“Life,
strange courses
and cobwebs of mirage,
once you come
seldom you escape!”
Alok Mishra, 24, is a poet, author and Editor-in-Chief at Ashvamegh International Journal of academic and creative writing. He has authored a book, Being in Love, that brings in light the crime of honour killings in India. Alok is preparing his first poetry anthology to be published in 2016. Himself a poet, Alok has interviewed many poets and authors from India and other countries. Some of them are Abhay K, popular Indian poet, Kevin Kiely, reputed poet and versatile literary figure from Ireland and Murray Alfredson. Alok also writes on his blog about writing, editing and general topics. He is interested in politics, philosophy and social issues.
The websites:
Alok Mishra, personal website: http://alok-mishra.net
Ashvamegh International Journal: http://ashvamegh.net
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Month: November 2015
Negation. A Poem by JD DeHart
I am known by what
I am not.
I am defined by the world
around me, its vast
surface of opposites.
I am an existence framed
by the lack of existence,
a person of binary terms,
not female, sometimes
not kind, often not
hospitable, not in love
with the sound of my own
voice, but in love with the
sound of another’s.
Not what I was and yet
not what I will be.
JD DeHart is a writer and teacher. His chapbook, The Truth About Snails, is available from RedDashboard.
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What is this residue? A Poem by Robin Marchesi
A man leaves a residue in a woman
What is this residue?
Does, in its microscopic materialization,
The left over semen
Make a permanent mark?
Do I, as a man,
Wish to leave traces within you,
A form of forever that nestles in the womb?
Or is there another way
In which man may give
Substance to her, who has stirred his loins
Can I be stronger than I’ve ever been?
Will I be able to give love without demands?
I wonder why I need to disown a feeling
To beautiful to own?
Must it go,
Depart,
Tiny traces,
No more than residue
In an unseen, personal, world?
Robin Marchesi, born in 1951, began writing in his teens, much to the consternation of his mother, the sister of Eric Hobsbawm, the historian.
In 1992 Cosmic Books published his first book entitled “A B C Quest”.
In 1996 March Hare Press published “Kyoto Garden” and in 1999 “My Heart is As…”
ClockTowerBooks published his Poetic Novella, “A Small Journal of Heroin Addiction”, digitally, in 2000.
Charta Books published his latest work entitled “Poet of the Building Site”, about his time working with Barry Flanagan the Sculptor of Hares, in association with the Irish Museum of Modern Art.
He is presently working on an upcoming novel entitled “A Story Made of Stone.”
http://www.amazon.com/A-Small-Journal-Heroin-Addiction/product-reviews/0743300521
http://www.illywords.com/2011/09/down-the-rabbit-hole-a-glimpse-into-the-wonderland-of-barry-flanagan/
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Bloodwork and Quintessence. A Poem by Joseph Armstead
The second hand sweeps the face of the clock,
suddenly freezing
and
Time itself stops flowing In and Out,
birthing impassive waves across the Weeping Ocean.
I am caught, locked, in the trembling grips of a nervous lull.
There it is again, a pause,
a space between the pounding
of bloody hammer on fleshy anvil,
a searing heat
in my heaving chest,
heart thumping, rhythmic thunder,
an interruption of the pulse
of the scarlet lightning
that sears my heart.
There it is again.
I followed rumors and legendry,
romantic mysticism,
along a trail
of passionate whispers
to your door,
all lusts lead to you,
a magnet made of flesh,
I am caught in the pull
of your gravity,
and you sparked
nuclear fission
in the lead-lined chambers
of my atomic heart.
I followed the trail
of errant electrons,
quarks, leptons and mesons,
colliding nucleii,
and in the subatomic fury
I saw your face merging with mine.
Together.
Metapmorphosis.
Mutation.
The tyranny
of human need.
It spills from a rent in the vein,
solid/insolid, fluidic components,
physiological and biochemical,
a Rorschach puddling on cold glass —
take a basic metabolic panel,
analyze the plasma for its
extracellular
mineral content, get a
protein electrophoresis
and
polymerase chain reaction,
then examine arterial blood gases…
It is hard work,
this divination
through haruspication,
reading dripping entrails
slowly going cold.
I am bound, caged, by anxiety filling the space behind broken seasons.
There it is again, a pause,
a hole piercing the ephemeral fabric
of the constant storm,
a stutter in the unending howl
that sizzles like molten magma
inside the cavity that holds my soul.
There it is again.
The second hand shudders and again begins its inexorable pass…
How unlike
the sprouting of a rose,
a bleeding bouquet
born of the pulse
of the scarlet lightning
that sears my heart.
How like a blossom
from a wound.
BIO
Joseph Armstead is a suspense-thriller and horror author living in the United States’ San Francisco Bay Area. Author of a dozen short stories and ten novels, his poetry has been published in a wide range of online journals, webzines and print magazines. A mathematician, Futurist and computer technologist, Mr. Armstead’s poetry often defies easy description, but frequently includes neo-classical imagery, surrealist viewpoints and post-modern themes.
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The Cult of Lam. A Video Poem. Sonnet by Norman Ball
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.
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Long Line. A Poem by M. A. Schaffner
It all comes together in the sprawl
within homes and shopping centers basking
in the artificial light and the sounds
we now spend half our lives in programming.
Call it a form of worship in which faith
awaits succeeding images on screens
displaying visions of a promised land presumed
to lie beyond the imagined lottery.
Except we know we deserve the numbers
by right of having dreamed them — like Heaven
for the true believer, who also sins
if only just to prove he doesn’t always.
Inside the car no natural sounds impose
but signs remind us the images are real,
though not always as compelling as the game
held in your hand, restarted when you die.
M. A. Schaffner has had poems published in Shenandoah, Prairie Schooner, Agni, and elsewhere — most recently in Hermes, Modern Poetry Review, and Pennsylvania Review. Long-ago-published books include the poetry collection The Good Opinion of Squirrels and the novel War Boys. Schaffner spends most days in Arlington, Virginia juggling a Toshiba laptop and a Gillott 404.
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For Amy Winehouse. A Poem by Scott Hastie.
Life a teeming process
That in its constant,
Callous churn
Delivers but
A few brilliant jewels
From a solid weight
Of ossified dreams
And ashen decay;
Without one,
The other simply cannot be.
Such bravery then!
In her all too short
Shining example,
The flawless, fluid grace
I had always looked for
Was suddenly so obvious.
And then, not long after,
The loveliness came
To make my own life’s transit,
From that point on,
A supreme irrelevance also!
Such freedom to shine,
Thus enlightened.
From that point on,
Forever dancing
In a glorious shower
Of faith and beauty realised.
Bluff and expended– maybe!
But timelessly agape,
What exquisite rain…
Scott Hastie is a successful British born poet and writer, who has been has been commercially published in the UK for over twenty years now. He currently has seven titles in print, including a novel and three collections of poetry. In recent years, the spiritual tone in his maturing poetic voice is starting to draw increasing acclaim from a worldwide audience, especially in the U.S. India & the Middle East.
Scheduled for global release, in both e & print editions this September, Angel Voices which includes featured poem ‘Graced” is by far his most substantial collection of poetry to date, featuring over 40 brand new poems never before seen, either in print or on the net. This title builds much more on the mature poetic voice that first began to emerge in Scott’s previous title Meditations and also features ALL readers recent favourites, as showcased on his popular website. For much more info, some spectacular advance reviews for Angel Voices , , as well as pre-pub order options , also go to www.scotthastie.com
Other links:
Official twitter account: @scotthastiepoet
Facebook fan page: www.facebook.com/scotthastiespiritpoet
Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Hastie
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A Modest Operation of Exclusion.Sonnet. A Poem by R.W. Haynes
A modest operation of exclusion
Extracts the rain-frog from the desert sands,
The cornered mouse from his confusion,
The vaguely dreaming poet from drowsy lands,
And it even explains, eventually,
Why we do not know, even vaguely,
How we wish happiness to be.
And the operator standing by,
Whose merciful, providential hands
Make this story whole so that I
Throw such eloquence at the silent sky?
You see how it is. Ever since I fell
Into the Niagara from that hot-air balloon,
I dream of smiling crocodiles in Hell
Feeding me sherbet with a golden spoon.
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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