“Cetacean” by Jack D. Harvey

~ Randal A. Burd, Jr. ~ Leave a comment

A whale, his spiraling
tail whacks waves
to white spritz;
slowly he moves and feeds;
plangent down he weaves,
comes up like a gentle reef;
water breaks around
before behind
his glorious weight;
his eyes yard upon yard apart
across his bulk turn and look,
his enormous flippers folding,
opening, abaft his massive head.

Majestic mammal,
fish you will never be.
Like some overgrown living fuselage of flesh
you move your ponderous blood-warm body
through lonely seas;
tropics to the pole
the ghastly cold,
the fostering warmth
make no difference to you.

Your blood, our blood circles,
loops endlessly;
you’re with us in this; your heart
pumping heat and life
against the immortal unforgiving sea.

Waving slow and steady,
your great flukes send you below;
the waters part, down you drive,
shining, disappearing
in the safety of
the dark and bitter sea;
for you the better home,
the deep made bright
by your gentle presence.

 

Jack D. Harvey’s poetry has appeared in Scrivener, The Comstock Review, Bay Area Poets’ Coalition, The Antioch Review, The Piedmont Poetry Journal, and a number of other on-line and in-print poetry magazines. The author has been a Pushcart nominee and over the years has been published in a few anthologies. He has been writing poetry since he was sixteen and lives in a small town near Albany, N.Y. Harvey was born and worked in upstate New York. He is retired from doing whatever he was doing before he retired.

“The Lamentation of a Mother” by Indunil Madhusankha

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“Amma, when I come the next time,
prepare me some Welithalapa.”
Saying thus you left for work

But all of a sudden like one of your
most remarkable surprises
You came home deposited in a reddish wooden box,
meritoriously adorned with white coloured flowers

I fanned your face with a handkerchief
just to chase the flies away
And caressed your forehead gently
putting some tufts of hair to the top of the head
You were our only son, the greatest treasure of ours

As you were so catching and handsome a young man
and an influential commander in the Army
We had dreamt of a grand wedding ceremony for you
of sublime calibre
with the accompaniment of music
Yet I heard the smoothing rhythm
of neither the violin nor the piano
except the deafening cacophony of brownish iron horses
that they called a respectable gun salute,
and the lachrymose craws of the participants
I can remember,
unlike the others I didn’t weep or whimper
except at the moment the telephone glided from my hand
hearing the very news!

I curse it,
the horrible death messenger

Huge banners of milky white colour
fluttered in the air
On them in plain black letters
inscribed the cliché, “Anichchāwatha Sankhāra.”

Your coffin submerged slowly in to the grave
I exclaimed
clamouring and wriggling to loosen the clasp
that mitigated against my movement,
you could not be in that gloomy pit all alone
Yet the gathering was deaf

They say that now I am going mentally out
I am neither crazy nor violent
But definitely, so should be those war-mongers

Oh, forgive me, my putha, my golden gem,
for not having made Welithalapa for you.

 

Previously published in Synesthesia Literary Journal (July 8, 2016)

 

Indunil Madhusankha is currently a Lecturer in the Department of Decision Sciences at the Faculty of Business of the University of Moratuwa. Even though he is academically involved with the subjects of Mathematics and Statistics, he also pursues a successful career in the field of English language and literature as a budding young researcher, reviewer, poet, and content writer. Basically, he explores the miscellaneous complications of the human existence through his poetry by focusing on the burning issues in contemporary society. Indunil’s works have been featured in many international anthologies, magazines, and journals.

“Rose Petals in a Dark Room” by Michael Lee Johnson

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I walk through this poem one step at a time.
I walk in a mastery of this night and light
my money changers walk behind me
they’re fools like clowns in a shadow of sin,
they’re busy as bees as drunken lovers,
Sodom and Gomorrah before this salt pillar falls.

In a shadow of red rose pedals
drunken lovers walk changing Greek and Roman
currency to Jewish money or Tyrian shekels-
they’re fools, all fools, at what they do.
Everyone’s life is a conflict.
They’re my lovers and my sinners
I can’t sleep at night without them
by my bed grass near that sea of Galilee.
Fish in my cloth nets beget my friends, my converts.
I pray in this garden alone sweat
while my disciples whitewash their dreams.

The rose has a tender thorn compared to my arrest,
and soon crucifixion.

It’s here this morning and this night come together,
where this sea and this land depart,
where these villages stone and mortar crumble.

I’m but a poet of this ministry,
rose petals in a dark room fall.
Everyone’s life is a conflict.
But mine is mastery of light and neon night
and I walk behind these footsteps of no one.

 

 

Michael Lee Johnson lived 10 years in Canada during the Vietnam era and is a dual citizen of the United States and Canada.  Today he is a poet, freelance writer, amateur photographer, and small business owner in Itasca, Illinois.  Mr. Johnson has been published in more than 1072 publications. His poems have appeared in 38 countries, and he edits/publishes on 10 poetry sites.  Michael Lee Johnson has been twice-nominated for a Pushcart Prize and is a four-time nominee for Best of the Net.  There are 189 of his poetry videos now on YouTube.  He was Editor-in-Chief of the poetry anthology Moonlight Dreamers of Yellow Haze, Editor-in-Chief of the poetry anthology Dandelion in a Vase of Roses, and Editor-in-Chief of Warriors with Wings: the Best in Contemporary Poetry.

“Hearth” by William C. Blome

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Quick whittle me a birch sea captain, Ingrid,
before you dash off to play pinochle with Paul,
something smallish for our mantelpiece,
something I can paint maroon
with my glossy enamels and big, broad brush.
Your birch sea captain with his spyglass extended
will stand perpetual watch
over the gulf in front of our fireplace,
and his eyesight has to be sharp enough
to never be fooled by costumed invaders,
cutthroats like Paul in their looney-tunes get-ups,
desperately trying to lose their identity
in a following sea of ridiculous optics,
but preparing nonetheless to storm
this brick and stone coast we call hearth.

 

William C. Blome writes poetry and short fiction. He lives wedged between Baltimore and Washington, DC, and he is a master’s degree graduate of the Johns Hopkins University Writing Seminars. His work has previously seen the light of day in such fine little mags as Poetry London, PRISM International, In Between Hangovers, Fiction Southeast, Roanoke Review, and The California Quarterly.

“The Spirit Moves You: A Sestina” by Emory D. Jones

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You are so pale you must have seen a ghost
No wonder in this old abandoned house
When outside there’s a spreading chestnut tree
Whose rippled reflection shimmers in the pond—
Beyond the pond there is a mounded grave
And all above a beautiful sky-blue heaven.
But now the wind arouses stormy heaven
And awakens from its sleep the shrouded ghost
Where stone cannot now mark a shallow grave
That once belonged to a person in this house;
No life can stir within this muddy pond
Clogged with leaves that fall from this old tree.
Gripping this earth, this ancient sentinel tree
Stretches its limbs and reaches to the heaven
That spreads above and smiles in that old pond
That ripples as if it were touched by playful ghost
Who glides upon the porch of this old house
And dances as if it never knew the grave.
But now it is more serious and grave
As sky now darkens above the ancient tree
And windows glare like eyes in this old house
With not a beam of light from darkened heaven—
Wind devils play in the yard as if the ghost
Is stirring them. And swirling roiling pond
Flings its spray in air above the pond
More fitting for the spirit than the grave
From which escaped the mischievous rollicking ghost;
The air is warm and damp upon the tree
And sun smiles from a sky of golden heaven
And life now seems to return to this old house.
And now you can return to this old house
A place of quiet rest beside the pond
Most familiar under smiling heaven
As flowers decorate the peaceful grave
That rests beneath the greening chestnut tree
And now provides a rest for peaceful ghost.

You sadly remember the one in the grave
Under the shadow of the chestnut tree.
You banish memories of the playful ghost.

 

First appeared in Belle Rêve Literary Review (2016).

 

Dr. Emory D. Jones is a retired English teacher who has taught in Cherokee Vocational High School in Cherokee, Alabama, for one year, Northeast Alabama State Junior College for four years, Snead State Junior College in Alabama for three years, and Northeast Mississippi Community College for thirty-five years. He has published poems in such journals as Voices International, The White Rock Review, Free Xpressions Magazine, The Storyteller, Modern Poetry Quarterly Review, Gravel, Pasques Petals, The Pink Chameleon, and Encore: Journal of the NFSPS. He is retired and lives in Iuka, Mississippi, with his wife, Glenda. He has two daughters and four grandchildren.

“Of Rain and Tears” by Diane Elayne Dees

~ Randal A. Burd, Jr. ~ Leave a comment

Too little rain parches the garden,
destroys the crops, drives up
the cost of food, and creates
starvation. Wildlife die of thirst,
forests go up in flames.

Too much rain rots the garden,
decimates the crops, drives up
the cost of food, and causes hunger.
Wildlife and people drown,
houses and roads are destroyed,
the will to live goes up in flames.

Tears are like rain. Too few clog
the heart, prevent growth, and create
starvation of the soul. Emotions die
of suffocation, motivation is smothered by fear.

Too many tears cause a kind of blindness.
The beauty and the possibilities in front
of us are obscured by saltwater that burns
the eyes, and our breath is blocked
by a strangling globus sensation.
Courage is destroyed, hope goes up in flames.

Tears are overrated. The line between
cleansing and drowning is frightfully thin.
We can learn to drain the toxins
that enter our thoughts, our hopes,
our dreams. But once the flood begins,
there is no levee strong enough
to save our loss of self-possession,
no government compassionate enough
to preserve our flimsy shelter of belief.




Diane Elayne Dees’s poetry has been published in many journals and anthologies. Diane, who lives in Covington, Louisiana, also publishes Women Who Serve, a blog that delivers news and commentary on women’s professional tennis throughout the world. Her chapbook, I Can’t Recall Exactly When I Died, is forthcoming from Clare Songbirds Publishing House. Also forthcoming (Kelsay Books) is Diane’s chapbook, Coronary Truth.

“In a Fix” by Laura Felleman

~ Randal A. Burd, Jr. ~ Leave a comment

Today, under fluorescent lights,
I have my grandmother’s eyelids.

Bumpy, flaky, itchy
like a sunburn starting to heal.

At the office,
opinions are offered,
various potions tried and applied.
Solutions to securing suppleness.

What is sapping us?

I thought life had made grandma’s eyelids
wrinkled, discolored sags.

Daughter of the rural poor.
Employee of the cannery.

Wife of the junior-high dropout,
who always resented the fact.
Mother of children who grew
to move out and up,
of an eldest whose own daughters favored
the other grandma.

Florence, never Flo,
obese and ordinary.

Loved through an act of will,
until death made it moot.

Now, in the reflection
of the upper eyelid just
below the right eyebrow
I see the resemblance.

 

Currently, Laura Felleman is an accountant at the University of Iowa.  Before that, she was a seminary professor. Prior to that, she was a pastor.  She moved to Iowa City with her husband in 2016 and started writing poetry soon afterwards.  In order to learn this new craft, Laura attends the Free Generative Writing Workshops and participates in local poetry readings.

“Michelangelo: Painter and Poet” by Michael Lee Johnson

~ Randal A. Burd, Jr. ~ Leave a comment

Michelangelo
with steel balls
and a wire brush
wishing he was
wearing motorcycle leathers,
going wild and crazy,
stares cross-eyed at the
Sistine Chapel ceiling–
nose touching moist paint,
body stretched out on a plank,
bones held by ropes from falling–
delirious, painting that face of Jesus
and the Prophets
with a camel-hair brush;
in such a position, transition
a genie emerges as a poet–
words not paint
start writing his sonnets,
a second career is born–
nails and thorns
digging at his words,
flashing red paint:
it’s finished.

 

Michael Lee Johnson lived 10 years in Canada during the Vietnam era and is a dual citizen of the United States and Canada.  Today he is a poet, freelance writer, amateur photographer, and small business owner in Itasca, Illinois.  Mr. Johnson has been published in more than 1072 publications. His poems have appeared in 38 countries, and he edits/publishes on 10 poetry sites.  Michael Lee Johnson has been twice-nominated for a Pushcart Prize and is a four-time nominee for Best of the Net.  There are 189 of his poetry videos now on YouTube.  He was Editor-in-Chief of the poetry anthology Moonlight Dreamers of Yellow Haze, Editor-in-Chief of the poetry anthology Dandelion in a Vase of Roses, and Editor-in-Chief of Warriors with Wings: the Best in Contemporary Poetry.

“Buddha Cat of Edsall Road” by Jake Cosmos Aller  

~ Randal A. Burd, Jr. ~ Leave a comment

I had another encounter
With the divine recently
Another cosmic cat perhaps
Perhaps not
Who knows what cats are
Are they alien from another dimension
Or was he channeling God?

I call him the Buddha cat
For the cat loves
Sitting in a meditative pose
Not moving
Just starting at me
With his soulful deep eyes
Boring into my soul
exploring all my secret thoughts

The Buddha cat
Does not move
Does not react
As he is so deep
Into his interior mediation
Truly in tune
With the cat universe
And the cosmos as well

The Buddha cat
Seems to be
One with God
One with Buddha
One with Allah
And all the other
Billion names of God
Known and unknown

The Buddha cat
Can teach us all
About the art of meditation
As he zones inward
And loses his soul
Joining the cosmos
And becoming
The Buddha cat

The Buddha cat
Lives in a modest
Town house
In a modest suburb
Proving yet again
The divine spirit of God
Is everywhere all around us

The Buddha cat
Reminds us all
To look for god
In the everyday

All around us
If we but have eyes
To see

 

John (“Jake”) Cosmos Aller is a novelist, poet, and former Foreign Service officer having served 27 years with the U.S. State Department serving in ten countries – (Korea, Thailand, India, the Eastern Caribbean (lived in Barbados but covering Antigua, Barbados, Dominica, Grenada, St Kitts, St Lucia, and St Vincent) and Spain, and traveled to 50 countries and 49 out of 50 States. Prior to joining the Foreign Service, he taught overseas for five years and served in the Peace Corps in Korea. He has an MPA and MA degree (Korean studies) from the University of Washington in Seattle. He has written four novels, 900 poems, and 50 short stories. His work has appeared in over 25 literary journals.

“Heavenly Peace” by Emory D. Jones

~ Randal A. Burd, Jr. ~ Leave a comment

A Gloss on the following lines:

O soft embalmer of the still midnight,
Shutting, with careful fingers and benign
Our gloom-pleased eyes, embower’d from the light,
Enshaded in forgetfulness divine….

—“To Sleep” by John Keats

O soft embalmer of the still midnight
How peacefully we lie beneath your white
And gentle hands. You work your magic now,
We know, with soothing whispers and endow
With strength to take the approaching day’s delight
O soft embalmer of the still midnight.

Shutting, with careful fingers and benign
The eyes too full of beauty to decline
Your old companion, the maker of pleasant dreams
Who shows each thing much better than it seems
By glaring day. Soft hands, almost divine
Shutting, with careful fingers and benign,

Our gloom-pleased eyes, embower’d from the light.
Within a luscious garden of delight
We find ourselves enfolded in a pure
Fragrance of musky rose, a nightly cure
For heartaches we endure to stand upright.
Our gloom-pleased eyes, embower’d from the light,

Enshaded in forgetfulness divine,
Float inward. There our spirits find
A citadel secure from every foe
And we are made a part of the heavenly flow
That gently runs inside the heart sublime
Enshaded in forgetfulness divine.

 

First appeared in the 2018-2019 issue of Turning Home of the Poets Roundtable of Arkansas.

 

Dr. Emory D. Jones is a retired English teacher who taught in Cherokee Vocational High School in Cherokee, Alabama, for one year, Northeast Alabama State Junior College for four years, Snead State Junior College in Alabama for three years, and Northeast Mississippi Community College for thirty-five years. He has published poems in such journals as Voices International, The White Rock Review, Free Xpressions Magazine, The Storyteller, Modern Poetry Quarterly Review, Gravel, Pasques Petals, The Pink Chameleon, and Encore: Journal of the NFSPS. He is retired and lives in Iuka, Mississippi, with his wife, Glenda. He has two daughters and four grandchildren.