Category: 2019 Poetry

Read Poem: I WONDER, by Philip Brent Harris

What would I do with me, without you?
Do any of us know what might be true?
More than I was, less than I have been,
A part of me missing, no nib in my pen.
Scratching at life, yet, leaving no mark,
Like rubbing two sticks without a spark.
Words are too weak, should I just quit?
Is your sacred fire what keeps mine lit?

If my dreams fleeting, passing clouds;
Will I know wisdom before my shroud?
Sewn into canvas, dropped into the sea,
Buried to nourish a newly planted tree.
Life into death into life, still unknown,
Must know the next life is still our own.
I wonder, the future is all wait and see,
What will you do with you, without me?

Read Poem: Dance of Tears, Chief Nobody (V5), by Michael Lee Johnson

I’m old Indian chief story
plastered on white scattered sheets,
Caucasian paper blowing in yesterday’s winds.

I feel white man’s presence
in my blindness-
cross over my ego my borders
urinates over my pride, my boundaries-
I cooperated with him until
death, my blindness.

I’m Blackfoot proud, mountain Chief.

I roam southern Alberta,
toenails stretch to Montana,
born on Old Man River−
prairie horse’s leftover
buffalo meat in my dreams.
Eighty-seven I lived in a cardboard shack.
My native dress lost, autistic babbling.
I pile up worthless treaties, paper burn white man.

Now 94, I prepare myself an ancient pilgrimage,
back to papoose, landscapes turned over.

I walk through this death baby steps,
no rush, no fire, nor wind, hair tangled−
earth possessions strapped to my back rawhide−
sun going down, moon going up,
witch hour moonlight.

I’m old man slow dying, Chief nobody.

An empty bottle of fire-water whiskey
lies on homespun rug,
cut excess from life,
partially smoked homemade cigar-
barely burning,
that dance of tears.

—-

Michael Lee Johnson lived 10 years in Canada during the Vietnam era and is a dual citizen of the United States and Canada. Today he is a poet, freelance writer, amateur photographer, and small business owner in Itasca, DuPage County, Illinois. Mr. Johnson published in more than 1072 new publications, his poems have appeared in 38 countries, he edits, publishes 10 poetry sites. Michael Lee Johnson, has been nominated for 2 Pushcart Prize awards poetry 2015/1 Best of the Net 2016/2 Best of the Net 2017, 2 Best of the Net 2018. 198 poetry videos are now on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/user/poetrymanusa/videos. Editor-in-chief poetry anthology, Moonlight Dreamers of Yellow Haze: http://www.amazon.com/dp/1530456762; editor-in-chief poetry anthology, Dandelion in a Vase of Roses available here https://www.amazon.com/dp/1545352089. Editor-in-chief Warriors with Wings: the Best in Contemporary Poetry, http://www.amazon.com/dp/1722130717.

Do not forget to consider me for Best of the Net or Pushcart nomination!

Read Poem: Study in Red, by Cathy Cade

My masterpiece, complete, twice edited
and printed out in pristine black and white,
is taken up with reverence from the printer.
I’ll scan once more to check that all is right,

then send it off. Oops, there’s a missing s,
conspicuous by its absence. What a pain!
Where’s the red pen?
Perhaps that longish sentence
doesn’t sound quite right. – re-word again?

There’ll surely be much better words than much
for that last phrase, and does this word exist?
Should it?
I’m not sure about this comma… Look it up.
See, here’s a full-stop missed.

My masterpiece is black and white and red,
with crimson spiders crawling west to east.
Back to the laptop.
Change, expand, erase,
Repair and print out one more time – at least.

Cathy Cade
http://www.cathy-cade.com

Read Poem: The Law of Survival, by Dave Dutton-Fraser

Her last home was nowhere, the next she’ll know on arrival
She breaks all the laws but one – The Law of Survival
She changes her name with each group of people she meets
She’ll fit in quite fine, we’re all the same on the streets

She’s out run the law and her exes, sometimes it got tough
Boyfriends or the cops, they’ve all treated her rough
And she leaves behind messes, some large, some small
Its the only trail left behind her, if you see one at all

Sometimes she dreams of a different life when she awakes
So she trades her soul to end pain, if that’s what it takes
She thinks she is aging too quickly, more Mrs. than Ms.
But its too late to stop now, where ever this is

She’s not waiting for death, she’s just out running life
That’s how you move faster than chaos and strife
Perhaps she’ll see different one day, follow a new Bible
But til then she follows one law – The Law of Survival

Read Poem: LOVE’S NEEDLE, by Anne Leigh Parrish

Watch them tug along
First her, then him
Walking like looped stitches
In the slanted evening light

Watch her thread him
On her spool
Cast perfectly on the bobbin
Of this orange sky

So long together, they have
Sewn, pulled apart, frayed
And dropped the needle’s thread

But now they rest and
Gather up their loosened strands
Bound together, always

Read Poem: The Apostrophe Catastrophe, by Richard Havenga

Some people’s
use of the
apostrophe
is a catastrophe,

but you’re not
among those writers,
because your skills
are more refined.

It’s not that hard,
really, to remember
when and where
to hang this
little hook:

dangling up there
joining friendly letters;

taking the place
of i in it’s,
it is especially
beneficial;

or shyly
possessing things,
like the poet’s words
on New Year’s Eve;

or humbly
substituting itself
as a contractor
in word construction,
when other punctuations
can’t, or don’t,
or simply won’t
accept responsibility.

The apostrophe
has no feelings of
superiority to its
lower cousin
the comma,
it’s merely
doing its job,
in the place it belongs,
overseeing things,
bringing meaning
to this lovely language
that’s ours.

It is always eager
to help its letter friends
become words.
That’s why it’s there,
to be useful
to you and yours.

It has always,
always loved
s the best,
don’t you agree?

Now that we’re
in agreement,
we are able
to move on,
are we not ?

http://walkwithfathernature.blogspot.com/2017/12/the-apostrophe-catastrophe.html

Read Poem by C.W. Veränderung

let your soul whim beyond it’s wiring
or wander through old feelings like coals of
fire
imprinting previous struggles
as worse mutations of what once was
the frail wails of yesterday echo inside you
stirring haunting waves across your unsettled
ocean
but these are mere memories
a plate to deal with at your table
before tomorrow breeds something new

Read Poem: The Yearning, by Ken Allan Dronsfield

In a lifetime spent yearning

through which came wishing and dreaming

within many splendid, unquiet enthusiasms

a voice murmured back the word, prayer!

I was needy and you were solicitous,

my mind always straying to paradoxes.

Instead I uncovered brazen devotion,

the perkiness brought such euphoria

and so I screamed, ‘Is that a blessing?’

Mattering and assaultive within theodicy

Urging and purging within my slyness,

shyness or otherness, I could not awaken.

Tossing its ghost into all desires,

‘It’s that barrenness,’ I muttered

Quirkingly back into my memories

craving the eccentric, eclectic fantasy

the yearning, an essential evanescence

an evolutionist laughed at me in retort.

‘It’s that piety,’ I whispered.

The saintliness simply smiled.

Biography:

Ken Allan Dronsfield is a disabled veteran and prize winning poet from New Hampshire, now residing on the plains of Oklahoma. Ken is a proud member of the Poetry Society of New Hampshire. He has three poetry collections, “The Cellaring”, “A Taint of Pity”, and “Zephyr’s Whisper”. Ken was the First Place Prize winner with his poem “With Charcoal Black, Version III”, in Realistic Poetry Internationals 2018 Nature Poetry Contest. He also won First Prize in their 2019 Nature Poetry Contest with his piece, “Sonnet 17, Quiet Time”. Ken has been nominated three times for the Pushcart Prize and six times for the Best of the Net. He loves life, his family and spending time with his cats Willa and Yumpy!

Read Poem: Bad Company, by Jason Yearick

Words are
falling,
tumbling, to
the ground
enjambments
spilling down
railways
without
a sound-
poets, are
whimpering,
writers,
simpering,
readers
wrestling
words
roughly,
regretting
this word
squall
realizing-
this poet,
has
abused
them
all.

GENRE(s): Popcorn Poetry, Writing, Humor, Life, Human Condition, Relationships