Thursday, September 1, 2016

Danny Gentile #31

(Looking for a title)

it is dreadful and immediate
and sometimes all there is
not a whisper but thunder

seems to rise from its clout
shakes the gigantic throat
but prisoned by atmosphere

rebounding from aggregate
echoing to fall from place 
to a pretended emptiness

safety of a shell becomes
the earth’s uncertain ear
a canal opening to the roar

or drowning into the idea
a singular idea ridden on
the shock of a summation

brittle within its ending
the echo that quietly goes
shaping patience in its wake



Michele Morgan #236 dánta caillte (for the lost poems series)




















surely there must be
a poem
recycling station

Jeffree Skewes #29 After the Rain



All but drops strained

passed through

live again






















image: After the Rain synthetic polymer paint gold leaf on canvas on board / jskewes



Béatrice Machet # 221 Friendship and Poetry




“Thanks for your friendship” he says
Should I understand an ironic manner out of despair? 
Should I feel? share?  the  bitter lemon taste in his mouth?
I was told this man is a poet so
should I consider his words as poetry?
Questions are turning are spinning from my open head
to a spiraling dance around me …
Then it’s like a revelation:
What a great privilege to have been taught this lesson!
Now I’ll be wise in my poetic choices!
The upmost importance the essential ambition is that
your words are read by people  like they’re biting into a lemon …

“Thanks for your friendship” I reply 
“Merci d’offrir ton amitié” dit-il
Devrais-je comprendre dans sa  manière ironique une forme de désespoir ?
Devrais-je sentir? partager? le gout amer du citron dans sa bouche?
On m’a dit que cet homme est un poète alors
devrais-je prendre ses paroles pour de la poésie?
Les questions tournent virevoltent depuis ma tête ouverte
pour former une danse spiralée autour de moi …
Et puis c’est la révélation :
quel grand privilège d’avoir reçu cette leçon !
Maintenant je serai sage dans mes choix poétiques !
La plus haute importance l’ambition primordiale c’est que
vos mots soient lus par les gens comme s’ils mordaient dans un citron …

“Merci d’offrir ton amitié” répliqué-je

Jeltje Fanoy #51 new beginning

Cultivated seeds gone
feral, nothing more
cheerful than finding one,
our new neighbours did,
a tiny seedling outside
the fence-line, just
after they moved in,
oh well, let's see what
it is, you know, most
probably, a plant blown
in from the neighbours,
then, big leaves appeared,
a fig tree, should we pull it
out, and we all said "No!"
what is it about a fig tree,
a friendly street,
paradise reclaimed,
illegally, on the footpath,
a new beginning,
the new couple ensconced
in their new home,
so, the feral fig lived on,
one evening, fruit bats,
living on the river, descended
from starry summer skies,
big, shadowy creatures, a whole
new understanding of paradise lost

Kit Kelen - Series with Jack Picone's photographs - #6 - Manado, Sulawesi (Celebes)


6
Manado, Sulawesi

you won't see the gold
it's all upstream

shirts off
for the mercury today

this little god gets in the blood
messenger of what?

you won't see the gold
not in the grey

you'd think it might shine
fine musculature here

fish fed
through lipid membranes

through the web
we're at the top

wading the sludge
will some sun show

you won't see the gold
who's this 'we'

who owns and who belongs
to the river?





Chrysogonus #32 - Javanese New Year in Yogyakarta

Javanese New Year in Yogyakarta

simplicity celebrated
in the absence of sounds
feast of void

no fireworks launched
no flashing lights
just this slow breath

then the big wash
soul purging trickle
under a moon's new sky

downtown a crowd
circulating in silence
attending earth's benediction

dawn of a new twelvemonth
life one less year to live
life only as long as this glass is to drink

joy of a new year
not in the banquet for the flesh
but in the calm of the soul

Kit Kelen #245 - the angels again or if I were mist


245
the angels again
or
if I were mist

Christmas tree tinsel
good guys' trick or treat

you want to rub up against them
just an idea

they practise an antique erotics
all folds and fold away

still the question of weight
will be addressed

is this substance in fact soul
of which so long is spoken?

they cannot be seen in the light, in the dark
are they animal tidings attendant?

if one were made of mist
or of some other song

you might think that the ages are in them
you might say they are whispered this way

hung in the upward corners of a dream
but never upside down

gossamer song
and full of god's breath

seek their nests in the tree of life
spread feathers of theirs

these messengers shot through
give spinelessness its wings

where fallen
with the Cheshire grin 






 

Linda Stevenson #32 September 1 Mister You're Old



Mister You’re Old

Mister, you’re old;
still you try for it,
leaning to catch the young girl
on the cheek,

leaning in
to grab some youthfulness.
Someone better tell you
it’s way past your bedtime.

Kerri Shying R #65 Grown-Ups.

Grown-Ups.

All the children want to be
the orange crab
 the orange crab

sharp blue pale green thin brown
young

pull each other out of mudholes
growing bigger

riding bubbles
feeding off the tide

the story it comes back home
travels round

the river lights
the glitter nights

the orange crab gets
all the rice
and everything.

31.8.16 (#242) heavy traffic by Myron Lysenko

heavy traffic
the last black clouds
of winter

James Walton - The Strzelecki Mountain Killings ( I, II, III )



The Strzelecki Mountain Killings ( I, II, III )


I

I brought down the iron bark by the garage
to give the solar panels more say
in using the day from the north east.
The mahogany wood is hard to split,
the dense grain knowing more than sin;
axe and wedge recoil
until I find a way to work around the edge
down to the heart.
Younger branches dribble sap in thick remonstrance on my shirt -
on the sawn rounds my thumb traverses a thick history
of circles closer than early marriage,
holding more than a national library in an inch.
I strike down and shatter the lines
that were there when Charlemagne was emperor,
growing when Istanbul was just rumour to Constantinople.









Rob Schackne #63 - Poem Found On The Old Gray Lady

Poem Found On The Old Gray Lady


Well-hydrated romance
defined by a legacy
he couldn’t outrun
trailing my heart
pushpin by pushpin
in patterns of coincidence
then slice of life in a cave
when a dog disappears
the man seems lost
chimps eat, scratch, groom
hopscotching from one
block of ice to the next
a sketch artist animates
a fraternity of bumblers.