New Poetry by William G. Davies Jnr.

Comfort And Aid

After having been

Speared, jabbed

And splintered

Through a pine tree,

The sunlight

Steadies on the books

Who treat

The wounded light

Like so many nurses

Responding to

An emergency.

-William G. Davies Jnr. 2012

Mrs. Dalton's Science Class

The pond

Like a potion

Spilt by a

Runner-up in

A science fair

Spreads to

The tall grass.

The greasepaint

Of a Petri dish

And a convalescing moon

Darkened the water.

At dawn,

Pirouettes of mist

Gather into perfection

Their nimbus musings.

All the while

A boy dejected.

- William G. Davies Jnr. 2012

William G. Davies Jnr. has had work published by The Wilderness House Review, Gloom Cupboard, Jellyfish Whispers, The Blue Lyra Review and others. He has been married to his wife, Theresa, for 38 years and lives in rural Pennsylvania where they make their own wine, "Rooted Womb." They have three grown children and four grandchildren who live in Florida. 

New Poetry by Phillip Ellis

Caledonia Australis

The harbour morning's soft with clouds. The cold,
alike long-legged flies, is striding over
the surface of the world. I can't imagine
anything less than this, this dream in time
and echoing a certain poem. There's none
that muses on the passage of the fly
that is the cold, no dreaming eye, none seeing,
a poet making words memorable.

The ship is stalled so near to land. The people
are restless, test their balance, and they moan
into the morning light. Nobody stays
their fear with words or warning hands. The sickness
is stirring on the ship. They do not stir,
but talk in silenced tones; McMillan comes.


- Phillip Ellis 2012

New Poetry by Stuart Barnes

Bone Scan

in memory of Gwen Harwood,

who encouraged the eleven-year-old

me to write poetry

In the twinkling of an eye,

in a moment, all is changed:

on a small radiant screen

(honeydew melon green)

are my scintillating bones.

Still in my flesh I see

the God who goes with me

glowing with radioactive

isotopes. This is what he

at last allows a mortal

eye to behold: the grand

supporting frame complete

(but for the wisdom teeth),

the friend who lives beneath

appearances, alive

with light. Each glittering bone

assures me: you are known.

- Stuart Barnes 2012

Bullfighting

Seven

years ago

sentenced by

a picador

to be herded three times a week toward

a barely furnished dusty room

a ghastly plastic calla

a banderillero

that drove

the diagnoses

in my neck

like vivid sticks:

panic, bipolar, schizoaffective,

obsessive-compulsive, generalized

anxiety, borderline

personality and

substance-induced anxiety

disorders.

So many Romantic syllables!

In seven years a wounded bull

can lose a million pints of blood.

I charged and gored

a matador

when it redly strode

inside my ring.

- Stuart Barnes 2012

New Poetry by Ivan Jenson

Totality

Not having the faintest

idea how my brain and

body function

standing in wonder

at the wonderful

wonder of nature

awestruck by

the promise of

a hereafter

which might come after

and confounded

by the metro system

under

the metropolis

transfixed by

the tongue-tied

triumph which is

language

freaked out

by the farfetched

fantasies of

authors, actors

singers and

those who turn

heartbeat

into drum beat

and who ride

airwaves like

sonic songwriter

surfers

overwelmed

by the billion

baby march

and the

trillion tragic

obituaries

and outnumbered

in every way

by a galaxy of

stars and population

explosion

of sights and sounds

and technological

sorcerers transforming

everything into fairy-tale pixels

I stop for a moment

in prayer, meditation

gratitude and fear

inhale, exhale

then put one

foot in front of the other

and walk

- Ivan Jenson 2012

Ivan Jenson’s Absolut Jenson painting was featured in Art News, Art in America, and Interview magazine. His art has sold at Christie’s, New York. His poems have appeared in Word Riot, Zygote in my Coffee, Camroc Press Review, Haggard and Halo,Poetry Super Highway, Mad Swirl, Alternative Reel Poets Corner, Underground Voices Magazine, Blazevox, and many other magazines, online and in print. Jenson is also a Contributing Editor for Commonline magazine. Ivan Jenson's debut novel Dead Artist is available as a paperback and on Amazon Kindle and Nook. His new novel a psychological thriller entitled Seeing Soriah is now available as an eBook or in Paperback on Amazon.

New Poetry by D.M Aderibigbe

GREEN

She sits before her sadness and his mother,
praying they disappear, before he appears,

It will take a miracle for him to forgive her, if
he meets them in her house,

she wishes, her brain is feverish,
she could have walked out.
Her fear arrives in a green Pajero jeep,
putting on a grey shirt and a green short,

his face is green with anger,
he goes to sit alone on a green chair,

she plucks a leave of green holiness,
apologises to him,
he frowns,

she tickles him,
he frowns,

she kisses him,
he makes a green grin.


- D.M. Aderibigbe 2012

D.M Aderibigbe is a 23-year old writer from Lagos, Nigeria, an undergraduate student of History and Strategic Studies of the University of Lagos. He writes poetry, fiction, non-fiction, plays and lyrics. His work has been published or forthcoming in the UK, Canada and the United States by, Vox Poetica, Pressboard press, UP Literature, HUSMW Press, The New Black Magazine, Misfits' Miscellany, Thickjam and Ditch Poetry. His debut novel Sisyphean, will be published in America, soon. He lives and schools in Lagos.

New Poetry by Robert Demaree

LINGUISTICS CLASS

1.

What must it sound like,

The idiom of our tongue,

If you have come from other shores:

Listening to tapes

In classrooms below ground,

Beads of dampness on cold cinderblock,

Trying to apprehend small meanings

(Preposterous proposition):

Run in, run over, run down;

Dress down, dress out, dress up.

Would it be the same

For someone to come on to you,

Or come out?

2.

Language, quixotic, carries weight

It cannot bear.

A boy spent hours in practice—

Tennis, piano scales, free throws.

Later he practiced medicine,

His sister practiced law,

Always getting ready, it seemed,

For something else.

At the restaurant

He thought of a bad pun

And made a note:

He also waits who only stands and serves.

3.

Language tells you what it sees,

So pejorative becomes

Normative.

I want to hear about people

Who are ept, couth,

Ruthful, clueful souls with

Shevelled hair.

Do you remember when we

Worried about creeping -ism’s?

Neologism;

Barbarism,

An ancient word, meant to

Mock the sound of

Those who do not talk like you.

- Robert Demaree 2012

Robert Demaree, a retired educator, is the author of four collections of poems, including Mileposts (2009), published by Beech River Books. He has had over 550 poems published in 125 periodicals. He lives in Wolfeboro, N.H., and Burlington, N.C.

New Poetry by Mark Murphy

Anniversary Dinner with Borges

So the poet pauses as he passes

a few words

of Borges to his beloved.

She does not know he has been reading

Tigres de Oro, nor that he has learnt

the short piece by heart.

She does not know the words,

nor yet her own part

in the distinct possibilities of the future.

How could she know that in the night

her husband

had declared war on the past?

Today we feast on cheese curd

and curried peppers

he had said, with Borges as our witness,

whilst the obscurants and bibliographers

assign the profits

of oblivion and pedantry unto themselves.

- Mark Murphy 2012

Mark A. Murphy was born in 1969 in the UK. He studied philosophy as an under-graduate and poetry as a post-graduate. His first full length collection, Night-watch Man & Muse is due out in 2013 from Salmon Poetry, (Eire). Murphy’s poems have appeared in over a 100 magazines and journals world wide.

Words and Pictures by Wayne H. W Wolfson

"The Job Parts 1 & 2" 

 "Did you bring them?" I gave a look without saying anything that let him know I found him a fool. He stepped back from the table as I unrolled the soft felt case. "Just two of them, I would have thought three..." I only needed one and a pad of paper. The other was less a back up and more to keep the first company when not in use.

Holed up for a week living on coffee and egg sandwiches. Now and then I would buy a bag of oranges from the man on the corner but after the second time of making my purchase without inquiring what else he had for sale I made him nervous as all the locals knew the oranges were just a pretense for conversation so that the police would not bother him too much. Every few days I would duck out to have a shave, it was all right I could still see who was going in and out of the hotel lobby. The barber had a picture of his niece on the counter next to the glass cylinder in which combs hung suspended in blue liquid. I tried to imagine what her voice sounded like. It was erotic but more important than that as I may be called upon to birth her fully realized from my pen.

Wayne H.W Wolfson  2012

New Poetry by Emily Strauss

I.

Spiritual Geography

People always say, I love the smell

Of rain, but all I smell is dirt as if

The sky is washing itself and what

Pours off the dusty ceiling is dirty

Brown water we see as rain, reeking

Like car washes or beaten rugs

Dripping muddy rinse water down

The street, Persian carpets

Lying out soaking wet with soap

Flakes and the woman squatting

Her chador gathered between her legs

Scraping the surface with a bowl

And the passing cars driving over.

This is the dry California rain

Disturbing the dust only rarely

Bouncing off dried oak leaves

Down smooth madrone bark

The earth washing all its facets

Into my nose, pungent before

The sky dries again and dirt

Returns to its normal lifeless

State.


II.

Waiting for Words to Come

While I wait for the words to come

I exercise my fingers by digging into

Rock, guiding sticks that float down

The stream, stroking flower petals, feeling

Their moist softness as if velvet came

Alive and gathered morning dew.

While I wait, I notice the wren under

The bush hopping among the dense

Foliage, the spider web arching

Over the stream at dusk, the peaks

Turning pink. Now I am ready.

I will try my hand at sorting pebbles

At the bottom of the rapids, parting

Branches at the creek, I will become

Warm to the air shuffling the leaves

Until they tremble and the deer tracks

In the damp earth, the bird calls and

Night crickets.

Then I will begin to write.

III.

When spring runs feral

obsidian nights crack

over the plains leaving

sharp splinters stuck

in the old moon dory.

The sky breaks on the points

of black shards while cottony

fog waits far out among silent

Swells with the trade winds.

The land is articulate

in the intervals of time

that includes every moment

Space is an arena of smells

Signaling desire without end,

Emotional reticence is lost

Amidst bay, heather,lavender

And we can’t see that the mind

Is infinite, or breath limited only

By the perfume of gardenias

Orange blossoms, and jasmine

As spring taunts us with incomplete

Couplings and summer is almost

Born.

- Emily Strauss 2012

Emily is a retired English teacher from California, and often focus on the natural world that she encounters and how it reflects her own emotional interior. Emily has over two dozen pieces published here and there online including Poetry Unlocked, Every Day Poets, and the South Townsville Micro Poetry Journal.

New Poetry by BZ Niditch

WINTER BLUES

Snow wraps
around our faces
crawling on fields
in nightswell mounds
by a country-side poet
carrying a pawned sax
refusing to sleep
on the earth-wise bench
by the ice fishermen
visiting the waterfront
in his cold fatigues
with insomniac silence
and hunger pains

- BZ Niditch 2012

A SLICE OF WINTER

Sleep unavailable
only a re-run
of "Breathless"
and a few sparrows
on the night sky,
outside city winds
swirl by the pond,
a time deserted
like matches trembling
in our hands
with a cautious spark
of new year wishes
frozen by frescoes
on a slippery iced park,
imagining Belmondo
in his self-quoted
sensibility
framed about love
now only photographic
of unnamed memory. 

- BZ Niditch 2012




BZ Niditch's poetry appears in Columbia, London Grip, Atlanta Review, Pacific Review.

New Poetry by Jade Howdeshell

The sun is silly when I am silly

The clouds are careful when I am careful

The bird is brave when I am brave

The trees are tough when I am tough

But they are all happy when I am happy

The sun is sad when I am sad

The clouds are careless when I am careless

The bird is scared when I am scared

The trees are weak when I am weak

But they all are sad when I am sad


- Jade Howdeshell 2012

Jade Howdeshell is 7 years old and just completed 1st Grade at St. Lawrence School in Laramie WY.She loves to write poetry, play guitar and read. She hopes to become successful author when she grows up.

New Poetry by Nandor Teremi

Waves of dreams and blackcurrant trees

Sitting in my cave turning back
and seeing my film I know
There is a way between me and you
a path between caves under the water
between caves and blackcurant trees
Sitting in my cave turning back
seeing my film I go back
swimming under the sea
between caves and blackcurrant trees
on the waves of dreams
and I see you sitting in your cave
turning back and seeing your film
as you see me sitting in my cave
turning back and seeing your film
going back swimming under the sea
between caves and blackcurrant trees


Nandor Teremi 2012


Nandor is an Hungarian poet who is learning English via the internet and the writing of poetry, which he freely admits is like jumping from a plane without a parachute.

God no longer drinks at the Sando

I was saddened to read yesterday that one of the great Sydney institutions, the Sandringham Hotel in Newtown, has gone into receivership and is set to close its doors. The Sando has always been something of a bellwether for the health or otherwise of the Sydney cultural scene, and this latest turn of events, while tragic for those of us with a close connection to the dear old girl (she turned 152 this year), merely reflects the changing tastes of Sydneysiders and the demise of the pub scene fostered by an older generation. 

Back in 1996, when I was moved to write the poem "God drinks at the Sandringham" on which Tim Freedman based the oft-quoted song, those of us who had been around long enough could already see the writing on the wall for the live music scene as we had grown up with it, and sure enough 2 years later the grimy old, dog-friendly pub closed down (I still miss you JC!) to be re-opened as a pokie den (on which Tim based his other "Sando" song "Blow Up the Pokies", easily one of his best). Since then it has gone through a number of changes, the frequency of which is itself a reflection of the tenuous nature of the live music business in this new Sydney of ours.

I count myself lucky to have been part of a vibrant scene back in the 1990's in which the Sando paid such a pivotal part. I am sure the ghosts of Stevie and Alison and so many others are still dropping in now and then to steal someone's beer and get up to God knows what mischief in the cellar. Although I think God may have moved on, sadly, leaving Newtown to its fate.

Vale Rosemary Dobson, 1920-2012

Breaking off a piece of the willow
I say goodbye to my friend.
He will take it and plant it.

A tree will grow by the river
And the river will flow away to the ocean,
Will carry the leaves fallen from the willow.

Small important message they are for the future
Telling of times past, and the conversations of friendship,
Telling the ocean all about the willow.


Willows (Goodbye) by Rosemary Dobson (1987)

The last of perhaps the greatest generation of Australian poets which included the likes of Kenneth Slessor, Judith Wright, AD Hope and James McAuley (or Ern Malley if you are so inclined). I never had the privilege of meeting Rosemary, but she was by all accounts warm of heart and generous with her time to those aspiring to the great calling. 

New Poetry by Stuart Barnes

Sol/iloq/uy

after Williams S.

O God of Battles,

the raven is hoarse!

Is this a dagger?

Send the nurse

Gallop apace, you fiery-

footed steeds! Cut him out in little stars

Entreat her eyes

to twinkle in their spheres

At the point of death

virtues will plead like angels,

let the trumpets sound the tucket

sonance & the note to mount. The winds of heaven

hang on him, things rank & gross in nature,

& visit her face too roughly

- Stuart Barnes 2012

New Poetry by Robert Demaree

TO OUR SON-IN-LAW RETURNING FROM IRAQ: APRIL 2003

That you were a writer and not a soldier

Made you no less brave,

Your war short, hard to defend,

But no less noble.

You went to report on things Homer had seen,

In a land older than Hector.

We found you on a map of unknown places,

Read your dispatches, heard you on TV:

We tasted sand and young men’s fear.

We did not attend rallies of protest or support

But went instead with your sons

To soccer games and preschool plays.

I do not pray much but prayed for you.

We read your coming-home piece

And thought of Odysseus.

We tracked your journey—Kuwait, London.

That night I went back downstairs after midnight

And turned on the computer again,

To be sure that your plane had touched down.

- Robert Demaree 2012

“To Our Son-in-Law, Returning from Iraq” appeared in miller’s pond, January 2008.

NAMES

The American Legion hut

In their small town

Had been named

For her great-uncle,

The first to fall in France.

But after another war,

Another hut,

Named for someone else.

The basketball court

That honored the famous coach

Is darkened now and unused.

At the school where her father taught

They established a prize in his memory

She wonders if they still give it.

You can have something named for you

For a while

And then not.

- Robert Demaree 2012

Robert Demaree is the author of four collections of poems, including Mileposts (October 2009), published by Beech River Books. The winner of the 2007 Conway, N.H., Library Poetry Award, he is a retired school administrator with ties to North Carolina, Pennsylvania and New Hampshire. He has had over 550 poems published or accepted by 125 periodicals, including Louisville Review, miller’s pond, and BluePepper. For further information see http://www.demareepoetry.blogspot.com

New Poetry by Ashley Capes

pre-collapse confession

you’re right I’m talking too fast

a bouncy-ball
red

for her lipstick

and clouds covering the bay
in ultrasound green

once a fortnight

I make this gesture to the future

but somehow still end up
treating it

too much like a safety lap

the possibility of gentle envy
turns up in tea leaves

joyriding the pipes
beneath our kitchen sink

so rich with old wives truths

the hopelessness of manhood

a glass of water and two pills
safe

an actual album of photos

last September the best
of
our lives

ten years coming up
unmarked

- Ashley Capes 2012

weatherboarding

the first night is Chinese take-away in a dining room that we never eat in again. the fire is unlit, its patience for winter is unbelievable. I unpack boxes of CDs and place them in a contradictory mix of genres, decades and even dates of purchase, though my obsession doesn’t match John Cusack’s in High Fidelity. you work on the kitchen and cannot believe how stupid the cupboards are, where the hell does the fridge go? in the half-gap we place a brand new clothes dryer, a white-goods knight for the eternal damp of the valley.

tre e trenta
an unfamiliar hum
crosses the room

when the streetlights blink out the last night is pulled down over my shoulders. I have cleaned the floors and walls, the trollish oven, the windows muttering and cannot find the strength to celebrate. the radio (later sold at a garage sale) keeps good company, as the BBC sends Noam Chomsky across heavy waves, until it is finally switched off.

no ceiling fan
overnight sweat
sets on my skin

- Ashley Capes 2012