Gin Rummies & The Fiddler. Poems by E M Schorb.

GIN RUMMIES

		To find a friend one must close one eye.
		To keep him—two.
				        —Norman Douglas
					
		for Rodney Formon


Friday nights, a fry-cook, 
arms scarred by sizzling fat, 
Rodney bangs on my door.
We like to drink together,
shoot the breeze, and laugh.
Drunk enough, we sing!
It’s karaoke with CDs scattered 
on the table, improvisational
shandygaffs and combinations
you can’t enjoy with your relations.

It’s good to have a drinking buddy.
I’ve used up two already—
one who fell down a flight of stairs
and one, who was much older, 
who died of his warrior life.
But now I’ve got Rodney,
who is very different from the others.

The other two were quite and somewhat
intellectual, and where the one
could talk history or science, art,
music, or just about any subject
in just about any language and come back,
being polyglot, and polymath,
even polymorphic, after hooch;
the other was a man of action,
a war hero with many medals
tucked away in drawers locked
by indifference, but still would tell of
weapons, arms and the man, and such
with fervor—my Heraclitus—
and also with disgust, with
fatalism, believing nothing
changes in man’s fighting nature,
disposed to think the worst;
but enthusiastic over chess,
which he played in earnest
as if he were at war again.

But Rodney is another sort:
He knows I write but will not read
a word I write, nor much else either,
but likes the Internet so much
he slides crabwise in thought,
toward what depth of cyberspace
I often cannot fathom until zing
I see it for myself, or am I drunk?

I see with Rodney that the other two,
complimented first my young and then 
my middle-aged delusions 
of a deeper self-knowledge
than available to most.  Yes, Rodney
shows me to myself, or shows me 
to my youthful ghosts, as ego-fed,
but did and does this unintentionally,
whose wonderful indifference makes me shrink
like a cock in the cold, and chug my drink.

 
THE FIDDLER
  
                       An Appalachian Tale              


Played the devil’s fiddle, stomping to it, shaking it out,
   full of corned blood, his boot down down down!    
Days before the corn, his old bitch Lucy lay by his piston heel.
   Said later she smelled it, stayed by it, waiting
for the meaty bone; said later never done him no harm at all;
   said later not even a ghost of evil but Lucy got it,
old bloodhound bitch like red clay, wrinkled old lady hanging
   from her own bones—could make her moon-howl,
pointing his wild bow—do that at dances.  Devil in a Baptist,
   playing the fiddle.   Gradual as the mountains,  
he found out how the devil got in.  Fiddle under his spiked,
   gray chin, corn jug thumb-hooked and cradled on top
his elbow—capful for Lucy—then stomp stomp stomp: music
   through Blue Ridge pines!   Could choo choo it
so’s you see smoke and steam, hear that wheezy accordion whistle;
   could conjure with it up a trainload of places
or turn you back home to the station of pines and blue smoke
   mountains, bring musical rain, or put the devil
in your heart, winking and drinking and stomping.  Everybody loved
   him and his Lucy, including said devil, as the corn dropped
down into his right big toe.  Said it hurt to stomp.  But it don’t
   stop the fiddler.  Don’t nothing stop the fiddler!  He was
one thing else than music; he was a man.  Take more’n corn going
   through, dropping down in my right big toe, says at
the May dance, everybody seeing him stomp, ouch ouch ouch on
   his big red gray spiked old corned face.  Devil 
got in through the corn, slick as silk; got down in my boot,
   but I’ll stomp him out; give old Satan a head-
ache—stomp stomp stomp!  But that corn went to killing him.
   His bow was flying!  Went on like this, folks say,
a tad’s five year, him stomping the devil in the corn and the devil
   stomping back.  Said now he couldn’t play no more if
he don’t get rid o’ that old devil.  Takes him a broad wood chisel
   out back on a stump, sets his right foot up, sets
that chisel to his toe, and strikes down with a good hefty hammer.
   When he pulls back his foot, that devil in the corned toe
stays on the stump, says looka me, I’m off!  Has brought him 
   some fireplace soot and some gingham.  Sticks that foot
in that black soot, to staunch the blood, and wraps it in gingham
   rags.  Said never done him no harm again, quiet as a bone,
and he goes back to stomping in peace, rid of the devil.  But 
   first, he throws that old corned toe to Lucy.  Says:
I knowed you always wanted it.  Now mind the nail, Lucy; don’t let
   the devil get you, you drunk old droop-skinned hound
bitch, cuz I love you.  And Lucy goes to lickin’ that toe, pops
   it in, and goes to grinding up that devil in her old ground down
chops.  And next time we see them,  the fiddler and his drunk bitch,
   they both full of corn, and ready, now, for the dance! 

 

 

Schorb’s work has appeared in Agenda (UK), The American Scholar, The Carolina Quarterly, The Hudson Review, The Southern Review, Stand (UK), The Sewanee Review, The Virginia Quarterly Review, The North American Review, Poetry Salzburg Review (AU), The Yale Review, and Oxford Poetry (UK), among others.

His collection, Murderer’s Day, was awarded the Verna Emery Poetry Prize and published by Purdue University Press, and a subsequent collection, Time and Fevers, was the recipient of the Writer’s Digest International Self-Published Award for Poetry and also an Eric Hoffer Award.

Most recently, his novel R&R a Sex Comedy was awarded the Beverly Hills Book Award for Humor.

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9 i love homonyms. Further Poems by Jessica Skyfield

the point being

not every photo matters, 
and neither every memory. 
not to mention,
they shape; 
they shift. 
like sands through the hourglass. 
these are the days of our lives.  
no semicolons. follow the rules.


9 i love homonyms

[right this way.] 

(how much poetry is laziness, e.e. cummings?)

the nine taking on significance suddenly. number nine. number nine. 
i went through a phase of thinking
i was john lennon reincarnated.

i guess that's probably not normal.

i want to save this all for you,
but there is nothing. 
nothing could possibly hold it all. 

what is this and what is all?
the point being:


salt of the earth

i will make mountains, move mountains - all with my mind
(i'd rather be crushed than wait)

i'll pick the short stick.

i'll wonder aloud at comprehensible ideas and miss the point.

i'll stretch too thin and disappear--grasping/reaching/flailing beyond
reforming out of place
lavaseepingneversleeping

i'll take everything with grains of salt
fragile prisms of humanity created through brutality.

[pay your taxes!] :)  : (


pinnacle

we've scrambled and strove.
the trash mountain of our past accomplishments.

it's growing fast and we can't keep up.
and here we are, at the pinnacle,

celebrating,
teetering at the top

freefall from our forte

of falsity, fame, freedom, 

or whatever we want it to be in the metaverse. 

will we be free, then, from chronological misery, 

mr. musk? mr. zuckerberg? 
gentlemen, what are your thoughts? 

 
 
 

 
 
 
Jessica Skyfield is currently a teacher. She has been a scientist, a mother, will always be a student, and worn other hats, too. Her poems seek to bring light to our struggle with our awareness of our humanity: the juxtaposition of the smallness of ourselves when viewed universally and yet the large impact each of our individual actions can have.  

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THE BALLAD OF FACEBOOK (a musical in the making) by Sara L Russell


THE BALLAD OF FACEBOOK
(a musical in the making) 
by Sara L Russell 26th Jan ’23 at 21:19

Introduction

Oh babes I feel so bored, what can I do?
I think I’ll go on Facebook for a few…

Part 1: Flakes and Fakes

Like me like me
go on and like me
‘cause I’m fluffy 
and I have a new book out

‘cause I posted 
a photo 
of myself as a kid
when I had a rather fetching pout

I’m far more fascinating than you’ll ever know
look, here’s my back lawn when it was buried in snow
here’s a lunchtime selfie of my latest dish
here’s me next to some old photoshopped bitch

Oh but there’s a blonde strolling by the Tiber
with her two perfect little blond boys
A golden sunrise smouldering behind her
You can almost smell the spices, hear the noise

Ya this is me walking like a tiger
by some Indian river, with the boys, 
Oh I think someone just told me it’s the Tiber
The smell was like, much grosser than the noise.

But ya thanks for the comments, all my darlings
My likes have rocketed to fifty K
I’ve traded up, flamingos for the starlings
And I’m having awesome nookie every day!

For all the nobodies never make my heart bleed
For I have a blog they never bother to read


Part 2: Catfish and Chips

Like me, like me
be smart and like me
‘cause I have everything 
your kitchen needs

You look like a munter
more than likely 
‘cause your face mask
dosesn’t have Nigella seeds

We’re making greater riches than you’ll ever have
by making romance pitches to some lonely chav
And if you don’t have Bitcoin you can buy it here
Just invest and watch your savings disappear

Oh but there’s a lonely heart playing poker
She’s ripe to be groomed for romance
She wants a king, but here’s a joker
we’ll lead her on the merriest dance

Ya this is me sailing on my dinghy
Ya I love you, even though you’re ninety three
The customs officer’s trying to sting me
Please send me forty smackers urgently

Oh they don’t give a monkey’s if you’re sad or bereaved
Tell it to your bank and you will not be believed …


Part 3: Cool and Uncool

Like me, like me,
someone like me,
my kids don’t even
post here for a laugh

maybe ‘cause when
they were very tiny
I posted photos
of them in the bath

So when did they decide that it was so uncool
to comment on a parent’s photos, as a rule,
To ever dare admit that they belong to me
Since when’s it cool, to disown your family?

Yes, this is Ken and I with Auntie Mary
The younger ones all scampered off to hide
Maybe they find TicToc somewhat less scary
than Facebook, with the oldies by their side.

For now girls of eighteen are giving Botox tips
And twenty-three year olds have silicone-plumped lips.


Epilogue

Like me, like me
Go on and like me
Some people never learn

Fill in your details
password or site key
and sort key, and hit return. 

 
 
 
 
Sara Russel latest
 
 
Sara Louise Russell, aka PinkyAndrexa, is a UK poet and poetry ezine editor, specialising particularly in sonnets, lyric-style poetry and occasionally writing in more modern styles. She founded Poetry Life & Times and edited it from 1998 to 2006, when she handed it over to Robin Ouzman Hislop and Amparo Arrospide; Robin now runs it as Editor from Poetry Life & Times at this site. She is currently founder and Editor of the blog journal, http://poetrylifetimes.blogspot.co.uk ; which is a sister publication to Poetry Life & Times. Her poems and sonnets have been published in many paper and online publications including Sonnetto Poesia, Mindful of Poetry and Autumn Leaves a monthly Poetry ezine from the late Sondra Ball. Her sonnets also currently appear in the recently published anthology of sonnets Phoenix Rising from the Ashes. She is also one of the first poets ever to be published on multimedia CD ROMs, published by Kedco Studios Inc.; the first one being “Pinky’s Little Book of Shadows”, which was featured by the UK’s national newspaper The Mirror, in October 1999. (Picture link for Mirror article) Angel Fire
 
 
 
 
www.facebook.com/PoetryLifeTimes

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Evergreen into Ivory White Poems by Julia Webster


Tread Softly

      
      Tread softly for the night is but
      a prelude to the day
      And all that lives must die
      For thus it is as we've heard say
      So many times before.
      Before? the end of the beginning
      Which itself is only spinning to Infinity
      Divinity is but a name for good thought
      Transferred into deeds
      Where one man counts the cost
      The other's praying for his needs
      Stop!..A thought
      Listen!...A bird is singing somewhere
                                             in the Universe.
      Poor thoughts, poor empty thoughts.
      How can I say ' I love you?'
      What's in a word?
      Just frailty.

      One, two ,three, four, five ,six ,seven
      All good people go to Heaven
      But I think otherwise and I'd advise that 
      You do too
      Wouldn't you advise someone that
      Hell's by far a better place
      And that a misplaced feeling of                      disgrace is relatively unimportant
      Oughtn't one to think so?
      No I suppose you wouldn't, couldn't
      I like to think a little differently
      Not follow in the crowd , eh?
      Tread softly, you may say,
      Have it your way.


       A devil, black and smoky,
       Breathing fumes of concentrated                   orange juice through cold-pudding                 nostrils
       What's wrong with that?
       Don't tell me you don't like him
       None of that!
       I suppose you'd paint a better?
       Fetter him in garlic, would you
       Could you?    

        Tread softly 
        For the night has come and dying is
        Out of tune
        And all the people on the earth are                Gazing at the moon
        For soon her light will out
        And shouts of anguish then will spill
        the air
        And everywhere will be a place too                small
        And anywhere will be the devil's fool
        And stars will burst and thirst
        for more good deeds to fill up History
        And soft bright eyes will dim
        And then the earth will lose its spin
        And fighting chaos raging for a                                                                          decade
         Will streak the skies with noble deeds
         And stars will burst and thirst for                   More good deeds to fill up History
         And then....only Time
         Not space but Time
         Running, walking ,speeding
         Slowing ,
         Straight, bent, Lent.
         Time without space
         And nothing more.

          A drop of sun upon a leaf
          Warm rays spraying silver on the seas
          A fan of light beating colours into                  flowers
          And hours upon hours upon hours..
          Tread softly....tread softly...    
         


Flight of the Dove
            
            The tree stands in the lonely field.
            It is raining in sleep- filled rivers.
            Do not hate, do not love.

            beyond hope or caring, sleep or                      sloth
            Dreams deride the thing which is
            Whole world's subside and we,
            Who think we know what suffering                                                                         is
            Cannot abide the murmuring of the                                                              dove.
            We who do not hate, we who do not                                                                     love.
            For us the barren fields are soaked
                                                            in  blood.
            Send up the cry!   God is dead!
            Only beware the fleeing of the dove.

            Have you seen her?
            Flashing blue across the river?
            Did you call out to her?
            Splash of film over the river.
            Catching sight of her wings of taut                                                                   gold
            Did your heart of a sudden grow                                                                             old?
            As she sliced the sun into pale-                                                  white ivory stalks
            By the water's edge, disrupting the
                                            moor-hen's song,
            Belong, belong! belong, Belong!

             
            But what are you doing here,old                                                                     man
            Fouling the greenways?
            Mouth of pomegranate, stench of 
                                     tears gone sour,
            How could you have tasted the                      Forbidden fruit
            At this ungodlike hour?
            You were cast in too strange a                                                                 mould
            A million years of shadow have                      Trespassed behind your eyes
            How could you taste the light
                                              of your eyes?
             Rains you heed not, nor the                                                           wind's outrage,
              But poach at ease beside the                                                  blood-lit streams
             Not hating, not loving
             But tell me, what will you do
             When she comes, robed in mist?
             At the first hint of dawn,
             Will you see her, even in                                                                  dreams?
             Will you stay silent as she drops
             To her pale death in the foam
             Jagged rock of white mist,                               Plummeting down through
             the air's crystal streams
             Lost to the sunrise
             Staining the day with new gold
             As the sun's rivers melt her                                                                      through
             Will she touch you?
             You who are so old?
             Will you reach out to feel that                         Warm rush of feathers
             Blue-green-scarlet-gold?
             Or are you too old, too old?
             As the waters reflect back her                                                 causeless song
             Will you trace those pyramids of 
                                                                light
             Treading sapphire rings
                                                  into the mud?
    
         

Ode to a Drug Addict
         
       
        The great scape of Heaven

       Is tortured with images of Death
   
       And the night sky.


       Owls swoop in the twilight world 

       Where Keats went mad

       For Beauty 's treacherous eye. 


       Ode to a fool 

       Transfixed by the painting 

       Of some great pig of a man

       Eating a fly.


       Tempestuous nights and dawns of 

        Eclipses 

        Fighting the otherwhere and the

        Why.

        I

        Screech at you from the rooftops 

        Over the bridge,  driven wild

        Inside my head


        Hammer the bed into white sheets

        Grasp cold on 

        Nothing

        Outstare the stars to white lead. 


       And running,

       Hand you the piece of dust 

       From which I fled. 
    


       Evergreen into Ivory white



Evergreen into ivory white
The curlew calls
The morbid manufacturers of day
Attend the passing funeral
Of those who decay
Slowly with time.
The bird rustles in the hedgerow
Hear its mating call
At close of day
the flight of swallows return
No matter where.

The passing shepherd summons the sheepdog
The daffodils burst out in gold
My lover's out there in the cold

The short mist comes
The gap between heaven and earth
And all obscurity
No greater love than this
Will
You
Grant
Me
A
Short
Space 
For
Breath

The galleon ship enshrouded in mist
White walls surround the drowned sailor
Shipwrecked
In white water
On the turf of dreams

The bird flying calls 
The seamen look up 
It is not a white albatross
It is I turning about
Into this white pool
The shoreline crinkles into powder
Tiny and remote
Flying high, the day recedes
Into this ivory-white 

 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
Julia Webster studied English & Drama at Exeter University then later studied Integrated Health Sciences at Westminster. Her first play written in 1972 entitled “The Object of the Game” was performed at The Little Theatre, Barbican , Plymouth and was likened by the well known Harvey Crane critic of the South West to works by Pinter and Ionesco. She began writing puppet plays for children and performed at various Albion fairs throughout the U.K. and was selected to attend The Children’s Festival in Austria by Arabella Churchill. She also wrote poetry since her teens and has composed many songs for voice guitar, violin and piano accompaniment which have been performed in various venues across the U.K. and also in India. In 1979 she met her teacher Chogyal Namkhai Norbu Rimpoche and has been a student of his and Dzogchen teachings since then. She currently lives in West London with her family and teaches piano and also practices cranio sacral therapy.

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Teetering Toward Sattva & Further Poems by Kalpita Pathak

Teetering Toward Sattva

My friend’s mother would tell him, I created 
you and I can destroy you, as though, like Parvati
with Ganesh, she had literally made him
from a mixture of earth and her perspiration, brought
him to life with her breath. Śaivasampradāyaḥ believe 
Shiva is the creator, preserver, and destroyer
of the cosmos. Does that mean mothers

are his avatāra and children their miniature
multiverses? I wouldn’t know. I’m not a mother. Mine
may have been a god to me when I was little
(it’s likely she was) but I remember her 
as my universe. One I destroyed over and over
with the choices I made, huddled and weeping
and bereft, my days-old sweat a blend of scotch

and cigarettes and dirt from the alleys where I
crouched for decades. Now those years have passed
and so has she. Neither creator nor destroyer,
she preserved her dreams for/in me and I live them 
with her hands, callused, dry-darkened
at the knuckles, soft, cool. They wash away the grime
so I can live for today. So I can live for us both. 
So I can live.


Anteyesti
to Anay


Your body burns
as your mother weeps
her son into a letter.
I read it, edges 
fluttering in the summer 
wind like wings, like the ashes 
we scatter
in the canyon’s river. She asks
why you wanted to melt
into memory, fleeting 
desert snow beneath
the sun of our hot grief.
And in that brutal 
light, she begs 
for rain to swoop down
and flood her cracked earth.


(… As We Know It)
  Reset: Kritayuga Begins Again


When the apocalypse
comes what becomes
of the astronaut who floats
in the space station and sees
the sun as it really is – a silvery
white flare, incandescent
as fireworks arching over
our greening blue Earth? 

Kalpita Pathak is an autistic poet, novelist, and advocate with a passion for research and sensory-rich details. Her work tends to explore the perseverance of hope in a sometimes despairing world, with a little dark humor and magic added to the mix. She received the James Michener Fellowship for her MFA in creative writing and has taught at both the college level and in school programs for kids from three to eighteen. She has recently been published in Mediterranean Poetry.  

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Mini Poems from Bekah Steimel

Sheep Dreams

My sheep stumble down the plank
  and jump ship
crashing into waters whisking with every shark
that ever detected the drunken cologne
  of my blood

PLACE SETTING

Where you live when you are not where you are living, and by living, I mean residing.  
And by live, I’m referencing the space constructed of memory and curiosity.  And by curiosity, 
I speak of the galaxy where dead wishes can’t be piled like bodies. They float seamlessly, 
snag your eyes with a twinkle of a wink. A location as unattainable as those aspirations you 
gifted pulse and game plan. Then suffocated, ripped to portions, and ingested slowly. Well, shit.

The setting of a play, a place, the actors are not all actors, you are writer, director, knowing 
it will never be produced.

       FIN

Ghosted

I ghosted myself
or am I a ghost to myself?
Haunting my leftovers, haunted by what
I left over in a geography
without space or proof.

Hushing Heroes

I’ve been reading my heroes wrong
I’ve been reading my heroes bedtime stories
A collection of heroes 
is a herd of one’s own insecurities
I’m rocking both to sleep  

bekahsteimel
 

Bekah Steimel is an internationally published poetic person who was “mostly dead, slightly alive” on VV ECMO life support in 2019 from double lung failure (get your flu shot! And, COVID vaccine as well!). An artist reporting back from the other side. Developing Chance Books LLC. She can be found online at bekahsteimel.com and followed @BekahSteimel.

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The Rain-Wet Rats. More Poems from RW.Haynes

1]
The Rain-Wet Rats
 
She bathed in cold fire which softly sterilized
Her fitful thoughts circling constantly
Back to what gets lost, what set free, 
Gently startled, but not at all surprised.
The cold front rattles in with peevish rain
Concealed by darkness in the morning chill
But nudging at the mind as hostile specters will,
Cold drops rattling like a fatal chain.
 
Can she be easy regulating the fates
Of two dozen dirty peasants with staring eyes
And rusty pitchforks, furious at lies,
Shrieking in the rain outside her gates?
 
Is risk or safety the best choice to make?
The rain outside keeps rattling like a snake.
 
The rafters of civilization broke that day,
And all the rain-wet rats nimbly raced
Away like greyhounds, all order displaced,
And she ducked aside to hide out of the way.
Thunder crashed, as it were, and she
Smiled secretly and thought of my face
Aping consternation ludicrously.
 
2]
Symbolist Gunslinger Purges His Vocabulary
 
Lovely ladies, decked with smiles and flowers,
Dissolve all war and ugliness generously,
Gently repudiating suspicion, hostility,
Disarming all the cowboys’ macho powers.
Let sunshine warm where desert heat once dried.
Let kindness soothe the pain of outraged minds
And cool the excessive heat that burns and blinds.
Let understanding leave rough men satisfied.
For this is a magic, a witchcraft you yield,
Medea, Medusa, Miranda, Antigone,
Criseyde, Duessa, at times ferociously,
And Judith, and the fair witch I once met
Upon the meads, whose ring I wear within
My blood-curdled heart, and will wear when
Chariots descend to collect my fatal debt.
Lovely ladies, let the world spin away
Its grief, let conflict fire our blessed sunlight,
Let the right simplicity be ours today,
And the right words bless our witless dreams tonight.
 
3]
Jukebox Catullus Hums and Strums
 
I can’t stop playing Banquo’s ghost,
And blood runs everywhere each time I twitch,
And somewhere my corpse is bleeding in a ditch,
And you’re still indifferent to who loves you most
Despite this commitment, this dramatic dedication
Here on these boards where happy endings hide
From murdered noblemen with broken hearts inside
And no luck in erotic conversation.
May I venture an aside, though I should leave the stage?
Let no ghost be dishonored, or his staring eyes
Will plunder your heart in midnight surprise.
Enough.  The mad Queen calms the murderer’s rage.
The curtain never falls for the players in this trade;
We wait to spring the traps the poet made.
 
4]
The Right Reply for Second-Hand Fear
“Now time’s Andromeda on this rock rude…”
			--Hopkins
 
A delicate matter prevented her revenge:
Madame Alving was, at that time, at least,
(Delicious pause) Andromeda waiting for the beast,
Long-legged bait a gate to unhinge,
A passage of a champion of the stage,
Sic semper tyrannis the cry of the day,
Cooing doves flapping wings to fly away,
And the old monster’s dilapidated rage,
Bursts forth though in need of upholstery,
Roaring his regrettably wheezy roar
To remind us what monsters are onstage for,
And everyone fake-quakes, all but she,
For she smiles somewhat palely with that fire in her eyes,
And waves a hand defensively without fear,
For she knows who and what is scary here
And what is God’s truth and what the Devil’s lies.
That steady fire grows, its intensity stays,
However much your maudlin monster weighs.

 

 
R. W. Haynes, Professor of English at Texas A&M International University, has published poetry in many journals in the United States and in other countries. As an academic scholar, he specializes in British Renaissance literature, and he has also taught extensively in such areas as medieval thought, Southern literature, classical poetry, and writing. Since 1992, he has offered regular graduate and undergraduate courses in Shakespeare, as well as seminars in Ibsen, Chaucer, Spenser, rhetoric, and other topics. In 2004, Haynes met Texas playwright/screenwriter Horton Foote and has since become a leading scholar of that author’s remarkable oeuvre, publishing a book on Foote’s plays in 2010 and editing a collection of essays on his works in 2016. Haynes also writes plays and fiction. In 2016, he received the SCMLA Poetry Award ($500) at the South Central Modern Language Association Conference In 2019, two collections of his poetry were published, Laredo Light (Cyberwit) and Let the Whales Escape (Finishing Line Press).

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The Young poem in a backless dress poems by Laura Lamarca


She's just another cigarette burn on a corpse of curse and whim.

No motivation moves her defeat
where these creased sheets
lie limbless; here, where the
duvet drowns her in a white 
waterproof way, so even shit 
smears and wet legs cannot
heave her fat ass out. She is

burdened by streaks of day-
light, as its plight peeps through
blacked-out stains of yesterday.

The dust makes magic
with dirt, paving paths that split
odours of sweat and stale skin
in thickets of resentment stretched
across her house. Among chores

as monosyllabic as death, she must
make merry with the shapes of hate
that birth themselves between burnt
toast and cups of cold coffee, while
her eyelids fade with fifty shades
of depression. 

Ousted from the forgotten confines
of her warm farewells, those that 
berate her bones into disabled
dreams that fuck her future into single 
slots of 24 hour refrains...

she yearns to return there
so she might not live again.


Young poem in a backless dress.

She tacks moon-crooned songs to the inside of her sighs,
strumming sorrow between leaking lashes, 
that look down on her stone-built soul, 
so she can be micro-bodies of words without names, 
anchored to mastectomies 
by hung shoulders and her mammogram muse.

Her fear is fierce and shoots sparks—
those little orange daggers, that dare to settle along her cries. 
But she is stuttering again and the forty-something years 
she wearily wears
lie down like corpses in her fading hair.

She is burned wishes and bending headstones
that sing of regret in ancient cemeteries,
while doctors decide if geographical brilliance will bestow
her the beauty…of life.

Its enigma is enormous, she says, while you stitch stigmata
to my skin, in a suicide of seasons that pockmark
these absent breasts; I sit high
in sanity’s open-topped coffins while society
forces me to frame fat between my bones, and begs me
to break blames, like sacrificial bread
along a vertebra of my own voice

and all the while, this unblinking death prefers me
to be human
as I hum sonatas through the cruelty
of cancer’s callous aim.

I captured you Caernarfon, but we can't claw it back.

i.
I have crawled along castle walls for us,
grown beside you like the shiver to your fears--
your fading fears, becoming bright flames
amidst a season of my shadows,
but all the while, you've been welded 
to a whole web of lightning bolts
laced across my night skies,
climbing ruined rungs of life's ladder
without me, until all colour is gone
and I am phased back
into the nothingness between your exhales.

ii.
I am several small skulls
stitched tightly 
to surround your lack of conscience...

mere split hairs many moons long
that lie limply
across the ice-mountains of my cries.
Your retreating shoulders beat blame
like torrential rain inside goodbyes
and my thighs thrum ballads without you.

iii.
You have been the wheels that moved me--

those I love yous yelling life
into such terrible stains
while I rotated my spines
around an absence of blackmail:

I didn't pay you to make mud
with my ever-evolving earth, nor did I 
birth miracles 
from three decades of my wounds;
but still, you rolled down from my teeth
to tell of genuine worth.

iv.
You have made me untouchable again,
with universal agonies 
aerating from my sins...and everything
we caught together as cliché 
has revealed itself conditional--

when I bleed, you opt to be my past,
vampiring emotions
with the burning of words,
ones I struggled to believe in anyway...

because actions belied them
in every yellow light.

v.
I want infant incantations 
to inter themselves inside my sharks,
so veins can voice me gilded,
woven into incessant storms
we should never survive,
while I bewitch us both begotten 
along tainted turrets 
of this body's grieving ghosts.


© Laura Lamarca, All Rights Reserved. 

Laura Lamarca is a 48-year old professional poet who currently resides in Brighton and Hove, UK. She’s the author of 5 books of poetry, including a series titled “Memoirs of a Messed-Up Mum” published by Close to the Bone Publications. Lamarca is a psychic medium, Demonologist and Modern Exorcist who now writes poetry in her spare time. She says that poetry is her “exhale” and a means to release pent-up emotions in a safe and sustainable way.

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