Peycho Kanev writes

Lonely Together

Morning light cuts through

the fading eyes of the night

Warmth hugs the trembling

green blades of grass

and again everything dance

the slow dance of life

I breathe slowly

Life is drained out of me

in a sea of bad memories

After a while I look up and

I start walking through the newborn

sunbeams filled with nostalgias

The plain opens up in front of me

with a sigh heavy with silence

I stride towards my dream

Light then darkness then light again

And then the center of it all where

nothing moves

Here I turn out the lights and cover

my self with a blanket of blank pages

with only one ink spot

Sherry Cummings paints

Poinsetta

Arlene Corwin writes

What Is There To Celebrate?

A thirty-first - December morn -

A last day December borne.

We should be dampened,

Unceasing happenings:

A planet shrinking, its news expanding;

Terrifying, shaming.

On this day folk play,

Light fireworks, eat heartily, get tipsy - pray.

With floods, tornadoes, wanderings unsolicited.

If one’s not deaf, dumb, blind one knows.

My very own food table

Weighed down to collapse;

Schnaps glasses ready at the go,

We’ll yell hooray at midnight,

Hug and kiss,

Cheer and dance,

Dressed in our best.

[I’m] just a bit embarrassed, yet

One must find something small thing to celebrate.

I have it! But it’s hard!

Work on the shitty sides of self.

Water daily flowers of your gifts.

Perhaps one can lift a marred

Two thousand sixteen. 

Ayoola Goodyness Olanrewaju writes

a step for a thousand dreams

i

and if i find willing hearts of soils
to plant the seedlings of these thoughts
and yet i build no house...

i shall still smile to the sun
for the mansions built in the inks of lines...

for the new world and the index of change
for the men whose doors shall welcome my words
for the expressions to the muteness of these lines...

i shall be grateful still
for the rare hearts who give their soils for my seedlings...

ii

and if these stones are yet to sing me lights
lights for my limes or my limes that need lights

i shall not like the manner of some
hide my lines in the hubs of hubris
where there is darkness and hurting silence...

i shall shine the teeth of these lines for meaning
whet the budding pen over the surfaces of shaping stones
i shall not despise stepping stones for expressions...

for these writings are not greedy chasers for fame
they are first and only for expressions...

iii

and if i find coats for the nakedness of my lines
to keep from the bellows of colds of silence of decay
and yet i am naked...

i shall still be grateful
for i would have shone brightness for hope
and painted beauty for the face of dreams...

that these voice maybe heard here and there
that these words may travel into the years of generations...

for a line not read is wretched
and someday, these words shall clothe me, riches.
.

Sirinya shoots

Bradley Mason Hamlin writes

Desire of a Man Too Drunk to Know He is Doomed

  

He

sits

at

his

desk

flicks

the

switch

listens

to

the

hum

of

the

Cannon

word

processor

takes

a

drink

begins

to

type

listens

to

the

machine

vibrating

gently

takes

a

drink

thinks about

not

thinking about

the

people

outside

doing

things.

In Solitary

1. SAMIZDAT*

 Writer’s craft: manacled to conviction 

           like any zek to his sentence, 

            like a blatnoi to a pen

: assaults its own position 

: like a gaybist missionary, assassinates its friends

  

: like any other virgin –

just another bloody period, 

and another conception ends.

2.  YOUR BODY TELLS THE HIGHWAYMAN

If prose is just a page running across your face, 

poetry is the line lying between your thighs.
 

Your body tells the highwayman’s short story life:

The drama of poems at the point of conception, 

but just one more hackneyed form in execution.

3.      LIFE/SENTENCE
 key in the cake –

(in music, truth hid?)

  

oh,

the poet’s prison is 

the rhythm of his

poem 

                        starved, 

                        scarred – 

he makes his

  

break

--Duane Vorhees 

 *inspired by Solzhenitsyn’s Gulag Archipelago

Brigitte Poirson writes

Africa Quadruple Acoustic

A frica’s F iery, R ational I nsanity C reates A fricA!

Fantabulous, a virgin whore, humanity’s better hal F,

Ravenously wielding mystically mystifying powe R,

Inseminating the aging world with her age-old geni I,

Chanting defiant dirges of dreary dearth in dire magi C,

A frica, F reakish, R iveting, I mmortal, C ures A fric A!

ApBob Mitchell shoots

chester giles writes

the cricket

there is a cricket which keeps coming into the kitchen at work
i hear him cricking in the morning when we open up
     so loud
its quite amazing.
filling the whole bar with noise
he comes in to sleep when it is closed
he frightens the waitress and pisses off the owner
then goes silent when you step near him
   and starts up again when you move.
i imagine him watching us all through the day
   while we are working,
 laughing to himself
aware of how much sound he can make
how much larger than his self and everything he can become
he is far wiser than i will ever be
 i imagine him slinking off when he has seen enough
 and laughed enough
    an
d it is safe.
all that noise in the morning.
   its quite amazing
it makes me smile to myself.

 

Kurt Vonnegut says

I sometimes wondered what the use of any of the arts was. The best thing I could come up with was what I call the canary in the coal mine theory of the arts. This theory says that artists are useful to society because they are so sensitive. They are super-sensitive. They keel over like canaries in poison coal mines long before more robust types realize that there is any danger whatsoever.

David Norris writes

Part I: Night Rain

With predatory velocity speeding through the night

Heat-seeking, warm, alive, breathing, moist

Swollen and glistening in the moonlit rain's light

Steps taken, the stolen moments, reflections of life

Swept by long waves and the ways she sways

Both seeking one another in the night, in the rain

Hilary D Zamora writes and draws

"The holiday season can be very bipolar. The range of feelings during this time of year are mixed depending on the individual and their circumstances.

There exists the feeling of division, sadness, and loss, which for a lot of people can cause the season to have a negative connotation. On the other hand, there are those who have ultimate happiness; those who have true cause to celebrate, spending time with their family, repeating traditions, and ultimately feeling fulfilled and light-hearted. Lastly, there is a mixed emotion, one of happiness and gratefulness for what one does have, creating new traditions and making the best of what they have, trying their best to push forward even if the loss exists.

However, all of these feelings can exist within oneself. Sometimes the person who seems the most cheerful, is wearing a mask, in an attempt to benefit those around them. Others can't pull off that facade and the sadness shows drastically most of the time. And for those who fall in the middle, those that experience both happiness and sorrow, they are left in limbo. For me personally, I feel a combination of apathy, guilt, pain, and the chore of trying to pull off a positive outlook in order to not let my feelings, my truth, drag those around me down with me". ~Hilary D Zamora

Abel Iseyen Ancientman writes

WHO RUINED US?
 
Who dried our river's source

That many households are now

Dying of thirst?

Who caused this drought that

Many farmlands are now clothed

With life-less garments?

Who caused this famine that

Tombs now take over our land? 

They're the rapacious opportunists,

Devoid of wisdom and reason;

The temeranous myopias who

Mistake nightfall for daylight;

Hamate rhetorics, possessors of

Milky lips -

Whose words melt the hearts in thousands,

Even in tens of thousands; 

They're the enemies of the state,

Whose pens kill faster than nuclear weapons;

Delilahs of our time, betraying

Trust for pieces of silver...

They're the power-drunks,

The descendants of Judas, the Iscariot.

Men of no virtue,

Slaves to greed and coins

Whose footprints are a malediction

To those who follow them. 

They're the wind of sorrow

Ravaging all households beyond repair;

They're the bad omens in disguise -

Drying our purse to nadir point... 

But where do we start from

When we are already out of crops?

Heather Jephcott writes

The Gift of Christmas

Open up my eyes, dear Lord

and the eyes of those around me,

to see, to truly see

the beauty of the gift

that cannot be surpassed.

Open up my heart, dear Lord

and the hearts of those around me

to feel, to truly feel

the joy of the gift

that has no equal in wonder.

Open up my mind, dear Lord

and the minds of those around me

to understand, truly comprehend

the value of the gift

that cannot be bought.

Open up my spirit, dear Lord

and the spirits of those around me

to receive, then to share

the life of the gift

that cannot be extinguished.

Christmas 2015

A new epoch dawned

dividing history

into before and after.

Grace entered in a new way,

the light of the world,

the creator of the Universe,

to become the one and only Saviour.

The one who had always existed

came into the world he had made

as a human,

born a baby.

The wonder of the event

woke heaven's choirs

a host of angels singing, praising,

but most people were sleeping.

His lowly birth was revealed

to just a few

but these moved as fast as they could

to see this one,

the very special miracle baby.

There has been no other birth

in any way resembling this one.

This is not a made up story

but history, His Story.

The Old Bigamist's First Family

ex-wife Kim Chaeryung, grandson Saejer, (some guy who only shows up around Christmastime), daughter Jinna, daughter Sarubia, Duane

The Old Bigamist's Second Family

Duane, Orh, Mandalay

Dorin Popa writes

PROEM
 
I forgot to tell you that I do exist
I know this will seem dreadful, dreadful to you
but – forgive me forgive me forgive me! –
it was much later that I found this out

long after you had left

Alex Krivtsov shoots

Heather Jephcott writes

Sweet Nothings

Sweet nothings

drizzling

through the outer shell

passing leisurely

via imperceptible cracks

finding their mark

eventually

Sweet nothings 

aromatic 

sprayed freely 

the droplets tenderly placed 

at magical intervals 

scented with enchantment 

harmoniously braided 

with soft, pure, caresses

Sweet nothings 

accepted 

with delight, 

liberally given 

shared, tasting, 

enjoying together 

a two way repast 

served to knit hearts closer, 

ever nearer