Archive 5
November, 2013
Johannes Bjerg brings his poetry to VerseWrights
 Johannes Bjerg
Three Haiku culturally Christian and tired by winter solstice our skulls sing kulturkristen og træt ved vintersolhverv synger vore kranier ❧ tumbling across several sore limbs a heavy Monday tumler hen over adskillige ømme lemmer en tung mandag ❧ so the heavens fall and I have my hands full himlen falder ned og jeg har hænderne fulde Johannes Bjerg was born in 1957 in Denmark, which he still calls home. He writes, however, in both Danish and English, which is an important element of his work--mainly haiku and related forms. He is a founder and co-editor of Bones - a journal for contemporary haiku (visit here), and is anthologized in New Resonanse 8 (Red Moon Press, 2013). He has authored several books, including Penguins / Pingviner - 122 bilingual haiku, English and Danish, (Cyberwit, India, 2011); Parallels, English, (Yet To Be Named Free Press, England, 2013); Threads / Tråde, bilingual haiku, (Createspace 2013); Notes 10 11 -12 / Noter 10 11 -12, bilingual linked verse, (Yet To Be Named Free Press, England, 2013); Paper Bell Lessons / Papirklokkebelæringerne, bilingual haiku, (Createspace, 2013); and, Like a Plane / Som et fly, image and haiku, (ebook). Most of these books have a free e-book version here for reading and/or downloading. 2tongues, january-stones, and 5mountains are his three websites, which he invites you to visit. Read. Rhonda L. Brockmeyer's "and the wind blew"
 Rhonda L. Brockmeyer
and the wind blew somehow just as I thought I was ready to speak the wind came and blew away the breath that was forming the words I wanted to say: you write beautifully these days you are there, always on my mind but the wind it blew and I found my mouth empty and sharp objects sat (little projectile words) in my saliva glands ready to fire at the first taste of your sour-cherry eyes so I worried (quite a long time) not really wanting to draw blood or see pain caused by these inadvertent, spitfire thoughts and I let the wind blow and it huffed and it puffed and blew my poetic house of cards down Read the poetry of Rhonda L. Brockmeyer Read a profile of Rhonda L. Brockmeyer Kathleen Rogers Is Now On VerseWrights' Pages
 Kathleen Rogers
dinner: family holiday a map you read familiar space the obvious explained shadow dancing past sideways driveways black as fault no secrets exposed what's left to tell when all is known uncertain truths Untitled
winnow through the crinoline silk smoke, laughter mohitos, cosmos mint julep beer yes friends, relatives they’re all here honeymoon with laptops five-star poolside sexting to twitter just not to each other Kathleen Rogers is a life-long writer who’s fascinated with words, paper and American sub-cultures. She’s worked in publishing, print and online advertising. Kathleen’s final corporate role was as a Senior Creative Director at one of the largest online advertising agencies. She left corporate America in 2001 after volunteering with the Red Cross. Kathleen holds an M.A. in English from Rutgers University and a B.A. in Communications from Rowan University. She enjoys all aspects of writing and film. Kathleen, her husband and daughter have lived in Hoboken, NJ for these past 25 years. Read. Poet Mark MacDonald's New Priorities
 Mark MacDonald
Setting Some New Priorities I no longer worry that my thesis on the Ghost Orchid and her shameless romance with a Cypress in the swamps of Florida will ever reach the desk of the President; or that Congress will debate my proposal to hold sessions on the shores of the Potomac complete with fried chicken and whisky. Age and resignation have stripped me of such ambitions, and smaller more attainable goals consume me. Mostly I consort with the dead these days: Confederate colonels on horseback gathered beneath a shade tree on a hill, awaiting the newest orders from their General; or the massacred peasants of Khitan and their wives and their children that the Khan sold off into slavery. Yesterday a boy in Chicago was killed in the crossfire and a twelve year old girl was strangled and raped in LA. The President and Congress have troubles enough I think, they should be forced to read poetry; but those colonels, those peasants, those kids in LA and Chicago? Perhaps they might need me. Read the poetry of Mark MacDonald Read a profile of Mark MacDonald We Welcome Poet Wayne F. Burke to VerseWrights
 Wayne Burke
A Man's Work The clerk in the store said “pickin’ oranges be a man’s work.” We had to rip the little buggers from the trees—like the state taking kids from a home—and the branches full of thorns, and the sweat pouring, enough to water lawns, and the farmer, a good ole boy racist atop his tractor, watching us bleed and sweat. Tied a noose onto a pole end to tug the topmost oranges off, wore long- sleeved shirts, laid a sheet to catch the yellow balls that fell in staccato bursts. A 3 by 5 foot bin 5 bucks worth. The farmer began to talk-up his daughter to us; Jamaicans in the next row out- picked us though; almond eyes, coffee skin, they did not chat. The bins filled slower than a baseball game; We got bored, ran out of talk, quit; had to boss each other: say “get to work you son- of-a-bitch!” Say “how about you, you ain’t done shit!” Like that. Cooled off at the swimming hole which was no Myrtle Beach but cold enough and wet. Listened to them bugs screech: WEEP! WEEP! WEEP! Regular as breath. Pocketed our money and headed for the coast and the Land of Milk and Honey, only we never made it, and probably never will. Wayne F. Burke was born in northern Berkshire County in Massachusetts, "during the year of hurricane Edna." His mother and father died before he was three, and he was raised by his grandparents.He attended Goddard College, and after he graduated, he "Went to work, worked." He wrote largely prose until a year ago and now writes mostly poetry. He has published poetry in in FORGE, Industry Night, Sassafras, Boston Poetry Magazine, The Commonline Journal, and elsewhere. He has a book of poems due out this December entitled, Words That Burn (Bareback Press), Wayne has lived in the central Vermont area for the past 25 years. Read. Five Short Poems For The Approach Of Winter
Lady Frost
~Leslie Philibert Winter has killed Autumn with frost, the old slaves hide the trees, they cough out ice and fill the ways with hardness. The snow sidelines the fields, black clouds hunt against the pale, crows shatter like glass. Then this is the winter, brittle and heavy with sleep. i am
a prisoner of this snowflake melt me ~Pamela Babusci first snow boots
too big this world ~Christina Nguyen geese unzip the sky a single snowflake trembles on your eyelashes ~Debbie Strange tenth winter...
my dog and I walk the full moon home ~Chen-ou Liu A New Work from Poet Marie Anzalone
 Marie Anzalone
A Galaxy Was Seen Dying Today The world's most beautiful butterflies die every day by the millions, unnoticed. In today's news- astronomists capture images of an entire galaxy undergoing Little Death. throwing off fireballs like missiles as it loses its energy unable to create anew, they say- stars, planets asteroid belts. It just kind of gives up. Living. it dies... and takes out everything in its path with it: a suicide mission of old age crisis. there are billions of us, billions of them, but most of us simply don't always think to look around and notice them Law of averages says there is life, maybe, in its path- would they have known to look for its coming? Say last prayers? Get the hell out of there? was Van Gogh's Starry Night perhaps painted on other canvases by other hands, protected as a pinnacle of achievement by someone else's sensibilities? How long did they manage to protect it, from themselves, from negligence, before dying too alongside their greatest works, unfinished? was it something they thought to take with them where and when they went? Could they? Their fleeting perfection goes unmourned, unnoticed, a flower set to wind dance stilted swirling in the skies of our limited days. why bother, then, any single act of great beauty, created in a dispassionate universe where fireballs of mindless passage can obliterate them? Which loss would be keener- mourning the treasured things, robbed, or not comprehending the gifts while they sat in our hands, fleetingly? can an act of beauty grace a soul forever, if it comes back as someone else's stardust, os does it become annihilated, forever? Do we celebrate knowledge, or its opposing force? Today, I stopped to rescue a single dying fritillary, placed her out of harm's way, where she could drink in safety; she was gone when I returned. Maybe she only existed for me to write this poem for you. Read the poetry of Marie Anzalone Read a profile of Marie Anzalone We Welcome Poet Jacqueline Czel to VerseWrights
 Jacqueline Czel
The Season is Woman She is scarlet, shades of red, the jezebel, the strumpet, the doxy of death She is crimson and burgundy shades, shades, parting shades of a turning hue she is a blazing orange a blazing orange, setting the horizon on fire too, while dancing upon a fading firmament; fallen far from Spring grace, turning her wantoness away from tender lilacs and summer blues, no innocent birds or bees drink of her Autumn dew; She is scarlet, she is brown, she is yellow kneeling down she is ripe, she is red she is a gasp of passion lingering in a leaf littered bed. Jacqueline Czel is a poet/aspiring author who currently resides in Boston, MA. Originally from a rough and tumble part of NYC, and having lived in different cities in the Northeast, she often writes about her urban experience. She has written hundreds of long poems, if not thousands. She also writes short stories and on occasion light fantasy novellas for Kindle readers which keeps her from getting trapped in one literary genre. She can also be found sharing micro-poetry on Twitter @Jacqueline_Czel, and she publishes freshly penned poetry daily on her blog Iambic Utterances and Other Wayward Words. Read. A New Poem From Ray Sharp: "48 stones"
 Ray Sharp
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Janet Aalfs Newest Poem, "Metaphysics of Doubt"
 Janet Aalfs
Metaphysics of Doubt A porcupine sends sleep ahead whenever it doubts that peace awaits at home in the stone walls and ferns the river touches to soothe. Sleep draws the poison out like a snake from a bottle of alcohol. Like tea from boiled potato peels when drunk dissolves the gall. Rocks fall asleep to become a fleet of dragonflies, humming crystal wings, sounds your eyelids crave. Such heavy lightness wakes reflections in the river, clouds that come and go. Read the poetry of Janet Aalfs Read a profile of Janet Aalfs From Leslie Philibert, "White Room"
 Leslie Philibert
White Room The windows of my soul have been sheeted; cool and soft, white rooms and blank tiles digging in snow, sucking at ice in the last big cloud. Like a ballon I must be tied to the arms of the earth. So curl me up and wash all the mess out of me, being a shell of rubber and pumps. I am filled with things that once grew. My last lover, a box of lights and pictures. I might even wave or blow a kiss across the white sea. Let me be pushed, let me drop like milk. Read the poetry of Leslie Philibert Read a profile of Leslie Philibert Debbie Strange gives us "the twelfth floor"
 Debbie Strange
The twelfth floor she lives in a room her home a cell on the twelfth floor she stands at the window waiting watching the setting sun’s red eye (and the curb for a familiar face) she is bathed in red her curtains the colour of anger and her glowing cigarette she takes the family photographs off the wall and hides their faces deep inside a drawer (the next time we visit we find ourselves missing) when we comment she says just paring down less to dust Read the poetry of Debbie Strange Read a profile of Debbie Strange Eusebeia Philos Pens Some Dancing Lyrics
 Eusebeia Philos
Wedding Dancing ☊ Aches and pains disappear at the open bar in open fascination of the pulsing, writhing mass of dancing bodies in techno-trap- whadizthizmuzic. A few quick dance lessons from Jack Daniels and the music pulses in matched synapses, gives me that old fashioned primal beat. Salome, you dears, don't ask for my head when you nab me for a dance, you three, barely thirty-something daughter's friends, in your combo of youth and virtuosity. Escorts at both elbows with one leading the way, to their dance floor domain we go, those three and my gray goatee to jump gyrate bump to the rhythmic method of da-da-dancing, definitely not the father-daughter dance. Hear this poem read by Val Dering Rojas Read the poetry of Eusebeia Philos Read a profile of Eusebeia Philos Rosa Saba Joins The Poets On VerseWrights
 Rosa Saba
self doubt, a nightly ritual i’m here again, inches away from the surface of the bathroom mirror at an unhealthy angle twisting my vision back and forth frowning, smiling, frowning again watching craters turn back into pores as i move away then back again scrutinizing each and every hair, every line every possible sign that i might be human the bathroom mirror has me convinced that i am and as i turn my head the other way trying to see if my profile is any better than it was yesterday i can’t help but wonder after seeing myself up close how it is that you could stand to kiss me but then again i guess your eyes are closed Rosa Saba is a Canadian journalism student, hailing from a small farm and living in the big city, both of which inspire much of her writing. She has been writing poetry for a few years, about whatever crosses her mind. Rosa uses poetry as a procrastination technique and as a means of understanding the world (or at least trying to). She has a sporadically updated blog entitled perks of being a three, and at hellopoetry, you can find her poems. VerseWrights is her first publishing experience. Read. Poet Carole Johnston Joins the VerseWrights Community
 Carole Johnston
sky tercet series sky 1 the sky - Monet riding a white stallion - gallops before the storm sky 2 the sky -N.C. Wyeth pirating a pink nimbus - sails the sunset ship sky 3 the sky - Van Gogh waving a thousand crow wand - turns to thunder sky 4 the sky - Edward Hopper realist - refuses rain -prefers shadows Carole Johnston, a poet and novelist, lives in Lexington, Kentucky where she enjoys driving around Bluegrass Backroads, stopping traffic to write haiku and to photograph crows. Obsessed with the sky, she keeps her camera on the front seat so she can chase the sunset and capture it in photographs and poems. Although she is a Jersey Girl, she loves the Bluegrass landscape. She can do this because she has retired from teaching creative writing in a high school arts program where she “grew” a multitude of poets. Many of her former students are now working on MFA degrees in creative writing as well as teaching and publishing poetry. Carole is now free to pursue her obsession with Japanese short form poetry. She has published poems and stories in a variety of print and online journals including Frog Pond, Ribbons, Atlas Poetica, Moon Bathing, Zen Spaces, Living Haiku Anthology, and Inner Art Journal. She was a finalist for the Museum of Haiku Literature Award and will soon be published in Blithe Spirit. She can be found @morganbag on Twitter. Read. Mikels Skele's Conundrum: Time And "Age"
 Mikels Skele
Age I’m old, don’t start with me Don’t talk of deadlines Or complain about the occasional Twitch of middle age There are people I know, Dearly beloved, Who worry that death will take them Before their great work is done Others who panic Thinking their great work, Having taken place in irascible youth, Will fade without recognition Or that the world, God forbid, And all its minions, Might come to misconstrue Their contribution, mistaking it for exuberance. As for me, it could happen That I’m done before I die, Or otherwise Timing, they say, is everything. Read the poetry of Mikels Skele Read a profile of Mikels Skele We Welcome Poet Marianne Paul to VerseWrights
 Marianne Paul
River Haunting Two blue herons atop deadwood grave markers in a flooded cemetery an apparition sails across the sky a great white heron off-course and far from home above and below the waterline ghosts in a mirror trees and the phantom of trees tinted sepia like an old photo a carp appears by my paddle blade then vanishes never was Marianne Paul is a Canadian poet and novelist. She is the author of the poetry collection Above and Below the Waterline and the novels Tending Memory, Twice in a Blue Moon, and Dead Girl Diaries, published by BookLand Press. Her writing has appeared in many anthologies and magazines, including The Best Women's Travel Writing and Canadian Tales of the Fantastic. She has served as a Writer in Residence for OpenBook Toronto and is a member of The Writers’ Union of Canada. Recently, she has become fascinated with the craft of writing micro-poems. Her work has appeared in The Bamboo Hut and Poetry Nook, and she often tweets poems @mariannpaul. She maintains a website at www.mariannepaul.com, and invites your visit. Read. "Hell," A New Poem From Daniel Klawitter
 Daniel Klawitter
Hell ☊ is living like a cold fish at the bottom of a well swimming in dark circles you cannot tell if down is up or up is down. Hell is a perpetual frown and a never-ending curse. Or perhaps hell is a midnight colored hearse you hope will never arrive? “I’m afraid not” the literalist replies. “Hell is merely the smell of you being burned alive.” Hear this poem read by Daniel Klawitter Read the poetry of Daniel Klawitter Read a profile of Daniel Klawitter New From Marsailidh Groat—"Silence"
 Marsailidh Groat
Silence I drown in convulsive discussion; when we carelessly assign every person a word, and take each as your own, my own, and lack distinction. Our vivacity and excitement must be here, must breathe, even if we have Nothing to say. And to find so seamless an existence that my thoughts, scattered and impetuous, I need not voice without cause. That which I have found, and lost, and will find again, so exquisite a taste in each pause. "Tryfan," A New Poem From Paul Mortimer
 Paul Mortimer
Tryfan A whale back ridge rises out of Ogwen valley. Its ridge climbs up from the llyn, leads your eyes and feet to Adam and Eve. Back to the beginning. Waiting is a dare. To leap the gap between the petrified pair. Up there in the gods, clouds clothe your breath. Serpent mist writhes, opening up snap-shot views of the Glyders ring. Here at the top, facing the dare. Shall I leap the gap between Adam and Eve? But worn out by the climb I stop. I sit. I drink and bite the apple. Read the poetry of Paul Mortimer Read a profile of Paul Mortimer 
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Poet Robert King's "Comparisons"
 Robert King
Comparisons ☊ In the middle of a river, I listen to the businessman comparing business to an orchestra, each instrument properly contributing, each part a part of the whole. The orchestra, however, compares itself to a river– flutes of light, cellos bubbling along in the push and flow of adagio, crescendo, allegro–in rushes and deep swirling. But this current river compares itself placidly to a business, all its appropriate liquid departments working in unison toward singular goals, closing up shop here, opening there, reorganizing itself now through a downturn of driftwood, so the two of us stop humming our various tunes and backpaddle furiously in order not to go bankrupt, get flat, or wet. [First published: Old Man Laughing (Ghost Road Press, 2007] Hear this poem read by the poet Read the poetry of Robert King Read a profile of Robert King Diana Matisz And "The Music of a Captive Heart"
 Diana Matisz
The Music of a Captive Heart i say shhh can you hear it? how can you possibly not? i can't write or read or think can't shut it out nor turn it off don't tell me you can't hear that beautiful terrible melody harmony of stones skipping over rivers of tears be still, listen you might catch the soft staccato drum of a woman's footsteps in circles, searching stop talking, listen to the a cappella rustle of owls in pines low moan adagios of tidal estuaries, eastbound trains hold your breath, listen to broken chord murmurs of a beloved voice a virtuoso reaching for the highest notes if all else fails press your ear put your hands upon my back pull me tight stay there, listen can you hear it now? Kelli Russell Agodon Goes Shopping With Her Parents
 Kelli Russell Agodon
Helping My Parents Shop for His & Her Coffins Mom touches a casket and yawns. Death is a long overdue nap. She likes the pale satin, not the minty-green box. She wants a home in the afterlife that is worm-resistant and a contraption to signal the world if she is buried alive. My dad tries to tell her this never happens, but she says she once heard a story about a grave they opened in Kent and inside the coffin they found scratch marks in the fabric of the lid. She wants to be buried with a cellphone or a string attached to a bell placed above the ground. My dad says people will bother the bell and the silver could attract crows. She says she’s tired and these coffins remind her of Vegas where everything is too shiny. My parents leave with the pamphlet for the classic pine box. Driving home, they talk about the sky, how it seems to roll on forever without a hint of fog. Read the poetry of Kelli Russell Agodon Read a profile of Kelli Russell Agodon On The Highway With Michelle Sho
 Michelle Sho
gold coast highway with my night ride flatlining the street lights only time feels infinite. roar wind sheer race machine locks of moon enclose my eyes end world. earth's gloom heart buckles misunderstood passages. speed wolf caught on a passionate gleam remember hand holding the once glory of being open, face cold tight grip on steering my head is lint and the wrong things feel right. Read the poetry of Michelle Sho Read a profile of Michelle Sho Val Dering Rojas—"When the Morphine Wears Away"
 Val Dering Rojas
When the Morphine Wears Away ☊ When the morphine wears away there is a room with a metal door-- it's creaking open secretly as I sleep. There is a room with a metal door that isn’t really a room at all. As I sleep, it’s hot as a furnace. That isn’t really a room at all: it is a box. It's hot as a furnace-- bare flame burning. It is a box with a rocking chair, rocking, bare flame burning, in the corner, a crib. With a rocking chair, rocking, motherless and babyless, in the corner, a crib-- you cannot enter this room. Motherless and babyless in the dead quiet of night, you cannot enter this room because this door is too small. In the dead quiet of night, it's creaking open secretly because this door is too small when the morphine wears away. Hear this poem read by Rowan Taw Read the poetry of Val Dering Rojas Read a profile of Val Dering Rojas Mike Jewett: Encounter With A Psychopomp?
 Mike Jewett
This Side of the Afterlife Tearing down the road, Witching hour spent like a twenty, and I twitch- My vision catches this Movement; Quick as silver, Gone like bronze. I start to hit the brakes, Peripheral vision seeing a raccoon speeding Down the street, in the gutter, Out of view of the sodium lamps Deep in shadow, Pawing the ground at 45 mph easy, and I turn the corner, Laughing, nerves shot, Realizing it wasn’t no psychopomp, It was only a goddamn shadow. Read the poetry of Mike Jewett Read a profile of Mike Jewett Natalie Keller's Latest Poem, "Stained"
 Natalie Keller
Stained You are such an enchantment. There is no stone, pebble, or shard of glass in this world that doesn’t know your name, doesn’t wear it on them like a sheen left from some late summer rain, like the fog of a breath captured in a mirror, metastasized into memory, splattered across everything that breathes. I carry you on me, the touch of your hand against mine leaving violent stains like bruises, but given with the gentlest of caresses, a photograph in flesh, to tell that you were here, that you were on everything. The sky is blue because you’ve wept it your sorrows and the sunset is red because you’ve kissed it your love. The world spins on, oblivious to its maker as well as the man who slipped in, invisible in the night, and left it so lovingly stained. Read the poetry of Natalie Keller Read a profile of Natalie Keller "God," A New Poem From Heather Feaga
 Heather Feaga
God I've imagine you Inside me Working wires Tugging bones Setting sirens high Your Hardened Surfaces I lay upon The scrape and peel Make me Yours Through me Bleeding together Stripped Layers deep Wrapped in all You Naked where you want The most of me Without question I like it With your words I come Being Stoked to life Yours Do to me The everything That makes me closer To god You Read the poetry of Heather Feaga Read a profile of Heather Feaga Poet Alexis Ivy joins VerseWrights' Pages
 Alexis Ivy
I Have My Reasons I hate boys, hate how if I give one a flower he’ll take it and pick a flower for another girl when he could’ve held mine longer. I used to eat cereal I didn’t like, boxes of it, and watched soap operas, one after the other. I also want to talk about the worst thing anyone ever said about me, worse than anything my brother said because it wasn’t said by my brother. Emma Rawels didn’t say it to my face, someone told me. She said it and I wouldn’t look in the window to see how I was looking. She said that I looked like I was hit in the face with a baseball. I thought she meant I had black eyes that wouldn’t go away, a fat lip. Thought she meant I slouched myself, face down to the ground like my body was a pile instead of a person. Isn’t everybody fruit on the way to rotten? I started showering twice a day. I like the smell of soap and sleeping with the storm windows open and my hair damp. I wear armpit hair instead of make up. I have my reasons. Alexis Ivy is a student of literature at Harvard University. Her poems have appeared in a variety of publications, including Main Street Rag, Tar River Poetry, Eclipse, and J Journal. She has worked in the kitchen of a homeless shelter, invented names for wallpaper designs, served as poetry editor of Coin Flip Shuffle, and is the operations manager for Poem Works: Workshop for Publishing Poets. The above poem originally appeared in her first poetry collection entitled Romance with Small-Time Crooks (BlazeVOX [books], spring 2013). Alexis grew up in Boston Massachusetts, where she currently lives. Read. From Christopher Clark, "Dichotomy Dolls"
 Christopher Clark
Dichotomy Dolls Barefoot, I walked the surface of Earth’s sunset, right there in the iris The moon, a one-horsed eye, filament Soaked in fire, balance blurred out. We’d kept meticulously adept. Multiple Pieces cut together, snagged by distance Features naked in artifice, undressed and Contrived, bare upon realness. The flecks of Dirty water on skin, perhaps one version, or Another perspective, strained through a filter; Rehashed convergence, it nips the measure Of your scuffed breasts, our faces dissecting. Read the poetry of Christopher Clark Read a profile of Christopher Clark 
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