Archive 13
July, 2014
Steve Green Ponders: What Is The True Obscenity? Steve Green
Thought Police Wardrobe malfunction! we just got flashed a nip (gasp!) Flat screens are steaming! Dirty little boys everywhere wet dreaming! Did that hairy degenerate just drop an F Bomb? Bleep his murky mouth! Seven second delay his gosh darn profanity! Blood and gore always may pass It's taboo body zones that make us aghast lapping fig leaves over offensive body parts Censorship too is art Gotta protect innocent kiddies from seductive video vice We need to bubble wrap them all 1950's black and white antiseptic Enter the Thought Police Our moral wall of shame Swatting down themes they deem obscene Cultural guardians Forever offended Playing gotcha games like good vigilantes do Wouldn't it be lovely if just for once their moral indignation could be aimed at the true obscenity of injustice? Read the poetry of Steve Green Read a profile of Steve Green Jacqueline Czel's Poem For Phillip Seymour Hoffman Jacqueline Czel
Method Actor TOO many clean years have gone by, running together in one long line of littered lingo, words on a page, a well scripted, scripted, something to say, to memorize, needling and wheedling words for many strangers curious eyes. in the boom lights, a lit up site, a stage set, another shoebox diorama on the shelf scripted, scripted THE END THE END for him and his actor's alter ego, a dramatic catharsis pushed upon himself, one final, heart stopping performance, viewed by no one else. (Rest easy Phillip Seymour Hoffman) Read the poetry of Jacqueline Czel Read a profile of Jacqueline Czel A Warm Welcome To Novelist And Poet Mark Gordon Mark Gordon
Night Train Admit it. Something is chasing you. You hear it in the laughter of the children, as if they are embracing trees, will never let them go. You ask yourself: how long ago did you speak to trees, how long ago did you reign along the seashore, master of the waves? Let it up. Something is chasing you like the shadow of a leopard and you cannot help but admire the burning green eyes, the soft pad of the feet past midnight. Admit it. Sometimes you feel like a sack of flesh used up, its days numbered in wrinkles. Your wife says: you seemed not yourself today, more serious than usual, preoccupied. Admit it. You are having an affair with something far off that sounds like a train at night, crossing a scored land, crying for you to board. Read the poetry of Mark Gordon Read a profile of Mark Gordon "Tankart," Created By Poet/Artist Debbie Strange Debbie Strange
One of five new works I unfold my origami self and swim into a lake of fire washing my hair in ashes the crane-legged words of a thousand burning poems 
We Welcome Poet Jessica L. Davis to VerseWrights Jessica L. Davis
again not bodies together but words a gateway to closer exchanged for touch again after deveining each leaf holding each stone in our mouths we missed something again grit left after spitting pine needles in my hair an extra note caught in the warbler's chest and yet again What Isn't Mine my hand separating pages into holy moments my bosom the waiting cradle of what he meant to say my exhale the collusion in letting go Read the poetry of Jessica L. Davis Read a profile of Jessica L. Davis "Welcome," A New Poem From Ana Caballero Ana Caballero
Welcome It’s not like I don’t ask nice. Not like I have more than one shelf. Every night I make room, but it is for one single plate. And every afternoon it is I who sets it down. Who offers you or you or you the chance to give thanks. To be the one who makes another fold his hands. In my home, it is you who hosts, and I am compelled to be charmed. Call it grace. Call it world talk. Call it an open heart, straight teeth that will always call you back. Read the poetry of Ana Caballero Read a profile of Ana Caballero "Wildflowers," A New Poem From Stephanie Brennan Stephanie Brennan
Wildflowers Remember when you proposed that first time my wheels started spinning and I don’t mean the bicycle wheels we were riding at the time though I did speed up, didn’t I put a little distance between us I remember it was twilight the sun an orange giant on the horizon cicadas ramped up their love songs just for us I was afraid you were needy I didn’t want to take care of you I wanted us to take care of each other But you persevered, didn’t you twice more you asked the third time you got down on one knee, so chivalrous, so old-fashioned you waited patiently for trust to grow like those sunflowers we planted that one year they bowed their heads, remember and smiled down at us This morning I picked these wildflowers quite a color combination, isn’t it remember when we tossed the seeds to the wind, laughing, I so loved your laugh you brought me handfuls every morning in summer the house awash in color and all that lavender I thought it smelled like fresh laundry It’s ironic, isn’t it I worried you might be needy and in the end I would have given anything to take care of you but your heart wouldn’t allow it you did everything on your own terms dying included you’ve given me years unimaginable years enough to last me two lifetimes yours and mine enjoy these wildflowers my darling I’ll be back tomorrow Read the poetry of Stephanie Brennan Read a profile of Stephanie Brennan A New Work From Poet John Alwyine-Mosely John Alwyine-Mosely
When winter, remember spring Berries ripe black to pick in autumn light with hands, cold from dampness, cardinal stained, as bruised fruit scents the air. You taste the summer gone, maternal moments lost in spring as a deer rustles by. When home, fragrant water simmers, for harvest fruits washed clean to weigh on brass and click scales. Each bowl thorns when to lean down brought salted tears not smiles. Trickling through rough fingers fruit flops into pan and pops thick. Berries flavour licking good for pectin test You release methylated memories: camping holidays, picnics, cold nights. Time, as evening moon rises, to add sugar and trap morning smells for the breakfast bite of spring. You measure heat and fear the farewells if the pop of broken glass tinkles goodbye. Adding butter to cleanse, the pan is lifted to pour, into cloth held crystal clear jars, while jam falls as slow motion waterfall. You twitch your nose as steam stars glisten on window panes as her smile. Wax paper, scentless like the candles lit, crackles as wrapped around the necks sealing in flavours for the darkness. You know your regrets and neglects but at each spring taste she laughs. Read the poetry of John Alwyine-Mosely Read a profile of John Alwyine-Mosely Three Very Short Poems From Leslie Philibert Leslie Philibert
Still Life dark fruit hard and autumnal beyond grey be empty to perfection devoted to silence in all things at home The Soul she looked puzled and laid her book between the tea cups and asked me if the soul was a woman and I said it is now. The North is Winter The North is Winter. Ringing cold. Nameless stars. A coastal trawler With a ballast of dead souls. Shaken into the waves. The night tugs at my sleeve As a child would so. Nameless cold. Ringing stars. Read the poetry of Leslie Philibert Read a profile of Leslie Philibert Two Poems From The Pen Of Charles Bane, Jr. Charles Bane, Jr.
You a Certain Chord You a certain chord or movement of a dance as you crash in a tide and spill like music or drugs into blood and we down onto sheets, your hair in kapok roots and I think: what bird is this, with wings outspread, crying under me? Isn't It Amusing Isn’t it amusing that they think we’re too old for...and don’t see when our passion stirs? They don’t notice your hand reaching over to arrange my letters in the middle of the game. Do you know I love those hands most tenderly when they’re making tea? And then, again, in the middle of the night when you touch my arm and, wordless, ask me to begin a ballet. You know, I think making love to you starts in the music of steps in snow or your look into your purse for a lozenge when my mouth is dry. Yes, that’s the flag, that’s the pointing daystar. Read the poetry of Charles Bane, Jr. Read a profile of Charles Bane, Jr. |
Two New Poems From Mark MacDonald Mark MacDonald
Plot #245 ~for Trayvon Martin I want to de-mean things, take away context and historical background—let each man and woman lie nameless and orphaned from themselves and their phone numbers. Who is this child found shot on the lawn? To what estranged mothers and fathers does he truly belong? There is a monument shaped liked an obelisk in the middle of the Capitol; The General on Horseback in the midst of the rain. But where is the tomb for the causeless and the ghosts along the train tracks—the map-less lieutenants and their floundering platoons? The Last Pioneer ~for Johnny Perhaps it was the sun and its train of yellow smoke that carried him away to the waters just over the mountain. Sometimes in the evening he would stare in that direction, standing out on the porch with a cigarette and a beer, looking at nothing in particular and speaking in general terms about the changes in the neighborhood: The children moved away from their parents to Dallas, LA and Seattle—the closing of the plant and the illness of a friend. Perhaps it was the geese he watched glide over the house that sealed his final decision to leave her behind, pack up the truck and head the hell out to Wyoming—live quietly in a cabin, hunt his own meat, tend a few horses and drink whiskey with the cowboys in a tavern just down the way. Read the poetry of Mark MacDonald Read a profile of Mark MacDonald Two Windows, Two Poems, from Poet Sherry Chandler Sherry Chandler
Out of the North Window A downy woodpecker spirals up the dogwood like stripes spiraling up a barber pole. A walnut, fallen into the hollow where the trunk splits, has turned from green to black. The bird taps here, taps there, exploring. This is not the jackhammer of serious purpose. The bird is looking but he has not found. A sprout arches into the buttress of a branch, the feral cat’s viaduct to the roof. The woodpecker pays her no mind. A catbird clings to the window frame, wing-beating its reflection. Unable to hold onto the tenuous perch, it retreats to a nearby twig. Cat, catbird, and the day are gray. The tree sports a few red berries, and the woodpecker is Harlequin with red cockade. He flits away to the ash in pattering rain. Out of the South Window Although the bicycle’s programed hills scroll past with calculated speed, I see through mirrored knees a plane cleaved by the vertical thrust of two venerable black locusts, bark shaggy with Virginia creeper. Swags droop from limbs overarching the line of the driveway. All my domain is thus divided into parts. No branches sway, no bird flutters, nothing relieves this geometry, but the slow fall of a leaf. I crane my neck. The twilight at eye level is broken by glints of sun on the locust crowns. A zephyr catches a white pine needle caught by spider silk, swings it in a slow arc across the window, lets it go to float back out of sight. Read the poetry of Sherry Chandler Read a profile of Sherry Chandler Tracey Gunne Brings Her Poetry To VerseWrights Tracey Gunne
Moon Ripened There were too many drafts in that cottage by the lake doors kept slamming in your head You swam naked in the evenings past the shallow waters closer to the deep end where the moon's light glazed over creases in your skin I stayed on shore still warm with the sun's impending kisses Once a week the mail came we walked barefoot on the gravel path to greet him then when darkness fell your invitation he held in open palm warm and sticky I was too old to lean against his knee on the front porch And I knew he was too old to notice more than he should have the soft release of the oppressive breeze when my shirt surrendered His spirited voice whispering in my ear sounded like waves crashing as my body receded That entire summer you chased bats in the rafters with your bare hands the moon ripened flesh openly exposed Read the poetry of Tracey Gunne Read a profile of Tracey Gunne Daniel Klawitter's Latest Work, With His Reading Daniel Klawitter
Overflow & Commitment ☊ There is an old proverb, legislator, which we poets never tire of telling and which all laymen confirm, to the effect that when a poet takes his seat at the tripod of the Muse, he cannot control his thoughts. He’s like a fountain where the water is allowed to gush forth unchecked. –Plato, Laws IV. The truth is the muse is often fickle. She likes to be wooed. Sometimes she wants to be tickled, On other days, she is rude just to Start a quarrel that ends in a kiss. You scribble a line, but she Wants to hear it oral, recited with A twist of the tongue. Or she may Want it sung with full lungs, before She will bestow a laurel for your crown. If you try to force it, you will only Make her frown and bring yourself A world of woe. Courting her Requires daily discipline, attention To form, detail, and apprehensions. Then, the slow hard work accumulates Into the occasional grace of inspiration: The poem that seems to spring from Nowhere, fully-formed and articulate, An omnipotent storm of exaltation. And then it flows like a fountain- And you are drenched in words You composed but don’t know how You did it. But the muse knows Where water goes—it’s all about Commitment. A New Poem From Poet Sharon Brogan Sharon Brogan
My dead lover's lover My dead lover’s lover will visit me today. She was one of a crowd, invisible to me, ghosts flitting through our rooms, a glimpse, a hairpin in the bed sheets, an alien scent in the hollow of his shoulder. Our pasts unspool behind us, already obsolete, films poorly edited, suffering from murky narratives, weak direction, too many bad actors, too much left on the cutting room floor. What does forgiveness cost? Read the poetry of Sharon Brogan Read a profile of Sharon Brogan A "Slow Waltz" With Kelli Russell Agodon Kelli Russell Agodon
Slow Waltz Where Your New Life Meets Your Old Habits We lived or loved, or didn’t mow the lawn. We waited for dusk, for satellites, for the opening of a book or a door. We felt the only words were escape or escapade, yet we couldn't decide which to choose. We drank hot brandy on cold ridiculous nights and said how when pleasure refused us we would find it and knock it down. We said better than never, better let the checks roll in, better not be an impossible mailbox sealed shut. Maybe the thank you cards we never wrote for our wedding gifts that didn't matter. Maybe they’d just be paper crockpots stored in someone else’s home. We lived and loved, and did it in clover-filled grass. Maybe the miracle didn't resist us, maybe we just never found it, as we slept under a moon that kept trying to pin us down. Read the poetry of Kelli Russell Agodon Read a profile of Kelli Russell Agodon Two Poems By Janet Aalfs From Her New Collection Janet Aalfs
What the Dead Want Me to Know and light finds us with the other loves dawn sunders to define. ~Eavean Boland 6. A Bird's Tale Many who die become birds. I'd like to be one. An original tai chi sequence, Grasp the Bird's Tail, urges me to examine its homonym, each feathered word. Later in the form, more alive, Slant Flying, I'm there. Bones of lace admit the sky. This is what I know so far about dying. 12. Coyote Not there, but in my mind a fur-cloaked body hungry as an echo loped across Egypt Lake. I pondered the image and a presence grew. Wind through mountain laurel shivered green and licked the snow. Hiking to a further shore, I paused again in the sound of steps through crystal ice that hissed like shattered glass. From the future, or the past, you stopped and turned to show me who had called to whom – and your yellow eyes burned through the silent trees to mine, slate-blue. Read the poetry of Janet Aalfs Read a profile of Janet Aalfs Poet Sarah Russell Gives Us Her Latest Poem, "Prism" Sarah Russell
Prism Honey-thighed surf children chase the ebb, bare feet etching pockmarked sand. Another surge, crashing, scrambling, feardelighted squeals, tumbling water bubbles/babies catching sun beams. Scientists see tides and wind tug at eternity, the vast liquidity of earth. Poets find analogy: cosmic force pursuing, crushing fragile human frames and timid hearts, while sun-kissed fledglings' merriment is incidental, drily pondered – this ecstasy of splashing play. Read the poetry of Sarah Russell Read a profile of Sara Russell The Latest Poem From Poet Kim Talon Kim Talon
The Hush Silence envelops Even the clock who shows off every hour has wound down so the familiar tiiiick tock is absent where is the sound of Spring? Birdsong absent as if the chirrups of sparrows were caught by wind and taken clean away silence envelops No sigh of wind or dream-woof of dog stretched out in a skim-milk patch of sun on a cosy carpet The cats turn their noses up on windowsill haunts and curl upon soft chairs Read the poetry of Kim Talon Read a profile of Kim Talon "Laughing Gull," A New Poem From Ray Sharp Ray Sharp
Laughing Gull Such pickings! The four-legged-furry-bird-with-long-soft-beak tore a hole in the shiny-skin-sack and out spilled foods of many kinds. We flock to our breakfast. Be careful. Watch for the flightless tall-birds with their grotesque featherless wings tipped with more-than-two fat worms that wriggle and grasp and make the stones to fly like falcons at our beautiful black heads. Read the poetry of Ray Sharp Read a profile of Ray Sharp 
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Poet William Fraker Makes A Visit To The Hospital
William Fraker
Hospital Room Visit
Mostly silence followed learning about too many lesions to count. My reclusive cousin, of the same age, has thin hair, except for his beard. Several tubes import and export slowly. A patrician nose (I never noticed before) holds no glasses - they rest on a food tray. From time to time, he opens his eyes – “I am still here,” and “You are still here,” or maybe I misread altogether. He blinks twice to tell his nurse about his pain, eyelids as signal lamps. He accepts a spoonful of blended peaches with crushed medication. On his bedside, photographs of grandparents and parents beckon. The present spreads out, during the visit, like soft sheets and a hospital blanket. On the way home, I remember a week ago, when my cousin had his voice. I spoke of how, as children, we rode sleds down a snowy hill; he called me his friend. New Poem and Photo Art From Diana Matisz
Photo art by Diana Matisz
 Diana Matisz
I Thought of You Today... I thought of you today I felt that amaranthine rush and after all this time the flow began the slow bleed-out of good intentions I missed your eager thrusts into my mind, the physicality of your self-imposed distance, I missed the arch of your silence against my pulse I wanted you to be watching from another room, your eyes in rapt regard I wanted you to see me bleed, just once Read the poetry of Diana Matisz Read a profile of Diana Matisz "Hurt,"The Latest Poem From Heather Feaga Heather Feaga
Hurt Near-miss bullets Striking light Metal spread Closed-eye confetti Legs reach right Bent akimbo To double Ss Calipered apart She broke Splintered home Filling From the inside out His gruesome Turn of calf Fair skin facade A wood lathe Stretched across his back Hydraulic strides Closing the gait To the give way This love Masked Kidnapped I used to look At his shoulders As he stretched Now the curl and sleep That bit of hurt Pushing breath In the moment Held by bones Shattered Read the poetry of Heather Feaga Read a profile of Heather Feaga Three Brief Poems From Poet L.L.Barkat L.L.Barkat
Mushrooms
Just you and I, let’s truffle let’s shiitake let’s button (and unbutton). Laundry love is tangled shirts the hem of a skirt caught in the brass button of your jeans. Mulberries 1 While the mourning dove is still sleeping, before the sun can waken her, I kneel beneath the mulberry tree. You will know this without me speaking when you open my stained palm. 2 Will you. 3 Long now, I have missed the mulberries. Read the poetry of L.L.Barkat Read a profile of L.L. Barkat "Whys Can Sigh," New From Dunstan Carter Dunstan Carter
Whys Can Sigh I looked deep in her eyes And saw nothing but you, I pieced together The words she unraveled, Bored and obtuse, I turned them into song And sung soft till the walls Took your shadows, Brought your scent here To remind me I’m drifting, A cornucopia Of imagined birdsong Greeting you In these windows reflecting, Distant whispers, The hours we spent here Talking wet rhymes and laughter, The guessing games And the patter, Does it matter I was wrong? Whys can sigh And then rise Now you’re gone. Read the poetry of Dunstan Carter Read a profile of Dunstan Carter A New Poem From Poet Ellen Conserva Ellen Conserva
To Foster Was given a Plot of land. A space, Not taking up A big place In this world. Was given a Task to turn And hoe And break up Clods and churn The earth, The dirt with care So someone else Could kindly Come and plant There. When my task was Done, The rain and the Sun And the seed bearer Do their work To sow And tend And weed And cry “Look how you Grow!” Was given a Life, A hole To fill. And I love you, So. Note: Ellen Conserva fosters orphaned children in Thailand from shortly after birth until they are given to adopting parents. Read the poetry of Ellen Conserva Read a profile of Ellen Conserva We Welcome Poet Witty Fay To The Pages Of VerseWrights Witty Fay
Accrual of habit Love never changes midweek. It takes a long weekend To ruin the random understanding Of its death, The agony of longing and all those Broken embraces hanging midair. I wish I could settle on a kiss As my first move, But then, there are cinders In my mouth and a great heaviness Coiling at my feet, And the taste of burned dreams Seems sad as well as bitter. Still, today is a young Wednesday, So let us agree on A trace of gentle tenderness And speak less through the week. Read the poetry of Witty Fay Read a profile of Witty Fay We Welcome Poet Jerry Danielsen To VerseWrights Jerry Danielsen
iWant iNeed to know what's up - what's going on? iHave to feed my addiction iPhone injected into my central nervous system iPad the truth iFeel the vibrating pulsating alert iTouch the anxious frenzy iStrap on turn on put it in me iBoot up background noise masquerading as more iNformation The Little Chair Held up a man who spoke to himself as he typed into a laptop And the little wooden chair didn't know about circuitry or words or Starbucks And she wondered why these things are more important than her mother tree Just so a man can sit on her while talking to himself bewildered Read the poetry of Jerry Danielsen Read a profile of Jerry Danielsen Two New Poems From Poet Sejla Srna Sejla Srna
filtered photographs filling rooms with instruments and untouched records, on-purpose-coffee-stains and the smell of cigarettes so when someone walks in the thought 'oh, an artist!' may come to mind but we all know you spent an hour puffing smoke into your clothes and bedsheets developing a strong cough because you don’t really enjoy spending your last 5 bucks on a pack of Lucky Strikes aspiring to look creative never aspiring to create Terminal I’ve let my hair grow long, so when you meet me at the terminal you can brush it behind my ear, as I seduce you with my see-through blouse flowing over scraped knees, lined with fallen, frizzy hairs that used to tickle you awake. Read the poetry of Sejla Srna Read a profile of Sejla Srna Liam Porter: Two Poems About Sleep—Or The Lack Of... Liam Porter
Idle Engine The engine still idles; whirrs away in the background, as the search for the key to shut it down for the night gets more and more flustered. Under fluffed and flapped pillows, miscounted sheep, half-formed sentences, shuttered-down, silent headlamps. Each new discovery brings hope, but turned and turned again, the wheels still buzz and spin. There is nothing now to do, but wait until the fuel runs dry. Lie in the darkness and try, not to feed it Anymore. Night Sentry Sleep eludes me now, for there are places beyond the dark I have glimpsed in terror. So, even with closed eyes I am now a sentry; a wound-up spring ready to jump at every sound. A knight in pyjamas, an adrenaline-fuelled man on edge. I am the first responder, and sleep eludes me now. Read the poetry of Liam Porter Read a profile of Liam Porter Five Haiku From Poet Wayne F. Burke Wayne F. Burke
Five Haiku the suckerfish pushes up daisies in the garden ❧ dry leaves slither along the pavement on their bellies-- my father in the war ❧ busy afternoon: clouds moving shadows lengthening ❧ walking into the nursing home to work last rays of sunshine on my face ❧ leaves run like little fools across the busy highway Read the poetry of Wayne F. Burke Read a profile of Wayne F. Burke |