Month: July 2020

On Never seeing a Blue Whale. A Poem by Bernard Pearson

by

 

If the fetch of death
Should come before
I see you neighbour,
Breaching in the pacific vast,
Forgive me, for in my
Book of Wonders
I once read that a man
Could stand upright
In the tunnel of your veins.
If only we had not stood straight at all
Then the best of nature would ever hear
Whale to whale across
The great, unsullied , ocean , softly call.

© Bernard Pearson

 
 

 
Bio
 

BERNARD PEARSON: His work appears in many publications, including; Aesthetica Magazine , The Edinburgh Review, Crossways, In 2017 a selection of his poetry ‘In Free Fall’ was published by Leaf by Leaf Press. In 2019 he won second prize in The Aurora Prize for Writing for his poem Manor Farm
 
 
 
 
Robin Ouzman Hislop is Editor of Poetry Life and Times at Artvilla.com ; his publications include
 
All the Babble of the Souk , Cartoon Molecules, Next Arrivals and Moon Selected Audio Textual Poems, collected poems, as well as translation of Guadalupe Grande´s La llave de niebla, as Key of Mist and the recently published Tesserae , a translation of Carmen Crespo´s Teselas.
 
You may visit Aquillrelle.com/Author Robin Ouzman Hislop about author. See Robin performing his work Performance (University of Leeds)

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Wings. A Poem by Phillip Henry Christopher

by

for Don Yorty

 
1
 
You read Rilke on 15th Street,
oblivious to the traffic,
the disinterested passing by,
the text passing
from your passionate grasp
into the ice-gray grip
of the grim theorist,
full of dedication,
not like devotion
born in the hot bosom
of simplicity,
where poets lie
defenseless
without ideology.
 
I could not abide the contrast well,
the play of opposites
side by side on the sidewalk,
one muse held fast
between them.
 
With a pounding head,
I chose coffee in a plastic cup,
caffeine, and relief
from senses pulled apart
in hot Philadelphia sun.
 
2
 
He reads a thousand years
of suspecting truths
reads for angels
stripped of wings,
choking in the dust.
 
No, not angels…
Human, mortal, cursed…
Like a vision
on wings of wax,
beating relentlessly
against the wind,
striving to rise,
to leave cold ground
for warmth of the sun,
to see in the light
truth shadows distort.
 
And in the heat the poet
is brightly lit for a time,
until the thin seams of wax,
glue binding the act melts…
Feathers gleaned from birds
of all kinds and climes,
wings fashioned like a knife edge
slicing through time,
loose themselves from
the poet’s binding thoughts
to float slowly away,
each in its own direction.
The act ends turning one last
hope-filled look into blinding light
receding into the distance,
then freefalling,
spinning earthward.
 
3
 
That I could hold fast,
freeze the falling poet
one instant,
or embrace him once,
but he flies among clouds
I fear to approach.
 
“Wings” excerpt from a 2017 chapbook, “Pizza and
Chianti; The Philadelphia Poems.
https://www.facebook.com/philliphenrychristopher/
 

 
Poet, novelist and singer/songwriter Phillip Henry Christopher spent his early years in France, Germany and Greece. His nomadic family then took him to Mississippi, Georgia, Ohio and Vermont before settling in the steel mill town of Coatesville, Pennsylvania, where he grew up in the smokestack shadows of blue collar America.Escaping high school, he made Philadelphia his home, alternating between Philly and cities across America, living for a time in Buffalo, New Orleans, Fort Worth, even remote Fairfield, Iowa, before settling in Indianapolis. While wandering America he has placed poems and stories in publications across the country and in Europe and Asia, including such noteworthy journals as The Caribbean Writer, Gargoyle, Lullwater Review, Hazmat Review, Blue Collar Review, Haight Ashbury Literary Journal, Blind Man’s Rainbow and New York Quarterly
 
 
 
 
Robin Ouzman Hislop is Editor of Poetry Life and Times at Artvilla.com ; his publications include
 
All the Babble of the Souk , Cartoon Molecules, Next Arrivals and Moon Selected Audio Textual Poems, collected poems, as well as translation of Guadalupe Grande´s La llave de niebla, as Key of Mist and the recently published Tesserae , a translation of Carmen Crespo´s Teselas.
 
You may visit Aquillrelle.com/Author Robin Ouzman Hislop about author. See Robin performing his work Performance (University of Leeds)

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The Lovely Lady in the Ridiculous Clothes & Poems by RW Haynes

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1]
 
The Lovely Lady in the Ridiculous Clothes
 
In a sea of meaningless stuff, that honesty
Fires up the jaded imagination,
Enlivens losing life with lively sensation,
And calls for music, dancing harmony.
So wear that hat, a dashing pronouncement,
Those painted shoes, eye-grabbing things,
And whatever else inspiration brings
To hear wisdom’s ultimate announcement.
The hat, the crazy shoes, your laughing smile,
Are flowers sprung from nowhere, although
Sweet hope requires that they arrive so,
And the light has come, now, to stay awhile.
The music does more than speak: it commands,
And souls step forth and boldly now clap hands.
 
2]
 
Hot Date for The Fiddlers’ Convention
 
Brought against you, then,
An arsenal of betrayals that begin
A catalog of unexpected depletions,
Beginnings to begin once again,
Chaos of incompletions.
 
So chalk this up to the record then,
Remembering themes are just themes,
Not formulas, mathematic dreams,
Just stuff just good for slogans to rant,
Useless epitaphs for grackles to chant.
 
Tune the instrument, tune in the station
Playing the spirit of inspiration.
Let the dance continue hard and fast
Or deep and slow, but let it play on.
Let it go. Leave it playing on at last.
 
3]
 
Behind the Old Church
 
Heavy stone slabs
Shadowed with warning
Echo ominously…
The moon keeps burning…
 
The dead stones emanate
Stupefying cold
Around these graves’
Enigmas untold,
 
And the ravens look down
With raucous disdain
On stupefied despair,
A frozen hurricane…
 
Silent bells boom
And clang,
Time’s malicious
Boomerang.
 
Step right up,
Sentimental slave;
Pour your liquor
All over his grave.
 
 

 
R. W. Haynes, Professor of English at Texas A&M International University, writes various things in prose and in poetic form. His academic specialty is 16th-century England, but much of his work lately has been on the playwright/screenwriter Horton Foote. His recent poetry collections are Laredo Light and Let the Whales Escape published summer 2019 ( for further info see under Categories at this site). He recently wrote a play titled Never Claim a Kill, and he hopes to complete his novel The Songs of Billy Bonstead before Laredo cools off again. Another project in progress is an academic work currently titled The Struggling Spirit in the Plays and Screenplays of Horton Foote. In 2016 he was awarded the SCMLA poetry Prize ($500) at the Dallas meeting of the South Central Modern Language Association

 
 
 
 
Robin Ouzman Hislop is Editor of Poetry Life and Times at Artvilla.com ; his publications include
 
All the Babble of the Souk , Cartoon Molecules, Next Arrivals and Moon Selected Audio Textual Poems, collected poems, as well as translation of Guadalupe Grande´s La llave de niebla, as Key of Mist and the recently published Tesserae , a translation of Carmen Crespo´s Teselas.
 
You may visit Aquillrelle.com/Author Robin Ouzman Hislop about author. See Robin performing his work Performance (University of Leeds)

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Mini Poems Chapter 2 el al by Michael T. Smith.

by 

Chapter 2


Moving forward, I want my disease to be my companion,

so she can help me write my canon.


Eclipse


I borrowed the eyes of an eclipse,

to wink Eden under the table,


I saw a secret, which is to say –

I didn’t see it:


to borrow eyes from not a friend, but Mother

Nature,


to see what I can’t see unseen.


Gunshot romance


There’s a girl sitting next to me,

belongs in a Tarantino movie.

But I’m not dodging bullets;

I’m only dodging a longshot kiss.


How Terrifying…


How terrifying death is

in the middle of a thought.

My eyes wanted to slam shut

such that they could defend

against what I know not.


Kindness 


Sometimes human kindness

to one another

is so short

 		as to be nonexistent.


Nausea


There is nothing more repulsive

than the smiling photo of a politician

in their ad,

those papers glued to surfaces many,

like a parasite —

those who themselves are but a surface plenty.


Waterfall 


I want my thoughts

to descend

like a waterfall,

such that the droplets form

an image of you.


When…


When every word you’ve used

Too much —

It’s a hollowed word,

	Sans thought.




Word Map of a Cat on a Mat


Putting the indexes out,

I saw the cat,

Sleeping with torso outstretched

While I, unheimlich, rushed to and fro;

On a mat, it sat — in peace,

And I said sighing, what I want is that.

 
 


 
Bio:
 
Michael T. Smith is an Assistant Professor of English who teaches both writing and film courses. He has published over 150 pieces (poetry and prose) in over 80 different journals. He loves to travel.
 
 
 
 

Robin Ouzman Hislop is Editor of Poetry Life and Times ; his publications include
 
All the Babble of the Souk , Cartoon Molecules and Next Arrivals, collected poems, as well as translation of Guadalupe Grande´s La llave de niebla, as Key of Mist and the recently published Tesserae , a translation of Carmen Crespo´s Teselas.
 
You may visit Aquillrelle.com/Author Robin Ouzman Hislop about author. See Robin performing his work Performance (University of Leeds)

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PALM LEAVES. A Poem by Abigail Ayornu

by

The beautiful leaves lingering like a genius
With its branches having an earring
As the fruits ripe
Her appetite whets to eat the fruits of her labour
Is like a youth springing to maturity
With all her sparkling features
Having hairs on the stem is natural
As it unveils the beauty of womanhood
Not to talk of the roots
Having meritable feets
Standing in one location
Trapped in the middle of the forest
 

 
 
Bio: Abigail Ayornu is a Ghanaian and student of the University of Cape Coast offering B.A English and linguistics. She is a writer of short stories and has recently written poems for 2020 namely: Palm leaves et al.
 
 
 
 
 
 
Robin Ouzman Hislop is Editor of Poetry Life and Times ; his publications include
 
All the Babble of the Souk , Cartoon Molecules and Next Arrivals, collected poems, as well as translation of Guadalupe Grande´s La llave de niebla, as Key of Mist and the recently published Tesserae , a translation of Carmen Crespo´s Teselas.
 
You may visit Aquillrelle.com/Author Robin Ouzman Hislop about author. See Robin performing his work Performance (University of Leeds)

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Chores & Crickets. Two Poems by Kushal Poddar

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Chores
 
The humdrum of humble chores
hunted by us both
because the syllables,
stressed and unstressed, of gardening,
dusting, washing, doing the dishes
or fluffing those instruments of sleep
lullabies our nervous system.
 
“Which song did your great grandparents
sing during the old pestilence?”
You shake your head. The scattered music
migrated to the concentration camp of Lethe.
 
During shoveling snow that swirls
to sheath
the ground beneath for the first time since
the glacial maximum I discover
my grandmother’s canticle – half ember,
half skeletal, some canary’s bones
asleep in its circle.
 
Crickets
 
Crickets mark the absence of silence
or noise, and the wailing sirens.
We count them pass
as if they carry silence
in body bags.
 
“One.”, I say in a singsong way;
“And two.” You croon. The lullaby
or the urgency of sirens
burkes the insects; something
gnaws the roof, makes one itch
to touch the ceiling
with his tongue and to lick
it clean.
 
If you think we’ve lost our minds
welcome to the house of quarantine;
the border of the lands all indoor,
we play with our chores to stay sane.
One flipped and crossed the border.
We are yet to hear the rests.
Something gnaws the roof. I hope it has life.
 
 

 
 
Edited the online magazine ‘Words Surfacing’. Authored ‘The Circus Came To My Island’ (Spare Change Press, Ohio), A Place For Your Ghost Animals (Ripple Effect Publishing, Colorado Springs), Understanding The Neighborhood (BRP, Australia), Scratches Within (Barbara Maat, Florida), Kleptomaniac’s Book of Unoriginal Poems (BRP, Australia) and Eternity Restoration Project- Selected and New Poems (Hawakal Publishers, India) and now Herding My Thoughts To The Slaughterhouse-A Prequel (Alien Buddha Press)
 
Author Facebook- https://www.facebook.com/KushalTheWriter/
Author Page amazon.com/author/kushalpoddar_thepoet
Twitter- https://twitter.com/Kushalpoe
 
 
 
 
 
 
Robin Ouzman Hislop is Editor of Poetry Life and TimesArtvilla.com ; his publications include
 
All the Babble of the Souk , Cartoon Molecules, Next Arrivals and Moon Selected Audio Textual Poems, collected poems, as well as translation of Guadalupe Grande´s La llave de niebla, as Key of Mist and the recently published Tesserae , a translation of Carmen Crespo´s Teselas.
 
You may visit Aquillrelle.com/Author Robin Ouzman Hislop about author. See Robin performing his work Performance (University of Leeds)

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Dying with the Evening Gown. A Poem by Fabrice B. Poussin

by

 

Standing before the long mirror she wondered
to hide this nakedness in the dark of fancy velour
or to wrap those limbs in worn out denim.
 
Cocktails to be served at five in the eve
in a room ornate with illustrious chandeliers
imported crystals shining of artificial suns.
 
Boasting pearls, diamonds and rubies she descended
princess among royalty in make believe worlds
her breast heaved with the power of intimate convictions.
 
A deep breath held within her chest
pleading for patience in a room stuffed with smoke
pretenses and empty vanity she dreamed of freedom.
 
Perhaps another would appear rejected next door
too attached to the liberty of youthful years
choosing instead to shred the tuxedos of success.
 
She imagines herself atop desolate islands
near and far without lace, precious metals or fame
free in a white shroud dedicated to the world.
 
Mingling with the semblances of peers
they brush against the pure skin of her innocence
unable to make contact as she continues to the gates.
 
A gaze constant upon the abandoned domains
her soul smiles for she steps into her dream
made of pains joys and true healings.
 
Without a look back to those well-dressed ghosts
she shed the million-dollar evening gown
to enter as upon her birth within a fitting kingdom.
 
 

 
 
Fabrice B. Poussin is the advisor for The Chimes, the Shorter University award winning poetry and arts publication. His writing and photography have been published in print in the United States and abroad. He teaches French and English at Shorter University. Author of novels and poetry, his work has appeared in Kestrel, Symposium, The Chimes, La Pensee Universelle, Paris, and other art and literature magazines, where he has also featured here at Poetry Life and Times & Artvilla.com. His photography has been published in The Front Porch Review, the San Pedro River Review as well as other publications.
 
 
 
Robin Ouzman Hislop is Editor of Poetry Life and Times ; You may visit Aquillrelle.com/Author Robin Ouzman Hislop about author. See Robin performing his work Performance (University of Leeds)

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