the sun is sparkling, the rain rumbling, and we badly need some poetry...

Monday 28 November 2011

Vidousha Bundhoo - One Poem

Diary of a Lost Soul

I do not remember
Whence I came from
I do not remember
The paths I took
The rivers I crossed

I’ve been walking since a very long time
Now I do not remember
The reason I started walking
Like perhaps the sky doesn’t know why clouds come to kiss her
And leave her thunderously
Why was that?
To what purpose?

I do not know why I don’t remember the past
But there must have been a beginning
There must have been a journey
There always is
There always is a past following your present
There always is a present preceding the future

Why is it then, that the past seems so blurred
So distant
Have I moved too far…
Or am I lost…

Felino A. Soriano - Three Poems

Various Tessellations 15
 
—after Karen Fitzgerald’s painting, Burning Pearl
 
Pearls contain clementine reflections. 
            Particular
to this rage of inward glow                  at
                                    paralleled
                                                                        parameters                               flow
induces partial flame  
 
synchronized ornamental prophecies beyond bodily worth                 the
 
                        symmetry of health comprehends when held
wholly within hand of adoptive disposition.
 
Various Tessellations 16
 
—after Paul Motian’s Casino
 
Night of desolation.
 
Causation.
 
Hand of magical mimesis.
 
Opponent of gift lights,
partial
            to the hiding dynamic of dissipated timekeeping,
intentional.
 
Requesting monetary deviation.
 
Smoke into twirling barrage of
dancing halos
 
                                    crowning pearl of rarity, win   win
syncopated hope then
 
desolate again, traveler, another temporal anecdotal
 
immanence.  
 
Various Tessellations 17
 
—after Paul Motian Trio’s Birdsong
 
Wire dance, paused vernacular you’ve
become an etched insulation, varied.
 
            Saddened now you’ve
orchestrated denial, ascended angled psalms of
                                                                                                mobile interpretations.  Rejuvenation
within tomorrow’s solid music, rhythm
volume oscillating constructs:
 
below the
italicized watchers entail
burdened absence, succinct as wind amid
a branch’s naked cleansing, autumnal.  Can the
                                                                                                whisper of your fingered song
rotate into twirled aspect of neoteric dancer?
 
                        My answer
forgoes logical nuances, suppositional where
 
isolation gilds broken heirlooms:
 
                                                                                                trio of cadenced sorrow
purpling closeness as if bruised through intention, and
the
                                                heal of rounded scar
escapes pain of the original graving
skin inward reflectional
diameter,
                        withdrawn into back
                                    stepping
ideological
                                                                        hanker.

John Swain - Two Poems

The Black Hours

The pages in black tint
writ with silver scripts
and the blue gold inlay.
I saw the crossed man
hanging from the wire
in passion surrendered.
The night and the seas
exchanged a cremation
the poets interpret.
I read the black hours
like a haunted passage
I am confined to relive.
The beauty of the work
contains its destruction
like rain inks on glass.

Succession

In the fleeting uncaptured 
rarity of appearance
the wilderness spoke
by message of hawks
longed through the throat
of their mystery
like a deep redness
poured into a golden cup.
I met the vestige of effort
and growth like branches
and the twisting of antlers
softly dropping
in entrance of succession

and passing of the names
to broken rock.
I lit torches
to speak cleanly
after flies were eaten.

Wednesday 23 November 2011

Sarah E. White - One Poem


Evergreen

Craggy jagged rock faces
Anchored with evergreens
Springing forth reaching skyward
Defying gravity
Defying logic with their life
Evergreen even now
With the plowed and fallow fields
Of a countryside lost to harvest
The greenest of greens endure
The color of hope in this bleak season
This grey and dreary time
Unnoticed in summer or spring
Overlooked during the thriving bloom of prosperity
Camouflaged by the rest
Hidden within the unsteady greens of change
My eye is drawn now to its cool tender branches
As they ripple gently in the harsh weather
That has torn all the other color from the landscape
All traces of life scraped away
I long to be an evergreen
Forever thriving
Drawing life from little
Steady and green
Anchored safely to the rocks
Snuggled securely in the deepest greens of health and living
A glimmer of hope for the rest of the world
That has been tattered by the seasons of life

Tuesday 22 November 2011

John Tustin - One Poem

When I Imagine You

When I imagine you, you have
no fear.
You use only your senses.
Your tongue explodes in
my mouth.
My fingers disappear inside
you.
My eyes cannot
differentiate
far and near.
My mouth does not recognize
air or water.

The room becomes more than
a room.
The window becomes less than
a window.
I am unaware of
my body,
but incredibly aware of
yours.
Your mouth becomes something
I want to devour.
The hours melt into an oblivion of
ecstatic moments.

Your body is an impulse.
Your body is a guitar I wring painfully
exquisite notes from.
Your body is an instrument
that bends under me
with purpose.

When I imagine you
I am
more than
I am.

Denny E. Marshall - One Poem

Secrets

The white sheets
          of paper
Are covers
The black ink
The words
          soak threw
Why should I
Tell you anyway
I guess it is
the fact
I can’t talk
The way I feel
Faults shift slightly
Pens lift anchors
My notes
Are the reflections
With someone
Standing on both
sides
Mirrors
Writing diaries

Ben Rasnic - One Poem

October

The breeze attending
this afternoon's drizzle
contains a certain chill

Behind a misty veil,
sun softens its vigilant eye

At the edge of town,
the crowd in the stadium
has turned, like rotting fruit

Soon, clouds of smoke
from the orange skulls
of flaming pumpkins
will mask a full yellow moon

and the crisp night air
will succumb
to the chants
of tiny extortionists.

Diane Webster - One Poem

Motel Room At Night

Without glasses
in strange city darkness
and unfamiliar shadows
the smoke detector
with single green light
looks like a flying saucer
beamed in on another earthling.
Silly, triple-locked door
when it already resides inside
silently disguised
for my own protection,
watchful as I fall asleep
to dreams so adventurous
I am reluctant to wake
and ask the green light
to beam me aboard for more.

Kevin Ridgeway - One Poem


Sorry I Stepped on Your Painting

It was in the doorway for God’s sake

I was coming in for a drink
You should have been more careful

We exchanged many bitter words

And my relations with your roommate were over
But you shouldn’t have been working on that

Painting in the doorway

I know I crushed the corner
With my thong sandals

I’m sorry I made such a to-do about it

I was down at the local watering hole
Getting drenched in jerk juice

But to be perfectly honest with you

My stepping on your painting
Really gave it a surrealistic edge


Rachel Kearney - One Poem

Attic Photo:
 
Snapshot
                in the lens
Memory              begins
Film                        ends

Decades
                in the lens
Black                      white
Time                      past

Captured
                in the lens
Children               laughing
Fire                        roasting

Timeless
                in the lens
Sunset                  fading
Moon                    becoming


Jason E. Hodges - One Poem


Grandfather

My grandfather
The mild-mannered mechanic
Was the only grandfather I knew
He was my mother’s stepfather
And a good father was he
For even through the hard times he never stepped away
Blood relations mean nothing if they’re not willing to love
To listen
To understand
Enthralled as a child
I waited for the telling of stories
Stories from long ago
Of him helping men fly and soar through the air
One by one he put planes together
For the war fronts of a world at war
To be painted like tigers or perhaps Betty Grable
Anything to help the fighting men of the sky
With hands of skill my grandfather pushed cold metal wrenches
Spinning bolts down to an unmovable tightness
Years of this work left his hands scarred and rough
Easily felt
As he stretched out his hand to guide me through life
Teaching me right from wrong with his words of wisdom
His advice was always of the best kind
They say patience is a virtue
But the real virtue is giving more than you’ve taken
Guiding the ones that need to be guided
Setting examples by living for more than yourself
My grandfather, the mild mannered mechanic
Fixed all that was broken before him

Abby LeCavalier - One Poem


Hate Department

Cringing in a corner
doesn’t suit her,
much.

She does it anyway.

Waiting
for the feelings to change,
in bold breaths 
breathing.

Slipping her eyes;
something less formal.

She has that “stay away from me” look
down pat,
because she cares too much.

Always the problem.

Her emotions burn
like cheap cigarettes,
cold.

Almost surreal.

And she can feel the sand
in her teeth,
the heat of her skin,
steam.

She knew this moment inevitable,
tried to wish it away
with small gestures.

But it came just the same.

Chris Butler - One Poem

Hippie

I was born
a flower child,
but grew up
in the life of pesticides,

dying in the dirt
that once gave birth,
succumbing to the sun
that once nurtured nature,

but what happens
when the fire of
napalm pollinates palm trees
to create life?

Richard Hartwell - One Poem


Morning Memories

There was a blond bombshell
seated in a red Corvette
flying new paper plates.

She was headed east
in the morning on the 215
into a glorious newborn day.

A quick glance to the side,
captured in my memory.
a porcelain face, rouged, ready,

Framed by white-rimmed
sunglasses and pouty lips
steadied in a purposeful smile.

I’d hoped for a glimmer of
eye contact reflected in her mirror
as she pulled ahead of me,

With nothing but exotic fantasies
beside her in the empty seat
of my peek into paradise.


Taufiq Abdul Khalid - One Poem

The Third Eye, Love and Her Fury

I whirled and twirled,
I turned and burned
Until the sky itself
Started to turn red around me,
And all of creation cascaded
In perfect symmetry,
Until no sound can I hear
But my own gasping death,

I could now see
Buildings rise higher
Than the holy stations,
As the Sun rises in the West,
And from the East, merchant ships come upon me,
To trade for my third eye their splendid cargo of love and fury.

I tell them that I am not he that they seek,
But they will not be swayed from their bargain
And asked again to see the celebrated third eye.

Relenting, I sighed and gestured towards the sky.


Friday 4 November 2011

Russell Streur - One Poem

October Lines
for CKC

Less and less of daylight now
The moon rises early in the east
Through white pine

Night still warm enough
To sleep with windows open
On a pillow of petosky stone

Sound of waves
On kalkaska shore
And I am traveling on
Lotus strings again

Drinking wine with you
Waiting to wake
On the first morning
Of frost.