Archive 10
April, 2014
"grande dame," A New Poem From Kathleen Rogers
 Kathleen 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 Read a profile of Kathleen Rogers Therese Sellers Brings Her Poetry To VerseWrights
 Therese 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 Read a profile of Therese Sellers We Welcome Poet and Artist Annette Makino to VerseWrights
 Annette Makino
Words and Images: Two Haiga 
Foster Cameron Hunter's Latest Poem
 Foster 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
 Shioka 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 Read a profile of Shloka Shankar We Welcome Poet Rita Odeh To The Pages Of VerseWrights
 Rita 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 Read a profile of Rita Odeh Janet Aalf's Newest Poem: "Heron, Mystic, Artist"
 Janet 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 Read a profile of Janet Aalfs "The Storyteller," A New Poem From Lauren Lola
 Lauren 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"
 Robert 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 Read a profile of Robert King Poet Natalie Keller Gives Us Two Short Lyrics
 Natalie 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
 Dick 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 Read a profile of Dick Jones Daniel Klawitter's Latest, "Doing it Well"
 Daniel 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 Read a profile of Daniel Klawitter Bethany Rohde Joins The Pages Of VerseWrights
 Bethany 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 Read a profile of Bethany Rohde Rosa Saba's Latest Poem, "cold cement"
 Rosa 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 Read a profile of Rosa Saba Wayne F. Burke Explores Words With "Words"
 Wayne 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"
 Marianne 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
 Mark 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 Read a profile of Mark MacDonald Samantha Reynolds' Latest Poem, "Second"
 Samantha 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 Read a profile of Samantha Reynolds Kelli Russell Agodon's "Speech Lessons"
 Kelli 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
 Katherine 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 Read a profile of Katherine Gallagher Diana Matisz Peers Into The Distance
Photograph: Diana Matisz
 Diana 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 Read a profile of Diana Matisz "This is Just," A New Short Lyric From Christopher Sanderson
 Christopher 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 Jacqueline Czel's Latest Poem, Read By E. Michael Desilets
 Jacqueline 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
Read a profile of Jacqueline Czel Experience this poem in the PoetryAloud area Melons, As Only Dan Shawn Can Imagine Them
 Dan 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 Read a profile of Dan Shawn Mary Grace Guevara's poem "when we move"
 Mary 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 Read a profile of Mary Grace Guevara A New Lyric From Joanna Suzanne Lee
 Joanna 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 Read a profile of Joanna Suzanne Lee Alexis Ivy "Comes Clean" In This Latest Poem
 Alexis 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 Read a profile of Alexis Ivy Tim Gardiner Brings His Poetry To VerseWrights
 Tim 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
 Milenko 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 Read a profile of Milenko Županović |