Thursday, March 28, 2024

Poetry

VERTIGO The falcon soars far above us, a denizen of light and air circling different wind currents in a vastness that eludes us until he sees the smallest speck, a rabbit emerging from its hole, and he zooms down to capture it in less than a minute  -- like the vertigo of parachuting words on the pages of...

Poems by Katacha Díaz

The Trickster Kokopelli, I know what I know. You are the mysterious humpbacked flute-playing Casanova of the cliff dwellers of the American Southwest. Kokopelli, you are the carousing peace-loving traveling salesman seducing women in villages with your many gifts of music, dancing, and mischief. Kokopelli, having seen you in ancient Anasazi glyphs and rock art; and having spent time inside the...

Poems by Kalyani Bindu

A Fever of Living Some nights step lightly, like lily-shadows in blue water- apparitions in transit, between dreams. She awakens in a translucent purgatory- a tread from an incipient dream to a feverish slumber, to a body - a map of nocturnal metamorphosis, lacerated fish belly sewn with orange seams, eyes like butterflies in rivulets of pee, unmade and...

Poems by John Grey

THE PARTY Such a mix at her party— one worshiped his own genius. another was too flippant. a third was a freethinker, a fourth, a savant. The combination could only be uncomfortable. And throw in a hypocrite. a born pessimist, the usual boorish academics, and even the weather could not settle on rain or sunshine. Maybe the party-giver was asking too much, relied on diversity as a crutch. ended with discordance...

Poems by Jeff Schiff

Ode to Muezzins Muezzins used to climb the minaret to make the call to prayer… (after Stefan Kaegi) Oh to be on call five times daily and feat days ready to roll cocksure in your three-balled alabaster minaret outpost honeyed and hyssoped throat nose to the windscreen positioned just so between your faith and a vintage Shure 55SW anodyne mic an array...
RIVERS Should I multiply or divide my soul in rivers under sheltering domes? I have left bits of me in the Elbe and the Rhine. I have left liquid tears in the lighted Seine. Paris, Berlin, Dresden -- each city is an epic, a tome. In rose gardens in the day or beer-gardens at night I have ranged and roamed. The...

Poems by Holly Day

Along the River We point out the different birds to one another. Like teenage boys showing off their knowledge of astronomy. Find goldfinches and cedar waxwings in the trees along the river, tiny redpolls and grosbeaks chasing gnats down below. In the water, cormorants lurk, wings spread like vultures night-herons stalk lumbering carp in slow...

Poems by Gale Acuff

Tongues I don't care if Jesus died for my sins I tell my Sunday School teacher after class, He'll have to do better than that to get me to come back next week and then I leave her without saying goodbye atop the two-by-four-and-plywood porch of our trailer-classroom, or is that our classroom -trailer, whatever it is it has...
On Reflection a silent tree frog clings to broken shelves of stone rippled by the breeze water colors blend and blur illusions of perfection   Beads clusters of black pearls press into the palms of clouds— a broken necklace that slips between my fingers rains upon this garden path
The Work of Art It is just another day To be proud Happy with who I am With high self Esteem And the old broom and Mop at hand.   At the Doctor Trust, to care about Who I am As if to let me have My say Pad and pen the end Or give me a couple Words as a pathway.

Poems by B S Tyagi

Word… Word is Brahman It emerges from Hiranyagarbh And wanders in the ether Man’s heart vibrates He hears its rapturous melody And sways in ecstasy And is lost in the sacred silence. The other day… The predator pounces upon the word And preserves the kill A dictionary is compiled It hardly objects But, is it at ease? Lexicons continue multiplying And then, words…words…words… Words sans soul   Across...

Poems by Anne Babson

Before I spoke their language as a philosopher. I assumed harsh consonants accidents. I stood in long lines at their communions. They laid hands on. I listened bent forward. I sat under their lectures, taking notes. The seemed clean, free of the stain of questions. They dressed so nicely, invited me out -- Beerhall nights where we...