Archive 1
July, 2013
Mark MacDonald's Latest Poem: "Mentor"
 Mark MacDonald
Mentor “In a death that may, or may not have been, a suicide, Randall Jarrell was struck by a car and killed at the age of 51 in 1965.” I am going to suppose that somebody suggested that it was poetry, or the lack thereof, that crushed him; that in his metrical soaring for meaning and vision as a “celestial navigational operator” he finally succumbed to life on the ground while walking along U.S. Highway 51 near Chapel Hill, N.C.-- sometime near dusk. After hearing of the President’s death he sat in front of the television set and wept for several days. So perhaps it may have been the end of Camelot that took him to that highway alone in the month of October, the month of drooping trees, solemn configurations, crumbling insights and outdoor evenings walking for soldiers over fifty. “The world goes by my cage and never sees me,” he wrote in the poem “The Woman at the Washington Zoo,” a stand against conformity that secured his reputation. Accident or suicide, the loss of a promise, the moons of October, or simply a car and a man crashed together in North Carolina by happenstance: Death took the Warrior Poet walking by himself to the nocturnes of Autumn on the shards. Hurdling steel and meandering flesh commingled in disaster at the outposts. A wife lost a husband; poets a Mentor; and the soldier, his Bard. Read the poetry of Mark MacDonald Read a profile of Mark MacDonald Two Poems, Different Directions
The North
by Rhonda L. Brockmeyer The North: Winter needles our flesh with cold Summer stitches our eyes open with light Here, morning does not bring the light It is birthed in night Eyes seek delicate darkness Release from Harsh summer brightness ____________________ North by Leslie Philibert a puzzle of rivers and ice a dead fish dances under a witch`s dress birthless you have become an ancient fir, seagulls bend slowly in the salt air and chatter over the freezing whores; the sinewed ships are full of string and cloth and wood that strain out the songs of men lost to earth; so pull through the alleys full of water, thick-footed with the glazed eyes of fish; winter`s door is ever open, trees that draw from the coast to higher ground: pure and wolf with frost. A New Poem From Barrett Dillon Hycner
 Barrett Dillon Hycner
Passion Squeezed She calls into the void Waiting for someone Afraid to give Afraid to free herself Of dread She sees the light Cool grasping Actions in miniature Anger Welling up from underneath The inspiration is toward doom While mystery Deepens her beauty Feel those sharp claws Ripping through your Inner self Feel her swoon Passion diving From innocence and greed Taking away virginity For nothing else But need Read the poetry of Barrett Dillon Hycner Read a profile of Barrett Dillon Hycner "The Moment People," from Jorge Davis
 Jorge Davis
The Moment People to the moment people a second could be a second or a day and the minute a minute or a decade and watches are of little use though they decorate the wrist of the moment people the big hand rarely moving and sometimes it moves backward on occasion the moment people defy more logic: back arched eyes sealed tight the hands probing and yanking contorting the flesh in the darkness the skin sees all the mouth swallows the last of the light and shadows slice through time ∞ in this space you don’t have to die if you don’t want to Read the poetry of Jorge Davis Read a profile of Jorge Davis We Welcome to VerseWrights Poet Jonterri Gadson
 Jonterri Gadson
No one has touched me for weeks yet in this drugged, gilt afternoon, late, when nothing is safe, I’m paralyzed, as though so wildly desired -from “Midas Passional” by Lisa Russ-Spaar Woman, Feral
: Finds Herself
lost in thoughts of gold hairs sprouting from another woman’s nape as if they could be rope enough for reaching. : Considers Sunlight Even with the unrelenting press of you against my bare back, I cannot be convinced of the necessity of shadows : Considers Suicide doesn’t want to be found heaving at the highest point of her wreckage, praying for lightning. Would rather believe in magic, in communing with other disappeared things: rabbits, women’s torsos, rope snippings. Jonterri Gadson is Debra’s daughter. A Cave Canem fellow, she is the author of the chapbook, Pepper Girl (YesYes Books, 2012) and a recent graduate of University of Virginia’s Creative Writing MFA program. Her poetry has appeared in Callaloo, The Collagist, Anti-, PANK, and other journals. She currently serves as the Herbert W. Martin Creative Writing Fellow at the University of Dayton. Read. A New Poem From Poet Emily Burns
 Emily Burns
Searching the Old one said that the weather would become dangerous that the lightning was searching in his dream and I have watched and waited and held my breath when the storm came too near and I breathed a sigh of relief when July was over because the dream must have been wrong but this morning red skies broadcast their warning and lightning played while Anna waited for the school bus and one arrogant flash happened so close I was blinded for a moment I closed my eyes and white fireworks danced the storm followed me to work and then wandered off it may be that the lightning was searching all along Read the poetry of Emily Burns Read a profile of Emily Burns Two Poems from Ashley Bovan
 Ashley Bovan
Dear Honey‐Love wingstem paramour, musk‐loving syrupy sugar‐bird, wild nectar mistress, caramel moon truelove, white sweet clover‐mead, herb‐cream treasure, rosebay‐willow sticky bun, Romeo's bee‐line, cherished sun‐bear, relished spoon‐flower, amber‐flamed love‐apple, hi Singularity The light here cuts black and white Wet morning sticks to air old walls Droplets grip like gelatine A gentle blur needs your earth. Where are you? Read Ashley Bovan's Poems Read a profile of Ashley Bovan A Short Poem From Paul Sands
 Paul Sands
may it never, yet it does the monsters used to live under the bed now they walk the streets, most often, with halos around their heads cold sunbeams stiffen my hyphenated bones and even singing does nothing to evaporate the frosted water in my veins splash my neck slap my face I’m sick of talking I get no satisfaction from my lower case hate Read the poetry of Paul Sands Read a profile of Paul Sands "Clear," a New Poem From Michele Shaw
 Michele Shaw
Clear walk a tenuous rope wearing a tenuous robe search the frayed threads scour an echo of light breaks thatched patterns steel-spined ghosts hum calling it is you waiting to find waiting to be found it is me it is all breaths, all beings gathering, losing color tying knots which scatter, yet hold we are souls of a soul banded and bonded umbilic we are one deep wide clear Read the poetry of Michele Shaw Read a profile of Michele Shaw "There," A New Poem from Mark MacDonald
 Mark MacDonald
There At least once a month I drive there to walk-- the neighborhood near the end of River Side where so many Greeks still live and Sam the Pakistani immigrant still runs his small convenience store. Perhaps it is the hills, more steep than are usual for Tulsa; or the calm and moon reaching sycamores, cottonwoods, and slow hanging willows that call to me so intently; maybe the rows of older houses there-- the mansions from the Twenties now restored, the small brick cottages and the wood siding original Craftsman’s with their long covered porches—that on Sundays—when the weather permits—draw me back there; there near that house where you and I lived not so many years ago; there where you planted impatiens and I maintained the pool and the lawns; there where we would sit and talk of our day and our students, on the painted metal chairs that you had bought for a smile and placed on our porch there. Read Mark MacDonald's poetry Read a profile of Marl Macdonald Read about his latest book (Amazon) Danielle Favorite's Newest: "Disassociation"
 Danielle Favorite
Disassociation They tell me to pray, that He is always listening, but God is blue from love and my hands have forgotten how to hold. God of moths, God of the lonely, God of scalp and skin and rust. I like staring at hymns, not reading them, but watching as if they'll sneeze or turn into tiny birds. I started out deep blue, but I've faded to grey and they keep opening my mouth, trying to pull out prayers, but they had already flown away like birds from an olive tree. Read Danielle Favorite's poetry Read a profile of Danielle Favorite Read about her latest book (Amazon) E. Michael Desilets' Latest Poem, "Sam's Shanty"
 E. Michael Desilets
Sam's Shanty Samantha was mad for sea shanties her mind forever wrapped in oilskins and fishnets so Malcolm kept an interminable cache in his pantry bedroom backpack sports utility vehicle fern-lined creel on the off chance Sam came unexpectedly as she often did the ironically landlocked lovers would rock the boat all night long stem to stern Sam in her nautical niceties getting her sea legs at the first melodic mention of a man going down from Yarmouth to Scarborough ‘til the yearning tide cast them ashore on the yawning dawn where they’d linger lazily in salty togetherness nearly as drowned as the poor old dog on the Irish Rover Read the poetry of E. Michael Desilets Read a profile of E. Michael Desilets Two Poems From Marsailidh Groat
 Marsailidh Groat
London Underground Sometimes I fall, deeply, Into myself, and forget There is life outside. I navigate myself with the same degree of skill with which I navigate This City. I turn corners and find Places I have never been before. Confusion. Lost in a maze. The London Underground. I have This one little body to carry me through. A Lesson I had a feeling, once When the Earth moved That a kiss would lead to promise Just as young girls do; I had a feeling, but I didn’t know how to be misled I moved from city to city with A lost limb, pleading as it bled. Loss ran thick and hot Down my bed, my room, my street My bedroom an abattoir, My blood beneath the sheets. Read the poetry of Marsailidh Groat Read a profile of Marsailidh Groat Two New Poems from Michelle Sho
 Michelle Sho
cocoon entwined limbs tangled hair trauma wrapped around my heart melted with the uneven skipping of two sore beats, there is no safer place for you than between my aching arms. today
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"The Daunted" From Ellen Conserva
 Ellen Conserva
The Daunted
All heads down Heels clicking and scratching dirt. Waiting for danger To leave unrequited. They face the cold winter Huddled in their woolen wraps And never slant an eye Toward the frosted pane or The dunes of door snow. The unbrave shivers when The wind blows hot and Drips sweat during winter storms. The weak of knee press on As their hearts keep a steady beat Neither rising or falling Nor racing or missing. They count their steps and refuse To forward on if there are Corners or dark hallways. Cowards choose to stunt themselves And never grow And stay the same And live life safe. They are like leaves That turn yellow and then Fall to the ground Before letting their Beauty complete by turning Red fire. While the courageous and The unafraid Bravely go forth And die glorious deaths. Again and again. Read the poetry of Ellen Conserva Read a profile of Ellen Conserva "Thoughts," From Poet Janet Aalfs
 Janet Aalfs
Thoughts 1. And then we wait And then everything comes to us From the wind in our mouths for it has traveled Through leaves and branches of the memory tree Whose roots began before we began As thoughts blew backwards to find In the rubble of words Swallows swoop Nothing's a dance more calm How everything flows to heal The kindness of so much waiting is As truth from seablue wings 2. Thoughts that have become other thoughts Not even the clouds can reach Beginning as rain then hail Without regard for sense This trail of sugar for the ants From places I've never heard of Glistens across the table As if I'd planned to go 3. That's where a thought begins In the middle of a phrase At the bottom of my cup Read Janet Aalf's poetry Read a profile of Janet Aalfs Poet Val Dering Rojas Joins VerseWrights' Pages
 Val Dering Rojas
What Euripides Knew A cage is love, is a mouth that sings the O in tongue, of expose, of now. Of the color bitten, of golden wings, breastbone breaking to lay open what aches. A cage of the swollen belly, of the lover twice left, of the myth of Gods, of bindings: vaulted sky, surface of sea, saltwater lips-- mandible unhinged by silence, that bitter stone. Val Dering Rojas is a Los Angeles based poet and artist who has also studied Addiction and Recovery Counseling and Psychology. A recent Pushcart Prize nominee and a regular contributor to Referential Magazine, her poetry and short fiction has been included in or is forthcoming in: ken*again, Dogzplot, A Handful of Dust and Right Hand Pointing among others. Her chapbook TEN, is due out Spring 2014 from Dancing Girl Press. Click here to can find blog, Twitter, art and Facebook information. Read. "The Argument," from Paul Mortimer
 Paul Mortimer
The Argument Iron sky, steel river. There’s an edge to the day. Steady rain sulks its way over the landscape. Rain-slicked muscular trees flex their branches in a rising wind. Finally the storm breaks. Wind rips through, stripping trees. Birds and leaves tumble over the fields. River rages as it flees to the sea. And in the black cold night shocked stars blink back the tears. Read the poetry of Paul Mortimer Read a profile of Paul Mortimer A Short Poem from Ellen Conserva
 Ellen Conserva
Anchors Though my table be laden With all heart things That slake and fill One gust will Cause crash and flings. Smooth stones On corners four Are the saviors The friends, the victors, Whom I adore. Read Ellen Conserva's Poetry Read a profile of Ellen Conserva "Again Someone is" from Hank Archer
 Hank Archer
~by Hank Archer Again Someone Is talking talking and my reaction is just nod nod agree because momentarily I'm lying on a sheet of waterleaf with you overtop the summer sun shining shining through the blanket and your hair and nothing else Read Hank Archer's Poetry Read a profile of Hank Archer A Welcome to Poet Rhonda L. Brockmeyer
 Rhonda L. Brockmeyer
Twisting Birth I felt her wriggle, Half in my body Half outside Soft hair~wet and black as molasses, brushed my thigh My small, young belly rippled as her hips Twisted out from between mine The final flip and slide A mother was born Slivers Trying to find comfort from the slivers of light dancing on my skin… But they’re just slivers Tiny and uncomfortable; The warmth feels to be, Not nearly enough Read the poetry of Rhonda L. Brockmeyer Read a profile of Rhonda L. Brockmeyer From Leslie Philibert: "Childhood Beach"
 Leslie Philibert
Childhood Beach the sky sunk low to the sea wet towels slapping in the wind young bathers; sea-eyed and water-faced with chipped front teeth sinews taut under young skin... and the ebb that makes stones drift between a child`s thighs down the beach down the beach running into the dilute a salt step crying footprints lived short as if just lost shouts stolen by the wind; time to go. Read Leslie Philibert's Poetry Read a profile of LesliePhilibert Newest Poem From Beth Winter
 Beth Winter
It's only a tree I tell the corner of my eye to stop imagining things each time it grabs the tree trunk and pulls memories from the play of light and shadows, the angle reminding me again and again of your leaning slouch, of nocturnal walks while we let excitement escape from our room and the urge to rest smooth dampened sheets, but that was then and though the crab apple poses to keep you in my peripheral vision, I rub the scars left behind by roughened bark and shift my focus to the stature of the sapling that stands where I planted my feet. Read Beth Winter's poetry Read a profile of Beth Winter "On Monday," A Poem From William Fraker
 William Fraker
On Monday What would it be like to carry the weekend into Monday? Or at least tuck it into my coat pocket, accessible as a handkerchief - when I need to remember that weekend moment, brimming with fullness. Or like words written on the inside lapel of my mind, indelible. Or inquire at the lost and found, holding whatever I think. Read the poetry of William Fraker Read a profile of William Fraker Now on VerseWrights: Poet Debbie Strange
 Debbie Strange
Haiku a desecration of toxic algae blooming we, the gardeners Bread the harvest beneath and between our lives is always sacred we fall then rise up the seed, the sprout and stalk the swath, the stook and staff the bowl is full though chipped and crazed with age still and ever we are kneading soft flesh punching down sorrow sprinkling salts of the earth resting in a warm place doubling joy we fall then rise up Read the poetry of Debbie Strange Read a profile of Debbie Strange From Marie Anzalone, "Mended"
 Marie Anzalone
Mended “When the Japanese mend broken objects, they aggrandize the damage by filling the cracks with gold. They believe that when something’s suffered damage and has a history it becomes more beautiful.” ~American writer Barbara Bloom Today started with a sigh. An admission? this sky is slate. Blank. the ground, tilting- rain-washed and windblown with the realization everything changes. perception. many things are broken. some cannot be repaired; some others: well we will shall see those results when the sealer sets, annealing what was sundered in order to re-create the whole. and we will try using the thing again. one goal attained. the vaster, always- a work in progress. I hold this bowl, this fragile thing, spent some time on its cleaning, restoration. underneath- it is carved. jade. delicate but tough. translucent. empty. but not the hollow kind of empty. more the expectant kind- the empty sacred room in which the crib has been placed. and ready or not I guess... a decision was made for me. This vessel will be put on the market again. Items always were happier when in a state of use. maybe there is someone who appreciates the cracked and imperfect. the mended. Read the poetry of Marie Anzalone Read a profile of Marie Anzalon. Poet Joshua Gray Is Now On VerseWrights
 Joshua Gray
Mark of the Afghan Girl 1985: Villanelle Do not come to me. Do not succumb to my timidity. I’ve known only fear and death on this land. There is no home for me, no place for a refugee. I see you watching me. What is it that you see? I am Pashtun; this war is peace by my father’s hand. Do not come to me. Do not succumb to my timidity. Do not ask my age. Do not ask what cannot be. I saw my parents die. They were buried in the sand. There is no home for me, no place for a refugee. My wide, fierce, sea green eyes encompass me. They keep your distance wherever you stand. Do not come to me. Do not succumb to my timidity. My long disheveled hair portrays my dubiety. That I am here, I am not where God had planned. There is no home for me, no place for a refugee. And yet you come; here you come to set me free. I see how you start within, I see how you command. Do not come to me. Do not succumb to my timidity. There is no home for me, no place for a refugee. 2002: Dubeiti I came. You found me. Sharbat Gula is my name. I am a woman now, my newborn died with no name. The desert thinned my eyes. My wedding taught me joy. A new war -- I am no one, still. Alive is my name. Read the poetry of Joshua Gray Read a profile of Joshua Gray We Welcome Poet Jeff Bussey To VerseWrights
 Jeff Bussey
pretend i am not the devil just pretend i’m not the devil here, and i’ll pretend your love’s sincere. i’ll promise not to play with fire, if you’ll purge the cold from your desire. i’ll put away my horns tonight, if you’ll tuck your wings beneath you tight. i know i’m not in the dreams you hide, i’m just the man who’s by your side. so forgive me please, if it’s in your heart, and i’ll do my best to play the part. just close your eyes as my flesh draws near, and pretend i’m not the devil here. Jeff Bussey grew up in Oklahoma where he still resides with his three children. A fifteen year military veteran with twelve medals of commendation and achievement, he now works as an aircraft mechanic on Gulfstream private jets. He has also published under the name Cool Handless Luke. With over twenty works published in various anthologies he is currently working on his first book entitled Shadows in Bloom. Read. "Azulejo," a poem from Poet Ray Sharp
 Ray Sharp
Azulejo The sky was inlaid azulejo tile, cool and gleaming. Our love was a memory from an undiscovered world, filaments of dreams woven beneath the snow. The perfect still surface of twilight was rippled by the ululated cries of the crane pair calling to each other in the glow of the solitary moon. There was but one patch of bare ground, a tangle of frozen angel hair crunching underfoot, crushed by the weight of the wait. I imagined your touch in the air just beyond the limit of my skin, a wind too weary, unstirred. Read the poetry of Ray Sharp Read a profile of Ray Sharp |
Samantha Campbell's "Try to Forget Me"
 Samantha Campbell
Try to Forget Me
I am made up of words My mind is a dictionary My heart is a book of poetry I'm the prettiest song the perfect sonnet the most meaningful haiku and the most erotic poem you will ever read It takes a while to read me Seconds to love me and a lifetime to forget me Read Samantha Campbell's poetry Read a profile of Samantha Campbell A New Poem From Debbie Strange, "for Calum"
 Debbie Strange
[This poem has audio] for Calum ☊ they straggle out of their black-houses silently greeting the peaty air as they untether their hopeful boats leading them like dogs to the end of the grizzled pier the sleep-fuddled sea rolls over and grumbles into the thickened waist of morning and the blue-breasted hills breathe in the slanting sighs of heathered moors hand-hewn oars slice through buttery water drawing and quartering the awakening sea with its insatiable craving for the rarefied taste of smoked and salty Lewis men with a careless wave and shrug of swollen shoulders winter’s teasing tongue of storm lashes out licking heaving decks flicking crumbs of frozen fishermen into the greedy bay wind-whipped dogs limp home and nudge the lamenting shore with torn sails between their legs without their singing masters and silver creels they bring no solace to the widowed croft Note: Black-houses were traditional thatched huts on the Isle of Lewis. Fires were built in the centre of the living area and there was no chimney. The smoke escaped through the roof, blackening the interior of the dwelling. Listen to this poem read by the poet Read the poetry of Debbie Strange Read a profile of Debbie Strange Foster Cameron Hunter's Latest Poem, "Spoiled Milk" Foster Cameron Hunter
[This poem has audio]
Spoiled Milk ☊ I was a child seduced. Mesmerized by ABC, CBS, NBC-- suckled at the small-screen nipple, miseducated, inundated by glowing images. I had Good Times with the Jeffersons, poked fun at Aunt Esther with Sanford and Son like we were All in the Family. I learned the Facts of Life from Arnold and Willis; went through my own Growing Pains with dysfunctional Family Ties. I took One Day at a Time, all the while hot for Designing Women. I was mentally masturbated, desecrated by what Neilson rated, was a channel surfer long before my family could afford a remote surfboard. Subliminal advertising commercial misrepresentations-- spellbound, I grew up thinking Life is like TV. It took me 29 years to see television is not 20/20. Listen to this poem read by the poet Read the poetry of Foster Cameron Hunter Read a profile of Foster Cameron Hunter A New Poem From Ashley Bovan
 Ashley Bovan
Thoughts bustle this pure still city
Thoughts bustle this pure still city. I'm remembering waves; remembering the way, unmoved, long ago; remembering busy sky. Fulmars smash centre, fly clear; the cross‐leaved spray, jagged, common sensuous, gull, sandpiper, transplanted; summer's only home. Spring just happiness away. Astral harbours, touched portals, redshank, still‐backed, golden knapweed, wrack‐heather, down stream squill, godwit dawn. Read the poetry of Ashley Bovan Read a profile of Ashley Bovan We Welcome Poet Julie Brooks Barbour To Our Pages
 Julie Brooks Barbour
Music for the Night, Music for the Day To have been a farmer’s bride, rising alone, eating toast and sausage before waking the children, husband already out in the barn, collecting tools for the day’s work, or on a cold morning littering the floor with splinters of wood. Instead, I married a poet and his child who lie awake listening to the night, who darken their rooms against the morning light that I still revere no matter how I wed. They pose questions to the dark, follow the phases of the moon, speak to its many eyes and mouths. From those dark spaces they hear music, soft and indiscernible to me, songs loosened by a beam of light from the hall or my own voice calling out to those chords. Lover of the morning, I swoon to the crow’s rough call and the dove’s soft whisper. They court the barred owl’s shivered chant, the dog’s lonesome aria. Each in our own worlds, I marry the farmer and take my breakfast alone. Julie Brooks Barbour is the author of the chapbook Come To Me and Drink (Finishing Line Press, 2012), where this poem originally appeared. She received an MFA in Creative Writing from UNC-Greensboro and is a recipient of an Artist Enrichment Grant from Kentucky Foundation for Women. Her poems have appeared in Waccamaw, Kestrel, diode, Connotation Press: An Online Artifact, The Rumpus, storySouth, and on Verse Daily, and anthologized in Bigger Than They Appear: Anthology of Very Short Poems, and The Way North: Collected Upper Peninsula New Works. She lives in Michigan where she teaches at Lake Superior State University and co-edits the journal Border Crossing. Her website can be found at juliebrooksbarbour.weebly.com. Read. Now on VerseWrights: Poet Harriet Shenkman
 Harriet Shenkman
Hunger In the old country, he nibbled the edges off bread his mama baked to sell while his papa spent his days bent over ancient texts. On these shores, father railed at God, scoffed at Talmudic arguments, held a lifelong grudge against hunger. He sat at the kitchen table, reverent over a bowl of berries, a bit of soused herring, a ripe cantaloupe. Later, his brain addled, he thought himself escaping through the woods, and in the morning, we found bread crusts under his pillow. Harriet Shenkman, Ph.D. is a Professor Emerita at City University of New York. She serves on the Advisory Board of the Women’s National Book Association, NYC. She was awarded second place in poetry in the Women’s National Book Association National Writing Contest, 2013. She serves currently as Poet-in-Residence at BoomerCafe.com. Her poems have been published in a number of publications and she is currently working on a collection entitled Sweet and Sour Soup. She lives in New York with her husband Jerry and has three children. Read. A Welcome to Poet: Michelle McGrane
 Michelle McGrane
If You Are Lucky If you are lucky you will carry one night with you for the rest of your life, a night like no other. You won't see it coming. Forget the day, the year. It will arrive uninvolked, an astrological anomaly. You will remember how every cell in your body knew him, this stranger, how you held your breath, the way you searched his face. This is how such evenings begin. And you will be real in your skin, bone and sinew; the way you always thought you could be. Effortlessly. This is how you will fit together. His parted lips between your thighs, your half-lit nipples darkening, the hot-breathed arrival of desire, the frenzied coupling as you opened soundlessly and the world flooded into you. In the morning, maybe, soon after sunrise you will walk barefoot above a waterfall in the forest, light-headed with the smell of sex, laughing in your déshabillée. You will carry the music of this memory with you; and from time to time, in the small, withered hours, your body will sing its remembering. Read Michelle McGrane's poetry Read a profile of Michelle McGrane Now on VerseWrights: Poet Dennis McHale
 Dennis McHale
Fallen Angel He writes for a fallen angel but the rhymes don’t appear, not in words, but in stilted verse, in outpourings of watered down love. She spreads her wings and hunts the night. What the poet will not write is, You hunger for your father’s love; It never was, but may you find through the spilling of my ink Some noble affection upon which to rest. But I cannot touch your pain. He drinks a toast to the memory of her beauty. No one wants her faded charms this night. She stands beneath a waning moon with a single tear, a cigarette from her too red un-kissed lips. The cars no longer slow down to guess her meaning. She traces a vein to where the needles brought peace a million times. I hear your poem, thank you but I must be home to where the razor whispers. Dennis McHale is an emerging Southern poet and author currently working on two anthologies, The Winter Bites My Bones and Echoes Across Time, and is the recipient of the True Boardman Oratorical Award, and The Shirley Joseph Memorial Award. He has been previously published in the Indiana University’s Journal of Arts and Literature and Dominican University’s Penguin. He writes poignant, contemporary, semi-autobiographical verse. Dennis is originally from the town of Brevard in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. He is currently on a three year “writing” journey across America with his wife, Kerri Overacker McHale, and their springer spaniel, Lord Byron. Read. New From Kelli Russell Agodon
 Kelli Russell Agodon
Fragments of a Dissected Word Because it’s easier to rename, to change what I can’t fix-- now depression belongs to someone else. I mix up the letters and say, I’m just taking care of Red’s ponies, instead of having to say I’m falling apart. And I take this word further, say I am filled with sin or speed, piss or need, or deep sins-- deep deep sins. But this word--depression —I read it inside out: persons die, a ripened SOS. And when it’s around, I become a side person, posed, risen, I am opened, sirs. I can rearrange the letters but I cannot arrange it from my life. Like playing Clue: it was sis in the den with a rope, I keep waiting to find out the ending, Rose, I spend my nights awake and all those years I didn’t tell you, I pressed on. Read Kelli the poetry of Kelli Russell Agodon Read a profile of Kelli Russell Agodon Meet Rowan Taw's "Jedi Sister"
 Rowan Taw
Jedi Skills of Grace, My Chinese-Buddhist Sister ☊ I return, lunch consumed. There’s still time before the Dalai Lama’s public teaching resumes. Grace’s smile radiates greeting, as she beckons me with her hand. “Join us” she instructs. Curious, my face questions - “We go see Dalai Lama: special group meeting." No hesitation – I join. Back of the arena, we file through double-doors They close behind us, and we wait corridor corralled, expectant with hope and excitement. I chat to Grace, I chat to others, group majority are strangers to me. As I stand in my new herd, a feeling gradually becomes conscious: my normally diminutive height, now, sees me with my head above the crowd. It dawns on me that I’m the ONLY white person here, everyone else is Chinese! I look back to the doors - should I retreat/escape? But the group is moving, I’m caught in the rip-tide; no use resisting, I’ll see where it takes me. Security looks serious: black suits and glasses, big shoulders, folded hands, wires curling from ears, observant, trained to spot anomalies, like me. He steps in.. to..I don’t know… I suspect interrogate or extricate, but Grace dismisses him with a wave of her hand, and the words: “She part of our group." Security steps back, echoing: “She’s part of the group." We continue along white winding passages, until we reach backstage doors. We are about to enter the room where we’ll meet His Holiness. Again we have to pass security. Different, but the same: suit, glasses, shoulders, hands, wires, and me: white and wide-eyed. He steps forward to waylay me. But Grace is there with her Jedi skills. It is as if she’d trained under Obi-Wan, her “She with group” translating to “These are not the droids you’re looking for," he repeats and steps aside…we enter. His Holiness speaks in Tibetan, his translator repeats in Mandarin, Grace whispers English in my ear. He holds hands with Grace, as he moves amongst us, photos are taken, and his robed attendants give us blessing pills. I’m heartened by his youthfulness - soft, glowing skin, so healthy. But, all too soon he has to leave to take the stage once more. In the quiet that follows, I ask: “Grace, I wasn’t supposed to be here, was I?” She looks puzzled, I continue: “the meeting.. was for Chinese..” She frowns at me, wags her finger. Etiquette of time and place no matter, as she remonstrates: “YOU know better – we all same heart!” Read Rowan Taw's poetry Read a profile of Rowan Taw Hear this poem read by Rowan Taw "Dominion," New From Foster Cameron Hunter
 Foster Cameron Hunter
Dominion There are more than ten thousand gallons of redemption red raining on every mile of my soul-cage protest parade. Yuppies and deadheads and Faberge Eggs flank the sidelines of the Road to Somewhere-- where I run the course of a one-man-million-man march, where I moonwalk over active mind-fields, where every impulse is a hair-trigger where rather than wait in line, shift the fabric of time. Read Foster Cameron Hunter's Poetry Read a profile of Foster Cameron Hunter We Welcome Cheryl Snell to VerseWrights
 Cheryl Snell
Know The tech’s wand slides down a jezebel breast. A spiked fist shivers the screen its cells vying for immortality. As if danger can only be known by its face not shape not shadow. The room goes cold with underwater voices: "We won’t know" until the biopsy the labs come back we get in there. Don’t flinch-- much worse will come-- the mass unzipped and appraised the scar’s mad map burning skin inward. And later when you unbutton your blouse for yet another white-coated crowd you’ll surrender like the nude at Manet’s picnic no longer listening to talk of cure and recurrence risk and benefit prediction and the probability that all this is necessary because we just never know. Cheryl Snell is the author of Prisoner’s Dilemma (Lopside Press Chapbook Competition winner, 2009) and five other collections of poetry. Her most recent novel, Shiva’s Arms (Writer’s Lair Books 2010) reflects her interest in all things South Indian, and her ongoing collaboration with expressionist painter Janet Snell can be followed on the sisters’ blog Scattered Light. Cheryl has had work chosen for a Best of the Net Anthology and is a three-time Pushcart Prize nominee. Her poems have appeared in many print journals, including Antietam Review, Potomac Review, River Oak Review, Comstock Review, and online in Stirring, Eclectica, Lily Lit Review, Boston Literary Review, and Snakeskin. Her work is widely anthologized. She lives in Maryland with her husband, a mathematical engineer. Read. |