Good Morning, Mr. Bollocks. A Poem by RW Haynes

 

Blathering aesthetic remf,
Where were you when that meteorite
Fiberglassed half a continent?
Did you cry with us in the choir
Of angel rapture, back when matter
Meshed with concept meshed with love?
Did you point your K-Mart blowgun
And matching plastic hatchet
As the saints came striding down the sky?
 
Wait a minute.
I remember you. You had a nervous face
And complained about pelicans.
I thought at the time that a jury of penguins
Would be unanimous,
Vindicating their crash-diving friends.
I thought you needed some time at sea,
Some time to gather gravity.
After all, don’t the gulls always call?
 
In the place I walked a little while ago,
A rainbow raised its arms before the sun,
And, by the shrine of a murdered child,
A mockingbird flew at an oriole.
 
 
 
On the Savannah River 2013
 
 
 
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.

 
 
 
 
 
 
Robin Ouzman Hislop is Editor of Poetry Life and Times his publications include All the Babble of the Souk and Cartoon Molecules collected poems and Key of Mist the recently published Tesserae translations from Spanish poets Guadalupe Grande and Carmen Crespo visit Aquillrelle.com/Author Robin Ouzman Hislop about author. See Robin performing his work Performance (University of Leeds)

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a sanctuary for your demons. A Poem by Sudeep Adhikari

 
 

the dreams were so near,
and so visceral
i woke up with the phantom taste
of stale doughnuts
still teasing my palates; i felt like
throwing up. i sensed a universe of aches
 
inside me, slowly converging
to a disastrous
crunch. i was losing myself,
for no apparent reason;
my shadows slowly refusing
 
to put up the usual shows. outside,
i saw the uncaring streets,
drowned in the miasma
of wintery molecules of doom;
the pizzeria on the other side
of bridge, that looked as widowed as
 
the strip-club waiting
on the sun to go down.
and a shady-looking drive-through
where a lebanese used to sell
a little time, and a whole lot of oblivions.
 
i passed out on 48-ounces of colt-45,
to wake up in the middle
of the night
to talk to the moon; i felt a little mad.
 
there is no cure for life. there is
no reason to look
for the reasons. face your demons,
 
the only saviors you have in disguise.
 
 


 
 
Sudeep Adhikari is a structural engineer/Lecturer from Kathmandu, Nepal. His recent publications were with Beatnik Cowboys Chiron Review, The Ekphrastic Review, Midnight Lane Boutique, Occulum, Silver Birch Press, Eunoia Review, Utt Poetry and Spilling Cocoa over Martin Amis. Also a Pushcart Prize nominee for the year 2018, Sudeep is currently working on his 4th poetry-book “Hyper-Real Reboots”, which is scheduled for publication in September 2018 through Weasel Press, Texas, US
 
 
 
 
Robin Ouzman Hislop is Editor of Poetry Life and Times his publications include All the Babble of the Souk and Cartoon Molecules collected poems and Key of Mist the recently published Tesserae translations from Spanish poets Guadalupe Grande and Carmen Crespo visit Aquillrelle.com/Author Robin Ouzman Hislop about author. See Robin performing his work Performance (Leeds University)

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THE RAINBOW IN YOUR ANUS. A Poem by Paul Oluwafemi David

You’re a fat bag on the shoulder of defeat with more flesh to be chewed, shared around in the mouths of your lovers whose oral room is filled with fart carrying carts of art to wriggle smell, hell, and shell with a bell waking your lovers up with snores.
Mouths that have loved should be filled with smiles, grins, respect and flowers, it should be filled with meat like an art work rushing to meet the South Pole blowing with beautiful winds from faces of freedom.
Lovers drink you like tea bags to forget you inside hot water, inside fire, inside furnace to maintain their sex license.
You’re the forgotten lake left behind to suffer alone because you’re a piece of frame that no man will ever post on the wall of his heart or building without holding fire extinguisher to quench the fire you carry in your face.
Defeat snores everyday trying to speak because dreams have become prison,
Defeat snores every night dying to speak because beauty has become colourless,
Defeat snores every night drowning to speak because faces have become flames to lovers who dared to cuddle or stare.
You leave fire in your lovers mouth when you kiss them,
You leave smokes in your lovers breathe when you leave them.
You carry troubles with bubbles, you carry darkness with madness.
Mouths that’ve loved should be filled with music, filled with rainbows, filled with sunrise, filled with stars and healthy faces.
Your lovers breathe smoke with the rope you left in their bodies while tying their breathe away; you left a plugged bulb in their mouth to burn what they know as smiles.
Nobody will love you with so much an old, abandoned, burnt, dilapidated building like yours,
Nobody can pretend with you, you’re a fast moving slow tea bag floating with garbages in your garage of boredom; you carry heartbreaks, betrayals, darkness, hate and burdens like your mother who died hawking her body for buyers who will name and call her rotten, decay and cancer.
Lovers died breathing your fart, some even wrote their eulogies after you while you’re still alive, it’s that horrible, bad to know because you’re a walking dead zombie.
Nobody can pretend with you, your body leads to the gutter where pathogens breed.
You’re been kidnapped in yourself to age fast, to go through with fasting and prayer to get your first bell jingle in your body which is a lonely church.
Who will sing in your church?
Who will worship in your church?
Your body is a church leading into the gate of hell.
Your smell rings a bell screaming, shouting, chanting and panting for suicide, gay and lesbian, it speaks by snoring to make a film on your weak retina about sinners burning in hell and shouting hallelujah.
Your smell is a bell awakening ghost and phantoms to begin a kingdom, empire that will fall.
Ask for help, you’re dying.
Seek for light, you’re lost.
Nobody will love you with the face you’re hawking for lovers, hawking for families, hawking for friends, hawking for cures from the disease wrapping all your bodies.
Nobody can pretend with you, your bells are cries for help, tears for assistance, wailing for rehabilitation, it’s a jingle into the jungle sojourning for miracle.
You leave fire in the thigh of your lovers, you leave bombs in the thumbs of your lovers, things like you sting more than bees, beings like you burn dying, falling, frying like fireflies.
You need help, you’re falling apart, drifting aghast, wasting alone like a forgotten Jew roaming about in a jewel of marvels.
You snore like a whore without shame with a name.
Everyone you love ends up dying counting your demons, chasing your phantoms, saving your wretched body from exploding from the nuclear reactor in your smiles.
Your smiles are miles apart from your heart, you smile to smell, you smile to hell, you kiss to hiss, you walk lifting dust everywhere to bury the wind.
Ask for help, you’re shattered.
Run for help, you’re bitter.
Nobody can pretend with you, your smell is ringing a bell for apocalypse; nobody can call you beautiful and believe it until they die to lie down worshiping the real you wrapped with the rainbow.

 
 

 
 
Paul Oluwafemi David is a Nigerian who fell in love with poetry watching the beauty of nature, he is a student of professor Wole Soyinka and Ben Okiri. Currently he is a student doctor at the college of human medicine university of Nigeria with a strong mandible for the wonders of the universe. He has been published in AFRICANA, AFRICAN WRITER and PRAXIS MAGAZINE. His work is about to be published in TUCK, BANGALORE and KALAHARI.
 
 
Robin Ouzman Hislop is Editor of Poetry Life and Times his publications include All the Babble of the Souk and Cartoon Molecules collected poems and Key of Mist the recently published Tesserae translations from Spanish poets Guadalupe Grande and Carmen Crespo visit Aquillrelle.com/Author Robin Ouzman Hislop about author. See Robin performing his work Performance (Leeds University)

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Close to Me. BLIKSOM. A Poem by Tatjana Debeljački. Translated from Serbian by Danijela Milosavljević

 

 
SAVRŠENSTVO PERFECTION 完璧さ
New book Tatjana Debeljački タチアナ デベリャスキー
Serbian English and Japanese

Translation by Mariko Sumikura
Artwork: Janoš Mesaroš
 
 
CLOSE TO ME
 
 
Togetherness disappears.
We are lost while leaving ourselves.
It’s too late for finding symbols.
The expression is a form of research
at the entrance of voice ventricles.
We sacrifice slow reasons to the quick words.
Parting is a chronicler with no chronicles.
Interpretations are hinted in the meanings of values ​​.
Let’s not torture the lions with the inner space of the sky.
We have lost the gemstone.
The search is wasted effort.
We nurture the faith of case circumstances.
Cheek shows the traces of palms.
For too long we dream the threats of responsibility.
Ironic solution of doubting we have left for the end.
We demise traces for the orphans.
God was praised, unfortunately.
From the scriptures we take out when needed.
We did not realize that all is prone to cease.
And a deep gap between the kisses,
We did not admit.
 
 
The 25th contest for the best love song, traditionally held by the
Cultural centre in Ivanjica. The contest director is poet Miljan Despotovic
 
 
BLISKOM
 
 
Nestaje zajedništvo.
Gubimo se napuštajući sebe.
Kasno je za otkrivanje simbola.
Izraz je oblik istraživanja.
na ulazu govornih komora.
Razloge spore žrtvujemo brzim rečima.
Rastanak je hroničar bez hronike.
Tumačenja naslućujemo po značenjima vrednosti.
Ne mučimo tigrove unutrašnošću neba.
Dragi kamen smo izgubili.
Potraga je uzaludan trud.
Gajimo veru okolnosti slučaja.
Obraz pokazuje tragove dlanova.
Predugo sanjamo pretnje odgovornosti.
Ironično razrešenje sumnje ostavljamo za kraj.
Tragove zaveštavamo siročićima.
Bog je bio slavljen..
Iz zapisa izvlačimo po potrebi.
Nismo uvideli da sve je prolaznosti sklono.
I duboki jaz između poljubaca,
Nepriznavasmo.
 
 
25. Konkursa za najlepšu ljubavnu pesmu, koji tradicionalno organizuje Dom kulture iz Ivanjice.Selektor konkursa, pesnik Milijan Despotović
 
 
Excerpt from:
Critic/ 講評
LIFE IN CREATION
Tatjana Debeljacki: ‘Perfection’

 
Tatjana Debeljacki: ‘Perfection’, Cultural Centre, Ivanjicа, 2018.With her poem ‘Closeness’, Tatjana won the first prize at the love poem literary contest ‘Ripples of the Moravica’ in Ivanjica, 2017. In the explanation (as a member of the competition jury) I wrote: From the poetic letter “The Close One” in which everything speaks of love without ever mentioning this word directly, we open up thoughts, a series of special lessons and wisdom, with a message that loving others means loving oneself and “losing oneself from leaving oneself”. The poem consists of twenty thoughts, classic aphorisms, each of which could be a motto of a new poem. Love is here in a dilemma over what “is prone to transience”, it is what is needed to overcome the “gap between kisses”. Tatjana Debeljacki (Titovo Uzice, 19..) writes contemporary and haiku poetry and prose. She has published nine books. She lives in Uzice. Pozega, 6th February, 2018
 


 
 
Tatjana Debeljački, born on 23.04.1967 in Užice. Writes poetry, short stories, stories and haiku. Member of Association of Writers of Serbia – UKS since 2004 and Haiku Society of Serbia – HDS Serbia, HUSCG – Montenegro and HDPR, Croatia. A member of Writers’ Association Poeta, Belgrade since 2008, member of Croatian Writers’ Association- HKD Croatia since 2009 and a member of Poetry Society ‘Antun Ivanošić’ Osijek since 2011, and a member of “World Haiku Association“ – 2011, Japan. Union of Yugoslav Writers in Homeland and Immigration – Belgrade, Literary Club Yesenin Belgrade. Member of Writers’ Club “Miroslav – Mika Antić” – Inđija 2013, Writers’ Association “Branko Miljković“ – Niš 2014, and a member of Japan Universal Poets Association (JUNPA). 2013. “Poetic Bridge: AMA-HASHI (天橋) Up to now, she has published four collections of poetry: “A HOUSE MADE OF GLASS “, published by ART – Užice in 1996; collection of poems “YOURS“, published by Narodna knjiga Belgrade in 2003; collection of haiku poetry “VOLCANO”, published by Lotos from Valjevo in 2004. A CD book “A HOUSE MADE OF GLASS” published by ART in 2005, bilingual SR-EN with music, AH-EH-IH-OH-UH, published by Poeta, Belgrade in 2008. ”HIŠA IZ STEKLA” was translated into Slovenian and published by Banatski kulturni centar – Malo Miloševo, in 2013 and also into English, “A House Made of Glass” published by »Hammer & Anvil Books» – American, in2013. Her poetry and haiku have been translated into several languages.
 
 
 
 
 
Robin Ouzman Hislop is Editor of Poetry Life and Times his publications include All the Babble of the Souk and Cartoon Molecules collected poems and Key of Mist the recently published Tesserae translations from Spanish poets Guadalupe Grande and Carmen Crespo visit Aquillrelle.com/Author Robin Ouzman Hislop about author. See Robin performing his work Performance (Leeds University)

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Breathing Turquoise. A Poem by Reuben Ellis

 
 

 
During the fat years of Cripple Creek, the
veins of turquoise lay at angles to the seams
of sylvanite and gold, and they say that
when the ore was crushed and cyanidated,
turquoise and the other worthless rocks
were ground into tailings in the stamp
mills, later used as gravel to pave the muddy
streets. Today, small and jagged pieces of
blue after hard rains still surface in the
alleys, washed and alloyed, stonefruit.
 
That wet morning behind the Elks, by the
pallets and the bone weeds, I found it
and rolled it between my thumb and finger
as I would hold a nipple, a small ball, a
caterpillar, and I placed it in my mouth, to
taste it for breath, for solidity, to conjure
the undisturbed earth, and it worked–my
senses stream like neutrinos through the
core, the clear puddle where I stood, a
philter, a caldera.
 
 

 
 
Reuben Ellis is professor and chair of the Writing Department at Woodbury University in Los Angeles. His publications include Vertical Margins: Mountaineering and the Landscapes of Neo-Imperialism; Stories and Stone: Writing the Ancestral Pueblo Homeland; and Beyond Borders: The Selected Essays of Mary Austin, as well as many published essays, short stories, and poems. He is currently working on a book-length project describing literary representations of ancestral Puebloan peoples and sites.
 
 
 
 
Robin Ouzman Hislop is Editor of Poetry Life and Times his publications include All the Babble of the Souk and Cartoon Molecules collected poems and Key of Mist the recently published Tesserae translations from Spanish poets Guadalupe Grande and Carmen Crespo visit Aquillrelle.com/Author Robin Ouzman Hislop about author. See Robin performing his work Performance (Leeds University) .

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Contusions. Selected Poems by Gary Beck.

Editor’s Note: we welcome the return of Gary Beck a prolific poet who has been featured in many appearances here at Artvilla.com
‘Contusions’ is an unpublished poetry collection that explores the aches and pains we suffer from the assault of life. Gary Beck. See Bio below

 
i.
A Peculiar Country
 
A nation suffers
many setbacks
before dissolving
into the trash bin
of history,
for the long slide
into obscurity.
They occur at a critical time
when capitalism
has beggared the nation
and the paid spokespersons
delude the people
into voting for a man
who pledges to help the rich,
burden the dwindling middle-class,
punish the poor for being poor.
Yet millions of voters
support the candidate
committed to hurting them.
 
ii.
 
Imbalance
 
Extreme weather
brings storms, drought,
other disasters,
while unstable seasons
alter our psyches
and no longer leave us
singing in the rain.
 
iii.
 
Linkage
 
The thread of life
connects us all
in ways we rarely see,
but animal, vegetable,
striving, struggling
for existence
frequently intersect
not always benevolently,
causing fatal conflicts
that often result
in final departure.
 
iv.
 
Sick Minds
 
Confrontations rise across the world,
some into widespread warfare,
others in domestic violence,
few peacefully resolved.
People, nations, lose control
of basic sensibilities,
unable to negotiate
acceptable solutions
to conflicts of interest.
 
v.
 
Clash of Interests
 
America leads the fight
for free speech,
women’s rights,
democracy,
against intolerant islam
unwilling to accept
other cultural values,
while China and Russia
hover like vultures
waiting to pick the carcass
of the declining West
after exhaustion
from the struggle
to do right.
 
 

 
 
Gary Beck has spent most of his adult life as a theater director, and as an art dealer when he couldn’t make a living in theater. He has 12 published chapbooks and 2 accepted for publication. His poetry collections include: Days of Destruction (Skive Press), Expectations (Rogue Scholars Press). Dawn in Cities, Assault on Nature, Songs of a Clerk, Civilized Ways, Displays, Perceptions, Fault Lines, Tremors and Perturbations (Winter Goose Publishing) Rude Awakenings and The Remission of Order will be published by Winter Goose Publishing. Conditioned Response (Nazar Look). Resonance (Dreaming Big Publications). Virtual Living (Thurston Howl Publications). Blossoms of Decay (Wordcatcher Publishing). Blunt Force and Expectations will be published by Wordcatcher Publishing. His novels include: Extreme Change (Cogwheel Press), Flawed Connections (Black Rose Writing), Call to Valor (Gnome on Pigs Productions) and Sudden Conflicts (Lillicat Publishers). State of Rage will be published by Rainy Day Reads Publishing, Crumbling Ramparts by Gnome on Pigs Productions. His short story collections include, A Glimpse of Youth (Sweatshoppe Publications) and. Now I Accuse and other stories (Winter Goose Publishing). His original plays and translations of Moliere, Aristophanes and Sophocles have been produced Off Broadway. His poetry, fiction and essays have appeared in hundreds of literary magazines. He currently lives in New York City.
 
 
 
 
 
 
Robin Ouzman Hislop is Editor of Poetry Life and Times his publications include All the Babble of the Souk and Cartoon Molecules collected poems and Key of Mist the recently published Tesserae translations from Spanish poets Guadalupe Grande and Carmen Crespo visit Aquillrelle.com/Author Robin Ouzman Hislop about author. See Robin performing his work Performance (Leeds University) .

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HURT SO GOOD. A Poem by Mercy Eni Wandera

Editor’s Note: Mercy Eni Wandera is new to PLT & to writing poetry, we welcome the opporunity to host her contribution, visit her website below to see further of her talented work.

 
Such a Greek God, masculine and fine like wine
He wants me, can’t seem to live without me
Such pure joy!
My first true love, my first real heartbreak.
Showers me with gifts and sweet nothings
His touch so fiery, it’s supernatural
He makes me giddy,
Pretty, like I’m the only girl in the world
Often pets me,
Like a pet owner does a caged monkey in the zoo.
I swear am so happy and so in love
But something’s missing..
Comes home so sloshed,
Give him head while dick smelling of cheap perfume with lipstick stains all over
Sprays all over my face
Looks into my eyes laughing and says,
Those are your kids babe
Then he is out like a light.
He plays me like a violin,
Mental and physical affliction
Beat me up black and blue.
I do it because I’m so hooked on you. You drive me crazy woman!
Serves as his regret sorry
He does feel guilty
I will just wait it out
He fucks me so good
Going through the motion…
Keep infecting me with your love
Fill me with your poison
Don’t save her
 
 

 
 
BIODATA; Mercy Eni Wandera is a 26 year old opinionated and phenomenal woman. She is a passionate upcoming writer and quite recently started putting her thoughts down onto her personal blog (https://mercyonmeweb.com), on which she takes a great deal of pride filling with poetry, juicy storytelling, music reviews and literature.
 
 
 
 
 
 
Robin Ouzman Hislop is Editor of Poetry Life and Times his publications include All the Babble of the Souk and Cartoon Molecules collected poems and Key of Mist the recently published Tesserae translations from Spanish poets Guadalupe Grande and Carmen Crespo visit Aquillrelle.com/Author Robin Ouzman Hislop about author. See Robin performing his work Performance (Leeds University) .

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Life Story. A Poem by David Chorlton

Editor’s note: the following are the the author’s notes – this poem is about the time I taught writing classes at a senior center in Scottsdale.The Life Story class was an extra for me, and I struggled to make sense of other people’s lives I think. Photograph (from a night reading outdoors at a gathering one summer in Idaho).
 

 

The war begins each Friday
after noon
when Joseph sits down and the bombs
fall again on Pearl Harbor.
 

I ask the class who they are writing for.
Susan has three children
and needs to tell them she feared
for her life at the hand
of their father.
 
Edna wants a record of the cold
for her grandchildren
and how she left it behind
in California.
Lorraine was a dancer;
 
she writes for herself.
Take it scene by scene, I say,
enter the minutes until
they are hours, then make days.
 
Dorothy is glamorous
in a lakeside camp
and the sunlight all around her
fills the page
until the edges burn.
 

I grew up in the rain
and it drained, leaving a gloss
on the pavements
and the trains I rode away on.
 
Describe the places
where you lived. Denise
builds red rock Utah on the table,
Edna spreads a prairie beside it
while I try to assemble
an England that used to exist
but I only have the pieces
of a single room
with a photograph of mountains on the wall.
 
Ernest recently returned
to his home town. No regrets,
there isn’t much left.
Make it live with the music
you heard back then, I say.
 
Ernest answers with:
There isn’t any music in my life.
I keep hearing one concerto
with a cello
playing the grief of the hills
as they recede.
 
Think about the future
in which your stories will be read.
Betty shakes her head;
her son does not want children
in an unjust world. Imagine how I feel,
she says, when the bible guides us
to be concerned for what is close
and to leave the distance
where it is, but the family
is ending with him.
 

And I, who value art over children
and poetry over scripture,
declare the lesson over.
 
 
 

 
 
David Chorlton is a transplanted European, who has lived in Phoenix since 1978. His poems have appeared in many publications online and in print, and reflect his affection for the natural world, as well as occasional bewilderment at aspects of human behavior. His newest collection of poems is Bird on a Wire from Presa Press, and The Bitter Oleander Press published Shatter the Bell in my Ear, his translations of poems by Austrian poet Christine Lavant. http://www.davidchorlton.mysite.com
 
 
 
 
Robin Ouzman Hislop is Editor of Poetry Life and Times his publications include All the Babble of the Souk and Cartoon Molecules collected poems and Key of Mist the recently published Tesserae translations from Spanish poets Guadalupe Grande and Carmen Crespo visit Aquillrelle.com/Author Robin Ouzman Hislop about author. See Robin performing his work Performance (Leeds University) .

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