View Issue vol. 13, no. 7
ISSN 2369-6516 (Print)
ISSN 2369-6524 (Online)
Scroll down to read all poems, or select the poem title to go directly to that poem. Select the author’s name to view a short biography (if supplied) and all poems by that author.
Matthew de Lacey Davidson – Ars longa, vita brevis
Harry Garrison – Screen Presence
Mike McFetridge – Sadie Was a Lady
Jonathan Olfert – Ghost at the Shoreline
Robert John Schwarzmann – Bulrushes
Screen Presence
Haiku by Harry Garrison
The background is full
of some really good extras
working extra hard.
With Grace
Poem by Teresa Kilbride
Noting lines on your face
a map
you are going somewhere
always
meeting pain in the body
with love
making peace
hard to see
from the outside
a relationship with self
is blossoming.
Carrying the body through it
meeting the Divine
around corners clothed
in skin of crushed velvet
eyes are jewels
blue veins
watercolour.
Into self for secrets
that want to be held
in a world full
of secrets not kept
you notice what comes
as passions
remembrances
in wisps and thuds
to a mind fiercely
attached to being.
Ghost by the Shoreline
Poem by Jonathan Olfert
Too far, too brave
Down where the rocks turn black
And swells tug at your feet
A hand emerges first, a lantern glints
Off braided kelp and sea-glass eyes
She tells you no
Turn back, last chance
To be more wise than I was
i have questions
Poem by Emma Fleet
How long was it? How long was I in the dark?
Was there only one, or more?
Was it purely emotional, or did it turn physical?
How long was it? When did our love
turn into something you couldn’t talk about?
When did the love fade so much that you thought
someone else would be able to fulfill you?
Am I not enough? When did I stop being enough?
How long was it?
If there was any want I need to be answered
it would be this: when did things turn so sour
that your mouth felt fuzzy and unable to speak the truth?
Oh love, when did I stop being enough?
Did the summer heat turn into something else for you?
Cranes
Poem by Mark Ryan
the cranes sit statuesque
motionless, before winds prevail
littering the skyline
jeweled matrices perched adjacent to condominium sills
in formation, wings skim the break
celebratory as apostles upon Judah’s bounty
the cranes, the cranes –
leaning from a hurricane’s whisper
diving for smelt tornadoes, banished
banished to the shores of metropolis horizons
omnipotent, figurative
shape-shifting within the city’s thought-scapes
alight in metaphor, sentimental provocation –
starlit bonfires.
Hope
Poem by Lorie Morris
Hope, is all one has.
Hope, is not always
easy. Hope, seems weak.
Hope, sounds like giving, in!
Hope, is all anyone has.
Hope, sometimes is what, we
hold on to.
Been Where?
Poem by Rod Stewart
The neighbors say,
You’re clad in pink
Flip flop, flip flops,
Before the June bugs buzz,
And nearly ‘til
The pumpkins grin.
I’ve heard so often
Your footsteps patter,
Beneath the treetop din
Chirping brightly
From dawn to dusk.
Or even when,
The summer sighs
With burdened gray,
Your mother’s said
You’ve skipped
Through mired lanes
Of ocean puddles
With circled smiles.
So whisper please
Of your travel tales
To imagined lands,
And we’ll blame the dog,
For the mud and dirt,
When your mother comes.
Summer
Haiku by John Earle
The sky is azure.
The oak leaves yearn for sunshine.
Frost mocks their folly.
Sadie Was a Lady
Poem by Mike McFetridge
Sadie was a lady, and like a lady does,
She had her ways, and she had her days,
But she was loved because
She didn’t always listen, or couldn’t,
Because she was deaf;
And she didn’t mind everyone yelling,
Which was sometimes good for a laugh
She never learned anything practical,
And, if loose, would run away;
Where she came from was never known
Because she started as a stray;
Always underfoot, Sadie seemed to be;
But when one is small among the tall,
One lives life dangerously
She loved to sleep, but not quietly;
She snored like a drunken sailor;
Sprawled on a mat, or anything like that,
She was quite a wailer!
But now she is forever asleep
And peaceful as can be;
While we may miss her doggy face,
It is now quiet as can be!
Love is Love
A Reverse Poem by Poppy Walsh
LGBTQ+ isn’t beautiful
So don’t tell me that
We are all human
At the end of the day
Girls can only love boys
Boys can only love girls
Forget the idea that
It’s okay
It’s allowed
No matter your gender
No matter who you love
Support everyone
We agree that we need to
Discriminate against people for who they are
We can’t
Love everyone
We should
Divide the world into pink and blue, black and white
We should never have to
Change our society
We demand
No rainbows
No colours
We cannot live in a world with
New ideas
We are not open to
So don’t tell me that
Love is love
NOW READ AGAIN FROM BOTTOM TO TOP
Waiting
Poem by Brian Harding
There sits my phone, standing tall in its cradle.
It rarely rings.
Perhaps like my alarm clock
I should wind it up?
Then it might ring more often.
Ars longa, vita brevis
Poem by Matthew de Lacey Davidson
If the edifice could speak,
Magniloquent would be its voice.
We choose to witness sights, antique;
the Aqueduct has little choice.
Segovia has other joys:
Cathedral and the Alcazar,
an ancient wall, therein deploys
the visitors to near and far.
But see the Aqueduct above –
shows history is seldom fair.
The water does not flow thereof:
utility no longer there.
And juxtaposed, the tourists moan:
a fast-food sign beside the stone.
Bulrushes
Poem by Robert John Schwarzmann
Last year’s dry tan-coloured stalks,
And frail wind-torn brown grasses,
Broken by fierce winter ice storms,
Are ignored by Spring’s bulrushes.
From the lake depths they grow,
Like giant blades of deep-green grass
Soon taller than any human’s reach.
Stems with long seed pods at the top,
First light green, then dark-brown,
Furry cylinders, releasing white fluff
Of seeds into the cooler autumn air.
By winter the bulrushes once again
Empty tan-coloured stalks,
The tall blades of dry brown grass,
Frail, broken, blown away forever
By this winter’s fierce ice storms.
Ruts II
Poem by Claudette Bouman
In a rut you inch, only digging deeper
A nest is a rut, until young wings hold
The red maple seed thought it lived in a rut
Until it took root and grew
Now its butterfly seeds populate winds
Escaping ruts transports us into interior lives
To discover spaces of promise
To find art in the power of action
Rewriting a life of memories
Where spinning kernels hypnotize in breezes
And seed-parachutes wing off to dream
Rut’s opposite is
The breadth of a heron’s wings sculpting mists
And a cardinal’s cheer piercing green spaces
Beneath a rangy, liquid sky
Cosmic Dust
Poem by Tim Covell
“for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return”
– Genesis 3:19
I will build no Taj Mahal
No monuments
No epic verse
To last through centuries.
I’ll imbue atoms of me
To seek out yours
In time and space
To bond eternally.
Their stares
Poem by Gordon Young
Their faces have ruts.
Life’s erosion.
…Time-cuts
at the edge of milky eyes,
Behind which each soul be-cries
Peaceful closure,
Having seen more
Than aggregate can endure,
Living through
Has revealed nothing new.
“There were no invaders
No liberators
Only power and oppression”
And shelter sought amidst aggression.
Extant memories float on tears,
And sighs give voice to fears.
Into the void of God
Where only metaphor has trod
They set their aging stares.
Why I Wrote this Poem
Within weeks of the invasion of Ukraine I spent a day in the Museum of Peace in Tallinn (Estonia). The Estonians have preserved the history of their struggle for independence, in the faces and stories of individual survivors. The words in quotes are my best recollection of what one subject said as he presented his story.
Haggard Word
Poem by David Du
A thought has been dyed, its color
Remains a pale dot.
A dream has been submerged in the ocean
And was damaged by a boat.
An implosion buried in the record
Remains a sigh.
I don’t know why I’m no longer writing anything
But I understand the world has been changed – all the
Words are broken.
Why I Wrote this Poem
Right now the world has been changed, not only due to COVID – something happened that never had before. And absolutely I can use words to express it…
Open Heart Forgery
Hi there My name is misspelled it was spell Lorrie not Lorie . Can you please correct it!. LorieMorris
Hello! Sorry about that, it’s been corrected. Have a good day!