View Issue
You can also read the poems by scrolling down or clicking the titles.
Click the author’s name to view a short biography (if supplied) and other recent poems by that author.
Vol. 5, No. 6
In this Issue:
George Borden – As I Take My Leave of You
Sarah Carter – Rain Shower (A Poem for Oaxaca)
Barbara Ellis – All My Waxwings
Cathy Hanrahan – A Wishing Yarn
Mike McFetridge – A Cobbler of Words
Elzy Taramangalam – Velocity of Change
Martha Tuff – they close the library
WOTS participants – Exquisite Corpse Poem
Return to Top
go softly, walking away
is a dream
that has no edge.
carry softly
the rememberings, for your return.
reality requires
a tomorrow,
when the dream passes.
eyes tire
from the inside out,
limbs ache
between the bones,
minds drift
to one side or the other.
the centre cannot be seen,
cannot be travelled to,
cannot be described.
so, go softly,
cradling your memories.
Return to Top
I know it
And have known
For quite some time
What it is
And how it is
The last in line
Not even on the list
Time to find
Space…
On someone else’s
List
Return to Top
These most vibrant colors
The flowers flaunt
As if they had chosen them intently.
Return to Top
As I Take My Leave Of You (to my soul mate on passing)
George Borden
Our years as one ‘twixt you and me
doth number now past sixty-three.
This life we’ve lived foul times and fair
yet never more than we could bear.
A family raised “fair thee well done!”
A pair of girls…a set of sons.
We’ve done our bit to others serve
through church and state with vim and verve.
Comes now the time when we must part
for new horizons each to start.
As you complete unfinished dreams
and I ascend celestial beams.
When once again we both shall meet
assembled round our Saviour’s feet.
And we shall talk of life-long past
So long as time unending lasts.
Return to Top
Yearn, burn, smolder, churn
Just beneath the surface
A cello’s tone, jagged moan
Breath exhales a furnace
The cellist’s bow moves so slow
Reverberations merge
Lacquered skin, strong and thin
Through which crescendos surge
Taut strings plucked, one by one
Resound within my chest
Deft on neck, fingers pressed
Firm, insistent, deep caress
Down my spine, notes deliver
An involuntary shiver
My chorus swells, on the verge
In music dwells the sweetest urge
Return to Top
On the outside, looking in.
Maybe this smile is just pretend,
I do need it for the cash to make ends,
when it slips from my lips people tell me,
I’m a monster.
I sympathize like the word used to mean,
I feel as spiders and snakes and sharks.
People think I’m a lark,
but I just don’t want to be a fiend.
Searching for somewhere I can be,
people like me are a unwanted breed.
Very few would want to be me.
You’ve seen me before running these streets,
Barrington to gottingen, moving my feet.
I smile till a word turns it to a scowl,
they remind me that wherever I go,
Creepy, kinless and kithless.
Outcast, monster, heartless.
I wonder if I make a true friend,
if my heart and mind could truly mend.
Return to Top
Subtly suggested then aggressively denied
Life’s screen image beckons from the other side
Of an imagined course, a fairytale
Reality’s cold reach is up for sale
Brutal reckoning
Veiled answers bury poignant yarns of pain
Twisted rope of recollections coiled in vain
Laden with shame, carrying the weight
A troubled providence, all baggage and freight
Subjective burden
Make believe memories drench then dissolve
Swallowed by the throat of bitter resolve
Enchanted drips nurse a child’s broken heart
A wish for resurgence, a new beginning, a start
Determined dreamer
Wading through the river of forgotten tirades
Harboring veracity in the memoirs perfect charade
Not one simple solution, no single resolution
For the sweet and beloved absolution
That will not come
Return to Top
Rain Shower (A Poem for Oaxaca)
Sarah Carter
Sandalled feet
Exposed
Negotiating unwelcoming
Terrain
Of uneven curbs
Pitted concrete
Fume-filled air
Hackneyed words
And cast-off
Shadows.
I leave these
Soiled streets
And
With Relief
Watch the grime
Stripped bare
From my legs
The water clouded–
Then clear–
A momentary reprieve
From the violations
On my uncomprehending heart.
Return to Top
Here in the stomach of chaos –
too much of everything
churning away in this
profligate proliferation of
to do, to have, to know,
to be responsible for –
right up there competing
like a firefly in a cement mixer
with all the rocks in rotation:
the poem I love, saying,
“Turn to me.”
Return to Top
Take a moment.
Seize the moment.
Wait a moment.
Give me a moment.
It’s all about moments.
There might be a big moment,
or a long moment,
or even a great moment.
It’s all about moments.
When you were born…
now THAT was a moment.
Return to Top
How is it so I know of the knowing;
When I know “I don’t know” sets
the knowing a-flowing?
What’s the Source of this Stillness–
This willing-ness to just “Be”?
‘Tis the Eye of Flow where the knowing–
knows me.
Return to Top
Exquisite Corpse Poem
WOTS participants
(Exquisite corpse is an artistic technique from French surrealism, where a group creates something with limited knowledge of the other contributions. In this case, visitors to our table at Word on the Street were invited to add a line or two to a poem, but only shown the two lines before.)
The old orange cat slinks past,
prowling across the boards
of an old pirate ship.
There was a woman, anxious for her fare.
Her husband stumbled up the stairs
followed by their giant-toothed dog.
Marching through the furrows,
The nails of their ghosts’ boots
sounding in the fog,
silencing the terrified – temporarily – frogs.
And it’s all ogre now, it’s never ogre
Shrek is love, Shrek is life
Where is Johnny Depp?
Where the sky is blue and bright!!
Even in the darkness of the night
The poets always want to write
How other people feel.
Words stream out like rays of light
we drink, we sing, we HEAL
and hope to get a good feel.
Let’s get together and read, read, read!
Let the words all congeal
Along with the waterfront mead.
What is life, you say…
A bunch of clichés.
Return to Top
This tree stands alone
against all others,
its bark set ablaze
from ninety-three million miles away,
as though time and space
and even air itself did not exist.
It stands guard over me,
branches suspended in their dance,
as if to touch my hair.
And even when my back is turned,
my eyes closed,
there is this tree.
Return to Top
Revelation… write, write
Aegean to American
To golden surfacing circlets
Write and take in grasp and fathom
Gather passion after Hermes
Through the worms and armies
Earthen insecurely
Movement color purely
Return to Top
Velocity of Change
Elzy Taramangalam
Turn this way
Seeing your eyes in the sun
Mind in the moon
Your breath in the wind
The rest of you
In growing roots
Spreading branches, blooms
Living earth and flowing rivers
All confess
No! cry out
The beat of love in ballads
Turning mortals to gods
In dance eternal
Leaving the grasping self behind.
Return to Top
A Cobbler of Words
Mike McFetridge
Once, long ago, there was a poet
Who humbly scratched his thoughts;
But not upon paper, there was no such thing,
He scratched his thoughts on rocks.
After scratching on various textures
Of rocks, from granite to slate,
He discovered his niche, while digging a ditch,
He dug up an old PC crate.
Upon it was written hp compaq;
He knew the brand right away;
Eureka!, he said, and he went straight to bed
And dreamed of what he would say.
The next day he bought a computer,
A marvelous invention he thought;
But soon he’d seen, after scratching the screen,
It was much better when scratching on rocks
Return to Top
they close the library
Martha Tuff
they close the library
where I have all my history
make books and magazines
orphans
before they make their journey
across the street to bright and shiny
new building in mirror reflection
of all intentions
of a public space
where out front Winston Churchill paces
for eternity
and I found me
in the stacks
between the rows, on all the racks
of paperbacks
someone else’s words
my story hurts in voiceover
a book more than a cover
but an inside
full of complex rhymes
in between the walls of old brick
up and down stairs all the imprints
of millions of fingerprints
we all grew up
the walls will come down
without a sound
from pigeon protectors
on storied ground.
Return to Top
Create.
Creation is the fingered touch of skins;
our humanity of HA.
It streams you as you sit with it’s water.
Knowing that water is ambiguous.
Knowing that this is a poem.
Return to Top
Fight for what is right.
Fight for those you love.
Fight for the ones who can’t.
Fight for what is true and fair.
Fight a good fight, win or lose.
Return to Top
The window drew me then
to stand and stare below
and helplessly attend
the stilled and hapless bird.
A waxwing hurtling there
haphazard struck sheer pane
had fallen, bled and sealed
a sheet of faultless snow.
With able useless hands
I watched him lying there
such empty solace gave
in his dark winter chill.
He died, of course, was dead –
but no – he stirred and rose.
On shed he perched benumbed
then lucid made ascent.
A posting meant for me
lay on the bloodsealed snow.
I read it with dis-ease –
rebuke came to me slow.
Return to Top
Art of daydreaming has been lost today
Busy catching up with the chorus of the day
Why not take time to daydream each day
Cost nothing if you have minute or two spare
It could be pleasurable and relaxing
Nice way to break up a busy day
Recharge your weary batteries on the way
It could be creative and inspiring way
You can daydream on a lonely walk
Or sitting around in your comfy chair
It cost nothing except a little time
But don’t forget to keep track of time
Open Heart Forgery 