Three Poems by Wayne F. Burke

 

Stay up all night

and listen to the 

radio and

write;

the dark in me

spreads on pages

as branches scratch

in calligraphic

on the window, and

the snow sifts

and wite-outs' the 

dawn.

The sky is not sky

but lava

the birds swim through

at their own risk

and leisure, unlike

me, hurdling through

at 500 mph

in an aluminum tube

that incubates fright.

As the sun sets behind the 

ridge line, a truck driver

backs his truck

into a barroom's parking lot.

A girl, standing in front of the 

bar, puffs on a cigarette.

The barroom door swings open

and shut as

a pizza-delivery man

exits, and 

a bird, on a telephone line, dives

and disappears from

my sight--

all of which

has something to do with me

but

I am not quite

sure 

what.

Wayne F. Burke's poetry has been widely published in print and online (including Kind of a Hurricane Press Anthology).  He is author of eight full-length published poetry collections -- most recently, Black Summer (Spartan Press, 2021). He lives in Vermont (USA).

A Poem by Susan Dale

 

A Prophesy of Earth's Final Hours

Comes the night that swallows our feeble lights

And the moonstruck girl who sleeps under a gypsy moon

There is one day and a hundred years

Of the slow death of life

When burns a brazen sun

And howl contemptuous winds

There is a sad boy who

Stands under a broken bridge

And sells his songs

For a sixpence and a memory

There are loves' contortions: fierce, false

Spawning along a boulevard of broken dreams

And rains, cold that sing one kind of song

The barren sands, another

There are mystic dreads pounding at the door of dark

Songs ringing with the skirling music

That transcends earth and time

And at the far edges of yesterday

On the seaward side of tomorrow

Lamplights are fading

And the heavy-lidded eyes of the moon

Are closing on a fate that dares to dream

Susan Dale's poems and fiction are on WestWard Quarterly, Mad Swirl, Penman Review, The Voices Project, and Jerry Jazz Musician.  In 2007, she won the grand prize for poetry from Oneswan.  The Spaces Among Spaces from languageandculture.org has been on the internet.  Bending the Spaces of Time from Barometric Pressures is on the internet now.  She has been nominated on Jerry Jazz Musician for the Pushcart Prize of 2022 with her poem: To Paul.

Three Poems by Suzette Bishop

 

Dakota

Your name of prairie grasses,

of freezing months,

of winds carrying me off,

of blizzards making me lose myself,

of your gray coat turning to white,

of breath hanging in the air,

of sparks crackling from your just brushed tail,

of hooves making a sacred drumbeat against earth,

of smooth gait rivering toward ocean,

of mane's tendrils firing white,

of smoky dust rising after us.

Eclipse of the Moon

it leaves and returns

like you

feather laid against the moon

loosening into the profile

of a death horse

the moon her eye

remnants

of cloud signals

say don't feel afraid

the horse can see your envy

stomp it out

let it go like a feather

Dear Plexiglass Students

It's lovely to see your shiny selves again

after going online in March

and being off during the summer,

recovering from the screen,

from typing all day and into the early morning,

my eyes burning.

You are a sight for sore eyes,

so clear, see-through,

attentive and waiting,

seamless waves

rolling gently ashore--

     The live stream is lagging

     Press "Skip" to catch up--

Speaking through a coral mask

made at a bridal shop

makes me slow down,

pronounce every word carefully,

after months of rarely speaking.

I saw the usual things bout the syllabus.

your part, my part.

I didn't miss the sound of my voice,

or words in PowerPoints,

or textbooks,

or official emails,

or assessment reports,

or syllabi,

those word arrangements undertowing both of us,

wires ready to lasso us tightly,

finish pulling us under.

I've scribbled a few words on a pink Post-it note

I've placed in front of me:

Breathe,

Don't make it harder than it is,

Stay with me,

Focus on taking in the info
rather than putting out texts.

At the moment, that's all I have for us,

post it to yourself

and let it drop once it becomes a part of you

or no longer serves you.

Suzette Bishop has published three poetry books and two chapbooks, including her most recent chapbook, Jaguar's Book of the Dead.  Her poems have appeared in many journals and anthologies.  She lives with her husband and two cats in Laredo.

Three Poems by Anthony Ward

 

Battlements

I'd thought my life settled,

Like sediment in a half full glass.

When all of a sudden,

My stomach's churning,

The sentiment swirling

Dissolving into a glass half empty.

Did I keep you like a tree?

Pruned to my liking,

So you wouldn't outgrow your confinement

And dredge the ground,

That would cause the foundations of my castle

To crack and come crumbling down.

Now you grow to your full potential.

Rising above the battlements

With your head in the sky,

Your memories clouded.

Framed

The picture on the wall

Hung for half their lives

Homely to the outside world.

Every now and then it would tilt,

And stay that way for months

Before anyone would straighten it.

Other times it would be straightened every day of the week.

The back had been temporarily Fixed with masking tape,

For years, nobody noticed.

Then one day it was placed in a brand-new frame,

Though the thought of a new frame had been hanging for some time.

And it remained in its new frame until it was old.

The picture didn't face a window,

There was never much light shed upon it.

It shone mostly in the shade,

In full view of its banishment.

Cacophony

The Sound of the sirens increased with the silence,

Whether because or despite of it, I don't know.

Was it always like this that you just didn't notice?

When the world was loud in concert-

The city crowd.

A cacophony of eyes, like frogspawn

Flooding in a pool of faces

My thoughts fight like a stopped clock,

Stuttering for time,

Outfoxed by memories I wish I had.

How abysmal the duration of the moment undergone,

The blank canvas of inspiration drowned by buoyancy.

Anthony Ward tends to fidget with this thoughts in the hope of laying them to rest.  He has managed to lay them in a number of establishments, including, Shot Glass Journal, Jerry Jazz Musician, Literary Yard, Ariel Chart, The Metaworker and New Note Poetry.

A Poem by H. Edgar Hix

 

Across the Street from the Wishing Well

(Phrases from Playmates)*

Privacy is not easy to find

she says, 

and writes poetry

to know a measure of isolation

at Beverly Hills

has acquired a year-round taste for 

Christianity and a modest lifestyle

however, her plans call for a trip to

somewhere between indignation and outrage.

I think crocodiles can jump

into womanhood

looking natural for the camera

just relaxing on the surf-soaked rocks.

Living with her mother,

a sample snap-shot or two of herself

first born in

a lens click

I want to be

a small house not far from

a full moon.

Most of her poems are about

her life in a remote Alaskan fishing village

wearing a hat -- and nothing else.

she was just a lens click

a dormant volcano

a professional poodle

our unenlightened past

here's our hope

to provide shelter from the storm

that I was able to define only later

As a child

Thank God she's a 

field with lots of mud

during the latter part of World War Two

with a knack for covert maneuvers.

she lived until four years ago

looking back, she wonders why

I feel very close to large animals,

leather bikinis

romantic poetry

and amusement park

in the desert

girls like to stew their beds

with the sun

and metaphysics

with ice in it

You should live through things rather than be

a bumblebee three years in a row

come face to face with

the line of pompom-wielding girls

even own a television set

Besides, there's always next summer.

woodland nymph likes

ashes of Chicago

all around

In Los Angeles money and sex are

giving her a woman's body from which to 

get married, have babies and watch television

With the ashes of Chicago

always in motion

through the crowd greeting people with a laugh and

I'm concerned, this is utopia.

hot fudge and footlights

that she might go after, just for fun,

and afterward settle down to raise a family.

"I never really pursued that dream," she says

I've learned how to be

on an assembly line

She lives in a small house not far from

World War Two, Korea and Vietnam

exercises and writes poetry.  Most of her poems are about

what the hell a Moon Pie is

my parents tell me I shouldn't get

a real religion

my family

couldn't even go to McDonald's

here I am, living the dream

to provide shelter from the storm

in big wardrobe racks

but if I continue to stay here I'm going to have to find a horse.

fabulously beautiful woman

paranoid about getting fat

writes poetry

obsessed with tall, emaciated girls

When the arrow went through the guy's chest

I went out and bought some books that explained how

Things seem to have a way of working out

you can be a phenom

get past the dogs

feel the vibe 

be the last character left alive

dreamed of becoming

an anonymous model

riding off into the spotlight

tall, emaciated girls

whose sentences have the force of

sleeping

it's cold and you're naked

"I want to be the last character left alive

trying on hats in Ensenada

She steers clear of the fast lane

is always at the ready to flee

and confides that her secret ambition is to be

a promising threat

always been crazy about 

beautiful women

from popcorn peddler

She still lives in the thin air

the girl of your dreams

often screams at night

lives in a small house not far from

a brace of Dobermans and 

has "no desire to act,"

she likes to exercise her

nice breasts or

real religion

at random boutiques

busy making her mark in

lots and lots of hair spray

she said, "Wait a few years and then

I intend to study yoga and metaphysics

I've always wanted a Chihuahua

born in Jacksonville, Florida, and raised in

Christianity and a modest lifestyle

she smells like jasmine

in World War Two,

the hunted

not easy to find.

I believe very strongly in God.

But every so often I think, I sure hope he doesn't have a heart attack

to dramatize the dissenting viewpoint.

the line of pompom-wielding girls

Living in awesome beauty threatened by

a waitressing job

in Pittsburgh

the ocelot of often screams at night

Somewhere secluded, like

a beauty salon.

We discovered her at an exercise class

Not ready to go home and admit

the active pursuit of pleasure.

"I couldn't even go to McDonald's after class," she says.

but she likes to exercise her freedom

by not hanging up her clothes and not doing the dishes.

here's our hop for the future

barefoot

as an anonymous

peach in June

For those unfamiliar with Boston,

happiness is what counts, and

leather bikinis, as small as the law permits

"Somehow, I think that's significant," she says.

four-wheeling in a field with lots of mud

she's been at it a year and a half now and 

During her spare time

she's dead serious about getting that ph.d.

She also has her sights set on

a rest after good sex

with the sun

I can't compose music,

But every so often I think,

bring on the violins

awash in daydreams

you're reading

romantic poetry

so ashamed of being skinny

it was so violent they had armed guards

across the street from

the wishing well

I want to be

little doubt Brittany

from the ocean

in touch with her inner wildcat

*Each verse/poem is made of single lines from Playmate profiles in Playboy magazine.  Each line is from a different Playmate.  They are not meant to be taken in their original context in the articles.

H. Edgar Hix, like his work, appears here and there, now and then, but generally stays home.  Do a duckduckgo search and you'll find a few pieces, mainly poetry and flash fiction.

Three Poems by Jeffrey Zable

Wondering

You can't always bless what kills . . . 

"Why not?" asked the aardvark of the canary.

And just as the clock struck 7 the window opened

and the rain came pouring in, while I prayed it wouldn't

reach me in the tub, give me such shivers that I'd die

before I got the the towels on the shelf.

And with that I returned to my internal muttering

only to remember the time my neighbor banged on the door

while I was bathing.  "Let me in!" she yelled,

"I haven't a single lump of sugar and it's my last cup of coffee!"

"Mother isn't here!" I shouted back, and eventually she went away.

I rose from the tub, shook myself dry, and listened to the rain,

wondering if I'd make it through another day . . . 

Golconda

Yes, it's raining Englishman and all I can say is that

I hope that one of them doesn't land on me, because

I completely forgot to put on some armor before leaving

the house, something I must remember to do as the world

has become such an unpredictable place that one must be 

ready for anything.  Speaking of which I was walking down

the street yesterday in a part of town that I'd never been before

when some guy stepped in front of me and said, "You've no

right to have all the money in the world when I have nothing.

Here I can't even buy a sliver of a corned beef sandwich while

you can buy the whole city if you wanted to!"  Telling him he's 

mistaken me for someone else -- maybe the guy who originally 

started that online bookstore -- I took out my coin purse and 

deposited all my change into his outstretched hand.  "That's more

like it!" he said in a voice that reminded me of my late father

who once commended me for reading the financial section

of the newspaper and reporting that I learned something new

which I'd one day be able to apply.  "Good to see that you're

taking the initiative!" he said with genuine enthusiasm 

before returning to the comics section of the newspaper . . . 

The Final Test

"No, mother, I would never put a chicken into a pot without plucking

it first!"

And as the world turns--mostly to dust--I recall that teacher who said

to our class, "Your identity will be 90% complete by the age of seven,

and for the rest of your days you will struggle to undo the trauma 

that beset you!"

With that, I asked, "Then why even bother living if that's all that one

has to look forward to?"

To which he smiled and replied, "That's entirely up to each of us to decide.

Now, are there any more questions before I hand out the final test?"

Jeffrey Zable is a teacher, conga/bongo drummer who plays for dance classes, rumbas, and Latin music gigs around the San Francisco Bay Area.  His poetry, flash fiction, and non-fiction has appeared in hundreds of literary magazines and anthologies, more recently in Locust Review, Once Upon a Crocodile Raw, Defuncted, Fleas on the Dog, Uppagus and many others . . . 

Three Poems by Karen Neuberg

 

Sidetracked

I start with the intention to peel

the potatoes for a bubbly scallop

when I suddenly find myself

thinking they'd make better fries

only to quickly envision them

as hash browns for next day's breakfast.

It's like that with my writing -- an idea

comes to me in a way that feels

as if I'm channeling finger to finger

when suddenly "be more wild"

hurtles out of me as though it located

a path through a dense forest and I'm 

in the forest, measuring trunk sizes,

thinking about sentient life and looking

up at light patterns through leaves

while surrounded by sounds of birds

and scuttling creatures and breath.

I'm alive in breath. I want to pull it all

into myself.  Want to share it with the quick

of this world.  I don't want to waste

time or breath on worry.  But, there it is,

always pecking at me.  My liver aches

but I'm not chained to any mountain,

no eagle in a loop to tear my side.

Instead, I'm here with the potatoes

and my latest plan to keep their skins

and bake them, then split and slather them

with butter, sour cream, a dash of pepper.

Somewhere and Elsewhere and Everywhere

Agency of weather.  Of virus.  Of unrest.

Contingency planning, disaster planning.

History bleating, bleeding, bloating into the future into our eyes

crumbling into our bones.

Wind and rain rattling our doorways:

hurricane, tornado, downburst, cyclone, monsoon, derecho . . . 

Somewhere nothing remains upright.

Elsewhere, tremendous hours of watching

what's approaching.  And everywhere, everyone

knowing what's already arrived.

Just a Handkerchief of Thought

Just a handkerchief of thought -- there,

in its corner, the girl on a swing

is me.  My skirt lifts above my knees

& shrieks of joy carry through the years

past the moon and back,

through the waves, at the shore, around

the playhouse, into the kitchen, platter of sandwiches,

bowl of cut melon, my mother, still

young, holding out her arms to give a hug.

How I want to step in, step up

and introduce her to these two boys

whose hands I hold -- her great grandsons.

Karen Neuberg is the author of the full-length poetry collection,  PURSUIT (Kelsay Press) and the chapbook the elephants are asking (Glass Lyre).  Recent poems can be found in Big  City Lit, Nixes Mate, and MAINTENANT 16.  She is the associate editor of the online journal First Literary Review - East.

Three Poems by Robert Cooperman

 

Good Neighbors

They never robbed in the neighborhood,

but would return at 2 a.m. or so, and silent

as a cloaking fog, unload TVs from their truck,

piled them high as Stonehenge in their living room,

and always polite as refugees afraid to say

or do anything to upset their American neighbors.

Once, the family patriarch offered you a monster

system bigger than your living room wall.

You thanked him, but said your son

had already bought you a very nice one.

He tipped his battered fedora, and sauntered

back to his house, with its buzz-cut front lawn.

Hours later, their pick-up rumbled off,

on another foraging mission:  washing machines,

from factory outlets, appliance stores, or private homes?

Discourteous for a church-going lady to ask.

The Lies We Tell

These are the lies we tell

to comfort a friend

whose small, skittish Sheltie

vanished during an evening

of sorcerer-dry thunderstorms:

"She'll make her way back,

just search the neighborhood

and call her name.

"The chance that a fox

or coyote took her

is more remote than venom

from a cobra

in our safe Denver streets.

"Someone found her

and will call any second,

telling you to forget

the reward you posted

on every tree and telephone pole

within two miles of your house,

and he'll bring her around

in a minute or two.

"And of course, the biggest,

most comforting lie of all:

you'll open your back door--

the door she always returned to,

when you let her into the yard--

and there she'll be, wagging

her elegant, impatient tail,

wondering what took you so long."

A Lesson in Gambling

Once, watching on TV with a friend

and his old man, as the anathema Yankees

played the Tigers, I gloated:  Dean Chance

was striking out Yank after Yank.

"They can't touch this guy."

Freddy's dad, who smoked cigars

bigger than Babe Ruth's bat, got fed great,

bloody steaks by his run-off-her-feet wife,

and had guys dropping off paper bags,

and whose mugs I'd seen on post office walls,

smirked,

"Blomber'll hit one out,

and the Yanks'll win the game."

Before I could reach into my first wallet,

Freddy gripped my arm and shook his head.

On the next pitch, Blomberg parked one over

the right-field fence, so short I could've put one

into the stands if I pulled it right down the line.

I sat fuming, not so much for the Yankees winning,

but that they needed to cheat, like the dumbbell-rocks

who threatened they'd make me bleed everywhere,

if I didn't let them see my math answers.

Robert Cooperman's latest collection is GO PLAY OUTSIDE ( Apprentice House). Forthcoming from Kelsay Books is A NIGHTMARE ON HORSEBACK.

Two Poems by Kelley White

 

Pandamonium 

It's a black and white world.  Papa

and Gran.  Momma and Dad.  Skin

that looks gray and purple and red.

You know those old jokes:  Black

and white and red all over.  A newspaper?

A nun chewing on a razor blade.

Lick your finger after you run your 

test strip.  Sweet?  That metallic tingle.

Yes, of course, sweet blood.  Name

the sweetest of them all?  Candy Kane?

Sugar Cookie?  Daddy Sweetums?

Here we are, alone and sour.  Camden

across the river with His Master's Voice.

I have a tuxedo cat.  You have a dog

in formal wear.  So polite, these pets.

'My dog is more popular than I am.'

He got a dozen valentines.  I got none.

The Elite Hunger of Belonging and I'm 

alone.  Along for the ride and he's dangling

his tongue out the window.  I'll finish all

the vegetables on my plate, especially

the peas.  Call me Lima Bean.  Green

is the color of my blood.  Ichor.  Ah,

serum of the Gods.  Tomorrow we may

all twitch and stutter to the beat

of a spoiled neuron.  It's a white

and black world.  You know the jokes.

Phila/delphia

The children have made a new game.

Peacemaker.  One child sits cross legged

atom the slide platform and dispenses

wisdom to the others.  Until she gets bored

and slides down the woodchips.

Another takes a turn.  Perhaps he closes

his eyes, hums.  This is after all, a Quaker school.

Questions are asked.  Advice is given.

Then a quick slide down.  And another climb

up.  They sit atop their world and play at truth.

And Liberty and Justice play together

on the swing.  And a See-Saw for all.

Pediatrician Kelley White has worked in inner-city Philadelphia and rural New Hampshire.  Her poems have appeared in Exquisite Corpse, Rattle and JAMA.  Her most recent collection is A Field Guide to Northern Tattoos (Main Street Rag Press).  She received a 2008 Pennsylvania Council on the Arts grant and is currently Poet in Residence at Drexel University College of Medicine.  Her newest collection,  NO HOPE STREET,  has just been published by Kelsay Books.

Three Poems by Ray Greenblatt

 

Play Time

Once our skin was golden too,

as sleek and agile

        as river otters

nosing and grinning

        in and out of the river

sunning on the bank--

        moist bodies tingling

our tongues were fragrant

        saliva heady

our fingers, our members

        explored new lands--

who knows what moments

        we will remember

as our Eldorados,

our kisses then

        were not hollow

wrapped round moral lapses

those sighs did not

        yet croon blue songs.

Daylight Savings

The train sighed to a stop

          2 AM

darkness stretched in all directions.

Couple of distant lights twinked,

lost stars fallen to earth.

I hoped most people were tucked

         in their beds,

not twisted in tragic moments.

Those on the train snored through the time.

An hour given back, in a way,

a golden hour!

What had I done with it.

What had I done

          with all the golden hours.

What would I do?

An engine turned on,

          the train lurched

and we continued down the track.

I Swam at Walden Pond

Surface sparkling

mottled shadows of leaves

          float on the water

bottom silted and warm.

You were all around, Henry,

tramping, taking measurements

and observing . . . observing.

What would you think of all

          the people?

All the development?

The Fitchburg Railway upset

         you enough.

But life must go on

and things always change,

you'd agree readily

         to that.

However, what you wrote

indelible as Testaments

still aids in pointing the way

limning the verities.

Ray Greenblatt is an editor for the Schuylkill Valley Journal and teaches a poetry course at Temple University in Philadelphia.  His most recent book of poetry is Until the First Light (Parnilis Media, 2020). He has also written book reviews for the Dylan Thomas Society, John Updike Society and Joseph Conrad Today.

Three Poems by Rose Mary Boehm

 

Counting Sheep

I am trying to recite my mantra:

'aum mani padme hum'.  It's just long enough

to force some concentration and cheat my

brain into believing that getting it right

is all it needs to agonize about.  I sleep

until that aging bladder wants to be emptied,

and after feet on cold floor, broadening hips knocking

the chest of drawers again, I worry that

I might have woken my partner, but daring

to look in his direction I cannot make out movement

or accusation.  My brain lights up and gets to work,

making lists of everything that might be useful

for a little panic.  Will I remember that first line

of my just conceived poem tomorrow? Did I put

some beers in the fridge to be cold tomorrow?

Perhaps I ought to write to my bank first thing or they

block my account! Where will my friend and I have lunch

tomorrow?  (Why on earth should that make me worry . . .)

If the lift doesn't work, I'll have to climb six floors tomorrow.

When was that funeral -- should I have gone?

Do we have onions?

Sleep finally finds me again 15 minutes before

my body knows it's time to make breakfast.

I always love you, life

You have showered me with riches.  You have hurt me beyond

measure.  But I am getting tired now.  I started the battle

early, and the warrior woman's arm is lowering her bow.

I wore a coat of many colours, became what the world

wanted me to be.  Claimed my freedom by melting

into walls.  Sometimes you could see the fissures.

I did what I needed to do in the anonymity of plain sight.

I lusted after the steppes of my mother's forebears,

my long mane blowing in the wind.

My DNA remembered that I honoured the goddess,

cared for the land, herded and told the stories of old.

Didn't know what it means to belong.

But I always was a quick learner,

my deceit well practiced.

You never quite found me out as not of your pack.

About Bread.  Germany, 1944

I can see myself.  A small girl.  White vest, black, ballooning

shorts, handmade. She stands on a milestone, giving her the height

to overlook the wheatfield, trying to see the wave.

In the distance a coocoo calls.

The children have finished picking out the

potato beetles and their larvae by turning over each leaf,

walking slowly through the field where row after row

of the potato green thrives, ready for August.  I see the girl

in front of the big farmer's wife, her apron a sea of colours,

here and there slightly soiled.  The woman presses

the big round loaf against her swelling belly,

cuts it in half and hands her a slice as long

as two of her hands after spreading some lard.

The girl is walking home from the bakery.

The baker lady cut out two coupons from the ration

card. Under the child's left arm a big, crusty loaf.

With her right hand, and an experienced finger, she hollows

the bread through the crust from the exposed end.

At this moment she doesn't think about consequences.

They picked up the last wheat from farmer Braun's

field after he finished the harvesting.  Mother

carried it home in a bag she'd brought.  Left the stalks

to dry on the windowsill, beat out the grains.

She sits, the coffee mill between her legs,

her dress sagging between her thighs.

If we find enough firewood, we'll have

a small fresh loaf tomorrow.

If the train doesn't get bombed,

Father will arrive just in time.

Rose Mary Boehm is a German-born British national living and writing in Lima, Peru, and author of two novels as well as six poetry collections.  Her poetry has been published widely in mostly US poetry reviews (online and print).  She was twice nominated for a Pushcart.  DO OCEANS HAVE UNDERWATER BORDERS? (Kelsay Books July 2022) and WHISTLING IN THE DARK (Taj Mahal Publishing House July 2022), are both available on Amazon.  https://www.rose-mary-boehm-poet.com?

One Poem by Rebecca Behar

 

Puppets and Pain

Tears for bones fragments

From Ground Zero

Tears for thousands of photos

And one disaster, layers of memory

The Merry Widow takes a gamble

Rewind: back to the 90's, the 70's

The fashion in the 80's was the 50's

I love Radio days, etcetera, I just saw

The Adicts mummified at the MacBa

Linking Park's still good on line

"Waiting for a light never comes"

I just mumble my own life

At odds with my recollections

While the parrot of the retro clock

Squawks "what's new, what's new"?

Rebecca Behar is a French writer, poet and slam performer.  She has published children stories and short stories, CDs of poetry and music, philosophy and literary criticism.

Three Poems by Taylor Graham

 

How They Got Where They're Going

Early memories jammed into 

projects, poolrooms, suburban split-

levels -- what outlaw habits, or one

bad choice, brought them to this place?

Their present bonds are of the psyche

as much as prison bars.

But you come here voluntarily, once

a week, to give theme men a voice,

unchain their thoughts through 

metaphor.  You bring the generosity

of words. Poetry. Your reward:

to see metamorphosis in their eyes.

A Scotty-Dream

Beam me up

to a space I've never seen

and never heard of,

not a tourist attraction nor at war;

some place that's suffered

no human contact

since pre-Industrial Revolution;

out of human time.

I'd wander among plants and animals

left to themselves,

who won't regard me as an enemy;

some place I can't identify

by name or position

on a geo-political map

and -- waking --

can't return to again,

to see how we've changed it

already

in my lifetime.

Letter to You in the Other Seat

Our trip yesterday up the mountain --

you should have been driving, corner of one

eye on the road while you appraised ridges

and canyons -- miles of skeleton pine and cedar.

You'd tell me about the forest coming back

after fires you fought when you were younger,

when you could still pass the step-test.

You'd tell me how this fire was hotter, more

unpredictable, born of climate change.

You'd point to small green coming back --

deer brush, bear clover.  But you're far away

in the passenger seat, while I drive

and tell you what the landscape looks like now;

if you could remember how it used to be --

hardpan forest roads we'd drive, wondering

where they went; their names on wooden signs

burned away now like your eyesight

and your memory.  I'd wait for you to tell me

the forest will come back.  And I'd believe it, if you'd come back too.

Taylor Graham is a volunteer search-and-rescue dog handler and served as El Dorado County's inaugural Poet Laureate.  She's included in California Poetry: From the Gold Rush to the Present; California Fire & Water: A Climate Crisis Anthology, and elsewhere.  Her latest collection is Windows of Time and Place (Cold River Press, 2019).

Three Poems by Michael Estabrook

 

Earth Day 2021

     . . . gale-force winds brought down two

     large trees snapped them right over

     along with a clutter of branches and twigs . . . 

I'm at the Lexus dealership

in Northborough Massachusetts waiting

for my car's first oil change when Otis Redding's

Sitting on the Dock of the Bay comes on the radio

immediately dropping me back 51 years

to Earth Day 1970 --

I'm on the Wagner College campus a month

before graduation and I'm with my brother Kerry

and we're planting a tree

in honor of Earth Day, the very first Earth Day.

My brother's dead now all these years later

cold in the ground but I hope

the tree is still alive thriving in the sun

he'd like that too.

Autumn

     . . . some things are worse

     than retirement you know

     I wanted to remind her  . . .

"Now that you're retired

I'd counsel you

to change the overall mix

of stocks and bonds

in your portfolio from 70/30

to a more conservative 60/40

in order to help ameliorate

the vicissitudes

of an ever more unpredictable

stock market" Danielle

my pretty young

financial advisor advises me adding

"You're in that season

of your life after all."

Ain't Diets Grand

     . . . trying hard to lose weight

     but that blueberry pie

     has my name written all over it . . . 

So I have to pick up

the grandkids after school

make an excuse to my wife

about needing to leave early

for some errands stope off

at Dunkin' Donuts for a half dozen

scarf down two in the parking lot

with my cup of coffee

while waiting for the kids.

At least I'm not hiding booze

in the medicine cabinet

or in my sock drawer

or out behind the garage not that

I've ever done any of that.

Michael Estabrook has been publishing his poetry in the small press since the 1980s.  He has published over 30 collections, a recent one being Controlling Chaos: A Hybrid Poem (Atmosphere Press, 2022). He lives in Action, Massachusetts.  https://michaelestabrook.org/

Three Poems by Karla Linn Merrifield

 

Frolic with the Doctor

He, my first, probably only, molecular biologist

(one who never studied human anatomy)

recommends L'Oreal Collagen Moisture Filler/

Combleur Hydratent; twice? thrice? he smoothed

fragrance-free/sans parfum cream into my face/

mon visage! Oh, divine moisturizer!

He instructed me to use it with -- ta da! --

hyroleuric acid. (Started the ones you gave me,

order placed for more, arriving tomorrow).

He applied his fingertips to my flesh,

across skin and the many bones below:

Femur of a foal

femur of a tiny dance

delicate/sturdy femur

of my beautiful legs' thighs --

smackkissdive

Watch out! I've got

their muscles in spades:

vasus madialis

gracilis

rectus memoris

vastus leteralis

The squeeze is on.

Somehow I don't think you'd mind

if I wrapped my tibia and fibula

around the seven cervical bones of your neck.

C1 to C7, easy-peasy!

A beautiful view

to complete this brief portfolio

of my beautiful legs.

(You said so first)

Now I'm even more shameless.

And the maxilla of my upper teeth

conspire with mandible below

to support my smile when you fuck me.

And before and/or aft,

nipbitenibble thee.

He lectured on the topic

of the intestinal biome;

together we blessed the bacterial

balance of my belly and lady parts,

not without minutiae of mitochondria,

kabillions of cells powering flesh and bone.

Later, I conferred with him about nights

of foot/leg cramps, rude awakenings

despite potassium these past two months:

More hydration necessary, he advised.

Yes, I will get my bone density scan

after I migrate north.  Other appointments

booked: mammo, PCP, gyno, derma, dentist.

One last bone I know is metaphorical,

colloquial, not boned but where blood

rises and -- voila! -- your beautiful boner

between my beautiful legs.

#65: Amana

I rubbed the lamp

of my imagination

and a proverbial genie emerged

in my mind with the notion

of granting my words their wishes thrice.

My words dream

of an Arabian stallion.

Scion out of Al Shaqab --

fine-boned, fleet, proud.

But a dashing young man

appeared from Al-Salt, Jordan --

sleek, slender, muscular, taut --

wielding his proverbial phallus

in this face of this infidel.  Am I?

My words conjure

boundaries dissolved between

our ages, nations and religions,

our culture, languages and literatures.

We are only all flesh, all soul.

My words desire desires,

so I mount my virile malēk,

take his thick equine length

within me, and ride him

hard across the finish line to bliss.

An angel earns his wings.

And the come-true poem has us

entering the sacred Kingdom of Trust.

#64: Tri-fer

My Serbian sommelier

slipped into my suite unobserved,

bearing a sweating bottle of Sancerre

to skip through the preliminaries

of my undressing him from waistcoat

to cravat to crisp white shirt,

bent on below the belt.

My plush virgin-white bathrobe

opened easily to age-gap eroticism

in etrmis:  forty-three years.

There's something to be said

for such a youthful member.  Thrice!

Once upon an ocean liner's balcony,

I knelt between muscular thighs, believing.

Karla Linn Merrifield has had 1000+ poems appearing dozens of journals and anthologies.  She has 16 books to her credit.  Following her 2018 Psyche's Scroll (Poetry Box Select) is the full-length book Athabaskan Fractal: Poems of the Far North from Cirque Press.  Her newest poetry collection, My Body the Guitar, recently nominated for the National Book Award, was inspired by famous guitarists and their guitars and published in December 2021 by Before Your Quiet Eyes Publications Holograph Series (Rochester, NY). She is a frequent contributor to The Songs of Eretz Poetry Review.  Web site: https://www.karlalinnmerrifield.org/; blog at https://karlalinnmerrifield.wordpress.com/; Tweet @LinnMerrifield; https://www.facebook.com/karlalinn.merrifield.

Three Poems by J.K. Durick

 

Crows

I'm sure I could learn all about them

Their situation, their behaviors, and

Their place in the greater scheme of

The bird world, but I like the mystery

Of them, these crows look the part

They can play in my imaging.  Their

Coloring seems sinister, their cawing

Puzzling, as if they are complaining

Or making a claim on whatever it is

They are going after.  The three I see

Every day on my walk seem to have

This neighborhood as their own.  One

Day on a lawn on Greening sharing

Whatever they have to eat, another

Day on a roof on Duchess, huddled

As if planning their next move.  They

Spend their day moving around, but

Join the others at night, seems like

Hundreds who gather in a tree or two

Not far from here.  They seem sinister

Almost dangerous, like all the birds in

That Hitchcock movie getting ready to

Chase Rod Taylor and Tippi Hedren

Down the street.  I watch them carefully

And they are watching me.

Walking a Mile

My feet march to the beat of

a difficult drummer

mis-stepped, mis-shapen

draft-dodger glat

bunioned and broken

with the large toe lapsing over

the others

rubbing while I walk.

Sneakers and sandals crowd

and scrape them

as they complain, protest

almost too much.

Then my diabetes doctor

checks them, warns me

with advice I can't follow

off-balanced the way my feet

make me

out of step, always hoping

a cure might happen --

a feet transplant or an entire

person transplant,

the one about walking a mile

in someone else's shoes

but instead in someone else's

feet.

Walking to This

Someone is still in bed, wrapped up

tied up in the blankets.

His head buried face-first in

the crushed pillow.

It's been a bad night, but this is worse,

the day he faces

the stinking mess of the morning

the snake-pit of an afternoon

the numb nothing of the evening and

then another night of off and on

dreaming, waking, and then this.

He rolls over, tries to see the ceiling

as sky enough, the night-light all

the stars he needs

his bedside lamp sufficient sun

just enough moon.

Watches his sky, feels his sun

then gets up to face what's left of

his day,

the part he plays in it --

that is so much like our own.

J.K. Durick is a retired writing teacher and online writing tutor.  His recent poems have appeared in Third Wednesday, Black Coffee Review, Literary Yard, Sparks of Calliope, Synchronized Chaos, Madswirl, Journal of Expressive Writing, Lightwood, and Highland Park Poetry.

One Poem by Edward Lee

 

Bones Speaking with Hard Tongues

Last night I heard

my bones whispering

to each other

in a language I couldn't understand

or even identify,

hard sounds colliding

like stone against stone.

I realized too

that this was not the first time

I had heard them,

all previous whispering

categorized by my brain

as the mutterings

of my own mind,

my thought-processes

with no off-switch,

not even when sleep beckoned

to the point of necessity.

Some nights I would fear

my chemically unbalanced brain

was mutating its depression

into some blunter madness.

But no, it has only ever been

my bones speaking

with their hard tongues,

whispering about things

I might never know.

My bones whispering incessantly,

keeping me awake.

I wish I could either decipher

their colliding words

or they would cease

for a night or three.

Whichever is easier

for them, either works

for me, truly, either

works for me.

Edward Lee's poetry, short stories, non-fiction and photography have been published in magazines in Ireland, England, and America, including The Stinging Fly, Skylight 47, Acumen, The Blue Nib, and Poetry Wales.  His play, "Wall", received a rehearsed reading as part of Druid Theatre's Druid Debuts 2020.  He also makes musical noise under the names of Ayahuasca Collective, Orson Carroll, Lego Figures Fighting, and Pale Blond Bov.  His blog/website can be found at https://edwardmlee.wordpress.com

One Poem by Frank Joussen

 

Checking Out When Checking In

more and more people's lives

in our own Western world

have come to resemble,

amazingly quite obviously,

bourgeois one-night stands

in middle-class hotels,

in rooms with a view

not looked at:

checking out when checking in,

small talk given for small change

with not so much as a 

sideward glance at your 

'I'm-not-really-fortyish-looking'

partner in petty crime,

moving on before truly getting there

leaving nothing but anonymous stains behind.

Frank Joussen is a German teacher and writer.  His publications include two selections of his poetry, one of them being a bilingual collaboration with Romanian poet Ana Cicio.  He has co-edited two international anthologies of poetry/fiction in India and one of short stories in Germany.  His poems and short stories have also been published in a variety of literary magazines and anthologies in Australia, the Republic of Ireland, Germany, Romania, Malta, the USA, Canada, India, China, Thailand and Japan; some of them have been translated into German, Romanian, Hindi and Chinese.  His latest publications include Pulsar (G.B.),  Poetry Pacific (Canada), FreeXpresSion (Australia), Verbal Art (India), and Word City Literature (International).

Three Poems by John F. Keane

 

The Haze of a Sweet Afternoon

Slow moments clad in flame dance between

dormant memories.  Coverts of yearning

stroll sun-slashed afternoon alleyways like

bechoning streetwalkers murmuring with

honey-slick voices.  This is the time, this

is the time to make eternal experience

they say, in the haze of a sweet afternoon

too perfect to endure, and never to return

slow moments clad in flame dance between

dormant memories.  The blazing instant 

lost, the brimming goblet spilt, the afternoon

that might have been discarded in the trash.

Incel in the Rain

outside rain pelts from grey

I ask my Stacylite friend if she

will share her umbrella with

me to the station she agrees

but anxiously checks if people

are mistaking us for a couple

she says the rain has slowed

she must hurry home fast

because Chad is waiting

she cannot endure walking

beside an incel subhuman

with people looking at us

I reach the station soaked

forlorn to the freezing skin

for the homebound train.

The Consolations of Philosophy

Always strive to make the maxim of

your action a universal law because

if you don't then everything we admire

will come to an ignominious and futile

end like a former rock star in a nursing

home, leaving nothing whatsoever of

interest to anyone as the earth spins

through the void towards eternity.

If no one bothered to have any kids

(which is a dirty job though some poor

bastard has to do it) then civilization

and all the achievements of our species

would crumble to dust and be forgotten

leaving vultures and grizzlies crapping

all over the White House floor and

bats roosting in the Bodleian library.

If no one ever bothered to go to work

(even if almost everyone hates their job

except famous athletes and performers

or professional beer and wine tasters)

then society would grind to a halt and

humans would devolve into illiterate

hunter-gatherers with no mobile

phones, coffee shops or hospitals.

Don't tell malevolent lies or practice

fraud because it will erode trust values

turning all communities into debased

and violent autocracies with oppressive

police forces and corrupt government

with everyone being even more hostile

to each other than they already are

(if such a thing were actually possible).

Above all, don't take hard drugs because

if everyone was high on crack cocaine

or crystal meth or even strong skunk

then trains would never run on time and

there would be loads of car crashes and

apps would not work properly because

software developers would not know

their asses from their elbows.

So there it is, ignoring the categorical

imperative and not making the maxim of

your action a universal law will result in

corrosive chaos with ostriches, crocodiles

termites and other low IQ, uncultured

lifeforms knowing jack shit about anything

inheriting the earth, never composing or 

reading poems and being utterly boring.

John F. Keane lives in Manchester, in the UK.  A software developer and securities trader, he has published poems in a number of British anthologies and publications.  These include the Live from Worktown Anthology 5 (2018), the Poetry from the Platform Anthology (2021), Prole (2010), Best of Manchester Poets Volume 3 (2013) and The Bread and Roses Award Anthology (2018).  In addition, he has published poems in a number of international publications including Analog, the American speculative fiction magazine and Jubilat, literary journal of the University of Massachusetts.  He also won Bolton Station's Community Partnership contest in 2020 and the 2021 Ekphrastic Poetry Contest sponsored by the Friendswood Public Library, Texas.