Category: poetry genres

Poetry Reading: LOCKED TREASURE, by LannaEvolved

Read by Allison Kampf

POEM:

In the box
I am sworn to secrecy

Petrified
His gaze against the shadows of the bars
has grown so weary
it deflates in fades
Suppressing the entirety of his remorse

‘To him, there seem to be a thousand bars
and back behind those one thousand bars no world’.
The soft
The righteous
The other step
runs away with the breath of space
In a time undefined by reason
In the smallest of shifts and turns, circling
moves like a dance of strength around a core
in which an eccentric
stands upright
In time there always remains a question
The faith that transcends
The magic curtain slides
from side to side
soundlessly — He is there.

So many possibilities to be free from the beginning, and uproot the past of burden burgeoning like a flower’s ability to withstand change in unpredictable soil and yet still feel alive.

He expands through the tension
the calmness of limbs — and stems
in the heart which fate prescribes to be a mighty will stood parallel to them.

Love is unintentional decision making upon the choosing of a
Solidified destiny
A clairvoyant
romantic

Bat wings in my heart
Calm bleeding
Smiling full

This life is my teacher
Take me to a room
without an education please

Put down a book that moves the table and reads the script from my last piece

Not the other way around

Magical thinking describes our destiny, the rest is fate
I’m not here to school you

Death happens
And clutter builds into a false enamel
Eventual decay
If not maintained

Fleeing toxicity is a freedom beyond understanding

Outside the peripheral
grief spins me upside down

The last flower petal remains
With it’s scent forever reminding
me
Of our song
In solitude

When the streets are lit with lamp designs
And Arabian nights alive in the instrumentals
My senses
mystified

Living within our home without
The perfect combination

Of chivalry, compassion, and attention to the details
This is an emotionally available man

Sin is a perception
Redemption; clarity
Pure mist
The clearance of past partners
Leaves my space
To make rooms upon the doors newly turned
for an atmosphere of hope

The written letter reads as I write:

To my love, I love you with all my being.
For You are everything I asked for when
My mind left me
My consciousness awoke for you to be found by me now.
And that cannot be duplicated.
For I am Gratefully blessed. By you.
To Our eternity.
Cheers to our eternity.

I’m with you.

Read Poem: ILLUSION, by Rumana Sinha Sehgal

ILLUSION

Through the cold of the night in a desert,
The breeze fragments through the storm.
Smitten by impressions so deep on sand,
It erases each one by one,
Two lone footprints that stall upon the vastness without an usher.

Buried are the soft breaths of dreams in the dense terrain,
Stifled and meek they reach out to the tired impressions on the surface,
Seeking amongst the dry wilderness a
coast to find solace in.

Through the moments of the diminishing night which envelopes –
The waning dreams,
The adrift footprints,
Its an illusion of the breathless vision that pursues a shore in the abyss of this landscape.

– Dr.Rumana Sinha Sehgal

Read Poem: My Sail is Torn, by Naseha

Dark foaming water is screaming for blood
Shivering legs battle to stay steady on the slippery deck.
Inky rain has engulfed the quivering oil lit orange light
Dying slowly from the distant windows of phare in wreck.

Gale is rising, so is the howls of scurrying men, shrieking
The reaper is dancing on the wooden men tossing on waves.
The king among men attired with rubies, diamonds & pearls
On their knees, the bones chattering like the tethers of slaves.

Two third of the night has passed, rain and rheum hold my eyes
A lone soul on the mast of the ship, I know the shore is not far.
In the dim distance from churning sea are the silent rocky edges
But strength is failing now, my sail is torn cannot hold air aflare.

Tossing in the ocean, a mere twig of frail mortal men with pride
Captain, can’t see you? Look at me for a moment in between your chores.
From the lowest deck, as you passed by, have seen your soft smile
Hold my sail. I have lead in my legs I will drown a knot from the shore.

Poetry Reading: THE YEARNING, by Ken Allan Dronsfield

Performed by Hannah Ehman

Poem:

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.

Read Poem: A fairy’s face, by Jeanette E. R. Cook

I listen to the fairy stories

Of my aunt’s and I envision

Their garden,

Enchanting with the pastels

Of growth and the swaying

Blooms spreading the fragrance

In the bright light of morning

After the dew is gone,

Where a perilous journey

Is hidden from human eyes,

The stars are uncounted

And a fairy can’t be caught

But they have their own

Net of words that they share,

They memorize me in the garden,

As I digest their world,

The view is beautiful and untouched.,

Where they love so much without

hate,

Opinions buried and not shared,

A fairytale world,

Joyous and with all happy endings

Celebrated inside their group,

Grace in their land with hardships

Overcome through teamwork,

Usually comforting all,

Witnesses always helping out,

They can

Not be unmasked or sequestered to a

Box by us,

It is blistering difficult to be patient

To steal a glance at them,

Unaware of my presence

And they let me see them.

–J. E. Cook © 2020

Read Poem: 65 Valentines, by David Ehrgott

There were sixty-five
valentines for you
I colored the one from me
your favorite blue
I didn’t know
the whole world loves you too
with sixty-four adversaries
I guess we could be through

So did they all say
“I Love You”
or “be mine today
& every day
I want to be your valentine
Be Mine”

or did they say that “I
only want to love you”
and after twenty solid years
could it really be we’re through

There were sixty-five
valentines for you
I colored the one from me

your favorite blue

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: Poem on a Flower, by Tom Evans

My flower was laden with dew,
So pink, so moist, and open;
Like lips that are parted in two,
Her center, her tongue, was golden.

And crossed by green blades of grass,
Formed in a triumphal arch;
Through which some great man could pass,
Or some great army march.

Read Poem: BUTTERFLY EVENT, by MARK-ALAN

THE BUTTERFLY EVENT!

The Official Poem for the Butterfly Life Cycle Lesson Plan!

Excerpt

The Butterfly event is nature’s intent for you to know
sent from heaven rain for seven so you can grow,
and learn how to gather your wings to fly anywhere you
want to go,

THE BUTTERFLY EVENT

The Butterfly event is nature’s intent for you to know,
sent from heaven rain for seven so you can grow,
and learn how to gather your wings to fly anywhere you want to go,
The Butterfly event has four stages,
The egg, larva, pupa, and adult are the changes,
The Butterfly event starts with an egg that grows,
The egg hatches and transfers into a larva and it moves slow,
A larva is a caterpillar an insect with six legs,
And these insects eat a lot after it hatches from their eggs,
As the caterpillar becomes large and fat not thin,
Then the caterpillar begins to shed its skin,
The Butterfly event is nature’s intent for you to know,
sent from heaven rain for seven so you can grow,
and learn how to gather your wings to fly anywhere you want to go,
Stage three is called the pupa known as the cocoon,
Where the caterpillar occupies and lives under the moon,
The cocoon hangs upside down on a tree,
Where caterpillar’s rest peacefully,
The season of Spring sings,
In the cocoon is when the caterpillar grows its wings,
The Butterfly event is nature’s intent for you to know,
sent from heaven rain for seven so you can grow,
and learn how to gather your wings to fly anywhere you want to go,
Stage four is called an adult an extraordinary event,
When the caterpillar transforms into a Butterfly as nature intent,
The caterpillar shreds from the cocoon hanging high,
A beautiful Butterfly appears with wings to fly,
The Butterfly event is nature’s intent for you to know,
sent from heaven rain for seven so you can grow,
and learn how to gather your wings to fly anywhere you want to go,