Hidden Pain & Before. 2 Poems by Laura Stamps

(i.)
 
Hidden Pain
 
She sleeps in a tree, the tallest tree
she can find in this dark forest.
Here she feels safe, this place
where she no longer has to smile
and pretend the last three years never happened,
years of chronic trauma caused
by four men, narcissists, who abandoned her
as collateral damage.
 
How did it feel? Like terrorists
had blown up her life. No time
to grieve. No time to heal.
Too much to do. Too much to clean up.
Yet none of those men apologized.
And one had the nerve to say,
I’m sorry about what I did to you,
but you’re strong. I knew
you’d land on your feet.

 
Was that the best he could do?
Well, at least now she knew
narcissists are just terrorists in disguise.
 
I couldn’t tell anyone, she whispered
to the tree. There was no time.
I had to repair the damage. Be strong.
Be strong.
Be strong.
No one knew what had happened.
What it did to me. What they did to me.
No one knew. I should have told someone.
Anyone.
But I didn’t.

 
Now she spends her nights with a tree.
Two kindred spirits.
Its branches lifted high. Her arms raised.
Both of them reaching for the sky,
reaching,
reaching,
as if they might drown. But only
one of them knows
she’s sinking.
 
(ii)
 
Before
 
1.
Before her life blew sky-high
she had goals, dreams, hope, and a future.
A bright one. Her future.
But that was before four men
entered her world with their drama, mistakes,
destruction, and left her behind
to fix the damage.
In the midst of this, her future vanished.
It’s not that the future looked bleak.
It just wasn’t there anymore.
She couldn’t see it. No dreams,
no goals, no hope. No future.
Her future.
Gone.
All that remained was a vast blank
space that used to be called FUTURE.
 
2.
Every day she felt herself slipping, sinking,
deeper into that void. Its emptiness plagued her.
Its hopelessness. It haunted her.
And it hurt.
More than she ever imagined.
Where is the woman who eagerly achieved
her goals, chased her dreams, hoped
in a sunny future?
She vanished, too. Gone.
 
3.
Go back!
Go back to before.
Before those men. Before their damage.
Go back! Look at the future before.
What nourished her hope? Before, before.
Go back!
What were her goals? What were her dreams?
Pursue them again. Go back!
What were the things that gave her joy before?
Do them again. And again.
And again.
Go back! Go back to before. The future
waits. To begin, to begin.
Maybe then they can be friends again.
 
 
 

 
BIO: Laura Stamps is a poet and the author of several chapbooks, including IN THE GARDEN and TUNING OUT. Her poetry book THE YEAR OF THE CAT was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize (2005). She is also the recipient of seven Pushcart Prize nominations. Currently, Laura is working on a new chapbook of poems about PTSD and chronic trauma. You can find her www.laurastampspoetry.blogspot.com & on Twitter at @LauraStamps16.
 
 
 
 
 
 
Robin Ouzman Hislop is Editor of Poetry Life and Times at Artvilla.com ; You may visit Aquillrelle.com/Author Robin Ouzman Hislop about author & https://poetrylifeandtimes.com See Robin performing his work Performance (University of Leeds)

 

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Peter Mladinic’s Schaeffer Poems

(i.)
 
Schaeffer Is Next
 
The next vape, the next corner
To turn, the next day, he drove
To Maidenrock. It was a Saturday.
Schaeffer thinks of the adjective,
Then, next, please, please added
To soften the blow that one is next,
Whether one likes it or not. Schaeffer
Thinks, I’m next. He thinks:
The next vampire film, the next
Trip to Walmart, the next bite
Of the apple, the next diver
To leap from the plane and pull
The parachute string to soften the fall.
 
Don’t sit under the apple tree
With anyone else but Kim Kardashian West
Don’t sit under the apple tree
With anyone but Derek Jeter
With anyone but Taylor Swift
With anyone but a descendent of Clyde
Barrow, with anyone whose surname
Is Lake
Don’t do it, don’t sit there with
Casey Anthony, Susan Smith
Or Charles Manson
 
The next vape, the next hero
The next vampire, the next banquet
The next moment, who knows
Anything might happen:
A river might flood,
A tree might catch on fire.
 
There’s the Rita H angle
How she was glamorous in her voice
Her eyes, her long wavy red hair
Her spangled dress that hugged her hips
Glamorous in her walk in how she moved
Back and forth on stage
Under the spotlight in Gilda.
Then, spin the wheel of time forward,
Say, twenty years and find her
Alone in a room. Dementia
Has taken over.
She is cared for, incontinent
Can’t wipe herself or wash her
Once lovely hair. Oh,
The waking nightmare bird
Perches on her shoulder
That was once bare and aflame
With lust, all of her.
 
(ii.)
 
Schaeffer’s Notion of Beauty
 
Bombs turn a building to rubble,
rescuers find
an arm, a leg.
 
In a mall a maniac fires a rifle,
leaving in his wake
dead children.
 
Hate manifestos
all over the Internet,
in the world there is danger:
 
a racist shoots Satyajit Chandra
at a bus stop
and nothing is done.
 
Still, even now, beauty
is with us.
 
(iii.)
 
Shaeffer Wonders
 
This accident from 1965 astonishes
Schaeffer. He writes: I was far away,
but I can see the broad boulevard,
the side streets of my hometown,
and can imagine the Davis car
blows thoughtless through the Stop
and slams the rear of the Edwards car
 
so that car spins a quick whirlwind
on this Sunday night of light traffic.
The lethal turbulence in this time
before seatbelts flings rag doll-like
Mr Edwards from behind the wheel
out to the street, his head dashes
the curb, instant dead. Mr Edwards’
 
going from his house to Lucille
Desaderio’s split-second stopped
on the boulevard, that two mile drive
disrupted with Lucille who sat close
between Mr Edwards and Chris
his son, both passengers still there
in the gold sedan’s front bench.
 
The sedan’s spinning stilled,
the turbulence quieted, still as death
that intersection. I can hear sirens,
see two patrol cars on the scene,
a yellow ambulance’s red top whirls
in the still night, a badge, his back
to the ambulance, jots with a pen
 
in a pad. The ambulance’s back door
open, the sheeted dead lifted in
and wonder if Lucille that night wore
shorts, sandals, a thin gold cross
on a chain and at what hour Lucille
unhooked that chain’s clasp and
wonder if a red white Marlboro box
 
fell from dash to floorboard, Chris’s
cigarettes. Did he reach for one
and with a Zippo light it? Its orange tip
in the dark glows as the badge jots
with a ballpoint and the ambulance
siren sounding leaves the boulevard
and Lucille and Chris leave, and John
 
Davis, the other driver. I remember
Mr Edwards dove perfectly off a high
board, arrow-straight down into a pool
of blue water rippled with sun rings.
Iron-gray hair, tall and straight, at 47
still athletic, he walks out a door
with car keys in hand, that night.
 

 
Peter Mladinic has published three books of poems: Lost in Lea, Dressed for Winter, and Falling Awake in Lovington, all with the Lea County Museum Press. He lives in Hobbs, New Mexico.
 
 
 
 
 
 
Robin Ouzman Hislop is Editor of Poetry Life and Times at Artvilla.com ; You may visit Aquillrelle.com/Author Robin Ouzman Hislop about author & https://poetrylifeandtimes.com See Robin performing his work Performance (University of Leeds)

 

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SHEOL, SHEOL… A Poem by Alisa Velaj Translated by Arben P. Latifi

SHEOL, SHEOL..*
[A gender-free lament in plural]

 
Songs sung to our lands. 
Songs of sorrow, screams, or sheer satisfaction, 
sung on our doorsteps.
 
Songs sung in foreign lands.
To those distant lands. 
Songs sung on doorsteps to those foreign lands, 
or songs of foreign lands on our doorsteps. 
(Everyone will, at some point, live a mental exile)
 
Songs, songs, songs—endlessly; 
after endlessness, yet another endlessness, 
with different songs, 
even though still with the same screams...
 
Nobody even thinks of migrating 
away from your catacombs, Sheol... 
Nor away from your songs, either!
  
*Sheol -the abode of the dead in early Hebrew thought.
  
Translated from Albanian by Arben P. Latifi
   

 
Alisa Velaj has been shortlisted for the annual international Erbacce-Press Poetry Award in UK in
June 2014. 

Her works have appeared in more than eighty print and online international magazines, including: 
FourW twentyfive Anthology (Australia), The Journal (UK), The Dallas Review (USA), 
The Linnet's Wings (UK),The Seventh Quarry (UK), Envoi Magazine (UK) etc., etc., 

Velaj's digital chapbook "The Wind Foundations" translated by Ukë Zenel Buçpapaj is published 
by Zany Zygote Review (USA). 

Her poems are also translated in Hebrew, Swedish, Romanian, French and Portuguese. 
Alisa Velaj’s poetry book "With No Sweat At All" (trans by Ukë Zenel Buçpapaj) was published 
by Cervena Barva Press in 2019.

Bio of translator

Arben P. Latifi ̶ born in 1961 in Kolonjë, Albania. A graduate of the History-Philology College, State University of Tirana [1985]; MA degree in English Language Arts & Teaching [Graduation thesis: “A Comparative Analysis of the Albanian Translations of “King Lear” and “Richard III” by Skënder Luarasi.”]Postgraduate studies in Diplomacy and International Trade [1987-88]. Teaching career comprises a wide range of locations [Albania, USA, Oman, China] and age groups [from young learners to adults]. Keen to the core principles of the art of translating and poetryspecifics, his distinct style reflects maximum-level accuracy and faithfulness to the original text message, while flexibly and reasonably going the extra mile to add to original merits via enhancement of cohesive interlingual flow, imagery, vocabulary, musicality…

 
 
 
 
 
 
Robin Ouzman Hislop is Editor of Poetry Life and Times at Artvilla.com ; You may visit Aquillrelle.com/Author Robin Ouzman Hislop about author & https://poetrylifeandtimes.com See Robin performing his work Performance (University of Leeds)

 

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The Cold Sunset. A Prose Poem by Bobbi Sinha-Morey

It’s been two days that no bird
has been in the sky, the dooryard
so quiet except for the sound of an
acorn just fallen from the oak tree;
my neighbor so empty-headed she
doesn’t believe a word the scientists
say; this day in 2020 she’d rather
put her faith in what that louse has
to say. She sees him as an ornament,
something full and bright, she doesn’t
see under the surface like me and so
many other people do. I fear the worst,
smell the smoke rising of a growing
civil war or revolution having wound
their way around my head and squeezed
themselves inside. My oldest daughter
doesn’t like it either; this morning she
woke up with sleep marks creasing the
side of her face. And I hate what I just
learned on the radio; I bang my head
on a book trying to dislodge yesterday’s
memory. I stand there outside my home
all by myself staring at the cold sunset
above me with hardly a friend because
I like to speak my mind. No one wants
to listen to me except for my father,
the smartest person I know. I’m no
Nostradamus, but the predictions I’ve
made over the years have always rung
true.
 
 

 
 
Bobbi Sinha-Morey’s poetry has appeared
in a wide variety of places such as Plainsongs, Pirene’s Fountain, The Wayfarer, Helix Magazine, Miller’s Pond, The Tau, Vita Brevis, Cascadia Rising Review, Old Red Kimono, and Woods Reader. Her books of poetry are available at Amazon.com and her work has been nominated for Best of the Net Anthology in 2015, 2018, and 2020 as well has having been nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2020. Her website is located at http://bobbisinhamorey.wordpress.com.
 
 
 
 
 
 
Robin Ouzman Hislop is Editor of Poetry Life and Times at Artvilla.com ; You may visit Aquillrelle.com/Author Robin Ouzman Hislop about author & https://poetrylifeandtimes.com See Robin performing his work Performance (University of Leeds)

 

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Dead Beat Dad & More Poems by Brian Rihlmann

 
i.
 
Deadbeat Dad
 
my poems are my children
and I’m their deadbeat dad—
I create them, love them,
nurture them for a little while
a few hours…a day…
sometimes a week
if that’s what it takes
until I feel they’re ready
or I’m just tired of them
then I boot them out
I open the door and say—
you’ve gotten all I have to give
so go on now
you’re free
get out there and live
go see what they’ll make of you
just don’t expect too much
 
sometimes they don’t want to go
they look back at me
from the front steps
they plead with their eyes
and their sad little faces
but I set mine to stone
and shut the door
 
like any parent
of course it pains me to know
they may be mocked
or laughed at
or misunderstood
they may wind up
rotting in dumpsters
or abandoned in dark
and dusty corners
but there’s always the possibility
of being found by someone
who needs them
someone who hears
what they have to say
and that’s the best
a deadbeat dad like me
can hope for
 
ii.
 
One Day Much Too Soon
 
she walks unsteadily as a toddler
and trembles as though terrified
always a nurse by her side
I’ve watched her come and go
from the house next door
diminutive and middle-aged
with pageboy hair and thick glasses
but I haven’t seen her
since the ambulance came that day
and I haven’t heard
the unearthly sound she makes
halfway between a laugh and a cry
I never knew which
maybe she didn’t either
but now as I stand outside, listening…
the absence and the silence
reminds me of all we get used to
and all the strangeness we’ll miss
one day much too soon
 
iii.
 
One Hand On Her Ass
 
If a young man
ever sought my advice
I’d tell him this—
don’t kick yourself too much
not over the times
you stumble and fall
not over the time
you think you’ve wasted
lying there
until you’re able to get
on your feet again
and not over all the people
you believe you’ve let down
because the world
couldn’t possibly go on
without you, right?
don’t kick yourself
for any of it
in fact make a habit
of not kicking yourself—
life’s a cranky old mare
she’ll kick you plenty
stomp you when you’re down
she doesn’t need
any of your help
oh—and if you have to walk
behind her
keep one hand
on her ass
and stay as close
as you possibly can

 
 
 
 

 
 
 
Brian Rihlmann:
 
Brian Rihlmann lives and writes in Reno, Nevada. His poetry has appeared in many magazines, including The Rye Whiskey Review, Fearless, Heroin Love Songs, Chiron Review and The Main Street Rag. His latest collection, “Night At My Throat,” (2020) was published by Pony One Dog Press.
 
 
 
 
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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Karol Nielsen’s SHAKESPEARE’S GARDEN & other Poems

 
SHAKESPEARE’S GARDEN
 
I sat on a bench, raw logs,
shaved clean almost
in Shakespeare’s Garden.
The magnolias were bursting,
and the cherries,
and Japanese plum.
A photographer
held his lens high to
the pink, white, and purple buds,
snapping, looking,
snapping. Across the
sky, the apartment towers
looked grand,
like church steeples,
graceful, gothic spires.
And I thought of you,
painting this scene,
like we used to do.
 
COWBOY HAT
 
I wore a cowboy hat—
straw—and raw confidence,
as I walked past two men
who turned to look and said,
We’ll never see that girl again.
 
HEADS
 
They turn in summer for
sun-kissed hair, buttery
flesh—exposed, carefree.
They look down, turn away,
after fall brings its dull cast,
and I wonder what is true?
 
THE WRITING LIFE
 
I write a few lines
and feel the calm
of a practiced monk.
But too long away
I am the worst sort of
neurotic—incessant.
 
 

 
 
Karol Nielsen is the author of the memoirs Black Elephants (Bison Books, 2011) and Walking A&P (Mascot Books, 2018) and the chapbooks This Woman I Thought I’d Be (Finishing Line Press, 2012) and Vietnam Made Me Who I Am (Finishing Line Press, 2020). Her first memoir was shortlisted for the William Saroyan International Prize for Writing in nonfiction in 2012. Excerpts were honored as notable essays in The Best American Essays in 2010 and 2005. Her full poetry collection was a finalist for the Colorado Prize for Poetry in 2007. Her work has appeared in Epiphany, Guernica, Lumina, North Dakota Quarterly, Permafrost, RiverSedge, and elsewhere. She has taught writing at New York University and New York Writers Workshop.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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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EXOTIC BIRDS & LIFE IS FLAMENCO. Poems by Strider Marcus Jones

(i.)
 
EXOTIC BIRDS
 
i love the substance
of eccentric style
in your beauty-
the enchanting glance
of old fashioned romance
in your smile
that softly soothes me
after the external joust dust
of modernity
settles
on precious metals
sought by Faustus
stealing gas and oil
from African soil.
i love the dink
in the middle of your back
where my fingers sink
when i trace and track
the road of your spine
in perfect sync
of mind with mine.
i last, near and far
in your scented clouds of cinnabar,
singing, with you, want you, words
like intoxicating exotic birds-
ready to leave poisonous suburbs
to disturbed self and same
arrogant and vain
vices and vines
embracing abyss in eclipsed times.
 
(ii.)
 
LIFE IS FLAMENCO
 
why can’t i walk as far
and smoke more tobacco,
or play my Spanish guitar
like Paco,
putting rhythms and feelings
without old ceilings
you’ve never heard
before in a word.
 
life is flamenco,
to come and go
high and low
fast and slow-
 
she loves him,
he loves her
and their shades within
caress and spur
in a ride and dance
of tempestuous romance.
 
outback, in Andalucien ease,
i embrace you, like melted breeze
amongst ripe olive trees-
dark and different,
all manly scent
and mind unkempt.
 
like i do,
Picasso knew
everything about you
when he drew
your elongated arms and legs
around me, in this perpetual bed
of emotion
and motion
for these soft geometric angles
in my finger strokes
and exhaled smokes
of rhythmic bangles
to circle colour your Celtic skin
with primitive phthalo blue
pigment in wiccan tattoo
before entering
vibrating wings
through thrumming strings
of wild lucid moments
in eternal components.
 
i can walk as far
and smoke more tobacco,
and play my Spanish guitar
like Paco.
 

 
 
Strider Marcus Jones – is a poet, law graduate and former civil servant from Salford, England with proud Celtic roots in Ireland and Wales.
A member of The Poetry Society, his five published books of poetry https//stridermarcusjonespoetry.wordpress.com
reveal a maverick, moving between cities, playing his saxophone in smoky rooms.
——————————————
His poetry has been published in the USA, Canada, Australia, England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, France, Spain, Germany; Serbia; India and Switzerland in numerous publications including: The Piker Press; Dreich Magazine; The Racket Journal; Trouvaille Review; dyst Literary Journal; Impspired Magazine; Literary Yard Journal; Poppy Road Review; Cajun Mutt Press; Rusty Truck Magazine; Rye Whiskey Review; Deep Water Literary Journal; The Huffington Post USA; The Stray Branch Literary Magazine; Crack The Spine Literary Magazine; The Lampeter Review; Panoplyzine Poetry Magazine; Dissident Voice.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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 REHABILITATION OF A FUSED PARTICIPLE & TRUST IN THE COUNTRY Poems by Colin James

(i.)

THE REHABILITATION OF A FUSED PARTICIPLE
Upon your giving
the proper direction
we passed the gate without incident.
All the staff heavily bearded
wore vertical striped fare.
They led us down subconscious hallways
adorned with inmate’s art,
some bargains for the closet.
Pausing at a bared window
I matched a landscape with where we were.
They held you in a cordoned courtyard
the trickling light meekly unaware.
A straight jacket unpressed, stained
bits of recent food in your hair.
I signed the drug concession form.
We took the same route back
stopping just once more to inquire if
a previously dropped off appliance
could possibly be repaired.

(ii.)

TRUST IN THE COUNTRY
There is a neat, round hole
cut into the small tree bushes
across the way from
our bathroom window.
Sticking out of this hole
is a thick complex telescope.
I thought it was a tree limb,
passed it many times walking
the dog Jeff who had no opinion.
When I realized what was afoot,
I confronted our voyeuristic neighbor.
He said he had little interest in me
my skin too flaccid on the bone,
thin and thinner, despite absolution.
My wife however is voluptuous.
He often observes her on the toilette,
long legged, ankles turned slightly in.
Piquant and still retaining
much if not all of her original sin.
 
 

 
 
Colin James has a couple of chapbooks of poetry published. Dreams Of The Really Annoying from Writing Knights Press and A Thoroughness Not Deprived of Absurdity from Piski’s Porch Press and a book of poems, Resisting Probability, from Sagging Meniscus Press……
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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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