New Poetry by Michael Lee Johnson

Dead Grey Wolf Skins 

(Tribute:  Aldo Leopold)

Dead grey wolf skins hang

on white clotheslines across Baraboo, Wisconsin

the dark surface, side of the moon,

that only exists in memories hung high, long before.

Hunters in the past did their job well,

sold skins, collected a few bucks,

increased deer for hunting, saved cattle,

decreased fear, told tales, short stories, adventures.

The grey wolf face now emergent,

opens his mouth wide in the safety

open in blue sky.

Shows his white teeth against

background of black sky, shadow,

hears thunder again, releases 

fireflies at night, monarch butterflies

during the day, guts down pine tree spikes.

He walks once again over landscapes of turquoises.

He consumes dirt road dust, 119 miles to Milwaukee.

His keen eyes are sharp for growth of skyscraper, Pabst Building.

Traveling side roads over many years brings him to the present.

No more violators, hunters with guns, fake Jesus people

slender in His bathrobe Christ repeats two fishes, 5 loaves.

- Michael Lee Johnson 2014

MICHAEL LEE JOHNSON lived ten years in Canada during the Vietnam era:  now known as the Illinois poet, from Itasca, IL.  Today he is a poet, freelance writer, photographer who experiments with poetography (blending poetry with photography), and small business owner in Itasca, Illinois, who has been published in more than 750 small press magazines in 27 countries, he edits 8 poetry sites.  Michael is the author of The Lost American:  From Exile to Freedom (136 pages book), several chapbooks of poetry, including From Which Place the Morning Rises and Challenge of Night and Day, and Chicago Poems.  He also has over 69 poetry videos on YouTube.

New Poetry by Phillip Ellis

A Breathless, Feeble Wind

A breathless, feeble wind blows,
not even strong enough to stir the drapes,
too enervated and too insipid to be a breeze.
And I know it,
I do not feel my sweat evaporate,
but gather and trickle down my heated back,
and I seize the moment to turn on the fan,
and there is not one movement among the trees.

I am a child of the light,
I am a child who values reason and emotion alike.
Give me a poetry of the heart and head,
and I do not need a stiff breeze to relax.
I am happy with light long enough to read a rispetto,
and my life has three dreams: truth, beauty, and pleasure.


- Phillip Ellis 2014

Phillip's books

New Poetry by Tendai Mwanaka

WE WAIT AND WONDER

doctors have failed,

faith-healers have folded their hands.

witch-doctors cast no-lots,

prophets have shut their mouths.

tears have flown!

we now mourn and weep dry tears.

young and tender stolen.

nothing left, no tears to bleed.

we wait and wonder,

for a sign, a stop, a word from above.

- Tendai Mwanaka 2014

VOICES FROM EXILE, a collection of poetry on Zimbabwe’s political situation and exile in South Africa was published by Lapwing publications, Northern Ireland in 2010. KEYS IN THE RIVER: Notes from a Modern Chimurenga,  novel of interlinked stories that deals with life in  modern day Zimbabwe’s soul was published by Savant books and publications, USA 2012. A book of creative non-fiction pieces, ZIMBABWE: THE BLAME GAME, was published by Langaa RPCIG( Cameroon 2013) I was nominated for the Pushcart twice, 2008, 2010, commended for the Dalro prize 2008, work has been translated into French and Spanish. I was nominated and attended The Caine African writing workshop, 2012. From January- April 2014, I was a Mentor for 3 budding writers in CACE Africa Writivism. Published over  250 pieces of short stories, essays, memoirs, poems and photographic/visual art in over 150 magazines, journals, and anthologies in the following countries,  the USA , UK , Canada , South Africa, Zimbabwe, India , Mexico, Kenya, Cameroon, Italy, Ghana, Uganda, France , Zambia, Nigeria, Spain , Romania, Cyprus, Australia and New Zealand. 

New Poetry by Michelle Seminara

A Sudden Absence

When a sudden absence opens
where before there was a lover, or a child,
(a child’s worse, we must all agree
a child’s loss is worst), the everyday
grows almost perverse. 

Routine grinds around and round the lack
and identity, devoid of vital purpose
withers back…

Autumn’s raw draft rankles from her room —
but I don’t look; instead I close the door,
and try to cover up by loving 
the others a little more.


- Michelle Seminara 2014

New Poetry by James Walton

Autumn Break

Spooky day. Mist so low and custard thick
The river noiseless, a longboat prow
Could come across the veranda.
Cats have embraced all of yoga, curled
As mollusc shells where spines shouldn’t bend.
The orchard stripping crows are finally speechless,
Stooped in their overcoats, raggedly on guard
For something with the password.
The air’s gone tidal, receding to the call
Now of a forming universe in the melting:
A calf’s foghorn announces loss of presence,
Chickens rattle for release from the night keep.
Radio silence while this anabiotic lid
Occupies the space that was daylight saving.


- James Walton 2014

James Walton hails from South Gippsland and lives in the Strzelecki mountains. His work has appeared in: Eureka Street, Australian Love Poems - anthology,  Daily Immanence - anthology, the Wonder Book of Poetry,  and Australian Poetry. James decided to stop being a coward and quit work in January to concentrate on writing.  He is now starving, but happy, and lives with a Noah's Ark of animals.

 

New Poetry by Mark Roberts

poem (mist

it’s difficult to find the poem

in fog like this

    so thick

thoughts are shadows

a hint of meaning

you don’t dare follow

sitting here looking out

at the edge of the escarpment

         clouds

come up suddenly from the valley

targeting the house like a helicopter

in an action film

open the window & let some mist in

allow to it settle

       in a dark corner

i'll think of a use for it later

- Mark Roberts 2014

Mark Roberts is a Sydney based writer and critic. He currently edits Rochford Street Review and P76 magazine. He is also poetry editor for Social Alternatives journal. 

New Poetry by Robbie Coburn

The face of my arms
But the past forms so naturally.
an overrun of trees, thick spirals of branches
assembled in the centre of the paddock

the silence disappears
or like a periphery of abstractions
a mind walks across the body in the farmland's clearing

sits down, the body a landscape torn open
widening into distance
coordinates of wind
dream beneath my eyes

feels dark out here alone
already so full of hysteria
start with my arms
protruding veins of crumbled tissue
deadening the nerve ends

searching up and down
not for an image but an emptiness

the perpetual change stuns
risking yourself
in transfusions of a feeble red line

the point of beginning.

- Robbie Coburn 2014