The Split. A Poem by Robin Ouzman Hislop.

He knew not, he said, whether he was a butterfly
                 who awoke to find he was a man
or a man who awoke to find he was a butterfly.

To begin in the image, he kills for in his dreams
                   he wakes from half forgotten
to the commotion of the day sealed by a story.

To begin in the image, a view before the abyss
                      from old familiar haunts
what clings, where there's neither choice nor chance
        yet beckons, to the impossible impasse.

Breach.

             Wu Ch Eng En descends 
the mountain of the five elements 
   bearing the moon as his lamp
forever,grows longer,he muses
leaving no footprints in the snow.

       At daybreak the view is emptiness
the truth of truth is its lie, he muses
            to a lamp without a night.

Wu Ch Eng En rested
to speak with the world on emptiness.

He looked at the village's railings
                  their fierce barbs pointing to the sky
between which shadows peered
                as if to promise through tricks of light
Mystery but revealing only bondage
                  to landscapes in whose labyrinths
             you could believe you were in a place 
                                 you'd never left
         and where to return was just deception.

Must not you and I be inside emptiness
        for we cannot both be outside
         but the world made no reply
          lost to a fleeting memory 
     that may never return or may.

We Ch Eng En said
        

        Day dreams the wandering mind
as lonely as a cloud, flower and song
                but not without blood
the lifeless, Terra-Cota army
     marches over our groundless days
outwards from the tomb.


Nature Thrives on Deception.

Chuang Tze perched
                 on his usual precipice and reflected
on to suicide or not to suicide.

He recalled he had worn a dark suit
                 dark glasses and returned
on a crowded summer's night to a past
                 whose memories 
he could no longer remember
                 there he had sown his wild seed
and what had they come to now
                 but the way of all nothingness.

                    There are those who maintain
                creation is a purposeless drift
          and those who maintain its entelechy
   can simulate a deity of divine attributes.

Chuang Tze rocked to and fro
           would not such deities grow perplexed
about their state of affairs
                  traces of white fleece trailed
across that blue emptiness called the sky
                                and in that fall
from that exalted simulation
               believe they were immortal souls.

Chuang Tze said

                        Even the wind is flawed
      as it speaks through the leaves of trees
                       the moment of history.
 
                   Now caught in time evermore
        yet the leaves belong to the branches
        and make small patterns in infinity.
 
                    And we, where do we belong
 with our swan song, as if we were going home
                      the day after tomorrow.   
 
OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

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I SEEK A FORM . . . (by Rubén Darío; translated by William Ruleman)

 
I SEEK A FORM . . .
 
(by Rubén Darío; translated by William Ruleman)
 
I seek a form my style cannot quite trace,
A bud of thought that seeks to be a rose;
A kiss upon my lips proclaims the throes
Of the Venus de Milo’s impossible embrace.
 
Green palms adorn the white peristyle like lace;
The stars have shown me a goddess in repose;
And in my soul, a sole light lingers—glows
Like the bird of the moon on a lake’s calm face.
 
And I find nothing but the word as it goes,
The flute’s initial note as it flows,
The bark of dreams that glides through infinity,
 
And under my Sleeping Beauty’s window sill,
The fountain jet that keeps on sobbing still,
The neck of the great white swan that questions me.
 
YO PERSIGO UNA FORMA . . .
 
(Rubén Darío)
 
Yo persigo una forma que no encuentra mi estilo,
botón de pensamiento que busca ser la rosa;
se anuncia con un beso que en mis labios se posa
el abrazo imposible de la Venus de Milo.
 
Adornan verdes palmas el blanco peristilo;
los astros me han predicho la visión de la Diosa;
y en mi alma reposa la luz como reposa
el ave de la luna sobre un lago tranquilo.
 
Y no hallo sino la palabra que huye,
la iniciación melódica que de la flauta fluye
y la barca del sueño que en el espacio boga;
 
y bajo la ventana de mi Bella-Durmiente,
el sollozo continuo del chorro de la fuente
y el cuello del gran cisne blanco que me interroga.

 
 
William Ruleman photo
 
 
BIO: William Ruleman’s poems and translations have appeared in many journals, including AALitra Review, Ezra, The Galway Review, The New English Review, The Pennsylvania Review, The Recusant, Rubies in the Darkness, The Sonnet Scroll, and Trinacria. His books include two collections of his own poems (A Palpable Presence and Sacred and Profane Loves, both from Feather Books), as well as translations of poems from Rilke’s Neue Gedichte (WillHall Books, 2003), of Stefan Zweig’s fiction in Vienna Spring: Early Novellas and Stories (Ariadne Press, 2010), of prose and poems by Zweig in A Girl and the Weather (Cedar Springs Books, 2014), and of poems by the German Romantics in Verse for the Journey: Poems on the Wandering Life (also from Cedar Springs Books). He is Professor of English at Tennessee Wesleyan College.LINK to William Ruleman’s Blog: http://williamruleman.tumblr.com/
 
 
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Rust. A Poem by E Darcy Trie

 
i.
 
once
we sat in a broken circle
while you rested on my knees
and i painted suns on your eyelids
because you were afraid
of the dark
and the lost people
inside you
and you believed in my brushes
and i believed in your excuses
and together we watched
that big ball of orange
sinking quietly below the trees
 
ii.
 
i unbutton you
and revealed little things
an opened mouth
the silk hiss of a shirt
sliding
these portents found
in the crossroads of
your clavicle
turned my hands kind and blue
our white spaces
fill with the jewel of our voices
rising like the smoke of spines
and line with the amethyst bursts
clustering above gray ceilings
 
iii.
 
this morning
the train tracks of your veins
lead both in and
out
while the platform of my chest
can only stay
hostage to the yellow
&
now
i touch the bone points
beating upon night’s black tissue
but once poked under
these fingertips
gather the carnations of
your breath and neck
rubbed red as my silence
i still feel
the pastels of the past
the ecru of knee
copper august skin
the gold token
of your throat
moving
 
 
the echo
of paper
 
tearing
 
iv.
 
i have only
these hues and salt water
as my weapons
and i no longer
believe in circles and dyes
but i know
i once seeped into your eyes
and may my colors
now rust within you

 
Darcy Trie-1
 
Darcy was born in Taipei, Taiwan in 1975, E. Darcy Trie is a Scorpio, Rabbit and matriculated in Little Rock, Arkansas at the age of two. She graduated at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville with a B.A. in Psychology along with Minors in Drama and Asian Studies. Sensing that achieving her Masters would drive her to drink, she wisely opted to tour Asia in her early twenties (thanks to a grant provided by Bank Of Daddy), and in the year 2000, found herself in the heart of Beijing, China where she began writing due to the fact that crocheting was far too complicated and because the voices in her head would not shut up.
 
By 2004, she had completed two romances, one historical and one modern, and after viewing all nine seasons of the X-Files and three seasons of C.S.I, finished the first two series of the Snow novels and is currently writing the third installment. During this time, she has also had several pieces of her poetry published in various online poetry magazines.
 
Her passions and hobbies includes writing, reading (anything put out by Neil Gaiman), Disney movies, all divination tools such as Tarot, I-Ching, Runes and is an enthusiastic, although albeit amateur, astrologist/paranormal investigator. She is 5’10, weighs whatever she wrote on her driver’s license, owns a lot of black hoodies and is addicted to It’s A Grind’s Passion Fruit tea.
 
She is fluent in English, Mandarin Chinese, some French and once took a Zero Hour in Greek in high school. She hates mornings, coconuts, wire bras, and sincerely hopes that this is bio is long enough to fill up an entire page (doubled-space of course).
 
Ms. Trie currently lives in Las Vegas, NV because she adores $2.99 buffets, Paigow Poker, and that lovely 116 degree August weather. She dreams of writing best-selling novels that will delight and thrill her future fans and because she is tired of being a productive citizen and wants to go back to being a mooching hermit.
 
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Sappho Ode. The Moon Has Set The Pleiades. Translations Richard Vallance.

Sappho poetry Elihu Vedder  1836-1923 The Pleiades 1885(1)
 
Press to Enlarge. Editor PLT
 
Richard Vallance, meta-linguist, ancient Greek & Mycenaean Linear B, home page: Linear B, Knossos & Mycenae, http://linearbknossosmycenae.wordpress.com/
 
Richard Vallance
 
https://linearbknossosmycenae.wordpress.com/2015/03/20/sublime-sappho-the-moon-has-set-the-pleiades-in-aeolic-greek-linear-b-linear-c-english-french/
 
 
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Rumination…A Poem By Anca Mihaela

 
 
No more…
proclamation for
a key salvation…
with gravitational truths
and hypodermic memories,
measured against
a polystyrene
heaven…
 
No more…
inner conflicts
under a solar eclipse,
orbiting inside my eyes…
Outside-inside Me,
rippling rhythms
write a new stanza
of Rebirth!…
 
No more…
clandestine voices
lost in the paths
of Mundanity,
in this delirious tangibility,
with alternative endings
of a Babylonian Love saga…

 
 
Anca - Artist 3
 

Anca Mihaela Bruma – Short Bio
 
My name is Anca Mihaela Bruma, I am Romanian living in Dubai/UAE. My love for poetry started when I was just 9 years old, when I registered myself to some creative poetry writing group. It was a turning point for me as I started to discover the mysteries of the written word and its impact on the readers. Since that early age, I have always viewed writing poetry as the perfect medium which is able to depict profound unfathomable complexities of someone’s life or life itself, to render into words that which is unsayable, that ineffable, which can be truly deeper than the language itself. Through my writings, as well years of readings, I always looked to seek something beyond that which was apparent to others! I was fascinated to see how different aspects of truth were transfigured by different emotions, how experiences were poetized. I pursued seeing beauty expressed in all forms of art, not just poetry; creating a “thirst” within me to explore more and more for the knowledge of the mystery beneath and beyond it, as a symbol of something greater and higher with its own power to immortalize the expressions over the years.
 
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Anca-Mihaela/317866078233812

 
 
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MARGUERITE (by Rubén Darío; translated by William Ruleman)

MARGUERITE
 
(by Rubén Darío; translated by William Ruleman)
 
Remember how you longed to be a Marguerite
Gautier? Burned on my brain, the strangeness of your face
On that first date when we went out to eat:
Light-hearted night with none thereafter to take its place.
 
Your lips, smeared scarlet with a crude lipstick replete
With purple, sipped champagne with exquisite grace
From finest crystal while you plucked a . . . yes, marguerite:
“He loves me, he loves me not . . .” You knew quite well the case.
 
And then, hysterical flower, how you laughed and cried:
Those laughs, your scents, your moans—ah, they were all for me!
Your kisses and your tears seemed on my mouth to stay.
 
And one sad afternoon when days were sweet, you died.
To see if you loved me, Death, in his jealousy,
Plucked you, like a marguerite of love, away!
 
MARGARITA
 
(Rubén Darío)
 
¿Recuerdas que querías ser una Margarita
Gautier? Fijo en mi mente tu extraño rostro está,
cuando cenamos juntos, en la primera cita,
en una noche alegre que nunca volverá.
 
Tus labios escarlatas de púrpura maldita
sorbían el champaña del fino baccarat;
tus dedos deshojaban la blanca margarita,
«Sí… no… sí… no…» ¡y sabías que te adoraba ya!
 
Después, ¡oh flor de Histeria! llorabas y reías;
tus besos y tus lágrimas tuve en mi boca yo;
tus risas, tus fragancias, tus quejas, eran mías.
 
Y en una tarde triste de los más dulces días,
la Muerte, la celosa, por ver si me querías,
¡como a una margarita de amor, te deshojó!
 
 
 
William Ruleman photo

BIO: William Ruleman’s poems and translations have appeared in many journals, including AALitra Review, Ezra, The Galway Review, The New English Review, The Pennsylvania Review, The Recusant, Rubies in the Darkness, The Sonnet Scroll, and Trinacria. His books include two collections of his own poems (A Palpable Presence and Sacred and Profane Loves, both from Feather Books), as well as translations of poems from Rilke’s Neue Gedichte (WillHall Books, 2003), of Stefan Zweig’s fiction in Vienna Spring: Early Novellas and Stories (Ariadne Press, 2010), of prose and poems by Zweig in A Girl and the Weather (Cedar Springs Books, 2014), and of poems by the German Romantics in Verse for the Journey: Poems on the Wandering Life (also from Cedar Springs Books). He is Professor of English at Tennessee Wesleyan College.LINK to William Ruleman’s Blog: http://williamruleman.tumblr.com/
 
 
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Because Of The Deep Notes. Audio Poems by Stephen Philip Druce


 
Because Of The Deep Notes by Stephen Philip Druce
 
I saw poker faced monsters in shuffling cars plot,
i saw the misshapen grins of arching fountains,
the pulsing hounds in shadowed gunshot.
In lost ships i saw ghosts within coats of forgotten stitch,
under the strips of desert skin i saw the old bones twitch.
I saw giants big as churches juggle fire in the alleys
where the fleeing fox sat, among the cracked walls
were the manacled cat calls and pouring fibre rat.
I saw the broken spine of stopped clock as the scattered stars wept,
without the midnight chimes the great conductor in the sky slept.
I saw misbehaving angels in chariots clad in gazelle breeze run,
i saw the roll of a hurricane bowl of palm trees glad of a golden peach sun.
I saw flesh crawl upon deserted beach floors in the name of contorted sin,
i saw the ocean contours rock in tender velvet skin.
I saw horses gallop under backstreet tunnels that curved in graffiti art,
of a rainbow arc illuminating in the dark and our names penned in a love heart –
because of the deep notes.

 
 
img_1140-copy-2
 
 
Stephen Philip Druce is a fifty year old poet from Shrewsbury ( birthplace of Charles Darwin) in England. At college his literary tutors referred to him as ‘The Real Fantasist’, such was the rich imagery he would display in his fantasy based poetry.
 
Stephen is published with Pulsar, Century 121, The Right Place At The Right Time, Bad Scents Of Humour, Muse Literary Journal, The Screech Owl, Hermes, Bareback Literature, Fade, and The Inconsequential.
 
Stephen enjoys reading William Carlos Williams, WH Auden, Philip Larkin, Charles Bukowski, John Keats, and Dylan Thomas.

 
 
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
https://www.amazon.com/author/robinouzmanhislop

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Adam, Where Are You? A Poem by Franchot Ballinger

 
 
I wasn’t long for that world.
I was treated like dirt.
OK, so I didn’t get to choose my
Name, but I’m my own man, I’ll tell you.
I got to name the filthy beasts,
Who were already there when I
Woke from that dreamless, selfless sleep
I’d been in. What a greeting they gave me—
Their snarling bared teeth, claws and hooves
Mauling the air before me.
They were something else, and I
Was more than glad to say what they were.
It was like the names kept them off.
 
Then she happened, sudden.
I woke from a nap (This one a dreaming-of-me
Sleep). And there she was. Now, where’d she come from?
Not something I could (or would have) dreamt up.
I got to name her too: Eve.
Prophetic, eh?
If such things as beasts and she must be,
There’s comfort in giving a name.
Still, the orders were to take her
As my flesh and bone. One,
We were supposed to be—like lichen or pondlight,
I guess—as if there were no edges to us.
 
What a puzzle. But, you know,
Sometimes that being one stuff wasn’t bad.
I’d wake in the morning from my dreams,
Her head on my chest,
And the light would be like a lilt in the air—
A choral radiance greeting us—and we
Smiled a lot in a certain dim-witted way.
 
But most often we’d stand staring at each other,
Dull as dirt, stunned as deer caught in torchlight.
She clearly wasn’t me and I wasn’t her,
Not that I cared to be. So, all in all, I for one
Was only too glad to get out. Never mind the rumors…
I chose.
During all the “he said, she said” after the trouble,
I felt something crack inside, like a flawed pot
Over-heated in all the hiss and boil of the tiff.
From then on, it was all careless looks and words
Flicked like snot from fingertips.
The light in her eyes flew off
Like a puff of milkweed down across an empty field at dusk.
I saw there was nothing
Between us but echoing air. I
Couldn’t stay, had to be free, and left in dark of night.
Damned if she didn’t follow. I
Could sense her skulking out behind me. I
Didn’t look for fear I’d get yanked back. Maybe
I should have; maybe the old evil eye
Would have sent her back. But She
Caught up, and we stumbled dumbly along.
 
As we still do.
Now, most days and in the long, long
Nights, we scarcely converse.
When we do our voices seem to caress themselves,
And something in them spills and spills
Like rain down denuded hills.
Is this karma, or what?

 
 
Franchot Ballinger
 
 
In retirement after nearly 40 years teaching English at the University of Cincinnati, Franchot Ballinger has continued volunteering with the Cincinnati Nature Center in various capacities and is also a spiritual care volunteer with Hospice of Cincinnati. His poems have appeared in numerous poetry journals in print and on-line.
 
 
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