Archive 8
February, 2014
Sylvia Plath Is The Subject Of jacob erin-cilberto's Latest
 jacob 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 Read a profile of jacob erin-cilberto VerseWrights' Newest Poet: Rowyda Amin
 Rowyda 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 Read a profile of Rowyda Amin VerseWrights Welcomes Poet Katherine Gallagher
 Katherine 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 Read a profile of Katherine Gallagher Two New Poems From Poet Marianne Paul
 Marianne 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 Read a profile of Marianne Paul Beth Winter Gives Us "This Winter Day"
 Beth 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 Read a profile of Beth Winter Samantha Reynolds Gives Us "Stories with no words"
 Samantha 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 Read a profile of Samantha Reynolds We Welcome Poet Lauren Lola To VerseWrights
 Lauren 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 Read a profile of Lauren Lola Read And Listen To Robert King's "On History"
 Robert 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. Emily Burns And An Imagined Woman...
 Emily 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 Read a profile of Emily Burns |
"Laugh a Little Louder," A New Poem From Kathleen Rogers
 Kathleen 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 Read a profile of Kathleen Rogers A New Lyric From Poet Christopher Sanderson
 Christopher 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 Read a profile of Christopher Sanderson A New Poem From Poet Kim Talon, Read By Robert King
 Kim 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 "Ma Bell," A New Poem From Diana Matisz
 Diana 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 Read a profile of Diana Matisz VerseWrights Welcomes Poet Sherry Chandler To Our Pages
 Sherry 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. A Modern Sonnet From Poet Joanna Suzanne Lee
 Joanna 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 Read a profile of Joanna Suzanne Lee Now on VerseWrights: Poet Ernesto P. Santiago
 Ernesto 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 Read a profile of Ernesto Santiago A New Poem From Denise Janikowski-Krewal
 Denise 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 Read a profile of Denise Janikowski-Krewal The Newest Poem From Poet Janet Aalfs
 Janet 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 Read a profile of Janet Aalfs Poet William Fraker Gives Us "Sweat and Stars"
 William 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 Read a profile of William Fraker |
Danielle Favorites Gives Us Two Delicate Lyrics
 Danielle 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 Read a profile of Danielle favorite Read And Listen To Rosa Saba's "in time, in rhythm"
 Rosa 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 Nothing Corny About Dan Shawn's Latest Poem...
 Dan 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 Read a profile of Dan Shawn We Welcome John Alwyine-Mosely to VerseWrights
 John 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 Alwyine-Mosely Read a profile of John Alwyine-Mosely A Lamentation From Poet Mark MacDonald
 Mark 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 Read a profile of Mark MacDonald We Welcome to VerseWrights Poet E.H. Ford
 E.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 Read a profile of E.H. Ford Two Short Poems From Poet John Jackson
 John 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 Read a profile of John Jackson Mary Grace Guevara Brings Her Poetry To VerseWrights
 Mary 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 Read a profile of Mary Grace Guevara VerseWrights Welcomes Poet Dick Jones To Our Pages
 Dick 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 Read a profile of Dick Jones |