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  • PS: Your Poem A Week w/ Philippe Shils

Philippe Shils - 5 poems

1/7/2017

1 Comment

 
Picture
Bossy

Bossy as a limp.
He's a cover hog.
I'm cold over here
but he seems warm.
He's made me believe
I like it in Alaska.
He blows on things
to cool them.
He blows on things
to heat them.
The purse
of his lips
is always the same.
Sirens and pox
coming over the bridge
but his breeze carries
infection far away.
He wrote me a poison
haiku. 19 syllables
of cyanide. About
v-less geese. The
importance of the flock.
The need for a leader.
He led me south.
I marched to
his soothing rhythm.



WarHorse

It took 1000 men
to kill the last destrier.
They died under its hooves.
The horse had flanks like walls
and sincere murderous teeth.
It had been unsaddled
when the army was triumphant.
It was rendered obsolete by victory
and considered malignant.

The deaths might have been incidental--
water off a spiraling dog--but its
wide muddy eyes gave events
the look of calm intention: a coincidence
of wind and leaves.

And a continent away
its rider: rheumy eyed
and with a slack mustache.
He'd sat proud and tall
aboard his mount--
fashioned for
riding and fighting.
Good only for war.

He wants to say momentous things:
He's seen men falling from the sky
as though they'd cut the branches
from beneath themselves, the long
thorns impaling them as
they struck the dirt.
There had been a stone angel:
a concrete shepherdess
who arranged ambushes.

He's witnessed what lurks just
beside the normal electricity of
living and knows that's the secret
for cursing one another.
He's palpated the shape just outside
people's skins where seizures
and cancers and suicides seep in.

He tries to write but his hand is
too damp and tremulous to hold a pen.

The people thank him for his service
and bow as though to someone wise.
He longs only for his horse.



the luxury of sadness

my stoic wife is weeping about our dead calico.
mauled by the neighbor dog it dragged itself
up the steps onto the porch. I replay
the scenario from the perspective of the cat.
that's how I make myself sad.
I ask how old was she? nine amanda says.
we found her when I was pregnant with Lu.

(amanda was crouched
as though holding a basket

enticing something
from beneath the shed

wriggling
her fingers
and speaking
sweetly)

I go back to my old superstitions
and wonder about cause and effect
as it relates to bubka the calico cat:
she almost hung herself dead in
a closet and was saved by
by the length of her dew claw--
that was in the room that's now lu's.

I think of curses
and then reject them.
stories of orphans.
blunt stupid demons.

there's hope for the
coincidence of proximity
followed by an impulse to
name the most inconsequential
and least travelled bridge.

she was found near the garden
I explain uselessly to lucia

as heart shaped
tomatoes tumbled from
vine to palm.



Adopted

The world will belong
to the adopted.
Everything there
a product of revelation.

Not the false
piety of the admonished
or the inert arrogance
of the firstborn but the
fish instructed in swimming
or the bird taught late to fly.
Domesticated and returned
to the wilderness.
A link between dog and wolf.
Suckled in the forest and in the town.

Their domicile a house
of fur and feathers.
A porch for orphans and widows.
The adopted rule the world
from the third floor
of that home sitting
in a crow's nest not
concerned with finding land.

Because there everything is the sea.
Land is a dream people have.
People with one mother
no knowledge of the waves
and what it is to be
above the salt
and just beneath the sky.



Love letter: epidemic
​
he went back for his sister.
he'd thought to leave her but
could not.

she rocked in her chair.
she put her hand
to her mouth and cawed like a
crow.

he thought he finally
understood her.
the caw wasn't a call for help
or a laugh or a comment.
it was the sound of the
last person on earth enjoying
the vibration of her voice
against her hand.

he said 'you're not alone.
I'm here with you.
let's go to school.'

even though there'd be no
school.
there were no more teachers
and there were no more students.
but it was one of the words
that got her to move.

'take my hand,
walk with me out the door.'
'caw' she said.
or didn't say but
placed into her cupped palm.

caw.

where are all the birds he
thought.
the cawing birds dusting the
ground clean with their wings.
'caw' he said
​and she arose.
1 Comment

6 poems - Natalie Crick 

1/7/2017

0 Comments

 
Picture
Afterlife

At first you could not imagine how
I waited in the shadows.

The sky is blank,
Flesh of no feeling

The sun glowing, spectral,
Rising with the smoke.

A door swings open.
The heavenly music surprises me.

Without invitation, I enter.

Under starry skies, in prairies of
Knee-high corn, I dreamed awake.



Poppies

The poppies smoulder,
Lit matches struck in the dark

Where we brought my sister’s ashes
When her life wicked out.

Each red flower
Is black at the heart

Of every burning
Wide bloody mouth.

Sunlight shines through,
Translucent.

Excitement quivers.
It is Winter here.

Frost waits nearby,
Sharpening his scissors.



Fresh Rain

Fresh rain fell
Onto velvet skin

Beneath an open sky.
I seek shelter in you.

Every stranger
Becomes a ghost passing by.

I harvest the fog,
Bathe naked in the waxing moon.

Sometimes I think I hear
The echo of the storm.



Daydreaming


Thoughts come easily
At dusk when beekeeper’s ghosts
Move through the empty orchard.

That moment before sleep,
Black nor white but
Something in between

Casts it’s spell.
The river of dripping saltwater pearls,
The withered moor,

The ashen lake
Where nothing stirs or alarms,
Where no birds sing.



Night


They came out to
Watch the moon,
A chalky paleness in the sky,
Wet from an evening’s
Snow, gathering shadows
In a field and hoarding them.
Darkness waited
Dimly in the trees,
As a mother
Slowly, slowly
Withdrawing a child
From her breast,
Falling snow
Pale as milk,
The elusive shapes
Of twilight merging,
Haunting, full of
Regret, a cry,
And then silence.
Night swallows all.



Birds at the Burial

Near the riverbank where we
Buried her, I light a candle

And wait, patient as a hunter
Detecting what the beast will do

In the next moment.
Someone, somewhere, will see it.

Barn owls celebrate
Over their cathedral of bones,

Screaming skies clawed with crows.
The man asleep on his lumpy mattress

Has a head full of ghosts and
Sad, erotic dreams.

Gulls rise, small white banshees
Worshipping the sun.
0 Comments

Sudeep Adhikari - Anxieties and Nights

1/7/2017

0 Comments

 
Picture
​Anxieties and Nights
 
It is the vapor of something, I don't know
a nebulous longing in the guise of an ache, 
that rises to fill me up with your diamond eyes.
Anxieties have wings; existence is a drag.
 
The air is a constant lack, I breathe.  Bones chime,
 and fill the vacuous spaces inside my body;
the interference pattern of death and boners.
 
Sometimes, I want to buy me a lying drug,
telling me that I am living a Bollywood movie.
 It sucks, but it won't go forever.
 
Do I want to be comfortably fooled? Or do I want
to be naked down to my last molecule ?
 
I am not made in schools, books or churches. And
I am not going to drag the corpse of last few thousand years,  
like I am told to. One of these days, I just want to 
be a duck or a stupid pig. What are you going to do about it?
 
"Form is emptiness. Emptiness is form. "… Diamond Sutra 
"Form is background. Background is form"….M.C. Escher's Sutra
"Wave is particle. Particle is wave"…Heisenberg's Sutra
"Matter is mind. Mind is matter"….Jung's Sutra
"Nevermind"…..Cobain's Sutra
 
I am going to have a slice of sky for the breakfast today,
 to celebrate the oneness of sublime and junk. And of course,
 you are not invited, because you and me are always one.
0 Comments

2 poems - Bob McNeil

11/8/2016

7 Comments

 
Picture
Help Wanted: Political Position Open
 
Right now,
quotas on
mud-and-hog
type demagogues
who are jellyfish-witless
were filled
quite some time ago.
Applicants that can’t
accept earth-besmirching
rants ​are welcomed. 

 


Veritas Vanished
 
Aphorists say that
 
The truth is old--
Bristlecone-pine-tree-old,
 
And the truth is cold--
Cadaver-in-the-arctic-cold.
 
Granted, the truth is a lot of things,
But it’s the thing
That’s not being told.
 
I believe
The truth is a stranger
That’s about as foreign as an extraterrestrial.
It will never land on the lips of politicians.
 
That’s the truth.
 
by Bob McNeil
Copyright 2016
7 Comments

3 poems - Irsa Ruçi

10/17/2016

0 Comments

 
Picture
Divine creation
 
The most beautiful creature born from the human
is the smile
the form of goodness – travellers with dreams weight
to endless trails.
 
We are mouth-word, honey-mouth
breast’s milk
dropping from the sky
towards eternity of happiness’s power
 
There are several types of smiles, a few:
The sunny ones – where the sun never sets,
the sweet ones - word beads derived from the soul,
the playful ones - until seduction of secrets
and finally there are
the bewailing ones
the smiles for life
those who laugh even with tears
beautifully carved
in the eyes of hope
the love-filled hearts;
are the most radiant smiles
that neither the storms could overcome them!



How the light is harvested
 
I read within his eyes
the coldness of the words he whispered
illogically, memorized,
with a guilty anger.
 
Happiness is followed by steps formed by smiles

it’s echo is so long
even as a whisper heart
breathed between dreams.
But for the theme of joy is always written in third person
because the laughter is given to others,
while for yourself ...
... For yourself is imposed peace
acquired from wisdom and calmness
and love:
for the knowledge that obeys to the years
for the words that obeys knowledge
for years that obey to silence
as the highest form of faith ...
Always, there are several ways to see the light,
the right one is to turned on
the candles of the soul
with a single breath
and to give them to the time
so it can preserve them as treasures of mankind;
for the generations that will come
until they will know the real war:
The human war with himself
finding goodness,
even where from the traces of the steps
the peace has remained deserted...



The life arising from the land
 
If a blade of grass catches fire
I can bask in that fire
that the nature beholds in her heart.
although I never get enough
of searching light for myself
on this ground that grows me without saying any word,
on this ground that steps with shame
and selfish repentance
of manpower.
 
 
Even though I blush while I cut the flowers
and with them I create the vibrant smile of happiness;
I fill my spirit with the scent of life
because I cannot leave it in poverty,
but I can easily forget how the beauty
can fade

before my eyes ...
 
But, if a blade of grass catches fire
is because
nature knows, how to take away from darkness
the eyes which are drunken with ugliness!

© Irsa Ruçi            (Translated by Stela Xega)
0 Comments

Gregg Dotoli - 3 poems

10/17/2016

0 Comments

 
Picture
Death of Biota

In 1872 Biota and Engine
hatch carbon Black_swan
from a metallic dirtyshell
offering gifts of production
and horsepower to humankind 
by 2016
we stew in hot truth
as denial melts
degrees/megastorms/drought/flood
records breaking like cheap toys
as Arctic poles shrink
stats fib
Biota fell ill
and is dying
conjure death
as we suffer and join Biota



money eyes (back to root)

expressing
a simple damp sadness
that exchange ruined man
the black pig of deathblow chews
as flourishing we
ramp it up
till we're done
back to root
with blind money eyes



Gone

almost in two
when you flew 
my heart wracked
then cracked
0 Comments

​For Your Wedding Pinterest - Michael Bednarsky

10/16/2016

0 Comments

 
Picture
​For Your Wedding Pinterest
 
Like a boozy bridesmaid wearing wine-soaked white   I’m
Drunk
in front of that wedding planner’s office near my Harlem apartment
 
My Manhattan mem(or man)ories during my crisis of a quarterlife are a quarter nice
And 75% libido in limbo
 
Heart v. penis
An inner-world war being waged by humans since before the birth of God
 
One time I brought some marriage-ready friends to Kleinfeld
The shiniest gownhouse in all of New York City
And I left the building too at peace to set off my arsenal of sexist jokes
So maybe heart wins
0 Comments

Ian Mullins - 5 poems 

10/16/2016

0 Comments

 
Picture
​How To Dream 

Pop your eyeballs
out your head
put ‘em in a jar
leave to soak overnight

plain water will bring you
plain dreams
shopping malls
and one-way traffic
but mix in crystal meth
coke or smack
you’ll dream wild
spaghetti roads 
pulling you down
into the dish

‘course you have to wake up
grow up
but pop those eyes
back into your head
come morning or night
whatever your shift

and you’ll see a world
even duller than the one
from the day before
when you couldn’t wait to get home
pop your eyeballs in a jar
and dream


Joey Boy 


The arsehole
at the end of the world
is here under the M6
waiting to be carved
from a concrete underflow
that was as soft as semen
in 1963
when Joey crossed
the wrong deal
or screwed the wrong hole
and was sent down here 
to sleep away his dreams
in a bed warmed with concrete
and softened with piss

until the city shakes him loose
like a dice in a fist
and he arises in the thirty-third century
arsehole first
and god-like they say

to spit out the light
of the sun.


Doubled Up


Been digging shit
from my own ass for so long
it’s a shock to be here
on the tide-line, not stranded
or washed-up, or feeling like
nails have been hammered
in my head. Four days bail
is four days free, a homeless man
waking up feeling well-fed.

Almost a shock to remember
that life doesn’t have to go
that sad old way; the un-natural
jerk at six a.m, lifetimes lost 
lifting telephones and tapping dead keys
folded away like a letter
in my pocket I’m in no real hurry 
to read. So is this how it’s supposed 
to be, or is this just how it is?

No rapture or judgement
will settle the score or pick up
the tab, I’ll just live what’s left
to life and suffer the rest
like an old drunk waking up
in a ditch with a hangover
the size of a car tyre hosanna’d
round his neck, telling himself
that four days can un-roll
like a sleeping bag whenever
he needs rest - though I know
they’ll feel more like an engine
lugged round on my back
when the alarm kicks me out
on Tuesday morning: 

a four-day sentence
till Saturday breaks cover
and I imagine I’m free again.


Epiphany


I’ve flirted with God
for fifty years
but we’ve never gone steady
or even held hands,
just longed across the street
like hooker and john
wondering which one
needs the other the most,

finding with sadness
maybe relief
that we both need to walk away.


20mg


Pancaked today;
flat as a wind
that bends the grass
but doesn’t touch
the trees. They’re fine
up there, facing their green heads
into a camera
whose exposure is so long
only the absent camera-man

will see the final picture
and wonder at the tapeworm
worming its way
through the long grass
on 20mg a day.
0 Comments

three asemic pieces -David Felix

10/16/2016

1 Comment

 
1 Comment

Michael Lee Johnson - 5 poems

10/16/2016

0 Comments

 
Picture
Little Desert Flower
 
Out of this poem
grows a little desert flower.
it is blue sorrow
it waits for your return.
You escape so you must from me
refuge, folded, wrapped in cool spring rain leaves-
avoiding July, August heat.
South wind hellfire burns memories within you,
branded I tattoo you, leave my mark,
in rose barren fields fueled with burned and desert stubble.
Yet I wait here, a loyal believer throat raw in thirst.
I wrest thunder gods gathering ritual-prayer rain.
It is lonely here grit, tears rub my eyes without relief.
Yet I catch myself loafing away in the wind waiting fate
to whisper those tiny messages
writer of this storm welded wings,
I go unnoticed but the burned eyes of red-tailed hawk
pinch of hope, sheltered by the doves.
I tip a toast to quench your thirst,
one shot of Tequila my little, purple, desert flower.
 


Solo Boxing
 
Solo boxing, past midnight,
tugging emotions out of memories embedded,
tossing dice, reliving vices, revisiting affairs,
playing solitaire-marathon night,
hopscotch player, toss the rock,
shots of Bourbon.
 


Alberta Bound (V2)
 
I own a gate to this prairie
that ends facing the Rocky Mountains.
They call it Alberta
trail of endless blue sky
asylum of endless winters,
hermitage of indolent retracted sun.
Deep freeze drips haphazardly into spring.
Drumheller, dinosaur badlands, dried bones,
ancient hoodoos sculpt high, prairie toadstools.
Alberta highway 2 opens the gateway of endless miles.
Travel weary I stop by roadsides, ears open to whispering pines.
In harmony North to South
Gordon Lightfoot pitches out
a tone
"Alberta Bound."
With independence in my veins,
I am long way from my home.
 


Hazy Arizona Sky (V4)
 
Midnight,
Sonoran Desert,
sleep, baby talk, dust covering my eyelids.
No need for covers, blankets,
sunscreen, sand is my pillow.
Adaptations
morning fireball
hurls into Arizona sky,
survival shifts gears,
momentum becomes a racecar driver
baking down on cracked,
crusted earth-
makes Prickly Pear cactus
open to visitors just a mirage,
cactus naked spit and slice
rubbery skull, glut open
dreams, flood dry.
Western cowboy wishes, whistles, and movies
valley one cup of cool, clear, fool's desert gold
dust refreshing poison of the valley.
Bring desert sunflowers, sand dunes, bandanas,
leave your cell phone at home.
 


Lion in my Heart (V2)
 
There is a heart embedded inside this male lion, I swear.
I eat leaves and underbrush, foliage of the forest, I belch.
Then I fall in love with birds, strangers and wild women.
Tears fall into the lush forest green below,
like Chinese crystal glass beads, shatter.
Then I realize it’s not the jungle, but I that am alone.
In the morning when the bed squeaks, both alarm clocks erupt,
I realize I’m alone in my jungle.
I hear the calls of the wild-
the streetcars, and the metro trains,
wake me in my sleep in my jungle alone,
let me belch in my belly with my Tums,
let me dream in my aloneness I swell.
There is a heart embedded inside this male lion,
I swear jungle man, lion lover, and city dweller.

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