After Your Surgery by Michael Neal Morris

After Your Surgery
by Michael Neal Morris

My book is read; the computer is down

I have little to do

but listen to hospital sounds:

hisses and grunts of machines

you not snoring

nurses sliding around

on tiny shoes, adoring

the numbers they’ve seen.

I like most of the quiet here

but I hope we can go home soon.

We haven’t been alone so long

in ages, and everyone is friendly.

But my world doesn’t take

doctor’s notes. My brain won’t grant

sick days. I must enjoy the sun

through windows, the wind through pages

flipping, and rest by clicking keys.

Michael Neal Morris has published short stories, poems, and essays in a number of print and online venues. Collections of his work are listed at Smashwords. He lives with his family just outside the Dallas area, and teaches at Eastfield College.  http://mnmwrite.blogspot.com/

Acts of Magick by Laurie Corzett

Acts of Magick
by Laurie Corzett

If our will’s work is to be done,
We must go out and do it
Action, once begun,
Has beauty and power to it
Aiming true to course
Needs thought and reflection
Feed movement from the source
Of our yearn toward perfection

The play is never done
Each and every one
Performing through their part
Reinvents our start

So join the song, and sing your tune
Dance strong beneathe a rousing Moon
Another day, another seed
Bursts out into the Sun

 

Laurie Corzett/libramoon
seeking outlet for those crazy thoughtstreams, is always moving into new (or resurrected) projects, including Emerging Visions visionary art ‘zine:http://emergingvisions.blogspot.com — Issue #21: Threshold Revelations invites you to take in trance lucence.

Walking Away by John J Kazlauskas

Walking Away
by John J Kazlauskas

I thought it would be easy
to just walk away
with no explanation
like players after a game

they pass each other and say
nice game

but down deep they don’t mean it
how can you congratulate
someone

who just beat you
as if it was not that important
just a diversion of sorts
a way to pass the afternoon

but later when you are alone
sitting at the dinner table

you realize that it was
the hardest thing
you ever had to do.

 

 

John J Kazlauskas is retired and living in Tucson Arizona where he writes, paints, swims and cooks. This is his first attempt to get his work published.

Remember The Deed, Remember by Benjamin Norris

Remember The Deed, Remember

by Benjamin Norris

A new illness creeps and leaves – a wave that

takes the flesh off my bones and returns it quietly

every few seconds I become anew and

we talk of pasts and strangle landscapes

ignoring changes outside our door

you stay sitting, throwing up old lives as though

nothing will remind you of rings, a move, the day

you created someone real while

I slowly gathered closer, my days reshaping

in my feet. A distraction: I can be there, too.

Benjamin Norris is a poet and lecturer from Wales who currently resides in Budapest, where he lectures Indian Cultural Studies and Art History at a leading university. His poetry is mainly preoccupied with a sense of longing for distance from familiarity, whilst being unable to escape one’s roots and the trappings which come with culture.

His poetry has been published in collections, newspapers and magazines varying from Exberliner, Artwurst, Magpie Magazine, all three printed journals of the IIAL, The Guardian, Scopophilia, The Love of Looking, Bristol Stories, Tales from the Big Smoke and several more, and he is seeking new venues in which to show his latest work which differs greatly from previous pieces.

http://aviewfromacarpark.wordpress.com

Tonight’s Argument by Anna Stuart

Tonight’ s Argument
by Anna Stuart

It is a brazen word you carve
into the air tonight.

Your vocabulary abruptly
shatters all my arguments.

I lose my strong hold
of stubborn justifications.

“I love you no matter what.”
flies across the room

hitting me harder than
I ever dreamed any words would.

I surrender knowing I lost the argument
but still have won you.

 

Anna Stuart lives and writes in New Jersey.

Fever in Ivory by Melanie Browne

Fever in Ivory
by Melanie Browne

the partridge rosette that sits on her head,
shredded remnants of spring scattered
across the stonehenge
of her heart,

She doesn’t  pray for
Spring’s  return
like all the others-
instead she sits and waits

her  heart counter to
the precambrian wind,
she is frozen
in time,

like a statue of Mary,
far from Jerusalem,

the hammer of wintertide
colossal clock of winter

 

Melanie Browne is a poet and fiction writer living in Texas. 

From a Child’s Eye View by Shirley Robertson

From a Child’s Eye View
by Shirley Robertson

children don’t notice long lines of traffic
they hear the windshield wipers going doo-roop, doo-roop
they hear the rain dripping
the cars swooshing by
they see semis, much more enormous than dad’s SUV
they see wind tossing leaves across the interstate
the ten red cars passing
they feel the rain tickle their fingers through the open window
they feel the cool, wet air
the damp seats
and are startled to learn that the windows
MUST BE ROLLED UP NOW!

Shirley Robertson is a poet and blogger from St. Louis, Missouri, former editor of The End, a literary magazine, and Morning Coffee, a newsletter.  Her new e-book of short verse and haiku is now available for free download: http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/119212

Malibu Mornings by Ariel Westberg

Malibu Mornings (2004)
by Ariel Westberg

Each hour treads hastily upon bliss
and fleeting desolation.

Upon love and hate, even as the trees
gently call my name,
as the ocean is serene….

The tip of ocean’s tongue lapping at my toes;
granules of sand finding their way home
as this breeze is destined to my skin….

These sightless waves, they do not discern.
They reach indiscriminately
between a woman who believes that she does belong….
and a woman who does not.

But my lovely life winds down the bend
with knowing grins.
It gives me these Malibu mornings.

If I could do what a woman would do
maybe I’ll learn to be unafraid.

But my love does not fathom its enormitity.
And my strength doesn’t realize its mission.

Young and unhinged, as I sail along
the cocophany of the shore.

All I want is to belong
to everything
and everyone.

As the ocean wants for nothing.

 

 

Ariel Westberg is a poet and singer-songwriter from Los Angeles.  She attended the Evergreen State College and Cornish College of the Arts in Washington State where she studied writing, classical composition and vocal jazz.  She has been writing poetry, drawing, and singing since she was a small child.  Writing has always been her first love.  Her work has appeared in various poetry publications and she is currently writing a childrens’ novel.

Meaning by Aashish Thakur

Meaning
by  Aashish Thakur

I called a tree- ‘Tree’
Tree laughed,
And said-‘I am the wind’
I called the wind-‘Wind’
Wind smiled
And said- ‘I am the cloud’
Then I shout the name -’ Cloud’
I saw the lightning and thunder
Angry cloud said-‘ How dare you, I am the rain’
Then I asked  the rain- ‘How are you river?’
After that, my legs never got dirty
And I never felt thirsty

 

 

Aashish Thakur, a young poet from India. His poems look at the world through the oriental lenses. The myriad colors and subjects of life bloom in his poem but with a very personal tone of voice. Which defines his own existence in this absurd world. 

Thanksgiving by Johanna Donovan

Thanksgiving
by Johanna Donovan

The willow’s leaf-drops silver

the asphalt, mingle with the star-light

of fallen oak leaves. There is no bird

song but Zoe’s collar tags jingle joy

beside me. She’s thankful for the walk.

My loves are scattered like dandelion

bracts in the wind. In Eldorado Springs,

the eldest bastes turkeys for thirty

as I remember him at seven, his eyes

shining new friends. Our daughter drives

to a New Jersey airport  to collect

an Italian beau discovered  on a Greek

island (My nightmares fence with great

expectations). The youngest  rides

a downdraft,  thankful that I will not

make him partake of the in-laws’ turkey

with extra servings of mashed

queries and green dreams. Or should I

make him? My husband endures his

fifteenth Thanksgiving away from all

of us though he has never complained.

This day and every other, I give

thanks for us even as we occupy

our varied climes, and for this passion

to record, which peels the skin

from my eyes  and warms me

like a shawl on winter shoulders.

 

 

Johanna Donovan is a transplanted Swiss who lives in New England.