Sunday, October 28, 2012

Three Poems by Amit Parmessur

Morning Dew
 
I know you stare at the pregnant
dewdrops mourning on the leaf
and feel like Atargatis, ready to
transform yourself into a mermaid
for unwillingly killing my love for you.
 
I know you wonder where
these dewdrops were born.
Yes, right from my heart.
 
A more careful look will
reveal they are not mourning.
They are half-bird femme fatales
whose enchanting voices
want to draw you to me again.
 
These dewdrops have stopped
and hope to avoid a dark plunge.
You must move before my legs
fuse together and I forget my name
one stormy night
invaded by guitar music.
 
Mistakes happen and
rainbows do break into dust.
In every dewdrop there is a Utopia.
In every man there is a woman.
 
I’ll forgive.
Run.
 
Or else, one day you might keep
asking “Is my King alive?” and count
the dewdrops on every blade of grass.
 
 

 
Pre-Christmas Colors
 
When I stop my bicycle in
the swirling dust and watch the
old woman’s lush garden I feel
like a roasted turkey on two wheels.
Once at the library the textures
and tastes of the books transform
me into a blue world map and
then flatten me into an ancient page.
The frantic bazaar decolorizes me
and I become invisible. I still
owe the egg seller a few coins.
Forgetfulness you see.
When I stop again and see the
sun stealing water from the
municipality fountain I feel eager
to serve others. I’m the type who
feels timeless when I hear the big
town clock. Yet, I fail to be proud
of my people as I see almost
everyone whizzing past with musical
corks in their ears nowadays.
I feel like pointing a gun at those
who throw cigarette butts on the
ground too. They have a head
of cauliflower instead of a brain!
I just hope Christ never quits me
and we ban selling unborn chicks
or else I shall keep buying eggs for free
and hatch them into life and
fill my street with merry cackling.
 
 

Horizon
 
The horizon seems complacent.
The sea is sending out fingers
to accuse her of deceit.
The sea is sending out tongues
to remind her of his voice.
 
The girl muses with pristine glee,
sure he will forgive her,
on the bench she destroyed him.
She gazes at the overlapping love
signs drawn by crazy teens
though much is awaiting her;
yeah, carefree she sits on,
smiling dreamily.
 
One minute sign strikes her
and her heart springs up,
as the green leaves around rustle.
 
On her way to him she sees him
in someone else’s arms.
She understands.
 
She comes back and
sleeps on the sand for some time
while the sea is sending out paws.
She stands
and goes to meet the horizon.
 
 
 
 
 
Born in 1983, Amit Parmessur has been published in over 100 literary magazines, like Ann Arbor Review, Salt, Hobo Camp Review, Misfits' Miscellany, Jellyfish Whispers, Kalkion and Red Fez. His book on blog Lord Shiva and other poems has also been published by The Camel Saloon. He has been nominated for the Pushcart Award and Best of the Web Anthology. He lives in Quatre-Bornes, in Mark Twains paradise island Mauritius, with his cat and three dogs.

Wednesday, October 24, 2012

Two Poems by Juliet Wilson

Evening Rain

A brief heavy downpour
-almost tropical-
stops
suddenly

dark clouds lift
a pale rainbow

chimney pots
glow with evening

distant thunder
forebodes a later storm


Autumn Evening

Geese gather in the fields
hidden by the evening mist.

Spider webs drape hedgerows
where robins sing.

Stone becomes gold
in magical light.

Deer rest, alert
under a yellow frost-moon.

The hedgehog's prickled ball
waits.



Juliet Wilson is an Edinburgh based writer, adult education tutor and conservation volunteer. Her second poetry chapbook Unthinkable Skies was published in 2010. She blogs at Crafty Green Poet (http://craftygreenpoet.blogspot.com) and edits the poetry journal Bolts of Silk (http://boltsofsilk.blogspot.com).

Sunday, October 21, 2012

A Poem by J.lynn Sheridan

Giver

The green plucked pumpkin
         steams in my pot
not for the cobbler but for the
                        cobblestones
painted with rust and toiled
                                            doilies.

I’ve seen the apple-skin-
                                                                           
                                    thin widow
lay her wishing head upon
              washed rags and
fossilled leaves

with
fresh blessings
          for her losses—
the etchings in her sandalled cheek

where cobblers and merchants tread
with heavy steps

unknowingly tapping stones
into old world
                 works of art
                  
fringed with prairie grass.
 
 
 
J.lynn Sheridan poems and writes in the Chain O’Lakes area of northern Illinois where she lives with her scruffy construction-guy husband and children, but she’d rather live in an old hardware store for the aroma and ambiance. Her poems can most recently be found in Beyond the Dark Room (an international poetry anthology), a Poetic Bloomings’ anthology , MouseTail Press and her blog, https://writingonthesun.wordpress.com and @J.lynnSheridan.

Friday, October 19, 2012

A Poem by Christina Murphy

 
Crossing
 
red blaze of oak on a back road leading to visible fields where no house is
 
the mustard seed is a window into all that remains unseen on crooked paths overgrown with weeds and twisted roots
 
the glass eye seeing darkly shall know as it is known and weep in solitude along the crossing that never ends
 
tribulation is to grace as tides in the ocean opening to rain; deliverance is a maze of cold with snowflakes descending
 
that cover the surface, obscure its beauty, and leave the traveler in one dimension--calling out, calling out
 
always the call, lost in the frozen air, alone, adrift, as the seas in equatorial /ethereal splendor
 
as all other dimensions converge and disappear
 
 
 
 
Christina Murphy lives and writes in a 100 year-old Arts and Crafts style house along the Ohio River. Her poetry is an exploration of consciousness as subjective experience, and her most recent work appears in PANK, La Fovea, StepAway Magazine, Pear Noir! and Humanimalz. The poets she most admires are Gertrude Stein, T.S. Eliot, and Jane Hirshfield for their undaunted (and impeccable) sense of the interrelationship of language, imagery, and consciousness. Her work has twice been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and for the 2012 Best of the Net Anthology.

Wednesday, October 17, 2012

A Poem by Phillip A. Ellis

Azaleas

Azaleas glow
in the light of the moon's dreams,
and the brilliant whiteness
turns them translucent,
like a wisp of a breeze,
and just as slight.



Phillip A. Ellis is a freelance critic, poet and scholar. His
chapbooks, The Flayed Man and Symptoms Positive and
Negative
, are available. He is working on a collection for Diminuendo
Press. Another has been accepted by Hippocampus Press. He is the editor of
Melaleuca.

Tuesday, October 16, 2012

Two Poems by Travis Laurence Naught

Everyone Needs Sustenance

Monkeys muddle bananas into necessary truth smoothies
By gnashing their teeth together

Grinding the unpeeled fruit until juices start to seep out
From both puncture holes in the skin
And natural seams separating from the pressure
Of being chewed and squished by capable hunters

Who are only trying to survive
And better understand the world through natural fulfilment


Territorial

Lion with the golden mane event scheduled
be wary of the animalistic pride
stalking in the near high grass
planted there by bowling pin king
of the inner city jungle with its own ecosystem.

Drop timing to be executed with justice
expertly handed down the ladder
until fire truck extended rungs span the gap
over heads on lesser beings
between predator and prey the real fight exists.

Fighting tooth and nail gun battles
rage throughout the lighted flame blaze
sparking interest among nearby creatures
ready to flee the scene at a moment's notice
because proud victors all flaunt their dominance.



Travis Laurence Naught is a poet who happens to be a quadriplegic wheelchair user. He earned his bachelor's degree in psychology from Eastern Washington University in 2005. His poetry memoir, The Virgin Journals, was released by ASD Publishing in 2012. More individual poems by Travis could be found in print (RiverLit, Northwest Boulevard, Empirical Magazine and more) and online ( http://www.deadmansreach.com, http://49writers.blogspot.com, http://www.pyrokinection.com/ and more). You can follow his daily update page online at www.facebook.com/TravisLaurenceNaught

Wednesday, October 10, 2012

A Poem by Louis Marvin

Sharing
 
Yesterday
I alone sat at many benches in the arboretum
 
Today
I alone sit on this roof in Waikiki
 
While a whispering wind makes palms sway
 
here and there with the sounds of parrots and macaws
caged here, free there
 
I have no one to share these silly, simple secrets with
 
Can I share them with you?
 
 
 
louis marvin
on this pacific island with chinese girls
born burbank, lived phoenix, loe the island
teacher, coach, ex-soldier, writer/artist, tennis champion

Thursday, October 4, 2012

A Poem by April Salzano

Psycho Finch
 
The crazed finch that built
a nest of moss in the middle
of my hanging petunia basket
screams at the front
window every morning at daybreak
as if part rooster,
firing misguided warnings
at her own reflection.
On the inside, my son yells back.
Each stands respective ground
well into morning.
 
 
 
 
April Salzano teaches college writing in Pennsylvania and is working on her first several collections of poetry and an autobiographical novel on raising a child with Autism. Her work has appeared in Poetry Salzburg, Pyrokinection, Convergence, Ascent Aspirations, The Rainbow Rose, The Camel Saloon, The Applicant, The Mindful Word, Napalm and Novocain, Jellyfish Whispers, The South Townsville Micro Poetry Journal, The Weekender Magazine, Deadsnakes, Winemop, Daily Love, WIZ, and is forthcoming in Inclement, Poetry Quarterly, Decompression, Work to a Calm, and Windmills.