We Darkened Few Laugh With Needle-Sharp Joy. A poem by Joseph Armstead

 

Laughing
with delight,
we thought we saw
a vision of blood
Turn to wine…
 
It’s a story told
in silence and pictures,
where everything we say
sounds like the spatter
of falling rain,
the sound of weariness
beating a drumbeat
on old concrete,
And its brittle beauty
makes the cracked
photographs
in our album of memories
dance
while we feel like children
at a tea party
with ghosts, pouring our hearts,
a piece at a time,
into empty porcelain cups.
 
Our timid smiles
are splintered
breaks
in the face
of a laughing clock.
“See how sharp,”
the timepiece said,
ticking.
 
A vision of light
at the tunnel’s end
fails to lead us
from the dark,
Saviors and Angel Wars,
Burning bushes
calling out numbers
at an endless game
of celestial Bingo,
And God’s reflection
looks out
from the fruit punch,
laughing from inside
the crystal serving bowl,
We can’t believe in such things,
because we feel like children
at a tea party
with ghosts, pouring our hearts,
a piece at a time,
into empty porcelain
demitasses.
 
“See how sharp,”
the timepiece said,
ticking.
 
And we darkened few
laugh with needle-sharp joy.

 
 
 
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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.
 
 
 
 
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America: The Rave. A Poem by Adam Levon Brown

Poetry Life and Times

 

America
 
Of the store-bought
pizza dinners
 
Land of the flies
who scrape the paint
off of barnyard doors
with fingernails of lace
 
America
 
Camel cigarette
butts lining the crevices,
reminding us to
take pride in our
death
 
Land of the trees,
the oceans, and the
snow; covering us like
a whale song sung from
the bleachers of Wrigley field
in ’89
 
America
 
Scarface gangsterish
slang aimed at our throats
while revolutionaries paint
their stories on box trains
destined for the great beyond
 
Land of the stolen coffee bean
with all of its richness fueling
our neurotic skull contents in
the bleak December rains
 
America
 
Social injustice in the form
of Television, telling us a tale
as old as time; oppression
as an old, raggedy flag drenched
in the blood of sacrificial lambs
who never got to see the pasture
 
Land of the bombs, the guns,
and the assault rifle speeches
of sputtering, malignant hatred
 
America
 
Chain gang alamode
served with a slice
of adversity in the morning
 
Land of the Cinematic
bloodbath and violent
pornography with Twilight zone
on repeat
 
America
 
Crooked-nosed piety seekers
in rags on the streets who sleep
right outside the doors of the disillusioned youth
who partake in Molly until their ears
scream and their voices listen
 
Land of the freezing
Home of the Rave.
 
Adam Levon Brown
Adam Levon Brown (ii)

Adam Levon Brown is a poet and author residing in Eugene, Oregon. He has one published poetry book out, Musings of a Madman, which is a collection of poems made to enlighten and inspire the reader. Adam attributes his love of poetry to the many great poets he discovered in the school library during his formative years. He enjoys listening to political hip hop music and is a political activist himself.
 


Adam Levon Brown, Featured Writer Editor
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Crocuta crocuta. A Poem by Robin Ouzman Hislop

 

The Spotted Hyena, aka the Laughing Hyena, both male and female genitals are strikingly similar.
 
Natural History, Pliny the Elder (A.D. 23-79) ab uno animali sepulchra erui inquisitione corporum.
 
It was more Jackals that were prone to digging bodies out of shallow graves and eating them. Robert Graves.White Goddess. The Jackals, sacred to Anubis, Guardian of the Dead, because they fed on corpse like flesh and had mysterious nocturnal habits.
 
The Hyena is of feline descent.
 
Hyenas were hermaphrodites, bearing both male and female organs, Aristotle declared in the Historia animalium: “this is untrue.”
 
Medieval bestiaries drew a moral lesson from the depravity of beasts, excluded from Noah’s ark in 1614, God had only saved the purely bred, Hyenas were reconstituted after the flood through the unnatural union of a dog and cat.
 
Female hyenas virtually indistinguishable from males, their clitoris enlarged and extended to form an organ of the same size, shape, and position as the male penis, can also be erected.
 
High foetal androgen levels responsible for male sexual facies in adult female Spotted Hyenas.
 
An unfair stereotype of Hyenas, in reality fascinating, intelligent even beautiful creatures.
 
Disney animators sketches for The Lion King, the trio of Hyenas in the Movie reinforce the common stereotype of Hyenas as cowardly, skulking low-lifes.
 
Ernest Hemingway, Fisi, the Hyena, hermaphroditic self-eating devourer of the dead, trailer of calving cows, ham-stringer, potential biter-off of your face at night while you slept, sad yowler, camp-follower, stinking, foul, with jaws that crack the bones the lion leaves, belly dragging, loping away on the brown plain.
 
“Hyenas” Movie, an urban legend account of human encounters and attacks by a sub-culture of predatory Cryptohuman Hyenas. Shape-shifting human-like creatures prowl the rural back roads and forests of North America, thought to exist by Cryptozoologists.
 
Folklore and sightings persist even as mainstream science denies their existence.
 
Rudyard Kipling, The wise Hyenas come out at eve to take account of our dead,… they know the dead are safer meat than the weakest thing alive… and tug the corpse to light, the pitiful face is shown again, an instant ere they close in.
 
UK Teaching. Resources TES. Edwin Morgan enters the mind of the Hyena. English National 5 Poetry. He describes its patient, menacing personality: Morgan adopts the persona of a Hyena, I sing and am the slave of darkness, my place is to pick you clean and leave your bones to the wind.
 
A hunters’ poem from Lesotho, description shifts to the first person singular to give the Hyena’s own words, I growl being a poor body, I am small, I am hunched up like the elephant… Hyena of the Mmankala of Kone-land, a group whose symbol is the Hyena, when it says ngou! it devours even man.
 
A Yoruba hunting poem the Hyena is regarded as the ultimate scavenger, there being nothing it won’t eat: oral poetry from Africa, Hyena, who is there when the mourner buries the corpse eats fat and bone, scabbard and hide.
 
Spotted Hyena, strongest jaws in proportion to body size across the entire mammal kingdom, cunning hunting tactics, nocturnal nature, nefarious reputations, frontal cortex of their brains, thought to regulate social intelligence.
 
The largest of the other three species: Brown, Striped and Aardwolf, Spotted Hyenas are among Africa’s most vocal animals.

 
Robin Portrait July Sotillo 2016 by Amparo
 
Robin Ouzman Hislop, born UK, a reader in philosophy & religions, has travelled extensively throughout his lifetime but now lives in semi- retirement as a TEFL teacher and translator in Spain & the UK.
 
Robin was editor of the 12 year running on-line monthly poetry journal Poetry Life and Times. In 2013 he joined with Dave Jackson as co-editor at Artvilla.com, where he presently edits Poetry Life & Times, Artvilla.com, Motherbird.com.
 
He’s been previously published in a variety of international magazines, later publications including Voices without Borders Volume 1 (USA), Cold Mountain Review (Appalachian University, N. Carolina), The Poetic Bond Volumes (thepoeticbond.com) and Phoenix Rising from the Ashes (a recently published international Anthology of Sonnets). His last publication is a volume of collected poems All the Babble of the Souk available at all main online tributaries

 

 
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Shine. A Poem by Irsa Ruçi Translated by Silva Daci

 

I.
Hear to the cicada’s song, my dear, hear it
Some words they mutter to spring
And feel their whisper to the leafs
To the mornings’ dew
So tell me:
Was this world made to be savage?
 

II.
Oh, what sins did we give to this earth
So that our own tear weighs in powerless
At traces that froze in oblivion
The lost sinner
We…
Guardians of Hope
 

III.
One day we will get away
In a path there’s no coming back
For sure I’ll carry behind only regret,
Why we weren’t enough in this greedy world?
And the forgiveness
We were eager to get it
When one day even our soul we’ll see it
Stripped from our bodies.
 

IV.
O tell me that nothing is true
That the poet’s words are thatch stalks
That would be fired by one single match
And I, my last line I’ll give to the Human;
For he prays in the sin’s mercy
And in his life never lied to himself
 
My last line I’ll save it for the Human…

 
My photo 2

 
Irsa Ruçi is an Albanian Writer, Speechwriter and Lecturer. She was born in Tirana (Albania), in 1990. Her books of poetry include Trokas mbi ajër (poems and essays), 2008 and Pështjellim (poetry), 2010.
She has been published in anthologies: Antologji, 2007; I kërkoj agimit vesën, 2008; Antologji poetike “Kushtuar dashurisë”, 2014; Antologji poetike “Udha”, 2014; Antologji poetike, 2014; “Malli dhe brenga nga distancat”, 2014; Antologji poetike “Qyteti”, 2014; Poeteca, 2015; and her works has appeared in a number of print and online national and international magazines, including Sling Magazine, Issue 5; Ann Arbor Review, Issue 15; Poeteca Magazine, Issue 35; Aquillrelle Anthology, 2015; Aquillrelle Anthology, 2016; Metaphor Magazine Issue 5; The Commonline Journal, Issue 4/22; A New Ulster poetry Anthology, April 2016; Best Poems Encyclopedia; Issuu April 2016; In Between Hangovers, May 2016; BLUEPEPPER, May 2016; Duane’s PoeTree, May 2016; CREATIVE TALENTS UNLEASHED, 8 May 2016, Tuck Magazine, 12 May 2016; Whispers… 2016; Dead Snakes Magazine; – RANDOM POEM TREE, 13 May 2016; RANDOM POEM TREE, 16 May 2016; In Between Hangovers, 14 May 2016; In Between Hangovers, 24 May 2016; SCARLET LEAF REVIEW, May Issue; Ashvamegh Magazine (Ashvamegh Indian Journal of English Literature), The Beatnik Cowboy, 19 May; Dissident Voice, 22 May; Joomag, May 2016; Bear Creek Haiku, May Issue; Dissident Voice, 29 May  etc.
Among many awards, she has received the first prize in poetry, in competition “Anthology 2007”, as the best poet in Albania.

 

Silva Daci foto

 
Bio:
Silva Daci was born in Tirana (Albania), in 1996. She is student of English Major, at the Faculty of Foreign Languages, in the University of Tirana. She is an activist in some social cooperatives and she likes to be part of social and cultural activities.
 

 
 
 
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CHILDLESS. A Poem by John Grey

 
What’s her name again – Deirdre Lyn.
She goes to law school. She plays field hockey
Summers spark with
the sheer will of her being.
Septembers are softer now
than a head on a pillow.
 
But then I feel your stomach
and you shake your head.
A tear emerges from your right eye,
the closest your body ever comes
to giving birth.
 
So I must watch over her
with my eyes shut.
Nail my lips together
to encourage her dreams.
Squeeze her to my chest
until she’s thinner than
the shirt I wear.
 
Deirdre Lyn – she comes to me in a dream
and says she’s met someone.
Yes, she met me.
And no one else ever.

 
 
File0004
 
 
John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident. Recently published in New Plains Review, South Carolina Review, Gargoyle and Big Muddy Review with work upcoming in Louisiana Review, Cape Rock and Spoon River Poetry Review. To view more of his work www.motherbird.com & www.artvilla.com
 
 
 
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DAMP. (a poem after the rains) by Akor Emmanuel Oche

 

 
After the rains
come the drain of a white washed
road–sepulchers
of pungent oozing paths.
Cossy skins blended
in tar pigmented melanin,
mock the innerbeing,
telling her she is wet,
telling her she is clean.
Only fire tests the truth of things.
Soon the road evapourates
the reminants of her hidden self,
and the skin
whispers the truth
of its self- dark,dirty,blue-
-in avarice for the subtle touch of water,
to purly through the body through
to the spirit.
After the rains come the real water.
Spinning the soul in spree.

 
Akor Emmanuel Ochen

 
Akor Emmanuel Oche is a Nigerian poet,critic,essayist and thinker.
Connect with him on facebook by searching his account by his name.

 
 
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The Sudden Drizzle. A Poem by Bhupender K Bhardwaj

 
 

The sudden drizzle that brought long-sought fulfillment
To the scorched shacks of the country masses
Knitted the serrated peak and the neglected pavement
Into an aquamarine fabric under whose grace wild asses
Brayed with glee. The rusted generator attached
To the cola factory hummed loudly and brought
Back memories of the dull headaches which once latched
On to you. But these were phantoms of imagination which caught
You unawares, lost in the coerced stillness induced by your drab work
That ate you up slowly, constricting your vision
Beyond which strong-legged peacocks continued to jerk
Their crested heads in unison with the swaying trees that season.
 
Later, the sparrow-squeaks and the marketplace shouts
Which came up the verges were glinting arrows that quelled your doubts.

 
 
20160213_225726
 
 
Brief Bio: Bhupender K Bhardwaj, an IRTS officer, 27 years of age works with Ministry of Railways, Government of India. He has been composing poetry since the last few years. His influences are Derek Walcott and Seamus Heaney. His poems have been published by Mad Swirl, Indian Review, The Galway Review and Kingston Creative Writers’ Blog. Also, He was recently longlisted for The Toto Awards for Creative Writing 2016 in the Poetry category.
 
 
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LIES AND RETRACTIONS. A Poem by David Spicer

 

Norway is cold to any sentient tramp
or a chorus of hyenas that yawn
and sneeze around a chicken house
stinking of ghosts and rotten
pomegranates. Its windmills are beautiful
in the pastures, but I need a zippered
leather coat to cover the skylark tattooed
on my chest. I couldn’t invent this:
I have poor posture from shaking,
my body needs a sunlamp. No, I retract
the above lies that aren’t worth two euros.
I’d fly pennants and banners
for the frigid land. Or release balloons
into the happy sky. I love the fish,
blown glass, and police who don’t
surround or harass me. Plenty of shade
to sip chardonnay by, and next summer,
when warmer weather tricks this cancer
to die, I’ll toot my own horn again
and teach Tolstoy to the children.
 
 

290

 
David Spicer has had poems in Yellow Mama, Reed Magazine, Slim Volume, The Laughing Dog, Jersey Devil Press, The American Poetry Review, New Verse News, Ploughshares, Bad Acid Laboratories, Inc., Dead Snakes, and in A Galaxy of Starfish: An Anthology of Modern Surrealism (Salo Press, 2016). He has been nominated for a Pushcart, is the author of one full-length collection of poems and four chapbooks, and is the former editor of Raccoon, Outlaw, and Ion Books. He lives in Memphis, Tennessee.
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