tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33020181248251650042024-03-15T18:09:40.332-07:00Jellyfish WhispersA.J. Huffmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07410033585195378946noreply@blogger.comBlogger654125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3302018124825165004.post-22697218652171346872022-10-02T12:42:00.001-07:002022-10-02T12:42:11.659-07:00Three Poems by J.J. Campbell<div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><i>a tornado watch in february</i></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><i><br /></i></b></div><div style="text-align: left;">here comes</div><div style="text-align: left;">the thunder</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">the wind that</div><div style="text-align: left;">damages more</div><div style="text-align: left;">than just money</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">cats and dogs</div><div style="text-align: left;">running for</div><div style="text-align: left;">cover as the </div><div style="text-align: left;">bones start</div><div style="text-align: left;">to ache</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">nothing quite</div><div style="text-align: left;">like a tornado</div><div style="text-align: left;">watch in </div><div style="text-align: left;">february</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><i>the parking lot of the grocery store</i></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><i><br /></i></b></div><div style="text-align: left;">i was pumping gas</div><div style="text-align: left;">the other day and </div><div style="text-align: left;">i swear i saw a duck</div><div style="text-align: left;">get on top of a car</div><div style="text-align: left;">off in the distance</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">for a second, i</div><div style="text-align: left;">thought maybe it</div><div style="text-align: left;">was another acid</div><div style="text-align: left;">flashback</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">when i got done</div><div style="text-align: left;">pumping and got</div><div style="text-align: left;">my receipt, i drove</div><div style="text-align: left;">over into the parking</div><div style="text-align: left;">lot of the grocery</div><div style="text-align: left;">store</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">sure enough, there</div><div style="text-align: left;">was a fucking duck</div><div style="text-align: left;">on top of a red car</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">happy and warm</div><div style="text-align: left;">in the sunshine</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">too bad it wasn't </div><div style="text-align: left;">a damn convertible</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><i>consumed with war these days</i></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><i><br /></i></b></div><div style="text-align: left;">i sit back and</div><div style="text-align: left;">watch the birds</div><div style="text-align: left;">fight outside</div><div style="text-align: left;">of the kitchen </div><div style="text-align: left;">window</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">every living thing</div><div style="text-align: left;">consumed with</div><div style="text-align: left;">war these days</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">i wonder what </div><div style="text-align: left;">god pissed those</div><div style="text-align: left;">birds off</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">the rain starts to </div><div style="text-align: left;">fall again</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">i better get out of</div><div style="text-align: left;">this chair before</div><div style="text-align: left;">arthritis says no</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">in the front yard</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">a squirrel is</div><div style="text-align: left;">contemplating</div><div style="text-align: left;">one giant leap</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">the stupid fucker</div><div style="text-align: left;">is about three</div><div style="text-align: left;">moments away </div><div style="text-align: left;">from his death</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">J.J. Campbell (1976 - ?) is currently trapped in suburbia, plotting his escape. He's been widely published over the years, most recently at Synchronized Chaos, Terror House Magazine, Horror Sleaze Trash, The Rye Whiskey Review, and The Beatnik Cowboy. You can find him most days on his mildly entertaining blog, evil delights. (https://evildelights.blogspot.com)</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div>A.J. Huffmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07410033585195378946noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3302018124825165004.post-999677259079195502022-10-02T12:32:00.003-07:002022-10-02T12:32:56.688-07:00A Poem by Alan Walowitz<div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><i>Primordial</i></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><i><br /></i></b></div><div style="text-align: left;">We've made the soup-of-the-day ourselves--</div><div style="text-align: left;">this bouillabaisse--now brought to a slow boil.</div><div style="text-align: left;">For good measure, the undersized fish will not be thrown back,</div><div style="text-align: left;">but will be wrung out and allowed to steep in the broth.</div><div style="text-align: left;">A cigarette butt tossed in carelessly, somewhat like a bouillon</div><div style="text-align: left;">but more in the manner of Belmondo--for presentation alone--</div><div style="text-align: left;">and no sign yet of a change in taste,</div><div style="text-align: left;">cool is still so hot, and as yet no answer to the occasional but insistent query,</div><div style="text-align: left;">what's to become of the lungs of the world?</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Our own reflection on the surface distorts everything below,</div><div style="text-align: left;">as it has since the beginning</div><div style="text-align: left;">when we were a tiny piece of sludge, magically delivered,</div><div style="text-align: left;">which managed, improbably, to hold on, though barely,</div><div style="text-align: left;">and take dominion everywhere.</div><div style="text-align: left;">We were born of pot luck--</div><div style="text-align: left;">twigs, lichen, limbs, nail clippings, a communion of spare parts,</div><div style="text-align: left;">on occasion, whole carcasses of creatures</div><div style="text-align: left;">lit by the lightning of our wildest dreams,</div><div style="text-align: left;">and then stirred by time and the current we could never control.</div><div style="text-align: left;">Oh, this is ours--and must announce it for the world to hear</div><div style="text-align: left;">every chance we get.</div><div style="text-align: left;">Now it's just us and the trout--</div><div style="text-align: left;">this year the cutthroat, a beauty stocked by our benefactor</div><div style="text-align: left;">who, it seems, cannot bear the loneliness,</div><div style="text-align: left;">and, we're certain, will always give us one more chance.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Alan Walowitz is a Contributing Editor at Verse-Virtual, an Online Community Journal of Poetry. His chapbook, <i>Exactly Like Love</i>, comes from Osedax Press. The full-length, <i>The Story of the Milkman and Other Poems</i>, is available from Truth Serum Press. Most recently, from Arroyo Seco Press, is the chapbook, <i>In the Middle of the Night, </i>written with poet Betsy Mars.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div>A.J. Huffmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07410033585195378946noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3302018124825165004.post-14185627401401383832022-10-02T12:23:00.000-07:002022-10-02T12:23:04.695-07:00Two Poems by J.B. Hogan<div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><i>Falling Back</i></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><i><br /></i></b></div><div style="text-align: left;">Down any road, back country or town,</div><div style="text-align: left;">grass pushes at concrete,</div><div style="text-align: left;">trees form lush canopies,</div><div style="text-align: left;">taking back what had been</div><div style="text-align: left;">surrendered unwillingly,</div><div style="text-align: left;">reverting, decaying, letting go</div><div style="text-align: left;">order, structure, seeking</div><div style="text-align: left;">primal existence, wild,</div><div style="text-align: left;">unbound, untamed,</div><div style="text-align: left;">before thought or reason,</div><div style="text-align: left;">before plan or hope,</div><div style="text-align: left;">before vision or design.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><i>Nairobi to Amboseli</i></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><i><br /></i></b></div><div style="text-align: left;">Down Highway 104, narrow blacktop road,</div><div style="text-align: left;">Nairobi to Mombasa through</div><div style="text-align: left;">semi-arid land of grazing animals,</div><div style="text-align: left;">tribal herdsmen tending cattle</div><div style="text-align: left;">one, tall, thin Masai cow tender</div><div style="text-align: left;">jogging toward the road from far afield</div><div style="text-align: left;">playful, aggressive, spear launched</div><div style="text-align: left;">at passive vehicle, laughing</div><div style="text-align: left;">waiving, scaring up a dik-dik</div><div style="text-align: left;">hiding in the bush.</div><div style="text-align: left;">On to Kajiado through Arizona-like terrain and</div><div style="text-align: left;">toward the Tanzania border;</div><div style="text-align: left;">Namanga, Mt. Meru in the distance hovering,</div><div style="text-align: left;">tourist town, turn off for Amboseli,</div><div style="text-align: left;">long dirt road to lodge, a dry land,</div><div style="text-align: left;">dust devils in the distance, </div><div style="text-align: left;">whirlwinds rising into the sky,</div><div style="text-align: left;">half-filled lodges below Kilimanjaro,</div><div style="text-align: left;">its peaks under foggy shroud,</div><div style="text-align: left;">animals on the plains, tourist vehicles</div><div style="text-align: left;">clogging roads, lion kills,</div><div style="text-align: left;">bright sun slowly burning clouds</div><div style="text-align: left;">to reveal the great mountain's Kenyan peaks:</div><div style="text-align: left;">mighty Kibo, the lesser Mawenzi,</div><div style="text-align: left;">towering over the plain, their dual power</div><div style="text-align: left;">awesome, majestic, image seared in</div><div style="text-align: left;">eye and forever sight.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">J.B. Hogan has published over 290 stories and poems in eleven books, including<i> Bary Harbor, Bounty Riders, Time and Time Again, Mexican Skies, Tin Hollows Living Behind Time, Losing Cotton, The Rubicon, Fallen, The Apostate, </i>and <i>Angels in the Ozarks</i> (nonfiction, local professional baseball history). He lives in Fayetteville, Arkansas.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div>A.J. Huffmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07410033585195378946noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3302018124825165004.post-78337292862291279822022-10-02T11:57:00.004-07:002022-10-02T11:57:53.502-07:00Three Poems by Paul Tristram<div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><i>Transitional Fledglings</i></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><i><br /></i></b></div><div style="text-align: left;">. . . and somewhere, just a little further,</div><div style="text-align: left;">down this strange pathway of life.</div><div style="text-align: left;">When the day is so full of self-esteem</div><div style="text-align: left;">that the top button keeps popping open,</div><div style="text-align: left;">and it's hard to speak for smiling</div><div style="text-align: left;">I'll remind you of back when we met,</div><div style="text-align: left;">a couple of nest-leaving fledglings</div><div style="text-align: left;">all fresh with hope and adventure-ready . . . </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><i>Aerial Combat (Using The Page As Platform, Medium, Stage)</i></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><i><br /></i></b></div><div style="text-align: left;">Bloodied underbelly-feathers,</div><div style="text-align: left;">I talon-scratch</div><div style="text-align: left;">an upside-down arc, perfectly.</div><div style="text-align: left;">SPIN, momentarily</div><div style="text-align: left;">(Nailed to the exact same Spot),</div><div style="text-align: left;">like a heart attack,</div><div style="text-align: left;">a bulleted-target . . .</div><div style="text-align: left;">then, I wing-cut,</div><div style="text-align: left;">at an impossible angle,</div><div style="text-align: left;">all rapid momentum</div><div style="text-align: left;">and focused-motion.</div><div style="text-align: left;">My Reaper-eyes</div><div style="text-align: left;">are The Old Testament.</div><div style="text-align: left;">There should be Screeches</div><div style="text-align: left;">and Ripping audio-tears</div><div style="text-align: left;">trailing in my wake . . .</div><div style="text-align: left;">but, I'm shifting muscle</div><div style="text-align: left;">and sinew gears so fast,</div><div style="text-align: left;">whilst mentally-balancing</div><div style="text-align: left;">acceleration and murder . . .</div><div style="text-align: left;">that there's no time for anything</div><div style="text-align: left;">other than approaching IMPACT!</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><i>Barbaric Sympathy & North Node Unfolding</i></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><i><br /></i></b></div><div style="text-align: left;">Un-connecting from the Countryside</div><div style="text-align: left;">around you . . . </div><div style="text-align: left;">as your Footsteps regain Steadiness</div><div style="text-align: left;">. . . and your Mind</div><div style="text-align: left;">holograms Back</div><div style="text-align: left;">to partial Grounded-ness . . . for now.</div><div style="text-align: left;">It is time to stop [absently] talking</div><div style="text-align: left;">to the Watchers of your Walk</div><div style="text-align: left;">. . . as you Emerge once more,</div><div style="text-align: left;">to mingle [Lost] amongst</div><div style="text-align: left;">the [Heavy Drudge of] Regular Fold.</div><div style="text-align: left;">So, 'Madness' is a Portal</div><div style="text-align: left;">if Persevered through the Sickness</div><div style="text-align: left;">. . . and a 'Scald' or 'Burn'</div><div style="text-align: left;">upon Memory differs to actual Flesh</div><div style="text-align: left;">. . . as 'Adversity' gives 'Strength' . . . </div><div style="text-align: left;">'Insanity" brings 'Self-Honesty',</div><div style="text-align: left;">"Clarity' and 'Shamanic-Detachment'</div><div style="text-align: left;">. . . Crucial in Soul-Development</div><div style="text-align: left;">past 'Normal Boundary Restrictions'.</div><div style="text-align: left;">'Mediumship' and 'Clairvoyancy'</div><div style="text-align: left;">are simply 2 more 'Feathers' . . . </div><div style="text-align: left;">in the 'Cap' that you have Earned.</div><div style="text-align: left;">Your [Freshly] 'Blossomed Brain'</div><div style="text-align: left;">will never fit back inside that 'Box'</div><div style="text-align: left;">. . . which your Inner Travelling</div><div style="text-align: left;">took it [Rupturing] out of . . .</div><div style="text-align: left;">you have become an entire Universe</div><div style="text-align: left;">roaming around [inside] a New World.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Paul Tristram is a widely published, Welsh writer, who's currently up to his elbows in Magic, and long mat it remain this way.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div>A.J. Huffmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07410033585195378946noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3302018124825165004.post-47926442202804817942022-09-20T09:39:00.001-07:002022-09-20T09:39:29.970-07:00<p> </p><div style="text-align: left;">Jellyfish Whispers is back from hiatus!</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Please check out our submissions guidelines page <a href="http://www.jellyfishwhispers.com/p/submission-guidelines.html">HERE</a></div><div style="text-align: left;">and send us your best work!</div>A.J. Huffmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07410033585195378946noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3302018124825165004.post-12609069154196072112018-07-02T09:13:00.002-07:002018-07-02T09:13:29.947-07:00Three Poems from James B. Nicola<br />
<b><i>The Ceiling Slathers</i></b><br />
<b><i><br /></i></b>
When you go to Central Park<br />
lie down on some lawn or bench<br />
awhile. Check out the ceiling, all<br />
the cherubs of the Renaissance<br />
surpassed, not two-dimentional<br />
but four, Michelangelo<br />
himself just a little bit<br />
jealous.<br />
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<b><i>A Sandy Beach</i></b><br />
<b><i><br /></i></b>
It goes like wind and flows<br />
like<br />
time . . .<br />
Stand<br />
or lie on any over-trafficked strand<br />
<br />
or vacant one<br />
and note the patterned sand<br />
shifting while staying<br />
as unplanned as planned.<br />
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<b><i>The Moon, Still</i></b><br />
<b><i><br /></i></b>
The moon, still, tries to lure the salt-spiked sea<br />
for a quick unnoticed kiss if not a bath<br />
but the ocean's heavy and the face is far<br />
so gives up in awhile--but tries again<br />
<br />
as I with you who, like the ocean, rise<br />
each day to challenge an apparent lowness<br />
and, failing, spread a wetness o'er the earth:<br />
<br />
The side effect of such relentless love<br />
is life--not everywhere, but just about.<br />
<br />
And when we kissed, that one time, after tears,<br />
we tasted in the moistness of soft lips<br />
the soupcon of a saltiness, and shone.<br />
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
James B. Nicola's poems have appeared in such publications as <i>The Antioch, Southwest, </i>and <i>Atlanta Review</i> and several KOAH anthologies. His collections are <i>Manhattan Plaza</i> (2014), <i>Stage to Page</i> (2016), <i>Wind in the Cave</i> (2017), and <i>Out of Nothing: Poems of Art and Artists </i>(2018). He has received a Dana Literary Award, two <i>Willow Review</i> awards, four Pushcart Prize nominations, and a People's Choice award from <i>Storyteller Magazine</i>. His nonfiction book, <i>Playing the Audience</i>, won a <i>Choice Magazine</i> award.</div>
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<br />A.J. Huffmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07410033585195378946noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3302018124825165004.post-53847740741657789212018-06-30T04:29:00.001-07:002018-06-30T04:29:23.801-07:00A Poem from Andrew M. Bowen<br />
<b><i>In Green</i></b><br />
<b><i><br /></i></b>
In green, there is peace<br />
and stillness deeper than the seas.<br />
The leaves filter the sun's fierceness<br />
and damp the rains into<br />
softly falling motes of life.<br />
<br />
In green, there is love:<br />
A man must kiss a maid<br />
and the child will grow--a human acorn.<br />
The birds and bees and trees and tigers mate<br />
in splendid strength.<br />
<br />
In green, there is wisdom<br />
of peoples and of butterflies,<br />
of the Voice that sings in all,<br />
and of distinct songs that sum<br />
into a chorus of the many.<br />
<br />
In green, there is strength.<br />
The futile wars will come and go<br />
and none but tenured professors<br />
remember the dates and names.<br />
The trees outlive the cannons<br />
and feed the birds and squirrels and wasps<br />
after generations feed the worms.<br />
<br />
In green, there is solitude,<br />
a place to stand aside and feel<br />
the roots of Earth give birth<br />
to coal and cucumbers, to deserts and daffodils,<br />
to martyrs and maggots, to cats and cretins.<br />
<br />
In green, there is God<br />
and His hand traces the veins of maple leaves<br />
and shakes the foundations of mountains.<br />
His breath blesses the baby robin<br />
and births hurricanes to vex the cities.<br />
<br />
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<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Andrew M. Bowen works as an insurance salesman in Bloomington, IN. He has published 71 poems and recently submitted his first two novels for publication. He is also an actor who has appeared in eight independent films, seven stage productions, and two radio teleplays.</div>
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<br />A.J. Huffmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07410033585195378946noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3302018124825165004.post-4969329443935313052018-06-28T07:49:00.003-07:002018-06-28T07:49:58.318-07:00Three Poems from Ken L. Jones<br />
<b><i>Never Before Seen</i></b><br />
<b><i><br /></i></b>
The newborn river leads a very monastic life out by the farm bunkhouse<br />
that is a figment of its imagination and the trajectory of its hallelujah is so heartfelt<br />
while storm clouds that rumble with midnight pan flutes coagulate about like caged animals circling warily.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<b><i>I Dreamt Often Of</i></b><br />
<b><i><br /></i></b>
The frozen reefs remind me of peacock feathers.<br />
The quick limed air seems misty with ant hills<br />
while I listen to the forest's melodies on this foggy morning.<br />
Gazing down into the roiling rainstorm that slowly creeps in from the sea.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<b><i>Picked Like Ripe Avacados</i></b><br />
<b><i><br /></i></b>
Midnight's glow upon the meadow makes it look like a seafloor<br />
and the ghosts who haunt its poetry are burnished blackbirds.<br />
Yet this blue ice nightscape is a withered harvest of abstracted found and recycled objects<br />
and its soundtrack is a mandolin long evaporated.<br />
Yet till dawn arrives in a golden kimono shivering dilated and copper hot.<br />
It will murmur low a long lonesome sonnet<br />
more poignant than the brooding weathered strains of As Time Goes By.<br />
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
Ken L. Jones has been a professionally published writer for nearly forty years. At the beginning of his career he became well-known as a cartoonist and had such work appear at Disney Studios and for the New Kids On The Block singing group. In the last ten years he has concentrated heavily on writing poetry in various genres. He has appeared in Kind Of A Hurricane Press' many anthologies and blogs. His poems have also appeared in Phil Yeh's <i>Uncle Jam Magazine, Dual Coast Magazine, Red Ochre Press, Poetry Quarterly, Circle of Light, </i>and <i>Tulip Tree Review. </i>His most recent achievement was a poetry chap book called <i>Dreams of Somewhere Else</i> published by Prolific Press.</div>
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<br />A.J. Huffmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07410033585195378946noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3302018124825165004.post-58601300558294360602018-06-26T12:08:00.001-07:002018-06-26T12:08:52.813-07:00A Poem from Richard King Perkins II<br />
<b><i>Out of Nowhere</i></b><br />
<b><i><br /></i></b>
Into the skirt of the woods<br />
we skip and shuffle and spin<br />
<br />
lengthening the lit hours of evening<br />
into something<br />
<br />
more breathtaking than a yellow flower<br />
rising out of nowhere<br />
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
Richard King Perkins II is a state-sponsored advocate for residents in long-term care facilities. He lives in Crystal Lake, IL, USA, with his wife, Vickie, and daughter, Sage. He is a three-time Pushcart, Best of the Net and Best of the Web nominee whose work has appeared in more than a thousand publications.</div>
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<br />A.J. Huffmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07410033585195378946noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3302018124825165004.post-65593357519620365972018-06-24T11:07:00.000-07:002018-06-24T11:07:08.150-07:00Three Poems from A.J. Huffman<br />
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Arctic Butterflies<o:p></o:p></i></b></div>
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Portraits of fragility echoing definitive</div>
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definitions of strength spread </div>
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their darkened wings, gather sun’s warmth.</div>
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Dorsal basking, lateral basking, mid-flight V,</div>
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every move is designed to harvest heat</div>
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as they flutter and dance their way across</div>
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summer fields, becoming, in visitor’s minds,</div>
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flash-bulb moments of nature’s possibilities.</div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">from Flamingo this Vision<o:p></o:p></i></b></div>
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of self-containment, internal</div>
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flight.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Movement
stifled, re-routed,</div>
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released in flutter of pink</div>
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feathered eyes seeing beyond</div>
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sky.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Balance</div>
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can be extended.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One
leg</div>
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bending between two planes.</div>
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<b><i><span style="mso-font-kerning: 14.0pt;">Hosak’s Cave<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<span style="mso-font-kerning: 14.0pt;">A crack of light,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="mso-font-kerning: 14.0pt;">of life, brown but not out<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="mso-font-kerning: 14.0pt;">of the cycle.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="mso-font-kerning: 14.0pt;">The walls are breathing,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="mso-font-kerning: 14.0pt;">breeding <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="mso-font-kerning: 14.0pt;">a carpet fit for the king<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="mso-font-kerning: 14.0pt;">of beasts.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 12.0pt;">A.J. Huffman has published thirteen full-length poetry
collections, fourteen solo poetry chapbooks and one joint poetry chapbook
through various small presses. Her most recent releases, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Pyre On Which Tomorrow Burns </i>(Scars
Publications), <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Degeneration</i> (Pink
Girl Ink), <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">A Bizarre Burning of Bees</i>
(Transcendent Zero Press), and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Familiar
Illusions</i> (Flutter Press) are now available from their respective
publishers. She is a five-time Pushcart Prize nominee, a two-time Best of
Net nominee, and has published over 2600 poems in various national and
international journals, including <i>Labletter, The James Dickey Review,
The Bookends Review, Bone Orchard, Corvus Review, EgoPHobia,</i> and <i>Kritya</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She is the founding editor of Kind of a
Hurricane Press.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You can find more of
her personal work here:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><a href="https://ajhuffmanpoetryspot.blogspot.com/">https://ajhuffmanpoetryspot.blogspot.com/</a>
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<br />A.J. Huffmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07410033585195378946noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3302018124825165004.post-64042039084215957772018-06-22T05:27:00.003-07:002018-06-22T05:27:47.605-07:00A Poem from Susan Dale<br />
<b><i>Leaving to Promises</i></b><br />
<b><i><br /></i></b>
If mom left when spring was arriving<br />
What does that say about life?<br />
For while we were committing her to eternity<br />
Violets were unfurling their purple capes<br />
<br />
But how do we accept the thrust of blossoms<br />
On bare branches<br />
And the smiles of daffodils<br />
At the same time<br />
She was taking her place<br />
On the top of a hill<br />
Where the winds of heaven<br />
Were meeting the promises mom could not break<br />
<br />
Nor could we halt the jubilant feet of spring<br />
Dancing into our collective sorrow<br />
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
Susan Dale's poems and fiction are on <i>WestWard Quarterly, Mad Swirl, Penman Review, The Voices Project, </i>and <i>Jerry Jazz Musician</i>. In 2007, she won the grand prize for poetry from Oneswan. Two published chapbooks, <i>The Spaces Among Spaces</i> from <i>languageandculture.org</i> and <i>Bending the Spaces of Time</i> from Kind of a Hurricane Press's Barometric Pressure Chapbook series, have been on the internet.</div>
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<br />A.J. Huffmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07410033585195378946noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3302018124825165004.post-10035663139103872022018-06-20T10:18:00.001-07:002018-06-20T10:18:13.541-07:00A Poem from Heather Gelb<br />
<b><i>Under the Tree</i></b><br />
<b><i><br /></i></b>
Supine on a spherical covering<br />
Of buttery flowery petals,<br />
I gaze up through the feathery branches<br />
Of a flowering tree,<br />
Each twisting branch sculpted from a<br />
Solid center and reaching towards a light<br />
I can still see when I close my eyes to hear<br />
The soothing hum of bees that fill the spaces<br />
Between the ephemeral and the enduring.<br />
Beyond the bee song I hear<br />
The light tread of gazelle leaping through<br />
A nearby field, finding space between<br />
The stalks of golden grain . . .<br />
And still the golden petals rain down,<br />
Released by the light touch<br />
Of dancing bees.<br />
I am aware of a slow mounting marvel<br />
That fills the spaces between<br />
The holy and the mundane.<br />
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
Heather Gelb grew up in Colorado and Ohio before leaping off to distant hills in Africa then Israel. She is an aspiring writer, poet, yoga instructor, tap dancer, banjo player, holistic nutritionist, world traveler and long distance runner who is raising her five children among the Judean hills in a house that her husband built. Heather Gelb feels most fulfilled leaping from hilltop to hilltop as she writes in her published memoir about her journey from Rwanda to Israel: <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Hilltop-My-Path-Rwanda-Israel/1937623076">https://www.amazon.com/Hilltop-My-Path-Rwanda-Israel/1937623076</a> Her poetry has been published in such diverse works as <i>Poetica Publishing, Deronda Review, Green Panda Press, Pyrokinection, Dead Snakes </i>and <i>NatureWriting.</i></div>
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<br />A.J. Huffmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07410033585195378946noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3302018124825165004.post-82804695215831213742018-06-18T05:00:00.002-07:002018-06-18T05:00:27.626-07:00Two Poems from Phil Wood<br />
<b><i>Snap</i></b><br />
<b><i><br /></i></b>
No zebra crossing, close-by a menace<br />
of lionesses; flies swarm, wildebeest fidget.<br />
<br />
And then the rain. The river's rain-happy.<br />
A flock of pink flamingos flight a sunset.<br />
<br />
I take a photograph. The guide and you.<br />
A hippo yawns. The crocodiles smile.<br />
<br />
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<br />
<b><i>Forester</i></b><br />
<b><i><br /></i></b>
That canopy of russet forest<br />
beguiles the crowd. On Cannop Ponds<br />
a cacophony of mallards,<br />
moorhens and coots, a herring gull;<br />
along the track the herds of bikes<br />
and hikers, kids and dog walkers;<br />
an oak, squat like grandma's clock,<br />
dazzles, unthreads his hooded tale.<br />
Her weathered cloth warms his morning,<br />
the dreams of wolves whisper once more.<br />
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
Phil Wood works in a statistics office. He enjoys working with numbers and words. His writing can be found in various publications including: <i>The Open Mouse, Autumn Sky Daily, London Grip, Ink Sweat and Tears.</i></div>
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<br />A.J. Huffmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07410033585195378946noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3302018124825165004.post-14058788407199714872018-06-16T11:34:00.003-07:002018-06-16T11:34:57.711-07:00A Poem from Lily Tierney<br />
<b><i>Frozen</i></b><br />
<b><i><br /></i></b>
A dust storm engulfed wind-carved thoughts<br />
as a polar ice cap suppressed her most fiery desires.<br />
<br />
She was forced to live life with a volcanic mountain of thought<br />
in an unforgiving solar system.<br />
<br />
Looking up at the two asteroids, she remembered a love song<br />
that collided with the past, present, and future.<br />
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<br />A.J. Huffmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07410033585195378946noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3302018124825165004.post-1089959887011755462018-06-15T10:12:00.000-07:002018-06-15T10:12:22.955-07:00Three Poems from Linda M. Crate<br />
<b><i>spring's arrival</i></b><br />
<b><i><br /></i></b>
spring has burst open<br />
with all her flowers:<br />
daffodils, tulips,<br />
flowering trees including<br />
the magnolia<br />
pinwheel phlox,<br />
and many others arm the earth<br />
<br />
winter faded the crocus<br />
song long before<br />
their time<br />
should've been over,<br />
but now spring has the upperhand<br />
disarming winter<br />
with all her flaming hands;<br />
<br />
the sun is no longer<br />
content<br />
to play hide-and-seek<br />
with the clouds<br />
old man winter cannot creep in<br />
destroying our dreams<br />
any longer<br />
he has been put to death.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<b><i>no more snow</i></b><br />
<b><i><br /></i></b>
bumble bees<br />
the size of my pinky<br />
buzz<br />
around the dandelions<br />
i feel a peace<br />
that winter is gone<br />
sometimes sadness lingers,<br />
but the seasonal depression<br />
is gone;<br />
flowers are good at making<br />
me forget my sorrows<br />
so is the creek<br />
washing away all the ugly things<br />
in me that keep me<br />
up at night--<br />
as i get caught up in the fragrance<br />
of spring<br />
summer is treading lightly<br />
i know her song will be here, soon,<br />
but as i was born of her flames<br />
she means me no harm;<br />
i smile thinking of all the lovely things<br />
that will crest like ocean waves<br />
where winter snow cannot pull me into<br />
long white sad silence.<br />
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<br />
<b><i>daughter of the flames</i></b><br />
<b><i><br /></i></b>
i have met<br />
so many<br />
thorns of winter<br />
<br />
that thought their<br />
cold and snow<br />
would kill me,<br />
<br />
but i've endured<br />
showing them<br />
my summer flames;<br />
<br />
no will will hold me<br />
back from the whispers<br />
of my dreams<br />
<br />
i will catch them all<br />
and my roses have thorns, too,<br />
they shall cut the coldness<br />
<br />
until it stings my flesh<br />
no longer<br />
until winter realizes<br />
<br />
he has no power<br />
over my pretty little red heart<br />
and stops chasing me--<br />
<br />
i am a song of white suns<br />
the lyric of golden moons<br />
daughter of the flames.<br />
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Linda M. Crate is a Pennsylvanian native born in Pittsburgh yet raised in the rural town of Conneautville. Her poetry, short stories, articles, and reviews have been published in a myriad of magazines both online and in print. She has five published chapbooks: <i>A Mermaid Crashing Into Dawn</i> (Fowlpox Press -- June 2013), <i>Less Than A Man</i> (The Camel Saloon -- January 2014), <i>If Tomorrow Never Comes </i>(Scars Publications, August 2016), <i>My Wings Were Made to Fly</i> (Flutter Press, September 2017), and <i>splintered with terror</i> (Scars Publications, January, 2018).</div>
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<br />A.J. Huffmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07410033585195378946noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3302018124825165004.post-77709997325986966952018-06-14T08:06:00.000-07:002018-06-14T08:06:05.081-07:00A Poem from Tim Gordon<br />
<b><i>Nature</i></b><br />
<b><i><br /></i></b>
<i>La nature devrait tout dire ou rien . . .</i><br />
<i> -- Pascal, </i>Pensees #72<br />
<br />
Beyond the <i>Latilla </i>fence nothing to harvest<br />
but gritty sand, bunchgrass, all prickly flora,<br />
real failures to launch verdantly or in frippery,<br />
as is their wont, until you breach the imaged coppice,<br />
wild plum and crab-apple, mulberry maidenheads<br />
taken by insatiable chatterbox silkworms, a veritable<br />
veldt of desert beneath the widow's-peak shadow<br />
mountain brow where fall almost ends, winter blossom<br />
begins, back-channeling its Endless Summer trope,<br />
color amok yet on front- and- up-range slopes, on the undreamt<br />
an unloved, humpback butte and mesa, seamless plateau,--<br />
gully, gulch, arroyo, ravine, dumb dry wash until every<br />
evening prairie star torched just for them in the falling blue<br />
half-life before the first blanched clutch of ice and frost<br />
radiates everything and nothing with quicksilver white light.<br />
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Tim Gordon's <i>Dreamwind</i><i> </i>chapbook was accepted by Finishing Line Press (April 2018), its full-length complement is concurrently under publisher review elsewhere, his seventh book, <i>From Falling, </i>was published by Spirit-of-the-Ram Press (Autumn 2017). His work appears in journals like <i>Agni, Cincinnati Poetry Review, Kansas Quarterly, Louisville Review, Mississippi Review, New York Quarterly, Pittsburgh Quarterly, Rhino, Sonora Review, Texas Observer, Texas Literary Review, </i>and <i>Baseball Bard</i>, among others. <i>Everything Speaking Chinese</i> was awarded the SunStone Press Poetry Prize (AZ). Some recognitions include NEA & NEH Fellowships and nominations for four Pushcart Prizes and The NEA Western States' Book Awards. He divides professional and personal lives among Asia, the Desert/Mountain Southwest and coastal Maine.</div>
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A.J. Huffmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07410033585195378946noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3302018124825165004.post-53191074917606386212018-06-12T06:05:00.000-07:002018-06-14T07:56:22.280-07:00Three Poems from Darrell Petska<br />
<b><i>Two Sticks</i></b><br />
<b><i><br /></i></b>
Two lean sticks<br />
descend the muddy shallows--<br />
the great blue heron is cloud and sky<br />
above the water's edge.<br />
<br />
Light languors at the surface,<br />
lulling time and sense.<br />
The great blue heron rides the earth<br />
like a wispy wetland willow--<br />
<br />
at a ripple in the murk,<br />
light breaks the plane<br />
to grasp and swallow in its flash<br />
what swam in blue sky's shadow.<br />
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<b><i>January June</i></b><br />
<b><i><br /></i></b>
Snow sun cannot melt.<br />
The shaded trail white,<br />
the creek banks,<br />
the downy air.<br />
<br />
White caps for the owl chicks.<br />
Nest liner supreme.<br />
Grand sport for children<br />
turning with the breeze.<br />
<br />
No gutter is immune.<br />
Screens gasp for breath.<br />
Leaf blower blizzards<br />
spiral into lawns.<br />
<br />
The Avenue of Cottonwoods<br />
strews its watery course till<br />
green's lush primacy rights<br />
June's January lapse.<br />
<br />
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<b><i>Porch Light Tango</i></b><br />
<b><i><br /></i></b>
On our mad dalliance<br />
throw the switch,<br />
oh pitiless light bulb<br />
I once thought the moon.<br />
My true destiny fades<br />
against your searing tongue.<br />
Must I throw myself upon you<br />
till I drop, battered hull<br />
spent at your feet?<br />
<br />
I am Progenitor Rex.<br />
Generations unfold within me,<br />
yet time contracts, your glow<br />
chancing the unborn.<br />
How heartless your heat:<br />
I falter, I fry.<br />
The common toad of existence<br />
eyes me for its meal--I beg you<br />
snare some other wayward planet<br />
with your blazing tractor beam.<br />
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
Darrell Petska's writing has appeared in <i>Mobius: The Journal of Social Change, Chiron Review, Autumn Sky Poetry Daily, Star 82 Review, Bird's Thumb, Verse-Virtual, </i>and elsewhere (see <a href="http://conservancies.wordpress.com/">conservancies.wordpress.com</a>). Darrell worked for many years as communications editor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, leaving finally to focus on his own writing and his family. He lives in Middleton, Wisconsin.</div>
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A.J. Huffmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07410033585195378946noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3302018124825165004.post-26895460884243173572018-06-08T06:14:00.001-07:002018-06-08T06:14:09.217-07:00A Poem from Bernadette Perez<br />
<b><i>Running Free . . . I Am Weed</i></b><br />
<b><i><br /></i></b>
Rain feeds hungry plants<br />
contender survives the storm<br />
grows with a vengeance<br />
<br />
spread throughout waste land<br />
migrating from across regions<br />
multiplying fast<br />
<br />
carelessly blowing<br />
appearing without a cause<br />
why did they spring<br />
<br />
In competition<br />
cultivating plants fight for space<br />
wild rooted left stranded<br />
<br />
tumbling about<br />
performing handsprings in fall<br />
somersaults in meadows<br />
<br />
In late summer broken<br />
brittle and dry<br />
dispersing seeds<br />
<br />
no longer desired<br />
I was weeding flower beds<br />
weeping their return<br />
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Bernadette Perez is a poet possessing expression and creativity. In 1990, Bernadette received the Silver Poet Award from World of Poetry. Her work has appeared in <i>The Wishing Well</i>; <i>Musings</i> in 2010, <i>Small Canyons Anthology</i> in 2013, <i>Poems 4 Peace</i> in 2014, <i>Fix and Free Anthology</i> in 2015. She is the President of the New Mexico State Poetry Society.</div>
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<br />A.J. Huffmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07410033585195378946noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3302018124825165004.post-31148954738507588072018-06-06T08:21:00.000-07:002018-06-06T08:21:02.363-07:00Two Poems by Sydney Peck<br />
<b><i>Winter is Coming</i></b><br />
<b><i><br /></i></b>
Dried leaf scratches its noisy way<br />
Across my path.<br />
Cat retreats deeper into the doorway<br />
Out of the blistering wind.<br />
Sky full of clouds, smell of snow.<br />
Winter is coming.<br />
<br />
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<b><i>Scavengers</i></b><br />
<b><i><br /></i></b>
Night sun buries his face to earth.<br />
Slowly suspending his daily harvest--<br />
Piles of tint and heaps of chroma<br />
In oat house and warm barn.<br />
<br />
Rays of darkness<br />
Spread across the twilight<br />
Sky stealing in small corners of the loft,<br />
Scavengers ransacking the day.<br />
Greens devoured by omnivores;<br />
Black skeleton left.<br />
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
Sydney Peck is a schoolteacher and ardent poet, and in his spare time enjoys singing and playing traditional folk music.</div>
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<br />A.J. Huffmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07410033585195378946noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3302018124825165004.post-32564083608540326912018-06-04T04:25:00.003-07:002018-06-04T04:25:38.477-07:00A Poem by Michael Lee Johnson<br />
<b><i>Saskatchewan Sky</i></b><br />
<b><i><br /></i></b>
Saskatchewan<br />
sky,<br />
just a preview of love,<br />
chip off<br />
an edge of<br />
prairie<br />
chip an edge off<br />
winter--<br />
and opening<br />
multiple eyes<br />
toward spring.<br />
They--lovers, find themselves<br />
near evening bush fire--<br />
great seal fish and open lake,<br />
cuddle together--<br />
so wonderful together--<br />
where she comes from,<br />
where did she go to<br />
from here.<br />
<br />
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
Michael Lee Johnson lived ten years in Canada during the Vietnam era and is a dual citizen of the United States and Canada. Today he is a poet, freelance writer, amateur photographer, and small business owner in Itasca, Illinois. Mr. Johnson published in m ore than 1016 publications, his poems have appeared in 36 countries, he edits, publishes 10 different poetry sites. He has been nominated for 2 Pushcart Prize awards for poetry 2015/1 Best of the Net 2016/ and 2 Best of the Net 2017. He also has 158 poetry videos on YouTube: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/user/p_oetrymanusa/videos">https://www.youtube.com/user/p_oetrymanusa/videos</a>. He is the Editor-in-Chief of the anthology, <i>Moonlight Dreamers of Yellow Haze: </i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/15304_56762">http://www.amazon.com/dp/15304_56762</a> and Editor-in-Chief of a second poetry anthology, <i>Dandelion in a Vase of Roses: </i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/1545_352089">https://www.amazon.com/dp/1545_352089</a></div>
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<br />A.J. Huffmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07410033585195378946noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3302018124825165004.post-75007205700059571522018-06-02T07:20:00.000-07:002018-06-02T07:20:05.086-07:00Three Poems by Joanna M. Weston<br />
<b><i>On the Hillside</i></b><br />
<b><i><br /></i></b>
fog creeps<br />
into my eye sockets<br />
nestles against jaw<br />
blankets my ribs<br />
in damp comfort<br />
<br />
I rest on the moors<br />
hear curlews<br />
a distant crow<br />
touch dewed grass<br />
an open daisy<br />
feel the crawl<br />
of working ants<br />
a spider's thread<br />
and know myself<br />
at one with earth<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<b><i>The Remains</i></b><br />
<b><i><br /></i></b>
there's nothing I can call my own<br />
not the slant of moonlight<br />
through midnight trees<br />
nor the rise of dawn beyond the hills<br />
not the flight of siskins<br />
nor gossip of crows<br />
only the words that fall onto the page<br />
which is only paper that can be burned<br />
no more and then there's nothing<br />
left of mine at all<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<b><i>The Qualities of Herbs</i></b><br />
<b><i><br /></i></b>
the dandelion returns<br />
faithfully each year<br />
<br />
to the glory of bay<br />
perhaps inspired by<br />
angelica's magic<br />
<br />
to be preserved by dill<br />
protected by garlic<br />
<br />
to the praise of fennel<br />
while lily of the valley<br />
flowers contendedly<br />
<br />
with the wisdom of mint<br />
the long life of sage<br />
the devotion of a violet<br />
and the courage of thyme<br />
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
Joanna M. Weston is married, has one cat, multiple spiders, raccoons, a herd of deer, and two derelict hen-houses. Her middle-reader, <i>Frame and The McGuire</i>, was published by Tradewind Books in 2015, and her poetry collection, <i>A Bedroom of Searchlights</i>, was publish by Inanna Publications in 2016. Her other books are listed on her blog at <a href="http://www.1960willowtree.wordpress.com/">http://www.1960willowtree.wordpress.com/</a></div>
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<br />A.J. Huffmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07410033585195378946noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3302018124825165004.post-50259166283663233242018-05-30T07:03:00.000-07:002018-05-30T07:03:29.330-07:00A Poem by Husain Abdulhay<br />
<b><i>Kiss of Sea</i></b><br />
<b><i><br /></i></b>
roving through a niveous track<br />
chaperoned by a caroling cricket<br />
sundering silence of winter-tide glen<br />
beneath mesmerizing moonless welkin<br />
in a gelid protracted crepuscular eventide<br />
beleaguered by skimpy stars<br />
besprinkled packed like sardines<br />
whilst donning my albescent attire<br />
and hovering adrift in a quiescent canoe<br />
I bivouac chez Stella Maris<br />
circumvallated with slushy ground<br />
tinged with tang of vernal zephyr<br />
which can be smelt of farther afield<br />
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<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Husain Abdulhay has poems published in <i>Avocet, Cacti Fur, Fib Review, Foliate Oak, Quail Bell Magazine, </i>and <i>Ygdrasil. </i>His haiku appears in <i>Failed Haiku </i>and <i>Haiku Universe, </i>likewise.</div>
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<br />A.J. Huffmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07410033585195378946noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3302018124825165004.post-29823634214779386402018-05-27T10:52:00.000-07:002018-05-27T10:52:41.259-07:00Two Poems by Greg Schmult<br />
<br />
<b><i>Weaver</i></b><br />
<b><i><br /></i></b>
She appears of a morning sudden<br />
each brittle early autumn with<br />
October just becoming ragged; away<br />
but returned to country to assert<br />
as absolute her right of harvest.<br />
<br />
Sulfur-on-jet leviathan<br />
a bloated black pearl with a saffron tiara<br />
arrayed with little pomp between<br />
nodding, pliant racemes of <i>Solidago</i><br />
a thread-throned queen in goldenrod<br />
<br />
the ebony of her waiting suspended<br />
like a jeweled obsidian dewdrop from<br />
the arching, nighttime scaffold of her legs<br />
and her pike-footed purchase of dew-<br />
glittered radii, afloat on the filament vantage<br />
of an undulating great room floor.<br />
<br />
Resplendent, briefly, but with each offering<br />
she comes in a relentless rush, pinfooting<br />
like a twilight avalanche<br />
and when the meadow has made its tithe for days<br />
the floor is grown cluttered and tatty<br />
like an over-furnished, moldering room<br />
draped over for the coming winter.<br />
<br />
Her consort, a king in name, a tenth<br />
the size and maybe smaller, watches<br />
sidewise at the edge of silk, crouches rigid<br />
timorous and tense, a chitinous afterthought<br />
with a dab of color.<br />
<br />
As autumn deepens, lesser crops<br />
are eschewed for larger meat: preyed upon<br />
mantises, once bulb-eyed and stilting<br />
green and angle-plated, now smooth<br />
and elliptical, white and hammock-slung.<br />
<br />
They trampled miniature worlds in early morning<br />
splay-legged raiders stalking the stem tops<br />
frantic ahead of them<br />
a prow-wake scattering of life, but now<br />
slow netted pirouettes<br />
breeze danced and downward, submissive<br />
in their dusty finery.<br />
<br />
Autumn narrows to a stipple of purple asters<br />
and browning blades of bluestem<br />
and she abides as the field goes cool and sluggish<br />
<br />
ever more quiescent, waiting<br />
on noontime sun<br />
accepting what is given, but<br />
acknowledging no obeisance.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<b><i>Murk</i></b><br />
<b><i><br /></i></b>
My father took me fishing summers<br />
in a dented silver rowboat<br />
and we bottom-rigged for bullhead<br />
with worms on Cedar Lake.<br />
<br />
He would pull and creak the locks<br />
and I would twist and lean and peer<br />
beside the rasping bow that creased<br />
the open pads of lily and lotus, above<br />
<br />
arthritic stems gnarling away the light<br />
and I wanted to climb them down like Jack<br />
Pull myself toward leviathan<br />
shadows nosing the lakebed past<br />
slanted hulks of broken boats<br />
half astern in mud.<br />
<br />
At anchor, the leaden teardrop sinker cored<br />
the water's slab, dingy with suspended murk<br />
poplar fluff and flaccid husks of damsel flies<br />
then burrowed through the fleshy stems<br />
of <i>Elodia </i>and coontail, found the pliant floor<br />
and footed hard<br />
<br />
the crawler, pierced, self-braiding<br />
to a turgid knot, pulsing<br />
in an unseen plume of silt, imagined all<br />
as if the sinker was a scoping camera<br />
threaded on a slender flexing wire.<br />
<br />
He taught me to cast and wait and how<br />
a calloused leather work glove shielded<br />
hands and fingers from<br />
the mudcat's painful spines<br />
and how rusted needle pliers disgorged<br />
a swallowed hook, which they did often<br />
inhaling with their wide, disconsolate mouths<br />
<br />
not so much a strike as stealing and trying<br />
to carry an air bubble unbroken, and you might<br />
miss it altogether if you were nodding<br />
the filament line barely splicing<br />
<br />
the lazy, green-shot surface<br />
becoming slowly implacable as<br />
the rod-tip finally bent and then<br />
<br />
they would go heavy with the dimness<br />
as there might yet be some deep brute beneath<br />
a creature sea-born, out of place and past its time<br />
and only for me<br />
<br />
because the waters of the world hide<br />
their worlds from all of us personally, each<br />
according to a need, and from children<br />
most of all.<br />
<br />
Easing them, so weighty and impassive<br />
up the dark was an act not of muscle and sight<br />
but of invisibility not yet failed<br />
before the barbels and the saddened snout<br />
emerged like everything I did not yet know<br />
but still wanted to.<br />
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
Greg Schmult lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where he works as an environmental consultant. His poetry has appeared, or is forthcoming, in <i>Hanging Loose, Iodine, Poetry Quarterly, Spillway, </i>and <i>The Main Street Rag.</i></div>
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<br />A.J. Huffmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07410033585195378946noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3302018124825165004.post-70813907966444710632018-05-25T05:35:00.002-07:002018-05-25T05:35:53.802-07:00A Poem by Robert Halleck<br />
<b><i>Saturday</i></b><br />
<b><i><br /></i></b>
You were<br />
in the shower<br />
so I walked to<br />
the beach.<br />
<br />
Warm breeze,<br />
cumulus clouds,<br />
blue skies,<br />
5759 steps.<br />
<br />
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<span style="text-align: justify;">Robert Halleck is a retired banker living in Del Mar, California with his muse Della Janis. He has been writing poetry for over 50 years and has published three collections of his work. He has appeared in a number of Kind of a Hurricane Press publications. His recent work has appeared or will appear in </span><i style="text-align: justify;">The San Diego Poetry Annual, The Patterson Review, Third Wednesday, Chiron, Halcyon Days, </i><span style="text-align: justify;">and </span><i style="text-align: justify;">Rusty Truck</i><span style="text-align: justify;">. He has a weakness for open mics and loves to race Thor, his old but sturdy Porsche. He will be attending Kenyon College's summer program for the second year during the July session.</span>A.J. Huffmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07410033585195378946noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3302018124825165004.post-18165064230319761562018-05-23T06:54:00.001-07:002018-05-23T06:54:54.424-07:00Three Poems by Bobbi Sinha-Morey<br />
<b><i>Wooden Path</i></b><br />
<b><i><br /></i></b>
The shady wooden path<br />
has opened for me,<br />
the red sorrel blushing<br />
in the growing light,<br />
and I am free in a world<br />
where no one can rob<br />
me of anything, my heart<br />
exalting at the sweet bevies<br />
of fern and bayberry threading<br />
their way, and round-faced<br />
roses smiling up at me.<br />
A cool sun is up ahead as<br />
far as my eyes can see,<br />
my spirit brimful with<br />
the cardinal's song; no trace<br />
of anyone's malice, only<br />
the restful peace of nature's<br />
balm, touched by the angelic<br />
softness of blue delphiniums.<br />
Before me butterflies pause<br />
in their dance, white single<br />
poppies warming their petals<br />
are befriending me. I could<br />
walk barefoot all day here,<br />
terracotta hickories on<br />
either side of me, blessed<br />
to be so far away from<br />
any ill wind, sheltered by<br />
flushed apple trees. No one,<br />
no living thing knows where<br />
I am, just mariposa lilies<br />
gleaning the sky's brightness<br />
with me.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<b><i>Nature's Wellness</i></b><br />
<br />
Rainbow water came<br />
spilling down the edge<br />
of a fountain reviving<br />
my senses, lavender<br />
healing my spirant breath,<br />
a lace of jasmine around<br />
my wrist, a gift from an<br />
angel who cared, knew<br />
I needed wellness only<br />
a sachet of lady's slipper<br />
could bring, a gentle dose<br />
of mimosa to sponge onto<br />
my skin so my heart brittle<br />
with tension will be still,<br />
the aroma of white blossom<br />
to calm me and free me.<br />
restore my mind with the<br />
violet petals of a crocus,<br />
extract their loving energy.<br />
I sleep on a pillow of blue,<br />
pale rises, lost in the world<br />
before I am woken, cleansed<br />
in the tranquil night, my faith<br />
in this loveliest of flowers.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<b><i>Magenta Sunset</i></b><br />
<b><i><br /></i></b>
My heart firm as the green<br />
calyx, I bravely, at first<br />
shyly, walk by the ethereal<br />
blueness of magnolia trees,<br />
the deep purplish red sunset<br />
having woken the resilient<br />
light inside of me. Quietly,<br />
with the sweet scent of rose<br />
petals so close to my skin,<br />
I let joy find its way in,<br />
clear barley water having<br />
soothed me as if I were<br />
at the hands of a lover.<br />
I could breathe my whole<br />
soul in the hybrid of violet<br />
and yellow blossom, find<br />
myself melting, stroked<br />
by God's graceful touch<br />
and all the love he pours<br />
into the earth. I quiver in<br />
pleasure at the last notes<br />
of a grey sparrow lingering<br />
in the air like a plaintive<br />
sigh, seal in the well of<br />
my memories the apricot<br />
honey of poppies.<br />
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
Bobbi Sinha-Morey writes poetry in the morning and at night, always at her leisure. Her poetry has appeared in a wide variety of places such as <i>Plainsongs, Pirene's Fountain, Helix Magazine, Toasted Cheese, Delphinium, Miller's Pond, </i>and <i>Spirit Fire Review.</i> Her books of poetry are available at www.Amazon.com and her work has been nominated for Best of the Net. She loves aerobics, knitting, reading, and rock hounding with her husband.</div>
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<br />A.J. Huffmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07410033585195378946noreply@blogger.com0