Monday, November 30, 2015
Kinga Fabo- Three Poems
Poison
I don't know what it is but very ill-
intended. Surely a woman must belong to it.
And something like a laughter.
I am rotating the city on me,
rotating my beauty. That's that!
Many keys, small keyholes whirling.
Gazes cannot be all in vain. And the answer?
Merely a jeer.
The vase hugs and kills me, can't breathe.
Now my features – even with the best intentions –
cannot be called beautiful.
And her? The girl? Her trendy perfume
is Poison. For me a real poison indeed.
And the vase?
It hugs and kills me.
But what am I to do without?
(Translated by Kinga Fabó)
© Kinga Fabó
While In Action
While in action you don’t disturb
me a bit. Just go to bed and sleep.
You’re being so vulgar, hon. And like
snow: soft and sneaky.
Admitted: thirty minutes sentiments, inane
silence, claptrap. Shot. Ladies,
in my ping-pong heart the game is
at rest. Some other time. Perhaps.
(Translated by Katalin N. Ullrich)
© Kinga Fabó
Isadora Duncan Dancing
Like sculpture at first. Then, as if the sun rose in her, long
gesture.
A small smile; then very much so.
The beauty
of the rite shone; whirling.
She whirled and whirled,
flaming.
Only the body spoke. The body carried her
language.
Her dance a spell
swirling the air, a spiral she was
and
her shawl, the half circle around her,
the curve of the sea-shore and
girl,
the dancer and the dance apart…
(Trascreated by Cathy Strisik and Veronica Golos based on Katalin N. Ullrich’s translation.)
© Kinga Fabó
Bio
Kinga Fabó is an acclaimed Hungarian poet (linguist, essayist). Her recent bilingual Indonesian-English poetry book is Racun/Poison, 2015, Jakarta.
Jennifer Lagier- A Poem & Photo
Streets of Pain
The homeless sleep among dunes,
inside battered vans or decrepit RVs
on quiet, dead-end streets,
push shopping carts filled
with meager belongings.
inside battered vans or decrepit RVs
on quiet, dead-end streets,
push shopping carts filled
with meager belongings.
In parks and wetlands,
I find empty whiskey bottles
men wrapped in filthy blankets
huddled on cardboard under shrubs
waiting for sunrise.
I find empty whiskey bottles
men wrapped in filthy blankets
huddled on cardboard under shrubs
waiting for sunrise.
Hank, George, and Zeb
inhabit streets of pain
forage for handouts,
strung out or psychotic,
part of the everyday landscape.
inhabit streets of pain
forage for handouts,
strung out or psychotic,
part of the everyday landscape.
Randall Rogers- Three Poems
I Love The Ugly!
I look at all the women
I am attracted to, and think,
gee, what about all the
women I'm not attracted
to? What do I feel for them?
Compassion, I tell myself,
infinite compassion.
Then, thinking further, and
looking deeper, I see that
all beauty is ephemeral,
and the only real beauty
is in the heart and mind,
and I say darn it all to heck,
I love the ugly!
Never Really That Wrong
Whenever I encounter
old people, I can't help
but think of all the broken
hearts and dastardly doings
they probably committed
when they were young,
supple, and strong. And
my compassion for them
seemingly is not so strong.
Then, some speak, or do
what they do, and I realize
instantly, this one, or these
ones, were, I bet, never
really that wrong.
From Now Through Forever
I know I should count
my blessings, but I
can't help but think
I should be blessed
a little more.
I just ask I feel
alright for the rest
of my life,
and I feel
best when and
after I die.
Noel Negele- A Poem
Life is Mediocre Most of The Time.
And so are we.
It takes little self- knowledge
and a little more acceptance
to see this.
Say
in the promises we don't keep
though it takes little effort to accomplish.
In your own tired eyes
in the morning, brushing your teeth
feeling quite bad because you're not bad
nor good-
you just are,
a utensil that once contained the false air
of possibility
but that now is all too true
in its emptiness.
In the dissapointing lovers,
in the dissapointing friends
in the dissapointing family.
Defeat after defeat.
Nothing but nothing.
Getting up from bed
like climbing a mountain.
Floating in life
like a ring of smoke
dissolving in the air;
the terrible, slow and stable
fade away occuring.
As lifeless as the guts of the lamp
dug out by the bloody hands
of the butcher.
Like flies shut in the palm
of a cruel God-
our insides dripping
between his fingers.
Not even tragedy, just dull pain.
Unchallenged submission
with no bickering.
Taking a nap on your couch
at four in the afternoon
with the television on mute,
realizing you haven't had a laugh
or as much as a giggle
in five months or more.
Dennis Villelmi- Two Poems
"What I Had Stolen For Heaven's Sake"
As jade, obtained as the de facto hue of heaven-
It was theft, though; the criminal was indispensable.
I woke up in, or fell asleep and dreamt in, the Nanjing gardens;
I was caught quickly by the leopard lilies, their beauty and their
Offers to cure me of the the previous hour's arrows.
The gardens gave me rock to sit on, my steps managed with
Buckling legs.
'I have not, however, the jade. And as I hired the thief, the
sky I got it for by twist won't allow me the wings. All
heaven would have me do is simply count the massacred.'
-Carthage is whispering. It's cultured its gardens from time to time
And in an album of locales. Blood, salt, Baal and the beating of
Roman sandals.
'Dido wanted some change though; change as jade.'
"Greenhouse Hot Contempt"
Biography.
347 pages of crossroads.
I know it was petty of me-
Petty wrath for over wilted gerbers.
Yet, there was another reason I cursed you:
That was my death; my death you took.
My death you lie there with.
I'm done with biography and greenhouses, or so I
Was till I made the mistake of training you.
Now it'll be another season at least of planting and
Consolidation. Dirty, leafy, 90 degrees F crossroads.
It's damn frantic to the right, the left it's like Sicily and Korea
Intertwined.
Peppers, the candy-like scent and the green death I'm again
Planting.
I wish the owner would fire all the harvesters by New Year's.
Dennis Villelmi is the author of the gothic epic poem "Fretensis," as well as the dystopian short story, "The Apian Way." (Dagda Publishing) Additionally, he has a good number of poems published by Dagda, Dead Snakes, and Aphelion webzine. He also writes freelance for Gruemonkey.com.
Bart Solarczyk- Three Poems
Prayer & Fetish
This thing that beefed
& broadened you
muscled & cocksure
is leaving now
it has its own death
to attend
it's leaving
& no medicine
can conjure its return
prayer & fetish
reduced to mocking jokes
no give, no getting back
always the same ending
the hollow weight of loss
the sag & bend
of meat & bone
it's gone
& you shrivel
in its absence
body shrinks to stump
mind a pickled egg
& the man
a ghost of words
trapped in a poem.
Less Of Her
Staccato beeps, a crippled soundtrack
green machines & lasers
venomous dark spots
killing what's been kissed
waking hard, she's still here
beautiful but less of her
eyes too sad to leave
but looking for a door.
Dusting The Moon
Dusting the moon
with drunken wishes
as gravity
folds our wings
falling through
last call
with nothing
granted.
Sunday, November 29, 2015
John Swain- A Poem
Isle Royale
The rising island moves in light
as lake waves cut deep coves
unseen from the ancient stone ridge.
Freed to receive
a trembling vision in the aspen and birch,
leaves sound vibrating a canopy bell
electric in my arms
I stand transfixed among.
Exhausted in my sweat
as clothes dry on the open shore,
fox shadows run from a hanging bandana.
I taste the clean water on my tongue
and then only the sun in blue.
Quiet and alone the heights wander
lakes within the lake,
a rainstorm pillars in the distance
while the water in my metal cup
looms like the harvest sky.
John Swain lives in Louisville, Kentucky. Least Bittern Books published his second collection, Under the Mountain Born.
Sanjeev Sethi- Two Poems
The recently released, This Summer and That Summer,
(Bloomsbury) is Sanjeev Sethi’s third book of poems.
His work also includes well-received volumes, Nine Summers Later and Suddenly
For Someone. He has, at various phases of his career, written for
newspapers, magazines, and journals. He has produced radio and television
programs.
His poems have found a home in The London Magazine, The
Fortnightly Review,
Allegro Poetry Magazine, Otoliths, Lemon Hound, Solstice Literary Magazine, Off the
Coast Literary Journal, Synesthesia Literary Journal, Oddball Magazine,
Hamilton Stone Review, Indian Literature, Journal of the Poetry
Society (India), The Hindu, The Statesman, and elsewhere. He lives in
Mumbai, India.
Poems
are forthcoming in Sentinel Literary Quarterly, and Literary
Orphans.
FAME
Well-versed tomes whitewashing
the inner maquette of maestros,
clutter literary hallways.
Does limelight rescue them
from their private curse?
Does arrival compose suffering?
SELTZER,
PLEASE!
Umpteen evenings
spent drinking
to perks of partnership.
As absorption grew
promises and premises
were swapped
with steam and spirit.
But the chessboard outside
the honky-tonk
had other theories…
I am on the wagon.Saturday, November 28, 2015
Donal Mahoney- Three Poems
Flotsam and Jetsam
They're usually poor people,
sometimes considered
the flotsam of society,
always in the way
at the grocery store,
at the post office.
They can’t find their money,
if they have any.
They’re never in a hurry.
They have nowhere to go
and you’re always in line
behind them, a busy man
with people to see,
appointments to keep,
deadlines to meet.
You try to be patient.
You know flotsam loiters
until life takes it away.
Later in retirement
you stand on a street corner
leaning on your cane
waiting for the light to change
but for you it never does.
You now have something
in common with flotsam.
In a year, maybe less,
you will be jetsam as
birds soar over your plot
four seasons of the year.
You won’t be aware
that on street corners
all over the world
the lights won’t change for
other folks still in a hurry,
those who don’t realize yet
flotsam and jetsam
at some point in time
have something in common.
They have nowhere to go.
Big Difference
Behind every great man
is a woman
making him who he is.
Behind every great woman
is a man
watching her walk.
A Milkshake Brings Advice
I bring a milkshake every other week
to an old man in a nursing home,
a refugee from Germany who paid me
50 cents to cut his grass when I was
a kid in Chicago after WWII.
I couldn’t understand him then
and I can’t understand him now
but 50 cents was big money
in 1950, 10 candy bars,
10 popsicles or maybe 5 Cokes.
Or I could mix and match and trade
Pete the Collector for a baseball card.
Now my old neighbor sits in bed
and swigs his milkshake as I tell him
that I drove by his house the other day
and the new owners have planted
roses and lilies everywhere.
Every color imaginable.
A botanical garden in bloom.
He blinks at me, smiles
and takes a final swig.
Because of the language problem
we never talk about anything
except the house he will never
see again and then marvel that
he will turn 100 soon, quite a feat.
He smiles at that as well.
But he doesn’t smile when I get up
to leave and offers me advice
in the thunder of his accent:
“Someone had better stop ISIS now.
When I was a kid in Berlin, no one
stopped Hitler the bastard then."
———————————————————————————
Donal Mahoney lives in St. Louis, Missouri.
Noel Negele- Two Poems
About My Good Friend John
It happened usually
at dawn, while the sun started to come up
and we all wished the night lasted for two days-
when we came down from
the drugs hard,
our feet feeling like truck tires
instead of feathers
that we talked about the really serious stuff-
Syria, Hamas, immigration problems
world hunger, pharmaceutical companies
extremists, conspiracies, enviromental downslides
and there was always this bold guy telling us
about economical wars going on
and that we were really close to something awful-
this in truth was only a way of coping with sadness
talking about worse things
though we were, and still are, poorly educated
and the majority of us with criminal records.
But anyway, this is about my good friend John
leaning over the plate- a plastic straw jammed into his right nostril
just after I've told him to it call it a day,
that we had done enough self destructing
to last us for two life times,
my good friend John falling on the ground
flapping like a fish out of water,
foam coming out of his mouth
his eyes nowhere to be seen-
death rocking him hard before
taking him from us,
my good friend John
the more good looking one
the kinder one
dying in front of our eyes
bringing a flash in my mind
of him laughing at fourteen years of age
all rose-cheeked and careless,
remaining still, suddenly, at last
like a puppet whose strings were released
as if someone up there got bored
or disgusted more than the usual,
my good friend John
who is no longer
like so many good people out there
leaving us behind, remorseful and horrified
for all the chances of kindness we missed,
for all the love we came short.
Night Time.
Five in the morning.
Strolling along the whore houses and coughing
alongside dangerous friends with self-sabotaging tendencies
as the field of the sky becomes a menacing purple
all the lovely darkness giving away to gruesome light...
Time waits for no man.
After window shopping for a while
( the shamelessness so very honest and blunt )
you head in, more dead than alive, too drunk for a remarkable erection
and rub your carcass against this woman much older than you
with bruises on her thighs and no matress on the bed
inside a room that smells like a junky's sneeze.
You know there are vaulters everywhere.
Men with heads tucked into shoulders-
barely a sign of life in them.
Stoic, mean women under the red lights.
Flesh for money.
Cheap affection that will have to do.
And when you puke your guts out on the stairs
and it's that hollow thing echoing in the alley
your friends laugh
and you laugh too.
Alan Catlin- Three Poems
The
Vampire
"There was this guy
that
hung out in school who
always
dressed up like Bela
Lugosi.
You know: complete vampire
deluxe
attire including white face
and
cape. Rumor had it, he slept
in a coffin and went to
class
always dressed in
black.
Someone told me, they saw
him
drink a glass of blood but
I
thought that was a bit
extreme
even for Ithaca. He was weird
though, no doubting
that.
No matter how late you
staggered
back toward the dorm you
might
sort of see him tinkering
with
the hearse, of course, he
had
a hearse with wall to wall
carpeting
and quadraphonic sound.
God only knows where he got it
all
because it was like
new.
I guess his people had
money,
old money, if you know what I
mean.
Let me tell you that was one
campus
that didn't look forward to
Halloween."
Talking Them Off the
Ledge
"You don't know what it's
like
to be an RA. Last year, I talked
three people off the
ledge.
That's a hell of a way to wake
up
at three in the morning
watching
this chick strung out on God knows
what
walking the line outside a fifth
floor
window. I got her in but it wasn't
easy.
Her side of the room was empty inside
of
twelve hours. No one, I mean
absolutely
no one knows what happened to
her.
The most surprising one was
these
three roommates who were like
tight
getting gassed together and two of
them
turn real ugly and start to beat the
shit
out of the other one. What a bloody mess!
Much screaming and
yelling.
I wondered what she did, like
blow
both girl's boyfriends or
something.
Whatever it was, they were like
heavily
into serious shit like tossing her out
the window. That turned out to be
another disappearing
act.
The third one was into pills and
liquor but mostly pills. Her roommate
got me up with one of
those:"Sheila's,
been locked in the bathroom for
hours
with a six pack of razor
blades."
Luckily they were mostly
superficial.
I hear she's in stir some place
heavy.
My mother's a real riot, says you got
it
nice and easy not having to pay
room
and board for two years and you
get
a stipend on top of that just
to
babysit a bunch of college
kids."
A Discontinued Line
They discontinued her model in a
fit
of rationality somewhere in the early
seventies.
The reasoning had something to do
with
bad genes warped on acid and too
much
contaminated free love. I was tempted
to check her out for antique plates
but
it wasn't necessary; the outfit she
was
wearing was so out of date and
willfully
deliberate. She was into giving the old
man
she was with a history lesson, the
object
of which was an unsecured loan of two
bills
she owed this guy,
"Vince, you remember him, the
mental patient."
But it would be awhile before
she got to that.
"I'm going to have it removed." She
began.
"It's going to hurt, tattoos are
permanent."
"I don't care, it's not me
anymore."
"What is it of?"
"A butterfly but it's on my right
tit.
When I got it, I thought it was
cute.
I should have known. It was my ex's idea."
"You could be
disfigured."
"I already am, give me a
break."
I thought Burger King was getting to
be
a greater bargain every day: an in
flight
ten buck mall movie, plus a meal all
for
just a couple of bucks.
It was my kind of movie
too.
I get off looking at washed out,
ditzy
red heads and hearing an
inspired,
crazed story of a lifetime
abusing
everything she touched.
"I'm living with William now but I'm
still
seeing Vince."
"Why is that?"
"Vince is kind of different, he gets
under
your skin and stays there. We were having sex
once and this stuff, God it was awful,
came off
his ass in my hands. I almost puked."
"What was it."
"I guess it was skin, I don't know but
it sure was
disgusting."
"Why do you do these things to
yourself?"
"It's for William," she says, almost
meaning it,
"Vince is going to kill him if we don't
come
up with the money." We
both believe her.
Chad Repko- Three Poems
Short BIO: Chad Repko is a poet from Pottstown PA.
I COME FROM PLANET ME
spawn from womb
that is different from you
which makes you different too
weird isn't it
our tired head nod orbit
floating yet cemented
Masculinity needs to be reinvented
the body,
celestial by invention
the mind,
needing to live by true intention
move by love's will alone
through caverns and taverns
of the darkest embryos of light
and being mindful
of electrons I invite
this spirit
wants to share smiles
after the files of the brain
pack on miles for the insane
how bizarre this tried path
is often derailed from your vengeance
and your wrath
colliding
parallax
retrograding
oh, and I've fucked up too
just like you
crashed, frustrated, withdrew
BuT OuR LovE is BINARY
our singularity
our crazy fucking terrestrial attitude
leaving holes in our visual magnitude
gratitude
should be what we express
down this fucking cosmic avenue
or perhaps
I'm from a different place
a spectrum of abnormality
a twisted duality
between nightmare and fantasy
between Masculinity and Femininity
homo sapien and divinity
tied together so brilliantly
yet we bet on
your time clocks and wrist watch
your arguments and displaced anger
your commentators and experts
your big green money making machine
we demean
our conjunction for routine
but for all it's worth in this galactic travel
I wish compassion for those still residing in Umbra
The Evolution of Self
it's true what they say
it's not the years,
it's the mileage
to grow
and gain such knowledge
of self
the struggle between
the soul and the mind
with the body being the battlefield
that gets weighted in time
they say you look old
but i still like to fuck in the rain
some things change
while others stay the same
Surviving
through capitalism
the zombie filled cannibalism
that sick one-eyed Willie green
pump caffeine into the machine
see your time flushed down the latrine
and school pride
scrapbook
of friends and family that have died
east side
where the rival towns collide
I don't need that damn divide
for as I am grown
that hatred need not apply
across time I have traveled
through books, through timelines
by the skin of my teeth
I have battled
through constants and variables
through love, through love lost
through space and energy
back to love's synergy
but never blinking off course
because there has always been a source
the eyes, the stars, the galaxies
upon galaxies
that do not end
but yet a planet
that rests on our tiny shoulders
how beautiful our short life grows
before the dirt begin to enclose
love
grab your friend and fucking love them
we have already seen it all
it's been hard-linked to the brain-stem
with our little time here
we can stop the train
that's quickly headed for the cliff
so that our children
won't have to see this abyss
but luckily
your rules do not apply to me
and you ask
"what do you see when you look in the mirror?"
I see mileage
and my future
it's not the years,
it's the mileage
to grow
and gain such knowledge
of self
the struggle between
the soul and the mind
with the body being the battlefield
that gets weighted in time
they say you look old
but i still like to fuck in the rain
some things change
while others stay the same
Surviving
through capitalism
the zombie filled cannibalism
that sick one-eyed Willie green
pump caffeine into the machine
see your time flushed down the latrine
and school pride
scrapbook
of friends and family that have died
east side
where the rival towns collide
I don't need that damn divide
for as I am grown
that hatred need not apply
across time I have traveled
through books, through timelines
by the skin of my teeth
I have battled
through constants and variables
through love, through love lost
through space and energy
back to love's synergy
but never blinking off course
because there has always been a source
the eyes, the stars, the galaxies
upon galaxies
that do not end
but yet a planet
that rests on our tiny shoulders
how beautiful our short life grows
before the dirt begin to enclose
love
grab your friend and fucking love them
we have already seen it all
it's been hard-linked to the brain-stem
with our little time here
we can stop the train
that's quickly headed for the cliff
so that our children
won't have to see this abyss
but luckily
your rules do not apply to me
and you ask
"what do you see when you look in the mirror?"
I see mileage
and my future
WHY
Because of 30 second car commercials
Because of Christ and the cross
Because of Democrats and Republicans
Because of profits and loss
Because of celebrity news
Because we care how they fall
Because of social networking
Because of that new strip mall
Because I suck at sports
Because no pain no gain
Because of MTV, BET, FOX and CNN
Because it's all starting to sound the same
Because of my mother and father
Because I thought Snow White was hot
Because Morticia Addams wore leather and lace
Because of Mushrooms and because of pot
Because of your ribbons, marches, and parades
Because of your borders and all of your flags
Because of your aliens, your Roswell, your billboards
Because of your doctors and xanax hash tags
Because of Preachers, your rabbis, your gurus
Because of your character attacks
Because you are only your driver's license
Because of Property, income and fuel tax
Because the leaders are packaged theater
Because they control the energy grid
Because of creativity
Because of the ego and the ID
Because of Collagen lips and silicone tits
Because of acne cream, and Rogain
Because of woman's daily and men's fitness
Because this fakeness is hard to maintain
Because of cowboys and Indians
Because we have lost our essence
Because we are addicted to feeling old
Because we forget we are still in our adolescence
Jonathan Hayes- Three Poems
jonathan hayes lives in santa cruz, california with his wife and their cat.
for the past twenty years he's been responsible for the american small press magazine,
over the transom. his last book was "american haiku" (mel c. thompson publishing, 2013).
Last Night of the Pumpkin
It glowed brilliant orange in the neighborhood
Bugs festering within it and annoying the air
Its candle held ground still lit in its belly
While in the cold distance our cat pounced on mice
The front yard dark at night with an October breeze
“The horror, the horror,” the mice bleeped
Then in her arms the wife brought the cat back home like a child
After bowing down to blow the pumpkin’s candle out for the night
Last Smoke
I wait for the storm
The strong breeze
Lightning!
To rattle the street signs
By the constant highway
The feral rabbits by the river
And the very dark levee of wine
Sometimes a black cat
Will introduce the full moon
The river is a creature sleeping
In her own blankets of ripples
On the river bank
A heron hides like a ninja
This is open game
Ghost
A river rat walked into the local bookshop
Took a chair in the corner reading magazines
A dead fly fell from under the cuff of his denim jeans
Paul Tristram- Three Poems
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 a split poetry book ‘The Raven And The Vagabond Heart’ with Bethany W Pope
at http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/
You can also read his poems and stories here! http://paultristram.blogspot.
Memory Lane
Yesterday, I took a ‘Trip’ down memory lane,
I hallucinated until I came down.
Phew! I won’t be doing that again in a hurry.
© Paul Tristram 2010
A Bag Of Fruit & Nuts From Skewen’s Greengrocer
We tried mathematics,
astrology
and simple common sense,
trying to pinpoint
when the shift
would occur each time.
Yet, a surprize
wrapped up in a mystery
it remained.
Mamo would cage-pace
the kitchen floorboards,
eagle-eying
the lower bend in the road.
Watching for police,
criminals
or any other indication
of trouble or danger.
On rare occasions
her hard-earned wisdom
would be gratefully wrong.
We’d literally
feel the tension snap
from the living room.
Her voice would break
with happy emotion.
“Here comes your Old Man now,
just one bottle in his hand
and a big brown paper bag
of fruit & nuts in the other.
Sometimes he can be a sweetheart
just like Big Len,
your Grandfather, used to be an all!”
© Paul Tristram 2015
Jimmy
He was an old black and grey mongrel with scars
(A ‘Bitza’ my Father called him, ‘bits of everything’)
He would howl every evening to the 9 o’clock news.
Follow my Mamo to catch the bus into Neath
and sit waiting at that lonely bus stop
across from ‘The Travellers Well’ until she returned.
He was the Old Man’s dog but it was her who fed him
(What with all the prison sentences and alcoholism!)
That dog was as street smart as they come
and would wander the roads of Skewen like he owned them,
knew those back lanes like the backs of his paws.
My Nana often came back from the shops cursing
“That bloody Tristram dog’s followed me home again.
I couldn’t get rid of it, I tried shouting and throwing stones
but it just circled me like a lion, and when I came out
of Jeffries Stores ‘and you know me, I was in there
a good three quarters of an hour’ he was still waiting
and now he had a cowing gang with him, I swear,
there must have been five or six other dogs with him.
They all tailed me through the park, growling and barking
whenever anyone came near me, that animal’s too clever
for it’s own good, you can see it in its eyes, it just knows!”
© Paul Tristram 2015
Friday, November 27, 2015
Stefanie Bennett- Three Poems
Stefanie Bennett has published several books of poetry & has
poems appearing in
Dead Snakes, The Provo Canyon Review, The Mind[less] Muse, Shot
Glass Journal,
Ink, Sweat & Tears, The Lake, Eskimo Pie, The Plum Tree Tavern
etc. Of mixed
ancestry [Italian/Irish/Paugussett-
Nominated for The Pushcart, her latest poetry book “The Vanishing”
is published
by Walleah Press [2015] & is available from Walleah Press,
Amazon & Fishpond.
APPEASEMENT
... Told to “get off
My high horse”
I tried:
The horse flew
And so
Did I –.
TALK THE WALK
The tree that
You felled
Was mine!
Please
Put it
Back...
SPACE ODYSSEY 2
Surrounded by
Grey days
You lose
When love’s
Lost
In the wash.
John Sweet- Two Poems
we are nothing and nothing can save us
and
despite everything we’ve
created
we are still surrounded by emptiness
we
have the promise of the lottery
we
have ipods for
starving
children everywhere
and
it feels good to rest out here
to
just drop to your knees on the edge of
burnt
hill road and let the blood flow,
and
it feels good to close yr eyes
left
him lying there because the baby was
crying,
buzz of flies was a soft blanket,
a
wall, a gentle ocean
shadows
of birds in flight
could
taste it, like music or the
sound
of running feet
no
one asleep, but one of us turned away
autumn
maybe or the end of summer
and
the heat like a dull blue shroud
silver
sun in a sky the color of dust and
despite
all of the wars we’d won
we
were lost
found
the mother in a shallow grave with her
hands
cut off but we never found the father
had
400 channels to choose from
and
it wasn’t enough
had
some good fucking medicine
still
hated myself, but not as much
not
as fiercely
missed
the heat that came with
all
of that glorious empty anger
bird imagery 2
like a body found hanging
from the
underside of a bridge
like dirty white skies or the
rusted metal towers that
grow from the ridges
of anonymous hills
wherever you are
it’s always 20 years too late
whoever you wanted to be
we always end up nothing more
than hungry ghosts in the
age of crows
saints nailed to crosses
in upstate fields and
the man said sing
and so we did
said jump because it was
only the 98th floor
because it almost
felt like flying
Richard Schnap- Three Poems
ORPHANS
I remember their eyes
Windows that revealed
Cold empty rooms
Lit by dwindling candles
And I remember their lips
Muttering the words
Of childlike songs
Set to funereal music
And I remember their hands
Clutching the remains
Of scavenged cigarettes
And cheap bags of dope
But I forget their names
For they’d invent new ones
Aliases to deceive
The harvester of souls
AS THE CANDLE DWINDLED
In the evenings I’d sit
On the balcony and watch
Trains slowly passing
On the nearby tracks
While inside my wife
Shed her heavenly costume
Revealing the serpent
That lurked deep inside
And as her rage grew
Like a gathering tempest
The men on the boxcars
Would wave and smile
As I waved back and wished
I could somehow join them
To be carried away from
The fangs of my night
ANTARCTICA
I remember the crimson candles
Set in their shining brass sconces
The dark and brooding landscapes
Shot through with a lukewarm light
The shelves of books of wisdom
Penned by the world’s great authors
Forbidden to ever be opened
Like tombs that were sealed shut
And I remember the windows
Covered with layers of curtains
To impede any rays of sunlight
From finding their way within
For this was the house of shadow
Reflecting the mind of its master
A man who built an empire
As dark as his endless night
John Pursch- Two Poems
John Pursch lives in Tucson, Arizona. Twice
nominated for Best of the Net, his work has appeared in many literary
journals. His first book, Intunesia, is available at http://www.lulu.com/
Sheet-to-Parakeet Collisions
I
glisten down to scattered meows, mere crumbs of culled occurrence edge infusion
plopping felt dementia spinning cogs to frozen catwalk terminus of inlaid
hatpin germaphobia, plausibly entitled to amorphous seeds.
Absurdity
absolves disturbing sheet-to-parakeet collisions, pressed to imitation walnut
prescience, calling pestilential zebras.
Somehow
turning into crows, the sky erupts in broad effulgence, bubbling effigy to
crimson neckline histories of paused-life stifled powers, netting dental
sentences for poshly incarcerated baubles.
Sabotaged
survival tombs peculate atomic typicality from potable copter aptitude,
sequestered blithely into finned portraiture of yawning bucolic suction.
Aft
pretenders denude myopian sedation crust, stippled to golden drawbridge
hypertension quotes of peopled seashore tomes in Gothic nook parameter relief,
plied separately from fallen wheat.
Polyglot Implosion Teeth
Eyes
avert in quiet disrespect, antsy involution, scheduled earrings, purported
blasphemies, and segued seclusion’s secular cigar.
Sullied
hemlines wallow by with hurried cough, elliptical retainer blurbs emoting
incandescent swerve from contrail lane above the crowd’s immunity of unaccented
dialect.
Softly
shifting debutantes preen for sycophantic gasconade of Cossack cherubim,
cursive seraphim, and Seraphic nods of parietal paternity in spun tachometers.
Flicks
revert to credit scroll in timed release of anklet tattoo permanence.
Oh,
we’ve slipped past yawning sputter Nile to hammered Dacron polyglot implosion
teeth, flogging savory watch sand why, adrenaline of movie lines, and plugged
bazooka hideaways for secondhand psoriasis.
Tuesday, November 24, 2015
David J. Thompson- A Poem
Something So Close
When he hands me a glass of beer
and a little plate of green olives,
I think how much my bartender tonight
in Madrid looks like my Uncle Mike,
the exact same black hair and thin face.
Uncle Mike ran a hardware store out near Annapolis
and married Aunt Donna back in ‘64
when she was just sixteen. He was a kid
then himself, right out of the Air Force
with a new, red Mustang convertible.
Their marriage didn’t last forever, maybe
a handful of years with three daughters
and the Mustang traded in for a station wagon.
Aunt Donna ran off with the guy who built
the deck on their house my grandmother paid for;
then the cops found a boatload of car stereos
and radar detectors in Uncle Mike’s apartment.
I remember maybe the last time I saw him
we were tossing a football around in the backyard
and Uncle Mike reached back and chucked one
hard just beyond my outstretched arms and over
the fence into the neighbors’ yard. Even though
it was forty years ago, I can see him standing there
hands on hips, shaking his head. Oh, shit, he said.
Sorry. No wonder I never made the varsity.
I motion to the bartender for another beer
and more tapas, but when he starts to walk
toward me, I just stare down and push the plate
of olive pits and thin napkins across the counter.
I don’t look up until he walks away, start to wonder
how old Uncle Mike would be these days or even
if he’s still alive at all, stuff a sardine in my mouth
and take a long swallow of beer when I realize
I wouldn’t even know who the hell to ask any more
about something so close and so very far away.
James Valvis- Two Poems
James Valvis has placed poems or stories in Arts & Letters, Barrow
Street, Green Hill Literary Lantern, Ploughshares, River Styx, The Sun, Tar
River Poetry, and many others. His poetry was featured in Verse Daily. His
fiction was chosen for Sundress Best of the Net. A former US Army soldier, he
lives near Seattle.
Spinning
let’s get down
to the nub here
if Thomas Jefferson
or William Shakespeare
or Martin Luther King
or whatever historical figure
you can come up with
is really “spinning
in his grave…”
newly conscious
down there in the dark
of ancient coffins
all old flesh gone
and nothing but bones
rattling like empty pens
inside a jammed desk draw
he has bigger problems
than whatever little issue
you’re pissed off about
Rejected Poems
Of all tragedies this is the least.
Yet my poet friend allows them
to corrupt mind and mood,
like dead fish in a pond,
inky blood muddying water.
It takes days to scoop them out, he says,
and go on again with the work.
When I was young, I also
fell into despondency.
So much victory seemed elsewhere.
It took me a lifetime to accept my defeat,
and only then did I see a little success.
Now just sometimes does the stink
stifle me, but still sometimes.
I don’t find it helps to talk about it
or know that others share this fate,
but my poet friend tells me
I should open up about my failures,
since he’d find that encouraging.
I want to invite him to the hole I dug
in my heart, show him
where I bury the bones of hope,
let the burial mound of my failures
be a hill upon which
he could at last look down on me.
Sanjeev Sethi- A Poem
The recently released, This Summer and That Summer, (Bloomsbury) is Sanjeev Sethi’s third book of poems. His work also includes well-received volumes, Nine Summers Later and Suddenly For Someone. He
has, at various phases of his career, written for newspapers,
magazines, and journals. He has produced radio and television programs.
His poems have found a home in The London Magazine, The Fortnightly Review, Allegro Poetry Magazine, Otoliths, Lemon Hound, Solstice Literary Magazine, Off the Coast Literary Journal, Synesthesia Literary Journal, Oddball Magazine, Hamilton Stone Review, Indian Literature, The Hindu, The Statesman, and elsewhere. He lives in Mumbai, India.
Poems are forthcoming in Sentinel Literary Quarterly, and Literary Orphans.
REFLECTOR
What do those not honored with winsome
habitus do? Realizing I’m my worst emblem
I swaddled in sandpaper leading to rescission
of haptic reciprocities. I continued with liniment
of life-hacks but my body failed to free me.
Corollary to Gehenna: supernal forces gesticulate.
Faith is Fata Morgana
or like an afterword:
fragrance to be inhaled on a future date.
Donal Mahoney- Three Poems
Dial 'M' for Memories
Willie in his 80s now
hadn’t made sense in years.
His wife understood his
grunts from the recliner
where she propped him up
till bedtime where snoring
was music in the night.
His grandson told neighbors
Gramps had Old-Timer’s Disease,
an excellent diagnosis
with which doctors agreed.
It was time to move Gramps
to a home so his wife began
packing things he would need.
It was then she found
an old photo in a drawer
under his socks and shorts.
It was dated 1948, still clear
though crinkled a bit.
It was Gramps’ class photo
from his 8th-grade graduation.
All the young faces were suns
gleaming in their own universe.
She showed it to Willie when
she brought him his lunch.
He blinked and pointed to a girl
in the third row and said,
“Call Carol and tell her
we’re going to the movies.
Tom Mix and 25 cartoons.”
His wife was old enough
to remember that a Western
and 25 cartoons were a
regular Saturday matinee
at the local film house
for kids in 1948.
But she was two years
behind Willie and had
never gone with him.
Besides she was still shook
just to hear Willie talk.
This was the first sentence
he had offered in years.
She didn’t know what to say.
Finally she said she didn’t
know what Carol’s number was
so how could she call?
Willie looked her in the eye
with a twinkle from long ago
and said “Prospect 6-3943.”
All the Nudes Not Fit to Print
No more nudes in Playboy
according to the anchor
on the Nightly News.
Playboy has declared
nudes passé because
they’re found so easily
gamboling on the Internet
doing everything imaginable.
Some men date instead.
Millie calls the hotel at midnight
to tell Willie he didn’t do anything wrong.
It’s the way he didn’t do anything wrong
that’s the problem because a man doesn't
send a girl yellow roses on Valentine’s Day.
Willie is half asleep but awake enough
to know if he didn’t do anything wrong
why is Millie calling him at midnight.
He’s out of town on the company’s buck
and has a big meeting tomorrow with
a big presentation to give to the board.
He listens for 20 minutes and as soon
as Millie's voice cracks he knows
a hurricane of tears has begun so he says
he didn’t order any yellow roses.
He ordered three-dozen long-stems
with a jungle of the usual greenery
in a beautiful vase with baby’s breath.
He figured they'd send red roses because
he paid enough to buy a botanical garden.
Millie says tomorrow she’s calling the florist
and giving him Hades but Willie says please don’t.
He and the guy who took the order are from Mars.
Willie will pick up red roses on his way back to Venus.
————————————————————
Donal Mahoney lives in St. Louis, Missouri.