Randal A. Burd, Jr. is a teacher, freelance writer, poet, and family historian. He teaches English to grades 7-12 in a juvenile residential facility in Southeast Missouri. He previously taught Dual-Credit English through MSU and Freshman English for two years and spent four years at an alternative high school teaching English and Art while mentoring at-risk students. In 2012, he was elected Secretary of the Department of Missouri, Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War. Randal was President of the Ozark Patriots Chapter of Sons of the American Revolution from 2011-2012 and is Camp Commander of Sigel Camp #614 of SUVCW. He was commissioned a Kentucky Colonel in April 2013.
Randal published his first poetry chapbook, “Leaving Home,” in 2008. He received his BA in English cum laude with minors in Art, Psychology, and Writing from the Missouri University of Science and Technology and his Master’s Degree in Curriculum and Instruction from the University of Missouri. While enrolled at Missouri S&T, Randal was Editor-in-Chief of The Missouri Miner, the campus newspaper, from 2000-2002, and Editor-in-Chief of Southwinds Magazine, “Missouri S&T’s Only Literary Magazine,” from 1997-2001.
*** 2 Poets Laureate — New Westminster Poet Laureate Candice James and Canadian Parliamentary Poet Laureate Fred Wah at Royal City Literary Arts Society Setp 22, 2013 membership drive
***
Poet Laureate, New Westminster, BC
President, Royal City Literary Arts
Honorary Professor International Arts Acadamy, Greece
Board Advisor, Interantional Muse, India
Board Advisor, Federation of British Columbia Writers
Candice James is Poet Laureate of New Westminster, B.C. and President of Royal City Literary Arts Society. She is a poet, musician, songwriter and author of six poetry books A Split In The Water (Fiddlehead 1979);Inner Heart―A Journey; (2010), Bridges and Clouds (2011); Midnight Embers–A Book of Sonnets (2012); Shorelines-A Book of Villanelles (2013); and Ekphrasticism (2014). Websites: http://saddlestone.shawwebspace.ca and www.candicjames.com
finds new dark-skinned divinity, those curved stone
statues blush envy.
On pavement filled by busy feet in day,
quicker steps in neon red night and
Latin beats, rappin’- booty shakin’
blue jean seams stretched to the point
of sheeeeer delight!
When a smile is a deep invitation, ohhh so fine
in the haze of wine and smoky laughter
She is Love in store-bought hair, half a skirt
deep mascara stares and flirts, a stroll
that melts the Saint within man
and waist moves that mans-up the boy
Muse-ic makes the hips roll, waist
revolve- an orbit of bends and side- to- side slides
a blouse that wears only part of her…
She is a certain kind of Love for few who dare
for every wish of tropical air without cares
oblivion becomes a thing far, far beyond
some hours, some sweet sweat, heavy breaths,
and wanting…“Venus…Baby…”
“come cross the flo’ with me…”
***
***
Bio
Howard D.Moore resides in Detroit, MI., USA. He is a writer and government relations consultant. His professional, educational background is in law and public policy. He writes poetry, political and social commentary blogs, literary styles in fiction, poetry, prose,and Eastern forms . He has published two books of prose, and several magazine articles and anthologies. His current projects include a novel, and a book of poetry expected in January, 2014.
—
Nothing moves so fast as your future becoming your past
She could remember those 8pm skies, that slumbered with a tamarind tinge and the rustling of rainfall as it slid inside her pain. Their expressions etched themselves on musical scores, that they wept on blank-paper pages and candle-smoked hopes that she’d kept.
They were a lighter shade of lust, following fantasies of a deeper thirst, that went just like water through the skin of their sighs… but they’d blown baby kisses through betrayal’s fresh scent, while forever crawled inside cavities– yet neither chose to repent.
They’d risen through varying odours of oregano’s subtle hues, whilst his roaming tabletops had turned on red buses and lying dreams and the screams of her silence settled, to give her second sight… when thoughts wandered to Her– the queen of his night.
Envy engraved itself into her palms shivering sorrow through shared regrets, while her self-worthiness withered to such a saddened state. Yet fate flexed her fingers within forgiveness’ flame, whilst the need of their connection plays a dangerous game.
She’s mistress of her own heart, yet lets him breathe through her veins– like TV addiction and many smudges of soft. She adores him…yet holds back because she’s taught herself of
the fear of deceit’s discovery and his inability to love.
***
About The Author
Laura Lamarcais a 39 year old widowed mother of three teenagers originally hailing from the northern county of Lancashire, but now residing on the South coast of England.
Laura is a professional poet and author of three books of poetry and one Chapbook to date, the latest book was released in December 2011 by GJBPublishing.co.uk titled “Donec Alius Diei”.
Laura is also the creator of 18 globally recognized forms of formal poetry, these include “The Licentia Rhyme Form”, the “La`Tuin” and the L`Arora” forms. She has also recently created 3 more forms…these are the “Jordec Verse”, “La Dan Form” and a collaborated and highly technical form with Poet Jem Farmer titled the “LaJemme”.
In her spare time, she teaches the art of expression through the written word to pupils all over the world at no cost to them. She also writes hugely for charity and actively supports charities that raise awareness for cancer, third world plight, dolphins and gun and knife crime. She has the belief that there is a brighter day for all, given the compassion and commitment of others…one voice can raise a thousand voices, a thousand voices can raise the whole world. She is of the belief that ultimate truth does not exist, that everything is personal perspective and probable outcome.
calling them Gods—their campfires, their monumental
sorrows, our bliss at a faith-conceived heaven—
we are driven back by heavy gales.
*
Few living creatures inhabit these broad
flat-bottomed valleys, abode of kingfishers
grass-hoppers, lizards—not much else
a ruined fort in a dull brown landscape.
*
Relief to find a small stream threading
clefts of rock, greening, here and there,
otherwise barren soil. Onwards then, to a flat plain
stunted acacias—until a flock of guinea fowl.
*
Anxious panorama of time: jagged cliffs,
lava-rock, distant mountains enveloped in
dark blue clouds. It’s coming: the storm
of the modern. The monkey likes bananas.
*
I’m collecting dust: the air is ion charged,
flashes of lightning, the will to see
the infusoria: African sunsets, the question
of microbes, my lens, my imperfect vision.
*
And then another island—fertile, volcanic
red cinder hills, everything slopes toward the
interior. But I will paddle the rock pools
notice: sea slugs, cuttle-fish all arms and suckers.
*
Having swum in the ocean of stars
we are driven back by heavy gales
It’s coming, the storm of the modern,
anxious panorama of time.
*
The air is ion charged.
***
Ian Irvine is an Australian-based poet/lyricist, fiction writer and non-fiction writer. His work has featured in many Australian and international publications, including Fire (UK) ‘Anthology of 20th Century and Contemporary Poets,’ (2008) which contained the work of poets from over 60 nations.His work has also appeared in a number of Australian national poetry anthologies, and he is the author of three books and co-editor of many more (including Scintillae 2012, an anthology of work by over 50 Victorian and international writers and poets). He currently teaches writing and literature at Bendigo TAFE and Victoria University (Melbourne) and lives with fellow writer Sue King-Smith and their children on a 5 acre block near Bendigo, Australia.
After Zeus has learned that Prometheus stole his sovereign property, fire, and conveyed it to mankind, he orders Hephaistos, under the direction of Power and Force, to bind his adversary to an arduous crag of most difficult remoteness on the earth. As the Titan responds to this punishment, the reader is inspired with the fire of individual affirmation, devoted indomitably to life and liberty
Prometheus Bound Audio Jack Nolan 15 minutes
*
Persons
Power and Force
Hephaistos
Prometheus
Daughters of Ocean
Ocean
Io
Hermes
*
1
Enter Power and Force, leading Prometheus in chains.
Hephaistos comes with them.
*
Power: Upon the northernmost finalities
Of earth, in Scythia intraversable,
By men untraced, of no man’s realm a tract,
On this sequestered precipice recessed
Alone, we’ve mounted, where, Hephaistos, be
This duty yours, by dictates laid upon
You by the Father: here his shackled lich set fast!
This vaulting overreacher in revolt
With fettered punishment now fasten here
In this immense removedness on high,
Leaving him with adamantine tautness
Reclusely manacled to rock. Your flower,
In every art effectual, lucent fire,
He reaved and to the mortals gave. This fact
Therefore by forfeit to the gods he must
Avow, in shackles schooled to suffer Zeus
And learn in painful awe what lordship is,
Philanthropy disowning in effect.
*
Hephaistos: Force and Power, in the behest of Zeus
You’ve done your part, no longer stayed. But I
Lack mettle, truly loath that ligatures
Upon a kindred deity must be laid
With muscled rigor in this brumal rift
Where winter reigns. But for all that I must
Begin, emboldened by necessity,
By absolute exigencies; for who
May lightly heed the word of Zeus without
Reward? You, of ascendant prospects, son
Of right-proposing Themis, now I pierce,
Against your will and mine, with bronze constraints
Of indissoluble abuse, annealed the best,
Your members to this far recess, reserved
From men, where voice nor form shall human be.
But under Helios, desiccated scathe
2
Beneath his arid glance you’ll bear and lose
The bloom of youth. When Night behind her vestment of
The stars shall veil this blaze, you’ll savor peace,
And when the sun on dawn-frost comes, the thaw
May grateful prove. But everforth abide
In vitiated weariness, effete at length,
For not yet born your liberator is.
Such mede you profit in, philanthropy
Maintaining. Not of Heaven terrified,
Olympian odium never daunted you,
A god among the gods. But honors out
Of measure to the mortal sort you sped.
So this sore ledge you’ll suffer like a ward,
Where insultation is insomnolent
Forever, as you stand in sleepless rue,
Not left to bend your legs. With sacred cries,
Your liefest prayers, lamenting pain, will not
Be heeded. For the head of Zeus in zeal
Is hateful, hardest to his foes. And those
Empowered lately fulsome power inflict.
*
Power: Why tarry here, affecting sympathy
In vain? A god in basest odium deemed
No friend, whom gods detest, wherefore not hate?
Since mortals gracing, mordant grief to you
He meant, your prize betraying, all for men.
*
Heph: Kinship is numinous in creatures, like
Devout companionship not lightly deaded.
*
Power: Indeed. Yet to play deaf impossible
No doubt when Zeus imposes on your will.
*
Heph: The hardiest cruelty never palls on you.
*
Power: No good will come, this god lamenting. Leave
This vanity where nothing you’ll achieve.
*
Heph: How loathsome seems my liefest skill.
*
Power: Why loathe it? Lightly sure, these latest sores
Are not imputed to your sacred forge!
*
Heph: Yet for another would the work had been!
3
*
Power: Unless to rule the gods no labor is
All grace, and none has liberty save Zeus.
*
Heph: I must avow it, in this work enforced.
*
Power: With shackles hasten or be stung by Zeus,
Who will observe you lagging in abuse.
*
Heph: The cuffs are here about me, for him bent.
*
Power: Cast pressure in the chain about his hands.
With hammered concentration maul them in,
Compressive rivets bringing home in rocks.
*
Heph: The work proceeds, not missing in dispatch.
*
Power: Your starkest, sorest stroke! To fasten be
Your stress! Leave nothing loose by limb. He is
Prodigious, legerly deliverance
Seeking, howbeit fixed in boulders fast.
*
Heph: This arm is bound, intractable in bonds.
*
Power: And stitch the other, tack it sure. He’ll learn,
Though for mechanic prudence most renowned,
What little prescience lights his brain compared to Zeus.
*
Heph: In censure of my crafty junctions, none
But he due reprehension might impress.
*
Power: Now put this wedge’s pointed jaw within
His breast, amain to breach it with a blow.
*
Heph: Remorse, Prometheus, I avow for thee.
*
Power: Again condolences aloud in dole!
Again you dote on the Olympian’s foe.
Erelong, you might, bethink you, mourn yourself.
*
Heph: The sight you mark upon your eyes should smart.
*
Power: I see him patient, duly pained, with dole
Proportioned. Now his loins with girdles lap.
*
Heph: It must be done, but instantly your charge
Is overhard, on duty to enlarge.
*
Power: Behests be heard. I’ll bid you harder. Goads
Should bite. Now bending down, encompassment
About his legs begin, with links intent.
*
Heph: In present see the bronze is wrought, in fine
Perfected, without much mechanic pain.
4
*
Power: But with your sorest strength these rivets strike.
Our critic in this work is rigorous.
*
Heph: Your leer and tongue alike are loathable.
*
Power: Be then regardlessly not tough, but leave
Tendentious constancy to me nor grudge
What moody dourness may be mine in Power.
*
Heph: Let’s go. The wrap about his limbs is wrought.
Exit Hephaistos.
*
Power: Go profligate yourself forever here,
To men, as evanescent as ephemeral,
The prizes meant for gods conveying. Will
Your muscled dolors fall away by mortal hands?
You were, Prometheus, by the gods misnamed,
For now a true promethean you require
To set you from this fabrication free.
(Fxeunt Power and Force.)
*
Prometheus:
O aerial mercy all for life on earth,
O swiftest taking wing, you sudden winds,
O mobile rivers melted from the hills;
O roundge of Ocean risible in scope to rise
Like cacchination on a shore; 0 Earth
Omnimaternal, and thou god in ken
Of all, by sight to compass land and sea,
Lord Helios; thus I cry you, crucified
By gods, observe the torture I abide.
Behold, embodied with indignities
To bear this teen, millenia timed, a doom
Allotted, eldritch hourly whilst I howl.
Such is the bondage, abject sacredly,
That this new master of Olympians has
For me discovered. Pheu, pheu, everforth
To pine as now in pain, and thus I moan,
No term foretelling of the dire at length
Ordained, in full extended to the fine.
5
What’s this I say? All that shall be, I’ve known
Betimes correctly, never to abye
A sudden daunt. So with the lightest grace
Of patience left to me, this fated dole
I must support, aware a sacred force,
Necessity, will not be checked. I can
Neither bear silence nor unsilenced truth
Sustain about my lot. This falls by me
Because I granted fiery guerdons to
Mankind; this yoked affliction, over me
Enforced, ensues therefore. By Zeus unseen,
My trace was furtive to the source of fire.
A fennel stalk I filled therewith. For men
Didactic light then blazed, all daily arts
Evoking, and a mighty furtherance
To them it proved. For such a peccant fact
I’ve earned this pain, here overborne, constrained
Under the pervious skies with perceant nails.
Eala, ea, ea!
What sound by wing, what scent would come about
Me, not perceived by form? Is it divine
Or human or a cross of both? Upon this rock,
Peripheral afar, what advent might
Ascend in search of pain to see me peak?
Or what in meaning might proceed? Alas,
In gyves behold me girt, a god benign,
My fate abusive, to the Father Zeus
A foe, by all in loathing held that haunt
The sovereign’s hall, for having charity
Too much on men conferred, with love confirmed!
Pheu, pheu, the whirring hither, once again
I hear it, likely of a flock. Upon
Their flicker, lightly vibrant, now the air
Reverbs. But fear ensues, whatever comes.
*
The daughters of Oceanus on a winged car come forth.
Chorus:
6
No dread avow. Our advent, drawn
By love, this ledge surmounted. Leagued
In flight, a winged agon we maintain.
Our father’s leave uneathe we have.
With all traversing speed, at length
In Zephyr’s hand, ascent continued.
In depths recessed beneath our dome of caves
The clang of ferric clatter could
Be heard. Our deepest pudor, verecund
In Ocean, was effaced, affrighted thence
Thereby. And thus unshod, ascending
On this car, we shot to you.
*
Prometheus:
Aiai, aiai,
Of breeder Tethus, of prolific geneses
In broods of goddesses, you all are born,
Of Father Ocean, whose insomnolent
Domain of currents the circumference
Of earth completes, conducive to all tides.
Observe me, by these fetters see
How on the uppermost abyss of earth
I am held fast, the bleakest watch enduring.
*
Chorus:
I see, Prometheus; and upon mine eyes,
In spread suffusion like a mist, now tears come
forth,
Since under this embodied adamant
You’re bound to waste on these chasmatic rocks,
In caitiff insultation cadent seen.
For on Olympos the new helmsmen lead,
Where Zeus, with novel laws, would reign
Perforce awry; and what held good
Before in prime has been dissolved like death.
*
Prometheus:
If he precipitated into depths
Below terrestrial bournes myself in bonds
7
As low as Hades, loathly hosteler
Of liches in the earth, where Tartarus
Unpierced incarceration keeps, then no
God in malignant gloating or none else
Would at these wretched throes look down on me.
But now a hapless bauble for the winds I am
And grieve as much as Zeus rejoices at my grief.
*
Chorus: Gruffest in exultation, hardest grown,
Which god is pleased to see it? Who would not
Condole your subject dolor, who but Zeus?
A god too wreakful to surcease revenge.
By toughest constance the Titanic kind
He’d quell. Surcease before satiety
This god allows not till another’s hand
May his unseizable domain command.
*
Prometheus:
The time ensues, assure you soon or late,
Though here in twist the bonds are tied,
For torture binding with each turn,
When He, that marshal of the blessed,
Shall suffer need, myself in prayer
Seeking about the latest plot,
How it would shift him from the throne
And sceptre. Then his sweetest spell
Of sugared cant will savor ill,
Not win me over. Shall I then
Before his menace quail or at
Monitions tell? These violent gyves
Must be dissolved, and guerdons, just
In godly recompense, he must
Be willing to convey before
He learn the secrets of my lore.
***
F L Light in three categories of poetry has produced most of his work:
In epic his original works are Fighter Herakles Perforce, Shakespeare Undiminished, The Woman of Venereal Furies, A Book of Girds for Bob Giroux, and Cleopatra’s Kingdom of Idolatry. These are all in sonnets written. His translated epics are The Iliad in 1823 sonnets, and the Argonautica, about seven hundred sonnets.
In drama, he has written twenty eight dramas, all in his own form of Greek tragedy. Twenty four of them comprise the Gouldium, a series about Jay Gould and his enemies.
Light has also translated six Greek tragedies, four of which have been produced for Audible.
Light has published about thirty five books of couplets, most of them on economics. Shakespeare Versus Keynes is now in production for Audible.
Buckle &, Lucid Rhythms, Raintree Review, International Poetry Review, Cowboy Poetry Press, Mobius, Hrafno, and Troglodyte are some of the magazines he has appeared in.
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.
“The death camps were not built in the Gobi Desert. And when barbarism challenged, the humanities, the arts, philosophic thought proved not only largely impotent but often collaborative with despotism and massacre,”
–George Steiner, from ‘A New Literacy’, The Kenyon Review, 24:1, Winter 2007, 10-24
Teratogen 1: Sex on the Brain
“Thy nakedness shall be uncovered,
yea, thy shame shall be seen…”—Isaiah 47:3
This mission is a sin. What kind of spaz-
tic draws vigor from pornographic veins
or penis-headed parodies of ass?
But you’re no baby, Baby. Holy weans
alive, I could not diaper your fine mess.
You soil all metaphor. I’ll author blame:
My labs, my country tis of thee. My shame
is writ uncovered on your face. No less
you’d scare Sears’ portrait guy.
And yet I’m drawn
to parse the prick that promenades your head.
They told us, Horus, Set, the Golden Dawn:
a Third Eye—neither naked, neither dead
of shameless form would, near the end, arrive
commending those whose fear brought it alive.
Teratogen 2: Cabbage Patch Moll
“Hence world picture, when understood
essentially, does not mean a picture of the
world but the world conceived and grasped
as picture.” –Martin Heidegger
You vandalize distress at no small cost
through nylon skein and cabbage patch
disguise. This manhunt though is long since lost.
All have been found. First paparazzi snatched
unguarded moments. Then we watched gray puffs
televise precision. Your face
is pixelated aftermath that stuffs
everything in the close-up. Common place
covers all bases. Where’s the intimate
to hide? The convict is a partial judge
on all subjects of visual merit. Split
my screen and your forehead suggests a smudge-
print. We share the mounting headcount’s ripe bruise.
For I no longer feel eyewitness news.
Teratogen 3: Thumbelina, Dance
“…advanced forms of biological warfare that can ‘target’ specific genotypes may transform biological warfare from the realm of terror to a politically useful tool.” –from Project for a New American Century (PNAC) Manifesto, 2000
We vet foot bills. Are pissed-on borders worth
a mongrel birth? doG gone us Pentagon.
Hotdog Girl rolls so we might rule the earth?
Our barking men of outrage are all gone.
Lassie’s come home to her unleashing hour.
Stream? I cannot stream out into the streets.
Fluoride neutered all my upright power.
I’ll litter no more dog-days in these sheets.
Poor pup, you play dead well. No, we’ll not lift
you up. One burp and you could well explode
across complicit shoulders. To the swift
life opens up. As for an honest road
with cars to chase, let’s first define your legs.
Right now you are a thumb. How motion begs.
Teratogen 4: Waterboy
“No, you people are drinkin’ the wrong water.”
–from The Water Boy, the movie (1998)
Suffer this baby floating on the earth
amphibious. Grace alone can mend
fluidic pustules. Please make haste. No berth
so wide of God, nor time-belabored End-
time should deflate ascent. Prospects look grim
for god-speed. Though we tire of boils and sore
feet.
Oh procrastinating seraphim,
whitewash no more. These mutants wash ashore.
Our amniotic seas now euthanize.
Please hear, oh Lord, water-boy’s gurgled cries.
His isotopic lungs cannot advance
beyond collapse. How does he stand a chance
of reaching Heaven, waterlogged on Earth?
The New Disorder liquefies at birth.
Teratogen 5: Burpee Girl
“Satan said: ‘I am not the one to prostrate
myself to a human being, whom You created
from sounding clay of altered black smooth
mud.” –Quran 15:30-35
Christian soldier, you battle your mortgage
with Abd al-Chuckee puppet-strings away,
sculpted like a Mujaheedin porridge
from amber waves of O, so gamma ray.
Our acronym-cadavers cyphered this.
The Pentagon got wind of ill-wind skies.
Re-baseline victory. All vectors miss
these eyesores too contained to leak out cries.
Children, don’t play! The cradle robs the grave
before the grave has time to rob your wild
unripened stares. Uranium defiled
His altered mud. God’s breath we, breathless, waive.
your fresh pink meat. While no one looked, life filed
your backstroke down to blisters. They will hide
your books in study hall. Who will arrest
this mutant form now terrorizing cells?
Without a clear and sewn-up threat the West
cannot hold the line. Deformity spells
doom. No tight-knit group of key advisors
props up your bloated puppet-string regime.
Sit up. Exude malevolence. Your sores
must find themselves else war will lose its steam
pressed irony. Don’t make us make Big Macs.
Cater our events. Weather our attacks.
Teratogen 7: Baby Skeletor (Brought to You by ‘Masters of the Universe’)
“Skeletor’s face accidentally got splashed with acid and he sacrificed his face to
survive.” –from ‘Masters of the Universe’, a Mattel media franchise
Before ill-winds impinged on faultless weather,
I had a barrow glazed with rain for you.
I’d wheel you to the bus-stop, but why lever
a father’s guilt atop your unhinged glue?
I’m loath to hold you up for God to see,
nor shower you with blue comforts. Why not flee
my too-short arms, your wails so out of key?
You scream small monster none the least at me.
I’ll prop you up at school if you insist.
But stand-up kids are cruel. They will resist
the womb’s last weapon, shrunken in their midst.
The universe won’t stoop. You are the grist
for chemistry swept under bazaar rug,
a Hazmat spill, the morning-after drug.
This series first appeared in The New Formalist, then Cinemension. Teratogen sonnets 5 and 7 will appear in ‘The Phoenix Rising from the Ashes: Anthology of sonnets of the early third millennium Friesen Press, Victoria, B.C., Canada, 2013.
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.
