Archive 7
January, 2014
 EJ Koh
I browsed CIA.gov
for jobs. On the online application I marked spots for Targeting Officer Intelligence Collection Analyst Counterterrorism Methodologist and Librarian. The text said: Be prepared to undergo a thorough investigation examining your life’s history, soundness of judgment, freedom from conflicting allegiances, protection of sensitive information, potential to be coerced, and a Polygraph test. [The CIA spied on me for twelve months] They found I watched more porn than most women. They found I wrestled and, upon demanding an opponent twice above my weight class, was publicly humiliated. They found I drank a cup of holy water at a wedding. They found I cannot hold my bladder past two hours, making me uneasy in places where a bathroom is not readily available: subways, banks, bars, liquor stores, boats, elevators, parks, outdoor malls, small offices, beaches, buses, waiting rooms, and funerals. They found I lied about speaking French. They found “How to disable a bomb” in my Google search history. They found I pass international customs with suitcases full of red meat, greens, and seeds into the country. They found no drug use in the past two years. They found my elementary teacher asked why I’d try for the spelling bee, she asked what the biggest word I knew was so I said “masturbation” and she sent me home with a red card. They found I lie to people older than me and tell the truth to younger people. They found a Davis high school baseball team bullied me by flipping my chair and making squinty eyes I tried to choke one of them and was removed from class. They found I laugh at racist jokes. They found I feel responsible for the death of my two parakeets and my grandmother. They found I never litter. They found I was fifteen when a Korean hairstylist proposed to me inside a McDonald’s in Tokyo, Japan. They found I danced for a Hip Hop team for two years by whom I felt largely betrayed. They found my mother worked a shopping mall cart and fainted when a customer stole an expensive makeup kit. They found I believe in God. They found I’m not particularly smart. The CIA called to say I passed my security clearances. Only the very best of the men and women comprise the Agency’s workforce to safeguard some of the nation’s most sensitive information and highest standards of integrity. Read the poetry of EJ Koh Read a profile of EJ Koh |
VerseWrights Welcomes Novelist and Poet Christina Strigas
 Christina Strigas
Compromise No matter what expression I hide you read my mind like a best-selling novel and highlight the parts of me that fall through your grasp. I am a Nicholas Sparks book you flip me on my stomach and leave me transient frozen on the word “but” you decide the weather is just perfect to plant tomatoes the ozone means pebbles to you. I concentrate on typing suddenly the loud French broadcaster argues about hockey players this echoes into my sentences I slam the door shut and shout lower the damn thing I wonder what is worse tomatoes that do not sprout or my life open on the kitchen table for everyone to read. Read the poetry of Christina Strigas Read a profile of Christine Strigas A Whisper And A Scream From Poet Paul Sands
 Paul Sands
whisper are you the whisper keeper? when clouds extend a warning and miracles broil your scruples does your finger hover and sweat or give birth to lead and brass? who travels with me through this threadbare theatre amongst the thorny portraits of hollow girls and brown tongued dupes are you the conspiratorial ghost that holds my hand and animates the hairs along my spine? are you? or will you be happier once you turn off the lights and leave behind this unfurled assembly of doodled affliction? jet scream a single bright needle picks apart the forget-me-not cloth then stitches it back together with a chalky yarn so swiftly run that the scream doesn’t come until later Read the poetry of Paul Sands Read a profile of Paul Sands |
Leslie Philibert's Newest Poem; A Reading By Eusebeia Philos
 Leslie Philibert
A Blind Man Looks at the Sea ☊ Let me be sighted in the sea wash, late waves, back water that curls as foam under the Moon, my face pulled to the tide, my eyes brothers in salt, no startlight, no endlight. Gulls sing at the first slight wind that changes direction in my ears. Let me drink all this; ebb and flood, wind and sea, sea and wind, flood and ebb. Now on VerseWrights: Rita Lange Severino
 Rita Lange Severino
The Hour I listen still in the pre-dusk hearing only the specter of your presence in the walls Laughter muted by memory, your footsteps silent echoes on the floor Dinner is ready, a banquet of if-onlys A table for one, longing for your five o’clock shadow Haiku A single birch leaf holds the secret of falling and resting in peace Read the poetry of Rita Lange Severino Read a profile of Rita Lange Severino Cheryl Snell Debuts Her Poem, "Insomnia"
 Cheryl Snell
Insomnia I stand guard over your fitful sleep. Heat rises, mixes with your sweat while I watch your fever rage. It’s almost midnight. Planets blink, offer neither clue nor compassion. The hour’s breaking shivers with sound, draws me to the window below the shingled wings of the sloping roof. A bird tunes its throat, swells a single pitch from the quavering source. Shapes from a far branch answer, the motif embellished as if caught in a lie. Notes loosed into an imitation of flight remind me of all that must not happen in the dark: a soul slipping away, all vigilance forsaken. I turn back to you, pulse quick with dotted rhythms and count out the time left to us under your vein-mapped skin. Read the poetry of Cheryl Snell Read a profile of Cheryl Snell An Encounter: Rowan Taw's "He Nods"
 Rowan Taw
He Nods He was an acquaintance of friends, but he and I have never been introduced. He gives a casual nod of the head, a fleeting, passing acknowledgement that he’s seen me hanging around before. With a shrug, I nod back, as we both turn from each other. I remember the first time I saw him, when I learnt his name, but he doesn’t seem to know mine…yet. I bear him no malice or ill will. I wonder when we’ll formally meet, when will that day come when I hear my name on Death’s lips? Read the poetry of Rowan Taw Read a profile of Rowan Taw Two New Poems From Poet Jacqueline Czel
 Jacqueline Czel
My Criminal Record Trumped up charges, oh, my eyes accused, my vision called in for cold questioning, my interest abused, by another's worries, his insecurities; but how do I plead, me? A woman, who can very clearly see the intricately carved beauty which catches my eye at every turn, but I've been unjustly profiled, my passion and my sincerity suspected, stopped, and bested by officer Doubt who's got me handcuffed and ready to be booked, fingerprinted, and jailed for committing the crime of expressing affection, yet again I, a repeat offender, have been arrested. Old Pirate They are buried beneath the sand, from what I can already see, some hidden treasures and a few unholy terrors, his salty eyed subconscious keeps somewhere under layers of silt, inside a gilded Pandora's box, I know from his wandering gaze, that journey hardened stare, it's better to not be the one, to locate the X on his mental map and turn the black skeleton key inside his heavy lock. Read the poetry of Jacqueline Czel Read a Profile of Jacqueline Czel "Cloth Dreams," A New Poem From Kim Talon
 Kim Talon
Cloth Dreams You hold the fabric tenderly pins glinting in the lamplight spilling over your shoulder the needle flashing in and out tattooing the cloth fingers-worn making stitches neatly you prick your fingertip cursing softly under your breath vermilion staining sepia fragility you're trying to mend cloth dreams overlooked and neglected tugged from the antique trunk in the dim corner of the attic… trying to hold them fast against the approach of oblivion but the cloth dreams refuse to be pieced back together tattered, the fabric tears even with your gentle handling you sigh removing the pins dropping them into the hand-painted bowl with the wreath of pansies glowing like jewels in the lamp's warm light bits of sepia blood-stained cloth scatter on the floor at your feet fluttering in the draft from the open window … I tiptoe across the room to kneel in the remnant-dreams using a piece of threadbare cloth to wipe the droplets of blood from your fingertip I swear that you are weeping but I hear no sound and see no tears Read the poetry of Kim Talon Read a profile of Kim Talon Two Short Poems From Poet Marsailidh Groat
 Marsailidh Groat
The Chase The sounds we chase Give us life And questioning this We breathe. A thought arpeggiates And here, we play A loss, a love, as our own. We hold our Calloused hands, our wooden Lovers, and sing Our vows. We didn’t Choose this, but We are. Glamour I clapped my hands to a mirror and waited for understanding. Skipping ropes swung as I waited for last night’s lipstick and a taste in my mouth. Grown ups asked Questions, and I waited to know how to respond. Hair and sweat and spots. I waited, passing time with ladybirds, treasures in my schoolbag, we fed the fairies and painted snail shells, still waiting for red nails and Convolution. That glamour I saw, when I was too in love to be happy. Read the poetry of Marsailidh Groat Read a profile of Marsailidh Groat Mikels Skele Ponders The Nature Of Canines
 Mikels Skele
What dogs lack What dogs lack is perspective. There are no dog priests. No dog poets barking rhythmically at the hollow moon. No dog inspectors, no dog police. A sniff is just a sniff, a scrap is just a meal. They fill no days pondering the meaning Of the star- rooted sky, Or why a corpse will disappear Slowly, like yesterday’s breakfast. There is nothing sacred or profane, Nothing indelible stamped on the Hide-like souls of dogs. They eat. They shit. They sleep. They’re in heaven or hell, one the same as the other, They see no difference between A special day or no particular day. You can’t sell a dog an insurance policy. They like the warmth of a human body, The sound of deep sleep, The feel of an embrace across the depthless Helix, as distant as love, as close as touch. If there’s food, they will eat all of it. Read the poetry of Mikels Skele Read a profile of Mikels Skele Natalie Keller Gives Us Two Short Lyrics
 Natalie Keller
Insentient She There is no poetry to be given to poetry, that cannot sit bathed in candlelight by a desk reading itself. For all things I have pity; lightning paths in her eyes like stained glass windows of a cathedral, unknowingly holy, she sits upon her consciousness like a pebble in a stream, a thing without lungs gasping for air, and there is no telling her of the beauty of swimming. Imaginings It is strange that the aroma of a rose drawn up in thought should be much sweeter than the flower I hold in my hand now. Imaginings are too often better than their realities, as these ancient dreams do tell, so I’ve made up my mind to stay here, splayed out amongst everything unreal, with the aerial scent of roses on my fingertips, to imagine the world away. Read the poetry of Natalie Keller Read a profile of Natalie Keller Marianne Paul's New Poem, "Obsession"
 Marianne Paul
Obsession My connection to you is like imprinting at birth the first thing a bird sees is its mother and there is nothing to be done the neural net is knit whether the mother is even the mother does not matter reason cannot reason away the connection you are pressed into me like a hand pressed into wet mud fingers spread wide palm flat Read the poetry of Marianne Paul Read a profile of Marianne Paul |
New Haiku, Tanka From Poet Alegria Imperial
 Alegria Imperial
Haiku in gusts a rumour about the sun not rising ❧ into a drum silence drops ❧ summer scents unfinished sonatas in a fall sale Tanka the scratching of dead grass on her skin louder than cries but muted on pillow clouds shifting in shapes of mercy Read the poetry of Alegria Imperial Read a profile of Alegria Imperial "Slime Monday" from Poet Johannes Bjerg
 Johannes Bjerg
Slime Monday a hatful of head discussing the significance of skid-marks in a self-proclaimed prophet's underwear theorists reach a point where for a king to be a certain and named king who died in a joust for him to be that king which is supposed to be the one mentioned in a certain prophesy he must have been someone else if we don't take into account that just by putting this vision onto a page and publishing it thus making it spread to thousand of living vibrating minds in itself will influence the future in such a way that the king wasn't king or even a human being but an apple with two cores ... and angelless feathers I zap on to another programme where a man back in the 1970's win 64.000 kroner by answering a question about rare stamps I draw the card of the Fool slime Monday (not mentioned in the calendar) a lead snail sucks up the blue of the sky Read the poetry of Johannes Bjerg Read a profile of Johannes Bjerg Rosa Saba Connects To The Virtual With "Internet Strings"
 Rosa Saba
Internet Strings I have this visual interpretation of the internet, where we are all connected by strings, nylon and shining and constantly entwining themselves with each other, electricity shooting through from my fingers to yours in the space of a second, a lifetime of words. It’s beautiful, I think, like a painting or a photograph, surreal and captivating, probably in artsy black-and-white. But this image of myself, hair tied back, one hand scrabbling at the side of my face, waiting for an expression to take hold, and the other chicken-pecking out the words that is so funny while one foot falls asleep under the weight of 1 am, as 2 am falls lightly on my shoulders, settling like an uneven blanket of dust and I cough, ignoring the symptoms of sleep deprivation, rubbing at my eyes as if to stretch the sockets, open wider the windows to my soul, saying here, internet, take all of me- this image is not quite so beautiful. Read the poetry of Rosa Saba Read a profile of Rosa Saba Two Poems From Foster Cameron Hunter
 Foster Cameron Hunter
What Id Is For Sigmund A velvet skin serpent, fangs perfectly formed to pierce and inject venom, it rattles in the shadow cast by corporal sensation. The flesh, a many headed hydra, stalks the halls of human frailty. From the cranial cage a coiled python strikes, wraps around the prey then hisses, Hurt so good—whispers, Sleep. Sleep. A devil in drag, the flesh covets the ins, the outs, the musky in-between, slithers in the lust for pleasure and wholly swallows the heart of life. The flesh puts the Id in idiot. For You I would challenge the specter of death, wring the neck of the Grim Reaper and bring you his head on a lance. You fascinate frustrate elevate irritate and titillate. I enjoy the ride-- the emotional gamut from A to Z. Read the poetry of Foster Cameron Hunter Read a profile of Foster Cameron Hunter Poet Ann Neuser Lederer Joins VerseWrights' Pages
 Ann Neuser Lederer
Ice Pond On the flat of our yard, Dad shoveled until the dark, crusted grass showed. He packed the dirty snow onto the edges, then hosed and coated the whole mess until it froze. I remembered all this from the black and white photo with scalloped borders: three rag-tag girls in hand-me-down skates, posing, pausing on their very own rink. In my mind, I still nimbly swirl and turn, slamming into the rocky rim to stop. Stopping was always the hardest, especially in dull double runners strapped to boots, or heavy boy's hockeys with crumpled ankles. Though I never got good, I was joyous, nights particularly, alone sometimes in the shadows of swaying porch light and ringed moon. The blade's cut was a long sigh, a melody; the sleek surface renewed by the spray like an empty lake soon scissored by a swan. Read the poetry of Ann Neuser Lederer Read a profile of Ann Neuser Lederer Two New Poems From Poet Eusebeia Philos
 Eusebeia Philos
Sampson By the treachery of Delilah, her mythic man of outrageous deeds on the fields of war and the beds of pleasure was caught up by enemies of his tribe and relatives of his victims, made bound, cured of his animal instincts, and the eyes that found Delilah right and pleasing were gouged out, lust for lust, blood vengeance for those who had fallen by Samson's angry hands, which now blindly felt in the darkness for the pillars that would give the mighty man a last epic victory, a rally for his tribe, a satisfying death - falling by the violence of his own hands, rubble for his grave. Duty Duty grinds like gravity weighty unseen but for bowed backs and strained faces Read the poetry of Eusebeia Philos Read a profile of Eusebeia Philos Mary Anne Rojas' Latest Poem, "one day"
one day ☊
one day i will have a good day, enough to call my own doing-- my fault for everything going so well. i will call no one nor one thing a savior, but my courage. i will make me survive, become survivor of my mess and dirt. no more days to pick up a day of dirty work. i will be worth too many days for just one. one day. i will recall the teetering of a smile, sincere and relieved of faulty attempt to be mine. it will dance on my face like the hesitance of a tear, unafraid to admit it comes from broken, misbehaved behind skin, so i will let go—set awake a filthy wanting. to be a good day—unkempt and deserved. Read the poetry of Mary Anne Rojas Read a profile of Mary Anne Rojas See this poem in the PoetryAloud area A Haiku Collection From Joan McNerney: "Winter Notes"
 Joan McNerney
From "Winter Notes" Deep winterset night. Sleepless stars glide through heaven in aerial ballet. More starling than that windowpane red with sun are your ice blue eyes. Thick snowflakes tonguefulls we lap laughing as sparks pinch my face. In our frail world, even meteors, the eyes of heaven fall like dust from God’s hands. The three I love now silent cool darkness. Will it be so when I die? Read the poetry of Joan McNerney Read a profile of Joan McNerney New Haiku From Poet Christina Nguyen
 Christina Nguyen
Haiku mountain lake blue eyes clouded with glacial dust Solstice: A Haiku Triptych winter solstice the last day of chemo winter solstice he signs the divorce papers winter solstice the long howl of the black dog Read the poetry of Christina Nguyen Read a profile of Christina Nguyen "Dove Season," A Poem From Kathleen Everett
 Kathleen Everett
Dove Season My people were dog people. Hunting dogs, mostly, Shorthaired pointers, lemon and red With royal names, Duchess and Princess English setters, liver and white, Each successor named Zip. September was dove season- Guns would be cleaned Trips to the leases planned. Daddy and PamPa, with uncles and brothers in tow, Leave in the dark morning With dogs, guns and coolers in the trunk. Late afternoon with the deepening dusk, The hunters arrived home Smelling of fields and gunpowder and beer. Small still birds spilled from canvas bags, Tiny feathers and the scent of blood Float in the air– A pitying of dove. Read the poetry of Kathleen Everett Read a profile of Kathleen Everett |
We Welcome Poet Juliet Wilson To VerseWrights
 juliet Wilson
Weather Forecasting When her divorce came through she spent hours browsing old photos as if they could tell her secrets. She stares at one of her and her brothers playing in the snowy garden when they were very young. She and her husband used to laugh at this photo, at her strange flowery anorak and how there would never be winters like that again. Two heavy winters later she realises we can never know the future ice and snow. Haiku double rainbow-- the changing colours of the cherry tree. Read the poetry of Juliet Wilson Read a profile of Juliet Wilson A New Poem From Michael Lee Johnson
 Michael Lee Johnson
Picture, Cap and Gown Cap and gown history major, minor in math- graduation under the maple tree, bright red leaves, but the times don’t show it; a full face grins. There’s a shadow below your nose above your lips, it settles into a gray mixed day. You stand on farm land with no plow in hand or in the distance bare- no damn cows to be seen no red barn or damn homestead just open acres of space- and downed fences- and some idle brush blending with quill feathers flushed within a background of branches. Life is a simple picture. Life is a simple picture, repeating with tree shadows hovering around leaves. Dirt in the background dances freely- it’s here your memories are folded, into prairie winds. You are still framed in solid black and white- you can’t leave this space on your own, from now to your own eternity, to your salvation or your grave. Your whole life now has spots and spaces behind it. Did you grow older and have children? Did you marry a man of the plow or that chemist you had the brief affair with in agricultural school? Did the graduation certificate rolled up in your hand like a squashed turnip, donut, or dead sea scroll fade by moisture and sun or wind up cursed with sand? I pull down your life and frame it here like a stage curtain handful of future, present, passed, and pasted in a space dimension of 3” x 5” tucked beneath a simple footnote in time. Read the poetry of Michael Lee Johnson Read a profile of Michael Lee Johmson Steve Green Brings His Verses To VerseWrights
 Steve Green
Souls Out Piercing the darkness on a gloomy night Weary pilgrims are drawn to the light All ye faithful flock to beacon bright To worship at the alter of this sacred site Baby Santa lies away in a manger Swaddled in consumer currency Surrounded by merry elves and reindeer All doing their part for our economy The doors swing open at midnight The assembled masses storm in Seeking the salvation this sale brings Prices so low they seem like a sin The Fallen Angel proclaims to all, “Welcome to my Bargain Nativity!” “Christmas may be the domain of God, But Black Friday belongs to me!” Read the poetry of Steve Green Read a profile of Steve Green Two Poems From Poet Laura Madeline Wiseman
 Laura Madeline Wiseman
Lawn Husbandry You might pay the girl across the street or let it grow a little wild, but most weeks you mowed unfailingly like the others in the neighborhood, passing the baton of noise in a relay that ran all summer. I folded the laundry or weeded the garden as the engine advanced and then receded, carving lanes into the lawn, a million ribbons that broke around you and fell as you sweated and pushed on. I watched with a kind of bemusement this maintenance of sidewalks and driveways in the winter, the raking of leaves in the fall, and the lawn mowers moving like a masculine excuse to soak up sun. Or prowess as muscles flexed and gleamed. Or a white noise to fantasize in as the dog pranced and butterflies whirled. After, you’d come in with shoes flecked with green confetti, perspiration on your brow, and lean against the kitchen counter, drinking ice water, letting some slide down your neck. You’d say each time in a voice never winded, but husky and strong, a riot, a tease, It’s hot. Fatal Clock Varnished to appear cherry, like teenagers who bite their cuticles in the front row, and with a face mottled and hidden under glass, like the eyes of the far-sighted who see what marches toward them through the hills, but not what holds steady right before them, the clock opens in the back to reveal the brass cogs within and the rusted key you placed there to wind the hands. Sometimes it will count the seconds until it stills into a distracted silence, like all of us who try to measure the future, unable to tell how little of it there is or how much. Read the poetry of Laura Madeline Wiseman Read a profile of Laura Madeline Wiseman Two New Poems from Poet Heather Feaga
 Heather Feaga
Strangle Maybe it's time To hang the words From snow covered branches Listen to the sing Of stretched twine Writhe and swing Maybe it's time To choke air Out of words Until they lay Lifeless on my lap Fleshed Made minutely Of paper thread weaves Dissolve water To tears To stab at skin The ball point feels Rivulets down blue Shredded paper whites Spring Flowering in the weeds Petaled pigment twists air The braided rope Sweetly scented Strangling Her brothers Glass The window Broke still Stopping light Bone crushed coo Small birds flutter the sky Black She crushed too End to end Read the poetry of Heather Feaga Read a profile of Heather Feaga Bernadette Geyer: A Poem From The Warsaw Ghetto
 Bernadette Geyer
What Barbara Told Us She waited until we finished our self-guided tour of the husks of buildings that endured in the former Warsaw Ghetto. She waited until we had shot our fill of photographs, switched out rolls of film. Our steps were caught in the molasses of history when she began to speak: It was never a moral question—bribery and stealing. If the Polish stole, it was from the Russians, or the Germans, or the Austro-Hungarians. If the government was cheated, that was okay, because it wasn’t theirs. She offered this not as apology or excuse, but fact, just as the bullet-pocked wall would not apologize for its blemishes as we skimmed our fingertips over its marred, but proud, skin. Read the poetry of Bernadette Geyer Read a profile of Bernadette Geyer Danielle Favorite Shares Her Newest Poem
 Danielle Favorite
I wrote this while waiting for you The halite moon is quieter than the other moons; my eyes reflect its salty gaze. You talk about titanium and teeth whitening methods (strawberries crushed with baking powder). Tonight, the moon is soft, a snake egg left unattended and you are red from too much whiskey. I once stepped on a small chunk of dry ice. At first, nothing, then a demanding, searing burn. I kept walking. You would not recognize the urgency of misting ice; you are never bare-foot. Reader, I've been where you have, tasted the same light. This paper is my palm. Press it against your bare chest, warm it with your heartbeat. Together, we will whiten the moon. Read the poetry of Danielle Favorite Read a profile of Danielle Favorite We Welcome Poet Angie Werren To The Pages Of VerseWrights
 Angie Werren
answer me. am I dust to you? am I ash? a gasp swirling in gravitational pull? (father) answer me. my face my arms a cloud of sloughed off cells am I blessed to you? (father) am I a pulse? a breath? am I? in this instant in this shared ride in this unbalanced slide into blue answer me. (when you slap me do you feel my wings?) Angie Werren lives and writes in a tiny house in Ohio. Sometimes she takes pictures of things in the yard. Her haiku, poetry and photographic manipulations can be found in places such as tinywords, haigaonline, cattails, the zen space, Haiku News, A Hundred Gourds, right hand pointing, and Red Ceilings. She was very surprised to have a poem appear recently in an issue of Mushroom: the Journal of Wild Mushrooming. Angie believes that poetry is all just smoke and feathers, and words are what she uses when she doesn't have a camera handy. She has several blogs, but her favorite is called feathers, on Wordpress. Read. |