Linda M. Crate- Three Poems

don't doubt the dreamer 

 

my temper is flaring

your station plays too much static

not enough music to sooth the

dragon buried in the flames

of my soul shining silver as the moon

you think you understand because you're

older, but you do not know the secret

strands of my truth buried in the

conch shells of the moon;

many moons have smiled at me prophecies

that your eyes could not see no matter

how widely they were open —

promise shines in my horizon where you see

nothing but ash and dust, you would

overlook me my happiness

simply to pursue me my destruction

unwittingly, of course, but still just as cruel

to suffer;

allow me to dream, to hope, to endure 

without criticism and judgment

cascading down all my mountains because you

may know, but you do not know me —

i am not the average star 

blazing in the galaxy,

my flame burns brighter than the sun and one day

the world will be ensconced in the light

of purity that will save them from their inequity

all because i dared to dream.

my sunshine 

 

sunshine

dancing on your eyelashes

brings me closer to heaven

with a smile

lacking your presence

only drowns me in rain drops 

fluttering on eyelashes

of strangers

singing me into some cruel

despondency known

only in the weight of country roads

that force their loneliness down

my throat until i am stagnant with hatred

of this place,

and i wonder if you'll remember your

promise to retrieve me from

this land of ever winter

where ice dances

even in the dew of summer —

once i slew my own

gorgons, but i entrusted that task

to you along with my heart;

maybe i should take up the helm once more

slice through the throats of every dragon

burning their flames upon my skin

until happiness again

can find me in your 

loving arms.

You Will Feel My Anger In the Trees 

 

It's hard to be happy when you know the man you love betrayed you. Instead of falling on his knees before God and asking for his advice and forgiveness. You did what was convenient to you thinking only of yourself and her. You did not consider me. If you did, you would have never done this. And yet in knowing all this. I love you. Why? I wish I knew. All I know is, I wanted to knock all your teeth down your throat last night. Now I'm writing you love poems. I wish I understood my heart because my mind doesn't understand, at all. I wish you well. I wish her no unkindness. Know also I pray that one day you will come to your senses and realize I was right. One day I will love you again, but today is the day I burn fires of anger and wrath. Today the trees the sun halos will scream with my rage.

Corey Wade- A Poem

The Sun of Heraclitus

I saw a young musician
playing on the train’s platform.
I was transported
sixteen years back
to Bloomington, Indiana,
where the long-haired mod son
of Nike France’s president
preached philosophy
and cooked Ramen noodles
under the breaking night.
We scrutinized the
What Is
of Parmenides
with stone-glazed eyes
high from the annals of philosophy.
We lifted the sun of Heraclitus
initiated Pythagorean rites
and left for the winding paths
of Zen Buddhism
nearly following a monk
whom the professors
could not understand.
Romain Tesler,
I saw you in Berkeley,
You look the same age,
You have the same dark hair
and light scruff
filling out your face.
Then I became a fool
asking the ageless musician,
Romain, Romain,
is that you?




Bio:
Corey Wade studied under Neeli Cherkovski at the New College of California completing an MFA in Writing & Consciousness. His poetry has been published in Black Heart Magazine, Censored Poets, Queen Vic Knives and vox poetica. His prose-piece, “Memoirs of a White Arab-American,” a response to the aftermath of 9/11, was excerpted in The Berkeley Daily Planet and Peace News before being published in Mizna. Wade previously edited the multi-user blog Publicagent, UNITE! zines and griot newspaper. A Master of Science (CSUEB), he currently chairs the math department at the Independent Study Program of Berkeley Public Schools. wadecorey.wordpress.com

Jennifer Lagier- Three Poems

Empty

 

He used to take time

to hide the dead soldiers

before I got home,

mixed alcohol

with oxycodone,

marijuana, cocaine.

Didn’t want to hear

lectures about his liver,

drunken tumbles,

missed work days.

Now he doesn’t bother

to camouflage the vodka bottle

with bags of frozen vegetables,

too hard to find

after a handful of norcos,

two or three bottles of wine.

By midnight,

he’s unresponsive,

video games blaring,

booze spilled on the carpet.

I check respiration, pulse,

my heart on empty,

wonder whether to

celebrate liberation

or dial 911.

 

 

Hammer Time

 

Tonight you are volatile,

pound yourself into me

as if I am an enemy

you need to vanquish.

 

Screaming, you throw

a computer mouse across the room,

slam the t.v. remote

against my glass table.

 

You take another bong hit,

pour more shots of Crown Royal,

scowl, dare anyone

to incur your displeasure.

 

I remember my father once told me:

if your only tool is a hammer,

then every problem looks like a nail

you want to batter.

 

 

On the Town

 

The barrista at Fermentations

shows me the sixteen stitches

over her eyebrow, tells me

how the local physician’s assistant

sewed her up for only $35.

She promises an introduction,

my insurance against

future tanked-up disasters,

says when I move here,

we’ll be best buds forever.

 

At Mozzi’s, old drunken hippies

play rotation pool.

Nailed to the ceiling,

a wagon wheel light, signs

from bankrupt local businesses.

Over-the-hill sluts shriek,

expose more side boob

than necessary,

take up all the bar stools.

 

A bright yellow poster

hangs on the door:

Guys: No Shirt-No Service

Gals: No Shirt-Free Drinks

This is my kingdom;

these are my people.

 

 

 

Brief Bio:

Jennifer Lagier loves Friday night tequila shooters with all the dead snakes she has encountered in myriad bars.

B.Z. Niditch- Three Poems

FALL RIVER

Wishing for July's silence
to soothe a crazy time
on bogs and hammock
enticed by collected winds
locating my recalled map
from my back pack
lost in a milkweed forest,
as a mourning dove dives
into blackened waters,
the river still eludes me
from its burly breezes
from last Friday's storm
shelling the home harbor
and points North,
the radio news
travels briskly
as local sailors vanish
like gulls abandoned
dragged away by the sky
as poisoned plants
tousle my trousers,
an oar floats at a distance
so many miles
on a remote bridge
needing a superhuman tongue
to search for unveiling voices,
for a river can be merciless
like dusk,rain,even the sun.



HAVEN

Unexpected haven
out to the sea
wishing to carve your initials
by the Apple Tree cafe
in this shade of dawn
along a childhood path
clearing wrinkled meadows
by July jackdaws and jays
where no spy or observer
would pick this jetty
by Land's End silence
among undiscovered rocks
at this coastal port,
soon embraced
on beds of sand shells
to expect a listening echo
in your hot glassy hands.



A POET'S NERVE

Start from a page
of what seems safe
to proceed with memory
at your own pace,
guide your lips
to press for the word
in a last bloody chance,
then unleash
a surprising adverb
intended to bury
any internal opposition
or the outward image,
be firm as the last line
in a biting poem.



http://community.webtv.net/buzz-worthy/TheWorldofBZNiditch

Paul Tristram- Two Poems

Set Me Free

Scratch islands into my eyes

some paramount pretty view.

Wipe deceit from my ears

let honesty come on through.

Take the garbage from my head

superglue together my heart.

Teach to me forgiveness

unvolume anger for a start.

Take sarcasm from my smile

and paranoia from my walk.

Unplant the seeds of insanity

harvest up every deluded stalk.

Let me sleep with angels

let sex be what it should be.

Kiss the frog of my soul

set the man inside free.

© Paul Tristram 2003

Published in Panda Quarterly Poetry, Issue 19, July 2004

Hermitized

I want to be alone

I want to be only free.

Free from all of you people

free from your cloned stupidity.

Communities are nothing but cancer

neighbourhoods nothing but a disease.

They suck souls like vampires

destroying individuality with ease.

Populated by blind minded fools

with morals standing at attention.

With my back to the masses

I seek only solitary redemption.

My sins they number many

feeble attempts at fighting back.

Against the teeth of the Establishment

I am merely a puppy in a sack.

Drowning in another man’s laws

created before my cruel birth.

As I hold them up to the light

I see not a single gram of worth.

But still a puppet on a string

refusing to join the dance.

As false masters bind my spirits

at every single given chance.

I simply cannot play the game

I can neither win or lose.

I will not bow down to convention

nor lick the government’s shoes.

Insecure with the system’s security

unsettled by normality’s apathy.

I discard the rat race

and all it stands for happily.

Why struggle on in torment

why sacrifice my precious time.

Reshaping my own integrity

so I can cowardly stand in line.

I cannot censor my emotions

I will not wrong my rights.

I shall not live another man’s dream

while my own is in my sight.

I wear a talisman of logic

I carry a weapon of commonsense.

I disagree wholeheartedly

I will sit upon no fence.

I’ve been crucified by nosey kindness

I’ve been numbed by mortal misery.

A heart with load so heavy

unrequited love bigger than the sea.

I stood before you open

but you made me slam the door.

Dissecting my innocent desires

you made me sorrow’s whore.

I hate until exhaustion

I curse, I spit, I fight.

Every time that I am cornered

every time that reality bites.

Slave to me is a feeling

not just a five-letter word.

I feel it almost constantly

each time the truth is unheard.

Always thrown into the deep end

since the hour of my birth.

Pushed back in every time

that I try to find my worth.

The pillars of the communities

are built upon the foundation of lies.

Gardeners of instinct’s blossoms

cutting creativity down to size.

Alienation and ostracism

now replace the cracking whip.

I can feel the fingers pointing

as I leave this sinking ship.

World you should have been wonderful

humanity should sing but she cries.

I could have given you all so much

instead of becoming so hermitized.

© Paul Tristram 2009

Published in Monomyth, Volume 9.1, Issue 45, Winter 2009



Paul Tristram is a Welsh writer who has poems, short stories and sketches published in many publications around the world, he yearns to tattoo porcelain bridesmaids instead of digging empty graves for innocence at midnight, this too may pass, yet.

Michael Cluff- A Poem

  Follies Michael

 Hamsters
 wingtip shoes
 faith in the goodness of ours.
 Two of the triad
 have been satisfying
 with cup of green tea
 and pralines,
 ways to overcome
 the evaluation of thirty-three
 student papers in seventeen hours
 the added weight
 the old- fashioned
 quaint style sense
 perceived and percolates
 volcanic and rendering
 towards a self-immolation
 of a freezing
 hyperbolic kind.
 The reminder does not hurt
 temporarily
 like the others
 but malingers and maligns
 into a heavy bergere
 which consumes
 and vomits nitre vapors
 on many of my
 unoccupied, unformed
 days.

Tohnee Torrez- Three Poems

Friends

I'll wait for you
Tomorrow
The day after
And most likely the day after that.
On the fourth day, I'll just hope
That I can stop caring about
Someone who won't make time for me.

More Burdens

Pills and drink
To stop the flow of thought
and kill this damned headache.
A longing for solace, a prayer for peaceful sleep,
or maybe
just a slug to the brain.

Can we just leave the heavy thoughts?
Carry what we can on our backs,
Make our way to the oasis without
the guilt, the sorrow or the shame.

One

It's hard to be your everything
When there's only room for one.

You still love him, don't you?

You smile and pretend like you
don't care anymore
but I can taste the tears on your lips.

Bio

Tohnee Torrez is a breathing lump of muscle relaxers and alcohol. Multi-musician, poet, hopeless romantic.

Andrew Jarvis- Three Poems

Water Waste

A rotten octopus no longer electric,

a mess of kelp strangling driftwood,

and shells, there must always be shells.

Sea cucumbers, seaweed, and snails,

a trilogy of neon green and woven brown

displayed as if offered to  some sea god.

The sea stars have rolled over,
their suction cups sucked dry
with no coral nearby to hug them.

A gull picks through the remains,

his beak sorting out sea bits,

so that nothing living escapes.

The crabs, the clams, the cockles,

he even digs in the beach

to ensure no life is buried.

He tugs at some fishing line,

struggles with it while releasing

that dead sea smell, that smell.

He does not stay long,

leaving to find the living,

wanting nothing of the dead.

Blubber

The first found

goes to the girl,

the Kwakiutl cutter,

to flesh the man’s find,

from the dorsal down

to the tail tethered

by stakes at the sides.

How viscid it is,

creeping the back

to the blowhole, where

it flows to the flippers

to condense in fat

with plankton, salt,

and sea grass

grooming the sides –

a trove of red and white

baleen and bowels.

It pours

into her palms,

the first daughter

honored with flesh –

a luster of lard

gleaming in light:

a toast to the fat of it.

~Choreography (Johns Hopkins University, 2007)

Werewolf

The teeth chew deep,

tearing away tissue

and noshing at nodes.

There must be a way,

a bomb to blast that tumor

and spare the basal cells.

There must be a leash

to hold back the bite

of all dogging you.

They need a golden gun

armed with magic shot

to pellet its penetration.

If they can burn witches,

they can cure cancer.

Both work black magic.

And with no werewolf nearby,

there is a silver bullet for you.

Andrew Jarvis is the author of two published chapbooks of poetry, Choreography (Johns Hopkins University, 2007) and Sound Points (Red Bird Chapbooks, 2013). He holds an M.A. in Writing (Poetry) from Johns Hopkins University and a B.A. in English from the University of Maryland. His poems have appeared in both of their literary journals, as well as the Weekly Avocet and the Federal Poet. He received an Honorable Mention for the 2013 Homebound Publications Poetry Prize. He is a professional writer and editor, and he also have been an adjunct professor of English at the University of the District of Columbia.

Douglas Polk- Two Poems

In Politics

right and wrong no longer exist,

if in fact they ever did,

actions relative,

no consequences paid,

morality only a word,

rose colored glasses worn on every face,

trust gone,

while the masses manipulated,

back and forth,

no one wins,

everyone loses,

in politics.

 

 

 

America Re-defined

 

black now white,

Orwell a prophet,

biblical,

in a sense,

the prism through which the world seen,

turned on its head,

rights argued,

until none exist,

reality pliable,

dependent on political view,

the world waits,

while America finds,

and re-defines herself,

and the future.

Linda M. Crate- Three Poems

a better future 

 

an angry wound

unhealing

scorches me with misery

our flowers of romance

nothing but mere ash

but like a phoenix

we will rise again, burn those

memories with ones that

shine even brighter lights of heaven

than we ever remembered

dancing there before;

this sadness will not linger a forever

in me, but until you remember

the locks of autumn blazing in my hair

kissing away your doubt and

confusion a smile will

not remember me —

i can be happy without you, but with you

my joy was at its utmost perfection,

and so i cannot forget

this passion beating in my breast

my love for you is eternal

it is romance, spirited, emotional, physical —

you captivate and entice me,

sometimes the mystery and intrigue irritates

and annoys like the gnats

biting at my shoulders

you were the only one that's ever felt like home,

and the one i will entrust forever with my

heart chipped and broken as it is

i know you will not let it

shatter; i know there are better tomorrows than this

burning their face in the ashes of these words

false and insincere.

remember 

 

should you return

as you promised i know all

the gates of my rage

would be shattered into oblivion,

rust would erode my cynicism

into void;

the sun would shine topographies

of a smile across my face once more and

all these bitter sunsets would be

plunged into the pomegranates

of their clouds —

however, if you don't ever

come and i am left here forever i fear

the worse will come over me

i'll become a witch great and terrible

fearsome with her wrath

of a love lost

into some ocean i cannot discern;

everyone else has broken all their promises to me

why would you be any different?

i just thought you were someone worth suffering

for, but maybe in the end you're another

irritating gnat i need to smash into

the dust —

maybe, however, you're the light that remembers me my mantle

as a star blazing in the ancient clockwork of the sky.

love's embrace 

 

when i was younger i used to pluck shedding hairs

from my mane and kiss them bidding them adieu 

telling them to find my lover, the prince that'd rescue me

i wonder if they ever did find him

or if some eager bird snatched them for her nest;

maybe they caressed his flesh in a dream or they just blew into

the ocean to become the joke of fish and gulls —

skies strange and turbulent may contain them in another realm

where some alien remembers my name more loudly

than i can whisper all the equations of algebra,

but maybe rumors of truth danced into 

the air before the hairs died their deaths into the dust —

if they did find the one that was meant to slay all my dragons with

(and not for me) then i do wonder in what tempest was he

caught? maybe he's still making that journey,

and will find me when i step into some foreign place 

simply by chance;

or maybe they're still blowing in pursuit of finding him as i'm

plucking every face of daisies inquiring about a loving man

they tell me to ask the buttercups, but all they can tell me is of

yellow and every shade of happiness singing in the

tissue paper wings of butterflies —

i want to flit to the flower that holds the happiness of love in

his iridescent palm, swaying so softly his kiss feels

more like an embrace.

Donal Mahoney- A Poem

Blinking Like Ferrets

I've been too busy

the last two years to chat

with anyone in the office.

Today, however, I pause

at the pencil sharpener

while my co-workers

calculate and jot.

It makes no difference, you see,

if I remain silent until retirement

or if suddenly I start talking again.

All we must remember is

that we decay together,

that this charade

we give ourselves to

doesn't require that we speak,

that all we must do, really,

is calculate and jot.

If we calculate well,

if we jot well, the charade

will carry us through.

In the end, we'll see what is true

when blinking like ferrets

we emerge in sunlight,

gaping and gasping,

free of this maze created

by the family of man.

Ross Vassilev- A Poem

all the king's horses...

yes,

I was the freak

the weirdo

the retard with crooked legs

who stammered;

I stopped showering

or brushing my teeth

cuz I didn't give a shit anymore;

I'm a bum and a loser

who doesn't wanna work

who got fired from almost

every job I ever had

sometimes after a few days

sometimes a few hours;

all I wanna do now

is kiss the rising sun

and talk to the white clouds

while the bankers steal

the reporters lie

and the idiots go off

to fight for their rotten country

in Afghanistan.

Tom Hatch- Three Poems

Sunrise 

You are welcome in my house

At the top of the stairs

Leaving gifts of burning silhouettes 

And shadows that will fade

Reflecting off the neighbors 

Window teaching fiery colors

On the hot side analogous in yellows

oranges lighting up the shade 

On the dining room wall

If this were fall in many 

Rows of golden corn stalks

But this is cold early spring 

That you have warmed

The frost away

And my heart for a few 

More minutes then 

My sun you have become day

As chatted on the train platform

We gossip about your accent 

Becoming RA at midday 

Balanced on god's head

That balance lost as

Fading to a tumble into nights shadows

Gathering up your rays

What a Lucky Day

A lucky day to sit by

The window singing

The far never reaching one point perspective 

With yellow aired

Thunderstorms

The rain running mud

Down the bank to the train track

Passing 

A lonely blue plastic bucket

Getting less lonely filling

With water soon to reflect

A clear sky 

The yellow sun thinking

We are so lucky we do

Not have to fight the

Stars, the moon

And the sun that would be a tall order

The Beat of the Mimeograph Machine

This was huge and smelled of denatured

Alcohol there was a two foot high

Box to stand on to operate

This machine she would do the

Hully gully and Watusi 

Like a go, go girl

To the beat of the turning

Drum producing

Pages with letters of

Blue ink also smudged on 

Her hands and fingers

Waving them while her dipping knees gyrated

I loved it when she

Said come let's go make some

Copies in mimeo

Room we let the drum turn

Our hearts in the

University art department

Intoxicated on denatured alcohol 

We would always lock 

The door until the drum

Stopped beating 

Leaving with a stack that was

Tomorrow's syllabus

Anthony Arnott- Two Poems

Biting fight/Fighting bite

It is a fear.

To dry out.

To dry up.

To no longer

think the words they

aren’t expecting

to read.

To lose that bite

that allowed

me to get away

with it for so long,

too long. The fear

has come to

strangle

the fight.

Always Cold

Always cold.

You’ve made me always cold.

And tired. You’ve made me

ask the questions I don’t want to know the answers to.

            You’ve made me look back and see things differently. You’ve made

            me alone, staring into a future we were going to share

                                                                                                together.

                                                            You’ve made me hate

                                    myself for not seeing it

                                                                        coming.

 

             Anthony Arnott lives in Jarrow, South Tyneside, and works as an English teacher. In April 2013, his collection, The Genius who drank all the milk, was released. This was the follow-up to his August 2011 debut, Behind Barcodes, both of which were published by erbacce-press. For two years, he was a Poetry Editor for The Black Market Review. 

  A keen reader, Anthony has read in support of Jerome Rothenberg and has had fifty-word stories published in 50 to 1 and Postcard Shorts.

Alan Catlin- Two Poems

                                    Never the Same Father Twice

                                    "She has a new baby every

                                    fifteen months whether she

                                    needs one or not, all of 23,

                                    four kids already & another

                                    on the way, says, "A girl's

                                    got to have some company

                                    when her man is away."

                                    indicating that they were

                                    doing hard time in a place

                                    where the only women allowed

                                    were matrons, lawyers &

                                    shrinks, none of whom got

                                    close enough to be touched-

                                    this getting locked up  a kind

                                    of bad habit her men always

                                    seemed to cultivate or else

                                    she just liked them lean &

                                    mean & horny which was

                                    short hand for crazy, oversexed

                                    and living out of desperation

                                    in a fast lane that always seemed

                                    to stop outside her door along

                                    with plain clothes cops, uniformed

                                    officers of the law, process servers,

                                    repo men, eviction notice carriers,

                                    rental furniture repossessors, none

                                    of whom she answers the door for,

                                    telling the kids to lie still and shut

                                    up or else-and they did knowing

                                    full well that her 'or else' worse

                                    that anything they could imagine,

                                    that could be pounding on the soon-

                                    to-be-padlocked front door.

To Hell in a Handbasket

At the recruiting office

they asked him straight out if

he was interested in becoming,

'A Rocket Technician'.

He thought about it for a full

ten seconds, liked the sound

of, 'A Rocket Technician, huh!?

"Sure, sign me up." Learned

Lesson Numero Uno of enlisted

life, Always Inquire what these

things mean before committing

yourself. Found out his job was

loading rockets onto gunships

and once they were secure,

he was to assume his primary

job function as a side-hatch-

gunner, firing support on missions.

Early on he heard the co-pilot take some

incoming, turned to look and caught

a round in the area where his right

eye used to be.  If he hadn't turned

just then, he would have caught that

round square in the temple and have

become a dead rocket technician/

side-gunner.  He went over to Nam

mostly crazy, came back all the way

crazy and a whole lot more. Sd. "My

duty was like going to hell in a hand-

basket" and looking at him now, you

figured, once he reached his destination,

there was no coming back.