Thursday, November 29, 2012

Sy Roth- A Poem

No words

We walked
For miles
Without words.
When I tired
He dragged.
When I sat mulelike
He glowered.
He did not tell me where
We were going in
Those endless miles.
His face read
A need
And I reluctantly followed as
The minutes and seconds dragged on
In the cold
My furry collar bundled up against my face
And the warm air of my breath
Quickening as time dragged.
I mewled
Whined
To no avail
He determined to get where we were going
We passed darkened buildings
As the sun’s light waned
And my anxieties waxed
Darkened alleyways
Dark drunks lying prone
Dark peeing men
And in the light of a streetlamp
He saw
His need--
His Studebaker
Light blue
Nestled between a Ford and a Chevrolet.
Not sure which was the front or the back
I was only pleased to be in it
After he opened the doors.
No words
Just the pleasure of having arrived. 

Wednesday, November 28, 2012

Donal Mahoney- A Poem


Consuela and Sean


Through the nursery glass
Carlos Montero peeks at Consuela,
his twelfth, in the arms of a nurse.

Pink as a peony
with brilliant black hair,
Consuela is raw, bawling.

The nurse takes Consuela
away to be washed as Carlos
digs deep in his denims,

locks elbows, gleams,
turns to me. I feel odd
in a suit and a tie as I

wait to see Sean, our first.
When the nurse brings Sean to the window,
Carlos Montero whips off his sombrero,

makes a bullfighter's pass and beams. 
"Senor!" he booms like a tuba. "Ole!"
Suddenly I'm as happy as he.



--------------------------------------------------------------
Donal Mahoney has had work published in various print and electronic publications in North America, Europe, Asia and Africa.

Anthony Ward- A Poem

Waiting

I can’t just splash a smile on my face
Hoping it will wash off on others
While they sit there retentively
With their faces smudged
Expecting me to wait on them
While deciding what they want.

I can’t serve them my imperfection
And take all their criticism
While I stand there retentively
Looking down on them
All looking up to me
To serve them well.


 
Anthony tends to fidget with his thoughts in the hope of laying them to rest. He has managed to lay them in a number of literary magazines including The Faircloth Review, Drunk Monkeys, Jellyfish whispers, Turbulence, Dead Snakes, Underground, The Autumn Sound, and The Rusty Nail, amongst others.

Monday, November 26, 2012

Robert Demaree- Three Poems

JUNE 2011

Before the season:
Arriving in New Hampshire:
Rhododendron blooms.

Cottage door opens:
Scent of camphor, closed pine rooms.
Winter yields to spring.

Where last year’s beavers
Took out our best clothes line tree,
Sprouts of new green life.



JANUARY SONGS

1. Procedures

Extractions easier than remembered,
Weakening in what holds things in place.
Did I want to keep the tooth, she asked.
It wasn’t gold, I said No,
Imagining a day down the road,
A spleen, say, or gall bladder,
No, throw it away
A planned organic obsolescence.
This afternoon, in a cold rain,
We took a plant to a friend
Who goes to hospice tomorrow.


2. Dinner Guest

He still says we, of course,
Uses the present tense,
Slicing gravely into
A company chicken dish,
The fourth chair pushed
Back against the wall.
He spears an asparagus
And speaks of her, their life.
Good, we think:
Past cheerful feigning.
There will be other dinners,
More breasts of chicken,
Pounded, stuffed, rolled,
(This is not a new idea,
A curve not apt to change)
Until at length one of us the guest.



AT THE STAFF RETREAT 1991

1.

At the conference center
The staff retreat glides on:
Flip charts rustle, paradigms shift.
Outside the picture window
Snow falls hypnotically in the woods:
My screen saver.

2.

Memos float mindlessly
Table to table.
A message passes somewhere
Between eye and mind;
I affix initials and pass it on
To the low drone of
Speakers making earnest points,
The furnace cutting on and off:
So what I hear us saying is...
Soon another note appears:
“This does not apply to you.
Erase your initials
And initial the erasure.”

“At the Staff Retreat” appeared in Whisper January 2012



Robert Demaree is the author of four collections of poems, including Fathers and Teachers (2007) and Mileposts (2009), both published by Beech River Books. The winner of the 2007 Conway, N.H., Library Poetry Award, he is a retired school administrator with ties to North Carolina, Pennsylvania and New Hampshire in the eastern U.S. He has had over 600 poems published or accepted by 125 periodicals in the U.S., Canada and U.K., including Cold Mountain Review, Red Wheelbarrow, Miller’s Pond, MediaVirus, Bolts of Silk, Louisville Review and Paris/Atlantic, and in four anthologies including the 2008 and 2010 editions of Poet’s Guide to New Hampshire and Celebrating Poets over 70.. For further information see http://www.demareepoetry.blogspot.com 

Wednesday, November 21, 2012

Donal Mahoney- A Poem

Maggie and Max

Our son married a flibbertygibbet,
my wife says, and I agree,
but he loves Maggie very much
so I say let's keep quiet
It's not our place to criticize.
Max is 33, and not long
back from Iraq. 
I remind my wife
that Maggie can cook 
better than most 

so let's give her a chance. 
Max works two jobs
and he's never home.
Maggie's young.
Maybe the baby will help
but I doubt it.
Too bad Maggie 
didn’t take to quilting,
my wife points out.
The ladies at church

did their best to teach her.
But quilters, I remind her, 
don't go out at midnight
to places nobody knows.
My wife keeps asking 
why Max married Maggie.
I don't know what to say.
Finally I tell her I never saw 
any woman walk like Maggie.
My wife says I never will.

Tuesday, November 13, 2012

David S. Pointer- A Poem

Eye Candy Cometh

The Women Marines
were sent to inspect
each incoming shipment
of meat, choosing select
cut female MP school
attendees for two choice
high-profile assignments
in Washington, D.C. and
Quantico, Virginia after
circling the students as
if admiring a Venus de
Milo sculpture-then every
duty station that I went
to, I noticed anything
but random distribution
of female physical attributes
across the Devil Dog
spectrum especially
around the staff judge
advocates and Generals’
buildings on the bases.

Wednesday, November 7, 2012

Luis Cuauhtemoc Berriozabal- A Poem


I SEE MY MIND
I see my mind
in a flame of perfume
burning to the center.
I see my mind
in the wrong hands being
put to rest in a dark hole.
I see my mind
in room full of snakes, a
gift for the undeserving.

I see my mind
made weak by those who
have a head for torture.
I see my mind                 
where it does not belong
encased in a glass box.
I see my mind
broken and about to
burst like the sun.

I see my mind
ready to fall like a
lost ancient city.

Tuesday, November 6, 2012

A.J. Huffman- Two Poems


With Pom

poms, I prance, preen, pretend the world
hates me because I am
beautiful, not because I am
            spastic
                        ally s-p-e-l-l-i-n-g
everybody’s name in time to some strange
rhythmic beat only I can hear.  Bubble-
gum pop rocks explode in my brain(?), pep
my step, keep me from getting a grip
on sanity.  I smile when they call me Barbie,
pause before the next
mirror, muse about my skirt and the potential
depth of its spinning flair.



Corner of S and M

is 50 shades grayer than any other
shadow the trashy-novel muse crawls into
at 3 a.m.  Desperate for safety-
word-intersection-connection, she paints
herself smiling in latex, a masque
zipped shut at mouth.  She becomes the latest
best-selling toy to poke at.  Allowing
bastardization and abuse to continue
to fall, she believes it will quickly get lost
in the pool of green, growing beneath her feet.



A.J. Huffman is a poet and freelance writer in Daytona Beach, Florida.  She has previously published six collections of poetry all available on Amazon.comShe has also published her work in numerous national and international literary journals.  Most recently, she has accepted the position as editor for four online poetry journals for Kind of a Hurricane Press ( www.kindofahurricanepress.com ).  Find more about A.J. Huffman, including additional information and links to her work at http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000191382454 and https://twitter.com/#!/poetess222

Monday, November 5, 2012

Donal Mahoney- A Poem

My Therapist’s a Lady
 
It’s all so simple now,
yet it took 30 years
to begin to understand.
It’s as though someone
stole the primer I had
and gave me another
in my own language.
It’s because you are
who you are
that I’ve begun
to become who I am.
That sounds too dramatic.
All you did, really, was scream
when you opened the bathroom door,
saw me wrapped in a towel,
standing at attention on a mat,
waiting in my thirtieth  year
for the steam to clear
from the cabinet mirror,
waiting for someone
to shout, “At ease.

Thursday, November 1, 2012

Ross Liskov- A Poem

you can have a mother and father and still be a bastard

wandering lost and lonely
as a Manson girl
I was looking
for some bearded guru
but all I found
were these  empty parking lots
I wandered the streets filled
with dead birds
and clouds muttering to themselves
I was looking for a pot of gold
but all I found was poetry
I wandered over by the tracks
and thought about suicide
but knew even then
that I'm too much of a coward
I wandered lost and lonely
like a severed hand
crawling up the burning walls of Hell
and I'm still looking for something
to rid me of all this bullshit.