The Gypsy Sea Poems by Sterling Warner

Gypsy Sea

Sunrise: necks stretched out like hungry clams
lurch for the Ibuprofen emperor 
whose numb fingers wave loners to café chairs—
rivet them to sticky alligator seats, bottom sides 
textured with chewing gum madness; daydreams
pull life’s canopy over sand and foam,  
seasick tides lick each empowered undertow
sheer bag luck burlesques diffident efforts, 
tête-à-tête conversations revealing 
epiphany-like promises through opaque glass.

Nightfall: along the coastline, bonfires blaze
bodies gather, mouths breathe desire, minds re-imagine; 
moving between cosmic and material worlds,  
cleaving mustard greens like an armful of roses,  
a gypsy mystic dances like a whirling dervish
toe-ring magic fractures limestone bones   
unbrushed by feet for millennia 
bangle bracelets and silver cymbals rouse
ever vigilant, sleepy-eyed centurions
stand guard over her Technicolor Roma.

Sun-up: astronomical dawn signals nocturnal closure,
dancing legs and burning feet cease
rhythmically rocking shellfish strongholds;
dense auburn moss calmly spreads its way south  
wraps a tranquil riverbed in nature’s sheath
guides an Arabesque estuary toward a
salt water fiord, lateral moraine, where
nourished sediment dwellers burrow home
high tides pull ashes, bathe shorelines 
littered with seaweed, driftwood, memories.

Grace
For G. M.

Grace leaned against parked cars 
at midnight, full crow moon rays bathing 
her body in luminescent grandeur. 
Poised. Seductive. Her touch extended
over an embankment like sprouting 
foxtail seeds resemble ballerinas that float
on the breeze and hook into dog paws 

Fragile. Elastic. Insubstantial. Like bubbles 
blown from hoops that burst unpredictably, 
Grace’s rainbow brow sought barn owl benedictions
waved goodbye to the summer solstice
welcomed the autumnal equinox—a September song
that harvested her deeply planted thoughts 
and sowed them in fields of winter wheat.

Wind passed through cedar branches, eclipsed 
Grace’s mantra of green card foreboding 
added frivolity and enhanced shorter days
and nights both waiting for December
to push back twilight’s rays—scatter them
in the upper atmosphere—brighten evening skies 
warm Dawn’s fingers on the rising sun’s heels.  

Wistful Lulamaes
For Audrey Hepburn

Tiffany windows display silver platters 
reflect morning light like vintage mirrors 
as pedestrians hide behind Oliver Goldsmith sunglasses,
dressed to the nines like Holly Golightly
pose then study its Manhattan showcase framed 
by granite walls on Fifth Avenue & 57th Street.

Disguised as stylish escorts, men and women peer
through double-pane glass, appreciate excess & exotica 
in equal measure, ponder fleeting holographic images 
of John the Baptist’s head etched sterling trays
murmuring silent prophecies, portend gentle greatness 
& Big Apple panache for life beyond Sodom’s avenging angels. 

Truman Capote’s phantom emerges from Central Park shadows 
wears a white suit & hat, moves forward like a garden snail, 
maintains a two-block buffer, his high-pitched voice mingling 
with car horns & cabbies where rainbows end announces 
breakfast availability to Broadway street singers, Soho artists, 
moon river enthusiasts, New York tourists, huckleberry friends.

Magyar Sleeves

“The Colour of my soul is iron-grey and sad bats wheel about the steeple of my dreams.”
 									—Claude Debussy

Grooming themselves 
    like cats, bat pups clutch 
    onto their perch upside down, 
    loosen artistic digits  
    emerge from slumber 
    in hollow trees, cave mouths, 
    attic eves & rocky crevices.
From inverted roosts, 
    they drop into flight mode 
    as membrane covered forelimbs 
    navigate ultrasonic waves 
    & echolocation identify 
    evening canvases to paint 
    with wings like a brush & palette.
Moonlight colonies undercover 
    zig-zag through mist & gnat clouds,
    rising from depths of stone lined wells,
    leave watercolor portraits 
    during witching hours
    as children trick or treat 
    wearing bat capes & cowls.

 
 
 
 
An award-winning author, poet, and educator, Sterling Warner’s works have appeared in literary magazines, journals, and anthologies including Danse Macabre, Poetry Life and Times, Ekphrastic Review, and Sparks of Calliope. Warner’s collections of poetry include Rags and Feathers, Without Wheels, ShadowCat, Edges, Memento Mori: A Chapbook Redux, Serpent’s Tooth, Flytraps, and Cracks of Light: Pandemic Poetry & Fiction 2019-2022—as well as Masques: Flash Fiction & Short Stories. Currently, Warner writes, participates in “virtual” poetry readings, and enjoys retirement in Washington.
 

 
https://www.amazon.com/Cracks of Light: Pandemic Poetry & Fiction

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The Kingdom of Chaos Poems by Scott Thomas Outlar

Silver Primroses & Golden Strigiformes Planted by the Curb

Carrying your own 
          dead body
                back to its grave
      in a dream
                 then happening upon
          an expired owl
                              stricken & smashed
                        in the street

Ominous signs
        along Five Forks Trickum
            birth into
                patterns of indigo 
                                  & scarlet wildflowers
                       
Spirit animals
             taking a dive
       before rush hour fevers
                        commence
        
    learn to sip
              from the parched throat
        of roadkill brunch

eating the 
        organs
   of our own
               totem


Stomach Lining

I came to eat the lies you coin

and serve them back half bitter
across the divide of tables turned

I didn’t ask for this evil eye

it was forced down my throat from the jump
been begging for a bulimic leap ever since


Spells of the Stoic Pewter 

& I will
        set you (free) here
    to be made safe by the wizard / window
                                                 (fly, birdie)
               black obsidian
                     gray of mind & beard
             wise & dangerous
                     streaked/laced down the middle
                                    balanced of accord
                                           (harmony 
                                                  & likewise
                                               rhythm)

you are the melody of a soft glow


Lament of Prey

Hello to all the hawks
who have yet to have their fill,
& the vultures, too,
waiting for what’s left over.

Spoiled minds & spoiled hearts
lead to spoiled guts,
but it seems to be
that’s what nature intended
in this twisted realm
of divided time & space.

Dog eat dog
isn’t even the worst part;
it’s flesh unto flesh
in the fire.

Goodbye to all the dreams
that forgot how to conquer,
& the visions still
yet to crystallize in cancer.

Rotten bones & rotten marrow
flow in rotten rivers,
but that’s the taste
acidic blood delivers
when signs of sickness
flash neon & electric in the night.

Tail chase tail
isn’t the end of the story;
it’s a snake that never sheds
the fade to black.


Kingdom of Chaos

We don’t want your money,
just your soul
on a silver platter
served to order
for our warm feast
while we spit out your raw famine.

We don’t want your respect,
just your energy and time,
just your mind
numbed
to the frequency
of propagandized pestilence.

We don’t want your love,
just your heart
bled dry
as every vein
withers in the winter wind
while our chalice remains
ever full to the point of overflowing.

We don’t want your vote,
just your faith
that such a course of action
can actually influence
the order in which our puppets
dance to a song of chaos
upon the public stage.

We don’t want your salute,
just your obedience,
just your hands
kept where we can see them
while your feet continue marching
to the drumbeat of our wars.

We don’t want your laws,
just your land,
just your culture,
just your customs,
just your heritage,
just your traditions
snuffed out
beneath the global kingdom
collectivized
at our command. 

 
 

 
 
Scott Thomas Outlar is originally from Atlanta, Georgia. He now lives and writes in Frederick, Maryland. His work has been nominated multiple times for both the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. He guest-edited the Hope Anthology of Poetry from CultureCult Press as well as the 2019-2023 Western Voices editions of Setu Mag. He is the author of seven books, including Songs of a Dissident (2015), Abstract Visions of Light (2018), Of Sand and Sugar (2019), and Evermore (2021 – written with co-author Mihaela Melnic). Selections of his poetry have been translated and published in 14 languages. He has been a weekly contributor at Dissident Voice for the past nine years. More about Outlar’s work can be found at 17numa.com

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Earth Puzzle,St. Petersburg in January,You Celebrate Your Birthday While I Have a Religious Experience, 3 Poems by James Croal Jackson

Earth Puzzle


We think completing the jigsaw 
depicting Earth will complete us, but 
4 AM we float in half-consciousness,
hoping to realign our orbit, still aimed 
into vastness, a jumbled mess on the
floor. Even the dog snores. Earlier, 
Disco ran across our tarot cards, shuffling 
a wrangled meaning into fate. The Hermit. 
The Star. The Hanged Man. I try to string 
together half-correlations. I want to drink 
more. I open the window and inhale.
I look into the dark and wonder 
how we can piece it all together.


St. Petersburg in January


maybe it is not seeing-eye dogs training 
in the grass I pass or the street vendors
selling sunglasses tamales and watercolors
or the waves that touch a difficult nerve
which snap me into a more relaxed reality
or the toaster-oven croissant at the French
bakery on Ocean Avenue but the cranes
that lift off skyscrapers in the heavy wind
that make me want to punch real estate
developers in the jaw or somesuch non
sensical violence bear trap tourist trap
somewhat Floridaesque my happy life
on blast it is dynamite at a luxury
construction site this weekend


You Celebrate Your Birthday While I Have a Religious Experience


Learning how to swim– 
can’t say I haven’t
counted hours stars 
float in the night infinite 
darkness I cannot claim 
sanctity within us. You point
to Orion like a familiar
neighbor like I would point 
to a passing thought or ripple 
believing it significant 
as the moment passes. 

James Croal Jackson works in film production. His most recent chapbooks are Count Seeds With Me (Ethel Zine & Micro-Press, 2022) and Our Past Leaves (Kelsay Books, 2021). Recent poems are in Stirring, White Wall Review, and Vilas Avenue. He edits The Mantle Poetry from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. (jamescroaljackson.com)

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Mapplethorpe, Lethe, via crucis, Poems by Krystle Eilen

Mapplethorpe

after Robert Mapplethorpe’s Self Portrait, 1980

half youthful, half emaciated,

he reflects the epicene
and the languishing.

his head is all shock and flurry;
his mouth a toothless brevity.

half Madonna, half Antinous,

he reflects a decadent flower
both wilting and transcendent.

his eyes suggest a having seen,
two eternally startled interims.

a princely pauper
whose aspect reflects that of
a parched orchid culled
too soon.

published in Hive Avenue Literary Journal


Lethe

i am a winged thing flailing,
driven into my bovine body, and
back into my savage infant soul.

in the beginning, nature
conceived another deadweight,
and i find myself stillborn.

i am forever waiting to
open my welkin eyes
and outwit the brute.

i want the earth wrested from me;
i want no longer to acquiesce to
the stranglehold of gravity.

i am forever looking forward to
eclipsing the round
seared by fantasy.

published in Hive Avenue Literary Journal 


via crucis

            i.

to behold paradise
god must be heaved up,—
for to become seraph
is to gouge the eye out.

            ii.

always at one remove
is to be found divinity,
otherwise effaced
by twin identity.

            iii.

riven apart
by mimetic sparagmos,
man is condemned
to die on the cross.

            iv.

to shed the serpent’s skin
is but to reiterate its meander,
for conquest precedes
the bind of surrender. 

 
 

Krystle Eilen is a 22-year-old poet who is currently attending university. Her works have been featured in Dipity Literary Magazine, BlazeVOX, and Hive Avenue Literary Journal, and are soon to be published in The Orchards Poetry Journal and Young Ravens Literary Review. During her spare time, she enjoys reading and making art.

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Poetry. Five Sonnets from Richard Vallance

Keats on his deathbed, Joseph Severn

Image: Keats on his Deathbed. Artist Joseph Severn.

I saw a sparrow

for Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)

I saw a sparrow in the snow,
who hovered by a boy nearby;
It swayed a little to and fro,
small wonders they, small wonder why.

The boy, the flautist all alone
amidst the misty spruce around
where snow was so serenely sown,
played tremolo the fairest sound. 

The little sparrow lingered there,
the boy, the flautist of her soul;
Iʾll never tell wherever where
they warbled to attentive snow.

If anyone found a place so rare 
would there have been anyone there?
 

I found a soldier all too fair

for all the fallen in the war in the Ukraine

I found a soldier oh so fair,
an apparition in the vale;
oh there were reasons for despair
to see a face so ghastly pale.
 
I listened for the faintest breath,
a hint of colour on his lips,
but was confronted with a death
the setting sun could not eclipse.

I lingered there and wept a while;
the poppies seemed to mourn him too.
I heard a thunder from a mile,
where clouds assumed an ashen hew.

A wounded straggler passed me by;
oh how I feared he too would die!  


Listen oh listen!

Listen oh listen! ... the tanager trills!
... he arrays the blue spruce with feathers as light
as gossamer fronds the forest just thrills
to veil in his voice lost in the moonlight!
However whoever alights on this place
may find my tanagerʾs warbled refrains
leave en passant over teal leaves the trace
of whose emotions? ... whose tremolo strains?
Is this the rare moment April declares
the seasonʾs rife for my chanson, the song
the sunrise with cirrus so silently shares?
... only I, tanager, knew all along.
Were I the sole tanager of your desmesne,
well, Iʾd be voiced in your glass of champagne!


The poetry of Keats

Keats on his deathbed, Joseph Severn

John Keats on his death bed, by Joseph Severn

For W.T.

The poetry of Keats is replete with death:
an owl more ominous than a blue moon
had hooted sans merci til his final breath,
as he passed away in a fitful swoon
before the sky was flush with fading blue,
before ambrosial roses withered, strewn
before the autumn breeze all too wanly blew  
to the long-lost score of some mournful tune.
As if the nightingale could warble love
might I implore you if her song recalls
as quietly as would a cooing dove
our barren prayers before the wailing walls; 
  I too recall my all too cherished friend,
  who wasted away to an ill-timed end.


Huskies Mush!

I'll slide my sled from the frozen-in stream
towards the lake where snow rolls down me, blind;
me sled is all wedged in by me husky team,
whose hunger drives em wild with single mind.
They lunge, they'll lunge in vain. What? Can't break out.
Me lungs could bust with frost I'se just gulped in.
Me lips all blue, I'se stiff with icy doubt. 
Me dogs, all panicked, tangled, yelp chagrin;
I grits me teeth, jerk hard the sled, and hear
that cursed ice cave! “Come on! Bust loose!”, I yell,
“Mush!”, snaps the whip! Aw, we'se gotta break clear!
“We'se broken out!” Them huskies dash like hell.
Did we break loose? Those snapped up rapids yawn
behind us as we vanish, good as gone. 

 
 
 
 
Richard Vallance was a frequent contributor to the earlier issues of Poetry Life & Times, from 2001-2008, where several of his sonnets and rhymed poems appeared, and where he was the resident poetry critic of the Vallance Review, which featured reviews of sonnets and rhymed verse by some of the world’s most famous historical sonneteers and poets.
 
Richard Vallance has also been featured from time to time in more recent issues of Poetry Life & Times, Poetry Life and Times (artvilla.com), from 2012-2018.
 
He has also been published in several other international venues, among others: Decanto Poetry Magazine/Anthology (Sara Russell, ed.) – no longer in publication The Deronda Review, Neo/Victorian Cochlea, The Deronda Review – Home, Sonnetto Poesia ISSN 1705-4524 (25 quarterly issues) SEE:
Sonnetto poesia. | Bibliothèque et Archives Canada / Library and Archives Canada (worldcat.org)
 
Richard Vallance is also the Editor of a multilingual anthology of sonnets. The Phoenix Rising from the Ashes = Le Phenix Renaissant de Ses Cendres – Anthology of Sonnets of the Early Third Millennium = Anthologie de Sonnets a: Vallance, Editor-In-Chief Richard: 9781460217016: Books – Amazon.ca

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Where Have all the Fishes Gone?& Further Poems by Fabrice B. Poussin

Where Have all the Fishes Gone?

Sitting atop the cliff overlooking
the ocean vast
we hold one another
in awe of its innumerable mysteries.

The sun sets calmly for us
rises with deft determination
on the other side
of a blue horizon.

Not a sound
emerges from the deep waters
clean of all lives that once were
ancestors some say to our kin.

Where have they all gone
why extinct so soon into fossils
imprints per chance left in the stone
that tell of so distant an evolution.


Welcome to the World of Nice

The world nearly came to an absolute stop when
the wizard suddenly halted his incantations
the fires he had set ablaze reflecting upon his pale brow.

For centuries he had roamed the planet
a weathered wand in his mummified grip
his face oozing with the harm he could cause.

Another in a glorious evening grace
ambled like royalty among the populace
sizing each one of her kin as a victim.

Tall above armies of humble servants
she made them dependent of every whim
she might have dreamed up in her solitary chambers.

She too paused when the child cried
for this Amazon who had never known pain
her frame near collapse she let go of her aim.

The thousands assembled for what they expected
was to be yet a list of grievances and threats
looked in amazement at these meek creatures.

Never had a soul caught a glimpse of pain
in the eyes of those unforgiving executioners
until the tear of a child fell upon their feet.

The giants stepped down from the pedestal
greeted by embraces never imagined of those
who still bore the scars of their millennial tortures.

While the poor wake in a pool of chagrin
no one knew the few in satin and pearl
could weep and fall to the yoke of a babe.


Suffering to Rest

She can tell the throb will persist
Into a night of pleasant slumber
feeling a tug at her secret fibers.

Contemplating the past hours
when glee echoed through the halls
attempts to calm still fail.

Into a slanted mirror an image
seeks to smile at this solemn reflection
subdued by the numbing liquid of her pain.

Docile as with every passing dawn
something has changed in the blood
shed again upon the dusk of a precious hour.

Soon again she will share her pleasure
when the day’s memories turn to dust
and her flesh finds rest in the thin night.

Hard to Be 

Merely standing hands upon the wooden rails
staring into a background of dense forest
he might find rest on a Sunday’s morn’ when

his thoughts quickly move to the millions
like him who contemplate the world
considering how little they can see he holds 

a cup of a dark brew in hand, early smoke in the other
his desperation grows as he longs
for the visions others cannot share and

he imagines so many there with him
gazing into the same surroundings 
their perception so different from his he

considers the one who inspires him 
if only he could be within her as she takes all in
become an intimate part of who she is for

he feels so much missing from his being
lost smaller than a speck of minute dust
while an infinity of interpretations exists yet

only this microcosm of the infinite belongs to him
so insignificant as he must remain until at last
he might be freed from this temporary prison and

become like all those before him
a piece of the universal puzzle
the matter of all that is the cosmos. 


Feeling the sounds.

Upon a saunter as is his common dominion
he pushes through the brush of a dense forest
after the storm left its gentle coat
on every living thing like a shroud of life.

Nothing speaks, everything rests yet
awaiting reassurance that it is safe again to be
and he continues, puzzled by the uncanny silence
looking for a sign that all is well still.

And there it is, a murmur brushes against his flesh
an eerie sensation of sound, of sight
of scent, touch and even taste
from whence it is born he cannot tell.

It must be her at last in the late hour
since darkness will soon prevail
and she always visits him in his sleep
when his dreams become real as the present.

She surrounds him with an infinite coat
made with all a soul can endure
he hears the voice of her wholeness speak
without a word, but it is to be eternal. 

 
 

 
 
Fabrice B. Poussin teaches French and English at Shorter University. Author of novels and poetry, his work has appeared in Kestrel, Symposium, The Chimes, and many other magazines. His photography has been published in The Front Porch Review, the San Pedro River Review as well as other publications. Most recently, his collection “In Absentia,” was published in August 2021 with Silver Bow Publishing.
 
 
 

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Beyond the Limit & Tyne Cot. Ekphrastic Poems by Jan Theuninck

 

BIO:
Jan Theuninck (born 7 June 1954) is a Belgian painter and poet. Although born in ZonnebekeBelgium, and a native speaker of Dutch, he writes in French and occasionally English. His painting is abstract, falling somewhere between minimalism and monochrome expressionism.

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The Willow Tree Poems by Michael Lee Johnson


 
 

I Age (V2)

Arthritis and aging make it hard,
I walk gingerly, with a cane, and walk
slow, bent forward, fear threats,
falls, fear denouement─
I turn pages, my family albums
become a task.
But I can still bake and shake,
sugar cookies, sweet potato,
lemon meringue pies.
Alone, most of my time,
but never on Sundays,
friends and communion, 
United Church of Canada. 
I chug a few down,
love my Blonde Canadian Pale Ale,
Copenhagen long cut a pinch of snuff.
I can still dance the Boogie-woogie,
Lindy Hop in my living room,
with my nursing care home partner.
Aging has left me with youthful dimples, 
but few long-term promises.

 
 

 
 

Crypt in the Sky (V2)

Order me up,
no one knows
where this crypt in the sky
like a condo on the 5th floor
suite don’t sell me out
over the years;
please don’t bury me beneath 
this ground, don’t let me decay
inside my time pine casket.
Don’t let me burn to cremate
skull last to turn to ashes.
Treasure me high where no one goes,
no arms reach, stretch.
Building for the Centuries
then just let it fall.
These few precious dry bones
preserved for you, sealed in the cloud
no relocation is necessary,
no flowers need to be planted,
no dusting off that dust each year,
no sinners can reach this high.
Jesus’ heaven, Jesus’ sky.

Note:  Dedicated to the passing of beloved Katie Balaskas.

 
 

 
 

Priscilla, Let’s Dance (V2)

Priscilla, Puerto Rican songbird,
an island jungle dancer, Cuban heritage,
rare parrot, a singer survivor near extinction.
She sounds off on notes, music her
vocals hearing background bongos, 
piano keys, Cuban horns.
Quote the verse patterns,
quilt the pieces skirt bleeds,
then blend colors to light a tropical prism.
Steamy Salsa, a little twist, cha-cha-cha
dancing rhythms of passions, sacred these islands.
Everything she has is movement
tucked nice and tight but explosive.
She mimics these ancient sounds
showing her ribs, her naked body.
Her ex-lovers remain nightmares
pointed daggers, so criminal, so stereotyped.
Priscilla purifies her dreams with repentance.
She pours her heart out, everything
condensed to the bone, petite boobies,
cheap bras, flamboyant G-strings.
Her vocabulary is that of sin and Catholicism.
Island hurricanes form her own Jesus
slants of hail, detonate thunder,
the collapse of hell in her hands after midnight. 
Priscilla remains a background rabble-rouser,
almost remorseful, no apologies
to the counsel of Judas
wherever he hangs.

 
 

 
 

Willow Tree Poem (V2)

 Wind dancers
dancing to the
willow wind,
lance-shaped leaves
swaying right to left
all day long.
I’m depressed.
Birds hanging on-
bleaching feathers
out into
the sun.

 
 

 
 
Michael Lee Johnson lived ten years in Canada during the Vietnam era. Today he is a poet in the greater Chicagoland area, IL. He has 283 YouTube poetry videos. Michael Lee Johnson is an internationally published poet in 44 countries, a song lyricist, has several published poetry books, has been nominated for 6 Pushcart Prize awards, and 6 Best of the Net nominations. He is editor-in-chief of 3 poetry anthologies, all available on Amazon, and has several poetry books and chapbooks. He has over 453 published poems. Michael is the administrator of 6 Facebook Poetry groups. Member Illinois State Poetry Society: http://www.illinoispoets.org/

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