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Archive 8
February, 2014


Sylvia Plath Is The Subject Of jacob erin-cilberto's Latest

Picturejacob erin-cilberto




A Desk in London—1963

Sylvia Plath left some letters on the table
by the half-smoked cigarette,
by the off-the-hook phone
by the unused typewriter
by the picture of Ted
by the half-opened drawer
by the rest of the letters she found there
by the sweat that poured from her clammy hands
which then turned to fists of rage
which then turned to angry fingers
which then tore up the letters
by the half-smoked cigarette
by the off-the-hook phone
by the busy typewriter
as she wore her fingers to the poem's bone
emasculating Ted within lines of her wistful words
and quicksand sentiment
which settled her
which embattled her
which made her laugh till she cried
 
the echoes of which continued long after she died
and could be heard
at the table
by the half-smoked cigarette
by the off-the-hook phone
by the confused typewriter
by the preserved poem's bone
by the picture of Ted
 
with his eyes drawn shut
illegible through the broken glass
of a reality, Sylvia saw
all too clearly
as she inhaled her final thought.


Read the poetry of jacob erin-cilberto
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VerseWrights' Newest Poet: Rowyda Amin

PictureRowyda Amin




Monkey Daughter


On my birthday, my mother takes delivery
of a baby capuchin. All week
she has been converting her study
into a nursery, with a cot
and yellow curtains, cupcake patterned.
 
She feeds the monkey
warm milk from a bottle,
little chunks of papaya and apple.
Hushes and lulls, names it Laura.
The monkey’s scared brown eyes roll like olives.
I want to shake them out of the jar.
 
Laura wears tiny dungarees
and pinafores, my baby clothes
from the attic, where my parents
had been saving them for grandchildren.
Her photo replaces mine on the fridge.
 
This one, my mother says, pinning
the monkey’s nappy, will not grow up.


Read the poetry of Rowyda Amin
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VerseWrights Welcomes Poet Katherine Gallagher

PictureKatherine Gallagher




Domestic


He tells me I'm the untidiest
nice woman he's ever lived with.
It's our bad joke – I pluck resolutions,
see garbage floating three floors down
have him doing housework,
say we'll eat out, eat less
eat fast, or just let dishes pile up,
find a stairway of paper-plates
to take us right down to earth.

But I don't leave it there,
race through the apartment
picking up papers, carbons,
the half-made poems disappearing
into paper-clips, folders. Suddenly
it's a tidy hinterland –
the desk bare, no books on the floor,
just that coffee-table
better-housekeeping look.

He smiles approval then
our eyes lock together, we purr,
it's love's dream whirring
till I see my two selves again
shadowing each other, colliding –
the writer watched warily by the
Vermeer girl, head down
over her chores.


Read the poetry of Katherine Gallagher
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Two New Poems From Poet Marianne Paul

PictureMarianne Paul
The Melt

The grackles
with their spotted star clusters
across the night sky of feather
running and bobbing and pecking
at whatever the sun has unveiled
under the hot gaze of snow melt  --
the chickadee sidling up to the sparrow
and a pair of cardinals dipping
tree to tree and joined wing to wing
by an invisible string
bird quantum physics
the whole bird world connected
the squirrels, too
plumping up on maple keys
fattening in plain sight
giddy with the sudden sun
and rising temperature



falling in love at eighty

she loses herself to the sky a silver foil balloon
ribbon dangling like string from the bird’s beak in spring
love crazily in the air so that even the crow acts
like a bluebird            and the crone the schoolgirl
and not even the birds can explain this frenzy
the mad sweet obsession in their flight
urge filling the hallow at the core of winged bones
jumpiness felt in the feathers and held in the dark
of perfectly rounded eyes


Read the poetry of Marianne Paul
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Beth Winter Gives Us "This Winter Day"

PictureBeth Winter




This Winter Day


Today, I feel years
that belong to an older soul,
the weight of snow on rafters

threatens my stance
with each short step
gingerly placed on tenuous ice.

Knees ache
as if prayer
demanded the sacrifice
of stark bone 
under too-thin flesh.

I feel burdened
by ages past
with words unspoken,

yet the blur before me
is but frost on the window,

clarity encased in glass etchings
that script the future
of a winter day.


Read the poetry of Beth Winter
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Samantha Reynolds Gives Us "Stories with no words"

PictureSamantha Reynolds




Stories with no words


I am told we don’t remember much
before we are four
though they are still there
the memories
like eggs
you don’t see
in a cake

the acupuncturist tells me
they hide in the body
stories with no words
roosting in our livers
hanging from our lungs
swept into webs
around our hearts

like the other day
when I locked the bedroom door
you screaming on the outside
me on the inside

I just need to not be here for a minute

I begged silently
with my eyes closed
my fists white and dancing

I tell myself there are exceptions
memories that just fall out
like loose change

or then a map at least
of your little body
so I can find out
where that moment has nested
and love you enough
to scrub it away.


Read the poetry of Samantha Reynolds
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We Welcome Poet Lauren Lola To VerseWrights

PictureLauren Lola



Elaboration


Simplicity is a bugger
when not enough is given away
No need for complexity
when elaboration is what’s recommended
There’s a fine line between both
 
Don’t just show me a body
give me bones and working organs too
Forget the stick figures
paint me a portrait
I’d prefer to explore a barrier reef
than an empty ocean floor
 
Speak in straight lines
but make them long lines
Say what you mean
and make it heavy with substance

Read the poetry of Lauren Lola
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Read And Listen To Robert King's "On History"

PictureRobert King

On History  ☊


When I lived in the Dakotas,
towns were celebrating only

their centennial. Outside
a hotel window in Spain

stood a deserted church,
restorada in 1855,

a tree growing out of the belfry.
I have learned about time, learned again.

When I asked a young child on her way
through the Zuni village what that was,

those rocks jumbled around a hole
in a weedy vacant lot, she answered

“The center of the world,” and ambled
through that morning toward her school.


Read the poetry of Robert King
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Emily Burns And An Imagined Woman...

PictureEmily Burns




an imagined woman has an imaginary conversation


she asks him
do you believe
 
in magic?
in ghosts?
in angels?
 
and he thinks
he does
 
he'd rather talk about
how soft she is
and how lonely
he's been
 
he doesn't understand
the magnetism
that draws him
toward her
 
he doesn't understand
the poetry
that happens
in confused conversations
 
he doesn't understand
walls
 
or conflict
that advances and withdraws
with no warning
 
he can't see her blue skies
and doesn't know
that they bring real tears
that fade when
the rain comes
 
these things almost never
end well
 
maybe she should have asked
do you believe in me?
maybe nothing ever does


Read the poetry of Emily Burns
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"Laugh a Little Louder," A New Poem From Kathleen Rogers

PictureKathleen Rogers




Laugh a Little Louder


Laugh a little louder, please
You see, I can’t hear your smiles
 
Not a sound coming round
since the fairies
flew far
Your bedroom door
so closed
Your mood
so cold
This long-predicted
break
splinters dry
childhood to ash
 
  Faded, loving, loyal
doll tucked away not tucked in
Mamma’s hand, dropped
Her approval not sought
What does a mother know
when you’re seventeen?
 
Laugh a little louder, please
You see, I can’t hear your smiles


Read the poetry of Kathleen Rogers
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A New Lyric From Poet Christopher Sanderson

PictureChristopher Sanderson




Sant Salvador


My window faces
The rising sun
This gift of life
Each day is spun

I hear your footsteps
In my mind
This gift of peace
Such joy to find

Silent mornings
In my arms
This gift of love
Brings me calm

I see you pray
You alone
This gift of time
Carved in stone

My window faces
The setting sun
This gift of words
Unspoken, undone


(Sant Salvador is a sanctuary in Majorca, dating from the 14th Century)

Read the poetry of Christopher Sanderson
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A New Poem From Poet Kim Talon, Read By Robert King

PictureKim Talon




The Memory Tree
  ☊

Tender shadows keep vigil
in the blue-stained dark
as minutes seep into hours

no moon companion
even the birds sleep
wings tucked neatly
waiting for hint of light
to grace a morning sky
before singing the praises
of a day unfolding

in the hush hours
between here and now
lies what was

thoughts drift--
aimless travelers
meandering through recollection forests

in a sudden gust of recall
a memory tree sways
and a memory breaks free
falling in the inky dark
into hands gently cupped


Read the poetry of Kim Talon
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"Ma Bell," A New Poem From Diana Matisz

PictureDiana Matisz




Ma Bell


sitting there
she taunts
pristine
cold
silent
vocal cords
taut
coiled
her refusal to speak
a victory
against the need
screaming
in my head
but when she sings,
oh, when she sings
her soprano trill
steals my breath
chills
enchant my skin
i reach for her
press my ear
against hers
and hear
the melody
i've been
anticipating,
my inamorato's
murmur


Read the poetry of Diana Matisz
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VerseWrights Welcomes Poet Sherry Chandler To Our Pages

PictureSherry Chandler




Homeplace with Birds and Trees
  ☊

The old black locusts that line the driveway drop
a few more limbs with every storm but honey the air
with bloom each spring — a bloom that covers the yard
like snow when the oriole’s an orange flicker
between sycamore and oak. The mourning doves
call out from the cedar every summer dusk and dawn.
The moon rises behind the sugar maple, June’s sun
sets behind the ash, December’s behind the sweet gum.
These periods of home I know as my tongue knows the map
of my teeth, but in the bite of winter’s wind, I‘ve been
on speaking terms with the serpent, scorned songbirds,
thought to try my wing beside the red-tailed hawk,
to haunt the owl’s desaturated light. My hold
is the catbird’s aria, the chickadee’s bobbing flight,
the rhythm of your step when you come in from the shop.


Read the poetry of Sherry Chandler
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A Modern Sonnet From Poet Joanna Suzanne Lee

PictureJoanna Suzanne Lee




what i mean when we talk about the weather


writing the same verses i was before
i met you, when, raining, i was then too
pre-sprung and ungainly and insecure
in the plastic smiles and broken-lined blues
of that looseleaf notebook torn up and burned
with the hard yellow of my skirt; alas,
you say, and i like the sound of the word,
how it spells wings in other tongues, forecasts
flight, but we go best down in translation,
loft our respective sadnesses aloud,
can't remember southern constellations,
verb conjugations, lost patterns of cloud
or what it was to love easy, aware 
that it must be snowing hard, still, somewhere.


Read the poetry of Joanna Suzanne Lee
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Now on VerseWrights: Poet Ernesto P. Santiago

PictureErnesto Santiago




Tanka


on a leaf, sailing
smoothly to bygone phrases
laced with time I bow
to unknown spirits, watching
trees dance in orphic autumn


Three Haiku

I wish someone
a happy solar return~
falling star

returning home
a soldier embraces his
broken steps

confession~
behind the holy screen
an orchid mantis


Read the poetry of Ernesto Santiago
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A New Poem From Denise Janikowski-Krewal

PictureDenise Janikowski-Krewal




Balancing Scales


Jinna with the silver
Streaked black hair
Bronzed her punk boots
The day they wore out
Holes in soles
Cracked leather creases
Took a beating from
Gravel and concrete
Tar speckled
Reckless dance partners
Spilled beer
Caved to sensible shoes,
Utilitarian life,
Practical soul
Still aching for the
Painful pointed toes
That made her kick and scream
Ill fit, inducing a fight
Against any injustice
Now a prop against
A door held partially open
To keep the
Comfortable fit
From forgetting the silver tress
That Jinna still proudly wears
Into justice halls
With her black robe
Now wielding a gavel


Read the poetry of Denise Janikowski-Krewal
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The Newest Poem From Poet Janet Aalfs

PictureJanet Aalfs




Giraffe and Stone

for Rose Gasherebuka of Rwanda

As the stone has been
misunderstood, and her wild
love maligned, and her still

bewildering music shunned,
so have I.
Lips soft as clouds, voice

so low you think me mute
as a shadow, I speak.
Loch Ness serpent's neck, gentle

tongue and teeth, leaves I eat
from the treetops sing their stories
inside me. Legs so high I stride

through lotus blooms and meteors.
As I gallop, the horizon lifts
my bones, and the moon rides me.

I have listened longer than memory
to the heartbeat at the core of earth,
stone in which the quna

shaped her alphabet
and wrote the first
human word.


***Quna: the word Queen comes from Quna, keeper of the written word, and Quna comes from Cuneiform, ancient writing developed 5000 years ago by women in Sumeria, the area now known as Iraq.

Read the poetry of Janet Aalfs
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Poet William Fraker Gives Us "Sweat and Stars"

PictureWilliam Fraker




Sweat and Stars


Sweat seeps into ground and seasons over generations.
Heat bakes freshly mowed grass into sweetness.
 
Geese traverse the sky in the last traces of the sun.
Black crows and white-tailed deer sample the field’s             cuttings.
Dusk reaches the side steps, where my father used to         sit,
       after a day of mowing or gardening.
He would sip a beer in a sleeveless T-shirt.
A tired afterglow may have linked my father
       to images of his father, tending horses,
 And further to pictures of his grandfather,
arriving prairie wagon-worn.
 
I shower and transition through dinner.
Earlier spirits depart by the time stars wink.

Read the poetry of William Fraker
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Danielle Favorites Gives Us Two Delicate Lyrics

PictureDanielle Favorite

Water as old as the moon


I'm only a wisp of light
caught in Lake Michigan's stare,

a black butterfly,
                         an almond tree,
               a drop of amber blood.

Bathe me in coconut milk
because my skin has forgotten
    how to be skin--
                           it is more shadow or reflection
                     or water.

Pick me up:
    I am a feather to some unknown daydream.

I want to make your heart shiver
like moonlight on a trembling lake.



Seeing red


The medication turned
her eyes pearly-white, made her
crave salt.
She denied the existence of day,
only wrote at night,
       click-click-clack
on her typewriter while the moon
watched from the sky-light.

40 mg of chemical acrobats
to balance her brain.

She wrote about red things:
strawberries, heartbeats,
lips and the words they sang,
blood in a bath-tub,
roses and exit
              lights.


Read the poetry of Danielle Favorite
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Read And Listen To Rosa Saba's "in time, in rhythm"

PictureRosa Saba

In time, in rhythm
  ☊

i looked across and down
and the man's feet tapped
out a rhythm into the dark floor
of the speeding, jostling bus
and the rhythm matched the music
that occupied my ears
and my fingers pressed the tune
into the depths of my pocket
and i looked outside

the trees, aligned along the road
filed past the window
one by one
and the speed at which they passed my vision
matched the even beating of my heart
and the drumming of the cracks
in the cement that hammered
through the wheels and into
the soles of my feet
and i closed my eyes

the words that echoed there
in that dark expanse of thought
were spoken evenly, echoing
into the cavern
in strong, reliant waves
and the beauty of their timing
matched the rhyming of their meaning
and the march of my feet upon the sidewalk
matched the space between the lyrics
marking every single breath
and hanging on each letter
and i opened my eyes

it's funny, because today
the skies were open wide
and the passing of time
was aligned
with every inch of my five senses
one rhythm underlining each word said
one rhythm defining the weight of it all
one rhythm combining the moments together
and as i went to bed
heartbeat thumping in my head
i said
today just felt to me
like a song


Read the poetry of Rosa Saba
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Nothing Corny About Dan Shawn's Latest Poem...

PictureDan Shawn

plastic baby corn


parasitic
poached goats
are not for
petting zoos
but that has never
stopped them
before
and of course
there’s cream
in a little hollow
place tucked
so very deep
inside them
(almost like custard I’d wager)

they know
all about
the lobster
and how she
prefers
to lay her
eggs in a
tight cluster
all grape-like
on the
underside of the
algal frond
 
where I dream
that we too
might someday
find cool shelter
from the plastic bits
that rain down from
the tortured sky
the 3-D printers
that spit
out pink toes
and little
baby corn
holders


Read the poetry of Dan Shawn
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We Welcome John Alwyine-Mosely to VerseWrights

PictureJohn Alwyine-Mosely




in the boat i built with my father


I see the boats berthed photo still
as the tender breeze
carries the scream of hungry gulls
and the smell of salted seas.

Now only weekend toys
when once they tacked homeward
with cod that fed us
in holds frozen full

And the streets woken by dawn clatter
and the calls of friends
empty, empty, empty.

Their corpses of boats.
spill with the entrails of ropes
smeared with smashed hope.

But while the tide turns
and the boat hewed
by my father’s hand
still lifts on the waves
I will sail and let him live
lest you forget.


Read the poetry of John Al
wyine-Mosely
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A Lamentation From Poet Mark MacDonald

PictureMark MacDonald




On Going Bald


A small pour of coffee at the end of September--
a low talking wind and the first fallen leaves
gone stumbling to the curbside. It’s a little

too quiet in the morning than I am used to.
Nothing makes sense on a Tuesday--
nor should it—but Wednesday herself

is a wee bit beleaguered as well. The women that
I have loved no longer wish to Tango. They have
married more respectable and hardworking men.

I tease with them on Facebook at times--
but the best of my horses have retired
to the barn—my feet are in rebellion

with the rumbas of my heart, and the
flamenco they strike fall sullen to lament.


Read the poetry of Mark MacDonald
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We Welcome to VerseWrights Poet E.H. Ford

PictureE.H. Ford






Kia, 1967


California was my
personal Babylon,
with drunk freeways running
from LA north
to Santa Barbara.

My drop top,
fire engine red convertible
knew every curve from
Manhattan Beach Boulevard
to La Cumbre Plaza.

Peaceful jungles ran red with napalm
displacing enough small gentle faces
to fill the empty boardrooms
of corporate America
a hundred times over.

The only agent for
change was orange.
With suicide
the legacy
of a generation.

Beside the shiny rails
of the Union Pacific triple-tracks
black ink flows
across thirsty pages
as my hand strokes my .45,
yet picks up
my pen.

I’ve lived in death’s neighborhood
on both sides of the Pacific.
Years the only winner
of a war never asked for.
And trust…
trust was KIA in 1967.

Read the poetry of E.H. Ford
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Two Short Poems From Poet John Jackson

PictureJohn Jackson




Paper Airplane


A love,
once crisp and fresh,
follows the passing of time.
Flights of fancy
become flights of fantasy,
as the sharply folded pleats
slowly come undone.
Plummeting earthward,
crumpled on the ground.
Irreparable,
and ironically 
recyclable


Haiku

stoned in solitude
memory evaporates
before it happens


Read the poetry of John Jackson
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Mary Grace Guevara Brings Her Poetry To VerseWrights

PictureMary Grace Guevara




The aftermath


the night drowned   
blue, silver and black ash
under quartered moon

honey-sipped, the waves
quickly swelled into a tsunami
drained of salt

bittersweet like grapefruit
sucking tears, words and flesh --
I drifted, swallowed      

dry by sea --
shattered shell, deranged of memories
from your leaving



Winter, the birthing

The cold bites
everything to black & white

I know the signs:

A spire tightens around my neck 

Knotted of flowers, black

narcissus    

In darkening sky      
wind stings like a bee

Your absence
dear one is harder than

melting snow

salt-christened, blue teardrop

At night
I lean on your words -

womb, flint, amber

& burn
& burn


Read the poetry of Mary Grace Guevara
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VerseWrights Welcomes Poet Dick Jones To Our Pages

PictureDick Jones





Names of the Moon


Sucked pebble:
tongued smooth by black sand.
Starflecks on a sable field,
sour white, bleached as night,
juice dried, a flat splash.

Old coin:
dun metal edged like a
flint shard, spent, effaced,
the ghost profile watching
west, the setting point.

Bleached horns:
hook hanging, depending nothing
but planet-wrack,
clipped strings of light,
the dead hair of comets.

Broken button:
tugged and twined, frayed against
the cape and cowl, shrugged high
and loose in ice-heart
marrowbone dark.

Flat cataract:
milk or smoke or silica,
obscuring the macula, watching
only what she remembers
of red shift, of spectrum drift.

Abalone pearl:
infected by a flushed horizon
thus pink and purple,
deep elliptical,
frozen albumen.

Eyes in the night:
tsuki, menes,
chand, spogmay,
he’ni, loar,
namwaikaina.


Read the poetry of Dick Jones
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