View Issue vol. 8, no. 2
ISSN 2369-6516 (Print)
ISSN 2369-6524 (Online)
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 poems by that author.
Normand Carrey – Elegy for Trump’s Father
Harry Garrison – Chalk Sandwich Board!
Cathy Hanrahan – Broken Promises
Thibault Jacquot-Paratte – untitled
David Mac Eachern – By Nature’s Request
Dyrell Nelligan – Keep on Dreaming
Oliver Oldfield – Gorgeous to Hide Behind
Elzy Taramangalam – Begin Again
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Indignation
Poem by Graym Stewart
The rain induces sadness.
………………..Sorrow in the mist.
Cheerful in my madness;
………………..I simply can’t resist.
I nay will put up a fight,
………………..I will lay down and embrace.
See beams of the natural light,
………………..As the tears fall down my face
Move t’wards the darker end,
………………..The place that I shall stay,
O’er the place of greatest friends,
………………..The place where I shall lay.
So too my soul does wither,
………………..Like a plant without the sun.
No love shown for the giver,
………………..So thine heart I give to none.
And my body soon will too decay,
………………..Till’ I find someone to help.
Seem as if I’d gone astray,
………………..I can only help myself.
Where turn I in the shadows,
………………..When I know not a single place,
Fight through dejections battle,
………………..For there’s only time and space.
Alas I see the strange.
………………..In the writing with the pen,
I imagine in the brain,
What simply could have been.
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Begin Again
Poem by Elzy Taramangalam
The first duty of wine
The label read is to be red!
The best duty of a poet
Walcott said is to press ahead
Hold joy, sorrow and desire to build
A life in synch
Despite the nightmares of history
For change can happen
As fast as lightning
When old truths are bluntly told
Thundering the rain of redemption
Begin again.
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Glistening jewels amongst the greys
Catching the light and making it their own
A piece A fragment
Where there was once a wholeness
Now there is but a memory
Of what was.
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In The Dark
Poem by SarahEllen
There are thing that exist
In the Dark
That do not exist in the light.
Slimy things
Slithery things
Teeth and claws and scales things
In the closet and under the bed things
Creeping things and lurking things
Crawling under the blankets things
Things that go bump and thump and groan
Things that gurgle and whimper and moan
Whisper in your ear things
Reaching for your toes things
Breathing on your neck things
Maybe I’ll sleep with the light on
Tonight
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Touch
Poem by Mary Ellen Sullivan
Blessed be those
who walk so softly on the earth
that the fallen leaves
on which they tread
make no sound.
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Keep on Dreaming
Poem by Dyrell Nelligan
Dream
on
Day dream,
goodnight;
sweet dreams.
Life dreams.
Believe
in
your dream.
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Chalk Sandwich Board!
Rectangle Poem by Harry Garrison
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Elegy for Trump’s Father
(for Evan)
Poem by Normand Carrey
I know, in the early days, mother and I
were hard on you, My burnished son,
left to strangers, alone to face
this coke-furnaced world,
the saturday matinee crowd in heaven.
chattering away. But now you are Father
to everyone. Remember, Up here,
everything can be seen
cloud patterns, animal movements
the arable lands skeining front and center
But Lo! beneath I see the fathering worm
though deprived of the light of day
still toils to reach the tower of Humanity
(Mankind)
O juniperus son, Remember him,
remember me, the fathering worm,
comfort him, do not vilify us
that tillerman, the journeying hermaphrodite
on the river Jordan.
I ask you this Et nominae Pater.
And by the way Mary Ann says Hi.
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Agitation
Poem by Nadia LaCroix
Blossoming
Amidst the branches
Of my flowery mind
I can sometimes
Feel those tiny feet
Fearlessly gripping
The little cracks
Of my burgeoning heart
Sparingly swaying
The beating of her unrequisite soul
Dancing between
An array of wings
Freely opening
Our endless possibilities
Lovingly
She slowly let the wind
Caress her dirty feathers
A little closer,
A little deeper
Wildly trying to resist
This flying instinct
But instead choosing
To stay against the tree
And blossom between the branches
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Broken Promises
Poem by Cathy Hanrahan
A promise owed but not heard
Wreaking self-destruction
while not breathing a word
Pain recognizable to only the few
who witnessed the beatings
they tried to eschew
That promise is hidden,
buried under the shame
of a mother gone missing
and the father to blame.
A troubled man now
wanders round in his past
washed clean by the money
spent loudly and fast
He longs for fulfillment
success should provide
but there’s only emptiness
when he glances inside
I watch as he falters
then crashes and burns
and I remember a sweet boy
with nowhere to turn.
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My Sisu
Poem by Jari-Matti Helppi
I’ve been hurt, dismissed, abandoned,
into the bowels as churning chum,
into a sea of circling sharks,
and the frozen waters numb.
But they did not defeat me,
and never will they so,
for sisu is soul’s companion,
my victory o’er the foe.
For I am Finn and finely woven,
and never will I let,
the fickle fells of human hacks,
the better of me get.
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untitled
Poem by Thibault Jacquot-Paratte
It’s like a forest that has dried
out and suddenly appears ablaze
and I will sleep in a bed of charcoal
the homeless animals crying at large
lost in the shipwrecked barge at sea
as they wave their colourful cloths
to dust rising smoke
black in the atmosphere
not knowing
that those are
their siblings.
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By Nature’s Request
Poem by David MacEachern
No turning back, new songs to sing
feel the beat, such magic in spring
A songbird excited in rhythm, chirping free
cool air carries music from the tree
Each note sending a call to another
along came more as sister or brother
Soul group recital taking stage at dawn
a fog fades windows open, curtains withdrawn
Sun reflecting joy upon a harbour’s face
choir then changing scene in nature’s grace
No stopping this gig, an encore plays
without any words they have their say
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The Moment
Poem by Robert Mader
gorgeous day dynamic
all flowing in unison –
the sunlight on lake banook at noon
crisp autumn wind ruffling
and sparkling in schools
of pebbled, shimmered reflections
and the trees all in their
cavorting colours, reds yellows and golds
dreaming heaven and the days
of earth’s peace
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Diagnostics
Poem by Erica Allanach
What burned inside
Was wet sand crackling
I could say, I could have said,
A new heavy
Sinking further down
………………..into my own feet
But I didn’t say much
Maybe if you, any you,
Had asked as slow and easy
………………..as the wind coercing leaves
I would have said much
Made my home among the brittle leaves,
………………..back then
But anything,
And everything,
In time
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uber.girl
Haiku by Harry Wayne Mah
this girl is uber.
just how uber is this girl?
let us count the ways…
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Ruth
Poem by Nathaniel S. Rounds
Hesitations wound the heart
The head
The breath of life
I wonder if the train engineer
Who failed to slow down
When he saw my grandmother’s car
On the tracks
There in 1968
I wonder if he suffered much
I understand he retired at the normal age
I wonder if he saw the car
In his later years
And drew a gun
From his bedside table.
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Gorgeous to Hide Behind
Poem by Oliver Oldfield
in a way, i miss the sadness
i miss the home that never was
the beautiful you never thought were
where did your pretty go
who’s wearing your flowered dress now
who’s lips are your boyfriends kissing, what
can you do with no gorgeous to hide behind
i miss church, the red the pastor turned you
the blood running to your holy cheeks
when the congregation applauded
at the fact that you would burn for this
that this secret would be the end of you
the tears that spattered the bathroom floor
the god that frowned upon the sight
i miss the way boys used to look at you
when you were something to be desired
when you didn’t make people feel confused
when you weren’t an inconvenience to love
i miss the way you looked when you cried
there was something romantic about it
it was something boys could fall in love with
you were not happy
but how can you learn to be now
the space that played safe haven was warm
you don’t know if you miss the sadness
you just know, this world wants you to
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Rivers IV
Poem by Victor Andrews
The poet said
I see rivers of blood
In the desert
Did you know a French rocker
Called himself Dick
Rivers?
If a rocker
Sound American
Better sales guaranteed
The poet said
I see rivers of blood
Where the Euphrates
Meets the Tigris
Something drones
In the far distance
An ageing rocker
Screams his life away
In paradise
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she is hushed
………………..devoid of
clear-cut scenes
………………..& dialogue
no wistful
………………..rumination
………………..or incitement
………………..no ordinance
but
………………..the loneliness
………………………………….or rather
………………..alone-ness
shreds time
………………..with pale fright
a sad end
………………..to the beginning
of her
………………..suffering
Open Heart Forgery 
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