As a college undergraduate, Joy Harold Helsing won two top awards for poetry in the Atlantic Monthly student writing contests. Her work has appeared in a variety of journals and she has published two chapbooks and one book, Confessions of the Hare (PWJ Publishing). After many years in San Francisco she now lives in the Sierra Nevada foothills of Northern California.
NOT UNTIL YOU'RE A MOTHER
by Linda Grazulis
What a drag to listen to her unreasonable
thunders and roars!
Sometimes as a daughter I just couldn't
dream of building a relationship with this
exasperating woman called "MOTHER!"
I wanted to be free to find myself and to explore
my world without apron strings attached,
binding me to a list of unwanted traditions
and rules.
I yearned for more "yes's" and less "no's."
Yet mother set boundaries and I bucked them at
almost every turn.
As a teenager I viewed the world an amazing
adventure and I hadn't the faintest notion
that mom was once a dreamer too.
I envistioned her as an antique emerging out
of the dark ages.
Pressing forward with my own ideals, I tossed
mom's wisdom to the wind and took her caring
nature for granted.
Unkind words broke her heart as well as mine,
and they were never meant to wound so deeply.
As the years passed, role-playing gradually changed.
I, the daughter, now see mom in me.
I hear the thunderous roars of "NO!"
I create numerous lists of boundaries and rules.
I feel the chuckles over my so-called ageless wisdom.
So I'll patiently let the years glide by and wait
like my mom until you, my child of challenge are
pronounced a mother.
Then, I believe you'll understand with the loving,
forgiving eyes of maturity.
Linda Grazulis was born in Pittsburgh, PA. She began taking writing seriously in the fourth grade when one of her poems was published in the school paper. She attended Community College Of Allegheny County where she took several computer courses. Linda has been published by Salesian Missions Inspirational Books, Ideals Magazine, The Upper Room Devotional, Blue Mountain Arts cards and books, and a book published by the Poet's Nook entitled, "TOUCHING THE HEARTS OF GENERATIONS," editor Floriana Hall. She is in the process of writing a novel. She now lives in Cuyahoga Falls, with her husband. Contact Linda Grazulis.
TATO/fantasy adventure for readers ages 8 to 13. Available now from Wings Press
EXPRESSION
by Marie Delgado Travis
Yesterday you told me
I was your whole world.
I shook convulsively...
Couldn't help it.
No one should be
Anyone's entire world.
We're so flawed, fallible...
For a minute, it was hard to tell
If I was Atlas or Sisyphus.
But then, I composed myself.
It was probably just
Hyperbole anyway.
Marie Delgado Travis is an award-winning writer. She writes poetry and prose in English and Spanish. Her poetry books are available at major online bookstores, including Amazon.com. Visit her web site:
A ROW OF CHINESE BOXES
By Peter Layton
A trapped drama,
I'm sitting alone in my house.
Gray chipped walls.
Each an egg in its cell.
I sometimes have a long time to think.
You look out.
It's like the view from a supertanker freighter.
All the world is this gray flat line.
But just as the urge to swallow,
You can't not know bad.bad unimagines are semi resting
Just beyond where you envision
Wherever you're going to be.
POEM OF THE MONTH:
THE AND OF RIGHT AND WRONG
By Aaron Edward Avis
In the process of decision
Duality forms.
Thoughts counter actions
In a dance of choice.
Words sound deep in the consciousness,
Echoing through like droplets of water in deep caves.
But the darkness has no light
And the fight
To do right
Is lost.
For action is instinctual
When formed of the basis of anxiety.
A blinking reflex of lost souls.
Deaf and dumb,
Silently hearing
That thought
That steers
The hopelessness of fear away.
The action has no action for the choice
Was made,
And not heard.
I must confess it has been years since I have submitted any type of writing. since my high school years I have been alone with my writing, letting few read anything. My poems deal with relationships which know no gender bias.
SELF-DISCOVERY
by Marie Delgado Travis
Today, October 12th, like
Columbus, I finally see land.
It lies there, straight ahead,
Peering softly through the haze.
I was almost afraid
to trust my eyes,
But the vision is real.
The world is, as
I’ve suspected
For so long,
Shaped round.
I have reached the
Long-dreamt,
Long desired
Indies.
Perhaps like Columbus,
This monumental journey
Will end in failure and
Disillusionment.
And I will be vilified,
Misinterpreted by those
Preferring to believe that a
Dismally flat, colorless
Universe conspires constantly
To keep its inhabitants
Suppressed in shadows,
Sackcloth, shackles.
That would. perhaps, be true,
In many parts of the world
I left behind.
But in this chaste
New World, which
I now reclaim in the
Name of the Lord,
There exists no promise,
Save endless possibility.
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). Marie's web site.
my wife and I live in southern Indiana, although I grew up in Wyoming. We are both grads of Indiana University in Music; I'm a pianist and she teaches Suzuki Method violin. Her day job is as a cleric at IU.
The drifter carries a small shovel to dig his own grave
he stands eerily beside a gravel road
unable to measure his soul
having fled his humdrum life on the path to freedom that he never finds
he never escapes his mind
the labyrinth inside
dirt descends from his hourglass hands into a shallow hole
he knows everything
yet wants nothing
he displays his scars reminding himself that he was once alive
he impales himself with invisible knives
and hurls himself into a unmarked grave
as a random stranger oozes from his eyes
hello god
goodbye devil
today
I'm the drifter
ugly
unkempt
walking into the sun
ready to vanish like singing skulls rolling into oblivion
and tomorrow
no one remembers him
Clifford K. Watkins, Jr., is a thirty-two-year old writer/lyricist originally from High Point, North Carolina. He's been published by Underground Window, Ygdrasil, Prism Quarterly, Seeker Magazine, Poetic Voices, Poetry Stop, Poet's Haven, Muscadine Lines, Oracular Tree, Cynic Magazine, Winamop, Wildchild Publishing, Endzville, and Infinite Glass. He currently lives in Jacksonville, Florida.
LOOKING FOR PERFECTION
By Floriana Hall
If you expect perfection in any living person,
You are sure to be disappointed.
If you believe that everyone likes you,
That is just an illusion.
There will always be someone,
Somewhere, who will criticize
The seemingly wonderful being you try to be.
If others do not live up to your standards,
Remember they are individuals who act accordingly.
Know you cannot please everyone
Nor they you.
Never assume what someone else is thinking,
Assumptions create whirlwinds of destruction.
Look for some good trait in each person
You may be surprised at what you discover.
If you hear a story
Take care in its repetition
For rumor has a way of forming interpretation
Which turns roses into thorns
Don't make mountains out of molehills
Dismiss rather than dwell
Roses will bloom rather than wither.
Life fleets by like a whiff of fragrant flowers
No matter who you are
Or what you accomplish.
Just be the best you can be
Searching for the light shining like a halo
On the world and its imperfections.
Choose not to be a thorn --
Be a rose.
Floriana Hall, born 10/2/27 in Pittsburgh, Pa., June 1945 graduate and Distinguished Alumna of Cuyahoga Falls High School, attended Akron University Business school; wrote poetry as a child, and columns for high school newspaper. Married Robert E. Hall in 1948, five children and nine grandchildren. Author of four inspirational books, SMALL CHANGE, DADDY WAS A BAD BOY, THE SANDS OF RHYME, and OUT OF THE ORDINARY Short Stories; at least 500 poems published in U.S., England, and India, winner of many poetry prizes. Floriana founded the Poet's Nook at Cuyahoga Falls Library (Ohio) seven years ago and coordinates it monthly. She edited and published The Poet's Nook's two previous books, THROUGH OUR EYES, Poems of Beautiful Northeast Ohio, and POET'S NOOK POTPOURRI, and is in the process of publishing another poetry book, titled TOUCHING THE HEARTS OF GENERATIONS, and another nonfiction book, HEARTS ON THE MEND. She feels blessed that God has inspired her to keep on writing. WHO'S WHO IN INTERNATIONAL POETRY, WHO'S WHO IN US AUTHORS, EDITORS, AND POETS, MARQUIS WHO'S WHO IN AMERICA.
POETRY READING
By Joy Harold Helsing
I could have stayed home
in warmth and comfort. Instead,
I braved wind and rain,
slippery roads,
careless drivers in the fog,
to hear a few people I hardly know
read a few words.
What draws me?
I can find phrases just as beautiful,
thoughts fully as profound,
between the covers of a book.
But there is more to poetry
than black marks on a white page.
Truth, when uttered aloud,
sparks an electric connection
between speaker and listener.
Life flows to life. A bond is formed.
Each one of us becomes
more than one.
It is this quickening, this fusion
that calls me through the storm.
I want to hear the magic in your words.
I want to feel the beating of your hearts.
GETTYSBURG
By Kenneth J. McCaffrey
From an orchard, the hollow beating of a drum.
Heard faintly through the fruited trees.
Shuffling feet of soldiers marching.
Enemy forces to seize.
Bayonets drawn swiftly.
From the brow, cold sweat.
Cannons roar ever loudly.
Rifle hammers, firmly set.
Battle lines formed quickly.
The face of civil unrest.
Bodies lie still in eerie silence.
Their fate determined, their final test!
Large fields once green,
Are now blue and gray.
Precious blood runs freely.
Another gruesome day.
Historic words sadly spoken.
We cannot hallow this ground.
The deadly contest is over.
A brass bugle to sound.
HURT
By William K. Lawrence
The band-aid on my finger
Is coming undone
Day by day.
Like a brown heart-shaped leaf
In the dead of winter
Beneath her feet.
I feel like I don’t need it,
But it’s tight
When I pull on it;
So I procrastinate
And dream a while
Of the freedom
And the what ifs—
What if I’m missing out?
(Probably not)
What if the world opens up—
Bloody red with uncontrollable flow?
(Well, then I’m better off where I am)
After all, everyone hurts
And everyone needs a bandage to cover that wound.
MATURITY
By William K. Lawrence
Last night I had a dream
I woke up in a fit
And stormed outside to have a smoke
To relieve some inner tension.
I woke up today
Wanting a smoke, but haven’t had one
In 10 months
And in that time I’ve given birth
To somebody new
A little fuller
A little healthier
A little lazier too, for some odd reason
I don’t clean so much anymore—
The dishes go neglected,
The laundry piles up.
The counter goes wet without a wipe
After the occasional shave
Like a man in a coma
Whose nurse comes to clean him up
Every few days
And whose best friend died
10 months earlier in a night ride
Out the window on a highway.
I may never get over this.
HURT
By William K. Lawrence
AMOUR IN THE WIND
Doll in my living room
from a pottery barn
made of loyal glass
about to drop soon.
On the other side of the fence
and over the hill
and through the enticing woods:
My parallel lives— a woman.
My voice is mute though
like the doll at home who
does not read my words
does not feel my world.
Anchor at the ankle now—
cutting the comfortable rope
would lead to dangerous seas
so I stay the course.
Whisper these secrets
to the wind
and hope they reach her ear
because I can't go alone.
William K. Lawrence is a graduate of the Southampton College MFA writing program.
His past publications include essays, fiction, and poetry in various journals and websites
such as Long Story Short. His first collection of poetry “State of Love and Trust” was published in 2005. He writes, teaches, and lives in New York. More information about William can be found at www.wklawrence.com
I REMEMBER WHEN I WAS A PLAYER
By Russell Bittner
I look at the field; I look at the court;
I look at the pool; I look at my bed;
and remember – when I was a player.
I look overhead as each plane ascends,
and then I look out as mere children descend
towards the subway – with someplace to go.
I look at my drink alongside my butts;
I look at my face – then wish I had not;
and I hear it: how ‘prayer’ sounds like ‘player.’
I look at a girl; I look at my boy;
I note how that girl then looks at my boy;
and remember – how I, too, was a player.
I look at my feet; I look at the sky;
I look at my pen; I pull out a page;
and then wonder – if I’m still a player.
Family Planning
by Russell Bittner
Though you and I are litter-free,
you shake the dust from stars for three.
Why do I then procrastinate?
Try gamely to extrapolate.
Two is ardent; two, complete;
(it’s the sum of us: four feet).
But two is nature’s sinecure –
an office no pair can endure.
I appeared to you distracted
at the moment you contracted,
and to cough at your request
that I invest in more than breast.
When you handily protracted
what I’d cannily retracted,
I heard you crassly snicker “steer”
so bullied up my bullish gear.
You say lovers owe to science
what you coyly call compliance.
I want races through wet places;
you, to populate oasis.
We’re (1) long on motives; (2) without means;
(3) keen on votives; (4) short on beans.
If what you want is family,
then let’s just buy a dog.
Published first at PW Review (Nov. ’05); then at ALongStoryShort.net (Sept. ’06).
Russell lives and writes on a small island off the East Coast. The island is called ‘Long’ and his borough is called ‘Brooklyn.’ Like Hobbes, he believes that “life is short, brutish and nasty.” He also believes, however, that – like this tiny clod of an island – art is long; and, with Donne, that no man is one, entire of itself – either an island or a work of art. He can be found at RRB@POBox.com.
Night-scent
By Patricia Wellingham-Jones
At bedtime
she sprays perfume
smelling of moss-rain and stone
on neck and wrists
slides under the covers
In the dark hours
when dragons invade the room
and flames shoot through her dreams
she burrows deep in her pillow
comforted by the scent of her skin
THE TREE
By Vince Gullaci
And you know
the tree
has a knotty nose
on a trunk
that changes face
surreptitiously
walks on tiptoe
to another place.
Vince is an Aussie poet,born in Italy. To see other poems written by him, Google his name please. Contact him.
I look at the pool; I look at my bed;
