Tuesday, March 31, 2015

Robert Demaree- Three Poems



Birds of a Feather

This side of the pond
A metal blue heron stands
Beside a real one.



Facial Hair

What’s the difference
Between having a short beard
And just not shaving?



Winter 2015

Yellow on snowfall
Dogs in little pink sweaters
Nature’s persistence



Robert Demaree is the author of three book-length collections of poems, including After Labor Day, published in April 2014 by Beech River Books.  In 2013 his poems received first place in competitions sponsored by the Poetry Society of New Hampshire and the  Burlington Writers Club He is a retired school administrator with ties to North Carolina, Pennsylvania and New Hampshire, where he lives four months of the year. His poems have appeared in over 150 periodicals. For further information see http://www.demareepoetry.blogspot.com 

Noel Negele- Three Poems


An Unresting Gamble.

Jimmy was the straw dog of my childhood
A dog I loved dearly-
A menacing Rottweiler who didn’t care much for any human fondling
Used to walk around with a bored look on his face
And enjoyed licking his balls and scratching the back of his ears
Where lice made their nests

His bark resembled a wolf’s howl
Sort of
Since it always dragged more than the usual
Ending up to a muffled low tone that lasted
Just before yawning
Showing teeth and red tongue with eyes closed

We were really small in comparison
To this dog
( Being children and all )
But we were not afraid
Since he always pretended we weren’t there
Besides the times we threw stones at him
Selfishly annoyed by his indifference-
But we loved him nonetheless-
And I always used to follow this dog to gypsy camps
Where he brought other dogs down
And the gypsies would go after jimmy with sticks and stones
At which point I would defend him as much as possible
But the result would always be the same:
Both of us running away

One afternoon
As lovely and mundane as
All afternoons are when you are a child
Jimmy staggered into the neighborhood
With five holes and an eye carved out, hanging from the socket
Like an egg cracked open-
And he fell close to us
-      As we were playing football-
Exhaling heavily
Each time also making a rattling and weeping sound
His nose filled with blood that along with snot
Bulged into pink puffs around the nostrils and mouth

We stood there, all of us
Terrified, mouths open
Some of us already crying
( Including yours truly )
As he was lying there
All the tragedy in display for us-
Jimmy stretching his legs spasmodically
Unwilling to die-
And to think that dogs die alone
This dog wanted company
Or help
But none of us moved
He was helpless and so were we
Trying to endure the martyrdom
Of death devouring the little life
That was left in him.

Then
Out of nowhere
Lorry, a gypsy everyone hated
Came with his truck
Got out and approached the dog
Kneeled before him
Took him in his arms
The dog’s blood dripping from his elbows
And he went in the truck-
Jimmy on his lap
With his tongue hanging out-
And drove off like a madman.

After a few weeks Jimmy was back
All bones, limping and ugly as all hell
But alive
As alive as each step we take towards the bathroom in the morning
As alive as you reading this-
Maybe a little more

But Jimmy had changed
He was afraid
Of people he didn’t know
Of loud noises
And of other dogs he once used to bring down
With little effort- dogs lurking for revenge
And his bark now had a permanent weeping sound in it.
He didn’t run anymore
And for the most part
He would curl to a round thing
Close to us and watch us play
And when we would sit next to him while we talked
There was this magnificence that I felt
( as I would talk with my friends
With my hand over Jimmy
Feeling his fast heart beats against my palm)
That I can't describe,
As if the dog was teaching us something
With his silence and his unspoken affection
Something I couldn’t understand then

Jimmy was a good lesson in humanity-
He was the perfect outcome
Of a gamble between good and evil
And another thing he told us is
That even though evil didn’t win that time
It didn’t exactly lose either

But then again
Neither did goodness

What matters in the end
Is where you put your faith in.



Getting Closer.

Devoured by the night
( the sun always climbs over the sky uninvited)
with that heart beating against the chest like a stubborn animal
with those veins like rusty pipes of anguish
with that loneliness residing inside
sliding through the bars and the hookers and the depth
of the large gigantic titanic overweight worthlessness that is you
in essence beaming your nothingness
in a world already overfilled with it,
with the littlest of those scattering moments of contentment
like small delicate ripples
on a calm sea.



The Days

Every day is a second chance
a second chance wasted

sometimes its not only sadness
one learns how to live with it
and still have some good times

some times its desperation
along with anguish 
and they become one
and shift their weight against you
and sometimes you endure
and sometimes you collapse
crumble
and turn to the bottle
the pills, the powder
anything...

Every day is a second chance
a chance effortlessly wasted

and the pussy can save a lot
but not everything
and writing can cleanse most things
but not everything
and alcohol and all the rest can make you forget
but a few things never leave you
those few you so desperately want to forget...

Everyday is a second chance
it remains to be seen
if tomorrow
will add to the waste.

Keith Wesley Combs- A Poem


one of the angels.

she sits alone
at the end
of the bar
drawing angels
in her notebook
while
the bartender
cleans his glasses
as the Hispanic
hustler
tries to make
every man
that comes
in the door
his next trick.

she sits alone
talking to no one
but herself.
staring at the paper
looking up
only to take
a hit
off her beer.

she sits alone
at the end
of the bar
drawing and talking
to angels.
in her own world.
she may be
the loneliest
or the most sensible
of us all.
 
 
 
I am a union painter who likes to write poetry and short stories in my spare time. I write about my life, life in general, my travels on the road. My work has been published in Main Street Rag, Pearl, Carcinogenic Poetry, Black Book Press, Atlantic Pacific Press, Record Magazine, and many more with more to come soon.

Adreyo Sen- Two Poems


The Fallen

Years ago, I fell.
When I woke up, I was in a deep pit
and all of me hurt.

I cried for help, but no one could hear me.
For days, I cried.
And then, I began to climb.
And every small foothold made me happy.

I am still in the pit.
Perhaps I'll be there all my life.
But I can feel the sun on my cheeks
and thus it dries no tears.

And even though I am as small
as my most petty weakness 
and thus very small indeed 
and the rocks that surround me are tall and steep,
I know they are made by the same hands
that once eased me to sleep.



Eternal Children

We are as we were
when we were children.
Our long days are ended with a kiss.

Monday, March 30, 2015

Linda M. Crate- Three Poems


queen 
 
you shot arrows through my heart
lies masquerading as truths,
but i am not as foolish
as you;
i did not fall for the content within,
and i snapped your arrows
in half before pulling the offending adam out
because i am stronger than you'll
ever know—
i sat in a broken coronation hall for far too long
even if i can't be your monarch
doesn't mean i am not a
queen,
and maybe one day you will find me at the end
of every tiara you break and wonder why
you ever tried to strip me of my
title.
 
 

stained glass pieces
 
you are the king of spades
shredding hearts 
to oblivion's light and insisting
that you are doing this
in the name of good,
and we both know all you're
doing is lying
to me to her and to yourself;
you fancy yourself an honest king
but you are the monster that
lurks in the shadows
waiting all too patiently to rip others
to pieces so they can be broken
as your shattered heart
whose stained glass pieces are so good
at cutting and shredding but in all
their destruction cannot heal you.



are you still distant? 
 
when she grips your hand
i wonder
are you there with her,
or are you in
a completely different universe
pushing her away
like you did me?
are you attentive to her needs or are
yours the only ones that 
dominate?
i wish i could go back in time
take back the first time we kissed and put
another girl in my place
because honestly it wouldn't have mattered to you
she'd just be another heart to shatter
and you'd have done it unapologetic,
but i could never hurt 
someone the way you did me;
and so i take this little broken heart of mine
shine brighter than you could ever imagine with strength
in me that you never knew.
 

Friday, March 27, 2015

Alan Catlin- Three Poems


Partially Obstructed
 
Settling in center rear of the second-run
movie theater as house lights dim,
rows ahead and behind clear, no partial
views, meddlesome commentators, moronic
super-sizers, soda slurpers, ice chewers,
Macadamia nut fanciers, clear sailing through
trailers until Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in his traded-
to-the-Lakers Afro days sits down directly in
front and all of his teammates six foot nine
and above with him, even Sven Natar from
his UCLA days along for the flicks, so we
decide to move but our row is blocked by
the first seven footer to play on an NBA court,
Walter Dukes and with him, his NFL counterpart,
Ernie Ladd "Bigger that Dad" the first seven
foot, 300 pounder in his league and I think,
"This can't be.  These guys are like long dead."
And then I see Wilt "The Stilt", and Dave D
from the Knicks, the bartender's son, and George
Mikan and Walter Bond, definitely not to be
confused with Ward Bond the actor, no this
is the baseball player, all six foot eight of him
in playing shape from back in the days when anyone
over five eight was considered a giant and now,
I'm like really worried, as all of these guys are way
dead too and I wonder if maybe this is the wrong theater,
that the Marx Brothers Retrospective we'd been
dying to see is actually a Karl Marx Retrospective
and the Main Attraction is neither Horse Feathers
nor Monkey Business but colorized versions of
Battleship Potemkin, followed by colorized
copies of Alexander Nevsky and Ivan the Terrible
Parts 1 And 2 and I'm thinking, "How could they do
this to Eisenstein and someone says, "They colorized
Casablanca, didn't they?" "Did they ever!" I think,
"Not that you'd ever catch me watching something
like that in this life." And everyone around us starts
laughing as if I actually said something funny and
I know now, we are in the wrong theater for sure
but we are way beyond too late to leave.
 
 
 
White Evil
 
Ouzo, Tequila, Bailey's Irish Creme
 
If Death were
a man wheedling
a bartender for
a complimentary beer
and pocket change
for cab fare to
the Greyhound Station,
more than likely closed
this near Last Call,
he would be this
mostly blind man
sighting the industrial
wall clock with
a retractable magnifying
lens with his good eye,
the all white one
rolling nearly loose
detached in its' socket
as his high pitched,
pleading voice suggests,
"Just one more.
Come on, you know
you can do it.
Another one won't kill
you.  I'll go away if
you do." And it seems
almost plausible that he might,
as the beer flows his way
and his metal guiding
stick rhythmically taps
against the brass foot
rail, a kind of artificial
heart beating, "This place
got a juke box? I know
there's one in here somewhere.
You got some quarters?
I need to hear some Mu-
Zic- before I go." and that too
sounds almost plausible,
the barman is so anxious
to have him gone, so desperate
anything could be plausible,
"What's your name?" the blind
man asks, his wide, featureless
eye so grotesque, so unnatural
it is impossible to look very
close, "I really have to know.
I need to write your name
in my book." And the barman
wonders: should I speak or not?
but it doesn't matter much either
way, he's doomed no matter what.
 
 
 
The Firebird
 
Pepper Vodka and Cranberry Juice
 
She was wearing
this amazing short
short skirt with a
low cut top to match
made from fabrics
so way beyond loud
it made you wonder
if she was cheerleading
for some spectator
sport organized in
another dimension
parallel to ours
and she was  so
bubbling over, effervescent
trying to make whatever
it was she wanted
understood, she spoke
in a tongue not readily
recognizable as something
that was spoken here
on earth, her efforts
made more complicated
by her warp hyper speed
buzzing and The Boss
screaming something
about being born in the USA
as if that were a big deal
in the background, so I
try hand gestures to help
out, pointing at items
behind the bar asking her
to select but it doesn't
work out, becoming more
and more like some colorful,
futile game of charades
conducted by two inmates
of a locked-in ward.

Bud Faust- Three Poems


Snakes

Snakes in my head
and I’m getting dizzy.

Snakes in my head
with caffeine and bad skin.

Snakes in my head
and I guess I’m getting
used to it.

Somewhere
someone is leaving
without saying goodbye.

Somewhere
an angel smiles
in her sleep
as the city lights grow dim.

Doesn’t everyone
want to watch the girls
eat each other?

Doesn’t anyone
sleep with the radio on
anymore?

Doesn’t it feel good
to feel everything
and imagine it’s nothing?

Doesn’t it?


Looking for Atlantis

Everything is broken
and well beyond repair –
the car,
my shoestring (finally),
all of the plastic forks
in the kitchen drawer.

Everything we create
is disposable,
most notably ourselves.
Every step in the
wrong direction,
further away from
the shoreline,
further into the
thickening weeds.

All afternoon I studied maps,
looking for Atlantis
in piles of prehistoric dirt.
Anything not so damned
ordinary would be nice –
a siren screaming at
the windows,
a meteor shower
through the roof,
a neighbor cursing
at his dog
in a foreign language.

Bent,
but mostly broken.

I’ve got a pack of smokes
and a roll of duct tape.
We’ll hold her together
as long as we can.
Someone get word
to the captain.

We’re going down.


Or something like that

With my luck,
she said,
I’ll probably leave you,
you’ll start working out again
and lose a bunch of weight,
finally find a decent job
and start making a
shitload of money,

or something like that.

It was right then
I knew for sure
there was no hope at all
for any of us crooked creatures,
crumbling cross-legged at
our imaginary altars,
begging for providence
undeserved and impossible,
thirteen thousand years into the ether
in an instant,
birds circling above, pissing
everywhere like rain,

but it doesn’t make a
damned bit of difference because
nothing’s going to grow
down here anyway.

She’d swallowed
a lot of things,
but she’d never be able
to swallow that.

Paul Tristram- Three Poems


Shame-Facing

I witnessed her open up that coffin-shaped box
buried deep within her heart
and let all of that shit and misery out
in one Gigantic flood of despair.
Briefly compose herself with shudders and tears
then suck strength, bravery and self-esteem
back up into its spring-cleaned place.
As frail and fragile as she was in stature,
I shook my head in admiration and respect
for I was now in the presence of a Warrior Soul.

© Paul Tristram 2014



Old Swansea Town

Another late afternoon and early evening in Abertawe.
The prison stands on Oystermouth Road
like broken teeth in the front of a scowling mouth.
Cobbled, Constitutional Hill, almost vertical
and an adventure playground for the drunks
trying to climb home to womanless rented rooms
with chip-fat gloom and out of date library books.
‘Scrubbers Laundromat’ at the bottom
where I used to bum cigarettes off the working girls
brave enough to face the South Wales winds
in short sleeved tops and mini skirts
back when I was seventeen years old and lost myself.
The Battlegrounds of The Kingsway every Friday
and Saturday night, my God, I’ve seen it all
a dozen times or more upon that lit up stretch of madness.
Carlton Terrace, where I once lived in an attic,
Dai and Pie’s Tattoos up on top of the cold High Street,
The Quadrant and cockles from the indoor Market,
Castle Gardens the way they were before the concrete.
She lives and breathes aloud, that ‘Hard As Nails’ Town
and cwtches her battered head into the arm and shoulder
of the ‘impossible to drink in one go’ Mumbles Mile
as the Pier reaches out across the water, forever.

© Paul Tristram 2015



The Pissed Misanthropist

He had the Christian name of a Bible Baptist,
was one of the two Tramps living in our Town.
When he was younger he was on his way
to becoming a professional football player
but instead, had some sort of devastating breakdown
and could not seem to ever fight his way back.
The ‘Men In White Coats’ would lock him up
every few months or so and you wouldn’t really
notice the disappearance until he returned.
Then, all of a sudden, there he would be in the park
in the middle of the afternoon on Giro Day
with 10 Regal King Size, a flagon of Strongbow
and a cheap plastic football, drunkenly foot-shuffling.
You rarely heard him talk, Tourette a bit only,
he’d just kick that ball across to any kid passing
hoping that they would kick it back and fore with him.
People always said he was mad (I’m still on the fence
with this one?) for sleeping rough down The Melyn,
what with all the crime, drugs and gang activity
but we all looked out for him, we slapped these two
Port Talbot boys around once when we caught them
hitting him with sticks as he slept on a wooden bench.
I use to find it fascinating to watch him ‘hunting’
he would wait a few doors down from the chip shop
for teenagers to come out with their meals open
and steaming salt and vinegar into the Winter air,
then he’d barge straight into them with a “Sorry!”
then walk around the block to return and pick it all up
off the dirty pavement like a King eating venison.
Every Saturday, he’d go up to Woolworths in Town
and take a football out of the basket in the middle
of the shop and start kicking it up and down the aisles.
While they were throwing him out 5 minutes later,
the glue sniffers would be loading up their pockets
with solvents and freezer bags…an unknowing decoy.
I saw him walk into a café on Windsor Road one morning
with a raw half chicken in his hand, no wrapping
just the chicken and beg the owner to cook it, claiming
“I only want the bad half of it you can sell the rest?”
We were all playing the Space Invader machines
after a night of magic mushroom madness and shouting
“Cook the bloody thing for him, mun, c’mon!”
The Park Keeper of Victoria Gardens came up to us
laughing another morning and told us that he’d opened
the Public Toilets at 6am and by 7am they had to call
the Fire Brigade because Matey had staggered in there
drunk and got his cock stuck in the drain grating
in the middle of the floor, he claimed that he was pissing
in the urinal and staggered backwards four steps,
pissing over himself and turned around while falling,
Wham…Stuck…they had to cut him out of there.
I only ever spoke more than two words to him once
and that was the evening before I went to prison
for the first time, I was sat in a warm laundrette
with a girlfriend drinking cider when in he came
out of the rain, he looked cagey at first but then asked
“Who’s ‘Top of the Pops’ this week, then?”
and offered us both a cigarette which we refused
(I remember it well, they were long, thin ‘More’
liquorice cigarettes, women used to smoke them!)
I gave him half of one of my flagons of cider
and talk soon turned ‘round to prison, he said
“You’ll be alright boy, I can tell, just take no shit
off of no one. They’ve got a TV and a pool table
in the ‘Young Offenders Unit’ happy days!
The biggest problem you’ll have is that you’re locked
up 24/7 with other people, it’s enough to drive you nuts
if your not nuts already, God forgive me but I hate
other people and the more of them the worse it gets!”
Anyway, I was alright and a few years later I Gypsied
away on my Travels but I was back there a couple
of years ago and he came up in the pub conversation.
Some of the people had clubbed together and bought
him a wooden garden shed and stuck it on the marsh
down by the side of Neath River away from people.
He was happy living there alone for a few months
until Guy Fawkes Night came around and some idiot
school kids went down there and burnt it to the ground
whilst he was drunkenly and peacefully sleeping inside.

© 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/


B.Z. Niditch- Three Poems


UPROOTED

Uprooted by first light
in the Green Mountains
by mushrooming
pockets of dreams
yet redeemed by sunshine
on blankets of snow
of stolen nights and dawns
wearing animal skins
amid a stunning sun
in a collapsing coat
and carefree hood,
trying my hand
at a play about Whitman
with blue-penciled verse
now featured in photos
taken by a distant mutineer
with his St. Bernard
and my recusant energy
cold shouldered for now
up for a ski jaunt.



LIVE CHAT

Bruised conversation
on a local T.V.talk show
of this poet years ago
on a stolen spring dawn
in his polished boots
among camera lights
a heavy silence
of reverie takes me over
mesmerized by camera
with Laddie his sheepdog
having his media debut,
I take out my early collection
of poems, "Freedom Trails"
about revolutionary Boston
and speak, sigh free
hopefully grounded
by questions and answer.



LIGHT IN THE DARKROOM

In a void
from cabin fever
unable to venture out
and seeing the green fir trees
among the shadow
of pure white drifts of snow
hiding my body
disclosing my eyes
like a forest brown bear
hibernating by a mirror
a poet in a faithful minimalism
of animal magnetism
trying to save the earth
and the overflowing oceans
from man's pollution
while hardly saving myself
from a child's confidential time
as my shadow stretches
for a once mile run,
it seems like a miracle
just to eye the sun
from my absent green eyes
against the seasonal pull
pleading for any harbinger
like a Canadian robin
on my dark corner sill
where a few geraniums
still survive
in my sound proof studio
aching for first light
of spring to take a picture
of bird watchers or ice fishermen
at the slippery edge of the dock.

Donal Mahoney- Three Poems


Waiting in Hospice

This time why
doesn’t matter
all that matters is

what and when
it’s finally over
he'll know

who was right
the last time
he saw them

at the wake
20 years ago
his big sister

the atheist
his little brother
the monk



The Canyon Dwellers

There’s this canyon
between two cliffs
and Tim Boyd has a foot
planted on each cliff.
He’s spread-eagled
but very steady.

He's been stretched
over the canyon since
he got back from Iraq.
After he took his position,
he thought someone
would eventually look up.

There are others
spread over the canyon
in front of Tim.
They’ve been there
since Viet Nam and
getting a bit wobbly.

In back of Tim
are the new arrivals
spread-eagled as well.
They’re fresh from
Afghanistan and they're
getting their feet set.

The rest of us below
have jobs and are busy
with families and lives.
When a canyon dweller falls
and makes a terrible mess,
we find the time to look up.



Swirls

Professor Burns is interested
in macro issues only,
no minutiae for him.

So he asks students
on the first day of class why
water swirls counterclockwise

when you flush a toilet
anywhere in America
and to determine as well

by midterm if the water swirls
clockwise elsewhere in the world.
Or if the counterclockwise swirl

is uniform all over the planet.
Extra credit will be given
to the student who proves

the counterclockwise swirl is
a conspiracy of plumbers.
The final exam, he says, is

an essay question asking if ISIS
will reverse the swirl clockwise
when it takes over the world.



Donal Mahoney lives in St. Louis, Missouri. 

Thursday, March 26, 2015

John Swain- Three Poems



A Throwing Veil

After fishing the beach
the eagle turns to light
behind the pines
like a bright sun to the west
chased by crows.
I put my face
to the darkening waves
beginning to rain
in consummation.
I see you naked,
the black mist lifts
a fragrant throwing veil.


The Angle of List

Thunderhead storm winds build in the evening
as the sea of lightning shakes a gull bone rattle,
the waves break in white spray trailing.
Ring of vision
with the grey sky and waves prostrate
as the osprey cries your brother of the Atlantic.
I dissolve in the salt like the pillar of a woman
seeing angels
swim with the ships ripping their sails.
Origin of our source this dark migration route
extends the horizon
from body to body, face to face, hand in hand.
Then the severing overwhelms
the myth of contentment, the myth of oneness,
and we continue the angle of list.


Sea Island

The sea island bells
for the fog in the harbor
dredged onto barges.
Caroline, your twin,
Susannah has gone
back to the mountains.
I loved in a misuse,
I took my confession
from the ghost on the water.
A still quiets the bells
like a name vanishes
with the childless.
Black oaks hold
the world submerged
in the grey dawn.


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

Stefanie Bennett- Three Poems


HARD WORK 

The last conversation
I had
With a fossil
Escapes me –.

It’s either or
Neither
Of us
Being known

To the other
That
Counts as
A bit

Of a bother.



SCOPE 

Late in the day,
And slightly
Humped over

My shoulder
Suggests
... If I am

Of whale descent

Words
Are
Water –.



SEMINAL BELIEF

Inside nothing and beyond
The brink
                 I find
An unpaid
Promissory note
That said

You’d return around
The time
The rains
                Came:

They’re here...

Matt Margo- Two Poems


bombshell vocations

at the nightclub dances
the prettiest matter
across a summit of storms

a modish windmill at the diehard café
taming waves and riding tight corners
in an underground room
on a wordless night still transient

like ghost hands over heavens
hammering out an age
of permanence or fence
sustained in isolation

let me push this trial and at once
kowtow to these arabian cascades
and sidewalk muses
for their large-scale wisdom
told after the heavy rains

against a backdrop
the monuments glisten
with light spring rain

the hands rise over a snowstorm
loftily living and blooming
safe from harm in a simplified city
rasping into a saw-like slip

of vintage wear and leisure time
cloaked in ameliorated cleanliness
they echo oral accounts of love said aloud
forbidding any unexpected fish farm frost

yapping about quick friendship
and the slow dark moon
vultures speak in heated murmurs
their lowly souls with salty patches
into slow synthetic synthesis

the old adage is nothing more
than a true hope shudder
bluish flags treading water

bliss is not fixed in passing canisters
of gin or the sap of the sin
that came to humanity
in punctured lines

chiming of different times
at a monday morning’s rally
the comedians and magicians
come together in search of footprints

as they move on
they recite their own songs
clacking and passing jars
to make ready
for the revolution of thorns


do-it-yourself make-a-wish foundation

to whom it may not concern:
it concerns me
and that is that
if your hand is as big as your face
it means that you have cancer
and if you ask me to marry you
then the answer is yes
yes i am an ugly human being
yes i do have a heart

Both poems published in Metazen November 2012



Matt Margo is the author of the poetry chapbook what i would say (Peanut Gallery Press, 2014) and the book-length poem When Empurpled: An Elegy (Pteron Press, 2013) as well as the editor of the online poetry magazine Zoomoozophone Review and the literary blog experiential-experimental-literature.

Adreyo Sen- A Poem


On a Rainy Day

On days when the sky is a wall of rain,
you find the nearest window seat
to curl up on.

Perhaps in those moments
you are thinking of a little house
and a little school
and a boy who loved to hold you
in his arms.

There are days when it rains
both here and where you are
and on those days you must
kiss the glass
as you used to kiss me.

For in those moments
when the rain curtains you and me,
there will be no glass between us,
no oceans raging and deep.

And you'll be warm
with all the love in my smile.

Wednesday, March 25, 2015

Noel Negele- Two Poems


Some More Bad Poetry.

We were on that Mercedes-Benz Sprinter truck again
All three of us, next to each other
The driver already on his third coffee
My brother leaning his bald head against the window
Trying to grasp some minutes of sleep
And behind his bald head
An ugly city gave away to viridity
 
I was on my fifth sober day
And it was the little things that broke me inside
Like say
The alarm clock at 6 in the morning,
The potholes in the streets,
the morning faces,
the beeping sound each time
I started the car in the morning
Indicating the perennial lack of petrol
or when we all loaded the equipment
on the truck
silently and synchronized
and it was the history of repetition that this fact
verified
that drove me mad
 
We went to a suburban nursery school on that day
Because the prime minister had a speech there
And we began to assemble the cameras
And the jimmy jib triangle crane
on their proper places
and it was a difficult task to keep yourself
from having a fit
when there’re so many kids around
and they had clowns too
and one of them had a fat gut
which made me feel good about myself
and realize
there’s always worse
 
But the kids were curious
About the cameras and the crane
About everything
And I had a bladder issue
And the coffee was awful
And I was trying to maintain a mental balance
In a sea of frenzy children
But the only way of managing
Was to push them away
Without manners:
“ Just fuck off to the clowns over there!”
 
At some point I went to the truck
To grab a piece of machinery
And while returning
I stopped in front of a closed door
And started smoking,
 
Half way on my cigarette
The door opened
And an ugly lady exited
Not quite closing the door behind her
Leaving a small gap
 
And through that small gap
I saw an impeccable flower
And it’s not a good thing
To see such a beautiful woman
Without being prepared
Because impulses begin to stem
And you’re suddenly
On the verge of doing something
really stupid that will get you in a lot of trouble
 
Of course she didn’t care to look at me twice
And of course I was thinking about her for weeks
Until the next equally indifferent flower
Would take her place in my mind
 
And when the prime minister came
And told all that bullshit they want to hear
All of them
Children and adults
And her
Looked at the prime minister
Actually listening
Actually expecting
And the only ones who didn’t care
Was me
And
That fat clown
 
And I could see it
In his face
 
He wanted a drink
As badly
As I did.


In The End Very Little To Nothing Is Left.

She showed me some letters I had once written to her
from years of which I remember nothing,
and I read those letters under her examining eyes
words of crying and groaning
loaded with what the writer once thought as essence
and I was amazed by the writer's certainty of his love
back when us seemed like an unbreachable fortress
back to now
where all the words of love seemed so terribly empty.

John Pursch- Three Poems


Boiled to Starlight
 
Hefty paparazzi double cork
caboodle canker sores
to postulate in tertiary eaves
till drooping dorsal enmity
revisits homespun tendencies
of paltry banter sidecar kicks
and studio retracement.
 
He slopped his shoveled platitudes
down someone else’s scuppered earwig
for enlightened changeling portents,
slipped to mundane café stools
of hardback tachyon survivors,
mauled by preferential drones.
 
She lagged at his piebald slouch,
bot peeler mentality,
simian caseload exigencies
of spurting chromatic thrusts,
and looped till perilously sure
of exhortation rights in lucid
ambit’s prehistoric flax;
 
all in perpetrated bowers
of harbored flea repugnance,
boiled to starlight pegs before
invigorated calves could crave
another mighty hit of ropey
umpteen schooner fizz.
 
Oars lift foghorn retinues
to ancient briny whistle-stops
of tourist grime embargo holes
and dime store truculence
for catered helicopter sheep.
 
We feel rotating thuds
of ammunition dawdle by,
plopping in timed faults of birdshot,
singing trafficked overload in keyed
occurrence amputation.
 

Emblematic Frost
 
Slim vertebrae chunk
transvestite auctions
into piecewise vertical boxcars,
raising furtive galoshes
from shin-deep crepe saddles.
 
Pirouettes deploy
purloined measles
to comfort a barricaded hog,
spilling ordinary optics
across the grazing terrapin’s
statutory zeal.
 
Dacron toasters
cover embattled hostages
with celestial chemise,
touching on tresses
that shoulder cradles
for caterpillars.
 
Oomph begets
decanted mountains
in spewn syllabic syllabi,
morphing syncopated chattel’s
bumpy rationed symptoms,
spotting a disheveled turtle
crossing tunneled sequins.
 
Swallowing away,
footfalls plunge
against the gloaming triad,
plying semicolon flesh,
slurped aloft in tethered hands.
 
Subways whip the bylaw dusk
to Cornish bowler features,
shoveled into loosened
emblematic frost.


Smithereens of Aging
 
I hear bespectacled spackle merchants
singing on yodeling expeditions
for brotherly cloakroom autism,
counting down from pilloried nerds
in testy pestilence and stooping
sandwich tripwire moss sitars,
strung vibrantly to
schooner cabin ziggurats
in perspicacious whimsy.
 
She’s leafing carelessly along
an aisle of cheetah squares,
bling cones dangling for
trendy showpiece maple taps
beneath the blackened smithereens
of aging swirls in shallow core venison,
cruelly blogging circumstantially
in swine machinery’s cultish craze
confetti armadillo berth.
 
Hordes of pothole plungers
pilfer tarnation from scarab ants
in scruffy exhibitionist keyhole plaque,
ground delicately to
trusted meatball carrion whiz
by elven vase inhabitants
from drawing tomb synagogues
near sauteed Mylar breasts
of scaly votive Scotsmen.


John Pursch lives in Tucson, Arizona. His work has been nominated for Best of the Net and has appeared in many literary journals. A collection of his poetry, Intunesia, is available at http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/whiteskybooks. Check out his experimental lit-rap video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l33aUs7obVc. He’s @johnpursch on Twitter and john.pursch on Facebook.

Douglas Polk- Three Poems


Impeachment

Nixon cared for the country,
and resigned,
Clinton did not,
Impeachment,
now an empty bluff,
Obama willing to gamble America's future,
the same as Bush,
the second,
willingly squandered treasury and lives in the desert sand,
socialists in the senate,
and narcissists everywhere one looks,
the poor no longer people,
but political pawns,
health insurance no longer insurance,
but another ponzi scam,
banking and betting lives instead of money,
the government and insurance companies,
playing with house money,
while the rest of us,
play Russian roulette,
many praying for a bullet,
instead of a protracted death,
and an empty chamber,
payback a bitch,
as Valerie Jarrett said,
race issues erupt,
in this time of hate,
paint the skin either brown or black,
to hide the target,
on the white man's back,
police departments destroyed,
under the attorney general's watch,
threatened again and again,
by Holder's black skinned thugs,
intimidating the whiter races,
ironically Obama and Holder,
both raised away from the hood,
bilingual,
they learned how to talk,
both white,
and black,
liars in more than one language,
impeachment such a empty threat.



Racism in America

Ferguson only an excuse to stoke the rage,
change not truly wanted,
responsibilities could then be demanded,
respect the community,
and obey the law,
the anger misplaced,
blame assessed unjustly,
mainly out of need,
without the white racist,
one must look in the mirror,
and confront the answers lurking there,
much easier,
if Ferguson an excuse,
to stoke the rage.



Foreign Policy

beheadings and crucifixions,
the fires flame,
an orange morning sky,
the world burning,
no hoses in sight,
a dark age lurks,
the sands of the Mideast caked in blood.

Kira Gray- Two Poems


Beer Eyes

A man's man
my uncle John
worked construction
traveled state to state
wherever the work was
all week
pouring concrete
making roads, bridges, tunnels
Friday night he'd bring home the bacon
my aunt waiting hungrily
kids crying, food all gone
beer and cigarettes in short supply
They'd shop, then drink, then laugh
cigarettes glowing red in the dark
tell me stories all night
nights I wanted to last forever



X

I remember my last day
would've said I'm sorry
if I had the chance
I had no grudge
-me-
a sperm and egg
bolted together for 100 days
a usual day
floating in an amnio sea
then-pulsing blood
a stab-a shriek!
pain both hot and swift
then-nothing
my mother
she died too that day
now we'll never meet
never hear her say
I wrecked the family
not me, really
the "doctor"
with his pointed stick
dirty from death
my mother his victim
let me say it now
I am so sorry mama
for wanting to exist