Poem

The Kingdom of Chaos Poems by Scott Thomas Outlar

by 
Silver Primroses & Golden Strigiformes Planted by the Curb

Carrying your own 
          dead body
                back to its grave
      in a dream
                 then happening upon
          an expired owl
                              stricken & smashed
                        in the street

Ominous signs
        along Five Forks Trickum
            birth into
                patterns of indigo 
                                  & scarlet wildflowers
                       
Spirit animals
             taking a dive
       before rush hour fevers
                        commence
        
    learn to sip
              from the parched throat
        of roadkill brunch

eating the 
        organs
   of our own
               totem


Stomach Lining

I came to eat the lies you coin

and serve them back half bitter
across the divide of tables turned

I didn’t ask for this evil eye

it was forced down my throat from the jump
been begging for a bulimic leap ever since


Spells of the Stoic Pewter 

& I will
        set you (free) here
    to be made safe by the wizard / window
                                                 (fly, birdie)
               black obsidian
                     gray of mind & beard
             wise & dangerous
                     streaked/laced down the middle
                                    balanced of accord
                                           (harmony 
                                                  & likewise
                                               rhythm)

you are the melody of a soft glow


Lament of Prey

Hello to all the hawks
who have yet to have their fill,
& the vultures, too,
waiting for what’s left over.

Spoiled minds & spoiled hearts
lead to spoiled guts,
but it seems to be
that’s what nature intended
in this twisted realm
of divided time & space.

Dog eat dog
isn’t even the worst part;
it’s flesh unto flesh
in the fire.

Goodbye to all the dreams
that forgot how to conquer,
& the visions still
yet to crystallize in cancer.

Rotten bones & rotten marrow
flow in rotten rivers,
but that’s the taste
acidic blood delivers
when signs of sickness
flash neon & electric in the night.

Tail chase tail
isn’t the end of the story;
it’s a snake that never sheds
the fade to black.


Kingdom of Chaos

We don’t want your money,
just your soul
on a silver platter
served to order
for our warm feast
while we spit out your raw famine.

We don’t want your respect,
just your energy and time,
just your mind
numbed
to the frequency
of propagandized pestilence.

We don’t want your love,
just your heart
bled dry
as every vein
withers in the winter wind
while our chalice remains
ever full to the point of overflowing.

We don’t want your vote,
just your faith
that such a course of action
can actually influence
the order in which our puppets
dance to a song of chaos
upon the public stage.

We don’t want your salute,
just your obedience,
just your hands
kept where we can see them
while your feet continue marching
to the drumbeat of our wars.

We don’t want your laws,
just your land,
just your culture,
just your customs,
just your heritage,
just your traditions
snuffed out
beneath the global kingdom
collectivized
at our command.

 
 

 
 
Scott Thomas Outlar is originally from Atlanta, Georgia. He now lives and writes in Frederick, Maryland. His work has been nominated multiple times for both the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. He guest-edited the Hope Anthology of Poetry from CultureCult Press as well as the 2019-2023 Western Voices editions of Setu Mag. He is the author of seven books, including Songs of a Dissident (2015), Abstract Visions of Light (2018), Of Sand and Sugar (2019), and Evermore (2021 – written with co-author Mihaela Melnic). Selections of his poetry have been translated and published in 14 languages. He has been a weekly contributor at Dissident Voice for the past nine years. More about Outlar’s work can be found at 17numa.com

Earth Puzzle,St. Petersburg in January,You Celebrate Your Birthday While I Have a Religious Experience, 3 Poems by James Croal Jackson

by 
Earth Puzzle


We think completing the jigsaw 
depicting Earth will complete us, but 
4 AM we float in half-consciousness,
hoping to realign our orbit, still aimed 
into vastness, a jumbled mess on the
floor. Even the dog snores. Earlier, 
Disco ran across our tarot cards, shuffling 
a wrangled meaning into fate. The Hermit. 
The Star. The Hanged Man. I try to string 
together half-correlations. I want to drink 
more. I open the window and inhale.
I look into the dark and wonder 
how we can piece it all together.


St. Petersburg in January


maybe it is not seeing-eye dogs training 
in the grass I pass or the street vendors
selling sunglasses tamales and watercolors
or the waves that touch a difficult nerve
which snap me into a more relaxed reality
or the toaster-oven croissant at the French
bakery on Ocean Avenue but the cranes
that lift off skyscrapers in the heavy wind
that make me want to punch real estate
developers in the jaw or somesuch non
sensical violence bear trap tourist trap
somewhat Floridaesque my happy life
on blast it is dynamite at a luxury
construction site this weekend


You Celebrate Your Birthday While I Have a Religious Experience


Learning how to swim– 
can’t say I haven’t
counted hours stars 
float in the night infinite 
darkness I cannot claim 
sanctity within us. You point
to Orion like a familiar
neighbor like I would point 
to a passing thought or ripple 
believing it significant 
as the moment passes.

James Croal Jackson works in film production. His most recent chapbooks are Count Seeds With Me (Ethel Zine & Micro-Press, 2022) and Our Past Leaves (Kelsay Books, 2021). Recent poems are in Stirring, White Wall Review, and Vilas Avenue. He edits The Mantle Poetry from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. (jamescroaljackson.com)

Mapplethorpe, Lethe, via crucis, Poems by Krystle Eilen

by 

Mapplethorpe

after Robert Mapplethorpe’s Self Portrait, 1980

half youthful, half emaciated,

he reflects the epicene
and the languishing.

his head is all shock and flurry;
his mouth a toothless brevity.

half Madonna, half Antinous,

he reflects a decadent flower
both wilting and transcendent.

his eyes suggest a having seen,
two eternally startled interims.

a princely pauper
whose aspect reflects that of
a parched orchid culled
too soon.

published in Hive Avenue Literary Journal


Lethe

i am a winged thing flailing,
driven into my bovine body, and
back into my savage infant soul.

in the beginning, nature
conceived another deadweight,
and i find myself stillborn.

i am forever waiting to
open my welkin eyes
and outwit the brute.

i want the earth wrested from me;
i want no longer to acquiesce to
the stranglehold of gravity.

i am forever looking forward to
eclipsing the round
seared by fantasy.

published in Hive Avenue Literary Journal 


via crucis

            i.

to behold paradise
god must be heaved up,—
for to become seraph
is to gouge the eye out.

            ii.

always at one remove
is to be found divinity,
otherwise effaced
by twin identity.

            iii.

riven apart
by mimetic sparagmos,
man is condemned
to die on the cross.

            iv.

to shed the serpent’s skin
is but to reiterate its meander,
for conquest precedes
the bind of surrender.

 
 

Krystle Eilen is a 22-year-old poet who is currently attending university. Her works have been featured in Dipity Literary Magazine, BlazeVOX, and Hive Avenue Literary Journal, and are soon to be published in The Orchards Poetry Journal and Young Ravens Literary Review. During her spare time, she enjoys reading and making art.

Where Have all the Fishes Gone?& Further Poems by Fabrice B. Poussin

by 
Where Have all the Fishes Gone?

Sitting atop the cliff overlooking
the ocean vast
we hold one another
in awe of its innumerable mysteries.

The sun sets calmly for us
rises with deft determination
on the other side
of a blue horizon.

Not a sound
emerges from the deep waters
clean of all lives that once were
ancestors some say to our kin.

Where have they all gone
why extinct so soon into fossils
imprints per chance left in the stone
that tell of so distant an evolution.


Welcome to the World of Nice

The world nearly came to an absolute stop when
the wizard suddenly halted his incantations
the fires he had set ablaze reflecting upon his pale brow.

For centuries he had roamed the planet
a weathered wand in his mummified grip
his face oozing with the harm he could cause.

Another in a glorious evening grace
ambled like royalty among the populace
sizing each one of her kin as a victim.

Tall above armies of humble servants
she made them dependent of every whim
she might have dreamed up in her solitary chambers.

She too paused when the child cried
for this Amazon who had never known pain
her frame near collapse she let go of her aim.

The thousands assembled for what they expected
was to be yet a list of grievances and threats
looked in amazement at these meek creatures.

Never had a soul caught a glimpse of pain
in the eyes of those unforgiving executioners
until the tear of a child fell upon their feet.

The giants stepped down from the pedestal
greeted by embraces never imagined of those
who still bore the scars of their millennial tortures.

While the poor wake in a pool of chagrin
no one knew the few in satin and pearl
could weep and fall to the yoke of a babe.


Suffering to Rest

She can tell the throb will persist
Into a night of pleasant slumber
feeling a tug at her secret fibers.

Contemplating the past hours
when glee echoed through the halls
attempts to calm still fail.

Into a slanted mirror an image
seeks to smile at this solemn reflection
subdued by the numbing liquid of her pain.

Docile as with every passing dawn
something has changed in the blood
shed again upon the dusk of a precious hour.

Soon again she will share her pleasure
when the day’s memories turn to dust
and her flesh finds rest in the thin night.

Hard to Be 

Merely standing hands upon the wooden rails
staring into a background of dense forest
he might find rest on a Sunday’s morn’ when

his thoughts quickly move to the millions
like him who contemplate the world
considering how little they can see he holds 

a cup of a dark brew in hand, early smoke in the other
his desperation grows as he longs
for the visions others cannot share and

he imagines so many there with him
gazing into the same surroundings 
their perception so different from his he

considers the one who inspires him 
if only he could be within her as she takes all in
become an intimate part of who she is for

he feels so much missing from his being
lost smaller than a speck of minute dust
while an infinity of interpretations exists yet

only this microcosm of the infinite belongs to him
so insignificant as he must remain until at last
he might be freed from this temporary prison and

become like all those before him
a piece of the universal puzzle
the matter of all that is the cosmos. 


Feeling the sounds.

Upon a saunter as is his common dominion
he pushes through the brush of a dense forest
after the storm left its gentle coat
on every living thing like a shroud of life.

Nothing speaks, everything rests yet
awaiting reassurance that it is safe again to be
and he continues, puzzled by the uncanny silence
looking for a sign that all is well still.

And there it is, a murmur brushes against his flesh
an eerie sensation of sound, of sight
of scent, touch and even taste
from whence it is born he cannot tell.

It must be her at last in the late hour
since darkness will soon prevail
and she always visits him in his sleep
when his dreams become real as the present.

She surrounds him with an infinite coat
made with all a soul can endure
he hears the voice of her wholeness speak
without a word, but it is to be eternal.

 
 

 
 
Fabrice B. Poussin teaches French and English at Shorter University. Author of novels and poetry, his work has appeared in Kestrel, Symposium, The Chimes, and many other magazines. His photography has been published in The Front Porch Review, the San Pedro River Review as well as other publications. Most recently, his collection “In Absentia,” was published in August 2021 with Silver Bow Publishing.
 
 
 

Beyond the Limit & Tyne Cot. Ekphrastic Poems by Jan Theuninck

by

 

BIO: Jan Theuninck (born 7 June 1954) is a Belgian painter and poet. Although born in Zonnebeke, Belgium, and a native speaker of Dutch, he writes in French and occasionally English. His painting is abstract, falling somewhere between minimalism
 and monochrome expressionism.

Living with the Elephant. A Poem by Cynthia Bernard

by 
Living with the Elephant


I guess the fog has little cat feet 
sometimes, but around here 
it dances with the wind,
wild and fierce,
especially at dawn.
Howling across the ocean, up the hill,
gusting my robe against me,
sloshing coffee into my face as I try for a sip.

I guess aging is gradual 
sometimes, but around here
it’s a tempest, arising suddenly,
wild and fierce 
and relentless.
Wrenching my days apart
into a before that can never be found 
again -- and a very different now.

I guess one could fight it
sometimes, hair color, face cream, 
supplements and potions,
exercises, affirmations,
denial.

I guess one could simply accept it
sometimes, but around here
arthritis has swept in on elephant feet,
fierce and relentless,
and no pill, no potion,
no affirmation, no meditation,
can sweep it out again.

I guess one could handle things gracefully 
and sometimes I do,
but around here there are other times, too,
when everything seems to hurt
and I want to stay under a quilt
for whatever part of forever
I get to see.


And then again, there are
yet other times, sometimes,
the majesty of the ocean at first light,
the sweetness of love found late,
my hand sliding into his.
New buds on the camellia,
rain on the roof, deer in the yard,
granddaughter’s smile,
or a nothing-special-time
in the exquisiteness of the now.

And I find that 
sometimes, increasingly often,
I welcome it all:
the cat’s feet and the elephant,
things wild and fierce,
quiet moments and raging ones,
lines on my softening face, 
creaky joints and aching bones,
wind in my hair,
full heart,
fog over the ocean at dawn.



(This poem was originally published in Multiplicity Magazine)

Bio: Cynthia Bernard is a woman in her late 60’s who is finding her voice as a poet after many decades of silence. A long-time classroom teacher and a spiritual mentor, she lives and writes on a hill overlooking the ocean, about 20 miles south of San Francisco.
Publication history: Her poetry has been published in Multiplicity Magazine, The MockingOwl Roost, The Vita Brevis Press Poetry Anthology, Last Leaves Literary Magazine, Flora Fiction, fws: a journal of literature and art, and Open Door Magazine, and will appear in upcoming issues of Passager Journal and The Fresh Words Magazine Anthology: Contemporary Poems 2022.

:x, webster’s, fischschuessel. 3 Poems by Jessica Skyfield

by 
:x.


but it's not just that.

permanence and impermanence.

lasting legacy of what and for how long?

stability defined as: x

the leaning tower of pisa rights.

perception is reality. 

and people leap to their deaths in the virtual world.

but where is the line? and more importantly, who drew it?

i kant do that.

and our collective reality mimics meatloaf,

minimizing magnified metamega for milieu,

because what is it all worth/about/settled for/done for/answered by anyways? 


*




webster's


goblin mode, 2022.

ok then...

fragments of my metaverse. 

blaming my ennui on my gravity disorder.

starseedblahblahblah.

i'm genetically predisposed to lighter climes. 

it's my woo-niverse.

and the typing cat fervently, feverishly paws out:

the weight of it all, unbearable.


*


fischschuessel


enjoy the fragmented figments.

flashes of light. 

flashbulbs of fame.

reasoning, that recognition fails, fleets, flounders, flops, flippantly flying

from rear-end fenders.

and when does the wordplay stop?

einhalten an alles. 

und alle einsteigen. 

zack. sagt die stutzstaffel.

protection from what?! 


*

Jessica Skyfield is currently a teacher. She has been a scientist, a mother, will always be a student, and worn other hats, too. Her poems seek to bring light to our struggle with our awareness of our humanity: the juxtaposition of the smallness of ourselves when viewed universally and yet the large impact each of our individual actions can have.  

Rilke, Brecht & Goethe, Translations from German poets by Michael R Burch

by 
Komm, Du (“Come, You”)

by Rainer Maria Rilke
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

This was Rilke’s last poem, written ten days before his death. He died open-eyed 
in the arms of his doctor on December 29, 1926, in the Valmont Sanatorium, 
of leukemia and its complications. I had a friend who died of leukemia and he was 
burning up with fever in the end. I believe that is what Rilke was describing here: 
he was literally burning alive.

 
Come, you—the last one I acknowledge; return—
incurable pain searing this physical mesh.
As I burned in the spirit once, so now I burn
with you; meanwhile, you consume my flesh.

This wood that long resisted your embrace
now nourishes you; I surrender to your fury
as my gentleness mutates to hellish rage—
uncaged, wild, primal, mindless, outré.

Completely free, no longer future’s pawn,
I clambered up this crazy pyre of pain,
certain I’d never return—my heart’s reserves gone—
to become death’s nameless victim, purged by flame.

Now all I ever was must be denied.
I left my memories of my past elsewhere.
That life—my former life—remains outside.
Inside, I’m lost. Nobody knows me here.

Komm du

Komm du, du letzter, den ich anerkenne,
heilloser Schmerz im leiblichen Geweb:
wie ich im Geiste brannte, sieh, ich brenne
in dir; das Holz hat lange widerstrebt,
der Flamme, die du loderst, zuzustimmen,
nun aber nähr’ ich dich und brenn in dir.
Mein hiesig Mildsein wird in deinem Grimmen
ein Grimm der Hölle nicht von hier.
Ganz rein, ganz planlos frei von Zukunft stieg
ich auf des Leidens wirren Scheiterhaufen,
so sicher nirgend Künftiges zu kaufen
um dieses Herz, darin der Vorrat schwieg.
Bin ich es noch, der da unkenntlich brennt?
Erinnerungen reiß ich nicht herein.
O Leben, Leben: Draußensein.
Und ich in Lohe. Niemand der mich kennt.


Liebes-Lied (“Love Song”)

by Rainer Maria Rilke
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

How can I withhold my soul so that it doesn’t touch yours?
How can I lift mine gently to higher things, alone?
Oh, I would gladly find something lost in the dark
in that inert space that fails to resonate until you vibrate.
There everything that moves us, draws us together like a bow
enticing two taut strings to sing together with a simultaneous voice.
Whose instrument are we becoming together?
Whose, the hands that excite us?
Ah, sweet song!

Liebes-Lied

Wie soll ich meine Seele halten, daß
sie nicht an deine rührt? Wie soll ich sie
hinheben über dich zu andern Dingen?
Ach gerne möcht ich sie bei irgendwas
Verlorenem im Dunkel unterbringen
an einer fremden stillen Stelle, die
nicht weiterschwingt, wenn deine Tiefen schwingen.
Doch alles, was uns anrührt, dich und mich,
nimmt uns zusammen wie ein Bogenstrich,
der aus zwei Saiten eine Stimme zieht.
Auf welches Instrument sind wir gespannt?
Und welcher Geiger hat uns in der Hand?
O süßes Lied. 


Das Lied des Bettlers (“The Beggar’s Song”)

by Rainer Maria Rilke
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

 
I live outside your gates,
exposed to the rain, exposed to the sun;
sometimes I’ll cradle my right ear
in my right palm;
then when I speak my voice sounds strange,
alien ...

I'm unsure whose voice I’m hearing:
mine or yours.
I implore a trifle;
the poets cry for more.

Sometimes I cover both eyes
and my face disappears;
there it lies heavy in my hands
looking peaceful, unafraid,
so that no one would ever think
I have no place to lay my head.

Das Lied des Bettlers

 
Ich gehe immer von Tor zu Tor,
verregnet und verbrannt;
auf einmal leg ich mein rechtes Ohr
in meine rechte Hand.
Dann kommt mir meine Stimme vor,
als hätt ich sie nie gekannt.

 
Dann weiß ich nicht sicher, wer da schreit,
ich oder irgendwer.
Ich schreie um eine Kleinigkeit.
Die Dichter schrein um mehr.
Und endlich mach ich noch mein Gesicht
mit beiden Augen zu;
wie's dann in der Hand liegt mit seinem Gewicht
sieht es fast aus wie Ruh.
Damit sie nicht meinen ich hätte nicht,
wohin ich mein Haupt tu. 


BERTOLT BRECHT

Die Bücherverbrennung (“The Burning of the Books”)

by Bertolt Brecht
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

When the Regime
commanded the unlawful books to be burned,
teams of dull oxen hauled huge cartloads to the bonfires.

Then a banished writer, one of the best,
scanning the list of excommunicated texts,
became enraged: he’d been excluded!

He rushed to his desk, full of contemptuous wrath,
to write fiery letters to the incompetents in power —
Burn me! he wrote with his blazing pen —
Haven’t I always reported the truth?
Now here you are, treating me like a liar!
Burn me!

Die Bücherverbrennung

Als das Regime befahl, Bücher mit schädlichem Wissen
Öffentlich zu verbrennen, und allenthalben
Ochsen gezwungen wurden, Karren mit Büchern
Zu den Scheiterhaufen zu ziehen, entdeckte
Ein verjagter Dichter, einer der besten, die Liste der
Verbrannten studierend, entsetzt, daß seine
Bücher vergessen waren. Er eilte zum Schreibtisch
Zornbeflügelt, und schrieb einen Brief an die Machthaber.
Verbrennt mich! schrieb er mit fliegender Feder, verbrennt mich!
Tut mir das nicht an! Laßt mich nicht übrig! Habe ich nicht
Immer die Wahrheit berichtet in meinen Büchern? Und jetzt
Werd ich von euch wie ein Lügner behandelt! Ich befehle euch:
Verbrennt mich!


Der Abschied (“The Parting”)

by Bertolt Brecht
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

We embrace;
my fingers trace
rich cloth
while yours encounter only moth-
eaten fabric.
A quick hug:
you were invited to the gay soiree
while the minions of the "law"
relentlessly pursue me.
We talk about the weather
and our eternal friendship's magic.
Anything else would be too bitter,
too tragic.

Der Abschied

 Wir umarmen uns.
Ich fasse reichen Stoff
Du fassest armen.
Die Umarmung ist schnell
Du gehst zu einem Mahl
Hinter mir sind die Schergen.
Wir sprechen vom Wetter und von unserer
Dauernden Freundschaft. Alles andere
Wäre zu bitter


Die Maske des Bösen (“The Mask of Evil”)

by Bertolt Brecht
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

A Japanese woodcarving hangs on my wall—
the mask of an ancient demon, limned with golden lacquer.
Not unsympathetically, I observe
the forehead’s bulging veins,
the tremendous strain
such malevolence requires.

 Die Maske des Bösen

 An meiner Wand hängt ein japanisches Holzwerk 
Maske eines bösen Dämons, bemalt mit Goldlack.
Mitfühlend sehe ich / 
Die geschwollenen Stirnadern, andeutend 
Wie anstrengend es ist, böse zu sein. 
  
ON LOOKING AT SCHILLER’S SKULL

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

 
Here in this charnel-house full of bleaching bones,
like yesteryear’s
fading souvenirs,
I see the skulls arranged in strange ordered rows.

Who knows whose owners might have beheaded peers,
packed tightly here
despite once repellent hate?
Here weaponless, they stand, in this gentled state.

These arms and hands, they once were so delicate!
How articulately
they moved! Ah me!
What athletes once paced about on these padded feet?

Still there’s no hope of rest for you, lost souls!
Deprived of graves,
forced here like slaves
to occupy this overworld, unlamented ghouls!

Now who’s to know who loved one orb here detained?
Except for me;
reader, hear my plea:
I know the grandeur of the mind it contained!

Yes, and I know the impulse true love would stir
here, where I stand
in this alien land
surrounded by these husks, like a treasurer!

Even in this cold,
in this dust and mould
I am startled by a strange, ancient reverie, ...
as if this shrine to death could quicken me!

One shape out of the past keeps calling me
with its mystery!
Still retaining its former angelic grace!
And at that ecstatic sight, I am back at sea ...

Swept by that current to where immortals race.
O secret vessel, you
gave Life its truth.
It falls on me now to recall your expressive face.

I turn away, abashed here by what I see:
this mould was worth
more than all the earth.
Let me breathe fresh air and let my wild thoughts run free!

What is there better in this dark Life than he
who gives us a sense of man’s divinity,
of his place in the universe?
A man who’s both flesh and spirit—living verse!



Michael R. Burch is an American poet who lives in Nashville, Tennessee with his wife Beth and two incredibly spoiled puppies. He has over 6,000 publications, including poems that have gone viral. His poems, translations, essays, articles, letters, epigrams, jokes and puns have been published by TIME, USA Today, BBC Radio 3, Writer’s Digest–The Year’s Best Writing and hundreds of literary journals. His poetry has been translated into 14 languages, taught in high schools and colleges, and set to music by 23 composers, including two potential operas if the money ever materializes. He also edits www.thehypertexts.com, has served as editor of international poetry and translations for Better Than Starbucks, is on the board of Borderless Journal, an international literary journal, and has judged a number of poetry contests over the years.
 
 

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