Cameo In Deed – A Metric Poem by Sochukwu Ivye

Poet: Sochukwu Ivye
 
Bio: Sochukwu Ivye is a linguistic stylistician, a rhythmist and a distinctive metrist. A final-year student of English Language and Literature, he is particularly interested in English Language (as opposed to English Literature) topics. His work, The Great Cold, an epic poem, is the longest metrical poem by an African. Sochukwu hails from Isseke, an ancient Igbo town in Eastern Nigeria.
 
 
Editor’s remark: this work makes for a very long read, strictly for the connoisseurs.
 
 
 
Books in deed define your pet name for you

I well brook them for their station quite true

Do you make one thing of such depictions?

I see but made-up scenes lived like fictions

A well penned note, a far-famed actor’s role

or a gemstone, books outline, not your soul

My soul shall not rest boneless for its child,

your pet name, led and captured in the wild

Even if moments with you calmed me more

they left me, each time, with a heart of sore

Now, I should not learn why on our first day

my poor spirit caught cold under your sway

I could have seen what was in store for me,

but blindfolded, my eyes were not thus free

My mind is fraught with memories unclean,

like a frenzied boy’s eyes caught at a scene

I write to sweep my breast of your pictures,

and breathe thus freshly, eluding strictures

I should let all these saunter past my grasp

but they would dwell in me till my last gasp

As one of those all-youthful twilights came,

with mates, I sat and eased on all the same

The abrupt wind which threw in your figure

might have not longed to assess my vigour

I had found most of the street’s best ladies

I knew most but could win none or maybes

A call came; my heart and eyes led my legs,

and I went for you, although to some dregs

It did seem that I had made one cute move,

but if hours, days and years, after did prove

I heard none else, but listened for your ‘yes’

I was the leopard; you seemed as harmless

I led the thought that I had seen some gold

and beat the past, but there was the untold

There were times my feet even cried in pain

They had to take me to you, though, in vain

The first years nursed me like a newly born

Who would evoke the tales of the lovelorn?

Nothing felt frightful about how hearts halt

But, O heartache! Into wounds, you rub salt

Signs cried out to me; my senses sat numb

Omens played in my eyes; I just grew dumb

What would destroy my soul arose on time

You took no time to divulge this love-crime

How to meet your heart turned to my worry

If some thoughts met my mind, I was sorry

My warmth with you was a style of worship

To lure mates, the female display courtship

Everybody will say, “Some date themselves”

Well, who spare any hearts on any shelves?

My poise was fate-doomed: I left other girls

but because you dressed like a lot of pearls

I saw you when, at some girls else, I looked

in that all my care and lust you had hooked

My long search for the one came to an end,

but would fetch a verse I had never penned

A certain affaire caught our breaths to fare,

but no man who saw tomorrow would dare

I had to walk through some muddy love life

believing that such would win one the wife

You toyed with my rest and sullied my face,

thus that I could not lead myself with grace

Civil linguists say: no schwa, no triphthong

To merit a four-faced, what was my wrong?

My mates kept us and adorned your image,

because they were hopeful of our marriage

Friends at work, school and on the internet

did honour my Miss World and her vignette

All who wished me ill did not want you well

They won, to have met my right woman fell

You did cradle their traps to bring me down

How would I see but roam, about, a clown?

Whose only lover stabs them from behind?

Indulge me, how do they like the cut, blind?

One overreached oneself if one’s ship sank

as did mine, a short distance past the bank

I had once more begun to thrive, it seemed:

all my vows to you I could score redeemed

You well noticed how and lauded my nerve

but the base of your mind laid your reserve

To tag me new, my past knew less passion

but this foul-souled lust lent a new fashion

Your plots I did foil with some selfless acts

May I applaud your grins that read impacts

If you confessed your doubts about dating

you found me hungry for your love, waiting

I served kind judgement in will and in deed,

but saw not when I would bewail my breed

You did have my skin to breed some itches

and my waking brow to wear more stitches

I hoped that my silence smelt of most men

To your requests, my deeds echoed: Amen

You were well at it while you called me dad,

your longing and rightfully yours. How sad!

My groping heart did head for your kindred

Could it meet them in one year or hundred?

My nightmares unmasked overhanging ills,

but you dismissed them as offensive chills

To your dream men I took you, like a bridge

Who misreads you cannot repulse a midge

Except behind closed eyes, I was not yours

Until you felt hurt, past me shut your doors

You felt faceless to show me to your peers;

quick eyes saw: I was the prey all the years

I came out thus strongly despite your plots

to confess the fact: we must brave our lots

Do I miss your hugs I once scored faithful?

Or, your burning brow I did weigh graceful?

Now, for my blindness that still beheld love,

I must watch to tell the hawk from the dove

Now that yours of all lives is led four-faced,

who would still run into your likes in haste?

The eyes that see you have known a Judas

and must give heed to a snake in the grass

Knowledge is might but I loathe this lesson

Yet through you, my inner might did lessen

How you could sift nothing but rip my trust,

and ask to have it again, struck me trussed

I did pledge my trust, and met all my words;

your still small voice did fly away with birds

You had not come to plant or mend fences,

but to steal my heart and numb my senses

That ours was unknown to your confidants

blew me as my encounters with your aunts

We had struck as one, but you posed alone

scratching for wooers, moving on your own

We named our unborn, having built a home

An abode solely of steel, glass and chrome

Who builds a home and for a lifetime plans,

with a woman who does refuse her hands?

Fate struck me moneyless to clear my eyes

I saw one yet nailed downwardly crosswise

I was the one. Who could have believed all?

You did not stand me but fashioned my fall

To have dug my pit and feigned innocence,

you did shear me in deed of my sixth sense

I sought your face while I missed my wallet

If you feigned love, amounts left my pocket

Think that my ageing parent laid her health,

so that you would be with me, all by stealth

She peddled things to get me some money

You kept all and more. Were taps so runny?

If mom’s and my head abandoned your heft

you well did in deed not deem them so deft

My good mother, the marrow for my bones;

she dared all, just to build up my hormones

My eyes and mind were tried by some devil

I could not strive through but, weakly, revel

In your chasteness, the acts you titled fuss

you observed with your boys but denied us

You relished to hear but truths but well lied

You extolled me as meek but fed your pride

Your yes was but yes and your no sheer no

because your heart was a rock in the snow

I did most days bear guilts, could you ever?

All bent knees were mine, as you felt clever

The venom you fed me became some soup

Breaking out of us could not feign a swoop

I incurred more ache when you feigned pity

and shook at your plots sticking thus gritty

When I had smelt myself trapped in a maze

time past time failed me to defeat my craze

You were almost done with your fell intents

when you could pay no heed to my laments

I saw no hope as your heart failed to shake

I held my heart soft and faint for more ache

I watched us turn to walkway souls, quickly

All my labour forthwith crushed, thus sickly

I had marked the last of my love times past

but had yet to vanquish the spells you cast

Of the most foul-souled, the most silent are

If I was ruined, who would breed a memoir?

You chose Janus’ month to cast me to rout

but my God of doorways could lead me out

Could ceasing one’s life taste like a refuge?

The practice yet finds me as then and huge

I should gulp some drinks and submit inert

but something struck my dying deeply hurt

I saw my mother’s book of days half closed

In front of my heart, her face in tears posed

The dead parts of me made out of my form;

they stuck in wait for my breath to conform

Nothing else held the rest of me but mom’s

Her rheum of distress fell like barrel bombs

Had my landlord’s daughter not run to help,

who anywhere would take heed of my yelp?

Chika had but sought to succour my plight;

the whole of me, her nearness would ignite

I did predict that she would seize your seat;

having smelt your place, she called it a feat

Once again, my soul did meet one so loose

but she found me in your filth thus profuse

She would fall for a soul with no such work

and not when she had known many a quirk

She thought that I should not let you away;

I knew that she would see better, someday

She copied your looks and copied your gait

Not for her use; she is mirthful, but straight

How much more anguish did I have to feel?

Which suicide chart had I more to conceal?

For your foulness, what other grants had I?

Was there something else I did have to try?

Except you feigned them expecting returns

you had no care, but cast my balm to burns

I thought to myself that I had less strength,

if I could keep a sweetheart at arm’s length

I wondered what could render me thus foul

and shorn of wits, but now at myself scowl

I considered how tides would flow and ebb

Drowned in ill hopes, I was caught in a web

How you robbed me of my faith and reason

but filled your boys’ would rout any treason

It shook me while your voice within lay stiff

You must have killed her to enjoy your skiff

If I outlive these days, meet some soul else,

but like her less, shall we say our farewells?

While I pray that the well esteemed forgives

I fear that my scared soul beyond now lives

The leopard now mourns his meeting a linx

I could not see myself pull through this jinx

May all who follow closely mark your mode

and how you wrecked my spirits and abode

All that learn from the price that I have paid

shall meet the oncoming days, better made

I have loved. All who come after may watch

He that may wear love, my case is a swatch

Should I grow feeble and slump at this crux

all must deny more blood such state of flux

If anything slits my soul, some shame does

And through the space, I see but a dim fuzz

I howl in deed to think on these things ours

but placate my spent spirit, bearing flowers

How you could hurt and soothe like Cassio,

Shakespeare knew not the name as Cameo

Of your foul likes, our era should be cleared

to keep many from the collapse well feared

Your followers would with you be punished,

if they kept not from your path all-banished

Reap your will, get fat and gain all the world

From vivid eyes, bear your intent well furled

Win your admired and let his heart no crack

but then, may our days at no time turn back

May your breed never again know my heart,

whilst I bunch up my fragments flung apart.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Robin Ouzman Hislop is Editor of Poetry Life and Times at Artvilla.com ; his publications include
 
All the Babble of the Souk , Cartoon Molecules, Next Arrivals and Moon Selected Audio Textual Poems, collected poems, as well as translation of Guadalupe Grande´s La llave de niebla, as Key of Mist and the recently published Tesserae , a translation of Carmen Crespo´s Teselas.
 
You may visit Aquillrelle.com/Author Robin Ouzman Hislop about author. See Robin performing his work Performance (University of Leeds)

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Sanitizer & Truth As A Pair Of Underwear – 2 Poems by Kushal Poddar

Sanitizer
 
The woman holds ‘This Area Has Been
Sanitized’, forgets to put it down.
The man wears a plague mask.
The woman’s one has an abstract.
 
A train leaves platform Seven somewhere.
I mean I do not know why I hear the track,
announcements, people rushing, waning,
gone, when nowhere near the restaurant
a station says Welcome and Goodbye at the same time.
 
Time uses the restroom. Piss looks like its blood-work.
The woman orders a salad that has everything
not devoured by the locusts. The man desires an ocean.
A waiter who keeps his distance shakes his head,
“That’s been banned from circulation since
they tested the fishmonger and found positive.

I use the fluids from my eyes to wash my hands.
More it stings more it feels decontaminated.
 
Truth As A Pair Of Underwear
 
“Truth be my underwear.”, she says
and slips out of her pairs;
silence stands by the rain
swollen window frame, naked;
the comforter feels wet as if
humidity too lacks any apparel.
 
I mistake the moon for a black cat;
moaning season, scratches on the wood,
aunt Helen goes missing albeit her medicine
remains as a reminder to the old age.
 
Truth, sniffed by this pervert, seems a
long forest lone black woman snakes into
when a white truck chases her.
I mistake silence for a tall tree; leaves rustling
a song only one who sold her soul can sing.
 
 
 

 
 
Kushal Poddar
 
Short bio-
 
Editor of ‘Words Surfacing’.
 
Authored ‘The Circus Came To My Island’, ‘A Place For Your Ghost Animals’, ‘Understanding The Neighborhood’, ‘Scratches Within’, ‘Kleptomaniac’s Book of Unoriginal Poems’, ‘Eternity Restoration Project- Selected and New Poems‘ and ‘Herding My Thoughts To The Slaughterhouse-A Prequel’. Find and follow him https://www.amazon.com/Kushal-Poddar
 
Robin Ouzman Hislop is Editor of Poetry Life and Times at Artvilla.com ; his publications include
 
All the Babble of the Souk , Cartoon Molecules, Next Arrivals and Moon Selected Audio Textual Poems, collected poems, as well as translation of Guadalupe Grande´s La llave de niebla, as Key of Mist and the recently published Tesserae , a translation of Carmen Crespo´s Teselas.
 
You may visit Aquillrelle.com/Author Robin Ouzman Hislop about author. See Robin performing his work Performance (University of Leeds)

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The Lines are in turning mode. A Poem by Pijush Kanti Deb

Spondylotic Lines
stand face to face
keeping their eyes and hearts open
as if
they intent to intersect one another
touching
the epi-center of their pain and gain
assuming
the Sun and the other ancillaries are still
happy to be blind.
Alas!
Why the other Lines are not visible?
Why the equi-lines are repulsive?
The dreadful disease
keeps all the individual Lines
in turning mode
enabling them to watch only
the ever-hanging tongues
of their own flexible pencils.
 

 
Biography — Pijush Kanti Deb is an Indian poet more than 30with0 published poems published in more than 100 potry magazines and journals world -wide. Beneath the Shadow of a White Pigeon is his only poetry collection. He is an Associate Professor in Economics in Nagaland (India).
 
 
 
 
 
 
Robin Ouzman Hislop is Editor of Poetry Life and Times at Artvilla.com ; his publications include
 
All the Babble of the Souk , Cartoon Molecules, Next Arrivals and Moon Selected Audio Textual Poems, collected poems, as well as translation of Guadalupe Grande´s La llave de niebla, as Key of Mist and the recently published Tesserae , a translation of Carmen Crespo´s Teselas.
 
You may visit Aquillrelle.com/Author Robin Ouzman Hislop about author. See Robin performing his work Performance (University of Leeds)

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Olympic National Park: Nature’s Drama. A Poem by Sterling Warner

 

Drinking ice tea in the

Bogachiel Rain Forest,

relaxing in retirement,

observing the Salmon

run along the Skokomish,

bald & golden eagles soar

high above, wait for harbor

seals to capture fresh fish,

climb aboard wooden rafts,

& steal the slippery bright

pink prey for themselves or

possibly feed hungry eaglets.

 

Large driftwood logs

float down the river’s throat,

anchoring themselves

along the Hood Canal’s

warm salt water shoreline;

mosquitoes breed abundantly

while skittish bullfrogs

stridently soldier vociferous

appetites in concrete storm

drains—conduits emptying

into the sound—shielding them

from sharp-eyed predators

scouring sand & stone for food.
 
 
 

 
 
 
Sterling Warner’s Brief Biography
 

 
An author, poet, educator, Pushcart nominee, Sterling Warner’s poems have appeared in many journals and anthologies, including Poetry Life and Times Artvilla.com, The Flatbush Review, Literary Yard, The Fib Review, Street Lit: Representing the Urban Landscape and The Atherton Review. Warner has published five collections of poetry: Without Wheels, ShadowCat, Rags and Feathers, Edges, and Memento Mori: A Chapbook Redux. Also, in August 2020, he launched, Masques: Flash Fiction & Short Stories, his first collection of fiction.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Robin Ouzman Hislop is Editor of Poetry Life and Times at Artvilla.com ; his publications include
 
All the Babble of the Souk , Cartoon Molecules, Next Arrivals and Moon Selected Audio Textual Poems, collected poems, as well as translation of Guadalupe Grande´s La llave de niebla, as Key of Mist and the recently published Tesserae , a translation of Carmen Crespo´s Teselas.
 
You may visit Aquillrelle.com/Author Robin Ouzman Hislop about author. See Robin performing his work Performance (University of Leeds)

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Crackhouses of Venice. A Poem by Richard L Weissman

And in memorizing this dream while still dreaming it,
so that upon instant of awakening
none of its texture shall be lost
of bringing her to contractual climax
and warm cloaking in her vulnerability
as the love songs turn
mid this sea of teen
that await their plastic straw turn
to coat
long back of their throats
with the numbing drip. drip
of the Mayan rock goddess cocaina
who lays in state
atop this fragmented mirror of truth
till the blue coats rush in
scattering old cabals to four corners
and one ends lost
in crack housed Venice
lumbering down danger streets
searching for Santa Monica Boulevard
and faintest hopes of home.
 
 

 
Bio:
 

Richard L Weissman has written fiction since 1987.
In 2000, his theatrical play, “The Healing” was selected by Abdingdon Theatre for a staged reading Off-Broadway.
Richard is the author of two Wiley Trading titles. His second book, Trade Like a Casino was selected as a Finalist for the 2012 Technical Analyst Book of the Year Award.
 
In 2016, Mr. Weissman completed his historical novel in the tradition of magical realism, “Generations”.
 
In 2020 his poem, “Mountain Bird and Loquat” was selected as the grand prize winner of the Florida Loquat Literary Festival.
 
In addition to hosting, “In Our Craft or Sullen Art” – a biweekly poetry radio talk show, Richard participates in live spoken word events throughout the U.S.
https://richard-weissman.com/
 
 
 
 
Robin Ouzman Hislop is Editor of Poetry Life and Times at Artvilla.com ; his publications include
 
All the Babble of the Souk , Cartoon Molecules, Next Arrivals and Moon Selected Audio Textual Poems, collected poems, as well as translation of Guadalupe Grande´s La llave de niebla, as Key of Mist and the recently published Tesserae , a translation of Carmen Crespo´s Teselas.
 
You may visit Aquillrelle.com/Author Robin Ouzman Hislop about author. See Robin performing his work Performance (University of Leeds)

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Horizontal Vision & Poems by Christopher Barnes

(i.)

Horizontal Vision
 
…barrows to-and-froed.
Hagglers impressed, lurking.
I corner nosegay oils,
you earmark…
 
     *
 …tilt steamer
on disengaged hob
10-15 minutes.  Baste…
 
     *
 …check-up.  Paramedic eurekas
-       something woefully awry –
deduces tip-off…
 
     *
 …metro expired at Wallsend,
bus green-lighted
an hour to cloud-gather,
you’d never essentially…
 
(ii.)

Earth
 
…peachy-keen upbeat guitar 
seesawed your hips.  Taffrail clover,
dribble…
 
     *
 …rattle all footloose.  Chip walnuts.
Grease loaf tin…
 
     *
 …ventured into Bronx Flea Market,
bisected dummy
cornered into a pin-stripe…
 
     *
 …lick-and-promise miasma
Overhauled drained instincts.
Only traffic faded…
 
(iii.)

Fixations
 
…in rag-order
knee-highs yodelled,
single-filing my alley.
No cur whined…
 
     *
 …kibble, tooling rutty blade
of mincer.  Dissolve ½ oz…
 
     *
 …Pegasus’ foals vamoosed,
so the knight…
 
     *
 …we quick-timed hours.
An invisible…
 
(iv.)

Not Quite June
 
…gabby-guts rooks
air-cleared your nickname.
Evening shade diffracted urgency…
 
     *
 …groundwork panade.  Turn out
as for béchamel, stargaze an hour…
 
     *
 …wolfed my quill.”
“What shall I do?”
“Take advantage of a crayon…”

     *
 …rule-breaking headaches spared,
though we blethered all…

 
By Christopher Barnes
  
 
 

 
 
In 1998 I won a Northern Arts writers award. In July 200 I read at Waterstones bookshop to promote the anthology ‘Titles Are Bitches’. Christmas 2001 I debuted at Newcastle’s famous Morden Tower doing a reading of my poems. Each year I read for Proudwords lesbian and gay writing festival and I partook in workshops. 2005 saw the publication of my collection LOVEBITES published by Chanticleer Press, 6/1 Jamaica Mews, Edinburgh.
 
On Saturday 16Th August 2003 I read at the Edinburgh Festival as a Per Verse poet at LGBT Centre, Broughton St.
 
Christmas 2001 The Northern Cultural Skills Partnership sponsored me to be mentored by Andy Croft in conjunction with New Writing North. I made a radio programme for Web FM community radio about my writing group. October-November 2005, I entered a poem/visual image into the art exhibition The Art Cafe Project, his piece Post-Mark was shown in Betty’s Newcastle. This event was sponsored by Pride On The Tyne. I made a digital film with artists Kate Sweeney and Julie Ballands at a film making workshop called Out Of The Picture which was shown at the festival party for Proudwords, it contains my poem The Old Heave-Ho. I worked on a collaborative art and literature project called How Gay Are Your Genes, facilitated by Lisa Mathews (poet) which exhibited at The Hatton Gallery, Newcastle University, including a film piece by the artist Predrag Pajdic in which I read my poem On Brenkley St. The event was funded by The Policy, Ethics and Life Sciences Research Institute, Bio-science Centre at Newcastle’s Centre for Life. I was involved in the Five Arts Cities poetry postcard event which exhibited at The Seven Stories children’s literature building.
 
REVIEWS: I have written poetry reviews for Poetry Scotland and Jacket Magazine and in August 2007 I made a film called ‘A Blank Screen, 60 seconds, 1 shot’ for Queerbeats Festival at The Star & Shadow Cinema Newcastle, reviewing a poem… On September 4 2010, I read at the Callander Poetry Weekend hosted by Poetry Scotland. I have also written Art Criticism for Peel and Combustus Magazines. I was involved in The Creative Engagement In Research Programme Research Constellation exhibitions of writing and photography which showed in London (march 13 2012) and Edinburgh (July 4 2013)
 
 
 
 
 
Robin Ouzman Hislop is Editor of Poetry Life and Times ; You may visit Aquillrelle.com/Author Robin Ouzman Hislop about author. See Robin performing his work Performance (University of Leeds)

 
 
 
 

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Autumn Fascination/ Fascinación de otoño Video Poems English/Spanish by Antonio Martínez Arboleda

Editor’s note: check the icons on the YouTube Videos to read texts

 

 
Green under siege
efficient blowing that pushed me to an end
of simultaneous lips
of seasons of perfected assonance
 
Now around a hiding sun
A brown agony
 
Scaffolding
made of arteries
transporting gravity to the top
 
The fall of the Roman Empire
Or the British
was harsher
but not neater.
 
When you try through your rustling
to talk to me about the time
that I set to you with my steps,
I find it very sweet and useless.
 
Why does your voice follow me,
but you stay behind stranded?
 
How can a loop be so straight?
 
What are you, but a new form of life
a sign
that defeat in the Natural World is always relative?
 
Today, you are masking the ground
where I keep dragging my roots
in contempt for the fallen.
 
And
despite the appearances
I still live
in a constant state of fascination
 
 
Fascinación de otoño
 

 
Un cerco fijado en torno al verdor,
efectivo soplo que me empuja a un fin
de labios simultáneos,
de estaciones que corrigen asonancia
 
Agonía marrón
 
Arterias como andamios
que transportan
la gravedad a lo alto
 
Más dura fue
la Caída del Imperio Romano
o del británico,
pero no más limpia.
 
Cuando intentas con tus chasquidos
hablarme tú
del tiempo que yo te marco
con mis pisadas,
me parece todo tan dulce e inútil.
 
Dime por qué me sigue tu voz
si tú te vas quedando atrás.
¿Cómo puede un bucle ser tan recto?
 
¿Qué eres,
sino una nueva forma de vida,
una señal
de que la derrota en el Mundo Natural
es siempre,
siempre, relativa?
 
En días como este,
enmascaras la tierra
por la que arrastro
con orgullo
mis raíces.
 
En fin,
a pesar de las apariencias,
continúo viviendo
en un estado constante de fascinación.
 

Antonio Martínez Arboleda:
Antonio (Tony Martin-Woods) started to write poetry for the public in 2012, at the age of 43, driven by his political indignation. That same year he also set in motion Poesía Indignada, an online publication of political poetry. He runs the poetry evening Transforming with Poetry at Inkwell, in Leeds, and collaborates with 100 Thousands Poets for Change 100tpc.org/. Tony is also known in the UK for his work as an academic and educator under his real-life name, Antonio Martínez Arboleda at the University of Leeds. His project of digitisation of poetry, Ártemis, compiles more than 100 high quality videos of Spanish poets and other Open Educational Resources. http://www.artemispoesia.com/ .

He is the delegate in the UK of Crátera Revista de Crítica y Poesía Contemporánea , where he also publishes his work as translator from English into Spanish. He published his first volume of poetry in Spanish, Los viajes de Diosa (The Travels of Goddess), in 2015, as a response to the Great Recession, particularly in Spain. His second book, Goddess Summons the Nation Paperback , Goddess Summons the Nation Kindle Edition , is a critique of the ideas of nation and capitalism, mainly in the British Brexit context. It incorporates voices of culprits, victims and heroes with mordacity and rhythm. It consists of 21 poems, 18 of which are originally written in English, available in print and kindle in Amazon and other platforms. Editor’s note: further information bio & academic activities can be found at this link: https://ahc.leeds.ac.uk/languages/staff/91/antonio-martinez-arboleda

 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Robin Ouzman Hislop is Editor of Poetry Life and Times at Artvilla.com ; his publications include
 
All the Babble of the Souk , Cartoon Molecules, Next Arrivals and Moon Selected Audio Textual Poems, collected poems, as well as translation of Guadalupe Grande´s La llave de niebla, as Key of Mist and the recently published Tesserae , a translation of Carmen Crespo´s Teselas.
 
You may visit Aquillrelle.com/Author Robin Ouzman Hislop about author. See Robin performing his work Performance (University of Leeds)

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Learning Curve. 3 Poems by Gary Beck

‘Learning Curve’ is an unpublished collection concerned with the decline of Western civilization: Gary Beck


(i.)

Urban Reaches

Alone in a great city
strangers pass,
intent on jobs, crime,
shopping, terror.
I know not what.
They all look remote,
don’t say ‘good morning’,
don’t meet my gaze,
except the hostiles,
when I quickly look away.
I cannot tell
who is good, kind, normal,
smart enough to build a future.
Temporarily marooned
in a vast enclosure
I do not know what to do
to establish an identity.

(ii.)

Homeless VIII

They robbed my cans
for the second time
in a week.
I hustled my ass off
getting those cans
and got nothing for it.
At least they didn’t beat me.
Maybe I’ll get me a knife
and cut them good
if they try to rob me again.

(iii.)

Conflict

Armies march in many lands.
Rebels attack in many lands.
Conflicts simmer across the globe,
	boil over,
	  erupt
in deadly violence,
destroying lives,
     property,
     eradicating
aspirations for stability,
      disallowing
      normal pursuits,
	education,
      home building,
      raising children,
	hoping
tomorrow will be better
than the savagery today.

 


 

Gary Beck has spent most of his adult life as a theater director and worked as an art dealer when he couldn’t earn a living in the theater. He has also been a tennis pro, a ditch digger and a salvage diver. His original plays and translations of Moliere, Aristophanes and Sophocles have been produced Off Broadway. His poetry, fiction and essays have appeared in hundreds of literary magazines and his published books include 26 poetry collections, 10 novels, 3 short story collections, 1 collection of essays and 1 collection of one-act plays. Published poetry books include: Dawn in Cities, Assault on Nature, Songs of a Clerk, Civilized Ways, Displays, Perceptions, Fault Lines, Tremors, Perturbations, Rude Awakenings, The Remission of Order, Contusions and Desperate Seeker (Winter Goose Publishing. Forthcoming: Learning Curve and Ignition Point). Earth Links, Too Harsh For Pastels, Severance, Redemption Value and Fractional Disorder (Cyberwit Publishing). His novels include a series ‘Stand to Arms, Marines’: Call to Valor, Crumbling Ramparts and Raise High the Walls (Gnome on Pig Productions) and Extreme Change (Winter Goose Publishing). Wavelength (Cyberwit Publishing). His short story collections include: A Glimpse of Youth (Sweatshoppe Publications). Now I Accuse and other stories (Winter Goose Publishing) and Dogs Don’t Send Flowers and other stories (Wordcatcher Publishing). The Republic of Dreams and other essays (Gnome on Pig Productions). The Big Match and other one act plays (Wordcatcher Publishing). Collected Plays of Gary Beck Volume 1 (Cyberwit Publishing. Forthcoming: Plays of Aristophanes translated, then directed by Gary Beck). Gary lives in New York City. https://www.facebook.com/AuthorGaryBeck
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Robin Ouzman Hislop is Editor of Poetry Life and Times at Artvilla.com ; his publications include
 
All the Babble of the Souk , Cartoon Molecules, Next Arrivals and Moon Selected Audio Textual Poems, collected poems, as well as translation of Guadalupe Grande´s La llave de niebla, as Key of Mist and the recently published Tesserae , a translation of Carmen Crespo´s Teselas.
 
You may visit Aquillrelle.com/Author Robin Ouzman Hislop about author. See Robin performing his work Performance (University of Leeds)

 

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