We could have
been lovers,
but we weren’t,
we could have
been life-long
friends,
but we weren’t,
we could have
been so much
more than a
beautiful exchange
of a brief and
intense light that
scorched us both
with an
innocence that
overwhelmed us
leaving us
strangers for
evermore.
John D Robinson was born in 63; he is a published poet with 2 chapbooks; ‘When You Hear The Bell, There’s Nowhere To Hide’ (Holy&intoxicated Publications 2016) ‘Cowboy Hats & Railways’ (Scars Publications 2016); he was a contributing poet to the 2016 48th Street Press Broadside Series; his work appears widely in the small press and online literary publications; he is married and lives in the UK.
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Key of Mist. Guadalupe Grande.Translated.Amparo Arróspide.Robin Ouzman Hislop
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Month: March 2017
Sherry moments. A Poem by Daginne Aignend
He used to wait for me
when I got home from work
‘A glass of sherry, my dear’
We sat down
as I listened to his stories
The same story
he already told me yesterday
He played Rummy with
his girlfriend, the old bag
A puckish smile
accompanied his words
The old bag was sixty-five,
he already reached
the honorable age of eighty-two
For me, sipping my sherry,
it was the time of day to relax
He wasn’t always an
amiable man
When he was younger
he frightened me with
his abrupt violent bad temper
Aging took the edges off
his tantrums
Nowadays, I have decided
to remember my granddad
by these languid sherry moments
Bio
Daginne Aignend is a pseudonym for the Dutch poetess Inge Wesdijk.
She likes hard rock music, photography and fantasy books. She is a vegetarian and spends a lot of time with her animals.
Daginne started to write English poetry five years ago and posted some of her poems on her Facebook page and on her fun project website www.daginne.com
She has been published in some online Poetry Review Magazines with a pending publication at the Contemporary Poet’s Group anthology ‘Dandelion in a Vase of Roses’.
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The Cambridge Companion to Academic Dipshits. A Poem by R.W. Haynes
A fat old parrot’s fine impersonation
Of a dean, on YouTube, set our friend a laughing
Which he couldn’t stop. It turned to coughing,
And he died, sort of happy, at his station.
We found in his desk, stashed carelessly,
An ancient manuscript he was translating
From Sicilian Greek, a tragedy dating
From Plato’s time, and indeed relating
To the philosopher, for his great enemy
Dionysius the First of Syracuse
Wrote the play to defend his tyranny
Against Plato’s defense of liberty
And attack on his autocratic abuse,
Tyranny raging against philosophy.
Do we moralize against tyranny,
Although small fish, but not so small
As delicious minnows on whom we fall
With glittering eyes, slobberingly?
Do these ideas–rained upon our minds,
Like mud rain in Laredo–elevate
Consciousness toward the great
Hovering supremacy philosophy finds?
Our dead associate, with his dramatic Greek
Representation of a fictional fight
In which dialogue produced lurid light,
Urges our lethargy to think and speak.
Have we reason to listen to that urgency
Or indeed to reason, whose puritan whine
Is likely at times to somewhat undermine
Its specious claim of authority?
“I’d rather be right with Plato,” someone said.
But what does it matter when we all are dead?
So now they have sabotaged a Chaucer class…
Ho hum. They did the same for Tragedy,
And who can blame a stupid clown or an ass
For despising Oedipus or Antigone?
Brainlessness is not some contagion
But, in our non-Platonic academe,
A status quo, the vacuous conversation
Of envious imbeciles with bulging eyes agleam.
The best one can do in this fools’ competition
Is sometimes to put a stick in the machine
And briefly delay the supremely ignorant mission
Carefully strategized by Satan and the dean.
Let no one dying here view with surprise
Dung-beetles circling, with burning little eyes.
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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Key of Mist. Guadalupe Grande.Translated.Amparo Arróspide.Robin Ouzman Hislop
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Shared Closet For One. A Poem by Judy Moskowitz.
A spacious walk in
With built in shelves
And interesting places to hide
I didn’t realize I had so many shoes
Color coordinated clothes
Perfectly aligned on velvet hangers
You can tell so much about a person
The way they fold their clothes
Tell tale signs of intimacy
Rolled up in a draw
Evidence of a once lush life
Hidden in the green of envy
A garden of weeds
Oxygen with just enough poison
Taking over the landscape
No flowers of consolation
Just black smoke inside
A tin box ready to explode
Have I left enough trills in the music
Did I change the sheets
That witnessed submission
Can you feel my authentic bliss
That I once loved you
Judy started playing piano at the age of three, and studied at the Julliard School Of Music in New York City, her native city.
She became a jazz pianist and continues to play jazz. Now residing in Florida, she started writing poetry three years ago, and has been published in the Moonlight Dreamers Of The Yellow Haze anthology, Thepoetcommunity, Whispersinthewind, Indiana Voice Journal. Poetry runs deep in her veins along with Music.
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Jazz. A Poem by Joan McNerney
the kitchen sits
in fruit soup…
steamed apricot
mango shadow
down thru spinning
smoke into hot light
blink beat
body ends dangle
lead eye skin cement
high on tongue
night pasted among
buildings Styrofoam clouds
moon hung beneath billboard
rolling pass wet
rocked streets
soul tramp
diamond panhandlers watch
paper birds slices of
the daily news drift in air
comes cool ether
whispers up door
climbing dusty corridor
tree windows lapping lisp
door slams again noise again
then none void nothing syncopates
noise again door slams tree bare frozen
caught in the image of 7 candles
within 7 candles flames of air
7 light bulbs growing out of each other
7 silver circles coined from 7 silver rings
clear as blazing sheets
of glass yet
vague as dust
an ice cube on wood table
in front of crushed velvet
-
melt
poured
peeled
when this sky now boiling with
stars is strapped black
in pinched air thru sucked mind
swimming pass spaced time
will be one silent
note up.
Joan McNerney’s poetry has been included in numerous literary magazines such as Seven Circle Press, Dinner with the Muse, Blueline, Spectrum, three Bright Spring Press Anthologies and several Kind of A Hurricane Publications. She has been nominated three times for Best of the Net. Poet and Geek recognized her work as their best poem of 2013. Four of her books have been published by fine small literary presses and she has three e-book titles.
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Key of Mist. Guadalupe Grande.Translated.Amparo Arróspide.Robin Ouzman Hislop
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Hostages. A Poem by Ananya S Guha
Had it not been
a hell of a night
I would not know
how chandeliers
had broken
and the gig we did
broke into dawn
till all the people
in the room started
reading those old
books, which memories
had kept stored in rusted
trunks. One started reciting
the others with immaculate
looks read steadfastly.
Silence. Silence was the watch dog.
The reading continued late till
the day. Gunshots woke them up.
They were told they were hostages
but they continued to read.
A war is on ( they were told)
The chandeliers splintered
books strewn,
death hyphenated, they
continued to read.
Soon dogs started barking
the coffins were ready.
The clock ticked
death is a neighbour.
Ananya S Guha has been born and brought up in Shillong, India and works in India’s National Open University, the Indira Gandhi National Open University. His poems in English have been published world wide. He also writes for newspapers and magazines/ web zines on matters ranging from society and politics to education. He holds a doctoral degree on the novels of William Golding. He edits the poetry column of The Thumb Print Magazine, and has published seven collections of poetry.
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Key of Mist. Guadalupe Grande.Translated.Amparo Arróspide.Robin Ouzman Hislop
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Idealist. A Poem by Cornelia Păun Heinzel
Editors Note: Translated from Romanian by the author herself, as far as the editor knows.
You always tell me: you are incredibly idealistic
when you love all people equally, trees and flowers, animals,
without concealing them with the cloak of inequality,
when you are admiring what it is worthy of praises,
without the worm of jealousy eating you whole,
when you do not harm anybody
and the waves of evil do not immerse you,
when you understand every being,
even if you, in this, are enigmatic,
when you help anyone from the kindness of your heart
without expecting something in return,
when you consider money to have no value
and the wisps of greed never daze you,
when you always forgive
without the boulder of vengeance shattering you in pieces,
when you introduce yourself to people the way you truly are,
without performing on the stage of life as a perfect actor,
when you truly are faithful
without the arrows of evil, greed and deception piercing you…
Cornelia Păun Heinzel is an Romanian writer, journalist, member of International Press, Professor Ph.D. in Robotics with the scientific title of Doctor of Industrial Robots 1998, the Bucharest Polytechnic University, Master in Educational Management and Evaluation, Faculty of Psychology, University of Bucharest, in 2002, Master in Teaching Subjects Philological Faculty of Letters, University of Bucharest, licensed of Philology, Romanian Language and Literature – French Language and Literature, Faculty of Letters, University of Brasov, Diplomat mechanical engineer, specializing in Technology of Machine Construction, Faculty of TCM, Brasov University in higher education and research, a field in which she has worked until today and electrical engineering, specializing in Transport, Polytechnic University of Bucharest. In 2007-2013 she trained experts of the Ministry of Education in Educational Management. She completed three graduate courses and in 2012-2013 received a grant to Germany, MUNCHEN GOETHE INSTITUTE in the area of specialization – MULTIMEDIA FüRERSCHEIN DaF- Das Internet als Quelle FÜR Materialien und Projekte . She has published six books and over 200 articles – published in Romania and abroad. Anthologie Multilingua. Cornelia Heinzel
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Whiskey & Popcorn. A Poem by James Dennis Casey 1V.
We live in a void
Crossed between hell and
The digital world
Television screen faces
Closed caption thoughts
Our rulers have antennas
In place of horns
Everything is on fire
Crashing and burning
But all we can see
Is what we’re fed
The underbelly reality
Is far worse than it seems
Things they don’t show us
Terrible and unforgiving
Driven down
Hidden behind coding
Pretty 1’s & 0’s
It’s all in the way
You look at it
I guess
Ignorance is bliss
After all
I just hope
There’s plenty of
Whiskey & popcorn
For the season finale
©James Dennis Casey IV
A self proclaimed “Madman Philosopher,” James D. Casey IV is a published author of two poetry books: ‘Metaphorically Esoteric’ & ‘Dark Days Inside the Light While Drunk on Wine.’ Mr. Casey’s writings have been published in Triadæ Magazine, Scarlet Leaf Review, Words on Fire, Pink Litter, In Between Hangovers, Poetry Breakfast, Spill Words Press, The Micropoets Society, Poetry Life & Times, Realistic Poetry International, Beatnik Cowboy, and he has upcoming publications in Leaves of Ink. He has also been published in two poetry anthologies: “Pirate Poetry” by Writing Knights Press, and “Where the Mind Dwells” by Eber & Wein. You can find links to his books, social network profiles, and other projects on his website at http://louisianakingcasey.w ixsite.com/big-skull-poetry.
Rev.James Dennis Casey IV Ordained Dudeist Priest at Dudeism. the Church of the Latter-Day Dude
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