Archive #35
May, 2016
Shannon P. Laws' Latest Poem Explores Metaphor and Self
From Daniel Klawitter, A Profusion of (Unkind) Metaphors
Joanna Suzanne Lee: Richmond Was Not
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Veronica Lupinacci
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Two Short Poems From Poet
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Polaroid Haiku: Sarasota: Summer, 1996
Tadpole-mud slimy Birkenstocks. Mosquito bite
legs. Spiny trash-leaves.
Summer into fall into summer into fall into
warm gulf brine.
Watermelon in salty waves. Rainbow sails crest
Sarasota bay.
Oppressive sun leaks in the blinds. AC hum kicks off.
A sweaty nap.
Hospital Thoughts
Looking out from the cardiac floor the caution-
orange wind sock is drunk and vomiting on the roof, slumped
skin-naked, weeping.
My father’s tongue is a purple slug.
If I look away from the monitor, he will stop breathing.
Forty-five minutes is restful sleep, now, good. Good--
sugarfree cranberry peelback cup.
The wind sock is still drunk, but now he’s waving. A nice, sloppy,
Heyyouguuuys!
Read the poetry of Veronica Lupinacci
Read a profile of Veronica Lupinacci
Tadpole-mud slimy Birkenstocks. Mosquito bite
legs. Spiny trash-leaves.
Summer into fall into summer into fall into
warm gulf brine.
Watermelon in salty waves. Rainbow sails crest
Sarasota bay.
Oppressive sun leaks in the blinds. AC hum kicks off.
A sweaty nap.
Hospital Thoughts
Looking out from the cardiac floor the caution-
orange wind sock is drunk and vomiting on the roof, slumped
skin-naked, weeping.
My father’s tongue is a purple slug.
If I look away from the monitor, he will stop breathing.
Forty-five minutes is restful sleep, now, good. Good--
sugarfree cranberry peelback cup.
The wind sock is still drunk, but now he’s waving. A nice, sloppy,
Heyyouguuuys!
Read the poetry of Veronica Lupinacci
Read a profile of Veronica Lupinacci
Poet Donal Mahoney: By Not Writing
A Poem, He Does
Donal Mahoney
Apple Fritter and a Single
Rose
After 30 years together,
Carol tells me late one evening
in the manner of a quiet wife
that I have yet to write a poem
about her, something she
will never understand in light
of all those other poems
she says I wrote
about those other women
before she drove North.
And so I tell her once again
I wrote those other poems
about no women I ever knew
the way I now know her
even if I saw them once or twice
for dinner, maybe,
and a little vodka
over lime and ice.
Near midnight, though,
she says again
in the manner of a quiet wife
it's been thirty years
and still no poem.
When morning comes
I motor off to town to buy
a paper and a poem
for Carol
but find instead
undulating in a big glass case
an apple fritter,
tanned and glistening,
lying there just waiting.
So I buy the lovely fritter
and a single long-stem rose
orphaned near the register,
roaring red, and still
at full attention.
I bring them home but find
Carol still asleep
and so I put the fritter
on the breadboard
and the rose right next to it,
at the proper angle.
When she wakes I hope
the fritter and the rose
will buy me time until
somewhere in the attic
of my mind I find
a poem that says
more about us than
this apple fritter,
tanned and glistening,
lying there just waiting,
and a single long-stem rose,
roaring red, and still
at full attention.
Read the poetry of Donal Mahoney
Read a profile of Donal Mahoney
Rose
After 30 years together,
Carol tells me late one evening
in the manner of a quiet wife
that I have yet to write a poem
about her, something she
will never understand in light
of all those other poems
she says I wrote
about those other women
before she drove North.
And so I tell her once again
I wrote those other poems
about no women I ever knew
the way I now know her
even if I saw them once or twice
for dinner, maybe,
and a little vodka
over lime and ice.
Near midnight, though,
she says again
in the manner of a quiet wife
it's been thirty years
and still no poem.
When morning comes
I motor off to town to buy
a paper and a poem
for Carol
but find instead
undulating in a big glass case
an apple fritter,
tanned and glistening,
lying there just waiting.
So I buy the lovely fritter
and a single long-stem rose
orphaned near the register,
roaring red, and still
at full attention.
I bring them home but find
Carol still asleep
and so I put the fritter
on the breadboard
and the rose right next to it,
at the proper angle.
When she wakes I hope
the fritter and the rose
will buy me time until
somewhere in the attic
of my mind I find
a poem that says
more about us than
this apple fritter,
tanned and glistening,
lying there just waiting,
and a single long-stem rose,
roaring red, and still
at full attention.
Read the poetry of Donal Mahoney
Read a profile of Donal Mahoney
Leslie Philibert
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From Poet Leslie Philibert, Two
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Incident
Anywhere. Evening rain.
Snakes cross the road,
that is no longer an obvious place,
it cracks like old toffee.
Lost souls in nightgowns and slippers
foam behind wire.
A dark tide bids,
then waits for a gallery of small heads,
blue eyes devoid of doubt.
A world of small signs
Seagulls over Antrim
~in memoriam Liam Clarke
The strandcafe
was lined
with Hitchcock seagulls
as you looked over
your glasses
with concern
and said
that I did not understand Hegel.
A time ago of rage and joy, of rain.
Read the poetry of Leslie Philibert
Read a profile of Leslie Philibert
Anywhere. Evening rain.
Snakes cross the road,
that is no longer an obvious place,
it cracks like old toffee.
Lost souls in nightgowns and slippers
foam behind wire.
A dark tide bids,
then waits for a gallery of small heads,
blue eyes devoid of doubt.
A world of small signs
Seagulls over Antrim
~in memoriam Liam Clarke
The strandcafe
was lined
with Hitchcock seagulls
as you looked over
your glasses
with concern
and said
that I did not understand Hegel.
A time ago of rage and joy, of rain.
Read the poetry of Leslie Philibert
Read a profile of Leslie Philibert
Photography by Reka Jellema for "A Loom" (Click to enlarge)
Reka Jellema And Brendan Bonsack Write VerseWrights' First
Collaborative Poem
Reka Jellema
Brendan Bonsack
|
A Loom
Her lap is a loom Her hands a steady weft And from the weave a murmuring Of moths on threads unseen, Unheard, she listens for the man Who comes to call, to sit upon the stool Pulling at the cotton til Her fingers find his wrist Cuffed and white and crisp The buttons tightly imitating eyes Tucked away in creases and lies About the place, about the time As though by stitch and by Stitch she could hide him Crouched and hushed and hazardous As a fine shirt pin |
(Reka Jellema lives in the US and Brendan Bonsack
in Australia)
in Australia)
Roslyn Ross
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Poet Roslyn Ross With A Mix Of The
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House on the Headland
Headland huddled holding staggered ground,
house held fragile against the misted sea,
in distant gazing, silenced windows;
nothing but the sigh of breathing waves is found.
As if dropped at once into final, steady place,
with each rock gathered from the falling cliff,
and pressed tightly into possibility and hope;
so does this small refuge sit with grace.
High above the suck and shrug of salty ocean,
tossing songs of crusting, ancient words,
cossetted by golden, keening bush and leaf;
trailing dusty hands with eloquent emotion.
Horizon hurls itself into its brutal destiny,
far away from what is here and now,
calling softly on the scuds of foaming light;
so my home sits quiet, ever waiting.
Read the poetry of Roslyn Ross
Read a profile of Roslyn Ross
Poet Rachel Schmieder-Gropen
Remakes Herself
Rachel Schmieder-Gropen
Outgrowing
I am shedding you like snakeskin,
dropping your certainty of my selfhood
in the dust like discarded armor,
smooth rings rusted sharp,
hammered breastplate bent
in the shape of a fist, Caroline --
I stopped existing the second
you left me behind, remade myself
atom by atom, moment by moment:
I have developed a taste for Icelandic
candies, I have stopped cringing
at the mention of sex and this summer
I learned how to use a drill.
You don’t know me, not this particular
living me; you can’t find me now
and I am new and safe, undiscovered,
skin soft and raw, red as peeled fruit.
I am shedding you like snakeskin.
I will not define myself with your
constriction: watch me leave my own
unfollowed tracks through the dust.
Read the poetry of Rachel Schmieder-Gropen
Read a profile of Rachel Schmieder-Gropen
Poet Emily Strauss: The Outside
And The Inside
Emily Strauss
|
Silent Gaps out here there is no music to distract from those tiny spaces between a sense-object and its mental response only the whine of insects, rustle of wrens in thick shrubs the high-pitched hum of the world spinning the hollow silence, negative pull of words left unsaid, the air draining away empties the body. I sit alone on a cliff, no grace notes out here only empty light, the wind slightly grazing my head earth tones too subdued for any song, holding still, the voices long gone, only the gaps in my head remain. Read the poetry of Emily Strauss Read a profile of Emily Strauss |
Layley Lu
|
Layley Lu Rails Against the Storm With Sonorous Lines |
Rest Now, Tempest Rest
I have not been the strong one.
I petrified my suppleness and swallowed cold rocks
from tall island to wide island, crissed and cross with
jags:
chopped winters into useless grief, ploughed snow,
minced sleet to eye shadow in shades of hoary blasts.
I will no longer shame your house.
I have broken my cedar veins against the wash stones,
and hang my skin in high branches for beating or for
bleach.
Nor will I longer weep.
These fronds have taken up the rusty saw in their palm:
lopped and fell the hard edged gale gusting on the shore.
Salt and sand trickle down from starlight beacons
overhead,
praying: rest now,
tempest rest...
Read the poetry of Layley Lu
Read a profile of Layley Lu
I have not been the strong one.
I petrified my suppleness and swallowed cold rocks
from tall island to wide island, crissed and cross with
jags:
chopped winters into useless grief, ploughed snow,
minced sleet to eye shadow in shades of hoary blasts.
I will no longer shame your house.
I have broken my cedar veins against the wash stones,
and hang my skin in high branches for beating or for
bleach.
Nor will I longer weep.
These fronds have taken up the rusty saw in their palm:
lopped and fell the hard edged gale gusting on the shore.
Salt and sand trickle down from starlight beacons
overhead,
praying: rest now,
tempest rest...
Read the poetry of Layley Lu
Read a profile of Layley Lu
Paul Lipman's Poem Opens With A
Metaphor That Rises To A Conceit
Paulie Lipman
Bellows
The human body
is an accordion
constructed by
an unseen craftsman
Perfect in form, but hollow
until a musician moves it
to beauty
Buttons
for a mind that
can shift perspective
and mood
Ivory keys
bones
when struck in different combinations
determine an existence
major or minor
Bellows, for lungs
that can scream
wail
lullaby
or weep
And when
the last tarantella is
wrested from its frame
it is laid to rest in
a velvet lined box
and the song
the legacy
is laid to rest
in the wind
Read the poetry of Paulie Lipman
Rad a profile of Paulie Lipman
Poet Sarah Frances Moran And How
Love Finds Its Way In
Sarah Frances Moran
La Comadreja*
I thought
I’d developed past the desire
for consumption.
After the discardment
in the past,
allowing a woman to infest me
set off blazing light
warning signs
neon bright
and squealing.
There’s beauty
in the ability
to skirt walls.
to avoid the spotlight.
to dance around the shadows
of the searchlights.
Even on high alert,
she eludes me.
She weasels her way into the poems
that aren’t even about her.
Setting up residence
in the pit of me.
Turning my soul
into
home.
*the weasel
Read the poetry of Sarah Frances Moran
Read a profile of Sarah Frances Moran
Robert Nied
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Robert Nied Tells Us To Take Chances And Live! Sort of... |
Tater Tot
I didn’t break my collar bone on the half-pipe at Stowe
I didn’t unbalance my electrolytes during an open ocean
swim
I didn’t sustain a knife wound defeating a mugger on State Street
I burned my esophagus eating a Tater Tot
I know what you are thinking…
Aren’t you the guy who complains about the lack of fine dining in Upstate,
NY?
Don’t you grow cilantro on the window sill because your salsa demands it?
Yes, a Tater Tot. Seduced by the siren call of both mono and diglycerides
I watch the triage nurse prioritize the injured and sick -
The chain saw logger with the blood stained Carhart
The car wreck survivor with an airbag bruise the size of a
dodge ball
The asthmatic toddler with a worried dad
“Just have a seat, we’ll call you soon” or in an hour, or six
Take your place next to intoxicated dirtbiker with two
broken pinkies
Slurring the story of the trees that “didn’t look that close
together”
You can chat with the “bet you can’t jump off the car
port” teenager, the
light bulb eater and the auto erotic experimenter.
Maybe you can start a card game
with the home renovator in flip flops,
the cactus plant mover
or the orange haired crafter with the crazy glue cap affixed to her eyebrow
Just before 1 AM the young resident said that I would be
fine
“drink plenty of water and take Tylenol”
But not before asking the existential question:
“Why didn’t you just wait until it cooled off?”
Indignant, I said because I am adventurer who seizes the
moment
Why defer, why delay?
You never know when your car could stall on the train
tracks
Or a 6.5 quake could pit your skull against the falling
façade of a convenience store
I burned my esophagus with a Tater Tot because I am
alive!
Read the poetry of Robert Nied
Read a profile of Robert Nied
I didn’t break my collar bone on the half-pipe at Stowe
I didn’t unbalance my electrolytes during an open ocean
swim
I didn’t sustain a knife wound defeating a mugger on State Street
I burned my esophagus eating a Tater Tot
I know what you are thinking…
Aren’t you the guy who complains about the lack of fine dining in Upstate,
NY?
Don’t you grow cilantro on the window sill because your salsa demands it?
Yes, a Tater Tot. Seduced by the siren call of both mono and diglycerides
I watch the triage nurse prioritize the injured and sick -
The chain saw logger with the blood stained Carhart
The car wreck survivor with an airbag bruise the size of a
dodge ball
The asthmatic toddler with a worried dad
“Just have a seat, we’ll call you soon” or in an hour, or six
Take your place next to intoxicated dirtbiker with two
broken pinkies
Slurring the story of the trees that “didn’t look that close
together”
You can chat with the “bet you can’t jump off the car
port” teenager, the
light bulb eater and the auto erotic experimenter.
Maybe you can start a card game
with the home renovator in flip flops,
the cactus plant mover
or the orange haired crafter with the crazy glue cap affixed to her eyebrow
Just before 1 AM the young resident said that I would be
fine
“drink plenty of water and take Tylenol”
But not before asking the existential question:
“Why didn’t you just wait until it cooled off?”
Indignant, I said because I am adventurer who seizes the
moment
Why defer, why delay?
You never know when your car could stall on the train
tracks
Or a 6.5 quake could pit your skull against the falling
façade of a convenience store
I burned my esophagus with a Tater Tot because I am
alive!
Read the poetry of Robert Nied
Read a profile of Robert Nied
Poet Samantha Reynolds: Mother As
Servant To Her (Princess) Child
Samantha Reynolds
|
Twitchy Servant This must have been what it was like in medieval times a young princess flocks of twitchy servants trying to read her mood this morning laughing was banned and now socks are forbidden last night I didn’t know about the pillows and I sat on one she screamed no and I jumped up quick to obey to stop the sound of her yell that scraped the inside of my head and it must have been this way with royal offspring except she might have stomped and shouted off with head for the pillow infraction perhaps or for not finding the right pen or when the balloon popped and I couldn’t put it back together and maybe the next day lopped head buried or drowned or however they disposed of the guilty the young princess would ask for that nursemaid and someone would softly remind her what she’d done and she’d realize she missed her kind smile and that time they slipped in the mud and laughed so hard they peed a little in their dresses and her heart and stomach would tighten like she was choking and she would look around for who to yell at bring her back. Read the poetry of Samantha Reynolds Read a profile of Samantha Reynolds |
Poet Miriam Sagan's Latest Is A Poem
Of Shadow And Light
Miriam Sagan
Shadow Puppets
West of the sun and east of the moon
beyond the causeway
I strolled this morning without dunes
just boardwalk and green park
through the slatted window blind
across the palm treed alley
a red lantern hung at dawn
by day was just an exit sign
illuminated boxes show
silhouette of a hill
lone pine, classical ruin
minarets, Japan
the sky breaks infrared as rain
each image there is turned again
the mirror shows a passing scene
once more this world spins upside-down
what was I thinking
statue of Shiva was not
no, was, the sea
turning so enter me
Read the poetry of Miriam Sagan
Read a profile of Miriam Sagan
JT Milford
|
Poet JT Milford's Homage To Fellow Poet, Mary Jo Balistreri |
Aubade
~for Jo Balistreri
May the flowers
of your soul open
to receive the gift
of morning light
That gives life
to everything
the sky lapis blue
and the forever
light of you
Poet's note: I wrote this poem to celebrate Jo Balistreri, her poetry and her help and support given me over the years we have been e-mail friends. Many of my poems would not have come to fruition without her insightful comments and suggestions. Reading her books and selected poems she sent to me has shown what emotion she brings to her beautiful poetry.
Read the poetry of JT Milford
Read a profile of JT Milford
~for Jo Balistreri
May the flowers
of your soul open
to receive the gift
of morning light
That gives life
to everything
the sky lapis blue
and the forever
light of you
Poet's note: I wrote this poem to celebrate Jo Balistreri, her poetry and her help and support given me over the years we have been e-mail friends. Many of my poems would not have come to fruition without her insightful comments and suggestions. Reading her books and selected poems she sent to me has shown what emotion she brings to her beautiful poetry.
Read the poetry of JT Milford
Read a profile of JT Milford
Eleanor Swanson Probes The Relationship
Of Poet And Poem
Eleanor Swanson
|
Reading Runes Older ones are written on scraps of yellowed paper folded like letters that will never be mailed. Some recent ones have been written in the kitchen and bear unsavory, unrecognizable stains. Some are dumb in the sense they will never speak again, and in the other sense—full of false grandeur, silly notions, abstract weightless ideas, wrong words. On many unfinished poems the hopeful poet has written copious notes to herself about how the poem must be revised: add a word here, this is a terrible title. What does it mean? Here is the key stanza. Why is it buried in the middle of the poem? Some of the notes are questions, but the poet is scolding the unfinished poem as well. Most of these works-in-progress will always be in progress, because the poet doesn’t have the sense to know when to stop. Those writers who stop in the middle of a line presage a failure of nerve or breath or pure ennui. The words, the gaps, quenched flame—all must be read like runes. Read the poetry of Eleanor Swanson Read a profile of Eleanor Swanson |
VerseWrights Warmly Welcomes Poet
Mark Dennis Anderson
Mark Dennis Anderson
|
That Thing About Inner Life ☊
The clouds this morning are doing that thing where they roll along the horizon blacking out the sunrise like some ominous distant mountain range like I'm out west not stuck in this flat middle and this run to the gas station is a wilderness expedition and this fear in my chest is fear for my life because beyond that tree (street corner) or across that river (stop light intersection) a mountain lion (tan sedan) or grizzly (black SUV) might be doing their thing minding their business until their business is my business and all this business of living crashes and collides like galaxies or atoms or lovers doing their thing that looks like destruction but is actually creation until all the things quivering with relief lay trembling on the floor |
Enjoy this poem in the PoetryAloud area
Read the poetry of Mark Dennis Anderson
Read a profile of Mark Dennis Anderson
Read the poetry of Mark Dennis Anderson
Read a profile of Mark Dennis Anderson
Amauri Solon: The Familiar Becomes
A Personal Metaphor
Amauri Solon
|
Rocking-chair My rocking-chair is my dream machine In my rocking-chair I can be happy at no cost brave at no risk and eternal In my rocking-chair I shyly smile loudly laugh and secretly weep My rocking-chair is my grandmother's lap my frozen ears and blinking eyes my choking throat and my gurgling guts My rocking-chair is my rumination machine rocking back and forth I wander and wonder I amble and tremble I act and pretend I live and I die Read the poetry of Amauri Solon Read a profile of Amauri Solon |
Two Poems of Romance From
Jill Lapin-Zell
Jill Lapin-Zell
|
Beach Walk moonlight painting shiny silver beaches shadow footprints speak our path as we walk along the shore arms around each other, heads close together laughing with the wind telling secrets about the stars and naming the waves as they break gently on the sand barefoot tidal mambo surf lapping at our toes sand sliding back to the sea grain after grain, magically drawn like a lover going home and we stop to honor the journey holding our intention to be as strong and our love as vital and rhythmic as the tide On My Radar There you are A blip on my screen A glowing green dot Suggesting you really do exist And looking for clearance to land My runway is alight Lower your landing gear And taxi on over to my gate Read the poetry of Jill Lapin-Zell Read a profile of Jill Lapin-Zell |
Lee Kisling Imagines His Celestial Self
Lee Kisling
Debris
Since I decided to give you some space -
some relief from my bright feathers and insistent call,
I have arranged for you a place to lay low
between Orion’s belt, Sirius the Dog Star,
the Big Dipper and the blur of Andromeda
faint in the east, which if connected by lines
resembles Wisconsin, except for being
10 million billion trillion times larger, reaching
back in time to the blink of creation.
In the quiet of that great space you will not hear
the creak of my bones in the morning
or the sound of my drums after dark.
From my position, it seems a lonely place.
Still, in the space that I have set aside for you
there are items of interest, and some things to avoid
like the cloud of articles I’ve lost over the years:
socks, books, pocket knives, bikes – all tumbling
through the darkness like a thrift store without walls,
or the cloud of crumpled balls of paper
which were problem-child poems or high blood pressure
love songs which missed the waste basket,
or a gathering of the ghosts of my former self
huddled by a frozen campfire singing old songs
about so, so many missed opportunities.
Read the poetry of Lee Kisling
Read a profile of Lee Kisling
Kat Lehmann
|
Kat Lehmann's Magical Realism Is An Enchanting Defense Of Poetry |
Being a Poem
I opened a poem – crawled inside,
felt its rough edges around smooth, concave walls.
I – the little spoon – curled knees to chin and speechless
in the warmth as I dreamed.
Cautiously, I crept out (time later)
and steadied myself on the Moon.
The poem still flowed through me like blood
as if I had been born from it.
Its rhythm in my veins brought a spark
to my eyes and a sway
to my hips –
The poem was everywhere I looked.
It was grass bending in a breeze
that traveled the world,
reaching with fingers of wind
to gently slip over its green length
from broad base to icicle point.
The poem was breath
as my lungs expanded like inverted trees
transforming atmosphere and lightly releasing it
like a song.
I touched myself as if touching the poem
with the mastery of self-recognition
only to realize that
I am a poem
that stirs the souls of the lost and found
before sailing like a wisp
of one who cannot be owned
only borrowed.
Read the poetry of Kat Lehmann
Read a profile of Kat Lehmann
I opened a poem – crawled inside,
felt its rough edges around smooth, concave walls.
I – the little spoon – curled knees to chin and speechless
in the warmth as I dreamed.
Cautiously, I crept out (time later)
and steadied myself on the Moon.
The poem still flowed through me like blood
as if I had been born from it.
Its rhythm in my veins brought a spark
to my eyes and a sway
to my hips –
The poem was everywhere I looked.
It was grass bending in a breeze
that traveled the world,
reaching with fingers of wind
to gently slip over its green length
from broad base to icicle point.
The poem was breath
as my lungs expanded like inverted trees
transforming atmosphere and lightly releasing it
like a song.
I touched myself as if touching the poem
with the mastery of self-recognition
only to realize that
I am a poem
that stirs the souls of the lost and found
before sailing like a wisp
of one who cannot be owned
only borrowed.
Read the poetry of Kat Lehmann
Read a profile of Kat Lehmann
Matthew Quinn
|
Poet Matthew Quinn's Latest Is
|
Baptism into Oblivion
The multitude gather,
aged and frail, bathe
in the beautiful river,
wash in forgetting
clean as any absence ever was.
Then all dissolves
to a home
which is not home.
Blank confusion
stares out at bland walls.
Worried hands work
against each other
to find … what was it? …
grasped
a mere moment before.
Behold this sleight of hand
of mind upon the self
where the wide river
shrinks to a dead cistern
and the coin never held
never drops
into an empty well
of wishes never asked.
Read the poetry of Matthew Quinn
Read a profile of Matthew Quinn
The multitude gather,
aged and frail, bathe
in the beautiful river,
wash in forgetting
clean as any absence ever was.
Then all dissolves
to a home
which is not home.
Blank confusion
stares out at bland walls.
Worried hands work
against each other
to find … what was it? …
grasped
a mere moment before.
Behold this sleight of hand
of mind upon the self
where the wide river
shrinks to a dead cistern
and the coin never held
never drops
into an empty well
of wishes never asked.
Read the poetry of Matthew Quinn
Read a profile of Matthew Quinn
In "Samsara," Poet Shirani Rajapakse
Seeks A Guide
Shirani Rajapakse
Samsara*
I’m bored with this life.
Can I go home? But where is
home? How do I get there? Which bus
do I take? Do I fly instead, or can
the road take me there through
its twists and turns? And if I fall along
the way will you lift me
up? Give me new shoes and food
to eat and a place to stay. Will you come
with me, or do you stay behind?
Alone. I could do with some company
on my way there. To nowhere. To
where I don’t know. For I
cannot read a map and you can.
It’s as simple as that.
*Samsara: the cycle of death and rebirth to which
life in the material world is bound
Read the poetry of Shirani Rajapakse
Read a profile of Shirani Rajapakse
Poet Dana Rushin Pretends
Without Pretense
Dana Rushin
i go about pretending
Most of the time, I go about pretending
that there is a part (though granted a small part)
that wants to be tied up to the bed-post
and my naked ass whipped
while I plead that the dominatrix invite me
home for new poems. Especially on those
days when I've slept too long on my face
and the blood wells up behind my eyes.
See,
it's not always the heart;
Sometimes the mind breaks as well. Because to
be separated hurts to touch your elbow
on the hot roof of it
and loneliness makes the room dark
and the furniture licorice
and the sofa a too tight corn roll.
And to that resounding that dragged me to it's lap:
Please stop! I beg of you. Or in other words,
Please don't/
Read the poetry of Dana Rushin
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Poet Jacob Salzer Stills A Black
And White Moment
Jacob Salzer
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Without Knowing I stand still with you in an empty building old voices absorbed into hollow walls as a sound we cannot hear as fragments of a memory escape innumerable shapes of black and grey I watch shadows move beneath dim street lights as the first sight of daylight pierces through broken windows I'm listening to you sleep waiting for you to wake to be still with you without knowing the early light of morning Read the poetry of Jacob Salzer Read a profile of Jacob Salzer |
Gareth Spark
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Poet Gareth Spark's Poem Of
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Megafauna
You see them sometimes, in headache dreams
(The migrainous hours,
Brain dried out by beer and body
hammer-wracked by work)
Lumbering Gods of the Earth's first nervous beats,
Massive shapes in brown shadow and
The rusting African light,
Heat of breath on dust, turned against
The dream's cage;
Colossi moving against
The lotus vault of sky,
Moving always,
Even after we are gone.
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Mary Jo Balistreri
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Poet Mary Jo Balistreri's Poem
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Click on painting for an enlarged view
Bonnard Remembers Marthe in Evening Light
~after Pierre Bonnard's View from the Artist's Studio
As I lean toward sunset, the tall trees
hold the sun in such embrace they throb
within me. The stone paths we designed
flow like rivers of molten gold in this heat.
I sit at the open window of my studio
and paint the outrageous color of our garden.
The pulse of hidden seeds beats soft
against the canvas like your small body
against mine. How present you are
in your absence.
The flowering orange drifts to the pink
oils in which I dress you, falls beside me as you
carry the pruned stems by armfuls into the house,
the air delicious with sweetness.
My eyes blur as you bend over your hoe,
something passing in that intense light, a
ripening, a flush, the way you open the baked
soil, coax and cajole it like a child.
Evening is upon us and a lavender breeze lifts
the hair on my arms. The blues and greens quiver
in the changed air, and you drape my shoulders
in a cloak of violet and yellow. Soon a sea of black
starlight will close over us.
Je me souviens, Marthe;
life lives not in the brush stroke, but in between.
Read the poetry of Mary Jo Balistreri
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~after Pierre Bonnard's View from the Artist's Studio
As I lean toward sunset, the tall trees
hold the sun in such embrace they throb
within me. The stone paths we designed
flow like rivers of molten gold in this heat.
I sit at the open window of my studio
and paint the outrageous color of our garden.
The pulse of hidden seeds beats soft
against the canvas like your small body
against mine. How present you are
in your absence.
The flowering orange drifts to the pink
oils in which I dress you, falls beside me as you
carry the pruned stems by armfuls into the house,
the air delicious with sweetness.
My eyes blur as you bend over your hoe,
something passing in that intense light, a
ripening, a flush, the way you open the baked
soil, coax and cajole it like a child.
Evening is upon us and a lavender breeze lifts
the hair on my arms. The blues and greens quiver
in the changed air, and you drape my shoulders
in a cloak of violet and yellow. Soon a sea of black
starlight will close over us.
Je me souviens, Marthe;
life lives not in the brush stroke, but in between.
Read the poetry of Mary Jo Balistreri
Read a profile of Mary Jo Balistreri
Poet Marianne Szlyk And An Escape
To The Cape
Marianne Szlyk
Let's Go Away for Awhile
Thelma and her husband sing along to Pet Sounds
when driving to the Cape. Jerry Cole’s guitar
begins “Wouldn’t It Be Nice,” and they launch
into song, his voice too wild, hers with
the Texas accent she never can lose. They
plunge in, splashing past strip malls and swamp.
But this instrumental is the song she loves best,
the vibraphone like sunshine against drums like surf,
the horns like the wave that crashes furthest
onto the rocks, not quite the highway.
The strings are clouds, meringue she has whipped
up in a stainless steel bowl at home.
She almost forgets that the east coast
has weak surf, and slimy seaweed clings to
waders’ calves in warm, knee-high water
as she and her husband waddle in among
the thin girls from Boston. She then remembers
cold, cloudy Mondays when the two of them
drive back home, listening to their inland music:
Chicago blues, Texas swing, Hank Williams’ “Honky Tonkin,"
the old songs that better suit their voices.
Maybe she likes that this instrumental comes before
anyone can see the bridge or the traffic.
Or she likes to catch her breath
before “Sloop John B”’s lyrics grind her down
like the refrain of a whiny child.
She catches her breath.
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Robert Walicki
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Poet Robert Walicki Imagines
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Lego
Only if you are ten and it’s rainy and a Saturday--
You are hungry, but there are worlds to be built,
a rainbow of mismatched brick.
Plastic, but small enough for your hand, not like
those heavy piles of red and that mortar splattered
scaffolding stretched outside
a yellow window where you watched those men from an
eighth
grade classroom sweat and lay brick, lift cauldrons of
mortar
by rope to a bridge made of split two by tens.
How could you know in ten years you’d be just like them,
cementing storm drains into manholes 8 feet down?
This baptism of mud drying on your gloveless hands.
And now, you watch your nephew kneel down as if
his act was sacred. A birthday gift of Legos,
the grey and black bricks spilling to the floor.
The picture he is making is a war plane with missiles
He discards instructions and builds what’s in his mind,
resolute with each piece he snaps into place,
The inevitability of the structure taking shape.
Read the poetry of Robert Walicki
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Only if you are ten and it’s rainy and a Saturday--
You are hungry, but there are worlds to be built,
a rainbow of mismatched brick.
Plastic, but small enough for your hand, not like
those heavy piles of red and that mortar splattered
scaffolding stretched outside
a yellow window where you watched those men from an
eighth
grade classroom sweat and lay brick, lift cauldrons of
mortar
by rope to a bridge made of split two by tens.
How could you know in ten years you’d be just like them,
cementing storm drains into manholes 8 feet down?
This baptism of mud drying on your gloveless hands.
And now, you watch your nephew kneel down as if
his act was sacred. A birthday gift of Legos,
the grey and black bricks spilling to the floor.
The picture he is making is a war plane with missiles
He discards instructions and builds what’s in his mind,
resolute with each piece he snaps into place,
The inevitability of the structure taking shape.
Read the poetry of Robert Walicki
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Poet Grant Tabard With A Poem From A Different Perspective
Grant Tarbard
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In My Lover's Womb
1. In my lover's womb I play her ribs like A xylophone. We Make music until The roses wither. 2. In my lover's womb I knew that I would Have to clamber down Out of her jelly, Swaying crook morning. 3. In my lover's womb She flowers inside A crimson kiln, a Roses firestone Seeking the Sun's flames. 4. In my lover's womb, It is a place for Making noises, hear The breeze outside her Lining of sunset. 5. In my lover's womb Desire is a red Dye of joy untold, Cocooned in her shy Blue November eyes. Read the poetry of Grant Tarbard Read a profile of Grant Tarbard |