Monday, August 31, 2015
Kelley White- Three Poems
Radical
would be to truly stop thinking
I need a man around
to be whole
Resolved
When I am one hundred
I intend
to paint myself blue
and run out naked
into battle
Ai e Ai e Ai Ai Ai E EE
Saturn
must have beings
that make music with
her rings
multi-armed Bodhisattvas
with five thousand mobile fingers
to make colors sing chords
and a thousand eyes that weep
for us who see and think
only iceSunday, August 30, 2015
Richard Schnap- A Poem
DEITIES
There are spirits in the wind
Carrying voices toward the sky
The prayers of those who suffer
In the hope they will be heard
And there are spirits in the sea
Touching shores with changing tides
That can bring some to salvation
And send others to their doom
And there are spirits in the earth
Feeling those who trod its skin
Who wander as if trying to find
A place they can call home
But all of them are subject
To a greater unseen god
With a plan that stays a mystery
And is yet to be revealed
Stefanie Bennett- Three Poems
THREADS
Just as light dips its corona
My lodger, an echidna
By any other name,
Zigzags the curved terrace
To forage her banquet,
Leaving furrows
Between iris and sage.
Sighted, our eyes interlock.
I blink. Make hexagrams
From antiquated toil,
Shout
“Eureka...”
The Buddha’s been
A long time
Coming.
RULE OF THUMB
Most likely I’d like
The rich
A little more
If they’d
Consent to pay
The poor
A somewhat better
Morsel.
SOLSTICE
I’ve touched wood.
You were
The tallest
Of trees
In such
A short paddock.
What’s more,
The facsimile
Of for-
Ever’s
Still
Sighted
... Right there
Near
The once named
Endgame
Base
Of it –.
John Pursch- Three Poems
Memorized to Sawdust
O myriad resistive tendencies
that burble in the nightly wallet’s
sleeved infusion snow routine,
flecking Amelia’s green eyes
with South Sea landing patterns
of coral attributes attributed
to fading fuel gauge readouts
in dialed-to-dullards solipsism
of Nappy Knee flotilla feet
in barge line bughouse tugs
that labor in the haze of blue
subtropical relief to certain
block incarceration finitude
of raw decadal conquest!
Shelled empirical futility
objects in vain to steaming
Your Nuke coffee shop
in drizzling early morning
doldrums wade to county beach
house caravan of ants in teeny
probability collusion,
hoping for an angled tryst.
Floss still hangs
from ancient teeth
in gum line brawn
of chosen breaker
intercession on behalf
of all the favored numismatic
clipboard juggler cowling kids
of cooling periodical entrainment,
memorized to fine sawdust.
Punctuated Night
Ventured papillary butter
flies in hourly tour selection
grooves to arching daylight
sera scalar calibration owls,
spinning wires of thermos kludge
calypso patter’s sewn projectile
sentience for lapping bezel
salients of paddy surge
in ochre taste estates,
cocking gamete spleef rejoinder
floozies between fulminating
plasticity’s gapped centuries.
Why do periodic piecemeal
thunder clams equivocate
against electric starlings,
cropped to tuneless
punctuated night?
Who poses
for unanswerable
quotients of moaned
denominational domains
of webby patchwork role addenda,
seeking talon cap seclusion’s
tapped turmeric?
Double-dotted highwaymen
encounter clue reaction elegance
in trichinosis nemeses,
visibly coruscated
with scarce miter soap.
Cobbler Era Referenda
A clear liquid pours through me,
filling blood and bone and every living cell
with marginalia and margarine
from salad days gone far into the treetops
of misbegotten hamster tread mark
trapezoids of fueled erotic basements
and tangled pairwise incomplete
excisions of overtures to God.
Prayer ducts find their way
to fully matrimonial minutiae,
plodding in rocked window flecks
through certainty’s extended span,
held to countertop grain
by stolid pone of piloted yore,
slipped to prison fighters
by balmy barter days
of memorized ablutions,
hopping pinnacles of pyre behavior.
She might be sitting calmly
in loose café exuberance
of fairly free comparison
to tolling bel canto imitation
nylon submarine gun wombs,
shading a step toward center field,
pensively immune to
contraindicated
summer tides.
Paradoxically encrypted
fractional equations
elude solution mist,
spraying satin sheen veneer
on finely carved iconic hoots
of howling import polio,
serenely placing wooden species
of eight or twenty bounty tumblers,
safer than entrained police can fructify
a jellyfish to cobbler era referenda.
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/
Donal Mahoney- Three Poems
Anniversary Poem
She’s forgotten how great I am,
although I do my best to remind her
after all these years of marriage.
She knew how great I was on
our wedding day and honeymoon
and for some months thereafter.
But just the other day we were
stationed in our recliners
and I was trying to help her see
life as it is and not as she
has always wished it to be.
And the woman yawned.
She’s different now but it’s better
than being married to a groupie.
Tomorrow I’ll try reason again.
Keeping His Dignity
A poor man comes to the door
after the storm last winter and
asks if he can have something
to eat if he shovels the walk.
You say forget about the snow.
How about ham sandwiches
on rye bread and he says fine.
You ask if he wants mustard.
He says yes if it’s Grey Poupon,
the only mustard he eats.
Angels or the Fat Lady
It’s pretty simple, really.
The world will end
whether we believe
the Bible is a myth or truth.
If the Bible is the truth,
the world will end,
a monk told me,
when the angels come
to sort the good folk
from the bad and
toss the bad folk into
fire that never ends
with weeping and
gnashing of teeth.
But if the Bible is a myth,
an atheist told me,
the world will end
with a final aria
atop Mt. Everest
when the fat lady sings.
Donal Mahoney lives in St. Louis, Missouri.
Saturday, August 29, 2015
Glen Armstrong- Three Poems
Chicken Little Syndrome
There are
certain lines
and buildings
too big to be
trusted,
certain gifts
too Trojan,
too equine.
My mind seems
dignified
until I open it.
The western
expansion is fraught
with many
dangers.
The ancients
teach in riddles:
wool is to milk
as silk is to
semen.
Those who
witness
my arrival are
surprised
that I didn’t
fall
from myself.
We all hang
tight.
As above, soon
below.
Trouble Every Day - L.
Another hill
awaits another
Boot another foot
The wholeness
only
Prosthetics can restore
We never speak
of great
And terrible deeds
As we eat takeout
Chinese
But I prime my
face for arrows
The sparrows /
jays / robins
Morning doves / cardinals
Grackles
Attack the worm
To warm their bellies
Beat each other
down
To attack the worm
The garden seems
serene
But if
Plants could scream
The garden
gnomes would crack
Under their burden
We never hear
the beak / talon
Mandible / invasive species
Choking off the sprout
I listen as the
plastic
Flowers
Sing
Of their wholeness
And resolve.
Figures / Figurines
Fan fiction is all about the proper
nouns, a celebration of the individual, fictive fist. Each knuckle seems to
progress with its own needs and history.
I remember each slight but forget the
names of lovers.
A display shelf with odd figurines.
Consider Halloween as set in motion by
baby boomers in a densely populated suburb circa 1962: porch lights document
the ebb and flow of characters from popular culture and those that resonate
with a sturdier sense of tradition.
A mouse takes its pants off. A princess
sleeps in a tree.
Maybe a child gives the faceless wooden
doll a name; maybe she adds tooth marks to its head.
I need to continue: no story, only sway.
Consider an elaborate fantasy world:
nameless, curious figues press their faces and limbs from castles or forests
for an adventure that reads like summer breeze.
Consider a lover who arrives naked with
smudges of soot on her face and belly: (How she got here, I can't say.) In the
morning, in her place, a basket of clean towels.
Glen Armstrong holds an MFA
in English from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and teaches writing at
Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan. He edits a poetry journal called Cruel Garters and has three new chapbooks:
Set List (Bitchin Kitsch,) In Stone and The Most Awkward Silence of All (both Cruel Garters Press.) His
work has appeared in Poetry Northwest,
Conduit and Cloudbank.
Douglas Polk- Two Poems
Progress
half the nation left behind,
paying taxes,
and dealing with crime,
while the president fiddles,
read of Rome,
and its collapse,
fools never learn the lessons,
history teaches,
ignorant of the past,
only parasites and leeches,
no borders,
no debt,
responsibility,
a burden to avoid,
a duty to shun,
instead disable the police,
and outlaw the guns,
trust the key,
thought,
the enemy,
in lockstep march to the future,
half the nation left behind.
Protests
if black lives are to matter,
then laws must not,
action,
reaction,
and consequence,
it does not matter,
break the law,
and show no respect,
black lives matter,
but not to other blacks,
killing,
without attention,
without any thought,
a phony scandal,
cynical the protest,
the truth hid,
along with the circumstances,
again and again.
Denny E. Marshall- A Poem
The Banks Of River Styx
Hope when I die
I go to heaven
Not so much that I deserve it
It is that I know
Citibank & Bank Of America
Have branches in hell
And Wells Fargo ATM’s
Are burning eternally with fees
I never want to deal
With them again
Let alone
Forever
Wednesday, August 26, 2015
Scott Thomas Outlar- A Poem
Midnight Halo
details,
details –
to a fine
point…
to
implosion
pulling
back
unto
itself…
to entropy
exhausting
its last
inhalation…
to a
lapsing moment
as time
expires
for
evolution…
Angels with
the voice
of midnight
bleed halo-shimmer
songs
from out
the shadows
of their
dark tithe
spilling
love
not riches
into the
light
Demons with
the curse
of doubt
filling
their fallen minds
cry until
they weep
wail and
gnash their teeth
as golden
light
becomes
their tomb
Bio:
Scott
Thomas Outlar swims adrift in the cosmic flow of the Tao River, singing
songs to the heavens while waiting for inspiration to echo back from
the muses. His goings-on can be followed at 17numa.wordpress.com.
Tuesday, August 25, 2015
Maciej Walkowiak- Three Poems
Resistance
Feeble minds lead
and blind
war of vice and
virtue, no end in sight,
walking a path
against the current,
wind brings us down
rise again, or
change your way
conformity in rest,
resistance is
feudal they say,
industrial scale of
thoughts,
how long can one
fight?
or should we join
the ranks of fright.
Humanity Gone
Awry
There is beauty in
this world
it lies between
solidarity of men
pursuit of.....a
better,
grasp above own a
noble deed,
the love of other.
Yet you stand on
shoulders of misery
to make yourself
tall,
no bottom to your
greed
on the edge of
madness
you dance and
pirouette,
while most toil for
crumbs.
Cannibals
& Co
Crooks in suits on
the loose
steal at will from
the youth
Law for sale if you
please
all with say on
your knees!
Kleptocratic
business plan
take it all if you
can.
Robert Lavett Smith- Three Poems
THE STRICKEN AND THE STILL
i.m.: R. S. Thomas, 1913-2000
The poet photographed deplorably—
A stern old codger, country clergyman,
Stubbornly Welsh and fiercely Anglican—
In every portrait he scowls bitterly.
Oh, how he raged against modernity!
Refrigerators were decried in sermons;
Machines he saw as little more than vermin,
Distractions from our spirituality.
But the harsh music of the balding hills
Flowed freely, unencumbered, in his lines:
He caught the cadence of the health, the ills,
Of those who tilled the earth or delved the mines.
He moved among the stricken and the still,
Attuned to more celestial designs.
FOR SIR JOHN BETJEMAN, 1906-1984
John Betjeman was the Poet Laureate
Of Britain in the nineteen seventies—
Tweedy, avuncular, known for his ease
With journalists, his flawless etiquette.
Perhaps at some point you’ll have heard his name,
But have no real feeling for his verse;
Widespread acclaim can often be a curse;
His genius was submerged beneath his fame.
I came across a gathering of songs,
Settings for words that he penned years ago:
So many haunting lines I didn’t know;
Each witticism right where it belongs.
His oeuvre resonates as few things can—
Enough to make me wish I’d met the man.
PASSING A STOREFRONT CHURCH
A storefront mission in the Tenderloin,
Whose battered sign proclaims “Cristo Viene,”
Exacts no tears. (Indeed, I have not any;
My soul cannot be purchased with that coin.)
Here, twilight’s perched uneasily between
This holiness of dubious repute
And gaggles of bedraggled prostitutes,
The oldest of them barely seventeen.
Then there’s a bundled figure in the doorway
So indistinct it’s neither man nor woman—
Although we recognize it must be human—
Once pliant flesh deformed by long decay.
The shuttle turns a corner, and the night
Engulfs for good this dreary scrap of light.
Raised in New Jersey, Robert Lavett Smith 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). He has recently been working on an new collection of sonnets—his second foray into the form—which is entitled Sturgeon Moon, and which will hopefully be published by Full Court Press at the end of the year.
John Swain- A Poem
Prophet’s Rock
The sun a horse recumbent
in the dust
red as prairie grass traveling
to a distant hill.
Flies and rattles line
the braided mane.
I broke from the road
to approach
the sky of bone, unknowing
the call of its hollow.
A doorway of rock
emanates the prophet’s song
where two rivers cross
the field of the wounded.
The dead arise to sky half-blind
in the sign of eclipse
as black hooves splinter flint
and then trample the corn.
John Swain lives in Louisville, Kentucky. Least Bittern Books published his second collection, Under the Mountain Born.
Pijush Kanti Deb- Three Poems
The Company and Its Right Track
Everything is normal to mirror
yet to the new eyes of today
the company stands on the wrong track
causing traversing of sea-less clouds
in the sky
and on the land
transferring of driver’s seat
from the heaven-returned father
to the hell-returned son
provoking the son and his commercial magic
to set Thames on fire
in the very outset
commanding the following assistants
to run in the same groove
setting all confusions and hesitations
at rest from the secret path
linking Eldorado with the company’s treasury
for soliciting a big push
to welcome the company again to its right track
immersing the obsolete hymns
of ethics and humanity
to turn the walking profit into a galloping horse
and the barren cloud into the fertile one
rich in seas and oceans to bloom
a winning smile on the lips of the rough and tough son.
Everything is normal to mirror
yet to the new eyes of today
the company stands on the wrong track
causing traversing of sea-less clouds
in the sky
and on the land
transferring of driver’s seat
from the heaven-returned father
to the hell-returned son
provoking the son and his commercial magic
to set Thames on fire
in the very outset
commanding the following assistants
to run in the same groove
setting all confusions and hesitations
at rest from the secret path
linking Eldorado with the company’s treasury
for soliciting a big push
to welcome the company again to its right track
immersing the obsolete hymns
of ethics and humanity
to turn the walking profit into a galloping horse
and the barren cloud into the fertile one
rich in seas and oceans to bloom
a winning smile on the lips of the rough and tough son.
A Peace-loving Family Man
The open screen of a market
projects a scene of a wrangling-
almost ready to set in
but one of the rivals is seen
to show his back to his opponent
before putting two and two together
saying, ‘’ I don’t like fighting’’
and cutting both ways his image
to the disappointed on looking crowd-
interested in enjoying a dual free of cost,
who remark as per the ink in their pens,
‘’ He is gentleman’’ some opine
while other oppose,’’ No, he is a coward’’
but the returning rival mutters,
maybe, to himself or to someone else he likes,
‘’I’m no other than a peace-loving family man’’
The open screen of a market
projects a scene of a wrangling-
almost ready to set in
but one of the rivals is seen
to show his back to his opponent
before putting two and two together
saying, ‘’ I don’t like fighting’’
and cutting both ways his image
to the disappointed on looking crowd-
interested in enjoying a dual free of cost,
who remark as per the ink in their pens,
‘’ He is gentleman’’ some opine
while other oppose,’’ No, he is a coward’’
but the returning rival mutters,
maybe, to himself or to someone else he likes,
‘’I’m no other than a peace-loving family man’’
A Lonely Body
The softness of heart feels pity
on its young but lonely body
witnessing its bed-tumbling
round and round in its deep slumber
saying to himself
‘’ It needs a partner with anti- tumbling device’’
and obtaining too
the comment of a poet living in it
‘’ Wow! What a sweet longing for salty sweating’’
but both start stammering
looking at its trembling pocket
with shrinking wallet
and beating hard their stony fate on the wall
causing the waking up of the body smiling
projecting a happy flash back
of the passionate love of his dream-girl
who comes daily in his dream
to make it enchanted
to its cause of bed-tumbling
and unmindful
to his compelled miseries and loneliness
and alive too without the sweet nectar of reality.
Pijush Kanti Deb is a new Indian poet with around 252 published or accepted poems and haiku in around 81 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, Grey Borders, Dagda Publishing, Blognostic Black Mirror Magazine, Dissident Voice Journal , Indiana Voice Journal and many more.
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.
Melanie Browne- Two Poems
I Just Can't Decide
Sometimes
I'm the Good
Witch,
smiling, full
of goodness,
I care
for the
paper dolls,
and make a
home for all
the rabbits,
other days I'm like
the Wicked Witch of
the East,
Dorothy's house
is already
crushing me,
my legs turn
to dust,
till there is
nothing left
but my pointy,
pointy shoes,
then the flowers
wilt,
and all
the little
people
dance & sing
Bungee
We American People,
dangling on
the end of the bunjee
fighting endless wars,
giving money overseas,
while our politicians
hop in and out of
our enemies beds,
a word search we
can't finish,
waiting for
the final
SNAP
Paul Tristram- Three Poems
Majestic Waves Of Wonder
Those feelings
sparked by
that caressing touch.
Like dungeon doors
bursting open,
deep in the
labyrinth’d
heart and soul.
It flows within,
wave after wave
of stuttering,
goose bumped love.
Emotional scales
realigning
and rebalancing.
Passion easily storming
the inner protective walls,
now useless
under this gentle
and caring attack.
Kisses picking locks
and the shuddering warmth
is like almost
touching freedom.
As you sheet-grip
like a cringing,
demented avalanche.
Knowing that both
release and surrender
are sometimes
the most beautiful
things to be done.
© Paul Tristram 2015
Roped
We were sat on a dinner break
and he picked up a bit of old rope
from the floor and made a noose.
A proper one just like the cowboy
films and the Highwaymen stories.
We were all intrigued and slightly
impressed so he pulled it apart
and made it all over again, slowly
so we could all mentally take note.
“You just loop this like this,
wrap that like that and then
do this…it’s really quite simple!”
We all smiled together like idiots.
“You learn something new every day!”
exclaimed one of my friends cheerfully.
“You never know when it’ll come in handy?”
said another friend with a chuckle.
They both put what they had learnt
that day into practice within five years,
one from a tree up in the woods
and the other in a shabby rented room
in a dosshouse in Neath Town Centre.
Of course, they probably would have
done it a different way anyway
but I’ll never teach that rope trick to anyone.
© Paul Tristram 2015
Taking Positivity To A Ridiculous Level
He walked in out of the rain
and stood at the end of the bar
sipping the head off the top
of the first drink of the day
next to the only other patron
in The Open Wrist Tavern.
“I must be the unluckiest man alive!”
he stated matter-of-factly,
in the general direction of the stranger,
whilst wiping the froth moustache
from his top lip with a shaking hand.
“My Missus left me for my Ex-Wife,
she took everything except the dog
and I hate that flea-ridden thing.
Ran out of electric two weeks later
because I was out on the lash
trying to get my head around it all.
Lit a candle and the house burnt down,
well half of it anyway, Jesus Christ,
I’m lucky to be alive the paramedics said
I told them they were taking the piss.
I’ve been sleeping under a bridge
down by the canal, just look at me,
I’m wearing painter & decorator
overalls I stole off a washing line,
and I’m a out of work bricklayer.
I tried hanging myself three nights ago
and the bloody rope snapped,
then threw myself in the river
but just drifted downstream so far
that I had blisters on top of blisters
walking miles to get back here again.
I’d weep but the last time I did that
they threw me out of the pub I was in.
I’d go home but I’m not allowed
because I’m a living, breathing
reminder to my parents why they
hate each other so God Damned much.
I got arrested for urinating in public
when I’d only pissed myself asleep,
they gave me a £60 fine, I can’t pay it
so they’re threatening me with 28 days
in jail instead, you can’t make this up?
I only have one enemy in the world,
bullied me relentlessly since nursery
and he’s in there running the prison.
I tried praying an hour before I got here,
I looked up to the sky and begged
for mercy…that’s why it started raining!”
“Never mind, it could be worse,
you might not have that gorgeous pint
in front of you and I saw you paying
with a tenner, that’s two more after that!”
spoke the stranger sagely in between tears
after belly laughing for a minute or so
then calling the barkeep back over said
“I was depressed so I came here
to try and cheer myself up a bit
and after listening to this poor guys woes
I feel lucky, privileged and ecstatic.
It’s hard not to take positivity
to a ridiculous level around him,
please, give him anything he wants, twice!”
© 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.
Buy his book ‘Poetry From The Nearest Barstool’ at http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/
And also read his poems and stories here! http://paultristram.blogspot.
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