Friday, July 29, 2022

Friday, July 29, 2022: Cynthia Linville's poems " Valley Fire" and "Fire Season"

 Valley Fire

(September 2016)


We are the last

to set foot in this house,

the last

to sleep in this bed,

to see these green trees.


After we shut this door

and turn this key,

all evaporates into

ash and stone,

into memory.


Originally published in Redshift 4 Anthology

By Arroyo Seco Press 2020




Fire Season


August, season of reversals,

blows the year’s ashes

on a hot wind


August lets the past slip in, 

shadows a bright day

with the pieces that are missing


August reminds you

of the price you to have to pay 

for just about everything


reminds you that love

can leave you 

unprotected


August lies to you

hides the heart of the fire

behind the smoke


© 2022 Cynthia Linville





Cynthia Linville has received three mini-grants from Poets & Writers and often performs her work in collaboration with musicians. Her poetry has appeared in many publications and several anthologies. Her two books of poems, The Lost Thing and Out of Reach, are available from Cold River Press. Linville served as Managing Editor of Convergence: an online journal of poetry and art from 2008-2018, and she has taught in the English Department at California State University, Sacramento since 2000. See more of her work at CynthiaLinville.com


Tuesday, July 26, 2022

Tuesday, July 26, 2022: Maria Arana's poem "I Am an Elephant"

 


I Am an Elephant

 

I cry for the departed

when I cross their slain

carcasses on the road

of our ancestors

 

I trumpet loud

octagons in the sky

so the offspring

find a way out from loss

 

I stomp on broken soil

in happy thoughts

for our land is small

and our heart is strong

 

I wave for hours

until my voice is heard

and my skin is taut

in the abyss of men


© 2022 Maria A. Arana






Maria A. Arana is a teacher, writer, poet, and editor. Her poetry has been published in various journals including Spectrum, The Gonzo Press, and fevers of the mind. You can find her at https://twitter.com/m_a_Arana and https://aranaeditingservices.com

Friday, July 22, 2022

Friday, July 22, 2022: Rose Mary Boehm's poem "Leaving Home"

 Leaving Home


The next morning we’d have to take the ferry

from Dover. The next morning I’d have to say

goodbye to my kids. The next morning

could wait.


In the old Cornwall pub,

Newcastle Steam Beer flowed freely, and Paula

fell in love with Paul. Not that anything happened,

mind you. It was just a spark that made

the hairs on my arms stand up.

Paul had a girlfriend,

Paula a husband.


The next morning was far away. But, eventually,

they called ‘Time’. And we all moseyed off. 

Paula and I to my car. We had to get to London that 

night. The next morning… oh, well, you’ve heard

that one by now. Heavy, drunk and my heart in knots

I made it from Cornwall to London in just over

three hours on angel wings, consciously not exceeding

the speed limit for fear they may stop me

and smell the Newcastle Steam Beer.


We got to my house.

We fell into our beds.

We slept. 


We had all the stuff ready to go, and the morning

happened, that's what mornings do. We loaded

the car, I didn't see much.

I don’t remember whether the kids

let me kiss them. I hope they did.

I think I waved goodbye.


© 2022 Rose Mary Boehm






Rose Mary Boehm is a German-born British national living and writing in Lima, Peru. Her poetry has been published widely in mostly US poetry reviews (online and print). She was twice nominated for a Pushcart. Her fifth poetry collection, Do Oceans Have Underwater Borders, will be published by Kelsay Books at any moment now. https://www.rose-mary-boehm-poet.com/

Tuesday, July 19, 2022

Tuesday, July 19. 2022: Gabriella Garofalo's poem "Untitled"


Gossake, light, give ‘em some slack,

Let rocks spring, and water see for herself-

While you are at it, my light, go get 

Some nice answers, and throw ‘em ‘round-

Know what? A wannabe Amazon was her mother,

She a dead ashes’ daughter, that girl, yes,

Stranded all over God’s blue land,

Where she madly wishes for blades of light, 

Are they God’s fingers? - 

But blind stares she gets, 

Fallen stars the sky’s eager to bin-

Hey man, hold on! You still falling for those fibs? 

Gosh Blimey, it’s just fake news, 

See, only the nights are real, those tools

Great for the henchmen

Snared in sweet saintly limbs-

Shame they sting worse than crabs,

Shame we get ‘em blessings ‘n’ food-

And where are words in this whole shebang?

Oh, yes, words, Adam and Eve in the garden,

A nice thingie, sure, the magical touches at the end-

Point is, God, I’m afraid you went bit rogue

When giving them limbs and edges-

And see you what’s happening?

Some lost side shambles losing out,

While Medea gets nothing but her bastard heart,

My name, of course, or a dying woman 

Hyped on benny, the nutty lady

The nutty lady who’s gonna get her shot:

Fire or jinx?

Nope, only a demure girl who hides 

Behind too many clouds-

Sometimes your mother, sometimes the moon.


                                     *******




Sure, the dance happens 

When our blue meadows start dashing,

And hurling ‘round dried fields like mad, 

The green our souls kept digging in-

While only crows stand still, 

A murder of crows waiting to be wolfed down, 

Scant spoils, yes, those crows-

God, why don’t you let me 

Throw to heaven

Your desert plains, and infinite waste? 

See, just them, the missing, the lost, 

When in my harsh light they slake

My thirst, my fire, then shine to grim days,

Or motherly limbs

Weaker than the bread they dig in-

Sure you’ll end up starving, my folks,

‘Cause loss yields light from soul to silence

To soul, so please play your desire,

Maybe some prayers- 

Don’t you call them desire?

And yes, blue, percussive, reckless

Summer blows razes your mind-

Look, why do you crash ‘em so young?

Green-eyed for a dispersed time,

The sap flowing through blades of grass,

Or the sour taste of sins?

C’mon, my soul, ambush your light,

Don’t get too close, I know,

It looks so nice,

So blue at wintertime,

The renegade witch who in stabs and bites 

Forwards your birth to heaven-

Drop it if it hustles you to the darkest curtains,

In darkest eyes it will shine, c’mon, now,

No time to waste, those red apples

Look so sweet, right? 

But he shuns them and never reaches the stars,

Might get ‘em wrong, you know,

As, I kid you not, they’re not stars,

Only obsessions gorging on your mind-

And you beware, kiddos and dahling mums,

No fuss, no muss, see that scrawny lady?

She’s sipping her Coke, so comfy in her deck-chair-

Maybe the eternity. 

And maybe she asks’ Why didn’t you morph

Into a yellow flame? ‘

Yes, that silent light, the keeper of my soul-

Nature inside, I beyond any climax,

And many summers of my drowning mother, 

My Caliban-

While I shaking all over,

My Light.


© 2022 Gabriella Garafolo








Born in Italy some decades ago, Gabriella Garofalo fell in love with the English language at six, started writing poems (in Italian) at six and is the author of Lo sguardo di Orfeo; L’inverno di vetro; Di altre stelle polari; Casa di erba, ;Blue Branches, and A Blue Soul.

Friday, July 15, 2022

Friday, July 15, 2022: Fay L. Loomis's poems "Treading Balmy Liquid" and "Last Storyteller"

 




Treading Balmy Liquid

brain dissolved

unable to remember 


what day it is

what pills to take


a stroke

another heart attack


do the British thing

stay calm, carry on




Last Storyteller

do not search for what you’ve lost

says the Last Storyteller

speak of small tokens of love


soft kiss on the cheek

strawberries plucked from your garden

book I am almost certain you will like

a walk in the forest, bonded by silence

belly-laugh jokes that lighten our spirit 

a call through the ethers to my heart


© 2022 Fay Loomis


Bio: Fay L. Loomis lives in the woods in Kerhonkson, New York. A member of the Stone Ridge Library Writers and Rat’s Ass Review Workshop, her poetry and prose appear in numerous publications. A stroke, combined with the pandemic, have woven quietude into Fay’s life.


Tuesday, July 12, 2022

Tuesday, July 12, 2022: Alegria Imperial's poem "Surrender"






Surrender

On her lens a pair of wild weeds swayed from a rock
by the edge of the lake blooming tips brushing as if in light kisses 
a moving oneness that flashed at me. 

On the scrabble board back home I set the letter “s” for “surrender”. 
“Tell me how,” she had asked. My answer, like waves folding 
 onto each other these: 

The way flowers let the wind play on weakness touching but not breaking 
a kind of touch that instructs bees on gentleness—a kiss that leaves no mark—
that glues the heart, the way the mind pulls threads off words 

let gather from winds bowers of leaves a nest for globules of light. 
Name the globules love the way wind blows out the light the way darkness 
kneads itself to make love real, the way night lets the wind sought 

a kind of song that shreds the light, clouds the heart the way the 
wind tempts the dawn. Grit not tears fractures sight the way the wind lets dust 
ride, whispering words the way some words run into verses to crack the bolts 

that quarantine lovers unleashing them to surrender to flee to bloom, the 
way the weed pair lets the wind swing lash at them, the way they flex together 
how like love could stay possible where it isn’t, musn’t. 

 
(First published in Many Windows, 2011 Magnapoets Anthology Series 4, 
Edited by Aurora Antonovic)


© 2022 Alegria Imperial





A former journalist in the Philippines, Alegria graduated with a degree of Literature in Journalism. Her discovery of haiku decades later, started her writing short Japanese poetry forms. Her works have since been widely published in international journals and anthologies with some gaining awards. Her three e-chapbook collections of contemporary haiku and monoku (one-line) poems can be accessed at The Haiku Foundation’s Digital Library. She immigrated to Canada 14 years ago, where she now lives. 





Friday, July 8, 2022

Friday, July 8, 2022: Three Works of Art by Irina Tall

                                                              © 2022 Irina Tall


 

© 2022 Irina Tall




                                                                © 2022 Irina Tall



     "Drawing began to interest me from an early age, the first subjects for me were Fantastic birds and animals. By my first education I am an art critic (State Academy of Slavic Cultures), by my second I am a graphic designer (MGTA).
     The main techniques that I use are watercolor, ink, gouache, acrylic. I love experimenting and mixing different materials. I draw a lot on environmental topics. The first big series that I drew is the "Red Book" dedicated to rare and endangered species of animals and birds.
     I do illustrations, invent various creatures and stories for them, draw nature and portraits. I like to do the whole line drawings, forming the composition first in my head. I am inspired by baroque music and black and white films. Recently, I have been leaning more and more towards symbolism."


My other works can be viewed at the link:

Tuesday, July 5, 2022

Tuesday, July 5, 2022: Amelie Frank's poems: "My Love as a Mannerist Painting" and "Elegant Universe"



My Love as a Mannerist Painting

January 2, 2022

No deposition

No embrocation of limbs and loin

No lachrymal traces cooling on the zygoma

No lips to brow

No, suffering’s over now

No arms but to release and commend to the ascent


© 2022 Amélie Frank



Elegant Universe


I never did find out what you thought 

when I spoke of the aftertaste of

the astral particles you left on my lips. 

You were angry when I spoke,

too angry to feel the

fluttering in my chest, the expanding 

irregular galaxy of the of the left ventricle

when she became a sphere,

an apple, a nova, a ticking metal shield 

pinging your name in contraction.

That was two years ago.

That was the last poem for a while.


Such are these kisses we find

so hard to pin down in tin turns

riparian residue at the bottoms of hopeful pans.

When our lips share a common

point they are never quite coplanar,

more the nervous waves in filament

that mark the neon grids

that never quite hold their shape long enough 

before collapsing into Lichtenstein

into the end of the war

into the watchworks of your amygdala 

into an eruption of tropical origami cranes

into those two hawks glancing off the thermals

before our very eyes that afternoon.


How can you say to me that you are not beautiful

when you are the sunlight bending in

17 different angles through the leaded stained glass;

when you are the homecoming, the sugar-shell peck

on the lips, when you are the lower half of

Spiderman's mask as Mary Jane peels it both up and down

before vestiges of the Persid storm

like tear salts on the lower rim of her mouth

find their opposite polarity in him?

It has always been nothing but impossible geometries,

mind-blowing footage of a circle that becomes

a scroll effect, a vortex that might hold martinis,

a parallelogram of wishing, a trick of dimensions

you can visualize while I cannot because your mind

is all numbers, machine language with a good head of hair,

and I am just the four sleeping chambers, the breath,

the gush, the amplexing of two primary colors,

the next breath, a Pantone swatch

of everything and nothing.


How can you say to me that you are not beautiful

when your eyes contain the glint of delight

carried through generations of the boys of your tribe;

when the tragicomic dualities of your face are seeded into

the family helix alongside survival, genius, and

possibly light espionage; when the desert shades

of your skin radiate heat, duty, fatherhood,

and the longing for silence, for proximity to water,

for the reassuring hiss of the seas

as they receive newborn alloys,

molten, perhaps even extraterrestrial?


So much beauty there.

So much of the microcosm that coats

my tongue when your name pauses there to rest.

So much of the three small lizards that Escher

drew into our path that afternoon,

like you, their skins indelibly beaded with so much life

like you, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful.


© 2022 Amélie Frank




Bio: Amélie Frank has authored five poetry collections. Her work has appeared in Art/Life, Lummox, So Luminous the Wildflowers, Poeticdiversity, Sparring with Beatnik Ghosts, Levure Litérraire, Poetry Superhighway, Cultural Weekly, Wide Awake, 1001 Knights, Blue Arc West, Edgar Allan Poet, A Month of Sundays, and Voices From Leimert Park Redux. She has featured at Poetry in Motion, BackStory, Sparring with Beatnik Ghosts, the NoHo Literary Crawl, Library Girl, Inspiration House, MOMA, LACMA, even Hooters Café. Beyond Baroque Literary/Arts Center and the cities of Venice and Los Angeles have honored her activism and leadership in the Southern California poetry community.