Tag: Poetry

Two Poems by James G. Piatt

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My Lost Love

The tall candles were throwing
flickering pieces of light on the windows
of the old house when I heard her voice
whispering to me in a dream song. I saw
a faint image of her face echoing in the
candles’ flames, as raindrops
tinted the windows with a mist. I had
thought that the many years would have
erased a sense of her soft touch and
faded her visions that had encompassed
my being for so long, allowing me to
begin anew after the hollow years, but it
was not to be so. The cruel clown in my
mind, with his gaping painted mouth and
his kohl eyes leering at me, caused me to
ponder on all the fading memories of our
togetherness, and then I wept.


Secret Memories

Wandering thoughts awakened by
dawn’s incoming apricot mist, crept
silently into the kitchen shadow of
the old farmhouse, while I sat in
dawn’s early hours sipping pekoe
tea, and delving into all the precious
memories only I can see.
Softly silently
My mind soars up peacefully
visions of soft memories




James G. Piatt lives in Santa Ynez, California, with his wife Sandy, and a dog named Scout. He is a twice Best of The Net nominee and a four-time Pushcart nominee. His Poem, “Teach Me,” published by Long Story Short, was selected as its poem of the year in 2014, and he was chosen as the featured poet in publications eleven times. He has had five poetry books, The Silent Pond, Ancient Rhythms, LIGHT, Solace Between the Lines, and Serenity, over 1790 poems, five novels, and forty short stories published in scores of national and international literary magazines, anthologies, and books, He earned his doctorate from BYU, and his BS and MA from California State Polytechnic University, SLO.

Two Poems by Dean Z. Douthat

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Tiger

a prehistoric encounter

Comes the tiger, comes the fear.
Cannot show it; brandish spear.
Icy fingers rise below
Strum my heartstrings; keep breath slow.

I’m his dinner, run or lose
Does not matter how I choose.
Frenzied woman, boy, two girls
Hunker down as clash unfurls.

Must look fearless lest they run.
He would chase them, she’d be done;
Hurl herself into his maw.
Kids reach safety down the draw.

“When I rush him you all run”
Softly, calmly, “and my son,
If I die you must be brave.
You’ve a family to save.”

I’ll engage him, they’ll run clear.
“Run!” I yell and hoist my spear
Scream and charge him, unlike prey.
Tiger turns and runs away.


General “Mad” Anthony Wayne

(Eponym of Fort Wayne, IN; Wayne County in IN, MI, OH, MO; Waynesville in MO; et al.)

It’s not true.
We were never taught
to hate him.
OK sure,
we knew about him
and we certainly
didn’t admire him.
But it is, as they say:
“Nothing personal, just business”.

We kids heard
all the old stories
from Aunt Bess
in Oklahoma.
How he thrust Northward
but failed
then fell back
to build Recovery.

Our people
gave him a fit;
for years we stymied him
out-fought him,
out-talked him.
Our Miami Tribe and Nation
gave him
a great deal of trouble
and set back.

But we never called him “mad”.
We didn’t think of him
as crazy.
Well, not anymore so
than the rest of you
white eyes.
It was you
who gave him that name
“Mad”.
You see a difference
we cannot.

He had the same lunacy
you all have.
Land is your booze–
you thirst for it.
So we stuffed your mouths
full of dirt
after we killed you.




Dean Z. Douthat is a retired engineer residing in a senior living facility in Ann Arbor, Michigan. His 3rd great grandfather was Little Turtle, Chief of the Miami Tribe, who headed a confederation of tribes that offered great resistance to the US taking over their territories, including much of Indiana and Ohio and the southern part of Lower Michigan. Little Turtle was finally defeated in 1794 at the Battle of Fallen Timbers and signed the Treaty of Fort Greenville in 1795.

Two Poems by Gary Borck

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Ancient Roman Fort

Man can hardly count the generations past,
since your great monument first dwarfed the land.
To mortal man whose days are passing fast
your growing hours are numerous grains of sand;
yet by our God made hands, your walls were cast,
and we made in the image of the One
have met the dust, while you stand tall and grand,
with age much closer to the ancient sun,
than we who join the race, but briefly run.


Flowers

2024 Pushcart Prize Nominee

No bride could steal more awed and envying eyes,
than your jewelled garb and brightly petalled shades.
No scent brings on more searching suitors, nigh.
Whom better serves a maiden’s hair array?
What hue was not conceived that God bequeathed,
so you may festoon all the meadow’s green?
Through bees your dust of virile, rampant seed
spreads blooms around the banks of lulling streams.
Shy lover’s hearts are snatched and then unveiled
by the piercing beauty of your dainty hand.
What summer scene, in winter’s more bewailed,
than where your striking splendour sprouts and stands?
No pleasanter a look or fragrance, reigns,
when your majestic bouquet sweeps the plains.




Gary Borck is from the UK and teaches in China. He loves to read and write poetry, (attempt to) write novels, and ramble in natural surroundings. Several of his poems have appeared in Grand Little Things and the Society of Classical Poets.

Two Poems by D. R. James

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Man to Man with the Folks’ New Condo

I’m glad we have this chance to chat, now,
before my parents move in
for the rest of their lives.
There are things you need to know.

Frankly, they may not be easy
to get along with. Toast, for example,
the making of it, you see, for some reason
very important—how brown, how hot,
just when.
Essential things like that.

Remembering past trips, too,
can be irritating,
the details—which hotel,
in Warsaw, for God’s sake,
where they first heard my sister
would divorce her first husband,
and just where that great Dutch
cheese place was, there,
in the mauve photo album,
a few pages after me in a tux,
the wedding.

They will tell you how they miss
all those rooms
in the house where they lived
for forty years this Wednesday,
coincidentally, my mother’s
eighty-first birthday.

And whenever your ‘foreign’ gardeners
mow and trim the prim edges
of this emerald lawn
my parents will tell you how they dream
about their yard—all that grass,
the matured maples, the hedge of lilacs
defining the lot line out back.

You also need to know that you
were not their first choice.
They wanted the model
with the sunroom like their porch, to be
closer to the clubhouse, the workshop.
But they were told that could take
another couple of years,
maybe three or four or more,
and, as Mom puts it,
at this point they can’t gamble,
what with Dad likely going
totally blind at any time,
and her just not able
to be their eyes and legs, both,
here, in a whole new place.

“Man to Man with the Folks’ New Condo” first appeared in Tipton Poetry Journal.


For Therapy, I Mix Metaphors

From a frozen wedge of machine-split pine,
tossed on this settling fire, one frayed, martyred
fiber curls back and away like a wire, then
flares, a flame racing the length of a fuse.
Imagine this my innermost strand, a barely-dirt
two-track off Frost’s road less traveled, a thin,
trembling thread of desire, the uncharted blue vein
of a tundral highway. Or in some dread cloister
it dreams, and a sillier spirit suddenly moves—
like four fresh fingers over flamenco frets,
like dumb elegance uttering Old Florentine,
never meaning one of its crooning words.
It might dance—Tejano, Zydeco, any twenty
Liebeslieder Waltzes, any juking jumble
of a barrel-house blues—wherever arose
an arousing tune, the thrum of a Kenyan’s
drumming, the merest notion of Motown soul.
I do know: there must be this lost but lively cord,
an original nerve, perhaps abandoned, or jammed
as if into an airless cavity of my old house.
It waits, to spark, to catch, its insulated nest
punctured by the stray tip of a driven nail.
It craves some risky remodeling, that annoying
era of air compressor, plaster grit, dumpster,
and the exuberant exhalation of ancient dust.

“For Therapy, I Mix Metaphors” originally appeared in Lost Enough.




D. R. James, a year+ into retirement from nearly 40 years of teaching college writing, literature, and peace studies, lives, writes, and cycles with his psychotherapist wife in the woods near Saugatuck, Michigan. His latest of ten collections are Mobius Trip and Flip Requiem (Dos Madres Press, 2021, 2020), and his prose and poems have appeared internationally in a wide variety of print and online anthologies and journals.

Two Poems by Susan Jarvis Bryant

~ Randal A. Burd, Jr. ~ 2 Comments

Corpseville

a twisted villanelle

In twilight’s glow you’ll know you’re not alone.
You’ll hear their whispers rasping in your ear.
They’ll burrow through the marrow of your bone.

They’ll reap the seeds their cunning kin have sown-–
A harvest that would make a demon cheer.
In twilight’s glow you’ll know you’re not alone.

They’ll bask in every gibbous-moon-soaked groan
That rumbles through the eerie atmosphere.
They’ll burrow through the marrow of your bone.

Your dreams will shudder with their ghostly drone.
Your skull will crawl with thoughts no heart can bear.
In twilight’s glow you’ll know you’re not alone.

Befouled with gore they’ll draw a ghastly moan.
They’ll bore beneath your skin and raise your hair.
They’ll burrow through the marrow of your bone.

Soon mini ghouls will roam your twilight zone
To trick or treat as grinning pumpkins stare.
Shrug off your shroud. Don’t rot at home alone.
Creep from your crypt and throw those imps a bone.


Toad Ode

O, warty dweller of the weedy pond,
O, cauldron-dodging lodger of the lake,
My happy-ending heart has grown so fond
Of craggy clamminess, I plan to take
An algae night to swim in bulgy eyes
While basking in the choruses you croak.
If pussycats and owls can dine on quince
And float their pea-green boats to heaven highs,
Then I can plant a wince-free kiss to smoke
Your chilly lips and free your inner prince.
–
I’ve met a ton of toads, but none like you,
O, legend of the frilly lily pad.
They wowed and wooed and cooed and left me blue—
All armed with charm that hid a tad of cad.
Each peachy paramour assailed my eye
With weapons of the flash and dashing kind—
A scorching thrust of lust that left love dead.
And that, O, dumpy, dimply one, is why
My inner princess surfaced just to find …
You … the toad I’m owed … the prince I’ll wed.
–
Oh dear, I fear my awestruck heart’s forsaken.
I’ve puckered up with pluck and now it seems
I’m out of luck; your inner prince won’t waken—
A snoring schmuck has dashed my princess dreams.
O, crinkled critter of the realm of reeds,
O, soggy squatter of the swampy sphere,
I’ve snogged you at the bottom of your bog
Yet you can’t meet my doleful-damsel needs.
I now assume a suitor won’t appear
Unless I slip your grip and kiss a frog.

“Toad Ode” originally appeared in the New English Review.




Susan Jarvis Bryant is originally from England and now lives on the coastal plains of Texas. She has poetry published in a variety of places. Susan is the winner of the 2020 International SCP Poetry Competition and was nominated for the 2022 Pushcart Prize.

Translations by Michael R. Burch

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Loose translations and interpretations of Ono no Komachi

If fields of autumn flowers
can shed their blossoms, shameless,
why can’t I also frolic here—
as fearless, wild and blameless?

Alas, the beauty of the flowers came to naught
as I watched the rain, lost in melancholy thought …

Am I to spend the night alone
atop this summit,
cold and lost?
Won’t you at least lend me
your robes of moss?

I nodded off thinking about you
only to have your appear in my dreams.
Had I known that I slept,
I’d have never awakened!

This selection previously appeared in Hub Pages (top ten love poems), Brief Poems, and Poem Today.


This abandoned mountain shack —
how many nights
has autumn sheltered here?

Once-colorful flowers faded,
while in my drab cell
life’s impulse also abated
as the long rains fell.

In this dismal world
the living decrease
as the dead increase…
oh, how much longer
must I bear this body of grief?

Did you appear
only because I was lost in thoughts of love
when I nodded off, day-dreaming of you?
(If I had known that you
couldn’t possibly be true
I’d have never awakened!)




Michael R. Burch‘s poems have been published by hundreds of literary journals, taught in high schools and colleges, translated into 17 languages, incorporated into three plays and four operas, and set to music, from swamp blues to classical, by 29 composers. He also edits The HyperTexts.

Two Poems by Eric D. Goodman

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As for the Ticket

Don’t burn the tongue,
on flavor still too hot.

Eat slowly,
savor the sustenance,
that will certainly end too soon.
The dinner is good,
the main course, half devoured,
still piping hot.

As for the ticket, no, not yet.
Keep it at bay.

The bill will come
that nobody wants to pay.

Not one to live off extended credit
or the kindness of others,
but no desire to settle up—
not now or even later.

These passionate days
steeped in desire and warmth and bliss
do not come for free.

The laughter and clinking glasses and
clanking cutlery and exciting conversations
crossing one another at a table of friends
with so much to say that half the fresh ideas
meant to enter the discussion fall
like generous crumbs for the less fortunate
scavenging the cracks between the floorboards.

The bill always comes at the end.

The thing to do is to avoid eye contact
with the waiter standing by in his black tuxedo,
lurking slyly in the shadows,
silver platter in white-gloved hand,
in search of an entry point;

not to look into the mirror at the aging stranger there
as you visit the restroom more frequently
than you used to;

not to spend too much time sharing recent
photographs of the kids and family,
only to realize that the photos you are showing
are ten, fifteen, twenty years old.

The thing to do is to pace yourself,
chew your food until the flavor is spent,
take your time, sip and savor
the wine and beer and scotch and cognac
that you once gulped
with a greedy thirst,
and don’t be afraid to add a little ice
or water if that will make the flavor last longer.

If you can choose the tastiest morsels,
the finest beverages, optimal companionship,
stretch out your servings so that
what you consume does not
outpace your hunger, does not
make you uncomfortably full,

perhaps—just perhaps—
you will make the most
of the restaurant’s operating hours
and the bill will not arrive
until you are ready to receive it.


Thanks for the Socks

Rummaging through the attic,
I came across an old picture
and remembered a thank you card
that I forgot to write.

Thank you for the socks
that you got me for Christmas,
immortalized in a photograph
collecting dust in an attic box.

I bore my soul
took the jagged shards of broken notions
from the darkest crevices of my mind,
examined them, conducted psychanalysis on myself,
and exposed my innermost despair to you.

You drove to the mall, in your sable,
parked in the garage so you
wouldn’t need to bear the snow
walking through the open doors of Lazarus.

That cozy evening beside the colorful, lit tree,
I presented you the harvest of heartache:
a book of cathartic poetry dedicated to you.

You, in turn, presented me
with a pair of socks,
a pock-marked design
with a thin red line across the toes.

I declared devotion in verse,
painted your beauty in rhyme and tempo,
alliteration and angst.

You accented the men’s hosiery
with a framed picture of you wearing them
to personalize the gift.

You commented on how much you
cherished the poetry—
a book devoted to who you were to me.

I said thanks for the socks
and the picture of you wearing them.

Half a life later,
I revisit that poetry—
cringingly sincere, earnest, naïve—

and I wonder whether you still have a copy
that you take from the shelf from time to time,
reminding you that such worship as this
once put you at its center,

or whether your copy has been discarded
like the picture of an old acquaintance
or a worn-out pair of socks.




Eric D. Goodman lives and writes in Maryland, where he’s remained sheltered in place during the pandemic and beyond, spending a portion of his hermithood writing poetry. His first book of poetry, Faraway Tables, is coming in spring 2024 from Yorkshire Press. He’s author of Wrecks and Ruins (Loyola University’s Apprentice House Press, 2022) The Color of Jadeite (Apprentice House, 2020), Setting the Family Free (Apprentice House, 2019), Womb: a novel in utero (Merge Publishing, 2017) Tracks: A Novel in Stories (Atticus Books, 2011), and Flightless Goose, (Writers Lair Books, 2008). More than a hundred short stories, articles, travel stories, and poems have been published in literary journals, magazines, and periodicals. Learn more about Eric and his writing at www.EricDGoodman.com.

“On Viewing the Corpse of My Mother-in-Law” by Nolo Segundo

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How could this–thing–have been her?
Lying shriveled and small on the bed
As those who loved (and feared) her
Gathered in the bereft hospital room
To let their shock and grief melt and
Mold itself into its own atmosphere.
Her body seemed never to have been
Real, never to have been a woman,
Never to have been young once, and
Surely never to have been a mother….

And if it had been a body once, housing
A small dragon who could lash out fire
Solely with her harsh and brutal tongue,
Keeping those who loved her at bay and
The rest of us wary, aware of her power,
Her terrible gift for shrinking one’s soul,
Then where did she go when her mouth
Froze open as the last breath of a long
Life left quietly, without fuss or rancor?

Still, though imperfect as you or I, she
Was loved and mourned and honored.
If God only housed saints, think how
Terribly lonely He would be….

“On Viewing the Corpse of My Mother-in-Law” originally appeared in Adelaide.




Nolo Segundo, pen name of L. J. Carber, only became a widely published poet in his mid-70’s in over 130 literary journals in the U.S., Canada, England, Romania, Scotland, Portugal, Sweden, India, Hong Kong, Turkey, and three trade book collections: The Enormity of  Existence [2020], Of Ether and Earth [2021] and Soul Songs [2022]. These titles and much of his work reflect the awareness he’s had for over 50 years since having an NDE whilst almost drowning in a Vermont river: that he has, or rather, IS a consciousness that predates birth and survives death, what poets once called a soul. Nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net, he’s a retired teacher [America, Japan, Taiwan, Cambodia] who has been married to a smart and beautiful Taiwanese woman for 43 years.

Two Poems by Felicia Nimue Ackerman

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Old Age Be Not Sugarcoated

Your language has me groaning.
I hate to be a scold,
But please don’t call me older
Instead of simply old.
And even worse is senior.
It makes me quite irate.
I haven’t been a senior
Since 1968!

“Old Age Be Not Sugarcoated” originally appeared in Light.


A Crispy Thanksgiving

I’m grateful for crispy-skinned turkey
And pumpkin pie topped with whipped cream
And freshly made biscuits with butter,
A dinner fulfilling my dream.

I’m grateful for loose-fitting garments
That cover my bulge without fail.
I’m grateful that one of my cronies
Has tactfully hidden my scale.

“A Crispy Thanksgiving” originally appeared in Lighten Up Online.




Felicia Nimue Ackerman is a professor of philosophy at Brown University and has had over 260 poems published in a wide range of places, including eighteen in past issues of Sparks of Calliope.

Two Poems by Elaine Sorrentino

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Landslide

On a steamy July night in 1976
Boz Scaggs, Fleetwood Mac, the Eagles
electrified Schaefer Stadium,
thrilling sixty thousand screaming fans.

A rock concert newbie, I was overwhelmed
by the crowd, the roar, the strong skunky smell,
all overlooked by elation at sharing the day
with the boy who had known my heart for four years.

A day-long party, by the time the Mac
crooned “Landslide,” nature was telling me
Find a rest room. How would I navigate
this crowd, I asked my boyfriend.

Taking my arm, he guided me up the stairs
down the ramp (so many ramps),
past the hundreds of stoned concertgoers,
to the entrance of my destination.

Patiently explaining how to maneuver back
to my seat, through the swarms of stoners,
up the ramp – oh God, they all looked the same,
down the steps, he took off for the Men’s Room.

I prayed I could follow his directions back
but I exited the Ladies Room, and there he was, my smiling GPS;
relief flooded my body as I grinned,
gazed into his eyes and said I knew you’d be here,

which in teenage boy-speak
means I have trained you like a dog.
Smile vanished, he disappeared into the crowd
leaving me to find my own way back.


Stage Fright

I’m a solo act
balancing on the edge
laying bare my courage

eyes shut, I teeter
on the precipice 
of dive in or chicken out

when a reassuring hand
touches my elbow,
They’re ready for you.

I unclench my eyes
prepared to dip my toe
into unexplored waters

as I step on stage
applause quiets my fears, 
and I begin.




Elaine Sorrentino has been published in Minerva Rising, Willawaw Journal, Glass: A Journal of Poetry, Ekphrastic Review, Writing in a Women’s Voice, Global Poemic, ONE ART: a journal of poetry, Agape Review, Haiku Universe, Sparks of Calliope, Muddy River Poetry Review, Gyroscope Review, Your Daily Poem, Panoplyzine, Etched Onyx Magazine, and at wildamorris.blogspot.com.  She was also featured on a poetry podcast at Onyx Publications.