Norman Ball

LIKE THE BIRDS ON THE WIRES. 3 Poems from Bradford Middleton

by 
LIKE THE BIRDS ON THE WIRES

 
As I walked I would occasionally

Look up, up at the sky, up where

The birds ruled, home there to the

Lucky, those who can move in the

Blink of one eye. 

 
This time though the view was kind

Of different; the birds had all

Congregated, like musical notes on

A line, along the telephone wire that

Keeps us in touch with the outside world.

 
It was then I thought is that how

Leonard Cohen came up with the

Wonderful lyrics to 'Bird on a Wire'

By looking up, up at the sky, drawing

Inspiration from a natural phenomenon.

 
FALLING DOWN THE STAIRS

 
There were times when I would live

A life, a wild time, and would often

Find myself falling down those stairs

At the last resort out of my mind,

Always always out of my mind and

Late at night as that was when this

Beautiful gift always got me best

And sometimes it would be 3-15

In the morning and I’d be falling

Down those damn stairs out of

My damn mind feeling like a cat

At the end of his ninth life.

 
LIKE THOSE OLD DAYS (with my radio on)

 
I sit here tonight and it

Almost feels like the old-times as

My radio builds up to one of the games of the year

As old footballers talk of teenagers

Turning up to training in brand new

Shiny Mercedes-Benz as I sit here

Writing a life so far removed from

Their gilded existence it just goes to

Show you how capitalism has gone so

Terribly wrong…

 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
BIOGRAPHY
 
 
Bradford Middleton was born in south-east London during the summer of 1971 and won his first poetry prize at the age of nine. He then gave up writing poems for nearly twenty-five years and it wasn’t until he landed in Brighton, knowing no one and having no money, that he began again. Ten years later and he’s been lucky enough to have had a few chapbooks published including a new one from Analog Submission Press entitled ‘Flying through this Life like a Bottle Battling Gravity’, his debut from Crisis Chronicles Press (Ohio, USA) and his second effort for Holy & Intoxicated Press (Hastings, UK). He has read around the UK at various bars, venues and festivals and is always keen to get out and read to new crowds. His poetry has also been or will be published shortly in the Chiron Review, Zygote in my Coffee, Section 8, Razur Cuts, Paper & Ink, Grandma Moses ‘Poet to Notice’, Empty Mirror, Midnight Lane Gallery, Bareback Lit and is a Contributing Poet over at the wonderful Mad Swirl. If you like what you’ve read go send a friend request on facebook to bradfordmiddleton1.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Robin Ouzman Hislop is Editor of Poetry Life and Times at Artvilla.com ; You may visit Aquillrelle.com/Author Robin Ouzman Hislop about author & https://poetrylifeandtimes.com See Robin performing his work Performance (University of Leeds)

Three Poems Telos, Tabula Rasa & Algor by Carl Scharwath

by 
Telos

Two evening lovers’ echoes
In you forgotten dreams and
memories of essence.

Touch wordlessly in a greater optimism.

Waves of summer morn
Under a cloudless sky with
flickering lights of desire.

Turning like a dancer alone on the stage of life

The evening leaves turn after 
Their first death and sleep
In the place of forgotten Gods.

Does it break you apart to see the expectation so muddled?

Tabula Rasa

I saw the ethos of a
generation destroyed-
mourning the philosophers
In their artful vision.

The sense datum clouds
with cries of the 
nymphs welcoming 
new world dawns.

Mentality is, in its way forming,
a sign of hopeful intelligence.
Knavish roadblocks obstruct
triumphant returns to Arcadia.

A sterism fills my sight
As the false memories
Of a partial Utopia
Flood my soul.

Algor

Like a winter landscape fearful
Of revealing what lies underneath
And I-one minute
Adrift from myself.

Opening up to you
Is as easy as breathing
In the quest for completion
Of a new threshold.

Poetry is a constructed conversation
On the frontier of dreaming.
I cannot help but freeze-and
Scrutinize the ideology doctrine.

Carl Scharwath, has appeared globally with 170+ journals selecting his poetry, short stories, interviews, essays, plays or art. Two poetry books Journey to Become Forgotten (Kind of a Hurricane Press) and Abandoned (Scars Tv) have been published. His new book “The Playground of Destiny” (Impspired Press 8/21) features prose, poems and photography. His first photography book was published by Praxis in Africa. His photography was also exhibited in the Mount Dora Center for The Arts and Leesburg Center for The Arts galleries. Carl is the art editor for Minute Magazine (USA,) has a monthly interview column with ILA Magazine, a competitive runner, and a 2nd degree black- belt in Taekwondo.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Robin Ouzman Hislop is Editor of Poetry Life and Times at Artvilla.com ; You may visit Aquillrelle.com/Author Robin Ouzman Hislop about author & https://poetrylifeandtimes.com See Robin performing his work Performance (University of Leeds)

LAKE TITICACA. A Poem by Lorraine Caputo

by 
 LAKE TITICACA

I.
The fuchsia-orange sun
  is cresting the Eastern cordillera
Its colors seep through muslin clouds
  & sheen upon the icy lake


II.
Across the altiplano between
  maroon worn-ribbed mountains
    & bright turquoise waters

Shaggy-roofed adobe homes
  land parceled by stone walls
In swampy pastures graze
  sheep & llama, cows &
    long-haired donkeys

The weekly market at
  Benemerita Zepita
Pollera-skirted women sit upon
  dwarf grass, surrounded by
    their herds of livestock

Beyond the distant shores
  of Titicaca the snowy
    Andes horizon


III.
On this bank of the deep
  cerulean lake edged with marshland
A woman, child to back
  tends her sheep

Totora boats anchor
  amidst golden-green reeds
A small boy beats
  fresh-plowed earth
    with a hoe

On the far side
  dark copses speckle
    parch hills
Ghostly into the clouds rises
  that snow-capped range

Wandering troubadour Lorraine Caputo is a documentary poet, translator and travel writer. Her works appear in over 250 journals on six continents; and 18 collections of poetry – including On Galápagos Shores (dancing girl press, 2019) and Escape to the Sea (Origami Poems Project, 2021). She also authors travel narratives, articles and guidebooks. In 2011, the Parliamentary Poet Laureate of Canada honored her verse. Caputo has done literary readings from Alaska to the Patagonia. She journeys through Latin America with her faithful travel companion, Rocinante (that is, her knapsack), listening to the voices of the pueblos and Earth. Follow her travels at: www.facebook.com/lorrainecaputo.wanderer or https://latinamericawanderer.wordpress.com.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Robin Ouzman Hislop is Editor of Poetry Life and Times at Artvilla.com ; You may visit Aquillrelle.com/Author Robin Ouzman Hislop about author & https://poetrylifeandtimes.com See Robin performing his work Performance (University of Leeds)

Unexpected Disturbances & Rhododendrons Blooming in the Smokies. Two Poems by Gary Grossman

by 
Unexpected Disturbances

Damn, what the hell?
I shuffle upstream, rod
in hand, just outside the  
rhododendron line, and
am struck by flying needles 
forearm, ankle and neck.
effing yellow jackets. 

Mother drove poorly
always fiddling,
cigarettes or radio.
until her ‘65 
Karmann Ghia vaulted
a 30 foot embankment
on the road cleaving 

the sage-shrouded hills 
between Tecate and 
Tijuana – DOA—
this story is true, not
artistic license. I
was orphaned at eighteen,
no sibs, no dad.

And so life is an
erupting Krakatoa,
a Hurricane Katrina,
an unexpected disturbance, 
COVID-19, recession
cancer, bipolarity
and yellow jackets,

till the chips are cashed. 
Rhododendrons Blooming in the Smokies 

In Summer’s rumpled heat, the blue 
Scent of hemlocks slides upwards, 
Spreading comfort across the ridgetops.

Stooped shoulders the ridges, remainders 
Of pinnacles, scoured by centuries 
Then slowly cloaked in oak and maple.   
 
Just below the ridgetops, an emerald 
Sea, sharp pines weaving winds 
That unfurl through the hollers.

From the top of a ridge I can almost 
Touch them, reach down through wet air, 
To green-bedded pink blossoms. 

The fluttering hearts of a slow-rolling valley.

 

 
Gary Grossman is Professor Emeritus of Animal Ecology at University of Georgia. His poetry is published or forthcoming in 30 reviews including: Verse-Virtual, Your Daily Poem, MacQueen’s Quinterly, Poetry Superhighway, and Delta Poetry Review. Short fiction in MacQueen’s Quinterly and creative non-fiction in Tamarind Literary Magazine. For 10 years he wrote the “Ask Dr. Trout” column for American Angler. Gary’s first book of poems, Lyrical Years is forthcoming in 2023 from Kelsay Press, and his graphic novel My Life in Fish: One Scientist’s Journey is forthcoming. Hobbies include running, music, fishing, and gardening. Website: https://www.garygrossman.net/ Writing: Blog: https://garydavidgrossman.medium.com/ .
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Robin Ouzman Hislop is Editor of Poetry Life and Times at Artvilla.com ; You may visit Aquillrelle.com/Author Robin Ouzman Hislop about author & https://poetrylifeandtimes.com See Robin performing his work Performance (University of Leeds)

The Whale. Leviathan. Video Poem. Sonnet by Norman Ball. Read by Ed Gero

by

 
 
This is a sonnet from my 2001 collection ‘Return to One: A Sonnet Odyssey’, and the section ‘The Whale, the Bull and the Lightbringer’. DC Shakespeare Theatre’s Ed Gero is the reader. I’ve often wondered if Man’s excessive cruelty towards the whale goes beyond mere commerce. Is there something even more fundamental at play, a jealousy perhaps?
(Norman Ball)
 
 

 
 
Leviathan, what coaxed you back to sea?
Did premonition sour you to the land?
Perhaps you saw the vex of history
and, wisely, chose a watery remand.
Awkward, we Fell; you sank to cooler climes,
your massive girth played foil to Yahweh’s glare.
We battled seas; you swam to rhythmic tides
while sailors scrimshawed biblical despairs.
We’ve harpooned all pretense at gentle neighbor
reserving special violence for your end.
Nor does predation justify these labors.
No, cruelty masks an envious intent:
we fend alone on this terrestrial stage;
no depths too deep to plunge our jealous rage.
 
 

NORMAN BALL

 

(BA Political Science/Econ, Washington & Lee University; MBA,George Washington University) is a well-travelled Scots-American businessman, author and poet whose essays have appeared in Counterpunch,The Western Muslim and elsewhere. His new book  “Between River and Rock:How I Resolved Television in Six Easy Payments”   is available here.
 
Two essay collections, “How Can We Make Your Power More Comfortable?” and  “TheFrantic Force” are spoken of  here and here, respectively.
 
A collection of poetry  Serpentrope  was published early 2014 from White Violet Press. He can be reached at a returntoone@hotmail.com.
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
Robin Ouzman Hislop is Editor of Poetry Life and Times his publications include All the Babble of the Souk and Cartoon Molecules collected poems and Key of Mist the recently published Tesserae translations from Spanish poets Guadalupe Grande and Carmen Crespo visit Aquillrelle.com/Author Robin Ouzman Hislop about author. See Robin performing his work Performance (Leeds University) .

 

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