Archive #34
April, 2016
Secrets
Listen. I will tell you everything. The weather is turning. Soon it will be time to unroll the Persian rugs and lay them on the polished floors. I will hold nothing back. I am brittle, like glass; like leaves of a tree too long without water; a cocoon, untenanted, exposed to the sun. This morning I wore a jacket to walk the river path. Two crows, in their black robes, pecked at the body of a thick green snake. My mother was a northerner. She carried me across thin ice. Many times I slipped beneath the frozen water. I never knew my father. Tomatoes are laid on the kitchen counter, red bulbs on the maple wood. I prepare the knife: steel blade, sharpening stone. I want to slice to the seedy centers without bruising the skin. I loved my father. He had perfect, beautiful hands. He kept them manicured and clean. There are reasons you must not touch me. My grandmother lived with God in her garden. She fed me carrots and peas, she put white lilies by my bed. I am telling you everything. It is cold here. Birch trees bend in their white sleeves, leaves hissing in the wind. A blade of sun slants down, casting serrated shadows on the hard ground. Are you listening? Do you understand? The dog waits, and waits, at the door. Yesterday, I dropped the Murano vase. It cannot be repaired. I cut myself on sharp, thin air. Read the poetry of Sharon Brogan Read a profile of Sharon Brogan
Spring in the Northland
Spring in the North Land Does not come in a blast of color. The achromous land is still covered In a blanket of snow. The pregnant carpet beneath Is anxious to breathe the fresh Arctic air. The profusion of hothouse-derived colors in the city Of the peony and the chrysanthemum Are city hues only. They are there for the tourist, and to decorate The towns and city of the north. But, out in the Tundra, Spring comes on whispers-- A soft musical melody, that sees the end Of the dance of the Aurora And welcomes the long day of summer. This melody is sung by the lichen And the thick Arctic grasses, Heard only by the Caribou and the Eskimo. Read the poetry of Rivka Zorea Read a profile of Rivka Zorea
Spring Again ☊
spring drizzle the bipinnate leaves fold into shyness ❧ rain of cherry blossoms-- remaining spring ❧ waters of spring father backstrokes into healthiness ❧ lake sunrise a duckling sets off downstream Enjoy this sequence in the PoetryAloud area
Read the poetry of Ramesh Anand Read a profile of Ramesh Anand Poet Brendan Bonsack Gets To The
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Sarah Hina
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Poet Sarah Hina With A Lyric Of Awe, Love...And Time |
Inflation
Our religion is awe
but our practice is flawed,
too busy counting the tasks
before us
to contemplate the quanta
of astonishments we breathe.
To wit: the universe's expansion has been
in action for 13.8 billion years
but that fact is nothing compared to this:
it's not letting up, but getting faster.
And I have known you
this many years.
And my love keeps
growing, growing
even as time so softly chimes:
you will never catch me.
Read the poetry of Sarah Hina
Read a profile of Sarah Hina
Our religion is awe
but our practice is flawed,
too busy counting the tasks
before us
to contemplate the quanta
of astonishments we breathe.
To wit: the universe's expansion has been
in action for 13.8 billion years
but that fact is nothing compared to this:
it's not letting up, but getting faster.
And I have known you
this many years.
And my love keeps
growing, growing
even as time so softly chimes:
you will never catch me.
Read the poetry of Sarah Hina
Read a profile of Sarah Hina
VerseWrights Warmly Welcomes Poet
Anara Guard To Our Pages
Anara Guard
Leda
As he soared toward the open nest,
(wrapping her in his light white wings
as if she were his only child),
while he dived to the target’s eye,
she saw the wild earth revealed:
distant, distinct, real.
They flew above forests
heaving with rain,
and she watched the flamingos dance
their naked pink seduction.
She saw the deserts,
scraped clean to the bone.
From her swaying, balanced cradle
she saw the acorn blossom into oak,
she knew what the white bull did,
what the shower of gold bought.
And she heard the swan’s sole song,
not yet sung.
It sounded like temples falling,
like all women sighing together.
Up and over the world they rose
until it was a ball she’d tossed high once
from her father’s garden into the air.
Blue, green, it whirled, and disappeared.
Read the poetry of Anara Guard
Read a profile of Anara Guard
We Warmly Welcome Poet Ramon Loyola
To VerseWrights
Ramon Loyola
Atoms, Hearts
we are burning particles
the trillion pins of a flame
offsprings of the sun
the gods of lightning
colliding, conjoining
we explode like the stars
to form black sky
galaxy and endless space
that fills up with our atoms
molecules and bursting quarks
the way your love fills
the way your heart fulfills
Prelude
his hand sweeps over
scaly, coarse knuckles.
he doesn’t mind, doesn’t care.
he touches, provokes,
the sweetening void.
i don’t mind, don’t care.
he’s the one holding.
i’m the one falling.
Read the poetry of Ramon Loyola
Read a profile of Ramon Loyola
Ray Sharp
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Poet Ray Sharp Offers Perspective In His Latest Poem |
Haibun: The Cranes
Spring! They return, the sandhill cranes, to the fenny fields behind our house and I have to resist the temptation to say our cranes, or even our fields. I imagine their ancestors arriving on a day like today, with patchy snow and the sweet gurgle of running water in the little stream – not our stream – that has snaked across the marshlands to the big, cold lake since long before we moved here and fallowed the old played out potato fields, even before the Anishinaabe-Ojibwe peoples came here to fish and gather wild rice. I imagine that first breeding pair gliding over a young post-glacial world of gravel and swamp and new woodlands, settling on this very field to take their place among the crows and fox and deer mice, first link of a long chain, the way one day leads to the next, the way we, too, have come to be a part of this world, to hatch our young and watch them spread their wings and fly away, and wonder.
like tall feathered men,
cranes walk upright in wet fields
gigging April frogs
Read the poetry of Ray Sharp
Read a profile of Ray Sharp
Spring! They return, the sandhill cranes, to the fenny fields behind our house and I have to resist the temptation to say our cranes, or even our fields. I imagine their ancestors arriving on a day like today, with patchy snow and the sweet gurgle of running water in the little stream – not our stream – that has snaked across the marshlands to the big, cold lake since long before we moved here and fallowed the old played out potato fields, even before the Anishinaabe-Ojibwe peoples came here to fish and gather wild rice. I imagine that first breeding pair gliding over a young post-glacial world of gravel and swamp and new woodlands, settling on this very field to take their place among the crows and fox and deer mice, first link of a long chain, the way one day leads to the next, the way we, too, have come to be a part of this world, to hatch our young and watch them spread their wings and fly away, and wonder.
like tall feathered men,
cranes walk upright in wet fields
gigging April frogs
Read the poetry of Ray Sharp
Read a profile of Ray Sharp
We Warmly Welcome Poet Gary Beck To The Pages Of VerseWrights
Gary Beck
Privilege
The last days of summer
flicker hot and cool
hinting of winter.
Tickles of flying south
make the birds grow new feathers.
Leaves begin to fall
quickly collected
by busy men
unwilling to nourish the earth.
Homeowners fill their heaters.
Even household pets,
long subtracted from nature,
grow more fur.
Pleasures are departing
except for the wealthy
who sail away
and purchase warm weather.
Path of Gain
Renunciation of desire
generates tranquility,
disrupted when demands
become overwhelming
for mindless participation
in the palace of acquisition,
treasures beckoning temptation
brandished by eunuchs of profit
vending seduction, slavery,
enchantment eliminated
in the chambers of wanting.
Read the poetry of Gary Beck
Read a profile of Gary Beck
Clarence Wolfshohl
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Clarence Wolfshohl: When A Bagel Was More Than A Bagel |
Sunday Morning Bagels
Albuquerque, 1967
Laundry was our Sunday morning chore.
Up the street we’d tote our clothes tossed
in twisted compromised positions, box
of Tide, and a book or two for waiting.
During the wash cycle, we read; the dry cycle
was for our Sunday morning bagel and cream cheese.
Two doors down from the laundromat
was a diner that served a bagel, sliced,
and a small cup of cream cheese for fifty cents.
Bagels were as rare in the high desert
Southwest as tortillas on Long Island,
and neither of us had ever tasted one
before our first Sunday at the laundromat.
Often down to coins, risking pink underwear,
we combined whites and colored garments in one load,
or not dry pieces that could drape over chairs
and curtain rods in our apartment, to save
a quarter toward the bagels. Sometimes
we shared one bagel, flipping
our last penny for the crunchy top half.
They were toasted golden and the cream cheese
melted into the soft dough. Sometimes
the girl behind the counter gave us a cup
of coffee on the house, and we’d sweeten
the blackness with real sugar, nibble squirrel-
sized bites from the bagel and sip the hot brew,
our eyes twisted together like the garments in our bag.
Read the poetry of Clarence Wolfshohl
Read a profile of Clarence Wolfshohl
Claudine C. Wargel
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VerseWrights Warmly Welcomes Poet Claudine C. Wargel |
Gray
Gray.
Wind whipping.
This sky and world are mean
With cancer.
Is it morning?
Nightfall?
So much the same.
Where is the sun
That warms, cleanses
Grows and heals?
Can I move without it?
Care without it?
Why -
So dark
Unsettled
Cruel.
The trees roar--in dance with an evil mate.
Sun-drop,
Can nothing grow without you?
My garden will fail.
My will, shrivel -
Pale
Transparent
Spineless.
I recline
Plump my bag of feathers
Pull up
The quilts
Of tattered cotton comfort
And sigh
An impoverished cloud.
Read the poetry of Claudine C. Wargel
Read a profile of Claudine C. Wargel
Gray.
Wind whipping.
This sky and world are mean
With cancer.
Is it morning?
Nightfall?
So much the same.
Where is the sun
That warms, cleanses
Grows and heals?
Can I move without it?
Care without it?
Why -
So dark
Unsettled
Cruel.
The trees roar--in dance with an evil mate.
Sun-drop,
Can nothing grow without you?
My garden will fail.
My will, shrivel -
Pale
Transparent
Spineless.
I recline
Plump my bag of feathers
Pull up
The quilts
Of tattered cotton comfort
And sigh
An impoverished cloud.
Read the poetry of Claudine C. Wargel
Read a profile of Claudine C. Wargel
Marie Anzalone
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Poet Marie Anzalone And A
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Hunter's Moon, October 27
In the North woods tonight, it is rutting season.
The deer have invested their month of gains
preparing for the lean season; the bucks like their does
with a little extra in the rump these weeks.
They trumpet snorts and calls of lust
Across thickets, scrub, grasslands. Loudly.
It is the Hunter’s Moon. Life sustaining fat
and hormones at full peak.
Replication of life for the sake of life;
Expression of love for the sake of love,
The taking of life in love for the sake of forward progress.
And I grew up in the North Woods, of course.
The days grow shorter, parallel to my desire to introvert
I prepare to either migrate or hibernate,
worriedly, watching me put on my own winter stores.
I draw a sweater tight, watch the north for arrivals
of migratory winged things.
I slow, want to spend more time abed. We were never
meant to work these southern breakneck paces
365 days a year. A body long in motion wants to rest.
Or something.
Maybe the only person I want to see, sometimes,
is you.
Something in the way I love you is different.
The moon looks closer now, from where I stand;
there is both more and less urgency to words, thoughts.
I will watch the moonrise tonight. I will measure
the diminishing distance between hearts, minds.
Weigh intentions in acorns, sunflower seeds, and squash.
I will run my hands down my own sides,
In the soft bright glow
Thinking of how to best prepare the house special,
and of hunters, moons, and unattainable needs.
Hoping you, like your northern counterparts,
like your rump a little on the soft side.
Tender, and succulent. And loud.
Read the poetry of Marie Anzalone
Read a profile of Marie Anzalone
In the North woods tonight, it is rutting season.
The deer have invested their month of gains
preparing for the lean season; the bucks like their does
with a little extra in the rump these weeks.
They trumpet snorts and calls of lust
Across thickets, scrub, grasslands. Loudly.
It is the Hunter’s Moon. Life sustaining fat
and hormones at full peak.
Replication of life for the sake of life;
Expression of love for the sake of love,
The taking of life in love for the sake of forward progress.
And I grew up in the North Woods, of course.
The days grow shorter, parallel to my desire to introvert
I prepare to either migrate or hibernate,
worriedly, watching me put on my own winter stores.
I draw a sweater tight, watch the north for arrivals
of migratory winged things.
I slow, want to spend more time abed. We were never
meant to work these southern breakneck paces
365 days a year. A body long in motion wants to rest.
Or something.
Maybe the only person I want to see, sometimes,
is you.
Something in the way I love you is different.
The moon looks closer now, from where I stand;
there is both more and less urgency to words, thoughts.
I will watch the moonrise tonight. I will measure
the diminishing distance between hearts, minds.
Weigh intentions in acorns, sunflower seeds, and squash.
I will run my hands down my own sides,
In the soft bright glow
Thinking of how to best prepare the house special,
and of hunters, moons, and unattainable needs.
Hoping you, like your northern counterparts,
like your rump a little on the soft side.
Tender, and succulent. And loud.
Read the poetry of Marie Anzalone
Read a profile of Marie Anzalone
Poet Ana Caballero On Birth,
Infancy And...Time
Ana Caballero
Baby
You are
A long time
Coming
Now
All time is
Your time
My time is
Yours since
Before
But your
Time is
Not mine
It is yours
I get to
Watch it
Feel how
You are not
In me
But you were
There you
Grew
Into a paw
Of blood
And time
It felt good
To share
To receive
Now I live
To give
You time
Read the poetry of Ana Caballero
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Poet Caleb Coy Delivers A Modern Myth
Caleb Coy
The Boy Who Never Laughed
Was once a little boy
A boy who never laughed
Never did escape no single smirk from him
No waggy-tail puppies
No Sunday paper funnies
No, never did he draw a smile or a sigh for them
When a baby he laughed once
A little reflex, they say
But that was just once and no more did he have
Then he learned to talk
And even learned to walk
And before too long they found he couldn’t laugh
His momma tickled him all over
And she took him to the toy store
Then off to the zoo to see the animals therein
He kissed a girl and she kissed him back
His daddy came home from Iraq
And still they never saw a giggle or a grin
The pictures he drew were all funny
At school he was the laughing stock
And when he told a joke there was laughter in his ears
They took him to a shrink
To see what they would think
They didn’t know why he didn’t ever snicker or sneer
He was made to look at ink blots
He was poked and prodded
He had to answer riddles with a helmet on his head
They brought him in some clowns
From the whole world round
Not a laugh in the morning, not a laugh when off to bed
Scientists came by
And even artists too
And the preacher came by just to play his little role
His words were well rehearsed
He said the boy was cursed
Oh, this here boy was born without a soul
They sold him to the fair
Where he was given a tent
For a nickel the boy with no soul was there to see
He saw a lot of freaks
He met a lot of geeks
And he laughed at those who came to pay the fee
He travelled out West
He travelled to the East
And he laughed and laughed and laughed at all he saw
After time elapsed
He finally collapsed
He laughed so long he up and died from his last guffaw
In Hell he was poked and prodded
They tickled him all over
He met the very men who sent his daddy off to war
The jokes he once told
To the devil were sold
The girl he once kissed married her a total bore
His momma had a daughter
She took her to the zoo
And the flock never again drank from the preacher’s cup
The fair came back to town
Folks gathered all around
And the boy laughed so hard the whole earth swallowed them up
Read the poetry of Caleb Coy
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Poet E. Michael Desilets Serves Up A Slice Of Connie's Life
E. Michael Desilets
Snacking
It was cheap Madeira but Connie loved the smell, the
moldy
fruit fragrance of her father’s pipe tobacco, and it went
well
with the cornbread her daughter bought at Whole Foods.
She slips her hearing aid
into her apron pocket
and shuts her eyes.
She hears the local freight whistle past Mile Post 88,
the dyspeptic theatre organ at the St. George belch
“Over the Rainbow,” the Globe whack the front door,
the teacups smash against the refrigerator.
Today’s calls had left her a tad desperate:
a raspy handicapped woman named Jayne
hawking light bulbs.
The Arbitron man
reminding her about the radio diary. She still hadn’t
spent
those six sinfully crisp dollar bills he’d sent, but she only
put on NPR to help her sleep.
That recorded message
about Propositions 29 and 30. She did look forward
to voting at Our Mother of Good Counsel Parish Hall,
though sometimes she turned in her ballot unmarked
if she couldn’t find her specs. She always lit a couple
of votives in the church afterwards.
Her sister, goddam her
to everlasting Hell. It was Nick’s night
to stop by. She was hoping he’d bring
a case of that $2 champagne.
It would be
something.
Read the poetry of E. Michael Desilets
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Poet Richard Levine: Mystery and Misery
Richard Levine
Reaching to the Horizon ☊
I hated you Legless Billy,
and the way your prairie family
and fiancée looked at me,
that flat stillness of the plains
reaching to the horizon from
every window and across
the dining room table, when
I described how you saved my life.
We all hated you, Billy,
sitting there in your gleaming
wheelchair and spotted bib.
It's only now, in midnight
calls from mid-life that I hear
in your voice how we are
bound to that screaming red flare
lighting all we will never again own.
Enjoy this poem in the PoetryAloud area
Read the poetry of Richard Levine
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Read the poetry of Richard Levine
Read a profile of Richard Levine
VerseWrights Warmly Welcomes Poet
Shirani Rajapakse
Shirani Rajapakse
Dream of the Housemaid
Returning home on a stretcher, a
plane ride to the desert many
months ago gone so wrong. You got much
more than you bargained for with a salary paid
in nails. Hard as hell. Forced inside, damming your
veins, piercing bones, rotting, festering. Tears
all dried up you came back
in pain. Dreams shattered, leaving them
scattered in the sands for scavengers to feast.
The oil merchant’s wife made sure of it. There was
something she didn’t like, or maybe he didn’t like
being rejected. Wasn’t used to it. They
held you down on a chair in the kitchen
writhing and howling in pain, nails
hammered in, one at a time. Your hands,
your feet as you cried out in vain.
Stuffed some down your throat until you were too full
of it all. The X-rays back home confirmed,
but oh the shame. No one believed. No one.
Your story was good, made the news
that night and the next day too. Everyone had
something to say. But no one believed. The press
was amused; you made it all up, someone
sniggered. Couldn’t handle the pressure, the agency
that sent you grumbled and ignored your plea.
Said you did it for a piece of fame; time in the spotlight.
But what a show. You got nothing, nothing. Alone on
a hospital bed swathed in bandages stuffed with
medication they stare and talk in whispers as you
recollect the journey to the Middle East, oasis
of the poor. You went to make money,
like everyone else in the village, build a house,
educate your three children waiting at home
with their grandmother. Your husband
a drunkard, he couldn’t keep a job, so you
took over. They had to live. But all you got were
nails beaten in like Jesus that day. Yet where’s
your cross? Where are your followers?
Money gone, dignity in shreds you yearn to return
as unfulfilled dreams refuse to leave tugging
at your heart calling, calling
come finish what you started.
Read the poetry of Shirani Rajapakse
Read a profile of Shirani Rajapakse
|
Lynn White: A Tale Of Height and Light
Lynn White
|
The Lighthouse I was a little crazy to buy the old lighthouse. I knew it at the time. But I wanted to be somewhere, somewhere where I could shine, shine lamps out into the vastness, shine like a beaming beacon. And it was so high. It matched my mood and then some. Higher than high. Higher than high. There was no housewarming. No one came. There was no one to come. So, only I could relish the exposure. Only I could walk round the top of the tower and look over the edge into the dark deep depths. Only I could see the swimmer, a mermaid, surely? waving. Or was she beckoning as she approached the mooring. Only I could come spiraling down. Come down from the heights to open the door, to run down the steps to the mooring. And then the lamps went out. Read the poetry of Lynn White Read a profile of Lynn White |
VerseWrights Warmly Welcomes Author
and Poet Laurie Kolp
Laurie Kolp
To fall in love again
figure my spine
with sylphlike fingers
lace each vertebrae
side by side
weave in and out
with quiet breaths
until my sudden gasp
leads you deep within
and bends me back
to you.
Why Aging is Geographical
My cuticles are not
what they used to be.
They crust and crack
my thinning skin
into clay.
When I look
at my hands and feet
I see veins popping up
like Blue Ridge Mountains.
This raised topography
tops off my need
for leveled aging.
I’m stuck
at the surface
of decay
while you
zip-line across the sky
away from me.
Read the poetry of Laurie Kolp
Read a profile of Laurie Kolp
Karla Linn Merrifield
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Poet Karla Linn Merrifield Draws On Leonard Cohen For Inspiration |
Aubade in Nine Amphibrachs
I ponder dawn, listening, repeating
his koans in amphibrach whispers:
I’m writing
the troubles--
Your brother
may be your killer--
into the music
into the music.
In December’s
blue raincoat he arrives.
If my woman
is sleeping and dreaming,
she is much older
and nobody’s fool.
Humming Aurora’s love song
with the poet, the old monk remembers to chant:
I miss you,
forgive you your enrapture
glad you took the trouble
to say your morning prayers in my name.
Sincerely,
L. Cohen
[with lines from Leonard Cohen’s “Famous Blue Raincoat,” 1971]
Read the poetry of Karla Linn Merrifield
Read a profile of Karla Linn Merrifield
I ponder dawn, listening, repeating
his koans in amphibrach whispers:
I’m writing
the troubles--
Your brother
may be your killer--
into the music
into the music.
In December’s
blue raincoat he arrives.
If my woman
is sleeping and dreaming,
she is much older
and nobody’s fool.
Humming Aurora’s love song
with the poet, the old monk remembers to chant:
I miss you,
forgive you your enrapture
glad you took the trouble
to say your morning prayers in my name.
Sincerely,
L. Cohen
[with lines from Leonard Cohen’s “Famous Blue Raincoat,” 1971]
Read the poetry of Karla Linn Merrifield
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Poet Wayne F. Burke: Fall In Vermont,
And A Very Long Novel
Wayne F. Burke
North
drying leaves like
clenched fists
holding onto October trees;
I am coming to the end of
Celine's NORTH
his tragic-clown-chronicle
of post-collabo days when
he, his wife Lilli, his friend
and fellow fascist Le Vig,
and Bebert the cat, fascist
too, fled France and lived
as "Franzosen" in Prussia,
protected by remaining Nazis,
ones not dying in Berlin,
1944...quite a trip...the good
Doctor Destouches...the
racist Celine...his apocalyptic
style...the three dots...three
Franzosen...they've kept me
company...800 pages!..me,
alone in Vermont...I'm not
complaining! Not at all...
just a fact...like the leaves...
dying, clinging to the trees
with my fingertips.
[Note: North is an 800 page novel by
Louis-Ferdinand Céline]
Read the poetry of Wayne F. Burke
Read a profile of Wayne F. Burke
drying leaves like
clenched fists
holding onto October trees;
I am coming to the end of
Celine's NORTH
his tragic-clown-chronicle
of post-collabo days when
he, his wife Lilli, his friend
and fellow fascist Le Vig,
and Bebert the cat, fascist
too, fled France and lived
as "Franzosen" in Prussia,
protected by remaining Nazis,
ones not dying in Berlin,
1944...quite a trip...the good
Doctor Destouches...the
racist Celine...his apocalyptic
style...the three dots...three
Franzosen...they've kept me
company...800 pages!..me,
alone in Vermont...I'm not
complaining! Not at all...
just a fact...like the leaves...
dying, clinging to the trees
with my fingertips.
[Note: North is an 800 page novel by
Louis-Ferdinand Céline]
Read the poetry of Wayne F. Burke
Read a profile of Wayne F. Burke
Amy Soricelli
|
We Warmly Welcome Poet Amy Soricelli To VerseWrights |
The Bronx/1963
The Bronx is cement.
Loud, lost art-deco lobby/hidden staircase;
overhead planes flying too low down the back of your neck.
The Bronx is a window painted shut.
Stained streets littered-up, bags on the side of the road.
The Bronx is an air-raid drill in the middle of class.
You stand single-file up against the wall
so the bomb,
when it comes,
could roll its way down beside you.
You stand clear like a shadow.
The Bronx is curled under your desk
covering your head from
theBlacks/theRussians/theCubans/thePuertoRicans.
The Bronx is a music teacher in a dark suit
who hands out pennies at Christmas.
He doesn't date your mother but he should.
The President died in my Bronx classroom
filling up the afternoon
to The Pledge of Allegiance.
Early dismissal flowing down the rest of the year
like a black cloud.
The Bronx is a long block with tree names –
bicycles filled with dead air.
German shepherd dogs –
their chains rolled tight against bad boy fists.
It is crossed streets- Johnny- pumps high against passing cars
It is the deep drip of summer.
The Bronx is needles in apples on Halloween.
Sulky neighbors with sharp fang teeth;
dead pigeons in rainbow-oil puddles
around and around lost, like in a drain.
It is gum stuck to the end of your shoes.
The Bronx is the end of your shoes.
Read the poetry of Amy Soricelli
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The Bronx is cement.
Loud, lost art-deco lobby/hidden staircase;
overhead planes flying too low down the back of your neck.
The Bronx is a window painted shut.
Stained streets littered-up, bags on the side of the road.
The Bronx is an air-raid drill in the middle of class.
You stand single-file up against the wall
so the bomb,
when it comes,
could roll its way down beside you.
You stand clear like a shadow.
The Bronx is curled under your desk
covering your head from
theBlacks/theRussians/theCubans/thePuertoRicans.
The Bronx is a music teacher in a dark suit
who hands out pennies at Christmas.
He doesn't date your mother but he should.
The President died in my Bronx classroom
filling up the afternoon
to The Pledge of Allegiance.
Early dismissal flowing down the rest of the year
like a black cloud.
The Bronx is a long block with tree names –
bicycles filled with dead air.
German shepherd dogs –
their chains rolled tight against bad boy fists.
It is crossed streets- Johnny- pumps high against passing cars
It is the deep drip of summer.
The Bronx is needles in apples on Halloween.
Sulky neighbors with sharp fang teeth;
dead pigeons in rainbow-oil puddles
around and around lost, like in a drain.
It is gum stuck to the end of your shoes.
The Bronx is the end of your shoes.
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For Poet Mikels Skele, Summer Is An Indefinite Passage
Mikels Skele
Summer, then
Surfing the faint, tireless breeze
Music from a distant park
The last half-hearted song
Of the sparrow
Fireflies like paper lanterns
In a far-away twilight
Long before conditioned air
In the hot, moist summer
Even clocks stopped running,
Too slow to mark
The interminable hours,
The memories, the sweat
Whole eternities passed
In the too long days
Of the too short summers
So entirely gone
There is no stylus so precise
As to record the passage of a soul
From one moment to the next
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All New Haiku From Poet
Arvinder Kaur
Arvinder Kaur
from Selected Haiku
farm stream -
the moon slips across
the barbed wire
❊
rustle of leaves -
the music of all that lives
and dies
❊
train window -
moon from home comes along
all the way
❊
broken bridge - a langur's leap from fog to fog
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Peter V. Dugan And An Unconventional Valediction
Peter V. Dugan
Hey, Bobby
Hey Bobby, you’re overdressed.
Suit, tie, jacket, and a carnation;
I almost didn’t recognize you
without your leather.
Do you feel out of place?
I see you’re packed and ready to go;
leather jacket, ratty cut-off, and your cap,
all folded neatly on the side.
Beer, Jack Daniel’s and cigarettes
right next to you, pictures of your wife,
your kids and your bike,
all the things you liked, loved and lived for
crammed inside a box.
Are you going to miss them?
Hey, Bobby, it’s a going away party.
The guys are giving you a toast,
wishing you a safe ride . . .
while, the girls sit crying with your family.
They miss you already; but you remain silent.
I thought you liked parties.
How does it feel to be the guest of honor?
Well I have to say good-bye now;
I wish you could stay longer.
It won’t be the same without you;
but you chose to live hard and die fast.
I’ll miss you Bobby B.
Do you think there are bikes wherever you’re going?
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Michael Lee Johnson
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Meet One Of Poet Michael Lee
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Possum Slim ☊
105 years old today
Possum Slim finally
gets his GED,
drinks gin,
talks with the dead.
“Strange kind of folks
come around here,
strange ghosts,”
he says, “come
creeping pretty regular.
Just 2 ghosts,
the only women I ever loved,
the only women I ever shot dead.”
105 years old today
Possum Slim finally
gets his GED,
drinks gin,
talks with the dead.
“Strange kind of folks
come around here,
strange ghosts,”
he says, “come
creeping pretty regular.
Just 2 ghosts,
the only women I ever loved,
the only women I ever shot dead.”
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Poet Angele Ellis Returns With Her
Latest Poem
Angele Ellis
Maske Freiheit
space between skin and surface
bandage that warms like flesh
eyes framed or hooded
mouth a hacked Vendetta grin
strips of newsprint lathered
with flour and water
each layer dried completely
before adding the next
when you are finished
you can drill it just like wood
he said
I see how you use
writing
to talk about yourself
without talking about yourself
pages fan the podium
drafts sleet the floor
the grain we go against
the figure in the carpet retreating
the yellow wallpaper read
in a certain slant of light
the headlines of the world
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Poet Doc Burkard And What The News Really Is
Doc Burkard
The Songwriter
on his deathbed,
documentary crew turning
each breath to celluloid.
They hand him a harmonica,
play us one of the hits,
just one last time, the producer speaks,
his voice full of gravel and greed.
It's barely recognizable
and one of the boom mics isn't working.
It don't matter anyways;
you couldn't pay me to watch,
Even though, I know we all stop at car crashes
in these United States of America
and this is what we have become.
Is it a poet's job to recite the news?
Tonight at Nine, This is a history of us.
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