Contributor: James Rudolph

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Phantom idyll, a nether realm,
time enchanted uses a
different metric so I drift
in dimensions, fugitive and opiated,
my flanks bare of plate.

But the counter’s tick
can be heard through bright water
coral sky and air creamy
with joy swirl, a hard ledger.

Blur beauty gives ground
to focus, angled, certain,
Account! Account! I am commanded,
salt your dreams, screw your memories
to dystrophic coils.


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James Robert Rudolph is a retired healthcare worker and teacher having returned to old haunts in northern New Mexico after a busy career in Minneapolis. He believes in old-style magical realism, that inspired by the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, the high desert, and the deep, broad sky of the American mountain west. His poems have appeared in The Artistic Muse, Mad Swirl, and Poetry Super Highway, among others.