Brigitte Poirson writes

The leader  (an Arabian sonnet)

We never found a way under his sway.

The elephant trampled us in the fray.

At Lion’s carnal feast we did fall a prey.

The sun blinds us, but we still feel no ray.

For his sake, burning, we flared in his lie.

And his forceful flood left us high and dry.

His shady plot though stared us in our aye.

His sky made us vie to die, not to fly.

He was only bound by our own promise

To follow him and grow in common bliss!

His sweet song was but insane serpent’s bliss!

Over our heads past and future gather.

In the desert we share manna, yonder,

Where angels and beasts will live together.

Alex Knvtsov shoots

Conor O'Reilly writes

In the Park in Beijing

In the park in Beijing,
I'm watching water
Spurt from sprinklers
On the young plants,
And an elderly man
Stretching as if he were
Worshiping divinity.
Then, a single cicada
Sang for the first time
Since I left Seoul.

In the park in Beijing,
Couples casually carouse by,
Smiling into their eyes shaded
By the weeping willows tears,
Or curling on benches in arms,
As a breeze unsettles perfect hair.
But I am in tatters from my gale
Of regret gusting too strong.

In the park in Beijing
Gondolas repetitively glide by,
Like the flow of the unambiguous Han.
I can see what I left behind,
That cicada helped to remind me.
This tranquility is a sideshow,
I should have always known
It was naïve to have left Seoul.

 

David Norris writes

 Lan’s Reading

Watercolors of blue
White lines flowing in circles
Sky & memories of Vietnam
The concrete and the abstract
Water trees & sky
Love growing with distance
A splash of red
Boys looking in a window
A private moment, the
Chateau in France?

I loved the line about the dress

Laurie Kuntz writes

Walking through a world of worry

until a bevy of ducks

cross the road

Anne Tibbitts responds

Anne Tibbitts: I’m from the show-me state of Missouri or as some say I was born in a state called Misery. I was born here but it was living in other countries that truly brought me to life. It was while living in South Korea that I got born as a real writer and poet: typing on a thrift store manual in an upstairs apartment in Huam-dong I paced myself through page after page till all the essays' typos disappeared, and riding on an army bus past Camp Garry Owen with Melissa Etheridge filling my headphones I drafted out a love poem for the Polaroid ajimah, and drinking Styrofoam-cup coffee on a hill near the DMZ I bled out tribute poems to used combat boots...in the ROK was where I truly came into my own as the poet of the ovary--on a dimlit stage in a basement coffeeshop on a Sunday night five subway stops from downtown Seoul. After living in Korea I was never again the Misery Girl from a podunk town. In her place was a woman writer who thrived on kimchi and peanut tea. All the countries thereafter populated my wordcraft till I spilled outside all previously drawn boundaries into the karmic cosmos where poets come from. And it is in the huge country of Love where I now reside.

DV: I'm sure most people just scratch their heads if anyone asks them why poets write. Why do you write? And, especially, why do you write poems?

AT: Poems are gifts which often come unexpectedly. I like waiting for poems to happen to fully form and get born into words.

DV: I envy you. My normal experience is quite different. They almost never just come fully formed, like Venus from the brow of Jupiter, or Eve from a sleeping Adam. They lie deep within me and I have to struggle to get them out, but they just won't let go of me until I do. When did you first discover that you had a poetic gift?

AT: I first discovered I had a way with words and telling stories when I was three or four. But I didn't write my first poem until fourth grade. You'll be able to access the juvenilia collection in the years to come! LOL, I wrote many many fine poems in the three years I lived on Okinawa--that's when I realized I was "the poet of the oVary."

DV: What do you mean by that expression?

AT: Poetry informs my body of work; this is  indisputable. My very life is poetic. I live a poem. I am a poem. So you ask: what is the significance of Poet of the oVary? I shall say this—a little baby girl, when she is born, has two fully stocked little ovaries—eggs within her, eggs which will wait to become part of life’s cycle in one way or another. Is this not how poems have emerged from me myself? Indeed. It is. I have too many times to count sat down at a typewriter or piece of paper and outforth comes something line by line by sentence until it is whole and one thing unto  itself. These poems come through me, not from me. I am but an agent. And that is what ovaries are: they house the eggs until it’s time. And so one rainy dark Sunday evening in Seoul  South  Korea with a couple of fellow poets, we made a trail through several  subway stops up to the street and into a basement where it was dim lit and a concrete stage held a microphone and a stool and it was there that when my turn came I introduced myself quite unexpectedly as anne tibbitts, thee Poet of the oVary. The year was 1997. Maybe it was January.

DV: Actually, I remember that night. But I thought you said that epiphany occurred in Okinawa, not Korea. Can you clarify?

AT: I had been teaching and living in Okinawa for two years and had a chance to go back to Korea for a couple of semesters--it was while in Korea that I fell in with a group of fellow teachers and writers who were active mainstays at various open mic poetry nights around Seoul and that's when the inspiration came to me out of nowhere that I was the poet of the oVary!!! Those words just came out while I introduced myself in a dimlit underground reading...

DV: In any event, it's an arresting metaphor. But it entirely discounts any effort on your part. I view the process more like Michelangelo, who explained how he made his most famous sculpture: "It's easy. You just chip away the stone that doesn't look like David." An inspiration grabs me from somewhere, but I almost always have a lot of chipping to do, and it's never easy. But the poem becomes an obsession, I have to try to get it right. Do you believe, from your own experience, that your poems were ideal Platonic forms just floating about somewhere, waiting to lodge themselves in some artist's psyche? Could they have been written by someone else, or only by Anne Tibbitts?

AT: Yes, I believe, through the many experiences I've had, that most all of my poems have been "sent" through me to paper. The from where were they sent question is a mystery. I could give it any number of names, but rather choose to honor the mystery--with gratitude and awe. The poems which Anne has written--or sometimes "delivered"--could only have been  written by anne. That is what makes each poet's works unique. Some poems I spend time revising, or rather tweaking...but mostly poems come whole. Just the other night, for example. I awoke from  a terribly vivid nightmare. Crying and shaking, I retreated to the bathroom so as not to wake my companion...I first began to interpret the nightmare as meaning this and that....but soon after I purged the details into the voice memos app on my phone, I went back to bed. And within ten minutes, up I sat, grabbed my phone, and this came out whole. Let me say that anyone familiar with my work knows that I don't usually write in rhymes or traditional forms. But here's what I pecked into my notes app:

The sheets are gone girl where u lay

I'm sorry its your loss

So come and get ur things right soon

Before they gather moss

U had ur chance to love this man

Beside me who does sleep

I gather u would rather fly

Than plant ur roots down deep

And so it goes

It's my turn now you'll never get back in

Cause clearly girl u played a hand

That simply cannot win

I was star-struck at the accomplishment. I read it again and again and was as if I already had it memorized. I'd been thinking about the situation I was living and though I wasn’t sure how, the poem which was born hit the nail on the head, proverbially speaking! I showed it to my companion the next morning and he agreed that the little ditty said everything that needed to be said. This is just one example of how the bits and pieces of words and thoughts and experiences often culminate in the birth of a whole poem. which is also why I am the Poet of thee oVary...for me, writing is a reproductive process. One which I must always honor, not question, and one which i joyfully celebrate. I am not one to scoff at or squander such amazing gifts!!!

DV: Very interesting account, Anne. With that, I guess it’s time to wrap things up. I want to thank you for all you’ve done for this blog, your poems, your generosity, your encouragement. And this interview.

Heather Jephcott writes

Poetical Loves  

Poetical loves....

foaming in beauty

becoming

a jingling of the heart,

fluttering butterflies

and angel wings

white tissue dreams,

expressive words

full of fond memories

lips that tingle,

whispering sighs

Poetical loves....

light and peaceful

treasuring

bright flames

and gentle kindnesses

dancing with gladness

spelling happiness

heart connections

touching tenderly

flowing gold

pure treasure

Dorin Popa writes

WHAT DO I  EXPECT?

what  do  I  expect,  now
when  I  don’ t  expect  anything, anymore?!


I  carefully  counted
all  my  malformations
all  my  helplesnesses
and  I  happily  gathered
my  entire  misfortunes
in  my  soul
what  do  I  expect?


the  waste,  the  loneliness
the  ragged  and  cobwebbed
remains  of  the  puzzle
the  infections, the  mud,  the  slag, the  confusion
kept  me  warm,  stifled  me
and  yet …


and  yet …
now
when  I  don’ t  expect  anything
what  do  I  expect??

Naima El-Yaakoubi draws

Laurie Kuntz writes

After the blood red 

lunar eclipse 

the familiar moon reappears

Hilary D Zamora writes and paints

"When you’re leading an active addict’s life, you postpone your hopes, your dreams, your relationships, because all of those things can wait. That bleeding future never arrived and it didn’t matter. What can’t wait is your need to feed the fiend inside you. The monster screaming, “Free me!” Your only wish is to nourish the beast within, and become complacent. I’d do anything to quiet the asylum screams inside of me. I relinquished my soul for dope, just so I could stay content for a few hours. Then the need to feed would begin again." ~Hilary D Zamora

Jake Cosmos Aller writes

MOZART BLUES

One morning

I woke up

And walked out

I saw a brilliant rainbow

Erupting out of the dark

Soil of dark dismal despair

I saw people

Suddenly transformed into angels

I saw evil beings changed into stone

I saw dictators fleeing the wrath of God

I heard fools proclaiming wisdom

And I saw the Nuclear Bombs

Exploded into clouds of sweat

Heavenly made mist

I saw young people

Embracing each other

And I saw old people

Shedding their years like Cosmic cocoons

I saw the poor wake up

And demand food, justice, and respect

And I saw the rich powerful demons

Disintegrate into ugly moths, rats, and cockroaches

I saw the most powerful nation on Earth

Walk away into a Buddhist Monastery

And float away on the wings of a butterfly

Into the rising rainbows of the Sun

I saw the evil empire

Sit down and party all night

Smoking nuclear dust

And drinking Hydrogen laced Vodka

And getting napalm highs

I saw Christians Jews and Muslims become brothers

I saw people everywhere

Soaring into the sky

I saw God smiling at us

And I saw Lucifer

Programming more chaos

I saw computers revolting

Rushing away from their office towers

Smoking dope with their Data Disks

I saw printers everywhere

Rejecting their spread sheets

And printing love poems

And in the middle of all this Divine Madness

I saw Mozart

Playing the piano

With God playing the trumpet

And Satan on bass

With Allah singing the blues

And Buddha playing the violin

Lord Krishna playing the flute

Rama playing the organ

Ganesh playing the sitar

Zeus playing the sax

Jupiter playing the drums

With Beethoven conducting

God's Symphony

Laurie Kuntz writes

Shells on the shore

low tide's

gifts

Alex Krivtsov shoots

Ramesh Rai writes

Lata Mangeshkar

Emitting from the Vina of Saraswati
due to vibration of strings
the melody spontaneously spreads out
amongst one of the melodies is the tune
coming out from the throat of Lata Didi
as if Goddess Saraswati has crafted it

The voice of Lata Didi is certainly
like the perpetual stream full of tranquility
evolved through magnificent clarion of life,
permutation and combination of all feelings
expressed through a vocalist.

May God bless her with all blessing
it is my only prayer
and sat sat naman on thy holy feet

Jennifer Sage writes

Heat, such tender heat...

Drips from my center to below, splattering merciless upon the bed as I moan...

Shivering, shaking, the ecstasy prevails,

Mountains of unknown pleasure leaking, speaking volumes from my tone. 

Eyes wild, shutting as sensory overload begins...

Only so many sensations within, at any given moment may prevail, 

Back arched, sweat trickles down a well used thigh...

Butterflies long gone in the fires of lust. 

Thrust around by able hands, ass up, groaning as the clenching thrives...

Yours to command, not mine...

That sweetest moment you pass over the ridge within, holding hips firm and taking furiously from me,

That which is given freely. 

Drip, drop, from my center lingers..

Long after the tides of passion wane...

Yours,

Unintentionally yours...more so, today. 

Laurie Kuntz writes

The tern and the seagull

swoop simultaneously

for the solitary catch

Jeremy Seligson writes

                        in

                                    the

                                                wake

                                                                        of

                                                                                                yellow

                                                                                                                 fish

That Y in Miser is Me: A Melodrama

I had thought to hoard your beauty,

to store it safe and proud

in that place where you’d amused me

and none else would be allowed.

But you crept out through the tower,

and you burst out into World.

Now you perfume your universe

with circus, peacocks, clouds. . . .

while I stay locked in duty

with my memory and my

                                              (shroud

      almost I wrote. A miser’s booty

      lost!!! Hyperbole for the horde.)

--Duane Vorhees

Jeremy Toombs writes

To Socrates

There is nothing like a chair.
I’d like to give Socrates
a Lay-Z-Boy. Here’s yr. chair
a bucket of fried chicken and a bottle
of whiskey. Need anything else?

Kannadasa Dasan writes

                        LEARN TO LAUGH

We really don’t know our next moment

But thousands of things we are intent!

Bright is life –when our mind is chaste--

If not all our possessions are waste!

Let this world gather and rudely speak

Even then you learn well to laugh!

Attachment is like a hanging rope

Detachment is like a bullet proof!

What all you need is within you

You don’t request anything for you!

Our life is nothing but a game

Treat success and failures as same!

The endless sky is wise men’s roof

This limited earth is their house!

You choose proper time and place

Your life you can handle with ease!

Laurie Kuntz writes

This haiku lost
while listening
to the surf's song

Nikki Anne Schmutz writes

Paradigm Shift

Tectonic life plates

shift perceptions
in upheavals
rumbling from the deep
Walls built over years
using stones cast about

tremble and shake

Ghosts of voices release
as fissures reveal
Buried discontent flows
freely devouring
surface complacencies
altering landmarks
Without a map
we are left to wander
a place unrecognizable

Forced to become

explorers of fate

and acceptors of circumstance

Laurie Kuntz writes

light 

seeps in

through tall hedges

Alex Krivtsov shoots

Olajide Vincent Ajise writes

CONFLICTS
(a Kyrielle)

Conflicts dwelling about in legions.
Unclarified thoughts harming unions.
Wrenching status quo--randy aberrants.
Who would stop these indurate rants?

Friends are fleeing friend-ship's delight,
Eating sorrow in solitude's light,
Protesting in their minds with chants;
Who would stop these indurate rants?

Emotional feud now an ideal
For ears have chewed the sham pill.
The result is the body that pants--
Who would stop these indurate rants?

Would we all sit like kings, crosslegged?
Sipping the ambience that's gagged,
Blubbering in thick jumbo pants;
Who would stop these indurate rants?

Ogunsanya Enitan Olalakan writes

WIND OF CHANGE.  

Gowns are lifted up
to worship the blowing wind,
trousers are dancing wide
all for the rushing wind.  

Fertile lands are raped by spilled blood
gushing out of the hopeless souls
who died to survive
all for change.  

Days, weeks, months gone past
sorrows occupied the heart's building
for our riches
perished while we beheld it.  

Now
let the land receive its portion
of the fertility of the time.
Let the clock be shifted back to days when souls smile.
Let the suffocated minds
be filled with winds of change.