POETRY Reading: CLARITY, by Arden Lassalle

Performed by Val Cole

Poem:

If only I could see

with a mind without

Distractions.

what would I see

would I see me

what would I do

would I take a knife

and then take a life

would I see

clarity

Would I be

Free

Or are the distractions in our

lives the only thing keeping

us : alive, awake, moving, and Breathing

I Care not to Care

but by not going there

Am I impaired?

a Pair of pears

leafy limbs, barky trunk.

dangling tucked

Together

the two

Their branches Bonded

and

the

Bonds of time

simple as a pear

unravel when we Sleep

we escape

Reality when we sleep

Why steep in sleep

Revel in a bottle

waggle and wiggle

giddily giggle

Your awake,

drown

Your senses to sleep

Don’t Be Weak

Don’t Sleep

Keep to your feet

Drink and you can

Sleep Then

Forget

I forgot if it was

worth

Remembering

anyways.

Is any of it?

Worth anything?

at all?

Read Poem: A GLIMMER OF HOPE, by Kim Hicks

Can it be true? Or, is it a rumour?
Boris has said we can come out sooner!
don’t hold your breath but could it be happening?
Is it to stop the economy collapsing?

Can’t even begin to hope it’s true
After everything we’ve all been through
we may be back to normal by spring
before we are well and truly unhinged

What do we do? How do we act?
are the odds against us stacked?
Can it ever be the same again
No one is certain a 100 per cent

we’ve been a long time in isolation
with no human contact or conversation
will have to learn new social skills
and come off all our anxiety pills

We’ll never forget the start of the twenties
Panic buying and toilet roll frenzies
The incredible science behind our jabs
Working wonders in their labs

It makes you wonder did this actually happen?
It’s hard now really to imagine
Pfizer and AstraZeneca the big tech brands
Our lives literally in their hands

We’re now getting jabbed in all sorts of places
Sharp eager eyes behind masked faces
So very lucky we live in a place
affectively saving the human race

This strain is bad enough – it’s been stated
It’s the new ones coming which have mutated
If we don’t eradicate it from the face of the earth
I feel the fatalities will be far far worse

we now see the light shining at the end
It was hard at first to comprehend
we have to wait – it’s been really tough
that day can never come soon enough 💕

Read Poem: Prime rhyme time, by Hobbo

Of the many pastimes, that I play at sometimes
My favourite thing is the writing of rhymes.
I’ve fiddled with riddles, since I was but little.
A bad one’s a sad one, a good ‘un fair chimes.
I grill and I thrill, as I bend to my will.
It’s fruity, it suits me, it’s lemon and limes.
Unbidden, the words spring to life in my head.
I grab one, I stab one, before they have fled.

They won’t go away, they’re determined to stay
And dance, in a trance, in a sashay display.
The rhyme in the stanza, for me is the answer.
Each Haiku that I do, a bonny bonanza.
A bee in my bonnet, as I sing my sonnet
To use it, is music, to lose it is chronic.
I’m impelled to, compelled to, I must do, I need ter
Search, nay research, for some rhyme in my meter.

I’ll play all the day, for some words that just may
E’en shift me, uplift me, a roll in the hay.
It’s easy, it’s peasy, it’s what poets do
It sneaks in and peaks in, while I’m on the loo.
Sometimes sensational, oft inspirational
Frantic, its antics, my Little Boy Blue.
I’m in it, to win it, I don’t often bin it
When my wit, is unfit though, I might have to thin it.

If I get marooned, in the mid-afternoon
By a girl in a whirl, or a dame in a swoon
Have a nail in my pail, catch a thorn in my prune
Anchor my Tanka, before it balloons.
Then I mean, to be seen, to make it a rule
To read to the readers, my audience who’ll
Say Hobbo’s a laddo, he’s nobody’s fool
He’s sunny, he’s funny, the drool in my pool.

So for humans with lumens, with light in your pen
And actors with factors poetical, then
Stop fighting, get writing, through dictionary roam
Desire to inspire us, and sire us a poem.

Submitted by Hobbo of http://www.hobbospoems.com

Read Poem: First Impress-ions, by ​Kelly R. Garner

Ions we use to impress an electrical current that others will ride, making the current become an event, feeling alive.

First impressions sometimes give people drive but seeing things on the surface can at times be a disguise.

The pressed ions explode and become vaporized, hopefully leaving remnants that will not keep blinding your site.

Beware of the current events you choose to ride, the slope can be slippery, and you can slide.

Slide into what lies beneath and see the things they were trying to hide.

The truth will always come seeping through from the inside.

Remember, what you see on the surface sometimes is far away in distance from what resides, so use your frequency to check out the vibe.

http://www.inheritthebeautywithinblog.com

Read Poem: A year has passed, by Jo Linsdell

A year has passed
Times have changed
The world stopped…
Then kind of started again

A year has passed
Keeping our distance
Washing our hands
A new sort of normal

A year has passed
Did we learn?
Apparently not enough
The numbers still grow

A year has passed
No job, no money
Government funding is slow
Bills to pay still come fast

A year has passed
The struggle is real
Life goes on…
But only for some

A year has passed…
The pandemic has not
The future is unclear
But we still have hope

http://www.JoLinsdell.com

Read Poem: SEEKING, by Carmen Silva

I search for you.
I look you up in this world,
Amongst the footsteps of time,
And I try to remember
How it feels not to be
Longing for love.

I search for you.
And the snowflakes fall
Like the petals of a flower
By the end of autumn.
Like the petals of a flower
From the summer of my heart.

I search for you.
I enclasp the petals of love
But I know those petals are
Snowflakes of the winter of my body.

I search for you.
I still hold in my palms
The melting snowflakes;
And my love is lost
In drops that keep on dripping
And hit with hollow sound
The earth of this world.
I search for you. But you are nowhere to be found.

© 2021 Carmen Silva

Read Poem: BIRTH, by Iannis Aliferis

Why is it that the good times never last?

A home of aqua, as organic as it gets,
warm, wholesome, wonderful and wondrous.
An enclosure of bliss, a place of love – no, no, a place
made of love.

Suddenly, out of nowhere,
like a thief in the night,
like a menacing phantom,
it comes,
the end of hospitality,
the earthquake,
the catastrophe.
It’s like the fate of my own personal planet Krypton:
I’m sent off while all behind me falls to pieces.

I travel to the light, unwillingly,
It’s so very intense and much too bright.
The big squeeze into another world that seems way too large
and wide and weird and alien.

Well now, this cannot be right…

I try to mourn my loss in silence when some bastard slaps me for no good reason.
Ugly faces smile at me like idiots as the last link to my safe haven is forever cut.
Crying seems the only sober, sane and sensible course of action left at this point.
And boy do I cry. I let it reap, I don’t even give
a shit. I’m wailing and bellowing away for all it’s worth.

Abruptly, I’m lifted,
I am embraced
by hands that hold me tightly
and safely upon a soft bosom.
Unlimited love emanates from this person that looks upon me
with the sweetest of smiles and I can’t help but melt into the embrace.
Hell, this is not such a scary place after all.

Read Poem: YOU NEVER KNEW, by Bonita Elery

You never knew how beautiful you were because you were naive and young.
You never knew how beautiful you were because no one ever told you,
but I knew.

Hate you for how you look.
Hate you for just being you.
ALL YOU KNEW WAS…
hate.
Ostracized and crucified because you didn’t look like them.
Uncle…
sweet Uncle, loved you in a way that he shouldn’t have and that was…
hate disguised as love.
And that became a problem.

No one protected you from darkness.
All you wanted was love and to be LOVED.
Self-hate was ingrained in every fiber of your being.
You were sent away and disregarded like an old dilapidated dog ready to be euthanized.
Forgotten about and swept under the rug like crumbs on a dirty kitchen floor.
Out of sight.
Out of mind.
Your problem became me and I was the secret with no one to blame.
HUSH CHILD!
No one was willing to accept or acknowledge me and I hated you for that.
Wailing non stop because I knew I couldn’t stay with you.
And you didn’t want me too.
You didn’t want me.
I know you.
I am you.
I arrived and I wasn’t invited.
Swept out of your arms without hesitation or regret.
Self-hate resonating within me and I can’t even talk.
Where can I place the blame?
You? Him? Them?
I blame myself.
Me?
Me.
Ostracized and crucified because I don’t belong.
I don’t belong to you, or them.
Who am I? I don’t know.
I reject love.
How can I love when rejection is all I know?
Darkness.
I carry my hurt, my pain, my shame with me everywhere I go.
Like an imaginary friend ready to be introduced to the world.
You left this world too soon and with a lot of things left unsaid.
My heart aches for you,
because you were the one person who I thought could have saved me.
How could you save me when you couldn’t save yourself?

Read Poem: From kind to curious, by Bob Di Cerbo

is a mighty big leap
too careful for the carefree
too cautious for the risky

From blindness to mindful
is more than hide and seek
or so it seems
resting here in fugitive shadows
where knowledge
is naughty
and shameful is lost

where beauty is measured in
shouts and frets
and to go against masters is
the game
while equipped only
with a simple child’s aim

The ancients know the mystery
laughing now in holy death
a tremendous roar in near silence
that barely the wise may hear

where knowledge is naughty
and shameful is lost
where wild becomes tame
where the adage is never aged
saying always what will be best
is simply to keep that
child’s aim

Oh so you say it’s a poor poet’s plea
hidden in common rhyme, lost in
daily meter
where reason taunts with rawness
scaring and scarring some seasoned tales
of make believe comfort
where acceptance reigns regal, where there’s
no need to blame
where a simple child
has simply lost his aim

Read Poem: LITTLE LION MAN, by Abigail Hannah Williams

Always coming in the night,
To steal away before first light.
Never to allow me a glimpse,
Of My Little Lion Man.

We talk through the darkness,
Never needing light.
Until the morning comes,
And he leaves before the light.

We’ve become best of friends,
despite the lack of knowing
What type of emotion,
The other’s face is showing.

But we know each-other well,
My Little Lion Man and Me.
We’re like puzzle pieces,
We just click together,
As you soon shall see.

He dares me to take chances,
I take them from time to time.
He asked me to write something,
So I wrote this little rhyme.

In case you didn’t know,
I wrote this on a whim.
For tonight was the perfect night to write an ode to him.

My Little Lion Man is the friend who visits throughout my day.
I will tell you what he is,
If you listen to what I say.

The Little Lion Man is representative,
Of all my hopes and dreams.
We write stories in my head,
For hours into the night it seems.

The Little Lion Man is my drive,
My will to keep on going.
In a house as busy as a hive,
Determination is what you’ve got to be showing.

Although he leaves in the morning,
We talk throughout the day.
He’s in my head you see,
Giving me encouragement,
As I go about my way.

We talk through the darkness,
Never needing sight.
Until the morning comes,
And he leaves before the light.

It’s usually just us,
My Little Lion Man and Me.
And we go about our day,
as happy as can be.

Written by,
Abigail Hannah Williams