write about in the prologue and I believe my topic should be zucchini. I
have been in
correspondence with one poet and often our thoughts have turned to
zucchini. This is the perfect summer squash, quick growing,
succulent, visually pleasing and tasty.He
does not chide
when I
spend half my pay check
on
hardcover books,
nor
criticize the impatience
that
would not wait for paperback
He
does not cast
disapproving
looks my way
when
it is two hours past my lunchtime,
and I
am hesitant to stop for a bite
even
though his own stomach is growling
He
does not mind
seeing
the art exhibit
he
didn’t like the first time he saw it
three
weeks ago,
knowing
it is beautiful to me
He
will say nothing
when
he sees I am getting weary,
knowing
I am not content
until
I’ve had too much Saturday,
and
when I stumble on the walk home
he
will murmur
“Come
here, little bird”
and
pick me up
carrying
me with his cheek on my hair
Lackluster Guy
My biggest concern,
during my entire adult life actually,
is that one day I will lose you:
You - the most incredible woman,
the miracle of my life.
The world is a terribly confused and crazy place,
so much going on all the time so fast.
So many people, so many men
who I am potentially in competition
with for You.
My biggest concern is that
one day you will see the light,
an enlightenment striking from the thickets,
like seeing Jesus smiling out you
from in the fireplace
or the Virgin Mary sitting up in
a tree in your back yard,
and you'll realize what I have always known,
that I am not much of a man.
I try, but the truth is simply that
I am not much of a man.
I am, if honesty presides, a lackluster guy.
One day you will look at me and laugh,
gather up your things, kiss me on the forehead,
say goodbye, laughing and shaking
your head all the way out the door.
precious white Percocet tablets
Some days I am so sore
it is difficult to describe.
A wide band around my lower back
and hips, down my outer thighs
is as sore as rotten mangos,
sore and tender as the hole
in your gums left behind from
a yanked out tooth.
Even my precious white
Percocet tablets cannot appease
this relentlessly
searing pain,
like rubbing a handful
of broken glass across my tired,
shredded skin, waiting for
the blood to begin its ooze.
Bird-watching, or not
Out between Acton and Littleton,
along the side of Route 2,
is a swampy area with dead trees
jutting high above the quiet murky water,
with wide nests like sombreros on top,
and wide-winged herons
roosting inside sometimes standing up tall
and strong and silent like sentries.
Inspired by the otherworldly beauty
of the scene, especially at dusk,
crimson and saffron hues radiating
all around, I tell my wife that
we should begin bird-watching
as our children move out and we start
to have more time on our hands.
She raises her eyebrows, glances
through the gloaming into the trees
and says, "No I want to get a boat
and go boating as we get older."
Michael Estabrook
mestabrook@comcast.net
A
quotation from Robert Oppenheimer goes here.
The
Human Genome Project, the decoded living.
Embalmed
with clue after clue, that baby inside you—
The
killer we credit, the genius that sealed you in a can.
Paid
programming—$19.99 plus shipping and handling.
scape
bank lobby, elevator
ice rink, elevator
ivy
marble, gold-laced mirror
parking garage
oil spot
weed, ivy, dust
siding
heavy traffic
drape
in the middle was a curtain
damp, the wall had its own smell
looking for the hook
the fugue began to echo
what was in that box?
an oddly thin intestine
the rope that held the drape in a knot
Polonius
The whispering wind calls out my name,
As here I sit just the same,
A whole word left to be explored,
From the mountain’s peaks to the ocean’s floor,
A soul to be found yet hidden out there,
There’s a silent sound of love in the air,
The beckoning call of the baby bird’s chirp,
As the butterflies’s wings wave with a flirt,
The swans float through the water full of grace,
As I dream of the love I forever chase,
Dream to shine like the stars on a hot summer night,
Dream to soar on an eternal flight,
Spread my wings and touch the sky,
Yet on the ground my feet still lie.
Kaleidoscope
Hidden beneath a blanket of smiles,
My heart weeps of love’s denial,
My own fears led my astray,
As my soul slowly drifts away,
I left my dreams for you to hold,
To give you strength when the world turns cold,
I sit here feeling utterly weak,
As your passionate stare haunts my sleep,
You may never hide from love’s true course,
Only proceed flooded with remorse,
Here I sit with an echoing sigh,
As the Kaleidoscope of life passes by,
Paralyzed by each memory of you,
Yet knowing my love is eternally true.
Footprints In The Sand
Making footprints in the sand,
As they walk hand in hand,
Two people in love so much,
Feeling it in every touch,
As the waves break at their feet,
There they stand cheek to cheek,
Watching as the sun greets the day,
Knowing their love will forever stay,
Stay as young as the day is old,
Shining through the years like gold,
Remembering the memories they create,
Holding on to their fate,
Staying together through the years,
Wiping away each other’s tears,
There they go hand in hand,
Making footprints in the sand.
Keri A. Aponte
kaponte77@msn.com
Taneytown, MD 21787
Keri gave me this biography: I am an unpublished poet of eighteen years. Recently, I graduated from the Institute of Children's Lit., but I decided to pursue my love of poetry. I have been writing since I was ten years old. Now that I am married with two children I think it's time to share the words of my heart with the world.
May you continue to write and share your words to the world. thank youTHE CAT AND THE RAT, A FABLE
A lowly technician’s laboratory cat
lusted to meet a laboratory rat.
When the midnight moon cast fancies
down the concrete/wire corridors
she’d hum cat-fashion, “How I Long
to Make You Mine.” But there were,
alas, no lab-cotillions, no breath-
less comings-out from cages. How
to get a young piece of rat? a kiss,
a taste, just a tiny shank delicate
as a toothpick: an hour of enchanted
needling, if not the whole ingested
rat? She purred about the ankles
of techs in soiled scrubs, busy
with their boring scientific games
until, one day, an intern injected
DNA of rat into our laboratory cat
just to see what happened. And so
they met, cat and rat, and danced
a strange, slow internal dance.
Now she rears herself on tremulous
haunches and twitches the air with
fearful whiskers, and only wishes
for a cage where she could be
alone with herself, secure.
CRITICS
Our meeting nook in the bookery is fixed up
for Halloween. In the corner, under glass,
a plastic skeleton reclines as in a tomb,
a come-on for kids to learn the shivers
of immortal words. Oh, I know that grin.
He reminds of calcified forms we flung off
stanzas ago; images that don’t flesh out
a thought; metric feet that trip themselves;
imagination pared to the brevity of bone.
VISIONS ON THE INTERSTATE
Your right eye floats a question-
mark. It arcs a dark rainbow
across an overcast sky that won’t
precipitate. The lower hemisphere
and sweep of tail that form
a “Q” is lost in concrete
lanes of freeway, brakelights.
A floater, you say. Doctors
can’t do anything about those:
your matter of faith in medicine’s
bounds.
But your retina’s detaching
from its optic nerve. You’ll learn
this almost too late. We’re barely
an hour on the road, another nine
to go, 500 miles of forward motion
with nothing to see but
drought-gray fields of unplowed
stubble. And that “Q” that hangs
on your horizon.
A saint
would find a gospel here, a road-
side warning, Detour Ahead, or,
blown against a stockwire fence,
a tumbleweed suddenly in flame.
Your monochrome
rainbow holds no vision. The text
is lost, smudged as if an eraser
rubbed messily across the back
of your eye.
It takes so much concentration
to look through a Q without
its question; to purposely
not see it,
to keep your focus
on the road ahead.
Taylor Graham
piper@innercite.com
The Tour
passages upon abyss'
where is that path
known well
i search the valleys
slippery and wet
rock faces
wet pools
deep canyons rise
and swell
sticky hot
sliding down
tears you follow
drinking in the place
we used to know
Tithonus:Continued
Thy shining wheels as a long forgotten urn
Rusty and corroded from lack of ceremonious affection.
No fresh and ambitious thought passes through
the inside hallways of thy loving scourge
You thought befitting a long ago prince.
Burdensome laden shell I bear eternally,
Beclouded memories, dank and overgrown,
Dense with emerald ground carpet.
No novel forenoons break through the stagnation.
No want have I for grandeur.
No more unimpeded pasture for which
To receive a yearning. No lust to suffuse.
No new contrivance belongs here,
I have no place to solemnize past remembrance,
To retain in my immortal eon.
Placidity.
I have no hurry to complete obsessions begun.
No sail to uneven stride,
No impatient force to put to embers.
Childhood brainwork’s wandering amongst age old remains
Of only yestermorn, or does this mistiness keep the hollowed breadth
Of my competence, oblivious that it was a reflection of a
Heretofore comfort with the vine?
Release me primordial muse!
I utter endearing with tongue
As a thousand long awaiting Hades nights howls out with
Brimstones Furies vengeance.
I pound a brittle fist of bone unto thy
Self seeking gift of damnation!
Awake they patriarch, callous Aurora!
Awake him and plead thy mercy as my own!
Ten thousand silver arrows from they brethren I shall suffer.
Fire this veil of marrow into the thrashing sea,
And the strikes of the Kraken I will embrace,
As Thetas derives her vengeance for the limbs of the warrior.
Unbind me! My mask waters are no solace here,
To the sea they shall fuse within as they lap upon the shores of
desolation.
Swathing zephyrs pursuing thunderhead,
As you pluck your forces from earth’s core.
I shall pose and supplicate for you to baptize me there,
And implore the Water Beast not to seethe in his disgruntlement,
At so meager a sacrifice.
Thine allegiance unto me, no longer endurable
Thine has seized what thine has left to cozen.
Thine allegiance unto me, mo longer endurable.
I shall envision you with mine eyes solely, dark ages past
Having no recollection of my bowing before thee.
No uncertainty queried upon heretofore malleable lips
For they bittersweet benevolence.
Tomorrow will be after all, for thine always.
No other morrow can I envelope.
I dance out into a brume like a specter,
Where no one marks the contradistinction.
Of ivory on alabaster.
I ramble in the wind between the shower,
Around myself and rearward again,
Veiled in skeins of fist and bone
Surrender up my body into the scorching bosom of the gods.
I etiolate the nocturnal firmament pirouetting round two baying moons.
I implore of thee, Queen of Cockcrow, consult thy kingdom
And have me wane here in this wasteland kingdom.
I have postured and observed the faded and chivalrous deaths
Of those before me.
Death of ripe and archaic years.
I have mourned the demises of my innocents descendents.
I have lamented the quietus of every scion who possesses
A droplet of my origin within their veins.
Gratify sever and masterful gods!
Deliver me unto my innocents!
Hand me from this day and time of ceaseless loneliness.
I am wasted and fragile is my form--
Restore me to the ash from which I rose,
Revert me unto dust.
I doubtless with all that is left of me plead
With thine almighty forces of illumination and darkness,
Breathing and lifeless before me,
Take me from this existence that has impaled my spirit with numbness.
Paula D. Gordon
"Do you cry
about your ball,
as if you are still small?
This ball is not gold,
This ball is not fine,
This ball is really just old."
- "But it is mine.
"I love this little ball
"most of all,
"Because it is the part
"of my distant childhood!
"This ball is not gold,
"I agree it is not fine,
"It is in general
"Really too old.
"But it helps me find
" -- this ball --
"My
distant childhood."
The Russian Forest The clean, cold brooks are running, The foliage around is rustling, Since childhood, I have been betrothed to you With you, My loved Russian Forest! You have been covered with flowers or snow Or with yellow leaves, but Among maples, Among fir-trees, There is my secret house. And if I have light joy Or grief - melancholy with tears, I will come to you, my loved forest, And I shall be inclined to legs of birches. The veils(or - the dresses) of them has been weaved from the most thin threads... We are connected to you with one thread, My favourite Russian Forest!
Dina Televitskaya
Site of the Issue
www.bryantmcgill.com
I invite you to take some time to visit Bryant McGill's site. Bryant is a poet a published author and a photographer. He features a number of his
poems and other creative works. You can also listen him read some of his work.
Book
Review
The
Blossoms of the Night-Blooming Cereus
by
Ursula T. Gibson
68
poems
$16.95
Publish
Barnes & Noble (ISNB 1-4137-6482-7)
Review by Aurora Antonovic
Samuel Johnson said, “The two most
engaging powers of an author are to make new things familiar, and
familiar things new.” In Ursula T.
Gibson’s collection of poetry entitled, “The Blossoms of the
Night-Blooming Cereus”, she does just that.
Right
from the introductory poem, “Why I Write Poetry”, a rhyming humorous
light-hearted piece that captures the essence of why poets are driven
to write, Ms. Gibson manages to draw the reader in on a poetic journey
that varies in both subject and style, but is always consistently good.
A diversity of topics are covered, such as lost love (Farewell, or How
To Say Good-bye Gracefully), death(Why Should I Cry?), every day,
ordinary moments(Surprises), and betrayal(You Lied To Me!). Styles
range from list poems, to rhyming pieces that are easily executed and
never forced, to lyrical poems and even a senryu, but Ms. Gibson’s
voice remains steady, constant, and appealing, compelling the reader to
explore whatever subject or style is at hand.
Although well known as the very
capable editor of Poetic Voices, it is as a poet that
Ursula T. Gibson really shines. Each
poem, regardless of form or content, is extremely polished, while
remaining seemingly effortless. Readers are left to feel their own
sentiments, or explore their own experiences while delving into one of
Ms. Gibson’s accounts.
Whereas
all poems in this volume are not biographical, “The Blossoms of the
Night-Blooming Cereus” is almost like holding someone’s life in your
hands, as all good poetry books are. While all the experiences may not
be Ms. Gibson’s, the observances and the manner in which she conveys
those observances most distinctly are, providing for thought-provoking
reading.
Ms.
Gibson’s frank style speaks well to the topics at hand. Her manner is
always light and open-ended in the sense that she never overwhelms the
reader with emotion or browbeats with a preachy message. Even
when “darker” subjects are covered, there remains a persistently
cheerful outlook, a glimmer of something better to keep the reader
looking up and never wallowing. The poems
that are humorous are particularly delightful and often have a rhyming
pattern that makes them even more effective.
There
is something about this collection that reads almost like a novel, even
though the poems are not ordered in a formal manner, nor categorized.
Indeed, they are almost representative of snatches of conversation
between two friends at the kitchen table over a cup of coffee, if one
of those friends were a gifted story teller and poet.
I
must confess that I did what I never advise other readers of poetry to
do: I devoured the book in one sitting, and only then took the time to
go back and read each poem over several times more slowly.