Donal Mahoney- A Poem

Lake of Fire

It’s not the beach.

It’s a lake of fire,

if it's there.

That lake we 

heard about in 

Sunday School,

the eternal flame.

Unlike the others

it won’t flame out

at the end of time,

if it’s there.

Those who say it's there 

believe we all line up 

as goats or sheep

on one side or the other.

This sounds crazy

unless it’s true.

The sheep go with Him,

believers say, after the goats

are in the lake, sizzling.

This may take awhile

because goats will buck 

as they did in life 

until the angels lift 

them overhead and 

plunge them into 

the lake of fire,

if it's there.

That lake we 

heard about in 

Sunday School,

the eternal flame.

Unlike the others

it won’t flame out

at the end of time,

if it’s there.

———————————————————

Donal Mahoney lives in St. Louis, Missouri.

 

Pijush Kanti Deb- A Poem

A Synthetic Blossom of Peace
                          
My burnt lips are quite reluctant
still I make room
for a heart-soothing smile on them
admitting its divine utility
in making the best of a bad bargain.

My hot heart is not at all a coward
yet I oil it for oiling my opponent
to pull down his ghostly building
standing between us
presenting him a new skyscraper of friendship.

My old soul is ever-interrupting
nevertheless, I cover up
the ever-germinating contradictions
with a flush of green light
signaling it for its safe and sound bed time
for holding an uninterrupted meeting
between my two favorites-
the God and the Devil
for blooming at least
a synthetic blossom of peace for us

DB Cox- Three Poems

beat

cold rain reclaims
worn tire tracks
of piss-yellow cabs
pointed cross town
by gypsy hacks--insomniacs
from new york--new jersey--new delhi
chasing american dreams
down midnight avenues
red, white, & blue illusions
slipping into the darkness
of rearview mirrors
lost in the shadows
of sacred skyscrapers
that sigh & bend in the wind

throwback poet
takes a break
over a warm subway grate
listening to subterranean trains
rumbling back & forth
on fixed steel rails--
dreaming 1950s dreams
of benzedrine-fueled ghosts
rust-covered voices howling about
chaos in the cosmos--
the last desolation angel
takes a drink & thinks
about a stroll to the depot
sit & raise a toast
to the 3 a.m. greyhound
leaving empty for the coast


down in motown

down in motown
a street preacher
shakes a tambourine
& dances along
cracked concrete--
praying over the remains
of toppled houses
& lately vacated
assembly lines--
stone-dead illusions
that can never
be raised from the ground--
hollow invocations
ride the night
on a twisting breeze
curling round & round
down in motown

down in motown
spent ashes fall
from a neglected
cigarette jammed
between metal strings
running over the headstock
of a pawn shop guitar
like blue veins
leading to the heart
of the matter
open notes stumble
& stagger behind
bottleneck moans
sliding along
an empty dance floor
a post-apocalyptic bluesman
with the face of a refugee
growls ominous phrases
that crack like glass
red-hot pieces tumbling
among trumpet trills
& dissonant
piano arpeggios
broken chords
overturned & burning
down in motown
motor city fades
& rolls away
madly backward


house of cards

whiskey-laced voice
of a sidewalk showman
stirs the night air
under a bigtop sky
vanishing coins
shifting cards
a homeless magician
works the boulevard
shell games
on a suitcase
covered with stickers
from this place--that place
hustling & rustling
every crosstown bus
that drops nine-to-five faces
ready to be taken in
one more time
before the last bus
leaves the station
& the flim-flam man
disappears
like the burned-out letter
on the sad cafe sign
just up the street
where he sleeps
in the back booth
& dreams
about an empty picture frame
on a bone-white wall
in the shattered
house of cards
he once called home

JD DeHart- Three Poems

Bookends

 

One end of the dusty shelf

held upright by a solid sculpture

of readings, the other a vase

of dotted flowers, clearly fake,

eternal plumage.

My beginning, traced through

the words of comic books, then

Michael Crichton, then Kurt Vonnegut,

whatever blared at me on the shelf

or was handed to me.

Colorful panels to creative words.

Lately, a pile of textbooks, some

words revisited, articles about study,

there are always new terms to find.

New wisdom to open up and air out.

 

 

The Reading of Fiction

 

Updike never sold me a day,

but I can get lost in his descriptions.

Similarly, pages of Faulkner can

bury me in dialogue.

I can coast along the erasure

of a graphic novel about Derrida.

Or I can get lost in Billy Collins’

description of getting lost in a poem.

Or listen to the verse conversation

of James Tate.

Then what race occurs

to construct my own fiction, to view

and understand the fictions others

are creating, even as I walk by them,

even maybe about me.

 

 

Counting a Freedom

 

Story of an elephant

felled, a travel guide back

to reality,

trial after trial,

another culture spread

through words and syntax,

given the hollow voice

of a native tongue, thick

and still rounded out,

a world I have not seen,

a place I have not been,

seeing my world in a new

lens at the last page.

Dan A. Cardoza- A Poem

                        Seasons

We sat on a bench near the river

I listened as you spoke

of what you dreamed

when you were a child

how you were fearless

in all your dreams

You said your life was full

and that the convenience

comfort of it all

was working

your dreams only broken

thoughts

mundane

empty gardens of sleep

When we parted on that sunny afternoon

in our season

your smile betrayed you

You walked away

slowly

with all those unfulfilled dreams

and with each step you took

another sliver of darkness

gathered

piling its black wooden branches

at your heals

down the parkway path

I am proud of you though

you own your sadness

hook

line and sinker 

you quit reaching

when someone broke your heart

took your trust and fractured your spirit

In a new season

it is my hope

that you begin to reach

one more time 

toward those

dreams

the ones your childhood promised

fearless

BIO:

Dan participates in poetry readings throughout Northern California, and has shared his poetry with Dead Snakes as well as the Avocet, Ardent Poetry Journal and the California Quarterly to name a few. He's still chasing the Muse.

Adam Levon Brown- A Poem

Peeking into darkness

I am the darkness
you refuse to acknowledge
for fear of what lies within.

I am the monster
you hide from in
your delusions
of a good world.

I am the one
you want to vanquish,
while ignoring the fact
that in doing so
would make you just
like me.

I am the truth you hide
from in the desert of
pleasantries and
sugar-coated morality.

I am you.


Adam Levon Brown is an undergrad college student, published poet, and author. He lives in Eugene, Oregon.

Raymond Miller- A Poem

Max’s

When the student nurses kicked us out

I tucked my white shirt collar in

a bright yellow crew-neck jersey.

Clarkie clocked the Common Room TV.

But what’ll we do with it anyway?

Well, I like The Avengers, he said,

you’ll watch documentaries on BBC2.

Always a quick answer, the sarky rejoinder

or a jibe at a piece of skirt’s expense

when we could be sharing soft, warm beds.

As the night guard hollered Hold on lads,

Clarkie claimed he’d bought the set

for a fiver off an SEN and was all for returning

to retrieve his cash. The guard phoned the police

and we ran as far as Max’s Hot Dog Stand.

I was weighing up onions, with or without,

when The Missing Link, aka

PC Robertson, felt my collar, turned me round.

A youth in a yellow jersey was seen….

I told Max later and hold the order.

The night guard looked me up and down,

shook his head, said his feller had his collar

inside, this one’s got his collar tucked out.

I checked and found that the man was right.

The Missing Link gibbered and jabbed

but the jig was up, there is a god

and at night he watches over good and bad

and knows you better than you know yourself.

Max was waiting with double onions

and mustard. It had been a night to savour.  

I walked home with my head held higher

and switched on The Ascent of Man.

Liz Posner- Two Poems

"Swans"

The birds greet me here, their necks outstretched

in love

But I hate them so

These swans, elegant always, white like sculptures

carved out of ice

Impervious to consciousness

Aware of their too-short lives

Swim, mate, birth, repeat, die or die trying

And I toss breadcrumbs into the water

I, with all this time to hurt

One lifts himself off the water

Flies low, slaps the surface away

He’s left behind a lady

Like it’s nothing to him at all

Like he did not look into her big black bird eyes

And quack, I have plans for you

No more fishing with your head underwater

No more showing off my feathers

Let’s mate for life

They wrap their necks around one another

(In my head)

And listen to the edges of the lake lap against ground

As it did long ago

Before me or the birds

As it will long after

there is no one left to hear

The quick, silky thop

To feel the gentle breeze

As for the birds, they interest me most

I have a thing or two to learn

From these simple, free

Jai-guru-deva-flapping things

that are much older than I.

"Foodie"

The Cuisine Fiend is famous.

The Cuisine Fiend exhibits her photos frequently, inhabits Instagram with artisan doughnuts.

The Cuisine Fiend posts exquisite photos, filtered, bird’s-eye with shadows. Then she races for the rear door, holds her hair in her hands, ex-cuisines the caviar, the lemon sorbet into the porcelain bowl, quite ladylike. Flush. Checks her phone. Already fourteen “likes.”

 

 

Ananya S. Guha- Three Poems

City Of Cities

At a corner curled is a robust thief
in city of cities beside a mall
in city of cities.
Fictive city, city of imagination
city of cities.

In city of cities the walled fortresses
speak of new age, unbecoming light.
Guns rule roost, in city of cities.

Shaft of light
droning voices
dancing figures
apostates in city of cities

In waking night
troubador of times
city of cities
you weave, a thin life
premeditated living
as arsonists and bombers
tear shreds of your life
in abject gluttony.

City of cities your riposte is
your will, silent answer to
marauders as you undergo face lift

breathing new life
into city of cities.
Ragpickers can only question.
Tormentor of times
city of cities!


Distress Buying, Selling...

She sells fruits or is it vegetables
She sells on pavements, white washed houses
her coins ringing notes of sadness
She disposes of vegetables in evenings of skies upturned
when volatile winter thunders.
She sells in a neighbouring village
her home, her point of no return
She sells in Shillong's bustling traffic
She sells she knows not what
her smile tells that she sells
and we buy, distress buying.
We eat. We haggle. We buy
and sing songs of praises.

She sells, distress selling.
We buy distress buying.
The notes emaciated, withered fingers
she continues to sell.
Pavements lined with vendors
lit lamps, when there is no light.
She sells whirling in scathing darkness


Dust

dust does not settle
it unsettles rovingly
it has movements
it wanders aimlessly
in houses, corners, books
and roads
the mind is dusty
when the rot sets in
the same questions, the same answers
the same love and hate, the same games
and the same same killings.
here in India it is the gathering dust
over centuries, and history takes a new turn
hermetically sealed.

dust is soporific
dust is hermetic
dust gathers in oblivion
then strikes, impinges on ways of living, thinking
in this mad swirling we rotate with it till it sickens
with a thud around the corner.

dust is haughty religion
megalomania and a lassitude
kill them you morons in India
Syria, Iraq or Egypt.
dust has gathered over centuries in benighted countries
so wipe it off your feet, give it a dash of blood.

bloody dust!

Peytin Grider- Three Poems

This is where we began

This is the town and this is the car

These are the words you said to me once

This is the place my father shook your

Hand and the rest of you

            This is the version of me

            You knew and tasted so long ago

            And now I am someone else

Mouse man

He’s got a brown and furry nature

A scurry nature

A nest-building nature

A chew it up nature

And I’ve got a fresh trap

With some lovely cheese

Just for his neck to break on

Losing the game

In my defense, by the time they told me

It was a game, it was much too late, so

To my chagrin, I lost the game

And I’m still trying to figure out

What the rules were to begin with.