The poets read their work in “Life, Books and Songs”, which took place in Casa Colombiana, Leeds, on 30 March 2017. Antonio introduces poems in English and Spanish, some of them from his book “Los viajes de Diosa” (2015) (The Travels of Goddess). https://www.facebook.com/losviajesded… Robin Ouzman Hislop reads extracts from “All the Babble of the Souk” (2016), written in Spain, England and Morocco. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2…
They do not bless the rose but the thorns
hanging over her portrait
tonight in your gallery of squalor,
your face hidden by chiaroscuro
blemishes from a performer’s life:
Oh those wrinkles & shriveled crevices
Now adorn the snake’s mottled skin
a thousand fingers brusquely trip
the malice of broken bones over
your elusive figure the drum sways
thinking of all those closeted skeletons
third world victims rise from gravestones
To dance at the Rock concert for peace
& a justice they never got living
in humanity’s truncated evolution.
Their dusty clothing reeks of decay,
little children hold noses watching
this massive dance of desperation
As Tove Lo sings them finally to sleep
the night watchman rubs his eyes
while cleaning crews grimly vacuum
the lost sounds of silent bodies,
the peaceful concert now
forever over, at last.
— Peter Magliocco writes from Las Vegas, Nevada, where he occasionally edits the lit-zine ART:MAG. His speculative sci-fi novel The Burgher of Virtual Eden is now available in all the usual places.
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Key of Mist. Guadalupe Grande.Translated.Amparo Arróspide.Robin Ouzman Hislop
goodreads.com/author/show/Robin Ouzman Hislop
http://www.aquillrelle.com/authorrobin.htm
http://www.amazon.com. All the Babble of the Souk. Robin Ouzman Hislop
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https://www.amazon.com/author/robinouzmanhislop
This is where i have come to dine.
Postmortem hanging on the menu.
A plenipotentiary of the services of worms.
Hot chitter chatter
Of stern looking trolls, pervade the enclave.
They belched after a meal of death.
Yawned and belched again, a fever in Yiddish.
Gazed at me, a clandestine intruder.
No chatter of humans, but muted conversations
Of mouthless ghosts.
Gastric acid running at the guts.
Then I knew it was the wrong company.
Eddie Awusi is a published poet from Delta state of Nigeria. He has been published in numerous magazines and anthologies. The latest being Dandelion In A Vase of Roses.
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Key of Mist. Guadalupe Grande.Translated.Amparo Arróspide.Robin Ouzman Hislop
goodreads.com/author/show/Robin Ouzman Hislop
http://www.aquillrelle.com/authorrobin.htm
http://www.amazon.com. All the Babble of the Souk. Robin Ouzman Hislop
www.lulu.com. All the Babble of the Souk. Robin Ouzman Hislop
https://www.amazon.com/author/robinouzmanhislop
Rudderless boat
Butcher, Baker, Prostitute, LLC
Should a storm wash them ashore
Deserted island,
At least they’ll all have someone to eat.
The flies demand their lord,
Though a lady will do just as well
So long as her promi$e$
Ring true enough
And their multi-eyed glare she can meet.
The boat leaks
The three try to plug the holes
Try to keep it afloat
For this island Earth
Needs them powder-dry and smelling sweet.
The land they came from
Is the land of their fathers
And mother Liberty is growing smaller
As they float off in their Sea of Words
And fill the holes until one will die in the heat,
One will die of deceit,
And one will rule over the flies.
Bio: Michael Griffith began writing poetry after a life-changing injury as a way for his spirit to heal as his body recuperated. His poems have appeared in Haiku Journal, Dual Coast Poetry, and Ripen the Page, as well as other online journals. He resides in central NJ. https://michaelgriffithwordpress.wordpress.com/
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Key of Mist. Guadalupe Grande.Translated.Amparo Arróspide.Robin Ouzman Hislop
goodreads.com/author/show/Robin Ouzman Hislop
http://www.aquillrelle.com/authorrobin.htm
http://www.amazon.com. All the Babble of the Souk. Robin Ouzman Hislop
www.lulu.com. All the Babble of the Souk. Robin Ouzman Hislop
https://www.amazon.com/author/robinouzmanhislop
SNOW MAKES THE MAD GIRL ALMOST SUICIDAL
how it glazes,
seals what’s a stain
in like dirt under poly
so each foot print upstairs
glides over scars. The
cold drifts, makes a
maze of walks, tunnels
where knives could be
pointed like icicles over
the door way. No ballet
dancer with electric
pointed shoes, or a tutu
of fleece could warm
her. So slippery, her ankle
snaps while in the night
diesel trucks collide
with over turned 12
wheelers under her hair,
their undersides twitching
in smoke like zapped wasps
SNOW MAKES THE MAD GIRL SUICIDAL
gerrymandering what’s slippery into space she can’t
avoid, every part of her’s a junkie going
cold turkey, starved for heat. She shakes, a
blue spreads over her. She dreams
of bougainvillea, gardenia, figs. White’s
the color bandages, diapers, feet of the dead.
She wants jades, tourmalines, sapphires, rubies
jags of flame and teal, a gypsy swirl, castanets.
No more colorless dirge of snow burying, disguising,
but heat, a jungle rain where skin smells like
skin and locusts hum toward dawn, a gladiolus
wind, thighs luminous as bones dipped in
tinsel and glitter
SNOW MAKES THE MAD GIRL SUICIDAL
fangs of ice, too cold
for even blues to breathe.
White suffocates, a town
buried behind her wrists.
Roofs collapse, cars under
mounds like bodies the
ground was too hard to dig
into left on battlefields.
Ice crystals freeze in the air,
a halo of edges, a tilt to one
side, a falling into the daze,
into the flare of light as
glass splatters, could
blind her for good
SNOW MAKES THE MAD GIRL SUICIDAL
possibilities, freeze dried,
zapped, trapped like crystals
poisonous as HIV virus twisted
to a halo. She moves and it
moves with her, a too heavy
cologne heavy as guilt. Ease,
already frayed, freezes in the
shape of splinters. She feels
that brittle, feels herself running
toward a fire only her feet are
glued to glass. She’s a spun glass
rose bud vase in the car for days
hot water is poured into and
she cracks
SNOW MAKES THE MAD GIRL SUICIDAL
isolates, a moat of
colorlessness, barb
wire of ice. She tried
to pull from the house
of cold, but the cold
seers, burns where
she’s pressed. Scars.
The snow terrifies.
Where she stands,
too slippery to hold
her and the roof’s
about to bury her in
bed, catch her screams
like lips in lava
Lyn Lifshin has published over 140 books and chapbooks and edited three anthologies of women’s writing including Tangled Vines that stayed in print 20 years. She has several books from Black Sparrow books. Her web site, www.lynlifshin.com shows the variety of her work from the equine books, The Licorice Daughter: My Year with Ruffian and Barbaro: Beyond Brokenness to recent books about dance: Ballroom, Knife Edge and Absinthe: The Tango Poems. Other new books include For the Roses, poems for Joni Mitchell, All The Poets Who Touched Me; A Girl goes Into The Woods; Malala, Tangled as the Alphabet: The Istanbul Poems. Also just out: Secretariat: The Red Freak, The Miracle; Malala and Luminous Women: Enheducanna, Scheherazade and Nefertiti. web site: www.lynlifshin.com
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Key of Mist. Guadalupe Grande.Translated.Amparo Arróspide.Robin Ouzman Hislop
goodreads.com/author/show/Robin Ouzman Hislop
http://www.aquillrelle.com/authorrobin.htm
http://www.amazon.com. All the Babble of the Souk. Robin Ouzman Hislop
www.lulu.com. All the Babble of the Souk. Robin Ouzman Hislop
https://www.amazon.com/author/robinouzmanhislop
We live in such a strange
and unkind world.
Where you can stand
beside a thousand people
but feel completely invisible.
Where a cold shiny screen
can make you feel close to
those who are far away,
but make you feel far away
to those who are closer.
Where conversation turns
into text, relationships are
just a status and friendship
a rivalry.
Where we live to work
and not work to live.
Where people are like zombies
staring at their phones and
completely ignoring all that
happens around them.
Where you can take a picture of
food while ignoring an image
of a starving child.
Where Family turns into strangers
and strangers into family.
This world is falling apart
under our own feet
Full of hatred but empty of love.
Welcome to the 21st Century,
where technology has
surpassed humanity.
(Initially published on Tuck Magazine)
Bio: Blanca Alicia Garza is from Las Vegas, Nevada. She is a nature and animal lover, and enjoys spending time writing. Some of her poems are published in the Poetry Anthology, “Moonlight Dreamers of Yellow Haze”, now available at Amazon.com. Blanca’s published work can be viewed at The Poet Community, Whispers, The Winamop Journal, Indiana Voice Journal, Tuck Magazine, Scarlet Leaf Review as well as Birdsong Anthology 2016, Vol 1.
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Key of Mist. Guadalupe Grande.Translated.Amparo Arróspide.Robin Ouzman Hislop
goodreads.com/author/show/Robin Ouzman Hislop
http://www.aquillrelle.com/authorrobin.htm
http://www.amazon.com. All the Babble of the Souk. Robin Ouzman Hislop
www.lulu.com. All the Babble of the Souk. Robin Ouzman Hislop
https://www.amazon.com/author/robinouzmanhislop
Poet, editor and translator Robin Ouzman Hislop will recite poems from his volume “All the babble of the Souk” (2016, Aquillrelle) and from “La llave de niebla” (Litterae Calambur, 2003)-, a book by Spanish writer Guadalupe Grande translated into English by himself and Amparo Arróspide, “Key of mist” (2016, Aquillrelle).
Poet Antonio Martínez Arboleda will read Grande’s original poems in Spanish as well as his own poems in Spanish from “Los viajes de Diosa” -“The travels of Goddess”- (2015 Diego Marín) and from various publications in English.
After an interval, the Leeds band “The Blacksocks” will play a dozen of songs, including “Take us”, “Mañana”, “Lágrimas negras” and “Monsters of Pop”. The Blacksocks are Dave Hall (vocals), Pete Denton (guitar), Deryk Isherwood (drums), Len Forbes (guitar) and Antonio Martínez Arboleda (bass).
Editors note:This video was recorded at the Casa Colombiana Restaurant Leeds UK in May 2017 on its upstairs floor, unfortunately a little white noise permeates the backround from the diners below – but lets say it all adds to the joi de vive. it will also feature in the YouTube Poets TV Pilot project to be edited & published by Sara L Russell.
Tony Martin-Woods started to write poetry in 2012, at the age of 43, driven by his political indignation. That same year he also set in motion Poesía Indignada (Transforming with Poetry), an online publication of political poetry that he edits. Tony is a political and artistic activist who explores the digital component of our lives as a means to support critical human empowerment. He is also known in the UK for his work as an academic and educator under his non-literary name. He writes in English and Spanish and has published his first volume of poetry Los viajes de Diosa (The Travels of Goddess) 2016.
GUADALUPE GRANDE
Madrid, 1965.
She has written the following books of poetry: El libro de Lilit (1995), La llave de niebla (2003), Mapas de cera (2006) and Hotel para erizos (2010).
She has been translated into French in the book Métier de crhysalide (translation by Drothèe Suarez and Juliette Gheerbrant (2010) and into Italian, in the volume Mestiere senza crisalide (translation by Raffaella Marzano (2015). She made the selection and translation of La aldea de sal (2009), an anthology of Brazilian poet Lêdo Ivo, together with poet Juan Carlos Mestre.
Her creative work extends to the territory of photography and visual poetry.http://guadalupegrande.blogspot.com.es/
Amparo Arróspide (Argentina) has published five poetry collections: Presencia en el Misterio, Mosaicos bajo la hiedra, Alucinación en dos actos y algunos poemas, Pañuelos de usar y tirar and En el oído del viento, as well as poems, short stories and articles on literature and films in anthologies and international magazines. She has translated authors such as Francisca Aguirre, Javier Díaz Gil, Luis Fores and José Antonio Pamies into English, together with Robin Ouzman Hislop, who she worked with for a period as co-editor of Poetry Life and Times, a Webzine. Her translations into Spanish of Margaret Atwood (Morning in the Burned House), James Stephens (Irish Fairy Tales) and Mia Couto (Vinte e Zinco) are in the course of being published, as well as her two poetry collections Hormigas en diáspora and Jacuzzi. She takes part in festivals, recently Transforming with Poetry (Leeds) and Centro de Poesía José Hierro (Getafe).
Robin Ouzman Hislop is on line Editor Poetry Life & Times, his recent publications include Voices without Borders Volume 1 (USA), Cold Mountain Review (Appalachian University, N.Carolina), The Poetic Bond Volumes, Phoenix Rising from the Ashes (an international anthology of sonnets) and The Honest Ulsterman. His last publications are a volume of collected poems All the Babble of the Souk & Key of Mist, a translation from Spanish of the poems by the Spanish poetess Guadalupe Grande, both are published by Aquillrelle.com and available at all main online tributaries. For further information about these publications with reviews and comments see Author Robin..
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Key of Mist. Guadalupe Grande.Translated.Amparo Arróspide.Robin Ouzman Hislop
goodreads.com/author/show/Robin Ouzman Hislop
http://www.aquillrelle.com/authorrobin.htm
http://www.amazon.com. All the Babble of the Souk. Robin Ouzman Hislop
www.lulu.com. All the Babble of the Souk. Robin Ouzman Hislop
https://www.amazon.com/author/robinouzmanhislop
Editor’s Note: Brian Batchelor is a prisoner serving a life sentence without parole, his poem Dear Voyage was First Prize in the 2015 Pen America Prison Writing Competion. The original website where this poem appears is also included below together with further information & Bio.
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Key of Mist. Guadalupe Grande.Translated.Amparo Arróspide.Robin Ouzman Hislop
goodreads.com/author/show/Robin Ouzman Hislop
http://www.aquillrelle.com/authorrobin.htm
http://www.amazon.com. All the Babble of the Souk. Robin Ouzman Hislop
www.lulu.com. All the Babble of the Souk. Robin Ouzman Hislop
https://www.amazon.com/author/robinouzmanhislop