Month: March 2021

Three Strikes in London A Poem by Megan Denese Mealor

by

 

We spent our thunder in East End stagger,

imbibing jellied eels sharked from shadows

underlying Tower Bridge stained Silver Jubilee.

Irish weavers once spilled their angels on those docks;

Leather Apron boiled fetid fog, tempested theists.

You induced me along gashes of geodesic graffiti

enlivening crooked curry houses, inner city chattel,

fidgety railway bridge partitions retailing

kitschy orchards, botanic rainboots

in the shambolic underpass.

 

In a charismatic kilt and Victorian tourmaline,

I descended brick basement bookshops,

jubilating in the heirloom halo,

thumbprint burning your impassive palm.

Cancan robots, unbaptized bohemian Bentleys

depicted the dilettantish din borderless

throughout enameled back alleys.

Electrified with Rhubarb Sours and feeling alien,

I disoriented your voltage in a biting brasserie

swirling with coriander, chilies, cardamom.

 

The last time you lost me in Shoreditch,

I was procuring bouquets of Harper’s Bazaar,

pocketing hints of old-world Chanel,

lacing Queensbridge Road into my hue.

 

(Originally published in The Ministry of Poetic Affairs, April 2017)
 
 

 
BIO
 
Megan Denese Mealor is a two-time Pushcart Prize nominee. She has authored three full-length poetry collections: Bipolar Lexicon (Unsolicited Press), Blatherskite (Clare Songbirds), and A Mourning Dove’s Wishbone. Her writing has appeared worldwide in such publications as Digital Americana, Gone Lawn, The Furious Gazelle, Maudlin House, and Black Dog Review. Diagnosed with bipolar disorder in her teens, Megan’s main mission as a writer is to inspire others feeling stigmatized for their mental health. She lives in Jacksonville, Florida with her husband Tony, son Jesse, who was diagnosed with autism at age three, and their sovereign cats Trigger and Lulu. Megan enjoys astrology, alligator farms, painting, photography, yoga, and volunteering at humane societies and food banks.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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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Questions A Poem by Joan McNerney

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Who
took away spring
stole all the glory
throwing our gardens of green
into these hills of scorched grass?
 
Who
dared to care
more about money
destroying everything in sight
forgetting earth is our only home?
 
Who
is so callous
to laugh at the suffering
of the sick poor yet pretend
to believe in a loving God?
 
Who
began all these wars
making mothers cry for children
searching for their bodies
in the chaos of destruction?
 
Who
robbed our hope
and all our wonder
burning heaven with dry
lightning to pierce the sky.
Who
are you
who made
the angels moan?
 
 

 
 
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.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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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Karol Nielsen’s SHAKESPEARE’S GARDEN & other Poems

by

 
SHAKESPEARE’S GARDEN
 
I sat on a bench, raw logs,
shaved clean almost
in Shakespeare’s Garden.
The magnolias were bursting,
and the cherries,
and Japanese plum.
A photographer
held his lens high to
the pink, white, and purple buds,
snapping, looking,
snapping. Across the
sky, the apartment towers
looked grand,
like church steeples,
graceful, gothic spires.
And I thought of you,
painting this scene,
like we used to do.
 
COWBOY HAT
 
I wore a cowboy hat—
straw—and raw confidence,
as I walked past two men
who turned to look and said,
We’ll never see that girl again.
 
HEADS
 
They turn in summer for
sun-kissed hair, buttery
flesh—exposed, carefree.
They look down, turn away,
after fall brings its dull cast,
and I wonder what is true?
 
THE WRITING LIFE
 
I write a few lines
and feel the calm
of a practiced monk.
But too long away
I am the worst sort of
neurotic—incessant.
 
 

 
 
Karol Nielsen is the author of the memoirs Black Elephants (Bison Books, 2011) and Walking A&P (Mascot Books, 2018) and the chapbooks This Woman I Thought I’d Be (Finishing Line Press, 2012) and Vietnam Made Me Who I Am (Finishing Line Press, 2020). Her first memoir was shortlisted for the William Saroyan International Prize for Writing in nonfiction in 2012. Excerpts were honored as notable essays in The Best American Essays in 2010 and 2005. Her full poetry collection was a finalist for the Colorado Prize for Poetry in 2007. Her work has appeared in Epiphany, Guernica, Lumina, North Dakota Quarterly, Permafrost, RiverSedge, and elsewhere. She has taught writing at New York University and New York Writers Workshop.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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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