Poem

A Late Night Poem About Morning 3 Poems by Kushal Poddar

by 
A Late Night Poem About Morning 

Instead of pasting Goodmorning!
on your lips and ripping out mine
at the first urge to breathe we discover
sending pics.

You send a photo of a strand of my white 
on the black pillow case. A white cane
for a blind lane and for the piers dark with
wetness, water rippling, a few river gulls,
all tide in my mind. Sun walks in my head,
and its sweat beads explode, startle 
our alley cat, pregnant and sad 
as if it already knows the fate of its kittens. 

In a Landscape of Red, White and Grey

The red balloon moon 
keeps the boat afloat.
Snow steps into the slate.

Dream hands over its 
mutinous pamphlets 
to the flesh and drags 
its cold gnawed feet 
towards the ferry.

Now a wind will chase the shine. 
Now I'll wake up with 
a mouthful of slogans 
and "Bella Ciao" stuck in my glottis.

Thirteen Dogs' Piss Mark This Block

The dayspring birds surround silence,
now almost blind, now bewildered
and looking for the home all go in the end
to begin again.

The street lights still burn. The early
tramlines connect the horizon
with the broad mouth of the junction. 
One mad man seeks for the moon beams
last seen electric on these long metals. 
From his left hand hangs a brown teddy 
wrapped in a thin plastic. The locality 
is demarcated by thirteen dogs' piss.
They ask him who he is, and that he doesn't know.

Kushal Poddar ‘The Circus Came To My Island’, ‘A Place For Your Ghost Animals’, ‘Understanding The Neighborhood’, ‘Scratches Within’, ‘Kleptomaniac’s Book of Unoriginal Poems’, ‘Eternity Restoration Project- Selected and New Poems‘ and ‘Herding My Thoughts To The Slaughterhouse-A Prequel’. Find and follow him https://www.amazon.com/Kushal-Poddar The author of ‘Postmarked Quarantine’ has eight books to his credit. He is a journalist, father, and the editor of ‘Words Surfacing’. His works have been translated into twelve languages, published across the globe.
Twitter- https://twitter.com/Kushalpoe

The Seaboard Magic Poems by Sterling Warner

by 
Seaboard Magic

Allure

Beachfront bravado to the left and right
waves curl onto shore shifting sand
wiping hand drawn engravings in grit 
as clean as a dull grey etch-a-sketch,
leaving a damp coastline, pristine
and refreshed while high and low tides
move in sets of seven, bowing to the moon’s
majesty, rising, rolling, and crashing
like a seaside symphony conducted
by Luna and her gravitational forces
like a solar maestro—directing 
heaven sent crescendos exerted 
from the nocturnal orb or diurnal daystar  
rays enchanting Jean and I as we walked
along the brackish strand arm in arm, 
examining remains of kelp forests torn, 
severed, and dislodged by brutal currents
by tropical tempests, and El Niño storms:
Violent
Dynamic
Destructive.

 Charmed       

Cooling tired, bare feet in sudsy surf
Jean and I imagine life on a deserted island
while we search for elusive messages bottled 
by humans, battered by natural elements,
propelled by Poseidon from coral groves 
to dryland with other oceanic treasures washed 
aground, rest shoulder to shoulder next to 
empty shells, horseshoe crab exoskeletons, 
smooth rocks, sand dollars, and starfish 
that frame a familiar yet extraordinary stone
with a halo; gulls circle overhead as we
picked up the quartz gem, kissed it thrice 
impulsively shut our eyes, and conferred
silent wishes upon the castaway tetrahedron
worn by pebbles, time, and space, then tossed
the worn talisman back into the saltwater fray
lowering our heads in reverence, listening,
breathing the Pacific Ocean’s ethereal song: 
rhythmic 
soothing
Enduring.

Nocturnal Expeditions

Each night I go on safari in dreams
hoofing it though savannas, I photograph 
big game, immortalize wildlife, 
honor existence over bagging trophies,
confine my conquests to shutter-release shots.

From grasslands to rainforests, 
I advance through foliage like a tropical ecologist, 
inhale the damp, intoxicating fragrance 
of fresh blossoms and decaying vegetation
listen to croaking frogs buzzing insects, chirping birds.

           Dragons nest trees feature purple petals
               that pop alongside giant jungle roses.

           I wipe forehead sweat with velvet petal plants, 
               absorbing perspiration in striking emerald fibers.

My gloved hands part vine walls, prevent
chill nettles from stinging & numbing
bare skin, avoiding slimy lizards tongue leaves, 
marveling how green fountain bushes 
gush between matted, detritus undergrowth.

Jacksonville feral infant, I imagined a childhood
reared by Seeonee wolves or Mangani great apes
heeding jungle law and administering frontier justice
laid down by Rudyard Kipling and Edgar Rice Burroughs
a code unsustainable during metropolitan daylight hours.


Nadia & I

Nadia Comăneci sought me out in a dream
to tell me she treasured a letter I’d written
in college when she, still just a teen, had 
mystified Montreal Olympic spectators 
in frigid stands, dorms, warm living rooms,
and smoky bars as they watched miss impeccable’s
balance beam heroics & uneven bars magic.

The perfect ten approached me, tossed
a pair of lycra leotards on my mattress, 
then bid me to rise, dress & stretch; 
“Bart Connors, you ain’t,” she winked & grinned,
yet assured me our overdue exercise would
commence unimpeded by my lackluster talent,
present confusion, or enduring admiration.

Throwing a Moldavian folk scarf onto my rug
she slipped a body shawl off her shoulders
displaying arms, legs & chest pectoral muscles
still supple, toned, lean, femininely defined; 
awestruck, her statuesque figure morphed 
from a woman to an adolescent as “Nadia’s Theme”
floated through my enchanted furnace grate.

Tears welled in my eyes recalling how Grandma Leedom
would hum the self-same tune to The Young and the Restless
before piano notes & Nadia’s touch transformed my carpet,
she took both my hands & we fell in sync on a foam mat; 
out-of-body I watched as we hit the floor—gymnastic youths—
doing backsprings, forward rolls, cartwheels & handstands 
till music stooped & I awoke middle-aged, exhausted, alone.


Purdy Creek Choka

Northwest white polars
lean like elderly people
attempting to keep upright
when muddy currents
clutch waterlogged feeble trunks 
pull tired legs alike asunder
like flagpoles planted
in insubstantial soil
both endure flash floods
while otters back float
bouncing off impediments 
like brightly lit pin balls
joyriding the river’s surge
carrying them to the sea.

An award-winning author, poet, and educator, Sterling Warner’s works have appeared in literary magazines, journals, and anthologies including Danse Macabre, Poetry Life and Times, Ekphrastic Review, and Sparks of Calliope. Warner’s collections of poetry include Rags and Feathers, Without Wheels, ShadowCat, Edges, Memento Mori: A Chapbook Redux, Serpent’s Tooth, Flytraps, and Cracks of Light: Pandemic Poetry & Fiction 2019-2022—as well as Masques: Flash Fiction & Short Stories. Currently, Warner writes, participates in “virtual” poetry readings, and enjoys retirement in Washington.

Sterling Warner’s Author Website
https://www.amazon.com/author/amazon.com_sterling.warner

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.

 

When the Messiah Comes poems from Aieka by Daniela Ema Aguinsky Translated from Spanish by Amparo Arróspide & Robin Ouzman Hislop

by 

i.

La foto de mi abuela el día de su casamiento

Sé que no lo deseabas
pero lo hiciste.
El buen chico judío asignado
no resultó
tan buen chico.

Pasé tu edad
no me casé con el mío.
Lo deje ir lejos
una noche de luna
en la terraza
tomó mi mano y dijo

no me gustan las chicas
con las uñas pintadas.

Las mías
eran rojas
y dejaban marcas
en las paredes de su intestino.

A veces recuerdo al goy
de la fábrica de máquinas de coser
gritaba tu nombre
en la cueva privada de su boca.

Alegre
soprano de interiores
fósforo
en una caja húmeda
durante un corte de luz

vos empezás a irte
yo recién estoy llegando. 

i.

The photo of my grandmother on her wedding day

I know you didn't want to
but you still did.
The assigned good Jewish boy
did not turn out to be
such a good boy.

I am past your age
I didn't marry mine.
I let him get away
a moonlit night
on the terrace
he took my hand and said

I don't like girls
with painted nails.

Mine
were red
and left marks
on the walls of his intestine.

Sometimes I remember the goi*
from the sewing machine factory
he screamed your name
in the private cave of his mouth.

Cheerful
indoor soprano
a match
in a wet match box
when there is a fuse

you begin to depart
I'm just arriving.


* Goi (non Jewish boy)

ii.

Palimpsesto

Me tiré ácido
me raspé la piel
y me escribí encima.

Abajo quedaron huellas
los textos que no llegaron
al canon de mi existencia.

Que vengan los cabalistas
los estudiantes de Talmud
voy a desplegarme sobre la mesa,
una escritura sagrada.

Desnúdenme con cuidado
rastreen los indicios
discutan el estado original
de esta mujer borrada.

ii.

Palimpsest

I threw acid on myself
scraped my skin
and wrote on it.

Traces were left below
the texts that did not make it
to the canon of my existence.

Let the Cabalists come
students of the Talmud
I'm going to spread myself on a table,
a sacred script

Undress me with care
track the signs
discuss the original state
of this erased woman.

iii.

Las copas están hechas para romperse

Lo sé
desde que mi abuela guardaba la vajilla
de su abuela, en un aparador especial
que nunca se abría
por lo delicadas que eran
esas copitas verdes de tallos finos como lirios
capacidad mínima, brillantes.

Nada ameritaba
perturbarlas
de su estado decorativo
los nietos no le habíamos dado
una jupá, un compromiso, un nacimiento.
No le habíamos dado nada.

Pero mi abuela sabía mejor que nadie
que las copas
están hechas
para romperse:

van a quebrarse
mientras lavás los platos
o estallar contra el piso cuando levantás la mesa
un día que estás sobrepasada
o se le van a caer a tu nieta, dentro de veinte años,
cuando se mude sola a su primer departamento.

Van a resistir
como las personas viejas resisten
hasta quebrarse
un día cualquiera de sol.

iii.

GLASSWARE  ARE  MADE TO BE BROKEN

I know
since my grandmother put away the crockery
of her grandmother, in a special sideboard
she never opened
because of how delicate they were
those little green glasses with thin stems like lilies
bright in miniature capacity 

Nothing was worth
disturbing them
from their ornamental state     
grandchildren hadn´t give her
a chuppah*, an engagement, a birth. 
We hadn't given her anything.

But my grandmother knew better than anyone
that glassware
are made to be broken

they are going to break
while you wash the dishes
or explode on the floor when you ´re clearing the table
stressed out
or your granddaughter will drop them in twenty years´ time
when she moves into her first apartment alone.

They will resist
as old people resist
until breaking
any sunny day.

* chuppah: a Jewish wedding

iv.

                Cuando venga el Mesías van a curarse todos los enfermos
                     pero el tonto va a seguir siendo tonto.
                      Refrán Idish

Cuando venga el Mesías

y reconstruyan el Tercer Templo
no quiero estar arriba
mirando a los hombres rezar
en círculos que cantan y bailan
mientras mujeres charlan
y chicos gritan.

Cuando venga el Mesías
no quiero estar arriba
con el humo de los sacrificios
abajo los sacerdotes entran
y salen como amantes
pronunciando
el nombre sagrado.

Cuando venga el Mesías
y todos retornemos a la tierra
quiero estar en la tierra de este mundo.

iv.

                   When the Messiah comes, all the sick will be cured.
                        but the fool will remain a fool.
                         Yiddish saying

When the Messiah comes

and they rebuild the Third Temple
I don't want to be above
watching men pray
in circles singing and dancing
while women chat
and children shout

When the Messiah comes
I don't want to be above
with the smoke of sacrifices
the priests entering below
and exiting like lovers
pronouncing
the sacred name.

When the Messiah comes
and we all return to earth
I want to be on the earth of this world.

v.

Teléfono fijo

Mis papás me dieron un teléfono fijo
la línea está incluída dijeron
tenelo por las dudas
y quedó en el piso

cuando suena, rara vez
sé que son ellos
(nadie más tiene el número)
me siento en el sillón
espero tres tonos y atiendo

a veces una noticia terrible otras
una invitación para almorzar
lo único fijo este teléfono.

v.

Landline

My parents gave me a landline
the line is paid for they said
keep it just in case
and it stayed on  the floor

when it rings, rarely
I know it's them
(no one else has its number)
I sit on the couch
I wait three rings and answer

sometimes terrible news other times
an invitation for lunch

The only fixed thing this phone.

Daniela Ema Aguinsky (Buenos Aires, 1993) is a writer and filmmaker based in Argentina. She Directed the shorts Virtual Guard, Hurricane Berta, 7 Tinder Dates, and several others. She published Amante japonés, Aieka (2023) and Terapia con animales (2022) in Argentina, Mexico and Spain, book that won The National Poetry Prize Storni in 2021. She is also the spanish translator to the California based poet Ellen Bass; Todos los platos del menú (Gog & Magog, 2021). Twitter: laglu Instagram: laglus

 
 
Amparo Arróspide (born in Buenos Aires) is an M.Phil. by the University of Salford. As well as poems, short stories and articles on literature and films in anthologies and international magazines, she has published five poetry collections: Presencia en el Misterio, Mosaicos bajo la hiedra, Alucinación en dos actos y algunos poemas, Pañuelos de usar y tirar and En el oído del viento. The latter is part of a trilogy together with Jacuzzi and Hormigas en diaspora, which are in the course of being published. In 2010 she acted as a co-editor of webzine Poetry Life Times, where many of her translations of Spanish poems have appeared, she has translated authors such as Margaret Atwood, Stevie Smith and James Stephens into Spanish, and others such as Guadalupe Grande, Ángel Minaya, Francisca Aguirre, Carmen Crespo, Javier Díaz Gil into English. She takes part in poetry festivals, recently Centro de Poesía José Hierro (Getafe).
 
 
Robin Ouzman Hislop is Editor of Poetry Life and Times ; at Artvilla.com
You may visit Aquillrelle.com/Author Robin Ouzman Hislop about author. See Robin performing his work Performance (University of Leeds)

A Quicksilver Trilling (Inspired by Leonard Cohen and Bob Dylan) A Poem by David L O’Nan

by 
A Quicksilver Trilling 
(Inspired by Leonard Cohen and Bob Dylan)

Once upon a time we met the platinum blonde, with a letter in hand and a brown Loro Piana handbag.
She was quiet and frantic at the same time (the obstacles of running from beautiful to damnit!)
You popped the bubbles in the hot flames,
in flamenco streets with bleeding trains 
that lead you, from the whistles to the cheating rainfalls.

Now, she’s as quiet as the storm swept flower.
Now, she’s an atomic bomb in the heart of desire.
She’s as damaged as the ignorant meal to the fiery belly of a carnivore.
Meeting the vagrants are as easy as meeting you she’d laugh to herself.
Maybe, she’s just a little deaf when the city shakes in a quicksilver trilling.
A little blind when the joy begins to fade from a celebration to just a thronging. 

So, you missed the thrills of the small crowd now.
That city took your bravery and your crown.
It’s hard to be superficial in your walk.
The thrills of a million helicopters circling down.
Your heartbeats, a quilted bundle of wires.
In the Hollywood hideaways the public does watch with pinkies up in a permanent smirking 
shadow.
Hurry up to snap a picture of her durable nucleus falling apart.
Behind the bars, to the many alcohols and elixirs falling straight down the cold rocks.
Her beautiful monuments showing the crackles now,
and the drinking of the sweet fruit tree has become a little thick in the dust cloud social ball.
Maybe she’s just a little deaf when this city shakes in a quicksilver trilling.

Maybe, she’s a little thirsty when the water is sealed from the dams to her  willing lips.
This blessing is just a disguised curse when she’s dressed up for another Judy Garland downward
spiral. 
I’m starting to rethink this shadow looking at his shoes, playing little Mr. Socialite and wearing a
Poor man’s Bruno Maglis blues.
I’m standing here holding your golden cup catching the feathers of your golden goose,
and a shriveled-up ticket to the sacrifices you make at Tiffanys.
My culture lies behind the ropes holding the inside of my head.
To play lover and not to play dead.
So you can play elegant and hip for the artsy coffee shops.
They can spell your name in the drink and your heart melts, and you finally feel like a somebody.
So you tip the baristas and joke about the rats.
They don’t know art, don’t have MFA’s and haven’t been bought their gardens to thrive.
I just watch the fakeness leave your timid hazel eyes. 
And you try to adjust in the restroom and cry, I hear you in there weeping like a saturnine 
coyote.

There are a couple of genuine fools, 
Walking around pretending to be the rules of cool.
They folded under the pressures of rebellion, but they are beginning to wonder my darling.
They are wondering exactly how many canvases you have put your brush to.
Since you tell them all you’re so smart and like a branch.
I’m just this poetic clown stuck with oversized t-shirts and a smile of a stripped screw.
Don’t worry he’ll pay for this free meal at this simpering Italian restaurant.
Then he’ll be on his way back to the job of being a wonderful muse when the art professors 
aren’t calling you.
Never to share a true linen of a sunrise together. Tell me exactly what art is when you don’t 
Know the art that is a natural weather.
Oh, perhaps. Just perhaps, she’s a little deaf when the city shakes and is shrilling.
A little more quicksilver trilling.

The sunrise is a little overbearing. I can’t see the canvas from the golden glare I’m wearing.
Operation, a colorful tornado on a disco floor. We’ve got weak legs dancing.
Drunk and the quick pills are mixing.  And you’re a drunk and grinding against the pistons.
More strangers trying to keep from pissing. They want to call you up for a night of your 
skin glistening and introduce you to a hypodermic waterbed.
You forgot me behind the trees. A little dirty when you have to sit and plead.
You have nothing you really need, but everything you want is in the halos of that river.

Well, those birds wake up a little earlier than you. And they seem sick without the worms to 
chew.  There isn’t a masterpiece for them to view.
You went right into the darkness with your colors and your strength. 
Frail bones fail frail forests.  Simple supernatural spells bring crumbles to a magic mountain,
The journeys are hard to walk when the valleys and the lakes are droughts for the scrawny to 
swim in.
Maybe she’s a little deaf when the animals stopped howling.
The wind is full of heat and rain is even melting. Around the curves the body is sealing.
The city is shaking to a quicksilver trilling.

From the windows, we used to see the clarity of the glass.
Now it’s a little oily and hell is seen through the overcast.
It’s a holocaust, razor sharp raindrops with teeth that bite, just like a brand new disease.
The queen must hide from the flee. Our humanity isn’t built anymore on heartbeats.
Sometimes humanity is built from cardboard signs. Hold a little higher and ask for a prayer.
Ask for a shave of cool air to save you from a Tinseltown cataclysm.
So what does the wonder girl do? When she goes from pretender to blue to the shrew?
Does she realize her hair wasn’t always so cute?
Does she realize the geniuses are all crooks?
Does she feel the jazzy palm trees have always been a little plastic and fake?

Much like the hypnotized starlets in the platinum blonde destruction game.
Oh, maybe she’s a little deaf from the chess game that keeps yelling checkmate!
Maybe she’s been blinded by the hysterical cut-throat authority waifs.
Maybe, she’s just part of this jealousy, a vanish haze they thrown on you to make you a product.
A little pill sick and when the city keeps shaking.
Tiny slits of cracks in this quicksilver trilling.
Now, she’s as naked as a blurry mirror. 
Now, she’s feeling as pitiful as a stuttering preacher.
Now, her art is less of a picture that hangs above bountiful nouveau vanity mirrors.
Her art is the magnetism that pulls the moon through her evening veins.
Her art is when the clouds move in and pulls the curtains of stars over her delicate frame.
Maybe she grew tired of her ears constantly ringing.
Loud masochisms and feminine leeches luring and lingering.

A city shook to pieces in a quicksilver trilling.

 
 
 

 
 
 
Bio:
David L O’Nan is a poet, short story writer, prose & lyricist, an editor living in Southern Indiana. He is founder and lead editor for Fevers of the Mind Poetry, Art & Music. He has edited & curated anthologies under Fevers of the Mind (7 volumes) since 2019 in addition to anthologies inspired by and dedicated to Leonard Cohen (Avalanches in Poetry & Before I Turn Into Gold), Bob Dylan (Hard Rain Poetry: Forever Dylan), Joni Mitchell (The Blue Motel Rooms Poetry & Art) Tom Waits (The Whiskey Mule Diner), The Poetica Sisterhood of Sylvia & Anne (poetry & art inspired by Sylvia Plath & Anne Sexton), On the Highways with Many Miles…to Go! (poetry & art inspired by Jack Kerouac, Townes Van Zandt, Miles Davis, Langston Hughes, etc), Waltzin’ Through Rusty Cages (inspired by Elliott Smith & Chris Cornell), The website is
 
www.feversofthemind.com
 
He also has solo works “The Famous Poetry Outlaws are Painting Walls and Whispers” “The Cartoon Diaries”, “New Disease Streets”, “Our Fears in Tunnels”, “Taking Pictures in the Dark”, “Bending Rivers: A Collection”,”Lost Reflections” (micropoems), “Before the Bridges Fell” (2022), & “Cursed Houses” (2022) his work can be found in several litmags and books.
Twitter/X is @davidLONan1 and for Fevers of the Mind is @feversof and Facebook is the
Fevers of the Mind Poetry, Arts & Music Group.

The Gypsy Sea Poems by Sterling Warner

by 
Gypsy Sea

Sunrise: necks stretched out like hungry clams
lurch for the Ibuprofen emperor 
whose numb fingers wave loners to café chairs—
rivet them to sticky alligator seats, bottom sides 
textured with chewing gum madness; daydreams
pull life’s canopy over sand and foam,  
seasick tides lick each empowered undertow
sheer bag luck burlesques diffident efforts, 
tête-à-tête conversations revealing 
epiphany-like promises through opaque glass.

Nightfall: along the coastline, bonfires blaze
bodies gather, mouths breathe desire, minds re-imagine; 
moving between cosmic and material worlds,  
cleaving mustard greens like an armful of roses,  
a gypsy mystic dances like a whirling dervish
toe-ring magic fractures limestone bones   
unbrushed by feet for millennia 
bangle bracelets and silver cymbals rouse
ever vigilant, sleepy-eyed centurions
stand guard over her Technicolor Roma.

Sun-up: astronomical dawn signals nocturnal closure,
dancing legs and burning feet cease
rhythmically rocking shellfish strongholds;
dense auburn moss calmly spreads its way south  
wraps a tranquil riverbed in nature’s sheath
guides an Arabesque estuary toward a
salt water fiord, lateral moraine, where
nourished sediment dwellers burrow home
high tides pull ashes, bathe shorelines 
littered with seaweed, driftwood, memories.

Grace
For G. M.

Grace leaned against parked cars 
at midnight, full crow moon rays bathing 
her body in luminescent grandeur. 
Poised. Seductive. Her touch extended
over an embankment like sprouting 
foxtail seeds resemble ballerinas that float
on the breeze and hook into dog paws 

Fragile. Elastic. Insubstantial. Like bubbles 
blown from hoops that burst unpredictably, 
Grace’s rainbow brow sought barn owl benedictions
waved goodbye to the summer solstice
welcomed the autumnal equinox—a September song
that harvested her deeply planted thoughts 
and sowed them in fields of winter wheat.

Wind passed through cedar branches, eclipsed 
Grace’s mantra of green card foreboding 
added frivolity and enhanced shorter days
and nights both waiting for December
to push back twilight’s rays—scatter them
in the upper atmosphere—brighten evening skies 
warm Dawn’s fingers on the rising sun’s heels.  

Wistful Lulamaes
For Audrey Hepburn

Tiffany windows display silver platters 
reflect morning light like vintage mirrors 
as pedestrians hide behind Oliver Goldsmith sunglasses,
dressed to the nines like Holly Golightly
pose then study its Manhattan showcase framed 
by granite walls on Fifth Avenue & 57th Street.

Disguised as stylish escorts, men and women peer
through double-pane glass, appreciate excess & exotica 
in equal measure, ponder fleeting holographic images 
of John the Baptist’s head etched sterling trays
murmuring silent prophecies, portend gentle greatness 
& Big Apple panache for life beyond Sodom’s avenging angels. 

Truman Capote’s phantom emerges from Central Park shadows 
wears a white suit & hat, moves forward like a garden snail, 
maintains a two-block buffer, his high-pitched voice mingling 
with car horns & cabbies where rainbows end announces 
breakfast availability to Broadway street singers, Soho artists, 
moon river enthusiasts, New York tourists, huckleberry friends.

Magyar Sleeves

“The Colour of my soul is iron-grey and sad bats wheel about the steeple of my dreams.”
 									—Claude Debussy

Grooming themselves 
    like cats, bat pups clutch 
    onto their perch upside down, 
    loosen artistic digits  
    emerge from slumber 
    in hollow trees, cave mouths, 
    attic eves & rocky crevices.
From inverted roosts, 
    they drop into flight mode 
    as membrane covered forelimbs 
    navigate ultrasonic waves 
    & echolocation identify 
    evening canvases to paint 
    with wings like a brush & palette.
Moonlight colonies undercover 
    zig-zag through mist & gnat clouds,
    rising from depths of stone lined wells,
    leave watercolor portraits 
    during witching hours
    as children trick or treat 
    wearing bat capes & cowls.

 
 
 
 
An award-winning author, poet, and educator, Sterling Warner’s works have appeared in literary magazines, journals, and anthologies including Danse Macabre, Poetry Life and Times, Ekphrastic Review, and Sparks of Calliope. Warner’s collections of poetry include Rags and Feathers, Without Wheels, ShadowCat, Edges, Memento Mori: A Chapbook Redux, Serpent’s Tooth, Flytraps, and Cracks of Light: Pandemic Poetry & Fiction 2019-2022—as well as Masques: Flash Fiction & Short Stories. Currently, Warner writes, participates in “virtual” poetry readings, and enjoys retirement in Washington.
 

 
https://www.amazon.com/Cracks of Light: Pandemic Poetry & Fiction

Afterlife. A Poem by Debashish Haar

by

 
 
 

 
Debashish is a machine learning scientist, who has been published in literary magazines several
times across the globe, including Poetry Life & Times, where he was interviewed twice.
He is currently contending with a severe writer’s block spanning a decade, when he has hardly
produced any publishable content. He is also losing emotional connection with his own work
gradually, and spends more time to edit/tighten his old poems than creating any new content.
 

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

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