Russell Streur - Three Poems

TABLE OF DISCONTENTS #13

No rain in sight

Out of reach

Crisis festers

Signs of strain

Risk of combat

Trying to escape

Keeping secrets

A desperate impulse

A vast abandoned warehouse

“These feuds change like the weather,”

the bald man said.

“Anything can trigger anything.”

Carnival barkers

Years of resistance.

 

TABLE OF DISCONTENTS #14

Secret police

Brute force

Deterrent effect

Doomed lovers

Human costs

The pivotal moment

Experiment out of control

Predictable results

System topples

“The data got messed up,”

the witness said.

“It wasn’t an accident.”

Group think

More locks.

TABLE OF DISCONTENTS #15

Palace coup

Resistance in Jerusalem

A good run

Past and future

Crisis deepens

Little hope

Comedy of errors

Resident evil

Echoes of the revolution

“What they expected to see, they saw,”

the artist said.

“Then they left.”

New line of fashion

Famine next.

Biography: Russell Streur is a born-again dissident residing in Johns Creek, Georgia.  He operates the world’s original on-line poetry bar,The Camel Saloon, catering to dromedaries, malcontents and jewels of the world at http://thecamelsaloon.blogspot.com/   The beer is cold, the whiskey Irish, and the door is always open.

Donal Mahoney - One Poem

Doubting Thomas

For years I've fed this feral cat at 4 a.m.,
a crouching mound of fur, Satanic black, with yellow eyes
that never blink. I call him "Doubting Thomas."

I place his can of Fancy Feast five feet or so from him.
He doesn't stir till I go in the house
and douse the porch light.

Then he leaps and cleans the can
and saunters off till 4 a.m. the following morning
when he's back again, eyes ablaze, crouching.

This pact I have with Doubting Thomas
helps me realize how God must feel
eons after the Big Bang.

Some folks, you see, aren't certain God lit that match.
Some believe the Big Bang just happened.
Out of nothing they believe something came to be.

I think the cat I feed at 4 a.m. agrees with them.
I'm sure he'd tell you Fancy Feast always was,
always will be and always will remain the same.

I wonder what that cat will do the day I die
when he arrives at 4 a.m. and finds the can
from yesterday empty where he left it.

There's no mystery as to what he'll do. 
He'll find another porch like mine where every morning
without a bang Fancy Feast just happens.

Biography: Donal Mahoney has worked as an editor for The Chicago Sun-Times, Loyola University Press and Washington University in St. Louis. He has had poems published in The Wisconsin Review, The Kansas Quarterly, The South Carolina Review, Commonweal, The Christian Science Monitor as well as a number of online publications.

Sarah E. White - One Poem

Panic

Anxiety, that dirty little word
Like a thousand hot knives penetrating my chest
The insane tightening of a heavy rope
Cinching tight, then tighter
Needles bearing down stabbing into me
Over and over they jab me
Piercing me through and through
I can hardly breathe yet they stab on
A gouging, a deep penetrating into my heart
Gripping at my lungs and squeezing ever so tightly
The words and actions of others are silently killing me
Like the muscled body of a serpent
Ratcheting
Constricting the life right out of me
They continue to squeeze
Making me gasp at the invisible air
Oxygen, just a figment to my panicked mind
Then the fear filters in again
Fear of anything, fear of everything
It grips me and just holds on
Shaking me fiercely within its jaws, cold blooded fear
Leaving me worn, ragged, exhausted
Craving safety
Shelter
Under the covers of my mind hiding like a child
Feet pulled up tight
The whole time thinking, breathe, just breathe, all you have to do is breathe
Breathing the fear away
Until next time

Biography: Sarah E. White is a native of Kentucky living now in Florida with her family. She began writing years ago and had her first works published in 1994. Her previous work can be found in The Devil’s Advocate, Going Dark, The Camel Saloon, Books on Blog: Don’t Get it Twisted, The Fringe Magazine, The Rainbow Rose, and Dead Snakes.

Stephen Jarrell Williams - One Poem

HER VISION

In the shadows...
she is
my love.

In the sunlight...
she is
my god.

Her vision
plants
roots deep
down my neck
heart
gizzard.

I cry blood
sacrificing
everything
for her...

Loving
the spread of her
living leaves.

Biography: Stephen Jarrell Williams was born in Fort Belvoir, Virginia.  His parents are native Texans.  He has lived most of his life in California.  He is the editor of Dead Snakes at http://deadsnakes.blogspot.com/

Sarah E. White - Two Poems

My Disconnected Head

My disconnected head floats up
Away from where I stand
I watch as it drifts in the breeze
As it weightlessly ascends
Billowing slightly left, then right
As if waving to me
Farewell
Turning freely
As it floats toward the bright blue up above
No limits
It casts a small shadow over me now as it whirls around
Where is it off to?
I truly wonder
How can it be so light and free?
How can it just drift away so carelessly?
So weightless
No worries or burdens to chain it down
No sadness or frowns that grip and pull
The heaviness of anger and regret
No longer have their hold on me
My disconnected head floats up
No strings, no gravity
No more fear as its anchor
I could learn a lot from my disconnected head
If only I could unload this weight from my heart
So I could float up and join it
And reconnect my head

Questions of the Heart

Making up my mind can be difficult
I like to be sure before I wager
I waffle, stammer and brood
Over such decisions as how to respond to a comment five days ago
I sit and simmer over what to say in a birthday card
Or even in a phone call
What to say?
What to do?
Where to eat tonight?
I cannot decide
Indecisive my mind has become
But when it comes to questions of the heart
My thoughts never waver
Decisions made not only with my mind
But with my entire being
Questions
Do not stay unanswered long
Those choices are made with the swiftest of blows
With quiet clarity
All is seen and exposed
Laid as a path before me
Love is not a choice
It is dream into reality
It is existence
Life giving breath that you have no choice but to breathe
Breathe in and blossom
Savoring each delicious droplet of a new and sweet world
Questions of the heart made clear
Answered with my body, mind and spirit
 
Biography: Sarah E. White is a native of Kentucky living now in Florida with her family. She began writing years ago and had her first works published in 1994. She is influenced by the works of Anne Sexton, Zora Neale Hurston, Nikki Giovanni, and Ogden Nash. Her previous work can be found in The Devil’s Advocate, The Camel Saloon, Books on Blog: Don’t Get it Twisted, The Fringe Magazine, The Rainbow Rose, and Dead Snakes.

Michael Lee Johnson - One Poem

I Work My Mind Like Planet Earth

I work my mind
inward into a corner of knots.
Depressed beneath brain bone
I work my words, they overwork me.
Fear is the spirit alone, away from God.
Hospital warriors shake pink pills, rattle bottles of empty dreams.
I walk my ward down the daily highway;
I work the roadmap of spirit,
weed out false religions.
Only one God for so many
Twelve Step programs.
I wrap myself around support groups,
look for dependency within their problems.
I publish my poems, life works,
concerns on floor five.
I edit my redemption, escape from the laundry room;
run around in circles like planet earth,
looking for my therapist
to seal my comfort.

Biography: Michael Lee Johnson is a poet, freelance writer and small business owner of custom imprinted promotional products and apparel:  www.promoman.us, from Itasca, Illinois. He is heavily influenced by: Carl Sandburg, Robert Frost, William Carlos Williams, Irving Layton, Leonard Cohen, and Allen Ginsberg. He has been published in over 25 countries.

J Todd Underhill - One Poem

Looking Toward Spring

With each passing day we’re closer to spring,
And much warmer days for us to enjoy.
Lessening the cold grip of winter’s sting,
Old Man Jack Frost can certainly annoy.

New buds bursting forth on all of the trees,
Each day continually growing warm.
Jasmine and Lilac blow upon the breeze,
Rain instead of snow falling from each storm.

And the world once more becomes born anew,
Emerging with pride from winter’s cocoon.
With each blooming flower gracing our view,
I think to myself that it’s none too soon.

Spring is the season I look to, I find;
To keep my heart from becoming snow blind.

Biography: J Todd Underhill has been writing in the Denver Colorado area for over twenty years. He has embraced poetics and spoken word art as his chosen art medium. He owned the title “Poet” in 2008 though his writing began far before that. J Todd has performed at many locations around the Denver Area including legendary haunts of Kerouac and Ginsberg like: Muddy’s, Mercury Café, Paris on the Platte, and Charlie Brown’s. He has also worked as a radio host, wrestling announcer, racing announcer.

Jason E. Hodges - One Poem

The Journal

Bound by leather
Worn by age
My journal truly understands me
Its tattered pages creak when I turn them
Too many rides of backpack adventures
Of day to day travel
For it’s the tool that allows me to drift
Drift farther, and farther, from reality
For reality is much too mundane
Much too hypocritical
And I think, are my thoughts what others call hearing voices
Do their thoughts sound so foreign
So beyond what they think is obtainable
That they believe it’s not their own thinking at all
So programmed by the world all around them
That any differing must be a sickness
It’s way too easy to become labeled with an illness
If you speak what others are afraid to say
Yet praised if your writing becomes viable
But Journal, you’re safe
I won’t let them read you
I’ll keep you locked away
Far from their sight
Until you are needed to awaken the minds of the sleeping
Sleepwalking their way right through life
Oh Journal, maybe it’s time to display you
Set you free from my holding
Or maybe I’ll keep you hidden a little while longer
Far from their reach, far from their sight

BIOGRAPHY: Jason’s most recent work can be found at The Fringe Magazine, The Camel Saloon, Indigo Rising Magazine, Raven Images, The Dirt Worker’s Journal, Daily Love, The Rainbow Rose, Dead Snakes, Books On Blog, The Second Hump, Poetic Medicine, Catapult To Mars, CrossTIME Science Fiction Anthologies Volumes 8, 9, and 10, as well as an article based on an interview he did with Harry Crews that appeared in Our Town Gainesville Edition, Spring 2011.

Jeffrey Park - Three Poems

INTIMATE PHANTOMS

Under his pinky ring
the faded image
of a ring.
Glasses conceal
a pair of inky spectacles.
Ghostly garments
shimmer beneath shirt,
trousers,
knee-high socks
set of garments complete
with phantom buttons
and zippers and
elastic.
They call him a
multi-layered individual.
There’s so much more
to him than
meets the eye.

IN PRAISE OF HER

Eyes ready to pop from her head, she still
does not give in, pride of station
like that of a Japanese courtesan or child

pharaoh or tightly corseted lady of the
Victorian era. Small discomforts will be
taken in stride with a quick furtive tuck,

unobserved. But the tension! No archer
ever pulled his bowstring so tight, so
many pounds of potential kinetic energy,

such a quiver. She fears neither the sudden
gust of wind nor the necessity of a sharply
turned head nor the rough hands

of a impassioned lover. Her mien speaks
to the outer world of defiant self-reliance:
The word disheveled is not in my lexicon.

Admire my poise and my long, curved
neck. Gaze in wonder at my arching brows,
tremble before the stroke of my lashes.

WHISPERS

Monks – always interesting specimens
highly sought after when one has a yen
for a special challenge.
Come away, little monk,
from the chant and the green tea,
spiraling questions turning
ever inward
look outward instead
downward, infrared-ward
dark places, deeper and more mysterious
than any fuzzy navel of yours
or mine
endless echoes – chant
chant
chant
chant

Curl up with me, little brother,
slow your breathing – slow, slower
stopped –
curl up with me,
contract your consciousness
with me tonight.

Biography: Jeffrey Park is a native of Baltimore, Maryland and a graduate of the Johns Hopkins University (BA) and Towson University (MAT). He currently lives with his wife and two dogs in Munich, Germany where he works at a private secondary school, as well as teaching business English to adults. His poems have appeared in Subliminal Interiors, Mobius, Punk Soul Poet, The Corner Club Press, Yes Poetry and elsewhere.

Nishta Goopee - One Poem

if i knew

if i knew
how to say it
if you knew
how to hear it
would the rain
still feel like last month
would the waves
cease to embrace their shore

if i knew how to say it
if you knew how to hear it
would words
still mean what they mean
would silence
ever wish to wail

for far across
the unkwown
i have trodden
like a child searching for the woman in her
like a woman searching for the child in her

bruised
abused
denied
no shoulder could she find
to bear the weight of her cross.

bruised
abused
denied
no door could she knock
with her heaving heart in her palms

if i knew how to say it
if you knew how to hear it
today would have been
a different month

Biography: Nishta Goopee has spent 5 years in India, specialising in English Literature. She has taught in a private college for 4 years. She is also a tarot cards reader, angel cards reader, archer, painter and reiki master. One of her 2012 goals is to publish a collection of her poems.

Sahil Malhotra - One Poem

Empty

These empty days,
In my most eventful of lives
These empty nights,
Where solitude forever strives.
These empty eyes
That reflect the ennui of existence
These empty funnels
That mock the vanity of persistence
This empty mind
Filled with my thoughts deranged
This empty house
Filled with my kin estranged
My empty coffin
Waiting for its mate eternal
My empty soul
Roaming this void infernal
My empty heart
Ensnared in her silken tress
My empty life
Reprieved in my emptiness...

Biography: Sahil Malhotra is a graduate from Delhi college of engineering, working as a scientist in the field of robotics. He has been writing on and off for about 6 years now.

Derek Keck - One Poem

I Write Hell

I don’t write many pretty things. I write dead things,

Things that smell. Rotten things! Shit things! Hanging

Flesh things from Hiroshima! Things that look like

Holocausts, emaciated Stars of David, my take on human

Religion, my take on human lungs and human tongues.

I write ugly things from hell. I write about heroin and

Mothers putting babies in microwaves.

Real things flowers can’t touch.

Don’t write about these things.

They’ll put your mind in hell.

They’ll make you piss on God.

I was pretty; some people tell me I’m still pretty.

Some people tell me to “Have a nice day!”

Give me a smile, them 10 percent.

I wish the world was more like “Have a nice day!”

Plath seemed to think so from time to time. I seem

To think so from time to time.

I wish everyone would say: “How do you do?

Have a nice day!” Sometimes I feel like the God

Of Judges, saying: “Dumb asses!” At least in a poem,

I can write: “Have a nice day!”

I could leave out the Ak-47, the mortar, the hydrogen bomb.

Even when I am God, I can’t get over my own world.

I write hell. I kiss Hell and I penetrate.

I hand out free-will like AA coffee.

As a waiter, a man told me to “go fucking die”.

I politely smiled and said “Thank you. Have a nice day!”

I meant it.

Biography: Derek Keck is an Ohio poet and a student of English Literature at Kent State University. His writing, though crude and at times chaotic draws heavily upon the postmodern and confessional poetry movements of the 1950s and 60s. His poetry is inspired by the works of William Blake, William Carlos Williams, Allen Ginsberg, Sylvia Plath, Kurt Vonnegut, Charles Bukowski and W.B Yeats. 

Nazra Emamdee - One Poem

Sacred Bath

Inhale… Calculated breathing …Exhale
Inhale… Before it calls for suffocation, let me call for what I want …Exhale
Inhale… No, I do not know how to swim but yet …Exhale

I wish to float onto the salty you
Water, water…

While you massage in your own soothing ways the back part of me
Kiss my ears and make me deaf to the loud taunts of the world
Inha-le… I want more than your foreplay …Exha-le
Inha-le… Come to me like the thick rain …Exha-le
Inha-le… Hit me hard to my senses with pressure …Exha-le

Spare yet my breathing organs but cleanse all other cells
Water, water…

I wish to turn over, to look away from that blinding world
Give me that one huge air bubble for my breathing and let me float yet
Inha-a-le… My purification seeks for a deeper therapy …Exha-a-ale
Inha-a-le… I wish to walk down there …Exha-a-ale
Inha-a-le… Let me in, take me down to your chest ...Exha-a-le

Take me in your embrace and soothe me more
Take all the dirt away and wash me off all the filthy touches to whiteness
Water, water…

It is time to shrink the air bubble
Hold me tight, all for yourself for I do not wish to resist
Hold down my hands, hold down my legs
Take me more, kiss my soul
Inha_... Tame my mouth …Exha_
Inha_... Blend with my blood …Exha_
Inha_... Purify my mind, purify my heart …Exha_

Clean it all, take the thoughts, take the pain
Take that ultimate dirt called life off me
Purge me clean and send me back …____

Biography: Nazra Emamdee is a young poet from Mauritius island. She likes to write about local and social issues. Two of her poems have been published in two different local newspapers already.

Phill Maguire - Two Poems

Autumnal Words

Solstice approaches
compacting colorful days
between dark ends

Bulky blackbirds bank
beneath a liquid blue sky
as sun-reflected rectangles
blossom from hillside houses
and painted letters tumble
from deciduous paragraphs
while leathered leaves
scrabble across sunlit streets
and wind chimes sing
long tubular tongues
their colors combining
in mixed moments

Three a.m.

Three am. again
open window breathes June night
warm honeysuckle

Biography: Phillip Maguire is an Emergency Medicine physician and self-proclaimed Zen Baptist. He is the father of four (G,G,B,B) living in south central Pennsylvania. His hobbies include bicycling, gardening, cooking and creative writing. His short stories and poems have been published in print and online. His collection of short stories and poems, "Thunder Under Water", and poetry, "Reversed", are available at Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.com. Once while writing in Alsace-Lorraine he wrote a multisyllabic word so large it tipped the continent.

Joan McNerney - Two Poems

Computer Game

I just click the awesome icon.

My mouse scurries in a manic race
to discover words or match jewels.

Tiles glow… a beaming box of eye candy
to pick and nibble as my score grows.

All the petty slogs and limps of
this withered day are beaten back.

I love my snazzy game name and avatar.
My world sits inside this small square.

I am winning.

Eleventh Hour

Wrapped in darkness we can
no longer fool ourselves.
Our smiling masks float away.
We snake here, there
from one side to another.
How many times do we rip off
blankets only to claw more on?

Listening to zzzzzz of traffic,
mumble of freight trains, fog horns.
Listening to wheezing,
feeling muscles throb.
How can we find comfort?

Say same word over and over
again again falling falling to sleep.
I will stop measuring what was lost.
I will become brave.

Let slumber come covering me.
Let my mouth droop, fingers tingle.
Wishing something cool… soft… sweet.
Now I will curl like a fetus
gathering warmth into myself
hoping to awake new born.

Biography: Joan McNerney's poetry has been included in numerous literary magazines such as Seven Circle Press, Dinner with the Muse, Blueline, 63 channels, Spectrum, and three Bright Spring Press Anthologies. She has been nominated twice for Best of the Net. Four of her books have been published by fine small literary presses.

Jason E. Hodges - One Poem

John Lennon

On December 8th 1980 the children of the arts wept
For the genius of words dripping with truth no longer would sing
No longer play his melodies of peace
No longer hold his wife
His son
His guitar

My nine-year-old heart suddenly felt empty, cold, and dark
When the blank look of the news caster told the last moments of Lennon
The poet from Liverpool now lay blood-soaked and lifeless for no reason at all
Tears filled my eyes as I tried to understand why this had happened
And I wondered, who was The Catcher In The Rye?

At that point in my young life I had never seen a man cry
My world was filled with adults, who for survival shut off tears of emotion
Ashamed of my teardrops of sadness
I walked, then ran far into the meadow behind my home to cry
And I wondered, who was The Catcher In The Rye?

I kept crying and thinking, maybe they’ve made a mistake
Maybe it was somebody else
It just couldn’t be
Then the tears fell even faster
Chilling the side of my face in the cold winter breeze
For this lie I was telling myself was almost as bitter as the truth
The truth that was broadcast all over the world

The man that dared to imagine would imagine no more
Who had the heart of a dreamer
The man who filled my young ears with the first sounds of music
From needles blown off then carefully placed on slow spinning records
As my tears kept flowing I whispered goodbye to the heavens
And I wondered, who was The Catcher In The Rye?

Biography: Jason E. Hodges most recent work can be found at The Fringe Magazine, The Camel Saloon, Indigo Rising Magazine, Raven Images, The Dirt Worker’s Journal, Daily Love, The Rainbow Rose, Dead Snakes, Books On Blog, The Second Hump, Poetic Medicine, Catapult To Mars, CrossTIME Science Fiction Anthologies Volumes 8, 9, and 10, as well as an article based on an interview he did with Harry Crews that appeared in Our Town Gainesville Edition, Spring 2011.

Sarah Hamadeh - One Poem

Love Bond

That love bond that connects us to each other should be cut.
I've tried to change everything but your heart seems to be like hard rust.
I've gone through endless despair, don't you think it's enough?
Life without your love seems to be so tough.

You're so powerful, yet, so weak.
You made me fall in love ever so deep.
But now, I'm no longer that vulnerable little girl.
I'm letting go like a necklace of falling pearls.

But before I leave, I will thank you
For making me believe that our love story was true.
You still have a few confessions to make.
Where were you when I was baking your birthday cake?

Was there another Juliet
or was I only just a fake one?

Now it's time for me to let go...
Time for me to let go...

Biography: Sarah Hamadeh is a sixteen-year-old girl who loves to write poems. She is from Lebanon. She is quite talented and wishes to be a novelist in the future.

Tyler Bigney - Two Poems

Faith

When I’m on my knees
I want to see what I’m praying for.
With my eyes closed,
I can’t see anything
but I am lying on a couch
dreaming dreams
of AM radios, country roads,
reunited love with a girl
from a far away place
where we held hands,
kissed with mouths open
in hotel rooms,
on park benches
in the dark
when no one was looking.

Everything decays,
the moon, the ocean,
the flowers I bought you,
the vegetables I picked
from your mother’s garden,
and someday me, and you,
and everyone we ever knew.

But tonight, I am drifting
paper airplanes out an open window
encrypted with secret messages
only you’ll understand,
and the drawing of a rose,
painted the color as your eyes,
defying logic, gravity,
all in the name of hope.

Rewind

I want to go back
to 1997. The afternoon
of Saturday August 16th,
when you showed up
on my front doorstep -
a pack of matches
in your pocket
and a knapsack
cutting into your sunburnt shoulders.
And this time, instead of
running home scared,
I would stay to watch
things melt, and burn
some things of my own,
watching them float up
and evaporate soundlessly
into a blue summer sky.

Biography: Tyler Bigney was born, and raised in Nova Scotia, Canada. His writing has appeared in Pearl, Poetry New Zealand, Iodine, The Meadow, and the Ottawa Arts Review, among others.

Tegally Mushiirah - One Poem

Irresistible Sweetie

Made of fresh cow milk
Sprinkled with lemon juice
With a smooth mixture of flour
Few grams of sugar
Flavoured with powdered cardamom
Richly dipped in a pool of rose flavour
Irresistible in shape
Appealing in its flavour,
Tempting in its shape
You make millions taste one
To double and triple...
You bring a smile on each face
While increasing the worries of many
Rich in sweet diabetes,
You are tempting and exquisite
As tasty as Maple Syrup
As sweet as honey
One will eat you in a gulp
Another one will appreciate you slowly
Another one will squeeze you if you are completely drenched
Some will simply swallow you for your shape
Crammed full with a sense of wonderful taste
Mouth-watering to those who cannot help but watch you,
Millions eat you every day
Consumed under strict supervision
Many succumb to you
This special spongy, yummy goodie is baptized as
Rasgulla

Biography: Tegally Mushiirah is a young university student completing her English degree. Writing is her passion while helping is her motto. She likes to dream a lot as well!

Sarah Gamutan - One Poem

T E N

Some notes gave me
memorable stories whether this
room was loved or not. In this
room, I shared memories with some
musicians, lovers. Some of them were
cheaters, weepers, losers and mostly,
they were my counterparts. I hated the
 
scenery of unfinished tones, how they
didn't reach an octave, the way it gave the
worst sound in my ears - monotonic, copied.
Once, my counterparts considered music as
one boring college class that they blamed
how it defined different kinds of people,
how it caught lives of my fellows which
 
they hid for a long time. We asked them
to sing, dance, play and strum it the way
they'd like it.  These friends, who got great
looks, married rich men, got impregnated -
those who lived their own lives. I liked
 
the way they meant their own songs, far
better than Mozart or any classical men
who got stuck on my head when they
were pasted on the wooden walls. I
knew I'd be like them too - loved
and cared that I'd sing songs
on my wedding, that my mates
would sing with me too, that
after 10 years, hopefully,
I'd be married too. 

Biography: Sarah Gamutan's poems have been published in many online literary journals including Carty's Poetry Journal, Mad Swirl, Literary Kicks, The Beat and Western Australia Poets Inc. She works as a Community Support Associate in Philippines.

Nazra Emamdee - One Poem

The Mad Lover

This afternoon I saw him again
The sweaty brown young man
Looked like he won the bargain

With curly and greasy hair
Springing so heavily down his cheeks
He was with his imaginary pair

In a hibiscus patterned shirt
Dirty jeans pulled up to his navel
He was indifferent to the dirt

Not even wearing boots
He was trading for his way
With numb and barbecued foots

On the grilling pavement
Down the street of Bell Village
He was walking and talking excitement

He must have bestowed away his heart
For he was engrossed in his conversation
With a shy smile causing his black lips to part

In simple and broken words
He was mastering and sharing his joy
Head in sublime courtesy bent forward

He was addressing absolutely nothing
Far from his sorrow
Wherefrom I watched him and everything

In too tight high heels
A possessive pain residing my spine
A permanent moody feel

Which even tactics
Cannot maliciously traffic away for peace
Forget magic

Biography: Nazra Emamdee is a young poet from Mauritius island. She likes to write about local and social issues. Two of her poems have been published in two different local newspapers already.

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