Friday, September 21, 2012

A Poem by Lynn Hoffman

What he knew when
 
He should have known. He should have known.
When he saw the photo of the near-naked man on the entry table,
He should have demanded. . .something.
Maybe he should have.
Or maybe he should have put together
the strange smells she brought home on her clothes
with the odd absences
and that steely-reedy tone that she got
when she told a lie. Shit, maybe he did know.
 
But he didn't.
The place where he would have put that knowledge
was already filled up with stories he used to know
Fat stories, true stories, antibodies, songs.

All he knows now is this:
He doesn’t want to hurt anybody.
He doesn’t want to be the cause of anything.
Ahimsa, he remembers that word: harmlessness.
He would be the guy who reduces the pain in the world,
He'll take a new name, call him:
Professor Hebrewprofen
Doctor More Feen
or Kiss My Ass Perino.

It was his way all along
and that much, at least, he knew.





Wednesday, September 19, 2012

Three Poems by Jack T. Marlowe

cutting words
 
spoken
spite
like a
kitchen
knife
its blade
forged
from
sharpness
of steely
disdain
its handle
formed
from
wooden
disregard
 
words
aimed
carefully
 
she thrusts
deep, deep
into my
abdomen
then
slashes
upward
 
lightning
in reverse
 
it's the
quickest
way to
a man's
heart
 
if your
aim
isn't to
keep him
around

 

 
 

perdition express
 
love is a
drunken
train
hauling
a line of
groaning
freight
cars
a mile
long
 
each one
filled with
broken
promises
as the
whole
lot
jugger-
nauts
along
in
suicide
circles
 
while
the grim
engineer
looks for
the first
oppor-
tunity
 
to
jump
the
stinking
track

 



one more broken heart on the boulevard
 
she intro-
duced me
to the
street
in a way
that i
hadn't
expected
 
no choice
really, but
to crawl
away
 
amazed
at how
well she
played
the victim
when i
said good-
bye to
romance
 
kissing
the hot
pavement
 
 
as the
bitch
scraped
me off
the
bottom
of her
shoes


 


Jack T. Marlowe is a gentleman rogue from Dallas, TX. A writer
of poetry and fiction and a veteran of the open mic, his work has
appeared in Handful of Dust, Visceral Uterus, ThunderSandwich,
Dead Snakes, The Vein, Underground Voices & elsewhere. Jack
is also the mad editor/webmaster of Gutter Eloquence Magazine

Sunday, September 9, 2012

A Poem by P.R. McDowell

Anguish

Ruined,
Heart in a vice grip.
Crushed,
Soul broke from longing.

Torn,
Voice cracked by emotion of words of love no longer allowed to be spoken.
Incomplete,
Laid out cold,
Pained,
With no one to calm tears.

Broken,
Heart on sleeve,
Unwanted,
And never truly heard.



P.R. McDowell is a writer of poetry, scripts and generally anything which sparks his creativity. Since late 2006 he has begun to be known for his writing. During 2008/2009 he had poems published on the online gallery Sometimes When I Wake At Night, where he was a featured artist.
He began performing poetry at the Freed Up! poetry night which was done monthly at the now closed Greenroom in Manchester & hosted by Dominic Berry and Steve O'Connor, where along with other long time regular performers there, he became known as a Freed Up! veteran.
P.R. has also performed at the 2011 Environlution Festival; wrote a collaborated poem titled “Twist the Knife” with the poet Graham Halsey, and has performed at events including Poets Get Mashed, Magical Animals, Stirred, Beatification, Bang Said The Gun: Manchester, Guitar n’ Verse, and Once More With Meaning (which he was a guest compére at).

He is currently preparing for the start of production of his first independent film "True Colours" and is also the founder of the arts organisation Light In The Dark (founded by himself, the photographer Damien Hayward, and the poet Nadeem Zafar in August 2011). Light In The Dark is an arts organisation unlike any other, run by artists for artists with the aim to get a venue of its own to run as a community-based hub providing a performance platform for artists; they are also a support development source for aspiring artists by providing them with support & development (advice, guidance & PDP’s).

Friday, September 7, 2012

A Poem by Seamas Carraher

LETTER TO A BELOVED
 
Love, i am wasting
in this hundred years of our exile,
my chest nailed in disease
with other people's debris.
Listen, the concrete
is throwing stones here
in despair.
Nothing can grow and
the killing won't stop.
i have crossed this threshold
between time and our timelessness
on the veins of my wrist.
All the trains are on time,
this is no extraordinary crisis
in a century of greed.
My knives were sharpened on my mother's milk.
i still cross
this country of our homecoming,
a flag burning
in subversion for the dead.
Love, the time is late, and
spring an unknown season
half full
of shooting and bombing,
with fear groaning in all its hollows.
On this point in the unwinding of space
i sit and tease the pain on the point
of your nipples.
i remember your claws that
scratched my old wounds.
i remember when the rage stopped,
your face peaceful like a child.
And then i remembered
a time when the feeding was full
and it was elsewhere,
more human in our futuring,
and another time in its truces,
and with that note cracking your
sleeping forehead
and the day breaking in segments
between our fingers
i joined your thighs with my maleness,
laughing,
at the unwinding of war,
the permanent nature of losses.
 
 
 
Séamas Carraher was born in Dublin, Ireland in 1956. He lives and writes on the Ballyogan estate, in south County Dublin, at present.
Recent publications include poems in Dead Flowers, Pyrokinection, Dead Snakes, Carcinogenic Poetry, Naphalm & Novacain, The Camel Saloon, ditch, Bone Orchard Poetry, Istanbul Literary Review and Pemmican. Previously his work has been published in Left Curve (No. 13, 14 & 20), Compages, Poetry Ireland Review, the Anthology of Irish Poetry and the Irish Socialist (newspaper).

Wednesday, September 5, 2012

A Poem by Phil Barnes

This IS a love poem
You can't understand the pyromaniac in me.
The desire to love and then set flame to the feeling
to pour rum on it and watch the light from destruction play in the air and mock your senseless building.
Pursuing flimsy shit
like comfort while cavorting with a beast
I have no pity for you
(you wanted it)
You took the shit
(you wanted it)
Even when the recognition of evil was so blatant you had to hum and whistle to block out the sounds of your bones being crushed
you stayed
(you wanted it)
Even when the carefully crafted look in my eyes changed from friend to foe and the heat from my gaze threatened to leave a mark
you still held out your hands
palms up
And when I finally found the place to cut you
where the pain would be the most exquisite
and I went about carving my real name
even then when you looked up at me and saw there was no room for you
that there never had been
Even when the veil came down and the teeth came out
you still blindly reached for my hand and tried to tell me things about love.
 
Phil Barnes (who is a she) is a poet and fiction writer currently residing in Uptown, Mpls with her Beta Mayhem.  While this is her first attempt at publication, she has shared her work at multiple events including the 2011 St. Paul Art Crawl, Chronicles from the Wall-a First Friday event and several random gatherings of writers in dark taverns.  She will also be hosting an event for the upcoming 2012 St. Paul Art Crawl.
 
 

Monday, September 3, 2012

A Poem by Agholor Leonard Obiaderi

DOUBLE-EDGED SWORD 
 
It is called the magic
of flapping heart-beats,
the emotion that drives you
to kill those whom you love.
 
You wait patiently by
the door while your lover sleeps with
someone else.
 
You crave your mother’s
bosom, your lover’s
breasts.
 
Tear out your
heart and fling it into the streets,
with its pipes,
tubes and longing.
 
Douse this
volcano of desire. You may
self-destruct.
 
The heart-shaped sword
lies between
the pillow and pink letters piled
in neat folds.
 
It sparks your
ruin. Cuts your heart to
pieces.
 
 
 
AGHOLOR LEONARD OBIADERI holds a Bachelor's degree in the English Language.He teaches in a secondary school in Delta State, Nigeria but also finds time for his hobbies which include writing poetry and reading crime novels. His poems have been published in UptheStairCase Quarterly; Barnwood International Magazine; and Shortstory Library.

Saturday, September 1, 2012

A Poem by Susan Dale

IT DIDN’T FEEL LIKE DRIFTING
       

You went away one October day.
I told myself we drifted apart

Though my heart doesn’t remember it that way

Drifting___ is morning mist
burning into full-fledged day

Shadows into sunlight

Winds: wanderers

But you leaving that brisk November day
That was howling gales hurling
sharp objects into helpless creatures

Powerful waves
Crashing the shore in rampages
To carry off
my sad and broken heart




Susan’s poems and fiction are on Eastown Fiction, Tryst 3, Word Salad, Pens On Fire, Ken *Again, Hackwriters, and Penwood Review. In 2007, she won the grand prize for poetry from Oneswan.