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Archive 10
April, 2014


"grande dame," A New Poem From Kathleen Rogers

PictureKathleen Rogers






grande dame

thick, sick perfumed parlor
an organ among many
a real raucous melody
other organs bewail
false high notes
 
dressed in sunday’s best
a smokey parlor gilded settees
lounge like a gentleman
till a stocking seam runs astray
cravat strangles adam’s apple 
 
pushed up
creamy, dreamy moons
some day man will land on one
insert flag
claim possession
this smokey parlor
girls for rent, gonorrhea extra

Read the poetry of Kathleen Rogers
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Therese Sellers Brings Her Poetry To VerseWrights

PictureTherese Sellers






from
Seventeen Morning Haiku


2
Black and white morning.
Beware the red-eyed spider
In her world wide web.

6
The iron’s sharp nose
Starts at the corner, nudges,
Smooths my wrinkled day.

9
Gentle reader, you
Make the verse worth living,
The day worth writing.

12
I’d forgotten crows.
Their loud argument woke me,
Freed me from myself.

14
Wind from the ocean
Howls over the barren earth.
All it knows of love.

Read the poetry of Therese Sellers
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We Welcome Poet and Artist Annette Makino to VerseWrights

PictureAnnette Makino





Words and Images: Two Haiga

Picture
Picture
Encounter the work of Annette Makino
Read a profile of Annette Makino


Foster Cameron Hunter's Latest Poem

PictureFoster Cameron Hunter




Escape from the Beautiful but Too Small Box


In the puddle of our
elation she and I spoon,
rapt by the buoyancy of being.
Electric current comes in mega-loads
and hums around us,
through us.
 
We bask in heaven’s limelight,           
envy of the angels.
Juiced on dopamine cocktail,       
we two with one eye,
delight in Psyche’s dance       
through sunshine’s
moon-lit alter-ego.
With a wink and a nod
we are dismissive,
her performance is fleeting fancy.
 
Now unattached to her,         
swaddled in the Spirit,
we breech the black hole
horizon of orgasm’s little death.
There we revel until
 
the resurrection of arousal.

Read the poetry of Foster Cameron Hunter
Read a profile of Foster Cameron Hunter



Poet Shloka Shankar Joins VerseWrights' Pages

PictureShioka Shankar





Mr. and Mrs.

She knew how he
wanted his things:

in place, all shiny
and museum-like,
never once a speck of dust
covering them or disarrayed
in any way.

He knew what she needed
the most:

like a little bird that
flitted around the house,
his heart was her nest;
cozy, untidy and all hers.


Vertrag, 1919

Wounded egos sought
repairs while the victors
remained undefeated.
The Allies seemed
heavy-handed and
the opposite camp
was routed.

Peace or no peace,
war had ended.

Faith fled the
honest Christian,
anarchy reigned,
demons were resurrected
and power enthralled all.
Prufrock stood heralding
the new nation.

Read the poetry of Shloka Shankar
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We Welcome Poet Rita Odeh To The Pages Of VerseWrights

PictureRita Odeh




Haiku and Tanka


at the gate...
stilling my waves,
I listen
to the fluttering
of inner butterflies

    ❧
not now, breeze...
the blossom's dream
isn't yet finished
    ❧
standing
in her own shadow...
Lot's Wife

    ❧
Mother's Day-
although I know she's gone,
I knock
and wait for the distant
mountain to grow green
    ❧
Wolf Moon-
hiding then seeking
the shadows


Read the poetry of Rita Odeh
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Janet Aalf's Newest Poem: "Heron, Mystic, Artist"

PictureJanet Aalfs




Heron, Mystic, Artist


...the plunge itself

their desire, a way to be

subsumed, consumed utterly

into their work.

                                        —Denise Levertov



A tall slate-blue bird walked

across the white rooftop.

Sharp talons splayed, it placed

each careful step, and turned



and paused. Feathers to shadow, stillness

liquid, every glowing curve,

and the pointed beak exact,

between us steel-framed glass,



each solid pane a mirage.

I have known

before and after,

more lasting than any wound,

the feeling in its gaze

I must attempt

to dance, though I fail
again and again, such a joyous failing.


Read the poetry of Janet Aalfs
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"The Storyteller," A New Poem From Lauren Lola

PictureLauren Lola





The Storyteller


Tell me a story
about where your life began
where you were raised
who loved you
and who you loved along the way
 
Tell me a story
about your friends and family
your mentors and mentees
your lovers and haters
the strangers you’d walk by
and the ones who you wished were in your life
 
Tell me a story
about your hobbies
your interests
your goals
your fantasies
your reality
 
Tell me a story
about your struggles
about what you overcame
about what you’re still overcoming
about who stuck by you
and who went away
 
Tell me a story
about your successes
both the believable and unbelievable
the work that came with it
and the obstacles along the way
 
Tell me a story
about the questions you’d ask
that you’ve spent hours pondering on
about the answers you find
and the theories you’re still toying with
 
Tell me a story
about your past lives
(if any)
who you were
what you experienced
and how it was enough
for you to be born again
 
Tell me a story
about your future
what you hope for
what you wish for
where you see yourself
and where you don’t
 
Tell me a story
about your present
what you’re thinking now
what you’re feeling now
what you’re doing now
and what you’re discovering now
 
Tell me a story
 
You press my head to your chest
and let your heartbeat do the talking


Read the poetry of Lauren Lola
Read a profile of Lauren Lola


Robert King's Poem,"The Bread Knife Of My Aunt"

PictureRobert King




The Bread Knife of My Aunt


Though one of the family’s smallest jokes,
the blade having worn into a thin curve
through the lives of many loaves,
it was still the good knife. So where was I,
anyway, when death made it
wholly unnecessary, then lost?
 
Now in my father’s battered toolbox
I find a screwdriver he chiseled,
twisted, and pried with until
it no longer serves its original purpose.
 
Earlier, holding a tarnished spoon once
mangled by mother in the new-fangled
garbage disposal: the wear our lives take
on whatever we happen to touch.
 
I wish now I had that knife.
I’d set it beside these two relics,
perhaps on an empty suitcase, preparing
a table where no one will come to eat
in the presence of all our enemies.


Read the poetry of Robert King
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Poet Natalie Keller Gives Us Two Short Lyrics

PictureNatalie Keller




The Search


I might be a fool.
Sitting on a bench beside
some railroad tracks, waiting
for someone to jump out in
front of me – clever.
Wait long enough and the
world gives you something
to cry about. You wouldn’t
recognize me here, but you’d
know what I’m doing, what
we’ve always been doing,
searching for the last line
of this poem.


Please Understand

Please understand that there is something
effectively tucked away in these folds
of mine, something dark and dangerous
and perhaps a bit insane with the surprise
of itself, and it’s black and covered with
the coal-dust of everyday wonderings and
I can’t promise you won’t be touched if
you peer even a little bit into those places
of me where it’s ripped open the bars and
exposed itself to the Out There.

Read the poetry of Natalie Keller
Read a profile of Natalie Keller


Dick Jones Brings Us Skyward In His Latest Poem

PictureDick Jones






Superstitions

Across my godless sky 
a magpie skids, 
a barcode flash, 
trailing misfortune.
I paint a cross 
onto the air. 
And then that night 
it’s the full moon 

bagged in clouds 
swollen with snow.
I must drop 
three wishes into 

her milk-heart 
before the clouds 
hustle her away. 
In a last heartbeat 

of light, I invest 
a trio of dreams. 
But silently, as if 
to confound negotiation, 

snow fills the bowl 
of the universe, 
the sky falls to meet 
the rising earth 

and the seams 
are drawn. White 
darkness, a breast 
of feathers. Without

my lodestars, compass 
spinning, this sailor
must dead-reckon
his course alone.

Read the poetry of Dick Jones
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Daniel Klawitter's Latest, "Doing it Well"

PictureDaniel Klawitter





Doing it Well

“It is better to accomplish a little well
than a great deal unsatisfactorily.”
     —Socrates, in Plato’s Theaetus. 


Once upon a time
our legs entwined
around each other
like vines.
 
Reaching for something more
beyond the veil--
behind the door of ourselves.
 
Your body laid out a landscape
like dunes on the beach.
 
The gentle slopes and curves
shifting
as I reached for the two
crescent moons of your rising
tasting sand and
wild peach.
 
I remember you above me
like some desperate dark angel--
your fierce black hair hung
in tangles
and me below, transfixed--
my voice strangled
no longer able to resist
the epiphany of our nakedness.
 
And so, we clung to each other
like rain-soaked birds of prey.
 
Our prayers and promises
murmured in a haze
of…dare I say it?
Dionysian bliss.
 
We did many things badly, it’s true--
until those promises went to hell.
But not this.
This we did quite well.

Read the poetry of Daniel Klawitter
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Bethany Rohde Joins The Pages Of VerseWrights

PictureBethany Rohde




Nonstop Dad


If I take all of these fractured treasures
kept beneath my folded arms
(where life's still beating, double-thumping
all throughout sore body parts)

If I take all of these bits collected
sacred flecks of memory-flashes
embodied in his flannel jacket
and faint tones of whispered prayers

If I take all of these life-notes gathered
Divine cord always connective
and toss them up, blitz-flash! in star-shy sky
then you'll see part of his firework colors
            why they ignite and why they cry:

I see that copper pipe he's fitting
blue-eyed calm, soft everlistening
Mom's live grass now freshly mowing
peach-cheeked kids press in for nuzzling
and I see red             for another something

And when that crushing show is over
when it hushes down, down
down
Please know it's not evaporated
all those bits I've recollected
know they're safe beneath
my folded arms


Read the poetry of Bethany Rohde
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Rosa Saba's Latest Poem, "cold cement"

PictureRosa Saba
cold cement

cold cement reminds me
of the steps outside school
where i balanced myself on the railing
and stood on that column
feeling better
than the people below me

cold cement makes me think
of the road outside my house
and the way the potholes filled
with wet maple leaves
after a day of autumn rain

cold cement, in my mind
is that long, straight road
hot beneath the summer sun
but still cool in the shade, and somehow
riding along that stretch
was always enough to calm me down

cold cement, to me
is the end of the line
and the transition from earth to rock
from open sky
to cityscape

cold cement, to me
is a love-hate relationship, really
as it began to grow on me
fond memories overlapping
the edges of the sidewalk
and washing over the toes of my boots

and cold cement, today
was somehow comforting
below me as i wavered
between burning and frozen
on the steps outside

i am no longer alone

Read the poetry of Rosa Saba
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Wayne F. Burke Explores Words With "Words"

PictureWayne F. Burke






Words

Words that burn holes in cigarettes
words that stand like buildings on
street corners
sugary words on snow
words on the run like 'tintinnabulation'
or on the rebound like 'ding-dong'
of sitting on their asses like 'plop' and 'glop'
words to sing about like 'serosanguineous'
words to write home about like 'lachrymose'
tarchycardic words to have a heart attack over,
sly words like 'estimable,' soft words like 'succor'
and 'demur,' nonunion words like 'whopper-doodle,'
dirty words like 'dipstick,' cute words like 'aver,'
words that should not be said in public like
'medulla oblongata,' words for a rainy day like 'lugubrious,'
suspect words like 'albeit,' Japanese words like 'hitherto,'
over-used words like 'cool,' power words like 'Om,'
words no one wants to hear any more like 'surreal,'
words that sound like loose change in your pocket, such as
'insufficient...'
Words and more words, up the ying-yang, down the hatch
as in the beginning, and forever.


Read the poetry of Wayne F. Burke
Read a profile of Wayne F. Burke



A New Poem From Marianne Paul: "pericardium"

PictureMarianne Paul




pericardium


the heart is a muscle nestled between the lungs
slightly to the left of the chest centre
keeps us off-
            balance
protected by the sternum at the front
spinal column at the back
physically, that is
for how do you protect the heart?
build your walls of breastbone
i suppose
 
a cage of calcium, then a membrane shell
the heart’s outer layer thick-skinned
and tough to pierce, the pericardium
 
four chambers of the heart
four, the number of perfection
four cardinal directions
four directions of the cross
the balance is deceptive, there is always a weaker
always a stronger
 
the septum separates
the left side                 from the right
as if the heart cannot bear itself
its own cross to bear
 
the thickest walls, the left ventricle
pumps blood to poetic places
arterioles and arteries
veins and venules and capillaries
the thinnest walls, the right atrium
is the place of vulnerability;
a gladdened heart
makes this sound: lub-a-dup lub-a-dup
the saddened heart clicks, snaps, whooshes
murmurs
sighs


Read the poetry of Marianne Paul
Read the profile of Marianne Paul


Two New Poems From Poet Mark MacDonald

PictureMark MacDonald




Ripened on the Vine


Today we are two tomatoes—
Beef-Steak Tomatoes
just ripening on the vine--
just taking in some rays,

turning bright shades of red
at your Grandfather’s farm

just outside of Hoboken on a
Sunday afternoon in June.

“It’s great to be tomatoes on your
Grandfather’s farm near Hoboken,”

I’m thinking. “It is splendid
to be red in New Jersey in June.”


My Move

On a rock covered shoreline on the coast of Lake                 Superior:
it is late in September and the weather has turned.
We are sitting by a fire at dusk, wearing thick sweaters

and discussing the things we must do to make ready
the cabin for the white heavy Titan of winter.
Slowly, you lean close to me then tuck up your neck

and your cheek to my shoulder: “The wind is picking
up off the lake.” you say, “it’s getting too cold for me
now and I think I will go inside.” What else can I do?

The moon’s disappeared, the loons have stopped
laughing, the fire is dying and I want to stay next to you.

Read the poetry of Mark MacDonald
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Samantha Reynolds' Latest Poem, "Second"

PictureSamantha Reynolds





Second

I tell you that this is
a very exciting story

in the way that parents
talk to kids
to get them to do things
like turn off the light

and then I whisper
that I once auditioned
for the role of Dorothy
and came in second

I’ve been meaning to tell you this
ever since you fell in love
with the Wizard of Oz
so I tell you about the call-backs
and the way your granny
braided my hair

but it’s dark
because you turned off the lights
like I planned
so I didn’t see
that you were crying
until it was too late

I wish you had won

you sob this
into my body
not to comfort me
for this flood of grief
is for you

surprising us both
as it gushed out of the cracks
where your confidence in me
once held firm.


Read the poetry of Samantha Reynolds
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Kelli Russell Agodon's "Speech Lessons"

PictureKelli Russell Agodon





Speech Lessons
    The fewer words the better prayer
          —Martin Luther

Because the girl didn’t speak
until she was sixteen,
when she spoke

a bicycle rolled from her tongue,
spinning down a hill

past the stop sign, a red sink
of pots to the dyslexic housewife,

past a charm of goldfinches,
a storytelling of ravens,
an alphabet of jays,

past a mailbox of chain letters
and the mailman humming
a bag filled with notes.

Because the girl confused language
for languor, she rested her head
on a pillow and the bicycle

crashed into the headboard,
wheels spinning, spokes
flying into prayer.


Read the poetry of Kelli Russell Agodon
Read a profile of Kelli Russell Agodon


It is A Balancing Act For Katherine Gallagher

PictureKatherine Gallagher






The Trapeze-Artist's First Performance

She has practised the tightrope,
daily spinning her taut body
afloat in territory
she would claim as hers.
 
Now the audience is waiting,
they bamboozle her with flowers.
The scene is drunk on air –
its nothingness
that she must navigate.
 
Suddenly her head's a map,
a study in letting go.
Below – the fall, the odds.
 
She throws her act to the audience –
it carries her to them, their rows
of faces. And it is her sky
they give back,
balancing her with their eyes.


Read the poetry of Katherine Gallagher
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Diana Matisz Peers Into The Distance

Picture
Photograph: Diana Matisz
PictureDiana Matisz






Distance is a Greedy Bitch

she's slight and sly
cowled in a cilice of stolen hours
loose threads of conversations
unraveled from lips of lovers
before the needle can mend the tear
she walks a crooked path
to best conceal deceit, zig-zagging
along perimeters of lush and
fertile hearts, seeded with tender
shoots of burgeoning affections
her skeletal fingers claw to ragged wounds
the soft carapace of vestal passion
the pain of her wet and dirty work felt most
in moments before the onset of need
the thrum of it in bloodlines
her call to feast voraciously
and so, there is no recourse
but to strike her dead
or at the very least
lop off her legs
to cripple her stride


Read the poetry of Diana Matisz
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"This is Just," A New Short Lyric From Christopher Sanderson

PictureChristopher Sanderson




This is Just
  ☊

This is just
Just, for
Just you!

Musk
Magic touch 
Touch of blue

This is just
In place of musk
In place of touch

For you
Never blue
I give you truth

That’s all you ever asked


Read the poetry of Christopher Sanderson
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Jacqueline Czel's Latest Poem, Read By E. Michael Desilets

PictureJacqueline Czel





The Poet in Love
  ☊

He said, you don't see it, when I work,
and tinker with tools and gadgets to install.
It's pure poetry - Oh, it's poetry after all.

He said, you don't see it, when I shout,
vent and vote out injustice at the town hall.
It's pure poetry - Oh, it's poetry after all.

He said, you don't see it, when I scream
and rail on the couch at an uncaught ball.
It's pure poetry - Oh, it's poetry after all.

He said, you don't see it, when trash and
all things truly heavy is left for me to haul.
It's pure poetry - Oh, it's poetry after all.

He said, you don't see it, when I want to
love you and leave you limp like a rag doll.
It's pure poetry - Oh, it's poetry after all.

He said, you don't see it, when I refuse to
beg and resist the urge to verbally brawl.
It's pure poetry - Oh, it's poetry after all.

He said, you don't see it - All that's good
and the long love letters I mentally scrawl.
It's pure poetry - Oh, it's poetry after all.

He said, you don't see it, when I accede
to coldness, as you once again stone wall.
It's pure poetry - Oh, it's poetry after all.

He said, you don't see it, when I'm out
with the guys on an innocent  pub crawl.
It's pure poetry - Oh, it's poetry after all.

He said, you don't see it, when I cry in my
drink for want of warmth and begin to drawl.
It's pure poetry - Oh, it's poetry after all.

He said, you don't see it, when I mutter and
mumble as I stumble, and sprawl after I fall,
b/c you don't know poetry - poetry at all.


Read the poetry of Jacqueline Czel
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Experience this poem in the PoetryAloud area

Melons, As Only Dan Shawn Can Imagine Them

PictureDan Shawn





Heirlooms

you once dreamed
of a melon
and the boy
who butchered it
with a ballpoint pen
as though he was carving out
the back of the neck
of the white man
who killed his father
long ago on the
Nebraska prairie

but now those
melons
sit neatly in a room
under the glow of
ultraviolet lamps
aside the petri dishes

and you watch contently
as the whirring meters
pump plasma into them
and yes
you can feel it inside

an eyeball can be peeled
you say
but not like a grape
and anyway
melons should not be tampered with
those small citadels of virtue
wisdom and power
much too much
like us
when we sleep

Read the poetry of Dan Shawn
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Mary Grace Guevara's poem "when we move"

PictureMary Grace Guevara





when we move

when we move
 the beat goes off center &
        dives into an exquisite fusion-
high&low, crash&burn as if
       time is one long meandering s-e-c-o-n-d
slowly the hardness in our eyes
      & troubled words fall on floor
smoke dissolves us
     green & light instead of black & weary fighters
we listen as the man grooves his heart
      & guts in his music, our sky retracts 
as we find our pulse,
     verses bare with excitement
flexes then another Ripple
     moves us like water  filled
with eXpectancy
     optimism tears our chest, now a forest
we forget our scars
     battles that broke our wings, instead
we run, RuN aWay
     as if nOthing needs mending
                                                     nothing


Read the poetry of Mary Grace Guevara
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A New Lyric From Joanna Suzanne Lee

PictureJoanna Suzanne Lee
   
   


it is a long way since 17, but


by midsummer i 
am all riversand and 
freckles, inkdreaming

in a language re-
born from murk
and rivermud. 

and though
it is good growing 
weather, all 

sticky rain
and cloudless 
noons, my vinedark 

currents are slow to crawl, 
slow as the sun eats
shadow. 

snugged close
on a narrow doorstep,
swatting mosquitoes

seems suddenly 
like some kind of love. 
so we soak up each 

heavy july evening
as if we knew 
we weren't meant

to last. as if fall
were already falling.
as if this were

another country 
song dripping
to its end.

Read the poetry of Joanna Suzanne Lee
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Alexis Ivy "Comes Clean" In This Latest Poem

PictureAlexis Ivy




Come Clean


I used to ask
people to kick my
ass. I don’t do
that anymore.
 
Used to go over-
board every day,
refused to wear
underwear, walked-
 
the-plank plenty. 
No longer my hat
is an ace’s fit
that made me drawl,
 
made me laugh, made
me tremble.  Sure.
Let me be from somewhere
: Montana, Alabama,
 
anywhere but snow
and all things seasonal
that never last.
I’m up from where
 
I’ve been.  No rain,
no hiding, no hard hide
brim to keep me from
the heat-click stars.


Read the poems of Alexis Ivy
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Tim Gardiner Brings His Poetry To VerseWrights

PictureTim Gardiner




The Wreck


Resting on your rotting spine
A timber skeleton in the mud,
Seaweed wraps your fragile bones
Like a dripping funeral shroud.
Hostage to the eternal tide
No sanctuary in this backwater,
Under the brightest harvest moon
A decaying wreck cannot hide.
Hope flows into your gut twice a day
Lifeblood soon cruelly ebbs away.
Teeming with elvers for a moment
Strangers to your silent torment.
For this ship will never again sail
Or hear purposeful feet on deck,
A ghost of the depressed slipway
Enduring decades of lonely neglect.
Lying in the marsh’s graveyard
Over which barn owls hunt at dusk,
Slowly your remains are swallowed
By succulent samphire and purslane
Until just a few sad splinters remain.


Read the poetry of Tim Gasrdiner
Read a profile of Tim Gardiner


We Welcome Poet Milenko Županović To VerseWrights

PictureMilenko Županović













[In English/Croatian]

Spark

Passing river
under the bridge
applies flame
from the ashes of youth
wrinkled face in the water
reflect the old man
hiding the tears
the last spark.

Iskra

Prolazi rijeka
ispod mosta
odnosi plamen
sa zgarišta mladosti
u naboranom licu vode
ogleda se starac
suze skrivaju
posljednju iskru.

❧

Passage

Unknown symbols
etched in stone
passage
time light
glass hall
the night of the monastery.

Prolaz

Nepoznati simboli
urezani u kamenu
prolaz
vremena svetlosti
staklene dvorane
samostana u noći.


Read the poetry of Milenko Županović
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