Zamir Birnbach ------- four poems

Zamir Birnbach

“Honeysuckle Sickness”

Bodies steam, widening

spectrum of exposure to the strobe

floral patterns flaunted breasts

pilot caps crowned on shaved brows

sleek men crowding the kitchen:

a frantic quest for more elixir.

Arm reaches, extending the unmistakable

sweating - eye sight hazy

peering into its purple depths as I drink

the sweetness sometimes lingers with the scent of joy

to mask the salutations, late assignments, novel knowledge,

we search for alternatives,

ways to abscond from the sober.

Weekend hordes squeeze rooms,

sloppy introductions, gurgles of attraction

these words get tossed around in the laundromat of discussion

washing over me with pungent tide

exuding from the doorframe once the cycle is complete.

But the rounds repeat.

I grow sick of this saccharine lifestyle.

“It’s Always Sunny Above the Clouds”

Traveling east in evening expedites nature.

Close your window to blinding beams 

Open it to a retreating molten orb. 

Most towns are clumped, crippled fireflies, only void between. 

Steady crimson flash on the tip of the wing and your conscience.

Stars melt into lineless horizons and cities indistinguishable. 

Without sun to give identity, clouds are black,

Lights fade in and out of existence. Unnatural. 

Paying premium to relatively teleport over the world

it still suffers beneath. 

It enters our eyes but elicits no thought. 

So we scramble to squeeze the sinking seconds

of Wi-Fi, invisible beams of indulgence.

We have begun our descent.

“Stain”

My back isn't straight anymore

it hasn't been since they talked to momma.

No other way for lulu to go

to school, it must be done.

My elephant knees are caked with copper dirt 

I forget my fingers.

They are stained with blood

but it is not my own.

Mr. Johnson says it is Christmas season in America

but it only gets hotter here.

If my basket is not full

neither is my belly.

momma touches the bruises but does not speak while lulu

sits at the table backpack on, buries beaded braids

in her arms like an ostrich.

“Gaze through Glass”

Blinding needle peak, argon beams

painted on like layer cake.

Lone-star glistens

hunched bodies bustle beneath

labyrinthine constructs of metal and light.

Evening indigo glides

infiltrating man’s machines

chokes on haze muting perception.

Linoleum floors wooden cabinets

sticky sap scent still lingers

papers adorn desks abreast paddles and balls.

Two brothers, four fish, and snails

seasonal loratadine. 

Donald Gasperson -------- two poems

a lark's psalm

pray stay lady mary 

and say a sad mass 

hard's that raw fact 

a man falls splat jack 

as a bad man 

act that last gasp 

a fat cat's black math 

hard cash class 

what say that mad max 

bank that fast track 

craft a bad draft 

cash all that graft 

and that's tact 

'happy and all that'

as apt as art 

a lark's psalm 

windfall apples

a hard early frost

leaves rime in the coffee pot

so stir the fire up

enough to warm a cold cup

breakfast a windfall apple

about in that cold

the fields as raw as should be

the fences are down

under the bramble and fern

the wood coming back to true

awake and sleepless

the 'possum under the boards

likes good company

accepts a windfall apple

carefully eats in quiet

Magdalena Brzezińska ---------- poem

lema sabachthani

My Christ’s bedsores

are so deep

they can easily enfold my fist.

I have been looking for months

at my distorted face

reflected in the Siloam bottle of morphine

placed by his bed.

His cries,

doctors say,

are just the organism’s memory.

My Christ

only speaks to me

in parables

engraved in his purple veins.

Julie Dickson ----- three poems

Melt into Rhyme

 

When you allege an untruth,

attempt to drive a wedge -

I find it uncouth,

this type of descent

into the abyss of strife.

 

I would be remiss

if I failed to make good

or henceforth unveiled

the plans I understood

long ago we set forth.

 

We vowed to forego words,

allowed, written in pen -

at the time I was smitten,

unto you felt sublime,

caused me to melt into rhyme.

 

 

Julie A. Dickson

Exeter, NH

----

Minstrel

 

Traveling minstrel sets off on his way

walking from village to town he will play

upon his carved whistle or bow to his shoulder,

music conveyed from small stage or large boulder.

Hat set in place collecting donations,

plays well-known tunes or his own creations.

Some towns accepting, and some prone to dance

but wandering minstrels must all take a chance-

for serious folk might chase him away,

while welcoming kinsmen will ask him to stay.

His garb a soft tunic with felted green hat

Fiddle cuts silence in the key of e flat.

His welcome is worn, pockets weighed down with coin,

leaves town with his food stores, all bought or purloined.

If you see a minstrel who plays on the trail

you may hear a ballad or perhaps a tall tale,

for all through his travels, the roads left behind,

all music and stories are held in his mind.

He wanders - the minstrel to share what he hears

the music plays on, until he disappears.

 

Julie A. Dickson

Exeter, NH

----

Premonition

 

I may have held my breath

during a hot day in late August,

almost angry to see a red leaf so soon,

as if its mere presence shocked me,

the premonition mounting like a crescendo

 

The curtain of season-change drops,

warmth fading, seemingly in just one day –

caught, the red, a stray blown leaf,

lost, while others rejoice, sharing their brilliance.

 

 

Julie A. Dickson

Exeter, NH

Jo Balistreri ----- Three new poems

Walking with the Wild

As I make my way to ocean’s edge,

the sea raises its voice.

The wind puts its mouth to my ear.

Along the shore, a graveyard market

for vultures: snook, grouper, jack, jellies,

one immense loggerhead.

Gulls skirl, keening part of the salt-

stippled air. Against the jetty,

waves chew into stone.

To walk with the wild is to slough off

the tangle and puff—the week’s gabble

of words, political, honeyed words that slide

off the tongue—to dump the head rush

against groaning buoys, into the slash and slice

of tides. Here where words do not exist,

the mind stretches and swells,

surges with the billowing waves.

Respite

           

In late afternoon, a woman watches time move

through the landscape from her perch in the tree house.

             

A breeze swishes incantations among dappled leaves

            and stalks of goldenrod,

ferries the chit and chatter of squirrels across the pond.

            Songs of cardinals, grosbeaks, and a wood thrush

ring from the nearby woods. Finches at the feeder

            sing the melting color of butter.

In this liquid song, when day’s not quite night,

            when the earth is charged with presence,

the sun rests on treetops. A lone leaf spirals down.

            Blue shadows begin to creep across lawns,

amethyst crowns the tonsured hills in the distance.

            Everything quiets even the barking dog.                   

In this liminality of stretched borders,

in the rousing final movement of the sun’s syzygy

with the moon, something wondrous happens,

and the awe we never lost as children reappears,

elemental, inexhaustible.

Musing in the Tree House

To be where you are

To wait and watch

as a huge oak leaf

dives from the tree’s

highest branch

to a current that ferries it

to another shore  

where snagged

by the screen

the leaf tugs against wire mesh

loosens its tip

wavers

turns sideways

and falls to the sill

where autumn breath gives it wing

among murmuring leaves and 

dappled shadow

Where everything moves

like a Pollack painting

yet

all is silent

Listening 

Two new poems from George Held

 

Prague

The photo shows me sitting in the old

Jewish cemetery behind my office

At Charles University, not far

From where gothic Charles Bridge

Crosses Vltava, on a sunny fall day,

And I am well aware about six layers

Of dead Jews are stacked below me

Because the Christian Czechs forbade

The burial ground from expanding

Beyond this space in the dense ghetto—keep

The Jews in their place—before they were rousted

And shipped to the extermination camps

By the Nazis under General Heydrich,

Who declared from his office in Prague Castle,

High above the other side of the river,

“We will Germanize the Czech vermin,”

Who had built this magnificent city

In concentric circles around Romanesque

Vyšehrad Castle, making it a living

Museum of European architecture.

A friend took this picture of New World me

Sitting in the heart of Old World Prague. 

Weather Alert

     “Thunderstorms have also been observed on Jupiter and Venus.”

Imagine that! Heavy weather

In the solar system but no

Busted umbrellas or downed trees,

No power outages on gleaming

Venus or giant Jupiter

With its Great Red Spot.

All the while, blue Earth

Rumbles and roars with thunder

And lightning, torrential rains,

Hail as big as golf balls,

And floods that would merrily

Float Noah’s boat away.

Yet the drought grows ever

More perilous in California

And the old Dust Bowl states,

Where there’s no water for irrigation,

Crops fail, food prices rise,

And the quest for oil and gas

Intensifies like that televised tornado

Bearing down on your lonesome house.

 George Held

David Fewster ------ two poems

POETIC EPIPHANY #2

I remember Patrick McCabe,

Sort of a cross between Charles Baudelaire and

a young John Waters

(Bart Baxter called him “the mascara man”)

climbed the stage for his set at Red Sky Poetry Theatre.

Patrick’s oeuvre had one unifying theme—

The Poet Sorely Abused By Crass Society.

His piece this evening opened with the pronouncement

“Being a Poet is like

 Banging your head against a Brick Wall.”

Then he walked stage left and proceeded

to bang his head against Squid Row’s brick wall.

About a half-dozen times.

Hard.

He finished the poem somewhat woozily

with a very red forehead.

And it was then I realized

that a literary vocation might be

More Strenuous than I had imagined.

CITIZENS UNITED

(with a nod to Gregory Corso’s “Bomb”)

O Citizens United

Everyone hates you.

They say you are ugly

And Fascist.

They call you

Oligarchy

And no one will dance with you.

They don’t understand

Your true nature.

One billion dollar the Koch Bros.

Promise to spend.

Where does this money go?

Advertising revenue for your local

TV, Radio & Newspaper outlets.

Print shops run by uncles and aunts

For flyers and posters.

Party supply stores for

Multi-colored balloons

And confetti.

Bakeries and donut shops

For delegate’s snacks.

And when corrupt scumbags

Skim and embezzle funds,

Who gets burned?

The Koch Brothers!

S’alright—they can afford it.

43 million for the Scott Walker campaign.

We have that money now.

They used to say that War

Was a good way to boost

The Economy.

Thanks to you, Citizens United,

We can change that.

ELECTIONS JUMPSTART THE ECONOMY

And no one was ever napalmed

Mailing in a ballot.

Citizens United,

I love you.

Apologies to Lorca -------- Koon Woon

Apologies to Lorca

I am in a city without time

Where food and sex are squeezed out of tubes.

The three friends ascend the green balustrade

To view the changeless sea from the balcony,

Concluding with infinite sadness

That beneath the green, green waters, fathoms

Deep, lie early sunken Greek ships with corroding

Treasures.

I am in a house without a number,

Where food and sleep come at unpredictable hours.

Maria hides behind the purple curtains

As the three friends descend the balustrade,

Talking of white horses with black manes

And comparing the saddle to the mantle piece.

By and by came Lorca himself speaking sadly to his friends:

“Mocitoes, if I can, this house is your house,

And your horse is my horse,

But I am no longer I and my house is no longer my house.”

The three friends bid the old man adios

And vanished in the Andalusian air.

It is said that sadly from Maria’s green, green eyes,

Silver tears began to flow

As the moon climbs further with the night.

I am in a city without a name, galloping

On a horse from the high mountain pass,

heading toward the water, where the silvery streaks

In the moonlight tell of countless sorrows

In a note in a bottle with the script of the Chinese Empress

That no one can read.

Finding the bottle and leaving it remaining on the beach,

The three friends gallop now to another city,

Another city without time,

As the waves undulant, undulant roll in.

Beneath these fathoms of green, green water,

Lie sunken ships with useless treasures.

Koon Woon

Domingo Mendo -------- Three poems and translations by author

Feelings deep inside me

There is something I feel for her;

It is deep and warm and it floods my body and soul;

It keeps me afloat and threatens to drown me;

I cannot reach her but through words, thoughts and

imagination;

It is very close and very far - I wished she would

quench my thirst, and still my hunger.

I wished I could feel her arms strong around my body.

I wished her eyes would burn in my eyes.

I wished our souls would merge in flesh and blood.

I wished, I wished, I wished she knew what I cannot

tell her.





Wenn die Deiche brechen



Wenn so viel Blut fließt, dass

die Deiche brechen.

Wenn so viel Blut fließt, dass

unsere Gemeinplätze ihre Vernunft „abbrennen“.

Wenn Wort und Schrift es nicht

mehr fassen und „Soll, Muss

und Hätte“ eitel werden.

Wenn Blut dann doch noch wallt;

und Menschen kommen. Können wir

uns dann versperren? Wenn Auge

und Auge sich treffen, wollen wir

uns abwenden? Ist dies alles

noch fassbar: Ist Reichtum nicht

Totschlag, wenn andere verbluten?

Ist Reichtum nicht Selbst-
mord, wen andere ver-
hungern?

Wenn es so wild klopft, dass

Deiche brechen.

Wenn Zäune und Mauern

zerbröseln, da die Leere der

Mägen und Verzweiflung

der Herzen sie zerreißt.

Wenn all dies so ist,

dann ist es Zeit, auch die

Deiche in UNS zu brechen.



(English translation by author)

When dikes are breaking



When streams of blood become so powerful that 

dikes break.

When streams of blood become so powerful that 

our common places “burn” their common sense.

When it is beyond the grasp of word and writing 

and “should, must and might” become futile.

When blood is, nonetheless, still boiling and men, 

women and children start pouring in. Can we 

then bar all the doors? When our eyes meet, are 

we going to turn our backs on them? Can all this 

be grasped: Isn’t richness murderous when 

others bleed to death? Isn’t richness suicidal 

when others die of hunger?

When they come knocking on the door so 

strongly that dikes break.

When fences and walls start crumbling because 

empty bellies and desperate hearts tear them 

apart.

When all this is true then it is time to break the 

dikes within YOU AND ME. 





Ein Che Guevara in Filzpantoffeln

A Che Guevara in felt slippers



Abends bin ich ein Che Guevara in Filzpantoffeln;

In the evening, I am a Che Guevara in felt slippers;

Ideen rauschen durch meinen Kopf und schwitzen sich in meinen

Filzpantoffeln aus;

Ideas swirling through my head and turning into sweat in my felt slippers;

Der Kopf wird kalt

und die Filzpantoffeln erwärmen meine Füße;

My head goes cold

and the felt slippers warm up my feet;

Der Kopf muss dann wild geschüttelt werden; wild

wie der Che Guevara; doch meine Filzpantoffeln schütteln alles ab; alles aus

meinen Filzpantoffeln.

Then I have to shake my head wildly; as wild as the

Che Guevara; however, my felt slippers shake everything off and everything out of

my felt slippers.

Ein toter Che Guevara

in lebenden Filzpantoffeln.

So untot ist der Filz.

A dead Che Guevara

in living felt slippers.


So undead is felt.

Myungsoon Kim -------- poem

The way I love you

by Angela

Sometimes my bowl is too big

your love cannot fill it

Sometimes my bowl is too small

your love fills it and overflows

When my heart is filled with greed and egoism

No room is left for your love

If I let them go, could it fit

If I empty all of them, could it be enough

The sky is high

The flowers are so beautiful

I learn how to live and love from nature

Just flowing clouds, river and wind

My bowl is getting as clear and as pure

as your endless love