The Velut Luna Poems by Jessica Skyfield.

The Velut Luna poems


Starseed


Particles accelerate
Never losing mass.
Never losing energy.
Cold fusion brilliance,
created in a fog of clarity.
Energy illuminated.
Magic?
Pounds of stardust
traded for an ounce of perspective.

We all love amusement parks.

Dizzy and delirious,
parked permanently on the ride.


Dust to dust


We’re made of stars
disparate and dissonant.
Day by day
doubt festers,
fenestrations of fear.

And we damn deities,
dredge demons.
Cosmological chaos.
Inherent ideological clashes
birthed from cultural constructs.
Idiomatic onslaught,
shaped by societal mores,
moored by millennia.

Nihil sumus.


Velut luna


Spin the wheel
Velut luna

Fortune favors the bold
Tried and true, trite and true.
Therein lies the rub.

Squeezing our infinitesimal selves into the lens
of a long-forgotten dream.

All roads lead you home.
That’s as unconditional as it gets.


Open


Sometimes I forget to breathe.
Creating a vacuum seal of self.
Presenting that self to the world: an unwilling taciturn tacticality.
The perceived enormity of our individual selves
Lost to the ether.
Lacking time.
Creating space.
Where?


Relativistic Infinity


Effusive energy
Silent fusion
Dominos without end
A self-made loop

A louped glance,
askance.

Golly gee. Great.

Gutted by greed,
Gouge our evil eyes,
And hollow hearts.
Our irrational ears.

As we fester in finite fallacy.


Outline


where to start?
where to begin?

“We need an outline.”

Oh? Oh.

Of my life. Of the complication.
The words swirl in a torrential hurricane inside.
How to order chaos?

“Of course.”

It’s only a matter of course.

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.  

 
 
 

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)

Holy Dementia Poems by Nolcha Fox

***
Higher Education

The mathematician
is training to work
at McDonalds.
Today he is learning
how to make ice cubed.

***
Holy Dementia
a response to Mary Ruefle, "On Twilight"

As he wanders
through his creation, 
I wonder if God
picks me up 
from another fall
and says,
“I made this?”

***

Nolcha has written all her life, starting with poop and crayons on the walls. Her poems have been published in Lothlorien Poetry Journal, The Red Lemon Review, Dark Entries, Duck Head Journal, Medusa’s Kitchen and others. Her chapbook, “My Father’s Ghost Hates Cats,” is available on Amazon.

 
 
 

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)

What Did They Do Before Social Media, Daddy? Sara L Russell, 17th August 2022 at 01:52

Did we ever really exist 
before this time, 
this place and space
this desire to frame everything 
in doorway-shaped pictures
then rush to seek approval on networks
of social acceptance
please like me
please like me
please like me…

Was my face really there
before mirrors made it appear,
to make it be so?
Are there mirrors in Hell?

Was beauty really there
before PhotoShop
lent it that airbrushed glow?
How can we ever tell?

Was the ego 
really a thing
before Zoom gave it 
a platform to shout from
(while discreetly putting others 
on mute)?

How did apps ever survive
without notification
to bring motivation?

Look, now her hair is pink
and he has inked his arm
they have millions of shares…

but your cat can sing and dance
with elegance and charm
and yet, nobody cares. 

 
 
Sara Louise Russell, aka PinkyAndrexa, is a UK poet and poetry ezine editor, specialising particularly in sonnets, lyric-style poetry and occasionally writing in more modern styles. She founded Poetry Life & Times and edited it from 1998 to 2006, when she handed it over to Robin Ouzman Hislop and Amparo Arrospide; Robin now runs it as Editor from Poetry Life & Times at this site. Her poems and sonnets have been published in many paper and online publications including Sonnetto Poesia, Mindful of Poetry and Autumn Leaves a monthly Poetry ezine from the late Sondra Ball. Her sonnets also currently appear in the recently published anthology of sonnets Phoenix Rising from the Ashes. She is also one of the first poets ever to be published on multimedia CD ROMs, published by Kedco Studios Inc.; the first one being “Pinky’s Little Book of Shadows”, which was featured by the UK’s national newspaper The Mirror, in October 1999. (Picture link for Mirror article) Angel Fire
 
 
 
 
 

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)

Liberty in Ashes excerpt Poems from Double Envelopment Collected Poems by Gary Beck


Liberty in Ashes

So many want to be president.
So few know that it should be
the protector of the people,
guarding them from oppression.
Instead, these wannabe servants
eager for indenture
to the capitalist masters
who have established control
of the future of America
having successfully removed
the stout-hearted blue collar class,
the only group determined enough
to resist the blatant tyranny
of voracious oligarchs,
refusing to give a fair share
to the people who toil for them
while they consume the fruits of the earth.


Growth Spurt

The march of civilization
has improved life for many,
who live longer, healthier,
with luxuries unimagined
a few hundred years ago.
As we evolved
from family, to clan, to tribe,
then made the great leap
to nation states
we devoured the resources
of a bountiful earth,
until we are poised
to destroy the world
in extravagant consumption.


High Crime II

The prison industry,
the most unproductive industry
in this ailing nation
currently incarcerates
more then a million men,
a lot of women,
more than the population
of some small countries.
The system employs
guards, cooks, teachers,
psychologists, doctors,
the list goes on,
all to maintain
adjudicated criminals,
innocent or guilty,
custodians or confined
another pustulant body
in diseased America.

Similar or …

New Year’s Eve 1968,
a terrible year for Vietnamese,
while only some Americans
lost loved ones,
as the nation consumed
vast amounts of treasure
that the oligarchs believed
would be wasted on the people.
Despite growing inequality
most of us didn’t notice,
unless our sons were killed
in distant jungles.
We still didn’t realize
that the lords of profit
were abandoning our factories,
eliminating blue collar workers,
the last group to defy the bosses.
Yet I seem to remember
it was a good year for Haut Brion.

New Year’s Eve 2018,

the revelers no longer hulk
in one congested mass
jammed crammed together,
thousands drunk, stoned,
muggers, pickpockets, hoodlums
visiting their neighbors,
who still had a great time.
Now people stand
in isolated groups,
regimented in the Age of Terror.
But despite the lack of drink, drugs,
they still have a good time.


Beset

A semblance of normality
pervades the land,
even for the disadvantaged
struggling as usual
to make ends meet,
feed, shelter, clothe
their needy children,
who will never understand
why they can’t have
the same things
as everyone else. 

‘Double Envelopment’ is an unpublished poetry collection in response to harsh conditions affecting many of our people, who only want a better future for their children.

Gary Beck has spent most of his adult life as a theater director and worked as an art dealer when he couldn’t earn a living in the theater. He has also been a tennis pro, a ditch digger and a salvage diver. His original plays and translations of Moliere, Aristophanes and Sophocles have been produced Off Broadway. His poetry, fiction and essays have appeared in hundreds of literary magazines and his published books include 3 poetry collections, 14 novels, 3 short story collections, 1 collection of essays and 5 books of plays. Published poetry books include: Dawn in Cities, Assault on Nature, Songs of a Clerk, Civilized Ways, Displays, Perceptions, Fault Lines, Tremors, Perturbations, Rude Awakenings, The Remission of Order, Contusions, Desperate Seeker and Learning Curve (Winter Goose Publishing). Earth Links, Too Harsh For Pastels, Severance, Redemption Value, Fractional Disorder, Disruptions, Ignition Point, Resonance and Turbulence (Cyberwit Publishing. Forthcoming: Double Envelopment). Motifs (Adelaide Books). His novels include Extreme Change (Winter Goose Publishing). State of Rage, Wavelength, Protective Agency, Obsess, Flawed Connections and Still Obsessed (Cyberwit Publishing. Forthcoming: Call to Valor). His short story collections include: A Glimpse of Youth (Sweatshoppe Publications). Now I Accuse and other stories (Winter Goose Publishing). Dogs Don’t Send Flowers and other stories (Wordcatcher Publishing). Collected Essays of Gary Beck (Cyberwit Publishing). The Big Match and other one act plays (Wordcatcher Publishing). Collected Plays of Gary Beck Volume 1 and Plays of Aristophanes translated, then directed by Gary Beck, Collected Plays of Gary Beck Volume II and Four Plays by Moliere translated then directed by Gary Beck (Cyberwit Publishing. Forthcoming: Collected Plays of Gary Beck Volume III). Gary lives in New York City.
 
 
 

Robin Ouzman Hislop is Editor of Poetry Life and Times at Artvilla.com ; You may visit Aquillrelle.com/Author Robin Ouzman Hislop about author & https://poetrylifeandtimes.com See Robin performing his work Performance (University of Leeds)

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

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

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

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)

OLD CHORISTERS & MY WAR WITH ROACHES. Poems by EM Schorb

OLD CHORISTERS

Singers                                                                 Look

of our generation                                                 from

are turning up                                                      a high bridge,

dead. A serial                                                       as highway god,

killer                                                                     he drops

is injecting                                                            stones on old bones!

them                                                                     Even the sap

with corona                                                          of trees is worried

plus cancer                                                          up the trunk

heart disease                                                        as the killer

and stroke                                                            waits

This police                                                           for an autumnal

silhouette                                                             weariness of

of the killer                                                           leaves.

isn’t made                                                             I am

of his head                                                            Time’s agent

and shoulders,                                                      his tool

but of his                                                              he brags.

twisted mind,                                                       Singers

made                                                                     of our generation

of a brain                                                              think that this

to answer                                                              is a serial crime,

for his crimes                                                       but have

of torture                                                              no choice

perpetrated                                                           but to

on so many                                                           become ringers

choristers.                                                             and to pull

With a rough                                                        the ropes

cat-tongue                                                            and toll

he licked flesh                                                      the bell.

from bones

and made

the others

mercy-kill

to make

amends.

 

MY WAR WITH ROACHES

                            Pitt Street, Lower East Side

 

I looked into a half-filled beer bottle

left opened and standing out,

saw six dead roaches floating atop the stale, flat beer.

I was disappointed.

I could have drunk the stuff.

I had no aversion to warm, stale, flat beer,

and had learned to put a head on it

by dropping an Alka-Seltzer tablet into it.

But I wasn’t about to drink beer that had

six dead roaches floating in it,

bodies like boats and legs like oars raised up,

so aimlessly.

The place was filthy.

I needed order!

 

I went out, bought roach spray,

sprayed the walls, up and down,

back and forth, until billowing clouds

of poison were closing on me from every corner.

It was bitter cold out, but I knocked the

cardboard out of the windows

and let the fresh frosty air suck the poison

out from under my nose.

I blocked the windows again.

I surveyed the carnage.

Roaches of all sizes and shapes were swarming

over the walls, dropping from the cracked ceiling

with small, ticking sounds and

rocking on their curled, chitinous backs,

flicking, flailing, their feelers drooping.

 

The kitchen gas range was a stronghold,

a fortress of greasy grooves and baked-in crevices.

I lit the oven and watched until the top

of the stove glowed red.

Out they came by the swarming hundreds,

feet burned away, feelers melting

into kinky hairs. They ran over the stove

in desperation, panic, trying to find places

where they could put their feet.

Expectant mothers, their eggs in chitinous cases

at their rear ends, struggled with their hindmost legs,

as with an instinct to save their offspring,

to force or kick the cases loose.

Some had their cases dangling

by only one side when they leaped

from the top of the stove.

As they landed on the floor and tried to crawl,

with their burnt feet, their dragging, kinked feelers,

with their wings askew, and their dangling,

thread-hanging egg cases, I sprayed them madly

then trampled, kicked, jumped up and down on them,

only wanting them dead.

I saw a fat, hideous albino roach,

already like the pale ghost of its dead self,

leap from the stove.

I squashed it underfoot and swore

I could hear its white shell crack and

spray the pale muck of its insides out: squish!

When I lifted my shoe it dragged itself,

like animated pus, into a heap of glittering

brownish bodies. Thousands of crooked legs

moved sluggishly—then, here and there,

with sudden convulsive speed—

over the place where the ghost had gone.

 

On the wall was a wooden plaque

that held sets of false teeth, an exhibit,

sold by a dental supply firm to dentists.

It belonged to an artist friend who was to use it

for some arcane artistic purpose

but who had forgetfully left it here.

I grabbed the plaque from the wall

and mashed it down atop this horrible mass

of half life. Then I jumped on it, up and down,

not distinguishing the sound of the breaking teeth

from the sound of roaches snapping on the stove

like popcorn. When I looked down

there were rolling and bouncing human teeth

among the slimy dead and still crawling.

Sakyamuni says they will live again.

Needed: Sneaky Pete, pot, peyote.

 

 

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.

 

 

 

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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