poetry

Scirocco (Tears of Carthage) Poem By Joseph Armstead

by

 
Among the stony ruins, the shadows haunting Carthage yet abide…
 
An unforgiving heat, strangling Life
from the very air through which it pulses,
radiates from an ocean of sand, charring
the steel of Heaven’s Gate —
 
there is no romance in this tale,
that would be a fool’s conceit
 
… and this disenchanted heart bleeds for you…
 
this is the bleakness of a dying god,
my lazy, uninspired deity,
slumbering
under baked, dessicated soil
as a nomadic army of ghosts
marches through the long centuries,
the flesh burns, scalded
by the brilliant light
of a star suffering storms…
 
Burning memory onto the retina of the mind’s bleary eye.
 
Something touches my hair. Wind?
Perhaps a Specter, lost, and wandering
the labyrinthine corridors of Time.
 
No greater fool than this, I peer into history’s chaos;
 
Bonifacius fell before the fury of the Vandals,
the Vandal heretic Gaeseric, in turn, fell
and the paretporian prefecture
of the Darkest Continent sundered
the Mediterranean shackles of Empire
until the Muslim Caliphs wrested control
of the warm waters of the vast harbor
 
… and still my misshapen life weeps through this wound I bear…
 
‘Lo, hear the music of regret, my scars are singing.
 
It’s the heat. Always and always, the furious heat.
Blistering. Stifling. A ragged silken gag stretching parched lips.
 
The breezes stir from off the bay
and streak over the rolling waters,
gathering into a rushing, stormy
fireball
 
… searing the wound shut, closing it against the leakage of yet more blood…
 
I see the excavated dinosaur’s remains of this place,
a warped mirrored reflection
laying bare my inner desolation.
Naked, in a shallow puddle
of dried and flaking scarlet
yesterdays.
 

 

BIO

Joseph Armstead is a suspense-thriller and horror author living in the United States’ San Francisco Bay Area. Author of a dozen short stories and ten novels, his poetry has been published in a wide range of online journals, webzines and print magazines. A mathematician, Futurist and computer technologist, Mr. Armstead’s poetry often defies easy description, but frequently includes neo-classical imagery, surrealist viewpoints and post-modern themes.
 
http://redroom.com/member/joseph-armstead

http://www.amazon.com/Condemned-Of-Heaven-Joseph-Armstead/dp/0578013665

 
Uroborus Mike Collins
 

robin@artvilla.com

www.facebook.com/PoetryLifeTimes

 

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Orange. A Poem by Belinda Rimmer

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An orange
sits on top of a tossing sea of apples –
 
outcast.
 
She’s a grumpy grandmother,
aproned in dimpled buckskin.
 
A depressed old lady.
 
Her navel
is a brittle button
in a sagging buttonhole.
 
She waits to be lifted
in hammock hands
and placed like a queen
on a spotless plate.
 
Then an elegant set of fingers
could peel her,
dissect her,
enter the jagged segments
of her heart.
 

belindarimmer(1)

 

I was born in Wiltshire in 1959. My father was a builder and my mother a housewife. I attended one of the first comprehensive schools and loved school life. However, my ambition to be a journalist was viewed by the school as not being a suitable occupation for a woman! It took me a while to decide upon psychiatric nursing as an alternative career. I worked for many years in mental health, mostly with adolescents and their families.
 
After having my children, I enrolled at the local university. As I’d always danced and written poetry, I became increasingly interested in performance arts as a subject which allowed me to use both disciplines. After completing an MA in Fine and Media arts, I worked in a variety of creative roles: lecturer, dance development officer, and dance and drama practitioner for schools.
 
I’ve had poems published in a number of journals (I’m hampered by a tendency to keep my work hidden inside a box).
 
Over the last few years, I have been writing stories for children. This gives me hours of pleasure, but not a wage.
 

robin@artvilla.com

www.facebook.com/PoetryLifeTimes
 

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The Golden Lion. Mycenaean Haiku by Richard Vallance.

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haikpotniatherolioninthesundeath
 
Press to Enlarge. Editor
 
The Golden Lion linearbknossosmycenae.wordpress.com/2014/06/26/a-blazing-hot-summer-haiku-in-linear-b-the-golden-lion-potnia-mistress-of-the-wild-and/
 
Editor’s Note: it is also advised by the author to visit the site for commentaries on the translation & text.

Richard Vallanc Santorini Greece May 2012

 
Richard Vallance, meta-linguist, ancient Greek & Mycenaean Linear B, home page: Linear B, Knossos & Mycenae, http://linearbknossosmycenae.wordpress.com/
 
PINTEREST Boards: Mycenaean Linear B: Progressive Grammar & Vocabulary, http://pinterest.com/vallance22/mycenaean-linear-b-progressive-grammar-and-vocabul/ and, Knossos & Mycenae, sister civilizations, http://pinterest.com/vallance22/knossos-mycenae-sister-civilizations/ Also poetry publisher, The Phoenix Rising from the Ashes: Anthology of sonnets of the early third millennium = Le Phénix renaissant de ses cendres : Anthologie de sonnets au début du troisième millénaire. Friesen Press, Victoria, B.C., Canada. © August 2013. 35 illustrations in B&W. Author & Title Indexes. 257 pp. 315 sonnets & ghazals in English, French, Spanish, German, Chinese & Persian. http://vallance22.hpage.com/
 

robin@artvilla.com

www.facebook.com/PoetryLifeTimes
 

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Any Available Exit. Poem by Ian Irvine (Hobson)

by 


I

In the quiet street an
       unacknowledged jettatore fixes upon
           a passing feline.

II

As the modern cars move
   parallel to grey pedestrians.
I take a strong dislike 
   to a malefic debauchee—he’s
   too shoulder-close at the newspaper stand.

III

Out and about after the airline trip
   I radiate ojas—apparently the women
of the city like treacle 
   (thankfully I do not smell 
    like the corpse of hatred).

IV

Though I have not met 
    the approaching academics, their
undulatory waves press me
    breathless against a concrete wall—
I almost drop the morning paper.

V

In the hotel lobby, whilst savouring 
    breakfast odours, a passing porter 
attempts to mesmerise me with potent od—
    I dodge the fluid emotion
make for the lift 
    and a workaday shower.

VI

Those aesthetic goldfish, multicoloured
    creatures of coral, frenzy up
as I pass—I experiment: my hands
    comfort or incite
at random, at toss of a dollar coin.

Seems 
    I am naturally beneficent—
    they will not need the fish-food
for six times seven days.

VII

Though diseased guests are
    locked in luxury suites
I am forced to brave the un-medicinal air
    of their corridor jaunts—right here:
the excrescent energy of a lover
    stifling to his beloved.
I’m exhausted as I reach the door
    of my own room.

VIII

Having showered I sleep
     to alleviate the tiredness, notice
     in the sprawling that
this hand 
     soothes the solar plexus
this other 
     draws living juice
from the liberated heart—the transfer 
           is intense
 a three hour dialysis.

IX

Over-looking
     dim-lit rectangles
solid with brick and concrete, 
     cold steel and mathematical, I feel 
a rush of love—this I direct,
     squeeze gently from the tea-bag
     (comes rich aroma)—then collapse
among conference paraphernalia, all
     strewn upon the double bed—
and know for the first time, with relief, 
    that your tumor will be benign
    (will heal itself).

X

It is the same day
     in a different city, and
the evening undresses, 
     opens the temporal gate
          wide enough ajar, that I
can place my foot in the door.

As I do, I clasp the relic
      you gave me—makes vivid
our charmed purpose.

You know that stone?
      I remember it
about your neck. 

As I imagine
     it positively glows
and I know 
     that you like me to think 
     about you, even
from a great distance.
 
 
Ian Irvine Photo


Ian Irvine is an Australian-based poet/lyricist, fiction writer and non-fiction writer:
 
His work has featured in many Australian and international publications, including Fire (UK) ‘Anthology of 20th Century and Contemporary Poets,’ (2008) which contained the work of poets from over 60 nations. His work has also appeared in a number of Australian national poetry anthologies, and he is the author of three books and co-editor of many more (including Scintillae 2012, an anthology of work by over 50 Victorian and international writers and poets). He currently teaches writing and literature at Bendigo TAFE and Victoria University (Melbourne) and lives with fellow writer Sue King-Smith and their children on a 5 acre block near Bendigo, Australia.

Links related to his work are as follows:

 
http://authorsden.com/ianirvine

http://www.scribd.com/IanHobson

 
 

robin@artvilla.com
www.facebook.com/PoetryLifeTimes

 

 



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Moving On. Haiku.Theme Loss & Grief. Nancy May
		

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winter sunset

taking your last breath

I am with you

 

winter drizzle

our time has come

for us to part

 

winter night

I come back home

to an empty house

 

winter dawn

I am waking up early

since you left

 

spring dawn

the absence of your voice

I start to notice

 

spring rain

I understand now

we walk on new paths

 

spring sunset

in the passing of time

my heart opens

 

 



nancy may

Nancy May has haiku published in Haiku Journal, Three Line Poetry, Poetry Quarterly, Inclement Poetry, Twisted Dreams Magazine, Vox Poetica, Eskimo Pie, Icebox, Dark Pens, Daily Love, Leaves of Ink, The Blue Hour Magazine, Kernels, Mused – The BellaOnline Literary Review, Dead Snakes, Danse Macabre – An online literary magazine, High Coupe, A Handful of Stones, Lyrical Passion Poetry E-Zine, UFO Gigolo, 50 Haikus, The Germ, Boston Literary Review, Be happy Zone, Every Day Poets, Cattails, Ppigpenn and Creatrix Journal. Haiku will soon appear in M58.

 

She is a monthly contributor at The Camel Saloon and Poems and Poetry. She has reached The Heron’s Nest consideration stage twice and the Chrysanthemum consideration stage once. She is working on her first haiku collection.

 

 

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Smolder. A Poem by E. Darcy Trie
		

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i


found you


under a buttercup


this sun baby


that spoke in a lemonade language


about how our palms


line up like the


north star

 

*

 

we


slid like butter


against an iron night


flaked and crumbled


a swath of saffron


leaping in leprechaun steps


toward a brimstone morning

 

*

 

you


paused


like a catch


a hiccup


your indian summer voice


confessed


thread is too thin


breakable


and gently explained


that’s not ocher


see?


it’s just


yellow

 

*

 

here


it was agreed to leave


patches of sunlight


cut into sulfur strips


by your turning shadow


those golden bars

 

o

 

 

how they still

 

 

 

smolder

 

 

 

E. Darcy Trie, Nevada, United States of America

 

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.

 

 

robin@artvilla.com 

www.facebook.com/PoetryLifeTimes




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Pursued Poem by Joan McNearney
		

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My dark dreams scatter across asphalt streets. Rain splashes

ebony ink, winds snarling my damp hair. My mind in knots

and snags. Throat dry and raw as I step over cobblestones.

 

It follows me, this long shadow, waiting to cover me,to encompass me.

 

Now I am passing a field.  My worn shoes sink into moist grounds.

The soil offers up scents of mild vegetation, promises of spring.

Gusts tangle trees and calls from lost trains resound through night.

 

It follows me, this long shadow, waiting to cover me,to encompass me.

 

I keep climbing a hill. My mind twisted into knots. How can

I breathe? There is no turning back. White walls meet me head-on.

I feel the rough concrete pressing my fingers as I push in.

 

It follows me, this long shadow, waiting to cover me,encompass me.

 

Finally swallowed whole by this black heart of night.

 

 




Joan McNerney’s poetry has been included in numerous literary magazines such as Seven Circle Press, Dinner with the Muse, Blueline, Spectrum, three Bright Spring Press Anthologies and several Kind of A Hurricane Publications. She has been nominated three times for Best of the Net. Poet and Geek recognized her work as their best poem of 2013. Four of her books have been published by fine small literary presses and she has three e-book titles.


Vivitar


  


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The Daddy Poem Series (i.-vii.) by Janet P. Caldwell.
		

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Janet P. Caldwell is currently the COO of Inner Child, ltd., Humanitarian, Reiki Master, Poet, Published Author, 5 degrees to separation, Passages and Dancing Toward the Light . . . The Journey Continues, many anthologies, magazines and more. To read more of Janet’s work please visit the links below.

 

www.janetcaldwell.com/

 

www.innerchildpress.com/janet-p-caldwell.php

 

www.facebook.com/JanetPCaldwell

 

 

(i.)

 

5 degrees to separation

 

I learned to count early

Read the bible too

Wrath, punishment

Seemed no absolution

Separate at five

 

In the morning

When I was defiled

Five screams a minute

Five shiny points from

The glass shards

 

Five fingers, to check off

As I calculate

In five minutes I’m clean

and new

Separated by five degrees

 

Five from what I don’t want

To remember, anything green

Black or brown

Make it easier

Five letters/numbers are my friends

 

The ceiling fan;

Wood, glass, white, brown, brass

Another set of quints

A quick escape

When I should need one

 

My rabbit hole with

Back-doors aplenty

Five senses all shut down

I’ve got good and can count

Before what might happen

 

Safe in numbers, hidden

When I separate from myself.

 

©2001-2014 Janet Caldwell

 

 

(ii.)

 

Weep for the Child that Never Was

 

Tears fall down my face

for a child with no name

A child filled with anguish

suffering disgrace.

 

How could they have lied

and treated her so

Why didn’t they love her

just let her go?

 

Buy her new clothes

fill her with song

Mess her up more

you can’t be wrong!

 

She grew up with walls

forever all around

The music you played

she couldn’t hear a sound.

 

You look at her now

with disgust in your eyes

You can’t see her though

she wears a disguise.

 

Hand-made by you

so carefully sewn

With coagulated drops

all her own.

 

You thought that you knew her

but there’s no way that you could

She’s not what you think

behind the mask stained with blood.

 

© Janet Caldwell 2001 – 2014

 

 

(iii.)

 

Daddy # 2

 

I Remember him

 

Glassy blue eyes

Fingertips brown

Black greasy hair

Forehead high

Child killer

Sick bastard

  

I Remember me

Scuttling like a rat

Running from a cat

Scattering across the tile

 

Like a roach on fire

When the lights came on

Better scatter, Daddy’s home!

 

I Remember (séances)

Straddling his head

The Shoulders so high

Calling up the dead

Peering in the sky

Let the dead arise

It’ll stop Daddy’s cries.

  

I Remember Abuse

Dancing to the belt

That beat me blue

Decorated with welts

 

Daddy, I Remember You

 

© Janet P. Caldwell 2003 -2014

 

 

(iv.)

 

Child’s Lament

 

I assume you’d say that I’m

As beautiful as I was when I was six.

I think … (I’m jinxed)

Mother Dear, what do you think of me now?

 

I really must know… I’m lost.

Did I say that I miss you?

I’m sorry if I haven’t.

I feel like Anne. Always have.

 

Did my beauty transpire when, I cooked your

Supper?  Was I special when

Your sick fuck of a husband

Molested me?  Made it easy for you,

well, answer me?

 

(If only in my mind, for my mind, I’m losing my mind . . . again)

 

Tell me, Mother, I want

To understand. (Significance?)

Myself, a wisp of value

I don’t have far to go.

 

It’s an indistinct trail, but

I try. Just explain it, please.

I forgive you.

Everyday.

 

And I will

I promise.

All the way to the grave.

Can you help me now???

 

©2002 – 2014 Janet Caldwell

 

 

(v.)

 

Sugar & Spice

 

Hey, Pom Pom girl, swingy

Red and blue, shake it

Shake it, cheer so loud

Until the acid bleeds your throat

 

Green eyes glaze and glisten

Smiling through the bile

You pretty little thing

For everyone to see, but

If they only knew, and could

See the scars beneath

 

The make-up, the crafted image

They wouldn’t be jealous

Now would they Blondie

Surely not of you?

 

You’re all grown now

If you believe a calendar

Hiding in a house, in plain

Sight, an icon for everything nice

And all that spice, so spice that nice

 

But tell me, what the

Hell happened to you?

A funny thing, frequent

Thoughts of suicide

A whispered middle-aged craze

Still hip, staying in style

 

You’re still pretty, my silly girl

Even with your head

Crammed in the toilet bowl

 

When did it stop being easy to cheer?

As you count the vomit chunks

Regurgitate love, empty

Your soiled soul.

 

Feeling better now?

No, I didn’t think you would

How about a pill? You know

That you can’t drink

Too many calories to consume

Remember? Pissing in the sink

 

I’ve been around, seen

Everything you’ve done

The things that you can’t handle

I saw you scrub and scrub.

 

Wipe at the dingy stains

From his dirty love, that stench

Perfume won’t hide.

 

You had to find a way

To survive the attentions

Of an unconvicted felon

That uncircumcised bastard

Who brought dinner home

 

You do it still you know

Those little tricks and games

Recount the vomit chunks

one-two-three-four-five

 

Hurry, hurry, hurry

That filthy secret’s visible

Flush, flush, flush!!!!!!

 

Tidily out of sight, out of mind

Your filth is in the sewer

A safe-deposit box

For unwanted truths

 

So you can facade the day

 

© Janet Caldwell 2002-2014

 

 

(vi.)

 

Father Figure

 

When Daddy bellowed, I couldn’t hear.

The octaves were past my recognition,

decibels too strong for understanding,

all finer points disappeared.

I recall being tired, taking care of the family.

I was ten and close to breaking, didn’t

need his yelling, or the strap that cut. It’ll

be over soon, bleed girl, just bleed.

 

I was fortunate, so very cared for in

public, what was my problem?

“Nothing, nothing”, I said, needing to

show deference, defiance and not dread.

The piss in my bladder burned, needing release.

 

I reached for the gun, shoved it in my mouth.

The taste of oiled metal gagged me. Why

should I suffer? Twisted the way shit can work.

It’s him, the hateful bastard needs to go

 

D

O

W

N

 

Going once, going twice.

Gone, I peed. Release.

 

Janet Caldwell 2001-2014

 

 

(vii.)

 

First Haircut

 

With her thin lips

she kissed Daddy

good morning.

 

She hated the sight,

the stale smell of him

and abhorred the facade.

 

Madness surrounded those

at 223 Deepwood Drive;

residential death.

 

At seven her mother was

working. Daddy had to get

the girl ready for school.

 

Cursing, he broke a comb,

trying to get it through

her waist length hair.

 

With a movement

that would startle the

comatose,

 

Daddy grabbed a butcher

knife and ambled over to

her chair.

(1-2-3-4-5)

 

She faced the wall, lined up the tiles,

attempting purple dreams.

Throttled screams, burgeoning walls

she could direct into tile accounting.

 

She closed her eyes tight now,

continued keeping ceramic book,

and waited.

 

Terror filled like before,

would he kill her

or beat her this time?

 

Her mind raced and flashed

to past images.

When spittle flecked her face,

welts and blood

decorated her ass.

 

An old waltz…

A dance that never ended pleasantly.

Grabbing her blond swirls in his nicotine

fist.

 

He muttered and sawed her spirit,

and hair, up to

Janet’s tiny neck.

 

Her tresses had been one of the few things

she liked about herself. The hair

once wrapped around her like satin

comfort.

 

It made her feel safe at 3AM.

Count girl count. (1-2-3-4-5…)

Another piece of the child died,

piled on the kitchen floor.

 

Janet Caldwell 2001-2014

 

 

janet caldwell (i)


Janet P. Caldwell Bio

 

Janet wrote her first poems and short stories in an old diary where she noted her daily thoughts. She wrote whether suffering, joyful or hoping for peace in the world. She started this process at the tender age of Eight. This was long before journaling was in vogue. Along with her thoughts, poetry and stories, she drew what she refers to as Hippie flowers. Janet still to this day embraces the Sixties and Seventies flower power symbol, of peace and love, which are a very important part of her consciousness.

 

Janet wrote her first book, in those unassuming diaries, never to be seen by the light of day due to an unfortunate house fire. This did not deter her drive. She then opted for a new batch of composition journals and filled everyone. In the early nineteen-eighties, Janet held a byline in a small newspaper in Denton, Texas while working full time, being a Mother and attending Night School.

 

Since the early days Janet has been published in newspapers, magazines, and books globally. She also has enjoyed being the feature on numerous occasions, both in Magazines, Radio and on Several Web Sites. She has gone on to publish three books. 5 degrees to separation 2003, Passages 2012 and her latest book Dancing Toward the Light . . . the journey continues 2013. She is currently editing her 4th book, written and to be published 2014.  All of her Books are available through Inner Child Press along with Fine Book Stores Globally.

 

Janet P. Caldwell is also the Chief Operating Officer of Inner Child www.iaminnerchild.com/, which includes Inner Child’s Ning Social Site innerchild.ning.com/, Inner Child Newspaper paper.li/1innerchild/1326347159, Inner Child Magazine www.innerchildmagazine.com/, Inner Child Radio www.blogtalkradio.com/inner-child-radio and The Inner Child Press Publishing Company www.innerchildpress.com/.

To find out more about Janet, you may visit her web-site, Face-book Fan Page and her Author page at Inner Child Press.

 

 

 

robin@artvilla.com

www.facebook.com/PoetryLifeTimes


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