Month: August 2018

Read Poem: FORWARD by Gladys Muturi

Forward
Time to move forward
I got to move forward
No time to change the past
Looking back is the thing in the past
Chapter ending
No open wounds
Closed tight with a thousand stitches
Scar is healing
Vanquished from my soul
Endeavor to stay
Never be the same
Forward
That’s where I’m going
My head facing the horizon
A vision to the future
I see the bright, yellow sun rising above the heavenly blue sky
The light from the sun shines from the high echo mountains, pushing the dark shadows to make a clear arrival
It’s my time to shine!
Here I run faster
Heading forward
to the sun, to the skies and to the mountains I go
waiting for me to start a new journey
I cried a thousand tears looking back in the past
Wondering how I made it last
Now I face the truths and realities
Laugh off from the bad memories
Shake off the fear that deepens my skin
Grin even if the day is unpleasant
I will move forward
Befriend with loyal individuals
Walking with pride and dignity
Meet someone new
Fall in love with each other
Live together in our happy ending
Produce our population
Together in our own kingdom
Replace individual “I” to an assembly of “we”
We are moving forward together

Genre: Moving On

Read Poetry: JUNE 26, 2015 by Felice Picano

Had he lived
would we be celebrating
our momentous today
or simply let it go
having had it, lived it
for ourselves so long?
Not ever requiring
The officious,
official authentication.

Would the sidewalk
revelers we do not stop
to embellish, recall
that evening’s evening star
kiss a crescent moon
and splashily silver the plaza?:
the Chilean pianist’s final,
near-silent, pianissimo —
in c minor: astonished
to hear our wild applause
–so deep in meditation?

Had he lived
would palm and frond and fern and cedar
be spiny pine and elder alder
rimed icy tight?
And night’s aromas not be
soft Hollywood honeysuckle
but copper nasal hot
as sunsets on the Hudson
still stupefy and hurt?

Had he lived
would his photo’s face be replaced
by one that’s less familiar?
like that infrequent, five a.m.
r.e.m image
that makes me wake up in wonder
and feel blessed all day long?
No mirage — I swear —
but across that Wild Divide,
a kind of true communication . . .

Had he lived?

© 2018, Felice Picano
.

Read Poem: Viola’s Rebellion by Sam Allen

Her face is white as porcelain

Her lips are thin and red

And as the concertina plays

He tilts her fragile head

The voice that he embodies

Has a churlish, silly sound

He helps her do a courtesy

And then makes her spin around

Her floral dress, conservative

Her frilly blouse too tight

Those fallen locks have lost their shine

But who is she to fight?

She’s at the mercy of his hands

She doesn’t have control

The only life she’s ever known

Is as a passive doll

She’s tired of the girlishness

The way he moves her hands

She hates the curtseys and the nods

The way he makes her stand

And suddenly as if possessed

Viola takes her reins

Decides to pull on her own strings

And breaks free from her chains

She smiles a smile so devilish

It almost cracks her cheeks

Does a crazy, happy dance

And turns to him to speak

She tells him with authority

That it’s time for a change

She’s had enough of mannerisms

Feeling so restrained

Viola takes a flying leap

And breaks her string of pearls

Shouts that she’s a woman now

And not some helpless girl

She tears her frilly blouse apart

Her hair is like a horse

Cascading down her ivory skin

With such unbridled force

Her pearls are swirling round the sky

That floral skirt is ripped

She steps into her own domain

And swings her sensual hips

She turns to the ventriloquist

Who stands their quite agast

Thanks him for the life she’s had

But adds, “It couldn’t last..

Inside each doll there is a soul

That longs for more than pity,

We women want to be ourselves

It’s boring playing pretty”

Viola so vivaciously

Vibrates with violet power

She’s waited all her life for this

It is her finest hour

She spins him once and twice around

And takes her fallen laces

Ties his hands and feet with them

She laughs as her heart races

Viola’s purple passion pumps

Right through her female brain

“Cause even dolls rebel you know,

And now I hold the reigns”

Read Poem: The Beholder by Darienne K. E. Jordan

We are taught that

Beauty is in the

Eye of the Beholder

We always assume

This means eyes

Outside of our own

Someone not us

Is supposed to approve

Using some arbitrary standard

We seek validation

From every passerby

And shrink into ourselves

When we aren’t deemed worthy

Beauty is in the eye

Of the Beholder

But wouldn’t it be

The loveliest thing

If the only Beholder

We cared about

Was ourselves

What if the only

Standard we had to reach

Was our own

Would we finally

Understand self-love

And honor our unique beauty?

What a wild thought.

Read Poem: An Adult Fable for the Modern Day by Cindi Walton

Way up high on the seventeenth floor lived a selfish young princess dressed in Dior.

“My nail is chipped and my hair is a mess.” Where is that maid, I need to get dressed!”

“Bring me my dog, now take him to pee. Run me a bath and bring me my tea!”

She clamored and bellowed, bullied and such that her maid up and quit, she’d had just too much.

Now alone and frightened on the seventeenth floor, there came a knock on the Princess’s door.

Not sure what to do without hired help, the knocking kept knocking, her little dog yelped.

Knocking and yelping the neighbors could hear, so they called the cops and one was quite near.

“I think she’s in danger, I think she is dead,” “I really don’t care” one neighbor said.

So the cop took the stairs to the seventeenth floor, stopping in front of the Princess’s door.

And there in plain sight was the Princess’s maid, knocking because she forgot to get paid.

“Why did you quit? What did she do?” asked the cop of the maid who was stomping her shoe.

“She’s a witch and a tyrant, a bully that’s why…she never says thank you, I really do try.”

“I come when she beckons which often than not. Wash all her undies and hankies with snot.”

“I am a person and she treats me so bad, I’ve just had enough and I really got mad.”

“I see, said the cop as he saw the door crack. She treated you badly so you’re not coming back.”

“Aye, a please and a thank you never received, I totally get it, your thoroughly peeved.”

Now a light went on in the Princess’s head, nobody liked her, some wanted her dead.

Was she a bully as the maid had proclaimed? “Oh my, I am selfish and totally ashamed!”

So she opened the door and let the cop in, offered him tea, admitted her sins.

The maid got a raise and a miracle you see, she even took the dog out to pee.

She cleaned up her act and acquired some class, became a lady and not a spoiled ass

So the moral is as morals go, be ye a princess or be ye a maid, the fact of the matter you never can trade

For kindness and class goes hand in hand, spreading good will throughout the whole land.

Read Poem: CLOUDS by Gary Bertnick

Clouds of doubt tumble about
As temptations and deception parade with false motives,
Though the Surveyor’s line runs straight and true
Still men rationalize Absolute Truth
Women compromise what they know
Even Sovereign and Holy Words written and spoken-
All out of nothing
In he Book of Genesis from the Father’s will
Creation through the Hand of His Son, the Ancient of Days;
And the Holy Spirit still moves over the entire Earth
Sky above and depths below
Nothing hidden from God’s touch;
A pool of crystal waters set before the Throne
And the Lord humbles Himself to gaze into it.
Falsehood rules and has become more than pandemic
Grounded in the “father of lies”
Rooted deeply in human nature
A man’s selfish motives, a woman’s base desires,
Even the best fall short as “self consumes self”
And both remain empty, spiritually dead
Lost in “nothingness”, forever!
Fog drifts continually across the city
Blocks the early morning sunshine
Carries pollution, chemicals and worse
Darkens the eyes of the soul
Dirties the body, suffocates the human spirit;
But Spirit Truth rises above
Cannot be held back
Stands high above the dark clouds of deceit
And self-destructive poisons of humanity.
A Savior stands True with most powerful deliverance
Always seeks the one who is lost
Who cries out at last with her heart needs laid bare,
His emptiness revealed in Heaven’s honesty;
Salvation for them both waits at their door
Yeshua’s Voice calls in faithful Truth as He knocks!

Read Poem: A Certain Infinity In Brevit by Christopher Kenneth Hanson

You knew as I knew;
The deep red balloons that blew via hazy cloud
Filled skies, struck inept via our deepest lullabies

You knew as I knew, of the birds which flew
Throughout the aged yew trees, and stellar

Abatement of the skies, reigning in their deathly ilkOf
lost candidates gone dry. Balloons will pop, and pop they
May through the winds & showers of April and into
The realms of times forgotten.

Thus, relinquish me not –
And forbid me no warm welcome- for you knew as I knew
When the tables will turn
When the doors shall be perceptibly perceived

A stoned parchment to alleviate the guilt
The dearest notion of this wielder’s split persona now

You knew as I knew
And yet we fought & warred
Once we passed
Each other through the gates of hell

he’ll be forlorn & castigated
they whom smelt us for spliffs
Worn to the airs
Which do not dare imprint

Thus,relinquish me notAnd
forbade me no warm welcome
You knew as I knew
And yet you knew me seldom-.

Read Poem: PINK by H.E. Grahame

If beginnings were a color
They’d be pink.
Like the familiar stone-walled frame
I dragged boxes and bags into.

We cluttered the corners with
Inside jokes and vivid tales
And postered the blank walls with
Memories and forget-me-nots

Within the blushing pink
We became a “home”.

If endings were a color
They would be gray
Like our common rose-colored frame
They bathed in a sticky dark paint

They emptied littered corners
Blooming with black mold and dust
And undressed the flowered walls
Exposing all our cracks and breaks

Outside the sullen gray
We became “unknown”