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Vol. 5, No. 3
In this Issue:
Dorothyanne Brown – Gloomily Ruminating On the Day Ahead, or waking to an email saying I have been rejected
Richard Collins – My Father’s Eyes
Tim Covell – Thoughts on the Opening of Yet Another Gourmet Burger Emporium
Joan Dawson – Chance Encounter
Charlie Keeler – Paint Me A Picture
Catherine A. MacKenzie – Only On Paper
Shallon MacKenzie – Definition of a Woman
Lindsay MacNeil – Repeated Design
Lorie Ann Morris – Living with MS
Elzy Taramangalam – Metamorphosis
Wendy Watkinson – Tapping the Void
— card — ?
— donate a dollar — ?
— debit — ?
(But I wonder, really,
how would we converse
sitting
coffee or beer or tea
[There is an ache, yes])
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Gloomily Ruminating On the Day Ahead, or
waking to an email saying I have been rejected
by Dorothyanne Brown
Sleep tastes like cat hair in my mouth
I peer at my iPad, one eye,
The good one for reading,
Barely open, the other shut
So as not to confuse
“Thank you, but no,” the message says
Confirming again
My utter failure as a writer
My uselessness as a conveyor of emotion
My uncounted wasted hours
Cheer up, my friend says
You’ll do better, later
Think of Stephen King!
(He does not write, my friend)
I pull in my eviscerated organs
Grimace-grin
And plod on, blinking.
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My Father’s Eyes
by Richard Collins
Organic baked earth head
Brownish orange in color
Shallow oval excavated holes
Corneas sold on the black market
I see Dad acquiring you
At the therapists office
Where I imagine chinwag gab
Over pseudo psych exhaustion
Excavation is more onerous
This basement; Epochs, juvenescence
Moments, love and acquiescence
Could you tell each segment spent?
No gustatory presence
Whose sorry clumsy implement
Thumb printed, grooved you graven?
Two eyes too soon to sense,
And see the son reach maturation
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Thoughts on the Opening of Yet Another Gourmet Burger Emporium
by Tim Covell
I don’t care of the damned beef is Danish.
Let my lettuce be chemically laden,
French’s makes mustard plainly marvelous,
Ketchup’s my second and final condiment.
Gourmet is good, I quite agree,
But priced and positioned too rich for me.
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Chance Encounter
by Joan Dawson
I met him in the park,
Perched on a rock, monarch of all he surveyed,
King of his castle.
No dirty rascal he!
A large, orange cat –
Smaller, maybe, inside his good fur coat
Thick from his walks on days colder than this —
Sitting upon his rock, comfortable in his skin.
Was he the Cheshire Cat?
Orlando? Marmaduke?
(No hat, for sure.)
A seasoned leash-cat, Rusty was his name,
Former movie star, master of many tricks.
Watchful but unmoved, he saw his world go by,
A bird perched on a branch, a flight of crows.
A twitch of his disdainful tail
For passing dogs.
And then,
Detached by master from his sunny throne
The cat in the fur coat went his royal way.
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Only On Paper
by Catherine A. MacKenzie
Poets scrawl words, painters splash colour
on paper meant to be viewed,
A driving force propels senses
of time, imagination, foreboding,
Focused in the moment, life escapes,
fear evaporates and dries our eyes,
chases our demons,
quashes our breath;
Waves crash upon the shore
threatening to drown us in tears,
monsters create shadows from within
to drag us to another world;
We watch and wonder
of the whys and the wheres
and dream of long ago
people, places, periods;
Life happens before we die,
visions overcome us and
threaten to destroy our souls;
We live within the mist and the downpour
and the wild winds blowing across the seas
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A Funny Walk
(after my Chinese students asked:
“What’s the difference between …..?)
by Jim Hoyle
Walking, stalking, gliding, sliding,
Ambling, rambling, traipsing, shambling,
Loitering, shuffling, moseying, scuffling,
Creeping. crawling, sneaking, prowling,
Skulking, bumbling, lurching, lumb’ring,
Slinking, clomping, limping, stomping,
Stumping, clumping, hopping, jumping,
Trudging, waddling, dawdling, toddling,
Sauntering, cantering, loping, skipping,
Slogging, jogging, tripping, slipping,
Capering, prancing, mincing, dancing,
Jouncing, plunging, rushing, lunging,
Cavorting, careening, gallivanteening,
Bounding, dashing, cruising, sashaying,
Sprinting, galloping, streaking, lolloping,
Tearing, haring, surging, pacing,
Hurrying, scurrying, chasing, racing,
Barging, charging, gamboling, scrambling,
Traveling, trekking, plying, hiking,
Roaming, tramping, roving, stamping,
Marching, parading, promenading,
Scampering, swaggering, faltering, staggering,
Tottering, wabbling, jerking, hobbling,
Plodding, wandering, strolling, meandering,
Gadding, wading, peregrinating,
Lead me, I’m somnambulating,
Rolling, bowling, stepping, jauking,
Bundling, trundling, but – still walking.
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Blatant reservation for that dreaded designation
we name abstinence
Occasionally in favor but largely just the flavor
of current circumstance
A dank stained lover’s hell breeds creation
While obtuse, dull prospects mark hesitation
Comparable kinds of craving call salvation
But witness society’s ersatz circular reference
A bland veneer pretense projects no preference
yet deliverance deigns loathing and hefty penance
Diana’s chaste values tremendously overrated
Nature’s needs sin labelled but should be placated
Not inundated with censure and relegated
To the soiled realms and houses of the ill reputed
Their audacious smiles cast down and forcibly muted
Realities truth and societies virtue so often ill suited
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Definition of a Woman
by Shallon MacKenzie
A Woman she once was
A Woman she had been
A Woman she is
A Woman she can be
A Woman she will be
A Woman I am
A Woman she fears
A Woman she believes
A Woman she hears
A Woman she knows
A Woman she is
A Woman I am
A Woman she will talk
A Woman she will sing
A Woman she will scream
A Woman she will listen
A Woman she will see
A Woman I am
A Woman she is
I am a Woman
Metamorphosis
by Elzy Taramangalam
Kafka’s nightmare
Had a human turn
Into a giant vermin
Making life
An incongruous horror.
Swimming on the banks
Of my dream river
A two inch fish appears
Slowly growing wings
Then legs, until it’s
A buzzing honey bee!
Dressed in yellow black satin
Proving a Bornean tale right
Novel, travel, dream – catcher
playing hopscotch; swing nectar.
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Living with MS
by Lorie Ann Morris
I live with a illness called M.S.
I live with this illness for many years.
I live with the known idea of this,
for sometime, with no one who believed.
I live with it knowing,
one day it will kill me, for sure.
I live with it the idea that now the doctors,
now know that, i have it.
I live with this and
so does everyone, else as well, out there too.
I live with M.S and M.S lives with me.
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How black is the night
Outside the light
From loving family homes?
Raven wing stark
Cold comfort in my gloom.
Glassed India ink
Absorbs the glow
Reflecting nothing back
Sitting atop the windows edge
A miners face
All sketched with coal.
Deep velvet shade
You wait for me
Enfolding as a tomb
All that leave
The light that breathes
Regrets, lost dreams
Like open wounds.
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Paint Me A Picture
by Charlie Keeler
Paint me a picture, weathered and wise
today not tomorrow, leave the disguise
We all see faces, worn and weary cases,
Lonely adrift in the silence between spaces
No, paint me a picture as tall as the moon
show us some wisdom, say now never soon
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The High String
(Three Brothers – part 2)
by Robin Young
wants the attention
lacks the regard
His fiddle-like vocal chords
go from E to B in less than three beats
He’s quick on his toes too,
dancing across the notes
making them blush…
Like that one melting melody
he will sweep you off your feet
and leave you on your back
But he played the world too hard,
to keep from getting bored
They broke his string
and now
he’s only playing minor chords
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Tapping the Void
by Wendy Watkinson
do you see the lady
rise above the lake
ice covers her eyes
from the hibernation
do you see the light
breaking from this realm
tearing down the walls
free for the ascension
open and awake
in this lucid dream
tapping the void
for some solitude
hear me now hear me now hear me now
do you see the darkness
raining down like fog
blurring rigid lines
space between the spaces
open and awake
in this lucid dream
tapping the void
for some solitude
hear me now hear me now hear me now
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Starfish, why?
by C. A. Lamond
Starfish why?
Oh, do tell me why
Do you have five arms?
That’s three more than I.
But the question it begs is,
Are two of them legses?
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Meagher’s Grant
by Erica Lewis
I stand among the giant oaks,
their eternal trunks pointing upwards
to the constellations slowly turning,
Earth passing through.
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Repeated Design
by Lindsay MacNeil
I butcher every little piece
of every little string
I’ve ever touched
every little jewel
to every little crystal
I’ve ever owned
I’ve ruined every little song
with every little word
you’ve ever sang
I’ve stolen every little memory
of every single moment
I’ve let go
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The architect of self renovation
Apply practice & concentration
Change procrastination
Less predicting; Break habits
Innovation
Change appearance
Healthier eating; exercising
Perseverance
Change attitude
Self-consciousness; selflessness
Necessary attributes
Change mind-state
Self-awareness; more patience
Meditate
Change discipline
More action taking and more listening
Self-discipline
Self-constructing and self-dominating
Self-empowering
Open Heart Forgery 