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Vol. 4, No. 7
Writers:
Tim Carter – The Day the Dead Walk
Kimberly Cleversey – Bath Time
Harry Garrison – Singing Chameleons
Samir Georges – Autumn Stranger
Catherine MacKenzie – Time is Rhyme
Ayesha Mushtaq – The Human Heart
Nicole D. Myers – The Smell of Books in Love
Jaywant Patil – Heaven and Paradise
Josh Svec – when you are in it
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A sudden gunshot
heart pounding with each brushstroke
autumn evening
This autumn sunset
bright purple and gold clouds dance
wishing you were here
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I like a lot of lonely leisure
It gives me time to take my measure
from hammer toes to soggy head
lingering long in cozy bed
whether goods are truly treasure
how blue is different from azure
a horse
and shoes, and ships and sealing wax
and cabbages and kings, of course
it can be said to be a waste
laziness and lack of taste
that it is, perhaps, life bypassed
a refuge for the sad harassed
Yet I find, that as a rule
if built in to one’s schedule
easily done in traveling
a plan for cool unraveling
or likely, snatched from happenstance
if boldly you will take the chance
it is anything but dull
just to take the time to mull
You can do it walking, say
or through train window on the way
from cafe table on a square
in forest, on beach, in mountains air
makes your lived life longer
your intended actions stronger
such inactive rumination
spins out passing time’s sensation
I say this from the vantage of eighty
you judge if my words are weighty
MULLING may or not be noble
but certainly, if you wish to pursue it
you are constrained and cannot do it ,
carrying a phone that’s mobile.
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Time is Rhyme
Catherine A. MacKenzie
What is old age but a passing rhyme
Of minutes and hours merging in time,
Seconds depleted without a breath
Bring us all much closer to death.
We don’t see time that seems to fly
By faster than the blink of an eye,
It’s invisible, hidden within air,
Perhaps taken with the sun’s glare.
We can search and search ‘til day’s end
For that illusiveness around the next bend,
But we’ll never find it – nor capture it,
No matter how fast we race or flit.
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Heaven and Paradise
Jaywant Patil
Bottle of wine
slices of cheese
you besides me
in business class
above the clouds.
Close to heaven
and paradise.
Candle lights
soft low music
you in my arms
in sweet memories
Close to heaven
and paradise.
At day break
half a sleep
you clinging to me
in a warm bed.
Close to heaven
and paradise.
On the dance floor
soft slow music
dancing cheek to cheek
to the band beat.
Close to heaven
and paradise.
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Here is a man, who to his people a real hero.
Here is a man, who lived and talked and did it all!
Here is a man, who changed himself and the outlook of the world.
Here is a man, who was true leader of all mankind.
Here is a man, who was a father, and a husband and a friend to whoever he met.
Here is a man, and is named Malcolm X
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I.
I hid the ideal in the subterranean cellar
With my sacks of flour and dried prunes
To see if it might last the night,
And all nights,
II.
The empty house, no climate
Or occupation, smoke spiralling
Still performing passages
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The Human Heart
Ayesha Mushtaq
The workings of the human heart
Vary like the color of skin and texture
What you might think a happily ever after
Might just be a pretense under pressure
The occidental heart roams free
Passionate or slutty;
What does it matter?
But in the orient the heart is a slave
Of religious and cultural clutter
It bows down to archetypical bullshit.
Never rises, never claims, never feels
But muted obeys and silently suffers.
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Mad Dog (Cornwallis Park)
Ryan Taylor
And here I am
sitting in the park
singing the blues
here we have come
and where has
the cancer gone?
Up and left they say
vanished this morning
bloods cough not bloody
me lungs burn the chemo
killed me
me lungs of mad dog!
And here I am
sitting in the park
singing the blues
And how have we come?
And how we will go.
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eliot’s quartet
is famous,
the four horsemen,
infamous.
both are far beyond understanding.
listen to
the goodman quartet:
teddy wilson, krupa, lionel hampton.
not beyond understanding
but way far out.
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It had been the coldest time of year
I swear he knew me right from the start
So why do I feel so much fear?
Praying for him to get me out of the dark
I’ve waited, in time, so patiently
For a love so deep and strong
Now I want and need you desperately
And soon it won’t be long
After my painful life journey here
It made me feel so alone
Somehow I still fought the fear
Knowing you would come back home
With a voice of love and joy
Just the way it was meant to be
Allow me to give my thanks
And please return it back to me
Don’t let this happen again
Keep ahold of me close
I know our love will always win
But it’s your heart and soul I need the most
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Upon the window, enveloped in despair,
Reflects the caustic image I wish wasn’t there.
And as the tears come rolling down,
The water weds the solemn ground.
Under watchful eyes, I’m not alone,
Through the picture the tempest moans.
But those eyes, those blue-brown eyes,
Distract me from the thunder’s rise.
Binding me within the confines of my home,
I’m left shackled as the monster roams.
In my ire, ere a single thought, I shout,
“What has your mischief brought about?”
Upon the window, without despair,
Laughs the demon I wish wasn’t there.
And as the tears come rolling down,
The water weds the solemn ground.
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I dipped in slow starting with the tips of my toes
while a hot steam rose opening the insides of my nose
breathing deep, i allowed my body to seep
into and beneath a pool of heat.
my tension oozing in a smooth release;
my body like a tea bag beginning to steep.
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Singing Chameleons
Harry Garrison
Background singers blend
into the background. They can
be heard but not seen.
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I knew a stranger once
a stranger like there never was,
upon a shadow and a distant sun
I chanced this shade drifting some
draping my path in apathy
shrouding our meeting within obscurity.
Sights upon the coming night
I stood beneath a warmth in flight,
embers reaching down beneath this distance
that trace my soul up from the dimness
to cast my shadow afore my steps
yearning for a star to breach the depths.
And so, I met a stranger once
a stranger like there never was,
with eyes that held that faded star
with all its warmth upon my heart,
this stranger fading with the light
meets just another waning sprite.
Here these two stranger’s blessed
in crossing to share a shadow’s crest,
coaxed by a sun in twilight’s heat
as the stars themselves they stretch to meet.
So she passes me and her eyes divert,
the sun has faded and the night is curt.
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Without true purpose
Without reason
The sun sets and rises
Like the infinite cycle of seasons
Without true meaning
Without direction
Our lives struggle forward
Lacking love’s deep conviction
And among it all
We just stand and watch without emotion
Going through the motions
Like a river that flows to the ocean
Like living and dying
Believing there is no other way
Without truly realizing
Without knowing
We are destroying instead of creating
Things we cannot see
And among it all
We just stand and watch without emotion
Like living and dying
Believing there is no other way
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The Day the Dead Walk
Tim Carter
The living dead will rise from their graves
Once and for all making humans their slaves
Slaves to the fear of being eaten alive
Never feeling safe with no place to hide
On the run, trying to survive
Find shelter till the zombie horde subsides
Run for your lives, take what you can
Must find a place to reinforce the van
Sooner or later we will be like the dead
Until that time comes
aim for the HEAD!!
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when you are in it
you think you are the only one
who ever made her moan
you think it’s all she needs
until 1am
when you look around the bar
and see your girl in every one of them
eager for the next
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“Emancipation” echoed the nation in 63
Determined leaders crying out “Free, Free”
Denouncing slavery from both sides of their mouth
Chaos engulfing that stymied staunch south
Acrimonious acceptance welding reluctant pretense
Time perpetuating the façade of fictitious sentiments
And that continuous succession of hypocritical events
The countless broken promises the law will not heal
Making us mourn for emotions so many don’t feel
Bearing witness to twisted spokes in a bigotry wheel
Its chains a small token of the innocence it steals
On the backs of tomorrow ride the wrongs of today
The past a reminder of what refuses to fade
So let us speak in the people’s layman terms now
Seeking resurgence of that stately vow
Racial equality elemental to civilized nations
No profiling, lame excuses, no subjugation
Revisit your conscience and honor the oath
150 years since that proclamation gave hope
Its purpose to show via honorable decree
A world through the virtuous eye we call empathy
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Yellowish Swatch drawn down and up
The oiled frog caught in the esophagus
The ubiquitous tumor
The truss: the future
But the wrist lifts up the watch
The highway sutures over and over
The motored purred cadaver’s
Procured last zephyrs
Along highway 103
A Rubik’s cube plastered boulder
Sits in sleepy contrast
To the OCD bipolar color
Floater coasting sober
But the posters posed are mouldered
Over household graveyard watch
One hand holds the father’s truss
The other holds his scotch
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The Smell of Books in Love
Nicole D. Myers
if you extract
heat and chaos
from love
all that remains
will be the smell
of old lonely books
do not be fool-hearted
press on read ahead
sixteen pages further
to be exact
before you resolve
to abolish the appetite
for romantic urges
if you excerpt
poetry and whimsy
from friendship
all that will be left
will be the tang of acid
in the white zinfandel
do not be careless
do not be frivolous
if you omit ire
from your heart
pages will flourish
stories will survive
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she’s setting him up
to take care of her
he has expressed
he would
his history has such
that he witnessed
he says she likes to sleep
all the time
right now she’s working hard
working overtime
biding her time
they love each other no doubt
he will care for her
and she will please him
not sick, sick
rather, full of love
expressive and dear
Open Heart Forgery 