Jo Anne Robinson, the Mother of the Civil Rights Movement, and Others No One Knows--But Should
By Michael H. Brownstein
Once when I was teaching school,
the request was made of me to create
a lesson plan for Women's History Month,
and I got right on it beginning
with famous women of color, but--
too many took their fifteen minutes
and made them into Jesse Jackson time.
Rosa Parks was not the first to get arrested
for not giving up her seat, just the luckiest:
Jo Ann Robinson, literate and intelligent,
made her into the icon she became,
used her position as a university professor
and drafted and published numerous letters
until Rosa Parks let her use her case
to get the point across--and it worked:
Robinson ran the the Montgomery Bus Boycott,
introduced the world to Dr. Martin Luther King,
and in the end helped to end one corner
in the vast realm of racism.
Harriet Tubman, smart and original,
famous for the underground railroad,
a woman with headaches who could not read,
but really was one of our greatest spies
who could memorize Confederate orders
and pass them on word for word to Sherman.
Then there are the teacher heroes--
Augustine Witt and Barbara Appleberry,
two brilliant instructors who changed
the intellectual fabric of Chicago's southside.
So it goes--individuals not afraid to stand
and change the wrongs in our society.
Three Women: Dorothy, Peggy and Lucy
By James B. Nicola
Diversionary Tactics
Just when one of my circle at the Algonquin
said Is she still alive, I looked beyond him
and saw a dark old lady rise across the room.
Her eyes were black as wit and sharp as murder,
and he didn’t see her coming. Suddenly she stood
in front of me. I looked away from him
and up at her, then all our eyes turned up
and around at her and the young thing next to me
said Who’s she? Damage control. I shot up
suspecting who it was and gently parked
my lips on her right cheek. It was too cold
to balance with her left, plus she disengaged
then anyway. Because I recognized her,
though we had never met, I introduced her
as an old friend of mine. Miss—Mrs., rather,
interrupted me when I was introducing the group
and said she’d never remember all our names,
so would it be all right if she just called us
George, Edna, James, Robert, and so on,
as she recalled the bodies in the chairs.
She asked if we had favorite chairs and always
sat in the same ones, and I said no,
and she said Good because you’re sitting in
my chair, if you don’t mind. And we all laughed
as I got up and she sat down and spent
the night regaling us with stories of
the Oak Room when she and her friends held reign
and when she left I answered my friend’s question
by saying, So. Does that answer your question?
for Dorothy Parker, 1893-1967
Above poem was originally published in Manhattan Plaza (2014)
Miss Lee
She had the cognac voice, the brandy breast,
the corrugated heart, as iron as
the mullion giving panes the strength to hold.
A bout of Fever gave her discernible flaws,
a nick in the ribbing, a bubble in the glass.
But how she fought. How many comebacks can
you count to? The one Goodman in her life
died young, but she sang on, ran off, sang on,
and disappeared, then crooned and wrote again.
Now the iron, the glass, the ribs, the bubbles, are gone.
I have but one of her, in vinyl, scratched,
and set it spinning on the turntable,
sitting by my window with a shot
of something, wondering Is that all there is?--
then pour another, wishing it were not.
(Peggy Lee, 1920 – 2002)
Above poem is from Stage to Page: Poems from the Theater (2016)
but originally published in Loch Raven Review and Measure
Lucy van Pelt
Dreaming that Schroeder loved her as his queen
she let her dreams grow into an obsession.
Then he ran off with someone seventeen
and she fell into a bout of depression
so bad her brother had to bring her to
Emergency. From there, Intensive Care.
Then they transferred her to the State Home where
she told me, when she finally realized who
I was, that she’d never even been kissed
by anyone but Snoopy. Now she lives
in the city, alone. Her therapist
tells her that only someone who forgives
herself can be healed. So she keeps a list
of faults she shows me when I am in town
and drop by. Though I wish she’d put it down,
she’s almost proud of her new ones. They’re all
part of the process, she says, they bring hope.
I usually bring more snapshots for her wall
of Linus, her brother, my sister Sal-
ly, and their children, who are our nephews
and nieces, but seem only to confuse
her, sometimes, they’re so numerous now. Char-
lie Brown, she cries, through wild tears, Charlie Brown,
you never should have let me jerk that ball.
You must hate me today! I tell her Nope.
She shakes. I ease her to a seat, assure
her, Childhood trials, they say, build character.
Don’t think about it. I don’t—nor of her,
often. But I do sit with her an hour.
Above poem is from Wind in the Cave (Finishing Line, KY, 2017)
but originally published in Caveat Lector and 2 Bridges Review
just out:
Turns & Twists
Quickening: Poems from Before and Beyond
https://www.cyberwit.net/authors/james-b-nicola
hear three of the poems at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xnw7Oba-6XI
Fires of Heaven: Poems of Faith and Sense
http://www.shantiarts.co/uploads/files/mno/NICOLA_FIRES.html
Out of Nothing: Poems of Art and Artists
https://www.shantiarts.co/uploads/files/mno/NICOLA_OUT.html
Wind in the Cave
www.finishinglinepress.com/product/the-wind-in-the-cave-by-james-b-nicola
Give Her Soul Her Due
By Gabriella Garofalo
To M. W.
Forget it, c’mon, she isn’t looking
For baptisms, dreams, only the sound of grass,
While teens are flying on bikes, skates,
And her soul is daunting the fire,
That white space great for the ranting of silence-
So, spin it nice, and keep them sweet,
That awful lot, clouds stalking her soul,
Then ask for light, the best artisan to get the job done,
And fix a shattered soul-
‘Cause neither trees nor men she owns,
Only blue, deserted words, a desert waiting
For a trawled night where a runaway teen is hiding
In the hall, yes, really her soul time would hold so close,
Her lover back from blue and his brave quests-
All right, enough for now, just stop that blue rogue
If you need the light to leaven days of birth and winter,
Careful now, comets are so choosy, they make such a fuss
When light calls for you, swearing she’ll even rekindle
Your nicked names, your greenery, and venues,
Just a sec before words rub you, Father,
You, your blue, and your sky-
So, God, you’d better hide, but let her soul decrypt the sky,
Throw her a handful of light getting lost
Before prophets went missing out of the blue
For playing foul with starving souls-
See, the branches are shaking their heads in the night,
As they already know a promise will be broken,
No words, no smiles, no smarmy warmth all around,
No prophets when in jumps life, all huggy,
So keen to be your bestie-
Thanks but no thanks, sorry, and don’t you dare blame her-
If dull days and first seasons stock already sold out
She’s one of them, so just leave her alone,
And give her soul her due.
*******
To S.
And that was her Lethe, the infinite sand
Waves always tried to ambush along with February,
His harsh season, her hunger, and voices
From the undergrowth,when mothers, and the moon
Kept playing trusted advisors,
‘Get that green off your head, and give birth
To meetings, dancing parties, maybe write’-
Don’t listen, no way, as long as your soul
Looks like a green-eyed meadow pleading
For water to slake the unquenchable thirst
Of stones, beds, boulders,
And your wrath is brewing like wine,
Ready with blades, bullets or words-
But oh but what’s there to bite for a bit of diversion,
Only the usual harsh edges, drawbacks
Among breaths, grass, and the green hanging out
Next to her while she’s looking round
For fresh days madder than words-
As she lost all of them, home,
Walls, furniture, dust everywhere,
She lost ‘em to write, and give soul
To those weird colours, maybe red, maybe white,
And sure, they remind you of game cards,
Or prayers hurled at you, God, just to rive
A nicely assembled sky-
Or maybe, who knows, those two souls live side by side,
The midribs of a world where blues and twos
Lash the place where your mind stands still,
No one to shield the walls-
But c’mon, my soul, buck up, bug out from those colours,
‘Cause among hidden trees, denuded branches,
And a naked house you might even glimpse
A bed, a window, a first time miracle, even your life-
Well, almost.
*******
To M., W.
It gets her goat when those restless clouds,
All mixed up with house moves and exiles,
Go so tender and advise her to play the wise little ant,
To skimp on life, and never waste herself, Heaven forbid-
Meantime, a tramp is crying her eyes off
While desperately clicking on her mobile-
Look, it won’t happen, her light shall never burst forth
To starving trees if white with hunger or desire
Her days disperse the grass, or the prophet's fire,
And she whiles away her time in some swank cafe
Wondering if it’s a wise move for the soul
To hide away all wrapped in blue, to skirt
Those mothers dicier than Lethe,
Ever so ready to charge against white hair,
Weird limbs, those words only wind listens to
When she walks through her pages
In a winter smashing up words, questions, maybe grass,
And her truce with life looks shakier than dawns,
Now that the moon can’t get the screeching sounds
Of loves braking abruptly, and demise lither than heather
Shows her cool and a crippled smile
When stumbling on weird limbs just a sec before
The blades of grass show up, but who cares,
If the wind is her close friend, and he’s moving,
Yes, not those arches, those shrines that can’t stalk
Her heaven if hunger or light cut the skewed trees,
But who cares if the wrath of time is setting
The green ablaze, or shaking the clouds-
As ever, she smiles, gives thanks, plays along,
Only she’s dying to break into the dark, snuff words out,
And yes, give her some slack, as truths or tricks will out
If you silence a moon who sheds light only on weird limbs-
And who cares, of course, if she ends up running out
Of life, limbs, and light.
*******
To S.
What’s happening, deserts and their thirst
Get no words as poets stay secluded
In ghettoes clouds and waves set ablaze-
And no need for self-control if burnt limbs
Shake the time when their green sows
Words among lovers, as words
Can’t feel safe in her mind’s undergrowth,
No antibodies, no ramparts, no walls,
So don’t trust those shapes turning up uninvited,
Yearning for hanging out
With first seasons, light or wind-
See, demise is blowing out stars dreams fires,
Her nimble fingers dance among the stocks
Of bargain outcomes, ready to grab
Souls, rooms, meadows, her ready-made food
When she gets hungry, and no,
Flowers can’t help, those captives lying still
In the white ambivalence of a crystal holder,
Nor can help woods ablaze with fear
For trees at stake, so she just shivers
When the light’s hands wave if shadows
Cut and cry, ‘cause her soul can’t get
God who keeps blind fires among her words-
Sometimes they hide, sometimes they beg her
For a trench warfare, but it’s winter only,
The endless search for sins, not her fault
If they’re going to slip the slant stares
From skies, or rainbows, and that be her choice,
The eternal blue of dust, a bread the cold wolfs down,
The answers streets give her when doubts or questions
Tear the sky asunder:
Those bundles of rags in the corners, tramps curling up
Among stale food, wine pouches, and a nonchalant blue
From passersby who got spared, got dosh, even time-
Those guns ‘n’bullets parading as life.
*******
Elegy for Miss Emily
(For Emily Dickinson)
by Kenneth Vincent Walker
Quote: “I must go in
The fog is rising;”
Famous last words
Of a reclusive poet
Hiding within writing.
Never seeing a need
To venture out alone.
Her sanctuary was
Her home where she
Sat in her room and
Wrote what she felt
Deeply within her soul.
To write with such
Fervor, her destiny,
Her unequivocal fate;
Miss Emily dear, lo
Your carriage awaits.
Queen Anne, Queen Jane and St. Lucy
By James Scannell McCormick
“God Send Me Wel to Kepe”:
Anne of Cleves Returns Her Wedding Ring
Richmond Palace, 16 July 1540
After she had dined that evening, she returned her wedding ring to Henry calmly desiring “that it might be broken in pieces, as a thing which she knew of no force or value.”
– Saaler
She has just stood up from table, a manservant (Robin: she is
Careful to learn names), having decorously pulled back her rose-
Worked chair. “Your Grace,” he says, from habit. He’s mistaken,
She knows: She is now to be simply “the Lady Anne,”
The King’s sister, “not carnally known of the King’s body.” Candle-
Light yellows the plate: quail, bread, sweet apples. A single
Glass of Rhenish, untouched. Outside, sky darkens to swallow-
Blue, fills with swallows themselves sharp and swift as Cupid’s arrows.
Beneath the new five-pointed headdress, her face now has something of that pale
Grace of the Holbein portrait, in her eyes something of will.
She faces a window: no one sees her work off the ring, lightly
Set it on her palm as though testing its heft. Its hold. Turned, she
Remembers at once another turning: Rochester. Last
New Year’s Day. She had stood at another window, frost
Fingering the panes, to watch a bull-baiting. No snow. No wind.
But eye-searing brightness, and how the bull had wound
And wound the stake, the hemp rope creaking. And how the men –
With switches and sharpened sticks, how the bulldogs, had leaped, jabbed, run
At, run from the dark bull, from whose mouth – torn, red-frothing – she had
Not been able to look away. She had stood, as though herself tied,
Between stab of afternoon air charging in and shove of fire-heated inside air
Plunging out. But to what end, this suffering? she had thought. For
Whom? The English had howled and clapped, the clip and fall,
The strange song of their language around her. Then, a hush; then, a tall,
Heavy man, in mask and motley, among five others. Eyes, whispers. No
Word: his weighing look, his outstretched hands, as though
Balancing, with a gift: sables, their sleek black worked with garnets.
I thank you, she had begun – then, from below, in the stone court,
Sharper shouts, a quick, ringing howl: the bull had gotten one
Of the pack on his horns, and she turned to see the dog – writhing in
Air, red-sided – arch and fall. From the window, to the man, and through
The eyeholes in his mask – what? He turned, curtly, and left. A silence so
Winter-dead that she could hear a knot as it popped in the fire. She
Had thought, What have I done? her hands cold with panic. Only
Afterwards, upon his re-entry, in purple, had she known her mistaking:
He the King, and to be her husband; she in the balance. And found lacking.
Thus the smirk of the priapic cupid carved into the oak headboard
Of the bed in which he reluctantly fumbled her. And no more: Good-
Night, sweetheart, nights; mornings, Farewell, darling. To her ladies’ boldfaced
Prying, goading – as though she were a goose-girl taken barefoot from the iced
Rhine’s mud-flats: I am content. And so she’s been sent away “for her
Health.” And so the polite sneers of the deputation, proffering annulment. For
Whom, to what end, this suffering? She turns now from the sable-black
window: the paired swallows are gone. But now the crickets tick
And sing. She will play cent tonight. And she has changed her mind
About the wine. Taking it, she calls Robin, places the ring into his hand.
“Even as Perfectlie as God Made the World”:
Queen Jane Refuses Her Husband the Crown
The Tower of London, 19 July 1553
I will tell you...a troth whiche perchance ye will marvell at. [....] For when I am in presence either of father or mother, whether I speke, kepe silence, sit, stand, or go, eate, drinke, be merie, or sad, be sowying, plaiying, dauncing, or doing anything els: I must do it, as it were, in soch weight, measure, and number, even as perfectlie as God made the world; or els I am so sharplie taunted, so cruellie threatened, yea presentlie some tymes with pinches, nippes and bobbes, and other waies I will not name for the honour I beare them, so without measure misordered, that I thinke myself in hell.
– to Robert Ascham
“Come down off there, child,” says her father. Alone, she had
Been sitting – as she had been told – in the Chair of State, its rose-red
Damask canopy breathing slightly to a breeze of heightening
Summer. “That is no place for you.” Alone, she had been listening
Through a window narrowed for archers: still cries and calls
Of unruly merry-making – still sack and dancing in all
The clotted streets in London. The night before, from this window,
She had watched bonfires on every corner of Petty Wales, and how
The bells – St. Katherine, St. Dunstan, St. Margaret, All Hallows,
And, across the river, St. Mary Overie – had rung and rung to the walls
Of the Tower to proclaim Queen her cousin, whom her cousin
The newly-dead King had named “not lawfully begotten.”
How shocked silent the crowd when she had come to be crowned
Not much more than a week ago. Tottering on her chopines, she had
Gripped her husband’s arm. He talked, made much of her. Over her train
her own mother fussed. But how silent the crowd for Jane the Queen.
At the narrow window she had been thinking, This is no place for
Me, the Thames shallow and turning slowly at the wharf of the Tower,
Watermen cross-cutting the ebb-tide past Syon House, where,
She is convinced, her husband’s parents have fed her poison: her hair
Is falling out. At Syon Guildford sits alone – sulks – in the garden
Beneath a linden and squinting up through branches at the sun,
Sunlight making a corona of his hair. Making a crown: his
Desire and delight. She thinks back nine days. “Your Grace
May take it boldly,” had said old Winchester, Lord Treasurer,
As he brought her the Crown. “And soon I shall have another
Made to crown your husband.” “Your husband,” had said her
Parents in the spring, “is to be Northumberland’s son.” Honor
Thy father and thy mother, she had thought. But refused. They
Beat her. And so she married, he tall and in white, she with milky
Pearls twisted into her hair. “You shall make me King!” Tears
Of rage in Guildford’s eyes. So am I springed, she thought. Fear
And fury in equal parts. She could feel the edge of her stomacher
Biting her ribs. A duke, perhaps, she had countered from the Chair.
But never King. In the Tower, rumor spreads like roots of a grafted
Rose. In had burst her mother-in-law to bully her: “My son” – she lifted
Her set jaw – “shall not share his bed with a wife so unnatural!”
Their leaving drew out all the air from the room. She had sent Arundel
And Pembroke to bring him back. I was compelled, she will write in a letter
To the Queen, to act as a woman who is obliged to live on good terms with her
Husband. Her father has begun to wrench down the canopy. “Those
As well,” he says, without turning to her. He means the robes, she knows.
She works – she had had no help in tying it – the gold-cord knot.
From her shoulders the Tudor rose-red velvet pulls of its own weight.
“Here,” he says, tugs the fabric from her, piles it on the Chair – the same
With the ruined damask. He is leaving. She asks, “May I not go home?”
St. Lucy:
(Before the Tomb of St. Agatha)
What do you see? Her mother would turn, find her –
Three or maybe four, her father alive –
Alert and staring bright-faced at…what? Where are
You looking? her mother would ask, spooked by furtive
Worry. Then she would start, and blink a bit,
And flush quickly. But never answer. Now,
As they kneel alone in catacomb blackness lit
By a linen wick in oil, her mother knows
That same alert staring: What does she see,
Here at the crude tomb of a cultist dead
Fifty years? But she’s alight with certainty:
This single trip will heal the ulcers that bleed
Her mother weak. She smiles, her lids lowered.
Her mother gasps, presses her midriff. She’s cured.
Drinking Bitter Lemon with Medea
Poetry Collection by Alan Catlin
Reconsidering Medea
She only drinks Schweppes Bitter Lemon with Boodles Gin,
always lounging on the modern art of furniture,
carefully composed in designer clothes, she is
conversant in three dead families of languages,
gossip stronger than civilization, what is
never lost survives in her colored contact eyes,
a different color for a different day, a different
mood, she waits patiently plotting her revenge
against perceived slights, the real and the unreal,
surgically removing all the diseased parts of her
life, the living, and the dead, waiting for the doorbell
to ring, envisioning a strange youth delivering her
offering to an offending party, a package rudely
wrapped in brown paper bags, encased in layer upon
layer of twine, metal bands, plastic casings,
the unveiling, tedious, arduous, making the process
of removal more important than what waits inside. Unencumbered by wraps, the gift box is of the finest,
most expensive kind, the paper swathing the folded
garment inside, hand-woven as the embroidered cloak made
from the finest silk it cradles, "Magnificent!"
the recipient says, "What have I done to deserve this?"
he wonders, pulling the cloak around his shoulders, adjusting
the fit to his frame, "A lifetime of Infidelity.
Cruelty beyond human imagining to a loved one."
She says, thinking of the customized garment label
sewn into the fabric in letters too small to read:
The wearer of this garment will be destroyed
in ten seconds unless this garment is promptly removed.
New Year’s 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, Clytemnestra guiding the old man
in his white robes, showing him where to
swing the sacrificial scythe.
Caresse Crosby's Black Sun
"Our eyes were opened to a blaze of Sun,
Clean sun-built dawn the day we owned New York,
I did not guess
I did not guess
That madder beauty waited, unaware,
To take your hand upon the evening stair."
(Mary) "Caresse" Crosby, Invited to Die
Caresse Crosby like a surreal
Lady Macbeth or, was it Desdemona?
according to Orson Welles, photographed
silhouetted against a castle window,
an outpouring of light, her arms extended
like some prehistoric bird paused
for flight, the billowing, silken folds
of her diaphanous gown a black cancer
on a field of white or is it something more
benign? designed by a disciple of Max Ernst;
on the edge of a precipice, she seems
unaware of all the tragedies just beyond
the brink, that await her.
My Dream Date with Anne Sexton
In the poetry workshop
the white-haired man read
“Lycidas,” the original, and his
corrections, the improved, new
version. The one he swore was
infinitely superior to Milton’s,
his normally deep voice turning
shrill as he spoke, “Your home-
work assignment if to rewrite
the fairy tale of your choice.
Class meets again next Monday,
as usual.” Though everyone knew
it never would. After class Anne
and I went to the movies, shared
a cocktail shaker of extra dry
Schenley’s martinis, watched
with horrified fascination, the opening
sequence of latest Bond thriller,
thinking, later, the best thing about it
was McCartney singing,” Live and
let die! Live and let die!” over and
over, like a mantra, or some kind
of twisted dirge. Afterwards Anne
said, “I think I’ll do the Brothers Grimm.”
“Which one?” I asked.
“Both of them, preferably at the same time.”
“But they’re dead.”
“It was a joke. Their fairy tales. Do them
as if they were an Alfred Hitchcock movie.”
“Which movie?”
“Lifeboat.”
I thought about being cast adrift.
About how it would feel to be absolutely
alone, abandoned by God. About all that
awful rowing.
My Dream Date with Edie Sedgwick
“no one takes pictures at funerals”
Elizabeth Hand
Her face reflected in vanity mirror,
part pixie, part Ophelia after suicidal
plunge, unstuck in time on Warhol
Factory screen test set, one of many
trolls of the night, stars for a day,
myself included, awaiting a turn before
the camera, a chance to show off all
her prettysadfaces, the whole gamut
of expressions from perplexed to strung
out with no hope for a fix, her ruined
mascara a black line on her too white
powdered face, one of a harlot’s ghosts
still alive but wondering, “how much do
we have to pay to get out of doing all
these things twice.”
My Dream Date with Marilyn
“The stories from my sleep bleed into morning…..”
Daniel Woodrell
as in four-reel movie, each one
an outtake from a dream evolving,
a cutting room clipping pieced to
something else: a body part, a bone,
a face fused to a manikin’s body,
outlines for a costume drama sketched
onto a bald head, an upper torso
a Black Dahlia killer might admire,
might require to complete his mission
to construct a perfect woman out of
spare parts and story boards.
Even swimming naked in the in-ground
swimming pool, cannot dispel the sense,
she is nothing more than an otherworldly
image, camera lights reflecting what her
misfit eyes conceal. Everyone mistakes
her anxiety for misplaced vanity, fear of
becoming what she already is inside,
a Norma Desmond demimonde, one whiskey
glass away from being a pickle jar specimen,
something clearly labeled a curiosity,
fit only for display.
My Dream Date with Zelda Fitzgerald
“In the morning,
in the evening,
ain’t we got fun…..”
Martinis for breakfast at noon,
room service all day long,
a coma induced like a nap
before a night out on the town,
champagne cocktails and canapés,
dressing for after-dinner drinks
and dancing, before the royalty
checks diminish, dwindle to nada.
Writing trash is easy but Art is
elusive when you are burning all
of Millay’s candles, perpetually hungover,
sick of it all, until the next invitation
out, the next dance emporia opened,
these floors illuminated by spinning
overhead lights, piped in music so loud
our skin vibrates, eyes rock and roll,
more drinks, designer drugs sold at
flat rates only the beautiful people
can afford, in clubs that have no windows,
no clocks, only that days that last all
night, that enable the marathon dancing
to go on and on to the music of time,
“burn baby burn disco inferno,
burn baby burn we’re gonna burn
that mother down.”
Above: Hans Axel Count Von Fersen the younger, Swedish Ambassador to France, and Queen Marie Antoinette
A Wistful Love Song
By Sochukwu Ivye
Your heart holds strength to drip and contain peace
This mould drains nerves but you not spend a piece
Nights rouse my heart to hand him thoughts on you
Days ooze gloom but light my psyche with your hue
Chance I thought had cleared my eyes about things
while now in my dazed head your grand touch rings
The least known health for fondness I should nurse
but shunning your worth would do my stance curse
The days gone made me of hushed touching songs
Now your snapshots in my head right tense wrongs
My spurned love and hushed music thus throws off
You rouse my strengths and raise me from a trough
You seized space and raised your realm in my heart
Your presence has owned my breath since the start
Your footfalls bring no strange guests past my ears
I could place them with eyes stitched shut for years
Fate has marked our homes beneath the same roof
Who doubts that luck trails me may bare their proof
My best loved soul's time and mine lodge fenced in
My love is spurned and my dream wears hence thin
We hear that soulmates squash gloom in our souls
You breed my peace though we play opposed roles
You breathe God's likeness but grant the least heed
That paints your unharmed breed and mystic creed
God's crown saves the boundless prize for the pure
but dressed in vast charm, my whole world you lure
Life groomed you to soothe my heart shorn of faith
My doubts shrink; so I might breathe a blithe wraith
You are my straightest course to God's brave realm
Your poised voice and tranquil mien clasp the helm
My psyche is grown to hug whom bears your name
Paths that steer your taste and mine turn the same
My soul lays wounds when my eyes meet your legs
Those legs bear your grace for which my soul begs
They spun else thoughts but wake my rare worship
Stretched pillars of your health and poise they strip
Your footfalls croon through blocks to find my soul
The message from your fair limbs grows me whole
Those garden-fresh limbs herald what dwells close
They would foil earth here and the stones it throws
The tunnels through which your beauty flows down
The favoured path those legs tread sheds its frown
This passage cures my world and clears my breath
My veins and bones are cleansed to slow my death
This form of warmth and none else wraps my mind
More heights past this strength my fad will not find
Countless moons might thus meet me a lone youth
Chance has not merged us but you please my truth
Your gleam lights my heart to watch against gloom
Strength fills my sack to witness my dreams bloom
Should countless months want to build us, I please
They may sleep for the grave does no soul squeeze
Though a few more years we could both have earth
I could throughout most years comb for your worth
Like Noah braved months to launch the famed boat
which a few weeks' flood, as God knew, would float
Eyes glimpse your merits but your home sees more
A cutlass tends whom comes through the rear door
This wide-eyed and nosing house my dream braves
I should grow bright and fetch what my soul craves
This piece gleams most among my themes on love
Verse that glides through my soul to greet the dove
These words judge my thoughts on you my content
Bliss that strayed in what one-time passions meant
This road looks the farthest my dream has crossed
My head is not robbed of breadth though looks lost
Except God, you came the best worlds would flaunt
None else in their prime could do your height daunt
When my eyes greet yours, my soul springs to bliss
When your eyes gift mine your smile, our souls kiss
Would that my soul's fullness an eye could glimpse
To guide my views to close breasts, my voice limps
The breath of God, through my heart, fans my brow
I could climb heights and walk through gorges now
To unfurl your heart which grounds unknown furled
I would spend, besides breath and health, the world
Our eyes paint our still minds when we trade words
This here is as though we penned some tame birds
To conceal our hearts' warmth, we freeze our tones
The cold hands of our masked truth prod my bones
How these signs roused to hand no clear message!
Could this blank news not mean a hushed presage?
These years should, not better but not worse, rouse
When my soul lolls worst, my flesh might not house
Eyes can meet the shushed fears you push to mask
and your held warm smiles in which fond eyes bask
You stretch your good self to some strange defeats
Free your strained heart; grant her the worthy treats
My strength slumps when I wake my spelt romance
when my legs were trapped in your maze-like dance
What struck my heart thus loose to pluck the crown
but grew yours in strength to let kind dreams down?
Desire filled my heart and weighed down your verve
That might have lured this ceaseless cold you serve
Discernment spurned my psyche and thus still does
but my stretched heart for you makes my faith buzz
The word-craft brain, Chisom, your tropes are spells
Your words fare well with what in else minds dwells
To leave my face clean and flame strong, you watch
but your fears that heed fore years none can scotch
My views and deeds might have betrayed my hopes
Now, my heart looks false, and as though he gropes
As my heart hopes that things come to whom waits
my staunch faith and work will grace my heart traits
Your heart dwells the most charming my eyes know
Chance walked my eyes there times next to your no
My eyes felled your doors but soon were dismissed
Thus, by your wholesome grace my breast is kissed
Well, my lone thoughts bear your home with a smile
My heart kneels down and courts your mind in style
When my notes spurn you, I brave countless threats
True; whilst the heat feels too close, the aim sweats
That I should charm the crown tempts my cold care
She could yield loose or serve my rout smelled bare
The madman who talks and laughs my breast spies
since my challenged soul now breathes in his guise
Dumeje's marked eyes and mind prompt more drive
Who plucked the four-leaf clover should soon thrive
His luck would guide our stuck hearts to the church
where priests lie that the grave keeps our last perch.
A Wistful Love Song
By Sochukwu Ivye
Your heart holds strength to drip and contain peace
This mould drains nerves but you not spend a piece
Nights rouse my heart to hand him thoughts on you
Days ooze gloom but light my psyche with your hue
Chance I thought had cleared my eyes about things
while now in my dazed head your grand touch rings
The least known health for fondness I should nurse
but shunning your worth would do my stance curse
The days gone made me of hushed touching songs
Now your snapshots in my head right tense wrongs
My spurned love and hushed music thus throws off
You rouse my strengths and raise me from a trough
You seized space and raised your realm in my heart
Your presence has owned my breath since the start
Your footfalls bring no strange guests past my ears
I could place them with eyes stitched shut for years
Fate has marked our homes beneath the same roof
Who doubts that luck trails me may bare their proof
My best loved soul's time and mine lodge fenced in
My love is spurned and my dream wears hence thin
We hear that soulmates squash gloom in our souls
You breed my peace though we play opposed roles
You breathe God's likeness but grant the least heed
That paints your unharmed breed and mystic creed
God's crown saves the boundless prize for the pure
but dressed in vast charm, my whole world you lure
Life groomed you to soothe my heart shorn of faith
My doubts shrink; so I might breathe a blithe wraith
You are my straightest course to God's brave realm
Your poised voice and tranquil mien clasp the helm
My psyche is grown to hug whom bears your name
Paths that steer your taste and mine turn the same
My soul lays wounds when my eyes meet your legs
Those legs bear your grace for which my soul begs
They spun else thoughts but wake my rare worship
Stretched pillars of your health and poise they strip
Your footfalls croon through blocks to find my soul
The message from your fair limbs grows me whole
Those garden-fresh limbs herald what dwells close
They would foil earth here and the stones it throws
The tunnels through which your beauty flows down
The favoured path those legs tread sheds its frown
This passage cures my world and clears my breath
My veins and bones are cleansed to slow my death
This form of warmth and none else wraps my mind
More heights past this strength my fad will not find
Countless moons might thus meet me a lone youth
Chance has not merged us but you please my truth
Your gleam lights my heart to watch against gloom
Strength fills my sack to witness my dreams bloom
Should countless months want to build us, I please
They may sleep for the grave does no soul squeeze
Though a few more years we could both have earth
I could throughout most years comb for your worth
Like Noah braved months to launch the famed boat
which a few weeks' flood, as God knew, would float
Eyes glimpse your merits but your home sees more
A cutlass tends whom comes through the rear door
This wide-eyed and nosing house my dream braves
I should grow bright and fetch what my soul craves
This piece gleams most among my themes on love
Verse that glides through my soul to greet the dove
These words judge my thoughts on you my content
Bliss that strayed in what one-time passions meant
This road looks the farthest my dream has crossed
My head is not robbed of breadth though looks lost
Except God, you came the best worlds would flaunt
None else in their prime could do your height daunt
When my eyes greet yours, my soul springs to bliss
When your eyes gift mine your smile, our souls kiss
Would that my soul's fullness an eye could glimpse
To guide my views to close breasts, my voice limps
The breath of God, through my heart, fans my brow
I could climb heights and walk through gorges now
To unfurl your heart which grounds unknown furled
I would spend, besides breath and health, the world
Our eyes paint our still minds when we trade words
This here is as though we penned some tame birds
To conceal our hearts' warmth, we freeze our tones
The cold hands of our masked truth prod my bones
How these signs roused to hand no clear message!
Could this blank news not mean a hushed presage?
These years should, not better but not worse, rouse
When my soul lolls worst, my flesh might not house
Eyes can meet the shushed fears you push to mask
and your held warm smiles in which fond eyes bask
You stretch your good self to some strange defeats
Free your strained heart; grant her the worthy treats
My strength slumps when I wake my spelt romance
when my legs were trapped in your maze-like dance
What struck my heart thus loose to pluck the crown
but grew yours in strength to let kind dreams down?
Desire filled my heart and weighed down your verve
That might have lured this ceaseless cold you serve
Discernment spurned my psyche and thus still does
but my stretched heart for you makes my faith buzz
The word-craft brain, Chisom, your tropes are spells
Your words fare well with what in else minds dwells
To leave my face clean and flame strong, you watch
but your fears that heed fore years none can scotch
My views and deeds might have betrayed my hopes
Now, my heart looks false, and as though he gropes
As my heart hopes that things come to whom waits
my staunch faith and work will grace my heart traits
Your heart dwells the most charming my eyes know
Chance walked my eyes there times next to your no
My eyes felled your doors but soon were dismissed
Thus, by your wholesome grace my breast is kissed
Well, my lone thoughts bear your home with a smile
My heart kneels down and courts your mind in style
When my notes spurn you, I brave countless threats
True; whilst the heat feels too close, the aim sweats
That I should charm the crown tempts my cold care
She could yield loose or serve my rout smelled bare
The madman who talks and laughs my breast spies
since my challenged soul now breathes in his guise
Dumeje's marked eyes and mind prompt more drive
Who plucked the four-leaf clover should soon thrive
His luck would guide our stuck hearts to the church
where priests lie that the grave keeps our last perch.
Two Acrostic Sonnets
By Mike Mesterton - Gibbons
King Charles III
King Charles the Third was overheard to say
"I cannot bear this bloody thing!" His pen
Nib had discharged a curt communiqué:
God damn it, Charles, your date is wrong again!
Charles couldn't read this bulletin. Although
He understands his potted plants, when inks
Admonish him, he doesn't seem to know
Resentment builds if he blabs what he thinks.
Lamenting with "Oh, God. I hate this!" would
Exacerbate his plight: an inky blob
Sprayed over him. Poor Charles did not look good.
In vain, he tried to do a wiping job ...
Ink had its partner's honour to protect.
It warned His Nibs: his nibs deserve respect!
St. Bernard's Road
St. Bernard's Road in Solihull is where
Two neighbours disagreed about a tree
Belonging to ... well, that's what kept this pair
Embroiled in leans upon their property.
Retired Doc Martin moaned: "It hid my land."
Next door his neighbour fumed: "It leaned my way,
And it was worth well over fifty grand.
Removing it was criminal——you'll pay!"
Doc duly went to plead his case in court,
Supported by an arborist who said
Removal did no harm: the tree, though short
Of branches, which were worthless, was not dead ...
A moral isn't very hard to see:
Downed foliage can leave you up a tree!
Poetry by James B. Nicola
The Alchemy of a Prompt:
Three Empty Chairs
Constellation of an assembled three
once random seats still vacant. They would be
more, wouldn't they, with an identity?
Not Virgo, since they are not celibate;
nor Gemini, since they're more than a pair.
A Balance: two plates and a fulcrum? Or
maybe some seated souls could fill them: true
or fictional, still living or long gone,
perhaps not even human. Animal,
vegetable, or merely mineral,
putting on a Good Face? What's their story?
Or do they have a story? Do you?
I don’t. Just the thought of you and three dumb chairs
you bade me find and arrange, which I’ve done.
Possibly you. Plus three chairs of the Possible.
*
Wynken, Blynken, and Nod? Then who am I?
Mother? the moon? the sea? their wooden shoe?
Larry, Curly, and Moe? Then I’m a kid,
agog that madcap hijinx might ensue,
watching for incorrigible Falls.
Huey, Dewey and Louie? That makes me Uncle
Donald or Scrooge. Or Mister or Della Duck.
Mama, Papa, Baby? Call me Goldilocks.
Shadrack, Meshach and Abednego?
I am a king of Babylon, long gone.
Athos, Aramis, Porthos—I’m D’Artagnan.
Caspar, Balthazar, Melchior—I’m some lamb.
Gabriel, Michael, Raphael—I’ll be Uriel.
If they be the three Fates, who cuts the cord?
Three notes, ah, make a more harmonious chord.
If they be three Graces, can I be kind?
If they be sisters Brontë, I’ll be Branwell.
But if they be the sky, the sea, the earth,
then I should learn to capitalize their names,
yes, realize their alter-egos are
three elements as well, which make me Fire,
or Energy, that is—what cannot be
trod upon as generations have trod,
or swum in, or looked up to and breathed in,
but makes all atoms forever hold together
or fly apart, as situations rise.
*
Or are these simply three cherubic chairs
in humble want of more, as in a play
by Ionesco that will fill a hall
with laughter, maybe puzzlement, tonight?
or deaden with life the echoes of a brief
salon yet unattended, while we wait?
But in the wait, what Creativity,
emerging on a shell of fluid thought
nude as the goddess of a soft suggestion,
of colder circumstance—plus alter-egos
Caprice, Imagination: brooding girls
who goad and prompt yon plaintive troubadours
to wish upon an unrequiting star
with trios of stars sounding like three notes,
compose a wild eternity of here
and there, infinity of then and now,
wellspring of wine and song and gratitude,
the reason, source, and interlocutor
of all the bears, ducks, Magi, Musketeers,
Stooges, and seraphim who, on a Shoe
of Would, embark to sail on streams of light
even on land, inspiriting this night
sky, sparkling in silver and gold and me and you.
Betsy DeVos
Since Queen Marie believed there really were
bakers enough and flour enough to bake
something for everyone (some Chancellor
most likely told her of a lack of yeast),
one couldn't really blame her in the least
for what (it's said) she said: Let them eat cake.
And yet the people sent their well-coiffed queen
to answer for it at the guillotine.
Now, if the swelling horde should blame us for
our ignorance, who keeps us in the dark,
as Lord High Education Minister?
No single blade could possibly do in
a multi-million-headed sovereign.
But should she, should we, fear the single spark?
The Power of Narrative
When James Bond or the Saint
effects a rescue or an escape
he's shot 400 hundred times but missed
an inordinate percentage of times
while his shots hit their mark invariably
even while running two-fisted which even
Annie Oakley, the greatest sharpshooter ever,
never
achieved.
The power of narrative reaches
with the interfering arm
of an Attic God over Troy, in
the cosmos ordained by human Hollywood,
much kinder to Her favorite begotten Sons
and Daughters than that other God
who might just as well Be Nameless
for the Time
Being
while I pray for a kinder Storyteller
for not only the narratives' title roles
reduced to triple-digit code and haloed stick figures
but also for the occasional supporting agents
who, even in paradise, suffer the lethal mix
of goodness braced by valor
and die
overwhelmingly
unmourned.
Dive Bar Queens
(and Plastic Navel Rings)
Poetry Collection by Alan Catlin
Dwarf Tossing Queens
For Erika
The death of Billy Barty, midget actor,
noted in passing on bar TV national
news report reminds our waitress of
a little person experience of her own in
a neighborhood gin mill back home.
“I was really young then.
Had no clue about much of anything
and I sure as hell didn’t know what respect
was. Still, everyone was doing it.
I mean, I was really drunk, now that I
think about it. And he was beyond caring
himself, anyone could see that, even a blind
person such as myself. But I could hardly
lift him. I tried to explain that bowling
wasn’t exactly my sport. The only people
I knew who actually bowled had food
stuck in their braces and never showered unless
they got stuck in the rain. So, I asked this
guy standing at the bar to like help me
take my turn and I think we took second place.
Awesome! No, he wasn’t hurt. There were
pillows and like mattresses to land on.
Yes, in a bar. It was midget tossing night
and it was like a regular event. What did you
think? That they weren’t prepared?
I can’t remember what our prize was but
I do remember after it was over
that the dwarf guy was like sitting on
my lap and licking my face and neck and stuff.
It was totally gross but he looked so cute
and harmless like an old kid. Besides, what
could he do, so small and drunk like that?
What do you mean that not All of him was
under-developed? Are you kidding me?
like for real? I think I’m going to be sick.
I’ll never be able to show my face in that
bar again. You know, that really sucks.
Now, I’ll have to find someplace else to
celebrate my 21st birthday next year when
I’m finally legal.”
Forward March
after Mary Ellen Mark
The things those girls must have seen
on the street, around the house:
big sisters, Red Hot Mamas at 14,
pregnant at 15, bellies hanging over
stretched pants, dreaming of a spandex
fits, pushup bras, low cuts and too tights,
made up at 10 like queens-for-a-day
with glossy pink lipsticks, eye shadow
and love beads, fake diamond studs
and plastic navel rings, leaning, backs
against bodega store window, tough stuff
looking for trouble, skinny hips thrust forward;
"Gimme, Gimme, Gimme some lovin'"
Sunday afternoon in the South Bronx.
Sympathy for the Devil
After an extended childhood spent
watching MTV stoned on whatever
he could score, he had the alt-rock
look down: Doom Cult t-shirt,
sleeveless and soiled washed from
black to almost gray, beyond tight
dragged out jeans, pointed shit kicker
boots, all the facial hair he could grow
beneath requisite medusa knot locks.
Told all the slumming, punked out,
dive bar queens, pretenders to thrones
of tough and hard, he was the lead
singer in some heavy metal bar band
that was about to make a quantum leap
into the big time, were tuning up for
mega gigs once the studio album was
cut and released. In real life he was a
wannabe roadie known for his skill
at rolling perfect doobies and not
much else. Even terminal losers have
a skill. Kept him vaguely employed,
made him known in all the fringe places
make believe rock stars hung out waiting
to overdoes, a moral’s charge, or a major
drug bust. Getting lucky, for him, was
a hit of not bad acid, some clean Poontang,
and someone else’s demo tape he could
pass off as his own. Had visions of dying,
hitting perfect chords on a wired guitar,
short circuiting waves of electricity instead
of veins, his hair on fire.
The Day the Earth Stood Still
“The girl wearing her grandmother’s shawl,
the girl who sees me with nowhere in my eyes,
says, “I saw you dead last night.” I laugh and
her darkness opens into smiles.” John Allman
Lost highways end in incognito lounges,
shoot ‘em up bang bang bars where beer
flows from foam lipped taps, tepid as
bad water in a glass.
All the Skidrow junkies, former uptown
beauty queens, no name super stars with
their empty-of-life faces, neon lit, all aglow
and perfectly made up for a viewing, lightning
bugs where their eyes used to be.
Outside the picture window, rain falls
like mercury on glass. The classic jukebox
armature is paused above spinning disc
but no music plays. Even car lamps in
the parking lot, switched on, illuminate nothing,
not even the auto-asphyxiation couple before
the deed, striated scarves around their throats
like slowly tightening Mexican neckties,
hands in each other’s pants.
A full metal jacket leaving the muzzle is
stalled inches away from impact. Blood
spatters on graffiti Art walls anticipate
shadows cast on cracked pavement where
the chalk outlines should go.
Yellow incident tape and blue light special
lights advertise one night only.
It has always been like this. Always will be.
(and Plastic Navel Rings)
Poetry Collection by Alan Catlin
Dwarf Tossing Queens
For Erika
The death of Billy Barty, midget actor,
noted in passing on bar TV national
news report reminds our waitress of
a little person experience of her own in
a neighborhood gin mill back home.
“I was really young then.
Had no clue about much of anything
and I sure as hell didn’t know what respect
was. Still, everyone was doing it.
I mean, I was really drunk, now that I
think about it. And he was beyond caring
himself, anyone could see that, even a blind
person such as myself. But I could hardly
lift him. I tried to explain that bowling
wasn’t exactly my sport. The only people
I knew who actually bowled had food
stuck in their braces and never showered unless
they got stuck in the rain. So, I asked this
guy standing at the bar to like help me
take my turn and I think we took second place.
Awesome! No, he wasn’t hurt. There were
pillows and like mattresses to land on.
Yes, in a bar. It was midget tossing night
and it was like a regular event. What did you
think? That they weren’t prepared?
I can’t remember what our prize was but
I do remember after it was over
that the dwarf guy was like sitting on
my lap and licking my face and neck and stuff.
It was totally gross but he looked so cute
and harmless like an old kid. Besides, what
could he do, so small and drunk like that?
What do you mean that not All of him was
under-developed? Are you kidding me?
like for real? I think I’m going to be sick.
I’ll never be able to show my face in that
bar again. You know, that really sucks.
Now, I’ll have to find someplace else to
celebrate my 21st birthday next year when
I’m finally legal.”
Forward March
after Mary Ellen Mark
The things those girls must have seen
on the street, around the house:
big sisters, Red Hot Mamas at 14,
pregnant at 15, bellies hanging over
stretched pants, dreaming of a spandex
fits, pushup bras, low cuts and too tights,
made up at 10 like queens-for-a-day
with glossy pink lipsticks, eye shadow
and love beads, fake diamond studs
and plastic navel rings, leaning, backs
against bodega store window, tough stuff
looking for trouble, skinny hips thrust forward;
"Gimme, Gimme, Gimme some lovin'"
Sunday afternoon in the South Bronx.
Sympathy for the Devil
After an extended childhood spent
watching MTV stoned on whatever
he could score, he had the alt-rock
look down: Doom Cult t-shirt,
sleeveless and soiled washed from
black to almost gray, beyond tight
dragged out jeans, pointed shit kicker
boots, all the facial hair he could grow
beneath requisite medusa knot locks.
Told all the slumming, punked out,
dive bar queens, pretenders to thrones
of tough and hard, he was the lead
singer in some heavy metal bar band
that was about to make a quantum leap
into the big time, were tuning up for
mega gigs once the studio album was
cut and released. In real life he was a
wannabe roadie known for his skill
at rolling perfect doobies and not
much else. Even terminal losers have
a skill. Kept him vaguely employed,
made him known in all the fringe places
make believe rock stars hung out waiting
to overdoes, a moral’s charge, or a major
drug bust. Getting lucky, for him, was
a hit of not bad acid, some clean Poontang,
and someone else’s demo tape he could
pass off as his own. Had visions of dying,
hitting perfect chords on a wired guitar,
short circuiting waves of electricity instead
of veins, his hair on fire.
The Day the Earth Stood Still
“The girl wearing her grandmother’s shawl,
the girl who sees me with nowhere in my eyes,
says, “I saw you dead last night.” I laugh and
her darkness opens into smiles.” John Allman
Lost highways end in incognito lounges,
shoot ‘em up bang bang bars where beer
flows from foam lipped taps, tepid as
bad water in a glass.
All the Skidrow junkies, former uptown
beauty queens, no name super stars with
their empty-of-life faces, neon lit, all aglow
and perfectly made up for a viewing, lightning
bugs where their eyes used to be.
Outside the picture window, rain falls
like mercury on glass. The classic jukebox
armature is paused above spinning disc
but no music plays. Even car lamps in
the parking lot, switched on, illuminate nothing,
not even the auto-asphyxiation couple before
the deed, striated scarves around their throats
like slowly tightening Mexican neckties,
hands in each other’s pants.
A full metal jacket leaving the muzzle is
stalled inches away from impact. Blood
spatters on graffiti Art walls anticipate
shadows cast on cracked pavement where
the chalk outlines should go.
Yellow incident tape and blue light special
lights advertise one night only.
It has always been like this. Always will be.
Battle of Ascalon
By Kenneth Vincent Walker
The Battle of Ascalon
Considered the last days
Of the First Crusade.
A fortress besieged as
Fires blazed brightly while
Blood flowed to the grave.
The Order of Poor Knights
Of the Temple of Solomon;
Founded in Jerusalem by
The warrior monks brigade
Exemplary in commitment
And bravery unwavering;
As a red cross on a sea of
White wave in the winds
Of time; defenders of the
Faith and of the power
And the glory; ye Templar
Knights of the Divine in
One of history’s anomalies.
The days of chivalry will never end
As long as the heart of lovers blend,
A kiss, a hug, a respectful bow
Throughout the universe in the eternal now.
Novels Await
By K.A. Williams
Stop hesitating.
Library books are waiting.
Try to solve the case before Holmes explains it to Watson.
Root for Count Dracula or Professor Van Helsing.
Join Dorothy and her friends on the yellow brick road.
Watch Robin Hood outwit the Sheriff of Nottingham.
Travel in a time machine and meet the Eloi and Morlocks.
Whatever you choose will be an adventure for you.
You'll experience life from a new point of view.
The Ghosts Between Pages
By Camille Lurree Scott
All agèd books second stories tell,
In penciled thoughts and dog-ears, specters dwell,
Weathered time-worn pages, in these betwixt,
The essence of departed souls affixed.
A date inscribed is history unspoken,
A name alone is mystery unbroken,
A date divides us centuries between,
And faceless names that none alive have seen.
What speaks to me is what spoke most to you;
The words above the underlines you drew,
Hinting at a human mind asleep,
Who left the thoughts that now the living keep.
The touch of hands now pulseless, still, and cold
Yield fragrant marks of constellated mold,
In my hands a tie to history,
Of years and souls that have led up to me.
This Dusty Book
By Kenneth Vincent Walker
I picked up this dusty
Book because I was
So inclined; carefully
Thumbing through its
Worn, torn pages, its
Broken binding/ spine.
Its story was familiar
As it parodied my life.
In reading between the
Lines was a glimmer of
Hope; finding reason
Within the rhyme, as if
Its sole purpose was to
Connect to me by way
Of vibrations undefined;
Remarkably in harmony
And invariably all mine.
Visiting the Library
Poetry Collection by Alan Catlin
First Book
Overheard at a Public Library Book Sale
"What about this book of poems
by Robert Lowell? It's an English
first edition."
"Not worth anything."
"He was a good poet---"
"Doesn't matter. Poetry isn't worth anything.
nobody reads it."
Second Book
The Burning Song Book: A Requiem for Mixed Chorus,
Solo Voices and Orchestra
for Bruce B.
They rise as one as if summoned
from the land of the living
by an accidental sound:
thunder above the outdoor
amphitheater, a rage of sirens
merging with wrecked headlights,
jaws of life, sonic booming
above the collapsing barriers
of light, an imposition of order
from the conductor's baton;
their singing is other worldly,
vaguely Germanic, especially
the deep voices before the first
violins, the basso profundos,
hounds of hell for a black tie affair,
solo female voices from another
quadrant of stage, a shrill echoing
of a soloists keening somewhere off
stage, one voice becoming many;
years before, as a chorus member
at the last staged performance
at Saratoga of the 9th, you said
the view was from behind the timpani
was a limited one but glorious
nonetheless, that there was something
spiritual, that moment when your
voice was added as one to the whole,
an essential ingredient to a thing
so much larger than yourself,
still, that Ode to Joy ends for you
in senseless self-immolation,
the burning song books of a complete
choral repertoire: Alexander Nevsky,
Carmina Burana, the Brahms Requiem---
all the handwritten notes, scrolled
bars and untempered verse dissolving
in gasoline fed fire, tarred flesh, smoke.
Third Book
Remnants
The random scattering of
her life was reduced to mere
paraphernalia, to jottings on
airplane paper, to lists headed:
Wants, Needs, Realistic Expectations,
Unrealistic Goals. Were scraps
of paper left in books found on
flea market tables, estate sale
remnants, along with parts of
letters to friends, lovers,
real and imagined. All of them
never sent, forgotten, maybe meant
to be posted, but probably not,
deferred to books because of
death, disaster or disease,
her ending near and unclear
or just stuff left behind on
the way to somewhere else.
Fourth Book: The Good Book
was the title of his
novel, seventeen years
in the making. and a kind of
cross between Wm Gaddis’s,
The Recognitions and David
Foster Wallace’s, Infinite Jest
and almost as long and as fat
as the two of them pasted
together. Was the most
nominated, the most talked
about book of the season
no one had actually read.
Was voted book of the year
as a hedge against it, somewhere
down the line, becoming a
classic of the age, even though
editors who had actually
delved in, thought it was
a waste of perfectly good trees
but all of them afraid to go on
the record as saying so.
Fifth Book
“She gives the impression of perfectly dressed unhappiness”
Stuart Archer Cohen, 17 Stone Angels
In her youth she was a frail
beauty without substance,
a sonnet without a subject or
a soul. Slept her way to the top
of an ivory tower where what she
wrote was ornamental like books
bought in bulk for their covers
by people who never read.
Rewired her short-circuited brain
with designer drugs until all
that remained inside was a few
frayed wires and scorch marks
after a fire that left so much damage
behind no one would bother to
repair it. Imagined herself as a cast
off clown from a road show always
on the verge of leaving town for
a worse gig somewhere else.
Traveled with a man who’s famous
bullet catching trick failed once
leaving her alone and wondering where
do I go from here? Wore one of those,
“I’m with Stupid” t-shirts that hadn’t
been washed in years, the arrow on her
chest pointing to where the matching shirt
and the man who should have been wearing
it should be, but there was no one to see,
nothing there at all.
Sixth Book
“Always, always...we had nothing
But words.” C. Simic
It’s enough to make you sick
to your stomach- all those wasted
words.
Sartre wrote an autobiographical book
that he called, The Words.
As I recall, he left out all the good
parts, the juicy stuff: all the young
groupies who wanted more than his
mind, nights with Simone after all
the drinking, the smoking, the talking
was done.
Sartre never took a candid photo
of a naked Simone the way one of her
other lovers did.
Instead, he wrote, Being and Nothingness,
and filled up all that space with hundreds
of thousands of words.
Five Poems by Chelsea Lynn LaBate
M A G I C
Magic is being restored to the Earth.
Prepare your heart to lift.
Keep your body clean.
Lay your thoughts out in the light daily.
Stick close to your teachers.
This won’t hurt a bit,
this homecoming,
this short journey to the center.
Let the universe speak to you in tongues.
You’ll understand through invisible ears.
You’ll begin to hear feelings, see sound, taste color.
Your soul will talk to souls without mouths,
without devices.
You’ll become a servant of the sun.
Expect everyday miracles in your car,
at the market, on a rainy Tuesday afternoon.
Realize that nothing is ever broken,
though some lines need rest.
Move into your freedom.
Anticipate the unbelievable.
Honor it as the norm.
Open all your windows to feel the flush of wings.
Make offerings to The One
and all of its cosmic intelligence and wonder.
Stabilize yourself with holy practices -
a garden, a piano, long walks leading nowhere.
Tack yourself to scripture - to its luminous backbone.
Understand its lineage comes to you from
a crease in the future, present and past.
And above all else,
remember we are not going back to the dark days.
Gather your belongings.
Peel off the old times like a faded, tattered suit.
Leave it on the floor and move forward into the Age of Light,
where nothing is predictable and everyone is free.
E C S T A S Y
I should have known
when my dog was speaking
in complete sentences
that it was time to get committed.
Sky in the sky.
Water in water.
Light in the light.
All Worlds became One.
I made it to the top of The Tower
The tower with no roof,
no windows,
no doors,
no locks.
The Tower sweet like ambrosia.
The Tower that welcomes
all who seek it.
The Tower from the sun.
Now I spend my days
accepting I will never speak dog,
their needs are simple,
their messages short.
And there are some rooms
I should simple stay out of,
especially if I am the only Witness.
Good food in my belly,
warm shelter,
a full night’s sleep,
some time with the sea. . .
No need to cross over to
the sides with no sides.
Life is here.
The clouds hold their form.
T H E O N L Y W A Y O U T
Who can fall in love in all this madness?
I don’t ask the universe to explain anything anymore -
the white wings of light, the last breath of death.
I don’t wonder why some fall victim to atrocities
while others squiggle belly up in the grass.
I don’t spend my time trying to meet God in the middle.
I don’t cut corners in hope of celestial intimacy.
I don’t try to prove my worth to any galactic confederations.
I still laugh in my sleep.
Any ascension is better with friends.
Who will meet me?
On those every once in a while days of enlightenment
when the light shines so bright all three eyes fly open
and any negative thought can not pass through the gates of heaven?
When all false stories don’t dare to be made?
When the full moon bows to its master, the sun?
We are all brave warriors.
Flipping shadow to light.
In our weakness finding might.
Shooting arrows in defense.
Tearing down fence lines.
We are witness to injustice and joy.
Inequality and bliss.
The spectrum stretches sky wide.
Color joins in then fades.
We stand up in the bones of our bones,
in the teeth of our teeth,
in the blood of our blood.
The only way out is love.
L I Q U I D G A R D E N
Some schizophrenics find their way back to center.
It is there that The Mother blesses us
and we may receive the badge of holy messenger.
The crown that we thought was shattered
was just letting in more light.
Insanity was only a map to navigating hidden realities.
There’s no static in notes that float like water.
The messages come in clear and bright.
All emissaries understand the need to break through
false renderings of life. All couriers know the way home.
Land matters hurt us.
They burn our antennas.
They chop the day into boxes.
They hang a fake sun.
It’s hard to believe we signed up for this.
The fracturing to become complete.
The mania to become sane.
The life threatening disorientation to become super centered.
The unseeable becomes real. The balance tips.
It is here that we align with frequencies of
elemental intelligence and harvest information from the unseen.
I moved through this life a long time feeling through the dark.
Now my vision has expanded. I can see for others.
Here is to union with your true reality.
Here is to authentic breakthrough.
Here is to the hells that introduce us to heavens.
Here is to the new fleet of untrained seers
who are locked up and earning their wings.
May the fruits of their madness bless you.
May you be soothed by their grace.
T H E N U M I N O U S
I’m on a wave.
Foam crinkles at my back.
Salt water drips from my face.
I dig my hand into the jade green wall
and ride North into the direction of hard truths.
I now feel worthy of knowing
the power of my own light.
No more hiring crooked archers
to take me out.
A band of pelicans moves in,
in perfect formation -
their wings almost kiss the sea.
I am supported by the seen and the unseen.
The entire galaxy has my back.
When I move my body I am in prayer
for those suffering and lost in transition.
When I gain speed the Light of the One
builds inside of me and I send it out
over the Earth -
this Earth - whole in its vision,
this Earth - ripe with ancient secrets,
this Earth - strong in its determination to
shake off this infection of fear,
greed and delusion and return to the Original Balance.
I get out. My feet make prints in the sand.
The sky above me stretches up forever.
Crabs choose their direction.
How will you come to know the totality
of your being when you are in fact, limitless?
How will you understand everything you
hope to become, you already are?
I’ve shed my titles.
I’ve dimmed my ego.
I make my home in the numinous.
His Own Epiphany
By David Thorpe
Storm winds rampaged the night,
Amir shivered,
his goats and sheep safe in stalls
from prowling wolves
in search of quarry.
His parents to bed long retired,
exhausted from their toils,
the door bolted, the candles lit,
his supper awaiting him,
to satisfy his thirst and hunger.
Knocks on the door disturbed silence,
apprehensive Amir opened it ajar,
faces of three strangers greeted
of rank their apparel,
of goodness their countenance.
For the night shelter they begged,
Amir bid them enter,
his sparse supper he shared,
blankets spread for slumber,
for his guests from the Orient.
They awoke with the rising sun,
to travel to Bethlehem, royal city of David,
Amir went with them in reverence to kneel
fore a new born baby boy,
with eyes of wonder
the child of Mary to behold,
his own epiphany.
David Thorpe ©®
Secret Santa
A Confedential Christmas Collection by Alan Catlin
Secret Santa
Every year, the same thing, a secret Santa,
suspicious as a serial killer, a person of interest
in every crime from paper clip thefts
to unauthorized use of office stationery,
of abusing the copying machine, made telephone
calls to places like Fiji, Djibouti, Burkina Faso.
The Santa could be anyone: the always-late guy
in the soiled black overcoat, slinking in, quiet
as a stealth bomber flying under the radar.
Even wet to the skin, caught in some hellacious
cloud burst, clutching his coat closed as if concealing
something close to his body. He must be guilty
of something. Or the guy in accounting who never
speaks, who seems almost blind and lifeless behind
thick glasses, his always rumpled suit, the coffee
stained shirts and ties. He wears a wedding ring but
who would marry him? Or the woman from sales,
who over dresses, who never stops talking:
on the phone, in the john, at the water cooler.
Someone should muzzle her before she spreads
a communicable disease. Even the office manager
looks shaky: his false smiles, his hale-fellow-well-met-
greetings, his just a bit too hard handshake,
has never taking off his jacket no matter how hot
the office gets. Is he carrying a weapon underneath?
Is he a psycho in search of a crime scene?
Maybe he is the one at the inevitable office party,
who spikes the punch, one year with 151 Rum and
Wild Turkey 101, another year, lacing the drinks
with acid. What a mess that was! All those uptight
old ladies tripping their tits off, thanking their lucky
stars for all the bounteous gifts Santa has brought.
And maybe for the inevitable casualties after the festivities.
Who will it be this year? Is someone keeping score?
Making a list and checking it twice?
The no name Santa. The Santa like a surrey with a fringe
on top. The beardless Santa. Never trust a Santa
with no beard. He harbors the worst secrets of all.
Repacking the Ornaments
A lifetime of collecting:
miniature bulbs,
trees to place them on,
hot air balloons,
one Santa Claus for each
of the forty-nine years
of their marriage.
Except the last one.
She in a nursing home,
“getting stronger,”
my father said, but
after he died a few days
into a new year,
we saw he actually
meant, “Dying of cancer.”
Some of the smaller
stuff we brought
for grandkids to admire.
A fifty-year-old,
one-foot-high display
is crushed inside of a minute.
A parent they never
knew, nor could conceive of,
cherished relic, garbage now.
They were four and two.
What did they know?
Holiday Spirits
The after Christmas parties
are the sordid ones, no Mr. and Mrs.
Claus, just all that desperation
and fear, trying to hook up with
last remaining unconnected female/male
standing before time is called, the occasion
turning chronological adults into
morons, acting out their inner
child with party favors, dance steps,
noise makers, silly hats they wouldn’t
be seen in the same room with eleven
months of the year, soul kissing complete
strangers, all reticence abandoned,
drowned by designer cocktails, cheap
champagne, participating in crowd
noise making activities that ordinarily
would be associated with a riot in progress
but is regarded as normal at this moment,
as the party goes on. Heedless to the outcome,
willing, even eager to drive after, to participate
in the human bumper car/pinball game,
contest of life at high speeds on four lane
freeways, tote board scores tallied by spinning
lights: the red, the blue and the white, dead lucky
to wake up at all on the floor, half-naked under
the overturned artificial tree, the dog barking at
the door, frantic to get out.
Friends and Neighbors
After the birth of their
second child, a son, they
decided it was time to
move to the country.
“The city is no place
to bring up a child.
You can’t even play
in the street.”
They didn’t have to say why:
the ignoring-all-speed-limits
hot cars up and down the
hill, all hours of the day,
and night.
The drug deals gone bad:
drive-bys, and Okay Corral
shoot outs, the caravans
of blacked out windows Escalades,
the warning shots fired,
the Fast and Furious road rally
chase scenes in real life.
When they moved, we
swore we’d all keep in touch.
No more Secret Santas.
Phone calls dwindled to
occasional e-mails, cards
at Christmas. Where they
were living was only on
the other side of the river but
it might as well have been on Mars.
When the Fox Action News,
so-tight-to-the-face close-ups,
you wouldn’t recognize the person
but you knew every acne scar,
chicken pock scratched, bike
accident blemish, the news
item seemed incidental.
(stanza break)
Incidental until you heard
the news reader’s final word:
their son’s name, killed by a
hit and run drunk driver,
who would never be caught,
on a country road, just the other
side of the river. All you could
do was wish they’d never left,
as you never had before.
Turkey Roasting
By Mike Mesterton-Gibbons
The Yuletide feast makes turkey children mourn:
Until a week before, their mom and pop
Rejoiced with them on mountains of fresh corn
Kids then see parents sentenced to the chop!
Expressions of condolence don't abound:
You can't expect a butcher to feel sad,
Regaled at Christmas dinner with a mound
Of stuffing, sauce and roasted mom and dad.
A veggie is the only one who'll care:
Simpatico with turkeys, pigs and steers,
The veggie murders only meatless fare,
Intent on causing turkey babes no tears ...
Noel's the time when only veggies bear
Glad tidings to young turkeys everywhere!
Above: Patrick Duffy and Victoria Principal in "Dallas"
Victoria's Secret
Poetry Collection by Alan Catlin
Victoria's Secret
All the details had been
worked out in advance:
the makeup kit her girl
friend had waiting for her
on the bus, a silk negligee
in a beige plastic super
market bag, the night case
with all the stuff for a
night with the girl’s pillow
fighting, pizza scarfing &
horror movies, stuff both
girls outgrew years ago but
their parents weren't paying
attention to how their daughters
were now full-fledged women,
all of 15 and sleepovers meant
an official cover story for what
they were really doing in case
Mom called while the dolled
up daughter was in some All
Sports Varsity Letterman's
bedroom, learning the arts of
all over body massaging & 101
uses for Kama Sutra oil, half of
which her mom couldn't imagine,
in mood light cast by lava lamps,
an ethereal glow that matched
the reefer madness they shared,
making one night seem to last
as long as a thousand.
The Cosmopolitan Variations
The latest composition he was
working on this, probably of age,
petite blonde becoming more
amenable to sexual innuendo,
salacious commentary, bold
suggestions, with each, variation
on a theme, Cosmo, he was
concocting as he spoke, loading
every cocktail with industrial
strength, defense mechanism
removing, lime tinted Vodka,
more certain of his powers
of persuasion with each sip taken,
an effect more salubrious than
date rape drugging with fewer
lasting side effects, unless, of
course, she was driving home
after and there was someone,
wherever home was, waiting up
with a loaded pump action, he
wasn't afraid to use.
Backwoods Cowboy
He had everything but male chauvinist
pig painted on the side of the truck
he cared for more than the woman he abused
the same way he did everything in his life
as if they were no deposit, no return
disposable objects of no relevance beyond
the immediacy of his highly localized needs.
Worshipped before an altar made of NASCAR
decals and bottle cap statues made from the long
neck Buds he drank before the fifty-inch plasma,
watching the tour and swearing the only real men
left were the ones behind the wheel even when
they weren’t men or talked like castrato after
all those years of hitting the pavement so hard
their testicles ascended, not that there wasn’t
always a showcase blonde waiting at the checkered
flags to kiss his ass when he drove the pedal to
the metal home.
He had some kind of regular job when the weather
was good and the market were right in and
he was between tours of the state prison system where
his choice in thematically violent tattoos and the odd white
power phrase was helpful in getting him through
all those long days and nights on the yard, where his
shaved head made him just like one of the boys,
though as soon as was released he let his hair grow long
so that the more obvious skull tattoos no longer advertised
those allegiances he’d sworn on his life to uphold.
Out on parole in barely legal honky tonks he pontificates,
“A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do.”
to his whole sick crew, a bottle of Rolling Rock
in one hand and a shot of Wild Turkey 101 in the other
while he speaks, oblivious to certain facts: he has no license
to drive, wasn’t allowed in bars while on parole and his
vehicle was well-known by every law enforcement officer
in a six-county radius, all of whom he’d been pissing
off his entire adult existence, all of whom were just sitting
about waiting for closing time, eagerly anticipating
a fully involved ride of a lifetime to hell and back
and who knew where after that.
Pharmacopeia
If she had been a singer
she’d have been a natural
for the role of Sally Bowles,
every day of her life a Cabaret,
working the night shift as
a student nurse, swearing love
and total allegiance to the man
she lived with while screwing
interns, doctors, pharmacy
students at work in empty rooms,
locked closets, rest rooms,
doors jammed shut or not,
all for whatever pills they could
provide her: reds, blues, yellows,
whatever would take her up,
down or sideways,
though it was mostly the down
she was desperate to feed
layering it with alcohol and joyless
sex and she was just good enough
looking and proficient to get by,
to secure a permanent position,
though even the best blow job in town
couldn’t change the inventory of all
those restricted substances she somehow
accessed from locked cabinets or
by switching meds with the terminal
or those too inarticulate to complain
until the shortages could no longer be
covered and the accusing fingers all
directly pointed to her. Years later,
license revoked, all of forty-one years
old, threatened with renal failure
she treats her malady with Finlandia
and Skol, watching the soaps and
remembering those nights on the ward
whistling show tunes and songs by Heart,
two reds into her shift and six to go.
Murder, My Sweet
They called themselves freelancers,
stringers for some murder tourist rag
that imagined human suffering and
atrocity exhibitions were the last pure
sensations left to man. Preferably
copiously illustrated in lurid colors,
the more graphic the better.
Have passports stamped at every hot spot
on the planet as if they were hop scotching
to every danger zone in a race against time
to see who could rack up the most frequent
flyer miles, to the most inhospitable places.
A few weeks in a remote outback, or
a jungle wattle and daub hut, and they
would be willing to sell their souls for
an eight pack of pre-made Slippery Nipple
shooters. Consorted with all the local gangsters,
professional killer, and pallbearers, free
basing coke and, whatever else was on the
menu, in an attempt to blend in. Reported on
places so bleak, in a style so whacked out
it was almost impossible to read, but on they
went and their assignments tripled. Ended up
somewhere the whores all had black roots
growing out as all the peroxide had gone to
treating the wounded, and there were always
more wounded than any makeshift clinic
could handle.
Said sex under fire was the hottest ever.
Nothing was a bigger turn on than imminent
death, assuming they would cruise through
unscathed, just as they had everywhere else.
Amazing how wrong a person could be about
a simple thing like that.
Play It as It Lays
After she’d slept with all
the summer clubmen and
their able-bodied hangers-on,
there was nothing to do and
endless weeks ahead to do it in.
The only one of the so-called
men who had excited her was
a shy, barely verbal, busboy
she’d mercy fucked out of the
goodness of her heart.
Afterwards he’d been unable
to look at her directly, dropped
dishes whenever she was around.
Had become so useless there
was talk of dismissal which
devolved to the level of idle talk
now that ICE had made casual
labor almost impossible to secure.
Even a few hours of restorative
nude sunbathing failed to revive
her as it always had in the past.
Dreamt of speedballs and discos,
eighteen hours of non-stop dancing
totally enthralled by the heat of
the crowd, the sound of the techno.
Lost herself at the rave to end all raves.
The one where the light show at the end
of the mind bent her in ways that could
never be straightened out.
The Secret Life of Words
After the dream of a thousand cuts
that will not end and the wounds
that refuse to heal.
After the nursing someone worse
that near-dead, back to life, while
your own pain, both inside and out,
is so intense, it is impossible to share.
After the passion of a Hiroshima
Mon Amour love has died, the shaved
head of desire.
After the inscribing of a tattoo of
a phoenix rising on her pubic bone,
birds of paradise on her hips, her breasts-
after that, the longing that suggests a
deep water blowout resides inside,
then the spreading oil stain of her face.
After all the stitches, the clamps,
the stapled, the butterfly kiss of nylon
thread through skin: The Secret Life of
Words, Breaking the Waves, The Piano
Teacher, The Piano, all the irreparable,
damaged women mutilated by love.
Victoria's Secret
Poetry Collection by Alan Catlin
Victoria's Secret
All the details had been
worked out in advance:
the makeup kit her girl
friend had waiting for her
on the bus, a silk negligee
in a beige plastic super
market bag, the night case
with all the stuff for a
night with the girl’s pillow
fighting, pizza scarfing &
horror movies, stuff both
girls outgrew years ago but
their parents weren't paying
attention to how their daughters
were now full-fledged women,
all of 15 and sleepovers meant
an official cover story for what
they were really doing in case
Mom called while the dolled
up daughter was in some All
Sports Varsity Letterman's
bedroom, learning the arts of
all over body massaging & 101
uses for Kama Sutra oil, half of
which her mom couldn't imagine,
in mood light cast by lava lamps,
an ethereal glow that matched
the reefer madness they shared,
making one night seem to last
as long as a thousand.
The Cosmopolitan Variations
The latest composition he was
working on this, probably of age,
petite blonde becoming more
amenable to sexual innuendo,
salacious commentary, bold
suggestions, with each, variation
on a theme, Cosmo, he was
concocting as he spoke, loading
every cocktail with industrial
strength, defense mechanism
removing, lime tinted Vodka,
more certain of his powers
of persuasion with each sip taken,
an effect more salubrious than
date rape drugging with fewer
lasting side effects, unless, of
course, she was driving home
after and there was someone,
wherever home was, waiting up
with a loaded pump action, he
wasn't afraid to use.
Backwoods Cowboy
He had everything but male chauvinist
pig painted on the side of the truck
he cared for more than the woman he abused
the same way he did everything in his life
as if they were no deposit, no return
disposable objects of no relevance beyond
the immediacy of his highly localized needs.
Worshipped before an altar made of NASCAR
decals and bottle cap statues made from the long
neck Buds he drank before the fifty-inch plasma,
watching the tour and swearing the only real men
left were the ones behind the wheel even when
they weren’t men or talked like castrato after
all those years of hitting the pavement so hard
their testicles ascended, not that there wasn’t
always a showcase blonde waiting at the checkered
flags to kiss his ass when he drove the pedal to
the metal home.
He had some kind of regular job when the weather
was good and the market were right in and
he was between tours of the state prison system where
his choice in thematically violent tattoos and the odd white
power phrase was helpful in getting him through
all those long days and nights on the yard, where his
shaved head made him just like one of the boys,
though as soon as was released he let his hair grow long
so that the more obvious skull tattoos no longer advertised
those allegiances he’d sworn on his life to uphold.
Out on parole in barely legal honky tonks he pontificates,
“A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do.”
to his whole sick crew, a bottle of Rolling Rock
in one hand and a shot of Wild Turkey 101 in the other
while he speaks, oblivious to certain facts: he has no license
to drive, wasn’t allowed in bars while on parole and his
vehicle was well-known by every law enforcement officer
in a six-county radius, all of whom he’d been pissing
off his entire adult existence, all of whom were just sitting
about waiting for closing time, eagerly anticipating
a fully involved ride of a lifetime to hell and back
and who knew where after that.
Pharmacopeia
If she had been a singer
she’d have been a natural
for the role of Sally Bowles,
every day of her life a Cabaret,
working the night shift as
a student nurse, swearing love
and total allegiance to the man
she lived with while screwing
interns, doctors, pharmacy
students at work in empty rooms,
locked closets, rest rooms,
doors jammed shut or not,
all for whatever pills they could
provide her: reds, blues, yellows,
whatever would take her up,
down or sideways,
though it was mostly the down
she was desperate to feed
layering it with alcohol and joyless
sex and she was just good enough
looking and proficient to get by,
to secure a permanent position,
though even the best blow job in town
couldn’t change the inventory of all
those restricted substances she somehow
accessed from locked cabinets or
by switching meds with the terminal
or those too inarticulate to complain
until the shortages could no longer be
covered and the accusing fingers all
directly pointed to her. Years later,
license revoked, all of forty-one years
old, threatened with renal failure
she treats her malady with Finlandia
and Skol, watching the soaps and
remembering those nights on the ward
whistling show tunes and songs by Heart,
two reds into her shift and six to go.
Murder, My Sweet
They called themselves freelancers,
stringers for some murder tourist rag
that imagined human suffering and
atrocity exhibitions were the last pure
sensations left to man. Preferably
copiously illustrated in lurid colors,
the more graphic the better.
Have passports stamped at every hot spot
on the planet as if they were hop scotching
to every danger zone in a race against time
to see who could rack up the most frequent
flyer miles, to the most inhospitable places.
A few weeks in a remote outback, or
a jungle wattle and daub hut, and they
would be willing to sell their souls for
an eight pack of pre-made Slippery Nipple
shooters. Consorted with all the local gangsters,
professional killer, and pallbearers, free
basing coke and, whatever else was on the
menu, in an attempt to blend in. Reported on
places so bleak, in a style so whacked out
it was almost impossible to read, but on they
went and their assignments tripled. Ended up
somewhere the whores all had black roots
growing out as all the peroxide had gone to
treating the wounded, and there were always
more wounded than any makeshift clinic
could handle.
Said sex under fire was the hottest ever.
Nothing was a bigger turn on than imminent
death, assuming they would cruise through
unscathed, just as they had everywhere else.
Amazing how wrong a person could be about
a simple thing like that.
Play It as It Lays
After she’d slept with all
the summer clubmen and
their able-bodied hangers-on,
there was nothing to do and
endless weeks ahead to do it in.
The only one of the so-called
men who had excited her was
a shy, barely verbal, busboy
she’d mercy fucked out of the
goodness of her heart.
Afterwards he’d been unable
to look at her directly, dropped
dishes whenever she was around.
Had become so useless there
was talk of dismissal which
devolved to the level of idle talk
now that ICE had made casual
labor almost impossible to secure.
Even a few hours of restorative
nude sunbathing failed to revive
her as it always had in the past.
Dreamt of speedballs and discos,
eighteen hours of non-stop dancing
totally enthralled by the heat of
the crowd, the sound of the techno.
Lost herself at the rave to end all raves.
The one where the light show at the end
of the mind bent her in ways that could
never be straightened out.
The Secret Life of Words
After the dream of a thousand cuts
that will not end and the wounds
that refuse to heal.
After the nursing someone worse
that near-dead, back to life, while
your own pain, both inside and out,
is so intense, it is impossible to share.
After the passion of a Hiroshima
Mon Amour love has died, the shaved
head of desire.
After the inscribing of a tattoo of
a phoenix rising on her pubic bone,
birds of paradise on her hips, her breasts-
after that, the longing that suggests a
deep water blowout resides inside,
then the spreading oil stain of her face.
After all the stitches, the clamps,
the stapled, the butterfly kiss of nylon
thread through skin: The Secret Life of
Words, Breaking the Waves, The Piano
Teacher, The Piano, all the irreparable,
damaged women mutilated by love.
Clapton’s Layla
By Kenneth Vincent Walker
As desire at times
Misfires the timing
Never quite right as
Clapton’s Layla looks
So wonderful tonight.
Pattie Boyd (Harrison)
The forbidden fruit of
The vine; the heroine
Unrequited as heroin
Sadly fills in the void.
Crawling across the
Floor in desperation
For a love so divine;
May not be enough,
Yet to endure is the
Cruelest of crimes.
A Shakespearean Sonnet
Edward and Elizabeth
(Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville)
By David Thorpe
From his betrothed, her beauty turned his head
His lords opposed, she of Lancastrian blood
Unheeding, Edward in secret did she wed
Crowned Queen Elizabeth her ground she stood
The price paid would be high in later years
First be joy on birth of a Prince of Wales
For after the laughter came floods of tears
Power for the Queen´s kindred at court prevails
Jealousy, intrigue in abundance foretold
On Edward´s death a turn detrimental
His brother Richard fate of England controlled
The Queen and the Princes in dire peril
Two in the Tower never seen again
Richard, without his horse, at Bosworth slain
David Thorpe ©®
(King Edward IV of England was succeeded
By his son Edward V, probably murdered
together with his brother Richard in the Tower of London,
on orders of their uncle Richard, who proclaimed himself King Richard III.
On King Richard´s death at the Battle of Bosworth,
the Lancastrian Henry Tudor was later
crowned Henry VII of England and married
Elizabeth of York, thus the beginning of the Tudor dynasty.
Henry VII, Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary I, and Elizabeth I)
An Acrostic Sonnet
By Mike Mesterton-Gibbons
Owl and Pussy Cat
Owl courted Pussy in a pea-green boat
With lots of banknotes and a small guitar.
Love blossomed as he cleared his owlish throat
And twanged and sang, "How beautiful you are!"
Notes from his mouth were far off key, but she
Desired the other notes he'd wisely shown.
Puss lied: "How charmingly you sing for me,
Upon guitar, the sweetest voice I've known!"
She said: "Let us be wed. We need a ring."
So off they sailed to Bong-Tree Land. A whole
Year later there, a Piggy-wig's nose bling
Cost just a shilling, and fulfilled their goal.
A turkey wed them. Now they have three sirs:
Two flying cats, one owl who mews and purrs!
Autumnal Sonnet
By Pawel Markiewicz
The mist heralds a dreamy, tender Apollonian dawn.
I philosophize about wings of hawk or king – sparrow.
In amazing grove at the Blue Hours – was born here a fawn.
You should adore as well as praise charm such a moony morn.
The beauty of world is indeed so pulchritudinous.
The autumnal meek leaves, having danced, at fallish stone, lie.
The picturesque mist is shrouded in mood of a sorcery.
I muse about my bosom full of druidic light dream.
The nightingale is under a starlet bewildering.
Flights of birdies are the moon-like thankful melancholy.
The autumnal mood is never ending, sometimes dazzling.
I have fallen in love with wizardly-like fantasy.
The fall belongs to bright Morning star with the enchantment.
I love forever - the Moon in the dearest bewitchment.
Frida y Diego
By Kenneth Vincent Walker
Never has there
Been a woman
Prior who could
Exude such an
Oozing pain by
Way of paint.
An artist of bold
Dynamic colors,
Old enough to be
Her father, drawn
Together forever;
Perhaps by fate.
Frida epitomizes
Freedom of self-
Expression and
Determination as
Diego champions
The Marxist state.
Their open love
Affair/ marriage
Legendary yet
Confrontational,
But spiritually
Were undeniably
Creativity incarnate.
Birds of Paradise
A Poetry Collection Searching for the Light
By Alan Catlin
1.
Dawn without sun.
Birds of paradise flush with light.
Their tail feathers rise and fall as they fly,
leaving rainbows behind that
emerge from the earth as flower
blooms.
Later when
everything is still-
a rain of feathers
2.
The Journey
(for Leonard Cirino, r.i.p.)
Long winding path through the Pygmy Forest
at rainbow’s end.
A scatter of leaves along the way.
Up ahead a dog barks for the man to follow.
Soon the darkness swallows them both.
3.
Fantastic Landscape with Moonglow
Everything seems clearer than it is:
Evergreen hedges spotted with spectral light,
rose thorns tapered with flaming sticks,
maple leaves and wild grape vines electric
with unseen currents.
Even the night sky has rainbow
4.
Emily Dickinson’s #9 Dream
Piano music from darkened,
conservancy/death room.
Her brother Austin’s house
and her best friend Sue’s.
Their spirit shapes in upstairs
bedroom windows. Illicit lovers
escaping into Homestead woods
through open, Dutch door
A double rainbow graces the sky.
5.
St Croix Nights
Terrified of tropical storms
in Summer. Of the torrential rain,
straight down lightning. Thunder.
Sixty years later, upstate New York,
the same kind of rain. The same fear returning.
No rainbow after
6.
Above the gravel pit.
Where excavators cut seams into
the hillside leaving sinkholes rain fills.
Pond scum and rainbow patterns
gasoline leaves on water.
Rotting stumps, ruts where the trees were.
Where the funeral boxes were.
Bones and dried skin among the wasp nests.
Remains scattered as dust is.
Night sky-no clouds, no moon, nothin.
It Came From Outer Space
Poetry Collection by Alan Catlin
Fata Morgana
“In Paradise you call ‘Hello’ without seeing anybody.
Where you quarrel with strangers to avoid having friends.
In Paradise man is born dead.” voice over, Fata Morgana
Which is the chimera, the desert runway
the airplanes land on or the planes themselves?
The Mayan creation text or the ruined plains
the humans live on? All that natural landscaping,
beauty defiled by oil well burn offs.
Endless seeming tracking shots of the crap needed
to drill for oil: the pipes, the flat beds, the wire
enclosed camps, the concrete box storage bins,
acres of barrels, the empty and the filled.
All the glorious mounds of sand, shaped by winds,
undulate towers breaking like waves whose grading
has holes that seem more like bomb craters than
nature’s carving, as more of the despoiling of
the landscape is revealed. Downed airplanes,
on their roof cars, trucks without wheels made into homes,
buttressed with metal coca cola signs, vehicle doors,
parts from machines left to bake in unrelenting sun
along with the starved no longer wild, life. The hoofed
and the winged picked clean by insects and by flesh feeders,
nothing left but exposed bones and dried skin.
This is what paradise becomes: a blind man in a cave
led by woman with a radio on her shoulder,
boys in soiled sheeting holding large eared puppy dogs
in strangle holds or dragging them through sand
sand on a leash, black kids taught German phrases
they mouth and know not the meaning of, assuming
fighting poses as Leonard Cohen tracks songs of Love
and Hate; “Suzanne” and “Goodbye Marianne” in hell,
where a two-piece band plays for Dante: a blind drummer
singing in a language impossible to understand,
a voice more like white noise than music and a woman
playing a piano not consulting her sheet music,
con brio in a key that bears no relation to the drums.
No one listening as they play here near the End Times
scenes in the desert where heads bob up from craters,
unspoken phrases pinned to their lips, unable to escape
their sand traps, consigned to a task of rising and falling
making no more sense than this place that looks like
an aerial view of amoebae in water from space, on a planet
like Mars, where even the illusions are real.
They were like
unstrung cosmic puppets
walking around in some
kind of comprehensive,
self-induced, comas.
The leader of the group
spoke in a dialect of slur,
projected through cracked,
pale lips by an off-stage
ventriloquist, with an evil sense
of humor, making requests
for unattainable, alcoholic
concoctions that could only
be made in an off-world bar in
a cafe like the one Han Solo
did time in between
flights, waiting for the next
Star Wars episode,
or, at least, that was the way
I tried to explain his lack of
communication skills
in terms he might understand.
"We're not getting through
to you," he said, and I replied,
"At least, we agree on something."
and found something else more
important to attend to while
he awaited new messages from
home base.
The Man Who Fell to Earth
Half-sleeping in the heat,
some kind of alien invasion
movie on the TV, maybe,
“It Came from Outer Space,”
or, maybe, “The Man Who Fell
to Earth”, frozen wastes
replaced by desert planet
well beyond a dark side of
the moon, Holst music,
“The Planets Suite” becoming
“Mars Bringer of War” morphing
into Bowie singing,
“….. .. I’m putting out the fire
with gasoline, I’m putting out
the fire………” lucid dreaming now,
so thirsty in the night, so thirsty
and all the water gone, only
Beefeaters and ice, all my pretty
ones dying in the sun burst, arid,
never changing night no rain ever
falls in, heat lightning and random
light, pale white men with cat’s
eyes, reflected visions in a bathroom
cabinet mirror, dissecting the dreamer
awake in another man’s dream of
somewhere else, gunfire in the street,
the first awakening into a long hell
to come.
Zombie Strippers
There must be a moral and a story
buried somewhere beneath all that
hideous makeup. An unfortunate,
small, random sampling of
movie scenes, suggest there were
not enough letters in the alphabet
to downgrade it, sort of like a grade Z
minus sigma nu rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
Why anyone, even a pudgy dweeb,
an over the hill studly, and well-dressed black
man, all of whom should have known better,
could find these scantily clad, barely able
to ambulate, ghoul faced hags, hot, was
beyond comprehension. As was all three
of them accepting back stage invitations
to be objects of some kind of gory lap dance,
movable feast. But this was not the kind of
of movie that allowed for questions about
faulty logic, plot consistency or deep
emotional commitments. Consulting
summary of movie during ads revealed
little other than the star was a porn actress
of some repute, once upon a time, known
for her talents on screen not generally
confused with Art. Maybe this was
the kind of feature where past-it sex
stars went to revive their flagging careers
forever, recruiting new flesh as they worked
in a never-say-die-kind-of way.
The unanswered question of substance must be,
do breast implants matter in Zombieland?
Mind Parasites
They are as malleable as plastic figurines,
space vampires and mind parasites,
come in all sizes and shapes, determined
by phases of a solar system of planetary
moons and radical changes in climates
these phases may produce. Life-sized
replicas are available for purchase online
for true believers at an introductory, one time
only, rate of 488 dollars plus shipping and
handling.
These alien creatures often masquerade as
angels, hiding inside burning bushes or on
the edge of wild fires of indeterminate cause.
Are known to speak in tongues extinct since
the last days of the Tower of Babel and can only
be interpreted by psychics trained in the art
of ciphering unknown tongues.
Infra-red cameras capture their images as blurry
smears impossible to determine as true shapes or
finger smudges. They appear as shining dots
on star charts often confused with super nova
stars or cosmic event residues, but at such great
distances, who could determine accurately which
they are?
Sun worshippers built temples that are still being
unearthed by scientists who cannot explain
how their civilizations worked, if in fact,
they appeared at all.
Their acolytes are legion to this day, said to be
recruited through brain wave effusions, interceptions,
where extracted thoughts are modified and thoughts
stifled to create the illusion of free will.
Like the gods of yore, they rule without mercy,
exacting vengeance for violations of strict codes
contained by unwritten laws. Their history has
been written with invisible inks. Hold the handmade
paper it was inscribed on up to the light and
the documents dissolve.
It Came from Outer Space
A screaming comes across the sky,
not a Von Braun rocket, part of gravity’s
decomposing rainbow, not a meteor as
authorities inevitably proclaim but a cheesy,
glow –in-the-dark, crash landing, space craft
marooned in Arizona desert watched by
stargazing couple on clear night, no one believes.
They who go there some kind of protoplasmic,
one-eyed, see-through creature, able to body snatch
humans they replicate in form, but not in manner,
hoping for low profile helpers while repairing
damaged ship. Xenophobic citizens, being human,
seek a permanent solution, violence against the unknown,
without information gathering: they mean no harm,
but, we, for the greater good, have no interest in
explanations or arguments over intent versus accident.
One man, against all others, aids their escape,
not without fatal consequences, and life, more or less,
goes on. The world was black and white in those
days, now we are blinded by color.
Quantum Poetry by Kenneth Vincent Walker
Bending Time
Bending Time; may not
Be on your mind, but it
Is on mine from the day,
The moment we parted
I started peering behind.
Bending time; may be a
Farce or may be a way
To redirect our course
To a place and time to
Change and move the
Lines in such a way as
To realign the universe;
And redesign all we may
Reimagine or redefine
Merely by bending time.
Seven Sisters
‘Seven Sisters’ of
Universal fame
Sparkle, bedazzle
Beyond our widest
Imaginary dreams.
Lightyears away in
An illustrious cluster
On display lighting
Up the docile sky to
Enlightened minds.
‘Seven Sisters’ of
Interstellar acclaim
Together forever
They’ll remain as
Their adopted name
Succinctly implies;
‘Ladies of Pleiades’
In celebratory light.
Oceans of Europa
Within the iced
Over oceans of
Europa, one of
Jupiter’s orbital
Galilean moons.
At bare minimum
Swim microbes
In abundance and
At maximum are
Creatures beyond
Imagination’s realm.
For where there is
Water, there is life,
There is substance;
You didn’t think we
Were alone amongst
The infinite stars?
Nourishment strives,
Thrives on supplying
Sustenance; whether
It be here, near or afar.
Phedolia
By David Thorpe
The cosmic wars had long been over,
the mutants proving to have been superior,
an enslaved Earth now a satellite
of the mutant planet, Kostropolis
*
Although some Earthlings still classed as slaves,
laboured as servants in menial occupations,
others had achieved a hierarchy with civil rights,
allowing males to contract marriage with mutants
*
Artheminus a noble Earthling had fallen in love
with Phedolia, a lady of rank on Kostropolis,
whose feelings for the Earthling were reciprocal,
she knowing, however, the price their marriage would demand
*
Were nuptials to take place, Phedolia would be transformed
into an Earthling of the hierarchy of her husband,
losing, however, all her birth-right privileges,
never again to regain her mutant essence
*
Artheminus feared Phedolia´s decision would be to his disfavour,
but her heart had known where happiness waited,
her call to arms, the arms of her husband to be,
confirming that sacrifice be the greatest proof of love.
David Thorpe ©®
God and Angels
By Lakella L. Davenport
Just a thing that I go through
Just a thing got me all confused
To contemplate
Hard to discern
In effect relate
Nothing can help this
Can’t help this
Don’t know what to do with it
Inebriated
Full of what
What has no beginning
Caught somewhere far
Not even in between
The lies but must
Must be beyond that
God and Angels
God and Angels
Spiritual paradise
Feeding my soul
Hungry for that
Cleansing from within
Outward man
Outward appearance
A trance of that
Somewhat hard
To decipher what meaning
Lies somewhere far
Not even in between
God and Angels
God and Angels
Mysterious songs
Gleeful praise
Melodies, melodies
What meaning
Lies somewhere far
Not even in between
God and Angels
He’s been All Over the World
By Lakella L. Davenport
He’s been all over the world
A connoisseur of wine
He’s been to Paris, to Italy, to Sweden, To Spain, even to the Netherlands
He’s been all over the world
Tasting fine wines and aged cheeses
Indulging in delicate masterpiece dishes
Eating the most delicious sweets
Sending boxes and pounds of samples of each
He’s been all over the world
Fighting and loving
Loving and hating
Hating and mating
Kicking and punching
Wearing his ragged belt
Sending cards that make your spirit melt
A champion of the ring
A large silver thing to the case he brings
He’s been all over the world
Oooh We, We, We.
The River of Joy
By Lakella L. Davenport
The River of Joy
Where can it be found?
Is it hidden underneath the aqueous ground?
Is it soaked in the chicken fat on top of Mama Bertha’s stove?
Is it a hidden treasure within an old man’s soul?
The River of Joy
Where can it be found?
In between the lace of sister May’s gown
Or the lines of a daddy’s frown
Or the greenbacks stored in greed’s town
The River of Joy resounds
Inside the heart of a man who has found
God’s love without bounds.
Oh! I am
By Pulkita Anand
Oh! I am so happy
I am pregnant with a poem
You didn’t remember the night though
Will it be like you or me
Will, you take care of it,
Oh! I am so sad
You don’t remember anything
Will I be able to give birth to it?
Will I be able to take care of it
Oh! I am hurt
You slapped me with your language
Will you mind and mend your words
Oh! I am lost
You have strewn your anger everywhere
Will you care to help me
Oh! I am old
You fell into the pool of thoughts
Will you be drowned
Will you see my poem laying there
Orinoco
By David Thorpe
Slowly melts the horizon into the arising flame,
spreading its warmth over the awakening green lung,
through which the wooden chalana,
flat bottomed not to hurt the lurking,
chugs downstream the main artery.
*
A mid-day breath of air disperses
the stickiness clinging to our skin,
children half naked wave a forever farewell,
then take their running dives into the murky water.
*
Securely fastened to the bamboo landing,
we step ashore in Indian file,
trying not to awake the mission`s guard,
a dozing nutria killing time till tomorrow.
*
A young Panare boy, Bartolomé,
his big smile from ear to ear,
shows his gift we gave him,
from our local bank, a pen writing blue,
to an Irish nun he called Sister Siobhán.
*
He promised to pray for us;
should we have better prayed for him?
A secluded back-water where river dolphins
play their carefree game
of emerge and submerge
before a photograph could be taken.
*
The evening spreads its shadows,
the towering white Spanish fortress
awaiting a forgotten foe,
turns a blushing pink,
its impotent canons long silenced.
*
The curtain of the night falls,
the heat abates its intensity,
silhouettes of herons stain a sky of crimson,
their tormented cries violate the stillness,
for a while, the silence,
till jungle noises render their lullaby
and in our swaying hammocks
we close our eyes to dream.
David Thorpe ©®
Dreaming of Summer
A Poetry Collection by Alan Catlin
Dreaming of Summer
Plastic flamingoes in
the snow.
Icicles where their beaks
should be.
Sudden Downpour
No umbrella to unfold.
Too late now, anyway!
Return
Wilted flowers in blown
glass vase;
too long away from home.
Legacy
Weeding the vegetable garden
of crabgrass and milkweed,
I remember my grandmother.
Gettysburg, PA, Summer One Hundred Years After the Fact
Two thousand men lay dead in the mind,
on the lawn, looking down wind toward the
Confederate battery costs a quarter for timed
viewing: the first lines of them are coming at
a run, waving their flags and their arms,
charging uphill into an entrenched company
of blue clad men, firing at will, unaware of
how it will look, one hundred years later
to the tourists who collect post cards and
cheap souvenirs of their wasted lives,
unintentionally carving the stone eyes they
use to look inside, into the future, where
the war memorial statues must take up their arms
at night and shoot out stars.
Summer camp
off season, light
evening rain
turns to fog
over pond by
dawn; emergent
forms call out
each to each
as loons are
wont to do
These Barren Fields in Late Summer
after Vincent
Hay stacked besides
still water. Heat shivers
above dried fields.
Crows plunder all those
barren, exposed roots.
The sky stretched thin
as taut wire, vibrating
where wings assault
the air
Three Poems by Kenneth Vincent Walker
The Radiance of the Sun
Kiawah Island and her
Laughing gulls in the
Radiant sun; tanning
Lotion in the corners of
My eyes, but I care not
‘Cause I’m still young.
Well, maybe not really
That young but truly so
At heart where it counts.
So mock away all you
Giddy gulls jabbering in
The noonday sun. Tho
Time is fleeting as I’ve
Been cheating death
Seemingly from day one.
My epic travels will run
Out of steam I’m afraid,
But we’ll not concern
Ourselves in such serious-
Ness nor absurdities in an
Inevitable descending run;
While basking below the
Scintillating totality of
This solar spectacular in
The radiance of the sun.
Sunburn Sacrifice
Wrapped in a towel
Shielded from neck
To toe from the sun;
Straw fedora atop
And sunglasses on.
Radiant rays much
More intensified here
Increasing my melanin
I fear. So stand clear.
Enjoy the atmosphere.
Prepare my dear to
Be subtly pan-seared.
The Shoreline
(of Our Soul)
Our last day at the
Shore was a breezy
One of course as if
The wind gusts were
Bidding us fond adieu;
And reluctant we were
To go, to leave this
Tranquil place we’ve
Come to know so well;
As waves swell upon
The shoreline of our soul.
So we flew back to where
We were once longing to
Leave anxiously eager to
Go to a tranquil place in
The sun stranded upon
The shoreline of our soul.
Two Acrostic Sonnets by Mike Mesterton-Gibbons
Itinerant Thumb?
I hoped to travel, so I raised my thumb
To hitch a ride. As cars rolled by at speed,
I tried to look not too much like a bum,
Nor like a wanted fugitive in need ...
Experienced hitch-hikers thumbed a ride
Repeatedly. I tried to ape their stance
And moved my spot to where they weren't denied,
Not realizing that I stood no chance
Till from the spot where I first stood, some guy
Took off at once. What did he know to do?
How hard is making just one car stop by?---
Unless the problem isn't what, but who!
Must I admit I'd never make the grade? ...
Back home I trudged. It's where I should have stayed!
Caroline E. Henry
Caught speeding five times in 12 weeks last year,
As I rushed round to Make Notts Safe, must I
Resign, or if I manage to steer clear
Of speed cops, can I now post-justify? ...
Lib Dems edged me last May to PCC.
I promised cops' response to any wheels
Not clocked below the posted speed would be
Effective and efficient. Now it feels
Embarrassing: when I resolved to test
How well my scheme would work, I overlooked
Explaining to my cops not to arrest
Nice, civic-minded me, and I got booked.
Resign? No way! Response was unsurpassed ...
Yet not ideal——six times drove I too fast!
Poetic Microstories
by K.A. Williams
Nap Time
She put her son to bed,
careful of his head,
“It’s nap time again,”
she said with a grin.
At exactly 12:10,
she let the man in.
He said, “What a handsome lad.
Does he look like his dad?”
“Yes, but not as tall.”
She giggled in the hall.
Later he said, “It’s been fun,
but I have to run.”
She walked him to the door
and they kissed some more.
She said, “Dinner’s at eight,
so don’t come home late.”
Bob The Burglar
Bob the burglar planned the perfect crime
He broke in a bank and stole every dime
But Bob didn’t win
Cause his mom turned him in
So now Bob’s in the pen doing time
First published in Nuthouse Magazine in 2011.
Yard Sale Blues
My spouse said, "Let's
have a yard sale one day
to get rid of some junk
we can't sell on eBay.
Like that ugly painting
your aunt gave you -
the one with the pink sea
and a seaside view."
We all spent some time
pricing various things
such as clothes, toys,
books, and napkin rings.
The day of the yard sale
came at long last,
and my family
got out of there fast.
"Sorry, but I promised to
play tennis with my boss."
"I can't miss soccer practice
after Saturday's loss."
"If I don't' go to the mall
with my friends, I'll just die."
So I was left on my own
when the people dropped by.
I sold lots of stuff and
thought I did really well,
till I saw the late news - "Rare
painting bought at yard sale …"
First published in Nuthouse Magazine in 2017.
DUET: ANOTHER TALE OF TWO CITIES
By Catherine Lee
This tale happened long ago,
before ballot-count-day insurrection,
way before Patriot Act repression.
Back when recordings only had sides.
Before you all made the gleam in your mama’s eyes.
***
"Yes I know Ms. So-and-So," I say to trumpeter from Kansas City
older brother of the famous guitarist when we're introduced.
"I've been to every Women's Jazz Festival that ever happened there."
Turns out he used to co-host radio with So-and-So
until he moved to Boston; now he teaches privately
and plays on Thursdays at this club we're chatting in.
We're having a really cool conversation
about this really unique thing we have in common.
We're comparing notes about the scene there
versus the scene here. He says
there IS NO scene there when there's no Women's
Jazz Festival — a couple of clubs, but some
really fine musicians have no place to play.
Here, he says, it's supposed to be bad news,
but there’s ten venues.
I talk about how it seems to me
the clubs that opened there, like Yaadboids
(that he played in during Christmas break), and Signboard,
catered to folks who showed up by the thousands
to hear the women playing jazz.
And, I add, I almost moved there myself
that second year 'cuz THAT
will never happen here in Boston.
He admits those KC women worked their tails off,
and it has made a difference.
So we get to the part where I tell him
about the concert I'm producing
at Harvard's Sanders Theater end of the month.
"I'd sure like to play there," he says.
"Well, what women do you play with?" I cackle.
(I'm sorry, I don't mean to be perverse
but I really can't help it, knowing
— and not saying — he has another choice:
he could incorporate as a nonprofit
tax-exempt corporation
and get a grant for the
several thousand bucks it takes
to put yourself on in concert.
It might take 3 or 4 years.
It would be a hell of a lot easier
just to play with some women for a change,
I'm thinking when I cackle, witch-like,
smiling not at all seductively, and actually
dancing a little jig.)
He slides into explaining that the guys
in his band have been together so long
that it doesn't even occur to them
to look for any new players.
Uh, huh. (This particular part of jazzman
conversations is routine and so predictable.)
"There are some really great women players, though,"
he says. “Look at Jane Ira Bloom. She seemed
to come out of NOWHERE to jam soprano sax
at that first Festival.”
I can't help but counter that she
came out of Boston, after she got passed over
by the local night producer of the Globe Jazz Festival
that year, and she was sore about it.
He was just getting to the interesting part
about being on the radio with So-and-So --
her assistant, really — and she tells him he's got
to interview pianist Mary Lou Williams.
"Yeah, I met her once, too. What did you think of her?
Did you notice how AWARE she was?"
He was just starting to explain that she pretty much stuck
to her standard radio interview
when this cat walks up to us
and, without the slightest hesitation,
interrupts to ask the trumpet player
about the recording session
he's been doing with his brother the guitarist.
That's Boston for you.
In a different city, in Kansas City,
the cat at least would show the courtesy
to say excuse me, and hello to the lady
before proceeding with his music buddy
business conversation.
And in a different world, NOT a man's world,
I wouldn't have heard 'til much later
— if at all — his answer:
that the guys have five more minutes left
on side one, and they're planning
a duet.
Current Bio:Catherine Lee explores poetry’s percussive jazz voice and social change activism by performing solo or with improvising musicians “on poem.” Since 1976, Lee’s multifaceted writing has appeared in print, online, and as collaborative multimedia. Her impact on Boston’s jazz scene is detailed here:
Studio Red Top: Credit Where It’s Due
Lee is currently working on a City of San Antonio Dept. of Arts & Culture-funded poetic drama called “Mentor Wonders.” Developed with Seniors In Play, a readers’ theater group where Lee has participated since 2014, her play incorporates as dreamscapes poems she’s written about mentoring public school elementary students. A final Zoom-based video performance is anticipated to be released in November 2022. Lee is soliciting critical feedback to a Work-in-Progress Screening Video version of the play until June 2022. Find Lee’s artistic profile at GetCreativeSanAntonio.
My, My, My
Poetry Collection by Kenneth Vincent Walker
My Buffalo Heart
My Buffalo heart is
Free to roam the Great
Plains of my Lake Erie
Industrial home. It has
Been so long that I’ve
Forgotten her evolving
Face, but clearly in my
Memories recall and
Embrace this wintery
Yet heartwarming place.
If you taught me anything
At all, you taught me to be
Tough, but tender enough
For empathy and to trust,
To be resilient, resourceful,
And brilliant as the stars up
Above, but most importantly
You taught me to love and
To love where I’m from.
My Father
Had I only known
That you had only
Two short years to
Live, well, I never
Would have left.
But doing so had
Changed my life’s
Trajectory in light
Of these tragedies
I have amassed.
Your influence was
Immeasurable, your
Wisdom was far
Beyond the glimmer
Of ancient stars.
You, my father
Whose well hidden
Brilliance continually
Flows through the
Veins of another…
Your only begotten son.
My Very Last Poem
That fateful day
I’ve envisioned
Most assuredly
Shall come when
I gasp my last
Decommissioned
Breath and write
My very last poem.
I’ve reached toward
The constellation of
Stars, and into the
Depths of my despair,
As my spirit is now
In transition mode
Becoming airborne
While my words burn
As flaming sapphires.
An Original Witch
By Hicham El Qendouci
1) An Original Witch
A moonlit night
A witch arrives in the name of Prune
Flying over the hazy sky
On her broom made of feathers.
An original witch...
First name of an ordinary fruit
She does not know how to do evil
For Prune nothing is normal.
She casts spells
Her wand is made of cork
Her cat is white as snow
She loves the dawn.
People are stubborn
Imagine her with a hooked nose?
Turlututu hat
Why would it be pointy?
An original witch...
The feathers of her broom
Tickle your little nose
The purrs of her puss in boots
Heal the wounds of your tormented
souls.
Without wart, without artifice
She does not sacrifice
Abracadabra the flames crackle
Without spider in the pot.
Her house is not haunted
Light in her attic
Stars with spiders' thread
Here it is garlanded.
An original witch...
Plum flies in the sky
Her heart warmed by the sun
Accompanied by shallows, she has
wings
But who is she?
Here I found
It is a fairy Word of a sorcerer!
2) The Mythologist
On the ocean in my canoe
From our land I move away
My thoughts float happily,
I'm no longer afraid of someone joining
me.
From our land I move away
All my worries are gone
I'm no longer afraid of being joined
A mermaid has appeared.
All my worries are gone
It's in my dream
A mermaid has appeared
I made love, life is short.
It's happening in my dream
It's a gift for a mythologist
I made love, life is short
On the ocean in my canoe.
3) Undine Whispers
On the silted plinth
Of an immature moon
A desilted dream
Seeks its Delta
Open to the sea
Without mea culpa.
The sea horses blow
Unwelcome waves
Pulling on his chariot-banner
Neptune.
Feluccas draw undulating dolphins
Whistling as they sing
Marine cemeteries
By small lapping
By mermaid mumurs
Mermaids
Flow-reflux of sirens
In their bath water.
At the twilight of the day
At the dawn of the morning.
Goran Petrovic
presents
Progress of
History
The ape invented the mace
And with it smashed the face
Of his brother, and it was then
That ape became the first man.
Man made the atomic bomb
And with it destroyed his home,
His planet, and it was then
That man became the last man.
History – that’s when the ape
Learns to kill like a pro,
It’s when a mindless brute
Learns how to be his own foe.
A Duel of Dragons
It was not about justice,
It wasn’t about who was right,
It was about pride and power,
And who had a stronger bite.
The contenders were Mister Sam
And his archrival called Lin Krem,
The world’s dragons most ferocious
Prepared to do deeds atrocious.
While Sam held a colorful banner
With stripes and many stars,
Lin Krem had a sickle and hammer
On a background as red as Mars.
They bit and clawed one another,
Mister Sam and Mister Krem Lin,
Spat fireballs supersonic
To decide who would lose and who’d win.
And when neither was about to win,
Their fireballs mightily clashed,
Unleashing all Ragnarok’s power,
And the world into pieces was smashed!
The dead world’s disappointment
At the outcome was complete,
For it wanted to see one winner,
Not both of them suffer defeat.
(And it especially didn’t desire
To see itself die in a fire.)
But if it’s for consolation,
This wasn’t about who was right,
It was about pride and power,
And who would show greater might.
Three Magic Poems by Kenneth Vincent Walker
Phantom Islands
A lost phantom island that
Disappears then reappears
Amid a gathering sea mist.
O where, O where have you
Been hiding all those frozen,
Frantic, electrostatic years?
From our matriarch Atlantis
To Hy-Brazil, to the tiny size
Of Manhattan Sandy Island,
We’re enthralled with a thrill.
Tho you’ve been dismissed
By the rest as mere folklore,
As if ancient cartographers
Were mistaken, inaccurate
And askew. Too far-fetched
To be labeled plausible. Too
Coincidental not to be true.
Axis Mundi
Axis mundi in Latin, or
El ombligo del mundo,
Which is Spanish for
Navel of the world.
Some may refer to it as
Jacob’s Ladder, a portal,
Or worm hole, a fifth
Dimension, connection
‘Tween Heaven and Earth,
Terra firma and that of
The infinite beyond. So
However you respond,
There’s more than meets
The eye to bedazzle the
Senses, to stimulate the
Mind to consciousness.
Pyramids of Elysium
In the outer reaches of
Elysium Planitia, Mars;
A rust colored, dust
Covered skyline hosts
Pyramids from afar.
The atmosphere thin,
Inhospitable to life as
We know it. However,
Once there was water
That microbes forgot.
Pyramids of Elysium;
Just coincidental rock?
Triangular angles do
Not lie and uncommon
In nature apart from
Reasoning unlocked.
Hats Are Not Magical
By K.A. Williams
Birthday party gigs
Pulling rabbits from a hat
Thrills the little kids
But that's not magic
It's just good entertainment
Tricks with sleight of hand
Magic is instinct
And ability to learn
From forbidden books
It must stay hidden
Cause ordinary folk fear
The paranormal
It's Our Eyes That Glow
Poetry Collection by Saloni Choudhary
That's where I wanna be
Midnight scenes
We are burning wax
But its our eyes that glow
Black potion and roasted beans
This cave smells like, Biblichor
Such heavenly felicity
It's almost biblical
That's where I wanna be
I hate these headlights
Not knowing which indicator to beep
And traffic jams gives that flooded feeling.
Don't these red green flashes feel sickening?
Under a Japanese cherry tree
Sun spots on skin, Komorebi
And the moon sings us to sleep
When there is no one around to hear it
There is space for you I'll save it
That's where I wanna be
Only the sculptures are perfectly proportional
Ballerinas tutu's are made for them , not the other way
No animalistic souls are caged in that carnival
It's where the sonnets come from they say
Where rivers of creativity flows
With no archaic dams to tame it
We can be dreamers
No need to hide it
That's where I wanna be
We
We do not exist in hope to live in the upcoming days
Like Icarus we'll go out in blaze
We write latin love letters
Leave them on dead poets graves
We breathe our creative endeavours
Sing sonnets paint portraits perform in plays
We believe death by suffocation never stays
We learn to live again in immoral ways
We glue our clipped feathers
Sitting inside moonlit caves
We are not born to hide in shelters
To make our bodies silent slaves
We do not ask how to live our days
We live forever in art displays
We are the cult of robots with errors
Broken toys and useless voice boxes
Welcome to the cult of factory rejects
We refuse to sell our souls
For the fortunate skill of ignorance
For the faint heartbeat of corpses
To live in a routine of perfects
We refuse to let art wait for acceptance
We do not exist in hope to live in the upcoming days
After a Morning of Radio News
By Robert Cooperman
After a morning of Covid deaths,
millions out of work, the globe
a not so slowly boiling pot, Beth begs,
“Please, put on some Grateful Dead!”
Something with a beat and lyrics
that won’t taunt us to slit our wrists
or search for bottles of sleeping pills.
So we tap our feet to Uncle John
playing by the riverside, to poor Jed,
who’d better get back to Tennessee,
to “Ripple” and its wish, to take
all of us lost souls home.
It’s not just the stories, some tragic
as the blues and folktales: but the drums
propulsive as coal fired locomotives,
keyboards raucous as Old West saloons,
the mustang-thumping electric bass,
and above all, Garcia’s lead guitar
soaring for just the joy of flight:
antidotes to the moron anti-vaxxers,
to the debacle of Afghanistan,
the horrors in Ukraine inflicted
by a power-crazed madman,
and of course, the world spontaneously
combusting when our children
inherit the earth we’ve made
such a mess of--
the tunes are good prayers:
that the world won’t end,
at least not today.
The Magical Mystery Tour
A Poetry Collection by Alan Catlin
“rock and rollers with one foot in the grave”
long haired hippies in bell bottoms
playing the wrong redneck roadhouse,
booked into perdition out of cynicism
or ignorance, their repertoire acid rock
and protest folk: Buffalo Springfield
rounded off with The Animals,
“We gotta get out of this place,
if it’s is the last thing we ever do…”
not referring to Vietnam where it was
the unofficial anthem of the on-the-ground
grunt but to the here and now gig when
the plug was pulled on their amps, light
show disconnected, electric guitars useless
for music but of some practical value
as weapons once stuff started getting broken,
pool balls turned into missiles; cues made into
cudgels and spears, long necks deadly weapons
for hand-to-hand combat, bar sappers dressed
in torn denim, vests and motorcycle boots,
faces flushed from a lifetime of serious drinking
in holes in the wall more dangerous and darker
than this one, where even John Law would be
reluctant to go once shit turned ugly, bartenders
down for the count with head wounds or worse,
waitresses way beyond screaming, not that
anyone could hear a thing above the firefight
on the floor, the shuffling madness, a crowd
totally out of control.
A Sixties Romance:
with words from Charles Bukowski
The weekends that began earlier each week
and ended later;
the new and the old, turning on,
dropping out, going more than a
little crazy;
the war that never seemed to end and our
friends who went to fight and
never came back;
their letters in a shoebox with the rolling
papers and the love beads, black arm
bands with peace signs, draft notices
to appear;
risk taking on the highways, everyone behind
the wheel A Rebel Without a Cause,
a Wild One with no sense of direction,
a MASH unit in a snow bank, dead
of winter, blood rock and frostbite;
shooting pool in some redneck bar on the edge
of Deliverance not afraid to die;
stoned crazy to acid rock, 8 miles high and falling
fast, writing it all down and forgetting
how to read;
The White Album and the Number 9;
Our Lady of Gone Tomorrows, a barefoot nun
with a tambourine and a jug of California
white, collecting quarters to buy a map back
of nowhere;
Helter Skelter and the zombie chicks from Hell;
A bad trip, a bummer, run, run the Homecoming
Queen's got a gun;
Pistol Pete and the tail gunner geek killing machine
living next door, out of uniform but not out
of the jungle and he doesn't know what to do;
it was a romantic grand game, a magical mystery
tour full of the full of discovery Bukowski
would say.
It was 40 years ago today
You know what that means
to me? Means I’m getting
old. I was a rookie cop then,
hot to trot, hey, what did I
know about a British Invasion?
When the Beatles first came over
here they played Forest Hills.
I was one of the extra security detail
they had deployed to protect
“The Boys.” “Expect crazy fans.”
they told us. “Expect a lot of
yelling and screaming and girls
going crazy trying to get at the band
when they weren’t passing out.
Your job is to make sure nothing
happens to the band. And watch out
for long hairs!” They kind of left
that part hanging or else, we weren’t
listening by then. Of course, we
had no idea what a long hair was,
we’d never actually seen one. It
was like 1964, what did we know
about long-haired men? The only
one of those any of us had ever
seen went by the name of Gorgeous
George and he worked in a wrestling
rink at the Garden, that’s the old
Madison Square Garden up on 50th Street.
So when this crazy concert business
is over and we’re linking arms to
form a human wall to protect these
guys from the screaming banshees,
I see this guy with a mop head haircut
and I’m getting ready to clock him
with my night stick when the guy next
to me says, “Not him, asshole, he’s one
of the band.” I came this close to
becoming famous as the rookie city cop
who rearranged George Harrison’s face.
Work Anxiety Dream: St Patrick’s Day Ten Years After
First the manager removes all the cash
from the drawer, opens the door to
the bar to let the blinding light in says,
“You’ll be all right for awhile.
I’m just going to the bank.”
Then the bar is full but it isn’t a real,
working bar, but a combination lunch
counter with plywood-on-sawhorses
makeshift space in a rough horseshoe
shape, glass ashtrays already half-full
on top and most of the patrons have brought
their own but everyone wants more,
all at once, and there’s no place to begin;
who to start with? Which part of this ugly
crowd to serve? And they all seem to be
the barred-for-life guys, not a woman
among them, and they all want change
for services, real and imagined, then there
is this horrible noise, electronic feedback
through enormous speakers, microphones
short circuiting, giving off a strange smell
like singed hair, melting wires and burnt
rubber, a noise that segues into a black
sound like the Number Nine track from
the White Album, the dead Beatles are mixing
the sound right there in the room amid
the choking smoke and hostile vibes and
the manager says, “See, I said you would
be all right.” And she laughs, though no one
is getting the drinks they ordered, there is
no draft beer, no bottles, no money changing
hands just a poisonous haze, the feedback,
a number nine dream, then just the number nine,
laughter, faces filled with pain.
Self-Portrait with Mysterians
They said, as family members, they always
remembered me as the song, "96 Tears"
a sixties tunes by the Mysterians.
The Mysterians was also a Grade B Japanese
feature film based on the principle, "If you
give an alien an inch, he will take a mile."
And eventually he will challenge the world.
Was all part of magical mystery tur time resolved.
Thank God, uncharacteristically, the UN
got its act together and saved the earth.
Strange how world history and the B
movie have blended together and the whole
process, while obscene by many standards,
is not rated, being the stuff news is made of.
Half my family that related to that song is
now dead. It's not history and it certainly
isn't news but it's how I feel; I'd like those
96 tears back. I want to find out where it all
went wrong.
Goran Petrovic & His Lesson in History
An Aged Norseman’s Song
Now the days are gone, those good days of yore
When I cleaved my foemen and speared the boar,
Gone is the time of my strength and glory,
Not much remains to be told of my story;
For just as a wolf, when his teeth become blunt,
When he can no longer kill or hunt,
Yearns to be spared from decrepit years
And thus charges the bear, whom otherwise he fears,
So do I wish to be slain in battle,
Where axes clash and hauberks rattle,
Rather than die depressed and alone,
Far from the fields where weapons are drawn.
Hence, once again, though gray-haired and weak,
I’ll march into battle, brave death I shall seek,
As always in battle, much blood will be shed,
Only this time I, too, will count among the dead,
And when at last I fall, when the foe stabs my chest,
To Valhalla I’ll go, where all the brave rest.
There I shall sit at Father Odin’s side
And, bracing for battle, my time I will bide
Until the beginning of the world’s winter,
When swords will cut and shields will splinter,
And all men and gods, whether good or bad,
Will, in a cosmic war, perish, fall dead;
And by the time all the nine realms are destroyed,
With nothing remaining but a dead void,
I will have played my einherjar’s part
And died one last time with a happy heart,
For such is the path of us, who live by the sword,
We must twice die in battle, to please Odin, our lord.
Spartacus’ Wish
Bold Spartacus charged the field,
He first won and later fell,
But his wish has been unfulfilled
To this day, as we can tell.
Today, as in days of old,
Many still ardently crave
For freedom, while the rich hold
All power and exploit the slave.
No man has managed to save
The poor, no matter how fervent
In his struggle to free the slave –
The servant is still a servant.
What is the Purpose of History?
What is the purpose of history?
To me this is a big mystery.
Did we evolve from the apes for no other cause
But to fight each other like brutes with bombs instead of claws?
It seems we’ve seized the Earth only to pollute
Her natural beauties, to ravage her and loot…
And why is this so, when man’s power is great,
When we could, instead, beautify her wild state?
Is the age of the human race’s rule
Nature’s telos or the age of the fool
In which wildlife will perish and, also, we
Will, through our fault, cease to be?
Are we guiding this Earth toward a utopian goal
Or are we on the path to killing her as a whole?
I wish to know if man’s story will be a success
Or the world as we know it will end in a fiery mess.
Alan Catlin's History Lesson
Spalding's White Stockings Begin Hurling Baseballs
at the Great Pyramid, Much to the Annoyance of
Their Egyptian Guides, Feb 9, 1889
What could they be thinking?
Those Egyptian guides, hands
raised in anger or is it disbelief?
as the young men dressed in suits
wearing white starched shirts and black
ties despite the desert heat,
disport, throwing small white balls
made from the sewn hides of animals
at the peak of the Great Pyramid,
trying to tease the tip as close as
possible without actually touching.
They are catching miscast,
rebounding balls in their cupped hands,
dark eyes shielded from the sun
by the lids of their sweat stained
felt hats. Despite the warnings,
the clamoring guides, the game continues,
pure sport for feckless youths,
heedless to the message of time,
of history, of the sacred nature
of the ground upon which they play.
Later, these same men are photographed
lounging on various carved ledges
of the Sphinx, leaning casually on
baseball bats or lounging, reclining
on their sides, reposing as the young
will, ignorant of the riddles of time
contained by the sculpture, by those
sightless, sand blasted eyes.
Jean Genet Our Lady of the Flowers
at the Chicago Democratic Convention 1968
Was he in town to see the American
political system in action or was it
simply to witness a new kind of street
dada, absurdist theater in action,
a play for all centuries and seasons:
The Democratic National Convention Live,
Chicago 1968? Certainly, he hadn't been
smuggled into the country from Canada
to hear Phil Ochs sing a particularly
poignant version of “A Close Circle of Friends”
among the charging lines of police
and National Guard or to hear Allen Ginsberg
chanting OOOm through the tear gas haze
of Collins Park at dawn or the see Ed Sanders
with or without The Fugs and their shadows,
the unwashed informants, two of the thousand
strong that came with the rabble rousers,
dirty tricksters and all the others carrying
signs and singing songs along the drawn
battle lines. Dressed in leather, he could
have been someone's fancy man, some thin gypsy
thief poised to evade the ending of a no
longer soft parade, an incursion provided
by Mayor Daley and his goon squads ordered
to turn a mid-summer's night dream into a
nightmare of split heads and confusion a whole
generation could never forget. How could it
have been that no one knew he was there?
among so many government spies and their
counterpart, the new radical Left? And, what
did he come away with besides a whiff
of street warfare and chemical controls?
his taste for old world decadence and fashionable
politics slaked? A sense that nothing is
gained or lost when the issue is already decided,
the government shackled by its own chains,
the world divided by a continental rift
much more easily and tastefully observed
from afar in some four-star hotel with Bill
Burroughs, sipping champagne and seeing it all broadcast live in living color at someone else's expense.
John Hersey's Hiroshima
There is no Romance possible, just two cultures
coming together in love as in “Hiroshima
mon Amour”, the layers of sand that cover
them a grainy second skin, atomic dust,
as abrasive and as final as a woman consigned
to dunes, forever trapped, a siren luring
men to share a terminal place, impossible
to escape, as final as the shape of a man
impressed at ground zero upon a free standing
wall, the survivors stumbling through
a smoking hell of ruins, many already dead
but unaware, still walking, radiation
sickness inside like the others who would
live, carrying a disease it would take years
to fully realize and impart; these are
the pictures in the museum, the ultimate
atrocity exhibit that are openly displayed
for all to see, for the love of the children,
for the love of all mankind.
Robert Capa's Steinbeck Man in the Middle 1947
Who are these men on either side
of the author? The younger, whose dark
hair and moustache is Chaplinesque
but clearly no funnyman, given the framed
portrait of Lenin on the wall behind them,
and the other, completely bald man,
immaculately dressed, clothes proud
and self-assured, almost stereotyped,
transparently disguised as one of Us,
when he is clearly, one of Them.
Certainly, the only one likely to survive
the pogroms is Steinbeck, wryly smiling
for the camera, leaning on a carved wooden
cane for support, slightly hung over,
and his survival depends upon him being
a well-known American of the intellectual
class. After the purges, the others would
be airbrushed out of the portrait,
along with the photo of Lenin, leaving only
the bald man, posed in this bare, unfriendly
room not unlike a place used for interrogation,
his off-hand holding the lapel of his tailored
suit, moments before the next round of executions.
Wernher von Braun Watches Early Rocket Launches
from the Cape Canaveral Lighthouse
What did he see from his vantage point
on the widow's walk, leaning on the metal
railing of the decommissioned Cape Canaveral
Lighthouse, that prototypical modern man,
a rocket scientist realizing dreams of parabolic
flight or were the arcs of light merely self-
propelled projectiles, spectacular examples
of the futility of human endeavor? Or something
akin to Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow,
a mathematician accurately charting the V1
and V2 rocket falls during the London Blitz
according to theories of random distribution,
saving the final, terrifying fact for last:
"a screaming comes across the sky", making
the Big Bang theory of mass destruction,
just another element of surprise that follows
the awe inspiring, fireworks display? Or was what
he saw something so simple as to be unthinkable,
something as human as pride in a job well done,
science in action, totally divorced from politics,
but what happens once the weapons are directed,
set in motion and released? No one knows for sure.
Frank Hurley, Photographer of the Imperial
Trans-Antarctica Expedition Shoots
Shackleton's Men
near The Endurance ensconced just before
the Final upheaval, the fatal resounding
crack of boat crush, of drowned sailors
released from frozen, open crypts; near
the vise-gripped ghost ship, masts white-
coated bone stripped of sails, riggings
bare sinew exposed, ligaments frostbitten,
immobile, unwavering as sculpted marble,
polished stone, amid ice rock; near the ending,
crew members skating on rudely fashioned blades,
make-shift poles for hockey sticks, cask bungs
for pucks, a rare moment of levity here,
marooned perhaps for all time, games to be
played to clear conclusions; this far from
civilization and no clear way home, why not?
Little White Lies
by Kenneth Vincent Walker
History is often made by
The unlikely, the unsightly,
And re-edited, re-imagined
In a more favorable light.
For “All the world’s a stage,”
And a compelling tale is all
The rage if told with a pinch
Of panache, a dash of spice.
So what is truth that isn’t
Quite so true, but then who
Are you in fact to dispute
Our little white lie musings?
For if an ol’ yarn is to stand
The test of time we must
Blindly believe what we’re
Told and not be so inclined
To question the directions
Hedy Lamarr
By David Thorpe
Born into a Jewish family
in Austro-Hugarian Vienna,
the year 1914, outbreak of war,
Hedwig Eva María Kiesler
first saw light of day
*
A starlet of Austrian cinema
in a film of dubious renown,
a scene of naked skin an outrage,
a skandal of the time.
"Ektase" the name, 1933 the year
*
The treat of Nazi annexation of Austria
her Jewish blood a mortal danger,
she fled 1937 from the goose-step boots,
to Paris then to london, finally
to the Mecca of Movies, Hollywood
*
There they adored and acclaimed her
the most beautiful of all,
the Queen of Celluloid.
In Samson and Delilah, 1949,
marked her post-war coronation
*
Years before in World War Two
sweet revenge against Nazi aggression,
as an inventor did she claim fame,
the (RCS), Radio Controlled System
for torpedoes, her war contribution
David Thorpe ©®
In 1997 Hedy Lamarr received
the Electronic Frontier Foundation Pioneer Award
In 2014 Hedy Lamarr was inaugurated posthumous
in the National Inventors Hall Of Fame
Chapeau! Hedwig Eva Maria Kesler
Ridley Scott’s Utopianism
By Goran Petrovic
Ridley Scott’s “Kingdom of Heaven”
Is a fine movie indeed,
It conveys a sagacious message
That the whole world must heed!
It tells us peace is salvation
Rather than hate and war –
Agnosticism unbiased
Instead of dogmatic lore.
We need to respect our neighbors,
Whether black, tawny or white,
And chase away all darkness
With tolerance, which is the light.
When we learn to esteem each other,
We’ll make a heavenly kingdom
On earth, we’ll be brother to brother
And fulfill the leper king’s wisdom…
New Jerusalem will then come,
Made not through a divine wonder,
But with reason, and all humans
Will be united, not split asunder…
The kingdom of conscience will reign,
A kingdom of the olive and dove,
Crusades and wars will give way
To tolerance, kindness, and love…
And in the Kingdom of Heaven
There will be a lasting peace,
The human race’s ripe apex
And a time of spiritual bliss.
Only mutual understanding
Can save our civilization,
Divisions by race and religion
Bring only doom and damnation.
It’s for this very reason
That Scott’s film should be applauded,
Its wisdom celebrated,
Its far sight loudly lauded!
The Last 500 Samurai
By Goran Petrovic
Five hundred samurai bravehearts
On a breezy, light-green field,
Five hundred lions determined
To die fighting, and not to yield…
They are the last of their kind,
Won’t go without a fight,
Against all odds they will charge,
Not fearing the enemy’s might…
And when they fall, we’ll know
That the cause for which they died
Was just, for they fought for honor
And to preserve their samurai pride.
It’s inspiring to see these men
In defiance of their foes,
See the courage of the samurai
As they do what they freely chose…
As they fight rifle-bearing hordes
With their very own souls – their swords.
Smoking Hot Hollywood Stars
Poems by Mike Mesterton-Gibbons
Noble Nonagenarians
Who was Christopher Plummer? A chap
Who excelled and won trophies——to cap
It an Oscar ... Yet I
Will remember this guy
As not bad playing Captain von Trapp!
All your life, Betty White, you have been
The great Hollywood comedy queen ...
And your living so long
Proves it cannot be wrong
To avoid eating anything green!
Sidney Poitier leapt a high bar.
Once a dishwasher, he rose so far
After being self-schooled
That in movies he ruled
As a path-breaking Hollywood star!
Columbo's Missus
Columbo has a missus he reveres.
Off screen she often solves his cases, though
LAPD's most fabled wife appears
Unseen on-screen: her face can never show!
More fashion-conscious than her husband, she
Belongs in Hollywood. Can no one share
One look at how she dresses? Always he
Shows up alone at each black-tie affair—--
Most autographs for her are ones he gets! ...
I think I know why she's not on TV:
Some miserly accountants, fearing debts,
Slimmed budgets. Though they cover clothes you see
Unkemptly worn by him, the lines she spoke—--
Superbly dressed——would make the series broke!
Alan Catlin takes us to ...
Hollywood
His last screen test must
not have gone well which
went a long way towards explaining
his confusion. 3 AM February
mornings in Albany calls for
a different kind of garb other
than his khaki Land's End
shorts, Banana Republic polo
shirt with sleeves cut off and
an artificial plunging neckline
to better show off his gold chains
and lame tanning hut bronzed skin.
Stood drinking his straight up
Absolut martinis with his pinky
finger extended. In some bars,
posturing like that would be
reasonable cause for initiating
sudden death syndrome but
in his case, it wouldn't be
necessary. By dawn he would just
be another frozen, roadside
monument to mans' incredible
capacity for stupidity and
monumental pride.
Hot Stuff
She was real hot stuff:
Hair by Sassoon
Face by Revlon
Wardrobe by Calvin Klein.
Profile by People.
Was the leading lady
everyone knew the name of.
Wanted something
that would Light
the Inner Fire,
if I knew what she meant.
I guessed that I did.
Made her a Bloody Mary
with enough Tabasco Sauce
and horseradish in it
to kill a full grown
German Shepherd in
the prime of life.
When I asked her if
her drink was all right
she was speechless,
had tears in her eyes,
was fanning the air
all the way down her
throat by Mt. St. Helens.
Donnie Darko: The Director’s Cut
I met Donnie way back when we
were kids, Little League to be exact.
He was kind of doofy even then,
always staring up into space,
chewing on the palm of his hands,
strings of his glove, stuff like that.
Some people are born to play right
field for life. know what I mean?
As he grew up, he kind of fit in,
but it’s not like we hung out:
I mean what a BOMC, QB of the
football team, escort to the prom queen,
all around cool guy have to do with
a weirdo like him? I mean, really,
a seven-foot talking rabbit. Who eats
people and stuff, give me a break.
And this time space continuum
worm hole thing, who even knew what that
stuff meant? And all that witchcrafty stuff,
here’s a guy who obviously stayed up way
too late watching bad movies and gaming
with the role-playing geeks. I’m surprised
the guy even got a girl to like him, even
a little bit. Can you imagine making out
with that. He might make rabbit food
out of you when the lights went out;
that would be his idea of a joke, now wonder
she ended up not remembering anything
about him. Leave it Darko to come up
with an anti-date rape drug where you not
only don’t get the girl, she forgets all about
you. Like completely. I heard something
about him being committed, you know
like to a Looney Bin; most kids just drop out
of school or get sent to a juvey detention
center but not Darko, he gets snatched by
guys with big nets and white suits. Or so I
heard. I’d believe anything when it comes
to that fruit loop. I don’t feel comfortable
even being in the same year book with him.
I can’t wait until he’s just an unpleasant
memory that has nothing to do with me.
What a loser.
Hollyweird
After the triple x rated punch bowl
incident at one of those So. Cal.
parties where some fried, left-over-
from-the-60’s, hippie chick, part
Manson girl, part Goldie Hawn,
thought it would be really cool to drop
this experimental mushroom based
homemade drug into the communal swill,
stuff that made blotter acid seem like
kid’s aspirin by comparison. After that,
everyday life had become something
that came directly out of underground LA,
Hollyweird Central, sort of like feeling
as is he had been starring in a movie
of his life he hadn’t seen yet with
an off-the-wall insane title life Wolfen 2,
with Klaus Kinski as the lead actor
in his place on the big screen, and
directed by Werner Herzog. Scene
after meticulously set scene, of Kinski
ripping the throats out of the standard
hot bodies bushwhacking in some woods,
or looking for a clearing for a mosquito
feeding frenzy shag or the horror movie
cliché of cliches, necking in a car parked
in the Brain Damaged Victims Only marked
space, totally oblivious to the impending menace,
as the eerie score by that Psycho dude,
Bernard Hermann, gets louder and more
ominous and you know, in your heart,
Bernard was one of those guys who definitely
would not flinch when a horse fly walked
across his face, even as the close up reveals
carnage among the gear shifts. Every full
moon like this, when the body hair grows
longer and the need to kill is a blood red
cloud blacking out the last remaining light.
This Sporting Life
All of six foot seven, brought up
since he was fourteen on the back
pages of The Daily News, NY Post,
grossly overweight after a summer
of beer league softball, occasional
shoot-arounds and pick up games on
forbidden playground turf, three time
All American, first team and runners
up, guaranteed, no cut, five year deal,
signed, sealed and delivered despite
injury shortened rookie year. Now,
a week away from training camp, in some
Upstate N.Y. bar ordering Kool Aid shots
for his hoop buddies, a couple of thousand
in twenties on the wood he leaves for his
woman to bar hop with the boys,
his future assured.
Dark Passage
“It’s a damn shame you have to be bothered
with breathing.” K. Patchen
In noir movie night, on silver
trolley car diner stool, slouched
over coffee spilled counter,
fried eggs and bacon sandwich
smells. Time has lost all meaning
on dim lighted, stale air edged
by neon, leaking definition, fading
into endless grease coated patterns
of shadow and light, of radio loop
tapes crackling static, storm front
from nowhere, tornado thick and
churning. Unmoving waitress,
dead eyed and a cigarette break
shy of frozen in place forever.
Distant sirens and barking dogs,
precarious, no hope tower of loose
change and spilled shaker salt,
torn into bits tickets and pay-as-you-go
chit, face down by soiled spoons says
Thank You Come Again but no one
expects you back or to believe what
it says. Fade to black.
Only In Hollywood
By Kenneth Vincent Walker
In the Hollywood
Version, typically
In disaster flicks,
The world all bands
Together against a
Common evil threat
Like a pandemic.
This flawed theory
Naively discounts
Man’s selfishness.
For Man is the only
Creature that will
Die for vanity and
Pride than to submit.
Seek the Light
By Jake Cosmos Aller
Seek the light
My friend,
Seek the light
The light of the universe
The light of peace and happiness.
The cosmic good of the universe.
The ancient battle
Between Good and evil
Light and darkness
Life and death
Love and hate.
War and peace.
Seek the light of love
Seeking love
It is all around you
It is all in you.
Open your soul
And let the light
Of the universe
Flood into your soul.
Seek the cosmic light
My son, if you think it is right
If you think the light
Is the same,
As the light of the Christian faith.
You would be right.
If you think it is Light
Of the Buddhist faith
You would be right.
If you think it is Allah’s light
You would be right.
If you think.
It is Shiva’s light
You would be right.
If you think
It is God’s light
You would be right.
It's the same light
Of the universe
Which shines on us all.
Regardless of our faith
Or lack of faith,
We can all receive the light.
The light of the universe
It's flawless
We all seek the light
And it is right
To seek the light.
The light of the universe
Is waiting for you
It is all for you.
And if you find
The light of the universe
You will find love
Peace and happiness
It is your birthright,
You will find that
After you die
The Light will fill you
And take you
To the next world.
Seek the light
It is waiting for you.
Wake up and
Embrace your fate
Seek the light on this date.
Two Acrostic Sonnets
By Mike Mesterton-Gibbons
Another New Year
Another year soon ends. It brought great hope
New vaccines would send Covid on its way.
Our hopes have since been dashed: although we cope,
The virus has announced it's here to stay ...
High hopes COP26 would make all states
Emit less carbon and stop mining coal
Remain just hopes: the planet still awaits
Negotiated cures to make it whole ...
Each year begins with hope. Years often end
With disappointment: hopes go unfulfilled.
Years always end with holidays, which lend
Enchantment to our lives, as we rebuild
Again, and count our blessings. Festive cheer
Renews our hope for better things next year!
One For The Queen
On doctor's orders, gin with French vermouth
No longer is a cocktail for the Queen.
Elizabeth has faced a sober truth—--
Forgoing tipples with her day's routine!
Old age is not the time to swear off booze:
Red wine's a comfort when your hair is grey—--
Those doctors do seem cruel to refuse
Her majesty her snifter once a day! ...
Empathic Brits intuit that the Queen's
Quotidian Dubonnet must be supped
Up for her, if herself she lacks the means ...
Explaining why Dubonnet sales have upped
Enormously, as thoughtful Brits are seen
Now drinking one each day——one for the Queen!
Southern Family Traditions
By K.A. Williams
On New Year's Eve, the sparkling wine is flowing,
and the Christmas tree lights are glowing.
Take decorations down New Year's Day.
Be sure to store them safely away.
Cook black-eyed peas, greens, and pork to eat.
Dress your best, you have family to greet.
Auld Anxiety
by Kenneth Vincent Walker
Standing upon the precipice
Of a savage grave new year,
We are ravaged, riddled and
Rattled by a new primordial
Fear. What we hear of our
Impending future while our
Lives were comatose and lax,
Which shall surprise and arise
With a vengeance to leave us
Dead or dying in our tracks.
That auld anxiety, old habits
Die hard, as we slip between
The cracks with noise makers
A’blaring, and confetti knee
Deep before we get our forty
Whacks. All this negativity
Has me so bitter and so blue,
But there’s precious little I can
Do. I hate this feeling down in
The dumps, but I must grin
Somehow and take my lumps.
I must break free and turn it
Around, and place my feet
Upon some firmer ground.
There’s light in the darkness
Once a candle is lit. For the
Future’s unwritten, we can
Change all of it. Then again
Maybe just some of it. What
Pertains to us and our sur-
Roundings. Our presumed
Potential innocence with the
Baying sounds of the hounds
A’hounding. I do declare so
Resounding, but my heart
Just won’t stop pounding.
‘Tis the new year that we
Fear, and we always fear
What we cannot hear, and
Cannot see and is drawing
Near…drawing near…
Drawing near…drawing…
"Winter Sunset, Painting by David Thorpe
January
By David Thorpe
The month of Janus shrouded in darkness greets
on the threshold of a new born year,
a month, as written in days of yore,
to commemorate an epiphany
Arctic inclemency is January´s fate,
trapped hopes in icicles, released on milder days,
and window paintings of frosty crystals
add beauty to an insistent drabness
Uninvited visitors infringe on January´s hospitality,
storm clouds, whose torrential pluvial tears,
as arrows from Crécy´s longbow archers,
ravage mercilessly over routed terrain
Yet, insurgent rays of a bragging sun,
an ephemeral regent in a celestial azure,
bless us with invigoration to venture forth
and fill our lungs with goodness
With each fall of snow discretion does this month bestow,
attiring with a wedding gown of virgin white
the nakedness of forest and parkland,
an annual affirmation of the benevolence
of my friend January.
David Thorpe ©®
January
By David Thorpe
The month of Janus shrouded in darkness greets
on the threshold of a new born year,
a month, as written in days of yore,
to commemorate an epiphany
Arctic inclemency is January´s fate,
trapped hopes in icicles, released on milder days,
and window paintings of frosty crystals
add beauty to an insistent drabness
Uninvited visitors infringe on January´s hospitality,
storm clouds, whose torrential pluvial tears,
as arrows from Crécy´s longbow archers,
ravage mercilessly over routed terrain
Yet, insurgent rays of a bragging sun,
an ephemeral regent in a celestial azure,
bless us with invigoration to venture forth
and fill our lungs with goodness
With each fall of snow discretion does this month bestow,
attiring with a wedding gown of virgin white
the nakedness of forest and parkland,
an annual affirmation of the benevolence
of my friend January.
David Thorpe ©®
I’ve Found a Happy Medium
by
Teresa Ann Frazee
I see a masterpiece
There’s no painting there
Gave birth to an image
Conceived from thin air
The stark white canvas
I recently primed
Requires hundreds of brushstrokes
Before my name is signed
Easels on the roof
Under a steel studded sky
Dabs of pigment vibrate
When the L train flies by
A swirling spectrum of colors
In a torrid affair
I stand back
To watch tempera’s flare
With delicate balance I walk
Between false and genuine worlds
Like a trapeze artist on a tightrope
Of simulated pearls
My self portrait
Doesn’t look like me
Looks more like
The person I want to be
Dali, Monet and I don’t belong
In the same breath
I draw from their well
For a drop of their depth
Their creative spirit
Is never laid to rest
Remembered always
As times honored guest
Downstairs a pair of old jeans
Go around in the dryer
Got them cheap at a store
That had a fire
Wore them during
Periods of blues and reds
Now purple stains
Run through their threads
Raw umber is caked
Under my nails
Compared to most
My personal hygiene pales
When I get near
The neighbor’s daughter
Her expressions of a lamb
Being led to slaughter
She tells me
I keep nocturnal hours
And of spellbound days
My art devours
That I eat my sandwich
With a spoon
Of course lunch
Is never at noon
I sing songs
Without the words
My acoustic style
Is simply for the birds
Walk up the street
While everyone jogs down
I’m as strange as a biography
Without a proper noun
I don’t serve
Sophisticated wine
And my scruffy old bandana
Hints of turpentine
Told her, her hair color
Was burnt sienna from the tube
It was meant to compliment
But she took it as rude
She’s looking for
A wedding ring buyer
All she’ll get from me
Is pseudo intellectual satire
Saving up for
A new palette knife
Not in the market
For a high maintenance wife
She says I am
Frightfully aware of being
That even in a thousand years
She’ll never see what I’m seeing
She wants to have lots of money
And pay with plastic
Anything more than posing for me
Would be way too drastic
Have a mixed breed
He keeps a decent watch
Now as my loyal model
I find he is top–notch
A yellow streak runs
Down his back
Makes up with beauty
For any courage he may lack
If he knew his portrait
Was an award winner
He would always expect
Steak served for dinner
He gnawed at mom’s fruit cake
Which makes a perfect paperweight
My irreverence caught on
Cause I’ve received no gifts of late
The clay like confection
Wound up as a door stop
That gets a laugh
Even from my pop
Could have followed pop
And worked with a wrench
The scenario has
My teeth in a clench
He’s retired now
With rough idle hands
That reveal a history
Of life’s many demands
I would have known
Those hands as being mine
With a hard luck story
For every line
Brother came by
He wears Armani
Hates his life
But loves the money
He lives in the hills
With his wife and kid
Auctioned off his soul
To the highest bid
A novelist he was
Never to become
So to the ravages of alcohol
He did succumb
He wakes up on
The lonely side of the bed
I’d consider him a loner
‘Cept for the mob inside his head
Sweet temptation
Lured him under
If he was a graphic writer
Is left to wonder
Now he’s a ghost of a writer
With destructive taste
The choice was his
To wade in waste
He loved a twisted plot
The mystery of a locked door
He put his words away
Now he’s not cool anymore
I dream I meet a gypsy
By the railroad gate
She met my brother once
But untied the knot of fate
She reads my palm
For a gold token
Speaks my lingo fluently
With English that’s broken
We walked the Painted Desert
Saw Georgia in a muslin gown
She said, “Come on in my adobe
And set your bones right down
You came for words of wisdom
I know only of this
Choose the world that best suits you
Then you’ll know total bliss”
I asked where Stieglitz was
On this imaginary day
She said he was in the darkroom
Printing with Man Ray
A bleeding heart
She wore on her sleeve
Gave the flower to my dream gypsy
Then we had to leave
My dream gypsy was called away
And prepared to go
To appear in another dream
For a poet she didn’t know
“It happens”, she said,
“From time to time
I’ll shake him off
And you’ll be exclusively mine”
I asked what she does
Between dreamer’s calls
She said she critiques graffiti
On the subway walls
Was concerned for my subterranean muse
“Don’t worry” she said, “I’m not frail
Was born in the Bronx
Near the third rail”
The violined darkness
Traced her bohemian silhouette
My eyes pried open by waking
Becomes a daily regret
Wish I could say my brother
Took his words to ink
Life for him is good
Cause he gave up the drink
That The Museum
Of Modern Art will call
Offering to sponsor
My solo show in the fall
But my neighbor sinced moved
And took his daughter
Heard she married a man
For the things he bought her
And I met someone
Wearing dark wrap around shades
Stood six feet tall
Cause she was in rollerblades
She rolled in my opening
With a glossy Mona Lisa smile
She’s my type alright
Tells time with a sundial
I invited her upstairs
For etchings to view
Now my address is
Where her mail is sent to
Better fold up the easel
Up on the roof
Dog’s howling at the wind
But there’s no scientific proof
Catch the downtown train
In an inspirational snooze
To Andy’s factory
With my smiling gypsy muse
Those used to be highs and lows
Were endless tedium
But with my dream gypsy
I’ve found a happy medium.
The Incognito Lounge
Poetry Collection by Alan Catlin
Galway Kinnell Asked to Be an Intermediary
Between Albert Camus and William Faulkner
Shortly Before Their Deaths
The author of The Sound and the Fury sits,
hunched over the cafe table completely
absorbed by the visions contained in
the dregs of his triple whiskies,
oblivious to all else. Could it be he
is lost in the imaginary geography of
a Mississippi of the mind, charting
the hidden depths? Or is he merely inert,
deadened by the continual sledging
of a liquid muse? What could Camus,
in the same cafe, have wished to impart,
stalled by his lack of a common language,
asking the fledgling poet Kinnell to
intercede and translate? Roused from
the depths of his cups, a barely focusing
Faulkner regards the poet saying,
"Tell him, I am a farmer. Nothing else."
What are we to make of this near meeting?
these three writers cast adrift in a boat
of words without oars, two soon to be
dead and the other, prepared to intercede,
unable to interject or to express?
Mass Card of St. Anne Found in the Pages of Ellmann's
Yeats, The Man and His Masks
Marking the place between pages 168 and 169;
the marriage of Maude Gonne when the poet,
rejected, was nearly mad with despair
and a grief well beyond that of death.
His was a life without meaning or, so it seemed,
raging as a Lear would, trying on the tragic
masks of drama, one after the next,
striving for the perfect fit, crying out
with altered voices, creating a focus
of Greek choruses that spilled out from
inside to fill the printed page.
The pious face of St. Anne suggests a
long life of redemption for those who wait,
deciphering the runes of an intractable will.
Years later, Yeats will offer himself to
the daughter of Maude and be rejected
in kind, he content to marry, instead,
a woman blessed with the gift of automatic writing.
Inscribing a vision, the poet sees
the gyre of history in self-contained spirals
that move the lips, the dark receding face
behind the man inside the mask.
Frederick Church, Landscape Artist
Each room in his Persian inspired dream
house, Olana, is a form of interior landscape
painting, Chinese puzzles stacked like
interlocking parts leading into a maze
of colors where only light can be extracted
and blueprints drawn with white inks
on parchments stretched thin as dried
skin, visions of a new kind of architecture
are conceived on. Tunneling further inward,
the essential fire at the center of creation,
is a Hudson River school of painting
in a fifth dimension without boundaries where
walls are an infinity of mirrors;
only by drawing new outlines for perception.
Lucia Joyce’s Star Light, Star Bright
Lucia, on her name, to Samuel Beckett, "it means
light, like Paris, the City of Light, you know."
Silhouetted in full moon light,
a tall, thin wraith dressed in faded
black watch flannel, a home spun
shawl for a wrap like a thick
but porous length of skin.
Inert as stone, her mind contains
the paradox of dance, a new age music
scored for a rock orchestra: Hebophrenia
Live! sung by pitiless female voices
and a chorus of mixed demons.
Staring deep into her beloved's eyes
she says, "Lucia, the light, don't you
see the stars shining there?"
Dorothy Parker Meets Barfly in the Incognito Lounge
"You’re so vain, you probably think
this song is about you." Carly Simon
She would be considered overdressed and
out of place, sitting at the end of a
too dark bar, chain smoking cigarettes,
playing with the hard edges of twin gold
necklaces, if it were not for her total
absorption with how the olives in her ninth
martini seem suspended in a clear but elastic
medium, slowly rising and falling in time
to some distant, dark, unearthly music
of their own. Eyes unblinking, impervious
to movement or to the smoke, nothing matters
but the staring, not even the rough, calloused
hand or the deep, whiskey voice dragged out
from within the craggy, pock marked face,
'What brings a nice lady like you to a dive
like this?' Her silence is a kind of reproach,
an answer in itself, or is it just that she
is so completely ossified by all that gin,
she has lost the will to speak or to move?
Frozen that way, together, they are a miniature
mimicking a sculpted stone. They seem made
for each other, inextricable, inseparable,
as one, forever.
Gerard Manly Hopkins in Attendance at
a Performance of Mozart's Don Juan
Embarks on a Voyage of Life
He feels rootless, cast adrift in an
open boat to be buffeted by an elemental
surge of tides and a ravaging wind.
Unfurling a meager sail in his mind
salvages nothing, accomplishes less,
confronting the inevitable, unknowable storm.
There are no words in his vocabulary
to define the sins revealed on stage
either venal or mortal.
Drawn to self-mortification by what is seen,
he spends the intervals between acts,
covering his eyes with a bloody shroud of faith
to prevent seeing a rake's progress to an infernal
reward.
On stage a chorus of unchanged male voices sings
an impromptu Dies Irae, dramatically inserted
just before the end like the wreck of the passenger
ship Deutschland and the fires most of his known
work was consigned to.
God’s grandeur dapples his eyes with light.
Three Acrostic Sonnets
By Mike Mesterton-Gibbons
After Breakfast
A whole day lies ahead. So I will take
Five minutes sitting by myself, and let
The dirty dishes signal I'm on break,
Engrossed in my own thoughts. A cigarette
Relaxes me, it makes me feel unsnared,
But only for a while. The life I know
Rewards conformity. I wish I dared
Escape from ties to here, just pack and go,
And travel to pursue the freedom I
Keep longing for. Yet duty to my kin
Forbids me still. In truth, as time goes by,
A love of homespun comfort settles in ...
Soon chores resume. But till they call on me,
These moments let me dream that I am free!
The Frankophile
Through Joey Chestnut's hyperactive jaws,
Hot dogs are crammed precipitously fast:
Eight seconds each, which won last year's applause,
For this year's contest would have been surpassed! ...
Revolted Francophiles, whose haute cuisine
Avoids all dining habits that appear
Neanderthal or early Pleistocene,
Keep asking of their homonym's career—--
Of pigging pork ribs, Twinkies, doughnut goo,
Poutine and all the rest at record speeds—--
How life's achievements don't make Joey spew ...
I think his secret is how fast he feeds:
Low speed is so unheard of, he must know
Emetic urges start when he eats slow!
Cash For Honours
Charles, Prince of Wales, is known as squeaky clean.
Aristocratic whiffs of scandal stay
So far removed from him as from the Queen
Herself——a royal country mile away
From him! This future royal figurehead
Of Britain, who excels at small talk, yet
Remembers nothing anybody said,
Has prospered from his proneness to forget:
One wonders how he met the head of Burke's
Nine times, yet has no knowledge from his chats
Of Cash For Honours ... That's just how it works—--
Untitled wannabe aristocrats
Remit donations to the Prince's Fund
So secretly, when he finds out, he's stunned!
Three Poems
By Kenneth Vincent Walker
When Ella Sang
Oh…when Ella sang
What purity and elegance,
So smoothly rich, intense,
On a rolling sea of Jazz.
Oh…when Ella scats
The earth stops and waits.
The wind knows its place
And holds its breath awhile.
Oh…when Ella croons
We’d melt within our shoes,
Consuming all the booze
Prohibition has displaced.
Oh…when Ella riffs
We’d lose ourselves in song.
We’d dance until the dawn,
Leaving with a Jazzy smile
All the while, “cause Ella sang.
Legend of Lenny Breau
An obscure genius twinkling
Between harmonic miseries.
The depth of pure creativity
Submersed in cruel waters.
Lenny, Oh Lenny Breau all
Too trusting. Perhaps naïve.
Jazz/ pinholes up your sleeve
As you struggle with sobriety.
A vast mind I have an inkling
Had a language all its own,
And death found a home
Amid reverberations high alter.
In Jazz circles you stand tall as
your gigantic legend lives on.
Your sweet guitar silenced, gone.
Staking your claim and notoriety
In the orbital hereafter & beyond.
In Tribute to Nick Drake
Adrift Drake set off with
The Riverman, Ferryman
To most, obolus guarded
Tightly clinched in hand.
Softly spoken, whispering
Melancholy voice full of
Promise, poetry, wisdom
Beyond his years on land.
A blended cocktail of Folk
And Modal Jazz, haunting
Melodies echoing through
Shards of broken glass.
From the hallowed halls of
Cambridge, to Soho, to the
Unappreciated, visionless,
Unworthy and unrepentant
…Goddamned!
Poems by Goran Petrovic
The Tamer of Thunders
Nikola Tesla the Great
Fulfilled his great man’s fate
By becoming the tamer of thunders
And a doer of electric wonders.
Born in the region of Lika,
In a land of poplars and yews,
His life – an incessant eureka –
Was a journey of great breakthroughs.
Yet Tesla was a loner and shy,
That’s why folks laughed at his face,
But he gave them a proper reply –
He lit up the whole human race!
If it hadn’t been for Tesla
We would all be still half-blind;
Tesla saved humans from darkness,
What a Promethean mind!
But to be a Prometheus, that’s hard,
For Tesla had to endure
The beaks of his envious rivals,
And this he did well for sure!
He kept his honour and face,
He didn’t abandon his vision,
He worked for the good of men’s race,
Though greeted by men with derision.
In the end, good Tesla died
A happy man, so it would seem,
For he knew what really matters –
To follow your heart and your dream.
What people say does not matter,
Your compass is in you alone,
Let others mind their business,
Your life is just your own!
So, Tesla followed his heart
And perfectly played his part –
He made the world a better place,
Improved the life of our race…
He became the tamer of thunders
And a doer of electric wonders.
An Ode to Crazy Horse
Praised be the Oglala warrior
Of the noble Indian race,
For thrice he slapped the Wasicu
Right on his arrogant face!
First, he defeated Fetterman
With all of his eighty men,
And then at the Rosebud River
He beat the “Long Knives” again.
Lastly, in the Greasy Grass Battle,
He crushed Custer’s murderous riders,
And showed them the strength and courage
Of the fearless Lakota fighters.
With his deeds upright and gallant,
With his heart just and audacious,
He proved that “the white man’s burden”
Is at its core fallacious.
Praised be the Oglala warrior,
Whom Wakan Tanka did send
To hammer the white man’s arrogance
And Lakota lands to defend!
Eric the Red Redeemed
Eric the Red was a Norseman who shed
Blood in breach of the law.
Hence, he was banished, from Iceland he fled,
To the west he was destined to go.
Westward he sailed, toward the world’s end,
Until on a new land he landed.
The land was green, so he called it ‘Greenland’,
And thus Europe was forever expanded.
This is a very didactic story
Of the advance of the Viking nation,
For it tells us that sometimes deeds of great glory
Can be done despite bad reputation.
So, we mustn’t be quick to lay our blame
On someone who has done a misdeed,
For out of crimes and out of shame
A hero may arise indeed!
Success in Life
Today the most popular game
Is to pursue money and fame;
Success for most modern-day blokes
Is to be loved by a million folks.
But I say, if you can just stay
Like the sea on a windless day
In your mind, then you’ve won the game
And you won’t need money or fame.
Ataraxia, as the Stoics would say,
Is a far better game to play.
Approaching Halloween
by Caud Sewer Bile
“You live in the same kind of grayness as the filthy stuff that formed you.”
—Jack Finney, “The Invasion of the Body Snatchers”
They’re here! like werewolves roaming round our urban neighbourhoods,
attacking godly individuals and looting goods,
not trick-or-treating, only feeding in a frenzied mode,
vampires on the prowl for those who love life’s overload.
They’re here! like klowns in makeup, k-cup, caked-on flaky grime,
in hopes of shocking, mocking, and defrocking the sublime,
like zombies, those undead, corporeal, crazed parasites,
those carriers of pathogens, who dominate our nights.
They’re here! those aliens whose seed-pods dropt into our homes,
to take us over with their blank and vapid monotones.
With deadly drugs they cross the land in lawless, wild band;
and ominously kill and rape their victims on command.
They’re here those horrid, torrid ogres, everywhere one goes,
those cryming cats and monster drummers pounding out their shows,
those mental blasters blanking out our minds with filth and rot,
those gross and vile creatures of lagoon and seaside grot.
They’re here! like those demonic rats who linger near the swamp,
who swarm about with harmful shout, in circumstance and pomp.
Is there no piper to relieve us of their frothing mouths,
no trumpeter to blast them back to uncouth hell’s foul drouth?
Caud Sewer Bile, i. e., Bruce Dale Wise
Two Acrostic Sonnets
by Mike Mesterton-Gibbons
Halloween Haunt
Heathrow is where a witch will hitch a ride
At dusk on Halloween. She'll leave the ground
Laid flat beneath a jumbo's underside—--
Latched safely to the plane, she's Boston-bound!
On Halloween, this witch, whose children fled
West long ago to haunt the States at night,
Embarks upon a trip that she'd find dead
Exhausting if she used her broom all flight!
Nocturnal pilots have no means to see
Her broom and she are stowed below the rear
And flying to America for free—--
Until they land, and then she does appear,
Not one bit weary, whizzing through the air
To greet her waiting grandkids with a scare!
I Can't Get Me A Cow
I learned from Dad why bull elks prance and strut
Come fall, when cows, he said, exude desire
And competition for them in the rut
Necessitates a plentiful spare tire!
The tire I found two years ago, a spare,
Got stuck around my neck. I felt content:
Elk suitors need spare tires, and mine was there!
Then Dad explained it wasn't what he'd meant.
Months later, some do-gooder ranger crew
Expunged my tire, but still I can't get me
A cow——this crew expunged my antlers too! ...
Come fall next year, a true spare tire will be
Observed on me. My dad has set me straight—--
With new-grown antlers, I'll get me a mate!
Life Scars
Poetry Collection by Alan Catlin
Self-Portrait with Phantom Limbs
the third eye removed by
evolutionary behest is the one
containing imagination, dream
memories of the axe wielding right
arm amputated on the fields of
battle, survival assured only by
avoiding behind the lines, camp
hospitals, doctor’s visits-the pain
a severed limb inflicts can be felt
all the way to the fingertips, an
exquisite agony equal to that of
dispatching an opponent, an enemy
killed by a swift one-handed stroke,
legs cut from underneath, severed just
below the groin a relic of time spent
marching, infantry patrols, still they
spasm, reluctantly letting go tensile
strength, their memory haunting fevered
night in recovery rooms, connubial
meetings, the strongest limbs, the phantom
ones, though the incessant itching after
removal is the stuff madness is made of.
the body resisting modification long after
the fact, tensed as if tied down and subjected
to formication rites making all limbs
in the mind, ghost limbs, lost untethered
arms stretching out from shadows to test
the strength of new skin, hoping to pluck
unseen torment from within, to somehow
do without.
Dreamscape with Falling Umbrellas
A massive black swirl of incipient
storm blots out the landscape
but for a small corner harboring
final light cast before an elemental
encroachment of serious extremes;
a field, part lawn ornament display,
part cemetery, lavishly decorated
by plastic pink flamingos, Hummel
dwarfs, black jockeys with horse
tying rings, BVM's on the half shell
amid arrhythmic flapping of plastic
veteran of foreign war flags,
Sonora Desert weathered wooden
crosses, names of the deceased scratched
on bare wood, skulls of long horned
cattle, fluttering ribbons tied to
the horn tips-then the gentle first rain:
unfolded umbrellas falling, handles facing
up, rain shields facing down, small
pocket-sized ones first followed by
larger spring release ones, then the golf
outing umbrellas, beach umbrellas-
the whole spectrum of rain deflectors
hurtling down buffeted by a stern
pummeling of cross currents, winds.
Life Scars
1-
Thin torso
too thin, really
puckered skin
on his back
where the round
went in
jagged lines all
up and down his back
Under right arm
long scar
stitching like Frankenstein’s
monster on a bad day
Dead on frontal
view of his body
so much worse
all those wounds,
life lines from
Parkland to ER
and back
2-
Head shot
in profile
almost normal:
unruly hair,
cheeks he might
need to shave
some day
under left ear
ugly, healed
crater
of a wound
You might miss it
even if you knew
where to look
3-
Seen in profile
dressed to
hang out:
distressed jeans
polo shirt
simple to put
and take off
a teenage ensemble
with surgical sling
A lifetime of
scars hidden
inside
On the outside too
4-
Back in school now
with a therapy dog
No one has to ask him,
“Why the dog?”
He still can’t talk
about it
Maybe he never will
Maybe someday
he’ll share his dog
with someone else
who needs comfort
“Teachers have told me
that they go in the closet
and cry,
and then they come back
and finish teaching.”
Three Poems
by Kenneth Vincent Walker
***
The Rogue
I’ve tried to suppress this
Duality I serve, though
It’s thrown me a curve,
As it starts to undress.
For it is vile and grotesque,
Neither refined nor in vogue.
You’d better run for your lives.
You’ve awakened the Rogue.
I’ve tried to caress this more
Genteel side, but it’s found
Somewhere to hide, while
I’m left with this mess
Which is vile and grotesque,
Neither refined nor in vogue.
You’d better run for your lives
NOW!
You’ve awakened the Rogue.
***
Red-Eyed
Monster
There is a level
Of miscellanea
Which happens
To fall woefully
Between nausea
And peak euphoria.
A phenomenon
Diagnosed but is
Most unwelcome.
Revealing of said
Phantom you all
Know by its given
Name, the dreaded
Red-Eyed Monster
Of lore, commonly
Known as Insomnia.
***
The Shoveling Ghost
More skeptical than most
Forever have I been,
And not so given to
Supernatural phenomenon,
Until the Shoveling Ghost
Appeared for a brief stint
For reasons undisclosed
Which I can’t even begin to
Explain in good conscience.
The snow which surrounds
The realm of the living
Seems to have no effect
On our ethereal friend.
There’s nothing I can say to
Put a spin on this apparition.
So I choose to close this
Unnerving chapter with the
Unsettling and haunting
Grin of the Shoveling Ghost
Devoid of laughter which
Stands silently in the wind.
Two Sonnets by Thaddeus Hutyra
***
Perpetual Motion /sonnet/
There is yet undiscovered jewel of all jewels, the cosmic one
One that I happen to support, the idea of perpetual motion
One that shall open to us the gates of the whole Universe
Energy, completely free, bringing us to star-spangled levels.
There is more than enough free energy in the entire Universe
Gravitational waves, the dark energy and one from the stars
Infinite garden, indeed, for us, future intergalactic civilization
Just let enjoy it and win everything what is offered to us all.
By the Lord’s generosity! For believe it or not, dear earthlings
Perpetual motion as seen by me, self-generating free energy
Magnetic, based on opposing magnetic fields is what we need
As well as energy offered by the cosmic strings of the Universe.
Perpetual motion! Don’t believe if anyone says it is there not
For the Universe itself is a perpetual motion, inviting us all!
____
Ode to Human /sonnet/
I will dream today, I will dream under the umbrella of the sky
On its screen I will discover the power of limitless miracles
And I will become tomorrow’s magician, charmer, wizard
I will change the human world beyond recognition in one blink!
It will be an ode to human, to humanity absolutely as a whole
Such one that it will change a person's fate and envelop it with happiness
This is what we need now, in the complexities of everyday life
In order to be able to use Ariadne's thread to spell human life.
It is a perpetual motion machine*, free magnetic energy
Drive oscillators that generate magnetic fields
The starships in effect, an open way into the universe
A man free at last, Earth a virgin land anew.
Ah, human, arise from your knees, in the shroud of humanity
Become a starry being, in rays of your own light! The Universe is waiting!
* Perpetual motion: motor (machine, vehicle),
self-generating free energy, magnetic, based on opposing magnetic fields ...
Three Poems by Kenneth Vincent Walker
***
Cat’s Eye Nebula
True north toward
Polaris, just a few
Degrees askew
Within the northern
Perimeter of Draco
With Cepheus in view.
As the spinning wheel
Of Ferris pirouettes as
If in a cosmic opera,
Drawn to the hypnotic
Feline optics of a gem,
And bling brilliance of
The Cat’s Eye Nebula.
***
Eta Carinae
Oh…Eta Carinae your
Beauty astounds, the
Fabric, the colors and
Long flowing gowns.
With her hair tinted via
Stardust, a wisp and a
Flare, perfume a mist
In the absence of air.
More sultry than the
Sun, a sensuality that
Is renowned amongst
The luminaries of this
Star-studded vicinity.
***
Our Lives on Titan
Our lives on Titan
Saturn’s largest
Moon, this prison
Or this sanctuary,
Depending upon
Your parallax view.
If only we on Earth
Were stronger in our
Persistence resisting
The powerful accused
In the annihilation of
Our mother homeland
As evacuations ensued.
However, we alive upon
This rock as colonization
Turns back the clock to a
Primordial-techno reboot.
If Pigs Could Fly
By Mike Mesterton-Gibbons
If pigs could fly, and always find their sty,
Fresh pork would be worth more alive than dead,
Perhaps far too exorbitant to buy
In shops——since you love bacon, that's your dread!
Green farmers would let pigs export themselves,
Suppressing carbon hoofprint from air freight.
Consignment drones would languish on the shelves
Of Amazon, while trained pigs lay in wait
Until your order popped up on their phones.
Low-flying pigs with smartphones in their chops,
Delivering your coffee, would make drones
Forever obsolete for coffee drops ...
Lest pigs' new worth kept bacon prices high,
You'd have to learn to pluck pigs from the sky!
The Gold Diggers
By Donald Nigroni
These fairies, a folk coming from some fairyland,
a sinister race seeking a space to stand.
Little green men greedy and gaping for gold
as that old tale many times was told.
When there was this sudden thin haze twirling
and every one everywhere was envied and enthralling.
Our plain deemed pleasant and proper a place
where time could twist and tumble without trace.
But forbidden to feast on food most foul
then I decided eating meals I couldn’t allow.
From whence my wife became way too witchy
and paradise turned poor and putrid and pitchy.
Three Poems by Goran Petrovic
The War of the Worlds
The ugly Martians came
With one plan in their mind –
To play their murderous game
On man’s complacent kind.
They came to seize the earth,
To make man’s home their own
And, leaving their place of birth,
On earth to erect a new throne.
They built superb tripods,
Ruined London with their heat-ray,
Men fought against all odds
And could do little but pray.
Yet the Martians couldn’t complete
Their task, being weaker than men,
Weaker, ‘cause they couldn’t beat
The bacteria, which humans can.
So, it is not technology –
As The War of the Worlds tells –
That matters, but it’s ecology,
According to H. G. Wells.
The Time Machine
The Traveler got off the machine,
And still struggling with mental haze,
He discovered the feeble Eloi,
The rich in their degenerate phase.
Then he discovered the Morlock,
The poor man’s son, a foul beast,
Saw ape-like underground half-men
On Eloi enjoying to feast.
He saw a dying mankind,
He witnessed the death of the sun,
And realized the earth’s future
Will by no means be fun.
When renowned minds opined
That progress would last forever,
Wells wrote of the utter bleakness
Of the end of the human endeavor.
The Little Shepherd and the Troll
There used to be a dragon whose breath of fire
Gave the whole world a mighty big scare,
And once it happened that this fearsome dragon
Disappeared, vanished, no one knows where.
And after the dragon went who knows whither,
In the shadowy foothills of a mountain steep,
A little shepherd from his cabin departed
To graze his herd of a dozen sheep.
But before he could reach the lush green pasture,
He had to cross a bridge made of wood,
‘Neath which a troll had recently settled
Whose manners were insolent, vile and crude.
And the big gray troll climbed onto the bridge,
Then raised a forefinger, and loudly said:
“Listen, boy, give me a sheep to devour,”
“For if you do not, I’ll eat you instead!”
And the young shepherd, not wishing to die
Or part with any of his white and stout ewes,
Responded shrewdly: “My big gray fellow,”
“’Tis not in your interest to be so obtuse.”
“Lower your voice, or the vessel I’m carrying”
“(and the boy indeed did hold a black flagon)”
“Will set free the beast that we recently dreaded,”
“If I open my flask, I’ll unleash the dragon!”
“My father’s a wizard, who with magic captured”
“The dragon in this flask, and saved trolls and men,”
“And should you not heed the words I’m saying,”
“The great fiery terror shall befall us again!”
“My friend, I tell you, you can’t fathom the power”
“That I hold in this flasket of the color of soot,”
“No one in our land will ever sleep calmly”
“If we don’t use reason to resolve our dispute!”
“I know you’re hungry, the sheer desolation”
“Wreaked by the dragon has caused you dismay,”
“But if you don’t let my sheep and me over,”
“None of us will live to see another day!”
“And to confirm my story, I’ll read you the runes”
“Inscribed by my father on my pitch-dark flagon:”
“‘Steinolf’, it says, ‘the wielder of magic’’”
“‘Herein ensnared the flame-spewing dragon.’”
The troll, dim-witted, was at once impressed
By the speech of the boy (a bluffer indeed!),
So, after some thinking, he made his decision
And said to the shepherd: “Your words I will heed!”
Thus, the boy and his herd crossed unmolested
(The boy’s eyes all radiant with triumphant shine),
And the troll not at all in his mind suspected
That in the boy’s flagon there was actually wine!
Though to me the reason for the boy’s triumph’s clear,
The thing still can’t be understood by some –
Did the boy succeed ‘cause he was too clever
Or rather because the troll was too dumb?
Two Sci-Fi Masterpieces
By Christian Ward
=====
Encounter, Close
At the bins, an animatronic fox frozen
in the apartment block's UFO light.
A Westworld extra, a conjuring of photons
escaped from a holodeck. Its face too fake -
like a program running to figure out
what it meant to be a fox. Remnants of
starlight on its back, turning its fur into a field of fibre optic cables. A pair of spy satellites
for eyes, fixed on my movement. I can't say
for sure what happened next, but it
disappeared into its shadow while the motors of my body turned me into the alien squiggle
of a crop circle, ready to be typecast once again.
====
Dear Captain Kirk
Yelling Khan! during video calls
is the last straw, buddy. We've given
you plenty of time to catch up with the rent,
but all you do is mutter "Enterprise" over
and over into a plastic ficus. I appreciate you
working in a tanning salon was a start,
but freaking out over mahogany tans
and screaming Klingon! is the quickest way
to send someone into a red alert. I've had enough
of your John Wayne swagger; doing a karate
chop on the postman every time he delivers
mail to the wrong address and hitting
on my mother whenever she uses a swamp
coloured face mask. I don't understand
how you can mistake an avocado's reptilian
skin for a Gorn or think trying to mind meld
with a cat is an actual thing. Perhaps beaming
into your van is the right thing to do, while the rest
of us set a course to the familiar, encroaching dark.
=====
Bio: Christian Ward is a UK based writer who has recently appeared in Open Minds Quarterly, Eskimo Pie and Literary Yard.
The Eclipse of the Falling Man
Poetry Collection by Alan Catlin
The Accident
All the crop circles in his
mind are burning, leaving
dull gray smoke and ash on
plush grasses, yellowed fields,
images impressed like white
scars seared into earth, sacred as
bones, of cartography dreams
pointing skyward where shooting
stars are razor cutting black holes
in the night. Toward dawn,
when the ground fog still lingers
in the twisted trees, life is culled
from shaded groves; a man appears,
stranger than anything the mind
might create, his flashlit face too
horrible and deformed to reveal.
Homeward Bound
There must not have been
much else for him to do
wherever he’d spent the last
few years of his life except
pump iron, bust heads and
carve stuff into his skin.
Most of his remaining brain
cells had been deprived of
oxygen chasing ufo’s toward
Venus and were spiraling
out of control through his
nervous system causing involuntary
spasms, spastic reactions so
severe he looked like a spontaneous
St Vitus Disco Dance competition
winner with white foam stuff
at the corners of his tainted blue,
vermiform lips. Phoning for help
was probably a waste of time,
though someone was going to
have to clean up the inevitable
mess and the body afterwards.
The hope was whoever was
supposed to meet him here was
unavoidably detained forever.
Sleeper
I receive transmissions.
That’s what the antennae
are for.
Transmission from space.
All kinds. Mostly radio
signals these days;
clear days you can pick up dozens
of stations right here on earth.
Battle plans. Outlines of what
the future will look like once
we take over.
It won’t be pretty for you guys,
that’s for sure, but given what
you’ve done to this planet
what do you expect?
Yeah, lots of people have said
I’m a few pills short of a commitment.
Truth is, I have been committed.
Bunches of times. In fact, I’m out now
On a kind of work release program.
Gathering information. That’s my job,
Kemosabe. I’m working incognito like
James Bond only I’m better looking.
Nothing some cosmetic surgery and a few
false teeth couldn’t fix.
Gotta cigarette? No, how about a quarter?
No, it doesn’t pay well. Hey, when you’re
a sleeper agent, you have to take the good
with the bad. You know, go with the flow.
Be authentic, dude. I’m as authentic as it gets.
I do have one major worry. Sometimes I get
Video messages. I know most people would
need a TV for that but I’m different.
The problem is the signals are changing
and I don’t have a converter box.
What if a vital message comes through
after the change and I don’t get it?
Where will I be then? What will I do?
The Bachelor Party
They looked as if they’d come
from the place where the green
ants dreamed, or their last ejection
from a bar had been an encounter
at the end of the world, where the
bouncers wore hazmat suits and
carried stun guns and pepper spray
as party favors to be used liberally,
as the spirit moved, which it often
did, in the oddest ways, after effects
extending well past their air locked
doors. These guys in their inappropriate
attire like Los Clowns wearing t-shirts
that could easily have said Alpha Centuri’s
Got Talent Too and no one would have
thought it unusual. Their soiled Yankees caps
worn backwards in every color imaginable
but midnight blue, shading their eyes where
digital cameras were trained on the bar
staff, up close and personal, as if observing
the folkways and morays of bar staff
for psychological profiles, would be useful
for the strange invasion of pod people
and their clones at some yet-to-be-determined, date.
These advance alien scouts misled into
bizarre drinking contests involving shots
of Mescal with 151 Rum and coke chasers,
encouraged to eat the worms for dead soldiers,
empty bottles like beef jerky, their circuits so fried
by last call their stretch limo, mother ship, parked
outside in the fire lane, would be compelled
to leave without them.
The Price of Darkness
“Staring death down,
with a bottle of morphine in one hand
and a bottle of Jameson’s in the other”
Paula Meehan
No bar would have the likes
of him inside smelling as he
did of afterbirth and black plague
rags, voice raspy as razor blades,
cuts swaddled in lemon juice,
refusing to heal. Begging for
rocket fuel for his interior trips
back to the home planet is
hopeless; ordinary folks cross
to the other side of any street
he might be on, struggling to breathe
one respirator short of a lung.
No emergency room will take him,
every technician in town knows
his history, knows he’s gone from
bottom of the barrel booze to
the bottom of the barrel itself,
nothing too disgusting to ingest if
the suggestion of alcohol might be
inside. Other street folk refer to
him as the Lord of the Flies,
for obvious reasons, kick back ten
per cent of every score as tribute,
protection against whatever it is
he has.
The Man Who Fell to Earth
Half-sleeping in the heat,
some kind of alien invasion
movie on the TV, maybe,
“It Came from Outer Space,”
or, maybe, “The Man Who Fell
to Earth”, frozen wastes
replaced by desert planet
well beyond a dark side of
the moon, Holst music,
“The Planets Suite” becoming
“Mars Bringer of War” morphing
into Bowie singing,
“….. .. I’m putting out the fire
with gasoline, I’m putting out
the fire………” lucid dreaming now,
so thirsty in the night, so thirsty
and all the water gone, only
Beefeaters and ice, all my pretty
ones dying in the sun burst, arid,
never changing night no rain ever
falls in, heat lightning and random
light, pale white men with cat’s
eyes, reflected visions in a bathroom
cabinet mirror, dissecting the dreamer
awake in another man’s dream of
somewhere else, gunfire in the street,
the first awakening into a long hell
to come.
Three Poems by Ian C. Smith
Dog Days
Overheard in the early stages of these beige days,
my last challenge, trekking the desert
far from a ruinous prime when oases always shimmered,
two women walking laps refer to a dog named Smooth
reminding me of our cat dubbed thus as a kitten
for his velvet pelt that shone, catching the sun,
later regarded by our gang as an operator
who (yes, I know he’s an animal, but so like us)
tried to open doors with paws, who emailed
from adoptive carers, kind former neighbours
tolerant of his overacting in videos sent
when my time came to exit paradise for east of small,
dismantled to a room where I hear my slow breathing.
A theme plied in art, this sudden arrival shocks.
Reassured by Smooth’s new quarters, I reply,
Furry nice, if not downright purrfect: playing along
with fond recall trusting his head won’t swell,
prevent him squeezing through confined spaces
to our old trails, their spoors to my heart.
On the canal path from town, a usual threshold of loss,
adventures morphed into dreams, I see a terrier,
distant, skittering my way where I sometimes sit,
solitary, on a bench watching cyclists, joggers.
I expect its owner carrying a leash but I’m alone
with what I now see as a rabbit approaching fast,
not a terrier, more terror-stricken, like me
by the notion of appalling decline.
This happens in seconds before I realise it’s a hare,
fugitive over gravel, not on the verge, so I stop
before it veers to the softer grass, slows down,
adjacent, eyeballing me as though I’m the one lost,
endangered, heading in the wrong direction
recalling a Cambridgeshire field, wind in my jacket,
flints and hares abundant, time’s triumph distant,
thinking now of Auden’s years running like rabbits.
*****
The Night, the Possum
Giant starry sky night behind an illegal beach shack
in a rickety add-on caravan he calls Steptoe’s Castle,
broken window wedged open for cooler air,
a possum squeezes its way inside, his bed adjacent.
He stirs, wind a banshee, half-wakens to noises.
Here among fishermen of the Roaring Forties
he trawls the roar of his past before he shook the grog,
to make sense of his footprints in the sand vanishing
into a cloister he tries to treasure for calmness.
The possum scents fruit, a dietary compromise.
Lists mulled over: jobs held, the dead, names whispered,
places lived, airports landed in, lovers lusted for.
He sometimes rouses hard, limbs creaky, tantalised,
wanting total dream recall, not glimpses, re-entry.
A kitchen tin clatters, sounding in sleep, outside.
Tiptoeing over soldier crabs on his crescented walk
he ogles a ferry balanced on the horizon as if painted,
recounts ferries boarded, turbulent straits crossed,
the excitement, enigma, of expected arrival.
Wildness crossed his sleeping form to reach that tin.
Now it employs his naked thigh as a trampoline,
claws gripping to launch back to the window ledge.
He wakes to his own shriek, kicking out, bloodied,
possum scurrying into the shack, a havoc of curtains,
both shocked by how it came to this.
*****
Trespass With Black Swans
Truant Reynard, memory of egg-crunch,
cygnets taller, convoy en famille, coats
fluffy grey, prey for him to take for lunch.
Swamp menu varied, waterline high, boats
banned here, high rainfall has hindered his run.
Parent birds usher their flotilla through
weeds as a wedge-tail eclipses the sun,
arcing a current fixed-wing, these true
hunters, fox, raptor, watching, carp-splash, day
dreamer wading flooded paths, sunken heart
weighted, summer furlough a month away
when wild creatures, trespassing me, shall part.
On my return from reading by the sea
grown swans will have flown, this fen hike still free.
*****
Ian C Smith’s work has appeared in , Antipodes, Australian Book Review, Australian Poetry Journal, Critical Survey, Poetry Salzburg Review, The Stony Thursday Book, & Two-Thirds North. His seventh book is wonder sadness madness joy, Ginninderra (Port Adelaide). He lives in the Gippsland Lakes area of Victoria, Australia.
Four Poems by Donna Langevin
***
Pippin
My little Pomeranian was golden.
His coat, lustrous as maple syrup,
sometimes a dark amber
depending on how the light stroked him.
I nicknamed him honey,
peach-ginger, crème-caramel and buttercup
for his disposition.
His apple-shaped head
bright as a Golden Delicious
or a Newtown Pippin,
his wagging tail, supple
as young goldenrod in the wind.
His tongue, had a Midas kiss
that brightened my dark moods.
But when his fur turned grizzled,
the whites of his eyes
grew yellow, and his appetite
waned to a sniff, I relinquished
him to the vet.
Now I find his gold woven into my sweater
and the green blanket on my bed
where he spent his last nights with me.
His sunshine has vanished from my sky,
yet the Milky Way in winter runs
between two celestial dog-stars --
the dazzling blue Canis Major
astronomers named Sirius
and the smaller golden Canis Minor
I now call Pippin.
***
Sugar Daddy
sweet-mouthing me on the phone
with red and green tales
of that hummingbird
tapping
the plastic petunias
on your new hanging feeder
as you whirr around
your California kitchen
measuring
adding
stirring
a fresh batch of nectar
I tell you, darling
brown sugar’s too coarse
honey and molasses too rich
red dye could harm her
The recipe calls for
pure cane sugar
Is there still snow in Toronto?
… I can hardly wait
till you’re here…
At the other end of the sky
thirsty for you, I sip
your sweet-talk for hours.
***
One Tulip Less
for Brian
My brother’s garden, mid-March--
a huge hungry wild turkey
rakes up soil with his claws,
flings its black confetti
over the snow’s melting dress.
Beard tickling the ground,
he probes with his adze-like beak,
digs up a shivering bulb,
gulps down its roots like spaghetti,
cracks the nut-brown nugget,
and begins devouring the meat.
Help yourself, Mr. Turkey,
what’s one tulip less in my garden,
my brother laughs
behind the living room window.
Spring’s perennial promise
of more tulips to come,
to go down this gobbler’s gullet,
he sports leaf-green feathers,
petal-patterns on wings.
His bulbous head blooming scarlet,
he struts away on twin stems
toward a neighbor’s garden.
***
Manatee-Man
in my dream there’s a feeling
of puzzled
well-being
warmth and security as I
cuddle up to a huge
wrinkly
brown-skinned
grey-whiskered
plush-bellied
balding
cold-fearing creature
with foliage
flippers
paddle-shaped tail
and gentle deep-set eyes
who lolls and basks
in the heat of my bed
munching sea-spinach salad
In the morning you grin--
now you know where I went
to escape the Florida chill.
Canadian Donna Langevin won first place in The Banister anthology competition, 2019 and in the Pandemic Poetry Contest anthology, (The Ontario Poetry Society, 2021) Her fifth poetry collection, Brimming was published by Piquant Press, 2019. Her play, Summer of Saints about the 1847 typhus epidemic is scheduled to be produced by Act 2, Ryerson University, and published by Prometea Press in 2021.
Two Poems by K.A. Williams
Cats
Cats
Meowing, purring
Aloof, furry, hunters
Your most loyal friend
Felines
Dogs
Dogs
Barking, wagging
Social, furry, hunters
Your most loyal friend
Canines
The Wolf Trilogy
Poems by Kenneth Vincent Walker
***
Season of the Wolf
For years we’ve cried wolf.
Now the wolf is at our door
Rattling the timbers with an
Insatiable taste for the poor.
The ignorant ignore reason
Along with the vain aloof.
For they fail to acknowledge
The inevitable cold truth.
The wolf has been patient
And now leaps on the roof,
Slides down the chimney.
‘Tis the season of the wolf.
***
Roseate (Spoonbill) Triolet
O Roseate (Spoonbill) Triolet
Beneath a Hunter’s Moon
On sorrow’s floating epitaph.
O Roseate (Spoonbill) Triolet
Defiled amid Death’s silhouette
In the lost lullabies of the loon.
O Roseate (Spoonbill) Triolet
Beneath a Hunter’s Moon.
***
Eohipuss
Once upon a time there
Was a tiny prehistoric
Horse that went by the
Moniker of Eohipuss.
And he was the hippest
Horse of course as he
Grazed in vast fields
Of hibiscus.
You may ask what
Makes him so damn
Hip? As I reply
After a sip.
See, he had a hitch
In his step,
A swagger
Ever so cool,
‘Till one day he
Was squashed
By a Tyrannosaur
Who had swore to
Put an end to this fool.
***
Kenneth Vincent Walker is a "New Formalist" poet, spoken word artist,
performer and author of Borderline Absurd (An Exercise in Rhyme and
Reason), published by Poem Sugar Press 2015.
Three Acrostic Sonnets of the Animal Kingdom
By Mike Mesterton Gibbons
Me And My Parrots
My parrots bring me peace to nestle in.
Enduring loss is easiest when I
Am comforted by feathers on my skin:
No human touch can so well pacify!
Determination permeates the calm
My birds induce: each day I must restart.
Youth brought me chronic pain, for which the balm
Proves daily to be nature, and my art ...
A cigarette as tonic is too brief.
Refraining for a moment is too long.
Relighting brings no permanent relief
Or respite from the battle to be strong—--
Though when my parrots stimulate my brain,
Strength radiates to overcome my pain!
Killer Instinct?
Krakovians felt threatened by a beast.
Its snout was fluted, strangely like its tail.
Loose folds of flaky skin, uncouthly creased,
Looked Super Scary on the reptile scale!
Emergency responders heard this plea,
Relayed in urgent tones: "Please neutralize
Iguana-like wild menace up a tree—--
No window's safe to open till it dies,
Since it could leap inside our homes to kill
The lot of us! It's frightening the town—--
It's lurking in that lilac tree and will
Not go away. So please, please take it down!"...
Crew members scrambled to the lilac ... where ...
They found an old French pastry was the scare!
A Master Builder
A master-builder first-class engineer
Meticulously plans its drainage scheme,
Arresting flows of water with its weir,
Suppressing flood erosion far downstream ...
The beaver, hunted for its fur, had been
Extinct in England since the Bard wrote plays.
Revival waited centuries, till Greens
Began to see the wisdom in its ways ...
Unjustly once prized only for its skin,
Its value now has proven multifold:
Log-rolling beavers welcome wildlife in,
Diversifying habitats untold,
Ensuring cleaner water, curbing drought—--
Restoring landscapes at a cost of nowt!
Thespian Savannah
Poetry Collection by Alan Catlin
The Running of the Sheep
set loose, pricked by sharpened spikes,
trident points, urging the reluctant on,
bleating, a hideous thronging as
they come by the hundreds, unshorn:
white, black, white with black faces,
eyes shuttered by a blinding panic,
the herding, a stopping, filling gap,
for gladiatorial feats, warriors paused
in mid-conflict, about to be stricken
by sword or spear. This gathering a
kind of caesura, a bloodletting sport,
interrupted; still they come, overtaking
the arena space, leaping into viewer's laps,
derisive voices proclaiming: “The sheep are
coming, the sheep are coming-----"
and they do, long after it is evident
there is no place for them to go.
Mourning Doves at Ground Zero
"-----the twisted code
of hell's vermicular tongue."
D. Berrigan
circle the split earth, the spaces
fired between cracked veins
hardened into obsidian, unnatural
glass the bent ruins of model
villages are reflected in, crafted
into melted plastic sculptures
solid as sand dunes, ceramic
fired clay at lunar ocean's edge,
absolute tranquility, silence only
a perfect vacuum brings, the
weightless dead floating dust devils
made by disturbances in the latent
crust, catalytic conversions, radical
surgeries, burst nebulae the immured
human skin resists, made liquid by
the embalmers fatal Art, Death and
Transfiguration made one, song birds
into harpies, mourning doves to stone.
Newfoundland Ponies in the Open Landfill
"and in my hands an empty glass
that magnifies the sky" Simon Perchik
astride the mounds of detritus,
the discarded, cascading down into
sodden valleys, catch-alls for teeming
rains, leftover fluids, motor oils, battery
acids, transmission and radiator liquids
siphoned empty or not, refrigerator
coolants, air conditioners, appliances
large and small, fly wheels and fan
blades transferring the breeze from one
rusted element to the next, thought
forever dim filaments temporarily alive,
enlivened by a currency stricken from
the night; in the unnatural light, ghost
ponies cast imprinting shadows on rubble,
these remains, permanent as nuclear
bomb impressions on fragmentary
retaining walls.
Prairie Dogs in the Cross Gates Mall
emerge from temporary holes dug near
fountain heads, beneath resting benches,
indoor displays, rental booths for cell
phone callers, win a trip kiosks, homes
for information, lost and found, you
are here signs, outside walls for burrowing
creatures, habitats in a transformative mode,
their small furry heads peaking around corners
ever on the alert for dropped wrappers,
loose candies and popcorn kernels, anything
comestible is fast food for the swift and
purposeful, timing their ascensions above
ground with precision, so efficient most
motion detectors cannot track them moving
above and underground, their mazeing,
their constructions undermining everything,
weakening structures, a mouthful at a time.
Combat Elephants in Vietnam
stand, as if posed, at jungle's edge,
fully armed North Vietnamese regulars
perched on their shoulders, smiling
for the camera, all thoughts of recent
encounters, successful ambush raids
momentarily forgotten, camouflaged
pith helmets set roguishly to one side,
an absurdist's parody of backlot
Rama of the Jungle movies in real life
as etched into the deepening furrows
of the elephant's faces, those deep set,
unblinking eyes.
Rhinoceros to the Box Cars
come as a pair to the freight yard
after dark, no need for prompting
unlike many others that came before
and were locked away inside, these
white rhinos lumber, resigned, pacing
off the final yards together before they
part, heads down, tired eyes ringed
by sagging folds of flesh. The female
ascends a metal ramp to the left car,
the male on the right, their weight
eliciting a dull metallic clattering
as they go, to be enveloped by dark,
locked inside box cars, behind unyielding
sliding doors.
Jackalopes on the Gridiron
congregate near mid-field as if
waiting for the tossing of ceremonial
coins, Janus headed, die-cast doubloons
Fate determining when flipped in mid-
air by black and white striped zebras,
briefly suspending unruly behaviors:
random leaping, crossing patterns,
zigzags in the flats, their bedraggled coats
and drooping ears mud and grime splattered,
oversized feet convection heated, hotwired
by coils hidden beneath artificial grass,
unsuitable for eating grounds; spurred
into random, chaotic motion they scatter,
running indefensible routes, no instructions
possible, no discernable plans implemented,
loud police whistles ignored, only the firing
of the official's guns has an effect on
the field of play, the participants.
A PRAYER FOR ONE WHO SLIPPED BACKSTAGE
By Catherine Lee
(Lee Konitz - 10-13-27 to 4-15-20)
Excited electrons
of a Konitz resonance
remind me
yeah
I want to add my voice
into instrumental
improvised music
that way
I can be taking
the cause of spiritual crosstalk
we can play past colored variations
in properly social distanced space
on a bandstand across
time in time it’s time
https://youtu.be/6R9qyYfuCzI
ATTUNE: SOME OTHER TIME
By Catherine Lee
My body rests on daybreaking plot
of soil full circular embodied moon,
its crescent sliver,
bright-lit edge,
haunts the peak of Pisgah,
catching eye with hope of waning
lightening to come
catching ear recording of
“Some Other Time”
1961 Bill Evans Trio
recorded at some other place,
the stage of Greenwich Village Vanguard.
I listen deeply
to this music’s undulations
repeatedly crescendoed couplings,
deftly hammered strings
& fleetly fingered strings,
brush-sizzled skins & metal plates
vibrate harmonics of creators
being one creation
we human judges
dumbly call this “song.”
Luna disappears
in mist uprising mountain verdure,
causing tears of recognition
of some other time,
of loss of godlike part of me
for I am keeping
raggy time on flatted pitch
of earth within a cove
gnawed into Blue Ridge Mountains.
Yet I am grateful
for this perfect piece of synchrony
wafting prayers like smoke,
cloud vapor veiling
what indwells us all.
In this, perhaps
I am not unaware when arbitrating
such vibrations’ human impact.
let’s say it’s called attune.
https://youtu.be/Fq-8olG7K4w
BAND MATES
By Catherine Lee
tenor sax genius
once taught you how to play
piano hands made
air music
deeply touching me
backstory to this
adventure tale
of imagined
we being
***
we listen to
ensemble play,
horn lines supporting
soaring soloist
ethereal wavelength
chosen by these other souls
our hearts entwine
through unison
re-connection hoped for,
eager for reprise
surprised I am
you’re hearing
this same anthem
I know that
and how
sounds’ slip knots
capture you
together as band mates
fleeting music moments
endure as supported soloing
until this measured time
reaches clocked completion
His Rewarded Patience
By David Thorpe
There she is again thumping on his brain
his throat dry with impatience,
reminds him of his thirst for her presence,
not quenched by the bitterness of his tears.
Yet even Shakespeare knew the spell
that music satisfies the hungry heart,
John Dowland´s soothing lute and words
played their part in love´s chagrin
So on his guitar he strums her melody,
her distant voice subdues his chords,
now out of tune, now in tune again
she now forgetting her repertoire.
Winter rain numbs his sombre face
freezing his sense of direction,
friendly foot prints in the silent snow
lead him to dells of solace
Open windows, open doors
through which rays of hope,
bring light to darkness, like fireflies,
bearing his rewarded patience,
David Thorpe ©®
Poetic Symphony in Three Movements
by Alex Andy Phuong
1. Melodious Melody
Music is sometimes a joy
To the ones able to hear,
But even though the deaf
Cannot hear sounds
Nor melodies,
All people really do have the ability
To help one another
In a world filled with diversity
As music reveals
Differences
While also encouraging listeners
To make a difference
So that melodious would play out
While living with courage instead of doubt
2. Lifelong Musical
Some might perform
On a stage
And transform
Into a character,
But true character
Comes from behavior,
And yet even though a savior
Might not have a chance
To save everyone from distress,
People could still try
To make their own personal
And passionate
Music play
As the world functions
Like a theatrical stage
That does change with age
So that the ones who do age
Can change alongside
Constant change
3. The Melody of Harmony
Living harmoniously
Might sound like an unrealistic utopia,
But even though conflict
Conflicts with fantasy,
The power of
Peaceful peace
Is still a possibility
Because music is universal,
And life itself
Might not necessarily
Have a dress-rehearsal,
So play the part nobly,
And entertain musically
Without ever dwelling upon
The confines of reality,
And keep dreaming on
Eighty-eight Keys
By Donna Langevin
If you were a piano, my son
I’d want to be middle C
in your family of 88 keys
If you were a viola
I’d want to be a tuning peg
or the silver knob that stretches
the horsehair wing
If you were a synthesizer
I’d aspire to become the program
colouring your shadows or deleting
a dissonant line,
and if you were a flute,
I’d try to uncap the holes
to let your secrets breathe out
But composers, being wild birds
who sing on the staff as they please,
I will resist the temptation
of pegs, programs and keys, and claim
my proud place in your audience.
Canadian Donna Langevin’s fifth poetry collection, Brimming was published by Piquant Press, 2019. She won first place in The Banister anthology competition 2019 and also in the Ontario Poetry Society Pandemic poem contest 2021. Winner of a second place Stella award, her play, Summer of Saints about the 1847 typhus epidemic is scheduled to be produced by Act 2, Ryerson University, and published by Prometea Press in 2021.
Two Acrostic Sonnets
By Mike Mesterton-Gibbons
A Fresh Pot of Tea
A symphony is what my sonnet brings:
Fresh tea's melodic journey through the pot!
Rinse out your teapot when your kettle sings—--
Ensure your water's boiling, not just hot!
So, having warmed your pot, add loose-leaf tea.
Heap one spoon for each person, plus one more.
Put on the kettle once again——that's key.
Once boiled, your water sings to make you pour.
The tea, with lid and cosy, now must brew
Or it will be too weak to make the grade
For tasty tea. But do not let it stew! ...
That's all to how tea's symphony is played,
Except one final note to grace the score:
A strainer is essential when you pour!
The Cuckoo Clock
The cuckoo calls on birds who are not there.
Her calling card, resembling eggs hosts lay,
Embezzles hours of cuckoo foster care:
Can hosts be sure they counted right today? ...
Unwary humans, knowing cuckoos steal,
Could wonder if the cuckoo in a clock
Knows how to fool you: Does your balance wheel
Oppose the theft of time with its tick-tock ...
Or, as each hour approaches, do you stray,
Consult your clock, stop work, and watch the wall
Lest you don’t see your bird come out to play,
On time, and make its tuneful cuckoo call? ...
Chicanery! The cuckoo in your chime
Keeps you enchanted to purloin your time!
The Gould Cage of Three Masters
Poetry Collection by Alan Catlin
Constance Considers the False Light of Mozart's Bones
His death was ordained in an unfinished score for a requiem
left on his desk.
50 ducats was the price paid for his leaving so much of his
life unfinished.
There is no satisfaction, leafing through a lifetime of faultlessly inscribed
manuscripts for orchestra,
Solo instruments and voice
Without corrections.
All I asked for was some time in his life that didn't involve
music.
There was no time,
Just themes like drinking wine, or making love or
Even dreaming in perfect harmonies that transcended time.
One day, I was the wife of a genius, the next a grief
stricken widow without so much as a grave to lie down and die on.
Living is nightmare, a false dawn of seeing that leaves me
exhausted from perceiving too much illusion.
Mozart, I curse the ground you are lost in for leaving me.
Nightmares are my music, now, but they are sounds without meaning
visions without context.
I reach for you Mozart but all I have is the absence of your bones
This cruel music of silence.
Beethoven's Nephew on the Secrets of His Silence, the Last Years
of the Master's Life
His deafness is a hammer pounding away at the broken layers
of my skull.
Music is like a pointed piece of bone cutting my skin.
Watching him leaning there, feeling the music escape from the piano into his blood
is unnerving.
Like watching the dead rise at night and walk speaking of life in
better worlds.
It is not natural to Feel what can only be heard but then, he is not a natural man.
His skin is an instrument, his dead ears pressed against the piano are extensions of a
Supernatural Force.
A madness, that makes me recoil from his presence.
He almost seems natural when he attempts to speak.
I know that he cares for me, in his way, as if I were his son.
But he will always be a madman with lightning striking in his eyes,
striking chords at random on an untuned instrument.
Only I know of, a fifth movement to his ninth symphony.
It is etched in my being like a disease of the imagination that
only the deaf can hear.
Looking Back, Self-Portrait as Tchaikovsky in NY: Torrents of Spring
There should have been a Russian river,
perhaps, The Volga, but there wasn't.
The Schoharie Creek was out of control,
not really a river but a force
stronger than a Russian Easter Overture
once the ice jams broke.
That force took down
a New York State Thruway bridge
and ten people with it to a muddy death.
Nine bodies were recovered.
The local papers concluded that if that bridge had
collapsed a few days later the whole
of the Easter day Thruway migration might have
ended up dead or on the edge.
Or with Tchaikovsky, considering chords for
a Pathetique, up to his neck in filthy
water, a whole symphony orchestra set up
on the banks consumed by cholera
waiting for direction.
The composer on stage or in transition
between composition and execution,
traveling with his recently published score.
The orchestra about to touch their instruments,
draw a bow across a string in our minds
when the bridge we needed to cross, disappeared.
John Cage's Imaginary Landscape
12 radios
placed in a row
on a table,
center stage.
A conductor, dressed in
formal black, ascends a podium,
taps his music stand. Pauses.
Stage hands enter from stage right-
tune each musical instrument
to different, random stations.
Then hastily leave the stage.
The conductor waves his baton,
once, twice, three times, then
steps from his podium.
Bows once toward the audience
then leaves the stage.
The radios play on without him.
The Idea of Noise
Glenn Gould meets John Cage
A chain drawn across concrete
Breaking glass
An air raid siren
Water dripping on a taut, dried animal skin
Rain falling up
A collision of stars, ruined charts
The tintinnabulation of winds chiming
An implosion of will
Two hands clapping
One
None
The Resurrection Symphony
The master's face reflected in the water,
looking down, contemplating unknowable nether
worlds, disturbing a delicate balance,
subaqueous kingdoms among broken bottle glass,
rusting gold painted caps, antediluvian
choral music in a village square, broken voices
struggling with half tone notes, mute children
playing hide and seek, clapping their hands,
signifying the coming of the night, new changeling
moons, songs within songs; the long, dead
drunken ancestral city fathers rising up,
compelled by pulling inner tides to seek the
forbidden heights, their extended, grasping
fingers breaking the surface calm of the lake.
Two Poems by Michael H. Brownstein
Trying to Find the Wind
The morning sky cobalt and emerald,
A ghost river and a ghost of shoreline without litter,
The shadows of decrescendo within plywood
And a challenge that brings fortissimo to daylight.
Watch the man at the edge of the curve with his kora,
The duck of winter heavy with clouds of snow and opera
Did not offer relief, nor did the shacks built for strong men,
But the mixing of the agogo, slit drum, seed pod shaker,.
Djembe Drums, talking drums, schamanen trommel,
And the heartbeat of dancing, the rhythm of shell bracelets
Awakened the madwoman who points her adunga stringed harp
At the possum of truth and the wind slips in, leaves sing[ng.
And there is coolness, loving comfort, and a movement of shadow,
We look into the music we make and rejoice, rejoice, rejoice. Amen.
THIS, TOO, HAPPENED IN THE PALISADES
The green eyes of the witch girl,
egg shells and shekeres..
...
Once climbing the Palisades of Illinois,
a piece of obsidian slipped into her smile
lining the sky with a melody of silver.
...
Thunder eased into the butterfly,
pianissimo
...
lightning--
forte.
the witch girl's hand a stick,
a large kalimba,
sforzando.
...
When the sun rises,
the deer leave for soft spaces.
She, too, finds a place of shadow,
lays on heavy bits of half notes,
hums the diapason of night,
the way music comes together
in throat, goat gut, wood and stone
but she does not sleep--
she opens her mouth,
takes in a deep breath,
sings vibrato/fermata and the wind joins in.
Michael H. Brownstein's latest volumes of poetry, A Slipknot to Somewhere Else (2018) and How Do We Create Love? (2019),
were published by Cholla Needles Press.
Two Acrostic Sonnets
By Mike-Mesterton-Gibbons
A United Germany
A wall divided East and West Berlin
Until the year of Nineteen Eighty-Nine.
Not thirty years since JFK's "Ich bin,"
Its fall made German folk, not zwei, but ein!
The breaking of the barrier raised hope:
Emancipation beckoned far and wide.
Democracy prepared to spread its scope.
Glad tidings of world peace fast multiplied.
Euphoria broke out, quite unrehearsed—--
Red states had tumbled, China would be next,
My neighbor said ... but then the tide reversed,
As we had all misread our history text ...
Now we must strive again to turn the tide—--
Yet Germany, still one, remains a guide!
Tortoise Or Hare?
The race was on. Hare bragged: "I'm in in the lead!
Old Tortoise won't catch me with his slow pace!" ...
Rash Hare would soon learn how slow beasts succeed—--
The tortoise made the route plan for this race! …
"Oi! Big Ears! Stop!" bawled out a cop, "your speed
Is twice the legal limit for this road!
Since, for each mile an hour that you exceed
Eight miles an hour, our government is owed
One ounce of gold, you owe a whole two pounds—--
Remit it here and now, or go to jail!" ...
Hare had no gold. He'd been outraced. "It sounds
As though," said he, "this route's designed to fail
Rapidity. Too slow of wit, I'm done!" ...
Embarrassedly, he watched as Tortoise won!
A Forever Saudade
By David Thorpe
On that cold and rainy evening
a sudden attack of loneliness
caught them gazing at empty glasses,
a last ´night cap`, or just one more
His invitation she accepted,
a business conversation drink,
whilst bored lips repeated small talk,
their eyes conversed in silence
The circumstances dealt the cards
of high stakes they well aware,
apprehension readily defied,
their acquiescence to betoken
Of sensual passion their night evinced
a tenderness of intimacy mutual,
yet the tears they shed on parting,
not of regret but of a forever saudade,
for like the moon, Selene and the sun, Helios,
they had broken the barriers
and journeyed to their mutual eclipse
David Thorpe ©®
ODE TO THE WEST WIND
by Percy Bysshe Shelley
I
O wild West Wind; thou breath of Autumn’s being,
Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead
Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing, –
Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red,
Pestilence-stricken multitudes: O thou,
Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed –
The winged seeds, where they lie cold and low,
Each like a corpse within its grave, until
Thine azure sister of the Spring shall blow –
Her clarion o’er the dreaming earth, and fill
(Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in air)
With living hues and odors plain and hill: –
Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere;
Destroyer and preserver; hear, oh, hear! –
II
Thou on whose stream, mid the steep sky’s commotion,
Loose clouds like earth’s decaying leaves are shed,
Shook from the tangled boughs of Heaven and Ocean, –
Angels of rain and lightning: there are spread
On the blue surface of thine aery surge,
Like the bright hair uplifted from the head –
Of some fierce Maenad, even from the dim verge
Of the horizon to the zenith’s height,
The locks of the approaching storm. Thou dirge –
Of the dying year, to which this closing night
Will be the dome of a vast sepulchre,
Vaulted with all thy congregated might –
Of vapors, from whose solid atmosphere
Black rain, and fire, and hail will burst: oh, hear! –
III
Thou who didst waken from his summer dreams
The blue Mediterranean, where he lay,
Lulled by the coil of his crystalline streams, –
Beside a pumice isle in Baiae’s bay,
And saw in sleep old palaces and towers
Quivering within the wave’s intenser day, –
All overgrown with azure moss and flowers
So sweet, the sense faints picturing them! Thou
For whose path the Atlantic’s level powers –
Cleave themselves into chasms, while far below
The sea-blooms and the oozy woods which wear
The sapless foliage of the ocean, know –
Thy voice, and suddenly grow gray with fear,
And tremble and despoil themselves: oh, hear! –
IV
If I were a dead leaf thou mightest bear;
If I were a swift cloud to fly with thee;
A wave to pant beneath thy power, and share –
The impulse of thy strength, only less free
Than thou, O uncontrollable! If even
I were as in my boyhood, and could be –
The comrade of thy wanderings over Heaven,
As then, when to outstrip thy skiey speed
Scarce seemed a vision; I would ne’er have striven –
As thus with thee in prayer in my sore need.
Oh, lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud!
I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed! –
A heavy weight of hours has chained and bowed
One too like thee: tameless, and swift, and proud. –
V
Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is:
What if my leaves are falling like its own!
The tumult of thy mighty harmonies –
Will take from both a deep, autumnal tone,
Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, Spirit fierce,
My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one! –
Drive my dead thoughts over the universe
Like withered leaves to quicken a new birth!
And, by the incantation of this verse, –
Scatter, as from an unextinguished hearth
Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind!
Be through my lips to unawakened earth –
The trumpet of a prophecy! O, Wind,
If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind!
Painting above by Roy Liechtenstein
Beth Plays Air Flute
By Robert Cooperman
In our car, riding home
after our morning walk,
the classical radio station
plays a Baroque
flute sonata by a composer
neither of us has heard of.
It’s lovely, zephyrs of air,
refreshing as the early autumn
open windows. And Beth--
who plays the flute for real--
mimics the fingering
and embrasure,
the melody dancing
delicate as hummingbirds.
“If only,” she smiled.
“That’s one difficult piece.”
When I was young, I pretended
to be Jerry Garcia; I picked
empty air while my left hand
worked the invisible fret board,
“Dark Star” soaring, cavorting
like a kite on the stereo.
Now, Beth, inspired, exalted
by the music, toodles silently;
then the sonata concludes,
her fingers still, the last
perfect notes echoing, fading
Paintings by Salvador Dali
Flies On The Wall
By Mike Mesterton-Gibbons
For Ginger Rogers and for Fred Astaire,
Love may have been for real, or just on-set—--
In movies they had many an affair,
Enchanting with their dancing etiquette ...
Such chemistry made rumors coalesce.
On-screen entwinement made their fans surmise:
No screen romance could seem so real unless
Their love was real——and so fans hired two flies.
How well these spies both hid from whom they tailed!
Each eavesdropped on a dressing room backstage.
Would Fred and Ginger's passion be unveiled?
Alternatively, would they not engage? ...
Luck blessed not fans. Fred swatted down both flies—--
Long afterwards, we still can but surmise!
Painting above: "The Girl with the Pearl Earring" by Jan Vermeer
A Painting in Oil of Magnificence
(Who was the girl and earring was it a pearl?)
By David Thorpe
Swift moving clouds across a sky of grey,
its teardrops on my cheeks and lips,
a distant bell chimes the hour of vespers,
almost a lament in the haunting gloom
The evening wears its winter gown,
the defeated leaves scattered by a cruel wind,
some drowning in waters of despondency,
reflecting the flames of burning torches
Across hump-backed canal bridges
my cloak wrapped tight against the cold,
with hurried steps I reach the deserted square,
the tall church tower veiled by descending fog
My footsteps on the cobbled streets
betray my impatient pace,
a dog on his nocturnal ramble barks,
without knowing quite the reason
My friend the artist begs me enter
to lead me to his master piece,
a painting in oil of magnificence,
the inspiration of Jan Vemeer van Delft
Speechless in a mesmerized trance,
I behold the enchantment of his muse,
the candlelight caught in her pearl earring
her direct gaze not of innocence
but rather one of complicity
David Thorpe ©®
A Painting in Oil of Magnificence
(Who was the girl and earring was it a pearl?)
By David Thorpe
Swift moving clouds across a sky of grey,
its teardrops on my cheeks and lips,
a distant bell chimes the hour of vespers,
almost a lament in the haunting gloom
The evening wears its winter gown,
the defeated leaves scattered by a cruel wind,
some drowning in waters of despondency,
reflecting the flames of burning torches
Across hump-backed canal bridges
my cloak wrapped tight against the cold,
with hurried steps I reach the deserted square,
the tall church tower veiled by descending fog
My footsteps on the cobbled streets
betray my impatient pace,
a dog on his nocturnal ramble barks,
without knowing quite the reason
My friend the artist begs me enter
to lead me to his master piece,
a painting in oil of magnificence,
the inspiration of Jan Vemeer van Delft
Speechless in a mesmerized trance,
I behold the enchantment of his muse,
the candlelight caught in her pearl earring
her direct gaze not of innocence
but rather one of complicity
David Thorpe ©®
Painting above by James Lee
Pulp Fiction
Poetry Collection by Alan Catlin
Pulp Fiction
She liked the kind of strange
men who sat in the back seat
of her cab, unwrapping his taped,
bloody fists, sweating as if he’d
done ten rounds with Mighty Joe
Young or ridden shotgun with
Death. Was the kind of fighter
who, instead of throwing the bout,
killed his opponent in the ring.
His deed being announced on radio
broadcast she was listening to,
heeding his command to, “Just Go!”
as if she wasn’t aware this was
the getaway to nowhere car.
Actually, he had someplace way
out of town in mind, where a bookie
was holding the big money he won,
betting the long odds on himself
to win, a stake he set up with
the cash he’d collected for taking
a dive. Once he got to where he
needed to be, he’d be riding a chopped
bike he stole from a pawnshop sadist,
so confident no one would dare lift
his ride, he left the keys in the ignition
while, inside, men were making his last
hours on this earth, a living hell spent
on the corner of Terror Street and Agony
Way.
She knew her way around men, and
the towns they lived in. Hung with
contract killers who liked to quote
Old Testament prophets of doom
before they completed a hit. Had
a date once with a hedge fund cokehead,
with a bad habit, who made the mistake
of ordering her a “Bitcherita,” in a high end
club, “for his lady of the night,” explaining
the drink was hard lemonade, a shot
of Patron with a lime. Was the last
cocktail he’d ever order, anywhere,
before a strange encounter of a fatal
kind, with some bad hombres who
knew how to make; A Fate Worse
Than Death, take on a new meaning.
***
Pulp Fiction (2)
They liked classic rock n roll,
especially The Killer at the keyboard,
hopped on So Co and underage girls,
did drive-bys instead of drive-ins,
coke in lines but not the fizzy kind
that comes in bottles and cans,
were into the eye for an eye,
Old Testament vengeance tour
but not into turning the other cheek,
understood the Solomon solution
of cutting someone in half to solve
a complex problem but not the Psalms of.
Had a heavy Chevy, cherry red ride
modified to motor, white walls and
a plastic jesus on the dash, a curl of
mardi gras love beads around the rear
view; liked surf music on the sound
around: Beach Boys and Ventures,
Dell Shannon and The Searchers,
needles and pins on tape and in their
eyebrows and arms, eyes like marble suns
setting into a blood red sea.
***
Penny Dreadful
Night like some penny dreadful setting:
shadows and light, street lamp glare and
recessed doorway caves. No exit, one way
blacktop lane, slick with early morning mist,
still as a withdrawn breath. Waiting for a
Third Man clone who never comes, a woman
with no soul, fresh red lip gloss, for a Judas kiss.
Solitary footsteps: high heels on concrete,
staccato as buck shot slung against sheet metal,
The opening click of a Zippo lighter, flame to
cigarette, red ember dot, the click of the Zippo
closing. The pause in mid high heel step.
An inhaled breath released, smoke rings in damp
light. One man, one woman, separate as any
two objects can be, their elective affinities drawing
them together, somewhere in the dark.
To be continued.
***
The Drowning Pool
This is how it begins:
a sedan through underbrush
up against a tree, a steaming
radiator, full moon reflected on
a lake, driver’s side door sprung
open, air bag deployed, blood in
the ruts where grass should be
This is how the movie proceeds:
a handheld camera shakily following
path of car downhill as in every horror
movie ever made. Feet cracking dead
sticks as they go. Pant legs scraping
against shrubbery, scattering leaves.
Hands moving obstacles impeding
progress. Rhythmic, labored breathing,
and the sound of a radio not quite tuned
into a station playing what might have
been country and western music in
another life.
The man from the car stumbling toward
the lake. His button-down dress shirt
torn at the shoulder, blood splatters
on once white cloth. Trouser legs
ripped to the knee, to the thigh, soiled
from contact with wet forest floor.
An open head wound free flowing
down unnaturally pale face. Eyes
trying to focus on what lies ahead,
conscious of what follows behind.
This is where the stationery camera
focuses on the moon on the water,
establishing a shot contrasting to what
is about to happen on the shoreline-pursuer
contacting the man from the car.
Thrashing on shore then a splash.
Then another, louder splash and a muffled
voice speaking words that make no sense.
Red bold type letters superimposed on
the once again tranquil scene:
The Drowning Pool. Unrated.
What happens next is up to you.
***
Bedtime Story
She looked as if
she'd missed a
second casting for
her role as a side
show Marilyn look
alike bimbo in Pulp
Fiction and had settled,
instead, for a walk on
part on the back lot
of Killer Klowns from
Outer Space, was so
far into the joy juice
before high noon,
rapid eye blinking
false lashes, suggesting
long nights up close
and personal, press on
nails, daggers to your
spine, looks that sd.,
"Once, long ago, and far
away, I'd been with
the great ones." but
look where it got you;
nothing but Bad News,
and here, now, with me.
Pollage by Ellaraine Lockie
Pollage definition: Ellaraine Lockie's one-of-a-kind pollages combine her three passions of poetry, papermaking and collage. She uses lifetime collections of handmade papers, postage stamps, charms, milagros, buttons, shells, rocks, feathers, pressed leaves and flowers, rubber stamps, travel memorabilia, magazine clippings and poetry. No glue is used, as items are attached with wet paper pulp.
Pollage bio: Ellaraine Lockie’s pollages have appeared in juried art shows around the country and have been the subject of a one-woman gallery art show and several online essays and interviews. They also exist in several private art collections and have appeared in: The Centrifugal Eye along with an essay on their origin, the Rio Grande Review, Homestead Review, Sein Und Werden (England) along with an interview, Prairie Connection, Ascent Aspirations, Alchemy, KYSO Flash and MacQueen’s Quninterly, and Slipstream.
Poetry bio: Ellaraine Lockie is widely published and awarded as a poet, nonfiction book author, flash fiction author and essayist. She has won Poetry Forum’s Chapbook Contest Prize, San Gabriel Valley Poetry Festival Chapbook Competition, Encircle Publications Chapbook Contest, Best Individual Poetry Collection Award from Purple Patch magazine in England, and The Aurorean’s Chapbook Choice Award. Her poems have found their ways onto broadsides, buses, rented cars, bicycles, cabins, greeting cards, key chains, bookmarks, mugs, coffee sack labels, church bulletins, radio shows and cable TV. Ellaraine also teaches writing workshops and serves as Poetry Editor for the lifestyles magazine, LILIPOH.
Poem Written While Listening to Vivaldi at
the Schenectady Public Library
By Alan Catlin
Amid strange
assortment of used
books on thrift
shop store shelves,
I find one by a now
dead poet friend.
One I’d never read:
maxims and parables,
word songs musing
on the oddity of being
no more. It seems
to me maybe his
finest work.
How could I have
missed it before?
If only he were
here to sign his
book for me.
The Sounds of Sorghum
By Carla R. Bailey
Under the hickory tree
Ole Harlan leaned his banjo
against a knee of a different time
and Ole Jack between the forks
round and round in circles
of sugar cane through the press
He sang Carter Stanley songs
like it was still yesterday
and the grapes still hung on the vine
Ole Jack never gained pace with the tempo
chewing on hay straws looking straight ahead
nothing will ever be sweeter to him
The claw-hammer twang
falls in tune with mule-time steps
where forever meets the always
alongside the hickory trunk
where crisp morning air
carries the sounds into another time
Melody and Motherhood
By Carla R. Bailey
Flame-time motions of mothers and saints
sing to us a lullaby and tuck in all that’s not holy
some that just never were. building strongly.
Soft and serenade we continue the dance and hear
the sounds of heroines singing, and call for the left behind.
For the final night’s dream, and rocking babies to sleep.
we’ll breathe in the surrender of music
and exhale that same summer song
sway away the morning light, and never mind the dew.
There’s too many of us to fret and feel away the day.
The kind and timeless melody has us in her grip
To bend our knees and continue to please
All the minutes that are a creeping by
And I’ll open up my heart’s heart
And learn to never say goodbye.
Suddenly the Strange
By Carla R. Bailey
The prickle of my white flesh skin
to hear the sounds no words can curve
I’ll look for you over the morning
and under the swinging yellow moon
There was a fiddle and we heard it great
he processed it all with one ear and a bow
And brought the day all the way to real-like-life
He saw it all from an angle so grievously and sweet
The echos in the valley still carry
with the soft chaos of the tin cup pain
bits of holy water and apple sauce
Will explain the night away
We’ll sit here until morning sir
And the sorrow-filled rhythm is here to stay.
Trombone Player
By Mike Mesterton-Gibbons
The Dorsey stamp shows Tommy on trombone,
Rejoicing to his sentimental sound
Of swing, with Jimmy on the saxophone—--
Musicians whose great hits were world renowned!
Big bands had never seen such skilled trombone:
Ol' Blue Eyes said he learned to breathe his way,
Not from a vocal coach, but from his own
Experience of watching Tommy play! ...
Perhaps, since Tommy's timeless, he belongs
Less on a thirty-two cent stamp than where
A stamp commemorates his classic songs,
Yet also says they'll always fill the air ...
Eternal tunes deserve a mail revamp—--
Releasing Tommy's own Forever stamp!
Photo above: Editor in Chief Charles E.J. Moulton in "The Tales of Hoffmann", Vienna Chamber Opera, 1996
One Haiku and Two Short Poems
By Alex Andy Phuong
Symphonic Symphony
Playing symphonies
Musical rhapsody
Live in harmony
Music
Music that is
The language of the soul
Helping make people feel whole
Filling up empty holes
With intangible beauty
The deaf cannot hear,
Yet there is no need for fear
For this present moment
Is here,
And music truly does
Whatever it does
To transcend
And help make amends
While reminding listeners
To never fear the end,
So play on!
Broadway Musical Baby
Fan of Broadway
Knowing the way
Music transcends
And how intangible
It is,
And how the deaf
Might not hear.
Nevertheless,
Extraordinary Auditory
Can create symphonies
While also promoting harmony,
So help the ones
Unable to do what others
Do,
While letting the music
Play on
Photo above: Gun Kronzell, the Editor-in-Chief's mother, successful operatic mezzo-soprano.
My Mother Sang To Me
By Paul Buchheit
A minstrel's lyric on a city street
betrays a moment past, a memory
held captive by a siren's song: retreat
is my indulgence, to a panoply
of silver maples scattering the sun
upon my eyes like tiny dancing sprites,
the specters of my boyhood beasts undone
by strains from Orpheus and shrill delights
of Pan's seductive reed, the sounds adrift
on perfumed breezes in the melodies
my mother sang to me. And as they lift
me on my wistful passage, and appease
a soul beguiled by scheming Time, I yearn
for pleasantries to which I can't return.
My Mother Sang To Me
By Paul Buchheit
A minstrel's lyric on a city street
betrays a moment past, a memory
held captive by a siren's song: retreat
is my indulgence, to a panoply
of silver maples scattering the sun
upon my eyes like tiny dancing sprites,
the specters of my boyhood beasts undone
by strains from Orpheus and shrill delights
of Pan's seductive reed, the sounds adrift
on perfumed breezes in the melodies
my mother sang to me. And as they lift
me on my wistful passage, and appease
a soul beguiled by scheming Time, I yearn
for pleasantries to which I can't return.
Photo above: The cast and crew of A Christmas Carol
(the Editor in Chief farthest right and his father in the middle)
International Theatre, Vienna, 1984
Oktoberfest, Group Home
By Susan Zeni
Picked-over sauerkraut, apple-brown betties slide into buspans.
Radiators hisssss like pressure cookerssss, valves too tight.
Every human thing on Ritalin boils
as Dorothy steps from the kitchen,
mops her face on a big white towel,
waves at the Polkastra, our all-girl band.
Yes, she’d like to retire, live with a sister in Sausalito
but who would stew for them, grill for them, love them?
They dance to our Beer Barrel, Johan Pa Snippen,
as they have gig after gig, year after year,
Barbara’s white hair like wild cotton candy,
Eric and Bill whistling, dinging, tambourine-klacking,
little Gracie splayed on the floor
ready to pound out the cowbell and hi-hat,
sweet Raj, redolent as garam masala,
waits on a hug from the champagne lady
in this cinder block basement of plastic trellises,
gossamered fleshiness, tin-bottomed planters.
Kathy, in a flowered dress,
eyes black and intense,
arms criss-crossing her chest,
alabaster skin, dark hair in frail wisps,
white sweater, single button, wrong hole,
rocks like a metronome in front of my music,
“Only in the night! Only in the night!”
Only in the night?
What does she need,
six years, six Oktoberfests the same plea,
the cipher of her unintelligible,
the warp and woof of her so seemingly simple,
yet so beyond our grasp,
as she breathes on my bellows,
stares at the drummer, concertina, and bass.
Strangers in the night, sleazy Sinatra--
is that what she wants?
Braceleted arms clasping a pillow,
poker chips on the Vegas strip,
bulbous husbands towing their wives
through confectioned streets,
a swollen crooner ogling the mic?
I do not know this song.
I will never know this song.
Is there not enough lonesomeness here
to fill a universe?
Where is her family, who are her pals?
“Only in the night, only in the night!”
She is a broken record,
a locked door, all the doors
in this place locked,
padlocks on chains, bars on the windows,
and I don’t have the key, major or minor,
for all the souls tethered together
in this mephitic cavern of souring kraut.
Flightless birds flap their wings,
fast and faster in the chicken dance,
“Don’t wanna be a chicken,
Don’t wanna be a duck,”
as handsome attendants whirl their favorites
in billowing whoops of tangles and laughs.
Only in the…only in the… O my God!
“Irene, good night? Irene, good night?”
“Yesssss! Yesssss!” Kathy shrieks,
as she spins and leaps ala grand jete’
as she peels off her sweater, kicks off her slipperss
as her buddies high-five, encircle her blissss,
as we strike up the waltz, yesss, yesss, yesss,
“Good night Irene, Good night Irene,
I’ll see you in my dreams,”
as Dorothy steps from the kitchen, pulls off her apron,
hands on her hips, grins a big grin that says,
“Yessssss, these are my people, this is our world.”
(the Editor in Chief farthest right and his father in the middle)
International Theatre, Vienna, 1984
Oktoberfest, Group Home
By Susan Zeni
Picked-over sauerkraut, apple-brown betties slide into buspans.
Radiators hisssss like pressure cookerssss, valves too tight.
Every human thing on Ritalin boils
as Dorothy steps from the kitchen,
mops her face on a big white towel,
waves at the Polkastra, our all-girl band.
Yes, she’d like to retire, live with a sister in Sausalito
but who would stew for them, grill for them, love them?
They dance to our Beer Barrel, Johan Pa Snippen,
as they have gig after gig, year after year,
Barbara’s white hair like wild cotton candy,
Eric and Bill whistling, dinging, tambourine-klacking,
little Gracie splayed on the floor
ready to pound out the cowbell and hi-hat,
sweet Raj, redolent as garam masala,
waits on a hug from the champagne lady
in this cinder block basement of plastic trellises,
gossamered fleshiness, tin-bottomed planters.
Kathy, in a flowered dress,
eyes black and intense,
arms criss-crossing her chest,
alabaster skin, dark hair in frail wisps,
white sweater, single button, wrong hole,
rocks like a metronome in front of my music,
“Only in the night! Only in the night!”
Only in the night?
What does she need,
six years, six Oktoberfests the same plea,
the cipher of her unintelligible,
the warp and woof of her so seemingly simple,
yet so beyond our grasp,
as she breathes on my bellows,
stares at the drummer, concertina, and bass.
Strangers in the night, sleazy Sinatra--
is that what she wants?
Braceleted arms clasping a pillow,
poker chips on the Vegas strip,
bulbous husbands towing their wives
through confectioned streets,
a swollen crooner ogling the mic?
I do not know this song.
I will never know this song.
Is there not enough lonesomeness here
to fill a universe?
Where is her family, who are her pals?
“Only in the night, only in the night!”
She is a broken record,
a locked door, all the doors
in this place locked,
padlocks on chains, bars on the windows,
and I don’t have the key, major or minor,
for all the souls tethered together
in this mephitic cavern of souring kraut.
Flightless birds flap their wings,
fast and faster in the chicken dance,
“Don’t wanna be a chicken,
Don’t wanna be a duck,”
as handsome attendants whirl their favorites
in billowing whoops of tangles and laughs.
Only in the…only in the… O my God!
“Irene, good night? Irene, good night?”
“Yesssss! Yesssss!” Kathy shrieks,
as she spins and leaps ala grand jete’
as she peels off her sweater, kicks off her slipperss
as her buddies high-five, encircle her blissss,
as we strike up the waltz, yesss, yesss, yesss,
“Good night Irene, Good night Irene,
I’ll see you in my dreams,”
as Dorothy steps from the kitchen, pulls off her apron,
hands on her hips, grins a big grin that says,
“Yessssss, these are my people, this is our world.”
Three Acrostic Sonnets
By Mike Mesterton-Gibbons
Professor of Mathematics
Ms. Longstocking
My name is Pippi. I can lift my horse.
Since I'm so strong, you should not mess with me,
Lest you discover what they call girl force:
One flip from me can land you up a tree!
No grown-ups ever tell me what to do:
Gold coins maintain my lifestyle parent-free,
So I can wear old tattered clothes. Though you
Tut-tut and frown, you do not mess with me!
One time a lady mocked my freckled face:
Child, you are covered! You need salve from me!
Kind lady, I replied, it's no disgrace:
I love my freckles. Please don't mess with me! ...
Nine years of age is all I'll ever be.
Grown people, though, know not to mess with me!
Pinocchio's Nose
Perhaps when Shakespeare said the truth will out,
It meant the famous Bard foresaw a day
No humans' words could ever be in doubt,
Or else they'd feel their nostrils sneak away!
Could Shakespeare have supposed an actor's snout
Could grow onstage from lying? Like as not,
He'd have to make his actor's back face out
In later scenes——or modify his plot! ...
Othello's tale could have a happy end,
Should Iago's nose grow like Pinocchio's:
New lines for Desdemona could be penned,
Occasioning no jealous-husband throes—--
Since all deceit would add a nasal inch,
Exposing Iago's lies would be a cinch!
Acrostic Sonnet
A Shakespeare sonnet's fourteen lines must be
Constrained to match its rhyme scheme to a T,
Requiring A B A B C D C
On top of D E F E F G G.
Strong beat must follow weak beat just five times
To make the meter perfect. But there's more:
It takes a turn between two later rhymes,
Concluding with the twist one's building for ...
So that's enough for Shakespeare? Not for me!
One fourteen-letter phrase must be enrolled
Not only as the title, but the key
No left-hand side can not display in bold ...
Each time I spot a fourteen-letter phrase,
This sonnet-writing urge brooks no delays!
Spock
By Christian Ward
He's the ideal flatmate: clean, tidy,
never drinks or smokes. Doesn't get music
but that's okay. I've learnt to stop staring
at his ears in case he grips my neck
and I collapse like laundry on the floor.
Some days, late at night, I hear him muttering
'Captain, Captain, Captain' into a shoe
and laugh to myself. Spock, fine as he may be,
doesn't make for the best company. Everything has to be logical: call centres, mangoes, even sex. My girlfriend says he's a pervert whenever she’s around, that he leers at her in a strange way, as if something is trapped under his skin and he's desperately trying to get rid of it. Weirdo.
And, if you're wondering, never talk to him
about poetry. He bloody hates it. You can almost smell the dactyls bubbling on his tongue as he drones on, how illogical it is to describe emotion on paper, before becoming still like a heron about to dive into the dark of a pond it has never seen before.
I AM AWAKE(THOUGHTS OF A VAMPIRE)
written by: Sophia Behal
performed by: Sean van Dutch
I am awake.
A sleeping city lays
beneath my feet.
But now a stranger passes.
I am awake.
A tasty smell of fresh blood
beneath my nose,
lingers and gives me a fresh energy shot.
I am awake.
A certain someone close to me lies
wherever you are; time flies,
and close to it my attention ties.
I am awake.
A search starts:
for a perfect time & place,
for the hurtful act at a corner in the dark.
I am awake
as everyone sleeps.
No one would witness
when my demon’s heart-shaped fang the neck pinches.
I am awake.
Drops of blood circulate.
A moment to celebrate.
One left for the other’s sake.
I am awake.
The Third Man and Dos Lolitas
Poetry Collection by Alan Catlin
Higher Than Kites, Higher Than the Moon
Faulkner would have recognized
these guys as next door neighbors
to the Snopes, refugees from a
field study on the cause, effect
and harm caused by rampant inbreeding,
people who went to family affairs in
a pickup that looked as if it had spent
the War Years, the Punic War Years,
buried in a pile of compost and mud,
flatbed rusting through to the main
frame, muffler long ago left along side
the hardened ruts of what passed for
main roads to Nowhere, a place where
they and their kind lived, carrying a
homemade coffin with them wherever
they went that carried the remains of
a significant other inside, extra
pre-cuts for what fell out over 'Shine
and road kill feasts on holidays, home
comings and funerals, tipping over
out houses on the way home for fun,
higher than kites, higher than the moon.
Wm Faulkner's As I Lay Dying
Dirt roads lead nowhere after
the flood are mud furrows obstructing
a pilgrim's progress to ancestral
burial grounds, the dearly departed
encased for transport, through
this world and into the next,
in a rude cord wood casket
accompanied by a cortege of wild
acolytes half-living, half-dead themselves.
At road's end, mudflats and bogs
enshrouded by a low cling of swamp
gas and of fog, bear tracks and feral howls
at night, and by day, as this sad
sarcophagus and its standard bearers
cross a great divide to the promised
land as last shadows seen this side of grave.
Toy Seller on the Steps of St. Martin-in-the-Fields 1920
My ten year old self wants
the lizard-displayed among
many such toy stuffed animals
hung with all the seller's wares
from a thick leather strap as
an attachment, an enticement
obtrusive as an unnatural
predator inserted within a flock
of mock blue heron, teddy cubs,
dwarf ponies…the lizard crawling
in full attack mode, strategically
situated dead center in the seller's
chest, an eye catcher, not unlike
the balloon seller in the post
World War II Vienna streets
at night in the “Third Man” at a
crucial time, an odd distraction
just before the collaring of elusive
Harry Lime. This man, this predecessor,
on the steps of St Martin-in-the-Fields
awaiting a march of children, airs
by Henry Purcell, the English Haydn
or, in this time between World Wars,
to end all World Wars, anticipating
a choral rendering of last poems
from the trenches by Wilfred Owen,
a War Requiem by R. Vaughn-Williams.
Promotional Movie Poster 1962
after Bruno Barbey
Lola Haze holds her lolly to
her lips, stares out from beneath
dark glasses, watching all
the boys, the men, the whole
of the male sex, crave the woman
inside the adolescent girl,
one who was never a virgin
nor would have wanted to be.
Her likeness is peeling at
celluloid edges, this all-too-soon
to be married symbol of her kind,
fated never to be an earth mother
dying, as she will, in child birth
so unlike this plain wife of Jesus
walking by, it seems strange
to think of them as belonging
to the same sex.
The Misfit and the Freak
Most of the novels about life
in bars are like Hemingway
with a bad hangover, nothing as
classic as a much better writer than
Papa, Chandler, full of lines that
flatten the heads of draft beers as
they are spoken. Every so often
a plot will develop like a bad
treatment for a great book later made
into an even worse movie people
see and mistake for the real thing.
Trying to impress with a worldly,
intellectual acumen, people speak
as if they were well read though
what they say is like the Cliff’s notes
of something with vital pages missing.
Mostly the characters along the wood
are like demented relatives of Faulkner
inbreds lost in some dense woods of
their own invention with festering bodies
long past their due date. Or else they
are guys like these two, Lenny and
George from Of Mice and Men
through the looking glass, the big guy
being the relatively well-spoken one,
the controller, while the smaller guy
is like a lit fuse burning down to
the charge, a non-stop talker, primed
on pills, a misfit and a freak drinking
flaming shots of Cuervo Gold, stolen
stuff in their pockets and dead things in
their wake, the bar an outpost even Conrad
heroes would never go.
Tom
“Ordinarily I wouldn’t share this
with customers but I know you guys.”
I thought about his fellow waiter who
shared that same story about Doc from
Winesburg, Ohio, the one good book he
actually read, a story so familiar
in the telling, you wanted to ask him about
Joe Welling, or one of the other characters,
knowing that would spoil his routine.
“These four guys came in dressed okay:
suit coats over open shirts, jeans but good ones.
At least they made the effort with the jackets,
so we let it go. Little did we know that was
for show.
Anyway, it was as if they hadn’t eaten in years.
Ordered it all: apps, salads, starter wines, aperitifs,
top shelf entrees, multiple bottles of vino….
You know :the stuff you really need to show them
the label of to make sure it was okay, because
you don’t want to make a mistake opening it;
that’s how much it cost. By the time they stagger
order desserts and house specialty coffees,
we’re wondering if the check might reach four figures.
All I knew for sure was, it was damn near the
biggest check I ever had on a four top.
No one thought anything about the first guy
getting up for the men’s room. His jacket was on
his chair, right? Then the second guy.
The third guy, same thing until it’s one guy at the table.
He yawns, signals for the check and goes for the head.
I’m working the adding machine like crazy,
not looking over, so I don’t notice right away:
the guy never came back from the john.
Come to find out the jackets were like Salvation Army
specials; still had the tags stapled to the inside pockets.
It really sucked at the time, but you had to give them
credit for the cleverest way I ever heard of for beating
the check.”
Dos Lolitas
They looked as if they could
have been Dolores Haze’s
slightly older sisters, in a bar
with a much older man who
might have been as old as 19.
They wanted something to
warm the frozen cockles of
their cold hearts, said they had
money or could do whatever it
took to score something good.
“Maybe if you wore more
clothes you wouldn’t be so cold.”
The bartender, said.”Or is business
so bad working Central Avenue,
that’s all you could afford?”
“Actually, we were working in
the Park.”
“Maybe you should have rolled
some of the winos for their
stash.”
“We tried that. The fight like
tigers, even the frail ones.”
“Well, you can go back and try
again. It’s not too late if you hurry.”
“We’d do whatever it takes to
get a drink.”
“Nah. I’m not into watching
the kind of sex tapes Security
cameras take. The resolution is
bad and besides that stuff always
turns up on the Internet. I couldn’t
handle that. Not that you’d mind.”
“We’ve been on the Internet lots
of times.
“Yeah, and all the guys that took
the pictures are doing time.
When you reach the age of consent.
come back and maybe we’ll talk.”
They didn’t like that. Whatever.
There must have been half a dozen
bars between this one and the park
and one of them was bound to have
a bartender undaunted by a morals charge.
Odysseus Takes His Place in Hades
By Robert Cooperman
We sit in silence, the way of the dead
unless one of the living ventures down
and lets us lap blood as if hungry hounds.
Still, our thoughts flow from one to another
like streams set free by Spring’s break-up thaw.
In the gloom: Achilles with Patroclus,
and cuckold Menelaus and his fuck
of a brother, Agamemnon, the authors
of our troubles at Troy; when I visited
alive, that venomed asp, Agamemnon,
cursed his wife, Clytemnestra, for his murder,
but the greedy boar slew their own daughter
Iphigenia, for a fair wind to Troy
and its store houses of glittering riches.
As for Menelaus, his face still red
with rage whenever he thinks of Helen.
If she weren’t immortal and laughing
at us for saluting her with our peggos
whenever she let her gown slip off her
luscious shoulders, he’d slay her over
and over, for running off with Paris,
whose idea of war was the one in bed.
“Was your long life happy?” Achilles asks.
“I went mad,” then stop, too boring to tell,
and wonder if the child I slew is here,
or in Elysium, as he should be.
But Achilles insists I continue:
“We have all of time, here, so tell the tale
with each embellishment you were famed for.”
He sits back, hoping for the endless lies
I spun, like the cleverest of spiders.
Even great Ajax, who hates me, draws near.
A Dream Within a Dream
BY EDGAR ALLAN POE
Take this kiss upon the brow!
And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow --
You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream;
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.
I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand --
How few! yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep — while I weep!
O God! Can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God! can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?
The Spirits of Trees and Ferns
By David Thorpe
The spirits of trees and ferns,
intrinsic to the scents and aromas
of forest whispers and sighs,
embrace the fauna and flora,
sharing this vast lung,
the sanctuary of Artemis,
guarded by stalwart pine soldiers
Intruding sunbeams pierce the silence
of the forest darkness,
opening wounds of light,
which illuminate enchanted hollows,
not yet deflowered by the hand of man
Early morning prints of animal dwellers
soil the annual bridal gown,
a veil of crystallized tears,
nature´s endowment to a virgin woodland,
come winter
Unawareness prevailsof a lurking danger,
for like a ghost it is invisible to many,
stealthily creeping down
from onerous clouds,
a poison trapped within omnivorous pollutants,
indiscriminately attacking its prey
Are we the culprits - ? - allowing ourselves to be gagged
by the cunningness of avarice and indifference,
who sweeten their soliloquies with vague promises,
a gullible audience to appease
David Thorpe ©®
High-Spirited
By Alex Andy Phuong
Vivacity
Tenacity
Within post-modernity
Are both essential
To keeping spirits high
Even as time passes by
Soar and love goodness forevermore
To let longevity ensure
That hearts stay pure
So that life itself
Could endure
Alex Andy Phuong earned his Bachelor of Arts in English from California State University—Los Angeles in 2015. He was a former Statement Magazine editor who currently writes passionately. He has written film reviews for MovieBoozer, and has contributed to Mindfray. His writing has appeared in The Bookends Review and The Society of Classical Poets. He now writes with the sincerest hope to inspire readers, and fully supports those who dare to pursue their dreams.
Three Poems
By
Megan Denese Mealor
***
Before the Beginning
God without Eve:
watercolor wanderlust
a blizzard stoked with stones
She smoothed in
vicious strokes of sea
lit reclusive hillsides
with bellflowers and begonias
etched herself at awestruck angles
tangled Adam's warring bones
climbed and climbed forbidden skies
slept forgotten in the mosses
Serpents sweetened and riddled
deafening star-stunned sparrows
left unfeathered, undefined
- Originally published in Liquid Imagination, November 2017
Addictions
there is a murderess on the loose
no asylum could hold her lightning
her beauty is so beyond repair
she will catch fire in the rain
her spirit cannot seem to stay inside the lines
one side of her is a queen
on her way to execution,
unable to believe that nothing can save her:
not her jewels, not her king
the other side does not exist. it is not there anymore
her rage has silenced moonlight,
painted over forests and fathers,
filled the earth with glass and bone
when she smiles,
flowers learn to speak
she promises nothing
while war swells in the blistering streets,
we bury our dead without bitterness,
promise ourselves that nothing is in vain,
scream and scream in whispers
she laughs herself apart
you will never find her again,
though she will be everywhere
- Originally published in Digital Americana, Fall 2012
Prostrate
You skim a little Puce graffiti,
sip from a tumbler of lukewarm Darjeeling.
You mail a glistering chain letter
to your half-hearted half-sister in Chesapeake
because you know she’ll fail to pass it on
and you want someone to have evidence
of your best efforts.
You listlessly pedal your cyclocross
through a levitating backdrop of loblolly pines
all the way to the red-light fringes
of your gutted hometown,
where Jane Doe junkies congregate
around lewd neon pick-up trucks.
You pause at a moth-eaten chapel
dubbed Windsong Church,
catching wafts of gimcrack gospel
drifting in the unkempt daylight.
You wonder what your infidel mother
would say if she could see you imagining
this holy house’s carved intestines:
a plexiglass pulpit presiding over
golden oak slatback pews,
heirloom hymnals hypnotizing
the spire sparrows,
painted glass apostles
depending, impending.
You have almost forgotten to exist
without her vivacious cinnamon hair,
her trail of yellow diamonds.
You almost did exist
within the flowerless space
of that total eclipse.
But here you are now,
self-righteous in your cork bed flats
and poured glass bib,
raw denim Sunday best,
littering the creek rock parking lot
with your prodigal noontime shadow,
still inconstant,
waiting to believe.
- Originally published in Gone Lawn, June 2018
Meeting God in a Lake and other Spiritual Poems
By
Jake Cosmos Aller
Author’s Note: these poems are about some of my spiritual encounters in my life. I am not a follower of any traditional religious tradition, sort of an agnostic Buddhist if there is such a thing. But neither am I an atheist. Perhaps the universe is alive and that is what we perceive as God? Who knows? I certainly do not.
***
Index
Meeting God in a Lake
Cosmic Cat from Berkeley
Meeting God in Bombay
Cosmic Dog From Goa
Buddha Cat from Edsel Road
***
These have been published, most recently in Hypertext in 2020.
***
Meeting God in a Lake
In my 64 years around the sun
I encountered God four times
At least I thought it was God
But could never be sure
The first time I met God
I had taken magic mushrooms
And had gone to a lake
And soon was tripping inside my head
Lost in inner space
Zoning out tuning in
Dropping down the proverbial rabbit hole
And then in the middle of my madness
I felt oneness with the universe
My body melted away
And I joined the universe
All boundaries dropped away
And I knew that the universe was alive
and I was part of the Cosmos
And the Cosmos was part of me
And I wondered at that moment If I was face to face with God
I asked God to reveal himself to me
And nothing happened
Just laughter as the whole universe
Burst into laughter
And the madness began to fade
And I slowly came down from the high
And became aware of myself
And I was no longer one
With the universe
I felt profoundly moved by the experience
Felt that I had achieved perhaps nirvana
Or felt the presence of God
The feeling faded over time
And my quest to find God resumed
But I knew that I would never again
Come so close to the divine essence
Of the very Universe
The Cosmic Cat from Berkeley
I next encountered the divine
Many years later in Berkeley, California
I had gone home to be with my Mother
While taking leave from my job in the Foreign Service
I had two weeks there by myself
My wife came later near the end of the trip every morning
I woke up had coffee
Did yoga
Spoke to my mother
Who was sliding into dementia
Day by day losing her reason
Then I would go out
And explore the city
Go to a museum
Go to one neighborhood
And just be there
Rediscovering the Bay area
After years of being away
Having dinner with old friends
Seeing movies etc
Every morning a black cat came to visit
The cat was friendly and waited for me
And then would join me in my morning rambles
Following me to the bus stop
I started talking to the black cat
He looked at me with the spark of divinity In his dark eyes
I called him the cosmic cat
He seemed to like that
He would look at me
And I opened up to me
Told the cat all my dark secrets
As I walked the streets
Of the old neighborhood
Every morning and every evening the cat
Would be there to greet me
And to carry on our endless conversations
Then I had to leave
And in our final conversation I asked the cosmic cat
Say, Cat are you just a cat
Or are you a demonic cat
Are you possessed by God Or by Satan
The cat looked at me
And I realized that God
Was indeed residing in the cat
But that god was residing everywhere
All I had to do was open my mind
And the rest would follow
So I said
Goodbye to the cosmic cat
And he purred and came up to me
And I felt the comforting presence of the
Divine
As I said goodbye to the cosmic cat
And said goodbye to my mother
As this was the last time
That we would be able to really talk
I told my mother about the cosmic cat
She smiled and said that the cat was there for me and her
to comfort us both in our hour of need
and that the cat was indeed a cosmic cat
Talking with God in Bombay
Five years later
After I had last talked to God
In the form of the cosmic cat
Who I hung out with in Berkeley
I found myself in Bombay, India
Where I was involved with another women
And contemplating whether to leave my wife
For the promised excitement of the other women
I did not know what to do
So I went to Church
And on the way home
I stopped on the side of the road
And prayed to God
to provide me a sign
What should I do
I asked God
And then I felt it again
God seemed to be everywhere
And nowhere
And I found myself down
the rabbit hole again
I had a vision of an old man
Sitting by the side of a bed
Looking at an old women
And realized that
I was seeing the future
And the women
in my vision was my wife
And then I knew the answer
that God was giving me
I had to find my way
Back to my wife
And rekindle the love
that we shared
I looked up
and saw my wife’s face
In the sky
I went home and wrote
A long poem for my wife
She was in the military
And in Korea
And I was with the State Department
Stationed in Mumbai, India
And I called her up
And began talking to her
For the first time
In a long time
And I told her what was on my mind
And told her that we had to decide
Would we continue as a couple
Or would we continue to drift apart
Somehow I finished the conversation
And fell asleep with the peace and contentment
Of God’s presence filling my heart and soul
The feeling of being connected with God
Faded over the time
But the conviction that God had spoken to me
Never really left me
I asked God
whether God was the God of Jesus
Or Allah or Brahmin
And I realized
that God is God
And the universe is God and I am God
And that was the end of the story
And my last time I prayed to God
The Cosmic Dog from Goa
My final time with God
Happened a year later
I was staying down in Goa
With my wife
Enjoying being with her
After our reconciliation
We stayed at the Taj Mahal Goa
Living like a King and Queen
Just for a few days
High up on a hill
Overlooking the beach
Every morning I went
down to the beach
And did yoga by the water
While contemplating life
And every morning
I saw the same Dog
Not just a Dog
But a cosmic Dog
Filled with the divine spark of God
And the Dog recognized me
And spoke to me and I knew
That God was present once more
In the face of that cosmic dog
Kindred spirit
perhaps to the cosmic cat
that had saved my soul
in Berkeley so long ago
I told the dog everything
And he just looked at me
With those soulful eyes of his
And I knew he knew that I knew
That he was possessed by God
God had sent him to me
To make sure
that I was on the right path
That the reconciliation that God had promoted
Was on track that I was back with my wife
And that everything was the way it should be
Again I asked God
whether he was Jesus or Allah
Or Brahmin or Ganesh or Buddha
God the cosmic dog
just stared at me
I finally asked him directly
Say if you are God the God of Jesus
Bark once
The Dog looked at me and barked
I said well if you are
Allah bark twice
The dog barked twice
Well are you Buddha
then bark three times if yes
The God Dog barked three times
Hmm well are you Satan
The dog growled at me
And I knew I had gone too far
Finally, I was at peace
And for the next three days
The God Dog
was my constant companion
And I knew God for the final time
In my life
Buddha Cat of Edsall Road
I had another encounter
With the divine recently
Another Cosmic cat perhaps
Perhaps not
who knows what cats are
are they aliens
from another dimension
or was he channeling God ?
I called him the Buddha cat
For the cat loved
Sitting in a meditative pose
Not moving
Just starting at me
With his soulful deep eyes
Boring into my soul
exploring all my secret thoughts
the Buddha cat does not move
does not react, as he is so deep
into his interior mediation
truly in tune with the cat universe
and the cosmos as well
the Buddha cat
seems to be one with God
one with Buddha, Allah, Ganesh
and the billion names of God
Known and unknown
The Buddha cat can teach us all
About the art of meditation
As he zones inward
And loses his soul
Joining the cosmos
And becoming the Buddha cat
The Buddha cat
Lives in a modest Town house
In a modest suburb
The Buddha cat reminds us all
To look for God in the everyday
All around us
If we but have eyes
To see God everywhere
Dream Poems
By Alan Catlin
May Day Dream Poem
We’re in a place that feels
like Japan. I assume we are in
Tokyo because of the congestion,
the neon, the sensation of being
with millions.
I’m with an Albany Poet,
Dan Wilcox, and we’re in
a car trying to find our way
to the baseball stadium.
I sense we may already be late
for the opening ceremony
which we don’t want to
miss.
We’re in a kind of Uber vehicle
and our guides are two Russians
who look disturbingly familiar.
Like Lev and Igor from the Mueller
Report fiasco and they are clearly
jerking us around. We manage to lose
Lev, as Igor seems to know where
we are going. It seems to take
forever to get there, in slow motion,
but we do.
My wife is already at the game
and she has scored a cool, in English,
replica of a team jersey with the number
of one of the players we loved,
from another era, on it though it isn’t
clear which team it is or what player
the number represents.
I’m obsessed with finding a Suzuki
jersey but they don’t have any in my
size. The sense now is, the only reason
we have come to Japan is to score
souvenirs. A feeling of abject despair
is overwhelming.
Dan has done the sensible thing,
found our seats, and is sitting down
to watch the game. I am hitting up
all the vendors on this futile quest
for souvenirs that don’t exist.
I’m not sure which teams are playing
or who to root for. I used to be a Giants
fan but I heard from a friend who knows
about these things, that the Swallows
are better.
It gets dark early and there are no
lights. I realize the game is over
but I don’t know who won.
I am alone in Japan looking for a
Russian Uber driver that knows our
language, areal spirit guide. I don’t
think he exists either. I’m beginning
to doubt I’ll ever find a way home.
Sleepwalking in a Dream
Recently, I started sleepwalking
but not in a regular, normal way.
I was not wandering about in
measured way but as a form of
exercise in response to meeting
my wife’s daily goal for me of
10,000 steps taken. If, for some
reason, I fell short of my assigned
amount, the sleepwalking regimen
began with a vengeance. Some days
I would wake feeling as if I had not
rested at all. Other days, I felt fine.
However, once winter began,
I’d often fall way short of the required
amount given there was no way
anyone would have gotten outside
even if they’d wanted to. Let’s face it,
there are just so many times you can
pace the floor plan and climb up
and down the same two flights of
stairs. I came to dread weather events
like thunder snows and temperature
inverted freak outs. The weather had
become so much more complicated
once they started naming stuff and
creating new terms and distinguishing
one kind of storm from another, that
used to be lumped together under one
easy to understand term: “bad weather”.
Now they are called Events like they
were staged stuff for a reserved place
that was eagerly awaited like a traveling
circus. Right. During these liquid days
I would fall short anywhere from two
to eight thousand steps. I began having
severe dread deficits in my restless
attempts to catch up. Soon, I was so far
behind it was as if I had never slept
and I’d get out of be looking like Dracula
during a blood shortage. Finally, my wife
made me see our doctor. After hearing
the complaints, as described by my wife,
he concluded I needed more exercise.
Either that or I should be exorcised.
I could have killed him on the spot but
my wife intervened. “What did I tell you?”
She said. I decided to kill her instead.
-------------------------------------------------
On the endless road that leads nowhere.
Under El Greco sky, through Burchfield trees.
Emerging from wind breaks into fallow fields.
Concrete slabs where the houses were. Cracked
into fissures where the weeds are now.
Anthills
storage spaces
for dreams
-----------------------------------------------------
Bare trees in stunt growth marsh.
An aching rain cold as ice floe, cold as
bare skin beneath a midnight sun. When light
arrives, even the earth retreats. Fresh mounds
of bones where the animals lie down.
Nothing grows-
Northern lights
fade
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Ground water/ ponds layered by
viscous scum. Seem mercurial, quick limed
in dawn’s half-light. Death machine runoffs
stifle life. Pebbled beaches rank with pale,
discolored fish.
Seagulls scavenge
what
remains
The Night Café
Green ghost lights
in the café of too many
shadows. Stale scent
of spilled, spoiled spirits
in smoke tainted, rank
air. The artist’s corner
table, empty now, smells of
turpentine, linseed oil
and residue of absinthe
spent dreams, all sketched
with coal on smudged foolscap.
Three Acrostic Sonnets
by Mike Mesterton-Gibbons
Professor Emeritus
Department of Mathematics
Florida State University
On Christmas Day
On Christmas Eve, there were no toys to see.
Next day you were hard pressed to see the floor.
Consumerism piled around the tree—--
How splendid for the owners of the store! ...
Relations whom you asked to be restrained
Ignored your pleas and stacked their presents high,
So when your children saw how much they gained,
The glut perplexed them, and they asked you: "Why? ...
May we return some toys we got today,
As there is far too much for us to take?—--
Some kids will have no toys, since Santa's sleigh
Delivered theirs to our house by mistake!" ...
And then you smiled with pride to realize
Your kids, though very young, were yet so wise!
The Covid Crisis
The Covid crisis won't recede from view.
Hair covers me and quarantines my face.
Eclipsed from you, I'm knotted through and through,
Combs failing daily in my cloistered space.
Once when hair care required my car to run,
"Vrrr-ooom!" was not a sound that found my ear.
Instead a batt'ry dead from too much sun
Declared: You have been spared, just stay right here!
Can I have trust the barber must just know
Risk's down in town to zero on this day?
If I come by the courage there to go,
Suppose my nose meets Covid on the way?
Is care for hair the risk my car believes? ...
So far, my car has earned my curls reprieves!
You Got Cher, Babe!
You should not pen a pining pachyderm,
Observed to be still grieving his first mate—--
Until a second mate to date long-term
Gives him the eye, he'll mope, and put on weight!
Once heavy both in body and in mind,
The elephant becomes a sickly beast:
Cher found Kaavan both lonely and resigned.
Her goal became to have her babe released ...
Eats changed to fruit and veg from sugar cane.
Renditions of Sinatra filled the air.
Babe——Cher’s Kaavan——slimmed down, to board a plane,
And smiled once more to hear songs sung by Cher ...
Because of Cher, Cambodia awaits—--
Enticing Babe to chase prospective mates!
Ring Out, Wild Bells
From In Memoriam
Alfred Lord Tennyson
Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
The flying cloud, the frosty light;
The year is dying in the night;
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.
Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.
Ring out the grief that saps the mind,
For those that here we see no more,
Ring out the feud of rich and poor,
Ring in redress to all mankind.
Ring out a slowly dying cause,
And ancient forms of party strife;
Ring in the nobler modes of life,
With sweeter manners, purer laws.
Ring out the want, the care the sin,
The faithless coldness of the times;
Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes,
But ring the fuller minstrel in.
Ring out false pride in place and blood,
The civic slander and the spite;
Ring in the love of truth and right,
Ring in the common love of good.
Ring out old shapes of foul disease,
Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;
Ring out the thousand wars of old,
Ring in the thousand years of peace.
Ring in the valiant man and free,
The larger heart, the kindlier hand;
Ring out the darkness of the land,
Ring in the Christ that is to be.
Auld Lang Syne
By Robert Burns
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And auld lang syne!
For auld lang syne, my dear,
For auld lang syne.
We’ll tak a cup o’ kindness yet,
For auld lang syne.
And surely ye’ll be your pint stowp!
And surely I’ll be mine!
And we’ll tak a cup o’ kindness yet,
For auld lang syne.
We twa hae run about the braes,
And pou’d the gowans fine;
But we’ve wander’d mony a weary fit,
Sin’ auld lang syne.
We twa hae paidl’d in the burn,
Frae morning sun till dine;
But seas between us braid hae roar’d
Sin’ auld lang syne.
And there’s a hand, my trusty fere!
And gie’s a hand o’ thine!
And we’ll tak a right gude-willie waught,
For auld lang syne.
For auld lang syne, my dear,
For auld lang syne.
We’ll tak a cup o’ kindness yet,
For auld lang syne.
New Year’s Morning
by Helen Hunt Jackson
Only a night from old to new;
Only a sleep from night to morn.
The new is but the old come true;
Each sunrise sees a new year born.
Jill Clark
is Children's Educational Director for Taylor and Seale Publishing in Daytona Beach, Florida. Her poetry book Loose Balloons was released in 2019. Her follow-up poetry book Where Do Balloons Land? will be published in 2021. Jill teaches online K-5 lesson plans to public and private schools.
The wise woman that I know is one dulled
By Brendan Faithfull
The wise woman that I know is one dulled
of a quick wit or fast tell of people,
and she, the wise woman, has her head filled
with a certain knowledge invincible
A woman who beyond her scripts and tomes
blunders in her speech to embarrassment
and wise enough laughing at herself knows
only very little self sentiment.
This wise woman though is possessed of strength
who knows just when, as she does, when to fight
and would struggle whatever be the length
for all that she loves, for all just and right
This wise woman I know trucks some knowledge
and knows when to apply her great courage.
Brendan Faithfull is an emerging poet who grew up in the village of Malmsbury in Central Victoria, now living in Melbourne. During his formative years in Malmsbury he was first exposed to Shakespeare’s Sonnets, Banjo Patterson’s Man From Snowy River, and most importantly Byron’s poetical works. Brendan studied Politics, Economics and Literature at La Trobe University in Bendigo in 2010, before transferring to the University of Melbourne in 2011. Here Brendan continued his studies in Literature, but importantly focussed on Poetry after meeting Emeritus Professor Kevin Brophy. Brendan has featured in Melbourne Writers Group 2018 Anthology Heroes & Villains, and most recently has been published by Grand Things. Brendan continues to study and write poetry in his own time between modelling, political and election campaigning and managing his LARP, Exodus.
Toddler, Guide Me
By Padmini Krishnan
I felt your kindness
when you gently dropped
an abandoned caterpillar worm
amongst the layered leaves.
I saw your generosity
when you shared your
bread slices with a
shivering sparrow,
dripping wet,
taking shelter in
the balcony
My heart melted like ice
under my feverish body
when your tiny arms
hugged me.
I see in you not
my child, but
my mother,
ever compassionate
ever giving, guiding me
without words
whenever I slip into
my world of selfishness.
Padmini Krishnan writes short stories and poetry. Her works have appeared in the Plum Tree Tavern, The Heron's Nest, Writing in a Woman's Voice, Potato Journal, World of Myth, and the Stonecrop Review. Her e-chapbook was published in Proletaria. She blogs at https://call2read.wordpress.com/
Three Acrostic Sonnets
by Mike Mesterton-Gibbons
At Thanksgiving
A table set for two still says Thank You.
The places that aren't set say so much more:
There's never been Thanksgiving when so few
Have gathered here at home——not once before!
Across the Pond, our family FaceTime in.
Now we can share a meal, though far away.
Kind words are still exchanged with closest kin.
Still pumpkin pie's the special for the day ...
Guest rooms remain unfilled, though, for this year.
In lockdown, we must share thanks from afar:
Virologists advise to not be near.
In truth, we're glad things aren't worse than they are ...
Now we just hope that we, next year, can all
Give thanks around one table in the fall!
Octopus Teacher
On Netflix there's an octopus whose charms
Conceal the most intelligent of minds.
Two thirds of her cognition's in her arms,
One third in her main brain is all one finds.
Pyjama sharks regard her as a meal,
Until they find they're easy to outwit,
So craftily she moves: nine brains reveal
That smarts all in one place are not most fit! ...
Encephalon is singular in us,
And though an extra brain did not evolve,
Combining brains, just like an octopus,
Has still been humans' only way to solve
Enigmas that one mind can't puzzle through:
Robust brain power means both me and you!
I'm Attenborough
I'm ninety-four and still I climb up trees.
My love for apes and monkeys knows no bounds.
Antarctica is where you'll see me freeze,
To catch a glimpse of penguins on their rounds.
The tropics still are where I scuba-dive.
Exotic species all know me by name.
No creatures bat an eye when I arrive,
Because they know I love them all the same ...
Oh dear, oh dear! We reap what we have sown:
Rare species I once snuggled on your screen,
Or marvelled at in such a soothing tone,
Unless we act may never more be seen ...
Go forth and be a veggie! Ride a bike!
Hug trees! Love bees! Use solar and the like!
Two Poems by Dr. Meena Srinivasan
1.
Metanoia
---------
Broken when 'love' left
Empty soul hurt, bereft
Meaning was hard to decipher
Of the present or future
Fondness seemed far-fetched
On the face, sadness was etched
Music lost its charm
Even friends seemed out to harm
Trust undermined, expectations pear shaped
Felt gloomy and disenchanted
Happiness far yet misery so close
Promises lost their grandiose
True love but painless, is a myth
Real and intense hurts, not when blithe
Self belief was the relief
A change of heart did imbue
Good sense did shine through
Meena
2.
Long to 'belong'
Feel relevant
Feel wanted,
Bonded, when belong
I'm mighty strong
Offended, pride shatters
To others, it actually matters
Feel related, appreciated
My presence if makes a difference
Love, power or lust
Nothing's permanent
None is life's determinant
To 'belong' is a must
Feel a sense of purpose,
Motivated, included
Feel involved when accepted
Even wordless
Excluded, systematically ignored
A misdemeanour that developed
Growing with time
Becomes a heinous crime
Social exclusion, discrimination
Begets disintegration, disillusion
A vicious cycle, rendering the mind idle
Fight this wrong, let's belong!
Meena
Halloween Trilogy
By Meg Smith
For All the Mummified
A song is unfurling in the blue gauze,
an alphabet of things undone,
a bloodless hymn of histories.
There is no time left for sleep,
but only, the music of the lyre,
and the pop songs in Khan El-Khalili --
the cats are drawn out, from every corner,
and the one scarab I have found, digging
with wise claws, for every clue.
For all that is raised up, to dance,
all the falls again, unfurled in secrets.
All will come to know. Only this can love.
Worthy of a Ghost
This is the night of election --
like an apple, rolled through the doorway of a dining room,
disturbing the conversation, the board game.
It is not to be undone.
With words that cut, fall, darken -- you have carved
that doorway, ragged, and open forever.
And through this point will pass, backward, and forward,
the haunted things, hearts redrawn, that forget nothing,
and save nothing, yet live in everything.
Bone Canticle
I could not go to this garden, anymore;
such bodies held fast by the grip of the vine;
this gives their only height, their only being.
It's easy to fall away. It's easy to breach
the surface of soil. It will be done, slowly,
or in the rush of thunder and a rain tearing
the surface. Then, will come singing, hands,
knuckles, teeth, reaching, upward.
Then will come only the blood of light
from a late-setting moon.
Three Acrostic Sonnets
By
Mike Mesterton-Gibbons
Professor Emeritus
Department of Mathematics
Florida State University
Trick-Or-Treater
The doorbell rings. You answer it. Who's there?
Red Riding Hood? The Big Bad wolf? No, no—--
It's neighbors' kids who hope a friendly scare
Can fill their bags with chocolate to go!
Keep loads and loads of candy by your door—--
Or you may short an Alice or March Hare,
Rapunzel, Robin Hood, a Dumbledore,
Tyrannosaurus Rex, or Smokey Bear! …
Remember when you wondered if you'd got
Enough supplies to last for Halloween
And so you bought another giant lot?
That meant too much——the kids have now all been! …
Excess amounts of candy on a shelf
Remain for you to eat tonight yourself!
I'm Notorious RBG
I'm scarcely five feet high but I stand tall.
My stature towers far above my size:
No one dare claim that my achievement's small
Or doubt my luster in my nation's eyes!
To girls, I've blazed a trail they too can ride
One day, provided they work smart and hard,
Refusing to let justice be denied.
I've shown them that no future role is barred! …
One caveat is not to think new laws
Upholding equal gender rights worldwide
Should be cheered only by the women's cause:
Remember, my success helps either side!
Both men and women own this truth to tell:
Good law for girls is good for boys as well!
Critical Worker
Coronavirus rules the world today,
Respecting neither privilege nor rank.
In my case both are low, though many say
That when a life is saved, it's me they thank.
I feed them, clothe them, nurse them back to health,
Concerned less for myself than I should be,
And overlook disparities in wealth,
Less harmful to my patients than to me …
When this pandemic's over, will you go
On taking me for granted, or instead
Raise pay for work I do? You surely know
Kind words do not provide my daily bread!
Essential as I am, must I implore? …
Remember who kept Covid from your door!
Picture above of Charles E.J. Moulton in the original production of Roman Polanski's musical "Dance of the Vampires"
Raimund Theater, Vienna, Austria - 1997
Bloody Vampires
Poetry Collection by Alan Catlin
Three Stooges Celebrate Halloween
They carried shot
glasses door to door
imploring, "Trick or
Drink" to astonished
homeowners who
either couldn't take
a joke or could,
filling their glasses
with what was on
hand: store brand
Vodka, no name
English Gin, Dark
Puerto Rican Rums,
Old Rot Gut Rye,
Bourbon, Scotch---'til
they were three stooges
stumbling over sidewalk
cracks, low curbs,
Elm tree roots, sick in
nearby shrubs or behind
parked cars, white as
spirit ghosts set free
for a day of the dead.
Shadows
“You have no shadow, now. It is
somewhere else doing whatever it
wants to do.” Peter Rock
Once the skin has
been unzipped and
the essence inside escapes
only the body remains
to be buried in crypts
with life-line bells
close at hand
coffin lids removed
just in case the person inside
decides to return
Shadows blend with the night
lurking nearby, plentiful as
ground fog except on full moon lit
night when they gambol and play
like water spouts and sprites
By day, they change from
assuming limbs and trunks
like trees or street light poles
humming with an electrical charge:
the closer we become, the further
apart we are. There is no joy in this.
Books of Demons and Devils
After Dante, no one
was surprised
how many levels
of hell there were
What was surprising
was how many devils,
demons and Satan’s little
helpers there were
Who knew they needed
so much staff
to manage and
maintain the place?!
Luckily there was a
whole volume of written
work enumerating
and classifying
all the various
evil ones with pictures
and brief bios for each one
so you could compare
the two and identify
I learned an awful lot
from that book
More than you could imagine
Ghosts, Transparent and Otherwise
“People, the ghosts down in North-of-the South aren’t
see through.” Diane Seuss
Depending on their tribes, on their location,
they may be guiding lights like hurricane
lamps in a perpetual storm or sky scanning
beams over airports attempting to penetrate
thick cloud covers. Other ghosts, in arid
areas, are illusions, are like oases perceived
as watering holes with sustenance and shade
where nothing exists. On event horizon beaches
they are like Dali silhouettes framed against
a seascape with something else inside,
something like a crowded bazaar, good for
sale market places where ghosts are terrorists
wearing long black robes with suicide vests
strapped tight to their bodies, underneath.
waiting for the appointed time to blow stuff up.
Bloody Vampires
There they sit, at the bar, these
beautiful young things, hell’s lounge
lizards in togs that cost more than
the gross national products of third
world nations. These never-in-distress
damsels and their cunning stunts
such as providing Cherry Kool-Aid
for their drinks of choice: Triple Shots
of Morgan spiced added to the kiddie
porn drink, shaken, not stirred, of course,
strained, over ice and garnished with
two cherries, a cocktail called the Bloody
Vampire in their honor. Even ossified,
they look as if they were posing for Cosmo
candid shots layouts or On the Town
New Yorker gossip features. Are as
unapproachable as decadent royals or minor
deities on holiday in human form on
Planet Earth. Have more platinum in
their clutch bags than custom jewelers,
rare metal dealers suggesting they have
no know limits. Don’t so much leave
the bar as dematerialize.
Bloody Murder
Everyday must have
been a practice session
for Halloween costume parties,
traveling Charade games that
were so bizarre, you'd be hard
pressed to guess what it was
he was supposed to be dressed
as. I thought maybe he was
trying to win a Dennis Rodman
in drag lookalike contest, even
if he was about a foot and
half too small, and in need of
some heavy tanning sessions
plus a better hair colorist.
I had to admit I'd never seen
a man wearing that kind of
lipstick, not even in a Fellini
movie, but he either had never
heard of Federico or was
playing dumb, not that
I really cared either way.
I responded to his
suggestion to make him
something good with:
"Anything in particular?"
"Surprise me."
"The last guy said that ended
up in ER."
"You're a really funny guy."
"I've been told that."
"Ok, big boy, make me what
you made him."
He looked dubious when
I placed the drink in front
of him sd."What's that?"
"A Bloody Murder."
"What's in it?"
"Chilled Vodka with Cinnamon Schnapps."
He made a face but drank it anyway.
Raimund Theater, Vienna, Austria - 1997
Bloody Vampires
Poetry Collection by Alan Catlin
Three Stooges Celebrate Halloween
They carried shot
glasses door to door
imploring, "Trick or
Drink" to astonished
homeowners who
either couldn't take
a joke or could,
filling their glasses
with what was on
hand: store brand
Vodka, no name
English Gin, Dark
Puerto Rican Rums,
Old Rot Gut Rye,
Bourbon, Scotch---'til
they were three stooges
stumbling over sidewalk
cracks, low curbs,
Elm tree roots, sick in
nearby shrubs or behind
parked cars, white as
spirit ghosts set free
for a day of the dead.
Shadows
“You have no shadow, now. It is
somewhere else doing whatever it
wants to do.” Peter Rock
Once the skin has
been unzipped and
the essence inside escapes
only the body remains
to be buried in crypts
with life-line bells
close at hand
coffin lids removed
just in case the person inside
decides to return
Shadows blend with the night
lurking nearby, plentiful as
ground fog except on full moon lit
night when they gambol and play
like water spouts and sprites
By day, they change from
assuming limbs and trunks
like trees or street light poles
humming with an electrical charge:
the closer we become, the further
apart we are. There is no joy in this.
Books of Demons and Devils
After Dante, no one
was surprised
how many levels
of hell there were
What was surprising
was how many devils,
demons and Satan’s little
helpers there were
Who knew they needed
so much staff
to manage and
maintain the place?!
Luckily there was a
whole volume of written
work enumerating
and classifying
all the various
evil ones with pictures
and brief bios for each one
so you could compare
the two and identify
I learned an awful lot
from that book
More than you could imagine
Ghosts, Transparent and Otherwise
“People, the ghosts down in North-of-the South aren’t
see through.” Diane Seuss
Depending on their tribes, on their location,
they may be guiding lights like hurricane
lamps in a perpetual storm or sky scanning
beams over airports attempting to penetrate
thick cloud covers. Other ghosts, in arid
areas, are illusions, are like oases perceived
as watering holes with sustenance and shade
where nothing exists. On event horizon beaches
they are like Dali silhouettes framed against
a seascape with something else inside,
something like a crowded bazaar, good for
sale market places where ghosts are terrorists
wearing long black robes with suicide vests
strapped tight to their bodies, underneath.
waiting for the appointed time to blow stuff up.
Bloody Vampires
There they sit, at the bar, these
beautiful young things, hell’s lounge
lizards in togs that cost more than
the gross national products of third
world nations. These never-in-distress
damsels and their cunning stunts
such as providing Cherry Kool-Aid
for their drinks of choice: Triple Shots
of Morgan spiced added to the kiddie
porn drink, shaken, not stirred, of course,
strained, over ice and garnished with
two cherries, a cocktail called the Bloody
Vampire in their honor. Even ossified,
they look as if they were posing for Cosmo
candid shots layouts or On the Town
New Yorker gossip features. Are as
unapproachable as decadent royals or minor
deities on holiday in human form on
Planet Earth. Have more platinum in
their clutch bags than custom jewelers,
rare metal dealers suggesting they have
no know limits. Don’t so much leave
the bar as dematerialize.
Bloody Murder
Everyday must have
been a practice session
for Halloween costume parties,
traveling Charade games that
were so bizarre, you'd be hard
pressed to guess what it was
he was supposed to be dressed
as. I thought maybe he was
trying to win a Dennis Rodman
in drag lookalike contest, even
if he was about a foot and
half too small, and in need of
some heavy tanning sessions
plus a better hair colorist.
I had to admit I'd never seen
a man wearing that kind of
lipstick, not even in a Fellini
movie, but he either had never
heard of Federico or was
playing dumb, not that
I really cared either way.
I responded to his
suggestion to make him
something good with:
"Anything in particular?"
"Surprise me."
"The last guy said that ended
up in ER."
"You're a really funny guy."
"I've been told that."
"Ok, big boy, make me what
you made him."
He looked dubious when
I placed the drink in front
of him sd."What's that?"
"A Bloody Murder."
"What's in it?"
"Chilled Vodka with Cinnamon Schnapps."
He made a face but drank it anyway.
POEMS BY PAULA BONNELL
REINCARNATION
In the next life I’ll be an opera singer
I won’t be able to add or subtract
You’ll be my manager
I won’t know whether to love you or hate you
The biographers will be fighting about it
for books to come
We’ll give each other such a dazzle of yeses and nos
as will put to shame the infernal maybes of this life
CHANGING THE PAST
One of those things – like being
in two places at once – that probably violate
the laws of physics. Not a good idea
unless you want to risk implosion
or disappearing through the vanishing
point or whatever is the natural
consequence of such a violation.
The laws of physics don’t have to
be enforced; they simply state what’s
inevitably going to happen under
certain conditions. They describe,
not prescribe.
But just for a moment
let’s consider that when you said,
“You can’t possibly meet respectable
people this way.” (through
an ad in an alternative newspaper) I’d responded,
“You mean you’re not respectable?”
And for another moment, think also
about your asking “Are you a snob?”
and my replying “What do you mean
by ‘snob’?” or “Snobbery takes place
in class societies, like England or
most universities, where everyone
has a standing above and below
others; they’re ranked.
This is America; we’re all equal.”
And I really don’t know if you intended
to insult me by your first question or why,
if you believed what you said, you had
decided to place or respond to an ad.
I’ll just put it down to lack of social
graces. Or maybe, taking into account
what you told me later about how late
it was in life that you had your first
meaningful relationship, that you were
something of a solipsist, not particularly
social.
Nevertheless, despite this unpromising
start and the brevity of our companionship,
something tried to happen. I would say
your (avowed) mind-body problem got
in the way. Since then each of us abides
separately, you relating extensively to
the laws of physics, I merely speculating.
Copyright © Paula Bonnell 2020
The Double Parking Aliens
Poetry Collection by Alan Catlin
What Children See
Children take turns looking inside
the pin hole of the painted egg.
They see an incipient winter storm,
grotesque snow men, patterned after
a lifetime of nightmares in a locked
white room turning black. They see
a world out of control spinning upside
down, that makes them feels ill at ease.
They see the future reflected in a broken
mirror pocked with pin holes.
Radio Free Albemuth
He stood rubbing
the graying stubble
of his weather beaten
face with the stumps
of his fat, dirty fingers
wrapped in torn,
filthy rags, peeling
small black scabs
from the crags of his
face, as he slides
small exact change
across the wood for
draft beer said,
"My handle is
Radio Free Albemuth.
Bet you don't know
anything about the
book or the place
that inspired it.
I've been receiving
transmissions from
outer space long
before any one of
you ever arrived
on this planet, and
will be, long after
you're gone."
I thought, maybe,
this guy was doing
some kind of Martian
two step through the tulips,
it was better to refer him to
a higher authority outside,
closer to the landing site of
the next divine invasion.
I'd even give him change
for the public phone, on
the corner of Quail,
if needed to call home
collect for a pickup.
The aliens
double park by the primo, fire lane,
by-the-front-door-of-the-bar, space,
intending to stay for five, place a bet,
grab a number, have a brew, instead
stay for an hour, oblivious to traffic
nightmares outside, the honking of
the horns, the denting of the bumpers;
wear Ted Bundy Fry Day memorial t-shirts,
the mass murderer’s handsome, smiling face
inside a circle, red line overprinted,
simulated heat waves circulating all
around, “dead to the world but alive in our
hearts”, imprinted on the back for all to see;
proudly proclaim, after crashing family
barbeques, outdoor cookouts, that they,
“don’t just have a record but a fucken album;”
think all boundaries are made to be torn
down, all rules to be broken, endlessly
demonstrating, “that an order of protection
is about as useful as a string of garlic;”
think that life is just one long Clint Eastwood
movie they would be stars in, never expecting
to end up perched on a wobbly wooden cross
in a graveyard with a noose around their necks
or on the wrong end of a “make my day”
ultimatum; are always surprised when bad
things happen to evil people, as if, for some
reason, they might not deserve the worst possible
redress.
Blue Yonder
They bring things that are
of no use, not to them,
not to you, not to anyone:
broken ray guns, death star
storm trooper masks, tricorders
for contacting space ships long
ago taken out by Vulcan war
ships, cracked hoses, watering
cans with no spouts, a Zen garden
rake; all this stuff they want to
pack into the overloaded truck,
the space where the back seat
should be, all that junk lifted
from landfills and roadside attraction
dumps. A pry bar would be useful
for arranging latest acquisitions but
none are available at any price,
still the collecting goes on, after dark
by the lights of their short circuiting
dashboard, control panels, the static
from their radio broadcasting secret
messages from the wild blue yonder,
up there, where the stars are.
Future Stars of Network TV Show, Perp Patrol
They are leaning against The Van,
a vehicle that might have passed
state inspection once, but not in anyone’s
recent memory. Stand staring in direction
of free range kids: the boys with home
styled Mohawks, gang banging someone
else’s kids, holding him down and whaling,
until the blood flows. The girl’s looking
like a cross between Raggedy Anne’s worst-
hair-day-nightmare and a street walker in training.
Will bad mouth anyone who refuses their
request for cigarettes, though they are
years away from double figures in time
spent upon this earth.
Mom speed balling thin, chain smoking
no-brand, no-tax Mentholated death butts,
eyes perpetually glazed in kiln fires
by amateur artists, nipple piercings tearing
through soiled tank tops, bare midriff exposed
to better reveal, infected rings, demented
cell block tattoos of mutant butterflies in flight.
The man is chug a lugging PBR’s from cans,
shoulder length hair unwashed for weeks,
faded, sleeves-removed T says, Charlie Daniels
Band. Mother Trucker arm tattoos over swastikas
and White Power logos, his face looking as if
he had been used as a workout bag for a heavyweight
fighter, or, worse, by a biker gang stiffed
in a drug deal.
The free rangers are raising holy hell
in the playground, manning the monkey
bars, commandeering the slides, the swings,
pummeling all who stand in their way,
a veritable force of nature until the Man
runs out of beer and bellows,
“Get your asses over here, like now, or, I’ll cut
you a new one.” And they move, as if electrically
charged, as if they have known worse things
to happen, and could imagine whatever that
was, happening again.
The Future
“So our hope lies in a world without hope,
governed by Satan.”
Ake Edwardson, Sun and Shadow
“Neighborhood girl, 8, killed
by stray bullet while riding
her new bicycle.”
The news article said.
Police canvassed neighborhood
looking for leads but no one saw
anything, though everyone seemed
to have heard the shots. Were on
the street seconds later, and were glad
to appear on local TV offering
opinions about all the things they
didn’t see.
Weeks later a thirteen year old
boy was arrested for the crime.
Said he felt bad about the little
girl. “I wasn’t trying to shoot
no little girl. I was trying to off
someone else. She just be in the way.”
Asked where he got the gun,
he confessed it wasn’t his, was,
in fact, a community gun that anyone
could use, if they had to, as long as
they put it back where it was to be
hid when they were done.
Said, he had to wait until he was 16
to get his gun but guessed, now,
he’d never get his own.
Three Poems by Catherine Lee
Catherine Lee explores poetry’s percussive jazz voice and social change activism by reading solo and performing with improvising musicians “on poem.” Her multimedia pieces — radio specials, original poetry, commentary, and documentary videos — are archived on Soundcloud and Vimeo and research about master performers is blogged on Padlet and Facebook/Jazz Ovation Inn. Her jazz-related poetry is featured in the July 2020 "Music" Issue 5 of the United Kingdom-based publication Northampton Poetry Review, on pages 63-74.
Snooze Alarm: Fallout Secret
Women and Children First
It’s 1955, shoot ’em ups galore at Los Alamos
Nevada Testing Site officials
counting on a bed of sleeping sheep
those for-your-eyes-only experts in the know
don’t say nothin’ but:
not to worry, rural folks
(they aimed blast clouds away from cities, as best they could)
no news, no feed but cheery words
for pregnant mamas living near
the night and dayglowing Utah bedrock
bearing since those special sun-ups
invisible and lethal clouds mushrooming
killer particles and silence
Lucky clockworks counting decades later
’til official word’s released: those radioactive-pastured
Utah ewes dropped dead from man-made-god-like
causes, not natural. Ditto for the stillbirths,
Mormon youngsters sickened, died of cancers.
It’s half a century later, now, long past time to wake,
alarming voices say to listen to
what is NOT said, to what IS revealed and when,
about the mushroom-clouded videocam recordings March 14, 2011 Fukushima Japan;
about Valentine’s Day kiss of what radwaste
blew from inside storage cavern 2014
Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad NM USA
Tune eyes and ears to siren songs of bluefin,
future generations, children sounding
prayerful incantations of
a birthright: truthful, abundant, clean, and
peaceful world where human
animal vegetal and mineral
are recognized, in love, as one
The Half-Life of Deception
Half-life: 1. the time required for half of the atoms of a radioactive substance present at the beginning to become disintegrated <there will still be one quarter of the element left at the end of two half-life periods -- G.E.Owen
2. the time required for one-half the amount of a substance in or introduced into a living system to be eliminated whether by excretion, metabolic decomposition, or other natural process
April 26,1986
25 years ago, and counting
Unit 4 (of 4) at Russian
power plant, Chernobyl
blew up, or was it melted down?
No matter. Both in fact.
The first explosion, one
that blew 2,000 tons of protective
structure off what scientific
experts called “containment”
shot a plume of radioactive smoke
more than 10 kilometers into sky.
Among the poisons billowing from crater:
Iodine-131 (half-life 8.02 days of beta, gamma rays)
Strontium-90 (half-life 28.8 years) Cesium-137 (half-life 30.07 years)
Plutonium, several kinds (half-lives 6,563 to 24,200 years).
These releases only ended 3 weeks later when resulting blue/red fire in
destroyed reactor core was quenched by
soon-dead radiation-poisoned heroes.
What went up did come down.
Mostly in Ukraine, Belarus,
and Russia near remains of plant:
curies quantities times hundreds more
than what rained down with bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Winds blew Chernobyl smoke to Finland,
France, Bulgaria, Germany, Greece, Poland,
Italy, United Kingdom, Sweden.
If you were old enough to understand this news,
recall the Russians only admitted their disaster
some days later when some Swedish scientists
reported measuring much too much
of background radiation.
North Africa was hit with 5% of total, significant contamination.
Another 1% of poison blew in 8 days later,
then fell out on North America.
As for biologic impact of physics gone past critical mass,
who can gauge becoming chromosomal aberrations?
What will be passed to generations who are lucky to survive, beget?
Some affected species die, do not reproduce.
Those that happen to survive will mutate.
Just that one Chernobyl power plant emission did
pollute a hemisphere with radiation half gone in 24,200 years,
three-quarters gone in 48,400 years, seven-eighths gone in 72,600 years.
All gone when human beings gone another place than Mother Earth.
Did they learn a thing from that mistake?
Sure. They named a new invention:
chernobylite, a type of corium,
man-made radioactive lava blend of zircaloy,
the fuel rod cladding, uranium dioxide reactor fuel,
silica from concrete, serpentinite, the melted thermal insulation.
Now there’s Japan’s Fukushima,
6 reactors on an ocean-facing coast
where the word “tsunami” was invented.
March 11, 2011 began another week,
and counting, of failures of containment in Japan,
when experts said “it’s not immediately clear
how much — if any — radiation was released”
by serial explosions, vented gas.
“If any” — that intelligence-insulting,
face-saving failure to contain untruth or wishful thinking,
uncontrolled cascading reactivity of bluff.
Most toxic method ever humanly devised of boiling water,
making steam to generate
electricity th ey — still — are calling safe and necessary energy.
An unfathomable number is the half-life of deception.
Again From the Top
Listen. Scott LaFaro’s bass, Bill Evans’ hands,
Paul Motian’s pulse recording of last hit: two-week engagement June 1961
Can connection be so visceral,
harmonious? Days later Scott’s car
lost control and hit a tree and smashed the bass;
LaFaro died on impact a devastating loss that silenced his surviving
bandmate . . .
but
Mine, in autumn 1980, was not such an ordinary car crash.
Driving back from reading poem with bassist I had such a crush on . . .
I had borrowed someone’s car or should I call it wreck about to happen?
Heading toward the gig late summer Sunday
engine burst in flames
Driving, I was stupefied and helpless
he knew what to do
something coolant
spraying on hot engine
tow truck belt right size
we were fine, like jazz cats do
on time to hit just barely
We did my poem “Charles Mingus Slipped Backstage”
(backstage the place musician spirits wait before they reappear to wail) more I don’t recall
state altered as I was by dream time in the moment coming true
$60,000 contrabass sat easily in big old Buick with bald tires
driving south from North Shore, Mass Salem back to Cambridge,
it began to rain, coat road
93 to Storrow — interchange that never sleeps — steely S turn
started skidding spun out smashed one side
crossed 3 lanes to other curb
bounced again and came to rest broadside
to rushing traffic Miracles: no other vehicle involved;
none hit us nor each other while the totalled heap decayed;
behind us, watching crash unfold, off duty state
patrolman in a van aided by directing traffic ‘til
the right authorities arrived;
[no break]
jazz fan in fact, he drove the unscathed bass and bassist home
leaving girl behind to ride with wreck to tow lot pondering
that repercussions thing.
I marvel at how easily
the bassist charms the rest —
moves one notion
to the next
perfect in the moment
all support, all timing
Odd: said incident had caused no damage
lack of injury – according to authorities – meant it never happened.
Fast forward then two dozen years – big changes:
my bassist is still playing somewhere near Seattle, he has raised a son;
that wicked Storrow S curve gone, less perilous bridge Big Dig installed.
Somehow I happen to discover Live at the Village Vanguard June ‘61
Enter Rocco Scott LaFaro
bassist from backstage ...
Last hit: two-week engagement
Can connection be
more audible,
more obvious?
A few days later his car lost control and
hit a tree and smashed the bass
both players died as wreck caught fire;
a potent, stupefying loss
that silenced his surviving bandmate, Evans, for a while.
Such impact does Scott’s playing have
he amazes, perfect timing,
fixed in moment, still
so young, so virile, full of promise,
listen and
connect
again
from the top
Jean Fineberg
"I am a freelance saxophonist/flutist, drummer, composer and bandleader based in the San Francisco Bay Area, specializing in R&B, Jazz, Soul, Funk, Reggae, Latin, New Orleans and related styles. The JAZZphoria octet has just recorded several of my original tunes for an upcoming album. JAZZphoria plays all original groove based music from Swing, to Bebop, Reggae, Funk, Bossa Nova, Soca and Salsa. The band is comprised of two trumpets/flugelhorns, two saxe/flutes/clarinetss, guitar, piano, bass & drums. All the arrangements feature big band style harmonies, great jazz solos and are backed up by a rock solid rhythm section. I'm about to add new videos from our last gig at the California Jazz Conservatory in Berkeley, CA."
Jean Fineberg, https://jeanfineberg.com/
***
Poems by Jean Fineberg
1) IN THE SHADOW OF FAME
(condensed version published in online Scarlet Leaf Review, June 2020)
I was a legend
in my own mind,
an anonymous star
in a big galaxy
I shot an album cover
eight women wearing only silver paint
and posed for People Magazine
painted waist up
I did a live TV show
from a theater in the round
on a rotating platform
while high on mescaline
I opened for big stars
in stadiums and arenas
for tens of thousands
who never knew my name
The band gave me a feature tune
We rehearsed it for weeks
and when the tour came
We never played it
I was locked out of a motel
and slept in a tour bus
when the manager spent our money
on drugs
I was stranded in an Acapulco hotel
with no ticket home
when the promoter said
he was broke
I was 23
and did what I thought
a star should to do
I seduced groupies --
The doe-eyed teenager
with “help me” scratched on her stomach
The lesbian wannabe
who gave me her rent money
The waitress who took me home
and cried all night,
The sweet bikini girl
who slept with all the boys too
When the shadow of fame grew long
and the big stars deatomized
some morphed into holograms
and started GoFundMe campaigns
I went back to playing bars
The groupies are older now
but they know my name
and still buy my CDs
I’m a big star in a tiny galaxy
world famous in my town
It’s not so bad--
after all, it beats anonymity
***
2) BRAGGING RIGHTS
(published in online Scarlet Leaf Review, June 2020)
My father wanted me to be a doctor
but he lost bragging rights because I’m a blues musician
I play him my latest recording
He shuts it off, saying the drums are offensive
They remind him of those awful boys with gold teeth and backward caps
who pull their cars up too close and blast their so-called music
I snatch back my CD
At his 80-year-old friend’s dinner party, I give it to the host
Who passes it around and proudly plays the whole thing
really, really loud
Inside Out
Microsstory by Anna Maria Dall'Olio
The first time I left a disco, all that glitter - inside out.
Lucy in the Sky
60s Poetry Rock by Robert Cooperman
Druggie Songs
So smirky when we quoted
druggie lyrics in “White Rabbit,”
aside from the lyrics, the flute
hypnotic as a swami summoning
a cobra from its basket,
or in “Lucy in the Sky,”
the acid reference inescapable,
the trippy melody taunting
anyone over thirty to figure out
what the song was about.
If music wouldn’t save the world,
it was at least our secret code
from parents straight and dull as rulers,
speakers exploding with narcotic decibels.
Those lyrics, our sacred texts, deeper
than Milton, Homer, Shakespeare,
the King James Bible, the sum of all
knowledge, all wisdom, the highest--
pardon the pun—of high poetry.
Well, we were young, believed
we’d invented sex and drugs,
and of course, rock ‘n’ roll.
The Lid
One night, six of us
smoked a lid of grass: an ounce;
young, invincible, and stupid.
We played the Beatles’
White Album, over and over,
“Helter-Skelter” blasting away,
its hortator-insistent beat
smashing from speakers, friends
confiding I was twitching
like a frog hit by an electrode:
“Epileptic seizure!” they gasped,
half terrified, half in awe.
God knows how many brain cells
I tossed away that night.
I joke now that if not
for that weed orgy,
I might’ve rivaled Keats.
Well, at least I have enough
gray matter left to make dumb jokes
Jimi: 1974
Spelling his first name like Hendrix’s,
he owned the neighborhood head shop:
incense a Hindu temple, display cases
of rolling papers, hash pipes, bongs, hookahs,
Indian blouses, serapes and ponchos;
posters of Hendrix, Dylan, Otis Redding.
He was possessed by the original Jimi’s
riffs snaking from the PA system; me obsessed
by the Dead; every now and then, we’d part
the bead curtains to where he and Delores
cooked, ate, and made love; we’d toke up,
Delores packing weed into Ziploc bags.
When I left for grad school out west,
Jimi and I hugged, and when I returned
for Christmas break with Beth, whom I’d marry
and love forever, I stopped in to introduce her.
“Bob!” his bear hug levitated me.
and gently shook Beth’s flute-playing hand.
“Man,” he confided, “you left at the right time,”
catalogued the shootings, the shop owners
robbed, the one murdered, and opened the drawer
under the old fashioned cashier register,
revealing a shiny-deadly pistol.
“Delores left, Man, couldn’t take the bad vibes,”
he shrugged; neither Beth nor I able not to see
the hidden pistol, summers of love over.
"Born to be Wild" - Life in the 60s
Poetry Collection by Alan Catlin
The Elements: The Band
They were wannabee
rock stars, prototype
punkettes with spiked
hair, blank eyes, and
voices rasped by razor
blades. Claimed they
were three screaming
banshees from hell
but were actually from
Syosset. Were backed
up by four guys voted
most likely to die of an
overdose by their junior
high classmates.
The drummer losing
a spot for a heavy metal
band gig to a guy who
was rumored to have
spontaneously combusted,
leaving behind nothing but
a singed set of sticks and
a brutally abused cow bell.
Did club dates in places
health inspectors wouldn’t
go. Lost fans to characters
straight out of movies like
“Under the Skin” and
“The Hunger”. Flamed out
long before their singles went
gold on albums that had
no names as much due to
a lack of interest than
creative differences.
They won’t be missed.
Lounge People Listening, Waiting for “The End”
Young America 1970, half wasted
drinking from the keg of perpetual
flowing beer, sacred font open 24 hour
a day, for charter members of Roosevelt
Drive Social Club, duplex of dharma
bums, a month away from graduation
and a letter of greetings and salutations
from Uncle Sam draft board;
black robes and mortar board hats in May,
jungle fatigues by October, flag draped
coffin by the first of the year, full military
honors; it had happened before and it would
happen again. No one mentioning what lay
ahead, but everyone aware of the elephant
in the crowded living room, the Woodstock
Live album on so loud Jimi Hendrix made
ears bleed the national anthem, taking you
higher as Sly and the Family Stone and
the hydroponic weed smuggled in from
who knew where, classes some kind of Kent
State nightmare no one bothered with any more.
Interiors so crowded early spring afternoons
relocating all the furniture outside on the lawn
under the high flying drinking flag: a martini
with olives on a cresting wave, seemed the only
way to fly, all the summers of love over,
young ladies on the daybed/couch dressed
in funereal black, white skulls on gold chains
around their necks, dead eyes and too red lips,
all the gone tomorrows, today, that seemed to
say, abandon hope all ye who enter here.
Number 9 Dream, Just Before Finals, Winter 1969
After all the cafes have been
closed, the beatniks busted,
hipsters, gone cats, have all switched
from smoke to hooch, three piece
suits, suburban commutes and thirty
year mortgage nightmares,
only the black walls and hollow
shells of the fifties left behind.
Happening bistros are now dive
bars with names like Horny Toad,
Happy Hobbit, Emergency Room,
graffito encouraged in black light
back rooms, glow in the dark phrases:
“War is not good for children and
other living things”,
“Sterilize LBJ-No more ugly children”.
Slogans fading in real light around
last call, overseas war images on
black and white TV at end of well-
carved, cigarette burned bar.
Doors “Crystal Ship” segues into
Jim Hendrix, “All Along the
Watchtower”, long haired, deadend
crew’s, final shooters for the road
washed down with warm, flat beer.
Outside, snow falling, a foot on
the ground and more to come,
nowhere to come from here but
home.
The Times They Are a Changing':
Summer Late 60's, Death & Transfiguration Blues
Brush cuts and slacks transformed
into long hair & bell bottoms, jeans
patched over worn through holes,
ripped fabrics becoming functional
art forms, wearable works in progress,
underage drinking pints of cheapest
Vodka available to young men, drinking
it straight or with warm Coke mixtures
replaced by roll your own dabs,
communal water pipes, filtration systems
containing bottom shelf white wine,
sharing a smoke of many dreams, deep
sixing beers, wild laughter in the dark,
near hysteria, wired on acid rock, protest
songs, folks singers socially aware &
Vietnam no longer some way out there,
unimaginable place in the back of stamp
albums under French possessions but a
subject for subterranean homesick blues,
songs of sorrow and lamentation for picket
lines & protests, summers of love drowning
in blood, an alcoholic purple haze, secret
agent's orange, mushroom like clouds, what
did it matter? What was that sound? Draft
riots and FBI files, Big Brother & His
Holding Company, register with your draft
board, pick a number & die, Uncle Sam
a skeleton with Death Watch Beetle eyes,
a paranoids worst fears realized, up against
a wall mother faker, 'it's all over now, baby
blue', 'it's alright now Ma, I'm only bleeding','
'blowing' in the wind,' blues.
Visions of Johanna
I don't remember the first time
I saw her
Not exactly
The last few years of the 60's are one long,
stoned, alcoholic blur of darkened bars,
concert venues, frat houses subterranean
homesick blues
"Sunshine of Your Love"
the song of doomed youth I most recall,
her saying, "You look like Donovan.
Before he sold his soul to a record label."
But what I was had more to do, had more
in common with being an exploding ticket
holder on a drunken boat to nowhere
drinking because I was depressed,
the more I drank the more depressed I was,
than actually selling my soul
I was thinking she was some kind
of acid angel who could rescue me from hell
on an endless weekend afternoon of substance
abuse and self pitying gestures that made me
feel as pathetic as I was
Could see her pied beauty face across a dance floor,
barroom, streaked by strobe lights and day glo paints,
coming colors in my mind and I thought
I could reach out and touch her but when I went to
touch, she wasn't there
She wasn't anywhere, was lost in some electric lady land
dream of the 60's, a stolen muse, a siren song;
sometimes I wonder if she was real
Summer of Love
Lightning over the water,
over the docks where inboards
are moored in their slips,
sailboats battened down for
the inevitable storm and inside
the vine covered house, Gracie
and The Airplane are singing,
"When the truth is found, to be lies,
and all the love within you dies----"
pot smoke as thick as candle wax
on the wicker based Chianti bottles,
so strange to be 18 going on 19,
strange as the surrealistic pillow
sounds, the images of Nam jungle
of never ending war, all hell broken
loose on sound-turned-off tube in
the darkness, naked to the waist,
blowing excellent demon weed and
washing it away with flat Filipino
beer, San Miguel and M., one screwed up
chick on a mission to burn baby burn
like a city, like Newark in flames,
Vanilla Fudge dropping down onto
the turn table, "You keep me hanging on---"
in half time, a warped acid freaked
chorus of long haired angels singing
and playing for the dead and the soon-
to-be dead, M. exhaling a lung full
of weed in my face, leaning closer as
if to kiss; race riots in one eye, jungle
war scenes in the other, rolling thunder
all around.
“like the songs you used to hear on late-night radio”
Late night FM radio in the 60’s,
no cool jazz or silly little love songs,
no top 40’s hits, bubblegum music
or Montovani but real cuts from deep
inside the political scene, unrest and
protest, music from the mud at Woodstock,
from the killing fields of Kent State,
pagan princes, stoned goddesses,
acid rockers tripping through city
streets eight miles high and falling
fast the Altamont horror like a chainmail
monkey on their backs. Killer lyrics
and dead rock stars, doom sayers of
a police state, military-industrial complex
out of control, righteous music of long
haired hippie heads blissed out way past
midnight on the promise-of-sex-blessed voice
of Alison the Nightbird, WNEW on your dial,
free form radio: whole sides of Sergeant Pepper,
Moody Blues, Clapton and Cream, Bonnie
and Delany, Yardbirds and Crosby Steals
the Cash and Runs, maybe some Monk
and Miles mixed in, music to burn draft cards
and flags to, music for making bombs,
music to die for.
Born to Be Wild
We rode when the moon
was full, stoned freaks in
some top down convertible,
long hair blowing in the wind,
speeding down unlighted narrow
switchback roads, drinking beer,
standing as tall as we could,
singing along with 60’s protest
songs, barely hanging on,
a suicidal psychopath at the wheel,
driving dead center through
blind turns into straight-aways
daring what was coming to come.
Switching AM stations, we become
The Dave Clark Five, singing, “Catch
Us If You Can” singing, “Glad All
Over” singing Steppenwolf, “Born to Be
Wild,” the refrain “Never going to die”
extra loud; that’s how young we were,
how crazy, how stupid, how wrong.
Poetry Collection by Virginia Chase Sutton
Abandoned House
Snow begins to fall into this deserted
house and you stuff clothes into
broken windows. No heat, no electricity,
no water, no sustenance of any
kind. Tonight I wish I could see
inside your heart. It has been dashed
to bits then badly glued---family
mistreatment, bullies, all the women
you held in your arms only to watch
them dance away in red pointy shoes.
It made you muscled, lean. But
that is muffled beneath the weight
of snow as it piles up on the roof.
Over in the corner, where mice tickle
ancient newspapers, white blindness
keeps them sheltered. I am on the old mattress
on the floor. Surely it has held all kinds
of lovers---perhaps as distant as you are tonight,
shivering in your fleece jacket. Come to bed
I whisper, my voice drowning in the cold.
Come to bed. Your sleeping bag, unzipped
and spread open, reeks of newness. Mine
a beat-up piece from home hundreds of miles
away. It is good I tell you. You turn, a smile
forming on your heavily whiskered jaw.
Joining me, we toss our clothes atop the bag
to keep them fresh. Our bodies shiver in the dance
that rocked this mattress so many times before.
Such drama in this room, now the silent rampage
of snow as it tumbles through the roof.
Beneath you, I watch your eyelids as they flutter,
the moment you give over to passion. I will dress
for warmth later, after more love. I will tell anyone
who does not believe how one body stuns the other
at climax, my shoulders laid bare to the cold.
Perfection
We are all beautiful at 17, our flawless
skins attached to willing bones and sinews.
Some of us are waiting for our chance,
for someone to say I want to make out
like teenagers or for the stranger with
a bottle of Boone’s Farm Apple Wine
he will share though I am underage.
Or the joint passing between us,
making me happily relaxed in the pink
lace bra I am willing to shed for
the unknown, the chance at real love.
I do not know yet how lovely I am
with soft brown hair and blue eyes
flecked with squiggles. And though
my body is not like the striking grace
of cheerleaders back home, it stuns
with dazzling breasts and big areoles
that men will kiss and love. I will learn
of this loveliness as I discover those who
are worthy. Later, my friends will grow
into their flesh as I grow away, already ahead,
open and waiting, discovering a taste
for a certain sort of man. He will hurt me
with his attention/inattention, leaving
me alone some weekends when I want
his body and crazy kisses. What
he suggests as we love. It is all so new,
this perfection, a body that happily does
as I bid, no thought or chance of illness,
destruction or loss. Love gorgeousness.
It will not come again---this purity
of spirit, this holiness, this beam and shine,
beacons from my eyes, my eyes.
Just a Fling
My bad boy reads stacks of comic books I toss
into the garbage. I allow you into my apartment that comes
with an evening job at the college library. You want to get high,
do vodka shots, go out all the time. Many dull evenings
at work though I adore the swish of card catalogs in their sweet
openings and closings. I stare at Grant Wood murals painted
on library walls. The one I like most, a tense landscape, across from
the checkout reflects our courtship. Our sex life is tawdry mornings
when the sky has rolled away the darkness. Now you leave small drawings
with words I cannot read. Playing your kalimba badly and artlessly, irks me.
You carry it everywhere, made of expensive wood, keys twanging,
hollow interior echoing across the entire floor of the teetering Victorian.
One night you are stinking drunk again, flopping on the ground, on the verge
of alcoholic collapse. You hand the kalimba to me. Finally, furious
with you---finally, overwrought, I toss it onto an overflowing dumpster.
In my deepest fury, we are over and done. I am still obviously
lightning-strike-stupid about you but I do nothing. One twilight you slip
into the library, prying open a window screen in the fourth-floor stacks.
You fling book after book, spinning, pages ripping, ruined,
covers flapping like flocks of colorful birds as their wings open
and close before they smash into the summer-baked ground.
Five Cocktail Napkins from a Dive Bar
There is an unnamed bar on the railroad tracks
that cuts the center of this Midwestern city,
a place where men get wasted on watery beer.
I come here, always the only woman, with
my almost-straight boyfriend, because we do not have
much cash. It is a cold night and patrons sleep
outside the bar which empties onto the tracks.
Trains hoot warning blasts, traveling a glacial pace,
give drunks time to roll back to the sidewalk.
Paul gathers a stack of cocktail napkins from the bar
when he collects 2 shells of beer at 25 cents each.
Grain Belt. And we begin to record tonight’s escape.
He is like that---wanting to remember everything
about us, writing even as the cigarette-pocked table
rocks. No one ever approaches us, each patron
lost in misery, cold, and beer. Comfortable
in working class duds and youth, we should be
more compassionate as the door slams. But
we are underage, do not think of anything other than
ourselves and our perfect friendship. I am so in love,
I would go anywhere with him. Less in love, he brings us
to this place of sadness where we write notes about adventures.
A drunk stumbles, knocks over a table and falls. Another man
helps him up and they leave. The ancient jukebox has a variety
of tunes from before our time. For every nickel, something
plays. Popular is Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree,
a song with a positive spin on finding home after a man
has done his time. Paul heads to the bar for more beer.
Go get it yourself is the motto here. Five napkins later
we have tonight’s story to keep, long as paper lasts.
Flushed with drunkenness, we clasp hands to remain upright
and carefully step over bodies---nowhere for them to go
but brief unconsciousness beside the bar’s door.
Shivering, they get some relief from a warm puff
as it flips open. We always return. We always write
the present, even as it is the past, all for a couple of bucks.
Sunlight becomes her
By David Thorpe
Sunlight becomes her,
glimmering tresses of burnt sienna,
their sensuality holding in captivity
the side wards glances of enchanted eyes,
unrepentant of lascivious thoughts
Sunlight becomes her,
piercing into her quiescent heart,
resuscitating the dormant fire,
to melt the icicles of inhibitions,
between her breath and mine
Sunlight becomes her,
its shadows of mystic darkness
shrouding her charms, to be revealed
on nights when thirst of longings
are finally quenched
Yet daydreams evanesce come eventide,
thus forth I venture to love´s embrace,
she tilts her head to greet me,
her smile a garland on her lips,
a smile which becomes her so
David Thorpe©®
Love Among the Ruins
By Alan Catlin
***
Love Among the Ruins
During the air raids
we used to hide
in out storm
cellar
It was so exciting
making love
that way
After the war
it was never
the same
When smoke gets
in your eyes was the theme
of their love affair in black
and white, something they
conducted in out of the way
cafes, those cigarette smoke
filled nights of Humphrey Bogart
movies on silent bar TVs,
way too loud public speakers,
designer cocktails, excuses
to get crazy, drop their trousers
while husbands, spouses,
significant others, were away on
business, visiting the sick, having
affairs of their own.
Afterwards, the scent of cigarettes
a dead giveaway nothing was as it
seemed.
Diary of a Mad Housewife
If the truth be known, she took all those,
Visiting Poet/Writer in Residence gigs,
just to get out of the house.
Her old man could have cared less what
she did with her writing as long as she
gave him space for his true passion: making pots
of money designing Brutalist buildings
and making love to all the nubile interns who came to
worship at his drawing board.
Every semester on the road for her, promised
potential new bedmates, as sex with her husband
was as dismal as it was rare, generally a farce
of nature after too much wine, good food, and
occasional recreational drugs.
Of course, they had children, conceived in what
appeared to her now as: forlorn hope disguised
as love and a deluded optimism for a future neither
one of them believed in.
They had grandchildren, as well, kids she spoke of
often to convey to her listeners that she was
in a committed relationship but she was willing
to be flexible as long as it went no further
than a brief, but memorable, affair.
Maybe there would be a body builder among
the latest acolytes, this occasionally happened,
even established poets worked out, as she did,
every morning to clear her head and flex muscles
she might need later on for more intimate
encounters. A Martial Art expert would be a
refreshing change; the poetry was awful but
the sex was great.
Most of the hopefuls would be women.
There was no avoiding that.
She had tried one or two out for trial runs but
they were unsatisfactory as she just couldn’t swing
that way.
All of them shared one trait: unrealistic expectations.
There was no avoiding it and most of her job
entailed letting them down gracefully and with tact.
Hell, you never knew when a great line might sneak
into a dreadful poem, a line she could steal and
pretend was her own.
If someone complained, who were they going to believe:
a neophyte nobody or the visiting writer in residence?
The White Giant’s Thigh
All the bar girls loved
his poor boy at the party
good looks: shaggy hair,
a few inches too long,
curling iron teased,
his weeks-without-shaving
beard made to look like
six o’clock shadow,
his half glasses for reading
verses scammed from back
pages of college texts or
the ones he memorized like
“Do Not Go Gentle Into
That Good Night” or
“The White Giant’s Thigh”.
All those words he made
his own with rich recitations
in deep baritone voice,
whiskey edged and cigarette
rough, a pint a poem he never
pays for. All of the breathless
women dying to run hands
beneath bleached-to-a-stylish-
fade t-shirt that said:
Poets Do It With Words.
After he’s made love to them all,
he returns to his spot along
the rail with the battle tested
boys who buy him rounds
for last call, savoring all
the details he tells and whatever
he withholds: Into Her Head
Lying Down, dreaming of
the land where their ancestors
lived and they were young
and wild and the world was
full of promise for a greener day.
In Paradise
In Paradise, the 24/7 nude revue is well
under way. All the men are standing three
deep around the horseshoe shaped bar,
downing ten dollar well drinks, watching
the Amateur Night girls shed their clothes
on sweat-stained stage, gripping slick silver
poles, listening to the Rod Man sing,
“Do You Think I’m Sexy….”.
The strippers eyes are all aglow with a pinch
of angel’s dust and industrial strength weed.
Every one of the women is a winner,
an eleven on a scale of one to ten, all the tips
folded Franklins stuffed into stretched-to-
the-max black garters. All the men are macho
hunks, rough riders, special forces black ops
on R&R, one assignment away from being
enshrined in a heroes hall of fame. In Paradise,
the lights behind the bar always dazzle,
the music hard driving loud and the Gates of Hell
are always locked and secure, the smell of
sulfur and burning souls muted by the scent
of freshly sprayed perfume, all of it blown
about by the best air units money can buy.
In Paradise, even the virgins are dying to
make love.
Painting by Scarlett Neumann
The Tigers of Venus
Poetry Collection by Charles Rammelkamp
A Night of Passion
When I say
Kendra and I spent
a night of passion,
remember, we were on Venus.
The only two on the mission,
like a Space Age Adam and Eve,
it was like we’d quarantined ourselves
in our own Garden of Eden,
millions of miles from humanity.
With the slowest rotation
of any planet in the Solar System,
it takes two hundred and forty-three
Earth days to spin on its axis.
You do the math.
In the intimate dark
we lay in each other’s arms,
exploring each other’s body
for that entire night,
Kendra whispering deliriously
a word that rhymed with “Venus.”
Our Daily Haunt
Give us this day our daily ghost,
or maybe it's only a memory assault,
a guerrilla attack from the irreversible past,
our old friend regret clogging up the gutters,
forcing a disturbance up the pipes.
My father appears before me,
gazing at me through the inscrutable slits
his eyes have become from late-night reading.
Is that disapproval in his glance? Disappointment?
Oh, how I used to let him have it
when I was in my insecure twenties.
But he always forgave me,
and I wonder if it's the forgiveness
I always hated the most.
My former girlfriend,
dead ten years now I recently learned
from some casual remark
in the college alumni magazine.
Did I drive her to her grave?
She stands before me now, naked,
that condescending smirk twisting her face,
the same look of superiority
she always showed me.
It’s as if I’m summoning tigers from the air
and watching them disappear again,
beings from nowhere accusing me
of coming up short, missing the mark,
and worse, infinitely, terribly worse.
Or is it I who am less substantial than a ghost,
haunted by a past empty of a future?
The One-eyed Monster
We called the next door neighbor Cyclops
because he put his left eye out
hammering nails, the hammer shattering
the lens from his eyeglasses on the backswing,
sharp shards piercing the eyeball, a dagger in a jellyfish.
Cyclops' only child, Roxanne,
became a groupie for a country western band,
followed them around the country,
gig to gig.
Everybody assumed she slept with all of them
but nobody ever asked.
Roxanne finally got a job in a bank,
married a widower with three sons.
Cyclops retired from the furniture store
a few years after she settled down.
So we all thought things had worked out,
if not a fairy tale ending, at least
everybody was taken care of:
Night after night we heard laughtracks
spilling out of his house,
the endless loop of half-hour television comedy reruns.
But one night he ran out of his house
in the middle of a "Friends" episode,
erratic as a headless chicken
screaming he was dying,
his life an absurd joke,
Who is killing you, Cyclops?
we shouted, just as urgent,
Why are you dying?
"No man!" he shouted, his anguish
tragic as a sob,
"No man! No man is killing me!"
The House of Malediction
By David Thorpe
Ere the gathering storm
the evidence of the crime eradicated,
the abandoned footprints,
crawling clandestinely over the sentinel sand
to reach the tide in ebb,
shrivelling up into itself
as it murmurs profane curses
to the fleeing crows,
squawking abhorrence
of the witnessed felony,
their echoes resounding
without clemency
in the wounded silence,
where only drops of blood were heard,
dripping in morbid consistency
throughout the house of malediction,
ascending to its judgement
into an ethereal welkin
David Thorpe ©®
The photo courtesy of Jerome Coppo
SAFARI NOCTURNO
Bilingual Poem in Spanish and English
By Daniel de Culla
La banda de heavy metal Kiss
Con su “The Creatures of the Night”
En el tocadiscos se ha rayado.
Yo, Yo mismo y Yo, sólo Yo
Y todo lo que llega a la Vida
Como diría Janet Devlin
Nos cubrimos de noche y pasión
Mientras el eterno borracho
Sale del bar echado a patadas
Pues mirando a una camarera
Con ojos rojos y sangre fría
Le dijo mordiéndose la lengua:
-Si tú quieres, te amaré a besos
Y te daré muerte a mordiscos.
Como él, soy un gurú de la noche
Un santo cura de cementerio
Que caza almas inmortales
Con un claro cazamariposas.
Un santo y pecador amado soy
Que hace, en sus noches, un safari
Santificando el vino reluciente
Con los rayos de la Luna
Abrazado a mi hembra de Amor
Que desfallece en mis brazos
Como esa muñeca de plástico
Comprada en ese Sex-shop
De la Calle Dante llamado “Infierno”.
Escuchad conmigo, si estáis despiertos
El susurro de los amantes entre sábanas
Haciéndose memeces, caricias y Sexo.
Sentid el respirar de la muerte
Tronchando cabecitas de esas aves
Que posan en las ramas de los árboles:
El Cárabo común, de visión nocturna
El Búho real llamado Bubo Bubo
Cuya hembra pone seis huevos
El Autillo chillón, que impregna miedo
El Mochuelo común, aceitunero altivo
Pues le gustan mucho los olivos
La Lechuza común con su disco facial
En forma de corazón.
Más, quedaos en vela y temed mucho
A ese eterno borracho de la noche
Que camina por donde nadie le vea
Que hoy pasa de largo su casa
Marchando a casa de la suegra
Disfrazado de Sacamantecas
Pues piensa acostarse con ella
Y beber el último trago de vino
En su preciosa calavera.
NIGHT SAFARI
The heavy metal band Kiss
With their "The Creatures of the Night"
Scratched and torn on the record player.
Me, Myself and I, only Me,
We still all come to life,
As Janet Devlin would say:
"We cover ourselves with night and passion
While the eternal drunkard
is kicked out of the bar
Because he gazed at a waitress
With red eyes and in cold blood
Telling her while biting his tongue:
-If you want, I will cover you with kisses,
Biting you to death.
Like him, I am the midnight guru
A holy cemetery priest
That hunts immortal souls
With a clear butterfly net.
Holy, sinful and beloved that I am,
I am on a safari through your nights,
Sanctifying the sparkling wine
With the rays of the Moon
Embracing my female love.
She fades in my arms
Like that plastic doll
Bought at that Erotic-Shop
A place on Dante Street called "Hell".
Listen to me
If you are awake
The whispers of lovers between sheets
Getting down, they devour each other
Feeling the breath of Charon,
Decapitating the ravens
Posing on branches:
The Common Tawny Owl of night vision,
The Eagle Owl named Bubo Bubo,
Whose female lays six eggs,
The screeching owl,
That permeates fear,
The Little Screech, haughty olive,
Because it really likes olive trees,
The Owl in the Barn with its facial disc.
But, heart shaped,
Furthermore, I stay awake, terrified,
Of that eternal drunkard of the night
Who walks where no one sees him,
That this house he passes by today,
Marching to his mother-in-law's house
Disguised as Sacamantecas (Takelards),
Because he plans to sleep with her,
And drink the last gulp of wine
From her precious skull.
Three Short Poems by Meg Smith
A Summer Witch
Twilight shifts, in the sandy park --
a swing set sings a rusty anthem.
Words work magic,
but my song is silence.
Some laughter below
to an audience, of flitting wings --
this is the limit of flight.
This is the limit of a night's
last spell.
Betelgeuse
I ask for
a star that won't fail me,
sky-blood, some pulse,
mine, to yours.
From a Lunar Calendar
The moon rises
on the other side
of a torn screen,
a bruised eye
glancing back.
Meg Smith's poetry books,
Dear Deepest Ghost, The Scarlet Dancing and Night's Island,
are available on Amazon.
Two Poems by K.A. Williams
Night Caller
Mist entered the open window
and hung in the air
transforming into a vampire
with a red-eyed stare.
Moonlight shone on the
woman lying in the bed.
The vampire glided forward
and bent over her head.
Startled, the woman screamed,
then looked at her clock.
"You're late," she scolded.
"And you forgot to knock."
Cal And Kay
His name was Cal,
he lived by night.
If you met him,
you'd get a bite,
and wished you had
stayed in till light.
He met a girl,
her name was Kay,
but not like him,
she lived by day.
He sought a witch,
and had to pay.
The spell did work,
his fangs won't grow,
and his eyes lost
their bright red glow.
Cal looked for Kay,
she had to know.
Where did she go?
Cal had no clue.
When Cal found Kay
her new fangs grew,
and her eyes had
a bright red hue.
Poe's Nightmare
Poetry Collection by Alan Catlin
Nocturne in Blue and Gold: The Falling Rocket (no 50)
after J.M. Whistler
Night sky alive
with colored
showering the white
light and the gold
What was once
propelled free
falling now;
darkness
crowding in
Southern Gothic: A Romance for Ambrose Bierce:
Our Lady of the Moors
A waft of gown, ethereal
and as insubstantial as ground
fog rising in deep, humid
night; a consequence of heat
lightning, the rarely seen
made visible, tangible as
thunder, shifting layers
beneath the earth, a whistle
of breath, the raw, savage
voice of the lady-once-loved
now-left-behind and the death
mask that she wears.
Night
Train sounds seem endless
just before I fall asleep,
the dog is shaking beside
our bed and the room is
filled by moon shadows,
heat thunder rips through
night pressing us together
inside these walls
Long past midnight,
the milk train's
sound
is muffled
by a drifting
snow
lulling passengers,
as dreamers,
awake
Dreams claw under
drifts beneath
expansive
fields of
white
close to the subtle
dark,
those unlit
tunnels
for night
trains to be
swallowed in
The Obscene Bird of Night
Each landscape is a silent terror
like anticipating the aftermath of a fire,
sliding into a territory of black ice
with no reference point for up or down,
just a fractured sky, a bent horizon
waiting for the obscene bird of night
while restrained within these pale,
antiseptic walls, strapped down
to stiff metal cribs, leather things
for chewing on, everything flexible
wired into place, force sustained even
in coma inducing sleep; rare moments
of lucidity, artistic release: mixed media in
charcoal, india ink and water colors all
washed by an antiseptic solution, gray.
“Last night I dreamed this would happen”
Repressed as memories revealed in a dream.
I am five years old, seeing the world through
a rain smeared window. A tropical rain in a
tropical place. An invasion of wind toppling
massive palm trees and the sound of a
struggling, tethered white horse within
the arc of where the trees are falling.
In the fever dream of no escape on
an island in an ocean there is nowhere to hide
when the unnamed storms arrive. Nor can there
be a way to describe how it feels to be drowning
in the deep end of a hotel pool while your soon-
to-be mad, unaware, mother smokes unfiltered
cigarettes, lighting one from the other assured,
in her dream, that I am safe among the water babies
in seas of dusk and fog.
Or what it feels like to be riding down from
an island plateau on a no pavement, pothole road:
no lights, no shoulders, no seat belts, in army issue jeep,
pitching from side to side on ess curves, driving blind.
And there, just ahead, beyond a dip in the road,
in that place where the rain won’t go, what windshield
wipers won’t wash away.
Awake on bad dream beach,
colonies of bats swarm from
below seawater-logged decks.
Fullness
By Colette Tennant
Someone tie-dyed this Oregon sky,
tie-dyed it pretty.
The hummingbird, her tiny feet tucked
just below the canticle of her thrumming heart,
suckles the lilac’s full blooms,
and the fir tree that was almost decimated
by an ice storm a dozen years ago,
has recovered so each bough is tipped in new green
and waving in the spring wind,
and its spine looks impossibly straight now –
straight and true as prayer.
And the red fullness of the rhododendron
swoops up to meet the Japanese Maple,
the two of them shoulder to shoulder
just outside the front window.
Watch how each May
they renew their secret vows.
Flower Songs
Poetry Collection by Marianne Mersereau
***
A Bundle of Gladioli
“I must have flowers, always, and always.”
~Claude Monet
Standing on the platform by his seat
I rode with my dad on the red Ford tractor
down our gravel driveway onto the paved road
toward a farm by the river
where a widow grew acres of flowers
among vegetables, tall deep red, magenta,
orange, yellow, violet and purple gladioli.
She cut a large bundle and handed it to me
so thick I could hardly embrace it,
the stalks almost as tall as me
the colors painted on my memory making
that the moment I knew I could not live
without flowers. It was the moment
Monet’s obsession became mine.
Day Flowers
I’m glad I asked your favorite
flower and song before
the day that you were gone. Your answers
were the simplest: Jesus Loves
Me and the morning glory – a wild
flower some call a weed.
Shades of blue violet magenta with
star shaped centers climbing the
fence row tangled in barbed
wire blooming and dying in a single
day. And you, like them, acquainted
with the night, rose each
day to embrace the light.
At Twilight
In summer,
he performs the evening ritual -
stops the tractor in the meadow
to pick a bouquet of wildflowers
purple Ironweed
black-eyed Susan and
field daisies.
Never mind the cows
waiting for their supper. He gathers
the blooms before pitching
the hay, holds them up in
fading light – flowers for my mother,
his Gracie.
He finds a mason jar, fills it with
water from the spigot and
carries it into the kitchen
where she stands
stirring soup beans on the stove.
He kisses her and sets the jar
on the table – a testimony at the
closing of the day.
Marianne Mersereau grew up in the Southern Highlands of Appalachia and currently resides in the Pacific Northwest. She is the author of a chapbook, “Timbrel” (Finishing Line Press, 2013). Her writing has appeared in The Hollins Critic, Bella Grace, Entropy, Still Point Arts Quarterly, The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature, Deep South Magazine and Seattle’s Poetry on Buses; and is anthologized in Public Poetry Houston’s Anthology, Enough. She was awarded a Second Place Prize in Artists Embassy International’s Dancing Poetry Contest in 2018.
Her Light
By Connor Orico
a score of dawns and dusks you have kept watch,
battlements crenelated with banners of purpose,
weathered walls outfitted in sun’s splendor,
steadfast with veiled serenity in storm;
falcons buttress towers
and doves gather in courtyards
finding rest for weary hearts
and counsel for wandering minds
as the gates open and laughter tolls.
elegance is the architecture that colors
your strong skeleton in pastoral radiance
with courage clasped about your nape
you said your faith is the fount by which you plant flowers
and cool the calloused feet of the labored
whose virtue you admire like the lovingkindness
of dew that quietly dances in new mornings.
for a score of seasons you have endured
and as the moon continues to chase the sunlight,
the smile etched in your soul will beckon,
as a beacon, the faint home.
A Thorny Relationship
By K. Williams
Here you come again with
thin gloves and short shears.
I guess you didn't learn
from the last two years.
I don't like being pruned
and I've many a thorn,
so the clothes you have
on are about to be torn.
Sorry about the tear
in your long sleeved shirt,
and the thorn in your finger.
That's gotta hurt.
I know you've just brought
me food and water.
To make amends,
I'll offer this barter.
I'll grow lots of buds and
get them ready for bloom.
Soon I'll have so many petals
no more can find room.
Shakespeare’s Flowers
A Poetry Collection by Alan Catlin
Shakespeare’s Flowers
Marigolds, lavender and savory
for a Winter’s Tale
Woodbine, musk roses, eglantine
for a Midsummer’s Night Dream
Columbine for a thankless lover,
the woe begotten, the forsaken
”Sow fennel, sow sorrow”
sayeth Ophelia to her brother
“And here’s rue for you and
rue for me...” sayeth Hamlet
Henbane for Hamlet Sr. and hemlock
for Macbeth’s witches brew
Lady smocks, pied daises, and cuckoo
buds for Love’s Labour Lost
Violets for a Twelfth Night
Cowslip for The Tempest
Strewing herbs, curly mint, sweet marjoram
for All’s Well That Ends Well
Primordial Dreaming
insists upon the ignition
of fossil fuels, geysers
of crude refined by exposure
to rarified air, burning in
wide sweeping arc, raining
white phosphorous on
the exposed skin of roses,
the raised beds of flowers
pressed into seams, the stripped
mines of a bountiful night.
White Whales in Fields of Wildflowers
The wind turning back the white
heads of the Wildflowers, turns
down the bladed lips of grass, these
thistles, engorged, tremulous with
a breeding presentment of wind;
an acknowledgement of whales,
breaching the crests of hills, clear,
vital gouts of spume fitfully propelled,
geysering above the wild, ruined fields,
this crystal night of fragmentation
grenades rain bowing the bowed,
unhindered growth of fields, crouched
in an attitude of fear, stung by spontaneous
combustions, ravaging fireweeds,
red ants, a tumultuous flare, electric
as St Elmo's Fire illuminating the severed,
flowering heads, those disconnected gold
pieces hammered to the fractured masts
of whalers sent to an inland sea;
the white humps of the encroaching
gather of herds, undulate, a shimmer
of unnatural refracted light just above
the surface of fields, taking air for
the third and final time before the
breathless plunge.
Poe dreams
of a house
of the dead,
rooms all his
loved ones
expired in,
without cut flowers
to mask the scent
of fatal disease
having its’ way
with a body:
the natural mother
and the step one,
the brother then
the wife,
a sister and more,
pale and consumptive,
life blood spewed
in a basin.
Like Keats
he could foresee
the future
in a cough.
Red Daffodils, White Rain
after Stephen Hannock
Vermillion sky, empurpled
as a bruise, the dark stain
of alluvial soil along the edges
of an open wound,
red fields of wild flowers:
hybrids, mutant species
chemically enhanced,
their roots drilled into
night shaded bone,
impervious to weather,
these rose madder blooms,
these acres of daffodils
from another life.
Caustic Flowers
Outside the greenhouse
the cold is a hand pressing
down on stained glass
panels that shed flecks
of lead paint like dander
from weeds or flowers
from the outside world
in search of fertile ground
to grow roots in.
New breeds of plants are
being born, ones that defy
naming, that shrivel and
shrink when touched but
leave wounds on uncovered
hands that fester and bleed,
burning to the bone like
something best left extinct,
if reborn, will be determined
to exact a virulent form of revenge.
A Chance For Your Heart
By Lucinda Berry Hill
In your embrace,
You hold close, your heart.
Sparing it pain
From falling apart.
Closing a door,
Building a wall;
Not letting it feel,
You think it won't fall.
There's always a risk,
Always a chance
In every step
There is with romance.
Life holds many loves;
That makes who you are.
But there's one who was made
With a song for your heart.
How tragic it'd be,
To not take the chance.
In shielding your heart,
You may miss the dance.
Lucinda Berry Hill Author of Coffee With Jesus ©
The Dancing Freak
Poetry Collection by Alan Catlin
The Sadness of Dreaming
late summer rain at
a lake on well chilled
mornings, the loons crying
each to each as they dance
across the rippled surface
unseen within the shadows
cast by overhanging evergreen
boughs and the silence that
follows them every time when
they go.
El Amor Brujo
Sailors offer her vino rojo from cracked
lips of half gallon jugs, whisper passages
from arcane manuals of love in her ears,
press their fingers to her parted lips,
smear the face that demands lost souls
in an open boat, the high not navigated
seas she commands; enslaved, they kneel,
watch the gitano dance, that solitary tango
peeling layers of desert from unpainted walls,
spreading sand on hardwood floors, building
a dense Black Forest for lovers from which
there is no escape.
Three Farmers on the Way to a Dance
They look as if they were
characters of a Beckett play
stuck in some no man’s land
between one of those places
where people are buried up
to their necks in refuse or worse,
and another, where all the dwellings
have been burned out and partially
rebuilt, then abandoned once
the will to go on flagged and couldn’t
be revived. The ill-fitting suits
they wear convey a message:
we’re here at the wake for the food
and drink and we’ll gladly sneak
out behind the seen-better-days
cottages for a snog with a lass
or maybe dance a jig if music
should happen in between toasts
for the dearly departed, “May he go
in peace and always have the wind at
his back.” None of them do bereavement
or real joy either, but they will take
a drink, if offered, maybe two or
three and then, whatever chaos ensues
will make what remains of the night
a memorable one. They have no clue
what any of this means or whether
they are in it for the long haul or just
passing through. It’s a long walk
from where they are now to wherever
it is they are going.
Dancing Freak
Maybe they were teaching
ballroom dancing over at
the Psyche Center and his
section had let our early or
else he had made his escape
by way of the Frances de Sale’s
shop and scored some tux
and tails O’Malley’s Funeral
Parlor had stopped using for
display purposes. I half expected
most of the suit to be missing
in the back like one of those
hospital gowns he got to wear
around the ward, not exactly
a fashion statement to be sure,
but what he was used to. Or else,
it was his lucky day to score
the whole suit for his ambition,
for his dreaming Fred Astaire
fantasy, though he wasn’t likely
to be scoring any Ginger Rogers
for his partner for those dance
tunes he imagined were waiting
on the jukebox for the right couple
to be stepping out to, not that he
had a buck for playing songs, real
or imagined, or that he could read
anything more complicated than
a Dick and Jane primer despite
claiming to know Dick real well
and Jane too, back in the good old
days before Ginger, Top Hat and
the Great War that ended it all.
Watching Amy Winehouse Recorded Live on New Year’s Eve
She seems almost out of time
and place, so young and alive
in too short party dress, get-your-
attention-made-up mascara mask,
in your face tattoos, a study in four
parts: part sweet 16, part Queen of
the Greasers, part streetwalker on
the make, part diva, backed by all
black band, sidemen, dancers, doing
a cool version of the stroll, as she
accepts a drink from a fan, ad libbing
not –so-funny, no-rehab-for-me lines,
then singing a mean kind of low down
white trashy blues, living rough
the only way she knew how.
Great Tortoises in the Discotheque
"on the plain of skulls, God's golden
eyes silently open." Georg Trakl
creeping, undetected along the prefab
dancefloor scuffed by a multitude
of feet, sheen muted but still translucent,
reflecting the spinning overhead orbs,
white light caught in various degrees
of descent, multi-colored strobe
flashings discoloring smoky haze, faces
of the revelers co-joined in seeming
rhythmic agony of dance, propelled by
deep, dread, soul shuddering bass,
"I need to love you, love you baby"
lyric lines, great tortoises ignore,
chewing on long strains of dried choke
weeds, cloaked in body shielding armor,
tensile necks and heads wary, anticipatory,
as they come, discerning eyes scanning
unnatural night.
Web of dark intrigue
By David Thorpe
A birthday feast for Herod`s pleasure,
his wife and queen a devilish plan conceived
to revenge her tarnished pride on a vagrant prophet,
imprisoned for condemning her illicit marriage
Her means, her daughter, Salome,
to ensnare her husband royal
in her web of dark intrigue.
Her gift, Salome`s dance of seven veils,
a salacious performance for honoured guests
who, captivated by every veil discarded
their hunger they forgot,
their eyes by her beauty feasted
The last veil fallen, her charms for all revealed,
Herod in ecstasy bid her to name a desire,
half his realm would he forfeit.
To his displeasure, her wish her mother`s prize,
the prophet`s head, served on a golden charger plate.
the bond was honoured that very hour,
the severed head, an offering of bloody aspect
This saint, who had exhorted his followers to be baptized,
a sacrifice of Salome`s female seductiveness;
she later to rule as Queen of Chalkis,
on the Island of Euboea
David Thorpe ©®
The Death Of Ophelia
The sweet gloom of darkness captivates
the paleness of her face...
The Death Of Ophelia by Theresa C. Gaynord
Stretches of water melted in a blue mist
as the night air lightened echoing her
shrieks of hysterical laughter.
The sweet gloom of darkness captivates
the paleness of her face,
dark hair an upswept tousle of curls.
Futility straightened her rags
as she drowned without any desire
for servility.
Framed in dusk with clasped hands
full of white lilies a string of twinkle lights
transforms into a flower chain of crimson
blooms.
Footprints through the dust bring water
to the gardens sprouting them with pleasant
pride as Ophelia assimilates to the shadows.
The rivers are to be trusted within their own
conventions ,as we within ours, with sufficient
allowances made for inherent temptations.
Theresa likes to write about matters of self-inflection and personal experiences. She likes to write about matters of an out-of body, out-of-mind state, as well as subjects of an idyllic, pagan nature and the occult. Theresa writes horror, as well as concrete gritty and realistic dramas. Theresa is said to be a witch and a poet, (within the horror writing community) and she has been published in a number of magazines throughout the years.
An enchantment
By David Thorpe
I stopped my ferris wheel,
slid down a moonbeam to reach her,
she was running away with my dreams
stolen in the darkness of an eclipse
She turned around and waved goodbye,
my ignorant eyes reflected in her tears,
she vanished, startled by a gust of wind
without revealing the reason for her haste
Had she not divulged all her secrets?
Making love in a shower of stardustour bodies melted one into the other
consumed entirely by an enchantment
David Thorpe ©®
Three Poems by Juanita Rey
IN MY STEAD
I let the book flop onto my lap.
My face turns away from words,
eyes stare blankly
as my mulling mind
stops the story in its tracks.
What have I been reading.
Poetry? A chapter of a novel?
I dress comfortably,
white blouse,
deep-folded dress, a greenish brown.
My arms are long and brown.
One loosely grips the discarded pages.
The other buoys my head.
Introspection, melancholy...
the feelings interweave.
A sigh rises up in my flesh
like the ribbon in my hair.
And then it deflates,
dangles like rings from my ear-lobes.
This is how it is with me,
when I’m reading,
when I’m doing nothing more
than breathing –
at once, loosened, tightened.
a radical complication,
a recognizable image.
FORWARD AND REVERSE
I wasn’t sure
yet there he was
holding me in his arms.
It did feel comforting
so I thought of it as kindness.
Actually, despite how
tight he clasped me,
I was floating.
It felt more like a parachute opening
than touch.
Whatever the effect,
it adapted itself quickly to passion.
A kiss came out of it.
Like the best food,
the kind that doesn’t pass the mouth.
And that only increased that sensation
of being suspended in midair.
Yes, everything was a contradiction in terms
but a corroboration in reality.
We stayed like that until midnight
when he had to leave.
So every kiss, every embrace,
reversed itself
until we were back at the beginning.
Except that now I was sure.
AFTER OUR ARGUMENT
I rushed out of the room,
slammed the door.
So what did I leave behind?
More of your screaming at me?
Or utter silence?
Maybe I didn’t have to run ten blocks
to my friend’s apartment,
cry on her shoulder,
sip her mint tea,
take up her offer to stay overnight.
That last word uttered in anger
could have been the last.
The heat may have already cooled.
The heart-racing, hands-trembling.
and ear-aching could have
already been in remission.
Your glare may have been
about to let go of your eyes.
But I slept on a couch anyway.
I left you to wonder where the hell I was.
My girlfriend reckons I snore.
There’s something to be said
for the least of my troubles.
Juanita Rey is a Dominican poet who has been in this country five
years. Her work has been published in Pennsylvania English, Opiate
Journal, Petrichor Machine and Porter Gulch Review.
Poetry Collection by Alan Catlin
Coney Island Roller Coaster Nights
1-
edging up
the looming
Cyclone
roller coaster
ramp;
frantic,
jolting eyes
before
the plunge
2-
phantom
roller coasters
shake,
hurtle over
the edge;
screams
linger
behind
3-
painted horses,
sliding
metal poles,
merry‑go‑ round
calliope
music,
reach out
for the brass
free ride
ring
4-
Fleet,
flying swings,
sleek
metal chairs
impelled, arcing
outward,
swaying faster,
faster,
faster;
someone is
waving,
quick,
wave back
Post Card to Thompson August 13, 2019:
Nelson Algrin walking on
the streets of Chi Town
Dreaming Simone: Chicago’s own
Monarch Beer, neon wilderness Liquor sign,
blur of street car, beat down, fare game, red
lights hustlers; slumlord pay by day
flophouse rooms, candle lit and cigarette
smoked, bedside table, overflowing ash heap,
peeled label, long necked brown bottle empties;
Dago red, vino stained, chipped glass containers,
tipped high hat johnnie red, amber colored pints;
Darktown, saloon nights and rumpled sheet days,
jazzed police reefer raids, speakeasy johns and
sharp duds pimps; man with a horn, man with a
golden arm, man walking the wild side, loaded dice
game defeated, beating a portable royal to death;
novel ends and no new beginnings, doomed-to-
fail transatlantic affair, oceans of morbidity and
grief, his love token hers to the grave.
Post Card to RT in the Afterlife Jan. 29, 2019: The Wild One
Remember that iconic image
that was on every male college student’s
wall, next to Bruce Lee, of Marlon Brando
on his motorcycle from the Wild One?
That was you, wasn’t it?
Or how you saw yourself, though
you later acquired a Jap bike you dumped
more than once. At least, when I knew you,
back in the 70’s, when we were primo amigos.
I wonder, were you ever able to walk again
without a limp?
You loved that poem I wrote about
you way back in the tavern days, “What I Would
Do If I Owned a Motorcycle”. The last lines
were, “Bleed our the whole Goddamned road,
yes I would, if I owned a motorcycle.”
It was all about dying young, in a
spectacular fashion, not the way you went,
slowly, from a long illness, at 67.
That must have really put a dent in
your self image. If you still had one. I wouldn’t
know, one way or the other, as you effectively
disappeared in the 80’s and no one much saw
you since. I’m not sure if I want to hear the
details. The preliminary search I did for you,
yielded so many questions of a catastrophic
nature, I thought, maybe, it was better to remember
you when you were young, driving the top
down, bright green pleasure machine/ death car,
Triumph sports model, or the Jap bike, the wind
in your face, bugs in your teeth, and a Belle
Star helmet scuffed from road rash and who
knew what else? It was fun for awhile and
then, well, it wasn’t. Ride hard into the ozone,
my friend. It’s where you always wanted to be.
LA Woman
I hear Jimbo singing on some eternal jukebox
in all the dark back alley bars
and night clubs in my mind,
stoned and drunk and falling
off the stage, the mike stand a weapon
he might hurl any minute,
his dull eyes getting duller
with each verse he can barely recall,
a bottle of Jameson's Irish at the ready,
for on the ground rocket flights
to uncharted heights new depths:
“Mojo Risin Mojo Risin”
And we're hitching a ride on some open
box cars into a gold mine,
but the cars aren't for ore,
they are for the dead killed in whatever
war we are waging, some eternal conflict
that never seems to end.
When we close our eyes to drink deeper
from the Irish, the cars becoming hansom cab hearses,
all draped in black crepe,
riding the rail some kind of demented,
no-longer funhouse ride,
a roller coaster funicular railway ride,
into the deepest pits of hell.
a fiery pit on the other side of the arcing night.
Special forces rangers are carrying the scalps
they gathered raiding Indian country, dressed up
as the night, they come in:
this death from above, mining mission,
from the killing fields of acid rock music.
We become eternity's tunnel rats
palpitating the stone effigies carved into
the columbarium lining the cave walls,
adytum for the grateful dead chorus singing
from the shores of the flaming pits
of nuclear wasted hell:
“LA Woman LA Woman in the Afternoon-----“
rocking the whole dead scene
so loud and surreal we are carried all the way back
on the shoulders of all the dead we could not leave behind,
all those we killed and left in our wake by our carelessness,
just another weird scene inside the gold mine
from which there is no coming back.
Season of the Witch
His idea of a fun that Winter was
jumping naked from a second story window,
into a six foot high snow bank outside the dorm
window, screaming at the top of his lungs as
he flew and threatening to do it again until,
“He got it right.” A blanket, a few blasts
of cheap bong wine, and another stick of primo
Cambodian Red and he was flying right,
wrapped in some blankets and seeing
the kind of flying monkeys who came for people
who didn’t live righteous lives; visions that,
obviously, had nothing to do with him.
Someone suggested taking a spin in his wheels,
the used hearse in the parking lot along with
all the others, “No man, it’s cursed. She put
a hex on it.” She was the witch he’d been screwing
since he arrived on campus two years ago as
a second semester transfer freshman, with hair
down to his ass and the most dynamic
sound system in a way-beyond-it’s-useful-life,
rig. “Man, everyone has a hearse. It’s the 60’s.
Or a Beetle. But mine has a reel to reel.”
A game breaker for a witch who rode shot gun with
the devil, always in black, pentagram amulets and
wild gypsy hair, dead things in her crocheted
shoulder bag along with great weed, mystery powders,
and spell casting shit. “That girl was wild, Man.
beautiful and a heart stopping body once you got
rid of all those clothes. I don’t even think she, like
owned, underwear. Only goes with guys who have
a hearse. Says she dug the vibes. And the music.
Man, I loved her but she blew me off. Said I was
dragging her down. Stole all my Donovan tapes.
‘Season of the Witch’; that’s her life story.”
It would have been funny if everyone hadn’t seen her
around, climbing in and out of those vehicles,
late at night and the sound of things dying inside
that could never have been misinterpreted as something else.
Born to Be Wild
We rode when the moon
was full, stoned freaks in
some top down convertible,
long hair blowing in the wind,
speeding down unlighted narrow
switchback roads, drinking beer,
standing as tall as we could,
singing along with 60’s protest
songs, barely hanging on,
a suicidal psychopath at the wheel,
driving dead center through
blind turns into straight-aways
daring what was coming to come.
Switching AM stations, we become
The Dave Clark Five, singing, “Catch
Us If You Can” singing, “Glad All
Over” singing Steppenwolf, “Born to Be
Wild,” the refrain “Never going to die”
extra loud; that’s how young we were,
how crazy, how stupid, how wrong.
A Roller Coaster Ride
By Lucinda Berry Hill
A boy on a coaster
With high points and lows.
Sharp turns and sudden twists,
But bravely he goes.
He could be at the top
But soon he might find
He could be at the bottom
Or rounding the side.
Sometimes He may scream,
Holding on for his life.
Sometimes He will laugh,
Enjoying the ride.
Life, like a coaster,
May rattle and shake.
The way to survive?
Let God have the brakes.
Three Poems by Robert Ronnow
For Spring No Hesitation Is Great
Today is April 1st. Transit strike.
Mayor Koch accepting the fact. Myself,
far from crisis central, in North
Manhattan, measuring the temperature
of my apartment. In the sun it is
warm. The crows have returned again
for Spring.
Today life and the city are o.k. Watching
cat in the morning sun. Drinking tea.
My 1300 dollars will melt like summer
snow, but in the meantime, like samurai
I do not show my fear. I remain still
as on the subway and prepared to fight.
I am sitting under the emergency brake
when a coiffured Latin woman rushes aboard.
The doors close but she decides she wants
out. She bangs on the door as the train begins
to move. I see it happen on her face,
she finds the red cord and pulls,
no hesitation.
Maybe someone’s hand or foot was caught
in the door. Maybe she’s just selfish and
impetuous, got on the uptown not the downtown
side. Maybe the friends she could have
been with didn’t get aboard. Whatever
her reason, she acted and the train obeyed.
Some of the passengers sit through the
whole thing, some of us stand. Myself,
I stand, look for the hand caught in the door.
Later, walk home through the pouring rain.
Today is April 1st. Transit strike.
Sky blue, temperatures mild. Democracy
is great.
At Basketball
Basketball stands for war or battle.
That’s why I think about the players’
personalities, in my foxhole or squad.
Danny and Ben are fast and smart. Dan
especially can pass making him master
and commander. To defeat them as we did
is very satisfying. Ben’s five year old son
is intelligent but distant. Disdains to answer
my question Why are you you?
But I’m not here
to catalogue the men’s personalities.
I like them. But each of us has moved on
many times, when _______ suddenly died
the games went on with hardly a mention
and his name has since been forgotten.
But even this, absolute mortality
of not just our bodies but our names
and souls is not what I came
to talk about. Yesterday, between games,
I asked Joe how Molly his daughter likes
the high school. He mounted an impassioned
defense of reading as the indispensable skill
when I suggested math, the scientific method
and history are essential too.
Also between games
Bob diffidently asked why my kids are bald.
I was moved by the care he took to satisfy
his curiosity, concerned the subject might be
difficult. He’s a political science teacher so
I took the opportunity to ask What ails
the republic? Of course I answered myself
wanting mostly to hear myself talk about Iraq
and how empire is self-correcting. For once I was amusing
I thought, treating the subject with a light touch
heretofore lacking.
But none of this is what I came to say.
A new guy, very big and strong, a
bulldozer under the boards with a good
outside shot if needed got into a dispute
with the other Bob who likes to tell people
what to do sometimes, about an offensive
foul Bob called which we almost never do.
The new guy said If you can’t take it don’t
play under the boards which is what I say
when I’m pissed and don’t give a shit.
Bob said You’ve been pushing and shoving me
all day. I said He doesn’t want to be
pushed and shoved which got a wry
smile out of Danny as I put the ball in play.
Troy and Desanda
Learning disabled, hopelessly unemployed
Troy McBride can’t write the address for his next interview.
Warehouse stock, 331 Tiffany Street, in the Bronx.
His girlfriend, Desanda Gaddy, also unemployed,
with one child by Troy. She’s much brighter
but probably doesn’t realize it. For one month
she worked an evening cashier job until her mother
refused to babysit at night. Wants to go out, live
her life, too. Desanda made numerous appointments
yesterday, can write and find the addresses o.k.
Troy has nowhere to live, has been crashing
with a woman in the Bronx. She’s on public assistance,
they share the bed. How Troy reconciles this woman
with Desanda doesn’t matter. Survival precedes love.
Troy can’t meet the rent although she gives him
subway fare. He dresses well enough in the youthful
style, dark shirt, thin dark tie. At least no sneakers
or a stocking over his head. Smokes cigarettes
but so do a lot of people. Hedging bets on life.
Desanda is tolerant of Troy. Understands his
predicament. No stable home, no money. How
does she feel about her kid? At least she has
someone to love her now. Troy forgets
to record the names and phone numbers of companies
he applies at. Burned out on angel dust. Wants
a job that pays and offers benefits. Too old
and desperate for a work experience/basic education
program. Needs a living wage, not a stipend.
But can’t read or write or even speak coherently.
Interestingly he’s not desperate enough to work fast food
at age 22. So the woman on public assistance is
a surer source of income than we think. Good.
Security guard may be the way to go with Troy.
No police record, requires no writing skills, just
stand there and be big. A job with no security
for the guard. Troy’s mother threw him out
four years ago, although she helps out now and then.
He dropped out of high school in the tenth grade
kicked around the house and streets two years
doing drugs and partying. Met Desanda, got her pregnant.
Does Desanda have a contraceptive in place?
We don’t know. As employment counselors, is that
our business? Only if Desanda brings it up. On
the bulletin board there’s plenty of information
about family planning clinics. When she lost that
cashier job, I was completely frustrated, but not Desanda.
Takes it all in stride. I gotta admire her cheerfulness,
but why shouldn’t she be happy? She has friends, family,
a community such as East Harlem is, not the worst,
and a purpose for living and acting in her kid.
She feeds the baby, negotiates living space with her mother.
Troy and Desanda wake up, late August morning,
hot and humid New York City. They have interviews
planned as well as personal business and pleasures
today. They have responsibilities, society puts
survival on them, never mind their disadvantages.
It is tough and it is good. Desanda will land
another cashier position, maybe today. Troy
will go for security jobs, I figured it out, the
uniform will make him feel better, the check
too. The work boring, easy, slow, perhaps fulfilling.
For Spring No Hesitation Is Great
Today is April 1st. Transit strike.
Mayor Koch accepting the fact. Myself,
far from crisis central, in North
Manhattan, measuring the temperature
of my apartment. In the sun it is
warm. The crows have returned again
for Spring.
Today life and the city are o.k. Watching
cat in the morning sun. Drinking tea.
My 1300 dollars will melt like summer
snow, but in the meantime, like samurai
I do not show my fear. I remain still
as on the subway and prepared to fight.
I am sitting under the emergency brake
when a coiffured Latin woman rushes aboard.
The doors close but she decides she wants
out. She bangs on the door as the train begins
to move. I see it happen on her face,
she finds the red cord and pulls,
no hesitation.
Maybe someone’s hand or foot was caught
in the door. Maybe she’s just selfish and
impetuous, got on the uptown not the downtown
side. Maybe the friends she could have
been with didn’t get aboard. Whatever
her reason, she acted and the train obeyed.
Some of the passengers sit through the
whole thing, some of us stand. Myself,
I stand, look for the hand caught in the door.
Later, walk home through the pouring rain.
Today is April 1st. Transit strike.
Sky blue, temperatures mild. Democracy
is great.
At Basketball
Basketball stands for war or battle.
That’s why I think about the players’
personalities, in my foxhole or squad.
Danny and Ben are fast and smart. Dan
especially can pass making him master
and commander. To defeat them as we did
is very satisfying. Ben’s five year old son
is intelligent but distant. Disdains to answer
my question Why are you you?
But I’m not here
to catalogue the men’s personalities.
I like them. But each of us has moved on
many times, when _______ suddenly died
the games went on with hardly a mention
and his name has since been forgotten.
But even this, absolute mortality
of not just our bodies but our names
and souls is not what I came
to talk about. Yesterday, between games,
I asked Joe how Molly his daughter likes
the high school. He mounted an impassioned
defense of reading as the indispensable skill
when I suggested math, the scientific method
and history are essential too.
Also between games
Bob diffidently asked why my kids are bald.
I was moved by the care he took to satisfy
his curiosity, concerned the subject might be
difficult. He’s a political science teacher so
I took the opportunity to ask What ails
the republic? Of course I answered myself
wanting mostly to hear myself talk about Iraq
and how empire is self-correcting. For once I was amusing
I thought, treating the subject with a light touch
heretofore lacking.
But none of this is what I came to say.
A new guy, very big and strong, a
bulldozer under the boards with a good
outside shot if needed got into a dispute
with the other Bob who likes to tell people
what to do sometimes, about an offensive
foul Bob called which we almost never do.
The new guy said If you can’t take it don’t
play under the boards which is what I say
when I’m pissed and don’t give a shit.
Bob said You’ve been pushing and shoving me
all day. I said He doesn’t want to be
pushed and shoved which got a wry
smile out of Danny as I put the ball in play.
Troy and Desanda
Learning disabled, hopelessly unemployed
Troy McBride can’t write the address for his next interview.
Warehouse stock, 331 Tiffany Street, in the Bronx.
His girlfriend, Desanda Gaddy, also unemployed,
with one child by Troy. She’s much brighter
but probably doesn’t realize it. For one month
she worked an evening cashier job until her mother
refused to babysit at night. Wants to go out, live
her life, too. Desanda made numerous appointments
yesterday, can write and find the addresses o.k.
Troy has nowhere to live, has been crashing
with a woman in the Bronx. She’s on public assistance,
they share the bed. How Troy reconciles this woman
with Desanda doesn’t matter. Survival precedes love.
Troy can’t meet the rent although she gives him
subway fare. He dresses well enough in the youthful
style, dark shirt, thin dark tie. At least no sneakers
or a stocking over his head. Smokes cigarettes
but so do a lot of people. Hedging bets on life.
Desanda is tolerant of Troy. Understands his
predicament. No stable home, no money. How
does she feel about her kid? At least she has
someone to love her now. Troy forgets
to record the names and phone numbers of companies
he applies at. Burned out on angel dust. Wants
a job that pays and offers benefits. Too old
and desperate for a work experience/basic education
program. Needs a living wage, not a stipend.
But can’t read or write or even speak coherently.
Interestingly he’s not desperate enough to work fast food
at age 22. So the woman on public assistance is
a surer source of income than we think. Good.
Security guard may be the way to go with Troy.
No police record, requires no writing skills, just
stand there and be big. A job with no security
for the guard. Troy’s mother threw him out
four years ago, although she helps out now and then.
He dropped out of high school in the tenth grade
kicked around the house and streets two years
doing drugs and partying. Met Desanda, got her pregnant.
Does Desanda have a contraceptive in place?
We don’t know. As employment counselors, is that
our business? Only if Desanda brings it up. On
the bulletin board there’s plenty of information
about family planning clinics. When she lost that
cashier job, I was completely frustrated, but not Desanda.
Takes it all in stride. I gotta admire her cheerfulness,
but why shouldn’t she be happy? She has friends, family,
a community such as East Harlem is, not the worst,
and a purpose for living and acting in her kid.
She feeds the baby, negotiates living space with her mother.
Troy and Desanda wake up, late August morning,
hot and humid New York City. They have interviews
planned as well as personal business and pleasures
today. They have responsibilities, society puts
survival on them, never mind their disadvantages.
It is tough and it is good. Desanda will land
another cashier position, maybe today. Troy
will go for security jobs, I figured it out, the
uniform will make him feel better, the check
too. The work boring, easy, slow, perhaps fulfilling.
2020 -- Memory of Lawton 1963
By John F McMullen
I was in the Army at Fort Sill, OK
in what then seemed a colossal waste of time
but, in retrospect, was really
a very important part of my life.
The town adjacent to Fort Sill, Lawton
had no industry
but it did have
bars, clip joints, hookers, and whatever
else could separate a soldier from his money.
It also had
an Indian section,
a Mexican section,
a black section,
a white soldier section,
and a white real people's section.
In New York City,
we had “neighborhoods”
Italian neighborhoods,
Jewish neighborhoods,
Irish neighborhoods,
Black neighborhoods.
But we never thought
of New York City as segregated.
(Maybe we should have.)
But Lawton was
definitely segregated!
Anyway, my platoon had
an “IG Inspection”
and did exceptionally well.
My platoon Sergeant,
a very sharp soldier,
who I respected,
gathered us together
and said:
“I'm proud of you.
You did very well.
The Supply Sergeant and I
just bought a bar a mile out of town.
Come on down.
The first one's on me.”
No dope, he!
If we started drinking
a mile from nowhere,
we were there to stay.
As anyone knowing us
might expect,
Warren (from the old neighborhood)
and I were the first ones
from our unit to arrive.
I was into around my third beer
when Bob (also from Inwood)
walked in with two other folks,
both black.
The bartender saw me greet them
and said to me
“I can't serve those folks”.
(It was obvious that he meant
the black folks).
I explained that my sergeant
owned this place and
invited his unit down for a beer
and that these folks were
part of the unit.
No good!
The bartender said that
“they should have known that
the invitation didn't include them”.
That, of course, set me off and I
was soon as persona non-grata
as my black friends.
Out in the parking lot, I said
“Ok – where can we get a drink together?”
-- only to be told,
“No place in this town”
So “they” went to “their bars”
and Bob, Warren, and I went to “ours.”
I was reluctant to say anything
to my platoon sergeant.
He was, after all, my superior.
But, four weeks later,
after I was transferred to another unit,
I was sitting in a bar with a book
and a pitcher of beer –
not an unusual sight
when Sgt. Jones came in the door.
I waved him over to my table,
poured him a beer,
and told him the story.
He said “I feel terrible.
I hate to cause anyone
to be embarrassed”
Great! He wouldn’t let
it happen again in his bar!
But he added “We really
don’t mix down here”.
I plunged right in.
“What do you think of
Sgt. Lowery (his black superior)?”
“He’s a fine soldier and a gentleman.”
“Would you have a beer with him?”
“I have in the NCO club. He’s good company”.
Undaunted (and not knowing when to quit),
I went on.
“Would you have him to your house?”
He looked at me as though I was
bereft of my senses.
“I have a wife and daughter”.
I had no idea what to say.
I mumbled something,
changed the subject,
finished my beer,
and went on my way.
That was fifty-seven years ago.
Things may have changed greatly.
Barack Obama has since commanded
the armed forces
but
are we really different?
Copyright John F. McMullen 2020
Poetry Became My New Basketball
by John F McMullen
From the time
I was twelve
to over sixty
basketball was
the one constant
in my life
It took me through
changes in
schools
aspirations
careers
marriages
parenthood
residences
I was small in
high school and
only grew too late
to play in college
That didn’t stop me though
I played
for Catholic CYO teams
for a local Episcopal church
in a league at the Jewish Y
in leagues on Wall Street,
Westchester, and Inwood
and pickup wherever I could
get a game
I went from a
fair player
to a
pretty good one
to a
good one
to a
very good one
back to a
good one
and then a
fair one
and then
done!
I only consulted, taught and
wrote columns on technology
for about 5 years and then,
through a quirk, poetry
entered my life
grabbed me by the throat
and consumed me
Other than my wife and children
it became the number one thing
in my life
In short, it has became the basketball
of my mature life
But wait!
Basketball gave me
what’s known medically
as “ARFURA”
“A Really Fucked Up Right Ankle”
No tendons or ligaments
Arthritis
Bone spurs -- that won’t keep me out of the Army
And caused a ruptured tendon in my leg
Additionally I have had
Two minor knee operations
Jelly pumped into both knees annually
Arthritis in both hips
While it was all worth it
basketball has crippled my body
Will poetry
do the same to my brain?
Copyright 2019 John F. McMullen
David Thorpe presents...
A brief affair in Berlin
The story is inspired by the film “I am a camera”, yet with some of my own fantasy.
In the late 1920´s on a business trip for my father´s
textile mill, in the Yorkshire Pennines,
I found myself as a young Englishman,
in the bustling and enrapturing city of Berlin,
heading towards its twilight of the gods,
but that is another story
A young American singer of undiscovered renown,
the luminous star of the smoky Kit- Kat -Klub,
where, dressed in gaudy costumes, she aroused nightly,
her mainly male audience, with her songs of illicit love,
she was to awaken my hibernating libido
in a most unpredictable and unforgettable way,
this is our story
Berlin 1930
Sauntering back to my hotel in the early afternoon,
a sudden cloud burst over the avenue “Unter Den Linden”
obliging me to dash to take shelter in the nearest entrance,
a boutique for extravagant attire for emancipated ladies,
one of which I then collided head on,
just as she was leaving the establishment,
balencing precariously a pile of fancy decorated boxes.
Needless to say the boxes were scattered,
the lady in question falling into my arms
as we both stumbled indecorously to the ground,
much to the amusement of passers-by,
forgetting their haste to escape the downpour,
not so being my unfortunate accomplice,
whose tongue in no uncertain manner,
made that quite clear
I helped her to her feet and we viewed the disaster,
she then gathered her boxes, I helping and apologising,
both holding our cargo of boxes and much to my bewilderment,
she burst out laughing and I decided to accompany her.
I politely enquired if I could be of further help
and blinking those long eyelashes
over those mesmerising eyes, she suggested:
”Yes, you can invite me to a cup of tea
in a sweet little café here in the neighbourhood”
Delighted at the thought of making her acquaintance, I accepted
The rain had now baited,
we set out to walk towards the Brandenburg Gate,
she doing most of the talking, I the listening,
still in the middle of her life story she exclaimed:
“Here we are!”
We were standing in front of the Hotel Adlon,
the top address for nobility visiting Berlin.
She marched into the foyer, I in tow.
We were greeted by doormen and page boys,
who obviously thought we were residents.
The `sweet little café´ was of opulent magnificence,
taking the luxury for granted, she had us seated at a window table,
where, whilst savouring our Darjeeling, she detailed enthusiastically
all the celebrities who had wined and dined
within these sacred walls of affluence, including Josephine Baker,
being her idol and mentioned various times.
She divulged to me her name, Sally, I introduced myself as Chris
Sally and I became lovers that very evening, a passionate affair,
a journey which took us through the labyrinths of sensuality,
stopping at every station to enjoy the view.
Sally was my teacher in a personal two week crash course ,
which opened the door to a world of the sensibility of life.
I returned to Yorkshire a man reborn, unknown even to myself.
Our mutual story ended here, yet our stories continued
Yorkshire, May 1960
I never saw or heard from Sally again but often reminisce about our brief affair in Berlin,
and wonder if she returned to America before the storm clouds burst over Europe.
I ask myself, if by chance we were to meet again, would we gaze at each other and smile,
once again I being enchanted as I look into those mesmerising eyes.
David Thorpe ©®
Angels for Jack
By Lucinda Berry Hill
Jack is a donkey
That was tied to a tree.
Nothing but his eyes
Could the rescuers see.
The water was rising
In a fast-paced manner.
Towns were all flooding
In Louisiana.
But that didn't stop
Some men that were brave
From facing the water;
A donkey to save.
God sends his angels
To those who're in need;
A child, a dog,
A donkey indeed.
Jack, he was blessed
On that wet summer day.
New life, new friends,
And a new place to stay.
Lucinda Berry Hill Author of "Coffee with Jesus" AND "A Second Cup with Jesus" ©
Three Poems by Sanjeev Sethi
Doxies
Recycling of shame
disrobes her,
scuffs her self-esteem
with blights of disgust.
These are inventories
of démodé imprints
drawn in with
quotidian ardor.
Lay of lastingness
revivifies her from languor
of narcolepsy.
She gleans
she is as charming
as her credentials.
On the dais of her mind
she cast Him.
His radiations
direct her
to be her best reading.
Sanjeev Sethi
Next>>
Improv
Accentuated by whimsies
of the moment, recumbent
leg on leg, didn’t require
the embellishment of the moon
or makeup to ignite the impulse.
No parleys with the purlieus, too.
Soniferous expirations added
the background score
to the spontaneity
of the session.
Sanjeev Sethi
Next>>
Peewees
(1)
Seeing one’s latest snap, one hums, nah.
Years slip on: later while rummaging
one locates it and lips, eh nice.
(2)
Hachure of shared noise carries
fluent urgencies. Orbits rotate.
It is no longer only about me.
(3)
How do the unblessed
have the brass balls
to bless others?
(4)
Another angle:
is it your face?
Am I drunk on you?
(5)
Wishful of swiping rashers from someone’s
reality isn’t an unusual impulse. Are you
fain not to forfeit the other pieces?
Sanjeev Sethi
***Over***
Of Time Machines, Sword Fighting
and Pied Pipers
Sit down, folks,
Alan Catlin
invites you to listen to his goodnight stories.
It's ...
Story Time
In the Iliad
strange gods
and headstrong men
fought obscene
wars
for a woman
for honor
and now
my son
hears
swords
and battle axes
furiously clashing
hears
spears and arrows
singing
as they fly
into the wind
hears
the screams of wounded,
dying men
the still trees
the myth,
the moon on a
field of black
#
When the man
who sharpened knives
came to our door
my son
was frightened
by his wild red hair
his fire blazing eyes,
and
by the way he said
"Knives,
sharpen your knives
real cheap"
and, then,
the grindstone
singing in the barnyard
Abe Lincoln
If Honest Abe were alive now he’d probably
freak, then die of shame, considering what
the party he represented has become.
The term “rolling over in his grave” would
probably apply, if that were an option for Abe.
But it isn’t, as he is buried under something like
sixteen feet of concrete to prevent grave robbers,
sometimes known as Resurrection Men, from
stealing his body. Once something like that
gets started it’s tough to stop it. I mean,
let’s face it, what do you do with something
like that? It’s not as if you could stick a dead
body just anywhere, in a box, or not. And Abe was
a giant of a man for his time, in many ways,
just ask his wife Mary. So there would be
this big, odiferous box, what to do?
“Just stick it in the cellar, guys, on the cobblestones
next to the barrels of beer.” Someone was bound
to notice. One of the co-conspirators, in a partially
successful body snatch, was a bartender
who owned a pub. You can’t trust a barman,
can you? Or you could: to come up with the most
outlandish, ridiculous ideas ever. And after a few
pints it would sound like gospel. Good thing
there aren’t more bartenders running for office,
though, these days, who can tell the difference?
Well, after the last time the plot was foiled,
it was decided to put an end to stealing Abe’s body.
An infinitely better idea for a movie than the one
that was made and won all those academy awards.
Hence, the concrete grave. Mary, however,
was not deterred. She consulted mediums
who could see a cukoobird coming from a mile away,
and tried to establish contact. There is a “picture”
of Mary with the spirit of Abe enveloping her
that hasn’t been established to be the first instance
of photo, image manipulation, but ranks right near
the top. Poor Mary, all those tragedies: her husband
being assassinated, their favorite son dead of a
dread disease, another son dead young, but the
sole surviving son, Robert did quite well, despite
having to deal with these life tragedies and Mary
totally around the bend. Robert achieved
success in business, fame, fortune and ended up
owning a historic house in Vermont you could
visit today. Mostly the younger Lincoln avoided
politics and who could blame him? Politics
is a killer. Still there is a story floating about
that president William “The Big Round One”
Howard Taft got stuck in a tub while bathing
at the Lincoln abode. Explain that to the press!
Pied Piper
All the illustrations of this classic tale
are of this beguiling youth, playing a pan
pipe followed by a gang of skipping,
jumping, running after this guy, kids.
Places like pediatric hospital wards
and offices have these murals and such
but the really crazy thing about the
whole scene is: this is a parent’s worst
nightmare. The pied piper is the kind of
guy you tell kids not to take candy from
or get into his car so you can help find
his lost puppy. In fact, he is a vengeful,
scheming dude stealing the children of
Hamlin and taking them to who knows
where, to what kind of unknown, awful Fate.
So much for free range kids, huh!
Who was it? Donald Bathelme? or
was it Robert Coover? retold the story.
Both of them were forever redoing fairy
tales and such, emphasizing the inherent
violence or nastiness implied by them.
In a harmless seeming, mock-serious voice too.
They would enter the mind of an archfiend,
someone like the pied piper (soon to be
a major motion picture, by the way, starring
a computer enhanced, younger looking
Gary Oldham as the Piper and Kristen Stewart
as the young mother who refuses to give up hope.
If you can remake Little Red Riding Hood as a
werewolf story and Abe Lincoln as a vampire
slayer and Jane Austen’s Bennett family
as trained ninja warriors, obviously, nothing
is sacred) and create a nifty variation on a
theme, usually in a modern setting, that will
curdle your blood. Nothing harmless about
a Coover rewrite. It’s about what you would
expect from a guy who titles one of his books
Pricksongs and Descants. And when you look
pricksong up in the dictionary to see what it means
it says: A descant. And you look up descant it
says: A pricksong. If that’s not cheating, I don’t
know what is.
Time Machines
Begin and end with H.G. Wells, though most
people these days only know the novel through
that cheesy movie made way back in the 60’s.
There is one aspect of that movie that cannot be
denied: it set the low bar standard for devices.
That particular machine looked like one of those
take your picture machines that used to be everywhere
before everyone had a cell phone with a camera, sans
the curtain. Given what selfies have become, it makes
one long for those machines, but that’s another story.
The hero of the movie, Rod Taylor, didn’t have much
to work with, but he did keep finding himself propelled
through a blurry time warps into the past where he had
many, so-called adventures. Still, the machine he had
at his disposal wasn’t nearly as flimsy as the cardboard
control room Flash Gordon had! Between that, and
the sad excuses for ray guns old Flash had, it’s a wonder
Buster Crabbe could keep a straight face while working
on the set. And those early state of the art TV
monitors. Brings you back. Makes you think of those
early K-Pro Computers with their double sided,
double density floppy disks, post card seized monitors,
incredibly hard-on-the-eyes green lettering, and
that heart beat cursor that could give an epileptic
actual fits. But it had like 400 something k memory
and easy to remember commands that make you long
for the good old days every time a new version of
Windows is released. Still, the Time Machine movie
wasn’t nearly as bad as the sleazy, maybe even,
daft “Island of Doctor Moreau” movie with Marlon Brando
clearly under the influence of , well, something.
And then there was “Slaughterhouse Five” which shows
the perils of mucking about in time could bring:
you could end up in a disaster film with every aging,
has been star on the decline, or worse, a young
Joan Collins. Better to imagine an area where Wells,
Conrad, Henry James and Stephen Crane were virtual
neighbors. What they could have done if they had
worked together. What Crane might have done of he
lived another ten years to the ripe old age of say, 40.
Poetry Collection by Jessica Goody
Offending Shadows
Inspired by the film Dead Poets Society
Possibility leapt in the air.
Anything, everything, lay at your feet.
You danced in the sheer sensation of it,
rapt and open, your eyes lit like commencement candles.
Magic lived there.
The enchantment did not reside in the painted backdrop,
but in your eyes: so seldom did such freedom
fly its flags upon your face.
For once, the world was crystalline and perfect.
The snow fell peacefully that night,
unaware of the blood that would be shed,
marring its pristine whiteness.
Every movement was deliberate.
At any point you would be discovered
in the dark, yet time seemed loose and limitless,
a calendar of blank and useless days.
Your final, and only rebellion:
If you could not choose your life, nor live it deliberately,
then you would choose its end.
That night the gun fell from your desperate hand.
For your golden moment onstage there was only awe.
Your Puck-wreath was a symbol of defiance,
its twigs and berries woven in your dark hair:
king of the forest glen, the magical fairy-grove.
Rehearsal
Threading along the dark recesses of the theatre,
through the rabbit-warren of wings, the black skirt
of the curtain drawn like a sail unfurling stands a
backstage tableau of stacked chairs and scattered props.
A scrim of sawdust felts the flats; folded ladders
lean and slouch. Dark knots burn like sightless eyes
in the wood, unpainted and splintering. People skulk
and scurry backstage, as darkly-clad as cat burglars;
specters presiding over a rummage-sale hodgepodge
of objects, assembling and rearranging worlds with
every scene. Actors stand poised in the wings, straining
for cues. They grin with fierce hilarity, struggling to remain
silent with all the desperate necessity of Anne Frank
in the attic, struggling to engender microcosmic lives,
tasting the flavors of the words on their tongues,
savoring the precision of a perfect phrase.
Backstage
Backstage, a no man’s land
stacked with wooden flats and instrument cases gathering dust,
ladders, card tables, stacked chairs, and puddled canvas.
A theatrical junkyard full of pieces to outfit worlds,
scattered objects like the refuse of a shipwreck,
the flotsam and jetsam of past performances,
the valuable and the mismatched, pieces of other lives:
Golden beaches and frosted mountains
beckon from sticker-studded suitcases,
their achieved destinations shining like merit badges.
Luggage crammed with bright print dresses,
a single opera glove, a musty feather boa,
stray nylon stockings etched with runs,
foaming petticoats, and a silver pocketwatch long-unwound.
Costumes glitter like the plumage of tropical birds,
winking sequins and frothing whitecaps of tulle.
The gowns appear brighter, seeming to glow in anticipation,
as if they know they are about to be worn.
Hats perch like birds’ nests along dusty eaves,
wig heads staring as blindly as Sibyls.
Swaddled in the bat-wings of dark curtains,
busy as ants as we sort and arrange,
outfitting make-believe lives with authenticity.
Within the microcosm of stage and set,
an ethereal creature is born.
Like an insect it lives for one night,
shimmering, ephemeral, only to die
when the solar system of spotlights are dimmed.
Poetic Prose from the Twilight Zone
By Dan Gallagher
***
Title: “This Cemetery is a Garden Party”
This cemetery is a garden party,
and I am a landscaper, except I draw human figures,
and by “draw” I mean like flames to a moth.
The columns of light, like human figures, scanning the atmosphere, but rooted to each owner
are each a three dimensional video
interviews recorded by their friends or videographers,
waiting for me to brush up against them, maybe ask them a question.
Their databanks: how long do superficial details stay relevant – a century?
While their deeper emotions seem less personal, pressing,
most men and women recorded these memories to make their lives entertaining.
Like the song “The Entertainer”, at first you can hear the scale as they practice,
but then it moves faster and faster, until you can no longer hear the method.
Because a holographic image isn’t always convincing.
Most older faces lose definition in some way – it’s nature
And I’ve heard the thought of death makes people more conservative – more certain?
If I held a mirror up to describe my own image,
there would be words missing, outdated, but you’d get the picture.
Sometimes, among them, I like to shout out a word like “Happiness”
and see who among them answers fastest
because what they’d said once on camera was short and incisive,
or just watch all their expressions change separately.
They are as unguarded as children or blind people,
although they all kept their secrets, all of them,
and I want to remind them: history also remembers the villains.
Gossip needs its victim.
It’s better than sitting in a Parisian cafe, tables all jammed together,
Where you’re thirsty, never enough coffee delivered
to hear everything at once without somehow despairing.
These videos are no different than living,
except they live their memories more consciously than ever,
preparing answers the way professors write papers, but more effectively.
Some of them spent years in retirement, measuring the past from their window,
the way scientists sought out high points in exotic places to measure the meter.
From the briefest answer I know if they had grandchildren or held important positions.
If they almost died several times – in military engagements or accidents –
I never hear the details. Some are like the French, silent or pensive.
Maybe they couldn’t afford the best list of questions.
Maybe they had a rule against stating the obvious,
which by their age was everything.
They are sometimes like students of a foreign language,
all of them trying to answer without understanding the question.
The strangest times are when they start answering each other’s answers,
as if they are having a conversation and I’m the only one here who’s not living.
Many visitors leave feeling their loved ones are busy.
So sometimes I am even their leader,
though the trick is to get them all to say the same thing unanimously.
At least all of them hailed from the same area, and even talk about it in passing.
Though it’s a strange effect to see one of them hear their own name
issuing from the mouth of a neighbor.
Most don’t respond, never remembering themselves in third person, unlike some politicians.
This gardening of mine is like finding someone’s old bookmarks,
which get pressed colorfully, on page 2 or 3 , in most volumes of history.
We do have a useful historian here. And someone who helped build Wikipedia.
They answer almost anything, but they bring up death and taxes
with that smug smile of television newscasters.
If you want to start the others crying or laughing,
ask those two to define the present.
But mostly we just talk about flowers and seasons,
because so many here love their garden of memories.
***
Title: Reliving a Second Childhood Through Tourism
I have dozens of new mothers and fathers, in all shape and sizes
Even the teenagers and I’m not embarrassed
I shout at them in simple English
Asking them for help, or staring at them,
Wide-eyed and expectant, although I am 57
And have seen everything
Without realizing it.
I didn’t have a childhood, at least not one
Where I didn’t feel like a foreigner
Lost and ignored but too young to realize it
Now I’m old enough to know I’m ignorant
And will stay that way unless someone, anyone
Makes things explicit.
Sure the answers become unintelligible,
Which I find familiar and comforting
Since the chat seldom drifts away
From simple directions
I feel safer in foreign countries
Where everyone is watching me like a zoo exhibit
Foreigners are the only ones left who treat strangers
Like members of the family
Out of duty, not friendship or understanding
Am I childish, staring at landmarks
Nodding to explanations which sound like nonsense
Even if I showed some interest in the language they live with
Or explored the world for history and context?
At times I get paranoid, like a child who can
Lose his privileges by showing too much independence
But I’m never in danger of learning history, architecture,
Or even photography merely by seeing
And asking directions for mysteries
***
Title : On Process
I used to watch cooking shows
The way dogs watch women wash dishes
It was a distraction, a comforting ritual,
a poor man’s Confucianism.
An overly-confident Brit makes edible trinkets
One channel over, a man plays darts, robotically efficient
Painters paint the same tree on different landscapes
And I, at home in my pants, sit still transfixed
Getting my minimal daily fix, strange motions,
That mythical chemical potion, e-motion
Until I’m convinced the world can be made bigger with just a flip of the switch
A process has steps, everyone says
Like false entrances to Norman fortresses
A pointless, shallow ascent
OK, step 1 is some mix of onions and dip
I even feel superior, skipping several steps ahead
Honestly, we’re all skipping steps in our head
“I wasn’t here for the accident, but I wonder what will happen next?”
A counting game for children
A placeholder for living
Endless white papers, unfailingly numbered and empty
A game made of replays, with blind refs
A man counting steps to dance hall success,
a man on a mission
But we, still virtual children
in our imaginations
still associate recess with education
and having no great will
run in every direction
someone else clapping the rhythm
pegging our pace, but not our attention
transforming our increasingly predictable rhythms
into almost theater for the almost living.
Thespian Souls
Poetry Collection by David Thorpe
If not I
If not I,
who is then worthy of her love?
too often did I ask myself,
yet an answer remained elusive
in winter´s frozen sanctuary
My feelings were the most sincere,
never did I have a doubt,
together with the shortening days
her eyes of autumn shades,
lost their warmth midst nights of frost
Snowflakes bury my bruised pride,
morning mists hide my foolishness
to believe I played a leading role
in the theatre of love´s carousel
Neither, to let oneself be loved,
nor to believe in one´s own vanity
are requisites for lasting harmony,
but rather as a vintage wine,
to first be treasured
ere delighting in its bouquet
For him and he alone
Again to the shoreline she ventured,to marvel at the spectacle,
a water colour masterpiece,
as darkness melted shades of crimson,
the sun´s final bow ere night fell
Reluctantly the horizon faded ´neath a veil
of autumn´s gathering mist,
yet the lapping of a returning tide
brought caresses of a cooling breeze,
evoking the release of a fugitive tear
Selene and her glistening entourage,
discreetly their presence this time did hide,
her nostalgic sadness of that moonlit night,
two actors on their sensual stage, where
hearts above stardust clouds took flight
Ever his whispered words she hears
within the chambers of her mind,
still burn his kisses on her desert lips,
yet within a cocoon of ice her libido,
for him and he alone preserved
Actors on a mundane stage
You and I
we spend our time decoding,
a glance, a gesture, a gaze,
deciphering words for meanings,
camouflaged
A game of losers we play
masquerades of pretence,
a charade of hidden feelings
to be guessed or ignored
on purpose
Life they say
is not for beginners
both ever apprentices
actors on a mundane stage
never learning our roles by heart
David Thorpe ©®
Thinker
By Thaddeus Hutyra
An old man with long grey hair and a grey beard
Bending over a book bound with goat skin
In his starry mind, the paths of the wise men
Whose works he had already read thoroughly.
Eureka! * ... Cogito ergo sum ** ... Wisdoms of predecessors
Brilliantly glow in the universe of his mind
Not as a directive but as navigational hints
For in his opinion there is no ultimate truth.
He picked up his pen, leaned over his book
"Man!" - He wrote. "No philosophy or dogma
Are the definitive truth. They are but your nourishment."
"Man!" - He continued. - "They are only molecules
like the Higgs boson enabling you to discover yourself
in the spirit of freedom, in which you are an eagle in its skies.
So… Don’t be too serious with your philosophy
Don’t be too serious with your religious views
We all are roses of Jericho, sent by the winds
To four points of the world, then resurrecting
Having new lives, time upon time, upon time.
World healing is you and me, all of us
Taking into our hands precious stones of peace
And holding them as a reminder the world is us.”
„Man!” - Exclaimed the thinker in the end
„Be the cosmic rays of healing
Here on this starship called Earth
Take care of you, of us all, be angels of Earth
For we all are a family, one called humankind!”
„Man!” - Let’s open our hearts, let’s heal the world
Let’s free our minds, have fun, enrich ourselves with freedoms
May the lights of peace, lights of healing light us forever
And be our eternal way of life, so help us, God!
* "Eureka" comes from the Ancient Greek word εὕρηκα heúrēka, meaning "I found (it)", an exclamation attributed to Ancient Greek mathematician and inventor Archimedes. ** "Cogito, ergo sum" is a Latin philosophical proposition by philosopher René Descartes usually translated into English as "I think, therefore I am".
Like Fine Wine
By Lucinda Berry Hill
I'm much like a bottle
Of fine wine on a shelf.
I've been here so long
I'm filled with great wealth.
Each wrinkle, a lesson
From mountains I've climbed,
From valleys crossed over
Time after time.
I have red spots and brown spots
And a few extra pounds.
But I don't let my battles
Keep me held down.
My eyes aren't the best.
My hearing's impaired.
But I'm a survivor
By faith and much prayer.
My memory is weak
But my heart perseveres.
I've endured all life's conflicts
With plenty of tears.
And each strand of silver
That covers my head
Is a sin that's forgiven;
A debt that's been met.
I consider the years
And the trials I've faced.
Yes, I am aging
but inside I am great.
It takes years of struggles
With victory each time
To become like a bottle
Of chosen fine wine.
Author Lucinda Berry Hill, of Coffee with Jesus ©
Poetry Collection by Randal A. Burd, Jr.
Armed with Imagination
Imagination armed this youthful knight--
A plywood shield and sword of sapling wood
Created echoes in the neighborhood
Of backyard battles fought in fading light.
Envision how we must have been a sight
To see—a panorama understood
By only we who fought each chance we could
While lacking rhyme or reason for a fight.
The best of memories those days remain:
Each noble quest and faux chivalric deed.
Forever will they be accompanied
With yearning for just one last grand campaign.
Overthrown
I slowly cruised our former neighborhood:
Locations once familiar now are strange.
Most houses there are worse for wear and change;
No laughter echoes from the nearby wood.
When everyone grew up and moved away,
Our plywood platforms rotted in the tree.
No Robin Hood remained to climb and see
His merry men engage in daily play.
The paths we made have long since overgrown.
Our wooden forts became the forest floor.
Adventures don't occur here anymore--
Our sacred places have been overthrown.
While Waiting
While waiting for the Greyhound bus,
My dad and I, the two of us,
Recounted pleasant moments passed:
The memories we had amassed,
Experienced, and oft discussed.
Our dialog continued thus--
Light-hearted and extraneous--
Until we saw the bus at last
While waiting.
We said goodbye without much fuss;
I stepped into the ominous,
Uncharted future from the past
Not knowing how my die was cast
And feeling I grew up too fast
While waiting.
Flashes of Mirror-Light
Poetry Collection by Meg Smith
The Hare Queen
You can make this done.
Put on the green
of witchery
and behold,
the bonfire.
Shadows form, and recede,
and only you can leap,
flashes of blue fire.
Night Music
For Stephen Damon-Tilley
Everything
for the shadows --
a room in clouds,
save for one
memory,
one sonata,
threads
severed
and spare.
No more silence,
but measures
will rest,
and play on.
Horse Fly of Grace
Your face reflects
in its summer mask --
mirrored sunglasses,
hair of a sugar forest,
white streak warning,
"I am old.
I am a father."
Such were
the night wings,
black, sleek,
horse fly
on the banner
of the rail trail.
Something is gone,
some holy body.
The horse,
the deer, the barred owl,
all flee.
Flashes of mirror-light,
fall and remain.
The World in Henna
Everywhere
along my route,
I offer my hand,
my wrist.
Here, inscribed.
It's a quiet,
of carrying
a dance,
a whisper.
Endures,
like a friend,
like many friends.
Endures,
like the
sacredness
of song.
Alan Catlin Invites You to Join Him Backstage
Poetry Collection
Shakespeare
Ah, the bard. Everyone knows who he is:
that dude with the pointy beard every high
school student in America who makes
it past the eighth grade, has inflicted upon
him: Friends, Romans and dudes from the inner
cities Borrow me some cash for a stash….
No wonder guys like Baz Luhrmann are
updating and jazzing up the old classics.
Who could resist a lean, mean and pretty Leo
di Caprio with a not-so-nubile, Claire Danes,
doing the dirty deed to “Kissing You!”?
And all those dance like fight scenes. Who needs
something so trashy, and out of date, and lame
as “West Side Story”? Come on Natalie Wood
as a Latina! That’s just so 50’s. Let’s face it,
even the Japanese can make a decent flick
out of Old Willie and not lose anything,
maybe even Add something to the Venerable
One. Watch “Ran” sometime, even ”Throne of
Blood”, and then watch Mel Gibson as Hamlet
opposite a same-age Glenn Close as his mom
in “Hamlet” and tell which one is better:
the one that follows the script or the one
that sets Lear in medieval Japan?
And the really odd thing, the Gibson “Hamlet”,
despite a liberal pruning, and the ridiculous
casting choices, isn’t half-bad. Still the role
is a bit outside of Mel’s comfort zone
established in “Road Warrior”, Mad Max
camp classics, and adventure flicks.
That comfort zone evolved into Mel becoming
a kind of Latter Day John Wayne folk hero,
though no one seems to get the contradiction
of an Aussie playing American Super Patriots.
Well, he’s got the drunken bigot part down and
that counts for a lot in image conscious Hollywood,
where intelligent film making and Film from real
Art subjects are at a premium. I mean, who wants
to watch something foreign sounding like “Titus Andronicus,”
despite all the dead bodies, when you can see
“Mad Max: Fury Road,” where there is virtually
no dialogue at all, intelligent or otherwise.
Albert Camus’s Happy Death
In between bouts
Of TB
After the dissolved love
marriage to a drug
addict
Another marriage
more fruitful
twins borne
A second novel
written published
as the first
“The Stranger” sold
published to acclaim
During The Occupation
Between more bouts
of TB
directing plays:
Shakespeare
Camus as Hamlet
All the ghosts inside
out on stage with
Albert and his wife,
the actress playing
fair Ophelia
To be or not
to be
but not for long
Post Card to Thompson July 03, 2019: Iseult Gonne When Young
“Iseult is mad aygan,” Maud would have
written to Yeats if she were a poet instead of a
revolutionary. Though what she said, was, her
daughter, then a teen, was mad.
Wi