Never reason for its birth or death or life at all.
Perchance that's its attraction: the chase.
The knowing, by all of the bright eyed
And rosy cheeked innocents
That you can never destroy
Something that you never fully created.
II.
Of course, for a time, you provide a haven for the love -
In your hearts and minds
(With only truly precious occasions causing it
To reach with in the soul).
Yet, harbor it as you will
From a world of cruelty and shame,
It is never exclusively yours.
It would not be content to be strictly tied to one,
Certainly, if shared by two, it can be persuaded to stay
For a little time longer, but not an eternity;
Never an eternity.
III.
Asking to keep the love for a time without end
Would make the love weary,
Slipping it into a realm of neither
Walks into the sunset
Nor letters sealed with eager kisses.
And thus, weary love, hidden behind routine
And tied snugly to obligation,
With not a breath left
To whisper good wishes into a lovers ear
Will flee and go, where it wishes no one to know
With whom it might next be found.
VENETIAN BLINDS
by Clifford K. Watkins, Jr.
It's never relevant
the mouth is an arid
cotton desert
breathing thru lungs of black
mined coal
torching the mind
excavating a soul
a rapid fire of happy hearts
where wisdom falters and destiny embarks
on a ceremony where life flickers in simple sparks
following the streets
cursing a mockery of dreams
the last gasp of a fiend
clasping a crucifix
wallowing in the obscene
like a serpent in a cavern below
waiting to be uncovered and exposed
hearts flutter
bodies contract in electric motions
of silvery-green heat lightning
startling yet enlightening
THE WILDERNESS
by Clifford K. Watkins, Jr.
the wilderness is a portrait of realness
a lost world eternally captured in stillness
coal black eyes burn in salty surprise
god is a fleeting memory
heaven a soft chorus
eyes squinting
fixated in the worried womb of the bleeding forest
kill the poor
and feed the florists
she ponders in a plethora of fiery carcinogens
legs open ready for sin
chasing her lost horizon
are we infinity
horizons saturated in radiant hues reveal true divinity
dance in the acid rain
faith and dances
dying and chanting in obscene ritual pain
I'll pinch a smidgen of religion
a torpid legion
minds asunder
coveting separate regions
wallowing maniacally
bathing in the acid rain
it always ends the same
SURVIVE ME
by Rana Kelly
You told me to sleep with the angels
I lay down in blood alone
Waited six winters and the letting came so hard
Time seemed strange
And I forgot your face in dreams
Four years I’m undead.
But yesterday you
Sang to my pendulum,
And she swings to you,
Just like I do,
Lulled by the dark of your eyes.
Not so stupid so, am I.
Blessed black waters flow over me now,
And I want your words against my ears
Like you used to be.
In the fit of my jeans,
Carry you around in crevices like a stain
And you swallowed me so long ago,
Choke on me now
Hold hard in your throat my memory
I won’t let you go,
Easy through my teeth now,
Never so sure as not.
And you don’t know about me
But I do.
And I am complete
Come on and over to me
Hold over for another winter.
Bury yourself in new snow.
Survive me.
***
IT'S THOSE LITTLE THINGS
by Floriana Hall
Coincidences happen every day
That make life more interesting
And make one realize that
It really is a small world after all.
You start to drown
But someone saves you in time,
Your life goes on
To find your niche.
You float away in a cloud of dance
And meet your soul mate,
The feeling is mutual.,
It must have been meant to be.
Before a trip, you have an accident,
Totaled car means canceled vacation.
Meanwhile, there's a death in the family
So you are where you need to be.
You have a dream or nightmare,
Your child has the identical dream,
What's scary is the dream becomes reality
And makes you wonder.
You take a trip to Disney
And run into a neighbor
Who lives down the street,
One you never see while at home.
You receive a beautiful card
And another just like it is delivered,
Both daughters thinking alike
To please their mother.
You are lonely for a while
So visit some epitaphs,
On your doorstep is a stray kitten
You learn to love, togetherness.
You see a name you think you recognize
And find out it's the daughter of
Someone you met in Antarctica years ago,
What a joy to talk to her!
Every day brings something new,
Chance and circumstance,
It's these little things we experience
That make the world go round.
A WATER LILY’S ADVICE
By John Ellis
Oh lovely squatting bloom
With a soft magenta hue
With little yellow eyelets
Filled with morning dew.
Come speak, O rosy one,
My heart is far above,
But my lady gives a shove
And says to hell with love.
What shall I do, my dainty one?
Oh dear one, what did you say--
That I should go and give a bray
And do not come another day?
HAVE SOUP, WILL TRAVEL
By Patricia Wellingham-Jones
I carry frozen soup to my friend in her cave
(she's been hibernating since late last summer).
We drop the cubes in pots, add water and heat.
I coax her out of the house with promises
not to talk of writing, or children, or health. Filled coffee mugs
in hand, we go for a wander. Through acres of wild mustard,
star thistle, hidden snakes, we find respite
under live oak draped in grape. Vines twist
through gnarled branches like tangled hair.
Bottomland covered, mugs drained, we trudge uphill
toward home, past the hollowed tree trunk littered
with small bones, one red and black woodpecker feather.
The rich smell of bean-barley soup drifts on a breeze. I
am welcome with my comfort food, outsider's voice
so long as I, too, melt away
when the soup is gone.
ADVICE TO A YOUNG WRITER
By Patricia Wellingham-Jones
I say, fling it all out there,
anyone who wants it
can have it. It?
Words won through brainstorms,
like gold stars winking at pyramid tops,
spiders spinning threads to the moon,
handles cranking out ideas like well water.
Don’t clutch what you’ve learned
to your bosom
with tight-crossed arms.
Toss it into the ether,
fling it high,
let it drift from the clouds,
spatter each upturned face
with the eager joy
of rushing words.
Former psychology researcher, writer, editor, lecturer Patricia Wellingham-Jones has recently been published in Edgz, Ibbetson Street Press, Underground Window, HazMat Review, Ink&Ashes, Long Story Short. She is a three-time Pushcart Prize nominee. Her newest books are Belt of Transit (PWJ Publishing) and Hormone Stew (Snark Publishing); also published is Don’t Turn Away: Poems about Breast Cancer. Her website is www.wellinghamjones.com .
OUT OF THE GROUND
(To The Victims Of The Mine Disasters)
by Linda Grazulis
Out of the ground
rise the souls of brave men
who worked with courage
to feed families,
put a roof over their heads,
and clothes on their backs.
One day unexpected...
shock and despair.
Trapped... with pick and shovel
in conditions too dangerous
to ever dream of making a living with -
the miners faced a dreadful challenge.
With sweaty brows and racing hearts,
these dedicated men searched
for any possibility of escape.
Trapped... they prayed fervently
to the Creator for deliverance.
But if not rescued, then to hear God
cry out, "I receive you now."
"Come home to me miners...
to streets paved with gold
instead of coal dust.
Stand tall and release your
fears and loss of breath.
Come home...
and finally be free of the ground
which you were created."
Linda C. Grazulis, born in Pittsburgh, PA, loves writing since her first poem published in the fourth grade newspaper. She attended the Community College and learned how to work the computer and Microsoft office. Linda has been published with Blue Mountain Arts in which she had an Easter greeting card published and was printed in two of their books entitled, "MARRIAGE IS A PROMISE OF LOVE," and "BELIEVE AND SUCCEED." She has also been publishing by Salesian Inspirational Books, Ideals Magazine, and The Upper Room, (A Meditation Devotional). Linda belongs to the Poet's Nook which is led by Floriana Hall. She was also printed in their latest book, "TOUCHING THE HEARTS OF GENERATIONS." She now resides in Cuyahoga Falls with her husband.
SURRENDER
by Russell Bittner
It was cold where I stood ranting
till you offered me a shelter,
took me in and made me swelter till mid-morning.
I tunneled down and trundled through,
probed your copper core and knew,
stone-faced, you’d command it: Do my bidding!
Then I became your convert;
my conversion made you tremble;
though I writhed, I never railed against your tactic.
I was your spindle, and you spun me,
while I whirled alone and wrestled
through a solid hedge of nettle into flame.
But when I sought to own you,
tried to plumb and then to mine you,
tried, in vain, to strip your craven core,
against God and me you raved,
so that no lamb could be saved
by some charitable angel passing over.
You closed your eyes like callow youth,
feigned a little love. In truth –
life’s irony much reveled in our fiction.
For once you’d staked and flagged me,
just as quick did you discard me,
like some trash upon some heap upon some floor.
But now I ask you: Am I useful,
lying quiet, keeping still
as a doormat, or upon it, just a stain?
Call me feckless! Call me fiend!
Call me thug or call me dung!
Call me anything at all… but let me stay?
Your shop is closed. Your door is shut.
Now you rise and now you strut –
as contemptuous as a pirate pitching ballast –
on down the hall, out to the porch,
to seek another’s blazing torch
as ever fresher revelations blight our pathos.
I’ve walked the dog. I’ve paid the rent.
I concede – let’s fold the tent.
If it must be, so it shall be. I’ll move on.
And though I can’t be with you,
let me last of all beseech you –
now his lover, to be liquorish till the end.
THE THRUPPLE TREE: AN ODE
By John Ellis
All praise to thee, thy Majesty.
We love the fluttering flippiness
of thy enchanting square leaves.
One whose branches hear
the throstle's thrilling trill,
the lark's lusceious leaps,
the jary's jarring jerks,
and the robin's robust rill.
Their glittering reflections
ripple the countryside.
Thy cleansing sweetness
sprinkles the remaining rain.
Peter and his lovely Ultrajean
place initials in the sturdy trunk,
which spell 'PU' for ever.
I stand tall before thee.
All praise to there, thy Majesty
SHADOWS
by Marie Delgado Travis
I sit alone on a park bench.
A playful breeze musses my hair
And covers me with kisses
As you once did.
The memory of
Our walks together
Clutches my heart
Until I can
No longer breathe
Nor bear the weight.
My eyes cloud at the glimpse
Of our passing shadows;
Throat swells with the
Sound of your name,
Unuttered.
So many years...
And my soul still
Cannot accept
That those two lovers
Died in their youth,
And what once was truth
Can never be that again.
###
MARIE DELGADO TRAVIS is an award-winning writer. She writes poetry and prose in English and Spanish. Her poem, "The Window" recently won Second Prize in the international Tom Howard Poetry Contest (over 1,600 entries received).
till you offered me a shelter,
