Archive #41
November, 2016
your voice on the phone
urges me to think beautiful thoughts vacations we took, restaurants we loved, wines we tasted together, trails we hiked every thought simply becomes a new burden the past invading current pains in my chest which feel like they will succeed only with death thank you for calling ❦ you thought you wouldn’t survive here without the light of the sun the crime of other lifetimes allow you to recall there is guilt this punishment will cover the suffering of your whole life you will survive as a flower blanketed by shadows Read the poetry of r soos Read a profile of r soos
Flowers in My Bed
A cactus nub Among the neglect And disarray So carelessly, I tossed it In the earth bed And forgot. I found The red buds Among the spray And dark green spikes of Pointing fingers in the dirt And remembered I am not in charge of anything. I said a word Among the pain And wrapped it Lovingly into a gift And placed it In lonely hands. And remembered. I can make a difference In anyone. Careless tossing Taking root Making flowers In my bed. Read the poetry of Ellen Conserva Read a profile of Ellen Conserva
Falling
the wind turns my apple tree into a victim, a lover banging on a closed door of gnarled wood; a dance makes this ringing evening singular, the leaves agree to fall and turn in the dull faith of air, they tell us about birth and departure, about leaving together, stories of ending as the sun arcs and protests Tree Child rest among the gentians like an exhausted lover, the road has thrown you out of track and youth, a line of rescue wakes the rooks in the cold trees there is a nest not far away waiting to fall, a pause before the first call, a damp leaf. Read the poetry of Leslie Philibert Read a profile of Leslie Philibert
Mementos from the End Time
“… scraps of memory found in dull minds…” At the end of time, when The trees can no longer stand and Small birds fall Down from the pale sky, I Think I’ll take that barren path that Stretches out to the Forgotten, though calm, lake… And sit – And pick up little sharp rocks – Tossing them into The broken water. While the lone boat of a Lone man paddles off into The distance. So, This is the place I’ll be and Where you can find me, if You want. Look for The stick up against The hollow tree. The Golden time-watch inside. Or, Find me in the dirt on boot-soles Left warming beside slowly Dying fires. The letter left Unopened in the metal Mailbox… but waiting… Always waiting like the man seen Far ahead on a trail. His Back to us as he rounds a corner by A tree… but, somewhere, in The green thick of the trees he Waits, a walking stick In hand. While an old, worn Book remains open and Hidden in a deep, quiet Cavern, somewhere… Read the poetry of Matthew Henningsen Read a profile of Matthew Henningsen
Rusty Wet Leaves
boots of black, whetted by rain forgotten memory left far behind woodpecker tapping upon birch moss covered granite whispers deer disappear into fern & pine partridge drum in the deep hollow woodland faeries smiling softly path covered in rusty wet leaves gentle breezes calm and serene a bear moves in lumbering grace car horns heard off in the distance peaceful surrender, enchantingly. Sunday Smiles eggs are on the boil stove hot and ready cat in my old chair toaster takes awhile sausage and taters frying as I dodge spatters of grease coffee pot beeping cat trades for food ready my blue plate sun peeks over trees I smile on Sundays. Read the poetry of Ken Allan Dronsfield Read a profile of Ken Allan Dronsfield
Playing With Matches
The match moves to light the cigarette, where mother still sits beside my crib, watching my thumbed hands. It stops in midair. The white tube of leaves does not swell the bronchial tree. The smoke is rooted in my mother’s clenching hand. Her hold around the smoke ring is caught by the light of match fire. The glow filling the room with a burst of yellow light then fading in a moment. Her fingers make shadows round my wrist, smear the ribcage negatives. Her hand points to red-mouthed women leaving their lipstick on filters in the ashes. Read the poetry of Phil Boiarski Read a profile of Phil Boiarski
That Moment
Do you remember the day when Earth sweat and invisible drops exchanged scorching kisses, every furrow dried and crumbled in grey powder? It wasn’t ash – rather a numbing substance we prayed for: and your eyes became stars again. Gone with the Rain It was typical rainy day: grey. A wet curtain hid tired steps of people passing by. At the end of the street, just below the tiny slope, every tortuous creek plunged into the porous mouth of the busy, thirsty drain. Wet sand blunged in the rhythm of soft, muffled sobs as a young woman, with unvoiced stone face, continued to cradle her empty hands. Read the poetry of Maja Todorovic Read a profile of Maja Todorovic
A Message From the Fifth Circle
You know the story, everyone does lost in a dark wood, he finds a pal to escort him through the nine circles of hell spiraling from lust to fraud to treachery where Judas is locked in ice while his back is shredded & flayed for all eternity do you think Dante was abused as a child? he emerges on Easter Sunday beneath a star-stippled sky ascends the mountain of Purgatory to find a spiritual muse willing to guide him on a tour of heaven for only fifty cents & his soul is purified by God’s love really? how come him & not me? I am still stuck in the fifth circle I do hope you get this message eternally fixed in the foul waters of Styx not one of the naked ones on the surface, snarling in fury battering & bludgeoning each other but one of those submerged in sullen anger (passive-aggressive says my therapist) beneath the surface slime gurgling & gagging & choking on unexpressed rage nothing remotely divine or comedic Virgil and Beatrice long vanished relieved to be retired so dear friend it looks like I won’t be back any time soon text me: fifthcircle@hell.com let me know how you are please send a fan Read the poetry of Claire Scott Read a profile of Claire Scott
Their Human Voice
There is a raging bride in each of my children & though they are sweet, kind & loving, they want, god dammit, they want all of the bees to bring them honey & they want the lions to protect them & they want to scream again into a new world where an ocean carries them home when they are done on the beach. I hear all of that rattle inside of them when they tell me that they love me. I am proud they know of a good life, that way it will really burn them up when the nature of all things comes calling. Read the poetry of Darren C. Demaree Read a profile of Darren C. Demaree
Perfidiousness
Someone’s perfected an Odyssey. Someone’s thrown the ball in the court. Someone’s lauded the catch; Watch him trembling. Someone’s imagining there’ll be ‘no pass’. Someone’s bodily coveting the ground. Someone’s got a hooter she can’t blow ... It’s not half-time! Someone’s dreaming... I’m dreaming... Someone’s convinced this is traitorous. Someone’s taking off an expensive suit. Someone’s emptying their pockets. Someone’s writing IOUs – and Someone’s shell-shocked By ovation as the bald planet Ticks on over into the grandstand. Read the poetry of Stefanie Bennett Read a profile of Stefanie Bennett
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Victoria Gate ☊
Maybe she was crying before she got on the coach at Marble Arch, settled in the seat across from me, but by the time we reach Victoria Gate, tears stream down her face, mouth open to receive her own sacrament. Indian, ageless in tasteful floral, a blue sweater despite summer heat, an iPod clutched in her hand. Traditional music bleeds from earbuds, then shifts to Bollywood techno beat. And still she cries. Along Bayswater Road, her glassy eyes reverential, meeting her gaze feels like blasphemy. Who is she missing or mourning, or maybe it’s what – her own bed, mother’s cooking, stillness. London is short on sympathy when it comes to heartbreak and homesickness, not so subtly tells you to walk it off. But sometimes at night when you’re riding past Hyde Park and dusky silhouettes arm-in-arm are framed by bus windows, a familiar song can collapse resolve, make you reach for the red hammer over your seat to crack the escape glass. Then unbuckle and rise through the treetops until the lamp at Victoria Gate is a pinprick, insignificant, up to the stratosphere where equilibrium inverts and tears become the stars that will guide you home. Enjoy this poem in the PoetryAloud area
Read the poetry of Collin Kelley Read a profile of Collin Kelley
The Small Hours
I awake in the small hours from a sleep fitful and restless into a time of muffled colours and softened sounds. The peace doesn’t soothe me, but serves as a backdrop on which to project memories of my unquiet dreams. Many times I have felt trapped in my reflections by the honesty and deepness of silence where there are no distractions from nightmares and the world sleeps on, oblivious. The light is not uncaring, but unbiased as it watches a merging of extremes, radicalism fading to a sleepy ambivalence in the grogginess of the space between asleep and awake. And who exists in this time? Those who are acquainted with it, by profession, whose movements are routine, but with cushioned edges. The stumblers, stunned by sudden silence, music still pulsing through their bodies. And, perhaps, two people so entranced there was too much to talk about to fall asleep. Read the poetry of Marsailidh Groat Read a profile of Marsailidh Groat
Photo art by Reka Jellema. Click for enlarged version.
What-If
~ For Bea Last If the paint dries, it dries. No question; nothing stays saturated. A fresh coat? A fence-post? Canvases crack. The face of the actress. But what if green was more than green, if green was verdant dewy, sweating grass beneath your fingertips, bottle-glass-green, smooth jeweled chips of green glass you find washed on shore what if you pocketed the color & it bled through the fabric, what if the gallery called & commissioned your blue jeans what if the denim faded Enjoy the poetry and art of Reka Jellema Read a profile of Reka Jellema
Cape Cod
Steamy July evening—oppressive. I take one of my dogs out for his last break. Pass my garden privet hedge. The scent awakens the memory of when I was five years old on Cape Cod. The shingled, rented colonial, weathered dark, not painted. Wood floors throughout. My sister Anne claims everything was wood-- floors, walls, bathtub, toilet seat, kitchen sink. Possible, fifty years ago. A long, narrow, dusty road ran along the beachfront. Colonies of family cottages dotted both sides. We six siblings scattered, playing everywhere, joined by similar summer kids. Parents never worried, confident we’d reappear when the bakery truck arrived, the ice cream man’s bell rang, or Wee Packet fried clams were served in someone's backyard. So excited, we walked the ribbon of sand and dirt, to the arcade at this road’s end. Think of it! Paddle boats, miniature golf, forbidden games of bingo, cones piled high with strawberry ice cream. I bring my guide dog back inside. Weighted memories come in, too. Sit down, dwelling on that road. Maybe it was just a lane, possibly, fifty years ago. Was it the loneliness I felt this July day, the evening's air so thick, like my impenetrable blindness? I wept, hard, loud, my animals silent, anxious. Damn—my nose for filling up with the smells of the privet hedge, that perfumed and protected, each side of that road I knew. I never thought I wouldn't see Cape Cod again. Read the poetry of Ria Meade Read a profile of Ria Meade
charting the free verse sky ☊
those stars we used to wish upon the ones first appearing in the twilight or the ones falling from the sky while sitting on the front porch step where have they gone now when you need them the most sometimes I think of a certain star that shined so bright it had no choice but to crash and burn in some remote forest you’ve never heard those are the kinds of stars I miss the most this universe is nothing but a free verse poem with a little sizzle and endless syllables spherically rotating around your ever expanding mind your inner child charting the course of events of every single moving object Enjoy this poem in the Poetry Aloud area
Read the poetry of J. Matthew Waters Read a profile of J. Matthew Waters
Just Before Dusk
black heron takes flight leafless tree branches, bent, twisted, contorted, seek the sun white billow clouds float across turquoise sky golden cattail reeds sway, shake, shudder in the breeze autumn marsh glows beneath magenta sunset lifeless leaves, red, brown, yellow carpet the grass silence a wake before burial by winter snow Read the poetry of Peter V. Dugan Read a profile of Peter V. Dugan
November Trees
I could stand a long time under a tree with yellow leaves this time of year. It makes its own light even as it says goodbye until the snows have come & then departed. It reminds me of people who are their own light before they too depart. I have stood in the light of such people have learned that they grow brighter with all the light they shed. Read the poetry of Mark Gordon Read a profile of Mark Gordon
Written By the Whispers
of the Wind I wanted to write a poem about the perfection of this moment, but the wind whistled all the words away as the melody of a breeze gently swayed through the branches of trees in these woods where the world is at peace. I wanted to gather my thoughts in an effort to memorialize this magical scene, but the sky caught my eye with its brilliant shine and so my mind became enchanted by the design of God’s loving light as an amazing grace pierced my heart with faith. I wanted to write a poem about the perfection of this moment, but instead it wrote itself into my soul. Read the poetry of Scott Thomas Outlar Read a profile of Scott Thomas Outlar
complicated orange
you offer testament in open fields forcing me into the still unknown where the charitable orange of a breaking dawn betrayed my hopeful heart bound by common tragedy i stepped into your open palm bravely to atone for my congregation of sins all the times you fucked up smiling through imagined grievances still your hands remind me of a complicated garden where all my words are smothered by the depleted earth exposing me as a flower inlove with the sun even as it decays a beauty reminiscent and unraveling in the vines even as petals fall a bitter orange
Zelda Fitzgerald Practising Ballet
Zelda dances, dances weaves her implacable dream: sometimes it drifts but her eye snares it in, the pattern that she counts on to screen her other face - glittering flapper-doll harrying the night. All that fever and sequins discarded like an empty day, past the fret of her marriage - the book-heroine yoke. Beside her old zany flights she has sworn now to dance for real, to make her own name. It is not too late. Hours lag, skein the day - she loops and dips, dizzy with steps: there are no crowds lighting, wrapping her in but with each wild leap, she parcels fury, strains for a choreography to reach her self. Read the poetry of Katherine Gallagher Read a profile of Katherine Gallagher
Phantasm of a Widow
The shutter’s rap startles you awake. Two men in ditch behind your house wrestle like brothers vying for a show of dominance, their lithe bodies like pretzels dipped in moonshine. Slumberous you close your window unfurl the dusty blinds, return to bed but a sudden clap of hands against the gutter lures you back to take a slotted peek outside and suddenly you’re lucid looking into eyes you recognize, eyes you once loved— the musky sweat of slaps in rush of rapture. You want to touch his whiskered cheeks just one more time, want to shatter glass and reach your arms into this other realm. You’re so close you can almost taste his lips, can almost rub your fingertips in sticky blood he shed that night he lost the fight, blood dripping from your glass-shard skin. Read the poetry of Laurie Kolp Read a profile of Laurie Kolp |
Wrens in the Poplar
There are peeps from the wren house high in the poplar as the sun peeks over the roses. Or maybe I'm wrong. Perhaps I hear altar boys reciting their prayers at the foot of the altar at the start of a Latin Mass decades ago in a church silent now for years. Whether it's peeps or prayers I'm not certain until I see the cat hunkered like a tank under the poplar, hoping to receive communion. ❦ A Quiet Beauty in Gray The beauty of gray I never noticed until the other day I saw this mockingbird, a quiet beauty in gray, on the bare limb of a dogwood tree, peer down through snow and scold below a Maine Coon cat, a jungle of fur in gray, sitting and staring at a feast that will never be, the two of them a watercolor in the quiet beauty of gray. Read the poetry of Donal Mahoney Read a profile of Donal Mahoney
Posh Poverty
Resplendent retinue Of voiceless vagrants Subway synchronicity And boxcar blues Nameless faces And vacant stares Under tattered caps And castoff clothes Society’s sad silent souls That no one wants Discarded demons Tarnished goods But you’re home safe now Sheltered from the despair Warm instead of cold They cease to matter Yet they’re still out there Only more of them now While you feed your pride And gorge on your greed Read the poetry of Jill Lapin-Zell Read a profile of Jill Lapin-Zell
Softail asphalt fatboys k . i . s . s l . o . v . e inked into knuckles inked into knuckles smoking pistols on tattooed biceps i have been with the bikers with the beefy voices full throttle silver bullet growling + chained lightning ‘round my sprockets + softail ~ prowling Read the poetry of Layley Lu Read a profile of Layley Lu
Kristallnacht
9th November 1938 no tears on her cheeks but rivers deep inside words dried in her head the loss that always cried faces in the clouds never saw the sun darkened by the past they stole the painter’s paint and burnt the poet’s dream they broke the clarinet and crushed the violin they raped the freedom call the books containing truth the light of life beheaded from its root and the little girl she cried her doll torn into parts the bayonets of shouts that killed the mother soul the nightmare picture stored deep inside eyes once soft evolved stones of cold glass behold the sepia surrealism deprived of form she speaks in silence hollow words not meant be understood there is music from the stars that sound not as it should dissonances disturb familiar harmonies into dark voiced tympanis drowning, drowning sorrowful thoughts of shameful histories of broken Kristall into lamentations into a never ending Nacht Read the poetry of Edjo Frank Read a profile of Edjo Frank
From Selected Haiku
much like the ocean gentle waves then stronger tides grieving ebbs and flows. ❦ clouds slowly drift on Fuji-san peeks through her veil smiles then hides again. ❦ listen to the wind wonder what secrets it holds whispers in the night. ❦ lighthouse leads me on lost in the fog that surrounds His light calls me home. Read the poetry of Thomas Canull Read a profile of Thomas Canull
Miss Maude Uses the North Star
Maude has always wanted to be a fortune-teller with a penny inscribed upon her ear. She envisions a woman with full skirts, layers of cotton duck and silk, tassels and coin, a blouse off the shoulders, scalloped collarbones cut in marble. She sees herself reflected by moon, flute, candlelight. She has tried to read cartography of her palms, but she can’t decipher the stones of her hands. She traced her lines reading maps she found in an old Glamour magazine using witchery her grandmother would’ve said. Her life line is long, wavy, it shows she is untamed. Her heart line makes whorls, it wends. Is she insatiable? Is she a minx, a ravisher? Her hands are warm, strong enough to knead dough, they splay sticks to winds, capture roly polys beneath milk vetch pods. Where is her fate line? Maude cannot unjoin the twinning can’t peel life from viscera and what is that? A smudge of dirt or chocolate mousse, dried blood maybe, there beneath the fat pink pads of fingertip, the permanent indentation on her ring finger arcing lines from knuckle to bone, wrist to wonder, an oubliette of twelve years pressed, counted as rosary beads fallen on the floor. She closes her magazine. She closes her eyes and sees the North Star, etched behind her eyelids. It leads her to the kitchen, her hand to spatula, whisk and forgiveness. Grateful, she blossoms into plum cake. Read the poetry of Jen Stein Read a profile of Jen Stein ❦
Just Once
After losing the big game, I’d like to hear a star athlete say, You know why we lost? We lost because Bruno’s doing coach’s wife and Jesus is not just smiting him, He’s smiting our entire team; or some centenarian attribute his longevity to ardent atheism—my long life was possible because guilt never sat on my eyelids like the coins of the dead. I never worried that I’d burn in a metaphysical furnace run by a dork with a pitchfork; never fretted about sitting on an old bearded guy’s right or left hand, or, god forbid, one of his knees. The downside? I can’t hope to see again those I so dearly loved in this life. We’ll never talk about what we missed. I’ll never hold my wife again, stroke her silky hair, or feel her breath upon my cheek. Still, we die wrapped in the loves we were lucky enough to garner in this life. Whatever those last minutes I’ll be grateful for my time on this green orb. I’d gladly do it again and again. Maybe Nietzsche got that part right. Read the poetry of Charlie Brice Read a profile of Charlie Brice
John The Author
So John it is. Not the King. Not the Baptist. A discussion of dust...a pillar of ice. Moonlight scavenging my eyes at night like gulls at a picnic plate. Always one step in the circle, always beginning again, in this house, a place I know more from memory than feel, surrounded by the yawns of empty coffee cups, closets stuffed with past lives. back cramped by chair in which I carry on changing short sighs into long sentences, on this latest round trip called writing Thursday is it? I abandoned the calendar years ago. I am an inspector of study windows. of illustrated books and dictionary meanings. I surrendered my claim to life the morning I noticed the dew like diamonds twinkling on the grass. "You can't eat grass," my mother said. But fawns do. And here you are, come visiting as if I'm nothing but a street sign, as my life is not lived between a bookcase and a trash can filled with crumbled up sheets of paper. I do nothing whatsoever outside of here. And yet you speak as if I'm standing in twenty acres of land. No, this is my tomb. You speak to the dead in the clothes he slipped on this morning. But you arrive with love, the universal predator. And what do I have to fight you off with. A keyboard? The Complete Works Of Shakespeare? For all this, I conform. Your head rests on my shoulder like a cloud. I kiss your check, that treasure of last century. We make love, rows of faces, sweaty, unkempt, fading into night. "You can't fade into night," my mother said. But fawns do. Read the poetry of John Grey Read a profile of John Grey
Madame Butterfly at
Glimmerglass blue flax lines the highway on the way to see blessed Kateri in her shrine portrayed with a sheaf of corn three sisters garden is scarred by the contact smallpox who like a European saint resists a forced marriage must pledge a troth to god meanwhile at the opera as if in woodblock of “Old Japan” Madame Butterfly, shown half hidden by a screen, a fan, japonica, a sword things that can be wrapped (a corpse) in the city of Nagasaki with warships in the harbor I can’t help but see a mushroom cloud blossom over the final applause and in a little local park, mostly neglected by baseball loving tourists Indian mound with an explanatory plaque where the reverend poet wrote speaking as if in the voice of the deceased mistakenly thinking those buried there were Iroquois beneath old trees that loom “the wide land which now is yours was ours-- friendly hands have given back to us enough for a tomb.” (Quotation from Rev. W. W. Lord, 1874) Read the poetry of Miriam Sagan Read a profile of Miriam Sagan
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