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Archive #21
March, 2015


Simon Kindt's Newest Poem: A Lyric Of Gentle Power

PictureSimon Kindt





How to know that there is a thing called holy and it is small and close and sleeping
 

You will still feel her fingers in your palm;
the knuckled memory of her heart will hum
and echo slow as you make plans to build
a shrine to her in the spaces where she pressed

her cheek against your neck, stitched her fingers
to your chest and with an ocean calling
through the window, ebbed herself to sleep.
Now, the house at rest, her breathing, steady

as a pulse, comes humming through the wall
and carried on a vein of air now threading
down the hall to where you find yourself
waiting for the earth to turn beneath you.

In a minute, a single breath will stall
inside her throat, will gather itself, swelling
as a wave to break and exhale itself as song
and it will take a feat of will to not sing back

and wake her. You’ll tell yourself to sit instead
and sift through your agnostic language
for some vague approximation of the note
now spinning prayer wheels in your throat.


Read the poetry of Simon Kindt
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Man Vs. Machine in Steve Green's Latest Poem

PictureSteve Green






The Age of Click

Pounding the keys again

Peck..Peck..Peck

Letting life's frustrations
fly off my fingertips
onto the serene screen

Tonight my thoughts
exceed the speed
of my compromised connection

The horror of being frozen out

Locked up by heartless tech

Words now bottle necking
inside my clogged hour glass

Oh to have a paper and pen!

but stolen office supplies
long ago
were all utilized
and never replenished

No need for such relics

Or so I thought
when I purchased
this pricey device

I shake rattle and roll
my accursed hardware

Bad idea

Skull and crossbones appear
on my solid blue screen

Fatal error 

This is the final
proclamation

The red power eye
grows dim

Signaling the end
of our relationship

All my brain wave residue
I had deposited 
on a chip
the size of a gnat
now terminally dead

Gone to that place
in the clouds
where data angels reside 

Time to start over again

as I scour my existence
for parchment and quill pen

Read the poetry of Steve Green
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Daniel Klawitter: Plato and Lifeguards

PictureDaniel Klawitter

  The Philosopher's Resentment of    Male.Lifeguards

    Socrates:  Well, my excellent fellow, do you think 
    that expertise in swimming is a grand thing?
                           Callicles: No, by Zeus, I don’t.  
                                          –Plato, Gorgias. 
 
Perhaps they protect us
from way up there
on their lofty perches.
Well-oiled and eagle-eyed
in red shorts, dark shades
no shirts.
 
Who are they trying to impress?
 
They scan the horizon
in search of danger
or distress-
looking for signs of panic
or maybe an undertow or eddy.
But a drowning 
is as infrequent 
as a shark attack.
 
Still, their whistles 
are always at the ready.
 
Who needs them really?
 
It’s strictly a summer job
for the young and muscular-
who in spite of the windy conditions
have immaculate hair
and a superior cardiovascular system.
 
It’s not a competition.
(Though my physique 
could use some slimming).
I just want to enjoy the beach
and think on all the things
more excellent than swimming.


Read the poetry of Daniel Klawitter
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Mark MacDonald And The Joy Of Cooking

PictureMark MacDonald




 

Table for Two—for Kim

I love to write poetry watching you cook:
which piece of meat, chicken or beef,
will know your small hand 
rubbing it gently with garlic and oil?

Which frantic vegetable—a laughing noggin of lettuce,
a flaming hat of celery, the pernicious onion, 
the prodigal tomato—will leap from the bin,
all them shouting, “Pick me! Pick me!
Put us all together dancing in a bowl!”

I love to write poetry watching you cook.

The climax arrives when you reach
into the spice drawer: tarragon or chives
parsley or paprika? Which powdered 
and flaky minstrels will sing to us tonight

at the dining room table, where a candle is lit,
and a glass of red wine waits for the each of us?


Read the poetry of Mark MacDonald
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New From Poet Jillian Parker: "Alpen Glow"

PictureJillian Parker




       Alpen Glow

A breadth of frosty fastnesses slashed my sight today,
Milk-glass skies, swirling shades of translucent amber
Deepening unto dusk, bleeding teal and myrtle--
These clipped nouns crumble to dust before them.

Above a winding road, Orion tightened his belt,
Dreaming a city of no fears in jeweled strands:
Topaz, lapiz and pearls, throbbing, trembling--
Even tears fail to gain a purchase on this vision.

Once, in a small plane above the Wrangell mountains,
We swooped over the edge, a sudden drop-off,
A thousand chances to be swallowed in icy chasms--
Balanced by a preposterous antidote: lucid joy.


Read the poetry of Jillian Parker
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Two Poets, Two Drops...

PictureAmauri Solon






"Drops," by Amauri Solon

Rain drops
falling
through the roofs
and ceiling
into your room
drippings
 
The long cold
night
left small diamonds
on the rose buds
of your garden
dew drops
 
Moisture
in your eyes
tears running
down
your face
our goodbye

Read the poetry of Amauri Solon
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PictureAli Znaidi


"Drops," by Ali Znaidi

Picture
Read the poetry of Ali Znaidi
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A New Work From Poet Rosa Saba

PictureRosa Saba





i cannot

shy stutter of a thought
scurrying across rough rock and diving
headfirst into cold white water
so as not to be heard, unlike
the wilted sigh from pinched lips
that draws eye contact then breaks it
like waves upon those stones

syllables soft and jumping
through valleys, over jagged mountains
just to reach ears clouded
with assumptions and a failing effort
to tune it all out
skinny fingers gripping a skull
through wild, upset hair
hands coming to rest uneasily
within each other, still shaking from the strain

or maybe it's the cold that cuts edges
into my shoulders, ties the laces tighter across my back
pinching me into place as i twist inside
looking away a thousand times, and trying
but i cannot unwind, i cannot open myself
to you


Read the poetry of Rosa Saba
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"Braided," A New Poem From Gail Thomas

PictureGail Thomas



    

      Braided

When he called her high-strung, I imagined a horse
rearing up white-eyed, not the woman who dusted
down walls every week and sprawled on the floor
braiding strips of wool into a rug.

When I answered the pay phone in the hall, he
stumbled with the news -- break-down. I saw
thin wires snapping, her still body in a white
room. Because you moved away. When I moved

further, she offered the rug and wrote a letter,
because you were a cold child. Now I change
her diaper, trim chin hair, bring a cactus with
one yellow flower. She calls me angel, my angel.

Read the poetry of Gail Thomas
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Above And Below: Bethany Rohde's Newest Poem

PictureBethany Rohde

 What's Buried and
 What's Not



 I’m balancing on the curvature
  of roots mossed over in unreal green.

They carry a familiar bone structure:
these rough-skinned, working hands

That even now nourish tree flesh
in the bluing dark of Monday.

I trace one root, it skims grass-shallows
and delves below my sight--
                           to extract its choice elixir:

It sips chilled rain from saturated earth,
leaving mineral tang on the forest’s breath.

Even what goes underground can sift,
can lift, can weave the elements–

into next spring’s leaf-fabric.

Read the poetry of Bethany Rohde
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Mark Gordon's Newest Poem, A Delightful "Ducks"

PictureMark Gordon





Ducks


Ducks. Ducks everywhere. Quacking ducks
in Kensington Market on a Saturday,
in their cages, smelling of too many ducks
together.
 
She arrives, this woman with her friends,
a business woman from Shanghai,
modestly dressed, a Buddhist.
 
Want forty, the owner asks? Yeah,
I’ve got forty. If you have the money
I’ve got the ducks. Much easier this way
than selling them three at a time
to struggling restaurants.
 
And yes, the modest woman, who
has practiced the smoothness of the Buddha
no ruffles in her feathers, quiet, detached,
hands the owner the money
and her friends gather the ducks
as if they are picking up kids from daycare,
pile them into the backs of vans, cages
and all.
 
Sunset Lake, next stop. They hover
with cameras to record the event,
their first symbolic act in this land,
each one breathing the present
not looking back to China,
nor forward five years in Canada,
but clasping this moment.
 
They slide open the cages one by one,
and the ducks spring up, then soar,
calling to each other,
as they cut through the leaf-scented,
September air.

Read the poetry of Mark Gordon
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A Slow Awakening and Discovery, From Allison Grayhurst

PictureAllison Grayhurst


  Seepage

  Weeks arrive to lay bare
  the corpse of a wasted dream – 
  my ideals unfounded, measured with
a spoon. I loved and I’ve had to kill that love
purposefully, stepping over
into a territory of arctic
severity and separation. 
 
It is natural
for me, a citizenship I owned hanging out in churches, 
on church benches, shushed from yawning.
I knew God more in the forest,
quickening my pace on paths
edging cliffs. Swallows circling as I did 
a flawless land.
 
I knew God best in my bed, talking, never repeating
phrases learned, but earnestly in conversation. 
I know God still sometimes 
when I am close enough, able to smell our rudimentary .....union, 
brush the locks and flares of your deep and fierce sun
as it rotates within a galaxy riddled rich with stars and .....asteroids, 
when I am in your radar-stream, 
pulverized by the intensity of your purity - 
porous, cracking, becoming more, 
many, smaller and such
unexpected immediacy.
Giving birth. Giving up
my hard-won understanding.
 
To fail for you is a victory that
arrives like an ultimatum,
and I am singing – this is new.
It is an embrace,
a personal annihilation to be honored,
swallowed as I am, utterly
into your glow.

Read the poetry of Allison Grayhurst
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Robert King: Master and Mastery In His Latest Poem

PictureRobert King
 




Master Robert

 The letter from grandfather at my birth
 was addressed to Master Robert King
 which no one ever called me again
 and the letter is as absent as he is.

Words of wisdom inside? I imagine,
but I can’t imagine them. Difficult 
to say, as such words are or might have been.

Once he showed me how to make a whistle
out of a squash stalk, not really whistling
but a rasping squawk, enough of a sound
for that one day, although never again.

Grandchildren, great, if you’re ever around 
a squash plant, cut a two-inch section,
then slice a notch toward one fuzzy end.

With practice you’ll get a raucous buzz
that will thrill the summer you’re standing in 
and the stalk’s bristles will only slightly
sting your lips and you’ll never do it again.

You masters of all things I‘ll never know.

Read the poetry of Robert King
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A New Poem From Poet Kristin Maffei

PictureKristin Maffei




This is the Last Time I Will Ever See You

and everything smells like patchouli.
Someone is playing a twelve-string guitar
and none of us are dancing, though I wish I     was.
 
You’ve already gotten into the trouble.
Our Spanish teacher has seen you sneak
off to meet your secret boyfriend in the plaza.
 
You’ve already bought me the giraffe mug, a gift
to celebrate our graduation.  Hooria, it’s still in my  cupboard.
When you told me you’d been caught, I laughed it off.
 
Looking across to Morocco, you didn’t laugh at all.
The air was hot and dry, even in the dark. You’d known .....deserts before.
All year, I’d mailed packages for you, love notes to the UK.
 
As soon as we were home, you were gone.
Or maybe you are always here, your hair a dark spiral, .....your eyes lined in kohl. 
Maybe we are always here, spinning to a song we will never hear again.

Read the poetry of Kristin Maffei
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Charles Bane, Jr.: World War And Personal Crisis

PictureCharles Bane, Jr.


  Anzio

   Oh they were alive
   and playing cards
in an eight foot trench
that was covered like
Eve and I had point
alone on our Italian beach.
The Germans had artillery
so reaching that grunts robbed
of rest - all of them-
might disappear unclaimed
for weeks. I caught a private
and brought him back at dawn.
The captain said, take him there
behind those trees and hurry back.
To kill like that. I marched
behind the bastard and he knew
and wept. I was seeing things
from lack of sleep. I saw my father standing
on the platform by my returning train,
the haunted question of him; I saw
stars on collars finally unpinned
and the manual of arms above our
barn filled with grain. The German
knelt and light specked him unfed
and leather hooved. There were leaves
and I was dappled too.

Read the poetry of Charles Bane, Jr.
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David Adès Plies The Figurative In Two New Poems

PictureDavid Adès




    Interloper

Here comes regret, wheeled in on its gurney,
all banged up and feeling sorry for itself,
though not at all contrite.  I turn away,
 
expressing my disinterest, thinking
I have no time for this, but regret isn’t interested
in my disinterest, or in any prescription
 
for a remedy, any suggestion to get over it
or to move on, any prescribed diet.
No, regret is settling in, installing itself
 
for the long haul, fully intending to gorge
on every other remnant emotion,
to swell and swell until nothing else is left.


Metta Nun

Darkness shall never vanquish her:
her chin cleaves the waters
she sails through, the beacon
of her face illuminating her way.


Read the poetry of David Adès
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Robert Nied's Latest Poem Talks The Talk

PictureRobert Nied





          Talking

Let me tell you kid, just how great I was
Every bell and whistle, every glorious clang and buzz
I had nothing but good ideas only brilliant thoughts
....and schemes
I know every answer and what every mystery means
I stood for everything sacred and fought for
....everything right
 
I proudly hand the world to you, behold it in the light
 
There is no pain and suffering because of the work
....I’ve done
No illness, flood or famine because of the wars I’ve won
There is no cruelty or hatred, no torment or deceit
Because I gave no quarter, never bowed in defeat
Where you are going, I haven’t told you all
Oh, what the hell do you know?
It’s like talking to a wall.

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Dana Rushin Takes On The Mystery Of Fruit

PictureDana Rushin



  

 in season, peaches

And soon,
the peach season will be over
where we will only get the unrealistic ones,
the ones you put in paper bags, for that incredible few .....days,
to soften. Though this process is as highly improbable a
supposition as landing softly in a hot air balloon.
What Grandma called voodoo, ancestor worship,
the chemical action of bones. Can you imagine the
hot talk? The panicked crematoria chatter?
What if,
it is true,
what the others have said about going quietly?
Is a pit the same as a heart? As kids, with bricks,
we would crack them open to see what the center
of the universe held, and each time, there was
nothing there. Just disappointment;
the burden of centuries of evolution,
voltaic white,
folds of coil.
Bewitched, one could surmise,
is the hardest thing for fruit to understand.

Read the poetry of Dana Rushin
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Mikels Skele Challenges The Sensei

PictureMikels Skele






The Word Fire

“The word fire,” says Sensei,
“does not burn your lips.”
But say, Sensei, that the word fire
Burns your heart, the heat rising
Through your neck, and, yes,
Singeing your tongue on the way out?

What if the word eagle
Makes you feel like soaring,
All the while tethered to your
Earth-born dreams, that seem only to rise
Slowly?

Or the word dying, though it seems a lie,
Still feels dark and wet, not exactly cold,
But too thick for that?

I think, Sensei, that even your
Ancient schemes cannot touch
These depths.

Your finger points only to a place
Where the moon might have been

Read the poetry of Mikels Skele
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We Welcome Poet Lidy Wilks To The Pages Of VerseWrights

PictureLidy Wilks


 Tell It to the Bogeyman

 He slouches down our street,
 his thin, shagging hair
 swaying to and fro on his

haggard face.
The street lights flicker
in fear before him as he pauses,
sniffs the air, and he looks for
squirming, naughty Little Things.

But they don’t hear him
as his nose leads him to our yard.
The moon above shrinks
behind the clouds as he adjusts
the sack on his back, waiting impatiently
to sate himself with squirming, naughty Little Things,

but they don’t hear him
as he makes his way to our porch.
My prior warnings to be good little boys
have been met with lopped ears
and the house continues to quake
with their war cries ringing through the air.
The family room, now their playground,
Is littered with carcasses of their toys,
Clothes and books rotting on the carpet.
Dinner had been laid to waste, waiting
to be saved as tomorrow’s breakfast.
And now they’re vowing to blind themselves
standing before the TV, watching
their cartoon favorites instead of going to bed.
But it’s already too late, because there’s someone
knocking on the door.
He has come to fetch his dinner.
He’s come for my squirming, naughty Little Things.

Read the poetry of Lidy Wilks
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jacob erin-cilberto Shines Light On The Poet's Soul

Picturejacob erin-cilberto






Used Lanterns

sure i bathe in moonlight
when the mood suits me

but darkened patches of life
are my corner luxury
that cool feeling of black frost
i can almost lick with fervent tongue
as i silently mouth words i could never write down
on star pads,
too much grandiose suffering made public
as other lovers kiss under those same tablets
with my words breeching their contract
and blame ricocheting off the blank walls of my heart

sure i'll strip down to just the bare letters
and pour myself into an ocean of comforting glow
but that will only assuage your bulbous pain---

i instead, must burn in the rays
of an unkind orb
seeking to unclad me of my own sorrow
make my poems run naked
and embarrassed in front of people
i don't know
who only want to use me to see into themselves.


Read the poetry of jacob erin-cilberto
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Poet R. H. Mustard, And A Road Test Metaphor

PictureR. H. Mustard






Driver's Ed

When I first taught you 
how to drive, 
we both slipped in behind 
the wheel, hoping 
to learn quickly,
but our bodies held us hostage,
making unreasonable demands 
in a language 
we did not yet understand.
We drove in this foreign land, 
without signs for Slow, 
Yield, and Stop,   
going way outside the lines,
off-road, unlicensed,
heavily under the influence,
desperate to learn 
the driving art 
for the first big test
in a driven world.
How will I pass, you said. 
if we keep going like this?
You will pass because 
you have mastered 
the difficult and subtle part,
I said. The man will
see the strength in your eyes,
the miles in your heart,
the knowing way
you hold the wheel.

Read the poetry of R. H. Mustard
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We Welcome Our Newest Poet To VerseWrights, Evie Ivy

PictureEvie Ivy





 The Old Drum

The good drummer knows the ancient sound.
Sacred instrument, ceremonial beat of life,
universal resounding. The energy flows
with primitive break through time.
 
The sound, the rhythm flows with life’s
vibration. Let this be not war, but good,
we need the good drummer, the call
to life – think of the birds, the sky, 
 
the trees and the drum that brings you 
from one day to the next—the pounding 
heart. The drum leads with the festive 
call, diverse, whether in the hand, the lap 
 
or the floor, it sways the body, the feet 
respond. Its rhythms bring the mind into 
ecstatic places. It sets the tone, the call 
this striking beat punctuates living, it
 
will resound in space, primordial
heart—the beat of the good drummer.


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We Warmly Welcome Poet Amy Billone To VerseWrights

PictureAmy Billone





  First Words  ☊

The same way at five I stared from the tub
into my father’s terrified eyes after he broke
the bathroom door to save me because I hadn’t
heard his calls and as he shook my body
to bring me back to life I laughed and told him
I didn’t drown, the soap bubbles only filled my ears--
The same way at eight I looked into his gasping face
after he leapt from a moving car because I lay
sprawled on the grass by an upside-down bicycle
and as he lifted me with shaking arms I said I hadn’t
fallen but was writing a poem about how the clouds
were really cotton candy—The same way
at sixteen I crashed my car into a street light
and fainted on the hardware store floor, then woke
to see him gazing blankly at me from the doorway
too frightened to remember the name
of my hospital so I said it for him—The same way
in my twenties I regained consciousness
after a six and a half day coma because I jumped
in front of a train I was so surprised to recognize
my pale-cheeked father waiting like a marble statue
by my side when we rarely talked and he lived
in a distant city that I spoke my first words
even though doctors had said if I survived
I would never recover language: Hi Dad. 


Hear this poem in the PoetryAloud area
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Victor Perrotti: The Poetry Of Social Protest

PictureVictor Perrotti


   


choking on public safety
"I can't breathe!" Eric Garner's  .final 33 words, 7/17/14

as long as the police,
are permitted
to police the police
a grand slurry
district attorney
– makes with police
much like family
the police
– the enforcement arm
of the power structure
the golden arm,
the arm
that can do no wrong
the strong arm
the confiscating arm
the escalating arm
the arm in search of
a loosy in the sky
the arm that chokes
the arm that snatches,
institutional murder
from the scales
of lady justice
lead and brutality
for the black man
lead and brutality
for the black man

violent state
secret proceedings
from the sham jury
the state’s enabler
– the district attorney
; renders unaccountable
blue sleeve homicide
of the golden arm

Read the poetry of Victor Perrotti
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Kelli Russell Agodon: What Else Is There To Know?

PictureKelli Russell Agodon


  With a Dream Psychic

  Expect a sort of heaven to appear
  in your living room by Friday.

This may mean you will die soon
or that life will be easy for a while.

It depends on the angels.

Bleeding and begging angels are never a good sign.
If they were singing gospel and wearing halos,
then expect answers to circle you.

But if you wore their wings, be cautious
of bulldozers, unicycles, anything with wheels.

Yes, even cars. Good question.

Don’t borrow from visitors this week.

Try to talk to the angels when they appear,
especially the one with a machete.
He has your secret. Be lucid. Soar with him.

You don’t need his wings to fly. Trust me
on this. You’re not the first to dream
of angels with weapons. I’ve known presidents
with that same type of guilt.

No, not every dream has to do with sex,
only the good ones.

And that white picket fence you observed,
it signifies peace of mind. You’ll soon be free
from anxiety. Unless it was in ruins.

You may now offer my soul fifty dollars.

Your lucky number is eight.
Your power color is white.
Your psychic insect is the mirror beetle.

Read the poetry of Kelli Russell Agodon
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New Poem And Photo Art From Diana Matisz

Picture
Photo art by Diana Matisz......Click for larger view.

"It is in the pitch-dark hours..."

PictureDiana Matisz
it is in the pitch-dark hours
when no one else can see us
   that our broken hearts
   bleed out
   and blossom
   in chrysanthemums of ache


Enjoy the poetry and art of Diana Matisz
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We Extend A Warm Welcome To Poet Scott Thomas Outlar

PictureScott Thomas Outlar
 My Niece and the Dream Catcher 

  She asked me:
  Has this thing been working?
  And I said:
  Yeah.
  And she said:
Well, how do you know?
And I said:
Because I was able to write them down in the morning.
And she said:
How?
And I said:
It’s magic.
And she said:
That’s not real.
And I said:
You have to believe – 
It’s energy – 
It’s consciousness – 
And she said:
I know it’s real.
I’m just angry
because I’m tired.
And I said:
It better not catch your dreams
or I’ll have to give them back to you.
And she shut the door
as she went to join her sister 
in the other room.
And I went back to drinking
and thinking about the next poem
I could write to imitate Bukowski.

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Paul Mortimer: Sunset, Birds, And...Dragons

PicturePaul Mortimer





Chasing the sunset

Two shotguns let go
and echo through woods.
A thunderclap of crows
explode from the trees,
flecks of soot
swirling on the breeze.
Gathering their wits
they flap slowly over fields,
drifting low as if flying
is not worth the energy.
and gradually this flock morphs

into dragon smoke.

It catches an air current, writhes
down river, chasing the day
to its flare-out point.
This sinuous darkening cloud,
breathing
stretching
reforming
as it smokes downstream.

Heat draws it on
to the setting sun.
As it reaches the estuary
a glow beats in its heart.
Turns into a flicker,
quickens.

Flames swallow smoke.
Dragon fire blazes,
scorches,
then flares apart.
And a flock of fire birds heads out to sea.

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We Welcome Poet Ramesh Dohan to VerseWrights

PictureRamesh Dohan
  
  




At the Movies

At the ticket window, I won’t follow 
the body of the usher as she leans 
to break a twenty with a press 
of cash register and chest. She’ll tear 

my ticket and pass twelve-fifty 
beneath the glass, steering me 
past the snack bar where two rows 
of candies in loud yellow boxes 

will glow like lines on a highway 
and lead me to my seat. The previews 
will warn R for restricted, S for sex 
and V for violence, and I’ll remember 

the V-neck of the usher’s sweater 

and the fainter V drawn by her breasts. 


Attention Reader

Baudelaire considers you his brother
and Fielding calls out to you every few paragraphs as if to make sure you have not
     closed the book,
and now I am summoning you up again,
     attentive ghost,
dark silent figure standing in the doorway of these words. 

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The Latest Poem From Reka Jellema

PictureReka Jellema
 




She Died of Death

 Her ears twanged 
 with the twee-twee-twee-
 twee-twee-twee-twee
 of chilled chickadees 

Her body lost its breath 
Her spirit left

The doctor said
she died 
of death 

The sea moved 
mountainous and overhead
nimbus and stratus 
danced 

Black and white
weather the painter
said, taking 
The photograph 
of a bleak coast

A boy took 
bark in his teeth
and tore strips
from the tree
his mouth 
bloodied
with grief

the birds fled
still a nest 
still a knot
of beach grass
fish twine and smooth
green glass

This is not the end
the Sister said, 
her beads circling 
in the embroidery
of her hands

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