New Poetry by Gerald Bosacker

The Almost Horse

Nothing more stubborn or more a fool,
than the genuine Arkansas mule,
that hill folks consider a farming tool.

Why would some obstinate half wit
fit his dumb mule with bridle and bit
then hope to steer this hybrid misfit?

Yes, they can out-pull a normal horse,
yet what they do with all that force
is stubbornly pick their own way of course.

Making a stopped mule to get up and go,
perversely just holler out whoa,
then what makes them stop, I do not know.

Male donkeys functioned as the mules dad,
and compliant mares turn quite sad
seeing the strange offspring they then had.

Hybrids might help the corn grow so tall 
but cross-breeding did not help at all
farmers to put mules in a horse's stall!


- Gerald Bosacker 2017

Originally destined to become a crusading journalist or witty editorialist, Gerald Bosacker was forced by family responsibilities to abandon his part-time jobs and night school classes at the University of Minnesota, to work fulltime in the graphic arts salesman. There, his love of the well chosen word enabled him to become a successful graphic arts supply salesman who migrated upward, propelled by serendipity coupled with his tolerance and empathy for faulted people, to become senior vice president of sales for a large international printing chemical company.   

Promoted much beyond his ambition and capability, he jumped at early retirement at his first opportunity. Gerald Bosacker now lives in Montanas, awaiting discovery of his social commentary skills. He has resumed his first love, weaving words into prize-winning poetry and surprising short tales that borrow heavily from the fascinating people he met in his world-wide travels.

New Poetry by Abigail George

Must travel

(for my sister)

The day has
a moth like quality to it. I make a cup of tea (always for one). 
Boil the
water in the
microwave oven while

old poems
make way for new poems. Once, I lived in grassroots country. Rural
countryside.
Mbabane, Swaziland.

(Boarding school). Slowly
my flesh is emptying out. Winter making way for spring’s milky sweetness,
summer’s pleasure and
waves of heat, autumn’s gift.

Slowly, I climb back
into their world. Standing in the sun sipping my cup of tea for one.
I sit and watch the
afternoon warming the page in front of me.


- Abigail George 2017

Pushcart Prize nominee, Abigail George, is a South African poet and writer, aspirant playwright and young adult novelist.She is a regular contributor to the webpages of Africanwriter.com, Bluepepper, Hackwriters.com, Itch, LitNet, Modern Diplomacy, Ovi Magazine: Finland’s English Online Magazine, Piker Press, Praxis Magazine Arts and Literature, Sentinel Literary Quarterly and Vigil Pub Mag. She has lived in Port Elizabeth, Swaziland, Johannesburg and Cape Town. Her lit work has been published in various anthologies, numerous times in print in South Africa, and online in zines. She blogs at https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5174716.Abigail_George/blog

New poetry by Linda Stevenson

Another Beat

How to escape the old rhythm,
because
it plays around, perpetual,
weaving classrooms out of nursery,
found bookends, bound songs,
the modelling of phrases,
inclusive
of current tongues, media,
the gymnasia
of dead classics.

Heritage of inland, shore, cliff,
bluestone and tent city; heritage
of Atlantic;
drownings and wailing starvation
up against the bardic, keening.

Read me bedtime,
rolling me over into soothed,
the merry beats recounting
in long cadence.

I listen to my own reading,
walk away from it glutted,
unsatisfied;
because
there was another way I wanted to speak,
not rolling off my tongue, not glib,
not generationally easy
with inheritance of poem...

but gaunt, under-stressed, built
on rough syllables
and guttural noise,
with bare rhyme,
a murderous tsunami,
not the plangent, bleating sea,
not civilized,
but
the gutted voice
of human.


- Linda Stevenson 2017

A founding member of Melbourne Poets Union, facilitator of poetry groups in gaols and community centres, contributor to anthologies. Chapbook “The Tipping Point” published in 2015, feature guest poet on Radio 3CR “Spoken Word”. Active as a poet within the online poetry sector, hosts regular Salons at her home in Frankston, Victoria.

New Poetry by Lynn White

On Our Watch

If it had been on his watch,
he would have seen,
he would have given the alarm,
would have been heard
and catastrophe would have been avoided.
She also was alert,
but it was not her watch
and no one heard her warnings.
On their watch we would have heard
the warnings.

But it happened on our watch
and we were sleeping.


- Lynn White 2017

Lynn White lives in north Wales. Her work is influenced by issues of social justice and events, places and people she has known or imagined. She is especially interested in exploring the boundaries of dream, fantasy and reality. Her poem 'A Rose For Gaza' was shortlisted for the Theatre Cloud 'War Poetry for Today' competition 2014. This and many other poems, have been widely published, in recent anthologies such as - ‘Alice In Wonderland’ by Silver Birch Press, ‘The Border Crossed Us’ from Vagabond Press and ‘Selfhood’ from Trancendence Zero - and journals such as Apogee, Firewords Quarterly, Guide To Kulchur, Indie Soleil, Midnight Circus and Snapdragon as well as many other online and print publications.

Find Lynn at: lynnwhitepoetry

New Poetry by Michael Keshigian

Conception

Barefoot in white slacks
and her outdated sweater,
she plays the piano most intensely,
bungling Schubert with a scowl
then a smile,
the lamplight
flickered unnoticed upon her fingers.

The pasture from where her progeny
once thrived has withered,
mature voices and opinions
have fled the confines of the arena
where music,
like a tranquilized tiger,
twirls again.

Her foot presses pedals,
fingernails carelessly flit keys,
and in her womb
a musician is conceived.
The house is no longer empty,
half full with sound,
she nourishes herself.


- Michael Keshigian 2017

Michael Keshigian from New Hampshire, USA had his twelfth poetry collection, Into The Light, released in April, 2017 by Flutter Press (http://flutterpress2009.blogspot.com.) He has been published in numerous national and international journals recently including The California Quarterly, Red River Review, Tipton Poetry Journal, Aji Magazine and has appeared as feature writer in over a twenty publications with 6 Pushcart Prize and 2 Best Of The Net nominations. (michaelkeshigian.com)

New Poetry by James Walton

A Tale of the Christ

Not Spiderman afterall
these stigmata wrists won’t produce
any miracle to save me

a door knocker suspended here
an unwatered arrangement
of a messiah’s floral failure

in suffocation wise men gasp
because the misguided love
was to offer up a carpenter

on the irony of a cross
to secure this dry sacrifice
brought about the dissolution

in laboratory experiments
when the crown of thorns
seemed ridiculous to the point

of independent cinema releases
but word of mouth
gathered them to the sermon

on the mount of rebellion
if only there was time again
to utter unbound forgiveness.


- James Walton 2017

James Walton is an award winning poet published in many journals and anthologies, short listed twice for the ACU national Literature Prize, a double prize winner in the MPU International Poetry Prize, and Specially Commended in The Welsh Poetry Competition. His collection ‘The Leviathan’s Apprentice’ was published in 2015.  

New Poetry by Michele Seminara

Diminuendo

I'm learning to tread circumspectly;
my belly, soft from children,
divining the way.

Beside me the cat, utterly at ease,
and the dog's inner ears and underbelly
faithfully offered up.

I've just said prayers!
Fed flame's wrathful maul
white seed instead of black —
unprepared for this familiar, devotional urge.

The world is in tumult but in this moment
mind is still.

Do you see that cloud in the sky?
No, nor do I.


- Michele Seminara 2017


Michele Seminara is a Sydney poet and editor-in-chief of Verity La.

New Poetry by John Rock

Getting Old


April calls me Old Man

      in Anishanabee: “Akwaenzee”

I remember Kateri whose last name is Akwaenzee

      said it really means: “bending toward the earth”

The beauty of age

The sensuousness of age

      like the head of a hydrangea

And a woman who said: “The skin of our faces become like the Black Hills”

At 43

     being complimented

          all the way down

                 to my toes


- John Rock 2017

John Rock grew up on the shores of Lake Michigan in North America and spent many years on the shores of Lake Superior, gardening, hunting, cutting wood and working on poems…and listening to moonlight!  More poems and writings at johnrockpoetry.com

New Poetry by JD DeHart

Welcome to the Cottage

or should I say, welcome back?
These are the wooden slatted floors
where you first learned
about the predilection of old ladies
in the woods to be villains, to have
ovens, to possess poison apples,
to woo children away from breadcrumb
trails; the same spot where you
learned about the flash and dash
of princes, how often beautiful maidens
fall asleep and must be rescued,
the tender-hearted fair ladies whose
ruddy cheeks decorated so many
late night reads before bed,
and I couldn't help but notice you 
striking a match, preparing to burn down
the cottage, and build your own version
of the world's story now you are grown.


- JD DeHart 2017


JD DeHart is a writer and teacher.  He blogs at jddehartpoetry.blogspot.com, and has recently been published at Duane's PoeTree and The Literary Yard.