Poetry Prize

Three Poems Excerpts from Wrappings in Bespoke Collected Poems by Sanjeev Sethi

by 
Asafetida

Investing emotions when other operating levers exist, 
loving without the privilege of parenthood is an essay
in emptiness. In some eyes, I can see myself. I’m inured 
to their throes. Come, let us camouflage grief in girdles 
of guffaw. Let this be our memory.

You and I inhaled prescriptions scried by sources beyond 
our breath. By then, my sight was misted by the smoke 
of your sticky tune. As with passive smokers, we nip and 
sometimes nurse. An opisthograph on love is not enough: 
lived lives have other needs. 


Allopatry

There was a phase, longish period when I read,
I scrived but didn’t put it in print. Tick-tock of 
my pendulum was on a cerebrational mode. 
Like a bodhi of sorts, I built a blindstory, 
quieter than all the calm there is. College 
friend, a bureaucrat, called. My apodictic 
response was to share not show-off. While 
cutting off, his har-de-har translated as loser. 

Marionette

In the statuary of my branular orb, your figurine shines the sharpest.
When fate conspires to have us face to face, you bring to naught 
the herringbone fabric I primp your mannequin with. I like the layers 
I pad you with: you’re you, plus my decoupage. This suits our setting.
The dominion of physical distance invigorates our weal with you 
chirking best inside me, heedful of my heart as your homestead.

Sanjeev Sethi has authored seven books of poetry. His latest is Wrappings in Bespoke (The Hedgehog Poetry Press, UK, August 2022). He has been published in over thirty countries. His poems have found a home in more than 400 journals, anthologies, and online literary venues. He edited Dreich Planet #1, an anthology for Hybriddreich, Scotland, in December 2022. He is the joint winner of the Full Fat Collection Competition-Deux, organized by Hedgehog Poetry Press, UK. In 2023, he won the First Prize in a Poetry Competition by the prestigious National Defence Academy, Pune. He was recently conferred the 2023 Setu Award for Excellence. He lives in Mumbai, India.
 
X/ Twitter @sanjeevpoems3 || Instagram sanjeevsethipoems

The Prose Poems of EM Schorb

by

AT HEART, SPEED

At heart, speed is about being where you are going sooner than you can get there, and putting it all behind you. As you race forward to get where you are going, much is dropping behind, falling away from your frontal interest, as it were. If you were as fast as an atom, say, you could probably spin back and pick up some of what you have left behind and so take it with you as you propel forward, wherever that is now—for we have thoroughly muddled the issue in having gone back to pick up what was left behind because in having gone back we have made back forward, forward back. At heart, speed is an attempt to avoid as much as possible until we get to something we may or may not have in mind and stop there, but of course as we arrive there we find that we have just left and are now on our way to something that resembles in its lack of interest to us all that we have attempted to leave behind, so, in a sense, we are going backward, or, we should be going backward, toward what we wanted to get to in the first place. At heart, speed is our heart beating and speeding its beat until it has run out of beats. At heart, then, speed is our heart excitedly beating a trail to its end.

THE MURDER OF GARCIA LORCA
No es sueño la vida.
¡Alerta! ¡Alerta! ¡Alerta!

I tug the strings of my fear, my bad puppet, Diablo, and tap him about this space, my first and last stage, last props, last lights, behind and in front of my painted screen. See, I pull up a leg and he hops, hops, hops! Who are you, Diablo? Herr Hitler, con permiso. Then hop, Hitler, hop! Garcia will be dead when I do this jig under the Arc de Triomphe. Not amusing, Diablo. Be something else. I want light and color! Then look at my gypsy dress, all layered, laced, ribboned, and brocaded—scarlet, gold, and green. Feel the wide wind of my rich fan. Hear my diamonded castanets! When did you put that on? An instant ago, behind the screen, when you were talking. But now I’ll be Franco and rise against the Republic. Another ugly joke! But in an instant, true! Just let me don this uniform. I love good fun, but this is wicked. Night must fall, Federico, even if it frightens you. Diablo, I command you, take off that uniform, with its golden shoulder-mops and scrambled eggs and salads. I wish I could drop the reins of your dark horse. Who am I now? Wait, I recognize you. You’re a man from my hometown, a granadino. Your name is. . . Diablo! Yes, and I am jealous of your genius. I call you out! I name you Red! Red, red, red! I am a poet. I hate politics. Nevertheless, I charge you, Federico Garcia Lorca, with crimes against the state . . . of my ego. And what now? Bang, bang, you’re dead! Am I dead, Diablo? In an unmarked grave! Is it dark, Federico? No darker than this dark century, Diablo.

THE RESPONSIBILITIES OF A MUSE

A muse has responsibilities, too. She owes her worker a few but important debts of honor. If a muse is going to come to an artist, thinker, dancer, or whatever, she owes it to that worker to stay until the job is done, not desert at the first opportunity. She owes him, who has been loyal to her, her loyalty. She owes it to him not to play such tricks as muses are known to play, i.e., not to inspire him with false inspiration, so that his work is false; and she owes it to him to give of herself freely and not to tease him with half measures. Muses are notoriously whimsical, and they must be brought to book on this account. It is high time that they grew up, that they realized they are playing games with someone’s life, for an artist’s work is his or her life. Muses should be answerable to somebody. They should be compelled to file reports on the progress of their workers at least once a year. Has he taken you up on your offer of an epic? Has she recruited enough dancers for the show? Questions such as these should be posed. Also, have you offered an epic lately? Have you found the requisite number of dancers? Responsibility for the ultimate work must be shared, and shame to the muse who refuses to share. I am calling in all that you owe me, O Muse, a lifetime of suffering in your name.

BADA-BING BONES

A stripper stripped down to her skin, then began to remove her skin by means of a zipper up the back and two more down the backs of the legs. Then she began to remove the muscles, unhooking them from the joints, like springs, and laying them out on the stage. What throbbing music! An old man in the front row fainted. A doctor in the back row called Stop! But the stripper proceeded to strip down to the bone, so that all that was left on the stage was a dancing skeleton. Somebody said it was a trick. But her skull-face called back, Dig it, boys—this is the real thing! Then the stripper snapped some bones out, one of her thighbones, one of her arm bones. A collar bone flew into the air to the sound of a drumroll. She picked up the collar bone, broke it, and shook some marrow from it. Then she called, That’s it for tonight, boys. And as the curtains swooped down and closed, she was heard by the audience to order the attendants backstage to gather up her things. Hurry, she was overheard to say, I’ve got a heavy date.

THE ORBITING X

Hallelujah! saw X twenty-two thousand five-hundred miles off blue Earth, heavenly luminous body, nebulous, long-tailed, fiery Cross, cross Heaven like a comet, airless incandescent meteor-Messiah, whirling Aether, leagues-arcing rainbow-halo of lights, sprites, rolling, rolled into one long-suffering, fragmented Star, returning & returning. The ecumenical others, crew of All Faiths, bound out for the dead red planet, Mars, doubters, saw the Un-identifiable Flying Object, too, but cautioned: a star-cluster, an optical illusion, looking really more like a scimitar, caduceus, fylfot, The Wisdom Tree, a whirling glowing Saucer! Hallelujah! he cried at the infinite night. The links of stars, like bars, crossed everywhere . . . and beyond them, galactic webs, far glittering spiders climbing space. In this vastness, this immensity of lights, his soul seemed unmeterable, or an impertinence imprisoned in endlessness. The others kept bitten-tongued silence in face of this—this what? Vision? Hallucination? Madness? What should they bear witness to? It was too late to abort Mission Mars, too late to turn back. The dead red planet loomed ahead.

Biography

E. M. Schorb attended New York University, where he fell in with a group of actors and became a professional actor. During this time, he attended several top-ranking drama schools, which led to industrial films and eventually into sales and business. He has remained in business on and off ever since, but started writing poetry when he was a teenager and has never stopped. His collection, Time and Fevers, was a 2007 recipient of an Eric Hoffer Award for Excellence in Independent Publishing and also won the “Writer’s Digest” Award for Self-Published Books in Poetry. An earlier collection, Murderer’s Day, was awarded the Verna Emery Poetry Prize and published by Purdue University Press. Other collections include Reflections in a Doubtful I, The Ideologues, The Journey, Manhattan Spleen: Prose Poems, 50 Poems, and The Poor Boy and Other Poems.

Schorb’s work has appeared widely in such journals as The Yale Review, The Southern Review, The Virginia Quarterly Review, The Chicago Review, The Sewanee Review, The American Scholar, and The Hudson Review.

At the Frankfurt Book Fair in 2000, his novel, Paradise Square, was the winner of the Grand Prize for fiction from the International eBook Award Foundation, and later, A Portable Chaos won the Eric Hoffer Award for Fiction in 2004.

Schorb has received fellowships from the Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center and the North Carolina Arts Council; grants from the Ludwig Vogelstein Foundation, the Carnegie Fund, Robert Rauschenberg & Change, Inc. (for drawings), and The Dramatists Guild, among others. He is a member of the Academy of American Poets, and the Poetry Society of America.

PRIZE-WINNING BOOKS
BY E.M. SCHORB
Books available at Amazon.com
_______________________________________

Dates and Dreams, Writer’s Digest International Self-
Published Book Award for Poetry, First Prize

Paradise Square, International eBook Award
Foundation, Grand Prize, Fiction, Frankfurt Book Fair

A Portable Chaos, The Eric Hoffer Award for Fiction,
First Prize

Murderer’s Day, Verna Emery Poetry Prize, Purdue
University Press

Time and Fevers, The Eric Hoffer Award for Poetry
and Writer’s Digest International Self-Published Book
Award for Poetry, each First Prize
 
visit www.emschorb.com.

 

Gin Rummies & The Fiddler. Poems by E M Schorb.

by 
GIN RUMMIES

		To find a friend one must close one eye.
		To keep him—two.
				        —Norman Douglas
					
		for Rodney Formon


Friday nights, a fry-cook, 
arms scarred by sizzling fat, 
Rodney bangs on my door.
We like to drink together,
shoot the breeze, and laugh.
Drunk enough, we sing!
It’s karaoke with CDs scattered 
on the table, improvisational
shandygaffs and combinations
you can’t enjoy with your relations.

It’s good to have a drinking buddy.
I’ve used up two already—
one who fell down a flight of stairs
and one, who was much older, 
who died of his warrior life.
But now I’ve got Rodney,
who is very different from the others.

The other two were quite and somewhat
intellectual, and where the one
could talk history or science, art,
music, or just about any subject
in just about any language and come back,
being polyglot, and polymath,
even polymorphic, after hooch;
the other was a man of action,
a war hero with many medals
tucked away in drawers locked
by indifference, but still would tell of
weapons, arms and the man, and such
with fervor—my Heraclitus—
and also with disgust, with
fatalism, believing nothing
changes in man’s fighting nature,
disposed to think the worst;
but enthusiastic over chess,
which he played in earnest
as if he were at war again.

But Rodney is another sort:
He knows I write but will not read
a word I write, nor much else either,
but likes the Internet so much
he slides crabwise in thought,
toward what depth of cyberspace
I often cannot fathom until zing
I see it for myself, or am I drunk?

I see with Rodney that the other two,
complimented first my young and then 
my middle-aged delusions 
of a deeper self-knowledge
than available to most.  Yes, Rodney
shows me to myself, or shows me 
to my youthful ghosts, as ego-fed,
but did and does this unintentionally,
whose wonderful indifference makes me shrink
like a cock in the cold, and chug my drink.

 
THE FIDDLER
  
                       An Appalachian Tale              


Played the devil’s fiddle, stomping to it, shaking it out,
   full of corned blood, his boot down down down!    
Days before the corn, his old bitch Lucy lay by his piston heel.
   Said later she smelled it, stayed by it, waiting
for the meaty bone; said later never done him no harm at all;
   said later not even a ghost of evil but Lucy got it,
old bloodhound bitch like red clay, wrinkled old lady hanging
   from her own bones—could make her moon-howl,
pointing his wild bow—do that at dances.  Devil in a Baptist,
   playing the fiddle.   Gradual as the mountains,  
he found out how the devil got in.  Fiddle under his spiked,
   gray chin, corn jug thumb-hooked and cradled on top
his elbow—capful for Lucy—then stomp stomp stomp: music
   through Blue Ridge pines!   Could choo choo it
so’s you see smoke and steam, hear that wheezy accordion whistle;
   could conjure with it up a trainload of places
or turn you back home to the station of pines and blue smoke
   mountains, bring musical rain, or put the devil
in your heart, winking and drinking and stomping.  Everybody loved
   him and his Lucy, including said devil, as the corn dropped
down into his right big toe.  Said it hurt to stomp.  But it don’t
   stop the fiddler.  Don’t nothing stop the fiddler!  He was
one thing else than music; he was a man.  Take more’n corn going
   through, dropping down in my right big toe, says at
the May dance, everybody seeing him stomp, ouch ouch ouch on
   his big red gray spiked old corned face.  Devil 
got in through the corn, slick as silk; got down in my boot,
   but I’ll stomp him out; give old Satan a head-
ache—stomp stomp stomp!  But that corn went to killing him.
   His bow was flying!  Went on like this, folks say,
a tad’s five year, him stomping the devil in the corn and the devil
   stomping back.  Said now he couldn’t play no more if
he don’t get rid o’ that old devil.  Takes him a broad wood chisel
   out back on a stump, sets his right foot up, sets
that chisel to his toe, and strikes down with a good hefty hammer.
   When he pulls back his foot, that devil in the corned toe
stays on the stump, says looka me, I’m off!  Has brought him 
   some fireplace soot and some gingham.  Sticks that foot
in that black soot, to staunch the blood, and wraps it in gingham
   rags.  Said never done him no harm again, quiet as a bone,
and he goes back to stomping in peace, rid of the devil.  But 
   first, he throws that old corned toe to Lucy.  Says:
I knowed you always wanted it.  Now mind the nail, Lucy; don’t let
   the devil get you, you drunk old droop-skinned hound
bitch, cuz I love you.  And Lucy goes to lickin’ that toe, pops
   it in, and goes to grinding up that devil in her old ground down
chops.  And next time we see them,  the fiddler and his drunk bitch,
   they both full of corn, and ready, now, for the dance!

 

 

Schorb’s work has appeared in Agenda (UK), The American Scholar, The Carolina Quarterly, The Hudson Review, The Southern Review, Stand (UK), The Sewanee Review, The Virginia Quarterly Review, The North American Review, Poetry Salzburg Review (AU), The Yale Review, and Oxford Poetry (UK), among others.

His collection, Murderer’s Day, was awarded the Verna Emery Poetry Prize and published by Purdue University Press, and a subsequent collection, Time and Fevers, was the recipient of the Writer’s Digest International Self-Published Award for Poetry and also an Eric Hoffer Award.

Most recently, his novel R&R a Sex Comedy was awarded the Beverly Hills Book Award for Humor.

The Rain-Wet Rats. More Poems from RW.Haynes

by 
1]
The Rain-Wet Rats
 
She bathed in cold fire which softly sterilized
Her fitful thoughts circling constantly
Back to what gets lost, what set free, 
Gently startled, but not at all surprised.
The cold front rattles in with peevish rain
Concealed by darkness in the morning chill
But nudging at the mind as hostile specters will,
Cold drops rattling like a fatal chain.
 
Can she be easy regulating the fates
Of two dozen dirty peasants with staring eyes
And rusty pitchforks, furious at lies,
Shrieking in the rain outside her gates?
 
Is risk or safety the best choice to make?
The rain outside keeps rattling like a snake.
 
The rafters of civilization broke that day,
And all the rain-wet rats nimbly raced
Away like greyhounds, all order displaced,
And she ducked aside to hide out of the way.
Thunder crashed, as it were, and she
Smiled secretly and thought of my face
Aping consternation ludicrously.
 
2]
Symbolist Gunslinger Purges His Vocabulary
 
Lovely ladies, decked with smiles and flowers,
Dissolve all war and ugliness generously,
Gently repudiating suspicion, hostility,
Disarming all the cowboys’ macho powers.
Let sunshine warm where desert heat once dried.
Let kindness soothe the pain of outraged minds
And cool the excessive heat that burns and blinds.
Let understanding leave rough men satisfied.
For this is a magic, a witchcraft you yield,
Medea, Medusa, Miranda, Antigone,
Criseyde, Duessa, at times ferociously,
And Judith, and the fair witch I once met
Upon the meads, whose ring I wear within
My blood-curdled heart, and will wear when
Chariots descend to collect my fatal debt.
Lovely ladies, let the world spin away
Its grief, let conflict fire our blessed sunlight,
Let the right simplicity be ours today,
And the right words bless our witless dreams tonight.
 
3]
Jukebox Catullus Hums and Strums
 
I can’t stop playing Banquo’s ghost,
And blood runs everywhere each time I twitch,
And somewhere my corpse is bleeding in a ditch,
And you’re still indifferent to who loves you most
Despite this commitment, this dramatic dedication
Here on these boards where happy endings hide
From murdered noblemen with broken hearts inside
And no luck in erotic conversation.
May I venture an aside, though I should leave the stage?
Let no ghost be dishonored, or his staring eyes
Will plunder your heart in midnight surprise.
Enough.  The mad Queen calms the murderer’s rage.
The curtain never falls for the players in this trade;
We wait to spring the traps the poet made.
 
4]
The Right Reply for Second-Hand Fear
“Now time’s Andromeda on this rock rude…”
			--Hopkins
 
A delicate matter prevented her revenge:
Madame Alving was, at that time, at least,
(Delicious pause) Andromeda waiting for the beast,
Long-legged bait a gate to unhinge,
A passage of a champion of the stage,
Sic semper tyrannis the cry of the day,
Cooing doves flapping wings to fly away,
And the old monster’s dilapidated rage,
Bursts forth though in need of upholstery,
Roaring his regrettably wheezy roar
To remind us what monsters are onstage for,
And everyone fake-quakes, all but she,
For she smiles somewhat palely with that fire in her eyes,
And waves a hand defensively without fear,
For she knows who and what is scary here
And what is God’s truth and what the Devil’s lies.
That steady fire grows, its intensity stays,
However much your maudlin monster weighs.

 

 
R. W. Haynes, Professor of English at Texas A&M International University, has published poetry in many journals in the United States and in other countries. As an academic scholar, he specializes in British Renaissance literature, and he has also taught extensively in such areas as medieval thought, Southern literature, classical poetry, and writing. Since 1992, he has offered regular graduate and undergraduate courses in Shakespeare, as well as seminars in Ibsen, Chaucer, Spenser, rhetoric, and other topics. In 2004, Haynes met Texas playwright/screenwriter Horton Foote and has since become a leading scholar of that author’s remarkable oeuvre, publishing a book on Foote’s plays in 2010 and editing a collection of essays on his works in 2016. Haynes also writes plays and fiction. In 2016, he received the SCMLA Poetry Award ($500) at the South Central Modern Language Association Conference In 2019, two collections of his poetry were published, Laredo Light (Cyberwit) and Let the Whales Escape (Finishing Line Press).

THROUGH A FOG, AFTER THE FALL & WISDOM. 3 Poems by George Freek

by 

THROUGH A FOG (After Su Tung Po) 

Wind rustles the leaves
with rough fingers,
then blows away.
Silence is a muted scream.
Clouds look at nothing
when they pass by
like men who
no longer ask why.
The moon, once so bright,
is a dim light
in that immense sea,
while I search for
things that are not to be.

AFTER THE FALL (After Mei Yao Chen)

Dying flowers lie like corpses
with discolored heads.
If my wife were here,
She’d try to revive them,
but she’s also dead.
Night holds me in its arms,
as if I were a child,
abandoned in a desolate spot.
Stars crawl across the sky
like bugs wandering
lost and blind,
over an infinite rug,
Life is unkind.
Life will never be how it was,
but I think the way it was
was only in my mind

WISDOM (After Tu Fu)

I stare at my unmade bed.
Outside, a chilling breeze
rustles the dead leaves,
as if they were feathers.
The moon is a ball of lead.
I gaze at distant stars,
lost in the infinite sky,
as if they had
nowhere to abide.
A torn shirt, hanging from
a tree, waves in the breeze,
like an abandoned flag,
now a tattered rag.
I feel the approaching cold.
I watch traffic pass me by,
as if I were a stone.
I’ve learned 
what it means to become old.

George Freek’s poem “Written At Blue Lake” was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. His poem “Enigmatic Variations” was also recently nominated for Best of the Net. His collection “Melancholia” is published by Red Wolf Editions.

The would-be sculptor of muses. A Poem by Fabrice B. Poussin

by 
The would-be sculptor of muses

Ether comes to be in the bright light
it makes auras like so many living hosts
to chase the others as if to mate.

In awe of the unknown phenomenon
the maker of miracles seeks a solution
to make a wonder from such soft chaos.

A silent symphony emerges in a waltz
particles of a curious matter embrace
swirling in a gentle cyclone.

Pondering the unexpected spectacle
magician in his dreams he is still
waiting for the only moment in time. 

Perhaps then he will be the great master
holder of the secret he has been seeking
when at last the creation becomes his muse.

 
 

 
 
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.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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)

MOURNING DAD & Poems by Strider Marcus Jones

by 
MOURNING DAD

he is decomposed
from a bramble rose
now-
his thorns
of storms
drow,
foetal curled
in the underworld
faerie peat without plough.

is it fun
with all those comical
musical
jacketed jesters-
or primplum
suitedrun
by posh ancestors-
doing the same this and that
to keep your spirit level flat
with docile protestors
wired to silicon investors.

i bought this new fedora hat
in whitewashed Mijas
to be my own brown
Romany
see as-
let them face their ignominy
when i wear it here in town-
like an un-shoed horse
from the roadgorse
prancing right
through their moral less light
brim slanted defiantly down
eyes outsider brown.

is it no Left or Right there.
do you have your chair
to sit in.
can you smoke your pipe
gathering stars in its clouds at night
thinking thoughts in nothing.
do you still use words
to help wingless birds
or is it silent
to the violent
fermenting fear
when the truth comes near
just like here.

 
THROUGH TALL WINDOWS

 
in late afternoon meadows

low light sketched your shadows

in Mucha pose

while I watched

through tall windows.


opening doors

footsteps on floors

all the clocks

in the house stopped

in the sundial

of your smile-

 
then prying phones

became postponed

and dissolved the blocks

of being drones

in dosed

apartments

opening closed

compartments.

 
more Bogart and Bacall

in Key Largo,

or The Poet by Vettriano-

in the hall,

we took Hopper’s painting off the wall

with its stark stress

heart of darkness.

 
Us

 
we are composed

out of the fate of stars

a light dark light so old

and tuned that regards

most of Us as Other

peasants

who are clothed

without privileged presents

to burn wood in cracked stoves

under crumbling cover.

stitched to Their time

we entwine

in our own interpretation

of this spinning station.

only burlesque bright skies

and the iris flowers of abandoned eyes

can change the fixed views

of a selfish landscape

into united hues

of equal state.

our reality is broken-

we are the hosts

and ghosts

who have been stolen

the violated tokens

of corporatist totems

screen greed being traded

and invaded

then beaten for protesting by police

working for the Thief.


BABYLON'S BOHEMIAN BOUQUET


i like the way
some words you say
go against gravity
and linger in the air
when you've gone.
sad or fair,
they blow away
this dungeons dark oblivion,
and water me with wisdom
like a soft shawl
with scents and sounds
that i wrap around
my senses come what may-
you give it all,
and love abounds
in Babylon's bohemian bouquet.
like butterflies
in druid grey skies,
the fragility
of eternity
ripples with uncertainty,
but doesn't woo, then waver in your eyes.
it's steady gaze
seduces praise,
then fondles and savours
loves succulent flavours,
like innocent alibis.

Strider Marcus Jones – is a poet, law graduate and former civil servant from Salford, England with proud Celtic roots in Ireland and Wales. A member of The Poetry Society, his five published books of poetry https://stridermarcusjonespoetry.wordpress.com/ reveal a maverick, moving between cities, playing his saxophone in smoky rooms. He is also the founder, editor and publisher of Lothlorien Poetry Journal https://lothlorienpoetryjournal.blogspot.com/

His poetry has been published in the USA, Canada, Australia, England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, France, Spain, Germany; Serbia; India and Switzerland in numerous publications including: Dreich Magazine; The Racket Journal; Trouvaille Review; dyst Literary Journal; A New Ulster; Impspired Magazine; Literary Yard Journal; Piker Press; oppy Road Review; Cajun Mutt Press; Rusty Truck Magazine; Rye Whiskey Review; Deep Water Literary Journal; The Huffington Post USA; The Stray Branch Literary Magazine; Crack The Spine Literary Magazine; The Lampeter Review; Panoplyzine Poetry Magazine; Dissident Voice.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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)

3 Sonnets: Mrs. Alving Contemplates Her Nipples, Like Epictetus on Mushrooms, Another Ha Ha Chuckle for the Blessing of Rest by RW Haynes

by 
Mrs. Alving Contemplates Her Nipples

Hedonism governs men, or simple greed
Deludes them always, so these masculine minds
Delight in lies that their convenience finds
So that for them there’s nothing true indeed.
If the lies are just nature’s just excretions,
Or by-products of heated oxidation,
I see their value as no more than negation
A healthy memory turns into deletions.
Lusty dudes, braggarts, loud buffoons,
Imploring forgiveness, tender sacrifice,
Though only my surrender will suffice,
I scorn your swaggering, you groveling baboons.
“Mommy! Mommy! Mommy!” These babies cry.
My nipples are mine now. Big babies, good-bye.

Like Epictetus on Mushrooms 

If Fortune turns its face toward the sun 
Whose light takes eight minutes to arrive, 
Then I put aside impatience to revive 
Fortitude in hope when day is done 
My sputtering candle may be noted then 
For what it’s worth, although its little light 
Took sixty years of travel through the night 
To let its fitful illumination begin. 
Duty is useless if no mark is made, 
And if the light should vanish, be unseen, 
As the Spartan said, I’ll fight then in the shade, 
Divested of incumbrance, darkly serene. 
Take your insincere sympathies, then, 
And stick them all elsewhere, all the way in. 

Another Ha Ha Chuckle for the Blessing of Rest

She thought light would leak on all
True dilemmas, personal honor, life or limb,
What to cook, what to hide from him,
And when she saw some ominous shadow fall
She knew to relish inevitability
Like an old stone statue staring in a tomb,
Silently satisfied in that silent room,
Mutely assimilating shadows she could see.
“My poetry will get you,” she wanted to smile,
“My syllabic dynamite, my shapely lines
Of harmony, tangled like wise vines,
Must stack all being in an elegant pile.
But you, O Diogenes, what you are after
Provokes no more than a brief fit of laughter.”

R. W. Haynes, Professor of English at Texas A&M International University, has published poetry in many journals in the United States and in other countries. As an academic scholar, he specializes in British Renaissance literature, and he has also taught extensively in such areas as medieval thought, Southern literature, classical poetry, and writing. Since 1992, he has offered regular graduate and undergraduate courses in Shakespeare, as well as seminars in Ibsen, Chaucer, Spenser, rhetoric, and other topics. In 2004, Haynes met Texas playwright/screenwriter Horton Foote and has since become a leading scholar of that author’s remarkable oeuvre, publishing a book on Foote’s plays in 2010 and editing a collection of essays on his works in 2016. Haynes also writes plays and fiction. In 2016, he received the SCMLA Poetry Award ($500) at the South Central Modern Language Association Conference In 2019, two collections of his poetry were published, Laredo Light (Cyberwit) and Let the Whales Escape (Finishing Line Press).

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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)

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