Saturday, April 30, 2016

A Poem by Paul Tristram


Over Blue Cheese Dressing

He broke her down to ghostlike
within a matter of premeditated merciless minutes.
Words poisoned with an unfair, exaggerated truth
when not completely false and cruel
with no other purpose than being hurtful.
She sat shocked and temporarily defenseless,
letting this new reality slowly suffocate
and smother her funny bone battered senses.
Unable to comprehend the Changeling
now sitting smirking wickedly before her.
When that narcissistic actor's mask slips
and you first see that disgusting beast
squirming naked within its seething ugliness
heaven dies somewhere deep inside of your.
They think they've tricked you and they have
but they've also unwittingly tricked themselves.
You will recover, slowly and in time
but they will never again find a heart and love
as pure and true as yours to soothe their troubled soul.
In the end karma always settles its debts
and they have damned themselves to all but falseness.




Paul Tristram is a Welsh writer who has poems, short stories, sketches and photography published in many publications around the world, he yearns to tattoo porcelain bridesmaids instead of digging empty graves for innocence at midnight; this too may pass, yet.  But his books "Scribblings of a Madman" (Lit Fest Press) http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1943170096 "Poetry from the Nearest Barstool" at http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1326241036 and a split poetry book "The Raven and the Vagabond Heart" with Bethany W Pope at http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1326415204  You can also read his poems and stories here:  http://paultristram.blogspot.co.uk/



Friday, April 29, 2016

A Poem by Pearse Murray


You Pulled Me

And you said that I was your sunglow.
But you also said, "Not too close," reminding me
That the sun's function is to warm the earth
not to burn it.
You hopped on a freight train which rolled
On steel-silk lines across the Prairie
And dipped into the horizon
Vibrating my heart's yearnings.
For the distance and nearness of you
My body asks where did you go?
The scream in the heart
Cannot fully hold, cannot fully let go.
You tug at me but you are not there.
Will distance become our way of life?
And as the cooling of the heart reaches its frazzle,
I cannot add more silence to the silence of longing.




Pearse Murray has published poems and short fiction in a wide variety of print and online media.  He was born in Ireland and lives in upstate New York.





Wednesday, April 27, 2016

A Poem by Norma Ketzis Bernstock


Cleaning House

He's in her pantry,
in the jars of sauce,
the Old Bay tin,
the mushroom cans.
He's in the fridge,
the second shelf,
the olive tapenade.
On the left,
the produce drawer,
blueberries and red.

She's cleaning house,
sweeping out,
removing signs of him:
the books he left,
the socks and shorts,
slippers by the door,
the sateen sheets he loved so much,
he loved her on those sheets.
She'll wash and scrub and bleach them clean,
the sheets belong to her.
She'll sleep on sheets he never touched,
she'll sleep alone,
              alone.




Norma Ketzis Bernstock lives in Milford, Pennsylvania.  Her poetry has appeared online and in many print journals and anthologies including Connecticut River Review, Paterson Literary Review, Lips and Stillwater Review.  Her most recent chapbook, Don't Write a Poem About Me After I'm Dead, was published in 2011 by Big Table Publishing.  Her previous achievements include a Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation Scholarship to the  Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Massachusetts and recognition by the Allen Ginsberg Poetry Awards.