A Poem by Emer Davis

Betrayed

Two pools
Of light
Reconciled
In pastel shades.

A hint
Of yesterday's dream
Falling onto her face.

Warm and salted
The seeds of mistrust
Seeping into her skin,
White petals
Tangled in her hair.

He unraveled
The cord around her waist,
Snapshots of unbroken ties
Binding them together.

She waits in the shadow of dawn
For him to return.

Emer Davis is a poet and writer born in Dublin.  Emer grew up on Achill Island off the west coast of Ireland.  She has lived in London, Dublin, Drogheda and Abu Dhabi.  She has one book of poems published, Kill Your Television, and two eBooks published, Name Tag and To Tear Your Breath Away.  She organized a monthly open mic poetry session and a poetry group the Viaduct Bards in Ireland.  Several of her poems and short stories have been published in Ireland, Mexico, UK, USA, and the UAE.  She was a regular performer at Rooftops Rhythms in Abu Dhabi until July 2014 and read at the Abu Dhabi International Book Fair in 2013.  Having recently returned to Ireland in 2014, she is currently working on a non-fiction book and a new collection of poems.

A Poem by ayaz daryl nielsen

inner-city slum, the relaxed dive
consciences hibernate there
the fumes of cigarettes, booze and meth,
dried sweat-stink, grease-stained blankets
homeless misfits with measured oblivions
their hunger abiding in all dimensions
punctuated only by upheaval and
sometimes, you know, I miss it

ayaz daryl nielsen, x-roughneck (as on oil rigs)/hospice nurse, editor of bear creek haiku (25+ years/125+ issues), homes for poems include Lilliput Review, SCIFAIKUEST, Shemom, Shamrock, Kind of a Hurricane Press, and online at bear creek haiku poetry, poems and info.

Two Poems by Diane Webster

Boy Hunts

Teenage boy's hands shoved into pockets
while two girls cling to each arm like handcuffs;
like police jerking prisoner to squad car;
like two girls fighting over a cloth doll
ripping arms and legs, head and stuffing
flying in wind in dandelion-fluff fury
so if one can't possess it, neither can the other.
The boy's baseball cap lies on the sidewalk
awaiting next crowned prince of the moment
as girls flounce like trolling fish bait
in the neighborhood where boys never suspect
piranhas sniff for fresh blood.



Does He Desire

Of course his red hair catches
one's attention like he wants
but what if I stop and snatch
him upside down and drag
his head along the sidewalk
like striking a match to watch
the flame flare in phosphorus
wonder?  Does he desire
afterglow before my eyes
like memory of him
strutting beside this road?




Diane Webster's goal is to remain open to poetry ideas in everyday life or nature or an overhead phrase and to write from her perspective at the moment.  Many nights she falls asleep juggling images to fit into a poem.  Her work has appeared in "Philadelphia Poets," "Illya's Honey," "The Hurricane Review" and other literary magazines.

A Poem by Sydney Peck

Waiting for Plane Take Off

Dozing before take-off.  Patients etherized and unable,
Evening spread into the distance
Silly solitaire cards spread on pull-down table.
I hate toves with imagined importance
Giving direction to momeraths who do not need it.

Through my window
Ants -- like small people from 3000 feet.
Petite stewardess's candy for pressure-reduction pain.  EAT ME.

     It's food that makes my feelings small
     My feelings not so big at all
     I've never felt a big and dizzy love whirl
     But better to have loved a pretty short girl
     Than never to have loved a tall

One Jubjub obsessed with one minute's lateness there
His last creativity was when he got up off his potty.
All in sync.  Seat belts.  Seats upright.  Put cards away, sir.
Feeling dizzy from wine in the waiting lounge.  DRINK ME.

     A liquor which can make me grow
     Is not so very bad you know
     Taller guys make better dancers
     Taller animals better prancers
     Giraffes are fast and lizards slow

I have known toves, and listened, bored and heard
Their drunken speeches at parties, wary of the Jubjub bird.

Our silver bird's rolling now.  And we
Switch off cell-phones.  No more calls that
Say nothing to no one.  In the ethereal world of electro-chat,
We need items marked SMOKE ME.

     Horizon seems with puffs to bend
     The sunset seems to never end
     The silver wings can lift us all sky-high
     Where snow and rainfall disappear with sigh
     As through the clouds of smoke we wend

Caterpillar clouds with hookahs on a mushroom bed.
Be careful:  one minute late into Stansted --
Queen of Hearts will off-with-my-head.

Through the glass I see ground -- those people in sight
From 3000 feet are in fact ants:  for our silver bird is still grounded tight.
A cabin-sign lights up, saying KICK ME.

     Too long I tarried in this field of fools
     Where each one follows some imagined rules
     Wonderland characters are notably oblivious to logic
     Their dramatic, wordy isolation is patently ridiculous and loquaciously tragic
     The drool of mules fuels the rules of schools.

I delight to have my part of the drama said:
If you're too old or inflexible for the job -- off with your head.
Kick me for tolerating it too long and hard.
I have said they're only silly cards;
But in my game of solitaire void and null
I should have been more forceful.



Sydney Peck has been a school teacher for thirty years, teaching English in the UK, Ireland, Canada, and Russia.  He spends his spare time playing musical instruments (mostly folk music) and writing poetry.

Two Poems by Erren Geraud Kelly

Carnegie Hall

     How do you get to Carnegie Hall?
     Practice, practice, practice!
                                  -- unknown

     Beauty is not caused.  It is.
                                  -- Emily Dickinson

Like Paganini, you came to swing.  You insist
the boys stay with the beat.  A slip of your hips
falls in line with a metronome.
As a child, you searched for home in the blues
heard Muddy Waters in a dog's growl.
It's interesting, how your hands speak jazz.
Lovingly, like the stars, twinkling in your eyes
trinkle, tinkle, you find home on the stage,
where the limelight blesses you.
Now, the journey begins, as you press the keys
                          Play home . . . play home . . . play . . . home.



Tea for Two

We sit quietly under a magnolia tree
Neither of us caring about the
Heat, it's so hot you can see
Ghosts, but it's really the old
Ways dying
You're as sweet as the sugarcubes
That quickly dissolve
In our china cups
Your hair is still fire
As red as ever
Still burning like a siren's
Call
The gold ankle bracelet sparkles
As you cross your legs
You don't have to sing
You just sit and I'll admire
You as one admires a work of
Art
The smile you gave me through red
Lips
Holds the promise of a new day
Like the cups we drink of rose hips
Tea
As my hands find your rose hips
As we drift timelessly
In the southern breeze

Erren Geraud Kelly is a Pushcart nominated poet from Portland, Oregon.  Erren has been writing for 25 years and has over 150 publications in print and online publications such as Hiram Poetry Review, Mudfish, Poetry Magazine (online), Ceremony, Cactus Heart, Similar Peaks, Gloom Cupboard, Poetry Salzburg, and other publications.  Erren's most recent publication was in The Rain Party and Disaster Society.  Erren has also published in anthologies such as Fertile Ground, and Beyond the Frontier.  Erren's work can also be seen on YouTube under the Gallery Cabaret link.

Two Poems by Dawnell Harrison

Martyrdom

The infused anger I wade in is warm.
It holds me lovingly like a little girl to a kitten.

It breathes with its feathery fluting swishing
across my face as the day is cut

into fragmented pieces by the Arizona sun.
I only buy things that can be broken

so I may officially claim martyrdom--
a mill of suffering made right by your guilt

and anguish.  Suffer louder.  Whimper more.
Tear my face from your soul -- quickly.

Pain is easy.
I can feel it in my deep tap root.



Spears of Light

Slices of the sun strike my walls like a spear.
They claim innocence.

The lights on the kitchen wall move together
like a school of tuna averting an attack by sharks.

You eat your toast with great ambivalence
like the old men on the subway with sour faces,

melted hearts, wondering if they will be attacked.
The luminescence no longer bleeds the walls.

Evening has stepped in.

Dawnell Harrison has been published in over 200 magazines and journals including Mobius, Danse Macabre, Fowl Feathered Review, Queen's Quarterly, among many others.  Also she has had 5 books of poetry published, entitled Voyager, The maverick posse, the fire behind my eyes, The love death, and The color red does not sleep.

Three Poems by D. Russel Micnhimer

Bull Dog III

What is it about the jagged high peaks of stone
that draws the heart of some to embrace again
and again the thin air, crystal silence of obsidian
edged clouds and bare walls upon which no one
ever has nor will walk?

Fewer and fewer of my sentences end with question
marks.  What has not yet been answered I shall be
happy to leave as enigmas requiring a sharper mind
than mine to resolve beyond the edges of doubting
shadows.  One grows tired of the unknown and
decides that all that he may know is known to him;
all further theories futile; leave the chatter to lesser
minds.  Who cares when there are sharp peaks
and blue skies, the laughter of children and tears
of memories boiled without cause from the
kettle on the hearth?  Rhetorical inquiries--last
frontiers of tried and tired minds at rest.

There are pinnacles of beauty beyond what
any may believe or think; and only a few may
imagine themselves standing in awe at the
foothills listening to the chorus of crowns
gazing at the dazzling crystal pipes; hearing
the notes each sounds in the orchestra pit
of infinite mutation clashing old forms
together with new like cymbals clanged together
echoing through valleys whose songs have
never been sung.
Top and bottom of mountain
are only a matter of degree
at opposite ends of the scale
they balance in the center
hard stone penetrates
soft sky and clouds
it is where we place
our focus that determines
our view.


It is Midnight

It is midnight
the empty hour
without hugs
or kisses

Many loves
none here now
my body
weeps

How could so
much joy result
in none now

How could loving
all I met even for
a moment be wrong

There is no breath
beside me as I sleep
and wake up to none

Memories sustain
fantasies sustain
the morning release

the day that does
not work and there
is not another near

the echo of the Glock
will not even know
my name.



Specter of Greatness

What sense is there writing lines
unless you visualize them carved
on stones, engraved with authority
on the memory of the ages, pages
and pages of unbeforenowdiscovered
wisdom that is hard to believe the
world has been able thus far to get
along without.  All your turns of
phrase are genius delivered from
the voice of Zeus himself via the
Muses whose voices you alone can
correctly hear.  Truths thus far have
been many delivered from wide and
far but those that issue from that wee
hole in my quill are those that really
matter, those that shall make your
name as scribe abide beyond the edges
of eternity, echo deep into minds
and change them one by one into
the finest humanity can be by
understanding who you are and
by that knowing we are a single
poem, all others are illusions
that will dissolve as you read my
words and understand the wisdom
I deliver from the ages.  A greater
task I cannot set before myself--
truth exists, it is not born--
only borne by crafted tongues
into future ears.

Still again
upon reflections
eyes of this poet look
see in past and future
Plato, Hermes, Zeus are
quoted far more widely than I
and my deep complex
unique understandings
are simply more dross
to be thrown aside
pretty noise
voices from specters
of greatness
that give joy a little while
and then become the dust of silence
among the stars.

D. Russel Micnhimer has been writing poetry for forty five years while working at a variety of jobs and traveling through much of the world pursuing his interests in the archaeology of ancient civilizations and rock art.  He is author of several books on rock art, fiction and poetry, including his latest collection, Notes to Be Left with the Gatekeeper, published by Global Fraternity of Poets which earned him the honor of Poet Laureate from that group.  His latest book is called Lotus Mirage:  52 New Ghazals in English.  He holds  a degree from the University of Oregon.

Three Poems by Stephen Jarrell Williams

Moving On

Night dampening my bag of belongings
Walking down the railroad tracks

A chill coming from both sides
Consecrated woods and deserted fields

Black Widows hiding under the rails
Webs on wooden beams of a splintery bridge

A river cutting across the naked back of the land
Directions I've been and squandered my luck

I'm jobless at the end of another season
Calm and accepting and low on spit

Towns and cities in the faraway landscape
Dimming lights rusting soft behind me

I cannot see any other escape
No truth beacons or winning lottery tickets

A few women moaning for my touch
I am that fading apparition

Heather was a spunky young girl
Took me on her roller-coaster climb

Pink hickeys around my tattoos
She sucked me into a desert with a single crossroad

Small town and not enough jobs
And she knew I was too long a phantom

With her voodoo cigs and electric bras
She ramped me up all those crazy nights

I'm not broken just badly worn
Down a bit beginning to grin

A train whistling in the distance
The Midnight Savior a quick and easy way out

Heather the last relationship of consequence
Moving on to the next bearable life.



Setting Her Free

Above
Powdery scan of stars
Wishfully extending heavens

A silence beyond
Reverent

The air down here
Slow curling sweetness

Garden in the dimming sunset
Soft soil cultivated
Bare feet walking

No show of secrecy
She has a spirit of wings

I would hold her
Contain her
But I have learned that lesson

Into the distance her silhouette
Disappears

Rainless
As the moments break

I bow
And set her free.



Desperate

Slipping out
of my skin

out of my mind

spirit searching

airborne

limitless unknowing

I'm raw

a see-through shadow man
desperate to find the truth.




Stephen Jarrell Williams loves to write in the middle of the night with a grin and grimace and a flame in his heart.  He is the editor of Dead Snakes at deadsnakes.blogspot.com

A Poem by Adreyo Sen

Princess of Tides

You loved her on her quiet days.
I must confess;
I preferred her fey.
I suppose she loved Him
most of all--
we turned our backs
and she leapt into his arms.


Adreyo Sen is pursuing his MFA at Southampton College.  He has been published at Danse Macabre, Kritya, and Fat City Review.

Three Poems by Cristine A. Gruber

Mystery

 

 

I had

that dream

again, the one

with the broken

mirror and the seven

bottles of beer. I figure

the damaged glass suggests

I struggle to see myself for

who I really am, but the

quantity of beer remains

a bit of a mystery,

for I’ve never

been able

to drink

more

than

two.

 

  

 

Woodbridge

 

Lost in the anomalous,

mislaid in creativity’s hold, 

dancing with the Woodbridge,

the surest way to grasp the characters

that make the pulp so very vibrant. 

 

Crimson, viridian, cobalt, magenta…  

not shades of the rainbow,

but colors of the storm.  

The gale of life meets

the tempest of creation 

in deeper, varied signals

of the squall. Deepest

moments of color,

just before the lids

turn pitch black,

only pulsating

dots remaining

for escape. 

 

Forever

knowing the veracity

of the Woodbridge, yet

drawn to it none-the-less. Forever

inspiring, but for the shortage of time…

 

time to say good night

to perennial Woodbridge;

time to seek provisional peace

among the wedgewood blue

and the eggshell white.

 

                 *Woodbridge is a wine label 

 

 

Ravenous   

 

 

Two cups water,

half cup generic ketchup,

spoonful of expired sour cream,

small container of rancid guacamole,

two packets of hot sauce, the hotter the better,

and a dash of congealed onion powder,

found in the back of the cabinet,

hidden for more than three years.  

 

Mix well and simmer for twenty minutes,

the established time it takes

for hunger pangs to subside.

 

Pour in large mug and drink quickly,

the quicker the better,

so as not to think too hard

about the rancid guacamole.

 

Wash down with two large cups

of very strong coffee,

brewed from a three-day filter.

 

 

 

Cristine A. Gruber has had work featured in numerous journals, including: North American Review, Writer’s Digest, California Quarterly, Dead Snakes, Endicott Review, The Homestead Review, Iodine Poetry Journal, Miller’s Pond, Napalm and Novocain, The Penwood Review, Pound of Flash, Pyrokinection, Red River Review,  The Tule Review, Wilderness House Literary Review, and The Write Place at the Write Time. In 2014, her short stories, "Imprisoned," and "Stash," both received Honorable Mentions in the Writers Weekly 24-Hour Short Story Competition. Cristine's first full-length collection of poetry, Lifeline, is available from Amazon.com. More of Cristine’s work can be found and enjoyed at http://sierraviewjournal.blogspot.com/

 

Three Poems by Ken L. Jones

On Native Horses

The sunlight filters through my anointed wanderings

And becomes newborn but never becomes necessary
To the barnacled sea that is asleep by these citrused shores
As dusty as the twelve string guitar
It has been many a year since I’ve played upon
The color orange has gone
Slo-mo is gone but the fog is forever
As I awake in sunflowers clotted with shadows
As mechanical as the Mississippi River
Until I am once more drawn to the swirly
Tie-dyed patterns of the nearby throbbing city
Which welcomes me back sardonically
With its cloven hooves and brimstone cape.

 

Unlimited Refills

The miracle that is the night is almost over

Dawn is twinkling here and there as it eats up the dark
The whole town is quiet like a deer that has found a leafy shelter
And hopes to hide from bullets there
And as of yet still the rush of noon is a hesitant violinist
Whose schezo is just now scratches merely sounds waiting to take form
And on a few broken cat hairs in a cloud of powder
It will arrive at last standing on its own two legs as a thing that is fully formed.
 

I’ve Never Forgotten

The rocks and seaweed were dressed up in Greek mythology

While I waited for her by a lighthouse on a roaring beach
There where the rocky outcroppings stretched out like reflections in funhouse mirrors
While switching boxcar like frail clouds come apart the minute
That they touch the oh most loud and full of traffic bridge on this seacoast of trembling storms
Until something like the long dead Hendrix plugged all this in like it was a Stratocaster
Then played it upside down until a hexagon of constellations was brought forth
And all things bark encrusted melted into a most succulent bliss
With all the abandonment of a bacchanalia with only this poet as its witness
To try to bring it all forth to you with words that sometimes fail him.



For the past thirty-five years Ken L. Jones has been a professionally published author who has done everything from writing Donald Duck Comic books to creating things for Freddy Krueger to say in some of his movies.  In the last six years he has concentrated on his lifelong ambition of becoming a published poet and he has published widely in all genres of that discipline in books, online, in chapbooks and in several solo collections of poetry.