Read Poem: INFO-COMMERCIALS, by Perry Terrell

Late night television
Is inundated
With infomercials

I want everything
They advertise
Because everything
They advertise
Is better than
What I have

My flashlight sucks
And so does my
Skillet and can opener

Even though
I hope not to have
An accident
I need one of those
Dash cameras
To record
My back seat
While I’m
Driving

Then
I’m scared
To get out of
My car
With a credit card
In my pocket
Because
I don’t have
A lock wallet
And everyone
I pass
Is recording my
Credit card number
And will charge
The rest of my
Two dollars
And blow my limit

So I stay home
A lot
And get frustrated
Watching my television
With those couple of
Channels
Because I don’t have
Those special antennas
So I can get
Those hundreds of
Channels
That I wouldn’t
Watch anyway

So I get up
And start to clean something
Then get
Frustrated again
Because I didn’t order
That Zap stuff
That will sparkly clean
Everything

So I sit back down
And watch
More infomercials
And write down
All of the numbers
And websites
Where I can get
Life insurance
Without a physical examination

—-

Genre: society, funny

Read Poem: THE HALL OF ALL, by Prema Rose

Come into a spacious space
Of vast and endless Beingness,
Where every thought
Becomes a call
To create your life
In the Hall of All.

Here you will find
An open mind,
Where dreams come true.
It’s up to you
To reach your goal,
To touch your soul.

There may be hidden crannies where
A fear lies in the darkness there.
Perhaps a shameful act exposed,
A falsehood that you just supposed.
It will mean you sometimes fall
Because you’re in the Hall of All.

But you can reach the highest star
For you can be all that you are.
Your gifts are yours right from the start,
The biggest one, a loving heart.
Reaching out to one in need,
To mend a hurt, a gracious deed.

Consider all the wondrous ways
Creation manifests and plays,
A platypus, a dodo bird,
Whatever could be more absurd?
Whether big or whether small
You’ll find it in the Hall of All.

Perhaps you’ll want to take a peek
Or play a game of Hide and Seek.
Do you hear a melody?
A witty rhyme as old as time?
You can explore, there is no wall
To stop you in this Hall of All.

How can it be that it is so?
Because you have the will to know.
What is that and why is this,
And how can everything exist?
So many questions to enthrall
Our probing of this Hall of All.

And all the things of which you’re fond
Become a dream in the beyond.
But while you’re here, come do partake
Of joys and sorrows that you make
To keep you ever occupied
So you can say, at least you tried.

And though you may have been betrayed,
Your spirit crushed, your hopes dismayed.
Your thoughts lie in a whirpool churned
Your very life has been upturned
But you are blessed with fortitude
And overflowing gratitude.

Here, in this eternal space
You can forgive and thus erase
The angers, hurts, and what feels sad
To free your heart so it is glad
To have a life that you’ll recall
Is precious in this Hall of All.

Read Poem: THE SWIMMING POOL, by Lindy S. Hudis

Brrrrr……
The water
is cold.
I tip-toe in.
It takes some getting used to
but once you are in
it feels nice.
I take one more step.
It’s cold at first but
then it feels good.
I hold my breath and dive in.
It’s still cold for a second, then
feels wonderful, like eating.
chocolate cake or sex.
I go under again; I smell the chlorine.
The sun sparkles on the clear blue
water.
I get it up my nose and in my ears.
I try the breaststroke.
I realize I am out of shape.
I will be back tomorrow.

Read Poem: SHIPWRECKED, by John Gillevet

Oh, where, Oh, where do the cold winds blow.
Tis’ wayward the tattered sails sway.
Through milky sea swells and shrouds of fog rolls.
On a brisk and dreary mornin’ May.

Alas, Alas, The misty veil recedes.
To reveal a moss strewn shoal.
And luscious green dales of dew covered reeds.
Where gleams a proud warrior shard in gold.

What tales, What tales of magic and might
And great deeds of heroes of old.
To inspire and spark shining bright light.
In the darkness of a fractured lost soul.

To garlands, To garlands of magenta and white.
Braided in unlinked circlets of fine down.
For a grand feast wedding on a midsummer’s night.
Of a proud warrior and lost princess now found.

Swept away, Swept away, the withered leaves swirl
Over hawthorn strangled crags of ashen gray.
Where worn, tear stained eyes of an ancient, young girl.
Drowns sorrow by a waxed, moonlit bay.

For afar, For afar the proud warrior sails.
To carry crosses to distant young lands.
With empty oaths and dark tales, the gold shard does pale.
A glimmer of light still rests in God’s hands.

Buried deep, Buried deep under snow frosted oaks.
The flame still gleamed and flickered bright.
And despite burning forge of lyon’s heavy yoke.
Golden berries still bloomed forth undying light.

Shattered dreams, Shattered dreams on a shipwrecked coast.
Where the tattered, worn sails still stand.
Like mourning, haunting wails of fair maiden’s ghost.
Over a tired and bloodstained land.

Torn truths, Torn truths of romance and travails.
And worn out garments of days forlorn.
For what festive reels or a poet’s tall tales
Can best what proud warrior and fair maiden once born.

Read Poem: RHYTHM, by Andrew Roland Jr.

It’s this thing about having/finding your rhythm…

Once you find that pocket, no one can ever take you out of it.

From then on it’s just the flow.

The foot taps of life.
Head nods, claps, 2-step, finger snaps.
Whatever’s your go to.

You got rhythm!

…life rhythm

Hitting hard like a snare slap,
seeking signs in the cymbals.
The highs are high hats,
The lows are the bass,
And in the middle … Tom (time)

Some people think it don’t exist.

But with or without the Tom, the beat goes on.

So do your dance.

Read Poem: Place Not Bound By Time, by Aaron Small

Whoa to the City of Angels, the place not bound by time, where the people buzz like the bees, why do you complicate my reverence?

The vast nation’s networks connect to earth’s Big Baby Blue, and the solitaire sky deity descends at dusk’s dim deeper rim, a day’s dive into these high rested ridges of Saint Gabriel’s brow.

So crank up the volume, prepare for the coy cluttered slow ride to the slippery stepped stoop at heaven’s hollowed harridan door, and think twice but don’t think once before you come knocking.

But how in the world does one enter without even a gaud gilded key? Godly gimcrackery or ungodly grace? If you tune to the high celestial circuit, slowly sip the holy honey from the billowed blossom, then someday someone sly might just tell you why, who and how.

Demi God of all or god’s demi of none? Somehow someway this place is just not so tightly wound by the hallowed hand that strikes the crimson clock, no stark stormy days cycling out then in, only the scolding gilded glare of god’s most precious son, day in, then day out.

Whoa to the City of Angels, the place not bound by time, where nearby the frail fiery poppies go full bloom, why do you complicate my reverence?

If you listen closely but not too closely, hear the shy sullen spirit’s sickly whisper, you will soon discover dreams and undreams, the bootlegged begotten treasures buried so blatant along the cedared crest of the West Hollywood Hills.

So crank up the volume, buckle up to the blessed bantered beats of the town’s most befallen blues bands, tune out just in time for the seafaring cloud-bearer’s jostling gentler migration to the vague valleys east.

Beware of the hour of decadent deceivers, who use the most mystifying malice of King Midas to conquer their vast private empires, hardly thinking once, but definitely not thinking twice about the many meager meandering souls locked to the lethargic limbo of endless bills.

Thesis or antithesis – false narrator here, digital god entity there. Somehow someway this place is just neither too calm nor too chaotic, always spiraling fast out of control yet slow into order. And from all that, may we cherish this measly magical moment before making due on our most sacred vow.

Whoa to the City of Angels, the place not bound by time, where the curious careening carnivals culminate for a cheap stealthy snapshot of fame’s favored frollicky fortune, why do you complicate my reverence?

The falling stars often walk with the delirious dreamers in this frivolous fringe of fantasy fraught and fiction flipped, but yet this nightly majestic maritime chill can cheaply charm any sad celibate sailor in swift search of vacant virgin land.

So crank up the volume, keep your tight grip on this loose third wheel, because this jittery joyous jazz is simply not meant to last – prepare one day for eager exile to some elusive Eden on the edge of eons eternal embers.

Do not dispute the smog’s systematic swelters and slumbers, but think only of temporary refuge to a random dawn’s divine desert oasis, where bushes brimming with bumbling bees will seduce some smiling settlers to shake nature’s most perfect harmonious hand.

So let’s forget clear fevered follies for feigned fame and finance, then seek blind intuitive inspiration so deep and sacred – find this tainted apple only among the youthful elders of born and unborn endless wayward wisdom, then let’s wallow within the evolving revolving waves of windy Santa Monica shores.

Whoa to the City of Angels, the place not bound by time, where diverse crowds could collectively gather amid the adorned auspices of the evening’s eminent existence, full of boundless binding big bangs and seamless seldom small silences.

Whoa to the angels, not bound by time. Only bound by fine red wine. Powerful. Permanent. Potent but not too omnipotent. Peaceful pillow talk for priceless pawns and kindred enemies. Pliable oppressive power for proud partners and envious lovers.

A pilgrimage to past and present paradox in future’s simultaneous tomorrows and forever yesterdays. The road to reverence, rocky and rough, rallies only souls in solitude, not bound by time, unwound and spellbound by twist tempos of tiresome tantric truths.

Lonely stars may never find youth’s tabloid fountain, but every brilliant sunset must end – and yet we tend not to mourn the inevitable, lost on finite versus infinite. Place not bound by time. Place out of time. Rejected into alpha yet embraced out of omega!

Read Poem: FORGIVE ME MY SINS, by Glenn Beatty

LOOK-A-LIKE SPIKE
TICK-TICK-TOCKING A-LIKE
FROM A BROTHER UNDER COVER
TO TREES IN A BREEZE
GET DOWN ON YOUR KNEES,
TO BEG, TO PRAY, TO LAY
IN MY ARMS…
FORGIVE ME MY SINS

TAKE ME ON LONG SPINS
IN YOUR SHE-EV-ROW-LAY
ONCE-A-WEEK WINS
FORGIVE ME MY SINS…

AWAKE OR ASLEEP, OH, BOY
THAT’S DEEP, WEAK, I’M THREE-SHEETS
TO THE WIND OF ‘YERS’ –
I LOVE YOUR CURLS, CURL-ING
SIGH-ING, CRY-ING JOYFULLY, NIGHTLY
ARMS A-KIMBO SING-ING
TRA-LA-LA-LA-LA-LA
DING-A-LING BING – NOT CROSBY
YOU ANNOY ME WHEN YA ‘BOY ME’
BUT I luv it when ya ‘TOY ME’
PLEASE FORGIVE ME MY SINS

YO, YOU DUH STRONG ONE
WHILE I FAKE IT SHAKE IT
TAKE IT TO GET BY-GIRL-GUY
GET RICH, YOU AIN’T MY….
YOU MY ONE AND MY ONLY
FORGIVE ME MY SINS

ITS’ ALL FOR YOU, IT’S KITCH
THAT’S RICH, I’M JUST A SELFISH BITCH
FORGIVE ME…
FORGIVE ME…
FORGIVE ME ALL MY SINS….

LOVE CONQUERS ALL
ALL I GOT IS YOU
AND THAT’S SO ENUF
I AIN’T SO TUFF
YOU GOT ME FOREVER
LEAVE ME NEVER EVER
GOD BLESS EVERY LEVER
YOU PRESS
FORGIVE ME MY SINS

FORGIVE YOU ALL FOR
FORGIVIN’ ME ALL
UNDESERVIN’ URCHIN
GOD BLESS YOUR LOVE.
HUMAN-I-TY.
FORGIVE ME MY SINS
FORGIVE ME MY SINS
FORGIVE ME MY SINS.

Read Poem: WHEN TWO LOVERS MEET AGAIN, by Mary Anne Zammit

What mystery, what beauty.
This is when two lovers meet again, after some years.
Amidst the pain, the longing.

I look at you lost in sleep.
And I lay awake in the depths of night.
Do you remember that one night in September?
Waxing Moon.
The light joined the soft movement of the curtains in the room.
Soft like your skin.
It is watching us.
Wrapping our souls embracing sensual waves..

As you sleep close to me
I feel your breath.
Your touch, which melts my skin and makes me lose myself in your aura.

As we became one with the rays of the sun,
I go back to the days we spent away from each other.
The lonely tears when only the moon comforted me.

As I sleep close to you
I know.
You went back to the days of our youth
The day we walked across the shore, on the palm trees near the sea, the angry waves of your yearning for my soft body.
Our first kiss.
The longing, the dream and torment for the desire of being one.

The pain of separation.
As you sleep.

I open the window and sip the wine.
The moon smiles at me, at you and our story.
We are the lovers who met again.

Read Poem: HEDGEHOG IN LOVE, by Alexander Sparinsky

Along the forest paths
Strolls a lonely hedgehog
Wearing out his boots
Looking quite absurd.

He’s longing for a friend
Dreaming as he wanders
He finds a pretty bird
“Come home with me!” – He begs.

Refrain:
But remember this!
Beauty can deceive.
It’s what’s inside that counts
As all good creatures knows.

The little bird replies
“You cheeky little thing!
You have to understand
In autumn I’ll be off.

I’m not staying here,
Stuck indoors all day,
But wait for me ‘til spring,
And maybe I’ll return.”
Refrain:
But remember this!
Beauty can deceive.
It’s what’s inside that counts
As all good creatures knows.

Trustingly he waits
Pining all the while
Until one day he finds
A lovely lady hedgehog
How happy they are now!

Refrain:
So remember this!
Beauty can deceive.
It’s what’s inside that counts
Choose wisely, and live well!