VERSEWRIGHTS
  • Welcome
  • All Poets
  • PoetryAloud
  • Inbox Peace
  • The Press
  • Journal Archives

     When you see headphones ( ☊ ) click on them for the audio/video version of a poem.      
All pages on 
VerseWrights can be translated: See the bottom of any page.

​VerseWrights is a true poetry journal, published daily
         

   Randomize Your Reading: This Week's Poets...
Picture
    Today's Opener...

        Gray.
        Wind whipping.
        This sky and world are mean
        With cancer...
​

                   ~ Read "Gray," by Claudine C. Wargel

 _________________________________
Picture
Barrett Warner
Picture


​Barrett Warner: Discomfort
​In The Wind Down 

Party

My friend Larry Poodle gets out of jail
so we throw a “Poodle Broke out of Jail Party.”
 
Just another party at the dump—our duplex--
joined by the tank of oil that warms us in January.
 
A few kegs and blenders, and late into the evening
bodies fall asleep against anything that doesn’t move.
 
Too shy to look at anyone, I hardly speak.
Someone’s hand is grasping my foot the way twins are born.
 
All the nightmares lay beside all the dreams.
 
Larry shuffles from ash tray to ash tray, emptying smaller ones
into larger ones. He has a thing about fire. It’s a new thing.
He never empties an ash tray directly into the trash can.
 
He is otherwise very smooth, with chuckling eyes,
and known for having the best Quaaludes in Tidewater.
 
About life, Larry and I have nothing to say.
It’s the quiet hour that makes me so anxious. 

Read the poetry of Barrett Warner
Read a profile of Barrett Warner

 _________________________________


​David Chorlton Captures the
​Depth Of Morning And Visitor

Picture
David Chorlton
Picture

​Morning Encounter  ☊

All doors are locked right now.
Nobody’s home on the street
where every house stands neatly
in place, with flowers
and a wind chime hanging
by the door. Although the mats say
Welcome, no one is here
for hospitality. The sun streams
into unoccupied living rooms
whose only sound is of time
ticking its way across a carpet.
It’s a fine day to be walking
without a destination, just to feel
each step as it falls
and looking up at the mountain
baked into the atmosphere;
to be a sentence beyond interpretation
in a book of desert hours
while a lawn sprinkler whispers
to dry heat,
when a coyote
melts out of the light
and flows across the sidewalk
after picking up a scent
that runs from his nose
through each of his bones
to the last hair on his tail. 
Enjoy this poem in the PoetryAloud area
Read the poetry of David Chorlton
Read a profile of David Chorlton
 _________________________________
Picture
Ian C Smith
Picture


Ian C Smith: Aging In
​The Midst Of Youth

Magnetic Horizon

Watching yachts, tinnies, round Old Man’s Head,
he considers the choice of a single word
to describe the way gulls flicker across
sifted cloudlight blanketing Bass Strait.
He dwells here each summer like a gipsy,
staying wherever he can overlook this cove.

Here in the lee of the roaring forties
sand engulfs the scaffolding of an old wreck.
Children have built a Lord of the Rings realm,
a stark beachscape weathering tides,
reminding him of times past, sojourns
when his children sculpted sunlit sand.

Where the sea furls muscular young men run.
How can they be his sons from long ago?
Yet their names are the same, the blond manes,
their self-conscious shouts a narrative
nothing like his own best-forgotten youth.
They plunge in, a weight shifting his heart.

Silent women from the yoga retreat smile.
A pair of sea eagles circle the tinted sky.
Near the pioneer’s grave he catalogues
his picaresque past, shivers, his silence
ringing like the cessation of a tolled bell
marking seasons which all too quickly fall. 

Read the poetry of Ian C Smith
Read a profile of Ian C Smith

 _________________________________

Read Works By Some Of Our
More Recent Poets...

Bob Carlton
Martin Christmas
Marilyn Annucci
Barrett Warner
Diehl, Margaret

   A complete index of VerseWrights poets here.​
​

         A Warm Welcome To You...

Picture

​You have found VerseWrights, a place where poets are published and come to read each others' works, and where you are welcome to read them too! If you are a poet, you may be able to join our pages, and we would like to hear from you.
​
                     
  • Publish with us
  • Subscribe to our occasional VerseWrights Update.
  • Browse our index of poets​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

    This Week's Poetry/Aloud...
PictureE. Michael Desilets


E. Michael Desilets, "The Boston and Albany Gang" (video)

 _________________________________
    Today's Short Poem...

     
      Conquerors

       
        The lust for conquest,

        Mount Everest, Russia,
        illness, disease,
        the girl next door,
        efforts expended
        proportionately,
        ravenous appetites
        seldom sated.

                                ~ Gary Beck​
​

 _________________________________


​Debbie Strange Shares
A New Haiku Sequence

Picture
Debbie Strange
Picture

​Sisters

first chemo
a yellow leaf caught
in her hair
 
 
day moon
(dis)appearing
sister's thin face
 
 
squash blossom
creases form between
her brows
 
 
fingerprints
on yellowed recipes
she is here, still
​
             planting a Three Sisters garden we remember you ​
​
Enjoy the poetry and art of Debbie Strange
Read a profile of Debbie Strange

 _________________________________


​Ken Allan Dronsfield
With An Autumnal View

Picture
Ken Allan Dronsfield
Picture

​Sleep With Dead Grass

Chill in my tired bones
steamy breath follows
crispy red apples drop
oak firewood stacked,
walk the dying fields
sleep with dead grass.
Colored leaves release
spinning down to ground
unpacked winter clothes
fill dresser and closets,
walk the dying fields
asleep in dead grass.
Autumn's song plays
a freshness of spirit
feel a harvest solstice
life's circle goes round,
I walk a dying field,
sleeping in dead grass. 

Read the poetry of Ken Allan Dronsfield
Read a profile of Ken Allan Dronsfield

 _________________________________


​Kerry O'Connor's Sonnet Assails
​The Oppression Of Women

Picture
Kerry O'Connor
Picture

​The Handflower  ☊ 

In this night’s dark stain, come, lay beside me;
I will take you, man without a name,
who turns his face away and bites my shoulder,
who needs but cannot bear the bitter dregs.

I will carry your weight, as every sister
who wore the handflower became the bangle,
learned to spread her bones and sink beneath
the waves of each particular obsession.

Curses follow me of those who fear my right
and shudder to know the love I count in minutes
of every hour, who spit their gall where I laugh.

This flesh is mine, it has bled, and shed,
like a snakeskin every unworthy touch
and kept for itself, the taste of one kiss. 
​
Enjoy this poem in the Poetry/Aloud area
Read the poetry of Kerry O'Connor
​Read a profile of Kerry O'Connor

 _________________________________
Picture
Valerie Bacharach
Picture


​Valerie Bacharach: Seeking
Sense In The Senseless

The Book of Numbers
 
                     ~And the Lord spoke to Moses in the wilderness of Sinai"                            …count the heads of all the community of Israelites…”
                                                            Numbers 1:1-2

 
I too, take the census—count the years and months
and days, add and subtract the moments of his life, the mundane pieces,
 
first tooth, first word, first step, bruises and band-aids,
candles on a chocolate cake, ice cream in a turquoise bowl.
 
I calculate the arc of his delicate ears, the crook
of his elbow, the scar on his nose, his hands that once fit mine,
 
I count each parcel and part, search for a mystical number
hidden beneath Hebrew script, written in ancient dialect,
 
locked in the mysteries of Kabbalah.
A number I can manipulate, weave among the hours,
 
and like Moses drawing water from a rock, perform a miracle.

Read the poetry of Valerie Bacharach
Read a profile of Valerie Bacharach

 _________________________________
Picture


​VerseWrights on Tumblr:
The Art of Sylvia Plath (exhibition)

Picture
​The Next VerseWrights Update will be issued soon. If you are not a subscriber, we invite you to join our mailing list, and we will be pleased to send you this issue and each succeeding issue. Remember, you can unsubscribe at any time by clicking at the bottom of any Update, or you can unsubscribe here. Become a part of our community of poets and readers.
Top of the page                                        HomeToo

​Thank you for visiting Tweetspeak VerseWrights.
© 2012-2018. VerseWrights. All rights reserved.:
Acrostic Poems
Ballad Poems
Catalog Poems
Epic Poetry
Fairy Tale Poems
Fishing Poems
Funny Poems
Ghazal Poems
Haiku Poems
Love Poems
Math, Science & Technology Poems
Ode Poems
Pantoum Poems
Question Poems
Rondeau Poems
Rose Poems
Sestina Poems
Shakespeare Poems
Ship, Sail & Boat Poems
Sonnet Poems
Tea Poems
Villanelle Poems
Work Poems

To translate this page:
  • Welcome
  • All Poets
  • PoetryAloud
  • Inbox Peace
  • The Press
  • Journal Archives