Amit Parmessur- Three Poems

POEM 1: Bottled

Sitting amidst sparkling tombs at midnight

I am holding a green bottle in my battered hands

All the crimson wine in my belly is ringing,

ringing luscious bells on her melodious name

My barbaric beard glistens in the milky moonlight

like an inverted pyramid housing mummified dreams

I scan solemnly the bittersweet sky resembling

an empty page, one upon which I try hard

to decipher the promise made by her juicy lips

I crave to feel her soft crayon-like fingers,

to know the twisty paths of her clumsy toes,

ready to hammer my tingling heels to fit her footprints

I want to undress her hip and her navel,

making them my pillow on alternate nights,

nights to be spent on a broad bed of fragrant silk

I muse. My girl is the bottle mouth,

I’m the bottom on which the bottle stands

The body of the bottle, which my hands

want to strangle is the tyrant keeping us apart

I wish I could crush it and unite

the mute mouth to the passionate bottom

Why,

but why is it that each time I look at this

tomb without flowers over there,

I see my odious name carefully laid on it

POEM 2: Nirvana

Nowadays I am lunching on the nectar

of devotion in the fecund Abode of God,

the formless Force to whom all forms belong

I was turned into a net, a huge net with infinite holes

tied together with the strings of my failures

I just wanted to flow in the river of her virginity,

feasting on the passion of her delicate heart

My end started by making a spectacular dive,

in a deep pool of my own blood

I ended up as dying drops in a desert full

of dehydrated travelers, but I

am enjoying the divine force around me

now

She broke my chest with a smiling hammer

and stole my heart. She glued my eyelids

to my forehead and stole my mind. She drank

some of my blood, thinking it was Irish wine

She whipped my sandcastle with the

lightnings in her palm and turned me

into an old bottle to be kept under a broad bed

I have arduously climbed a mountain made

of my own swollen bones held together

by modest but shattered dreams

When I inhale I feel like a living dead,

when I exhale I’m a withered flower

but I am enjoying the divine force around,

waiting for when, where, why,

and how I shall be stung again.

POEM 3: reproaches from the dead

pouring some blood into my teacup,

I tried new heights of spirituality

through the rickety window,

I could see a madman shooting

at golden shooting stars,

with an erect blade of grass in hand

and in the neglected garden,

I could find bloody flowers sprouting

amidst the glistening moonlit leaves

soon in the distant darkness

I could make out a few

angels coming out of the swollen soil

my adorable grandmother,

my drunkard of a grandfather

and my brave girl

I shook my head; grandmother was surely

coming to remind me about cleaning her grave

grandfather would ask me why I had

neglected his wife just like he did when alive,

I tossed the blood into my mouth

my dead girl knew that I had betrayed

the promise of never loving someone else

with the dead folk approaching

I closed my frozen eyes,

plugging the bottle of whiskey

into my own glass-cold mouth

unaware that there was a snake in it

I shouldn’t have killed those shooting stars

Aged 28, Amit Parmessur has been published many times in his homeland Mauritius. He has been published and is forthcoming in over 30 magazines including Carcinogenic Poetry, Leaf Garden Press, Long Story Short, LITSNACK and Eunoia Review since starting to submit his poems late 2010. He is very close to the land of his ancestors, India.

Carmen Taggart- A Poem

Chubby Little Angel

slide

further along the path

mayhem

envelopes without a notice

mayhem

ensues as we

slip deeper into denial

snooping friends

trumpet

delight

at the pain they discover

chubby little angel

shoots his arrows

no consideration for where they may land

blankets of confusion

sizzling thoughts of eros

coming up unbidden in the middle of the day

swear to keep the thoughts at bay

rolling around in the hay

year after year

something must be done

gin joints

bouquets of arrows

the meat marketers send him out amongst the masses

beguile

the masses

mile upon mile lined up

underneath the sky looking for a

shooting star

to tell them that they are not alone in a

vast universe

where who owns your heart

is what matters to most

Carmen Taggart writes  when the muses speak from the mountains of Pennsylvania.  Most recently Carmen's writings have been published at poetsdemocracy, The Camel Saloon, Ink Sweat and Tears, and Ink Bean. More of her ramblings, rumblings and musings can be found at her virtual home http://www.musidoras.com/  

Gordon Mason- Three Poems

Café Solo

A visitors’ book lies

unopened and unsigned.

I look at my face

in a glass of black coffee

fringed by a caramel corona.

The glass shakes in my hand.

My face creases into fluid forms,

shifting skin.

I drain the glass

of this lonely thirst.

A visitors’ book lies.

©

Hour After Hour

            snow

stamped with forced heels and soles

trenched with the labour of ignorant dragged feet

spotted with the youth of innocent skipping feet

            one hour after

            the first fall

pastry cutters

            snow

stamped with forced heels and soles

            one hour after

            the second fall

one hour after

the oven fired

©  

Until

a twisting tower of bamboo steps

a handrail that will snap on touch

it curves to the skies with one point

off which you will jump

jump and fly past a brittle criss-cross

of broken dreams, shattered in transit

unstable ladder now

it has no feet and leads to the horizontal

from a vertical past

feet that have trod on layers of rests

are silent - no more to sound on cracks

slung together by sounds of trumpets

the messenger of the horn, the coming of bamboo

the curtain has been pulled back, wrenched aside

and yet it still goes round and round, up and up

until

until

there is only free air, free space

a catalogue of emptiness from which you can order

peace on wires of knowledge

vision on eyes of hawks

strength on strings of violins

“come back to earth” the planets cry

from far reaches of a spotted tar sheet

Man has travelled and left his footprints

echoes into our thoughts

taken over by others

©

Gordon Mason divides his writing time between Scotland and Spain. Born and raised in Fife, Scotland, he has been a member of The School of Poets at the Scottish Poetry Library in Edinburgh. His first collection of poetry entitled 'Catapult to Mars' was published in 2006 by Poetry Monthly Press, and in 2010 further ebooks 'Black footprints in the frost' (Catapult Press) and 'Thunnerplump' (The Red Ceilings Press) were published.  His poetry has appeared in more than 30 publications and he has been included in Poetas Para El Siglo XXI. 

He shares his poetry at www.catapulttomars.blogspot.com and invites other poets to share some of their work here too. Many poems are in two languages. Poems can be in English, Scots and/or Spanish.

Peter Magliocco- Two Poems

The Hip Lexicon of Contemporary Television

by Peter Magliocco
Maglioccolsvgs@aol.com


She's a T.V. personality ensconced,
"like bad putty,"
in late nite cable talk shows
mired by her endless Hollywood
tirades of unabridged filth.
She's a beautiful witch of plastic surgery
scalding audience ears
for viral words draw laughs
lampooning lascivious lasses
like herself while she
promulgates new media curses
no one can readily define.
Her ideal recurring guest
would be Charlie Sheen
just out of another rehab,
& she'd beg to screw him
despite Charlie's high class
hookers
love is still
a four-letter word
like shit tattooed on minds
transparent as windshields
of her expensive Jaguar
vandalized by teen wannabe
werewolves stalking her
tonight after the show; unfortunately
not one can read her bestselling book
about date rape with Eskimos,
& it doesn't take her long
to regret not describing all this
with the most obscene curse words ever
her bleeding lips can't utter.


==========


If Only Charlie Rose Could Hear This

by Peter Magliocco
Maglioccolsvgs@aol.com


They stand outside my digital realm
provoking vocal dissents & dissonance

From dungeons of mental chasms
countless T.V. viewers mildew in

With my unheard words faltering
beyond any actual commiseration

Bleeping out (in exquisite fury)
a telepathy of unborn shadows

Someone sings to me today
about the imminent fall of Egypt

Beyond veneration we abandon
graceful things clogging windowsills

Where Poe's black cats sit drowsing
& with jade green eyes half-lidded

Their evil rectitude still hovers
like lingering ectoplasm vapors

Siphoning desire from all those
unlucky humans still inside

Never noticing the flight now
of summer sparrows bristling

Through antique wooden frames
to mend the broken glass of time


==========


BIO:

-- Peter Magliocco writes from Las Vegas, Nevada, where he's edited the lit-zine ART:MAG for over 20 years. He has recent poetry in HEELTAP, SCYTHE, GOLD DUST, THIS, DEUCE COUPE and elsewhere. His latest chapbooks are Nude Poetry Garage Sale (Virgogray Press) and The Heaven of Words (Propaganda Press). He was Pushcart Prize nominated for poetry in 2010.

Luis Cuauhtemoc Berriozabal- A Poem

DEAD CHICKENS

The dead chickens spoke to me.
They said I should turn on the fryer
and put them in. I don’t know
why they chose me. I was just
sleeping on the parking lot
of the local chicken joint.
It was cold, raining, and late at
night. I tried the front door,
but the place was closed. I broke
the window with a brick. I was
able to turn on the fryer and toss
in the loudest chickens before
the police came. I was taken to
the emergency room for hearing
voices. Perhaps this is the best
thing. I don’t like being homeless
and dirty. People don’t treat you
well when you don’t have a place
to live. I felt like killing myself
so many times. I sat on bridges
thinking I should jump. But I
don’t like pain. I heard the dead
chickens screaming when I put
them in the fryer. I was their
executioner. It made me feel bad.


Bio: Luis was born in Mexico, lives in California, and works in the mental health field in Los Angeles, CA.
His latest chapbook, Digging A Grave, is available from Kendra Steiner Editions. His first poetry book, Raw Materials, was published by Pygmy Forest Press.