Read Poem: A Life Not Lived, by Peter Tassi

Gazing over rolling fields all green
Height of every blade perfect as seen
Breathing in every molecule it exudes
Imperfections this site eludes

Oh what a perfect life, so it seems
Work, house, money, boat-I lived my dreams
Like my friends and what I was told
The perfect life I was sold

Suddenly something beautiful like a tower
One long stem dandelion flower
All alone but taking stage
Perhaps my life lived in a cage

Every part of me now torn
A powerful desire to be re-born
To live my life as a tower
Different and beautiful like that dandelion flower.

Read Poem: I Forgot to do the Beautiful Things, by Marjorie DeHey

I forgot to do the beautiful things;
Instead my mind hid them in darkness;
It told me those things were not for me;
Those things were for others;
It told me I wasn’t good enough to do those things;
It told me I wasn’t worthy;
It told me that I had more work to do;
And all along, I sadly listened:
I forgot to do the beautiful things;
My mind simply would not let me;
Then my mind went blank;
and all I wished was that I had done the beautiful things.

(c) 2021 Marjorie DeHey

Read Poem by Alexa Bondar

Have you ever felt like thanking those people

Who entered your life as a part of a riddle?

Some through a mystical, glorious mission

With or without your own permission.

First, made you smile, then made you go vicious.

Those who controlled and tried to imprison

Without a word or a particular reason.

All those who judged, and the ones who supported,

Stood by your side through the good and the dirty.

Some are long gone, some are still near

All of them were a part of a deal.

All contributed: showed anger, love, tears.

Some straight to your face, others behind and slightly unclear.

Rumors, endeavors with jealousy featured

Groomed you and shaped you into a beautiful creature.

Thank you to all who contributed!

By Alexa Bondar

Read Poem: The Parrot Who Couldn’t Shoot Straight , by Mikki MENDELSOHN

We were on our honeymoon
a cruise to the Caribbean away from the January cold.
We did what new couples do, only Fred got stuck
in the bathroom from a door that refused to budge.

Sitting one dinner with a couple from Queens, N.Y.,
they were delighted with my fluency in Hebrew.
Having purchased a 30 year old parrot from Israelis
who decided to return before another war,
a parrot who spoke non-stop.

He’d shake his head, squawk and talk, ruffle his
bright blue feathers and jump from perch to perch.
He was frustrated no one answered him.
Polly, want a cracker, was not in his repertoire.

He spoke Hebrew with a perfect Sabra accent,
showing off his years-in-training speaking skills.
The wife reached in her ship-acquired tote bag
unfolding a crumpled up sheet of legal paper.

I looked at the transliterated letters, horribly misspelled,
and laughed so hard and long I nearly fell off the proverbial chair.
I couldn’t stop and feared I was making a scene in the plush
too-fancy-for-me dining room. What’s so funny?

This highfalutin screechy bird had a potty mouth in Hebrew
and Arabic! Balls, balls, balls to you—you hear?
He scratched himself appropriately, pace back and forth,
raise his head and say the worst curses ever.

Fuck your mother, fuck your sister, he said in Arabic,
Go away you Arab, die!. We’ll get you, we’ll get you…
No one thought it funny (but me). All their friends
hounded them about what he kept repeating,
but then he sang Hava Nagila and all was forgiven.

Read Poem: edge, by Nancy O’Brien

sitting on the edge.
my breath shallow.
looking down at my destiny.
so close.
jump. be free.
my wings are tired and broken.
i’ve forgotten how to fly.
i scream into the web.
but no one hears me.

sitting on the edge.
my ears ring.
my heart pounds.
waves crash.
memories burn.
hsssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss.
fire meets water and all i see is steam.
a world of grey.

sitting on the edge.
my feet dangle.
they’ve been running for too long.
darkness on the horizon.
it no longer scares me.
i am light.
a butterfly lands to rest on my knee.
delicate. bright. confident.
it flies gently into the vast beyond.

i get up.

Read Poem: The Beauty of a Black Rose, by GrinOlsson

The sorrow of not having you around tomorrow,
Is a burden for me that is just too hard to bear!
You were the apple of my eye and the love of my life.
There are no words to explain how much I cared.

Each night, my eyes cried tears with worry and a broken heart,
Wondering where you are and saddened by us being a part.
My dreams were only dreams of you. What am I to do?
I just don’t know what to say, as I am so confused.

In my heart and mind, it is that time of my life,
When, I am supposed to be over you now!
I have to leave your name in the past;
As, a wound upon my heart;
To begin a new life and have a new start!

Read Poem: The Artist as a Young Poet, by Scott Houk

I was a young man planning escape
Your Prose filled my world with symbolic shape
Pentatonic, ironic the lines that we used
To relate and reveal the guise of my muse

We drove to the depths of a deepening ocean
Searching for lines to keep us in motion
Iambic, myopic where hearts skip a beat
With wayward abandon of unstressed retreat

Our bodies entangled and writhed in such bliss
Releasing shorn verses that joyfully kissed
Where cascading rivers know only to stream
Our mountain of wisdom: a life in a dream

Etched on our page the stains of my art
But lines without meaning act only in part
To think of a life with so few words to say
Poetic concupiscence brought me this way.

Read Poem: ISLAND BORN, by Barry B. Wright

A Poem without “E’s”

Words unfold upon aboard,
Spools unspool within labyrinths hiding in our minds’ dashboards.
Arbors’ ash with nothing but unclad wood
Void of spring’s furnishings sits within snow’s mounting snood.
Polar air—Oh what a bully!—digs at roots to sully
That soul within not its cully.
Piano music, violin, floats upon warmth and joy,
Noon through to night, ahoy,
As howling winds knock at doors,
Its icy unforgiving cold kiss upon harbor’s bay with roar.
Magical things, rich in song,
Sung day thro’ day with scupp’r’nong.
Ask this boy about how kinships form in boats far off our coast.
As dark long days pulls its ripcord, and songbird’s arrival still a ghost.
Our DNA, our history, unify within all dragon caps,
That brings war upon our brimming boat’s vats,
And arms and hands hold tightly against a storm’s razor cutting thorn,
Last day’s pain now thoughts upon its windy mourn.
Today’s sun upon horizon lights up our island dorm,
Bow lifts and falls, forward bound to island born.
Sugar candy, nuts, potato skins, Irish drams, ham, and duck rich in gravy,
Await moo-boo diamonds within this navy.
Black patch upon our clothing honor
This mankind to god of lightning, storm, rumbling sky, Donar.
Morning rush, and birthday wish, oily words nugatory bound,
Knit a path from past to now, full of pounding liquid all round,
And words in story books call out its sordid shifting ground,
In which young wisdom is popcorn fantasy, and mythos unfolds, all told,
In an old man’s mind championing it as if its Acapulco gold,
No log post writings nor yardstick standards mark its formula,
Only probity and assumptions, standards within a ninja pinata, not a Urochordata.
History swings to victors, taints its canvass,
By prodigy artists’ brush on a 3-D flat kurtosis status.
Buy? No, not I. My focus compass taps first dibs wisdom upon an abacus clicks.
Cha-ching! Moolah, hard cash, gravy, dough, coins, spondulicks, I’m gonna fix.
Apart from luck, that lady has swag,
Watch and chain I want no snag.
Witch all about, stay in your location,
Allow us to approach our final station.
Worn out hours pass by until our boat docks and unloads,
Cacophonous gulls squawking at this crossroads,
And all family and kin stand out.
As wood burn in diggings; puffs climb from its roof snout,
Roof o’r our noggins and out of harm’s way,
Rich in family’s amour, warmly and happily, I watch spray at our bay.

Read Poem: COVID LIFE, by Pablo Martinez

Covid Life
This world is new now
Trying my best to survive somehow
Taking things as it is and moving on now.

Covid Life
Millions die because of misinformation
On something that can easily an in and out situation
We must get together to become one nation.

Covid Life
Men and women as society are not used to being apart
Media makes sure that being together is essential
Causing stress and danger for someone’s mental.

Covid Life
Taking time for responsibility and be selfish is a modern trend
A trend that can have people get together and mend
Someday this virus will come to an end.

Pablo Martinez 9/7/21