Read Poem: Winter, by Frank A. Ruffolo

Sunlight breaks through leafless limbs
Silhouetting sky.
Jack’s breath numbs the diamond dew
As south the birds did fly.
Winter’s grey will take its toll
On the unsuspecting few.
As sunlight ebbs from lifeless limbs
And Jack’s breath numbs the dew.

Read Poem: What causes you pain but brings the greatest pleasure?, by Aysha Harris

I keep falling for these false allegations. Mistaking fucking for love making. God told me this is what I get for my impatience, for looking for love in these late night cravings. So he introduced me to my Saten. I should’ve known but how could I? When everything I hoped and prayed in, he came in. He was smooth like pavement. And boy he was my worst nightmare and greatest pleasure in the making. Thought no one would get passed my caged heart but he slipped in. I won’t forget how he did it, asking all these deep explicit questions trying to unleash my inner demons. He knew my biggest fears and deepest secrets. We talked about our exes and quite the messes they made. Told him how my ex gave others a home where I was suppose to lay. And he was heated saying how he couldn’t believe it and how I deserve much better treatment and how he would be that nigga. I fell deep in, he kept me on a high that kept me feenin. Never thought I would be this woman when it came to a man got so weakened. And I was so intertwined so it was always less of me and more of him so, I would ignore the signs when even my friends showed me proof that he was cheating. Only willing to accept the love I was given. Still had the screenshots in my hand, still tryna find the truth in all the bullshit you saying. Oblivious I didn’t realize you had a knife until I started bleeding. And I still refused to see the truth until I seen her carrying your seed and what happened to her just being a fuck and wasted semen or that I’m the only one you seeing? I should’ve known again that the devil never comes with good intentions. It was red flags how i didn’t see them? It’s starting to make sense .. How I could never see your phone not even to just play a song and how I could never come to your home you must not really be there alone and don’t you wish you had previews so you could really see how they move? Then I came to the conclusion, You was never praying with me but was preying on me and Stay tuned for part two.

Read Poem: WHEN SUGAR-SUGAR DANCED, by Jack Peachum

(420 lbs. & counting: District,1976)

When Sugar-Sugar danced topless in DC,
the neighborhood shook– cracks ran in the tarmac,
Senators on the Hill hid under their desks–

Old ladies cried, “The sky is falling!”
And if she broke wind, trees toppled,
rats in the basement ran for cover!

There were earth-tremors on her belly
– tides of the sea rolled in her armpits–
The suburbs– Arlandria– was flooded–

Her hair– a great storm– rolled through the midwest,
up to Moline and Rockford where her breasts were suns
bouncing off distant stars.

Her nipples captured the light of solar explosions–
and her hips were whole continents colliding!
What a woman!

Read Poem: ALONE IN THE LIFE, by MANTRI MARI

O my lovely Soul
Give me my last life memory
Get my last life relations
Put my things in order. O My Soul //

O Dear Soul, show me, Where I was
O Dear, show me where my people are
O Soul, You Knew Well All These Things
I Know, You’ll get my memory //

O Soul, Tell me, How did you leave me?
My Dear, You can’t hide the Truth
Tell me, What transpired you to leave me
My Lovely Soul, You know these things well //

I am struggling for memory
Am worried about my old people
Want to meet all my people now
O My Soul, give me my lost memory //

I don’t know, what the life is
Life looks to be miserable for some
Life looks to be enjoyable for some
I don’t know, where I fit in this life //

I am alone in this World
Don’t know where my family is
What the life means for alone life
Leading the life alone has no meaning in life //

Life is like a Rose Flower
Rose Flower reach the God’s Feet
My Prayers touch the feet of the God
A day is sure to reach the Heavenly abode //

What is this life in this zig-zag World
Life is live with hurdles in the life
Can’t know the destiny where my life to go
Adventurous life leads the life to the destiny //

A man needs class and mass
Needs shelter and water
Needs education and income
A woman needs good hubby with character //

Lovely Nature needs green farms and water falls
Nature needs birds and animals
Nature needs life and pleasantness
The Universe has all elements of life //

The life has hardships and bottlenecks
The family has troubles and problems
The couple has quarrels and understanding
The surname has all these ingredients //

Don’t leave me My Dear Soul
O My Soul, You’re me
My Dear Soul, Me You are
O Soul, I and You are life in this World //

Poetry by Brandon Ezzard

In this day and age we’ve messed up, having unlearned the true history,
but meditating on God’s Word will make you a new person mentally,
physically, spiritually, emotionally, morally,
give you the courage to fight ignorance through informing others
who would stay warm in their covers, starving themselves of truth,

if a man walked on hot coals it would result in melting shoes,
falling asleep, leaving the one in a coma that’s medically induced.

But Jesus came to wake us up. He went through hell to give life to the walking dead,
endured a living nightmare to wake up those living with insomnia,
who’ve been abandoned by parents, and are spiritually indoctrinated,
taught by and raised on TV, lonely socially like they’re locked in the basement,
given gaming systems, controllers, and a shelf where all the videogames fit,
which they’re rotting their brains with, leaving them emotionally plagued, sick,
vices forms of idolatry, going by cycles and they’re not
bikes equipped with training wheels,
yet are riding on the highway to hell,

develop a dependency for such to not depart from such vodka and Jager,
become psychologically wasted,
high-minded, hooked to alcohol, snagged by the bait, dragged away,
then taken captive by streams they’re longing to break from,

mobile cells, hand-cuffed, bars that they’re chained too,
taken under arrest by society which swallowed the key, put cement blocks attached to metal on their ankles and threw them into what they want to be their watery grave-pit.

So they’re kept up at night by what they do, withdrawing from what they should have withdrawn from long ago,
thoughts a drip-drop, tossing and turning like bobbing and weaving while boxing with a brawling woman.

These activities are like weapons that draw blood,
and are aimed at your sons and daughters,
who are looked at by wicked men and satan like a lottery they can win,
who want them spend to their lives having them spend their life like the money they’re making.

Thus, to get what they want they come at you like a man robbing a bank clerk,
with no care for their safety because by that time they already hate life.

Talk to them while they’re preoccupied; yeah, they’ll nod but they can’t hear,
headphones on, looking at you but through you like you’re not even there,
inwardly, filled with anxiety, outwardly, calmly with a blank stare,
lacking spiritual breath, sack-lunch paper-bag not in the hand but by this time over the head, depriving the body when taking breaths
of oxygen they need, which is why they’re always blue.

Truly, those who are broken want to break all the rules,
don’t know how to cope with life, in turn take guns to school,
stay in an awful mood,
facial expression like they ate awful food.

Self-destructive, walking with anger,
ask them why they do what they do, even they don’t know,
it does not even make sense,
but whether jogger or rapist, we all need His graces,
Jesus died for us all, He’s longing to save us.

Read Poem: OUR MOMENT LONGER THAN A MOMENT, by Dionysia Tudor

Some trees are lonely, some are not.
What difference does that make?
When how they’re hit, and how they take it,
decides whether they’ll last or break.
I, I have been hoping for the best.

Some moments last, some moments don’t.
The former are more than moments.
Yet how they feel, and how they end,
decides
whether there will be an
‘again’.

Nostalgically
short.

A few encounters, a few days;
Much banter;
Masking,
almost,
creeping feelings –
perhaps.

Then, a fast return to before,
before even an ‘and after that’.
Truly damaging the other;
for their sake though?

I am glad there wasn’t an again
to our moment longer than a moment.

—–

Dionysia Tudor has studied law and is good at logic. She likes literary arts that focus on the beautiful and the aesthetic. If to a clean heart all is clean, she treasures art that shows that. Her heroes and inspiration are the saints.

Plus a website in the making:

https://dionysiatudor.wordpress.com

Read Poem: DISTANT IN TIME, by Michael Hogan

Cities of the last empire
Ring the desert like humpback whales swimming
In a distance that recedes to what is distant in time.

Stars of the last night
Fall without falling but explode and grow small
Birthing space that is not space,
In a distance that recedes to what is distant in time

Man and woman of the last garden
Come together in work and travail,
Birthing saviors at dawn, at midnight,
Or when the edge of eternity is just visible
In a distance that recedes to what is distant in time.

Mike Hogan (c) 2018

Read Poem: Caught Up In Me, by Georgia Blagrove

I, I, I, Me, Me, Me. Like doe re me, I am focused on only me.

If I don’t get pleasure then me has to leave for sure.

If I am not doing me then I need to see my way somewhere to be free.

Like a lion surveying the plain for its prey, so do I search for my next way.

I feel good, I look good, I am comfortable with unique me.

I sensually stretch with no inhibition for the plain is mine to maneuver.

I am reshaping the box of my mind, this part of my life currently is a wrinkle in time.

There are other dimensions of me to explore.

I am strong enough to endure, to overcome, to fail and get back up.

If I don’t explore, I have so much to loose – my peace of mind, joy, fulfillment, happiness….

I want laughter to be a smile away. A drone like 9-5 state is not conducive to this.

Acceptance of mediocracy is not suppose to be me.

I will not allow the betrayals and injustice to me change me to a lesser version of me!

It is no longer about me pleasing everyone.

It is now a conscious effort on my part to look out for my fulfillment and push my agenda.

I am thankful for the same betrayal/challenges that has plagued me which has helped propelled me to this point to actually take action.

This is where I’ve gotten stuck in the past. What is different now? What will make me take action?

My desperation? Yes, my desperation for I am at the point of shutting down. But..

But, the defibrillator call fulfillment has rejuvenated and jolted me, yes me, to get up and scream.

IT IS ABOUT ME, ME, ME!!!

Read Poem: When The Clock Strikes Death, by C.M. Rivers

Years ramble on along a narrow highway
while daffodils peak in their bright yellow prime
and I scratch at the walls of the hourglass
from which I attempt to climb.

This life was a wet shiny bubble
blown by a child whom I never knew,
who’s heart was as wild as pictures
I colored with crayons before I met you.

Now hard blow the northern winds
and heavy fall the western rains,
and the rocks and sand have barely changed,
yet I have not remained the same
while the clock struck the hours before death came.

C.M. Rivers