Monday 31 October 2016

Sister Publication to Poetry Life & Times

Issue of November 2016

  

 

  NAMING THE BEETLES
A Poem by David Chorlton


A dozen beetles suddenly
are clustered on a leaf,
black with red designs
on their glistening backs

with six more farther
down the stem.
What can we say
we are seeing? Drops

of poison or a sweet
confection from
the spirit world? Pinpricks
on a lacquered base

or the blood
from an animal so long extinct
it has to bleed from
an adopted skin?

They shine in a manner
almost sinister, yet
the way they cling
to each other

suggests they have arrived
as a message conveyed
through space and time
as a warning to act

in the common interest
before it disappears.
Soon enough
they leave us wondering

what was here
with a gloss and such
delicate legs they must
have walked on light

to wherever they went.



David Chorlton is a transplanted European, who has lived in Phoenix since 1978. His poems have appeared in many publications on- and off-line, and reflect his affection for the natural world, as well as occasional bewilderment at aspects of human behavior. His most recent book, A Field Guide to Fire, was his contribution to the Fires of Change exhibition shown in Flagstaff and Tucson in Arizona.
  

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In Loving Memory of Janet P. Caldwell February 1959 ~ 20 September 2016.
William S. Peters, Sr.


weep not for me

weep not for me,
nor despair, nor lament,
on my crossing the waters,
for my life has been full,
for i had you

i go to a better place,
where i shall make a bed for you
as i longingly await your arrival,
for we are eternally betrothed

i shall have the angels sing
a song of welcome . . .
and the flowers of the field
shall dance gleefully
in the embrace of brother wind

the sun always shines here
acknowledging our mutual brightness
where the night-ness
is no more

so i ask of thee
to weep not for me
nor despair, nor lament
on my crossing the waters,
for my life has been full,
for i had you





Bill is an avid Writer / Poet who has been committed to this path since 1966. He currently has to his credit over 70 Published Books as well as a myriad of Newspaper and Magazine Articles. Bill supports the venue of Creative Expression regardless of form. He also is an activist for the progression and evolution of Humanity and its Love of each other.

Recently (September 2015) Bill was honored to be named the Poet Laureate at the Kosovo International Poetry Festival where his book The Vine Keeper was showcased. He was also awarded The Golden Grape Award.

Bill currently serves as the CEO of Inner Child Enterprises, ltd., Managing Director of Inner Child Press, Executive Producer of Inner Child Radio and Executive Editor of Inner Child Magazine. His life partner Janet P. Caldwell stands by his side in support of the Inner Child vision

For more of Bill, visit his personal web Site at :

www.iamjustbill.com

 

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Loop.
A Poem by Amitabh Vikram Dwivedi



It was a play,
A simple manipulation,
When your fingers ran parallel-
Crosswise
Or lengthwise,
And you created a loop.

But it was not a play,
Only a manipulation,
When your fingers ran parallel-
Crosswise
And lengthwise
And you suspended yourself
Into that loop.

As a child, I know mother that-
Now

      you
Are                         Not
living.

 



Amitabh Vikram Dwivedi is assistant professor of linguistics at Shri Mata Vaishno Devi University, India. His research interests include language documentation, writing descriptive grammars, and the preservation of rare and endangered languages in South Asia. He has contributed articles to many Science Citation Index journals.
His most recent books are A Grammar of Hadoti (Lincom: Munich, 2012), A Grammar of Bhadarwahi (Lincom: Munich, 2013), and a poetry collection titled Chinaar kaa Sukhaa Pattaa (2015) in Hindi.
As a poet, he has published more than 100 poems in different anthologies, journals and magazines worldwide. Until recently, his poem “Mother” has been published as a prologue to Motherhood and War: International Perspectives (Eds.), Palgrave Macmillan Press. 2014.

 

 

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Enduring the anguish of thinking… A Poem by Richard Lloyd Cederberg

“There was only the cemetery itself, spread out in the moonlight like a soft grey hallucination, a stony wilderness of Victorian melancholy.” (IN MEMORY)

(I)

How silently
And stern these
Straining days pass,
Where, at times, in open tyranny,
Scattered thoughts scramble
For measured application…

O dismay,
Each day
Embracing (the
Great word ‘WAIT’),
This (at times) tragic fate
Impelling the mind to reengage
With something other than
A wearied wide road
Worn smooth…
Another fluster putting glory on
[Hoping] to rediscover where
Newness is apparent, and where honest
Happiness is more than a shadow of things past…

Throughout life
(I’ve) known thinking
That piled-up (at times)
Like a day’s dead sanctities;
Thought-quakes pricked with panic –
Like vexed birds flailing on windowpanes –
Thoughts – in rising currents wild with leaves –
Trembling in trepidation at the tumults of the day,
But clinging to where Earth and Heaven meet crying:
O Burning Lion – Creator, from whom flows
The substance of all fresh thinking;
Help me bear this anguish…

(II) AN APPEAL…

O breath of life…
Breathe on this mind that broods
(At times) so helpless and unnerved…

…From the utmost corners,
O divine breath,
Command my lassitude
To drift from me like a whisper

Preserve me from these penumbras
Where despair shrieks in the belly of clouds;

And, where from all dark-lipped furrows,
Hubris strolls in chatoyant silk

…From the four winds come,
O breath,
To breathe upon
These outworn motivations,
That this slain heart could rise up
To write rather of life than of death

… From the uttermost parts,
O breath of life,
Breathe on me that I might suspire
As an Eagle stirring its nest;
Hovering over its young;
Spreading forth its majestic wings
To carry each of them up to the high-places;
For it is your breath (alone) O God that sustains me…

richard lloyd cederberg

10/16

“Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.” Genesis 2:7

 


 BIOGRAPHY – Richard Lloyd Cederberg

Briefly… concerning published books, books being written, poetry, poetic/prose, and creative-writing: Richards written work has been featured in Poetry Life and Times – Artvilla, Motherbird, Taj Majal Review, Authors Den (page includes Poetry ~ Short Stories ~Articles) Christian Story Teller, the Mississippi Crow Magazine, the Path Magazine, Hardy Alpha 1, The Journal of Contemporary Haibun, and a variety of anthologies, compendiums, and e-zines. Richard was nominated twice for the PUSHCART PRIZE. 2007 BEST NEW FICTION at Christian Story Teller. 2006 WRITER OF THE YEAR @thewritingforum.net (sadly defunct)…

Books include: The MONUMENTAL JOURNEY SERIES (adventure/mystery/historical fiction): 1. A MONUMENTAL JOURNEY… 2. IN SEARCH OF THE FIRST TRIBE… 3. THE UNDERGROUND RIVER… 4. BEYOND UNDERSTANDING. A new adventure/thriller, BETWEEN THE CRACKS is also available. A new eschatological drama – AFTER WE WERE HUMAN – is being written. Follow the lives of several friends as a new race of ageless multi-dimensional humans comes back to Earth with their Creator to rule and reign for 1000 years.

www.authorsden.com/richardlloydcederberg

 

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Slither. Sonnet Poem
by Norman Ball

Accomplicing that plot device, surprise,
the day shone royal blue. Our Sunday walk
assumed pedestrian guise until her lies
constricted near Unending Books. In mock-
submissive tone, she sighed: “Please let me be
right here, outside our favorite used-book store.
It’s where we met. All circles close a door.
That’s symmetry — the poetess in me.”
I pondered the reflection of my self
on Austen, half-price-off; then for a song,
the poets, ancient children, on a shelf
set up on crumpled velvet. All along,
this princess had availed a serpent-guide.
I was the frog to her formaldehyde.

 

NORMAN BALL (BA Political Science/Econ, Washington & Lee University; MBA, George Washington University) is a well-travelled Scots-American businessman, author and poet whose essays have appeared in Counterpunch, The Western Muslim and elsewhere. His new book “Between River and Rock: How I Resolved Television in Six Easy Payments” is available here. Two essay collections, “How Can We Make Your Power More Comfortable?” and “The Frantic Force” are spoken of here and here. His recent collection of poetry “Serpentrope” is published from White Violet Press. He can be reached at returntoone@hotmail.com.

Read full bio at Poetry Life & Times
 

 

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Eyes | Poem by Janet Kuypers

eyes

Janet Kuypers
started 4/4/15, finished 4/6/15

Growing up,
boys didn’t like me,
kids made fun of me.
I was raised to think
that I was a plain girl,
easily overlooked.
I’d look at my eyes,
the same eyes my dad
thought made me

always look sad,
and wanted to think
that the song

“Brown Eyed Girl”
could have been
about me.

How silly of me.
I should know better.
And maybe that is why

I’ve always loved
blue eyes.
Eyes not like mine.

#

The eye is a fascinating thing,
it’s beautiful to study,
especially yours…

If I were a biologist,
I’d take high-res photos
of that eye of yours,

maybe magnify it as large
as I could, so I could study it
like a slide under a microscope.

I would search for meaning
in those mesmerizing patches
and shades of that unique blue.

#

They say science
can explain all,
so maybe it can explain

why I’m so in love
with your eyes, or why
I’m so in love with you.

#

Eyes are our windows
to the outside world, but
they’re also portals inward,

giving us mere mortals
fleeting glimpses
to who you are inside.

I think our colored irises
floating on an ocean of white,
punctuated with a pupil

were designed that way
so we could follow
each other’s gazes closely.

I’m watching you.
You probably see that.

I hope you’ll watch me too.

Because scientists
have studied the crypts,
pigment dots and furrows

of the eye, and scientists
are now figuring out
that the eye really is

the window to the soul.

So, maybe I was
on the right track

by loving your eyes,
and never wanting
to lose sight of them again.

Eyes © 2016. First published at Scars.tv  Eyes Poem
Visit Artvilla.com to hear an mp3 of this poem read by Michael Lee Johnson
with music by Dave Jackson

 

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Key of Mist by Guadalupe Grande

Streets, courtyards, squares, cages, a microcosm of urban power...
Key of Mist 


Spread the Word
Listed UnderTags:
* Poetry
Industry:
* Publishing
Location:
* Brussels - Brussels - Belgium
Subject:
* Products
BRUSSELS, Belgium - Oct. 11, 2016 - PRLog -- ...the text of the city inhabited by the signs of the artefact and chaos of Babel, the personification of the labyrinth, a moral monster with a fortress-house for a body and a shelter for the desolation of shipwrecked as a head. Here, Guadalupe Grande's Key of Mist (La llave de niebla, translated to English by Amparo Arróspide and Robin Ouzman Hislop) maps the city soul, where linguistic chaos rearranges the poems' voices.

The city, the other civilization, the greatness and the spectrum of its intrinsic ruin, a memento mori for the urban castaway on the waves of asphalt. (...) Such is the ethical landscape in which Guadalupe Grande displays the moral alphabet of her poetic truth, recognizing the city as a hyperspace, where the epic idea of homeland, the country´s ideological circumstances, the historical concept of nation are devastated by the innocent look of someone who does not understand the rush, does not accept the urgency of sacrifice imposed each morning by the necessity of work, the laws of domination, the salary of loneliness.

~Juan Carlos Mestre

EN RELATIVO

Que el mundo es imposible. Que las calles no pueden cabernos en el pecho. Que nada cabe en el hueco que le está destinado y así nos van las cosas. Que las hojas de los árboles siguen cayendo y el mar sigue diciendo una palabra que no podemos descifrar: una palabra en movimiento, una palabra en la que cabe el tiempo. Que estamos hechos de tiempo, pero no de mar. Que llevamos la cuenta del tiempo que vivimos, mareados, como si pudiéramos llevar las cuentas del mar. Que contamos la lluvia de los días y los pasos tartamudos de las horas. Que hacemos balance de minucias. Que se nos caen las palabras de la boca, sin entenderlas, como la nieve se aturde en el asfalto. Que confundimos la nieve con la sal, los relojes con la sangre, el pecho con un garaje, y nos consolamos creyendo que todo es relativo, como este pronombre.

WITH A RELATIVE PRONOUN

That the world is impossible. That streets won't fit in our chest. That nothing fits in the niche for which it's intended and that's how things are. That the leaves of trees go on falling and the sea goes on saying one word we can't decipher: a word in movement, a word that fits time in. That we are made of time, but not made of sea. That we count the time we live as dizzy, as dizzily as if we could count the sea. That we count the rain of days and the stammering steps of hours. That we make fuss about trifles. That words drop from our mouth, without understanding them, like stunned snow on a pavement. That we confuse snow with salt, clocks with blood, the chest with a garage, and we console ourselves with thinking that everything is relative, like this pronoun.

POSTAL I
(Vista del horizonte desde la Costanilla del Farol)

Nada hay como estar lejos
y no saber dónde meternos;
contar los pájaros que emigran,
buscar la arena en el asfalto
y acurrucarnos bajo una farola
con espigado espíritu de álamo
mientras el tráfico de la noche
dice su palabra de río
que no llegará nunca al mar.

Una ciudad, hoy, es estar lejos.

POSTCARD I
(View of the horizon from the Alley of the Street Lamp)

There's nothing like being far away
not knowing where to get into;
counting the migrating birds,
searching for sand on the pavement
curling up under a street lamp
with the slender spirit of a poplar
while the night traffic
utters its river's word
that will never reach the sea.

A city, today, exists to be far away.


To order: http://www.lulu.com/shop/guadalupe-grande/key-of-mist/pap...


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Barbara Crooker Selected Poems / 2015 available on amazon.com

by Barbara Crooker

https://www.amazon.com/Barbara-Crooker-Selected-Poems/dp/1938853709?ie=UTF8&tag=barbaracrooke-20

This collection brings together 102 poems from Barbara Crooker’s previous ten chapbooks of poetry, two of which won national prizes, with a handful of uncollected poems at the end. Of Crooker’s work, William Matthews has written, “Barbara Crooker’s poems have been written with a deft touch and with that affection for their textures and pacings that we’re accustomed to call, a little dryly, ‘technical skill.’ It’s a form of love, actually, and since she’s expended it on her poems, we can, too.” Janet McCann, writing in the Foreword, says, “The poems in this collection come mostly from chapbooks, collections which cluster around a theme, such as loss of a parent or friend, raising a child with autism, travel, art. Crooker’s collections are remarkable for their unity; their poems, epigraphs, even covers have a thematic thrust that collects and directs the work, making each a coherent work of art.... Reading the work from beginning to end provides an experience of Crooker’s world, that place of work and sadness balanced by art and love. It also provides vignettes of growing up in the fifties and sixties and shows what it was like to come of age as a woman in those years—the expectations, the hopes, the barriers that had to be overcome. Even in poems of loss, the energy persists, giving us the sense that Crooker is truly in the current of life, feeling its verve—what Wallace Stevens called ‘the intensity of love’ that he identified with ‘the verve of earth.’”

 

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All the Babble of the Souk
by
Robin Ouzman Hislop


Click book image to visit the Amazon page

Poet Robin Ouzman Hislop’s first full-length collection, All the Babble of the Souk, is appropriately titled. With a remarkably consistent ear for the market’s noise, for “[t]he broken lights of the bazaar/spangled] with glistening promise/in the eyes of the dusky beggar …” (Laminations in Lacquer ) Hislop’s poems, many of them cinematic-style montages of sounds and images, show us the metaphoric souk of the world, on the beach or in the street, its glitter, its sadness, its ragtag glory:

“pets, flower pots framed captive in a moment 
outside the house of the painter, a robot
in chains with an alms bowl”
(“Departures”) ...Read more of this review by poet Miriam C. Jacobs

More Reviews for this book:

 Aquillrelle. Press Release. All the Babble of the Souk

Richard Vallance Reviews All the Babble of the Souk

Reviewed by Marie Marshall All the Babble of the Souk

Richard Lloyd Cederberg Reviews All the Babble of the Souk

Adam Levon Brown Reviews All the Babble of the Souk

Further comments and reviews on Motherbird

 

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 FEATURED VIDEOS



 Michael McClure & Ray Manzarek - For Jim Morrison 

 

 

Janet Caldwell - Dancing Toward the Light

 

 

 
Nordette Adams - The Green Green Grass

 

 


 Sara Russell - The Obsessive Parts 1 and 2

 

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Saturday 1 October 2016

Sister Publication to Poetry Life & Times

Issue of October 2016

 

 

  A TRIBUTE TO JANET P. CALDWELL
1959-2016





The Cultivated Ones.
A Poem by Janet P. Caldwell.



The pampered roses are are all bred
much like step-ford wives to look alike.
From seedling to flowering
with abundant care, they do survive.

The gardener making sure they lay in measured mulch
are properly watered, holding the moisture
to prevent unwanted weeds from drinking and growing.
Halting the choking of a prized dressing of a cultivated lawn.

Unaware they are slaves to man’s idea of beauty
and never serving themselves.

Now, look at the daisy, some say she’s ugly,
just a wild, uncultured weed.
I say she’s a beauty, bending with the wind
growing sturdy through arid ground, so wild and free.

She’s the clever one, she’s cast off conformity.

Janet P. Caldwell December 16, 2015


The Daddy Poem Series (i.-vii.)
by Janet P. Caldwell.



(i.)

5 degrees to separation


I learned to count early
Read the bible too
Wrath, punishment
Seemed no absolution
Separate at five

In the morning
When I was defiled
Five screams a minute
Five shiny points from
The glass shards

Five fingers, to check off
As I calculate
In five minutes I’m clean
and new
Separated by five degrees

Five from what I don’t want
To remember, anything green
Black or brown
Make it easier
Five letters/numbers are my friends

The ceiling fan;
Wood, glass, white, brown, brass
Another set of quints
A quick escape
When I should need one

My rabbit hole with
Back-doors aplenty
Five senses all shut down
I’ve got good and can count
Before what might happen

Safe in numbers, hidden
When I separate from myself.

©2001-2014 Janet Caldwell



(ii.)

Weep for the Child that Never Was


Tears fall down my face
for a child with no name
A child filled with anguish
suffering disgrace.

How could they have lied
and treated her so
Why didn’t they love her
just let her go?

Buy her new clothes
fill her with song
Mess her up more
you can’t be wrong!

She grew up with walls
forever all around
The music you played
she couldn’t hear a sound.

You look at her now
with disgust in your eyes
You can’t see her though
she wears a disguise.

Hand-made by you
so carefully sewn
With coagulated drops
all her own.

You thought that you knew her
but there’s no way that you could
She’s not what you think
behind the mask stained with blood.

© Janet Caldwell 2001 – 2014


(iii.)

Daddy # 2


I Remember him

Glassy blue eyes
Fingertips brown
Black greasy hair
Forehead high
Child killer
Sick bastard

I Remember me
Scuttling like a rat
Running from a cat
Scattering across the tile

Like a roach on fire
When the lights came on
Better scatter, Daddy’s home!

I Remember (séances)
Straddling his head
The Shoulders so high
Calling up the dead
Peering in the sky
Let the dead arise
It’ll stop Daddy’s cries.

I Remember Abuse
Dancing to the belt
That beat me blue
Decorated with welts

Daddy, I Remember You

© Janet P. Caldwell 2003 -2014


(iv.)

Child’s Lament


I assume you’d say that I’m
As beautiful as I was when I was six.
I think … (I’m jinxed)
Mother Dear, what do you think of me now?

I really must know… I’m lost.
Did I say that I miss you?
I’m sorry if I haven’t.
I feel like Anne. Always have.

Did my beauty transpire when, I cooked your
Supper? Was I special when
Your sick fuck of a husband
Molested me? Made it easy for you,
well, answer me?

(If only in my mind, for my mind, I’m losing my mind . . . again)

Tell me, Mother, I want
To understand. (Significance?)
Myself, a wisp of value
I don’t have far to go.

It’s an indistinct trail, but
I try. Just explain it, please.
I forgive you.
Everyday.

And I will
I promise.
All the way to the grave.
Can you help me now???

©2002 – 2014 Janet Caldwell



(v.)

Sugar & Spice


Hey, Pom Pom girl, swingy
Red and blue, shake it
Shake it, cheer so loud
Until the acid bleeds your throat

Green eyes glaze and glisten
Smiling through the bile
You pretty little thing
For everyone to see, but
If they only knew, and could
See the scars beneath

The make-up, the crafted image
They wouldn’t be jealous
Now would they Blondie
Surely not of you?

You’re all grown now
If you believe a calendar
Hiding in a house, in plain
Sight, an icon for everything nice
And all that spice, so spice that nice

But tell me, what the
Hell happened to you?
A funny thing, frequent
Thoughts of suicide
A whispered middle-aged craze
Still hip, staying in style

You’re still pretty, my silly girl
Even with your head
Crammed in the toilet bowl

When did it stop being easy to cheer?
As you count the vomit chunks
Regurgitate love, empty
Your soiled soul.

Feeling better now?
No, I didn’t think you would
How about a pill? You know
That you can’t drink
Too many calories to consume
Remember? Pissing in the sink

I’ve been around, seen
Everything you’ve done
The things that you can’t handle
I saw you scrub and scrub.

Wipe at the dingy stains
From his dirty love, that stench
Perfume won’t hide.

You had to find a way
To survive the attentions
Of an unconvicted felon
That uncircumcised bastard
Who brought dinner home

You do it still you know
Those little tricks and games
Recount the vomit chunks
one-two-three-four-five

Hurry, hurry, hurry
That filthy secret’s visible
Flush, flush, flush!!!!!!

Tidily out of sight, out of mind
Your filth is in the sewer
A safe-deposit box
For unwanted truths

So you can facade the day

© Janet Caldwell 2002-2014

 




Janet P. Caldwell wrote her first poems and short stories in an old diary where she noted her daily thoughts. She wrote whether suffering, joyful or hoping for peace in the world. She started this process at the tender age of Eight. This was long before journaling was in vogue.

Along with her thoughts, poetry and stories, she drew what she refers to as Hippie flowers. Janet embraced the Sixties and Seventies flower power symbol, of peace and love, which were a very important part of her consciousness.

Janet wrote her first book, in those unassuming diaries, never to be seen by the light of day due to an unfortunate house fire. This did not deter her drive. She then opted for a new batch of composition journals and filled everyone. In the early nineteen-eighties,

Janet held a byline in a small newspaper in Denton, Texas while working full time, being a Mother and attending Night School.

Since the early days Janet has been published in newspapers, magazines and books globally. She also has enjoyed being the feature on numerous occasions, both in Magazines, Radio and on Several Web Sites. She went on to publish three books. 5 degrees to separation 2003, Passages 2012 and her latest book Dancing Toward the Light.

All of her Books are available through Inner Child Press along with Fine Book Stores Globally. Janet P. Caldwell is also a contributing editor of Inner Child ltd, which includes Inner Child’s Ning Social Site, Inner Child Newspaper, Inner Child Magazine, Inner Child Radio and The Inner Child Press Publishing Company.

She will be sadly missed by all of the poetry community and all her friends and family.


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SWIMMING TO THE MOON
A Poem by Steve De France

 Credit to Poetry Life & Times


DREAM CATCHERS
A Poem by Steve DeFrance


  Credit: motherbird.com

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EXCESS HUNGER
A Poem by Steve DeFrance



Early in the morning
the day after Thanksgiving,
I bleakly regard my fellow patrons,
squeezed from surrounding tract homes.

They had nudged out & stumbled away
from frightened lives.
They stand at the restaurant wall
looking at grease splattered
“Especials.”
These accidental victims of excess,
butts bulging, thighs dropping,
ruminate on pancakes or burritos
chorizo or bacon, tacos or tuna salad
eggs with hot chili. or coffee, tea, or Cerveza,

They order—filling an emptiness,
jockey for a seat overlooking a sea of hybrid
station wagons plastered with “baby on board” signs.
These folks dying of cancer, or filled with divorce,
or worse yet, homes infected with lies that kill,
homes of infidelity, homes of indifference,
homes one plots to leave,
homes with children without parents,
or worse yet–with twisted parents
looking ordinary—but living on rape,
or blood or tears on the mattress,
as suns come up & moons go down.

You don’t know how to love them,
or pity them. They simply are—and they leave
no apologies for their pain, your eyes glaze over,
as you too stare at the parking lot.


 Credit: artvilla.com 


 

 Steve DeFrance is a widely published poet, playwright and essayist both in America and in Great Britain. His work has appeared in literary publications in America, England, Canada, France, Ireland, Wales, Scotland, India, Australia, and New Zealand. He has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize in Poetry in both 2002 and 2003. Recent publications include The Wallace Stevens Journal, The Mid-American Poetry Review, Ambit, Atlantic, Clean Sheets, Poetrybay, Yellow Mama and The Sun. In England he won a Reader’s Award in Orbis Magazine for his poem “Hawks.” In the United States he won the Josh Samuels’ Annual Poetry Competition (2003) for his poem: “The Man Who Loved Mermaids.” His play THE KILLER had it’s world premier at the GARAGE THEATRE in Long Beach, California (Sept-October 2006). He has received the Distinguished Alumnus Award from Chapman University for his writing. Most recently his poem “Gregor’s Wings” has been nominated for The Best of The Net by Poetic Diversity. for further work by Steve De France see Poetry Life & Times & www.motherbird.com



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My Sun is Orange.
A Poem by William S. Peters, Sr.


Bill is an avid Writer / Poet who has been committed to this path since 1966. He currently has to his credit over 70 Published Books as well as a myriad of Newspaper and Magazine Articles. Bill supports the venue of Creative Expression regardless of form. He also is an activist for the progression and evolution of Humanity and its Love of each other.

Recently (September 2015) Bill was honored to be named the Poet Laureate at the Kosovo International Poetry Festival where his book The Vine Keeper was showcased. He was also awarded The Golden Grape Award.

Bill currently serves as the CEO of Inner Child Enterprises, ltd., Managing Director of Inner Child Press, Executive Producer of Inner Child Radio and Executive Editor of Inner Child Magazine. His life partner Janet P. Caldwell stands by his side in support of the Inner Child vision

For more of Bill, visit his personal web Site at : www.iamjustbill.

for Inner Child . . .

www.iaminnerchild.com
www.innerchildpress.com


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The Thracian Rider Is Doomed to Moonlight. A Poem by RW Haynes



Artemis of slippery rocks, O power
Of mesquite, O night, O resonant night
Of owls and tricky rapids, in this hour
Guide my faithful warhorse aright
In this crossing of this magic stream,
Where the ghosts of ancient rattlesnakes
Arise a moment from their deathly dream
To view the crossing an intruder makes.
Thus splashing splashlessly, now I ride,
Saluting the river with my brazen spear,
Across through the shallows to the western side,
To Mexico. Moonglow is strong, but sunrise is near,
And here I will abide when darkness is gone
Awaiting the impulse which will impel me on.

Just one game plays out at no remove
From reality, and its rules both produce
And require defiance of traps that prove
What you are. You must somehow turn loose
Of love’s numerous and bogus avatars,
Of pride’s super-subtle, invidious claims,
And all false illusions, from Hell to the stars,
As the clock steals vigor, and all the other games
Clamor for attention. But I have arrived
And crossed this river, one dragon slain
In Bulgaria, the battles I survived
Having cleared my soul of useless pain.
And now, freed from compulsion of choice,
I listen for orders from an inward voice.

Last night I met a perished knight at arms
Wandering feebly down the murmuring stream,
And we spoke awhile of debilitating charms
That lurk malignantly in hope and dream.
Death had relieved him of all but regret,
He smiled, his eyes unseen in the ghostly shade,
But hoarsely whispered then that to forget
He’d instantly take agony in trade,
And he reached forth to me his bony hand,
And I pronounced forthwith the living curse,
And he was gone with that crushing command
That the dead must obey and none can reverse.
And the waterfall echoes its perpetual sighs
And I stand watch here silent at moon-rise.


 
R. W. Haynes has taught literature at Texas A&M International University since 1992. His recent interests include the early British sonnet, and he is completing a second book on the Texas playwright and screenwriter Horton Foote (1916-2009). In his poetry, Haynes seeks to celebrate life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness without sounding any more dissonant notes than he has to. In fiction, he works toward grasping that part of the past which made its mark on his generation. He enjoys teaching drama, especially the Greeks, Ibsen, and Shakespeare, and he devoutly hopes for a stunning literary Renaissance in South Texas.

 

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~SCHIZOPHRENIC TENDENCIES~
A Poem by James Dennis Casey 1V.




James says: "I fancy myself as a bard & wordsmith, madman, artist, free thinker, cat lover, hat lover, owl enthusiast, and crystal collector. My poems have been featured in print form on two separate occasions. My poem “A Philosophical Treasure Chest” was picked for the anthology ‘Where the Mind Dwells’ after wining a submission contest, and five of my poem submissions were accepted to be in ‘Tribute-Pirates Anthology’ by Writing Knights Press. Some of my poetry has also been in the pages of various online magazine publications. Poetry Blog: http:// jdcivskeletonsfrommycloset. blogspot.com/
Rev. James Dennis Casey IV. Ordained Dudeist Priest at Dudeism, the Church of the Latter-Day Dude"



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All the Babble of the Souk
by
Robin Ouzman Hislop


Click book image to visit the Amazon page

Poet Robin Ouzman Hislop’s first full-length collection, All the Babble of the Souk, is appropriately titled. With a remarkably consistent ear for the market’s noise, for “[t]he broken lights of the bazaar/spangled] with glistening promise/in the eyes of the dusky beggar …” (Laminations in Lacquer ) Hislop’s poems, many of them cinematic-style montages of sounds and images, show us the metaphoric souk of the world, on the beach or in the street, its glitter, its sadness, its ragtag glory:

“pets, flower pots framed captive in a moment 
outside the house of the painter, a robot
in chains with an alms bowl”
(“Departures”) ...Read more of this review by poet Miriam C. Jacobs

More Reviews for this book:

 Aquillrelle. Press Release. All the Babble of the Souk

Richard Vallance Reviews All the Babble of the Souk

Reviewed by Marie Marshall All the Babble of the Souk

Richard Lloyd Cederberg Reviews All the Babble of the Souk

Adam Levon Brown Reviews All the Babble of the Souk

Further comments and reviews on Motherbird

 

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Barbara Crooker Selected Poems / 2015 available on amazon.com

by Barbara Crooker

https://www.amazon.com/Barbara-Crooker-Selected-Poems/dp/1938853709?ie=UTF8&tag=barbaracrooke-20

This collection brings together 102 poems from Barbara Crooker’s previous ten chapbooks of poetry, two of which won national prizes, with a handful of uncollected poems at the end. Of Crooker’s work, William Matthews has written, “Barbara Crooker’s poems have been written with a deft touch and with that affection for their textures and pacings that we’re accustomed to call, a little dryly, ‘technical skill.’ It’s a form of love, actually, and since she’s expended it on her poems, we can, too.” Janet McCann, writing in the Foreword, says, “The poems in this collection come mostly from chapbooks, collections which cluster around a theme, such as loss of a parent or friend, raising a child with autism, travel, art. Crooker’s collections are remarkable for their unity; their poems, epigraphs, even covers have a thematic thrust that collects and directs the work, making each a coherent work of art.... Reading the work from beginning to end provides an experience of Crooker’s world, that place of work and sadness balanced by art and love. It also provides vignettes of growing up in the fifties and sixties and shows what it was like to come of age as a woman in those years—the expectations, the hopes, the barriers that had to be overcome. Even in poems of loss, the energy persists, giving us the sense that Crooker is truly in the current of life, feeling its verve—what Wallace Stevens called ‘the intensity of love’ that he identified with ‘the verve of earth.’”

 

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FEATURED VIDEOS


Dancing toward the light book promo video  by Janet P. Caldwell




Angel of Peace by Author/Poet Aberjhani





Janet Kuypers reads 3 of her poems in round 1 at Kick Butt Poetry, 9/11/16




 Nordette Adams reads her poem Misery: New Orleans Gun Violence & Other Crimes





Sara L Russell (pinkyandrexa) reads her poem "Bohemian Quest" (about Artists)