me to hold on tight
A finger which points the way
In the darkness of the night
Wrap me with arms and legs
Intertwine and never let go
Bodies that turn into spoons
To feed a hungry soul
Attending the Funeral of Someone You Never Knew
by Colleen McManus Hein
We sat to the side; it had been
Too many years since this man
Paid my husband over high school summers
To paint back porches, ones that snaked
Up the building like cross-stitch patterns
In lumber.
Since I wasn’t sad, not yet,
I watched a cluster of cousins
Reunite three pews up.
The males did the brief chest bump,
Clap on the shoulder hello,
The females full-on neck-wraps.
When the violist drew a mournful bow
The chatter dropped as the
Priest drew a life to a close.
We stood, we kneeled, we prayed,
We sang for the man I didn’t know.
When the son rose to the lectern,
Though, the picture he painted for
Us was as dark and light and shades
Between as a person could see
Without having actually been.
One life, summed in a sorrow
Of jokes, pranks recalled, memories stoked.
When his voice broke as he read a
A boxed note, a naked declaration,
Rare for this otherwise stoic man,
He held the mourners close for a moment
To this man I’d never known,
This man I wished I’d known.
Ancient Greece
by Mark Hudson
In ancient Greek democracies,
men got an education.
Plato studied under Socrates,
and teaching was his vocation.
Socrates was executed,
and Plato left Athens in a rage.
To an academy he contributed,
teaching at the college age.
Music, poetry, and gym,
as well as math and science.
They were instructed under him,
Aristotle helped teach the clients.
Students were often prepared for war,
the boot camp began in classrooms before.
A Language of Sensing
by Melissa Huff
inspired by the The Morton Arboretum’s mission:
“where people and trees thrive together”
You can run your hand along the deep ridges
and furrows of the white ash—
let your skin read it as though it were Braille.
Your mouth might relish the sweetness
of linden leaf buds—bundled leaves
murmuring their tender messages.
If you linger in a stand of white pine—
inhale their healing fragrance—
they will tell you of their essence.
Cottonwoods borrow the wind’s voice to whisper
through their big-hearted leaves—while aspen
sing along in a shake-and-shuffle dance.
And look at the sugar maple—draped
in autumnal robes it declares itself to your eyes
as it will later in its full winter nakedness.
Our senses know—already—how to speak
with these sentinels of the plant world.
Perhaps when we practice this language
something even deeper within us
will commune with the trees.
Divine Sculpture
by Emory Jones
He sculpts the earth with water, wind and fire,
Sends the roiling stream, cutting soil
With force of rushing flowing water
Sends sand to sculpt the sandstone with the wind.
Through this sculpture garden glides the wind
As sun beats down on desert, hot as fire
That spreads like a shallow river across the earth
And like molten silver beneath the water.
Up in the mountain over rocks, the water,
Rippled by the fingertips of wind,
Resists the glowing warmth of orange fire
To cool the surface of the waiting earth.
The rocks in pinnacles arise from warming earth
As now the flowing river gives its water
To natural bridges, carved by rushing wind,
That arch and leap as if they were on fire.
He blesses earth, refreshes it with water
And on the wind renews eternal fire.