Archive #50
August, 2017
Icarus
one more time I reached for you too late ! I only tore a wing from your soul cursed the cramp in which everything between us distorted into a lie a shrill laugh, though so I waved you off with your flawed butterfly wings but the heavens gave nothing back at the end of summer except your face etched in a pebble of my memory and the blue of your eyes and the molten wax the seal on the failure of our love dribbled shamelessly in my hands Read the poetry of Edjo Frank Read a profile of Edjo Frank
Friendship
He asked me to help he knew I would Safeway for eggs and ensure St. Francis for chemo reading People aloud sitting side by side CVS for Vicodin Dilaudid and Depends He asked me to help a note in a shaky hand details of when description of how Lord don’t ask this of me the note placed in an envelope to “my truest friend” please Lord He asked me to help his ventilator clicking his voice scarcely audible oxygen hissing nurses hovering translucent bags drip drip from an IV pole Lord I look into his eyes see his terror of losing himself in bits and pieces like a calving iceberg his body bone-weary tense with torment shivering in seventy degrees white against white He asked me to help I touch his face brush back his hair smooth his sheets my hands shudder I whisper no his urgent eyes plead I shake my head His body crumples shrivels he turns away from me his oldest friend Help him O Lord fold him in your arms and take him back then help me a Judas in need of redemption Read the poetry of Claire Scott Read profile a of Claire Scott
Doors Become Unhinged,
So Why Not People? The towel hung over the shower curtain rod keeps dangling there and I think of all the condemned men who could not control their bowels. Buying up all the sparkly nail polish from this skeleton in cosmetics and painting each nail a different colour. Blowing over them as I wait for it to dry. Imagining myself a runaway lorry through a busy crowd. Doors become unhinged, so why not people? Following the tracers of my hand like others follow each other on social media. I knew there was the threat of this with extreme isolation. Astronauts have to get through a battery of tests for just such an affliction before they can be shot into space like spent firecrackers. And I hold my hands over my mouth so no one can say anything. Wonder if the small press is nothing but pygmies and elastic bands. Hide animal crackers in my sock drawer so the poachers don’t have it so easy. Read the poetry of Ryan Quinn Flanagan Read a profile of Ryan Quinn Flanagan
Perchance A Dream
'To sleep perchance to dream.' Who said that? Sounds so gentle, but there's a rub, a rough edge to it. Not the long deathly sleep, though, but drifting away in nighttime slumber. It can take you anywhere. Take you to places you haven't been and may not want to go. Send you spinning, tumbling, raging, spiralling, crashing out of control to an indeterminate end, with demons and dragons as companions. Daytime dreaming is preferable, more gentle than it sounds fitted into a busy schedule. In wakeful dreams you can determine the beginning, at least, and invite the participants. Sometimes they may act out an old story with a predictable end, sometimes they can drift into a new story and then the demons may join in your daytime dreaming as well, perchance. Read the poetry of Lynn White Read a profile of Lynn White
The History of Water
you wouldn't know, observing dry gravels tumbled down the slope of the alluvial plain that once a great flood filled the canyon and boulders clashed like gods' nine-pins, the sky dark, angry water fought the cliffs dug the channel deep, frothed and slashed tree trunks stripped, gasping mice scrambled on flowing mud, and now— I am calm now, sane, walking fast at noon under a cloudless sky, cholla spines scattered— you would never know looking at me here on this round rock, hands still, watching a short-horned lizard perched on the hot granite which can't imagine summer monsoons, that I can tell you the feel of wet earth. You wouldn't know if I told you how I swam downstream once, holding a branch of tamarisk, lodged in the channel not breathing, then turned over to walk away slowly, to tell you of resurrection, redemption, of living on dry land. Read the poetry of Emily Strauss Read a profile of Emily Strauss
The ballad of our hearts
endowing and inhabiting touching and melting two who have met taking the world in hand forgetting nothing forgiving everything embellishing salt-sweetness while turning love into ink. ♢ words for poems just appear in my mind, a mind of stored antiquities- genuine existence within one-sided conversations ♢ fools love everything seeing all that is hidden they just may be saints Read the poetry of ayaz daryl nielsen Read a profile of ayaz daryl nielsen
Birds
we hover around our mother hummingbirds sunrise sunflower heads dangling a charm of finches waxwings again not enough berries for jam winter bird am I the only one who knows your song Unfolding CT scan will I emerge a butterfly folding unfolding the origami of monarch butterflies
Mariner's Words
I’ll watch the words work this page. Although, I might want you to add the meaning. Writing is personal for me. as a carpenter inspects the edge of a board for straightness-I examine each stanza for level meanings. Words are not handled like a boat leaving the harbor against a rough sea. Fame has no rank. There is only the last word on the last page as safe harbor for today. Read the poetry of E. H. Ford Read a profile of E. H. Ford
The Trees Held Their Silence
The trees held their silence through winter, wrapped tightly within the hardiness of bark and brittle outer branches. They were silent, as was I, as were you, my Love, unshielded. We touch, without touching, sometimes and know without knowing how we do. We sink deep, sometimes, fall into blank spaces, shivering our way through the cold. The trees called to me in the early spring, telling me to look up – I looked up and saw the swallows had returned to me and in their returning, I returned, as did you, my Love, unhindered. We rise to the light. We awaken, seeing no further than each other. Enjoy this poem in The PoetryAloud area
Read the poetry of Kerry O'Connor Read a profile of Kerry O'Connor
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Momentums
I have known you for a year and we've chosen yellow flowers to sit beside. Now our picnic's over and you've taken my picture. We may as well go back, through more pictures - see children on a hill move into the skyline past village-houses suddenly painted by sun. This is our walk - the partnered graining. If we argue, you say Don't, we're wasting breath. Our words must float flaring, extravagant as flowers. Read the poetry of Katherine Gallagher Read a profile of Katherine Gallagher
Being Human
In mist-light the great white house is blue-grey. Sucked into a murk where borders fade. Where the certainties of hedges, fences, a double gate are suddenly exposed as quicksand. Like comfort income security ambition. From across the river I watch the house slip in an out of view. I wait for the sun knowing it will come. Like phases of the moon, like the herb robert flower on a roadside verge, like the departure of tree summer leaves, like the cycle of life I’m riding just now. Read the poetry of Paul Mortimer Read a profile of Paul Mortimer
Matinees
Every Saturday Mike and I walked to the Ramova, a second run movie house to watch double features, cartoons, coming attractions. We trekked down hot, gritty city streets in the summer, tramped through snow all winter, always stopping to read comic books at corner newsstands. Walking home after the shows we acted out action scenes, driving chariots around the hippodrome or chasing Japanese Zeroes across the skies of Guadalcanal. When we moved out of the city we went to Saturday matinees at two suburban theaters. The owners doubled the ticket prices, dropped the double features. In high school Mike went out for football, I joined the wrestling team. I got good grades, he got suspended for smoking in the boy’s restroom. I went to college, he barely finished high school. Sometimes we’d go to a movie and try to catch up with each other. After he died I returned to the old neighborhood. National chains had replaced most of the local stores along Halsted. The Ramova stood shuttered and shattered, its battered marquee gap-toothed and rusty. Read the poetry of Frank C. Modica Read a profile of Frank C. Modica
The Owl
First I heard it A hooting sound Then, it said Who-o-o who-o-o I'm coming Said I A whistle A hissing sound I whistled back A screech? The wind The rusty hinges Of the barn Gate? Then I saw it The big grey Horned owl Sitting On the barn gate It was not the hinges The gate was still The owl Was screeching Now Looking at me With piercing Wide-open eyes Still As was I Then It opened wide Yards long wide Wings And flew To me Dust shone In the moon light And a warm gust Of breeze Struck my face I stood still The owl Sat on my head Grabbed my hair My scalp And we flew Together Moon bound Read the poetry of Amauri Solon Read a profile of Amauri Solon
It
is like taking a small mule into the shower for fun, maybe to condition its coarse hair, then seeing the mud on its hooves and knowing you’re in for it when your mother gets home. And pretty soon you’re wondering, what’s like taking a small mule into the shower? and what are you in or out for when Mother comes home? And your hands are deep in the animal’s craggy sides and the floor is wet and there’s an apartment below yours, and your neighbor scares you the way she scowls when you walk downstairs as if you had hooves and then you realize you don’t know what mules eat or where you could even ride one, and this little guy’s starting to kick, hitting the porcelain tub like a jar of your father’s shaving cream against the sink only twenty times louder than your father, who would never permit a moose or a mouse or a mule in the tub, not even as a simile. Read the poetry of Marilyn Annucci Read a profile of Marilyn Annucci
Sometimes I Forget
the Sunset Sometimes I forget the sunset, her light listing its way to the west and skeins of fuchsia falling slowly to her knees-- Sometimes, I only see shadows, as they umber the road, mist all grass and meadows underfoot, then drench their fields with desolate dark-- But quickly a leaf of aspen might quaver me awake, rustle my slumbering mind and grab my gaze-- sweep my eyes to catch silken embers of sun as they topaz the sky. Read the poetry of Judith Brice Read a profile of Judith Brice
Do I Stay With Her or What?
A few thoughts hung around like bad kids that won't go to bed - what about? who am I to? why not? so she had a heart as big as a ballplayers ego - but her dress fitted her like the skin of a mermaid and her thighs were a busy reception desk with a flask of whiskey in the bottom drawer - women - I live in total ignorance of them - it's only sometimes bliss - and the air was a spider web that clung to the edge of my throat where I made animal cries for help - my body was tense, arms wearying as if I was holding up one end of a bridge - darkness from an abandoned church, prowled slowly through the rooms - the cat showed up with a malignant face and tight green eyes - I hauled my real opinion of her from my head down to my mouth and I vomited - but I still wasn't really convinced - my stinking breath was a curtain of small clear beards it didn't dissolve, didn't float off, didn't move - still hasn’t moved Read the poetry of John Grey Read a profile of John Grey
before middle age braces
spry 17 year old lips pucker search, meet in the middle as tongues play roulette lucky numbers numb the knees dizzy dares and emotions spent on the wheel of adolescent love we all won back then, didn't know losing in our naive gambling clothes which often got partially shed in the back seat of teenage exploration the lips being the gateway arms securing stance money lost with later wisdom but at the time, that 1969 Olds Casino needed no fake I.D. to get in. Read the poetry of jacob erin-cilberto Read a profile of jacob erin-cilberto
Palsy Dreaming
Your invented life, never came back home. The front door still open, to your little refugees. The hall is black, as the wet slate roofs, as your chapel’s stone grows colder. Dust foams on the floorboard’s worn form, by the shuffling feet, of once standing room only. The walk to the school was only up the hill. Learnt the poetry of pierced sides, the heart and blood hung on rhythm and rhyme. All of the majesty, held up by blue stencilled columns. All that truth would be shook to life by the grey pin stripped master himself. When even town drunks tipped their ears, and bathed in the baptised spit. When the new college came, it took the best, and with it the towns anaemic breath. Bramble grows fast and thick, while decisions hang like washing lines. A way of living and a way of death, with its finger nails in the skins of yesterday's, and streets that grow quiet with age. They’ll never come back. They have their own lives now, away from the palsy dreaming. Read the poetry of Christopher Hopkins Read a profile of Christopher Hopkins
The Beginning The day’s first wheel begins to turn. An officer on patrol lifts the hem of darkness with his nightstick. A needle slips into the groove and silence clears its throat. The key tries every lock until one gives. The cogs leave bite marks as they engage in the machinery’s deepest regions and cry out for oil. A man condemned is waiting to hear news of his appeal. The first violinist is wide awake now and still trying to tune a broken string. Read the poetry of David Chorlton Read a profile of David Chorlton |
Silence
That silence, death and darkness are interchangeable is more myth than truth. Death may end silent and sun-less but spaces silent of visual contrast can teem with palpable memories-- thoughts, people, words-- that breathe life heard from yesterday, again today and spill into our days ahead. My blindness is a silence of light; denies me witness to gestures of unspoken love informing fortunate eyes-- wiping a child's tears, broad grin of a friend's approval, strong hands grasping needing ones. Loss of seeing in such light kills me with its denial. Alive among the collateral of this dark debris exist words—powerful, noisy, touchable. Words in their varied distractions, waiting to be assembled, freed into script, possibly bearing promising sounds of love. Silence, death and darkness can hold our light. Never let it be a measure of how dark we find a day. Read the poetry of Ria Meade Read a profile of Ria Meade
Playing Pool With Harold
For this visit he doesn’t bother wearing the wig. His legs look wooden and thin. A blue and gray sweatshirt sags from his shoulders: he’s always cold. In the basement we chalk our cue sticks and reminisce about a problem we solved in the year end program at a time when we thought we were really smart. I rack the balls. He lines up to break and all the colors of a rainbow explode on the table. Read the poetry of Ken Slaughter Read a profile of Ken Slaughter
the alpha wizard
was it the wire or the tree or wayward balloons bursting the ceiling allowing meteoric pulses to enter the atmosphere uninterrupted was it the whiskey or the rye that sparked something out of nothing like lightning in the sky throwback man walks around half-naked carrying torch by daylight poking sticks at stars by night extending arms high above his head he spreads his fingers wide electrically connecting dots whether seen or unseen from the nondescript beginning to an imaginary end Enjoy this poem in the PoetryAloud area
Read the poetry of J Matthew Waters Read a profile of J Matthew Waters
Quiet the Way
It is a meditation; to stand on a corner, when it’s late and quiet, the way only a city can be quiet, when Saturday night’s vision fades and Sunday sights an empty cab to hail, where streetlight pools and baptizes anyone in its pale steeple. Listen and you can hear traffic lights change, though there’s no traffic either way, except maybe a bus, transmuted into a moving confessional, with only one passenger, telling more than the driver wants to hear and nothing he doesn’t already know. Read the poetry of Richard Levine Read a profile of Richard Levine
Seaweed on the Beach
Reds, greens, browns, and mustard yellow add earthy undertones, the taste of miso, to the neons, the overexposed blues and whites and yellows, the painted plaques and t-shirts, the stick candies and salt-water taffy sold at the gift store. The rusty Irish moss on this beach will not turn into anemones or coral or even amber sea glass. Like the seagull accents wheeling in the wind past summer, the moss remains. Read the poetry of Marianne Szlyk Read a profile of Marianne Szlyk
To The Girl I Talked To For Thirty
Minutes, Rush Hour Munson Avenue I would give the world simply to sit in traffic with you, see hours exhausted as cars all around hiss and grog for movement, And I want you to watch, know my world, know yours. Speechless, without lung, I turn you to words. There’s purple strewn on your fingers, a blue pen suicide, lukewarm tea in cup holder, and chancing happiness at the inconveniences, summer drizzle coagulating on the windshield-- since I loathe the radio, you speak. And I wouldn't want her to ever stop, no. She speaks, and my mouth turns to notebook paper. She is the poem, young and unfinished. Your hands nervous, snow globe-eyed. I want to be broken by your name, reformed and replaced. A sedative sky all around, gathering me, abridged, centered where my lollipop stick bones, their cardboard packaged exterior too, relax behind the dashboard. You slowly inch forward, knowing that our first and last moments were the same, aborted at the intersection, unworthy for memory. I’m so addicted to watching everything turn, watching you enfold with the light, my hands sifting the auburn water of sunset breaking me down, that the haunting of your blinker didn’t alter my course. Read the poetry of Liam Strong Read a profile of Liam Strong
Unrequited Lust
Alone in the garden red and yellow flowers filling the senses with fiery thoughts of you. Walking down a lane, heart bruise inflamed brain deloused again vodka, a cool icy blue. Back into the garden of an unrequited lust; the memories ignite a dark desired rush. Lost within the park cross of pitied shame; talking of the stalking by the fork once again. Drug induced thoughts righteous or false acclaim; whispers of yellow haze in the Asylum once again. Read the poetry of Ken Allan Dronsfield Read a profile of Ken Allan Dronsfield
Almost One
I stand before the small space where your remains live, a soft bag of dark velvet, what some might call the color of wine, but I call the color of dried blood. A small, soft bag of ashes locked behind glass. Your photo sits next to it, and when the light is just so, my face reflects in yours, merges with yours, becomes almost one, the way we once were almost one when you lived in my body, absorbed my atoms and cells, the bits of stars, long dead, we all have in us, tiny molecules of light that travel the veins and arteries of our bodies. I want to say, my darling boy, do not be scared in the silence of that bag. I want to say I am with you, hanging bits of stars to light the dark. Read the poetry of Valerie Bacharach Read a profile of Valerie Bacharach
from Selected Haiku
and Tanka sunrise breakfast the last morning star fades into marmalade ❦ Waiting for an answer I breathe the stolen air and cling to the nothing left between the raindrops ❦ the world beyond my imagination potted plant ❦ just another anonymous sweetness… wildflower petal
Were Muses Not Imagined
~for Richard Wilbur Were muses not imagined By those whom they are said to inspire, I would engage them, Not for words but visions. As poems heap hot coals Upon the heads of some, They too serve as the cloth That washes Man’s feet. But some poets claw For third-heaven language, And the residue collected Underneath their fingernails Can ignite stars with God’s fanning breath. Read the poetry of Thomas Locicero Read a profile of Thomas Locicero
The Rainbow Pig
I once ate copper salt bleeding through jasper, now my eyes are green. I chewed cyanide into dust and spit, so blue, so blue, my teeth. My belly turned yellow to be the sun shining on its own shadow. In the heat and crickets of August I was so hungry for autumn I gorged on maple leaves. My coat turned orange, my points ochre, my mane like a kissable lip, so red, so red. I am the rainbow pig. While others snort and root and grunt, I am silent until the day star burns off the whiskey rain. Find me, find me at the end of the iris, I’m dreaming, dreaming of you. Read the poetry of Barrett Warner Read a profile of Barrett Warner |
