Sy Roth- A Poem

No words

We walked

For miles

Without words.

When I tired

He dragged.

When I sat mulelike

He glowered.

He did not tell me where

We were going in

Those endless miles.

His face read

A need

And I reluctantly followed as

The minutes and seconds dragged on

In the cold

My furry collar bundled up against my face

And the warm air of my breath

Quickening as time dragged.

I mewled

Whined

To no avail

He determined to get where we were going

We passed darkened buildings

As the sun’s light waned

And my anxieties waxed

Darkened alleyways

Dark drunks lying prone

Dark peeing men

And in the light of a streetlamp

He saw

His need--

His Studebaker

Light blue

Nestled between a Ford and a Chevrolet.

Not sure which was the front or the back

I was only pleased to be in it

After he opened the doors.

No words

Just the pleasure of having arrived. 

Donal Mahoney- A Poem

Consuela and Sean

Through the nursery glass

Carlos Montero peeks at Consuela,

his twelfth, in the arms of a nurse.

Pink as a peony

with brilliant black hair,

Consuela is raw, bawling.

The nurse takes Consuela

away to be washed as Carlos

digs deep in his denims,

locks elbows, gleams,

turns to me. I feel odd

in a suit and a tie as I

wait to see Sean, our first.

When the nurse brings Sean to the window,

Carlos Montero whips off his sombrero,

makes a bullfighter's pass and beams. 

"Senor!" he booms like a tuba. "Ole!"

Suddenly I'm as happy as he.

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

Donal Mahoney has had work published in various print and electronic publications in North America, Europe, Asia and Africa.

Anthony Ward- A Poem

Waiting

I can’t just splash a smile on my face

Hoping it will wash off on others

While they sit there retentively

With their faces smudged

Expecting me to wait on them

While deciding what they want.

I can’t serve them my imperfection

And take all their criticism

While I stand there retentively

Looking down on them

All looking up to me

To serve them well.

 

Anthony tends to fidget with his thoughts in the hope of laying them to rest. He has managed to lay them in a number of literary magazines including The Faircloth Review, Drunk Monkeys, Jellyfish whispers, Turbulence, Dead Snakes, Underground, The Autumn Sound, and The Rusty Nail, amongst others.

Robert Demaree- Three Poems

JUNE 2011

Before the season:

Arriving in New Hampshire:

Rhododendron blooms.

Cottage door opens:

Scent of camphor, closed pine rooms.

Winter yields to spring.

Where last year’s beavers

Took out our best clothes line tree,

Sprouts of new green life.

JANUARY SONGS

1. Procedures

Extractions easier than remembered,

Weakening in what holds things in place.

Did I want to keep the tooth, she asked.

It wasn’t gold, I said No,

Imagining a day down the road,

A spleen, say, or gall bladder,

No, throw it away—

A planned organic obsolescence.

This afternoon, in a cold rain,

We took a plant to a friend

Who goes to hospice tomorrow.

2. Dinner Guest

He still says we, of course,

Uses the present tense,

Slicing gravely into

A company chicken dish,

The fourth chair pushed

Back against the wall.

He spears an asparagus

And speaks of her, their life.

Good, we think:

Past cheerful feigning.

There will be other dinners,

More breasts of chicken,

Pounded, stuffed, rolled,

(This is not a new idea,

A curve not apt to change)

Until at length one of us the guest.

AT THE STAFF RETREAT 1991

1.

At the conference center

The staff retreat glides on:

Flip charts rustle, paradigms shift.

Outside the picture window

Snow falls hypnotically in the woods:

My screen saver.

2.

Memos float mindlessly

Table to table.

A message passes somewhere

Between eye and mind;

I affix initials and pass it on

To the low drone of

Speakers making earnest points,

The furnace cutting on and off:

So what I hear us saying is...

Soon another note appears:

“This does not apply to you.

Erase your initials

And initial the erasure.”

“At the Staff Retreat” appeared in Whisper January 2012

Robert Demaree is the author of four collections of poems, including Fathers and Teachers (2007) and Mileposts (2009), both published by Beech River Books. The winner of the 2007 Conway, N.H., Library Poetry Award, he is a retired school administrator with ties to North Carolina, Pennsylvania and New Hampshire in the eastern U.S. He has had over 600 poems published or accepted by 125 periodicals in the U.S., Canada and U.K., including Cold Mountain Review, Red Wheelbarrow, Miller’s Pond, MediaVirus, Bolts of Silk, Louisville Review and Paris/Atlantic, and in four anthologies including the 2008 and 2010 editions of Poet’s Guide to New Hampshire and Celebrating Poets over 70.. For further information see http://www.demareepoetry.blogspot.com 

Donal Mahoney- A Poem

Maggie and Max

Our son married a flibbertygibbet,

my wife says, and I agree,

but he loves Maggie very much

so I say let's keep quiet. 

It's not our place to criticize.

Max is 33, and not long

back from Iraq. 

I remind my wife

that Maggie can cook 

better than most 

so let's give her a chance. 

Max works two jobs

and he's never home.

Maggie's young.

Maybe the baby will help

but I doubt it.

Too bad Maggie 

didn’t take to quilting,

my wife points out.

The ladies at church

did their best to teach her.

But quilters, I remind her, 

don't go out at midnight

to places nobody knows.

My wife keeps asking 

why Max married Maggie.

I don't know what to say.

Finally I tell her I never saw 

any woman walk like Maggie.

My wife says I never will.

David S. Pointer- A Poem

Eye Candy Cometh

The Women Marines
were sent to inspect
each incoming shipment
of meat, choosing select
cut female MP school
attendees for two choice
high-profile assignments
in Washington, D.C. and
Quantico, Virginia after
circling the students as
if admiring a Venus de
Milo sculpture-then every
duty station that I went
to, I noticed anything
but random distribution
of female physical attributes
across the Devil Dog
spectrum especially
around the staff judge
advocates and Generals’
buildings on the bases.

Luis Cuauhtemoc Berriozabal- A Poem

I SEE MY MIND

I see my mind

in a flame of perfume
burning to the center.

I see my mind

in the wrong hands being
put to rest in a dark hole.

I see my mind
in room full of snakes, a
gift for the undeserving.

I see my mind

made weak by those who

have a head for torture.

I see my mind                 
where it does not belong
encased in a glass box.

I see my mind
broken and about to
burst like the sun.

I see my mind
ready to fall like a
lost ancient city.

A.J. Huffman- Two Poems

With Pom

poms, I prance, preen, pretend the world

hates me because I am

beautiful, not because I am

            spastic

                        ally s-p-e-l-l-i-n-g

everybody’s name in time to some strange

rhythmic beat only I can hear.  Bubble-

gum pop rocks explode in my brain(?), pep

my step, keep me from getting a grip

on sanity.  I smile when they call me Barbie,

pause before the next

mirror, muse about my skirt and the potential

depth of its spinning flair.

Corner of S and M

is 50 shades grayer than any other

shadow the trashy-novel muse crawls into

at 3 a.m.  Desperate for safety-

word-intersection-connection, she paints

herself smiling in latex, a masque

zipped shut at mouth.  She becomes the latest

best-selling toy to poke at.  Allowing

bastardization and abuse to continue

to fall, she believes it will quickly get lost

in the pool of green, growing beneath her feet.

A.J. Huffman is a poet and freelance writer in Daytona Beach, Florida.  She has previously published six collections of poetry all available on Amazon.com.  She has also published her work in numerous national and international literary journals.  Most recently, she has accepted the position as editor for four online poetry journals for Kind of a Hurricane Press ( www.kindofahurricanepress.com ).  Find more about A.J. Huffman, including additional information and links to her work at http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000191382454 and https://twitter.com/#!/poetess222. 

Donal Mahoney- A Poem

My Therapist’s a Lady

 

It’s all so simple now,

yet it took 30 years

to begin to understand.

It’s as though someone

stole the primer I had

and gave me another

in my own language.

It’s because you are

who you are

that I’ve begun

to become who I am.

That sounds too dramatic.

All you did, really, was scream

when you opened the bathroom door,

saw me wrapped in a towel,

standing at attention on a mat,

waiting in my thirtieth  year

for the steam to clear

from the cabinet mirror,

waiting for someone

to shout, “At ease.”

Ross Liskov- A Poem

you can have a mother and father and still be a bastard

wandering lost and lonely

as a Manson girl

I was looking

for some bearded guru

but all I found

were these  empty parking lots

I wandered the streets filled

with dead birds

and clouds muttering to themselves

I was looking for a pot of gold

but all I found was poetry

I wandered over by the tracks

and thought about suicide

but knew even then

that I'm too much of a coward

I wandered lost and lonely

like a severed hand

crawling up the burning walls of Hell

and I'm still looking for something

to rid me of all this bullshit.