the sun is sparkling, the rain rumbling, and we badly need some poetry...

Monday 28 March 2011

Ron Koppelberger - One Poem

Ragweed

The damp earth owing the sun in heated
Tendrils of mystery, by the lines of green luscious
Moss and lichens of dew drop moisture,
A sprig of ragweed gone to seed and birthing the breath
Of wild dance in the soul of those
Who feel the dreams of weedy fortune.

Amy Huffman - Three Poems


The Poem of Pure Reality

A life reduced to boxes,
cartons,
bags.
It’s too small.
Too insignificant.
It should fill trucks and trailers.
No.
Think bigger.
Oceans and caverns.
And universes.
And if you’re lucky.
Really lucky.
It will fill the biggest space.
The vast darkness.
One moment
suspended in the mind.
A memory.

A Cocktail Combo

Red sequins or clean white cotton --
a choice fit
to torture a king.
But in a city
that bleeds night
lined in rhinestoned feathers,
there is no need
two tails
and a diamond leash
cannot meet.

Packed in Ice or Salt

Rambling.
My pen is running.
Like a wheel without a road.
The motion is empty.
Useless.
And exhausting.
But it doesn’t stop.
My third eye will not sleep.
Though it has been blind for years.
And silence has not been stretched
into a bandage
big enough to hold it closed.
Yet my nails are busy.
Bleeding on their own.
They have forgotten
they are useless.
That empathy is not the stain
they drag across the sky.
Put me back.
Inside a box, I am happy.
Confined and naked.
Between walls that are dying
to bear the scars
of this pain.

Harry Calhoun - Three Poems

Rain and the ability to cope

Sitting here waiting for the predicted rain.
It’s early enough in the afternoon for hope.
I like rain sometimes, especially when
it’s too bonechilling to go outside. It calms me
and helps me concentrate on the here, the now,
the trivial. That’s important sometimes.

After all, I have the quirky card you sent
on our first anniversary close by. With a duck
on the cover, our inside joke. It will remain inside
as I do, daunted by the rain. Or maybe dependent
on the rain, lulling me softly away from thoughts
of sunny days spent sitting quietly on the deck with you.

Pneumonia and rejection

I dream amethysts blooming in the night sky.
Purple on black, canvas of bruise
so slow to show its true colors. Even the beautiful
seems extraneous and unreachable.

I’m starting to catch my breath
in this slow recovery but I can’t catch up
with what it is to be without her.
I never wanted any of this, disease

or dispossession. For now, I’ll think
of amethysts and the impenetrable dark
and hold on to whatever remains
of this bruise of a dream.

Out of the comfort zone

A strange life broken out
as if from underwater
leans into a wind

that even you staving off hurricanes
find unusual. A drink or two
never hurt anybody,

but you have to find your way
slashing the waves
sober until this phase is over.

The view would astonish
if you could find courage
and strength to see it,

without fear crawling under you
like a sea snake, nestling up to you
like a rabid dog. You gulp a breath or two

before drowning, glance
at your reserves and it looks
like what you have left

is hell in a suitcase.

Anita McQueen - Two Poems

THE HUM

Seeing
so many
suffering

I shake
myself
from self-pity

walk to my open window
humming an uplifting tune
on the freeing wind.

VEILS

My father begs me
not to be like my mother

there's so much he doesn't know

shutting myself in my room
waiting for the press of late night

I sneak out my window
like a see-through phantom
in white veils.

Monday 14 March 2011

Ed Higgins - One Poems


summer fields

we ran that afternoon
across Bayshore lanes

into green blooming fields,
beyond all those

quickly passing eyes,
helping each other

down a graveled bank
that edged tall grasses

topped in yellow mustard &
skimmed by meadowlarks,

that scolded, yet never told
as far as we knew--

although they saw well enough.

Valentino Cano - Two Poems

Tropical Storm

Hand me over to the night.
I am tired and drooping
like a starved palm tree.
My leaves brush the dry ground
in horror and fill the darkness
with a sibilant moan.
I cannot do this much longer,
this pull and ebb,
this game if dice.
I just want to sway
in the fragrant breeze,
my head thrown back
to let the moon fill my mouth
like a pineapple slice.
Hand me over, then,
to the night
if you will not give in to me.
You sit beneath my velvet shade
and tremble to hear my voice of bark.
If you will not caress me,
if you will not shimmer at my touch,
hand me over.
Hand me to the night.

Time in Reverse

Regrets fill a bucket to the rim,
cold and twitching water over,
a dark thread of an edge.
I can see their faces,
those sunken paper war-ships
that are no more than
handfuls of seaweed
clinging to my fingers.
I plunge hands into the
loose cells of their filling,
ripping out scalpelled glances,
cowering syllables into
silent submission.
With one look I
have numbered them all.
Sheets of dated cross-stitch
I long to rip out.
Threads of entrails gleaming
wet on the floor.

Sunday 13 March 2011

April A. - Two Poems

Evening

I'm breathing the smoke of fruit cigarettes,
One's already burnt; I am craving for more.
I'm lighting the last one with no regrets -
If you were beside me, it well could be four.

I'm slowly turning the key in my lock;
It usually takes me two minutes or three,
But I have been blind to the obstinate clock -
Alas, there is no one waiting for me.

My room has no present but treasures the past;
Its walls will recall every breath that we share...
I'm feeling so cold. I break down at last:
My papers will choke on the ink of despair.

My heart's like a violin's sound, unclear;
It's out of tune for a permanent matter.
I'll sign all these verses with only one tear
And seal with a sigh just to send with a letter.

Heartless-can-be?

I'm wild and sometimes even heartless-can-be,
I'm fond of collecting illusions to ruin,
I'm breaking the rules life has written for me,
"Create to destroy" best describes what I'm doing.
I'm scarily dangerous, silently loud -
A walking disaster you'd better ignore,
The pain in the neck of a desperate crowd.
But I'm like a magnet - you'll only want more.

You'll figure me out, you'll get to the core -
One beauty, two fears, three dangers - it's me.
You'll enter my heartspace and close the door
For anyone else who I wanted to be.
My truth was denying devotion and faith,
And now you've proved right the opposite true.
A chain of mistakes is the sign of my days;
My strength will forgive me - it led me to you.

Michael Lee Johnson - One Poem


Cold Gray

Below the clouds
forming in my eyes,
your soft eyes,
delicate as silk warm words,
used to support the love I held for you.

Cold, now gray, the sea tide
inside turns to poignant foam
upside down, separates-
only ghosts now live between us.

Yet, dream like, fortune-teller,
bearing no relation to reality-
my heart is beyond the sea now.
A relaxing breeze sweeps
across the flat surface of me.
I write this poem to you
neglectfully sacrificing our love.
I leave big impressions
with a terrible hush inside.
Gray bones now bleach with memories,
I’m a solitary figure standing
here, alone, along the shoreline.

Richard Hartwell - One Poem

Mortgaged Love

Let my heart reap without end
Your love that is so easily given
Payback in kind marked Insufficient Funds
Still taking out Seconds and Thirds for self improvement
Not covering all your expenses for our relationship
Indebting my future and soul to you
Paid-In-Full is not an option
Forever

Mike Berger - One Poem


Rose as Fire

In the bright summer sun is a scarlet flame;
it dances a Gypsy ballet.

Warmed by the summer sun, it is kissed by a
gentle breeze.

Scarlet perfumes hanging in its aura; dazzling
reds beckon a touch.

The rose has no voice, yet it speaks; it whispers
of love and burning desire.

It sings gentle songs to the heart.

Eric G. Muller - Two Poems


So What!

So what
If you don’t know
this or that!

As long as you still listen to the wind
hush through trees, or lash across
mountains, deserts or dunes;

and with closed eyes can detect the subtle
shifts in the nasals, plosives and  fricatives of nature’s
complex tongue as it tells its simple tales.

So what
if you don’t know
this or that!

As long as you keep the lenses
of all your senses clean – so you can make sense
of a world, made senseless by indoor knowledge.

What if you knew
the real from the false?
What if?

Now that would be
the kind of knowledge
that would  make sense!

Never Just Nothing

It’s never just nothing;
dust was and will be

something other.

Spores and seeds lead to more;
even a vacuum is an

in between,

A womb waiting for a
flash in the curving

firm-amen-t, when

Ousted semen stars fight
to survive the big current of the

silent bang,

And aftershocks
ripple down into

measured matter,

Shaped by time’s space
and the crises we know are

never just nothing.

Russell Streur - One Poem


OLDUVAI GORGE

We brew the juice of dates
And boil the rice
We planted in Tanzania
A half a million years ago.
 
We dance again tonight
Ancient spirits in mahogany
Leave our footprints in the mud
To fate at daybreak by the lake.
 
I look into your eyes.
Continents of light
Join for eons
Then drift apart:
 
I can see
All the way to Africa.

Stephen Jarrell Williams - Two Poems


IMAGES

Death the doer
elixir
transparent blue
stunning woman
nude in veils
uncoiling in the wind

she slow-sways
new science
written in bone powder
our fathers
pointing in many directions
at once

we plead
someone answers
not wanting it to end
meaningless
we murder
everything moving

hoping
love
wears a white dress
giving
the boot
to death

the pretty little lie.

NIGHT PASSAGE

Night passage
away from the sleeping city.

Quick now
before it awakes grumbling,

wanting flesh and brains
ashed into its cement and steel,

never telling of its cauterized heart,
glass blood and asphalt skin...

Running our cars with lights off,
long convoy into the country.

Hoping sunrise comes without sirens,
a new land out of an old land,

growing natural gardens,
drinking buckets of stream water,

making babies under the moon.

Friday 11 March 2011

Hal O'Leary - One Poem


My Dearest Friend

My dearest friend, no truer friend indeed.
It sets our hearts aglow,
But with a cause to make our poor hearts bleed,
I wanted you to know.

It's more than sympathy I feel for you,
Though sympathy is fine.
It's empathy, through which I ache with you,
Your deepest grief is mine.

John Tustin - One Poem


WHAT DO YOU DO TO ME?

What do you do to me?

I see you and I stammer
and the edges of my eyeline are fuzzed

and time is unknown
and reality superfluous.

And on the way home
from seeing you
from feeling you
I don’t know how I got home.
I don’t remember.

I know I was driving in my car
and my hands were tingling.

And all my best lines
are about you

and the worst ones too

and when I look in the mirror
I am beautiful at last

frightening and somber but beautiful
because I see what you see
a little bit.

And I like it.

Thursday 10 March 2011

Christina Murphy - One Poem


a single hurt color

a single hurt color is the heart
in the red of wounds with blood
cold to the touch and hot to the losing

a single hurt color in a system to pointing
is the way of truth learned as lessons
of disappointment and rectification

a single hurt color in a system of meaning
says less and more than the palate
of all colors signifying all options

a single hurt color is a single heart
a single soul and consciousness
seeking that system to pointing

a single hurt color is the memory relived   
captured as if in a glass transparent and cold
an arrangement of emptiness in a system pointing to loss

Joan McNerney - One Poem


Effective Immediately

I want to become an
Ambassador for Rain.

Why the bad image?
Birds love rain.
Tweeting through
dry spells for water.
They flutter from leaf
to bud for a sip.

It’s super creative…
feeding tree roots, wild flowers.
Without rain...no blessed
blue lakes, rivers, streams.

Open your eyes. Rain clings
to window panes, miniature globes
of splendor. Listen as pitter
pattering skips over rooftops.

Consider your thirst for
liquid pleasures. Gather up
in green reverie. Dance
barefoot on this emerald earth
joining me in jubilant chorus.

Neil Ellman - Three Poems


Windows I

Through glass
She shimmered
Candle-lit
An apparition
Without a shape
or name.

Windows II

I passed their windows
Mannequins displayed
As living things
And they looked back
As if I were alive.

Windows III

The windows gone
Jagged panes
Pointing to the place
Where strangers entered
As unwelcome guests.

Wednesday 9 March 2011

Ron Koppelberger - One Poem

Mazy in Muse

Careening into the vestiges of
Unwilling wonder-struck love,
A vision of charm in gossiping yield
And mindful ascension, the winsome
Arrangement of what gilded maidens and
Tears of steel gladly express. The balance
Between magic and real turns of
Mist; hazy, mazy in muse
                            And blissful acceptance.

Monday 7 March 2011

Stephen Jarrell Williams - One Poem


LEAVES

Let the trees feel us,
leaves velvet
against our spirits...

So similar
in our love,

all the leaves giving
in sun and rain,

floating in the wind...

They are far above us,
beyond our knowing
ease of life...

Death just a moment...

Love lasting in the endless
seed.

Libby Nelson - One Poem


Deathly Bird

Arms bowing, ligaments showing
A skeletal bird
No wings to fly just
Bones and feathers
Crunch under my shoes
It's just so easy to step on you
And from your wounds
You would drink the
Sweet sickly wine
With a single bite of bitterness

Russell Streur - One Poem

BLACK HELLABORE

Twinned at birth
In the hoof of the mare
We are oak and truth
Beloved and bard

Our’s the blackest art
The ancient sorcery
Come share tonight
My pillow and bed

Breathe into me
And I will sing into you
Black hellabore
Rhyme and bronze. 

Love without cease.
And the old things.

Gordon Mason - One Poem



Art Restoration

Hands in white gloves
whisper like silk in motion.

Wrists cocked like pianists’,
they pull dark notes

from the sheet music.
Ladies from Madrid and Colombia,

like dancers unwilling
to release their partners,

take pictures of the past
and warm them in their palms

to revive the pulse of colour.
Hands move discreetly

without fanfare.
Constellations of age spots

pale in a wide silk
of transparency.

A new sun throbs
with birdsong,

spring stems bloom
in bridal bouquets

and the white gloves
can spread as fans.

Saturday 5 March 2011

Amit Parmessur - One Poem


Play With Me

See, the melting hands of the cream clock
Are ticking fervently towards eternity.

So let’s wash our own dusky hands quickly
And play this lost game and
Devour the half cherry still left untried
On the curvy mountains of holy milk.

Hold my hand as it is now the scarlet time
To collect nectar-studded butterflies and stick
Them on our battered shoulders to
Carry ourselves into an immortal cave of lust.

If love is an ephemeral kiss I love you not.
If love is a white belief I believe you not.
If love is a honeyed threnody I love you not.
If your indigo anger is love I still love you.

Hold my hand; it is now the dramatic day
To turn into sinister scorpions and sting
The bizarre beasts of the past and
Build a future of unfamiliar freedom.

Come and play with me.
Let’s try the red game of love a third time
Before dusk, in the sparkling sun and rumbling rain.

Thursday 3 March 2011

Sadie Harris - Two Poems


Three... Just Three

Prolific and filling.
Those spaces between
lines of grammatical symbols
creating drama and feeling,
litanies, books and deep wells.
Those places of the heart
where engulfing life with its profundities
lie silent in their grave without
the meaning of just three words, expressed
in completion and question...
So, where have you been all my life?

Whispers

Quiet does not need me
to know it's future,
to relinquish to
that which its nature
procures.

Enigma painted with
restrained allure,
hue blending
mute to unseen
from the blare of white noise.
Bleeding down
devoid of solid
markings to trail
a path.

Noiseless breadcrumbs falling
wafting velvet petals
released from their stem,
leading to unrequited
adulation,
undisclosed.

Just a wisp
across my silent irritations.
It does not need me
to know
I am lost
without you.

Wednesday 2 March 2011

Russell Streur - One Poem

PORTRAIT OF A WOMAN IN WATER 

Take me in your water
Your Huron and St.John
To your bay and hope
Your cape and horn

Take me in your water
To your ebb and flood
Your everglade and melt
Your beck and tide

Take me in your water
Your mill and race
Your drift and run
To your spirit lake

Delta of your mouth
River of your embrace
Your dew and spring
That deep cool place.