Robin Ouzman Hislop

Robin Ouzman Hislop is Editor at of Motherbird.com of Poetry Life & Times.   His recent publication of collected poems All the Babble of the Souk, was published by Aquillrelle.com. Buy All the Babble of the Souk by Robin Ouzman Hislop at Amazon or Lulu....... Read more

Keep Moving On. Poem. Kwame Write Aido.

by

keep moving on
I say
keep moving on
I hear
these grooving songs,
rhythm of the earth playing tap-dance with your feet
keep moving on

tap-dance with your feet

tap
pataptapatap
tap

like a rolling pebble
flung off free fingers
tossing on the streets
bouncing off asphalt
bouncing off like a rebel
rolling under moving cars
rolling through bike spokes
and off through a motor policeman’s legs
swift slow swirl swift soul spell

tap
pataptapatap
tap

keep grooving on

like gazelles grazing
on shrub-lands
at dawn when the orange sun kisses greying grains
where lions dens are dense
keep moving on
like a lion’s dance
before pouncing on a prey
breeze aligning mane

keep
moving
on

like a slum kid waking up with heat rashes
all over a body battered by life’s hardships
bedroom a 6 by 6 packed with 12 siblings
searches for a candle to light his unpaved path
light too low, he sees clouded dreams
sagged low pants,
Dre Beats hanging from his ears
intersecting with a left eye tear
and ride slow jams
and dry cold hands
and mind so tensed

and tap-dance with his feet

tap
pataptapatap
tap

he’s singing
same time praying in his head
he’s singing
praying his music
would top the list
and be the hit this year
playing his music
moving

like a slum kid musician’s tear

keep moving on

like a beach side black boy
biceps like blown balloons
clinging to coconut trees, climbing
like a child on to full breasts
for some milk
slices off the stalk of a coco
a look like a kid gone nuts
balancing boldly
like a dance
breaking it open to take a looooong sip
throws the roughage off
and starts sliding back south
bare arms, chest
sliding like a dance
against the rough edges
one then the next,
brave-heart
grooving on
even when the mood is wrong
he sets sail with his heart
he’s down from the tree
he’s off to the sea
sets snail-step sways
on ocean floors of earth’s palate
under water
plop!
over water
surfing with a piece of plastic
like a dance
rhythm like the tap-dance

and tap-dance with his feet

tap
pataptapatap
tap

keep moving on
even when echoes become walls
and rebound efforts into nulls
even in a free fall
floored, flee all, fly find fortune,
do not fade into the future
like a tear
unattended to
live the present
with the past behind
and bad memories with folded rags
and mistakes with no carbon copies
and smiles within songs
and an open heart
with love as inner decor
bearing hope in hands
reaching for peace

keep
moving
on

***

kwame 1

Kwame’s love for wordplay has earned him online publications, awards from the Scrabble Association of Ghana and a couple of nicknames including Write. He is a nominee for the International Best Amateur Poet by World Poetry Organisation, a biochemist working as a health & safety consultant who believes that freelance writing, spoken word and rap are not only rich arts but tools for educating and inspiring people. Kwame Write founded Inkfluent which produced Vocal Portraits; a spoken word compilation that brought together 15 artists from 3 continents: Africa, America and Europe. When he’s not with the pen, he’s most likely playing beach soccer or making new friends over a bowl of fufu and palm wine. You can visit him at http://kwamewrite.blogspot.com/ and https://soundcloud.com/kwame-write-1

LINKS:
Twitter: @kwamewrite
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aidookwamecharles

***

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White Heat.Poem. Trevor Maynard.

by

The mountain is there to be climbed

The weather its own

Maybe violent maybe calm

Funny like Cagney

“Ma, Top of the World!”

We are its guests

The soon to be honoured dead should it decide,

To object to our trespass

To growl and bite back

Conquerors in oxygen masks and with frost-bitten toes;

Are mere Yankee doodles in gangster shoes and clothes

Funny like Cagney

Heroes die as easily as unclean rats

Svengalis, deities, autocrats

The mountain does not forgive

It just is

White heat

 

© Trevor Maynard from his collection Keep On Keepin’ On ISBN 978-1480052499.

Trevor Maynard is also editor of the anthologies The Poetic Bond

ISBN 978-1466498419 and The Poetic Bond II ISBN 978-1480209732

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“Kneeling Before Anubis, Lazarus Wept” Poem.Joseph Armstead

by

(whisper)
Atop the Temple of the Sun,
bathed in radiant gold,
starlight blasts away our masks…

i.) Kissing the Eyes of the Dead

midnight oxygen flows to earth, littered
with dessicated pumpkin seeds
and the fading remnants
of communal nightmares,
haunting the City Primeval,
we dance a jingly-jangly foxtrot
across oil-stained, debris-strewn streets,
not daring to look one another
in the eyes,
never catch our taffy-pulled,
Francisco de Goya-esque
reflections
in the windows
to someone else’s soul —
it is a brittle kindness,
it is a neurotic’s etiquette
— wanting, lusting,
desiring, thirsting
to place our lips
in icy benediction
upon the closed lids
where old copper pennies
are destined to rest.  

ii.) This Pillow Of Cadavers

It’s hard to breathe
— pant? wheeze? gasp? choke? —
when you’re wrapped
so tightly around me,
constricting
and yet a comfort
against the maelstrom
abroad the screaming face
of this shrunken head world,
we lay our heads down
on a bed of broken yesterdays,
eyes happily shut
against the relentless
spinning
of our whirlygig minds,
seeking stillness,
wanting a suspension
of painful animation,
praying for sleep
atop an altar of flesh
decomposing…,
we inhale and the scent
of dissolution
lulls us into dreaming,
and, finally,
our lungs grow still.

(mutter)
The thing struggling in the mud
at the great temple’s base weeps,
frustrated and blind…

***

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.

http://redroom.com/member/joseph-armstead

http://www.amazon.com/Condemned-Of-Heaven-Joseph-Armstead/dp/0578013665

***

 

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Of Reddened Apples.Poem. Richard Lloyd Cederberg

by

 
Protecting the wellness, accuracy, and sanctity of creative individualism
____________________________________________
 
Being blessed
Abreast this advantage,
Perched upon a firm palisade
Within a sprawl of Malus laden,
Where, contemplating all
Comings and goings,
To some length,
Seemed a
Brawl
(Of sorts)
Of the movement
Of others in the often
Mundane blur of surviving
 
Dour dominion
Suffered acute eyes in
Wonderment, streets moiling  
With rapacious squawking hawkers,
And all the grousing animations of escapade
Vendors plying the needy with homemade  
Food, tomfoolery, and the bric-a-brac
Of some faraway place,
And being
Aware that
Very morning of a
Shadowy tramp steamer
Offloading some unavowed booty
Into the hands of indurate panhandlers,
Whose ultimate survival rested,
At all costs,
In the next sale or
Satisfactory scheme  
 
(To ensnare
Those fleeceable
With the unnecessary)
 
He felt
Relieved for
The scant distance
Between THERE and THIS
Pleasant vantage so effectively
Set apart in rolling woodland hills,
A place where within his nostrils
Redolence brooded subtly
Of reddened apples,
The sweet
Tart
Crisp
Whitish
Flesh
Beckoning him
Without peddler’s schemes or
An under-handed drama of strategies;
Smiling broadly he plucked one from where it dangled,
And, after consuming it, filled his haversack for
The continuing journey
 
richard lloyd cederberg

 

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Loch Ness Monster. Poem. Mitch Montagna

by

 

In darkest lakes where spirits swim –
beneath the depth where starlight dims
 
a shadow deepens midnight’s tone –
and drifts through water cold as bone.
 
As morning breaks a mist holds still –
above the lake that sunlight fills
 
to find a serpent rearing high –
like a rainbow toward the sky.
 
The creature almost caught the breeze –
that cooled the mist and swayed the trees
                                                              
as its body shone in lovely light –
that made its ancient eyes go bright.
 
Alas, the spirits cut it down –
and morning went without a sound
 
but for the saddest cry you knew –
if you were underwater too.
 

 

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The Julianic Manifest.Sonnets Nos. 1,2,3,4. Poem. Frederick L Light.

by
Notes on the EmperorJulian:

About the year 310 the Emperor Constantine established Christianity as the state religion of the Roman Empire. Julian, who reigned from 361-363, reestablished paganism as the observed faith. He wrote a number of philosophic works in defense of the old religion and also confutations of certain Christian doctrines. After he perished in a battle in 363, the new religion was restored in state. During his reign large groups of monks attempted to ravage some pagan temples.

 

The Julianic Manifest No. 1

The Julianic Choir
“The best revival for the heart of Rome
Began with Julian, the most unbeguiled
Believer in the gods, fit to become
The world’s hieratic emperor, who smiled
With philolympian felicity
Before Homeric sculpture, fain to laud
Ideals. The strongest heart of justice he
Exerted in his cardiac urge for god,
From Christian hubris godly Hellas glad
To save. His orderly demeanor, mild
In dominance, with torrid monks, as mad
As dragons in the sun, irreconciled
Remained. Monastic ravagers he met,
Firmly repugning at this dismal threat.”
                                       
                                          
                                         The Julianic Manifest No. 2
The Julianic Choir
“Julian’s rejuvenated vision, near
In light to Zeus, relit devotion to
The gods and furthered (in propitious fear
Of them) Homeric guidance as the true
Religion. Reverence for sublimity
This tutelary monarch never lost.
His laws, as awesome as propriety,
Restored Olympian stature uppermost
In schools. This victor’s mandates, vanquishing
Fanatics, actuated tolerance
For mythic creeds of mickle gods. To bring
Minacious priests away and miscreants
Deter he practised the serene pursuits
Of restoration, who’d replant his roots.”
                                         
                                          The Julianic Manifest  No. 3
The Julianic Choir
“Lest over hellenismos hubris come
With aggravated ravages in kirks
Of Zeus, permitting bishops murdersome
To prove in sanctimonious riots and works
Of Christian breakage, Julian shall prevail,
Who as our raiment of defense remains,
Invested rigorously with the mail
Of God. More prowess rises from his brains
Than from the breast of Ares. He’d preserve
The gentlest heritage of happiness
In metre. Mythic precepts he’d observe
In statues, not Olympian stones suppress
Obtusely nor let master paradigms
Of mental peace be subject to these times.”
                                         
                                           The Julianic Manifest  No. 4
The Julianic Choir
“Not breaking heartfuls of regard, resolved
With Julianos on solicitude
For Rome, in renovation we’re involved,
As far as hellenismos is endued
With Zeus’s favor. If the heartiest care
Be not too careful, we’d assert his reign.
If cardiac approbation may declare
It, men resourcefully exploit again
Hellenic lore. A lucid war he’s waged,
Lest Galilean ignorance more toxic grow.
Against monastic criminals engaged,
Julian, the aptest guardian, shall outgo
Their prevalence. These Christians, prone to craze
Propriety, would right proportion raze.”
Frederick Light. 2013

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Shards.Poem.Gillian Stokes.

by

Hard words like bullets hit me

searing comments tear my skin

mute me , take away my power

your anger flails me.

With one word your scorn burns me

knocks me to the ground

wounds me deeply

searing my soul

killing me

slowly

 

and it never heals

 

I am wound upon wound

scar upon scar, building up

layer upon hurting layer

 

somewhere  inside deep inside

in a tiny dark little corner

my soul lies curled , furled

amoeba like

 

you say you know me , do you know me ?

how?

I don’t know me,  I know  a thousand me’s

I act

every day I act out a thousand personas

trying to find the one that fits the moment

trying to find the one that pleases the world,

you, myself, friends

 

sometimes I reflect back what is shown to me, thrown at me

good or bad

aggressive or loud

weak, soft ,emotional

maybe it works better being …

if I reflect you then

maybe you will like it better

if I am more you than me

 

but these people aren’t me

 

they are all just shards of the mirror of me

that’s fracturing with the pain of my life

my hurt , my sorrows, my tears

my wastes, my losses, my losing

my cheating myself

 

she’s crying out that child, that soul

that me…

she’s not gone forever

 

I see glimpses of her all the time

when I push aside the debris

 

most times though I leave her be

maybe to protect  her 

maybe because she is so long gone

such a distant memory

that I am losing the reality of her

maybe

 

maybe cos I still don’t know who

I want to be when I grow up

 

maybe cos it’s easier to blitz out,

avoid, compartmentalize, be the me

I am in the given moment, just exist

respond / react, just do what is expected

damp down the little sparks, one moment, over-react the next

anesthetize, avoid , procrastinate,

be mundane

just exist

just be an amoeba

 

so who is the amoeba now, her or me

 

but she won’t leave me alone this soul

of mine

she has a siren’s  call, this Pandora soul of

mine.

She cries to me for release

 

do I let her out ?

do I dare

 

who will  love her, hate her the most

you or me?

 

will we

can we

 

accept her

allow her?

 

do you care?

 

Copyright  © Gillian Stokes  31 May 2009

 

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Haiku & Poetry. Poem. Joseph Randell Sherman

by

end of day
waves caressing shore
master artist painting sky
~ ocean sunset song

nightfall
birds retire wings
fall asleep with setting sun
~ shadows disappear

child of autumn
an imaginer
contemplating vivid dreams
~turning painted leaves

until the sunset
i am but a shadow
dancing briefly
across the meadow
until the sunset
takes my hand

 Copyright Joseph Randell Sherman 2013

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