The Self and the Mulberry by Marvin Bell
The Self and the Mulberry by Marvin Bell I wanted to see the self, so I looked at the mulberry. It had no trouble accepting its limits, yet defining and redefining a small area so that any shape was possible, any movement. It stayed put, but was part of all the air. I wanted to […]
Your Poems on My Patio by Martina Reisz Newberry
Your Poems on My Patio by Martina Reisz Newberry for Djelloul Marbrook The mountains are perfect this morning so I re-read your perfect poems. Knit two, purl three, knit two, purl two and there on the page is a scarf in hearty woolen adverbs and adjectives. I would do nearly anything to know that someone […]
The Room by Mark Strand
It is an old story, the way it happens sometimes in winter, sometimes not. The listener falls to sleep, the doors to the closets of his unhappiness open and into his room the misfortunes come — death by daybreak, death by nightfall, their wooden wings bruising the air, their shadows the spilled milk the world […]
Yesterday’s Mishaps by Mary Etta Metcalf
i become who i am through my experiences what happeded yesterday…deleloped into who i am today how i perceive events…will be how i think who we are today was shaped by yesterdays mishaps this is what life is all about…good or bad it is how mankind had grown through the eons it is also how […]
The River Has Its Memories by Mary Etta Metcalf
sitting on the shore of the river… i watch as the barges pass they travel in either directions with various destinations there is a calming affect upon me as soothing waves pass the river has its memories…as do i i think about what the river has seen…the secrets it holds as it slowly floats by […]
Yes Dear by Mary Etta Metcalf
i chitter…i chatter… words…ideas come from my mouth changes i want to make…things i want to do together he sits…a befuddled look upon his face then says… yes dear our usual response now to keeping peace…yes dear his time approaches when he thinks i need a change in my life this should go here…that should […]
The River by Mark Olynyk
The River by Mark Olynyk in the river of ideas flowing in the data stream cascading in a sequence of logical links arriving at the principal belief experience an exponential growth of understanding the objective is the future forged by the outcome of choices founded on reason the primary motive anchors the system individual followers […]
Words Unspoken by Mark Olynyk
Words Unspoken by Mark Olynyk the art of words unspoken on the stage composing paper statements. poetic speculation selling dreams to paradise. a waxing moon passing over seasons witches hold a séance summoning ghosts. Atlas is sagging weighed down with regret. the joy of heroes diminished by sorrow a telling commentary on quixotic quests and […]
The Remains by Mark Strand
I empty myself of the names of others. I empty my pockets. I empty my shoes and leave them beside the road. At night I turn back the clocks; I open the family album and look at myself as a boy. What good does it do? The hours have done their job. I say my […]
Woman With Parasol by Martin Willitts Jr.
Woman With Parasol by Martin Willitts Jr. (Based on Claude Monet’s painting, “Woman with Parasol”) (The models for this painting were Camille Monet and Her Son Jean) I.The artist There is no hurry here. She has been standing like this, a parasol shading her from the sun so her skin does not turn leathery from […]
The Poetic Principle by Mark Olynyk
The Poetic Principle by Mark Olynyk I walking on the edge of a slice of life. cultivating words from a field of dreams. a cross section of experience provides the inspiration for productions in verse. letting loose a torrent of connections spilling on the page. a single drop is an atom of knowing. ideas on […]
Why Write? by Mark Olynyk
Why Write? by Mark Olynyk it is written writing is the great escape a craft of the intangible writing is a compulsion like a disease writing is free but still costs something writing is inhuman a necessary evil writing is fun the sum of all thought the writer in the social sense does not exist […]
The Other Side of Panic by Martina Reisz Newberry
The Other Side of Panic by Martina Reisz Newberry It begins with the desert’s hot sky, mendacious as always, alchemizing grief and loathing into love stories. Here is the other side of panic: a dug-in-deep lethargy that makes your marrow itch. Anyway, the desert underwrites your soul’s story. You become untethered from yourself which may […]
Where Have We All Gone by Mary Etta Metcalf
climbing the hill i reach the top…the view is so desolate i sit here contemplating the plight we all ignored to the end the demise occured when we took our surroundings for granted then i wonder where have we all gone i look around the empty skies and wonder…where are the birds the ones who […]
The joyful things in life by Martin Smith
I found out for shore just the other day, It’s a boy our baby boy is on his way. At 35 weeks and only 4 to go with all the excitement and joy my heart run’s with overflow. What more can i ask for out of life soon to be two beautiful kids and a […]
What is Poetry? by Mark Olynyk
What is Poetry? by Mark Olynyk poetry is like a fish trying to break the surface of the conscious. poetry is the language of the primitive speaking in tongues. a poetic philosophy is a belief in illusion and the power of poems. he had a history of poetry like an affliction or a virtue. a […]
The Frantic by Mark Miller
The Frantic by Mark Miller Glazed eyes betray masks hidden dwellers awareness Colors distortion follow behind actors lied performance Substance of emptiness gravely transforms presence in trance Identity’s in flux erects fragile panic a cognitive disturbance Vessels lot of absence, a vacuous state of emotional detachment Creeper of rose abasement seeks placement being embodiment incarnate […]
Wednesday by Marvin Bell
Wednesday by Marvin Bell Gray rainwater lay on the grass in the late afternoon. The carp lay on the bottom, resting, while dusk took shape in the form of the first stirrings of his hunger, and the trees, shorter and heavier, breathed heavily upward. Into this sodden, nourishing afternoon I emerged, partway toward a paycheck, […]
The End of the Argument by Martina Reisz Newberry
The End of the Argument by Martina Reisz Newberry Adam’s torso, it is said, was made from earth taken from Babylonia. That may be, but it’s all-fall-down time there now; it’s watch-out- the-sky’s-on-fire time. The burquas are burning, Ogals and gutrahs are birds escaping flames, escaping smoke and gunfire. Kaffiyeh fly as well, but not […]
To Sea by Martin Zakovski
Out at sea on a sailboat as winds stop to blow the small craft ceases to move and in the deserted expanse fishes provide us company they listen to our serious chatter and understand something is wrong unlike humans who are ignorant to all our tears and agonies I think I’ll spend my life here […]
The Dreadful Has Already Happened by Mark Strand
The relatives are leaning over, staring expectantly. They moisten their lips with their tongues. I can feel them urging me on. I hold the baby in the air. Heaps of broken bottles glitter in the sun. A small band is playing old fashioned marches. My mother is keeping time by stamping her foot. My father […]
To Dorothy by Marvin Bell
To Dorothy by Marvin Bell You are not beautiful, exactly. You are beautiful, inexactly. You let a weed grow by the mulberry And a mulberry grow by the house. So close, in the personal quiet Of a windy night, it brushes the wall And sweeps away the day till we sleep. A child said it, […]
The Dragon and The Unicorn by Mary Etta Metcalf
the dragon sat complacently looking at the unicorn as it grazed ‘tell me little unicorn how your golden horn upon your head doth work?’ raising its head chewing thoughtfully he finally turned to the dragon wisdom comes unto the dragon and the unicorn as they talk ‘a good question to ask oh mighty dragon but […]
They Thought Her Crazy by Mary Etta Metcalf
she danced around the room…a lonely figure in the dark dancing to a tune only she heard…only she wished for people would enter the room…shake their heads…then walk away they thought her crazy…only she knew it was them she had suffered much throughout her life…yet she was happy her world was full of kindness and […]
These Green-Going-to-Yellow by Marvin Bell
These Green-Going-to-Yellow by Marvin Bell This year, I’m raising the emotional ante, putting my face in the leaves to be stepped on, seeing myself among them, that is; that is, likening leaf-vein to artery, leaf to flesh, the passage of a leaf in autumn to the passage of autumn, branch-tip and winter spaces to possibilities, […]
The Last Wolf by Mary TallMountain
The last wolf hurried toward me through the ruined city and I heard his baying echoes down the steep smashed warrens of Montgomery Street and past the ruby-crowned highrises left standing their lighted elevators useless Passing the flicking red and green of traffic signals baying his way eastward in the mystery of his wild loping […]
The Homeless Man by Mary TallMountain
After I read I prop myself up on a book and try to write. Yesterday as I left the BART station I saw a man acting as if (as we say) at war with himself, commandeering without wit, the opposite staircase by the nightmare of his appearance. He rocked his knees up in the air […]
The Story Of Our Lives by Mark Strand
1 We are reading the story of our lives which takes place in a room. The room looks out on a street. There is no one there, no sound of anything. The tress are heavy with leaves, the parked cars never move. We keep turning the pages, hoping for something, something like mercy or change, […]
Telescope by Mark R Slaughter
Telescope by Mark R Slaughter Why? Frozen fingers fiddled on the focus Dew dripped Dark hindered Constellations laughed – Not least that I was daft – And made me wonder: “Why?” As nostrils dripped, charts rung damp, I tripped across the tripod, Swore – either that or cry! You’d HAVE to question: “Why?” The once-hot […]
The Self and the Mulberry by Marvin Bell
The Self and the Mulberry by Marvin Bell I wanted to see the self, so I looked at the mulberry. It had no trouble accepting its limits, yet defining and redefining a small area so that any shape was possible, any movement. It stayed put, but was part of all the air. I wanted to […]
Sunflowers by Martin Willitts Jr.
Sunflowers by Martin Willitts Jr. Based on the Van Gogh painting “Sunflowers” he made while waiting for Cezanne to join him I want to decorate my room with color from sunflowers that all I can imagine sharing the arbitrary orange and yellow I selected from the field of my imagination placed them on a table […]
The Room by Mark Strand
It is an old story, the way it happens sometimes in winter, sometimes not. The listener falls to sleep, the doors to the closets of his unhappiness open and into his room the misfortunes come — death by daybreak, death by nightfall, their wooden wings bruising the air, their shadows the spilled milk the world […]
Speaking the Language of Deer by Martin Willitts Jr.
Speaking the Language of Deer by Martin Willitts Jr. She heard a thumping sound behind her house, turned on the back porch light to a small herd of deer startled by the suddenness of light, frozen and indecisive as a letter of regret “don’t worry, it’s just me, I won’t harm you,” she coaxed, a […]
The River Has Its Memories by Mary Etta Metcalf
sitting on the shore of the river… i watch as the barges pass they travel in either directions with various destinations there is a calming affect upon me as soothing waves pass the river has its memories…as do i i think about what the river has seen…the secrets it holds as it slowly floats by […]
Some Say by Mark Miller
Some Say by Mark Miller We never know, Some say When time severs our earthly Glow Eminence of lively decay Obedience by radiate deviant Some say I was Relic’s relative rumination Of fanatic’s latent personification Lantern-jawed Some say I chose turn pose Savant’s defiance Polarized face tuned Grace Pernicious duality Some say I am Status […]
The River by Mark Olynyk
The River by Mark Olynyk in the river of ideas flowing in the data stream cascading in a sequence of logical links arriving at the principal belief experience an exponential growth of understanding the objective is the future forged by the outcome of choices founded on reason the primary motive anchors the system individual followers […]
So You Say by Mark Strand
It is all in the mind, you say, and has nothing to do with happiness. The coming of cold, the coming of heat, the mind has all the time in the world. You take my arm and say something will happen, something unusual for which we were always prepared, like the sun arriving after a […]
Slag by Mark Base
Slag by Mark Base Yesterday morning I woke up late, Lying in your bed, God, what a state. Too many drinks the night before; Stumbling out through your front door – I had fun, hope you had fun, too. I had to work and you were dead; Too many vodkas go to your head. Quickly […]
The Remains by Mark Strand
I empty myself of the names of others. I empty my pockets. I empty my shoes and leave them beside the road. At night I turn back the clocks; I open the family album and look at myself as a boy. What good does it do? The hours have done their job. I say my […]
The Poetic Principle by Mark Olynyk
The Poetic Principle by Mark Olynyk I walking on the edge of a slice of life. cultivating words from a field of dreams. a cross section of experience provides the inspiration for productions in verse. letting loose a torrent of connections spilling on the page. a single drop is an atom of knowing. ideas on […]