James Mirarchi- A Poem

REBIRTH

  

Carapace of scowling building

is exfoliated of acne

its cancerous elevator shafts and air ducts

cauterized with holy water

Stairwell ghosts fizzle and clutch each other

 

Construction workers operate on it

Spider-men who swing from cranes

nipping and tucking plaster wrinkles

liposucking cellulite from windows

 

Edifice

a raw feverish whore

is then hosed down

 

A steely innocence

replaces building’s character

making it seem untouched

but strangely inhuman

BIO

James Mirarchi grew up in Queens, New York. In addition to his poetry collections, Venison and Dervish, he has written and directed short films, which have played at festivals. His poems have appeared in Crack the Spine Literary Magazine, Poydras Review, gobbet, Boyslut, Bluepepper, The Mind[less] Muse, Dead Snakes, egg, The Recusant, Subliminal Interiors Magazine, Bad Robot Poetry, and Clockwise Cat.

Jon Watson- A Poem

 Untitled

Ascent this relief in
Shades
despite the danger
Unforeseen
swiftly changing
hardships and perils
far nothing beautiful
with acceptance
falling realities that
on another night would
be enough these
carefully
still believed
ascended rapture nowhere passes

Jennifer Lagier- Two Poems

Picked Up, Cast Down

 

He smiles,

slides onto the

neighboring bar stool,

buys your next round.

“Spawn of Lucifer?”

you conjecture,

observing his

black fingernails,

grim reaper tattoos,

H-A-T-E carved

across his knuckles.

“Close,” he responds,

grips your thigh

with his talons,

knocks back tequila.

gnaws an earlobe,

draws blood.

You inhale the aroma

of sulfur and brimstone,

feel bruises blooming.

He’s the one who

can make you burn,

the kind that leaves

permanent scarring.

 

 

Midlife Crisis

 

Its arrival coincides

with your hunger for taut boys

with empty heads and endurance,

chronic muteness,

and a nine p.m. curfew.

 

Computer screens and old photos

make you cry.

So does the sight

of unopened mail,

on the tile kitchen counter.

 

It paints your face over

so you look like your mother,

implants amnesia

in the last of your brain cells.

 

Suddenly

you are ready to run away

to Soquel or Costa Rica

with a tattooed lesbian activist

or your boss's conservative partner.

 

Instead,

you cut your hair,

enroll in tai chi,

boost your dosage of hormones.

 

 

Jennifer Lagier is willing to buy the first round for any snakes in her vicinity, dead, alive, already stoned, or just napping.

B.Z. Niditch- Three Poems

ON MY DIRT GUITAR

You shaped my voice
unveiled in these new strings
glancing with melodic notes
eager to reach the speechless
with soothing expressions
at every border crossing
breathing out today's doubts
from solitude at dawn
covering my wild tongue
over every earthly chorus
words like a sister to me
play into the night.



PAGE AFTER PAGE

In the public library
immensities of words
underlines
your solitary time at school
absent of nature
only the mask from covers
is never taken off
yet we are renewed
but not wholly loved
by the author's voices
enlighten beyond
your own desk
in a dark corner
without a muse or echo
only the hidden eyes
drop shadows
on little alembic screens.



ON AN EASY CHAIR

Imagining on an easy chair
our nostalgic precursors
centuries before
is to answer nature
back to Wordsworth's dreams
Coleridge's taut phrases
and to Keats' Romantic way,
or hearing Fingal's Cave
a grey tone poem's overture
is to feel safe
from all atomic fevers,
and absorbing news
of today's violence,
best lean back to Fingal's Cave.



http://community.webtv.net/buzz-worthy/TheWorldofBZNiditch

Denny E. Marshall- Two Poems

Shuttle Craft

Old minivans look
Like the space shuttle
With no wings
Or tail



Not A Coincidence

Nuclear test in India
More in Pakistan
Major earthquake
In Afghanistan


Bio
Denny E. Marshall bio is on a hiatus.

 

Paul Tristram- A Poem

Get Up Off Your Arse

What’s the matter with you boy

the weekend’s here once again?

Leave your coat by the door

shake off that cold Welsh rain.

Grab the biggest jar

then fill it at the bar.

Kick your troubles in the fireplace

throw your cares away real far.

Jig and swig, leap and fall

we’ll shout and sing all night.

Don’t worry if you’re out of tune

if you’re beered up it’s alright.

The week can always be justified

if you end it with a drink.

The fiddle, drum and banjo

is all we need I think.

Friday night and Saturday night

should be re-named as one.

For I can never tell the difference

I’m always having too much fun.

I’ll grab a drunken lady

I’ll kiss her once or twice.

Then get hammered by her boyfriend

as he hits me more than thrice.

Get up off your arse

stop drinking it by half’s.

Knock it back, we’ll have a laugh

just get up off your arse.

Join our drunken dance

here soberness is sparse.

Get them in and get them down

just get up off your arse.

© Paul Tristram 2006

Published in In Between Hangovers, Issue #2, Winter 2006


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.

Douglas Polk- A Poem

Battle of Wills

terrorists dance,

jackals around a flame,

the psyche crumbles across the civilized world,

resources spent,

safety the key,

the leaders profess,

fear manipulated,

childlike leaders looking for monsters under their beds,

the war already lost,

terrorism forever and always,

first and foremost,

a battle of wills,

not safety or cost.

Donal Mahoney- A Poem

Miss Carol's Dumplings

Every month or so

on a Sunday afternoon

I skip the football game

and get in my truck

and drive out from the city

into farm country

to visit Miss Carol

and get my hands

on her plump dumplings.

Biggest I've ever seen.

Best I've ever had,

terrific with her

legs and thighs.

When she lays out 

her chicken dinner  

on that white tablecloth

I start drooling before

I even get a hand on it.

A farm girl, she says 

she's never met 

a man like me

so nuts am I

about her dumplings.

Usually, she says,

men like breast meat,

when it's moist,

and I admit I like

that as well

but not as much 

as her plump dumplings

on a Sunday afternoon

and her pluperfect

legs and thighs

Les Merton- A Poem

WHEN THE WORLD ENDS

Delhi will have more 

than the usual pandemonium:

the crush of mechanical and human traffic

will surge into a terminating collision.

In Paharganj drug dealers, backpackers, 

touts and beggar kids try to ignore chaos 

of rickshaws, bicycles, dogs and holy cows

as the enhanced confusion of street aroma 

from flowers, curry, urine, incense, chai, 

spices, traffic fumes and unwashed fear 

assault the senses one last time.

At Gandhi Smrita the poignant memorial 

of concrete footprints, representing Gandhi’s 

last steps, disappear into the abyss 

and the Mahatma’s final words, Hey Ram *

echo over the devastation of Delhi.

*Hey Ram  -  Oh God

 

Les Merton has 20 books to his credit and he has won numerous writing awards. His poetry has been published in magazines in the following countries: Algeria, Australia, Belgium, Canada, Cornwall, Cyprus, Eire, England, Finland, Germany, India, Italy, Nepal, Netherlands, New Zealand, Scotland, South Africa, USA. He also has had many poems published online and in anthologies.

During his writing career Les has also appear on: ITV’s That Sunday Night Show, BBC TV Spotlight News, and on the following Radio Stations: BBC Radio Bristol, Duchy Hospital Radio, BBC Radio Cornwall, BBC Radio 4, Pirate FM, BBC Radio Five Live, Penwith Radio, St Austell Bay Radio, Redruth Community Radio and ABC Radio Canberra, Australia. He enjoys performing and has given readings all over the UK and in Ndola Zambia.

Linda M. Crate- Two Poems

dancing nightmare

 

i hate feeling this way,

but most of all i hate that you

lied to me; it hurts to

know i wasn't worth the truth

seems even you know there's shame

to be had in cheating on someone —

yet you don't care you emotionally

broke me; people's hearts are not

meant to be broken, and people are

not collectible games to be dusted 

off and played when you need them —

life is not some video game, at some

point you have to claim responsibility

for your actions and be a man

instead of the overgrown child you've

grown comfortable being; you are

a weak selfish prick thinking with

the wrong head, and i still love you —

does that make me the bigger fool?

all i know is that it hurts deeper than all

wounds i've received in the past, i've

never known how deep the arrow lies

until you impaled me with true lust

mistaken for true love, and still there

is this connection that binds us in a kiss —

sometimes i pretend that day was a

dream, but i know it is reality

for it is too harsh and grating to 

be anything less than real; why you 

danced this nightmare over me i'll never

know, but if you had no intention

of marrying me you shouldn't have taken

the petals of my flowers into your greedy maw.

pandora's secret

 

you are the secret locked in pandora's jar

one day you broke free

reigned chaos into my life i mistook

for love; your lust burned me

so beautifully

in it's scripture, but no psalmist

would write you into the bible for you are

a sinner pretending sainthood; 

you look like a christian and smell like one,

but your heart is rotted

lust and sex are the things you crave

you insist that you're the victim

when you're the predator

ripping every feather of my happiness in the 

fangs of your gaping maw —

i loved you once, loved you still

always have and always will

but you're crazy to think that there will be

no consequences for your actions

you ruined my life;

do you think God will give you a free pass

for screwing angela?

oh, you fool!

he never told you to cheat on me, but you did

you're a horny teenager trapped in a man's body

with the mind of a child;

do you think in avoiding me that the problem

is solved, a solution has been devised in

the ignorance of my broken heart?

one day you will have to face your Maker

look him in the eyes,

tell him the reasons why you broke the heart of the

girl whose only crime was loving you and giving

you her virginity before marriage;

why you listened to satan

followed the object of your lust

why you gave up your heart and soul

for sin? 

oh, i want to know 

how you justify it all then —

want to know if He'll forgive you because i wouldn't 

there are days i am trapped in the rain,

bleeding memories of your dancing

on the porch, kissing me

with the appearance of a handsome yet drowning wolf whose

compassion had blown away like the autumn leaves

you kissed me under one august.