Vidousha Bundhoo - One Poem

Diary of a Lost Soul

I do not remember
Whence I came from
I do not remember
The paths I took
The rivers I crossed

I’ve been walking since a very long time
Now I do not remember
The reason I started walking
Like perhaps the sky doesn’t know why clouds come to kiss her
And leave her thunderously
Why was that?
To what purpose?

I do not know why I don’t remember the past
But there must have been a beginning
There must have been a journey
There always is
There always is a past following your present
There always is a present preceding the future

Why is it then, that the past seems so blurred
So distant
Have I moved too far…
Or am I lost…

Felino A. Soriano - Three Poems

Various Tessellations 15

 

—after Karen Fitzgerald’s painting, Burning Pearl

 

Pearls contain clementine reflections. 

            Particular

to this rage of inward glow                  at

                                    paralleled

                                                                        parameters                               flow

induces partial flame  

 

synchronized ornamental prophecies beyond bodily worth                 the

 

                        symmetry of health comprehends when held

wholly within hand of adoptive disposition.

 

Various Tessellations 16

 

—after Paul Motian’s Casino

 

Night of desolation.

 

Causation.

 

Hand of magical mimesis.

 

Opponent of gift lights,

partial

            to the hiding dynamic of dissipated timekeeping,

intentional.

 

Requesting monetary deviation.

 

Smoke into twirling barrage of

dancing halos

 

                                    crowning pearl of rarity, win   win

syncopated hope then

 

desolate again, traveler, another temporal anecdotal

 

immanence.  

 

Various Tessellations 17

 

—after Paul Motian Trio’s Birdsong

 

Wire dance, paused vernacular you’ve

become an etched insulation, varied.

 

            Saddened now you’ve

orchestrated denial, ascended angled psalms of

                                                                                                mobile interpretations.  Rejuvenation

within tomorrow’s solid music, rhythm

volume oscillating constructs:

 

below the

italicized watchers entail

burdened absence, succinct as wind amid

a branch’s naked cleansing, autumnal.  Can the

                                                                                                whisper of your fingered song

rotate into twirled aspect of neoteric dancer?

 

                        My answer

forgoes logical nuances, suppositional where

 

isolation gilds broken heirlooms:

 

                                                                                                trio of cadenced sorrow

purpling closeness as if bruised through intention, and

the

                                                heal of rounded scar

escapes pain of the original graving

skin inward reflectional

diameter,

                        withdrawn into back

                                    stepping

ideological

                                                                        hanker.

John Swain - Two Poems

The Black Hours

The pages in black tint

writ with silver scripts

and the blue gold inlay.

I saw the crossed man

hanging from the wire

in passion surrendered.

The night and the seas

exchanged a cremation

the poets interpret.

I read the black hours

like a haunted passage

I am confined to relive.

The beauty of the work

contains its destruction

like rain inks on glass.

Succession

In the fleeting uncaptured 

rarity of appearance

the wilderness spoke

by message of hawks

longed through the throat

of their mystery

like a deep redness

poured into a golden cup.

I met the vestige of effort

and growth like branches

and the twisting of antlers

softly dropping

in entrance of succession

and passing of the names

to broken rock.

I lit torches

to speak cleanly

after flies were eaten.

Sarah E. White - One Poem

Evergreen

Craggy jagged rock faces

Anchored with evergreens

Springing forth reaching skyward

Defying gravity

Defying logic with their life

Evergreen even now

With the plowed and fallow fields

Of a countryside lost to harvest

The greenest of greens endure

The color of hope in this bleak season

This grey and dreary time

Unnoticed in summer or spring

Overlooked during the thriving bloom of prosperity

Camouflaged by the rest

Hidden within the unsteady greens of change

My eye is drawn now to its cool tender branches

As they ripple gently in the harsh weather

That has torn all the other color from the landscape

All traces of life scraped away

I long to be an evergreen

Forever thriving

Drawing life from little

Steady and green

Anchored safely to the rocks

Snuggled securely in the deepest greens of health and living

A glimmer of hope for the rest of the world

That has been tattered by the seasons of life

John Tustin - One Poem

When I Imagine You

When I imagine you, you have
no fear.
You use only your senses.
Your tongue explodes in
my mouth.
My fingers disappear inside
you.
My eyes cannot
differentiate
far and near.
My mouth does not recognize
air or water.

The room becomes more than
a room.
The window becomes less than
a window.
I am unaware of
my body,
but incredibly aware of
yours.
Your mouth becomes something
I want to devour.
The hours melt into an oblivion of
ecstatic moments.

Your body is an impulse.
Your body is a guitar I wring painfully
exquisite notes from.
Your body is an instrument
that bends under me
with purpose.

When I imagine you
I am
more than
I am.

Denny E. Marshall - One Poem

Secrets

The white sheets
          of paper
Are covers
The black ink
The words
          soak threw
Why should I
Tell you anyway
I guess it is
the fact
I can’t talk
The way I feel
Faults shift slightly
Pens lift anchors
My notes
Are the reflections
With someone
Standing on both
sides
Mirrors
Writing diaries

Ben Rasnic - One Poem

October

The breeze attending
this afternoon's drizzle
contains a certain chill

Behind a misty veil,
sun softens its vigilant eye

At the edge of town,
the crowd in the stadium
has turned, like rotting fruit

Soon, clouds of smoke
from the orange skulls
of flaming pumpkins
will mask a full yellow moon

and the crisp night air
will succumb
to the chants
of tiny extortionists.

Diane Webster - One Poem

Motel Room At Night

Without glasses
in strange city darkness
and unfamiliar shadows
the smoke detector
with single green light
looks like a flying saucer
beamed in on another earthling.
Silly, triple-locked door
when it already resides inside
silently disguised
for my own protection,
watchful as I fall asleep
to dreams so adventurous
I am reluctant to wake
and ask the green light
to beam me aboard for more.

Kevin Ridgeway - One Poem

Sorry I Stepped on Your Painting

It was in the doorway for God’s sake
I was coming in for a drink
You should have been more careful

We exchanged many bitter words
And my relations with your roommate were over
But you shouldn’t have been working on that

Painting in the doorway
I know I crushed the corner
With my thong sandals

I’m sorry I made such a to-do about it
I was down at the local watering hole
Getting drenched in jerk juice

But to be perfectly honest with you
My stepping on your painting
Really gave it a surrealistic edge

Rachel Kearney - One Poem

Attic Photo:

 

Snapshot

                in the lens

Memory              begins

Film                        ends

Decades

                in the lens

Black                      white

Time                      past

Captured

                in the lens

Children               laughing

Fire                        roasting

Timeless

                in the lens

Sunset                  fading

Moon                    becoming

Jason E. Hodges - One Poem

Grandfather

My grandfather
The mild-mannered mechanic
Was the only grandfather I knew
He was my mother’s stepfather
And a good father was he
For even through the hard times he never stepped away
Blood relations mean nothing if they’re not willing to love
To listen
To understand
Enthralled as a child
I waited for the telling of stories
Stories from long ago
Of him helping men fly and soar through the air
One by one he put planes together
For the war fronts of a world at war
To be painted like tigers or perhaps Betty Grable
Anything to help the fighting men of the sky
With hands of skill my grandfather pushed cold metal wrenches
Spinning bolts down to an unmovable tightness
Years of this work left his hands scarred and rough
Easily felt
As he stretched out his hand to guide me through life
Teaching me right from wrong with his words of wisdom
His advice was always of the best kind
They say patience is a virtue
But the real virtue is giving more than you’ve taken
Guiding the ones that need to be guided
Setting examples by living for more than yourself
My grandfather, the mild mannered mechanic
Fixed all that was broken before him

Abby LeCavalier - One Poem

Hate Department

Cringing in a corner

doesn’t suit her,

much.

She does it anyway.

Waiting

for the feelings to change,

in bold breaths 

breathing.

Slipping her eyes;

something less formal.

She has that “stay away from me” look

down pat,

because she cares too much.

Always the problem.

Her emotions burn

like cheap cigarettes,

cold.

Almost surreal.

And she can feel the sand

in her teeth,

the heat of her skin,

steam.

She knew this moment inevitable,

tried to wish it away

with small gestures.

But it came just the same.

Chris Butler - One Poem

Hippie

I was born

a flower child,

but grew up

in the life of pesticides,

dying in the dirt

that once gave birth,

succumbing to the sun

that once nurtured nature,

but what happens

when the fire of

napalm pollinates palm trees

to create life?

Richard Hartwell - One Poem

Morning Memories

There was a blond bombshell

seated in a red Corvette

flying new paper plates.

She was headed east

in the morning on the 215

into a glorious newborn day.

A quick glance to the side,

captured in my memory.

a porcelain face, rouged, ready,

Framed by white-rimmed

sunglasses and pouty lips

steadied in a purposeful smile.

I’d hoped for a glimmer of

eye contact reflected in her mirror

as she pulled ahead of me,

With nothing but exotic fantasies

beside her in the empty seat

of my peek into paradise.

Taufiq Abdul Khalid - One Poem

The Third Eye, Love and Her Fury

I whirled and twirled,

I turned and burned

Until the sky itself

Started to turn red around me,

And all of creation cascaded

In perfect symmetry,

Until no sound can I hear

But my own gasping death,

I could now see

Buildings rise higher

Than the holy stations,

As the Sun rises in the West,

And from the East, merchant ships come upon me,

To trade for my third eye their splendid cargo of love and fury.

I tell them that I am not he that they seek,

But they will not be swayed from their bargain

And asked again to see the celebrated third eye.

Relenting, I sighed and gestured towards the sky.

Russell Streur - One Poem

October Lines

for CKC

Less and less of daylight now

The moon rises early in the east

Through white pine

Night still warm enough

To sleep with windows open

On a pillow of petosky stone

Sound of waves

On kalkaska shore

And I am traveling on

Lotus strings again

Drinking wine with you

Waiting to wake

On the first morning

Of frost.