MIX PHOR META
#poem
double, double toil and trouble
mix in moonbeams dripped from Hubble
with a pinch of housing bubble
dump in tons of scraped off stubble
just a taste of wry
with a twist of lime
seconds cloned from time
and, Voila! a rhyme to rollick
swing your partner, tase your Dalek
what a party tea for frolic!
double down, but “Don’t Panic!”
brewed up for fun – enjoy the manic
d a n c e
ON THE THRESHOLD OF SILENCE
#poem
Absorbed by rabble noise my tired voice trails unheard.
How can it matter what I say?
A fool, I record hard travel truth in written word
to scatter as if for use someday.
Realize that my eyes see uncommon visions.
My mind seeks to find unlikely decisions.
My lips may seem gripped, but that’s not done on purpose.
What I know doesn’t show on my nondescript surface.
How can I explain,
entice suffice to hear,
what isn’t always clear?
Notes of refrain
jumbled with pain;
I must be insane.
Lyrics
play with my inner ear,
keeping me guessing.
Burden or blessing?
Of course you don’t care.
Just turbid notes on passing air.
Weaving through aether,
permeating atmosphere,
essence I ache to share
already everywhere.
You never heard it from me.
MYTHOMANIA
by Javeria Hasnain
after Natasha Rao
For years, the only way to speak was to lie. Have you brushed today? Yes. Are you still in bed? No. Have you eaten since yesterday? Yes. I wander the streets of Queens, or Brooklyn, or Manhattan, bird-watching—B&W warblers and American dippers—& writing poems. Two beer cans in my hand, one is for a friend, I say to an inquisitive lady who hesitates to tell me good morning when she sees the two beer cans in my hand. I can only be myself away from my mother’s gaze, into anyone else’s. I have inked my body with colors outside of dust. I have never eaten a rabbit or a duck or even a quail or its eggs. I am afraid of swallowing tenderness. Afraid I will like it. Afraid I’ll remain hungry for the rest of my life. For once, I want my body to stay in my body. Open my mouth and have nothing come out.
—from Rattle #81, Fall 2023
Where are they now?
Those who, smiling, stood upon my seashore,
by an ocean’s sorrow.
Their voices are the wind, diaphanous,
thin record in my slowly darkening mind;
but, I see no record of their footsteps
impressed upon these sands of cruel time.
Beyond my sight,
across the shifting waves, through opaque clouds,
my past has hid itself;
their faces fade into the failing light.
What sense of grief is this? Such strong, slow grip,
bites deeper than the springs where salt-tears rise.
I wept when days were raw; now they weep me.
My words speak not
these inner thoughts that I cannot express.
A loss too long, too far,
too near absorbed, and so, become my own.
The shores of this swift life are swept by waves,
eroding life away from all held dear.
This storm of fleeing souls will never cease.
© Simon J Ashcroft, 2023
The Dead of Winter
by Mary Jo Bang
The cold is a knife-slice on the skin.
The heart says no, over and over.
This is not what you want.
What you want is that plush crimson
blanket called love: the pulsing
blood-rush that provokes
a minimetamorphosis. An object,
held by a gaze, radiating being.
You would say passion but a demon
has sewn your lips shut. The silver
needle lies there like the melting
sunlit snow beneath your feet.
It looks up as if to ask, Tell me, how
often do you feel the way you feel?
from the journal VIRGINIA QUARTERLY REVIEW
ELITISM
#poem
Hand over mouth Mensa laugh
Elitism, unlike battling upward,
hand over hand,
always mindful of tragic lessons.
Courtesy and respect — never forget.
In courts of old, fair
maids and noble men knew
‘twas best to conceal
animal cunning, raw humanity
in expected flourishes and restraint.
Semaphore signaling: we’re in on the game.
Then there is respect in earnest.
That flicker of sentient
strength, if I am smart,
perceived behind the mask
of court or street corner.
Hard knocks do not necessitate a fighter.
Hard times do not empower a solid leader.
Surviving, surveying the angles,
combining shrewdness and compassion
in deciding action,
honed edge keen and deadly,
improve chances
for ascent to spotlight, to public commendation.
Neither inherent fate nor exotic experience,
but some essence common to both
may blend in those so chosen to precede.
LUNACY #poem
accept my prayer, o Luna fair
accept my sins as payment
you know I only live to serve
I offer up my truest worth
my humble feet still scraping dirt
but luxurious my raiment
as I dance and strum my mandolin
laugh and shimmy again and again
work up my mojo limb by limb
all for your entertainment
to laugh and howl by the eye of the Moon
break the chain to sunlight’s ruin
of madness fine, my holy boon
as fine as Luna’s hair, as stark as Luna’s stare;
immersive moonbeam swirl
beatifically embraced entrainment
illumines Earthly air
CARESS THIS MOMENT
#poem
.
Caress this moment.
Feel as cleansing whispered melodies
brush lusciously, tingle upon receptive skin.
Lap happily sweet,
sticky honey
that blissful now drips along
open lips, eager tongue.
Reach out, touch hopeful butterflies
of sanity,
aware as lovely breezes,
flutter above, surround.
Caress this transcendent moment.
Deeply care enough to share, profoundly
cherish. Extend
into forever.
MEMORIES
#poem #woodstockdiary
Memories, they weave a silken web in silence.
We talk of times past in gently measured tones,
sometimes bitter humor.
We watch a bird circling in the distance,
build lattice patterns in the clouds.
Last year I spied a mole burrowing in
ground obscured by early snow.
Today I tend to think of you
smiling as you did last night
when you first saw me after parting.
IN MY HEART
by D. Dina Friedman
Here’s the secret: nobody knows
what the moon is made of. Nobody
understands our bodies’ common cheese,
or how vocal cords vibrating in a hot wind
can reach a harmony that pleases, even in dissonance.
Nobody knows why that tomato chose to birth itself
out of the compost pile, wrapping its vines
around the lone milkweed. Or how the praying
mantis managed its miraculous escape
just before I heaved the weed it perched on
and accidentally uprooted the volunteer tomato,
which I dug a hole for in the garden
and watered, though I don’t have much hope
for its survival. Yet, some of us persevere
like plants, sprouting where we don’t belong,
dragging our faltering bodies, foggy minds
all to look at the moon, to say: This matters.
This is why I’m still alive.
Rattle poem of the day - https://www.rattle.com/in-my-heart-by-d-dina-friedman/
Every time I thought of anger, or fear or revenge, I breathed it out. I tried to think of what I was grateful for—the bush that hid me so well that even birds landed on it, the birds that were still singing, the sky that was so blue.
Maya Alper, survivor of Hamas’ attack on the Tribe of Nova music festival
THE BUSH
by Alicia Rebecca Myers
Every time I thought of anger, or fear or revenge, I breathed it out. I tried to think of what I was grateful for—the bush that hid me so well that even birds landed on it, the birds that were still singing, the sky that was so blue.
—Maya Alper, survivor of Hamas’ attack on the Tribe of Nova music festival
The extraordinary arms of the bush.
Trap music still echoing: the singing
birds another cover. The conscious hush.
The sky that was so blue above the rush.
The sound of blood pooling, shots ringing.
The extraordinary arms of the bush.
The bush wasn’t burning, the birds weren’t ash.
A prayer for breath. The rigid thorns clinging.
Birds another cover. The conscious hush.
Lungs instead of terror, the labored wish
to survive. Birds that landed, kept going.
The extraordinary arms of the bush.
The roar of explosives, the forceful push
of gratitude against anger. Morning
birds another cover. The conscious hush.
The thorns, the sky, the breath, the birds, the bush.
The hidden body contorted, living.
The extraordinary arms of the bush.
Birds another cover. The conscious hush.
—from Poets Respond
October 15, 2023
early harvest
#poem #yearofprophecies
Loosening from light, long hazy days ebb golden,
corn fields and buzzing
early harvesters of wild lore.
Cold is still a legend, a remembered song
soon enough we’ll be singing,
huddled into aural lamps for communal warmth.
Tonight, as twilight melts into familiar
constellations, migrating like flying life,
early harvest still feeds celebration.
EQUALITY KNOCKS
#poem #political
“Fortune favors the brave.”
But I am not brave.
Too tired, aggrieved, for that world
to matter.
I’d rather speak of far out
stars, shining possibilities
not likely to knock
upon my hovel door.
“The poor have always been among us.”
So long as we measure brother against brother
on a scale of credit and debt.
Who gets to order the jet?
Who gets to die,
ever more desperate to
cheat the street of bludgeon meat,
confined to a prison cell
or other faux hell?
A crow and carrion show,
so everyone will know
the wages of failure
to fit on some narrow queue.
Naught knight nor druid can avail
challenge cowardly effigy,
change how badly taught this sad course
of history.
How dissuade mad conspirers’ cynical sway?
How expose knavery,
encourage true bravery?
Reify kindness, heal blinding hate?
Sane solution hovers before bruised eyes. Useless,
lost in disguise, unless emotions connect, electrify.
A whole and energized people shine
far brighter than splintered, extracted light.
ARTIST’S PAEAN
#poem #art #artist #society
My part of the social contract,
my cultural role
is to dig deep into my subjective soul,
which connects to
the collective whole.
To fully merge with that landscape
become every bit of soil, every seed;
excavate the before, becoming,
bereavement; paint color,
texture, tone, in language
that is mine alone,
grown from and refeeding
meta-human tongue.
Expansive value we perceive,
pour into communal budget
to receive:
art frames beauty, entertainment, pleasure,
elevation of mundane pain, secular
communication, political endeavor;
provokes to sustain intimacy, explain
personal perplexities, move beyond
boundaries, feel more profoundly, embrace
a common destiny, absorb accumulated
wisdom, to believe in more than
— on and on into mystery, history, possibility,
fantasy and wonder.
All this the artist explores, exchanges for the
sustenance of inspiration,
to refuel, empower
to give ever more.
