Cheated

Contributor: Gary Thomas Hubbard

- -
When your spirt shines
Your happiness grows
The beauty of youth
Like a budding rose

With age comes wisdom
This is what I am told
Some how I got cheated
When all I got was old


- - -
He was born and raised in Ohio, and now lives in Florida. He is married and has two children. Most important he is a Papa. He has over 20 poems on this site and one printed in "Stormcloud Poets second anthology".

STAGE STRUCK

Contributor: Stefanie Bennett

- -
The evening put forth
A light show
Of chartreuse cloud
That sprang
The blue dog
Spooking
The neighbour's
Be-speckled
Chickens.

Anything goes
When you're
Truly
Half sober.


- - -
Stefanie Bennett, ex-blues singer & musician has published several books of poetry, a novel & a libretto & worked with Arts Action For Peace. Of mixed ancestry [Italian/Irish/Paugussett-Shawnee] she was born in Qld., Australia.

Signs in Windows

Contributor: Donal Mahoney

- -
In 1920 he came on a boat
from Ireland and found
his way through Ellis Island.

He found a room
in a boarding house
catering to his kind and

went looking for a job
but found instead signs
in windows saying

“No Irish Need Apply.”
A cemetery asked him to
dig graves and lower the dead.

In America today
there are no signs like that.
Black and brown

apply and whites
sometimes hire them.
My father was white.

But in 1920 his brogue
was a long rope that
almost lynched him.


- - -
Donal Mahoney lives in St. Louis, Missouri.

Joy! Spring Comes

Contributor: Sally Dunn

- -
Early evening,
bundled up,
Venus bright,
cold stinging my nostrils,
Orion kissing
the western horizon.


- - -
Sally Dunn’s poetry has appeared in 2River View, Rio Grande Review, The Perch and Straylight Literary Magazine. Her poetry won honorable mention in the Joe Gouveia Outermost Poetry Contest. She lives on Cape Cod.

Portals

Contributor: Scott Thomas Outlar

- -
Stars are holes
in the sky
bleeding through heaven’s veil

I would swallow the light

I would choke on the hemlock
if I thought it might
bring you back
down to earth

I stare at the moon
every 28th day
and pray
that we survive another cycle

I watched you digest their poison

I watched you drink deep
with faith in their bombs
from the soothing lull
of that siren song

Chew on the edges of night
to taste the angle
where source floods
the shape of flesh

Your yawn could birth a universe

Your sigh could shake foundations
to the core


- - -
Scott Thomas Outlar hosts the site 17Numa.com where links to his published poetry, fiction, essays, live events, interviews, and books can be found.

Norwich

Contributor: Lu Lin & Dawid Juraszek

- -
It's just a place
I keep telling myself.
Be here now
have fun
don't panic
do the mindfulness thing.
Air cold on my ankles
water cold on my cheeks.
I thought I was good on my own
didn't need them.
They would be ages away
if it were ages ago.
But it's not my call.
And hours don't translate into kilometres
miles
li
like they used to.
Not that I remember.
But that old cube on the hill
hidden in my blind spot
does.
To shift my field of vision
would be to move on.
Please don't mind
just don't.


- - -
Lu Lin is Chinese, Dawid Juraszek is Polish. She lives in Norwich in the East of England and he in Guangzhou, southern China. Their work has appeared in various outlets in Poland, China, Japan, USA, and UK.

GRAPH: REFERENDUM

Contributor: Stefanie Bennett

- -
Walking the rainbow's trellis,
Sun slung on my right arm
And moon on my left...

[Whoever says impossible
Does not
Offend].

Levels of sanity
Extend,
Bend...

Just take that rainbow,
Heaven's
Hunchback!

Beautiful
To a fault.


- - -
Stefanie Bennett, ex-blues singer & musician has published several books of poetry, a novel & a libretto & worked with Arts Action For Peace. Of mixed ancestry [Italian/Irish/Paugussett-Shawnee] she was born in Qld., Australia.

The Capitalist Way

Contributor: Donal Mahoney

- -
It is easier for a camel to pass
through the eye of a needle
than for one who is rich

to enter the kingdom of God,
Jesus told his disciples.
Centuries later Warren

an investor in America
heard about this and
asked Fu a manufacturer

in China to make
millions of 12-foot needles.
Then he asked Ahmad

a bedouin in Oman
to breed smaller camels.
Look for the IPO on Wall Street.


- - -
Donal Mahoney lives in St. Louis, Missouri.

The Crescent Moon

Contributor: Amy Lowell

- -
Slipping softly through the sky
Little horned, happy moon,
Can you hear me up so high?
Will you come down soon?

On my nursery window-sill
Will you stay your steady flight?
And then float away with me
Through the summer night?

Brushing over tops of trees,
Playing hide and seek with stars,
Peeping up through shiny clouds
At Jupiter or Mars.

I shall fill my lap with roses
Gathered in the milky way,
All to carry home to mother.
Oh! what will she say!

Little rocking, sailing moon,
Do you hear me shout — Ahoy!
Just a little nearer, moon,
To please a little boy.


- - -
Born in 1874, Amy Lowell was deeply interested in and influenced by the Imagist movement and she received the Pulitzer Prize for her collection What’s O’Clock.

Saner Than I've Ever Been

Contributor: Wyatt Mitchell

- -
I wrote this thing
Does it mean a thing?
Everything silent
Endless quiet
I find this much too violent
How do I write with nothing inside
Not a thought
Not a voice
Nothing but me
Where have they gone
My friends have left me
No reason why
How do I unfold
My life is untold
Why can't I cry
Nothing left but to die
Toxicity rings everclear
This silence is killing me
To have no thought worth thinking
To have no life worth living
Is sobriety the mind's worst enemy
Will I ever return to the previous me
These faces I see
What is there relativity
If this is my moment whatever will it be
Is it even for the likes of me
What can be sought if there's nothing left of me
Is this the last of me
To seek but never see
To live but never be
How does one color without blue or green
This fight is for the life of me
It's like my thoughts think less of me
They ran from me
Scared to be
In my mind with me
There's so much left to say
No words left to describe
All that's left is grey
I'm alone
Not a sigh
Not a groan
Just silence
All alone
No one's home
I rang the bell then fell asleep
How long should I bide my time
I only sleep to see what's left of me
If sanity is pollution it's taken over the sea of me
Invading my bloodstream
Silence
No commotion
All results in slow motion
I've lost my heart and soul
My brain will be the death of me
If I couldn't walk I'd be only half of me
Nothing but my mind
And still I wouldn't cry
My voice has lost its way
Unable to come back to me
I can't find me
Cry me
Die me
With no sound am I even me
Perhaps I've died already
Gone from this existence
Trapped within sanity
So far gone
There is no clarity
Am I gone
Is this greed
To want the words to come to me
This can't be all that's left of me
My mind is all there is of me
Is this the end
This life I've barely lived
I can't think
Can't read
Can't write
There must be something
Something more than the absence of me
Yet what if there's not
What if I exist solely in the mind of me
Maybe that's why within this silence I've all but gone and died
Never to arise
Dead in my heart and mind and soul and eyes
Would this make you cry
I tell you I've tried
But in the end it's all a lie
A false reality
Super-sized
And thus tomorrow only becomes today
And somehow I've faded away
Only to awaken everyday in a state so cold and grey


- - -

What We Planned

Contributor: Gary Thomas Hubbard

- -
Greed is taught but so is sharing
Hate is taught but so is caring
Selfish children learn one for all and all for me
Caring children learn to give as it should be
Thinking of yourself sometimes is fine
You can still help someone to cross the finish line
Greed and hate always go hand in hand
So can we if that is what we planned


- - -
He was born and raised in Ohio, and now lives in Florida. He is married and has two children. Most important he is a Papa. He has over 20 poems on this site and one printed in "Stormcloud Poets second anthology".

She Was Gone

Contributor: Richard Tilly

- -
I didn't believe it.
She wasn't gone.
Someone was playing a prank on me.
She was still here; it was just a prank.
She couldn’t be gone.
Someone was coming to tell me they were playing a prank on me.
A sick prank.
But none ever came.
There was no prank.
She was gone.
And I had to accept she wasn't coming back.
That she was never coming back.


- - -
Richard Tilly is currently a student living in the north of Sweden. He's been writing short fiction and poetry for as long as he can remember.

Evening

Contributor: Hilda Doolittle

- -
The light passes
from ridge to ridge,
from flower to flower—
the hepaticas, wide-spread
under the light
grow faint—
the petals reach inward,
the blue tips bend
toward the bluer heart
and the flowers are lost.

The cornel-buds are still white,
but shadows dart
from the cornel-roots—
black creeps from root to root,
each leaf
cuts another leaf on the grass,
shadow seeks shadow,
then both leaf
and leaf-shadow are lost.


- - -
Born in 1886, Hilda Doolittle was one of the leaders of the Imagist movement.

Treetops

Contributor: Divya Gautam

- -
Let me fall from treetops
Intrepid like birds on cliffs,
Shadows are hard to come by,
When cloudy days are all I know.

There is passion in the wind,
Willing my mind to obey my heart,
On uphill battles I seldom falter,
Even tiredness trudges along, quietly.

Velvet winds steer me away,
From paths that I used to call my own,
I sit in foreign lands now, staring,
At boulders crumbling beneath my feet.

Honour is fickle, like pain and time,
Promises I have seen break aplenty,
In hell there is no ashen sky,
I lay at rest beneath the one in heaven.

Even pain is sick and tired,
Of being a drawn out metaphor,
Why then should I linger here,
When asphalt cracks have done enough.

I will leave one day, soon, I know,
And forget all I am yet to learn,
Even then I will seek contentment,
In a silence that isn't loud enough.


- - -
I am an undergraduate student majoring in Mathematics and Economics in New Delhi, India.

New Arrival

Contributor: Lu Lin & Dawid Juraszek

- -
Had to go
didn't know which way
knew only to go across
the place was supposed to be there
trees
lakes
bridges
fences
at dawn everything was different
knew it would be
but wasn't ready
alone and crushed, silent and deafened; waited.
If only she could do what she wanted
if only she could be who she was
but not here
not her
urged to find within herself someone else
or better yet, become someone else
by dusk she knew
putting on other people's clothes wouldn't do
they were wet anyway.


- - -
Lu Lin is Chinese, Dawid Juraszek is Polish. She lives in Norwich in the East of England and he in Guangzhou, southern China. Their work has appeared in various outlets in Poland, China, Japan, USA, and UK.

Anonymity

Contributor: Sally Dunn

- -
Last night I saw
a flickering star
– a binary,
or a pulsating variable?
If a binary, what type?
A book or the Internet
could answer.

But why ask?
Why know?

I used to care about
knowing things –
this variety of tree,
that species of bird,
that exact type of seaweed.

I no longer
want to know
these neighbors
of mine.

So I swim with
nameless seaweed,
watch nameless birds
flit about nameless trees
all under billions of
nameless stars –

and try to forget
I ever had
a name.


- - -
Sally Dunn’s poetry has appeared in 2River View, Rio Grande Review, The Perch and Straylight Literary Magazine. Her poetry won honorable mention in the Joe Gouveia Outermost Poetry Contest. She lives on Cape Cod.

OMG

Contributor: Donal Mahoney

- -
Seeing is believing
smart people
often tell me but

no one ever told me
believing is seeing
except this blind lady

I help across the street
who taps her cane
and tells me

you’ll find out
when you leave Earth
and whirl among the planets

and soar behind
the sun and moon
on the way to your place

believing is seeing
someone some say
isn't there.


- - -
Donal Mahoney lives in St. Louis, Missouri.

The End

Contributor: Bruce Levine

- -
The end
Is the beginning
The next piece
The next moment
The next chapter

The end
Is movement
Moving forward
Moving backward
Moving wherever

The end
Is transitory
Tracing progress
Tracing moments
Tracing journeys

The end
Is a signal
Guiding airplanes
Guiding steamships
Guiding lifelines

The end
Is the ending
Holding loved ones
Holding mem’ries
Holding forever


- - -
Bruce Levine, a native Manhattanite, has spent his life as a writer of fiction and poetry and as a music and theatre professional and is published on and in numerous internet and print journals. His work is dedicated to the loving memory of his wife, dancer/actress, Lydia Franklin.

You, So Sweetly

Contributor: Jack Dolvermorris

- -
I draw the lines
upon my arms
connect my veins
create a web
of light and life
fill it
with all
with all in me
and all
to wrap you
to collapse over
and around you
to hold you
heal you
this cocoon
coalescing
convalescing
you
so sweetly.


- - -

Special

Contributor: Lily Tierney

- -
Wind swirls
catching leaves
disembarking from a tree.

Light as air
slowly swooning
to the ground.

Mother Earth
accepting all
for all is special.


- - -
Lily Tierney enjoys writing poetry and flash fiction.

Turn, Turn, Turn

Contributor: Scott Thomas Outlar

- -
This is not a poem
but a simple reminder
that all of these experiences
are temporary
and fleeting,
yet still
far more beautiful
than any fallen human being
could ever ask, hope,
or dare dream of.

Like a cat fight
by an oak tree
under the blanket of midnight.

Like a last kiss
on a bridge stained
with the smell of smoke.

Like a first breath
from two fresh lungs
inhaling accidental evolution.

Everyone has a breaking point.

The trick
is to come away
at the end of the process
with even more
pieces of the puzzle
in place
than there were
to begin with.


- - -
Scott Thomas Outlar hosts the site 17Numa.com where links to his published poetry, fiction, essays, live events, interviews, and books can be found.

Dangling Participles

Contributor: Donal Mahoney

- -
Every time something breaks
like the pipe in the wall
we heard gushing

this morning
my wife wants to call
a repairman because

I can’t fix anything
except split infinitives
and dangling participles

and I usually agree
but this time
I mention the kayaks

in the attic and say
why don’t we hop
in the kayaks

open the front door
and sail down the street
wave to the neighbors

cutting their grass
planting their peonies
worrying about crime

and shout best of luck
we’re tired of the good life
we’re sailing away.


- - -
Donal Mahoney lives in St. Louis, Missouri.

The fair weather Baseball fan can't get no satisfaction (a found poem)

Contributor: Melanie Browne

- -
Wish they played to their potential
We probably don't have a chance now
Congratulations bullpen,
You got what you wanted
We are no longer in first place
this is so embarrassing
stick a fork in my eye
he's very bad
really disappointing,
our bullpen couldn't
even drive in
two runners with no outs
We have some work to do
it's not like we're bashing out team but
They are just going through the motions
This is hard to watch right now
They aren't hungry anymore


- - -

DEATH OF A PIG

Contributor: Patrick Campbell

- -
Don't be angry, Bess, he says,
as to an old friend.
It’s the way of the world,
though not the way I’d choose.

He's made the journey for her sake,
but wishes he’d never caught the sight
of Bess between the trailer's slats,
so tightly pressed she has to rest
her head upon another's back
and strive for air above the stench.
How distant now the tranquil farm
where never did he do her harm.

Now at the place where life is taken,
those eyes that once regarded him
with something passing for affection
are fixed upon his, trusting still,
yet anguished by this strange new turn.
He'll save her surely, even now,
from the hell she hears and smells,
screaming death beyond the walls.

But when he leaves her at the gate,
fear seizes her: she starts to run.
Yet in a final show of will,
she holds her ground in bold defiance,
refusing to stir an inch towards
the chamber where the hot gas stuns
(they haven't coined a word for this,
for only men are mourned and missed)
And then the last indignity.
A stick corrects the wayward pig
for slowing down the flow of blood
(numbers count in take-home pay).
So sharp the pain, she now rejoins
her new and ultimate companions.
At the edge of darkness now,
no pity's shown the innocent sow.

Before, the children stroked her back,
delighted by the playful Bess.
But could those children ever guess
that even 'ere the year was out,
she’d perish in the cruelest way,
as her litters had before,
after not a year of life,
throats cut with a kitchen knife?

He’s done his best. He gave her pasture,
(he’s seen the way the factories do it)
But he is heir to ancient ways
upheld by scripture and the law
and founded on the myth that God
speaks only to the human strain
of ape, and not to soulless beasts.
So why not kill them as we please?

Thus the butchering of Bess
into favourite cuts of meat
doesn’t shock or prick the conscience,
as long as the sights and sounds of slaughter
remain unseen, unheard …. unjudged.
As so they do, behind closed doors;
for who would eat a pig again
having seen its hideous end?

Do we really think that Bess
will feel the pain and horror less
than human beings so despatched?
A stain is left on humankind
that though we rue a thousand years
will never quite be washed away.
Better by far that they never draw breath
than be born in the shadow of infantile death.


- - -
I am a retired British diplomat living in Spain, the country where I last served. Now an old man, I feel more strongly than ever about the killing of animals for meat.

The Trickster Answers

Contributor: Sally Dunn

- -
Filled with anguish,
I scream and
lash out at the universe.

I reach up into
the night sky and
claw down the fabric
of the firmament.

I roar into that
which is beyond.
Then cry when
no answer comes.

My legs crumble beneath me.
I dig my fingers into the dirt.
The earth ignores my pain.

With one hand gripping the earth
and the other clutching the heavens,
I howl into the void.

Stark silence answers me.

Until, finally, I hear
the distant yip of
a coyote.


- - -
Sally Dunn’s poetry has appeared in 2River View, Rio Grande Review, The Perch and Straylight Literary Magazine. Her poetry won honorable mention in the Joe Gouveia Outermost Poetry Contest. She lives on Cape Cod.

Vanity

Contributor: Andrew Hubbard

- -
He was a boy
When I knew him then,
Just started shaving
Cheap clothes, bit his nails.

He couldn’t take his eyes off me
And I’d stare at him
To watch him look away and flush.

It was a game
And I was proud in a way
To have that power
But if you want to know the truth
He was a little beneath me,
And there was another boy
Who had a blue pick-up truck.

Then he moved out of state
And I moved out of state.
He went to college somewhere
And I went to cosmetology school.

I married Mark
And then the babies came.
All but one were Mark’s
And I honestly loved them
But a lot of time
I just wanted to hold my head
And scream. Mark, he worked
As hard as he could,
I’ll give him that,
And he got us by
But nothing more than that.

And then, oh my God, the kids
Were in high school when he called.
He was going to be in my little town
On a campaign stop and wanted to see me.

I said no. He called again,
I said I had a conflict
And that was true in a way.

He called again, and I agreed
To meet him, and I meant it.

I worried for a week what to wear
And when the day came
I just couldn’t do it.

I no-showed on him
And I’ve never been so ashamed.

I almost never drink,
But I got into Mark’s beer
As soon as the kids were off to school
And spent most of the afternoon
On the toilet peeing and peeing.

That night I threw up on the pillow.
Mark asked what was wrong
And what the hell was I supposed to say…

That I couldn’t let him see
The purple veins on my thighs,
The cover-up that doesn’t?

My friends say I’m still pretty
But I say the same to them.
I’m lying, and I’m pretty sure
They are too. No,
I just couldn’t do it.


- - -
Andrew Hubbard was born and raised in a coastal Maine fishing village. He received degrees in English and Creative writing from Dartmouth College and Columbia University.

Glossary Of Hope

Contributor: Ananya S Guha

- -
The days pass
ripples in oceanic heaviness
my home town is reminder
of time, measured in infancy
what was the time between
the cradle and youth?
How a long did it take a country
to grow? or me?
or these hills bestowing upon tarred
roads a glossary of hope.


- - -

Fireflies of God

Contributor: Bruce Mundhenke

- -
Precious jewels,
Scattered out on velvet
In the night,
Bear witness to
A greater light.
And though they seem
To shine forever,
They will vanish
Like a firefly
In the night.


- - -
Bruce Mundhenke writes in Illinois, where he lives with his wife and their dog and cat. He enjoys nature, where he finds beauty, inspiration, and revelation.

Muscles

Contributor: JD DeHart

- -
Don’t worry, dear
one, even if the stories
are true, they are so muddy
it is hard to be clear.

A flushing rush of whispers
and collusion are like
dirty icebergs floating
in the dark.

The most exercised muscle
is the mouth, the only sliver
of the body some people
seem to use. I myself

prefer the fingers, joining
words, or the entire arm for
making lovely brush strokes
on the canvas of the world.

These are muscles worthy
of use, like the unseen matter
of the mind, like the talent
for finding a bird’s song.



- - -

Sweetest Halo

Contributor: Scott Thomas Outlar

- -
The scent of lemon honeysuckle
where the rain fell
where the summer grew

I’m here for the water
coconut sugar through my veins
kiwi kisses in every sip

Laughter triggers in the aftershock
sends shivers along my spine
golden bodies burn and rise

There are lucid states beyond awakened
purple, pink, orange, and green
uncaged in a dream of motion

I’m here for the wisdom
owls offer so sweet
angels cast with crown and halo

Morning dew gleams in sunlight
smelted silver drips a puddle
melted butter swirls in coffee

I’m here for the smiles
smirks are not enough by far
upturned lips are all I’m after


- - -
Scott Thomas Outlar hosts the site 17Numa.com where links to his published poetry, fiction, essays, live events, interviews, and books can be found.

A Boat in a Tree

Contributor: Bruce Levine

- -
A boat in a tree,
A silly place to be.
Why would there be
A boat in a tree?

There came a great wind,
That wouldn’t rescind.
That couldn’t be pinned
Before it had sinned.

The ocean did roar,
Like rarely before.
And finally did score
By coming ashore.

The wind picked up things,
Like butterfly wings.
And powerful as kings
Or a lion who sings.

Then up it did go,
Just like a show.
The boat travelled slow
Before it did know.

Over the sand,
And over the land.
To find a tree stand
Just like it was planned.

Out of the water,
Not what it ought-a.
Something it sort-a
Never have thought-a.

A boat in a tree,
A silly place to be.
But I happened to see
A boat in a tree.


- - -
Bruce Levine, a native Manhattanite, has spent his life as a writer of fiction and poetry and as a music and theatre professional. His literary catalogue includes four novels, short stories, humorous sketches, flash fiction, poetry, essays, magazine articles and a screenplay His works are published in over twenty-five on-line journals, over twenty books, his shows have been produced in New York and around the country and he’s the author of the novellas Reinvented and An Accidental Journey. He lives with his rescued Australian Shepherd, Daisy.
His work is dedicated to the loving memory of his wife, dancer/actress, Lydia Franklin. Visit him at www.brucelevine.com.