Poem – Page 40 – Poetry Life and Times

Japanese Spirit. A Poem by Tatjana Debeljački

May 19, 2016 by Robin Ouzman Hislop

Forest Spirit is the master of woods and beasts, the shepherd whose stock consists of deer, roes and rabbits, which are looked after by wolves or lynxes. His cheeks are blue, his eyes are green, and his beard is long and green. Sometimes he covers himself with furs, and some of the legends depict him as wearing a mask and having horns. His left shoe is always on his right foot, he buckles his sheepskin on the wrong side. He does not have a shadow, his blood is blue. He is looking at something else. I don’t know what. Maybe soul? His look is blunt and his pupils are small. I kissed him in the neck, exactly the place where the Adam’s Apple is. * * * If you were living just across and if I were a tree In that yard, I’d delight you with fruit, I’ll be watered with your glimpse, just look at me in ardor,

I’d bear the sweetest fruit for YOU.

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.

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In Bed. A Poem by Robin Ouzman Hislop.

April 24, 2016April 23, 2016 by Robin Ouzman Hislop

The homestead El Caserio i Bizkerre lodged upon the wall

has a large gable’s end symmetry, slightly

skew whiff in the canvass that encompasses it. I wonder if

she’s painted herself from within to without

Where she stands now, a cut out dark silhouette, on a patch

before the facade of splotches, daubs of windows

doors, heraldry shields, terraces, hatches. Two doors, right side

sharp, left a blur but can i enter, what will i see

She knows she’s concealed from me?

what will i find, dusty jars, a winding stairway, creaking

floorboards, a chest of drawers, which i will open

to secret treasures, but no, i am without with her dark silhouette.

What is that luminous blob suspended above

her head by almost invisible silvery strands of arms embedding it?

All in the foreground, the sharp, the blur, paths

to each door, blotches of rockery, smudged plants, dollops

Of green lawn. Overhead, a red angle roof, in the sharp, crows

swarm in a blue sky, where it blurs, branches

stretch to entangle, notch the gable corner in weird distortion.

Beside this painting is another, a naked Madonna

A faceless oval she kneels, arms clasped behind her sleek black

parted hair, her armpits bared to reveal the taut

of her breasts, her curves in orange & gold dust.

Is it she who waits behind these doors?

When night falls the sea is a distant death

is The Bed that is a Tree hewn from the stump

of an olive tree, drilled as a bed

post, as a mould for the rest, around which the chamber

Was built, waiting for us to enter?

She is more beautiful than her painter & we know it

but perhaps if we enter together

the splashes of paint will be softer than our creaking bones.

* In Bed. Italics. The Bed that is a Tree. Kim Lansky. Italics. The Odyssy. Book xxxiiv.

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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Game Ball. A Poem by Miriam C. Jacobs

April 20, 2016 by Robin Ouzman Hislop

Above Hukte Ajaw’s court where the air stinks
of rotting flesh and rubber, darkest night of the year,
the sky is potent with cold.
Our astronomers fix the time of sacrifice,
time for the judge’s sharp whistles, the slam
as the ball, stuffed with the brains of the dead,
ricochets against sloping stone.
Once through the ring is all there is.
You’ve practiced your whole life for this loser’s joke –
costumed, absurdly masked, belt packed
with home-spun rags. Childless, you ape pregnancy,
waddling wide-legged, teasing your tongue
in the scent of sausages and fried maize, challenging
to laughter the chit-chat of families with no son or daughter
in the center, prattle of people with nothing,
in this moment, to lose. The regent is planted
on his dais, legs firm and upright like two pillars.
His flags wilt on the arms behind him
in the only world that matters, the only world
you know. And when his minions have cut
your heart from your body, the steam of it rising
in the mythic air as they pass it from mouth to mouth,
when your skull has rolled down the chiseled steps,
the crowd cheered and scuttled to their dim hovels, turned on television,
the forest stretches its vines to cover those who loved you,
who carved your name on a rock.

MIRIAM C. JACOBS is a alumnus of the University of Chicago and teaches college writing, literature and humanities. Jacobs is the editor of Eyedrum Periodically, the art/literature journal of Eyedrum Art & Music Gallery, Atlanta. Her poetry has appeared in Jewish Literary Journal, The East Coast Literary Review, Record Magazine, The Camel Saloon, Bluestem: the Art and Literary Journal of Eastern Illinois University, The King’s English, and Oklahoma Today, among other publications. Her chapbook of poetry, The Naked Prince, was published by Fort!/Da? Books in September 2013.

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Shine on Me. A Poem by Judy Moskowitz.

March 19, 2017April 16, 2016 by Robin Ouzman Hislop

I’m a reactionary woman
Wearing it in my jiggle
Hidden in the cleavage of my past
Misunderstood flow
Not recognized as 925 Sterling
If you’d shine on me just a little
I would never have to lower my eyes
Shrink inside
I’d climb a high wire with perfect balance
If you’d shine on me just a little
I’d read all the classics
Becoming my own intellectual property
Play Stravinsky
Sing Nesum Dorma
If you’d shine on my just a little
I’d never need
A polishing cloth

Judy started playing piano at the age of three, and studied at the Julliard School Of Music in New York City, her native city.
She became a jazz pianist and continues to play jazz. Now residing in Florida, she started writing poetry three years ago, and has been published in the Moonlight Dreamers Of The Yellow Haze anthology by Michael Lee Johnson, Thepoetcommunity, Whispersinthewind, Indiana Voice Journal. Poetry runs deep in her veins along with Music.

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POEM ON MY 33rd BIRTHDAY. A Poem by Robin Marchesi

September 17, 2017April 16, 2016 by Robin Ouzman Hislop

When you look back on the pages,

Of some half completed book,

When you contemplate,

Its twist and change,

And the age its teller took.

To unravel countless cases,

To weave a central theme,

To bewitch you with its reverie,

To sniff its inner dream

And to wrap you up in a wisdom

That you don’t quite understand.

It’s not a lot to read half a book

And contemplate its style.

For the story is half woven,

The tale has made its due,

Like a life that’s found a meaning

You know what you’re going through.

And you lean your head out forward,

To taste what you’ve to come,

But the words already written

Chapter verse and song.

And you’ve ploughed a furrow on your brow,

You’ve planted a seed that points a way,

For you’ve heard it now,

Spoken clear,

In that first half of living

Such an inner sense beginning.

When you look back on the pages

Of a half completed book

When you contemplate its twists and change

And the age its teller took.

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.

He is presently working on an upcoming novel entitled “A Story Made of Stone.”

http://www.amazon.com/A-Small-Journal-Heroin-Addiction/product-reviews/0743300521

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Miriam C Jacobs Reviews All the Babble of the Souk.

April 14, 2016April 12, 2016 by Robin Ouzman Hislop

Poet Robin Ouzman Hislop’s first full-length collection, All the Babble of the Souk, is appropriately titled. With a remarkably consistent ear for the market’s noise, for “[t]he broken lights of the bazaar/spangled] with glistening promise/in the eyes of the dusky beggar …” (Laminations in Lacquer ) Hislop’s poems, many of them cinematic-style montages of sounds and images, show us the metaphoric souk of the world, on the beach or in the street, its glitter, its sadness, its ragtag glory:

“pets, flower pots framed captive in a moment
outside the house of the painter, a robot
in chains with an alms bowl” (“Departures”)

These impressions are not confined to the scenic. Individuals, too, flash like rich arcades:

“there is not time enough to love
before the tram whisks her away
a creature of the costume of the moment
in a parade of parts.” (“In the fish-eye window”)

So marked is Hislop’s interest in the external world, readers may long for a glimpse of the speaker. It comes rarely. There are one or two musings on the phenomenon and surprise of feeling oneself age, the odd disjointing of it, but otherwise these poems proclaim their perhaps unique impersonality. In “Laminations in Lacquer” we sight what is, perhaps, the poet, but in third person, one who rises, observes, and then folds in at last with the “throng”:

“Below the rift of its eye
the sealed beak that will open
gleams on the lee …
in a room that roams without corners
he must rise with a chalice of blood for lips of shades
where the vertigo edge of the flower distills the dish
together with the quantities of immeasurable throng
on watery groves billowing with ivy bowers
sprung over hidden lairs of concealed hoards.
Night begins and the dogs draw nigh
scavenging for scraps
yapping at the walker’s naked ankles
in the dust of unknown alleys.”

Among other reoccurring themes – shadows, mirrors, the moon – is Hislop’s interest in physics. In a variety of contexts he reflects on time and infinity, the imagination-daunting galaxies, quantum theory and space:

“Man cannot live on myth alone
he shall earn his soil somehow, between
the Big Bang, the Big Slam ….”

One admirable quality in this work is that souk places us firmly in the precariousness of the current moment in history. These poems are exactly right for the age, and who we are now, those of us born 1945-1960, with our particular view of past and present, our grasp of the sciences and technologies that have overtaken the known world in our lifetimes.

“The world is a patchwork quilt,” Hislop concludes in “Lucky hat day,”
‘stitched up to the hilt its seams/which we quarter in our dreams
on which our edifice is built …”

MIRIAM C. JACOBS is a alumnus of the University of Chicago and teaches college writing, literature and humanities. Jacobs is the editor of Eyedrum Periodically, the art/literature journal of Eyedrum Art & Music Gallery, Atlanta. Her poetry has appeared in Jewish Literary Journal, The East Coast Literary Review, Record Magazine, The Camel Saloon, Bluestem: the Art and Literary Journal of Eastern Illinois University, The King’s English, and Oklahoma Today, among other publications. Her chapbook of poetry, The Naked Prince, was published by Fort!/Da? Books in September 2013.

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Humpback Nickerbroker. A Poem by Saira Viola

April 11, 2016 by Robin Ouzman Hislop

Slurping on oysters
Rat King grinned
‘The best time to invest – when there’s blood flowing in the streets.’
His face lit like up like a Roman candle
His heart tasted like cherry flava kerosene
Money spawn fisting the kitties
Jim slim tight wads
Bruising the night
With mechanical jizz
Get up offa the couch
And spunk your soul
With the seed of sedition
Or let your tears fold away the dawn
With fuck me now resignation.

Saira Viola ia a best selling crime writer , satirist, song lyricist and creator of innovative lit technique sonic scatterscript. Her work is infused with undercurrents of politics, pop philosophy and black comedy

http://gonzotoday.com/author/saira-viola/

Saira Viola, Author at GonzoToday
gonzotoday.com

Saira Viola is a critically acclaimed poet , author, song lyricist , satirist and creator of innovative lit technique self labelled sonic scatterscript .

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I sing a streetcar serendipity. A Poem by Marie Marshall

March 22, 2016 by Robin Ouzman Hislop

I sing a streetcar serendipity,
pralines and beignets, king cakes and pears,
a chicken pot pie from The Pie Lady,
mango, banana, Mr. Okra’s wares.
I sing of the sweet Sweet Street Symphony,
of improvised signage by Dr. Bob,
the half-folded fan of the Marigny,
be nice or get yourself a new paint-job.
I sing Jackson, I sing Congo and Pops,
jazz, blues, Dixieland, or gospel menu,
the iPhones of the rookie female cops,
the Quarter and the Faubourg; I sing you
the Gutter Punk’s hat where a quarter drops,
the boys, the girls, the creoles and the whites,
the seedy bars, the dance that never stops,
the lost blue of days, the yellow of nights.

Bio – Marie Marshall (3rd person)

MM is a middle-aged Anglo-Scottish author, poet, and editor, who says little about herself, preferring to let her writing speak. She has had three novels published, two of which are for the young adult / older children readerships. Both of her collections of poetry are currently in publication. Naked in the Sea (2010) in its 2nd imprint, is available in e-book form direct from publishers P’kaboo and in Kindle version on Amazon; the 1st imprint may still be available in print, if you enquire at Masque Publishing of Littlehampton. I am not a fish, nominated for the 2013 T S Eliot Prize, may be bought direct from publishers Oversteps Books. Marie has had well over two hundred poems published in magazines, anthologies, etc., but has not submitted anything since 2013. The most unusual places in which her poetry has appeared are on the wall of a café in Wales, pinned to trees in Scottish woodland, and etched into an African drum in New Orleans Museum of Art.

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