By Batanai Mhango
The blank page staring at me, judging my actions
Like my walls and this silence mocking my indiscressions.
My confusion preys like a predator on those surrounding me
Devouring and feeding on their desire to pleasure what they see.
Why can�t they realize?
I am only the person they see in their eyes�
My looks are a savoury delight; I make your tongue water.
My hips are breathtaking, stupefy yourself in wonder.
With my lips, I steal your breath, the villain I am remains to astonish.
My inconceivable legs, elongated and toned, the unsightly I effortlessly abolish.
Put me on your pedestal; keep presuming I have no mind
Keep kissing the ground I walk on, lock me in this emotional bind
Give me the flowers; please do break your English for my simple thought process
Ignore my complexity; let me indulge your conscience.
When I bat my eyelashes, my brain is analyzing that calculus equation
Why I play with my hair, I try to relieve the pressure of my philosophy obsession.
My hand on my waist is to rest the arm I strain writing my light-years of pages of passionate lyrics
When I�m biting my lip staring into space, acknowledge now,
the universe and time plague me in the matter of physics.
You have made me despise beauty.
Lend me a knife; help me slash away this cruelty.
Oh give me a mask show me someone who will embrace my soul
Me, without seeing my physicality, looking into me whole!
This hole, so empty, pierces quicker and deeper into my chest.
I�ve proved myself the winner in the physicality test.
Creation please remove my beauty.
Show me someone real to me
Show me someone who can feed my intellect.
Show me someone who isn�t repelled by what society thinks is whom he should select.
I�m tired of fighting. Make me look like a goat
Please remove my beauty. I merely want to float
In the air, up there only with my brain.
Oh! Someone teach me how to be vain�
***
"Letter To Damniso Lopez 56"
By Duane Locke
Poetry is not copying,
What poetry presents was never present to be copied.
Poetry shoves forth
What was not
And what becomes what is,
What was, and what still is,
And what will still be
In future archives and in a timelessness.
Poetry is not understandable, understandable
In the sense
Of being understood as a full, totalizing,
Rational, logical accounting
By some unifying hermeuntical interpretation.
In poetry
What was there
Becomes transmogrified into what is there,
And will be there afterwards
As the empty space atop a winter cypress
Where an osprey temporarily perched
And transformed the space above the cypress
Forever.
What is there waits buried
To be reborn,
Waits to become a birth,
Never to die,
But to be reburied
And to be born again.
Every birth
With a different birth cry,
Every birth
A new sound brought onto the earth.
Poetry brings into being buried being
That is becoming,
And neither being or becoming.
Life is birth, copulation, death.
Poetry is birth, copulation, birth.
Poetry is an occurrence
As an overture to occurrences,
As occult
As an anhinga�s spread wings
As occult
As the osculations
Of silver-finned small fish.
***
"Letter To Damniso Lopez 58"
By Duane Locke
I must confess
That I do not think
Love is understandable.
Thus every tepid, trivial, and false
Relationship can be deemed,
Designated as love because
Love is not understandable.
Most people who think
They are in love
Are not in love at all.
Most are biological driven,
Or socially enslaved to seek marriage,
Or most who believe they love
Are cowards who are lickspittles
To whatever is socially constituted.
Most everything written about love
Is terrorist, coercing people, to join
With others in the destruction of values.
So most everything written about love
Is socially enslaved fiction or nonsense.
I suppose the same could be said about
All human beliefs, for what human beings
Believe is fiction or nonsense. There are
Some exceptions, Dadaists and Post-Modernists.
There was one philosopher who spoke
The truth, Gorgias. Rarely has anyone
Spoken the truth since Gorgias.
Yes, love is not understandable.
You, whom I love, thought you
Understood love, and destroyed our love.
All I have to say is that I
Declare you guilty of murdering love.
I know that all legal system have gone awry,
But still I declare you,
Guilty of murdering love.
Much to my surprise, our legal system
Found you guilty of murdering love,
But the legal system, the jury,
Also declared:
That I must serve your sentence.
***
"Thanksgiving And The Laundromat Is Closed"
By Edward Michael O�Durr Supranowicz
Guess people are all
Washing turkeys.
The only spin cycle going
Is for potatoes being mashed.
Really wanted clean underwear,
And never liked cranberry sauce.
Sure, it�s a day for families,
But my clothes are related�
Sometimes they even match.
Well, no turkey died for me,
If that counts for anything.
I�ll kill some beers later, though.
Tomorrow is another day,
And so is the day after that.
I�m waiting on Christmas
When evergreens are cut and sold.
Then I may break into a Laundromat
And wash my whites with my jeans,
And pray for everybody
Who is singing carols and
Opening presents they didn�t want.
***
"Eternally Yours"
By Julie Kovacs
Embraced in death
two skeletons welded
into one
beating heart
dried blood
covering headstone.
***
"A Supplication"
By Phillip A. Ellis
There is a supplication
through kisses, from the neck
lovingly seduced
with perfumes redolent
of opiate bliss,
through the heady murmurs
of stolen words,
entwining tongues and breath,
the bruising of lip on lip,
through shoulders
and the dampening pits,
the strength latent
in the curvature of nipples
and of breasts, fluttering stomachs,
hips, pubis and profundities
between legs, a supplication
embracing limbs and flesh,
mediated through breath
and through kisses.
***
"With Malice Toward One"
By Raymond HV Gallucci
The Civil War was over,
Or to many so it seemed.
The mourning country sobered
By a President who dreamed.
Whatever means he'd taken
Justified the sacrifice.
Propriety he'd shaken;
Preservation worth the price.
But in the Southern quarters
Where humiliation reigned,
Assassination's authors
Planned to retribution gain.
For wounds he offered healing,
But assassins knew no balm.
Compassion so appealing
Could, for them, no hatred calm.
"Sic semper a tyrannis!"
With this eulogy he died.
And so assassin Janus
Future killed and hope defied.
***
"The Last Saint of the Empire "
By Robert S. King
Stranger, I am cupping in my hands
the land's last water for you.
You will not drink alone.
The sun too is steaming in this meager pool.
Drink before the water boils away.
What you have won is mostly smoke:
Above us, old mystics, old clouds,
redden from the dust of battle:
the wind twists them like sponges,
wringing out across the valley
a dry and crimson rain:
Even the gentle, holy winds rub
together like flint:
below them the frocks flame:
the shadows of monks are dark ash
piling up in prayer.
My invader, my wounded heir,
you are drinking my boiling blood.
You must swallow what you conquer.
You must dress for the weather you bring.
It is a hot day:
Smell the feathers of the angels burning.
***
"Vision Of You"
for C.R.
By Doug Draime
You moved through the
weeping willows
dancing to a Chopin
waltz. The sun was
just setting over
the Wabash and across it,
darkening slowly the
Illinois plains. This is
a vision you never
knew I had of you. You
danced into the darkness
where I
could only see
shadows
of your slow twirling around
the trees and
your delicate steps,
your form gliding
on a sultry night.
Sometimes I see that all
again. Sometimes I see us
chasing each other through the
cornfields of Decker Chapel,
under the burning sun of July,
your hair the color of
the ripe corn.
***
�Rhythm & Blues�
By J.T. Whitehead
The sun was still out in the Western sky.
R&B played at a low volume.
Underneath the mesas, on the horizon,
an auto�s digital-green dash-lit time would brighten
with the sinking down of this last day . . .
You put your bare toes I know on the dash.
You were 23 miles & 200 dollars away
from that air-conditioned room
in a romantic lodge, I am sure, far away
in what was once a dead miner�s ghost town
that has now, thanks to pawn shops, grown.
There were meditations over your smoke & ash.
There were Hopi relics with dead gods etched in.
There was the air conditioner humming
softer than your slowly spoken affirmation,
followed by your exhaustion, & deep sleeping.
On any other day there you could quietly, gently, lie.
Listening to the shower water in the morning,
you pulled, from your purse, a love letter from me.
later in the shade on the veranda, over lunch, smiling,
you caressed his shoulder, sipping his tea.
***
"Grasping For Illusions"
By Brendan Clark
Tinker, tinker toy all night,
crafting demons of the candle light.
Hearing in songs only the stark.
Casting requiems throughout the dark.
Barely moving in the still of night.
Chasing goblins through the morning light.
Sculpting illusions of words never said,
for all the phantoms in your head.
Twisting another vague illusion,
into a masterpiece of parasitic confusion.
Looking for the words you should have said,
as you build new monsters in your head.
Still bound by the light of yesterday,
on a night too dark to find your way.
The demons die with your forgetting,
the vapid curse that keeps emitting,
the bygone blights of yesterday,
come to feast on focus gone astray.
***
"Music Theroy"
By Sara Crawford
You sat in my passenger seat, your legs scrunched up
through all of the clutter,
and we sang
together.
We sang along to the
unrequited love song.
You listened to it
like a puzzle.
I heard an outstretched arm
of a person down on their knees
with one last request,
skin burned into the carpet.
You heard the A minor chord followed by the E minor chord.
I don't want to know astronomy.
The stars are too beautiful to understand.
I spoke to you with emotion,
but you heard only logic, and
you couldn't trace it
with your finger..
A piece out of place.
Come.
Close your eyes, and listen.
Don't try to figure it out.
***
"Her Song Of Hunger"
By Bradley W. Buchanan
I have stopped pretending that life makes sense�
partly because I don�t deserve
the joy that shrieks at me now from her chair,
smeared with Cheerios, applesauce,
and the other unspeakable messes of breakfast.
The scream is high-pitched, intolerable,
but necessary: the child who makes it
is well-fed and happy, and yet she yells
because even a beautiful world
needs a shrill, discordant note.
It�s the newness that brings each day to light
whether we�re ready for it or not�
and we aren�t, though we won�t remember why
when it�s dark again and our ears are still ringing
like holiday bells from her song of hunger.
***
"Water"
By Michael Keshigian
Dive into water,
become the wetness,
that's the way I'd like it.
Others might choose to be a robin,
fly like the pinto's hoof,
or prey with a tiger's stealth.
I would be water,
an enigma to all,
shallow and transparent,
deep and unyielding,
my darkest secrets well kept.
Beneath the surface,
it would be cool and quiet,
though whales ripple stillness
and great white sharks
shred paths with razor teeth.
Water embraces all,
even a boulder,
when cast from shore
to shatter the tranquility,
is happily accepted.
Any intruder is offered a home.
Yet, I have seen water rise,
angered when the wind
instigates its timidity.
to perpetrate moments of retaliation.
Perhaps at its core
a heart beats between coral ribs,
rippling a message
at the surface of calm,
a simple, transparent message,
the pulse of a universal conscience.
***
"Thief"
By Michael Keshigian
Two days ago
the sun caught me stealing light
to illuminate a poem,
demanded restitution,
then reported me to Mother Nature
who posted my likeness about the land.
Soon, the ocean, forest, birds, flowers, et. al.
filed suit for substantial abuse
and complacent philandering without permission.
I pleaded guilty;
admitted taking breath from wind
for deliverance,
marshmallows from the sky to sweeten song,
and rage from the ocean
to instill a sense of urgency.
Convicted and confined to a windowless room
no writing, visitation
or glimpses of stolen sights,
I was sentenced to imagine beauty
without embezzlement
and the wholesale exploitation of words.
***
"Violence"
By John Sweet
this quiet rain just before dawn
and the distant waves of
freeway traffic
the world without shape
without color
and can you find god in
a dark room
or even the sleeping body of
your lover?
do you believe that
either of them cares for you?
remember
your name left unspoken
is only one form of silence
the tiny bodies found
left behind in plastic bags
are another
words have no weight
no substance
think about andrea yates
drowning her five children
what would you say to her
if you could?
why would it matter?
the only truth is action
***
�Morning Spirits�
By William R Ford, Jr.
Lost walk now
to the morning spirits
who come gliding, curling and low
light there
and soft they flow
they laugh now innocent
now free of sin,
they say hello, and say farewell
not saying where they�ve been
***
�The Indians Come Along, in Time�
By William R. Ford, Jr.
Along the dark brown
river path
the dark forbidding
hidden past
to visions in time
that men do say
come upon them there
on given days
distant figures in the mists of time
there at the dark bank river line
where many do consider it a sign
You�ll see the Indians come along, in time
***
"Family Tradition"
By Brian Mayer
Death did not easily drift over his body
Like the misting of a finely manicured lawn
Covered by the dew of an early spring morning
Instead it had left him ravaged and beaten
He lost every round
Never a need to go to the score card
His battered body still lying on the canvas
He had surrendered weeks prior
Waving that white flag of defeat
Punching the clock, no overtime today
Yet never telling anyone that the fires that once
Burned so bright
Had long been extinguished by the tears of regret
No one ever saw the expiration date
Stamped to the sole of his left foot
I had spent my time looking through sentimental eyes
When I should have used the critical lens of life
I held his hand
While we spoke of a field of tigers
And when he smiled at me
We both know his time had come
Don�t let anyone tell you he went easily
Just a kiss on the cheek and it was done
And don�t be fooled that it was all for the best
Congratulations for a life of dignity and grace
I took on the responsibility and signed the papers
Tears dripping onto the hospital form
Truly believing that our boat was now adrift
Destined to crash against the red reefs of life
Without a compass for guidance
Without our Captain who offered hope
And I carry this cross upon me
Every moment of every day
Until that fateful day arrives when
I am able to pass this burden down to my son
***
"The Coroner's Report"
By Suzanne Harvey
Our investigation disclosed no sharply etched memories
True she did dislike duets
Abhorred skating in pairs
Preferred the ball machine to a partner on the courts
Always teed off alone
Single handed her sloop at sunset
She jogged on abandoned beaches and walkways declared unsound
Cycled the back paths only
Hiked unmarked trails
Spread her sleeping bag beside seldom visited streams
While others honed the flutter kick
Rounded an arc in their back stroke
She plunged into the trough at the center
Where the present enters a conduit with no exit.
***
"Fantasies World"
By Sandra Hedin
Mostly invisible, but I don�t always care
Trying not to yell when I know it�s unfair
I�ve fought to be just who I am
Making mistakes when I let myself bend
Twisting and trying to be better then me
Reminding myself only I set me free
It�s just me in my little world
Letting fantasies fingers uncurl
The world is nothing but icy abuse
I don�t want to let it tighten the noose
I�ve gritted teeth and gotten through
Now I�m just waiting for anything new
I must slip off the pain of the past
If my sanity�s expected to last
The battle will rage and never cease
Only alone will I find some release
I must heal up and build up the guard
I want the simple, but find the hard
It�s just me in my little world
Letting fantasies fingers uncurl
The world is nothing but icy abuse
I don�t want to let it tighten the noose
I�ve gritted teeth and gotten through
Now I�m just waiting for anything new
I am here, but must go there
When caring too much becomes too much to bare
The truth is something that�s hard to ignore
Biting and grinding into the sore
It�s ok; it will heal up again
As long as I don�t let too much of it in
By Rachel Sauve
The flames blazed around their thighs, the heat reaching higher and higher. They all finally realized the mistake they had made, and that it was too late to turn back. The fire formed a ring around them, holding them in its trap. The screams and pleas for help didn't affect the doctor, whom stood on the outside watching with apathy. He had seen this occurrence countless times before, and knew that there were going to many more to come. This group burned throughout the night, their sins being released through the fumes. The bodies, after the flames died down, were left as ashes to build on the ground.
The doctor spoke aloud to himself, �I really don't understand why so many people fail this test, and yet so many more continue to attempt to pass it. All that I ask is for a person of innocence. There behind me stands a line of people whom claim to have such a quality, but no one has made it through. The spirits have rejected each human that has stepped across the line...but each person just keeps trying.
�I suppose it stands to say,� the doctor noted, �that quite a few human beings believes himself worthy of being innocent, but is blind when looking at himself and seeing his own flaws.�
While he speaks, another group of people stand inside the ring of fire are crying out to their own God to be rescued. They do not realize that their own selfishness and over self-confidence is what keeps the fire burning around them. Your God cannot help you when you've defied Him all your life and then ask for His help when you've decided He has finally become important to you. He will let your soul die, as you had let His in your own heart.
For days, people came and tested their innocence by walking across the line that the doctor had drawn. He had no idea that so many people thought they would make it through, or that so many people would fail. He began to realize the corruption of the human mind.
The type of people who showed up varied. It included firemen, writers, students, assembly line workers, office workers, and even other doctors. It seemed that the occupation did not affect the type of person. Each type obviously had its own flaws. This made the doctor fearful for even himself.
He decided that this was enough. He knew that if he didn't stop his experiment that he would soon get in trouble for murder, though he did no such thing. Never could he, either. He decided that this night was the last. After midnight he would pack up and note all that he had seen, and store it away for good.
Near the end of the night, however, he noticed a difference in the line. He walked over to observe what was going on. His face twisted and his body got cold when he saw the group that was coming up next. They were children, a couple dozen of them. Their faces were serious yet playful. They stood in line patiently, waiting for their own turn. Some of the children even played games like cat's cradle and hopscotch while waiting. The doctor was deathly afraid.
There was no way he could let the children test their own fate, they were too young. He couldn't risk their lives like that. He wasn't sure how to turn them away though, either. What was he to tell them? Instead, the doctor decided to pack his things and run right away. He didn't want to take part in any of it anymore.
The line quickly shortened and the children's group was next. The doctor dropped his things and spun around as he heard one of them giggle. He watched them from afar. The fire still blazed from the previous people who tested their fate.
�No!� The doctor shouted after them. He couldn't stand to see such a site.
It was too late.
The children stepped across the line together and then stood their still, waiting for something to happen. Nothing did. The doctor wiped the sweat from his eyes and took a deep breath. He was mighty glad that the children were okay.
Suddenly, he saw an ember float up into the night air. The doctor panicked and ran across the line in hopes of saving the child who stood near it. As he did, he felt his skin begin to warm. He felt the temperature rise rapidly around him and his heart began beating faster. He then realized what he had done, stepping across the line, and knew that this was his last day on Earth. Soon the doctor would be just another pile of dust, extracted from sin.
A small girl from the group of children looked at the doctor, (who was now sitting on the ground), smiled, and walked toward him. He looked up at her, the tears in his wide eyes dissolving into the heat. He frowned as he looked up at her. He was sorry for all that he had done to so many people and sorry for all of everything that he had done throughout his own life.
The little girl stuck her hand out to him, still smiling. The doctor, perplexed, was afraid to take her hand for his burning would harm her. Then he looked past her and saw that all of the other children were watching him. A blue glow began emerging from their bodies, almost as if their soul was being released.
The doctor thought to himself, This is the answer to it all. Innocence is among the children, and only the children. They do not see the greed or the selfishness, they don't know any better. Their minds prevent the ugly world from coming in. They came here tonight to help me see this, but why they would care to do so I do not understand.
He slowly took the girl's hand and felt a coolness in his heart. His entire body felt cooler. The feeling of his skin deteriorating finally went away. He was no longer burning. He smiled back at the girl, who had let go of his hand.
�Why did you help me?� He asked her.
�Because I don't know any better,� she replied as she turned away.