July, 2020

Nature's Music

By Michael Shane Love – Lake Stevens, WA

Sitting around the firetelling stories into night;singing songs and sharing laughter,everything just feels all right.
Roasting the marshmallows,being with the ones you love.There is nothing like the nighttime sky,so many stars above.
As some stumble off to sleeplet yourself rise from by the fire;hear the pops and snaps of the woodbeginning to expire.
Walk to the water's edgeas if almost without choice;the crickets and frogs call to you,hypnotic is their voice.
Somewhere in the darknessa fish jumps into the air,splashing back into the water,nature's music takes you there.
Nature's music brings a smileso I send her song to youmy dear friend for every smile,every loving thing you do.

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Transparencies

By Michael Shane Love – Lake Stevens, WA

Of them all your eyes I will always love the best.As now, here we look at each other.Our faces tight.Strained.Your mouth moves like a fish with of course no soundand I wonder what that is all about.
One of many in your waiting line.I have become transparent waiting with all of the other transparencies.We look at each other.Empty.We do not understand.
It seems we ride along on some kind of supernatural conveyor.It twists and it turns like a snake but of course eventually leading to you.To you and your eyes, ah those eyes, which I will always love the best.Eyes with an almost haunted, sheepish look.
But the conveyor.It moves though it seems like eternity.Sometimes one of us passes by on an "S" curve looking at nothing.Looking through transparencies.How it clicks and clatters with its numbing electric hum.
Up ahead you absorb.You absorb another transparency in one ethereal hand.We ride the rails.We ride the "S" curves never really understanding.Never really aware.
We are not meant to understand.You are not meant to understand.All we are meant to do is ride the rails.Ride the conveyor mouthing words at each other,never really knowing what it is all about.

Love Comes

By Tamara Fey Turner - Mission Hills, CA

Sleep is said to be like whispers of silenceThat some have claimed to know most intimatelySwearing by her sweetnessSo as I lay here awaiting my princess within the nightNight after night after night againI realize that this witch has set me up!There is no sleep that will comeOnly something colder and sinisterSomething madding The sound of stars rustling through darknessAs they fly across a pitch black sheet of spaceOnly the lonely may hear thisKnow from where they comeDream of where they goFor of millions There are but a fewMaybe one or noneWho have swum within the salt of tearsDrunk from the dusk of elationAs it cascades down the sides of existenceWhere sea turtles go to dieA place of hollow shells and stories with shallow desiresNo one has laid to waste the memory of things They have yet to learnA time that will never comeThat single wishStrikes fear into the obscurityScreamingShadows wither and expireAs the nothingBecomes a love story Never told to those with ears Belief in something of even less faith For the massesWhile one soul of two bodiesSteals away with the very breathAll others thought to be useless as the undergrowthDevours the day of their youthMountains spew forth colors of the timeless birdsCaressing the spirit with understandings Of the days that created themselvesFrom the slick paths unto the gravel where Destiny plows into the earth form roads Filling hearts of magikMoon drags sleepily through purple desertsHeart beats gentlyRockets through time Creating a laughter that echoesUnder covers as snowflakes perishOn a precious warm noseEyes become emeralds under beautiful shimmersFrom light years awayMy heart melts while her breath speaksThe language that only I can translateLoving her is enchantment unto itselfCarrying with it beauty to gloria for the simpleMortals to behold with pale sockets and dull heartsFor it is her touch that brings fire forthBe as one for as oneWe are never apart for love is massed of all thingsIncluding the fresh taste of fanciful slumberThe End

One Song

By David Sapp – Berlin Heights, OH

Usually, my infatuation is one movement of one sonata,The Tempest, its allegretto, again and again, but in the car,back and forth from work, weary of news, I tend to thriveupon a repetition of one song, youth’s enthusiasm for love,before love becomes routine. I rewind the tape deck,count to twenty – my passé technology, again and again.I suppose I might have loved many songs. I accept my fixation. Certainly, the lyrics are not profound, but there’s one, enduring phrase, one melody, a synchrony of emotion,adhering to memory, too embarrassing, the words too trite,too telling to let on, its resonance ringing only in my ears.Still, I long to hear it, again and again. Will the tumbler drop in place? Clack. If I decipher this one song, it shall unlockthe mystery of everything.

ANOTHER I AM POEM

JUANITA TORRENCE-THOMPSON

I am a teapot brewing peppermint teaI am a jump rope in the school yardI am an airplane circling the globeI am an idea waiting to be formedI am a motorcycle skimming down the highwayI am a washing machine scouring troubles awayI am a magic pen that writes poemsI am a cellphone that doesn’t ringI am a theatre with a hit showI am a maple tree kids love to climbI am an apostrophe waiting to explodeI am a computer with more questions than answers If I am all these things, what do I look like?

A Gentle Imperative

By Jesse James Doty – Eureka, CA

I pour my cup of empathyinto an endless stream. I search the rushing water to secure my self esteem.
To find my heart I lose myself in other's suffering.Helping those in need gives me surprising peace supreme.
If ever I come close enough to truly being me my honest nature will belong to living out my dream.
So pour a cup of empathy and watch the steam rise the love you give anticipates a gift of compromise.

“ About Brook… “

By Linda Amos – York, PA

He had been smooth,Polished,A master manipulator. He set goals.How-to hurt this person…How-to-steal funds from friends…How to blame others for his failures….How to play on the sympathies of women. Every move of hisAs soon as he opened his eyesIn the morningWas about how to get his way. She knew the way he operatedYet she always seemedTo fall under his spell of deception and deceit.She just had no ideaJust how shrewd he was….

Over the Moon

By Jennifer Lagier – Monterey, CA

"Beneath a sky thrown open To the need of stars To know themselves against the dark."~ Joy Harjo, "Seven Generations" Full moon above bare oak branches.Tiny diamonds burn through onyx firmament, spill silver meteors. Calla lilies thrust pointy green pokersunfold white flagons, collect crystal dropletsfrom moist evening mist. Luminescence floods midnight gardenwhere a glittery-eyed possum hisses before she squeezes beneath picket fence. Whirling spatter of streaking stars revolves around celestial lunar spotlight, its rainbow halo pulsing muted colors toward slumbering earth.

Finding My Center

By Jon Bush – Belmont, MA

Lonely is an emotion I feelWhen I am not quite connected with myBetter self.Missing the thrill of creatingArt or poetry,Or a meaningful talk withA good friendIn a book or at the theaterLoneliness guides my feetTo the MuseumTo really see,Now I am full.

IDOL GOSSIP

By TerryLee – San Antonio, TX

"It's Friday! It's Payday!" "This is perhaps one of the best Rock 'n Roll song-lyrics ever written. Well-balanced, and succinct, iambic pentameter. The chorus, itself, is a brilliant conceit (an elaborate metaphor). All it needs is music." by Milo Rosebud, Editor, LONE STARS Poetry Magazine. "I am not the kind to kiss 'n tell;This is the story of a jealous man.I call this one: IDOL GOSSIP

My Girl, tell me, what am I to do?I Love you so much, I just don't want to share you.But, everytime you get a call from some old flame song,I go so crazy I could scream your name out in the hall. At a movie, to a dance, for a drive, a kiss or two;Best friends, and lovers; ain't nothing we wouldn't do.True romance novels got nothing on we two.That's what friends are for, tried and true. My name on your lips is the song I long to hear.To the tune of I Love You, it'd be music to my ears.Now, this life's a small town, and idol gossip makes the news.But, everybody knows I'm in Love with you. Chorus: ("Wait for it ...")Just like Long Tall Sally, Oh Donna, Peggy Sue;Proud Mary, Sweet Cherry, and Suzie Q;Gloria, Lil' Sister, Linda Lou;Heart 'n Soul 'a Rock 'n Roll 'a; I'm in Love with you." by TerryLee © 2020 from SONGS UNSUNG.Published in OMNIFIC 1991.Presented at Sun Poet's Society, Aug. 17, 2016.

We breathe an ill wind

By d. n. simmers – British Columbia, Canada

After Denise Levertov
The foothold of claws collectthe masts of fog and shallows.
Along the full moon bark of the living.
Tide changing toes pointing and pushing morning as a plane lunges across the sky.
Climbing and descending like a steel bird.
Circling the obviousthe deviousthe blindlikea snake paintedred that slinkshis tongue againstmoonlight.
A milk it had tasted before but
there is no care as to when that was or why.

My kingdom my kingdom for a horse

by Marc Carver - Basingstoke Hants, England

As I run through the covid in the countryside a woman on a horse stops the car behind herand crosses the road into a field with water aching from its limbs and into a tiny river.She gallops along and I catch her up.Can I borrow your horse I say and she laughs and says something I don't quite catch I will give it back to you I say.Then I carry on on my legs that can hardly carry me farther and I don't think of the end of the world at all++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

END TIMES

by Marc Carver - Basingstoke Hants, England

The towns are like ghost towns now without the ghosts They are all herded inside the bunkers of hell with nothing to do but wait and pray and suddenly everything looks different. Life will never be the same againnever and mankind finally got what it deserved.++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

METIER

by Marc Carver - Basingstoke Hants, England

I stroke the keys wait for music to comebut I am no musician I can't play a dam thing.Told a woman today that I write poetry that is my job she asked me what about.I told her lifeshe said she knew I would say that.About what life puts in front of me,I don't know why I told her I write poetryperhaps because I needed to tell her so I can sit here and stroke these keys.Who knows what makes a man,

The Paths We Choose

By Joyce Gage – Chadwick, MO

There are many paths to choose from.Sure, you may stumble or get lostBut you can always go back.
Sometimes you may stumble and slipBut you're never truly alone.For a mother's loveWill always welcome you home.
A mother loves her child,No matter what path they chooseA mother will always be thereWin or lose
A mother cries if her child criesA mother encourages her child no matter what the child tries.
Paths are there waiting to be takenAnd a mother will always love her child even if they are mistaken
You can choose your pathBut you can't choose your mother,She's the only one you haveAnd she's like no other.

Beholding Beauty

By Perry Terrell - San Francisco, CA

While shopping in theGrocery storeA man kissed his wife
Some kids laughed and snickeredBecause they thoughtShe was uglyAnd one could tellThey were both homeless
Her face was scarredAnd somewhat disfiguredOnlookers did not knowWhy or what had happenedBut her husbandCould seeHer beautyAnd with the warm loving lookAnd gentle touchShe gave himAnd her knowing lookThat she was not aloneI could see her beauty too.

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