Maja Trochimczyk
Tiger Nights
Someone nailed gold-plated clouds
to the hard, polished turquoise of the sky.
Striated, like the stripes of a tiger
I did not know I had for a pet
until he bared his teeth
at the dogs flowing through the air
to corner him in my backyard.
The blond fur glistened in shadows.
Three golden labs growled
at the cat the size of a calf.
He turned. His stripes shone
with danger. I woke up afraid.
Now I watch the gold of the clouds
change into orange, scarlet and amaranth
in a quickly darkening cupola
that rests on the hills
above the Hollywood Bowl.
Smooth tones of Joshua Bell's violin
glow in the air, escaping
the relentless chase of the brass.
Wind snatches notes from the bow,
plays with their glossy sheen.
Stars blossom on cloud-stems
in bouquets, wild as tiger lilies
you gave me that night.
Danger lurks in your smile
as you caress my ear
with a whisper: "Remember?"
BIO: Maja Trochimczyk, Ph.D., is a poet, music historian, photographer and non-profit director born in Poland, educated in Canada, and living in California (www.trochimczyk.net). She published three poetry books (Rose Always, Miriam's Iris, 2008; anthology Chopin with Cherries, 2010). Her poems appear in Clockwise Cat, Ekphrasis, Loch Raven Review, Magnapoets, Quill and Parchment, Phantom Seed, poeticdiversity, Sage Trail, SGVPQ, and anthologies by Poets on Site and others. She wrote four books and hundreds of articles on music and culture. A recipient of fellowships/awards from McGill, SSHRCC, USC, PAHA, and ACLS, Dr. Trochimczyk now serves as Poet-Laureate of Sunland-Tujunga (2010-2012). Blogs: chopinwithcherries.blogspot.com; poetrylaurels.blogspot.com
"The Familiar"
Art by Terry Wright
David H. Sutherland
Eternity
Resting on this beach along the slow chop of tide returning,
inhaling a breeze whose light metallic sound, now sleep,
wedges its voice into sand.
A little while now and the old house out back vanishes,
and the wind like curtains, hustles the mind's eye through
its singsong rendition of childhood's tinsel and chime;
where all the king's horses stroll past the eyelids.
Hoarding this day, this fall into shoreline
where each smile is a riptide of awareness,
and all equilibrium you've said comes to rest out deep.
Past the ends of our blanket the new air, salt and sea,
raise the question of our believing
that our road never ends or a sun's warmth hoarded in a towel,
will keep through the long nights ahead.
Silkworm
Let the hand extend its embroidery
Rebuild the ornamental links of its past,
The trailing neckline, the cuffs its hem,
In this fashion a silkworm's suture
Sewn by this seamstress of age fills
A wardrobe with memories. But then you are six
Watching mother take in a seam, redress
The missing button, falter to a symptom
Less from change than routine.
In every pattern a faint apparition, or scarecrow
Of a substance like a butterfly
Weaves itself into texture then form.
But in a face becoming its ghost,
Only layer on layer betrays its vanity,
And the animate stills to detect
To what perhaps was never there.
But a child in its garden sees past
The deception, past the facade of baubles,
Heavenly bodies and sparrows that nest
The illusion with tendril on twig,
To here where a silkworm's lustrous fiber becomes
Refuge as we sleep and dream in this lace
Whose never-ending spool is spun
Should even angels require an eternity.
Mark Goodson
Written last night, recorded this morning
10/1/10
Such joy is found in the rap of rain
Under covered warmth with you.
The night releases withheld pain;
Each drop upon the window pane
Collects and runs in rolling dew.
The darkness sulks away from us--
A candle flame is flame enough
To light your dampened eyes;
And shine the glimmer of your love
Past the touch of darkened skies.
You are slipping into sleep.
It may rain through the night.
Your fading mind is mine to keep.
I stay awake and tend the light.
Last Daylight Dashing
2/15/08
Following the distant echo of the ocean's triumphant roar,
We walked in the protection of tree limbs hovering.
Upon finding our way to where the tree-line meets the shore,
We stumbled under the shadow of a cloud-cloak covering;
Covering the streaming waters that we had to cross,
Covering the water rushing for it no longer lost;
And every dormant stone begging for an ocean toss,
Rested under the shadow of cloud-cloak covering.
As the sun did vanish, wearing a heavy moisture mask,
We patiently waited for a glimpse of moonlight beaming.
Shadows turned to darkness, and we wondered if we'd bask,
In the gentle rays of moon beam streaming;
Streaming to the ripples of a dark and restless sea,
Streaming for all those wondering exactly who were we;
And for all of the darkness that we had yet to see
We waited wanting to bask in moon beam streaming.
Somewhere between the twilight and the moonrise gone unseen,
On the horizon appeared the last of sunlight's flashing.
Amazed and bewildered, towards the dying light we leaned,
As the day's last light to our eye's went dashing;
Dashing to us lovers, ignited by such a spark,
Dashing to a moment that needed no remark;
And for every living creature searching for love in the dark,
We leaned to catch the last day light dashing.
The Ambient Fire
6/22/08
Yesterday was yesterday.
And my tempered, stone heart
Was waiting in the tide pool
Of healing time, learning the
Slow eternal values of incompletion.
Today your words came.
Time's healing trickle was consumed by
A molten flow, and hardened in
The unforgiving wind.
Your breathe, your forgotten
Warmth, enveloped my rock while
My mind burned in the ambient fire.
How a woman rehearses my
Memories I will never understand.
The Night's Reverie
11/3/09
The night holds nothing but shadows and longing;
When rolling off of the moon's silver tongue,
Bend dim notes to the darkness belonging,
To find in each other what is yet to be sung.
My mind races sleepless in haunted remembering
Of what has been held in a moon lowly hung.
Into your arms my mind comes while trembling
With all of the shadows it wants to become.
Oh hold me now while the night song is playing;
Smother my heart with your melody;
The tremor of love sent melodic unswaying,
Will fill the dark with some soft memory.
You must know that I would lie with no other
Then you who know well the night's reverie.
While dreams change form from one to another,
When held by you awake I am free.
And as the moon up in the sky goes on climbing,
And all in pursuit will run from within,
We'll still ourselves in the all perfect timing
That dissolves for a love like ours to begin.
So wait with me here until dawn comes in flying,
The pink sky will cradle us both underwing.
With the morning bells that soar in their chiming;
Like the birds of no toil will we softly sing.
And all that we see will bring us together,
Though darkness would will to tear us apart.
We'll see through each storm like the passing of weather
Comes always to leave from the constant of heart.
BIO: Mark Goodson has been writing poetry for three years. He teaches English and Creative Writing
"Crazy Horse Answers the Question
"
Art by Terry Wright
Top of Page
Ayaz Daryl Nielsen
Untitled
Where are you going?
Assess the density
of rising mist
as sunrise
approaches the damp
early morning world
once more?
The wild blue-
berries and toad-
stools,
their moment
A crow stretching stiff wings
in first light,
one more
Cawing
The sound
is canny
and
everlasting
Melodies
Which one will you sing now?
melodies, melodies
across our dance floors
within each melody,
feet divining memories
Ayaz Daryl Nielsen is a poet/father/husband/veteran and a hospice nurse - his poems have found many homes, and he is editor/custodian of bear creek haiku
Judy Shepps Battle
Lake Carnegie Fugue
Underwater currents glisten
I lose consciousness of time
lose sense of obligation
lose awareness of incarnation
my neck grows long and supple
my lips extend hard beak
shoulders turn wings
I soar
intercept rainbows
make love to Zephryus*
wings fully extended.
* Zephyrus was the west wind
and bringer of light spring and early
summer breezes
The Best Laid Plans...
Turning sixty-seven was something
I never planned on doing
Twenty was old enough
Death was certain to intercept
pleas and plans and abort hope
with omnipotent whim. Like
it choose Dad to play middle-age
tag while saturating his rectal cells
with cancer and shouting "You're It!"
Like belly-up goldfish and motionless
parakeets and song-less canaries
and soulful innocence disappearing
before puberty.
Twenty was as far as I could see
Bachelor's degree in hand
Graduate school an expectation
Work world without allure
Besides
I wasn't allowed to leave home
"too young to cross streets alone"
(Mother's fears replanted)
Besides
What was there to do?
Surely not grow old.
Surely not turn sixty-seven.
Judy Shepps Battle has been writing poems long before she became a psychotherapist and sociology professor at Rutgers University. Widely published both in the USA and abroad during the Sixties and Seventies, she deferred publishing to concentrate on career and family. Fortunately her muse was tenacious and she continued to write during the next three decades filling a file cabinet with scrawled and typewritten poems that are now being organized into chapbooks and individual submissions. The material submitted for publication represents her return to active participation in the writing community. She can't think of a better way to spend her retirement. In the past six months, her poems have been accepted in a variety of publications including Barnwood Press; Caper Literary Journal; Raleigh Review; Rusty Truck; Ascent Aspirations; Battered Suitcase; Joyful; and Short, Fast and Deadly.
ZAN BOCKES
A Cat in the Window
I look in.
A cat looks out.
Our vision is tightroped
across a low juniper
and a rusty wire fence.
Ears forward, she
listens to the glass.
Distant lawn mower, cars
swishing past, the dog
next door snapping holes
in the air--the roar rises
on my side of her window,
and I envy the silent dust
falling in her room.
A cat looks out.
I look in at a drape
of curtain, arm of chair,
dark tapestried room behind
her eyes. We study
each other, wait for one
to move. She has the patience
of ages. She can stay there all day
if she wants. She has all
the time in the world.
I break the gaze for the rosebush
I prune, justifying, as I
always must, my existence.
No chores for her but the sensuous
licking of her bushy grey tail,
leaving me to wonder at the feel
of rough tongue on fur, the simple
routine, the world so rightfully fair.
Green Room
At the bedroom door
I slip into a little glen,
papered walls green
with ivy and ferns, mossy
carpet so soft
my feet sink in.
Beyond brocaded windows
a forest stirs, spinning
its seeds and feathers
through needled pines--
a suggestion of wine
and pitch on my tongue.
Philodendrons canopy
the ceiling, vines twining
the faded sun as it shifts
in a splendor
of floating dust.
At bedside, the brass clock
ticks away the afternoon,
and three delicate sentries
of perfume lean shadows
across the glossy dresser,
waiting to warm a pulse.
I feel tiny and ancient,
know the man and woman will
dissolve their days with sleep.
in a quilted field,
their pair of breaths
giving and taking
sanctuary air.
Perhaps it is the stillness
that holds me here, molds
my being like the gentle curve
of a Chinese jar.
Zan Bockes (pronounced "Bacchus") earned an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Montana. Her fiction, nonfiction and poetry have appeared in many magazines and anthologies, including Visions International, Cutbank, Phantasmagoria, and Writers and Their Notebooks. She has had three nominations for a Pushcart Prize.
"
Godzilla Has Doubts"
Art by Terry Wright
Top of Page
JS ABSHER
Winter
the grass cracks
under my boots
tears blow into my eyes
the man
I might have been
dreaming about me -
a vast iron sky
a field of terse stubble
feeding one crow
Mourning, 1978
Two women with red legs, stooping
in dark cloth coats, quietly talking
as sisters do - half the words left out.
Remember him by the fire doing sums?
They sigh past moss-blacked stones,
but at the gray, smooth-cut new-set marker
they set their rhubarb legs like trunks
and towards the leafless sky
shoot bolts of pain, green pain.
Father and Children, Sticks and Straw
"You remember the apartment," my sister says,
"over Daddy's office, that I don't remember,
where you bit me because I wouldn't stop crying."
Then it's my turn, "Next was the brick shoebox
on Alan Street, where I swallowed a nickel and
you knocked the Mercury out of gear and sent it
over a pink wall." Then she: "I remember.
Buck was in the back seat squalling, his hand
stuck in the cookie box, and Mama half in the car
was trying to stop it, grabbing at the shift
and dragging her left foot through the grass."
"Then the ranch in the Park," I say, "where I drove
a needle through my pinkie and broke
the dresser mirror swinging a Louisville Slugger."
"I taught you to tie your shoes there," she says,
"though I am two years younger, and I painted
Bucky's toenails red, and Daddy brought us
pink Cuban shirts, all buttons and pockets,
we thought too pretty to wear, and he rolled
the cigars in his mouth like stick candy."
I recall how the spittle made his lips bright.
He looked so fierce I thought he would eat me.
On we go, through the old house in Groseclose
with manacles in the attic, the big one on Sheffey
where Nathan Brisco shot out his brains, the shack
we moved to after Daddy went bankrupt,
and the house in Wythe where the ceiling collapsed
on the night Mama had her last baby.
(When her water broke, you told me it was pink.)
On and on we talk, adding and discarding
details as we go, making ourselves whole
from bits and pieces, filling with straw
and sticks the hole of what we cannot say.
My poems have been published, or accepted for publication, by Free Lunch, Visions International, Ship of Fools, Dialogue, Perigee, Anderbo.com, and elsewhere. My chapbook, The Burial of Anyce Shepherd, was published in 2006 by Main Street Rag Press. My website is jsabsher.bluedomino.com. My micropoems appear at twitter.com/jsabsher.
DAVID MORGAN
The Arrangements of Life
Living is simple, no big thing.
Food is everywhere. I only have
to take it well past its sell by date.
I feast on rejection and expectation.
Memories rusting in empty houses
start my juices flowing.
Living is simple, no big thing.
As to shelter, I never have to worry.
The top of my head keeps the rain
off my brain and I sleep inside my skin.
A tree is a mansion to me
and every branch a room of my choosing.
Living is simple, no big thing.
And love? Sunlight loves me and flowers
and falling leaves and snow.
Sometimes stray angels take up with me.
I have no lack of friends, my friend,
and life is good to me.
Jesus in Marmite
I open my jar of marmite
and there he is; there is Jesus.
The Lord manifests in so many ways.
I have an oven that makes a different sound
every hour. Sometimes it sings like a choir;
sometimes slow, solemn as a Liturgy.
At least once a day it is a peal of bells;
a church service from medieval times.
I fry baked beans on its ceramic hobs.
My new pet Hallelujah is a giant flea;
it has little prayer dogs running around on it.
I eat for love; seeking substance and meaning.
I make a sandwich of fried baked beans
and marmite. I'm not particularly religious
but I like to think Jesus is looking out for us.
At the back of my larder there is
a door that runs from floor to ceiling;
one day I'll open it up and, amen, walk through.
Author David R Morgan teaches 11-19 year olds at Cardinal Newman School in Luton, and lives in Bedfordshire with his wife and two children. His eldest daughter lives in The Isle Of Man.
David has been an arts worker and literature officer, organizer of book festivals and writer-in-residence for education authorities, Littlehay Prison and Fairfield Psychiatric Hospital (which was the subject of a Channel 4 film, Out of Our Minds).He has had two plays screened on ITV.
His books for children include : The strange Case of William Whipper-Snapper, three Info Rider books for Collins and Blooming Cats which won the Acorn Award and was recently animated for BBC2's Words and Pictures Plus as well as a Horrible Histories biography: Spilling The Beans On Boudicca. David has also written poetry books, including: The Broken Picture Book, The Windmill and the Grains (Hawthorn Prize) and Buzz Off.
His poetry collection Walrus On A Rocking Chair , illustrated by John Welding, is published by Claire Publications and his adult poetry Ticket For The Peepshow is published by art'icle.
ROBERT L. JACKSON III
Shallow Time
The water never stills
to a perfect mirror
or time would cease.
The ripples are days
that travel from us
into the blurred horizon.
The future returns to me
in lesser waves of reflections
from far off walls
and jagged stone obstacles.
The image of time deepens.
The trunks of swamp trees
and the ancient cypress roots
eventually rot and sink
fermenting in the mud
with the ferns and the frogs.
The moss above hangs down,
always growing closer
always seeking to make
their slow but lasting mark.
Only the lilies
turn white and rise,
yet only for a moment.
The path is hidden.
Our ankles leave a wake
that marks our presence
and defines our time.
Traction
We cannot allow
time to weigh on our roots.
We must hold on
to the elusive sky,
that bears no friction,
and remember
the taste of the ocean
when we learned to swim.
Each burnt log
and pile of ash
will cycle again
down an uncertain path
of dirt, of stone,
of concrete, of steel,
of air, or of vacuum.
We must grow
but not too deep
and not too embedded
in the past.
Robert Jackson is a Professor of Mechincal Engineering. He is originally fron Clearwater , Florida and now resides in Auburn, Alabama. You can read more of Robert's poetry on his blog:
http://humidteadrypines.blogspot.com/
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