The Winter Gods
A Poetry Collection by Meg Smith
A Field of Frost
Walking is easy --
grass rises
in the white rush.
Nothing to gather here --
oak leaves curl in,
on the breeze.
Nothing to want here --
all are
buried hungers.
I won't stay here,
dance here --
but, leave a light here --
geese rise,
forming an arrow
in the gray sky.
I have fled
this migration.
The Butterfly Tree
For Jezzy Wolfe
This is the way,
an evergreen
in white,
dazzling in
wings of fire.
Here grows
a forest of memory,
paths through
the fluttering
space of cloud-purple
and sun-bright --
all resting,
all nodding,
all free.
Rhapsody at a Wood Stove
We can make
a pilgrim's place.
Sugar maples
are growing us
a spare roof,
all around,
with squirrel's nests
like hermit's hair.
Truly, we are the hermits --
under the clapboard,
closing a crescent
in the glow of embers.
My coat is drying
from the snow.
Then it will
be time to leave.
But, you, my
metalsmith,
math-poet --
move in quick resolve.
"More snow.
I will stop time
with more snow."
Above, above,
stay --
street lights,
and laughter
from chimney tops.
The Snowman Mural
Every year,
Earth recedes and rises,
restless in her cycle.
So, too, those you call
your best loves, grow --
smiling in photos,
before the finger paint facade --
until they too cast down
their shadows to Earth,
to her waiting
spring ground.
The Winter Gods
In memory of Lawrence Carradini
Losing a key
in the snow-covered grass --
how do we keep on?
Larry
yours is the spiral,
in the arms
of the galaxy.
Mine is still here,
in the dark of January,
forgetting,
misplacing, searching.
Saturn trails me
all day.
Larry, your time
comes round, again.
The same key falls,
and the frost grows.
Take a look at Meg's new poetry books, Dear Deepest Ghost
and This Scarlet Dancing, they are available on Amazon!
Seasonal
Poetry Collection by Edward Ahern
Snowfall
Snow settles over me in silence,
muffling the swirling wind
That sweeps it into my eyes.
blurring my stale vision
Of what I think is familiar.
It’s nativity blanket swaddles
An overused ground, soothing
The man-chatter down into faintness.
But like other miracles
Its presence is fleeting
And soon decomposes into
Hard packed noisy crunch
And sooty thaw.
Yule Log Embers
Christmas is a vague time, with
clinging, wool-itch emotions,
and the eggnog and cranberry smears
of pagan feast, potlatch gifts and piety
that line the belly of our self- image,
easing the hunger of our needs
just long enough to recognize
that others also need to be fed
Seasonal
I understand the yearn for constant balm,
but shun a chance to live in ceaseless warmth.
The shift to coldness draws my thoughts inside
the shelter cave of what I hold most close.
The forays back outside become small tests
of how adaptable I am to change,
and how my moods endure the darkened day.
Resolutions
New Year’s resolutions
are meant to be broken
as soon as we realize
that deprivation and muscle strain
are not our natural state,
and that a comforted body
yields placidity of mind.
Noel
Mixed emotions like good wine,
blendings of intensified taste.
Christmas stirrings of affection, greed and piety,
great nose, rich savor, bittersweet finish.
Ed Ahern resumed writing after forty odd years in foreign intelligence and international sales. He’s had over two hundred fifty stories and poems published so far, and five books. Ed works the other side of writing at Bewildering Stories, where he sits on the review board and manages a posse of six review editors.
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New Christmas This Year
By Dan Gallagher
You can’t miss someone who doesn’t exist yet
But I forget myself, telling you this
And resetting my holiday programming
To something random and Mexican, music piled with Mayan symbols
While watching movies from maybe Armenian festivals
Or maybe just greeting the season the way animals experience it
Starting with Crazy Frog in the basement, but progressing rapidly to mountain
creations
A hike and maybe even quiet, to be savoured later
When the past goes silent
Thinking back with nostalgia, years later,
to the year I was born and my Mayan period ended.
Sentiments
By Alexandra H. Rodrigues
Most important to me YOU are
No matter if you near or far.
May you be blessed with knowledge and fun
Guided on earth by light of moon and sun.
There might in the future come a night
When the stars shine especially bright
Allowing our vibes to mysteriously meet
At some quite unfathomable speed.
What the future for either one of us might hold
None of us yet has been told.
In the stars men’s destiny is maybe chiseled
Only guessed at when by the wind it’s whistled.
The earth, the firmament and the universe
Protect and astound us since the day of our birth.
Let’s be open to surprise
As long as the moon sets and the sun does rise.
Jan.2019
Voicing the Spirits
A Poetry Collection by Alan Catlin
False Dreaming
where the syntax is
wrong a fracture
of light occurs and
asphalt storms are
lathered with concrete,
a colorful apocalypse
of star burst honeycombs;
each inner path ends
in a cul de sac.
To Kingdom Come by Paul Grillo: an impression
The acolyte is a conjure man,
his unbuttoned shirt and bare
skin signify the unrestrained
flesh of sacred snakes coiling
about in the goblet used for
imbibing alchemical pills shaped
like miniature soccer balls. These
are easier to ingest than ones made
of sun-flower petals, dried seeds, and
pod pollens gathered from the ex-
tended family homestead. The rings
on his raised hands are gifts bestowed
by necromancers, simple amulets
reduced in size, and made portable
for conductive medicine, sleight-
off-hand tricks of traveling side-
show display. An illuminated matrix
is introduced for special effecting,
one made by sample rubbings of his
rings that contains wooden platters
laden with victuals and potent comestibles,
easily drained by funnels into smaller
containers for quick sale and easy
dreaming. His closed eyes and beatific
countenance, are the way practitioners
of black arts must look when dissembling
the concealing arts of appearances,
while searching for the deeper truths known
to lie within. His dreaming, then, is
infectious, made dangerous by stealing
words from ancient codex of divined
mysteries while creating new ones,
such as the futuristic vision of subaqueous
depths containing phantom creatures
of the deepest seas and outer space ones
fused together in an interplanetary union
similar to Siamese twinning. All these
supernatural beings are Emergents, escaping
from cracks in the cosmic egg, a burden
hefted on the bent shoulders of a former acolyte
cast in stone for defying the established
orders of dreaming. Wither the New Age
Man? No one knows exactly but one thing
is certain, the results will be Amazing Tales
spoken of by those impressed for generations.
Heads
Shrunken, dried, displayed in rows
on sagging wooden shelves
Heads, dreaming heads, timeless, sparked
electric, galvanic having a life of
their own
Featureless heads, hallucinating, threatening
as only heads will
Imperfect heads on defaced carved busts
or locked inside marble struggling
to get out
Heads like lights on the edge of sight
Heads bald and smooth, emptied of matter
but vast inside like
Heads carved in the image of a mad god,
capable of speech but not of being
understood
Death heads staked on poles, dried out
or perfectly preserved in mortuary caves,
or beneath killing fields
Heads that come from nowhere and that
return from whence they came
Our heads and all the objects we cling to
such as life and what happens to our heads
when we do
Our heads letting go
Listen to the whistling music heads make as
they deflate, that shrieking that lasts for
a minute or is it a lifetime
The Thing
The guy who did stats for
the local rag said he was
officially listed as seven foot
four and a half inches and weighed
three forty-five. He could have
played in the NBA, if he could
have shot, run or dribbled a
basketball. All of which went
a long way to explaining why he
was marooned on one of the outer
moons of Jupiter playing minor
league basketball, which was what
Albany was to pro hoops in terms
of the NBA. The way he picked up
a pitcher of beer and absorbed it in
his hand, was the way mere mortals
handled a shot glass. After inhaling
three or four of those, he claimed
to have arm wrestled Andre the Giant
and the guy who played the original Hulk
and won, a dubious claim no one was
about to challenge. A few more snorts
of suds and he looked ready to audition
for a starring role as the title character
in yet another bad remake of “The Thing
from Outer Space”. He wouldn’t even
need makeup.
A Better Place
Word had it that if she ever worked
in this town again, it would be in a
movie with a title like, “Bride of
the Thing from Another World.”
“A perfect vehicle for her,” colleagues
suggested, “as she would be totally
believable as a wife of a ten foot vegetable
from outer space. Besides, she’s old
enough to have been in the original
so they wouldn’t even have to use makeup. “
“The original was made in 1951.”
“Exactly.”
She’d been the kind of cast mate that at
the wrap party, her fellow actors would
chip in and buy her an all expenses paid
trip to be a house guest at Baby Jane’s place.
Some suggested crippling her so she could
race about the upstairs with Joan Crawford
until they crashed and both died terrible deaths.
Or so the rumors had it.
All those years of playing the Diva hadn’t
endeared her to anyone, certainly not the seven
gone husbands or the army corps of engineers
she used as gardeners for limited engagements
the way other people changed their clothes.
Eventually, she turned to gigolos like Bill Holden,
though after a week with her, they pulled
a Sunset Boulevard swan dive rather than
continue on the course they were on; even death
was preferable to that. Then there were the plumbers
she called to examine her pipes, the mechanics
who changed her plugs, the siding guys that
cleaned her gutter and her drains, all gone now,
to a better place.
In the House of Spirits with William Blake,
East Rockaway, N.Y. a BxW Still Life 1965
She looks expectant, pensive,
head bent slightly forward
as if reading in the dark was a natural
pose for simulating lost in thought.
Standing, back rigid as a fence post,
her fervent eyes aglow, reflecting
inward behind dark lens glasses,
her head is haloed by the candle light
burning on the brick fire place mantle.
She mouths the words of the Ancients,
summoning spirits, The Undead,
chimerical inner bodies she releases
into her oblong living room box,
rearranging furniture, turning all
the mirrors, pictures and drawings
flat against the wall, drawing black
cloths over the end tables, cracking
the useless unlit bulbs, rending
the drapes and curtains, tickling
the candle flame on the mantle with
her tongues, as she stands, unmoving
amidst the turmoil, speaking The Unspeakable,
voicing the spirits.
Planets of blue smoke
A Poetry Collection by Meg Smith
Planets of blue smoke
Don't give me
a heart dissected,
or flames crippled
in the ash.
Let's rise.
Through sleep,
we are uplifted.
We are worlds
unraveling worlds,
and the strand
completes our orbit.
All done in silence,
All done in this
one, true space.
The Moss Path
In a dimmed room,
a summoning
of a place to ride;
copper leaves and
the nakedness
of waterfalls.
We're going --
black jackets,
thunder wheels/
We made an invocation,
to move,
through these walls,
and we can;
we have worked
and prayed
and cried it all --
It is ours;
in the sunburst
of leaves,
it is ours.
The Rain of Halley's
Larry
looking up
from his bed,
his last sacraments --
the sacred is in
eyes of twilight.
Hale-Bopp flashes --
wild notes of jazz --
though this room
falls silent.
Racing to the millennium,
we laughed, and danced.
Now, some time, gone,
the dust to the stars,
the dust to the furnace,
to the earn etched with butterflies.
Now, some time,
mine, alone,
Halley's falling in fragments.
Someone asked:
"I saw a coyote on the roadside,
and a meteor rushed past.
Is it a sign."
The universe throws together
the coyote and
the comet's last stand --
and both howl, and cry,
in the night-spiral,
whether we fall, like Halley's rain
of ice and stone,
or rise,
like coyote-song, in flames of sky.
Sunset boys
Your dreams
of driftwood
are done.
The shore
is fading
to gray.
A song,
I will
never ask.
of you
I dance
to silent words
into the dark tide.
--
Meg Smith's new poetry books, Dear Deepest Ghost
and This Scarlet Dancing, are available on Amazon!
The World Knows Now
(What I've Always Known)
A Poetry Collection
By Meg Smith
Autumn: A Dance
Stepping
into the circle,
I lift
your gauze,
and fall;
in your scarlet
mourning,
I fall,
but always, dancing.
The light bleeds
through
your straw bride,
The flames reckon.
I alone
ascend
in this veil.
Your vows
and her vows
crumble
in the cold ash.
This dance is mine.
This scarlet
runs to the night
that is mine.
Farthing
Your black cat,
among sunflowers,
wanderer, web --
her eyes in
scarlet mourning,
skin open
in silent meteors --
your emissary,
from your white,
lean house.
The world knows.
The world knows now
what I've always known.
Your sun falls
darkly,
your song hisses
in a scatter of dry leaves.
Labor Day
I sing
your blood
and tears
and you
can never die;
no veins fall,
no bones in chorus.
Just a whisper
across
a green lake.
Ursus Minor
Again, the bear --
they call you --
soft, footfall
in some distant forest--
the fawn, the fishercat,
all know.
Your paws are dark
and sure.
Such claw marks
on the lake shore.
A hundred hearts,
have been given you.
They fall and they fall
into this fire pit.
Slow, shaggy,
lifting a beer --
I dissemble you.
The throat, the jaw,
the great night
claws --
dark eyes.
No one was born.
No night
was born to me.
No one was
alive.
This, I breathe,
no honey,
but winter nears.
The Forest Spirit
We always circle here,
in the green path,
in the laughter.
Sun falls,
rabbits leap.
Birds gossip.
We know our way
from shadow.
We have passed
the same dark.
And we can
dance here,
and you are not alone.
The Cabinet
By Lucinda Berry Hill
Children are so curious
About everything they see.
They open up a door
And find a place to be.
They empty out a cabinet,
Throw all out on the floor,
Enough so they can crawl in
And sometimes close the door.
And without an effort given,
Into our hearts, they climb.
With a smile and a giggle
They nestle there inside.
What is the fascination
Of a cabinet on the floor?
I'll never know, but it's fun
To watch a kid explore.
They climb inside a cabinet
To look, to be, to hide.
They climb inside our hearts
As they bless our daily lives.
Author Lucinda Berry Hill of "Coffee with Jesus" and "A Second Cup with Jesus" ©
PLASTIC PLANKTON AS A UNIQUE DISH
By Daniel de Culla
Between Borneo and the Celebs
And between Bali and Lombock
Between continental islands
& Oceanic islands
Volcanic islands
& motherporic islands
Corpulent mammals had gathered
With some groups of Amphibians
Freshwater Fish and Mollusks
To a single plate table
With plastic plankton
As tasty morsel
Surrounded by birds and insects
Who had flown by:
Insects, Reptiles and small mammals
Arrived on floating objects
Drifting.
They talked about those terrestrial beings
Pilgrims of Life
And for life
From inn, hotel, river or beach
Beings for most of them garbage.
-They eat their own excrements
And believe themselves gods
Said some, and one another:
--One live to smell and others to taste.
They are disgusting beings, obscene, filthy
And ugly as they are lonely.
They only know how to talk about
Christian battles against the Moors.
Their loves as their beliefs and faith
Are a hell of a time.
They love, kill and rape
Like pigs that they are
Not caring if they insert love
Into any of the holes
Of the One or the Another.
-Their desire is to destroy, stain
And bloat everything
Comment one another.
-They look behind a mirror
And to justify their filthiness
Say that they are created by a God
Called Porras
Saying that he forgive them all
When the plain truth
Is that their origin comes to them
Of the crossing
Between bats and rats
And so they are so liars and charming.
A mysticetus whale
That did not reach a complete development
And therefore functional activity
Categorically stated:
--See these human beings
Some earthly and other aliens
Walking along the seashore
Or lying in the sand of the beaches
We can assure
That the origin of all of them
Comes from symbiosis
Between actinias and a hermit
(Pagurus striatus)
Or among the crab Dromia vulgaris
And the Suberites domuncula sponge
That masks it.
How have the face have the ass
Similar to the ass of the cute
Or that of Termitoxenia heimi
Termitephile diptera of India.
A cirriped seated on the shield
Of a sea turtle, said:
-Well, now, happy diners
Do the digestion
Of cellulose and plastics.
And every species for itself.
The Frontier Explorers
Poetry Collection by Alan Catlin
Frontier Explorers Suffering a Relentless Plague
of Mosquitoes
This formerly lost canvas of the mostly
unconsidered plight of frontiersmen is
not unlike the detailing of Romantic
artists of the time, is clearly influenced
by the written words of poets and thinkers,
Hudson River artists: Cole, Church, Cropsey
and all the rest, man dwarfed by Nature,
the heroic scale of Creation and Man's basic
insignificance when faced with the whole
of the animate world: these explorers
climbing thicket laden mountains, bushwhacking
trails, their rude compasses, the sun and their
instincts as guides, pausing at a clearing;
not so much as to consider God's grandeur,
heretofore undiscovered by white men,
not so much to contemplate, but to wave their
hands and arms about, attempting to dispel
an unexpected frenzy of insects attacking
any exposed, unwashed flesh, an ecstasy
of untrammeled beauty admixed with unrelenting
torment, spurring them on to even greater
heights, hopefully to escape, to avoid
a tragic, bloody Fate.
From Mohegan Bluffs on Block Island circa 1650
Unknown dreamtime objects
glimpsed on ocean horizon,
moving landward with
the tides and tail winds:
by soon-to-be extinct
native Americans:
one, two, three, a company
of tall mast ships.
The explorers are
coming with guns.
Edward Moran's Henry Hudson's Entering
NY Harbor Sept 11, 1609
Lone warrior
on Manhattan
Island beach
observing long
ships, sailors
from-who-knows-
where navigating
toward soon-
to-be harbor
site; the first
foreign terrorists
have arrived
"Bless Glenn Gould for throwing the concert
audience to the junkyard."Marshall McLuhan
All night he dials, speaking to colleagues,
friends, associates near and far, at absurd
lengths, even rehearsing entire works in
the hours before dawn, maintaining close
contacts at a safe distance, in isolation.
The true idea of north is contained in the studio,
underground, or overhead telephone wires,
random conversations overheard in truck stop
diners, or, long distance driving, on rock
stations fading out or tuning in, spoken
languages spliced together in polyphonic
rhythms, the symphonic sounds of modern man.
The last frontier is an idea like smoke,
an illusion like Absolute Zero in real life,
terra infirma for explorers in arctic territories
of the imagination, frozen in mid-motion,
no end in sight.
Technology is the archetype the twentieth century
will be remembered by, a Stonehenge of portable
machines, devices that allow us to communicate
our solitude, maintained in the strictest moral
terms; pure art in a vacuum where all thoughts
are unaccountable, are free.
The Idea of North
A Capella
singing;
frozen notes
in the rain
Contra-tenors singing,
voices like ice crystals
shattered by a tuning fork,
high C
Desert sands absorbing
light, refracted colors
betray the spectrum,
implied sounds
beyond hearing
Percussive ghosts:
a cymbal, a timpani,
a sousaphone!
A Glenn Gould Fantasy
Of an oil rig in the Canadian Arctic,
beyond the circle of everlasting night,
a concert grand sitting on a platform
fifty feet high. All around the podium,
orchestra chairs folded on tundra waste,
sound amplified by overhead speakers
hanging from poles buried in permafrost,
accompaniment by inward coming blizzard winds;
a progression of modern music, dark tones
by Webern, Alban Berg, and Schoenberg,
ice breaking notes that shatter the will of sound.
Guggenheim Art Exhibit as Divina Comedia Wax Museum
an incontrovertible
after Quan Barry
The sign outside chambered nautilus halls,
says: You Are Here, on notebook paper,
inscribed by a ballpoint pen and taped over
one that says: Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here
Arrows point down graduated, sloping path,
as if the walkways were a Guggenheim red
chamber dream retrospective, only all the Art
works are wax figures beginning with:
decadent royals, disgraced sports stars,
corrupt convict politicians; all their smiling faces,
almost animate eyes, devoid of characteristic,
licentious greed, and self-indulgent pride,
craven adulterers all. Further down, church
sanctioned inquisitors, disease infected new
world explorers, the executed murderers and
the tyrants that got away. All those deposed heads
of state re-incarnated, making ready to exact
revenge, to rise again.
Ixchel, Lady of the sacred light
By David A. Thorpe
Arising out of a sea of mist
the Island of Women was discovered
on a voyage during the age of exploration
by the Spanish conquistador Hernández de Córdoba,
being the first to see idols and relics of worship
belonging to the sanctuary of the Mayan goddess of the moon,
Ixchel
Her sensual beauty and flowing locks of hair
enticed the lover who became her spouse,
the supreme deity and god of the sun,
Itzamna,
siring thirteen offspring as proof of their fertility
Responsible for the needed rainfall
to provide abundant harvests,
Ixchel took the name of Lady Rainbow,
the lady of the sacred light,
oft depicted with a crescent moon
As goddess of midwifery, medicine and healing
much compassion did Ixchel bestow
on expectant mothers,
the myth, however, has a darker side ,
a jaguar goddess and female warrior
Ixchel´s gaping mouth suggests cannibalism,
the sacrifice of young unmarried maidens
formed part of sacred rituals in honour of her name
From the pen of David A. Thorpe ©®
The last of the summer wine
By David Thorpe
Without our permission
swallows in silence migrated,
fading in the veils of autumn
on their wings patterns
of summer skies reflected
September entered on tiptoe,
not to awaken slumbering leaves
unaware of their forthcoming fate,
to weave a coloured carpet,
humus for nature´s growth
Draped in flowing gowns of mist
the dawn witnesses the return of fog
against the sun a duel to continue,
defeated it slowly retreats with patience
for come late autumn a victory assured
As for ourselves,
with glasses raised
in a savoured toast
to the last of the summer wine.
David Thorpe ©®
Come September
By David Thorpe
Come September each other´s presence we do seek
for tender kisses then a deeper warmth do bear,
with new aromas the pregnant air carries,
those of the enchantment of autumnal herbs
Come September our lips with lingering sips baptised,
a goblet of new wine to share,
its sweetness a flaming symphony ignites
on our heart strings in unison played
Come September under our feet a carpet crisp is spread,
ere the quilt of golden leaf-fall be swept away
by jealous gusts, undressing in fading sunlight
startled mannequins of their autumn gowns
Come September the harvest of our toils we reap,
we pause our inner bearings with care to gather,
a compass for our destined lines of life to follow,
for soon nature will awhile to rest prepare
David Thorpe ©®
Creative Poetic Prose
by
Anita G. Gorman
---Gerard Manley Hopkins
Margaret stood in the woods behind her house. She knew that beyond her house the river flowed, yet she could not see it. She would eventually see the river as she did every winter when the trees were bare. Yet she had not observed many winters, for Margaret was only eight.
On this day the leaves on the trees in her grove (she thought of it as her grove) were golden. It was a sea of gold, and she smiled as she looked at the golden miracle. Here and there leaves were brown or red, but gold engulfed her and pleased her.
And then she shivered as a cold wind passed through the late September landscape. She looked at the trees and saw them as they would be in only weeks: gnarled and empty and old-looking, seemingly dying or even dead. Yes, she would be able to see the river, but she was still sad.
Margaret started to cry as she imagined the trees standing before her without their leaves. Putting her little fists to her eyes, she wept, though she was not sure why she was weeping. Her older sister Jessica found her there.
"Margaret, why are you crying?"
"I, I don't know. The trees are so beautiful, but soon they will look like they are dead. It makes me sad to think about winter. Winter will be here soon, and everything will be dead."
Mother was there, looking at the two girls. Mother was seriously ill, but she had not told her daughters. She looked at the golden grove and wondered if she would see it again the following year. Tears came to her eyes as well.
Jessica looked at her mother. "Mother, are you crying, too? Does the sight of our beautiful golden grove make you feel sad? Shouldn't we be happy when we see something so lovely?"
"Yes, Jessica. But there is also something about autumn that is sad. It's as if the world were dying, and we, too, are part of the world."
Jessica, fourteen and wise beyond her years, seemed to understand. "Yes. My friend at school--Elizabeth--died last week."
Her mother nodded. "I know. Her parents must be heartbroken.. We do not know how long any of us will continue to live in this beautiful world and get to see and enjoy trees and leaves and the river that we cannot see right now."
"Oh, Jessica, how did your friend die? That is horrible."
"She was riding her horse at a great speed and was thrown. She was killed right away."
"Horses are scary. Except for my pony Little Guy. When Little Guy grows up, will he become dangerous?"
Mother put her arms around little Margaret. "Margaret, we live in a beautiful world. It is, for the most part, a safe world. But there are dangers. People can have accidents or fall victim to disease and die. Such things happen, but for the most part people live healthy and happy lives and live to a ripe old age. People like your grandparents. They still enjoy life, even though they are old. Look to them as your example. Follow their example."
"What about your example?" asked Jessica. "You and Daddy are happy and healthy."
Mother didn't answer. She didn't know what to say. She remembered the poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins, "Spring and Fall." Mother's name was also Margaret. She recalled the end of the poem as Jessica and little Margaret waited for her reply.
Margaret stood in the woods behind her house. She knew that beyond her house the river flowed, yet she could not see it. She would eventually see the river as she did every winter when the trees were bare. Yet she had not observed many winters, for Margaret was only eight.
On this day the leaves on the trees in her grove (she thought of it as her grove) were golden. It was a sea of gold, and she smiled as she looked at the golden miracle. Here and there leaves were brown or red, but gold engulfed her and pleased her.
And then she shivered as a cold wind passed through the late September landscape. She looked at the trees and saw them as they would be in only weeks: gnarled and empty and old-looking, seemingly dying or even dead. Yes, she would be able to see the river, but she was still sad.
Margaret started to cry as she imagined the trees standing before her without their leaves. Putting her little fists to her eyes, she wept, though she was not sure why she was weeping. Her older sister Jessica found her there.
"Margaret, why are you crying?"
"I, I don't know. The trees are so beautiful, but soon they will look like they are dead. It makes me sad to think about winter. Winter will be here soon, and everything will be dead."
Mother was there, looking at the two girls. Mother was seriously ill, but she had not told her daughters. She looked at the golden grove and wondered if she would see it again the following year. Tears came to her eyes as well.
Jessica looked at her mother. "Mother, are you crying, too? Does the sight of our beautiful golden grove make you feel sad? Shouldn't we be happy when we see something so lovely?"
"Yes, Jessica. But there is also something about autumn that is sad. It's as if the world were dying, and we, too, are part of the world."
Jessica, fourteen and wise beyond her years, seemed to understand. "Yes. My friend at school--Elizabeth--died last week."
Her mother nodded. "I know. Her parents must be heartbroken.. We do not know how long any of us will continue to live in this beautiful world and get to see and enjoy trees and leaves and the river that we cannot see right now."
"Oh, Jessica, how did your friend die? That is horrible."
"She was riding her horse at a great speed and was thrown. She was killed right away."
"Horses are scary. Except for my pony Little Guy. When Little Guy grows up, will he become dangerous?"
Mother put her arms around little Margaret. "Margaret, we live in a beautiful world. It is, for the most part, a safe world. But there are dangers. People can have accidents or fall victim to disease and die. Such things happen, but for the most part people live healthy and happy lives and live to a ripe old age. People like your grandparents. They still enjoy life, even though they are old. Look to them as your example. Follow their example."
"What about your example?" asked Jessica. "You and Daddy are happy and healthy."
Mother didn't answer. She didn't know what to say. She remembered the poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins, "Spring and Fall." Mother's name was also Margaret. She recalled the end of the poem as Jessica and little Margaret waited for her reply.
A September Poetry Collection
By Alan Catlin
Where I Come From
By Sybil Hunt
From deep inside the earth’s core,
Infinite intensity, clear-hot density,
Perpetual motion ‘mid the stillness of everything
And nothing;
From the hammer-anvil-stirrup, elemental, incremental
Song that sings to your soul;
From the humour that holds open the path to the cortex,
The swirling vortex
That organizes, energizes, synthesizes
All that it means to be sentient – and human,
Metabolic, systolic, diastolic...
From beyond all time,
Inside rhyme,
And with no reason,
I appear
And love you.
Tolerant Isolation
By Edward Ahern
I am genially indifferent
to most of the standards
you try to enforce.
Worship who or what you will.
Eat whatever you can digest.
Make love to whoever’s willing.
Squander or save
your personal or net worth,
your mental or physical health
They’re your calls, after all.
Just please don’t tell me
why I have to emulate you.
Juxtaposed
By David Thorpe
An eclipse
our bearings lost
carried on a monsoon wind
into the tenebrous void
escaping out of a labyrinth of burrows
guided by glow worms into the night sky
juxtaposed
as stars
one to the other
we bestow eternal light
David Thorpe ©®
Moon gazer
By David Thorpe
Deep in bereavement
her search for consolation did she begin,
discovering happenstance a comfort slight,
a verse in a poetry book:
….then ask the stars,
their trillion years of wisdom
might reveal the answer to the enigma,
which taunts the sanity of your mind…..
A telescope did she engage
in the firmament´s void to find his star,
to embrace its fall was her wish,
yet shooting stars only from afar appear
One evening she focussed to the moon,
Selene´s smile did warm her heart,
the beauty of this celestial body
enraptured her each visit more
Each night she gazes at her friend,
confides in her sentiments bitter,
yet finding solace to ease the pain,
of the loss of love her telluric fate
David Thorpe ©®
Three Poems by Barbara A. Meier
Lt. colonel samantha carter
if i were
Lt. colonel samantha carter
i’d understand black holes
event horizons
and neutron stars
gravity
would be a piece of cake
floating on the moon
i’d pluck it like eve
in the garden of eden
if i could play with the
space-time continuum
i’d travel in wormholes
to pyramids built by the ancients
i’d know the tides on earth
sublunar and antipodal
spring and neap
and where Atlantis is buried
instead
i’m pinned by gravity
to this earth like an assassin
bug pinned to styrofoam
and I don’t understand
how stars explode
and die from collapsing matter
"And when I extinguish you, I will cover the heavens and darken their stars; I will cover the sun with a cloud And the moon will not give its light. "All the shining lights in the heavens I will darken over you And will set darkness on your land," Declares the Lord GOD. Ezekiel 32:7-8
Gravity
I feel the gravitational pull of the moon-
stretching, kneading like saltwater taffy.
My body longing for the sublunar June
high tide, overcoming depression with a laugh,
and drowning like some swimmer stuck in a rip
current. Ms. Kate Chopin strolling into
the sweep of the sneaker wave, dipping
to meet the flood current, anchoring her at
the bathymeter, like an insect pinned to
a piece of styrofoam. Gravity that
maintains the atmosphere and air, gluing
me to the curvature universe, mass
determining my matter and my trespass.
The Event Horizon
I am the Black Hole.
I wrap myself in the pull
of gravity, dense
in the fabric of
space, I admit at the fringe
tiny radiation,
Hawking, black-body
at the event horizon,
cloaking myself from
the planets, stars, and
you. Waiting for the moment
spitting out plasma
hot jets of electrons, protons,
ricocheting you away.
5 Poems
By Lucinda Berry Hill
A Big Gray Hunk of Love
I appreciate the elephant,
The giraffe, and kangaroo.
I appreciate the gifts from God;
The things that they can do.
The elephant's ears flap like wings
As they walk across the land.
They use their trunks to give a lift
Cause they haven't any hands.
Elephants hold a lot of water
Then from their trunks, they spray.
Peanuts are their favorite treat.
We seem to share that trait.
I love those big ole pachyderms.
Those big gray hunks of love.
Their babies, so adorable
As the cuddle mama's trunk.
I appreciate the elephants.
Their creator I applaud.
The chameleons, and the panda bear,
All blessings from our God.
Author Lucinda Berry Hill of "Coffee with Jesus" and "A Second Cup with Jesus" ©
Church on the Farm
I wonder if at night,
When everyone's asleep,
Do the animals assemble;
Do they have a meet and greet?
.
Do they gather to have church?
Do they sit on stacks of hay
And listen to the lamb's good word?
Do they bow their heads and pray?
Do the donkeys carry animals
In from 'round the farm?
Do they praise by the light
Of the moon and the stars?
Do the birds lead in worship,
Singing praises to the king?
Do the horses stomp their hooves
While others clap and sing?
Do the ravens bring in bread?
Do they drink a sip of wine?
Do the eagles guard the meeting place
With their keen and watchful eye?
Do the doves carry branches
Of hope and of peace?
Do the animals listen?
Do they trust and believe?
I wonder when the sun comes up
And they leave their bales of hay,
Do they carry Christ in their hearts
And show Him through the day?
Lucinda Berry Hill Author of "Coffee with Jesus" AND "A Second Cup with Jesus" ©
Shut The Door
Noah build a sturdy ark
Just as God had said.
Then two by two up the plank,
The animals were lead.
Two elephants, two bears,
Two dogs stood on the floor.
And the squirrels on the ark cried,
"God shut the door!"
Noah kept on calling
The animals by two.
Two monkeys, two cows,
Two hopping kangaroos.
Two porcupines, two rhinos,
Two bobcats moving forward.
And the rabbits on the ark cried,
"God shut the door!"
But Noah was obedient
And God loved all it's true,
So boarding on the ark were
Rats and spiders too!
Two skunks were fast approaching
With their black and white coarse fur
And the cats on the ark cried,
"God shut the door!"
But not until all animals
Were entirely aboard,
Did God tell Noah,
“Son shut the door.”
God spared all the animals
And those who trusted Him.
He promised with a rainbow
To never flood again.
So when you hear Him knocking
Don’t wait for something more.
Run to God's own loving voice
And open up the door!
Author Lucinda Berry Hill of "Coffee with Jesus" and "A Second Cup with Jesus" ©
Peace on the Farm
Chickens and roosters.
Cock a doodle do.
There's more than just one.
There's more than just two.
Little chicks are chirping,
Looking for seed.
Mother hens have babies
Hid under their wings.
The gentlemen roosters
Are calm for the day.
No fighting here
This side of the hay.
Then in walks a horse,
A dog, and a lamb.
Still, there is peace
Here on the ranch.
A great social balance.
A comforting blend.
We should take notes
From our animal friends.
No one is greater.
Not one is unknown.
All live in peace
'Till God takes them home.
Author Lucinda Berry Hill of "Coffee with Jesus" and "A Second Cup with Jesus" ©
An Angel for Paws
Angels come with harp and lyre.
Some come with a shield.
Ours came with a stethoscope
For animals to heal.
She also tends to those who love
The critters in her care.
When comforting is needed
She's the one who's there.
A vet may treat our gifts from God;
Their tails, their paws, and fur.
Ours is extra special, though.
An angel here on earth.
Author Lucinda Berry Hill, of Coffee with Jesus ©
3 Poems by Robin Ray
Robin Ray is the author of Wetland and Other Stories (All Things That Matter Press, 2013), Obey the Darkness: Horror Stories, the novels Murder in Rock & Roll Heaven and Commoner the Vagabond, and one book of non-fiction, You Can’t Sleep Here: A Clown’s Guide to Surviving Homelessness. His works have appeared at Delphinium, Bangalore, Squawk Back, Outsider, Red Fez, Jerry Jazz Musician, Underwood Press, Scarlet Leaf, Neologism, Spark, Aphelion, Vita Brevis, and elsewhere.
Anatomy of a Worm
When I come back it’ll be as a shameless red
wiggler worm, in love with a shadow I cannot
see, afraid of the dirt trapped in my five hearts.
I’ll writhe in my sleep. And dream. Elastic
thoughts of the flesh. Afternoon of my marrow.
This is how I’ll plan providence – over a deck
of cards. My climate is too intimate for compost.
I’ll hold the poppy field trails in the grooves of
my skin, intensity is flesh. My brother was an
alcoholic, then became a limousine, long, sleek,
black like the hair of a Japanese ghost. Night
crawlers like myself believe the Book of Blood
is an explosion. We all fall down. There’s my
self-portrait as a shell, it’s the wild in me, the
untamed delusion of fantasy. When I come
back it’ll be as a chameleon disguised as a
shameless red wiggler worm afraid of cards.
Red Crow
Regale me, vermilion crow, your desirous
passions of loves lost and innocence pilfered,
of unimaginable cerulean tides and tales ribald
and new. I remain your hapless worshipper, you
who sought adventures in the brotherly seas and
scoured prairillons amongst the tempested copse.
Secure me beneath your crimson panorama
as I hum your psalms of hope revered. Watching
as you cleverly break open cockles and quahogs
on the rock-strewn shoreline by repeated drops
and airlifts, I can easily admit this: your mother
has taught you well.
Nature Study
Carmine teardrops splash in chai cups. Quite
unpretty. When bipolar scarlet tanagers learn
the truth, they fly upside down in protest,
their cheeks flushed deeper than their wings.
Mestizos crush papaya beneath war-torn feet.
Mix sour cream in. Then have the gall to busk
at sunset for copper. Just like that. Caught in a
blender. Scattered everywhere like calendula.
A bumblebee lost its yellow. Colony ousted.
Flew to yellowjackets. No room at dandelion
inn. In Batesian mimicry, roamed aimlessly.
Pretended the world was a pollen basket.
The grasshopper leaped over the picket fence.
Viridian pastures promised. Verdant to the
lingo. Oil slick in rain puddle. Never an exalted
peridot or jade. Crushed like the bug he was.
Blue mountain swallowtails think they’re birds.
Entomologist having fun at their expense. Clipped
wings can’t zip through the azure. Bluer than muddy
waters. Spend their entire lives being misunderstood.
Perennial violas in full bloom. Scent so luscious it
attracts other violas. Violet sea snails. Gifted. Fragile,
anorexic, lavender shells. Allows its scent to be easily
airborne. Attracts other snails. Clever.
A fluttering of wings
By David Thorpe
A fluttering of wings
proclaims the arrival of the forward observer,
at his outlook post on the highest gable.
His head, like some reversed periscope,
surveys below the surrounding territory
in this peaceful and unsuspecting garden.
The dozing tom-cat,
out of his midday slumber aroused,
opens one eye
but maintains his position of nonchalant observance,
his defeat accepted,
even before the scurmish begins.
The secret sign given,
the troops move in,
displacing the pregnant air.
A perfect landing.
On outstretched necks,
four feathered heads appear above us,
awaiting the final command.
With a swish of wings,
swooping down in a kamikaze dive,
they occupy the granite fountain
and encircle the cascade
indifferent to its burbling water.
A refreshing bath taken,
the thirst now quenched,
with a fluttering of wings
the expeditionary force takes flight.
Mission completed,
a successful foray,
the tom-cat stretches,
and closing his eyes,
returns to his interrupted day-dreams.
The pigeons celebrate their victory.
David Thorpe ©®
3 Cat Poems
By Jake Aller
Cats Fighting in Incheon
Watching two cats
Fighting alongside the sidewalk
In suburban Incheon New Airport Town
Completely indifferent
To the humans
walking around them
And the humans
were indifferent to the cats
As they stood there fighting
And screeching at each other
One orange one
One half black
half white one
Both middle age in cat years
As I sat there watching the cats
really getting into it
I wondered
what they were arguing about?
But since
I don’t speak cat
I really didn't know
All I know
is they were really
screeching at each other
And almost look like
they were about
to attack each other
But one cat backed down
As the other cat
stood their proverbial ground
If they were humans
one would have pulled out a knife
Or a gun
And someone would have been killed
But being mere cats
They stared at each other
And walked away
but they kept
glancing at each other
So, I knew the fight
was not over
Merely postponed
until a later hour
Cats truly are the aliens
Who live among us humans
Or perhaps we are the aliens
Who live among the cats?
Watching the black cat
Watching the black cat
Slinking about
I am reminded once again the cats
are not our friends
as I stare at him
an alien invader
From another planet
Mysterious Black Cat Looking at Me
As I look out
At the parking lot
I see a black cat
looking at me with dark soulful eyes
filled with mysterious secrets
I wondered
What the cat
thinks of me?
The cat looks at me
With a mysterious grin
The cat smiles at me
Like the Cheshire cat
He smiles
and runs away into the bushes
three cats ready to go
three cats
at play
they look out at the world
and they are ready
they are born hunters
they are hungry
they are restless
and they want
to escape
from the house
to chase birds
squirrels
and other cats
to do their cat thing
That's the cat's life after all
they tolerate us humans
only because we feed them
But at heart
they are wild things
and wild things
Need to be free
Cats in Paris
Poetry Collection by Alan Catlin
Cats in Paris
They all seem to be
of the same unnatural
breed, something never
seen before except on
the streets of Paris or
on this roof overlooking
a modern downtown
which could be any
city, anywhere, except
for these cats, white
as something kept in-
side for generations, not
exactly a race of albinos
but something bleached
of striping, natural coloring,
something drained,
representing an absence
of shading, short hairs
barely covering their
sensitive skin as they
parade about in the sun,
tails raised, backs arched,
heads erect, taking in
the sights, not dazzled
by unfamiliar light but
exultant in their
preternatural wandering,
the soft purring of these
legions mounting the roof
top, overtaking everything
as they subdivide into
clones, is like the humming
of electric wires pulsating
with a new uncommon life.
The Dogs on the Beach
are all the mixed breeds
of the mind rising from
the sand awakening
from a horrific dream
or lolling seaside, stunned
drugged unable
to summon the energy
of stones others lean
against, looking up at
the sun, tongues extended
lapping up a sullen flash
of light or a wedge of sand
sculpted into a shape
that could be conceived
as a dog giving birth
to a litter of sand,
strange puppies whose
legs are like seaweed
at first but become paws,
the legs and torso, hunching
their backs to feel the stretch
of new muscles; all along
the beach, seagulls are
taking flight, cormorants
dry their wings on the poles
of the pier, their beaks
turning into spouts, their
feathers into the hair of dog.
Squirrels at the Drive-in
Overrun the vacant space,
climbing the cylindrical rows
of poles, dislodging headphones,
redistributing the sound of blank
images flickering the torn white
screen, ascending deserted vehicles,
rusting cars whose spidered
glass windshields can no longer
prevent or contain their invasive
strength, the multiplicity of
numbers. Their coming here is
a veritable disease of seeing,
ground cover that has a strange
tensile grip, a formative shape
like fur rippling the surface tension
of grass. A barely human presence,
window dresser's models, clothed
in out of date fashions as if
placed by all this junkyard debris
as objects in an experimental
test or, that here is near ground
zero, if this were in fact the
trial run site for a new kind
of nuclear wasting bomb instead
of a tactile vision of what tomorrow.
will be like.
Armadillos at the Ball Park
They seem interested in the flight
of balls driven to deep center,
stand, balanced on field box level
seat railings, perched on the roof
of the visitor's dugout or, even, in
seats pressed down for access,
their tiny ears are erect, alert at
the crack of a bat meeting practice
balls arcing deep into the twilit park,
protective nets hanging between
the prospect pitcher and the batter
timing three quarter speed pitches,
pulling them left, right, then hitting
straightaway, seemingly unaware
of the armadillo watching or
of the others, digging underground,
rooting out insects, grubs along
the closely cropped infield grass,
beneath crisscrossing patterns in
the outfield, leaving small mounds,
miniature abutments and pot holes
before the warning track, some with
their snouts and armored backs
tarnished from working the lime
dusted lines, pausing to look, as fans
will, awe struck, this close to the game.
Cows on an Ice Floe
They seem serene, content, despite
the setting, adrift, scattered at different
levels on ice as if grazing in fenced
fields, heads bent, noses touching
an uneven lump of white, foraging
about the edges, teasing thin blades
to masticate what only they can see or
else they stare straight ahead,
unconcerned, chewing whole mouthfuls
of dried weed or grass, transparent feed
brittle as Arctic wind hardened jewels
that glitter like Northern Lights
in their eyes after six months
of unending night.
Snow Leopards in the Abandoned Subway Station
"Nothing is ever really demolished or dismantled
down below, but everything is tentative and
amorphous" Andre Aicman, Underground
Their paws are torn, hurt by cinders,
broken glass, needle points scattered
underground, balance effected, thrown
off in darkness by distant thunders,
shuddering, ground and tunnel walls
temporarily unsafe, quaking tectonic shifts
no light thereafter to lift the hooded eyes
beyond this abandoned place, platforms
for the forgotten, iron turnstiles rusted in
place, sealed stairways and waiting spaces
leading nowhere; walking along dead rails,
mountain cats adrift, rustling the discarded
pennants, crumpled newspaper, torn prayer
wheels and flags.
Which LOVE
By Alexandra H. Rodrigues
Does your “I love you” make you my lover?
Does this thought ever even cross your mind?
As we speak of love each means a different kind.
The love of wine and roses, special caring exposes
While “love to the world” for all to be heard
Into the universe again and again is being hurled.
“You are my lover” we know has a different source
Is used when cupid has taken his course
What if nothing you do lets you mix it into hope’s brew?
For each of us the word Love should be a treasure
To whom we give it and from whom we accept it
We need in each case to carefully measure.
Tim’s Quilt
Alan Catlin's poetic dive into romance during hard times
Poetry Collection
Tim’s 60’s Quilt
Incorporates symbols of the Age,
Peace signs and flower power;
love is the answer.
On the Beach
Shielded by the wind:
campfire debris, empty
bottles, forgotten clothes;
last night’s love nest.
Love in a Time of War
You can see them, the pregnant women, the nursing mothers,
the lovers holding hands
Their ears wired for sound, one thousand songs for liquid days,
a herald angel’s apocalyptic ode
And for some, the bombs are falling now, all the highways are
mined, the mangled fields are as unsafe as any road
The bombs falling are an aphrodisiac, the shock and awe of love
among the ruins; all their exposed flesh burned where it is
touched
Even when the war is ten thousand miles away
Ten thousand miles or five thousand, it makes no difference, war
is simply something just beyond the horizon and love is what
happens right here
Right here where the black hawks are flying, where the bombs are
smart, the missiles guided, precision piloted reminding us it
is not so much how the bombs are directed but where they land
And who they land on that matters, distance is a factor in a time of war
In a time when we have come to love the bomb more than we love our
fellow man, more than we love ourselves
Maybe, what we know is not love at all but something more primitive,
something bestial and impure
Something that causes us to believe that we are no longer descended from
Angels, unless the angels are the exterminating ones, the kind that
fly on the wings of stealth bombers that inflict their death, unseen,
from above
Consider what they have wrought; consider the light from burning cities as a
celestial event, a fireworks display, a celebration for the dead, for love
in a time of war
Love in a time of war is all we have.
Cherish it.
Love Among the Ruins
During the air raids
we used to hide
in out storm
cellar
It was so exciting
being in love
that way
After the war
it was never
the same
Reading Lorine Niedecker in Albany’s Washington
Park by the Statue of Robert Burns
1-
Parade of dogs
on leashes
with their owners
following behind
wait at: CAUTION
YIELD TO PEDESTRIANS
crosswalk
where vehicles
stop sometimes
sometimes not
2-
Families with baby
carriages
fold-up strollers
follow paths
to playgrounds
that closes at
dusk
3-
Young lovers
walking by hand
in hand
and the old
ones too
God has a Name: Spirit
By Charles E.J. Moulton
There is truth out there.
I know that God wants you to seek it.
His truth.
People will follow the leader.
The cliché.
But never the truth.
The spiritual truth.
God is speaking to me right now,
Just like I believe he spoke to Moses.
There are plenty of strange diversions out there.
People will follow what is established.
The will follow the leader.
But if you do follow what your heart is saying,
No matter if people say you gotta follow your mind, man,
If you follow your heart,
Then you will encounter God in your heart,
And you will win every time.
I read Billy Idol’s biography this summer,
And Steven Tyler’s biography this summer,
In spite of drug excesses, they found their ways out of drugs,
Billy calls himself the prodigal son,
Helped his daddy up the stairs at home in Bromley.
Steven cried when his son graduated from high school.
We are all people, aren’t we?
So, where does that leave us?
Follow our hearts.
Please ... take that seriously.
There are signs.
Listen to God.
He is above religions.
Above them.
God lives in your heart.
If Billy Idol admits having an out-of-body-experience,
And Steven Tyler talks about his mother’s soul leaving her body,
Then it’s time for YOU to go beyond religion and become the
Loving, forgiving individual
That you always knew that you could be.
Spread your creativity.
Orpheus at the Breakfast Table
Alan Catlin's Poetic Chat with Legends
Les Troyens
All the Trojan
women
without men
are bound on
the walls of Troy
to be taken
down to
waiting
warships
as whores,
spoils of
the masters
of war,
they who are
blind
to the grief
of the Innocents,
the helpless,
the vanquished
must be
humbled
Long after wars
of independence,
opportunity,
dominion are over
After the foot
lights have
been dimmed
a chorus
of women
is wailing,
keening
for what
is lost,
what can
never
be replaced
New Years Eve in the House of Atreus
The costumed people blow their little
cardboard whistles, wave their metal noise
toys over their heads, drink pink champagne
out of plastic glasses singing Auld Ange Syne
loud all night around the heated pool,
The host watches all the odd couples
dancing, their plastic leis bouncing around
their flushed necks, their conical hats
sliding down their foreheads, costumes
increasingly more wrinkled, stained
and disheveled as the revels proceed
as the head waiter passes out boxes of glitter,
trays of body paint, stick-on tattoos
of mythic creatures, bold warriors from another
imagined age. Poolside, all the steam trays
are laden with homemade foods, exotic dishes
spiced with flavorings no one recognizes or
can resist, loading their overflowing plates
higher and higher as they drink, as their
appetites exponentially increase.
Near midnight, Trojan Women begin singing
the Dies Irae of the Berlioz Requiem,
the gathered revelers fall quiet, anticipating
the end, the old man in his white robes
swinging the sacrificial scythe.
Ulysses After the Rush Hour
Smokes Camel Lights, waiting underground for the El
the Uptown Local, watching summer heat
reinforcing concrete, solidifying dark islands
of soot and dirt, stanchions wavering,
heaving, shuddering, impelled by the cutting fact
of the unearthly subway wheels escaping
from the multilayered darkness, the disgorging
of the cars, passengers dark eyes stunted,
enamored of night, of eternal life underground,
adjust, repel stoned visions of Elysian Fields
carved from rock and steel. Aboard, in between,
buckling transit cars, Ulysses stands, strapped
to the train as it bursts out of the tunnel;
a sudden shock of light, the polluted river
far below, all of the lower Bronx beside him burning,
all he can hear is the sirens singing each to each.
The Metamorphsis of Ovid
After the storm, desolation, drifting wood,
an open boat caught between the shifting
rocks. Looking seaward, he sees the pale
death of life after storm, the cross cutting
waves, eyes stilled by a bone ossifying wind,
he collects the details of his exile in silence.
All winter long he recites them, The Amores,
as he describes a circular path through the sand,
and rocks, unsheltered, never sleeping,
never resting, old age entombed out of doors;
dread visions of the fall of a Holy Roman Empire,
swept away in the eyes of the poet, drifting
inland to a quiet, wasted land from which
there is no escape.
Orpheus at the Breakfast Table
Hung over and unshaven, he considers
the soft boiled egg perfectly balanced
in a porcelain cup. Along the table are
rows of buttered rolls, steaming cups,
hot metal trays, small contained lakes
of fire, wax adhering to a smoke blackened
candelabra and a brown stain spreading on
the linen tablecloth. He sees that he
is sitting at a formal dining table that
stretches into a darkened cavernous hall.
All the stiff backed chairs are locked in place
against the chipped hard wood, carving knives
are being sharpened in the morning room nearby
as the on schedule sick confining smell of
overcooked rotten food fills the room.
Nauseous, he rises, clutching his hand
embroidered silk kimono closer to his chest,
sweat stings his blood shot eyes as he
stumbles; down below, the trembling,
tortured voices begin singing on cue.
Orpheus at the Breakfast Table
Alan Catlin's Poetic Chat with Legends
Les Troyens
All the Trojan
women
without men
are bound on
the walls of Troy
to be taken
down to
waiting
warships
as whores,
spoils of
the masters
of war,
they who are
blind
to the grief
of the Innocents,
the helpless,
the vanquished
must be
humbled
Long after wars
of independence,
opportunity,
dominion are over
After the foot
lights have
been dimmed
a chorus
of women
is wailing,
keening
for what
is lost,
what can
never
be replaced
New Years Eve in the House of Atreus
The costumed people blow their little
cardboard whistles, wave their metal noise
toys over their heads, drink pink champagne
out of plastic glasses singing Auld Ange Syne
loud all night around the heated pool,
The host watches all the odd couples
dancing, their plastic leis bouncing around
their flushed necks, their conical hats
sliding down their foreheads, costumes
increasingly more wrinkled, stained
and disheveled as the revels proceed
as the head waiter passes out boxes of glitter,
trays of body paint, stick-on tattoos
of mythic creatures, bold warriors from another
imagined age. Poolside, all the steam trays
are laden with homemade foods, exotic dishes
spiced with flavorings no one recognizes or
can resist, loading their overflowing plates
higher and higher as they drink, as their
appetites exponentially increase.
Near midnight, Trojan Women begin singing
the Dies Irae of the Berlioz Requiem,
the gathered revelers fall quiet, anticipating
the end, the old man in his white robes
swinging the sacrificial scythe.
Ulysses After the Rush Hour
Smokes Camel Lights, waiting underground for the El
the Uptown Local, watching summer heat
reinforcing concrete, solidifying dark islands
of soot and dirt, stanchions wavering,
heaving, shuddering, impelled by the cutting fact
of the unearthly subway wheels escaping
from the multilayered darkness, the disgorging
of the cars, passengers dark eyes stunted,
enamored of night, of eternal life underground,
adjust, repel stoned visions of Elysian Fields
carved from rock and steel. Aboard, in between,
buckling transit cars, Ulysses stands, strapped
to the train as it bursts out of the tunnel;
a sudden shock of light, the polluted river
far below, all of the lower Bronx beside him burning,
all he can hear is the sirens singing each to each.
The Metamorphsis of Ovid
After the storm, desolation, drifting wood,
an open boat caught between the shifting
rocks. Looking seaward, he sees the pale
death of life after storm, the cross cutting
waves, eyes stilled by a bone ossifying wind,
he collects the details of his exile in silence.
All winter long he recites them, The Amores,
as he describes a circular path through the sand,
and rocks, unsheltered, never sleeping,
never resting, old age entombed out of doors;
dread visions of the fall of a Holy Roman Empire,
swept away in the eyes of the poet, drifting
inland to a quiet, wasted land from which
there is no escape.
Orpheus at the Breakfast Table
Hung over and unshaven, he considers
the soft boiled egg perfectly balanced
in a porcelain cup. Along the table are
rows of buttered rolls, steaming cups,
hot metal trays, small contained lakes
of fire, wax adhering to a smoke blackened
candelabra and a brown stain spreading on
the linen tablecloth. He sees that he
is sitting at a formal dining table that
stretches into a darkened cavernous hall.
All the stiff backed chairs are locked in place
against the chipped hard wood, carving knives
are being sharpened in the morning room nearby
as the on schedule sick confining smell of
overcooked rotten food fills the room.
Nauseous, he rises, clutching his hand
embroidered silk kimono closer to his chest,
sweat stings his blood shot eyes as he
stumbles; down below, the trembling,
tortured voices begin singing on cue.
Electra, Mourning becomes Electra
By David Thorpe
The lamentations of the souls of the slain
echoed through the halls of the heavens,
outraging the gods of Olympus.
A Hellenic tragedy pronounced Electra;
instigation to murder to revenge a murder,
a legacy of the decadence of lust.
The Mycenae king Agamemnon and his Trojan
concubine Cassandra laid smeared with blood,
cut down by the murderous hands of Clytemnestra,
Agamemnon`s queen, and her lover Aegisthus
Electra , obsessed with malevolence
for her mother`s treachery,
aided her brother Orestes to flee to safety.
She then abided her time and waited
Ordered by the Oracle of Delphi, Orestes returned to Mycenae,
accompanied by his cousin Pylades, to seek his justice.
The conspirators three conceived their deadly deed,
the fate of Clytemnestra and Aegisthus was sealed with blood
Electra´s sensual beauty Pylades´ thirst did quench,
their nuptial bed brought forth its fruit,
but ´twas she, Electra,
who had preserved the realm
David Thorpe ©®
Ulysses
By Alfred, Lord Tennyson
It little profits that an idle king,
By this still hearth, among these barren crags,
Match'd with an aged wife, I mete and dole
Unequal laws unto a savage race,
That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.
I cannot rest from travel: I will drink
Life to the lees: All times I have enjoy'd
Greatly, have suffer'd greatly, both with those
That loved me, and alone, on shore, and when
Thro' scudding drifts the rainy Hyades
Vext the dim sea: I am become a name;
For always roaming with a hungry heart
Much have I seen and known; cities of men
And manners, climates, councils, governments,
Myself not least, but honour'd of them all;
And drunk delight of battle with my peers,
Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.
I am a part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethro'
Gleams that untravell'd world whose margin fades
For ever and forever when I move.
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use!
As tho' to breathe were life! Life piled on life
Were all too little, and of one to me
Little remains: but every hour is saved
From that eternal silence, something more,
A bringer of new things; and vile it were
For some three suns to store and hoard myself,
And this gray spirit yearning in desire
To follow knowledge like a sinking star,
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.
This is my son, mine own Telemachus,
To whom I leave the sceptre and the isle,—
Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfil
This labour, by slow prudence to make mild
A rugged people, and thro' soft degrees
Subdue them to the useful and the good.
Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere
Of common duties, decent not to fail
In offices of tenderness, and pay
Meet adoration to my household gods,
When I am gone. He works his work, I mine.
There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail:
There gloom the dark, broad seas. My mariners,
Souls that have toil'd, and wrought, and thought with me—
That ever with a frolic welcome took
The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed
Free hearts, free foreheads—you and I are old;
Old age hath yet his honour and his toil;
Death closes all: but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:
The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,
'T is not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
Leading the Expedition:
Paris, Tokyo and the Aliens
by
TS Hidalgo
V
I had seen
this show years ago:
anthropomorphic aliens
surrounded us
(actually lizards
that ate Mickeys);
leading that expedition,
two hot chicks
and a Rubik’s cube;
300 episodes later,
defeated by the land Resistance
in a vague future,
they left at dawn
in their gyroplanes
to infinity.
Spain: it is only night
in this scene.
Everything else is day.
A stroll through Paris
Early in the morning,
I go for a walk
through the Père-Lachaise cemetery:
in search of lost time
I ran into Gertrude Stein
(and on the other side Alice Toklas
it’s Alice Toklas
it’s Alice Toklas),
and into Delacroix guiding the people;
pictures in front of
Oscar Wilde’s tomb
(winged deity
on its front,
work by the sculptor Jacob Epstein,
off of which some collector
cut the penis),
in front of Jim Morrison’s,
by far the most visited,
in front of Molière’s and La Fontaine’s,
adjacent to one another,
in front of the enduring
beauty
of the pantheon
in which
Eloisa and Abelard rest,
medieval lovers,
in front of Piaf,
Duncan,
Callas,
in front of Balzac.
And while hundreds of Japanese
record all of this,
the world
keeps turning
likenothingwasgoingon.
Tokyo, roundtrip
At Christmas it’s cold and time:
in a dark alley, near Shinjuku,
betting my last yens
among interpreters of Russian roulette,
defiant before the theater of the infinite,
all questioning
for a thousandth of a second:
defiant too before all logic,
before all probability,
versus all mathematics,
which is this one time defeated
(exclusive currency, suicidal roulette:
five heads to just one tail
in singular random poetry).
I walk away unhurt
and after luck
my profit is sealed,
which I will quickly have to settle
in the form of successive contempt:
of the goddess Fortuna
(we’ll continue to tempt her),
of my own metabolism
(why is the hotel’s bar
filled with Godzillas?),
and of good habits,
scaffold, perdition, and desire
in prepay neighborhoods,
over going from sun to supporting
(desire to be Tim Duncan).
Through Ginza, Roppongi Hills, and Omotesando
I start raining in a thousand pieces,
and through streets of pain
in worn out Metropolis,
these my blindfolded eyes move,
to not see her,
to not place on them the reflection
of her eyes, her lips,
her little ass, her soul:
shattered tears.
On my way home,
Madrid exhales on me
its enduring breath,
intrusive, related,
the memory of a past,
she and I, both,
in common,
life like a limited sum
of experiences in present continuous:
among others
a summer screwing in Harvard,
blithe as beasts,
blithe as balls,
tante auguri a te,
there were also
hard discount times
(that is,
we admired Fassbinder’s films
-Rainer Wender-
in parallel and ongoing;
sharing sweat and snails
we lived champagne and cramps,
and other times we let time flow
like those who admire Fassbinder).
Everything breaks…
…excepting, of course, eternity:
our last fifteen minutes together,
a scarce portion of human being:
a hospital in pluperfect
(that is, a kolkhoz in Venice).
After I asked
the philosophers’ trade union conclave
about the meaning of life
and they redirected me to Wall Street
clearly distressed,
dying of laughter.
New Year’s Eve
It’s a ball,
summer fish in the boat’s spring.
I’m startled to hear
someone from my country:
he’s reading in the frog’s language
the one of the sad countenance,
like Borges did,
except this one
goes one step further
than the never Nobel winning
Buenos Aires writer
and ensures he did the same
-months ago-
with Amadis de Gaula;
he’s on chapter forty-nine,
on what happened to Sancho Panza
wandering around his island.
I try to find someone I know,
I look in front of me,
Easton Ellis is laying
on the couch
dressed up as Jesus Christ,
the author of American Pscyho
looks here to be 33,
giving away winks
pretending to blink
behind an enormous white sheet,
they ask him mike in hand:
-Who are your favorite three writers-,
and he answers,
icy, emphatic, solemn:
-Easton Ellis, Easton Ellis & Easton Ellis.
I need and order a gin-tonic
-G’Vine, fever, twist of lime and tonka beans-;
on the house tequila shot too,
so we carry out the liturgy of the moment:
salt on the back of your hand,
lick up the salt,
tequila in one swig
and lemon slice for dessert:
totum revolutum,
shining in your guts.
Alien Bird
By Alexandra H. Rodrigues
It was a gorgeous moonlit night
The woods were sleepy, not a deer in sight.
Yet there was an owl with eyes shiny and big
As well as a nightingale busy a song to pick.
Both of them had never of an Alien heard
Surprised they were when in the woods it stirred.
They both knew humans but this creature was not
It did not walk but flew from spot to spot.
It could not get above the ground very high
To gain height on a broken wing it did try
The owl and the nightingale had a language their own
The owl would hoot and the nightingale trill a tone.
“Hello friends – I am hurt, can you see?”
“Can you possibly of assistance be?”
“My name is Robby, I am an alien bird”
Owl and nightingale could hardly believe what they heard.
Robby spread his badly hurt wing
It was so sad, the nightingale started to sing.
The owl asked, “Robby, where are you from
How is it that to earth you come?”
“I do not know, lost my memory during the fall
Out of a spaceship I tumbled is all I recall.”
Nightingale and owl looked at each other in despair
What had happened to Robby was surely not fair.
The nightingale sang and the owl hooted real loud
When all of a sudden on the sky was a cloud.
There was a spaceship they never had seen before
It sailed above them and had a big open door.
Owl and nightingale lifted Robby with all their might
Instructed Robby to hold on during the flight.
Once higher up he could use his healthy wing
To skillfully with owl’s help into the spaceship swing.
When Robby finally had found in the spaceship hold
He waved happily and threw out a big clump of gold.
Since that day on many a moonlit night
Nightingale and owl came back to the site.
They watched carefully over the gold
Their proof that a true story to others was told.
They always hoped to see Robby again
But up to now that did as only a wish remain.
2016/2018
copyright Abracadabra
CELESTIAL ALIGNMENTS?
By Gerard Sarnat
1. “Super Soccer Stars”
While my daughter hibernates
incubating her second newborn,
toddler Liav who rules the roost
with us alone at home like he is
Attila the Hun
when I take him to neighborhood classes
to get suddenly sticky Honey out of
Ma’s hair, this barely terrible two-er turns
toward untoward clingy milquetoast
wants milky ba-ba
as surrounding mainly 3-year-olds
most of whom know nada about
heading, chesting, kneeing, kicking
balls our boychick learns as normal
at the feet of his adored ex-warrior
Israeli now US Abba
still absolutely won’t tolerate shrinking
violet of a non-violent firstborn son
whose hidden brain seems to palely
blend into the gym ‘stead of flowering
like Dad did in IDF* galaxy.
*Israel Defense Force
2. Holmes Sweet Home: Confessions Of An Ex Porn Star
Since May 21, 2010, I’ve send 499 emails
to a friend I’ve never met
who lives up the coast in a camp in a valley
in Santa Barbara County.
The bedroom community town has a flower festival,
pops orchestra, legitimate theater
plus wine tasting but its economy is primarily based
on Vandenberg Air Force Base
which houses LGM-30 Minuteman intercontinental ballistic missiles
and Lompoc Prison that used to be called Club Fed
and was where George Clooney’s supposed to be in the 1998 movie
Out of Sight also starring Jennifer Lopez.
After about three years the two of us became so close
that I offered to come
up to visit on weekends which were the only times
which were authorized.
I applied for conjugal visits that took two years
to get okayed then it took another chunk
to get married and Wednesday’s the release date
for my man-slaughterer to come home.
3. Encomium: In The Stars
Smartest move
I never planned was
stumbling into Bubbe.
Bumbler had been taken
in by some other girls’
apparent charms
but bumping into
my half century partner
has turned out to be by far
luckiest lightning ever hit me:
her temperament, father’s
superb child-rearing
then PhD in parenting
skills qualify you dear wife
as our Queen of Generativity.
4. Mad Dog” Mattis
Pretty much everybody agreed no Secretary of Defense
Designate could do a better job destroying tough enemies
of the US -- not blinking about nuclear winterizing Korea.
Scholarly but battle-tested enough that getting bogged
down in fog of war is only a last alternative, our country
is was fortunate this four-star general is was at the helm.
Now that you’ve resigned from running the Pentagon,
I have one question: what’s the plan to keep
President Trump away from toggling the red button?
5. Jesus H. Christ Out On Highway 61
“…When the jelly-faced women all sneeze Hear the one with the mustache say, "Jeeze I can't find my knees…"
Nobel Laureate Bob Dylan, “Visions Of Johanna”
from the Blonde On Blond album, 1966
Even though everybody knows H stands for Hebrew
we star-crossed Madison Avenue marketing masterminds
really blew our biggest Jewish account ever
coming up with the Star of David’s
too complex two inverted triangle graphics, while gentile
boosters sent a simple cross up Christmas Tree Lane’s
flagpole along with concocting that loving straight-shooter
Jesus whose icon even got away with hippy long hair
whereas Zimmerman’s mishigas g-d warned Abe,
“The next time you see me comin', you better run"
which combined with love-hate relationships
with a dark-haired only sib named Joan, plus requesting my kids
to play Bobby’s music as I am lowered
into the ground, leads this usually not musically
oriented physician to feel quite profoundly affected.
Then ask the stars
By David Thorpe
Then ask the stars,
their trillion years of wisdom
might reveal the answer to the riddle,
which taunts the sanity of your mind0
Then search the endless universe,
its myriad of heavenly bodies
might guide you to the cosmic oracle,
patiently awaiting your perseverance
Then plead with the Aurora Borealis
to brighten still this heavenly phenomenon,
and shed light on the incomprehensible,
hidden in the darkest corner of the arctic
A distracted dragon-fly flusters in your ear,
the better to accept my confession,
a declaration of an oath before a sacred altar,
made without a compromise
David Thorpe ©®
A Truth in Poetry
Poetic Prose by Raymond Greiner
Sighted my first robin yesterday. A cold day and the bird seemed unaffected as it hopped gingerly in quest of some hearty insect just beneath the soil’s surface. Nice feeling.
The ancient Roman calendar speaks of the “Ides Of March” soon to arrive on the 15th. Doesn’t mean much during these days, as I read the news I feel a sense of beware from moment to moment as if treading on loose gravel. Won’t change much as current conditions display ongoing negativity in all directions as a global social entity. So, I feed the critters, do daily walks with Venus and Oriana and tread the gravel path in a state of ecstasy regardless with a sense of good fortune to be breathing.
Our prime dictator “Money” remains prominent and controlling as I observe the great interest in “scratch off” lottery tickets when I go into a convenience store. The dream of financial wealth remains prominent among societal design. You can buy your big house and new cars and live shoulder to shoulder with the gentry. How fun.
My good girl “Snowflake” is a Great Pyrenees and is the most amazing dog I’ve ever known. One morning during feeding time it was -10 degrees and she was playing with a stick on the frozen pond. The game stopped when she spotted me with her food bucket. She sleeps outside on the snow and rarely goes into her doghouse. If only we humans were as resilient.
The American political system is best described in one word, “chaotic”, and seems to worsen daily. Denuclearization is a prime topic as Trump feebly attempted to negotiate with the North Korean dictator, who is only using the idea as a pawn in a lethal game of political manipulation. How grand it would be to completely eliminate atomic weaponry from the entire globe. Not yet possible, but if we do light the fuse on this complete ignorance it may serve to give denuclearization more attention.
I’m writing a new novel. These novel projects consume my life. The iconic historical novelist James Michener said of his writing, “I can’t wait to go to sleep so I can wake up and begin writing again.” Sums it up well. Michener’s Japanese wife was his editor. Wish I could find such a pot of gold.
I didn’t write a single creative word until age 62 as I was far too obsessed with making money. If I could repeat my life, money would be placed far on the back burner. First published essay Pond Food in Canary Literary Journal. First short fiction Wolf Spirit published in Quail Bell Literary Magazine. What a thrill.
“The voice of destiny often sings off key and out of tempo like a catbird singing in a thorn bush then the sky opens and clouds of doubt vanish.”
From my short fiction Myrna’s Story.
Now is the Time
A collaboration by Hank Beukema
And Alexandra H. Rodrigues
The thread that connects us is very fine
Raises daily doubts about what will happen in time.
Time will go on, that much we know
Does it push us or pull us, do we stop or do we go?
Merciless passes day after day
We remain in doubt about what and what not to say
Ever forward we go blindly through the dark.
Do we leave a trail, do we make a mark?
At no time will I ever your trust refuse
Not every boldness or slip of the tongue has an excuse
The world takes our boldness and tries to knock it down
Calls us foolish till we feel like a clown.
Truth is an illusion, written in the sand!
How much we believe is in our hand
Often the mind vacillates between now and the past
Busy accusations along our future paths are cast.
The answers bring with them more questions
There will always remain a doubt
Have we found the way in or are we left out?
Either one of us secretly for an answer does wait.
Time has come to no longer accept further delay
Let’s move on together or from each other walk away!
We gamble with lives, we gamble with hearts
Do we know if and when a deeper meaning starts?
The Master Has All
the Right Answers
Poetry Collection by Alan Catlin
Questions of Space
for L. Cohen and V.H. Adair
Did they sit together
in silent meditation?
the over 90 nearly blind
late in life lady poet and
the no-longer-man-of-
the-world, self-proclaimed
lady killer, singer, scribe.
Did they sort through
the garbage for flowers,
watching ants on melon?
or are they just sharing
a strange congruence
of time and space?
the human geography
of a Zen Monastery,
the silence between
written lines? the encroaching
darkness that shapes
everything?
The songs without words?
Water Babies
Mother called the hotel
pool the old swimming hole,
saw the world through dark
glasses as something impenetrable,
unknowable as the mermaids
she spoke of as her sisters of
the sea.
Babies born here, on these virgin islands,
were christened in chlorine as all true,
water babies must be, even those
who saw her speaking after dark to
static shadows and heard the answers
to questions impossible to pose.
Questions and Answers
1-
In the bar the man
orders Genny Cream
from the bartender
Squares the label just so
on the coaster so the label
faces toward him
Picks up the bottle
Drinks
A six pack in an hour
No tip
2-
Weeks later, at Omega,
the server sees the man
as Buddhist meditation
leader sitting cross legged
head bowed, silent
3-
The server sits in the room
bows his head, closes his eyes
cannot cross his legs
meditates
4-
The server has all
the wrong questions
The Master has all
the right answers
Showgirls
Her name was on every No Call list
known to man. Said she was: Tracy,
Trixie, Lexi, Tonya, Ashley, Caitlin,
Emma, Tessa, one name for every day
of the week and two for Sunday.
Had outstanding warrants in seven states
that authorities knew of. Had more low
level felonies than a computer could keep
track of and whatever she was on made her seem
as if she had been whaled on by a Toxic
Avenger with a mean streak and heavily into
vengeance is mine. Replied to direct questions
in a kind of gibberish only someone with
a waterlogged brain would say, something
that sounded like the last hours of someone’s
life dripping from a leaky faucet into a
stainless steel sink in a locked room where
no one ever goes.
Student of Philosophy 1926
after a photo by August Sander
Once you are known as
the kind of man who asks
questions and who expresses his
opinions freely, you are the kind
of man who is followed wherever
he goes.
There are no definitive answers
to the problems a perpetual student
poses. In a world where everything
is brown or yellow, this is a dangerous
path to follow.
When they shoot him, they will
do it twice to make sure he is dead.
