Gene McCormick- Two Poems

Gone With The Flow

Halfway around the walking path of the
municipal park, Mount St. Mary’s,  a bench
facing the river offers respite from heat,
humidity, mosquitoes, skateboarders.
Birds play, flitting into a challenging breeze,
swooping to the river and then skyward,
beaks empty. Fish occasionally jump
and slap water as the Fox River flows southeast.
The bank on the other side is desolate—
no children, families or cars; only
a lone fisherman standing waist deep
in green rubber hip-waders, a plaid shirt
and once-red baseball cap, casting overhand
and sidearm for whatever might bite.

Distracted, a return look across the bank
finds the fisherman is nowhere to be seen.
No outcries, no thrashing about.
He has vanished, along with his gear.
Nothing telltale afloat.
The news the next day, the day after that and
the day after that as well, informs nothing
of a missing fisherman with green hip-waders,
a plaid shirt and once-red baseball hat.
It may have ended well, but if the river
got him he could be floating
through Indiana or Kentucky by now,
human flotsam mistaken
for a waterlogged tree trunk.
The thing about a river is that it
never transports to the beginning,
only to the end, where one-way
cargo is purged.


Saturday

1.
She puts the flat of her hand against his back,
gently rubs contours familiar
even through the shirt fabric.
She also feels his shoulders
hunch up and tense.
Don’t, he says, shrugging, that bothers me.
Her hand drops to her lap;
she stares at her fingers.
I’m going out for a while, he says,
and she says
Take your time.

2.
Whoever would say she walks with a limp
would be mistaken.
Looking through the car’s windshield,
she is observed
walking across the strip mall parking lot
leading with her entire leg, barely bending it
as opposed to typical knee and ankle action.
Waves of heat waffle up from the asphalt
as she propels herself with an uneven gait,
not a limp, more of a jerky lope
reflecting a free-spirit attitude.
Where is she going, or coming from,
dressed as she is?—
and if a person were really making study
of such a walk they would note that it’s
best demonstrated in flat-soled shoes.
It is a good way to walk,
deflecting attention from the expression
on her face.


Brief Bio: Whoever started the spurious rumor that Gene McCormick was going to marry into the Kardashian family should be horsewhipped, though McCormick only says “No comment.”

B.Z. Niditch- Three Poems

VISITING THOMAS HARDY

No summer outing,fair enough
nor sighting a field mouse either
by your stone floor house
built as straw clay or cob
near a cottage garden,
life for any poet
is rarely carefree
yet here by lost voices
of novel obscure endings
a grave honor lies buried
by the leaves and woodshed
once open lights near shadows
of tossed out flowers
may open our memory
of grey window boxes
filling voice and sounds
in rooms of lost souls
that you knew, we too fear
by the growth of ivy
with the cool blind rain
of inevitability
above all silences
there are no ruins here
only a feral cat runs by
the limb of a whittled tree
in the English countryside
preoccupied by times still
lost in this farewell
wishing to move all vagary
for limitless comfort.



WITH YOUR UMBRELLA

Our skyline traveled faces
hide our slow glimmers
accompanied for tourist hours
by nameless interludes
as a fugitive rain covers
our nature's phantasmagoria
embroiders our coat
and spills on a swollen river
as we loiter
on the Paris city bench
stepping back
from the drunken wind
with your French umbrella,
small voiced sea birds
by mirrors of dark water
holds the two of us
in an impression's shade
of Monet's floating sea
my half- speech
glances as the rain
growing on the harbor.



DECIDING TO BE FREE

Alive in a Fall cloud
of butterflies
full of neon sparks
and gold ringed gazes
on this earth-wise patch
of nature's dunes and weeds
asking about
invincible cone flowers
and their connection
to art and nature
a few crickets scrape by
yellow jackets, rose buds
geraniums and meadow sage
scenting honey
outside gazebo's bone yard
with my lapdog 
uncurled on blanket memories,
a poet with his notebook
meandering as if dizzy
as a few forlorn pine needles
glean on empty muted paths
except for a lone gull voice
who returns from its bath
making animated calls
in the day sky
around aspen and poplars
moving from shade
over landscape's wounds
reminding us by the crags
and the lucid rocks off shore
just once again of childhood
to live for diving
and sink between waves
of him or her who dreams
as a vagabond sun watches
uncertain temblors quaking 
on common ground
uncovering first light's shadow
like the gull
deciding to be mountain free
under the green hills.

M.A. Schaffner- Three Poems

Unnamed Alley By the Mall

Awful, and yet pathways between the towers

though landscaped professionally lead one through

to destinations not wholly preformed.

Even a starling makes a statement; even

a squirrel finds resources enough for life

outside the approved planning document.

A short stroll from ATM to Starbucks

finds the homeless and laborers alike

relevant and alive, fearful only

as storm-blown migrants flying home at last.

Turnpike

Rest stop superlatives along the road,

like the civil engineering once thought

critical to every party, a wealth

literally concrete, the intangible

the province of art rather than finance.

Only now the nostalgia of decline

feeding sideways into lugubrious song

and a wry kind of sloganeering hubris.

No one can afford their dreams anymore –

the disconnection of propaganda

from material reality makes

wise-acre North Koreans of us all.

The Dear Leaders make good television

and always know who their enemies are.

Sleigh Ride

The snowdrops are early and hawks have stayed

in numbers swelled by migrants from the north.

Winter hardly started before spring came

more as harbinger than relief. Days past

seasons led us to think of life and death,

but only lately of apocalypse,

as sweetly as bouquets at a funeral;

subtle as sleet falling in place of snow.

If no older than we feel, the species

will change its games to play in every clime.

Silly to want the sets to stay the same,

with the same trees giving shade, the same birds

serenading changes in the weather

that interrupt their fragile, pretty lives.

Short Bio:

M. A. Schaffner has work recently published or forthcoming in The Hollins Critic, Magma, Tulane Review, Gargoyle, and The Delinquent. Other writings include the poetry collection The Good Opinion of Squirrels, and the novel War Boys. Schaffner spends most days in Arlington, Virginia or the 19^th century.

Paul Tristram- Three Poems

Let Me Lead You Into A War Dance

The back of my head faces you,
as I spring forward
with the pride of a lion.
Arm sinews taut
as employed bow strings.
Forehead a jackhammer working
the gravity that surrounds it.
Feet stamping defiance
into the frowning earth.
Throat and lungs screaming
out the barbarian
which has lain dormant,
in the gene that my forefather’s
sent travelling through time
until now.
Within my skin of wrath
I wait not for any of you,
the area behind me
is now your concern.

© Paul Tristram 2008

Published in Decanto, 33rd Issue, February  2008

 

Cramp Tight

Cramp tight
like juvenile delinquency
when 10 o’clock at night
comes around.
Like mongrel dogs
with bellies full of chicken bones,
shitting and spitting frustration
in unknown alphabetical terms.
While tramps kiss wine bottles,
eyes closed,
emulating long, dead love.
And weathercocks amphetaminely spin
until pointing to the eight of swords.
I sit within a tavern
in Falmouth
counting my pocket change
and hoping for a penny
more.

© Paul Tristram 2005

Published in Pulsar, Edition 43, August 2005

They Prescribed Them Valium

 
It was the late 1970’s
the waiting room was full and oppressive,
with weak hearts and fragile minds.
A gathering of single mothers
eagerly waiting for the cure
to that which ate at them all
but again there was no cure,
they did this to themselves.
Unlike their mothers and grandmothers
they had time to be neurotic,
to complain about the obvious
and dislike their own inventions.
It was the late 1970’s
and after 6 long months
at the end of this assembly line
of irritating placebo seekers
you would have prescribed them valium too.

© Paul Tristram 2006

Published in Sarasvati, Issue 22, May/June, 2012



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

Denny E. Marshall- Two Poems

The Clock

In my silence, will time heal all
For constantly I hear her call
All my life never felt so low
The clock in my heart runs so slow

The pain I have time cannot feel
Cut up with words as sharp as steel
The wounds are hidden deep below
The clock in my heart runs so slow

Now the days seem to drag on by
When I was with her time would fly
The ache ticks on I watch it grow
The clock in my heart runs so slow
 

Tax Us

The whole country thinks taxes are too high
More think the American dream a myth
Congress contemplates the limit the sky
The whole country thinks taxes are too high
You get what you pay for is a big lie
Common sense is lost in a labyrinth
The whole country thinks taxes are too high
More think the American dream a myth

Robert Demaree- Two Poems

MOVING PICTURES

Looking at old postcards

Of the town where  I grew up,

Sorrowful Rust Belt burg

On the Schuylkill River:

Two theaters on High Street—

Can you picture it?

Here’s the Hippodrome,

Double-feature Westerns on Saturday:

Ten-year-olds, we called them the

Calvary shows.

And here’s the Strand.

Do they still have ushers at the movies?

Do they wear maroon uniforms

With thick shoulder stuffing?

At sixteen I got a job there

Unbeknownst to my parents,

River of No Return,

With Marilyn Monroe,

Another candle in the wind.

MUSING

I was reading today

Of an author I’d enjoyed,

Former novelist he was called.

Occurred to me to wonder

If one could be a former poet.

Or a retired poet,

Or perhaps a non-practicing poet,

Like a non-practicing

Physician, or Christian,

Or an inactive volcano,

If not extinct.

Robert Demaree is the author of four collections of poems, including Fathers and Teachers, April 2007, and  Mileposts, October 2009, both published by Beech River Books, and Things He Thought He Already Knew, published online in 2007 by Slow Trains. The winner of the 2013 Burlington Writers Club Poetry Award, he is a retired school administrator with ties to North Carolina, Pennsylvania and New Hampshire, where he lives four months of the year. He has had over 650 poems published or accepted by 150 periodicals. For further information see http://www.demareepoetry.blogspot.com 

Douglas Polk- A Poem

A Hearing

helpless,

war lives,

war looms,

politicians,

in protective wombs,

discuss, debate, and decide,

a death and destruction that will never touch them,

drag out photographs of the dead,

a prop needed,

to provoke feelings,

no longer felt within the womb,

let the dead rest in peace,

no need to see the images,

to feel the pain,

you have visited death upon us before,

we know death,

but the question is,

do you?

then why the debate.

Gene McCormick- A Poem

A Box Of Dead Music

The jukebox has stood in the same dark corner
of The Greek’s Bar & Grill for more than half
a century, from the day the doors first opened.
During those years the song selection
has never been updated, not once;
original black vinyl records can be seen
through yellowing plexi-glass offering
scratchy rhythms uncaringly out of date.
A few coins bring sounds recorded by musicians
long dead or who soon would or should be.
Tunes from the antique 45s are recollections,
not horns, guitars, pianos, drums or vocals…
flashbacks of once-vibrant realities.
Dead songs don’t storyboard the present,
can’t portend the future.

A half-full glass of Jack Daniels straight up
sits alone on a bar top decorated by
cigarette burns, the only surface not layered
with a dusty patina.
Three stools down a vacant woman, for rent,
eyes the Jack while trying to cadge
another double scotch.
“I prefer Glenlivet, honey.”—Whiskey and woman
both on consignment and each in need
of a helping hand.

Crazy Old George, keeper of the jukebox,
has a head packed with remembrances: when he
thought of starting a franchise chain of
“The Greek’s,” when he thought of starting
a family, when he thought of starting over.
Same tired tune: memories lacking a tactile soul.

Don’t expect a Happy Hour, not for a minute,
at The Greek’s Bar & Grill.

Daniel Wilcox- Two Poems

The Dog's Bite

The Tali-banned dog fighting and music,
But America permits the dog-bite-
Partying of religious Afghans
In the fanged gamble, their money’d
Heroin poppies up, jagged blooms
Clawing the world market
Leech flowers blossoming deep, needle
In 'Vein' to others circusing the world round engulfed,
And the propped legislature votes
The blooded zenith
To execute apostates,
Ah well so sick
And punish blued wives who left
Hell! For several thousand bills, fighters
Can get out of jail free cards
So much jawing teeth
Dogging our warn flag-budded tail.

So let’s get Syria-ous…


Previously published in a different form
by The Recusant in the U.K., 2008



Gum Up

Notice how ‘theoillogicalies’
Gum up the worded worlds

Stretchnosepuppet the truth
Tongue-twisting

Jaw-chewing, teeth gnawing
It all out of shape
And
Are the ‘dickens-dammed,’
Bubblegummed worst

To remove
From

Undersides of study desks
Or our floored mind



First published in
Poydras Review

Michael Cluff- A Poem

Self-Deceptions II

I will continue
to wallow in
the notion talent
won me my job
instead of serendipity
when the better
well-known writer
quit at the last breath
for a nicer teaching gig
near San Diego.
Ego was allowed
to trump extentuating
favorable factors
which have kept me
in the black
for twenty-two years
but minutely angsted and ennuied
about half as long.