Read Poem: Another Songbird Unheard, by MC Alysce

Through the blistening trees
Cold like the agents against the sea
Cadavered by the blistening secrete endevering soul
Dropped like substitute cases submerged
Like dominos crumbling , falling , allured
In a cemetery of what I call mine
trapped with a humane invisibility
Repetitive pain to be labeled endangered
When the light shines through the window
To burn the essence of my message
As to feel the blood on my veins
You are a deep cutthroat inerasiable wound
With clenched bloody knuckles
Into an escape of a faint scattered soul
A tale of another songbird unheard

@MCAlysce

Read Poem: Courage, by Jonny Bustamante- Clarke

To stand when all around you fall,
To be, when and wherever the call,
To fight when all the rest have failed,
Against the storm, alone you sailed.

When it’s not perfect but still you stand,
Alone like a rock in the shifting sand,
Especially when you have the weaker card,
Because it’s tough, because it’s hard.

Despite outrageous misfortunes guile,
You stand firm with a sardonic smile,
Knowing that your race is run,
And all around you excuses spun.

Of why this task was a fool’s errand sure,
No hope, no way, no how, yet you endure,
Strength comes from within or, so they say,
By those to effort, lip service pay.

Strength, hope and courage come from above,
As do kindness, compassion and love,
It takes all these things to stand your ground,
When all around you to the exits pound.

To hold your head up high,
When the storm clouds fill the sky,
When alone in the dark and cold,
You stand up straight you stand there bold.

These things, are what maketh man,
To show compassion when you can,
To act in kindness to the weak,
In God, your glory for to seek.

When all around you doubt and scorn,
When your patience is tattered, and worn,
When at you, the world would deride,
Tis God that stands alone at your side.

So, courage is not the act of standing all strong,
And courage is not beating the weak to come along,
Courage is not the strongest stand,
Courage is taking Gods open hand.

Courage means to serve and to guide,
To lead the meek, the boastful to chide,
Courage means the path to blaze and light,
When all around you have no sight.

But think not, that this is a new or impossible task,
For courage is not found at the bottom of an alcohol flask,
An example of courage both faithful and true,
Just look to what the Christ did for you.

Read Poem: Off The Wall, by L.R.Johnson

Losing REM on the TV, coffee table plus toast
All day telephones ringing, bells and drums
In one, out the other, cyber cabled contacts with
Southern Aztec eagles flying on runways built for
Aliens seen before the carrot behind the donkey.
Across Abbey Road painted images of
Hits and runs over pedantic types
Who have never been satisfied with the proof.
Micro-cosmic lights being darkened
By flashing red and white endless seas
of rippling waves never ceasing to crash.
Erasing lighthouse messages going nowhere
In circles, Schopenhauer reads Kant reads
“Denial of the nothing,” is all that exists
Are born again images of handicapped
Persons not winning, but losing confronted with
Climbing the greasy pole, and always slipping back,
never progressing beyond the oblivious search
for paths lost, past X-filed Ink injected
Eyeballs crawling inwards, outwards pulsating
Movement is ice cold ready to burn left over
East winds blowing west causing Californian
Eruptions of subtle proportions, enticing
Thought controlled alcoholics on immoral
Park benches at 8 o clock, timeless, endless
Cans thrown in over filled trash bins, an overspill
Of mindless thoughts from unshaven
Blades of fresh mown grass in shapes and
Angles casting shadows, black and white
Subterranean Homesick Blues.
Dylan’s verses cause a catalyst
Idea of Stalin, Hitler leftovers banging their
Heads on Jerusalem walls beyond the supernatural
Rebounding off barbed wire fences, over and
Out of misunderstanding the Creation, Exodus.
Or reactions to answers without questions.
Closed door exits into black holes that cause
Teardrops to drop on a sandy oasis of Gulf like
Waves create repetitive, borderless frontiers
Adopted by, Warhol called it “Art for Art’s sake,”
Finding limitations of intellect within books
Preaching lager lout behaviour of the
Right to right, left radical beliefs rotating
Between the Spectrum crossed
Only be decisions, dictated by emotions.
On the Street Car called Destiny twixt
A church and Pie and Mash shop.
Reliance on the mobile phone to order sanity
Or a Kentucky Fried Chicken at McDonalds
Where Hitler ordered Burger and Chips before
His troops decided to go east, not west
Preferring Chekhov to Dylan Thomas
Then he gassed 12 million Jews.
Within walls that ears and eyes
That tell the story of God’s children
Leading us back to anthropological ancestors.
Painting pictures sold for millions at Christies,
Or was it Harrods Egyptian Pharaohs, British
Imperial history, where queens lost their heads
As Henry sung the National Anthem praising
Our heritage, as long as it’s ours, not theirs
In incommunicado at Wembley, whistles and boo’s
Muddy Waters singing the Blues, beyond the
Final frontier in cyberspace forever.
Beam me up Scotty, on my knees
In the direction of Allah beyond the sun.
Outer limits, a distant dimension
Giving proof of Aliens, but denying Millet’s
The Miller, only seen in Vincent van Gogh.
Visited by a spaceship, which landed on
Runways designed by our ancestors, and
Engraved in the sands of time that drip slowly
Through the egg-times cavity, reaching
Stonehenge, the end of the beginning
To Druid visions of Velvet Underground
The walked on the wild side with
Heidegger, Freud, and the rest go
Into your minds, and the Niagara Falls
No return, no end, just a spinning ball
Ultimately it is very; OFF THE WALL!

Read Poem: VISIONS WITHIN DREAMS, by Mike Maynard

we experience visions within dreams
nothing is what it seems
life is but a delusion
as we work our way to a conclusion

as we walk this lonely path
through life’s debris and aftermath
we rely on medicine and strange therapy
this would seem to be our destiny

our struggle in all is hopeless
our lives are so atrocious
we strive for recognition
but need regular visits, to a physician

aches and pains we endure
life just seems so obscure
why is it all not easy
do we have to endure, that which is sleazy?

beyond the lies and deceit
life can be quite neat
we just have to be resolute
in navigating our convoluted route

we will get there eventually
our dreams, growing exponentially
where will it all end?
I suppose that will depend

I expect it to be unreal
like the end of a satisfying meal
A triumph, not a humiliating defeat
the end, so delightfully sweet

Mike Maynard

Read Poem: “lithium” by veronica haunani fitzhugh

your salt water hugs have drowned me and given me wings above the waves.

being the lightest, you’ve left me in shadows of sanity and the stone white light of clarity.

you tried to murder me. you tried to make me see.

your double edged serpent tongue lied to me and brought me closer to my truths.

i tried to leave you many times and found myself on busy street corners insane dancing.

my synaptic gap kisses burned and became fatal without you.

i loved to hate your control.

and, i thank you for balancing and threatening me to live.

Read Poem: CHILDHOOD IN THE 1960s, BY STEVIE TURNER

No clouds on the horizon to mar the day,

When I and two friends go outside to play.

We pass the man on the corner who stands there and dribbles,

Causing us three girls to rush past him and giggle.

Time for Knock Down Ginger, British Bulldog, Jacks, and French Skipping,

Or collecting tea cards for swapping and flipping.

All over the East End of London we would roam,

Until one look at a watch would cause us to run home.

Home; not to iPads, iPods, MP3’s and Internet,

But to 3-channel TV, library books and Etch-a-Sketch.

Diaries I’d write, penning words in my head,

That I’ve kept to this day in a box under the bed.

On Saturdays we all had to help our mums,

To dust, polish, and hoover up crumbs.

Then out to the market the three of us would trot,

To hang round the record stall and wish more money we’d got.

The market traders’ shouts would ring in our ears,

As we ate chips out of newspaper without any fears

That the print might transfer from paper to finger,

Then back to the record stall to hover and linger.

Pocket money spent on comics, records and sweets,

We’d then sit on a wall, swinging our feet.

When the stalls started packing up we’d give a huge sigh,

As we’d forgotten what our mums had sent us out to buy.

Hurry back to the market with a shopping list,

For three pounds of potatoes I had erstwhile missed.

Come back home and sit on the step,

To read my comics and eat the sweets that are left;

Chocolate buttons, shrimps, blackjacks and chews,

Fortunately the teeth I still have are not few.

It was a time of joy, of carefree abandon,

A child of the 1960s, in lovely old London.

About Me: https://about.me/stevie_turner/

Website http://www.stevie-turner-author.co.uk

Amazon page: http://bookShow.me/B00AV7YOTU

Blog: https://steviet3.wordpress.com/

Read Poem: Diabetes – you own it!!!, by Jason Andrews

Living with a condition where maths is involved

Culminates a path where I need to remain strong

Working out the numbers from the foods we eat

Is keeping me alive and that doesn’t include the heat.

Diabetes is a lifestyle change

Not just for Christmas,

Test your sugars first

And workout what you need to eat

Then there is the recording, no mean feat.

Ketonacidisis I look to avoid

Yet there will be slip ups

The art, don’t beat yourself up with a void.

Be strong, be focused

You own the condition, it doesn’t own you

What I mean?

It’s quite simple, you are responsible for a serious disease

But with good discipline the situation can be a breeze.

“Talking from experience, and it’s not all about being careful, science and methodology is involved”

Jason Andrews

17th March 2018

(C) copyright

Read Poem: ONE STEP AT A TIME, by Keturah C. Martin

*Dedicated to all Survivors of abuse.

One step at a time in this darkest of night,
While writhing in anguish when nothing seems right,
Though life’s richest treasures seemed ruined and destroyed
I must forge ahead and dark pitfalls avoid.

The night is so long and the pain is untold-
If only, midst tears, I some hand could now hold –
A friend to walk with me, one step at a time,
Who understands some of the anguish and grime.

How can I e’en dare to move one step ahead,
When all of my world seems more heavy than lead;
When jeopardy looms, and moves in from all sides-
Oh, just for a friend, who with me still abides.

I long to feel safe and all hidden from view
From those who have harmed and emotions have slew-
My heart-broken pieces of life to conceal,
That by Grace Divine, I perhaps may then heal.

Midst pain so intense that it hurts ev’ry breath,
When each step I take, it seems closer to death:
Yet I must move forward one breath at a time:
For God has preserved me midst dark abuse crime!

“Dear soul, take fresh courage and dare to move on:
For ‘round the next bend there approaches your dawn;
Your life has been salvaged: for great is your worth-
There’s hope, help and healing beyond this dark dearth!”

Keturah C. Martin
Survivor

Read Poem: POETICS, by Ram Krishna Singh

Genre: Creativity

POETICS

The hole between words is vaginal
if the mind could penetrate

the seed won’t question age
inside the lines it crackles

with orgasmic pleasure
meanders through the tunnel

from first breath to oblivion
stays erect, liberates the text

— Ram Krishna Singh

Read Poem: SUNDAY, by WP Newnham

at sea Sunday

with easterlies predicted

but easy 15 knotters with

my gun crew of old school

and new- my old girl is ready

and welcomes me back with arms

out-stretched in a cornucopia of harvest

 

sea birds call to me at the wharf and

riding easterly winds, they glide all geo-

stationary looking me in the eye saying

 

FAAAARRRRKKKKKKKKK

 

WHERE U BEEEEEEEEEENNNNNNNN!!!!!!!!

 

FFFFFFFFFAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRKKKKKKKKKKKKK

 

I GOTTA A FUCKEN FAMILY TO FEED YOU KNOW!

 

FAAAARRRRKKKKKKKKK

 

they wait for me

and the harvest is at the birds!