Wednesday, April 25, 2012

NaPoWriMo April 25th

April is National Poetry Writing Month. In celebration of poets everywhere, and to encourage those who are  embarking on their literary journey, I have been posting poetry (not mine) each day for the month of April. Today, I seem to have run out of poets - so you get the special treat of my most recent masterpiece.

Shadow Dance
(copyright Jennifer Bogart)

Sometimes when I'm walking, I look back and see
My shadow is dancing: a memory of me. 
From a time long ago, her step is airy and free,
I close my eyes tight; I don't want to see. 

Pale skin, soft eyes, with a smile so bright
I follow, entranced: afraid I'll lose sight. 
Her countenance changes, she gives me a fright,
I search through the darkness, but can't find her light. 

I call to her, but cannot remember her name
She once was me: but we're not the same.
She's only a memory, a figment, not tame,
Her gift is my future, cold, dark, filled with shame. 

Carefully, stealthily, I look to the right
The woman beside me is me: but not quite. 
Her smile is sad, her soul knows my plight,
She knows in my heart we can't make this right. 

She's in the past, too elusive to hold
Can't have her back: she's frail and she's old.
I look to the future, for legends untold,
I'll find myself there as my story unfolds. 




Tuesday, April 24, 2012

NaPoWriMo - April 24th

April is National Poetry Writing Month. In celebration of poets everywhere, and to encourage those who are just embarking on their literary journey, I will be posting poetry (not mine) each day for the month of April. Please take a look and enjoy this special art.

Collin Tobin


Bio:

Collin is a native of the Boston, MA area, who graduated with a B.A in English, and an M.A. in Teaching at Lander University in South Carolina. While there, he earned the 1997 Southern Literary Festival's first prize in poetry. He is back in New England and enjoying life with his beautiful wife Gina and his two girls, Abby and Rachel. He intensely enjoys writing poetry, but also fiction, and is fearlessly working on his second unpublished novel.


Ash

I stood by your elbow at the front door
While you chatted with our neighbor
Your idle conversation swirled above my head
And an early summer breeze
Lazily tangled with your cigarette smoke
Pulled it through the door's screen
Diced it into little squares
Reassembled it on the other side
Again, and again, and again
A rehearsal of magic

The back and forth
Soothing swell of motherly gossip
Lulled me
As I leaned against you
And you leaned your still young, slim arm
Against the door
The warmth of the sun
And your warm hip
Kept me there for long minutes
As your cigarette ash elongated, stooped
In this shared torpor
As if nodding off
Then broke

The ash fell on my own arm
I forgot to scream I think
As I dumbly stared in horror
At the ash's still glowing red center
As if witnessing the delivery
Of a newborn devil

You jumped back
And extinguished it in a slap

Years later
You asked that I pour
The boxed up three pounds
Of your own cool ash
Into your favorite lake
I don't even have that now

Which is why I wish
That cigarette cinder had been brighter, hotter
Burned deeper
To leave behind the shiny cup of a scar
That I could touch, console
While lost in thought


 

Monday, April 23, 2012

NaPoWriMo - April 23rd

April is National Poetry Writing Month. In celebration of poets everywhere, and to encourage those who are just embarking on their literary journey, I will be posting poetry (not mine) each day for the month of April. Please take a look and enjoy this special art.

William Holt


Bio:

I have been making poems for 65 years. The earliest one I have was written down by my mother when I recited it at the age of three. I have never been especially prolific; all the poems I care to allow people to see could fit in one medium size book.
Anything may bring about a poem--a sudden flash of memory, a chance remark, and animal crossing my line of sight, a marriage announcement in a newspaper, a feeling of frustration. I try to let the subject matter determine the form, which may be that of a sonnet, a villanelle, a clerihew, a double dactyl, a triolet, or a composition in free verse.

For many years I taught college and university English. I'm now retired and enjoying it greatly. My son, a far more prolific and often published poet himself, said that retirement has improved my output. But I doubt that it will ever increase to more than about twenty poems a year.

Many of my poems are collected in the anthology A Stony Path, available on the Authonomy web site, along with my paranormal crime novel, Faust's Butterfly.

A Little Ogden Nashery on the Weevil Race

Let us sing more of weevils.
They are not among the greatest evils.
Should you a weevil meet
It will not mind whether you greet
It with enthusiasm or with suspicion;
Irritability is not the weevil‘s characteristic condition.
But a weevil is not much of a pet:
Ask any vet.
It does not need or desire your care.
Because it has none, you need not comb its hair.
It will not give affection
Nor will it give protection,
And though it is unlikely to do anything to cause anyone to sue you,
It also does not believe that any of its simple services are due you.
Weevils are at their best in the wild,
And with a few notable exceptions, the damage they do is mild.
(The cotton boll weevil raised a fuss quite historical 

But this case should not cause condemnation categorical.)
If you ignore weevils they will ignore you too,
And you can be ignored by them and not be feeling blue. 



Pearl Bearer to Predator

Down where the waves do not define the sea,
I lie stone-still, feeding on things that come
By subtle currents, not by choice, to me,
Full of your poisons, yet I don’t succumb
To things your busy industries pour out.
I take them, and I hold them, growing more
Dangerous as time passes, and a stout
Dose waits for snails or worms or sea-stars, or
You--if you think this meat will sate your greed.
Keep off! or treat me wisely: use my shell
For fertilizer or for chicken feed
Or for an ashtray, but don't taste this fell
Envenomed flesh. I'm helpless in my bed, But when you kill me, take this pearl instead.

Sunday, April 22, 2012

NaPoWriMo - April 22nd

April is National Poetry Writing Month. In celebration of poets everywhere, and to encourage those who are just embarking on their literary journey, I will be posting poetry (not mine) each day for the month of April. Please take a look and enjoy this special art.



Bio:

I'm a 25-year-old psychology graduate and Benefits Officer from North East England. Most of my poetry was written during my teenage years, when life was turbulent and emotions were fierce. It seems that the contentment of my adult life is not as inspiring, when it comes to poetry, as the angst, sorrow, infatuation and heights of romantic love that punctuated my youth. I do still dabble with poetry occasionally though, mostly frivolous efforts. Most of my time is taken up with writing fiction these days - almost exclusively dark, expansive and out of this world.

I don't take my poetry very seriously. To me, it is an exercise in writing: a means rather than an end. But if a poem, a line or even just a word that I have written were to move you in some way, I would be very pleased.


Symphony


Your laughter,
Your tears,
Your sweet young soul.
Bind them to me,
‘That we might become whole.

Eyes full of stars,
Touch of your skin.
Open my heart
‘That you might step within.

Yours is the music,
Mine is the passion,
Ours is the symphony
Love comes to fashion.



The Thorn In Her Heart


Now, in the finality,
The good times seem so close
And her pain is mirrored in me,
A thorn in the heart.

Fear blinds my true feelings of what should be,
Casting my choices into doubt.
I brought down our house through uncertainty,
The demon that tore us apart.

Our love brings us pain, yet maintains its beauty,
Like a garden of roses, cut from their stems.
The passion-red flowers will wither so slowly,
But the thorns will forever stay sharp.





The Dead of Night


As I was passing down the alley, a chilling wind flowed through the valley,
Howling mutters, rattling shutters, screaming in my ears.
To my small mind, the sudden gale resounded like a woman’s wail,
And I almost found the piercing sound was not of wind, but tears.

The silence slowly then returned, the wind’s cool passion having burned,
And still my wicker torch did flicker, holding back my fears.
The torch was bright enough to show a figure dancing in the snow,
The fairest scene that I had seen in all my lonesome years.

The shapely form of such a girl, her skin as pretty as a pearl,
Like Juliet of Capulet, the purest of veneers.
Her snow white dress and raven hair, a vision floating through the air,
I stole my chance to see her dance and as I watch, she nears.

In failing light, I saw her face was elegant and full of grace,
More beautiful than any that has ever blessed my eyes.
Yet, as she ventured closer still, I couldn’t help but feel a chill,
As if the air were freezing with the strength to paralyse.

Again the wind began to bluster all the strength that it could muster,
Placing me in quite a fluster, due to my surprise.
Despite the wind, I kept my feet rigid on the snowy street,
As the wind brought to me the cruel sound of desperate cries.

Soon the flame of the burning brand held up by my shaking hand,
Is tossed and thrown and chilled and blown and in the winter, dies.
In darkness, I could faintly see the ghostly form in front of me,
And in my fear, despite her cries, I could not sympathise.

The ghostly visage drawing near gave rise to new, tenacious fear,
The strength of which would prove too much for any mortal man.
And so, afraid, I turned and fled, conquered by atrocious dread,
With haunting thoughts inside my head, I ran.

The snow was crushing under-foot, and crashing as I lifted,
Crunch-Churn, Crunch-Churn, Crunching as I shifted.
My feral fear was reinforced by the firm ferocious force,
Of the frightful fierce and furious wind that ran its fiendish course.

Running through the dark of night,
The moon my only source of light,
I passed the graveyard on my right,
And saw a terrifying sight.


Over the ancient burial mound,
Were spirits rising from the ground,
Then came to me the awful sound
Of ghostly voices all around.

I took the opportunity,
To turn my frightened tail and flee,
The terror now surmounting me,
In my pernicious reverie.

At once, the howling wraiths gave chase,
Unhindered by etheric grace,
And quickly matched my laboured pace,
As I made for a safer place.

Soaring like a blackened host of fallen seraphim,
These apparitions of the damned were surely slaves to him,
The infernal lord who surely spawned this conflagration
Of burning souls and flaring tempests wrought in foul temptation.

Ghostly claws of foul creation, instruments of excarnation,
Thrashed and slashed my body, like a thousand phantom scythes.
I felt no cuts upon my skin, for the pain was deep within,
As if the wind’s fell fury focused where my spirit writhes.

I ran on forward, barely stalling, stumbled slightly, nearly falling,
Desperate to avoid the most deplorable of fates.
Still I heard the dead ones calling, suffered transcendental mauling,
Thankful I had reached the fabled haven of my gates.

On I ran, and up the stair, taking exponential care,
Not to trip or falter there, and face the shadows of despair.
I reached my humble home in strides, and all the safety it provides.
The dark incorporeal tides are held back firm by stone divides.

Now I sit inside, alone, in my sanctum made of stone,
Left to ponder on my own, events that chilled me to the bone.
No mental wall I hide behind can chase the visions from my mind,
Inside my head I am confined to face the demons there entwined.

In my deathly doleful dreaming, wicked revenants are screaming,
Screaming from the rift in me that has been torn into my core.
Though the fact remains unspoken, I am sure my mind is broken,
Dreaming dreams no mortal man has ever dreamt to dream before.

Now my thoughts are churning, turning into something foul concerning
Evils that the least indignant man could not help but abhor.
Presently, my splintered soul is striving to regain control,
Yet, I find that peace of mind is toilsome to restore.

Despite my wits now being rotten, inner thoughts are quick forgotten
With the sound of howling winds and creaking in the floor.
I rise up, shaken, terrified, and soon my fears are verified,
By the faintest noise of fingers tapping at the door.


Saturday, April 21, 2012

NaPoWriMo - April 21st

April is National Poetry Writing Month. In celebration of poets everywhere, and to encourage those who are just embarking on their literary journey, I will be posting poetry (not mine) each day for the month of April. Please take a look and enjoy this special art.

Jimmi Jaq

Chemist by day, lyricist by night. 
Bio: 

Well, well, well ... what can I say ... who will come out to play with me today? Pull up your boots and straighten your skirt ... give me a smile, now that didn't hurt. Welcome to my other side ... the man you thought you'd never see ... don't worry though, it’s only me.

Find more of Jimmi Jaq's work on his blog: Love, Loss and the Lies Inbetween

She comes to you in the night
(Copyright Jaquith, 2011) 

She comes to you in the night
As she always will
Emerging from the darkness
A close and welcome friend

You have been waiting for her
To bring you back to life
To wash away your tears
To save you from your world

A dark and mysterious smile
A quiet and playful laugh
A desire that challenges your pride
A loneliness you cannot quench

You whisper her name
And draw on all your courage
She won’t leave you tonight
She will stay with you this time

But the rising shadows hide her eyes
The mists of morning collect her sole
The sounds of day quiet her song
The sun steals her warmth

You are left alone again
Clinging to her memory
Searching for her face
Who will watch over you today?



Memories of Me 
(Copyright Jaquith, 2011) 

Memories of me
Something new to see
Truth behind my eyes
The mirror tells me lies

Tell me who I am
Reach out a loving hand
Wipe away all I see
Bring me back to me

I gave you a smile
That will have to do for awhile

I gave you a smile
A smile, a smile
A smile, a smile

I find comfort in a lie
I find my reason why
Bring them back to me
Stolen memories of me

Count my tears that fall
A penny for them all
Save them up for me
Why won’t they let me be?

Take me by my hand
Make me understand
A love so unreal
Help me just to feel

I gave you a smile
That will have to do for awhile

Find the strength to stand
Tell me who I am
Something new to see
These memories of me.


Friday, April 20, 2012

NaPoWriMo - April 20th

April is National Poetry Writing Month. In celebration of poets everywhere, and to encourage those who are just embarking on their literary journey, I will be posting poetry (not mine) each day for the month of April. Please take a look and enjoy this special art.

Salwa Samra



Salwa Samra is a writer of ‘Poetry' and 'Non Fiction.' She is most passionate about 'Poetry' and prefers to label her writings as - 'Writing Pieces' rather than Poems/Poetry for the specific rationale that her writings are 'Pieces' that reflect nature, emotions, sentiment, and experiences of the human body, mind, and spirit.
Salwa has a varied and wide collection of Writing Pieces.

More of Salwa's work can be found on her blog and her facebook page.

Please NOTE:
All Salwa Samra's Writing Pieces are protected under the Copyright Act 1968. Copyright gives its owner the legal right to take action in certain circumstances if someone else uses these Writing Pieces without purchase or permission.

I’ll Be

I’ll be your flower in the sun
I’ll be your rain in dry periods to come
I’ll be your tears in trials of sorrow
I’ll be your lender in times to borrow

I’ll be your strength when you are weak
I’ll be your light from darkness to peak
I’ll be your calm when the storm arrives
I’ll be your peace in peril and strife

I’ll carry you through each mountain height
I’ll tread you along each heavy plight
I’ll be your stream in the valley low
I’ll pace you through any frightening blow

I’ll be your touch when it’s too hard to feel
I’ll be your warmth from the cold to seal
I’ll be the straight trail from the crocked path
I’ll be your joy to impart a candid laugh

I’ll be the gold when you’re being refined
I’ll be the pearl in the oyster you find
I’ll be the colours in your rainbow
I’ll be your unquenchable gusto

Salwa Samra © 2009
All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or part without permission is prohibited.



ASPIRE

In the rush of the wind
A whisper is eager to ascend
In the twinkle of an eye
A raindrop releases its cry

As the fawn shadows the doe
A prey surrenders to its unrelenting foe
As the seed is soiled to the land
It emerges to something quite grand

During the Winters rain the storms roar
In its fierceness unforeseen victory may soar
Within the splendor of the sun new life is created
Inside the wonder of Spring much is mated

Through the dark of night when all is still
The mornings dawn contains its silent fill
Soon dusk appears in its misty haze
Weaving the day for the next to amaze

Endeavour to grasp the unknown design
When a new day greets another entwines
As the twilight comes and the stars appear
Seek to understand the unfamiliar near

For each individual is a unique creation
In every personality a diverse foundation
Aspire to embrace what is yours alone
In each of us a gift is fervently sown

When the bird orchestrates its familiar songs
Contemplate nature to you it belongs
When the grandeur of life leaves you in awe
Aspire to discover just a little more

Salwa M. Wills © 2008
 All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or part without permission is prohibited.



Rooms in my Heart

One day I discovered many ‘rooms’ in my heart
As I walked down it’s passage, doors set apart
On these doors were displayed the title of each
Travelling life’s journey, everyone I’ve beseeched

The first room I entered ‘love’ was its name
I was touched by it’s settings, warmth it attained
Recalling many memories from child to mother
There glittered unconditional love for many another

Leaving the room of love coldness invited me
To view a room quite dark, it was ‘anger’ you see
The walls were covered in irritable black
Retracing many experiences of looming tracks

Separated from anger was brightness of ‘joy’
Throughout this room many colours to enjoy
Dancing, laughter, celebration & success
Rekindled many memories of moments blest

Then suddenly a haunting sound caused a fright
And led me into a room so dismal in it’s plight
‘Fear’ had inhaled this space and it’s extent
Causing many an opportunity abandonly spent

Continuing nearby was harmony I heard
its door and ‘peace’ greeted me without a word
How I longed to linger in it’s victorious liberty
Rest had heralded me to stillness so free

Many other rooms in my heart reside
Each one I exhibit a portrait inside
To enter and view with an attitude of trust
Furnished with an aspiration to polish not rust

By Salwa Samra © 2009
All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or part without permission is prohibited.


Thursday, April 19, 2012

NaPoWriMo - April 19th

April is National Poetry Writing Month. In celebration of poets everywhere, and to encourage those who are just embarking on their literary journey, I will be posting poetry (not mine) each day for the month of April. Please take a look and enjoy this special art.

Robert Heath 



E-mail: contact@carpe-somnium.com
Website: http://www.carpe-somnium.com
Twitter: @RobHeath1969
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100003492794082

What can I say; this bit is harder to write than the poems themselves!!

Forty something project manager in the engineering sector by day and in the very early hours, before work, a dream of being a writer. Avid reader. Keen Allotment grower. Proud family man. Happy. Living with my long term partner. Two great kids.

I am a recovered heroin addict who lost a good portion of his twenties to drugs. Having redeemed myself somewhat I am now in the position of being happy enough to try again for the only personnel dream I have ever had, that of being a writer.

As a man I am massively influenced by my late father, who taught me how to read and therefore how to learn, and my partner and our children, who taught me how to be free.

As a fiction writer and a poet I am influenced by the greats as I see them – Kafka, Dickens, Bret Easton Ellis, Hubert Selby, Cormack McCarthy, William Faulkner, William Burroughs, Phillip Larkin, W H Auden, Adrian Mitchell, Brian Patten, Roger McGough and myriad more – people who could paint the inside of your mind with words. I like to think in some small way, I am following in their footsteps, or at least trying to.

I have to date won an online short story competition and had several pieces of poetry published in various magazines. As well as posting my debut novel on Authonomy which is Harper Collins online slush-pile.

For me poetry represents freedom to explore and explain – Poetry is distilled prose, the frozen second immortalised in a handful of words whose power lies in their form and construction as well as their given meaning.

Poetry is the very heart of the writer – the mirror to the inner self.


EVERYTHING’S BLUE IN THIS WORLD


I’d say Christmas and birthdays are the worst.
It’s like a hollow pull in your guts.

Eight years ago....................
And I don’t seem to have even moved.

Bernard helps.
Though he locks most of it away.
Sometimes a sherry or two will set his eyes bright
And he’ll reach for his hankie and mutter something about dust.

In the mornings I awake and wonder why I can’t just sleep
In dreams I see her as she was
In the day......
....well, you can’t hide from it can you

It’s in everything
The lack of her laughter
The silence at mealtimes
The slush in your groin when the news talks of another
The stupid way people are with you.

I know she’s dead
Some think, because her room is just the same
That I’ve gone a little mad.

They talk of moving on
And how time heals.

But I have nowhere to go,
Just here and the clocks tick
Just the guardian of a memory.

don’t eat as much cake anymore
used to make my own but
The taste’s gone.
And as for the garden,
It’s lucky if it sees attention once a month.

We just sit around I suppose.
We like to watch telly
And, on Sundays we put on faces and play bowls.
I hate the quiet
I hate the (w) hole in me
I hate this endless drift.

I think I’ll go look at her picture
That helps.
Sometimes.
For awhile............


HOW HE DANCED

How he danced when youth was the currency of long summer days,
And she with him. Red fire dizzy in the meadows,
And now this uncalled for haze.
A shutting up.
A pawning of trinkets.
A closing of days.

But solace, half caught like glimpses of dragonflies looping by,
to achievements never tarnished by time.
Quicksilver laughter chasing her white ankles through slurping streams.
Ambitions of becoming immortal,
yet how short the summer seems.

Too vague at times,
The holiday by the river,
The time she tripped and he caught her arm.
her breath misting in the winter air.
Too vague to grasp. Just sit and stare.

Back to a time of simple things, joined by common desire.
Just left to him embers of that fire.
And no more breath.
A simple slip.
A culmination that lasts an eternity.
Oh, how he danced.



BE ADVENTUROUS WITH THE CRISPS

Be adventurous with the crisps dear,
The salted can’t be ready this time,
No, it’s not that I am different and
Yes dear - everything is just fine.

I rather fancy denying the clocks tock today – that is all,
Beating back the reapers hand –
Like the day we spent in Haringey
Shopping on Green Lanes – now that was grand.

We were ageless then, zeal crazed too,
imbued with a desperate fire,
Yet it leaks away so darn quick,
Dear, make sure you take your walking stick.

And no cheese and onion dear,
that I am afraid will never qualify,
It’s as banal as the others are dear,
Oh hurry lest I cry – a little admissions tear
I’m so coffin crushingly alone - aren’t I dear.

No one actually to fetch the crisps,
Adventurous or otherwise.



Wednesday, April 18, 2012

NaPoWriMo - April 18th

April is National Poetry Writing Month. In celebration of poets everywhere, and to encourage those who are just embarking on their literary journey, I will be posting poetry (not mine) each day for the month of April. Please take a look and enjoy this special art.

Robert P. Rowley

I'm a freelance writer/photographer living in New Mexico, U.S.A. I studied fiction writing with Mark Harris (BANG THE DRUM SLOWLY) and Tobias Wolff (THIS BOY'S LIFE). My nonfiction has appeared in THE AMERICAN SCHOLAR, HIGH COUNTRY NEWS, NEW MEXICO MAGAZINE, TEXAS PARKS & WILDLIFE, TRUE WEST, etc.

Rob's poems are writtin in Spanish - but don't worry, he provided a translation for those of us who aren't fluent in that beautiful language.


La Cacofonía

una melodia,
pequeña pieza de armonía
en si.

Robert P. Rowley

(Cacophony

a melody
small piece of harmony
in itself.)

La Unión

Me has ayudado, mi amor
en muchas formas,
como la lluvia le da ayuda a la flor.
Y como la flor le da belleza al mundo,
mi esperanza es hacer lo mismo.

Robert P. Rowley

(The Marriage

You have helped me, my love
in many ways,
like rain gives support to the flower.
And as the flower gives beauty to the world,
my hope is to do the same.)


"Claret Cup Cactus blossoms"--Robert P. Rowley


More of Rob's photography can be found on his blog: http://desertpackrat.blogspot.ca/

Tuesday, April 17, 2012

NaPoWriMo - April 17th

April is National Poetry Writing Month. In celebration of poets everywhere, and to encourage those who are just embarking on their literary journey, I will be posting poetry (not mine) each day for the month of April. Please take a look and enjoy this special art.

Diane Dickson


Bio:

Born in Yorkshire and grown up in Lancashire, England. I have spent many years living and working in the Middle East which was wonderful. Now, I am based partly in South West, France, in a lovely house in the middle of a forest and partly in Solihull in the UK. We have an apartment overlooking the Severn Trent Waterway, where I can frisby bread to the ducks right from my balcony. I am married with two wonderful children and two amazing grandsons who like my children's stories.

I have loved reading and writing ever since I can remember and have published some poetry in addition to my three children's books and now adult fiction.

Diane's Blog:  http://dianemdickson.wordpress.com/

TRUST

I may taunt your tender, gentle heart with ribbons of delight
I may drown your ever trusting soul in lies.
My thoughts are hid in darkness like the inky black of night
and you cannot find the truth behind my eyes

When you turn to me with loving and with arms outstretched in joy
I may meet you with a posture made of stone
and your pliant tender body will be just another toy.
When you need me you will find you are alone.



REBIRTH

Life buffets
love covets
time's all gone,
My needing
You stealing
Love's all wrong

Hearts seeking
Souls meeting
New Sweet song



ANOTHER DOVE

It may be there's another dove, a tiny spark of light,
a diamond glint of stardust in the darkness of the night..
It may be just a glimmer, a shadow on the moon,
a half remembered memory in the echo of a tune.
It's sometimes just a passing breeze on a calm and windless day
that strokes your cheek and gently wipes a bitter tear away.
A moment in a lifetime that takes away the fear,
when troubles drift on smoky wings and the way ahead is clear
A feeling, just a feeling, a phantom here and gone
but it brings you strength and hope and love and the will to carry on.


Monday, April 16, 2012

NaPoWriMo - April 16th

April is National Poetry Writing Month. In celebration of poets everywhere, and to encourage those who are just embarking on their literary journey, I will be posting poetry (not mine) each day for the month of April. Please take a look and enjoy this special art.

Leon Gower





Why I write:

I have no choice. If you look in a dictionary you will find words, each one has a story beside it.
When I wake up at 2am the stories in my mind have no word beside them.
I have to build a definition for that feeling.
Then, I place a title on top, really I'm not writing poetry, I'm building a personal dictionary of feelings not easily expressed.
Every person has key moments in their lives, times where no single word is appropriate. This is when our minds create new definitions. New poems.

Who am I?

 I grew up homeless and am self educated. I believe a person must take steps in life, wait for the next wave to wash them back. Then take another step. Never give up and never expect to be helped. I am a Palowa. Tasmanian Aboriginal Man. 

More of Leon Gower's work can be found on Authonomy.


NEW BORN

A child cries as it enters the world
and so begins a tail
it speaks of fun, love and war
a mystery for us all
it's the stuff of life your looking at
the reason why where here
to love to hate to laugh at fate
most of it's done by ear
there is no script or story line
make it if you can
you have to try to work it out
we'll help you if we can
but in the end you will learn
one lesson and thats all
i don't know what, it's not my lot
it may be something small
but as you grow, you will know
the one thing you can't see
is your own life, in all it's strife
and how it looks to me



A LEAF

Living moving loving growing
sole purpose is to die
never can we understand
you only want to be loved
kissed by light, poisoned by time
such a sad, gentle way.

Sunday, April 15, 2012

NaPoWriMo - April 15th

April is National Poetry Writing Month. In celebration of poets everywhere, and to encourage those who are just embarking on their literary journey, I will be posting poetry (not mine) each day for the month of April. Please take a look and enjoy this special art.


G. M. Stroll



About me: I'm a 30 year old schizophrenic author, living in Montreal. I took up writing, at first, to give a gift to a sick friend of mine; dedicated to raising money for charitable research into her illness. I discovered that I loved the trade, and made a short hop over into fiction a couple years ago. I'm currently in the process of querying my first fiction novel, Trinity Divided. My inspiration is generally drawn from music, but equally every psychosis I've survived has left me with shattered dreams from which to piece together a story. Through all the mediums one can write, I'll always have a love - hate relationship with poetry. To me, poetry is a thinly veiled window into our deepest emotions.

G.M. Stroll can also be found on Authonomy.




Chasing dreams through the stars,
Drum beat hearts that once were ours.
Disjointed breaths through time and space,
A message, a bottle, a word would they lace.
From crow to dove to the heavens above,
All would know that the word was love.
In the evening's still, the sun sets all the same,
The only thing left to hold onto is your name.






Her eyes, in summer's majesty, glistened with a mildew sheen;
His eyes were frail, broken, bound and bereaved in the wood.
Her heart false, if only not to betray a pain at the seam;
His heart would spark like kindling, for through her it could.

Her eyes, in fall's decay, grew distant, solemn and stronger;
His eyes linger, in shades of rose,  yet still missing their mark.
Her heart withers where fostered hope trespassed no longer ;
His heart was both clumsy and fearful, yet naked, openly stark.

Her eyes, in winter's despondancy, reveals a mercy so soft;
His eyes contrast as erupts a miasma of purpose and defeat.
Her heart restrained to dreams from wence prayers waft;
His heart reaches out for those seeking in love's retreat.

The truth was in their estranged eyes, misplaced in time.
The hunger was in their unsure hearts, spoken in rhyme.


Saturday, April 14, 2012

NaPoWriMo - April 14th

April is National Poetry Writing Month. In celebration of poets everywhere, and to encourage those who are just embarking on their literary journey, I will be posting poetry (not mine) each day for the month of April. Please take a look and enjoy this special art.

Kira Morgana

Biographies:

Author: Kira thought she was a Teacher, until Life pointed out to her that she is actually a writer. As her Cats, Kids and Partner approved, she decided to agree with Life.

Currently she is working on a five book Novella Series for Pfoxmoor Publishing as well as a number of other projects. As If that weren’t enough, she spends a week or two a month putting together “Welcome to Wherever”, along with trying to juggle Cats, Kids, Partner and Brownie Leader Training.

She does all this from a body in South Wales, UK. Where her mind is, she hasn’t yet worked out…

Blog: http://tpsworld.wordpress.com/
Webzine: http://welcometowherever.wordpress.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/#!/kira_m_author

Illustrator: Maria K. is a pen name of a first-generation Russian-Ukrainian immigrant Maria Igorevna Kuroshchepova.

An engineer by education, an analyst by trade, as well as a writer, photographer, artist and amateur model, Maria brings her talent for weaving an engaging narrative to stories of life, fashion and style advice, book and movie reviews, and common-sense and to-the-point essays on politics and economy.

Having focused on non-fiction and translation for nearly ten years, Maria is now venturing into the science fiction genre as well as illustration and cover design.

Maria lives in North Carolina, USA, with her husband Gerry and their pets.

Link: http://mariakuroshchepova.blogspot.com/



Look under your bed and what do you see,
A place full of dust or a magical tree?
Crawl under your bed and continue the tale,
There’s a ship by the tree and it’s about to set sail.


Once upon a time in a land far away,
The Gribblebid stretched and awoke for the day,
He put on his trousers and polished his fangs,
Slapped life into his cheeks until they stang,

He stained his claws red with the best beetroot juice,
And ruffled his fur with a touch of hair mousse.
When he finished his breakfast he opened his door,
Stood on his top step and let out a Roar,


“I am the Gribblebid and just so you’ll know,
If you come down my path I’ll never let you go!”
The roar echoed scarily through valley and hill,
Across mountain and lake it travelled on still,

It passed over forests, meadows and streams,
Until it came to a house made of Sunbeams.
Inside the house, just making her bed,
Pika the Phluph heard what the roar said,


And being a very adventurous Phluph,
Thought to herself “Ooh, he sounds tough,”
“But I think he’s just lonely up there at the top,
Of the Black and Blue Mountain where no one will stop.”

So Pika packed her lunch of red Shlup and green Taff,
And set out on the way to the Gribblebid’s path.
She scrambled and rambled over Huggibuck Ridge,
And tipi-toed over the Kramblebug’s Bridge,

Waded through mud in the Swamp of Julspoon,
Swam the great lake of Silvery Moon,
Ate her lunch carefully in the Forest of Fear,
Taking her rubbish to keep the place clear,



* all images are copyrighted to Maria K. and should not be used elsewhere without express permission from the artist.


Link: http://www.lulu.com/shop/maria-k-and-kira-morgana/pika-the-phluph-and-the-gribblebid-tough/paperback/product-20004195.html

Friday, April 13, 2012

NaPoWriMo - April 13th

April is National Poetry Writing Month. In celebration of poets everywhere, and to encourage those who are just embarking on their literary journey, I will be posting poetry (not mine) each day for the month of April. Please take a look and enjoy this special art.

William Holt




Bio:

I have been making poems for 65 years. The earliest one I have was written down by my mother when I recited it at the age of three. I have never been especially prolific; all the poems I care to allow people to see could fit in one medium size book.
Anything may bring about a poem--a sudden flash of memory, a chance remark, and animal crossing my line of sight, a marriage announcement in a newspaper, a feeling of frustration. I try to let the subject matter determine the form, which may be that of a sonnet, a villanelle, a clerihew, a double dactyl, a triolet, or a composition in free verse.

For many years I taught college and university English. I'm now retired and enjoying it greatly. My son, a far more prolific and often published poet himself, said that retirement has improved my output. But I doubt that it will ever increase to more than about twenty poems a year.

Many of my poems are collected in the anthology A Stony Path, available on the Authonomy web site, along with my paranormal crime novel, Faust's Butterfly.


Fred Holt, 1908-1988 



Covering a wall in my study
Laden with heavy books 

Is a bookshelf he made 

Thirty eight years ago, 

Sturdy enough to hold a ton 

Yet light enough to carry, disassembled, in one hand.

In my garage 

Stands a wardrobe, finely crafted by him 

Forty two years ago, 

Framed with aluminum

Faced with polished maple, 

Lined with lovely aromatic cedar. 


He shared with me his love for 

Cabinet making and Coleridge 

Baseball and Bach 

Stonework and Stevenson.

Scholar, athlete and craftsman,
He worked with his hands
And relaxed with his mind,
Making music and poetry
My childhood constants
When all else quivered with constant change.

But my hands and nerves were not his 

And I turned from all things 

Needing his quick reflexes 

And clever fingers
To the things of the mind alone.

Half the man 

My father was, 

I have been a teacher of writing,
A spinner-out 

Of articles
Poems
Stories. Words are the only tools
I handle with any skill.

So his play 

Became my work 

And his work 

Except for a few things he made and others kept

Died with him.



Talk Therapy--Daedalus and Oedipus

How could I hope my warnings about the wings
Would even be heard? He hated me
As most teens hate their parents. When I see
My mirrored face, I hate myself. Such things

Just reek of common life. To call it a dysfunction
Begs such an obvious question I would think
You'd be ashamed to ask. Please, so much ink
Has been poured out on this, it's ready for extreme unction.

All I have done is wrong. Poor Perdix might have died
When I attacked him, though Athena stopped me,
And though I'd been well warned, I would not see
My course had gone astray because I'd simply lied

To my prideful self, claiming these artisan's hands
Had special privilege, just as my anger did
So when I lost myself in work, and hid
From my own son--no! Here on these sands

I look on the sunlit Aegean, mourn his death
Caused by my cleverness and my desire
For freedom. My wings I've consigned to fire
In sacrifice to Apollo, and I pray with every breath

For some relief, pour ashes on my foolish head,
But there's no sign in sea or sky he hears.
I must move on at last and dry these tears
However I may wish to join the dead.


Thursday, April 12, 2012

NaPoWriMo - April 12th

April is National Poetry Writing Month. In celebration of poets everywhere, and to encourage those who are just embarking on their literary journey, I will be posting poetry (not mine) each day for the month of April. Please take a look and enjoy this special art.

David Southam 


Bio:

I'm a 25-year-old psychology graduate and Benefits Officer from North East England. Most of my poetry was written during my teenage years, when life was turbulent and emotions were fierce. It seems that the contentment of my adult life is not as inspiring, when it comes to poetry, as the angst, sorrow, infatuation and heights of romantic love that punctuated my youth. I do still dabble with poetry occasionally though, mostly frivolous efforts. Most of my time is taken up with writing fiction these days - almost exclusively dark, expansive and out of this world.

I don't take my poetry very seriously. To me, it is an exercise in writing: a means rather than an end. But if a poem, a line or even just a word that I have written were to move you in some way, I would be very pleased.

Once Upon a Summertime

Swirling summer winds collide
Over sun swept fields of comfort,
Twirling fresh green leaves aside,
To dance to music in the air.

We walk upon the waving grass,
Soothed by rolling waves below,
And hear a song we used to know,
Once upon a summertime.

Laughing children pass us by,
With tubs of ice from Delaval,
As young girls surf and dragons fly
Over the sand and past the fair.

We pass the glory of the beach,
The ocean that the rivers flow to,
Back to a place we used to go to,
Once upon a summertime.

Slowly we climb up the stair,
My hand in yours,
Your hand in mine,
Wind flowing through your golden hair,
You enter in my heart
And I hold you there.

Your sweet perfume and morning dew,
Scent of passion,
Essence of love,
Your eyes have come to match the blue,
Mine dark, I know,
With wanting you.

Wanting now like a sun within,
Touch of your smile,
Fall of your hair,
Scent of sun cream in your skin,
Burning me deeply
As I pull you in.

Drawing you into that hungry fire,
Beside and above you
In a world of desire,
To greet your soft, sweet lips with mine,
To make us one,
In summertime.


Beautiful, Loving, Loved

Oh, love incarnate, love entire,
The light that set your soul afire.
Your sweet affection, doomed to fall,
Gone from you and gone from all.

The new sun rises in her eyes,
Her beauty mirrored by the sea.
The soft wind whispers in her voice,
“With patience, I shall wait for thee”.

Within a starlit memory, as vivid as the sky,
See that your love is destiny, and love will never die.
Allow your faith to make you whole,
Mend your heart and heal your soul,
For far across a peaceful sea, your love will wait eternally.


Love Works

Know that I long for the moments when your blushing breath meets my eager lips,
Like the coolest sigh of summer to a burnt and barren beach.

Know that I live for the briefest touch of your bare shoulders,
Delicate ivory shells that hold more delicious secrets than the softest, sweetest fruit.

Know that I love you for all that you are,
For every part and purpose,
For every mark upon your skin,
For every note your voice can carry.

Despite all that I have been and all that I have done, the life that I have led thus far seems nothing but a prelude to today,
A mess of scattered meanings,
A maze of preset consequence,
A forerunning pattern that has led me to you.

Slow
Soft
Calm need.

If I had a cup that could contain laughter, love and life, I would catch with it your every tear, and treasure forever it coming from you.

If I had a mirror that could keep a shape eternal, I would catch with it your brightest smile, to light the world beyond any other joy.

I thank the Earth, and the stars, and the light of the Sun for the softly burning presence that finds its home within my chest,
A presence that is love,
A presence that is you.


Wednesday, April 11, 2012

NaPoWriMo - April 11th

April is National Poetry Writing Month. In celebration of poets everywhere, and to encourage those who are just embarking on their literary journey, I will be posting poetry (not mine) each day for the month of April. Please take a look and enjoy this special art.

J. S. Watts



Bio:

J.S.Watts’ poetry, short stories and book reviews appear in a wide variety of publications in Britain, Canada, Australia and the States including Acumen, Envoi, Mslexia and Orbis and have been broadcast on BBC and Independent Radio. One of her poems, recently published in the U.S. magazine Fantastique Unfettered, has rather excitingly been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. J.S. has been Poetry Reviews Editor for Open Wide Magazine and Poetry Editor for Ethereal Tales. Her debut poetry collection, Cats and Other Myths, is published by Lapwing Publications. It is a collection that finds contemporary relevance in the echoes of myth and legend and the mythic in the day to day world around us. Her first novel, a work of literary fiction with a mythic edge and currently titled A Darker Moon, is due out from Vagabondage press in autumn 2012. For further details see: www.jswatts.co.uk You can also find her on Facebook at www.facebook.com/J.S.Watts.page.

Why she writes: I breath, therefore I write. It's almost as simple as that. I love words and I've written since childhood without a significant break. Yes, there have been fallow periods, but it's never been long before that internal bell has started to chime again and the words have tumbled out onto paper, sometimes as poetry, sometimes as short stories and two and a half times now as novels. The first of these, "A Darker Moon", is being published by the US publisher Vagabondage Press in autumn 2012. The second is out there looking for an agent (you can read the first five chapters at http://www.authonomy.com/books/37742/witchlight/read-book/.) The third is still a work in progress. These days I also review other people's writing. It's a joy (usually), but of itself it doesn't stop the internal bell from chiming; only fresh, creative writing does that.

As an English writer, living in the UK, I give poetry and short story readings across the country and have been lucky enough to have performed at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. I enjoy performing and find it very rewarding, but it's the written word that calls out to me, again and again and again.

Dead Certainty

Only from the dead can certainty grow.
Those of us who remain behind are too irresolute,
too inconstant to leave a mark that is permanent or true.
Our patterns change, contradict and shift.
Who can believe us when tomorrow we will be other?
It is the dead alone who offer consistency,
a changeless image etched with the acid of their leaving
into our own mutability.
They, our sole constant, show us the truth,
both theirs and ours.

J.S.Watts
As displayed as part of the 2012 “Not the Oxford Literary Festival”

Sleepless

Child like, you can sleep anywhere, anytime.
Oblivious to all but your body's rest;
The untroubled sleep of the unknowing.

You lie beside me,
Semi-foetal, closed in on yourself.
Strange, that one so giving when awake
Is so miserly of himself when asleep.
Your breathing, rhythmic, gentle,
Your own self-fulfilling lullaby.
I modulate my breath to yours,
Hoping to hear the same berceuse
On which you now drift,
But your harmonies remain unknown to me.

Tonight, as on other nights,
You have left me to go I know not where.
For I am a stranger to your alien land
And may not pass through its portals of sleep.

I am left without, in the grey-ash wilderness
Of the waking night,
Mourning your loss and fearful
Of the nightmares that taunt my waking.


From the poetry collection Cats and Other Myths by J.S.Watts

Vase of Daffodils

Bright enough to burn
Into a bleakly urban Tuesday morning -
Vase of yellow sunshine on my window sill.
Brewery sketched greyly behind
Is not redeemed, however.

Opened during the night,
Their faces now crane upwards
Towards Mother Sun
As she peers downwards
Through concrete fingers.

Charm and pathos mixed.
What price such effort
When beauty is already
Severed from purpose?

Theirs is a brief moment
Without perpetuity.
Now is given up
In favour of a posterity
Already gone.

Purposefully purposeless,
They earn a certain dignity
And in cauterising today's pain
Who is to say
That they lack meaning.


From the poetry collection Cats and Other Myths by J.S.Watts