Linda Crate- 3 Poems

no reprieve 

 

you dance your spondees 

upon me in sea urchins 

that tickle my fingers in 

the depths of the sea, you

must impress your noxious

presence upon me even if

I am enjoying myself and

especially then; I want a

moment’s reprieve from

the world and you’re there

to force me back to the face

of reality riddled with his

garish scars and boring stories —

I would much rather roam

freely in the sea of my mind;

so if you would kindly remove

your foot from my imagination

I will proceed to live my life.

death 

 

death comes in slants

he takes a little of you

bit by bit he steals a 

little something from

you; a familiar face 

that you once knew

a smile that once 

stretched the length

of your face; the

topography of the

hands you once knew

so very well all those

years ago, it leaves you

a comatose wilted rose.

uncomfortable skin 

 

he laughed at her as she

came pirouetting out in

her favorite gown sewn

by the hand of truth, he

tore some fabric out in

fissures so that only the

half truths and lies were

clothing her form; she 

did not feel comfortable

in the solace of these

bones that gnawed at 

the tissues of her heart —

burning fissures of black

into her silver soul, an

absinthe of sorts; but he

told her that it was all

going to be okay, that it

didn’t matter, that nothing

mattered; this moment 

would be immortal, that

their love would spin out

a tale more well known 

than any tale of Shakespeare.

Sarah E. White- A Poem

Soaking and Drowning

I can always count on them

Always to be there

On them I can depend

A constant and a comfort

I know where they will be

Always right where I left them

Waiting patiently for me to arrive

Sitting quietly

They will never leave me

But I can leave them

And that I often do

Leaving them waiting

Just sitting there quietly

Helplessly

Patiently awaiting

Waiting for me to arrive

And give them attention

Returning to them

For I need them so

And they need me

They have to have me

The dishes that await me

Wash the dishes

They don’t do themselves

They don’t do anything

They sit and wait for me

Soaking slowly

Drowning me

Russell Streur- Three Poems

TABLE OF DISCONTENTS #9

Time travel

Fatal accident

Crisis deepens

Payoff uncertain

Bad step

Terror laws

Holy war

Negative consequences

Deportation

“They must know,”

the scientist said,

“Something we don’t.”

Collateral damage

No mercy.

TABLE OF DISCONTENTS #10

Cold war

The wrong taxi

Feedback loop

Insider trading

Woes persist

New limits

Spring crushed

Substance banned

Hostile action

“The situation is grim,”

the coordinator said.

“It goes on for a very long time.”

No food

Choke point.

TABLE OF DISCONTENTS #11

How it all began

Alternate version

An invisible thread

Management shuffle

Exile

Blood of ordinary people

Unintended consequences

Parade of the rich

Stability maintenance

‘The big picture,”

the executive director said,

“is restricted visibility.”

Zero day

The usual suspects.

 

 

 

BIO

Russell Streur is a born-again dissident residing in Johns Creek, Georgia.  He operates the world’s original on-line poetry bar,The Camel Saloon, catering to dromedaries, malcontents and jewels of the world at http://thecamelsaloon.blogspot.com/   The beer is cold, the whiskey Irish, and the door is always open.

Jamie Grefe- A Poem

YEARLY GIFTS OF EARLY DEATH

Draped in white, Beijing dust floats in 

red clumps to fingertips, and itching, we 

sing ourselves mad to February explosions, 

for spring is coming. 

The close family sunk, back from the hospital room, 

a fevered child shoots a plastic pistol, I smoke circles, 

scrape vomit, wipe black velvet to rings round the sky, 

blow kisses for my enemy is here. 

And, it's your birthday again, once on the second, but not 

on the twenty third and you're bloated, escaped breath is a 

womb and the child dream-sleeps through these firecracker nights

where gunshots and laugh-tracks are all we have.

But, two makes a family, Old Mother's bawling in 

the kitchen over green beans or shaved beards and I'm gone,

outside with pig fur in the yard making sure they don't 

accidentally eat one of those flakes of red rice paper, those 

yearly gifts of early death. 

Christopher Hivner- Three Poems

Matter

 

I don’t know

was my stock answer

when she asked

a question.

Sometimes I did know

but didn’t care,

other times

I wasn’t really

listening to her.

She peppered me

with inquiries

about the world,

a place that had

left my insides

as sharp

as shattered glass.

On and on

her tongue

formed words

and the breath

in her lungs

pushed them out

for the nitrogen-rich air

to carry

into my ears.

I don’t know

was always

my answer

between puffs

of generic cigarettes.

One day

I would break,

I felt it

in the pit

of my stomach.

One day

I would answer

all of the questions

and then I would

cease to matter

to her.

I lit another cig

inhaling deeply,

preparing my

heart and lungs

for the day

she walks away.

 

 

Classic Rock

 

I waited in the car

through the Rolling Stones,

Neil Young,

American Pie and the Beatles,

I waited through

three in a row

from The Who

and a request

for Pink Floyd,

the 17 minute one,

I waited for her

to leave his apartment,

straightening her dress,

fussing with her hair.

I waited to see it

before I hated her,

had to experience it

so I could

let go of what

I held in.

I waited until

she drove away

to shed the tears

that had been living

under my skin,

to acknowledge the sick

that was eating

my stomach.

I waited through

Cheap Trick, Zeppelin

and until

the street was empty

to get out

of my car

and walk to

the apartment

where my wife’s

presence lingered

in the air

and on the bed sheets.

I hummed Ziggy Stardust

while I waited

for him

to answer the door

and sang

“Welcome to the Jungle”

as I put

a bullet in his brain.

My head

was full of static

as I walked

back to the car,

interference from somewhere

wiped my thoughts

to white.

I drove home

through weather reports,

traffic updates

and ticket give-aways,

all getting lost

in the noise

my mind

found soothing.

I waited in my driveway

through my

muttered prayer,

the neighbor’s dog barking

and the

chambering of a bullet

inside my gun.

As I turned off

the car,

the DJ

put on the blues.

 

As Secret Writing Flourishes

 

The news plays in the background,

CNN talking heads 24 hours nonstop.

 

I hear about the bombs that went off

and the bombs that didn’t.

 

4 a.m. and the pretty blond

is telling me the same things

 

that the pretty brunette told me

12 hours earlier.

 

4 a.m. and I still don’t sleep,

three days and counting.

 

I watch the images

and read the headlines

 

but turn the sound down

so I can hear what remains

 

of your voice trapped

in the cracks of the plaster.

 

The Sun rises behind the house

while the overseas stock markets gain

 

and you tell me again

why I’m an asshole.

 

A fire in Cleveland rages out of control

while I wait for the apology

 

that always came, but this time

it sounds insincere

 

because your voice is fading,

the remnants too slender to register.

 

Your old letters are spread out

on the floor, trapping me

 

on the couch

so I don’t step on them,

 

but I can’t read your words anymore,

written in French or Gaelic

 

or some secret code.

What were you trying to tell me?

 

A man breathless and sweating,

speaking frantically

 

of his daughter wandering off

in a crowded Wal-Mart.

 

Under his impassioned face

CNN is trying to tell me something

 

with scrolling words

but I can’t read them.

 

I pick up your letters

and I know

 

her name is Missy, and she’s 4 years old.

I look at the TV screen

 

and it says

I am all you need.

 

Missy is wearing red shorts

and a white top.

 

You wish I understood

when you cry.

 

Missy was last seen

looking at the fish tanks.

 

It might be a mistake,

but you need to leave.

 

I drop your letters and turn off the TV,

sad realizations driving me.

 

If I find Missy

maybe I’ll find you,

 

but I’m a thousand miles away

from Indiana

 

and if you were standing next to me

I wouldn’t know where you were.

David S. Pointer- A Poem

                   Envy?

The rich grab up all the money

like a Mexican land grant, and

the bottom end poor are left

pondering early burial by

                                  bottle,

crack pipe, or tiny paycheck,

Mitt Romney’s cross-border

                              bank roll

safe, secure, and insured as

his corporate raider retreats

Bio: David S. Pointer has recent acceptances at "Black-Listed Magazine," "Portland Occupier," "Rattle," and elsewhere.

Linda Crate- 3 Poems

controller  

you swallowed me into void,

the arms of black loneliness

circled me like vultures before

they devoured what was left

of me; I let them rip the fissures

of moon silver clean off the

bone, I could not force myself

to care until I saw her osculation —

against your own lips, I claimed

the birds of prey for my own;

I fashioned myself wings of black —

when you least expected it, I pecked

your eyes out piece by piece simply

to ensure you that I was the master,

and you had never controlled me.

you’re a boat  

lovely face it is a

boat drifting out to

sea, gliding across

the water as graceful

as a swan; pirouetting

against a landscape

of melancholy, the

topography of your

lips pierces the white

of snow with a snatch

of crimson feathers, a

cardinal to rescue us

from the trite scene of

rolling white thundering

across the hills; I don’t

think I've ever loved

you more than I do now.

uncle jimmy 

the moon is grey as your eyes and as

fractured as your yellowing bones;

I see you in every silver rain and every

melancholy grey day, I miss you when

I read Catcher in the Rye and wonder

why you liked it; I could never relate

to Holden, I’ve known the sting of

isolation and I’ve been the outcast for

several years and many moons, but I

still couldn’t understand the fascination —

you used to paint and I envy that, your

skill was extraordinary; I couldn’t do

the wondrous things you did with a paint

brush to save my life, but though we

used different mediums we’re both artists —

I wish I could make you proud, I wish

you could see my words; I wish that 

you could be revived from death somehow

just so you could spend more day on this

earth with us, it seems unreal that twelve

spans of three hundred and sixty five have

already passed like you have; it seems 

that you’ve been gone far too long.

Donal Mahoney- A Poem

Mixed Couple on the Morning Train

      Chicago, 2009

Because he works in an office and is white

and because she who tans anyway has just

returned from a week at the Beach,

the commuters are certain she’s not black

yet they rustle in their seats.

They want to see her hands flick.

They want to see if rivers run dark

through ivory palms.

Martin may be dead

and Obama may have won

but in Chicago this morning at dawn

a rainbow of people

still rustle in their seats. 

----------------------------------------------

We have elected an African-American as president of the United States 

and we have declared a national holiday in honor of Martin Luther King, 

but some things may never change, and maybe that's normal 

for the human condition, whatever the race. 

http://booksonblog12.blogspot.com/

Sarah E. White- A Poem

Silly Life

Boggled completely

I am utterly befuddled

And also thrown for a loop

Exasperated at the thought

My eyes are unbelieving

Uncomprehending it at all

What a joke

Lovely words and phrases for a dirty word

Silly life

Such a thorny rose

So sweet to breathe

As my fingers bleed

I pricked them deep this time

While I was distracted

By senses more powerful than beauty

Softer than the delicate petals

That encapsulates its essence

I take in the warm aroma of life

Of desire

To take it into me

It pierces quickly

And now I bleed freely

The blood flows in dark scarlet droplets

Streaks down the smooth pale skin of my fingers

It plummets in a freefall of redness down to the floor

Happily bandaging

Taking in the sweetness of its many layers

Savoring the sweet sting

And sucking the salty tips of my fingers

Utterly befuddled by life’s delicate balance

Linda Crate- 3 Poems

my time is not now 

 

silly boy you mistook forgiveness

with forgetting, I would be stupid

to loose my hold of those memories

that still cut like shards of glass, the

words you aimed at my head like a 

rifle before pulling the trigger, I’ll

not hold your transgressions against

you, but I’ll never trust you again;

you wounded me deeper than the

ocean, eroded me worst than the

sea eating away at rocks; you burned

my heart into stardust the rest of me

will follow one day, but not by you; 

I’ll go on my own day and terms.

a proton and a neutron 

 

you trip over the syllables like a laughing girl,

like I always falter when I walk; I over or under

calculate each step, always such a klutz; but my

words flow like honey whereas you trip over your

vernacular and walk straight, perhaps, we could

help one another if we weren’t so proud to admit

that we have problems, maybe we were the two

hinges of a door separated at birth; maybe that’s

how we can complete each other so perfectly

without knowing how it is that opposites attract —

it’s like we’re back in science class and I’m a

proton and you’re a neutron, it’s like these bones

and lips and marrow have nothing to do with the

fabric of whom we truly are; it’s just window

dressing masking the skeletons of life that no 

one wants to see, we shine as brightly as the stars

together, but as individuals we’re lacking, please

never send me back out there in the world alone.

the hold of winter 

 

threadbare branches of wizened

trees hold their arms without leaves

so proudly, as if enamored by their

own strength which lends them

to stand without their children; the

cardinal sits upon them, cutting

across the dreary landscape of winter’s

alms thrust into the aorta of the land;

like the pieces of you that froze over

my heart in icy fingers; you were a

parasite like winter, stealing the marrow

from my bones and leaving me weary —

I dreamed of spring days coming to

thaw away all the damages that ravaged

against my brow; but you chased her 

pastel skirts away for as long as you could;

you wanted me to suffer the crime of

loving you; I never understood why you

were so cruel, why you had to erode away

at my heart piece by piece before throwing

me to the mouth of jagged rocks; you say

I’m not always the martyr, but I’m not always

the one to blame, sometimes the facsimiles

spun pour from your mouth in absinthe not mine.

Linda Crate is a Pennsylvanian native born in Pittsburgh yet raised in the rural town of Conneautville. Her poetry has been published in various journals the latest of which including: Skive, The Scarlet Sound, and Speech Therapy.

Bryan Murphy- A Poem

Dog Day Sundown

Far from winter and work, the sun still sets

on a perfect, dog-free bay in southern Mexico.

Filaments of eye-candy cloud

squeeze the horizon into layers,

then part the curtain on the evening’s stars:

Mars and Venus, crescent waxing moon.

A watcher on the beach sifts sand,

peers at what thoughtless fingers raise:

a leather collar, cut sharp, stained dark,

a name engraved - “Tigre, Posada Las Americas”.

Inside the town, once clouds reclaim the night,

the mayor sleeps deep and sound.

She’s paved the road outside her house, raised taxes,

“cleansed” the beach. A second term may come.

Bryan Murphy is a former teacher, translator and frequent visitor to the Pacific coast of Mexico. His poems "Rule of the Road" and "Bloody Student Cuts" appeared in Dead Snakes in March 2011. He lives in Turin, Italy. A volume of his short stories, provisionally entitled "Padania Blues" is forthcoming.

Maria Cristina De Guzman- A Poem

Defense of the Ancients

 

In oblivion, she crawls, leaps,

runs, and spreads her wicked wings

to fly away from the warmth of home

to sneak into the dark and dismal town

where narrow paths lead to ecstasy,

camaraderie, death and victory.

 

Trailing the landmines buried by

the threesome trusted heroes

who feed her penchant for salve

that brings venom to her veins

yet lends a warming breath

from the savage torches, that ties

her willing arms to the filthy cape

of the mighty enchantress.

 

In oblivion, she retreats, runs away

from the raging battle of traitors

who dream to kill themselves

in the same cold war of the weakling

which enticed the enchantress to die

with a hero that casts both fire and ice

to hide their temple from the sinless snipers.

 

She invisibly…slowly… fakes a hallow death

to allure the scourges never to hinder

her righteous vow to defend the ancients.

 

 

 

Bio: Maria Cristina De Guzman loves to play DotA during her spare time. This poetry is about her struggles in defending what she considers as her ANCIENTS in real life.

Donal Mahoney- A Poem

Envelope in the Pigeonhole

 

This evening when I return to the hotel

I see in my pigeonhole

Angela’s writing

on a yellow envelope.

 

What excuse will she have for not writing?

Too busy, perhaps,

stirring cauldrons of soup

while the cats dash about licking her calves.

 

Or don’t the cats know enough

to lick at her calves?

Would that I were the cats

and the cats were taller.

-----------------------------------

Donal Mahoney has had poems appear in Dead Snakes and other publications in North America, Europe, Asia and Africa.

Glenn W. Cooper- A Poem

It Runs Through Me

Breakfast time and a scientist is spooning dark matter into a cereal bowl …
He has just a small portion of it in a cardboard box, caught in the lab in a device too terrible for articulation …
A never-ending expansion, beyond the cereal bowl, beyond the room, beyond even the house …
Why can’t you put that stuff away? someone says. You’re always playing with that stuff.
It runs through me as it runs through all of us, the scientist says.
What he puts in the bowl expands the bowl.
Galaxies pushed further and further apart …
Snap! Crackle! Pop!

Maria Cristina De Guzman- A Poem

Memoir of a Mistress

Centuries of sundown mourned,
yet Manoah's loss was still a victory
for his tribe, set apart for light
from the impure warmth of unredeemed.

Upon his tongue lied the sweetest lie,
which tied her liberty to kiss and tell
the innocence that once conceived by
his younger days of abstinence.

Riddles and scribbles out of honey and bones
paved a destiny to his virgin braids.
Remember those knives on those papyrus
he needless to utter, for it were written long ago.

Old tribe sent plagues to her back,
reminding her of spoiled blood in lion's claws
that invaded the depth of his blameless soul
where the truth was hidden for centuries.

Hopes still cling to the twosome pillars
that broke her faith in his impeccable strength.
Stains on his mighty linear limbs
still haunt the remnants of her sanity.

The world has pierced her on the vineyard's earth
where past spat his royal blood,
that slowly turned into enticing green
once blown soft whispers upon in dawn.

Thou shall not blame her for Zorah's grief,
if his bones were crushed to a soiled carcass.
Caresses laid him to the depth of slumber
but her sinful hands did not cut his braids.


Bio: Maria Cristina De Guzman has been writing poems since she was six. She lives in Cebu, Philippines. Writing poetry is her first love. Her poem "Memoir of a Mistress" is actually written out of a very interesting event in her life that has completely changed her ideas about friendship, love and betrayal.