Archive #19
January, 2015
Poet Cristina Umpfenbach Now On The Pages Of VerseWrights Cristina Umpfenbach
Acoustic Memories He wakes, aware of sound, rhythmic against the window pane. …. Rain. He cannot see her in the dark. sprawled beside him. ......remembers long legged high breasted beauty. Startled she feels his touch. Fingers make their way fumble, explore. “Touch me” he whispers. She reaches out, cups him in her hand, gently, holds his flaccid flesh, dares not to hope for more. Dementia pierced by sound, remembrances of touch. Kind darkness fills the room. The rain stops. He startles, withdraws deep into the pillows. Silence sweats with fear. .......he remembers nothing more Read the poetry of Cristina Umpfenbach Read a profile of Cristina Umpfenbach A New Poem From The Pen Of J Matthew Waters J Matthew Waters
all alleys lead to sand and salt water
walking away from the sunset shopping for the next place to sleep eyes remain optimistic of a tomorrow promising pay all alleys in this pacific coast city lead to sand and saltwater along the way housing is made from cardboard and wire and unfinished dreams familiar hopeful faces unite and welcome the wonders of the day their hands busily preparing to feed five thousand Read the poetry of J. Matthew Waters Read a profile of J. Matthew Waters An Offering Of Short Poems From Juliet Wilson Juliet Wilson
Admired Strange how deep under her skin he is. She only knows him through his distant admiration across darkened dance-floors and concert halls. His desire waterfalls down her spine, unnerves her, his heart’s poetry troubles her through his hungry eyes. She finds herself looking out for him, wonders how much she likes to be admired, how much she’s learning to admire? Three Haiku sharing another secret - unfolding buds. insomnia - the herring gulls laugh at the early dawn. a snake slithers across the balcony - sudden thunder. Read the poetry of Juliet Wilson Read a profile of Juliet Wilson We Extend A Warm Welcome To Poet Victor Perrotti Victor Perrotti
existential crossroads ☊ we arrive at the crossroads with baggage in tow sometimes too heavy, for one person like frost when he fled for the dismal swamp in despair, of a rejected marriage proposal or van gogh when he cut off, a piece of his ear in remorse, of having threatened his friend — gauguin, with a razor or you when you contemplated suicide in anguish, of believing the world is a better place without you comes profound sorrow to consider i may never have taken “The Road Not Taken” i may never have stared into Starry Night and i may never have been touched — by you Charles Bane, Jr.'s "Come, Beloved" (with video) Charles Bane, Jr.
Come, Beloved ☊ I am hungry; come soon. I looked tonight at flames like you upon the west and jewels winging home. I hold you in my eyes when I see what cannot be stamped again. All the earth is of a kind but for the rarities that clamber unknowing of their gifts on vales of purest light, and look at the common life of us in shade. Come beloved, soon. We Welcome Poet Björn Rudberg To The Pages Of VerseWrights Björn Rudberg
Her Hands are Kites Her hands are kites that battle over Kabul, the year before arrival of the talibans the windows in her hair are dressed in gauze and in her voice she hides, the seed-pods that never will be put in fertile soil. She tells a story of her golden child to silent organs played on empty bottles. A symphony of Makers Mark and Cutty Sark of the child with moonlit marbles in his eyes, her child that left before he stayed. But soon the withered branch will snap and from the anthill in her flesh she'll rise to dance with clouds released in habit of defeat, and from her brow the marigold will bloom to celebrate the absence of herself. Read the poetry of Björn Rudberg Read a profile of Björn Rudberg In Robert Nied's New Poem, He Is Out Of Sync, Out of Luck... Robert Nied
Your Face, Disappointed I sit naked and watch the winter snow And sharpen the ice scraper in the summer sun. I drink iced tea in December sip hot soup in July I read old love letters and forget you said goodbye. I listen to a waltz when my legs are tired and sore and sing when I can’t hear myself think. I work the night shift, and sleep through the day to avoid seeing you turn and walk the other way. I study days upon days for imaginary tests and arrive precisely for appointments I don’t have. I never answer the phone and have no machine. Your face, disappointed, is in all of my dreams. Read the poetry of Robert Nied Read a profile of Robert Nied Debby Strange Shares A "Tanshi:" A Short Poem With Photo-art
PhotoArt by Debbie Strange
by the lamp
of a full Thunder Moon I wrote this storm with lightning bolts dipped in wells of rain Read the poetry of Debbie Strange Read a profile of Debbie Strange Poet Gary Metras Turns To Greek Mythology In His New Poem Gary Metras
The Anonymous Closet The dark is just the dark where moons lack phase, shadow upon faceless shadow. The still air of being minus the being itself where smile is indulgence, lips of nothing. Without Helen, no Hektor. No death, no story. Only Iphigenia growing old, bitter in her anonymous closet. An empty mountain throne. Heroes everywhere silenced. Slugs slugging along cold stone. Let Briseis shout to all the warriors, I am no man’s prize as she withers among dented armor. See: Vultures rising on thermals. Read the poetry of Gary Metras Read a profile of Gary Metras Mark MacDonald Brings Us His Newest Poem, "Phenomena" Mark MacDonald
Phenomena This bird or that—the pigeon just dropped to the curbside to feed, or the Florida Spruce Jay gone nearly extinct? An event from your childhood you had hoped to forget—the long vacant house and the body of the girl the police took a year to identify. Fullness, decline, and decomposition-- anything tethered to process or choked in its time. Salami, foreclosure, or genocide. This bird or that—the sparrow just flown from the clothesline to breed, or the solitude thrush too startled to sing? Read the poetry of Mark MacDonald Read a profile of Mark MacDonald VerseWrights Warmly Welcomes Poet David Adès David Adès
The House I Built And if the house I built gave shelter to you briefly, however briefly, when you came and cried about your spurned heart, buried your words in my ears unseeing, and if sometimes I warmed you with my fire when all you knew was ash, and you did not notice the warmth and spoke on with a furrow between your eyes, and if my hands never landed upon your skin, never spoke their speech, their shy longing, and if our eyes gazed out the open windows and the roof was nothing but sky, and if we never grazed each other’s lips except with laughter and with smiles, and if we harvested hours on a bench at the Botanical Gardens, bathed in birdsong and sunlight, and spoke not just to one another but to the secret chambers in our hearts, was this not briefly, however briefly, a house of love? Read the poetry of David Adès Read a profile of David Adès 
|
Simon Kindt's Poem Is A Lyrical Lifting Simon
Kindt
Up, Up, Up You find yourself complaining that your back -bent by nothing but the dead weight of your head- is too old and sore to bend when she lifts her tiny hands to you and asks you to lift her high. And there you are- struck dumb and wondering if your father remembers the last time he lifted you, whether he knew that this time (this begged for one more time) would be the last. And you think of how one day when he is old and frail and thin with ghosts, you might yet bend to carry him, from a hospital bed perhaps, into the fading light, or down into the earth. And you think of all the lasts that punctuate this thing that is your life as she lifts her hands again and your aching back bends and you raise her to the light. Read the poetry of Simon Kindt Read a profile of Simon Kindt Rowan Taw's Latest Poem Depicts A Beautiful Sadness Rowan Taw
She Descends in Sunshine She sits in sunshine – not in her private room. Communal lounge an open space, fresh air filtering aging staleness, curtains straining light, a translucent membrane partitioning her internal present from her external past. She’s self-aware. She knows she won’t remember my name. She knows that facts are missing, memories are slipping. She knows she misses her sons, but how many she can’t recall. Her fingers fidget, nails immaculate, shaped in soft rose enamel, her daughter’s act of tenderness. But she would never ask her children to come. We talk as others bleat: baa-baa-baa single syllable repeats – an adult child returned to the babbling phase. The sound fades as staff stall his daily escape attempt. We look on, as she looks on this descent of man, knowing her own trajectory, mind falling in slow motion. We talk of weather, the darkness and continual rain. She doesn’t believe in letting it get her down – we must make our own sunbeams. So here she sits in sunshine – not in her private room. Read the poetry of Rowan Taw Read a profile of Rowan Taw We Welcome Poet Allison Grayhurst To Versewrights Allison Grayhurst
Walks Birds are always speaking like fleeting lines of poetry-- these wisps of miracles, dive into the schizophrenic’s mind, his pathway—slow, slow and unthreatening, they dive, but only people of the bird tribe can hear, only other animals whose senses are heightened, whose souls are twofold—raw and divine. Otherwise, it is dusk and dust and love is held in, made weak by complications and chaos in the aura. Otherwise, the child rises from bed with dread linked to her pyjama lace, already crushed by the world without an inkling as to why. Cats crouch and freeze—a culture tied to their nature. Like them, I am tied to my nature in the way I walk-- feet down, eyes up and waiting for that one angel to look me in the eyes and tell me all. Read the poetry of Allison Grayhurst Read a profile of Allison Grayhurst Marianne Paul's New Poem, "leaving tracks" Marianne Paul
leaving tracks before i die i want to know the tracks of the other passersby - wolf, fox cougar, bear, deer, jackrabbit those who have come and gone before me, the secretive the memory of their presence pressed into the softness of the riverbank into the dampness of the trail into the sinking acceptance of the snow ghosts to my human eye although maybe they watch me even now from the undergrowth the inner spaces of the trees and cave openings camouflaged in plain sight wearing nature like i wear a coat the tiny ones too, light on their feet the scrawls of the chickadees and the chipmunks the voles and the mice, those that scurry for safe covering into the thatch and scratch of the briars, the brave ones that dash across the open expanse heart beating life and death risking the shadow overhead marking the ground of their passing Read the poetry of Marianne Paul Read a profile of Marianne Paul Polly Robinson's Poem Celebrates The "Second Harvest" Polly Robinson
Autumn Equinox The Welsh God, Mabon, celebrates when day is equal to night. Days grow darker, nights grow longer the sun’s power dies away. Vermillion leaves yellow and fade to amber. Soak the leaves with paraffin, inscribe with runes -set them alight- Dusk burns with meadowsweet and myrrh. Heavy vines, hefted by marching men soft through town. The harvest moon illumines the harvesters’ way to plentiful bread and wine, carmine red. ‘Here’s to us and times a’plenty’. Apple cider cinnamon days, icy grey pale whey days to All Hallows’ plight eating soul cake through the night. November comes, gives way to spring, when young replenishes old, the moon will rise twice and more before… Read the poetry of Polly Robinson Read a profile of Polly Robinson "Voice. Word. Verb.," Jillian Parker's Latest Poem Jillian Parker
Voice. Word. Verb. In my grandmother’s bedroom, a lamp Blinks, beaming above a rack of shoes. A voice is a vague chant about a page, Conjuring shapes from silence. Hands appear on limbs, grasp the book; A portcullis of yearning lifts, yawning. Dust and sun become motes of delight Thirsting to merge with the gravity Of music, wondering whether Someone with searching eyes might gaze At the meeting-place of water and sky, Listening for the pitch of melancholy. In the village, the voice of a poet invokes aspen leaves, is a melody forgotten by fountains. Frozen universes lose their density, Words unravel for want of a poem, Feathers of fire-birds plummet from the blue, Bequeathing their quills into his hands. Read the poetry of Jillian Parker Read a profile of Jillian Parker VerseWrights Warmly Welcomes Poet Gail Thomas Gail Thomas
Donor You wear black now, move to apartments with people I’ve never met. We drive through Brooklyn to keep the date you made to give marrow to a stranger. I can still feel the child, heavy with sleep, clinging to my neck, one fist wrapped around a hank of my hair. At the hospital your sturdy legs rise out of blue paper slippers. After tiny needles, you take too long to open your eyes in this room of worry and wailing. When you were born I reached to pull you out, easy as a slick fish. At three you hid, afraid to show the jagged line of hair hacked off with will and your own small scissors. A doctor watches now. I hover and stroke your cheek until a strong pulse returns. For months you wonder what this giving and taking may have wrought, the limits of blood. Read the poetry of Gail Thomas Read a profile of Gail Thomas A Poem For This Winter From Poet Rosa Saba Rosa Saba
frostbite april cut into the frozen city with long fingernail scratches of running water and suddenly brown gardens the air fell heavy onto the eaves of houses eager to open their doors i stepped out and spoke into a space filled with spring guess i was just trying to hurry things along trying to warm the air trying to clear the path trying to make some sense of this transition the dragging pace at which winter melted away i stepped out, leaned forward and spoke too soon because the mercury sank back into the glass rain became needles, trees frosted thread threatening to sew winter back into the sky and the air retreated into a dull but biting winter chill as if afraid of my open chest displaying december's frostbite and january's cold words and i apologized silently to the city and myself for thinking winter could be defeated so easily Read the poetry of Rosa Saba Read a profile of Rosa Saba Dana Rushin: Myth, Anger, and Verse Dana Rushin
Oto I grew up believing that Pygmies were little short Americans who, fed up with cultural materialism, hid away in jungle overgrowth dressed in what remained of the animals they beheaded. That they promised each other, around a still flickering fire, to kill themselves before returning to Chicago's south side or Detroit's east side. Not now. Not with the taste of the simplier life so fresh. Not when clean death suggests a drifting from human to conglomerate flower cluster, where the dead are not passed away but departed to the unskeptical land of deities and truth-tellers. That land where only serpents die off. Not the daily processionals of young boys clawing at their neighborhoods in the brightest blues and reds, defending the motionlessness of the impure air, waving 45's at some mythical foul future; promising revenge in the tiniest of candlelight vigils. Yet for so long I understood, reluctantly, this concept of borrowed space; I mean, the precepts of being mad. That poetry, when done with aggression, takes up such little space. Read the poetry of Dana Rushin Read a profile of Dana Rushin A New Work From Poet And Artist Diana Matisz Diana Matisz
"I scour your anatomy..." 
Artwork by Diana Matisz (Click art to enlarge)
I scour your anatomy for signs of my impact, there I think I see the curve of my breast in the dark combe of your belly and is that my cheekbone wedged between your ribs? the lines into which my lipstick fades are a surrealistic abstract across your neck and the lash that floated free when you kissed my eyes has found a home in your collarbone look, how the whorls of my thighs finger-paint your hips I scour your anatomy with eyes that have never seen my impact, on your mind Read the poetry of Diana Matisz Read a profile of Diana Matisz |
Kim Talon And The Lives Of The Would Have-Could Have Kim Talon
The Might He might have done a couple of things differently maybe turned left instead of right at the crossroads but there were never soul signs quite as direct as yield, dead end, stop, danger and, yes, the hands of time had taken him on in a few crucial rounds and knocked him temporarily senseless but he did his best to be true to himself and what more could you ask? She might have done a few things differently maybe looked up instead of down at critical moments checking for silver linings and rainbows instead of stones in the road preparing for the tempests instead of letting them envelop her leaving her spent and exhausted but she did her best to be true to herself and what more could you ask? They might have done some things differently… but they did their best Read the poetry of Kim Talon Read a profile of Kim Talon A New Selection Of Haiku From Poet Archana Kapoor Nagpal Archana Kapoor Nagpal
Selected Haiku ancestral home … from every spider’s hammock the autumn moon ❧ first snowfall … in my pot of water the rising moon ❧ farewell … away from her epitaph another fallen leaf ❧ walking downhill … another time my footsteps follow my shadow Read the poetry of Archana Kapoor Nagpal Read a profile of Archana Kapoor Nagpal Paul Sands And The City At Night: "shelter '81" Paul Sands
shelter '81 every evening without fail I would watch from my third floor neon, Freon, digital eyrie as he scraped his arse along the street shuffling, scuffing the rags that passed for raiment ripping the empty legs further each night as the chorus of inebriate fighters, noses swollen veined plums, caroused and cajoled his every gravelled slide while throwing punches, and each other, can in hand at passing cars his limbs, of wood and plastic, would arrive later under police escort old world problems under the new world’s hardened, refrigerated glaze every evening without fail until the day he didn’t Read the poetry of Paul Sands Read a profile of Paul Sands Are Love Letters Afoot? Laura Madeline Wiseman's Latest Poem Laura Madeline Wiseman
Tiffs and Coos Brainiac, you say like maybe I shouldn’t be, like maybe it’s better to be a bottle-blonde in cutoffs slung low below the soft navel mouth, a lean slab of youth, arms like pillars and a throat as warm as July. Or if not cliché, than normal, the bottled-Jones in silver SUVS, the family values of meatloaf, apple pie, and iceberg salad with talk of news, track practice, that summer vacation fishing. Eclectic, I say, kicking over empty bottles that roll towards the refrigerator because our foundation slants. Why didn’t we notice it before? Love letters, I say, I want you to write me one hundred love letters and toss them into the drink. If any come back, I’ll be yours forever. Though I’m not sure why, you pull out the kitchen chair, a note pad, and begin to write. Read the poetry of Laura Madeline Wiseman Read a profile of Laura Madeline Wiseman Samantha Reynolds And The True Nature Of An Epiphany Samantha Reynolds
The Myth of Epiphanies The myth is that epiphanies roar when in fact they are more like bubbles in mud a whisper a gurgle a hunch everything is small when it is born and so it is that so often they are buried as so many small things are so you ask the wise ones how do you feed them and they tell you to jump so you do not knowing if you are falling or flying because at first they are the same. Read the poetry of Samantha Reynolds Read a profile of Samantha Reynolds A Poem For The New Year From Poet Bethany Rohde Bethany Rohde
Why so eager for a new year? I've been collecting these water pockets of new histories Distilling cold fronts into a leather-bound canteen A predominant wind has exposed my skin here in the trampled grass A single downward stroke. Read the poetry of Bethany Rohde Read a profile of Bethany Rohde Pinion And Opinion In Sherry Chandler's Newest Poem Sherry Chandler
Common Grackles
Spying a black feather beside the back step, I speculate whether one of the wandering cats had feasted on grackle. A wren nests in a weathered condensed soup can in the shop. She’s small and solitary. Until the nestlings flit we’ll prop the door a crack. Grackles flock in plagues or cackles. Kibble gobblers, bird seed sackers, they splatter the deck. A mockingbird ad libs in the oak a choir of warblers. Grackles can mock but mostly they squawk. Their feathers refract the sun blue-black, an oil slick rainbow. Bird-brainy, bully brash they swagger and snatch a worm from a robin’s beak, nosh its eggs for a snack. They see all with those yellow eyes, you won’t keep a cache of birdseed with a simple latch. Raucous rapscallions, egghead scallywags, amaze as they rankle. They bring it on up to the brag. Is my opinion ungrounded? Folks make heroes of hellions, kids, killers, wild bunch gangs. Grackles raise my hackles but I won’t be too chagrinned if the pinion’s merely shed. Read the poetry of Sherry Chandler Read a profile of Sherry Chandler Ellen Conserva and the "weight of desperation" Ellen Conserva
Tangled Up
The weight of an arm around my leg Or a cheek upon my shoulder Sends such pressure Straight to my soul, and I feel older. My limbs are bruised. So much depends on how I wait And how I huddle the hardness And the determined push Or the pull of my soul’s harness My heart bemused. I am a tree that sits or stands And whose branches bend With the weight of desperation And of wrongs to amend. My roots are fused. I am the shelter for the birds that come To my nest to dwell For a little while As their hearts swell. My love is used. Read the poetry of Ellen Conserva Read a profile of Ellen Conserva Poet Layley Lu Has A Message— And An Answer Layley Lu
Your Message when your message came late last night floating on small boats which bobbed with perfectly brown accents of shit i was a kite tied high on the masts and flailed in fits of twisted laughter whipping the hour past my bed. the place i seen you swimming for. i heard the tip toe of scented flowers showing no face, and followed them around in wayward plays of lightless themes. have you danced the glimmer of a swage on the sickle? i am there when i laugh. if you wish to come to me and walk with me or just sit with me, then come out into the dark. there are no promises of cool mists over green moss or growing things. no albatross dreaming over silk seas. your silk seas came from worms. they will return to worms. they have always been worms... come out into the dark and grope with your facelessness swathed in sweat and density, your breath surging into blood tumult and godless ether. there are no leaves left on the limbs. it’s moonless here. your message came and went with an unsigned ....mortgage to the workers of broken darknesses. deep inside another dying inspiration rolled over but pressed no ....grapes. Read the poetry of Layley Lu Read a profile of Layley Lu A Moment Recaptured In Wayne F. Burke's New Poem Wayne F. Burke
Pink Elephants I spent years in a crib in an upstairs room of my grandparent's home with dust motes in the shaft of afternoon sun and heraldic pattern of the gray floor rug and sheen of varnished woodwork and my grandparents who slept in the bed between my brother's crib and mine-- I had a plastic mattress, a smiling giraffe, a purple hippo; one night I heard my brother scream "PINK ELEPHANTS!" and the overhead light came on like a sun and my grandmother's face hung over the bars of my crib and the gold crucifix she wore around her neck swung like a pendulum. Read the poetry of Wayne F. Burke Read a profile of Wayne F. Burke 
|
