Robert Lavett Smith- A Poem

THE FLAMES THAT CLAIMED HIM

Increasingly, these past few years,
I have seen my father’s face
in the bathroom mirror:
in my thinning hair, my beard
dimmed to the color of dust.
My gaze, blue as cold weather,
has begun to shine with
something I can’t quite name,
a yearning I seem to recognize.
But now that he’s gone,
the worn out limbs
glowing at last like the matchsticks
they had come to resemble,
the brain, a spent vessel finally unable
to hold his cluttered memories,
reduced by the gas jets
to a smoldering puddle
and eventually evaporated,
I see in my matinal reflection
traces of the flames that claimed him,
the glint in my eyes no longer
hope but the beginnings
of a conflagration, as though
the spark of his death had lit a fuse
somewhere deep within me.
Someday perhaps I will be
cremated as well, my ashes
mingled with those of my late wife,
scattered on the winds above the Golden Gate.
But however distant that day,
I sense the combustion
has already begun,
merciless and inexorable.
It’s coming for me,
biding its time inside me,
and even my aftershave
cannot quite disguise
a hint of burning flesh.



Son of the noted ichthyologist C. Lavett Smith, 1927-2015, Robert Lavett Smith was raised in New Jersey, and has lived since 1987 in San Francisco, where for the past sixteen years he has worked as a Special Education Paraprofessional. He has studied with Charles Simic and the late Galway Kinnell. He is the author of several chapbooks and three full-length poetry collections, the most recent of which is The Widower Considers Candles (Full Court Press, 2014).Two poems from this newest book have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize.

Pijush Kanti Deb- Three Poems

Hands and Their Committed Mistakes 

 

Hands and their committed mistakes
bear unknowingly a mirror
reflecting an image –
dark or luminous,
drawn by their mesmerizing power
on the canvas of the watchful eyes.
An ugly hand and its uglier image
assume the ugliest definition
of its micro  mistake as macro one
from the witnessing eyes
along with a bonus of scolding
from the babbling tongue
before these are sent back to restart.
A handsome hand and its beautiful mistake
ensnare the judging eyes
reflecting its luminous image
and win an affectionate definition
of its horrible mistake
as an innocuous mistake-
a simple slip of hand
though it pours hemlock into nectar.
 

 

The Law Of Compulsion

 

Standing of hair up-
an uprising form of hair style,
contemporary to the modern thoughts
and a proof too
to the law of compulsion
expressing one’s inability
to make neither head nor tail of the next
in its abundance or scarcity;
representing a shock
compelling a body to sit down
on the heap of unanswered queries
without putting two and two together
except frightening the hairs to stand up;
and thus verifying the law
exhibiting the inverse relationship
between a compelled body and its hairs
living in this plutonium age
allowing no tongue to rundown
the standing fate of hairs-
accepted and nurtured in the name of style
hiding stylishly the side effect
of diplomatic modernity and its dogmatic compulsion.

A Red-Letter Day

 

Time and again
extinguishing the sparking questions
left by me behind my every careless steps,
she is careful to save the face of a paradise
built in her heart for my heart
and wakeful to guard the blossoms-
bloomed all around in all colors.
Is she an angel or a true lover
or both of these?
A big question to me to find out the answer
from her staying hand and glove with me,
hand in hand in every walk or race of my life,
giving open ear to my babbling-
hard and fast or brand new
in cold blood
blooming a sweet flower on her lips,
making the dust in her dreamy eyes
thrown by my imp
non-sticky and non-irritating to her dream-
projecting an image of our intense intimacy,
ensnaring the escaping clouds
to float only in her sky
for raining cats and dogs
on me, the God and the Devil
making all cool and enchanted
to fight in combination against the dark sun-rise
which may bring about a rainy day one day
in her collocated married life-
wedding with me on a day ten years back
might be a red-letter day of my blessed life .

 

 

 Pijush Kanti Deb is a new Indian poet with more than 225 published or accepted poems and haiku in more than 68 nos of national and international magazines and journals, [print and online] like Down in the dirt, Tajmahal Review, Pennine Ink, Hollow Publishing, Creativica Magazine, Muse India, Teeth Dream Magazine, Hermes Poetry Journal, Madusa’s Kitchen, Grey Borders, Dead Snakes, Dagda Publishing and so on. His best achievement so far is the publication of his first poetry collection,’’Beneath The Shadow Of A White Pigeon’’published by Hollow Publishing is available on AMAZON visiting the link, http://www.amazon.com/Beneath-Shadow-White-Pigeon-Pijush/dp/1505854113/ref=sr_1_1_twi_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1422829526&sr=8-1&keywords=beneath+the+shadow+of+a+white+pigeon
OR, http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/beneath-the-shadow-of-a-white-pigeon-mr-pijush-kanti-deb/1121156263?ean=9781505854114&isbn=9781505854114

 

John Swain- Three Poems

The River Sang

The moon in urn

between your breasts

hangs a casting amulet.

I seized for breath

when I threw myself

into the pool

of blue snow melt

on the mountain

in the darkness

of a silent brown owl.

The sky is patient

with the grief of leaving

the whole we destroy.

The river of fish

sang with one voice,

I heard you speak

painting the trees

until we wake in the grace

of a cloud fire.

A white deer sprang

from the jawbone

in my hand

then disappeared

into clear water.

The Turning Hawk

With lightning in my eyes

I watched the turning red hawk turn white

against the winter trees.

The sleeping earth wakes in crystal lines

as the river shatters ice

moving to flood the oak bottomland forest.

My chapped lips groaned to hold the sun

in a maiden song dawn

until the passing hours took its antler shine.

Deep in the snow like a sky of nix roses,

I remained in the blinding white, drowned

with a brook horse riding.

Then the mirror fields flow 

into a grey palace for our desired privacies,

the ring of your world floats like a candle.

Sycamore Field

In the center of a field

one sycamore spread

from her breasts

under the curved horn

of white branches

toward the darkness

of the horizon forest,

the seer is a woman.

I crossed the depth

of untouched snow

for the owl in the well

of this tree’s mouth,

the clipping winds

filled with glass

to speak the meaning

of the hollow within.

In the winter evening,

she lives her body

under tarot blue robes

for a fire

burning our histories

in a cleansing incense

to the seekers

of her unending heart.

John Swain lives in Louisville, Kentucky. Red Paint Hill published his first collection, Ring the Sycamore Sky.

 

Richard Schnap- A Poem

LOOKOUT

I see a grey ship
Blown by a bent wind
Over a poison sea

Under stars that weep
As they watch it fade
Toward a barren shore

Buried in shadows
That slowly open
Like a door that lies

At the end of a corridor
From which there can be
No returning

But high on its mast
Sits a silent bird
Beneath the darkening sky

As if it’s a guide
To find the last path
Beyond the edge of sight

Adreyo Sen- A Poem

The Muse

Does anyone ever know

a woman who is in repose?

Sitting, still, she could be

the delight of her graceful ease,

or the stern belief

in her rigid silences.

Standing on the touching slenderness of her feet

she may call the poet who resides in us

to admiring comparisons to an ageless

elm tree.  

But still be in the quiet arrest of her beauty,

a complete mystery.

In vain we read the elegance in her dress.

Vainer still are we 

in reading poetry in the wind's playfulness

with her hair.

Perhaps we know her only

when the faint melancholy of her lips

suggests the sweetness of a smile - 

a smile that perhaps is

the metaphor of her story,

or the first faint music

of a future she hopes to write.

Joseph Donnelly- A Poem

Creepy City trees

 

A tree touches me at night
Creepy shadows embrace my body
I shiver
Wanting to let go but he has too many arms

Pulling me in near the trunk

Showing me its bark

All moldy and grey

 

I’m too scared to tell the grounds keeper

Worried he will get chopped down

Made into fire wood

burned for everyone to see

 

The shadows hide other victims

They leap in and out of the darkness

Confident in a cowardly ways

Watching me struggle not to become them

 

In the day time I only see branches with blue birds

Singing sweet songs and making sounds of Spring

Last night’s thunder storm falls from their appendages

Making the ground too wet to walk on

 

People pass by and smile

Temporary daytime visitors

The ones who will never understand

Why the leaves fall to their own death

Ayaz Daryl Nielsen- Three Poems

two-fisted drinker

let me buy you 

the cab fare home

white moonlight

the color of her

late night prayer

no matter my words

this rock

isn’t interested

ayaz daryl nielsen, x-roughneck (as on oil rigs)/hospice nurse, editor of bear creek haiku (25+ years/125+ issues), homes for poems include Lilliput Review, SCIFAIKUEST, Shemom, Shamrock, Kind of a Hurricane, and! online at: bear creek haiku  poetry, poems and info

Arif Ahmad- A Poem

Barack Hussein Obama

A person of color and you find the going a little rough

Feel a lot coming at you, some say tough luck

Now imagine you hold the top office in the world and that you are black

Welcome to the world of a man they call Barack

I cannot find a better example of the state of race in 2015 America than this one person

A man of color called unpatriotic, communist, liar, shown a finger in his face, that he was never a born American

Not to mention the new curse word, Muslim

If on the receiving end of all this is the President of the United States, what are the odds stacked against a child of color standing at a street corner

Yes when it comes to race in America we have come a long way and yet have some distance left to cover

Still the story here is not what has been hurled at him for the color of his skin

The story is his response or lack of to all this

The real story is of inspiration in the mold of Ali, King, and Mandela

That history would add another name to this distinguished list

That of Barack Hussein Obama

For carrying his color and poise the way he did

Stefanie Bennett- A Poem

WEN & THE RED CANDLE ...Wen I-to, Executed in 1946    

 

Putting on my flag-ship colours,

My work boots, my worn gloves,

I go out to greet you, dark visitor.

 

You went by the way of the Western-bank.

You will rise, in that same place – this time

Carrying the whole of China with you.

 

Brother poet, the chronicles have been

Reshuffled: thankfully

Your works are no longer set alight.

 

No! I do not wish to cause discomfort, but

The news I bring is... desolate.

Millions now join you in exile.

 

Confidentially, there are no safe crossings;

And reason drifts with the river-wind.

We must turn again from the T’ ie-an-men.

 

All is circumspect, my dark visitor.

The garrisons of greed are treacherous and

Conduct slavery quite openly. The globe –,

 

The globe of precious change has shrunk

Ten thousand times since

You blessed it with your tears.

 

As you prophesised, the ‘dead water’ has risen.

Peking’s paper-ghosts are the same

As their Western counterparts.

 

You said... ‘build a bridge! ...cross over’ !

Instead, they built a star-ship to heaven

                    - A red sun so bright

None can see the way back...

 

I go out to greet you, dark visitor –,

Your old war-cry at my throat. Our white flag

Is no surrender,

                    Just a soiled heart

Tattered by grief.

 

 

{Previously published by Flinders University’s ‘Literary Responses to Asia’}

 

 

Stefanie Bennett has published several books of poetry, a novel, and a libretto. Her poems

have also been published by VerseWrights, Galway Review, Jelly Fish Whispers, Communion,

Shot Glass Journal, Aleola Journal, Bijou Poetry Review, IS&T, The New Verse News and

others. Of mixed ancestry [Italian/Irish/Paugussett-Shawnee], she was born in Queensland,

Australia, in 1945.

 

 

Martin Willitts Jr- A Poem

 

Coming from a Dark County

 

There is no fitting of silence, no secrets

in stones huge as doors.

There is a solemn weariness to the dark.

Pieces of the world the birds cannot sing

without being shot.

 

Leave the forsaken behind.

Do not look back. The past is burning.

A shade is pulled where secrets hide.

Someone swings a lantern in the fields

like a single firefly.

Huge stones open like fresh dug graves.

 

A crow sound flushes the woods.

A sorrel tilts its head towards that disappearance,

anticipating a week of tremendous loses.

 

The horizon of wind has overtaken breath.

Bitterness extends to the man in the yard

until his anger takes a turn for the worse.

 

 

 

Martin Willitts Jr won the 2014 International Dylan Thomas Poetry Award for the centennial. He has over 20 chapbooks, and 8 full length collections including forthcoming “How to Be Silent” (FutureCycle Press), and “God Is Not Amused With What You Are Doing In Her Name” (Aldrich Press).
 

Denny E. Marshall- Art

                                                          Behind A Small Web

Scott Thomas Outlar- Two Poems

Cutting the Circle

  

Slaying the angels

one at a time

with fire, brimstone and bloodletting

then onto the archetypes

drained of all vitality

with a deathblow to collective consciousness

Leave the puddle of chaos

whimpering in defeat

with soggy tarot card enchantments

It’s out with the old and

in with the new

No cycles this time

as we march in a straight line

toward the future

Daily Bread

  

I will work for food.

I will work instead of food.

I will work in spite of food.

I will work because it is my food.

Scott Thomas Outlar spends the hours flowing and fluxing with the (sometimes chaotic) tide of the Tao River while laughing at and/or weeping over the existential nature of life. More of his words can be read at 17numa.wordpress.com.

Paul Tristram- Three Poems

No One’s Innocent

But the less Bad you think and do
…the more room it leaves for Wholesomeness and Goodness.

© Paul Tristram 2015

One Man’s Pie Is Another Man’s Pasty

I used to watch him sitting on the end stool
of the bar where the payphone lives.
(Just in case she called, she’d left 15 years ago
and had since been remarried twice!)
With his poachers flat cap, greasy from use,
old tweed suit-not quite in his size-
and a different walking stick every week or so.
On account of him breaking them on the wall
on his stagger home from the pub
whilst painfully screaming the name ‘Stephanie’
loudly up to the uncaring, unjust heavens.
Then the next day sober, he’d go into the woods
by the side of the stream and cut himself another one.
He would make roll-ups out of Old Holborn
using red Rizla papers, delicately, expertly,
with a craftsman finesse which was a joy to behold.
He only came into the pub during the daytime hours
of 12 noon until 4pm and he always drank Guinness
with a shot of Tia Maria right in the top of it.
Then a single neat shot of Jameson’s whisky,
drank standing up before taking his leave of us
and he would always say the very same thing
“One man’s pie is another man’s pasty!”

© Paul Tristram 2015

Augmented Anger

From schoolyard pushing and pulling
through adolescent street corner
gang scuffling and scrapping.
Up that inevitable crooked ladder to
football hooliganism and barroom brawling.
We followed his violent trail right onto
bloody murder, destruction and carnage.
He ruined many lives along the way
without a single care or thought,
and his very own with unchecked temper.
Now he sits mournfully alone
in a life-sentenced prison cell
his life completely robbed of all reason.
Only vaguely beginning to comprehend
that he, himself is the thief responsible.
Guilt and Shame and Self-Pity
are terrible, torturous shackles
which need strength of mind and character
not brawn to sensibly escape from.
You can poke a bull with a sharp stick
but it’s the bull’s own fault
if its still smashing into steamrollers
in 30 odd years time because of it,
then deserving nobody’s understanding.
The next time you want to point fingers
of blame and accusation to justify
your selfish acts of violence,
Have the decency to stand in front of a mirror
first and punch the disgusting face you see there.

© Paul Tristram 2015



Paul Tristram is a Welsh writer who has poems, short stories, sketches and photography 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.
 
You can read his poems and stories here! http://paultristram.blogspot.co.uk/ 

 

Ally Malinenko- Three Poems

10 Years Later

In the restaurant that evening

after spending the morning

meeting

my new cancer doctor

with her heavy accent

and her assurance that

everything would be fine

even after

I started to cry

In the restaurant that evening

I picked up a glass of wine

and thought about the champagne

we had ten years earlier

just hours after

the reverend had us join hands

and promise

in sickness

and in health

In the restaurant I held that glass high

and clinked yours and

looked you in the eye

and said

“Here’s to our worse”

Allyson Stop It

I’ve graduated from just the regular mammo

to a sonogram because the doctor isn’t sure

and it’s been six months since the cancer diagnosis

and not being sure isn’t an option

as I lay back on this table

with the low lights

and they spread the cold jelly across my

other breast

the healthy one

the one that I pray hasn’t also gone bad on me

because I only finished radiation six weeks ago

and I’m going to be on drugs for the rest of my life

my ovaries shut down

and I can’t help but think of a dark empty room

as she starts running the wand over me,

and the clicking and clicking

in the same spot

which is just what happened last June

when that hurricane appeared inside me

and I feel it right there,

the stairs that I started descending back in June

go in only one direction and it is down

and they will never stop

and I squeeze my eyes shut and try to think

about anything but diseased cells

and how this is starting all over again

my life stuck on this endless cycle

that will spiral down to an early death

before the nurse says

Allyson

you need to calm down

I can’t do this unless you stop,

Allyson

do you hear me,

Allyson you need to calm down,

Allyson

Allyson

Allyson stop it. Stop crying.

 And Yet

there are still moments like this

where I am utterly still

and I can feel my hands moving in sync

with my mind

the way they were supposed to move.

Together.

Not like lighting followed by thunder.

Not separate.

Not like double vision,

a drunk missing the keyhole

the way I feel like my body

is no longer mine

but instead

the enemy

but not today

as I lift

the ice cream cone

you bought me

to my lips

and all of Manhattan

raises in one voice to

sing your praise, my love.

Donal Mahoney- Three Poems

A Low Voice and a Nice Walk

Gramps by the fire

in his rocker hunched over

is rolling his smoke with care

when Tom, his grandson, asks,

“What’s the most important thing

to look for in a wife?”

Gramps stares into the fire intently

then finally says, “You want a wife

with a low voice and a nice walk,

a low voice because later in life

your ears give out but her odd jobs 

become more numerous 

and a nice walk because you want to

let her go first forever and make

all that extra work worthwhile.”

No Paper This Morning

Most days the newspaper hits

the lawn by four in the morning

but it's six already and I don't see it. 

I'll have to pull on my pants 

and go out to see if it's hiding 

in my wife's flowers and bushes.

She keeps adding more plants

to the jungle she's created out there 

with parrots and macaws on the way.

But instead of going out  

I tell her it's a nice morning 

and suggest she check on her roses. 

In this heat, they may need water.

And while she's out there I suggest

she scan the garden for the paper 

in case it's held hostage by the foliage. 

After coffee she sails out the door

and returns with no paper but brings 

an armful of roses, a bouquet 

I welcome more than the poison ivy 

I find every day in the paper.

Two Funerals in One Day

The alarm clock screams at 5 a.m.

and I get up to attend a funeral

50 miles away, a long drive back

to a corner of Chicago once rife

with corned beef and cabbage but

redolent today with salsa and tequila.

I head for the bathroom to shower

and brush my teeth but when

I turn the light on, I see a long 

mahogany bug, species unknown, 

glistening and motionless

on the cap of my toothpaste.

As a former caseworker in the projects

and someone with a gardener for a wife,

I have seen a variety of bugs, urban 

and agrarian, and if they behave,

I normally don't bother them,

except for mosquitoes 

that land and happen to like me. 

So I tell this bug on the toothpaste cap

that I have a funeral to attend today

and it's 50 miles away so please, 

be a good bug and move on.

Of course he doesn't move.

Instead, he twirls his antennae

and rubs his pincers together.

Finally, he says somberly 

"Can you get this cap off? 

I've been trying all night.

I hear this stuff tastes good."

As I would do later that day

for my old friend at his funeral,

I say a prayer for the bug

and send him on his way, 

a burial at sea, if you will,

down, down, down he goes

to the hymn of a flushing toilet. 

I can still hear his last words:

"My wife had octuplets.

They're under your bathtub.

Tell them I said good-bye.

And have a nice day!"

Donal Mahoney lives in St. Louis, Missouri.

 

Robert Lavett Smith- A Poem

MY FATHER’S ASHES

My father’s ashes came from the mortuary
in a black velvet box my mother
promptly hid from view in a closet.
They’re all that she has of him now,
after his ordeal by fire and grinding:
a thin gray dust as delicate as smoke.
The housekeeper responsible for her hallway
at the retirement community made a point
of mentioning she wouldn’t be disturbed
by the knowledge they were there.
Many apartments she cleans, she informed
my mother, accommodate the cremated
remains of the residents’ loved ones.
It wouldn’t be a problem, she insisted,
absolutely no problem at all.


Son of the noted ichthyologist C. Lavett Smith, 1927-2015, Robert Lavett Smith was raised in New Jersey, and has lived since 1987 in San Francisco, where for the past sixteen years he has worked as a Special Education Paraprofessional. He has studied with Charles Simic and the late Galway Kinnell. He is the author of several chapbooks and three full-length poetry collections, the most recent of which is The Widower Considers Candles (Full Court Press, 2014). Two poems from this newest book have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize.

Rose Mary Boehm- Mungo (16-22)

Mungo

16)

Procrastination used to be Mungo’s great motivator.

He would always tap into it and rely on it as an unfailing source

for tomorrow’s creative plans. So nothing can be more inconvenient

than to learn of the immediate end of the world. Forces him to prepare

for the absence of himself and all his good ideas, especially

the ones he had always for tomorrow. Mungo finds

that tying up loose ends is exceedingly time consuming.

17)

From a German aunt, Mungo inherited

a bag full of prepositions. Hinter, vor,

oben, unten, neben, zwischen, gegen, von—

After much soul-searching, Mungo decided

against donating them to the library.

Where they would be of service, he concluded,

would be at the shelter for abandoned poets.

18)

Mungo has learned to play the Richter scale.

The effects on his audience are immediate and

work every time. As soon as the crescendos

fill the concert hall, men in tuxedos

and women in evening gowns shriek

and begin to scramble over seats and each other

to reach the exit. Mungo is not a little dismayed

but calms himself like any other man

by using the fault line for a little fishing.

19)

Mungo learned from Gran that time must not be wasted,

lost or killed. He therefore keeps an eye on it and puts both

on the mantel, making sure that not one second remains

unused and not a single minute gets left behind

in dark corners where no-one will ever find it again.

When Mungo finally goes to sleep at the end of a busy day,

he ties time tightly to his left toe to be alerted to its escape

should such be intended. He uses a hangman's knot.

20)

Mungo suffers from insomnia, sadness and wet pillows.

He doesn’t need a psychiatrist to know what

is overwhelmingly obvious: no texts are coming in

on his new smartphone. He soon finds the internet

folks who spread good will, especially around the festive

season, and subscribes to their daily service. They send

him messages around the clock full of kind thoughts.

Mungo now sleeps every night with a beatific smile.

21)

Mungo decides to have his horoscope prepared

by Alicia Arcadia, astrologer of local fame. Much aggrieved

by its content, he thinks about a way to make up for

its unacceptable predictions by acquiring a better one. One night,

just before dawn, Mungo raids Miss Arcadia’s filing cabinet

and finds one he likes, keeping it henceforth

in his personal strongbox. Mungo can’t tell by the stars

whether his ruse has worked, but Miss Arcadia has taken on

a position as housekeeper for the archdiocese.

22)

Mungo states the obvious

and hangs it over the mantelpiece.

Pilgrims come from afar to behold

the evidence of indisputable truths

which they all interpret

in their own way and soon come to blows.

Mungo repents his action and moves

the work to a Swiss bank deposit box.

​A German-born UK national, Rose Mary Boehm lives and works in Lima, Peru. Author of two novels and a poetry collection published in 2011 in the UK, ‘TANGENTS’, her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in a good two dozen US poetry reviews as well as some print anthologies, and Diane Lockward’s The Crafty Poet. She won third price in in the 2009 Margaret Reid Poetry Contest for Traditional Verse (US), was semi-finalist in the Naugatuck poetry contest 2012/13 and has been a finalist in several GR contests, winning it in October 2014.

Robin C. Pinkman- A Poem

Drives one into

 the earth like

 thirst, inertia,

 everything

 you can re-

 member

           and   

 imagine:

 forcing

 your head,

 your hands,

 all of you

 into the an-

 cient well for

 the filthiest of

             water.

   Portland 15

 

Manny Yon- A Poem

The Little Damages and Remember

You are inherently Sundarbans
canoe rental, flashing stripes.
If it were ever about the
dragging, you'd opine. And
the tracks that remain can't
hear the weakened decry from
the marsh. I didn't notice

what you'd think. It wasn't
the stabbing pressure at
the base of my skull, as
much as it was the scraping
of mangrove roots across
the tops of my feet when we
exited the murk. Wasn't it?
The little damages
                        and remember.


Bio: Manny Yon is a poet from the Southern U.S. 

Daniel Wilcox- Three Poems

The Modern Covenant

Bad rituals
Lost religion
Of disengaged couples
Uncoupling on
Rail lines that never join
Not a traveling union
Scabbed and only
Repeating ing ing
Copping a plea
The feeling of deeply
Gone
Not populating
Only copulating
Waste
Urinal leavings
Not the spurt of life
Too precious in the growing
But
Unwanted
Not passion
But passive lust
Over and over
Lost rituals
Destructive routes
Routing ing ing
Through the ‘mine’ field
Worn to the ‘marrow’
Rigor mortis
Climaxes

Reprint: First published in The Cerebral Catalyst
April 2008

Iraqi Temples

A masked gunman in black stands
On a smoky street corner in Mosul.

Palms rear up, in the background,
With green branches like hands to Allah.

His left rubber sandal hangs ripped,
Red spots dribbled on the blue plastic;

One hooded jihadist—the signet of the guttered streets
Of 23 armies ruling the smudged smog of 33 million.

The Euphrates and Tigris rivers steel with sheen
Like the blades of historic scissors—Closing…

The threat of the cutting,
The bleeding of a people.

A Kalashnikov rifle fingered in his raised hands;
On the ground prone, a rocket-propelled grenade launcher.

Most of the streets lay as desert; it's Friday the day of worship,
God is Great! blares in triumph from the minarets;

A wretched Toyota, bombed, metal--wrenched and contorted
'Lies' in front of him, its bodies, idols of the fly;

It's Ramadan, the month of ultimate submission to Allah,
And the Islamic State Caliphate fasts from sweets and melted cheese

And roams the streets, masked, hungering for infidels and Shia,
But far back down a scarred, sharia-strewn alley

Behind the modern, sacred mosque, blindfolded bodies
Lay prone in endless prayer, red circles in their temples.

Reprint: First published in different form
in The November 3^rd Club
Spring 2007

On Visiting Hemingway’s Mansion

Next to the mansion Pauline’s money bought
Where Hemingway wrote
Timeless stories
Of skill
And luck
And Nothing…

Next to this blocked hard beauty
Of coral rock,
Survivor of hurricanes
Their dissolute lives
Of lust and liquor
And divorce…

Next to the survivors, the 54 cats
Including the 6-toed ones
And a 150-year-old Banyan tree…

Stand the Key West lighthouse and the mortuary.

Light and death…
Suicide at 61
Hemingway spoke of writing one true sentence.
Why not live one true life?


Reprint: First published in The Rogue Poetry Review
Winter 2007

Brief Bio: Daniel's wandering lines have appeared in many magazines in the United States, Canada, and overseas including Word Riot, Centrifugal Eye, Write Room, Static Movement, Camel Saloon, Fish Food, Poetry Pacific, Counterexample Poetics, and Unlikely Stories IV.

Before that Daniel hiked through the University of Nebraska, Cal State University, Long Beach (Creative Writing), Montana, Pennsylvania, Europe, Arizona, and Palestine/Israel. He now lives on the central coast of California with his quilting wife.

John Swain- A Poem

The Snow Moon

for William Taylor, Jr. 

Moon night in the white snow,

snow moon of the field forever

caught with barbs

where the hill splintered

into running deer.

I followed the dug trails

to an opening in the black creek

flowing downward

from the moon’s intimacy

for the hungry coyotes to scour.

Wine like a cut on my tongue,

this color of sustenance

paler than the boulders

a poet rolled to build his tower

on the shore of California. 

I claimed nothing

beyond a glimpse of a shadow

of this midnight with the snow

on my hands red as blood.

John Swain lives in Louisville, Kentucky. Red Paint Hill published his first collection, Ring the Sycamore Sky.

 

Melanie Browne- A Poem

The middleweight

one of them weighs a little less
he is shorter and so is his arm length
but he still remains,
the announcer says "uppercut" a lot,
Uppercut,
Uppercut,
Uppercut,
Uppercut,
now his nose is bleeding,
the announcer says he shouldn't
try to blow the blood from his nose,
boxing is fascinating
exotic like an albino tiger
or a stink flower
but the blood-
the blood is real
I love the drama
of the pep talk
they speak in a foreign
language but it means 
the same things,
don't give up
just one more round
the tissue is sticking
out of their nose
the redness on their brows
the towel around
their neck
they are patted and stroked
ice is merely symbolic
and serving no purpose
they are ready to rumble
ready to tremble
or pounce

Neil Ellman- Three Poems

Sounds at Night

(after the painting by Adolph Gottlieb)

With a black cat’s shape

in a black cat’s night

it can still be felt

a spider crawling

on the skin

a shadow

passing through the walls

its wake

barely perceptible

like the pull of stars

but it can still be heard

scratching on the air

soft words

whispered in my ear

as if it were alive.

Trees

(after the painting by Joan Mitchell)

Not of a place or time

nor with the hard wood of reality

there are trees that grow

anywhere they wish

on barren, idle ground

and in consecrated stands

a consequence of mind

they can take any shape

have any color they will—

blue elms like soldiers in a row

against an obdurate sky;

red and yellow ash

fleeling from the wind;

some soft, leafless, reaching

for the sun;

others stiff, gray and resolute

like statues carved in stone—

there are trees that take

impossible shapes

and some of them are real.

Two Reasons Birds Sing

(after the screenprint by Robert Rauschenberg)

If for no other reasons

birds sing because they can

and must.

It is not as if they have a choice

to roar, grunt, maw, neigh

pant-hoot and bray

at the moon like mules;

or like machines, grind

hum, bubble, kreen and whir

and chugga chugga chug

to their potential mates.

All they can do is sing    

churree churree churee

tsweet tsweet tsweet

po-heet and cuckoo

every hour on the hour

of every day

as if they were a clock.

And they sing, of course,

because they must

for reasons of their own.

Neil Ellman, a poet from New Jersey, has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net and the Rhysling Award.  Close to 1000 of his poems, many of which are ekphrastic and written in response to works of modern and contemporary art, appear in print and online journal, anthologies and chapbooks throughout the world. 

Donal Mahoney- Three Poems

Answer Now

I was just a boy  

but I remember Hitler

at the start

and how too few 

understood his plan to

do away with Jews.

I’m a codger now

certain that too few  

understand ISIS 

so let the word go forth

for all with eyes to see

and ears to hear:

We have another genocide,

this one more inclusive.  

We must answer now

or else Christians, Jews 

and Muslims too will keep 

dying in the sand.

The Skinny on Fatty's Cafe

Here's the skinny on Fatty's Cafe,

a grubby diner on a snaky street 

under the El in dark Chicago

where street lights flicker

and the hungry descend from 

the flophouse above the store.

If you have a yen for a BLT 

and Fatty is workin' the grill,

the hungry say don't go in,

be patient and wait outside

for Fatty's brother, Skinny,

to wield the spatula.

Skinny has a way with BLTs,

piling bacon and tomato high 

on a triple decker, with a hint

of lettuce and a swipe of mayo 

on all three slices of bread.

No extra charge to toast it

when Skinny's workin' the grill.

Ignore the rain, sleet or snow  

and wait outside with the hungry 

till Skinny starts flippin' the bacon. 

He takes over at midnight when 

Fatty flops into his Lincoln 

and heads for his castle.

Then Skinny lays out the bacon

and the hungry outside march in.

Income Equality

Wilbur’s always lived 

in the navel of society,

lost in the lint

of the middle class.

His parents lived there too.

So will his children if they

fail to win the lottery.

Not a problem for Wilbur.

From his navel he can

see the poor sweat 

at jobs they died for.

When he looks up 

he can see the rich bet 

on stocks and then relax 

with wine and caviar.

That's the way the world works.

Wilbur's father told him

it’s always been that way

and always will be.

And like his father 

Wilbur knows the world 

will always have its Castros 

wanting to parcel out 

what Donald Trump has.

No wonder, Wilbur says.

Income equality can’t reign

until the world ends or 

pygmies play in the NBA. 

 

 

Donal Mahoney lives in St. Louis, Missouri.