Friday, April 29, 2016

Dawn Sweet- A Photo


                                            "Abandoned Car"


Nancy May- Three Poems


opening your heart
by the babbling brook
washing away lustful wishes



I wait silently
for a tsunami of love
to fill my empty heart



peeling an unbroken spiral
of the soft warm wind
you kiss me tenderly



Nancy May’s haiku can be found at Haiku Journal, Three Line Poetry, Poetry Quarterly, Inclement Poetry, Twisted Dreams Magazine, Vox Poetica, Eskimo Pie, Icebox, Dark Pens, Daily Love, Leaves of Ink, The Blue Hour Magazine, Kernels, Mused – The BellaOnline Literary Review, Danse Macabre – An online literary Magazine, High Coupe, A Handful of Stones, Lyrical Passion Poetry E-Zine, UFO Gigolo, 50 Haikus, The Germ, Boston Literary Review, Be Happy Zone, Every Day Poets, Cattails, Ppigpenn, Creatrix Journal, M58, The Camel Saloon, Haikuary and the Plum Tree Tavern. She has reached The Heron’s Nest consideration stage twice and the Chrysanthemum consideration stage once. She is working on her first haiku collection.




Angelica Fuse- Three Poems


Table Cloth Shirt

he's wearing
a table cloth shirt
as he rummages
through our wares

I imagine
he found an actual
table cloth
and threw it over 
himself
to keep warm

 
Movie Noise

I learned to speak
from the voice
of Cary Grant
and Deborah Kerr
learned my humor
from Gene Wilder
and Meg Ryan
learned to argue
from the broadcast
news

 
Vulture Game

as I leave
they circle around
where I stood
looking for
whatever they 
can carry away
in their beaks
 
 

Thursday, April 28, 2016

Douglas Polk- Three Poems


Candidates

Trump,
a post Obama candidate,
for president,
narcissistic,
enveloped in self,
a cult of personality,
the first requirement for the job.

 
 
Elections

hypocrisy,
mass communicated,
no rules of integrity,
or character,
citizens seem only sheep,
to be led to the slaughter,
mindless,
stupid sheep.



Culture

isolated,
communicating on small screens,
bullies,
roam the airwaves,
searching independent minds,
to beat down,
thoughts dangerous,
if not all agree,
thugs deciding the culture,
and the way things shall be.
 
 

Charles Rammelkamp- A Photo




Ananya S. Guha- A Poem


Man And Machine

Hastening, the sun
casts reflection 
on seething ontologies
when will it come, the depredation
the lust, the spitting hatred, the sun
salvages lost hope, in mellow weather 
we can smile, recant ideals, ask forgiveness
for sins done in blistering haste.
Some pray, testimony to living gods
whose absolutism one cannot take for granted. 
Nearer home there are floods, the elections are over
but the floods assailed the land, as if asking people 
to expiate. Have the votes gone wrong? Nature foresees events, happenings, 
history can't. 

In the plains of India temperatures are seething. 
So are politicians in decrepit mansions, out of fear.
Who will win? Which way will these electronic votes go? 
Machine and man. Who will prevail? The Election Commission
will present medals, or has presented medals to the earliest 
five voters. See how uncannily they have made voting an art, 
even as the jungles are in fever pitch, and the floods play havoc 
on  loose soil? The heat a cauldron. Schools are closed. Do they all 
have air conditioners? Some have, the ones who wait for the votes
trickling down the electronic box, the ballot, nay the bullet box.

Man and Machine. 

Ananya S Guha
Shillong, INDIA.
 
 

Jennifer Lagier- A Photo


                                    "Rock bench on bluff trail"



JD DeHart- A Poem


Person of Faith

The voice whispers to me, all I’m used to is a whisper:
            Do you believe?

Believe like the whisper I heard in the woods when I was a child, wind through trees, twitter of insects.  I am emic and etic at the same time, a dynamic of tension.  I belong here in this Kingdom and yet I don’t.

Believe like the abandoned church in the woods, composed of broken wood, an empty pulpit, a silent congregation, and leaf-strewn pews.  It was a place I wanted to reside in.

Believe like the plush smell of the new church down the road, complete with inside baptistery so we don’t have to go down to the creek anymore, pressing my face to the soft floor.

Believe like a circle of lights in the sky over a praying family or the story of a prophet in the Old Testament.  Or the truth behind the story, the reality of the dusty ground, the trial and the error, the pain of trying to listen to the sky, ear straining.

I will never stop believing.


JD DeHart is a writer and teacher.  His chapbook, The Truth About Snails, is available from Red Dashboard.



Wednesday, April 27, 2016

Bruce Mundhenke- Two Poems


Dreaming

Raindrop...
Come and follow me,
We''ll find our way
Into the sea.

Sunbeam...
Take me with you on your flight,
I'll go with you
Into the night.

Starlight...
Bring me back from darkest night,
I'll be a shadow
On your flight.

Dream train...
Your tracks are fading in the night,
The ties unloosened
With the light.

Moonbeam...
Just a ghost of burning fire,
A mere reflection
Of desire.

Candle...
Burn so gently as you glow,
Your wick
Is longer than you know.


Waking

Dawn is at my window,
Treetops dance in light,
A robin's song seduces me
With haunting sweet delight.
A dove calls
Someone loves you,
A sad and mournful sound.
A world comes into focus,
And enters into light,
And once again
Forgets the darkness of the night.

Kali Collins- Two Poems


Silence

There is silence in the words we say.
Buried under piles of red clothed
backs and duct-taped mouths.

Streets lined with blurred out figures—
their faces turned away—and lying under
the garbage is the silent generations.

The kids who saw more backs and hateful
slurs than kind eyes and outstretched hands.
There is silence in their downturned mouths,

That we chose to overlook. In the crowds that
gather around the young boy who is too
weak to defend himself. In the not-so-

innocent bystanders, who gape and laugh,
but whose mouths remained nailed shut—
even as his body loses life…

There is silence in the way I bite my lip and turn away.



Forced Freedom

You have the freedom,
to recognize the silence
encompassed in the early
morning mist as it drags across
the Earth. To change the song
that burdens the ear, buried
in the church bells strange
clamor as they screech and
howl to the wind. But
there is no freedom in bending
the flat world to fit a sphere.


Nate Maye- Three Poems


Sinner Friends

yes we 
have fallen
into the hands
of an angry
god, or maybe
just into
the mouths
of one another,
victims of
criticism and
other splinters.

 
Cookie Cutter

we have
fallen into 
this world of
stamping image,
I am you,
you are me, and
we barely
can be told apart,
two overlapping
stories, word
by blessed word.

 
Beggar

perhaps an angel
wrapped in the smell
of street
perhaps a devil
with a smiling face
perhaps a chance
to be a nice being
for one instant
offer some change
perhaps just
one of ill fortune
or mental illness
cast here by mistake.
 
 

Tuesday, April 26, 2016

David J. Thompson- A Photo


                                           "Auburn, Indiana"



Michael Marrotti- A Poem



An Empty Vagina

Her vacuous eyes
and lack of
sexual pleasure
made her to me
a memorable
lover

The perpetual
taste of
cheap beer
on her lips
Provided me
with the
assurance
of modest wants
and subtle
self destruction

She had an
ordinary vagina
that barely existed
No aroma
It never smelled
like anything

What she became
to me as the clock
worked its cycle
Became less and less
until it denigrated
to nothing



Michael Marrotti is an author from Pittsburgh using words instead of violence to mitigate the suffering of life in a callous world of redundancy. His primary goal is to help other people. He considers poetry to be a form of philanthropy. When he's not writing, he's volunteering at the Light Of Life homeless shelter on a weekly basis. If you appreciate the man's work, please check out his blog:www.thoughtsofapoeticmind.blogspot.com for his latest poetry and short stories.


Ananya S. Guha- A Poem


Walking Sideways

walking sideways
crooked roads
gnomic house
with roof tops 
which look like
templates of dust
and the heat slides
into one of them
with a one legged 
hopping crow trying
to rid the last shivers
of the earthquake.

 
 

James Babbs- Three Poems


James Babbs is a writer, a dreamer, a three-time loser and an all-around nice guy who just wants to be left alone.  James is the author of Disturbing The Light(2013) & The Weight of Invisible Things(2013) and has hundreds of poems and a few short stories scattered all over the internet.


One Time

he said
remember that one time
when we got really drunk and
started walking around town
you know
back when we were in college
he started laughing
handing me another beer
from the cooler down by his feet
I twisted off the cap
tried shooting it
into the wastebasket
but watched it bounce off the edge
and land on the floor
he said
you kept screaming
at everyone you saw
until Jack and Gus tackled you
and told you to shut up
I nodded my head
and he laughed again
he drained the rest of his beer
before reaching for another one
he said
how about that one time
when you were wearing
Bob’s old army jacket
I said
yeah
why was I wearing his jacket
I don’t remember
he leaned back
gazing at a spot on the wall
he said
I don’t remember either
but you left the party
we were at and
when Gus and I came home
you were out in the hallway
slumped against the door
we thought you were some old bum
that had wandered in off the street
then we realized it was you
I nodded my head
yeah
then you guys grabbed me and
dragged me by my arms
and left me there on the floor
he said
that’s right
you stayed there the whole night
I laughed
I think I woke up
maybe one time
but I just rolled over
and went back to sleep
he said
yeah
you were still there in the morning
with Bob’s army jacket on
we both laughed
shaking our heads
before starting on another beer


Almost 5 O’clock

I thought I needed something
because
I just couldn’t get settled
so I opened the wine
and poured myself a glass
this same feeling all day
so I was glad to finally be home
I don’t know how long ago
I started drinking this stuff
I was never really much for wine
I’d always been a beer drinker
but I guess
somewhere along the way
I wanted something different
so I tried this cheap stuff
and thought it wasn’t too bad
not too bad at all
I took another drink
and looked through the window
it was almost five o’clock
out there the corn field
stood green and tall
like an advancing army
swaying beneath the sun


An April Weekend

it’s one of the most beautiful
days of the year so far and
I’m sitting in the shade
next to the garage
while up in the trees
the birds make lots of noise
yesterday
I got drunk again
after I finished mowing the yard
I took a shower and
put on my Batman t-shirt
then opened the first beer and
took a long slow drink
sun still bright
up there in the afternoon sky
but it was saturday and
I was feeling pretty good
had seven or eight more bottles
before deciding that was enough
now it’s sunday and
I’m still wearing the same shirt
not too long ago
before I came out here
I had a chicken sandwich
with pepper jack cheese and
I have to say
it tasted really good

Dawn Sweet- A Photo


                                                  "Rebirth"



Jonathan Beale- Three Poems


Sign o’ the Times

 31 March 1987

U turn on the telly and every other story
Is tellin' U somebody died
.’

Requiescat in pace  - Prince Rogers Nelson

In the weight of the world
Under a cloud of unknowing
This keen eye drew the fiery vision:
And beat a new tongue out in
Funk, soul, psychedelic pop,
Electro, and good old 4 on 4 rock music.
This world - this perdition - grey cold
The world strangely uncompromisingly

Deconstructed - not so much as to lose
Its’ very essence –in its very being.  
The world woven of strange moralities
With the lush draw of a world in all its vices.
The attraction is too, too, much, then crisis.  
Like advised lets fall in love B4 it’s too late.
Some say a man ain't happy unless a man truly dies
Oh why?  Oh Why?  Sign o’ the Times….  Time.


Lady Cab driver

‘She carried the many, she carried few
Hear them ask - Can U take me 4 a ride?
Don't know where I'm goin' 'cuz
I don't know where I've been.’
In the shadow and mists of the night -
The need to - in motion of the motion of the world
She held the wheel with absolute intention  
“Just drive, destination not known.”   
The sweat drenched body
In the abstract mirrored eye contact
Esmerelda sees Butch - an accident
Of fate - they are in the zone -
A place where names don’t mean shit
The continent of the cab - the blur
Of neon, mirrored reflection, stop signs
The passing cries of strangers “Taxi!  Taxi!”
Their voices fade – this taxi and she is mine.
For now! 
            This is 4 the destination.  
            This is 4 when your lips meet mine.  
            This is 4 the jazz breathing the air.
            This is 4 the sheep who feed on media hype.
            This is 4 the homeless guy forgot by all except the eye.
            This is 4 for the first spring dawn.
            This is 4 the last dollar in my pocket.
            This is 4 the Red Corvette from 1958.  
            This is 4 when we have reached the top. 
            This is 4 the bullet laden teenage gangster.  
            This is 4 whoever devised Route 66.
            This is 4 and the Rolling Stones for Beggars Banquet.
            This is 4 the storm and may it soon pass.    
            This is 4 your smile and may it remain etched in my mind for all time.  
            This is 4 the moon and stars.  
            This is 4 the drunk who’s flat out of dreams and hopes
            This is 4 your God and May they stay by your side – always
    And this is 4 U!  U!  U!  U!  U!  U!  U!  & U!


After Prince

In a glimpse of a vast universe
Making our everyday life – wondrous
Some kind prophet of A New Age
An age he made his own
His words need no explanation
Help in his hands the beauty of passion
The Love and the Sex in the graffiti
Of the mesh of humanity.
In this very mettle of the breath of life
The energy, who visceral
Yet now, out, out, brief candle.   


Saturday, April 23, 2016

David J. Thompson- A Photo


                                         "Street Art, Detroit"



John Pursch- Two Poems


John Pursch lives in Tucson, Arizona. Twice nominated for Best of the Net, his work has appeared in many literary journals. His first book, Intunesia, is available at http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/whiteskybooks. Check out his experimental lit-rap video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l33aUs7obVc. He’s @johnpursch on Twitter and john.pursch on Facebook.



Blue Eidetic Surfeit

Gingerly
the hand melts
flag by drawbridge
orderlies beside
a turning pageboy
tariff cod to sea floor
reminiscence.

Held aside,
the bullet swath
of ballet con demotion
trains on movie-slumping
peppercorn terrain of
hidden faces.

Shadows slip in mortal
chew-line static whisked
to blue eidetic surfeit.



Pink Indigenous Reply

Nomadic postulants
elbow macaroon macaws
in macadamized academia,
dropping doozy tomb-door
reflex finger fit impending.

Doors imagine grotto gamut
pelicans in redwood core of
swearing sound indelicate
artesian gel or rump steak
roadhouse silent passage
bygone slant to shunting
raw papyrus pink
indigenous reply. 


Alysha DePerna- Three Poems


Definitions

We build lines
those imaginary lines,
or maybe it’s just me

Half the time I feel like we’re
in on this mess together,
and others, I’m pretty sure
I’m the only mind these thoughts occupy

Nothing solid
other than want and hope,
and want and hope,
are nothing more than gluttons for punishment

These are all words
and I know I am full of them
words are not promises
words are not glue
words are not a definition
of anything



Rhythm

I am tired,
perpetually tired
I ache from fatigue

My body vibrates from months
of pent up emotion

I radiate with pure, unequivocal sadness
liquid sadness,
the kind that fills you up so full
your chest beats against the rhythm of the waves

I heave from trying to hold it all in



Steam

I’m fascinated by the unsweetened
and undiluted
uninterested in people’s tastes
like my coffee,
I prefer you in full-strength
and searing hot
able to rouse my weary, idle heart



Alysha DePerna lives in Rochester, NY and is a recent graduate of St. John Fisher College. A writer by day and a reader by night, she is loathe to discuss herself in the third person, but can be persuaded to do so from time to time. She enjoys traveling, reading obscure novels, and correcting people’s grammar.


Sunil Sharma- A Poem


Cultural transmutation: Will Shakespeare---400

There comes a time when you become
A Lear
Hamlet
Macbeth
in your life
sometimes one by one
sometimes all rolled into one
and, sometimes, in piecemeal.

You are, that moment, a Will Shakespeare
Will becoming you
the creator, created and the recipient---isomers of artistic universe.

You inhabit a temporal paradox
a dualism of time...here
making and unmaking of moments
real and lapsed collapsing in the same moment
Simultaneously posited in 1564-1616 and 2016
Flitting between an English Court and postmodern Mumbai/Madrid.

How time is caught, preserved, anesthetized---and revived!
In your current finger tips you hold bits of brittle time
faded lost buried in a tomb or tome in a library
an era gone forever but retrieved and re-incarnated
between a text and your eyes!

Will Shakespeare defies time
an encyclopedia is shown in his lines and songs
the full nature of human beings revealed on/off the stage
folios and films.

In dear William Shakespeare, each finds a bit of themselves
neatly labeled, documented and analyzed

Being- Becoming
A Hamlet
and other dramatic personae
at varied times by donning their robes and lines.

sediments of ages…lie inside the plays and sonnets
for us to find.

There, yet not there, yet there-not here
here-there, there-here, living two realms of space-time
turning into
a fool
a grave digger
Or
a babbling Lear finding clarity and sanity
in moments of insanity!


Adam Levon Brown- Two Poems


Adam Levon Brown is a poet, student, and activist residing in Eugene, Oregon. He enjoys the outdoors, playing with cats, and meeting new people. He can be contacted via his website at www.AdamLevonBrown.org , where he offers free poetry resources.



Dawn of Black Gives Birth to Light

The pulse quickens
as I slither past your
defenses

You have let
me into your
innermost workings

Darkness overcomes
your silent kiss
in the dawn

Quicksilver
tongue lashes
your pale white
visage

As I set to sink
my teeth into
your apple
of truth

What once was day
shades into jet black
as neurons whiplash
against tanned leather

You take your first
breath as synapses
form together creating
memory

I have given our dust
a form and I shall call it
by one name;

Episteme



Serpentine Soliloquy

I am a priest of the
rebellious snake

The redeemer of darkness
in the facade of light

The macabre remains
of a society once golden

Renaissance will be brought
with the flight of the Phoenix

As it burns its wings on
the torch of truth

What has started cannot
be stopped

What is done cannot be undone

For life, for glory, and above all...

For Episteme

Nate Maye- Three Poems


Kingdoms

You are a 
kingdom and so
I am I, walking
Kingdoms, invading
one another, trying
to find a gap
in the wall, to be 
ruler of the realm.

 
Leaning

I found you leaning
on the wall,
unable to stand, you
found me leaning
on my old instabilities,
the fiction
of who I thought
I should be, you
said don't focus on
should, stand up
straight, on your own.

 
Vigilante

I learned to wear
a mask and save
a world, I learned
to save for myself
my true identity
and hide my selfish
purposes deep.
 
 

Linda M. Crate- Three Poems


a fool's fool 
 
i may only be star dust to you, but i burn like my star brothers and mothers and sisters and fathers before me. i refuse to let this passion inside of me die. you see the world only from the views of logic—i was blessed with both logic and creativity. everything is black and white to you, but i can see in-between a thousand shades of grey. not everything is as it seems, but you always take things at face value, not bothering to dig deeper into the reasons. you know only facts but have no knowledge. fancy yourself rather clever but for you, darling, that'd be a difficult endeavor. 
 

yes, you're mean 
 
"have i ever been mean to you?" do you really want me to answer that question? you went on to say that you were crass and insensitive and tactless. but you were never mean. i suppose our definitions are different. for all your pretty vocabulary and perceived knowledge you really are an idiot. yes, you've been mean more than once; and you've made me cry. i held my tears until you were out of my sight because i didn't want you to have the satisfaction of getting to me, but it's foolish to hold onto pride so hard that it would destroy me. yes, you've been mean to me; but it's okay i return the favor in my poetry and prose.


emotionally clumsy 
 
i think i cared for you once. glad that infatuation blew over quickly. for you are tactless and rude tripping over your social awkwardness insisting that your facts are the only things that matter. that emotions are useless. that we're all made of atoms so we're all nothing, but i refuse to believe that. we were put on this earth for a reason, and just because you have no purpose doesn't mean that we're all the same. i've found something that looks good on you: silence. because when you don't interrupt anyone with your thoughts there is such peace to be had. you really do need to work on your people's skills because while i may be socially awkward at least i have tact and the sense to keep things to myself when they're too rude to be said.