From a frozen wedge of machine-split pine, tossed on this settling fire, one frayed, martyred fiber curls back and away like a wire, then flares, a flame racing the length of a fuse.
Imagine this an innermost strand, a barely-dirt two-track off Frost’s road less traveled, a thin, trembling thread of desire, the uncharted blue vein of a tundral highway. Or in some dread cloister
it dreams, and a sillier spirit suddenly moves— like four fresh fingers over flamenco frets, like dumb elegance uttering Old Florentine, never meaning one of its crooning words.
It might dance—Tejano, Zydeco, any twenty Liebeslieder Waltzes, any juking jumble of a barrel-house blues—wherever arose an arousing tune, the thrum of a Kenyan’s drumming, the merest notion of Motown soul.
I do know: there must be this lost but lively cord, an original nerve, perhaps abandoned, or jammed as if into an airless cavity of an old house, where it waits, to spark, to catch, its insulated nest invaded by the stray tip of a driven nail.
It craves some risky remodeling, that annoying era of air compressor, plaster grit, dumpster, and the exuberant exhalation of ancient dust.
Another Time, This Same Moon
Another time, this same moon, which free-hands its flat arc across a fathomless slate of nighttime sky,
supplied so much duplicitous reason that the warmest stretch ever of endless kissing seemed also to signal
an endless love. Have others believed in such infinite moments? Maybe the fire and the jazz and the lips touching
just right? The palm of conversation folding in whatever tender confidence came to mind? No way, back then,
could that peaceful walk at dusk— the slow sun tingeing stray clouds pink over a tiny inland lake—have led
to the sorry war to come, the saddest set of regrets that still colors my occasional wandering. How could
once watching waves etching a shore have also meant the meanest goodbye would eventually roll its own way in?
How could catching together the brilliance of high light glancing among bright white slopes have groomed
a final run so treacherous, so doomed? How did such intimacy simply disappear by the end of my life’s finest week?
Do you remember yours—remember right now—this loveliness before rejection recklessly re-bursts your re-built heart?
D. R. James, retired from nearly 40 years of teaching college writing, literature, and peace studies, lives with his psychotherapist wife in the woods near Saugatuck, Michigan. His latest of ten collections is Mobius Trip (Dos Madres Press). https://www.amazon.com/author/drjamesauthorpage
Life and time have held us captives— turned The moon an imposter in the affairs of the night.
The justice-chirping canaries of yesterday have buried Their preaching flute of freedom songs under heap of clay.
Now our dread-riddled minds during these stony days And perilous nights, itch and pine for a barrage of healing songs.
But for the sake of fish for their potbellies— they have Turned bridges into giant walls, sutured mighty roads
Of yesterday to a spider’s web. Wordsmiths like all inhabitants, Dread to unveil within the verses of their poems— the blazing
Resentments buzzing in the crevices of their hearts for the Captains steering the ship of this land, for graves here reek like
All other catacombs of the world, yet, with tons of promising Dreams. They will, brethren, definitely come knocking on the
Door of your minds tonight, asking with the bellow Of an angry Egyptian bull after this rebellious bard,
When they surface like a full moon, keep me in clouds — unnamed, save another star from premature fall.
Note: Italicicized passage from rom Akeem Lasisi’s “Ori Agbe”.
On Clarity, Fear, Perfidy, & the Illusion of Hope
With this, I do not seek to appear draped in flowing flawlessness before all eyes, I am also a pin underneath some people’s feet.
I only want the little whisperings of my antique mind to be expressed this time around without the interference of guilt and the encroachment of the bilious past.
Hope [want] or the illusion of it sustains impoverished lungs… so I still breathe only for hope or the illusion of it.
This poet wants the nests of all his verses rooted on the boughs of a tree called eternity, so he consecrated these verses like seraphims by blessing them with agile wings to brave all storms.
O! heavens grant me the freedom of unbridled thoughts, make me a master of my desires, make a slave for your holy course out of me.
I dread the company of bones draped in varieties of skin tones, I dread anything walking on two legs, anything with a head pockmarked with two eyes white as boiled eggs, anything with a mouth sculpted just almost underneath those eyes, if not for the sovereignhood exercised by two crouching noses… I dread anything & anything that’s capable of love & patience.
For I know in the heart of my mind, that in their callused hands, nothing is safe: not love, not patience… & everything is a weapon: even love, even loyalty.
On this my brief sojourn here—earth —so far… I have seen terrible things: a lover —sadly my lover— weaponizing her lover’s ivory dreams against him, when she was simply done with him and needed to dispose him like a loaded trash can.
On Staggering Faith and Vague Miracles
Sometimes in the absence of seasoned innate joyful songs, we return with a staggering faith to rooms teeming with the ghosts of our embalmed fears hoping to find them already evolved into tiny little joys.
Sometimes, ridden with disbelief, we repel like pagans scorning holiness: the soothing thoughts of unconsciously unearthing some grains of delight embedded underneath the foot of our blistered deeds after having sought absolute remission, & whenever an angel perches on the arch of our aching souls urging us to leap at an ecstatic pace into freedom, we muffle his prompting voice with the blanket of disbelief.
Sometimes, miracles come to us draped in garments of disbelief. Sometimes all miracle wants to make of us is a vessel equipped with an atom of faith, damned with a will to dare, to stump at the staunch core of disbelief, hoping to stumble upon life in death.
Sometimes, the world closes all her windows on you, and like a naughty boy on probation you start feeling trapped in the well of aloneness brimming with darkness, with the fierce faces of your fears. Sometimes, like you, fellow travelers, I do not know what to make out of the silky fabric of existence and on days like that I often bequeath myself again like an estate to untainted love.
Abdulmueed Balogun Adewale is a black poet from Ibadan, Nigeria. A Pushcart prize and BOTN Nominee. He was longlisted for the 2021 Ebarcce Prize, shortlisted for the 2024 Gerald Kraak Prize, finalist 2021 Wingless Dreamers Book of Black Poetry Contest, won the 2021 Annual Kreative Diadem Poetry Contest & the 2024 Dr. Samuel Folorunsho Ibiyemi Poetry Prize. His poems have been published in: The Westchester Review, Soundings East Magazine, Poetry Lab Shanghai, Hawaii Pacific Review, ROOM, The Oakland Arts Review, Moonstone Arts Centre, Applause Literary Journal, Red Cedar Review and elsewhere. He tweets from: @AbdmueedA
I give you the deep attention we call reverie. You give me time of timelessness. You have the kind of complexity we call “guts.” Your elements are old and your stance is young. You flex towards. When you speak, I hear music, sometimes a symphony In quiet moments, you gather (and fold) stillness to your heart. Near or far, we have but one heart. Did I make you or do you make me? My hands plus your body equals one mind. And while we dream of more, my muse is naming constellations in negative space.
Slow Explorer
I am a slow explorer, on foot or paddling silently on quiet waters.
Not even a sail to catch the delightful free wind. Not powered by power, but just by the magnets of light and ambient air and the touch of neurons responding to light and ambient air.
I don’t discover galaxies or artifacts, nor carry a spear.
My safety is a smile; my strategy is kindness.
Slow is how I pierce the foreign boil. Empathy is the pace I set for Conquest(?). No, not conquest. Rather, resolve and resolution, but slowly.
Art Exstallation Manifesto
If art is cash, credit, investment, and status, I am dross. Value is a flexible cup that runneth over. Beauty is a warm soldier with, nonetheless, weapons of brilliant harm.
If art is making and giving, I am full, and the glad opposite of finite. Color is a form of consciousness, of spirit holding faith in fountains. Shadow is the substance of waiting for euphoria.
If art is holding and collecting, I am a loose thread meandering, a loose cannon rolling significant light shows against the pregnant dark. Line is a singular map condensed and waiting for a vision to release its direction, thrust, and purpose. Contrast is a multiplier of sensation, a confluence of rivers, and an omelet, both savory and sweet.
If art is a tiny gift that magnifies a glance into an embrace and a stitch into time itself, I am wealth personified. Abstractions are deep reflections in the skewed mirror of the sky’s eyeballs.
If art is bold along the seams of loss, making a forever juxtaposition of empathy and grief, I am the process of mourning that beholds joy and treasures delight. Texture is the way fingers see grains of sand and the print of stars on the bedclothes. Texture is the nutritional supplement on top of the nurturing meal.
If art is the measure of kindness is courage, I am love. The elements of art are here, there, and everywhere: the glare on the pill bottle by nightlight, the crumple of black leather gloves, the myriad shapes of calligraphy, the feather of down, and the feather of dawn. Forbidden is but one of the ways art is hidden and lost in this world.
If art is marketing, product placement, and public relations, I am an intriguing whisper in an empty room.
Josephine Carubia comes from a family and a culture of makers and artists. Her imagination took flight in both words and fiber. She chose the creativity of an academic career, fostering communities of meaning-making, and engaging learners at all levels from middle school to medical school. Her life is given to meanings made by following threads of imagination combined with words, colors, patterns, textures, and shapes. This is a life of articulation, quite often in the form of poetry! Her most recent book is Imagine Meander: Journeys of Reflection, Serendipity, and Delight.
Featured Image: “Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra34” by Quincena Musical- Iñigo Ibáñez under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.
Hey, how are you doing, my name is Walpoet, and I’ll be your poet for his evening and the remainder of this piece. Looks like we have some poetry on the menu. So, please, take off your coat, kick back, relax, and I hope you brought your appetite for these poetic verses.
Next, let me tell you about our specials, because for starters, we have a delicious and delectable delicacy full of alliteration with a dash of assonance slowly heated, and aimed to keep you seated at the table begging for more. As for the entree?
Don’t worry, I have something truly amazing. Sauteed metaphors on a bed of similes, sprinkled with a dab of personification, enough to make your plate stand up and dance for joy. Oh, so you say you’re’ practically starving. Well that’s perfect because for dessert we have flambeed hyperbole, enough for you and 40 of your closest friends.
Wait, so you don’t understand the menu? Well, then say no more fam, let me explain. I know that poetry can sometimes feel out of touch or out of reach, like a high-end menu from a restaurant you can barely pronounce.
And you might think it raves too much about love or how the world is essentially falling apart right before our eyes. Or you also might think that poetry has nothing to offer that Netflix and chill can’t already take care of. But I beg to differ. Because you know what? The art that lives and breathes on your wall is poetry. The Spotify playlist of your favorite tracks is poetry and the motivation for your love making sessions to last at least 3 songs is also poetry.
And I’m sure you’re saying, that’s what any poet would say. Yes, but typically not so graphically. But according to the Oxford languages dictionary that breathes inside of my laptop, any intense sense of beauty or emotion can be poetry.
Which means the first time you had your heart broken was poetry. But I know what you’re saying; how can my heart being ripped apart from my chest and then being served to me on a charcuterie board by my first love be poetry? How can crying alone in a parking lot at 11:00 PM in my run down Nissan Altima, at age 20 after a nervous breakdown be poetry.
But it is. But then it’s also a first kiss, and the sight of your newborn child. And can even be the touch of God. But for me, it’s definitely setting a stage on fire with just my words and when me and an audience are sharing a telepathic connection while they’re laughing at every punchline, and each word I say means something.
And it’s hard to explain a feeling that overwhelms and inspires creativity or the need to spark change. But I can tell you, whether you believe it or not. Poetry is a necessity. it lives inside of all of us waiting to come out when we most need it. It is our food, but not just any food, it’s food that nourishes the soul.
Because poetry, when it’s done well, is not just edible lines that we take in and defecate out. It is our compass, map, and raft And poetry when it’s done well is our survival gear and reason to persevere when everything else inside of us, screams to just give up and quit. And I hope this poem was done well!
Because in this world full of infinite beauty and pain, poetry is something that we can use more of, but most of all is something that we all need.
Poem
How do you know a poem is ready?
When the words in your poem start to backspring off the page, like cliff divers in Hawaii landing in the Pacific Ocean. Then you know your poem is ready.
When adrenaline rushes through your veins as you read your poem aloud while you perform for a ten person open mic but perform it the exact same way, you would for a sold out audience at the Lincoln theater. Then you know your poem is ready
When you feel every line, every beat, and the rhythm of your words start to sound like a seasoned salsa conjunto, with claves and el guiro spinning each other around on the dance floor, followed by the blaring of brass trumpets, right up to the 10 minute conga solo. Then you know your poem is ready.
When your poem is a mixture of chaos, humor and pain and yet it all makes sense. Then you know your poem is ready.
When your poem snores loudly like a grizzly bear outside your tent, knowing at any moment, when it wakes up, all havoc will ensue. Then you know your poem is ready.
When your poem shines as brightly as a supernova in the night sky. Then you know your poem is ready.
When you don’t really need to ask anyone, is this any good? Then you know your poem is ready.
Because we all know, you’re not satisfied with that sleepy poem, that can barely keep its eyes awake poem..
And we know you’re not satisfied with the, uh.. … I think it’s a pretty good poem.
Because if you’re gonna write a poem, why not go for broke, why not let your poem deliver a fatal knockout blow like Ryu in Street fighter, hearing Haduuuuuken as your words lift up their arms in triumph on the page.
And if you’re gonna write a poem, why not let the poem tell you what you’re gonna write instead.
Trust the process, because the poem knows….
That it’ll open its eyes. Lift up its head. Stretch out its legs, find its balance. Don’t overthink it. Don’t be a drill sergeant Poems don’t respond well to orders, They hate being micromanaged. They need breathing room, leg space. They want independence. To know that they’re loved. A place to call home. This I know. Trust me, I know. But how do I know? Because your poem is ready.
Not your typical poet
I am not your typical poet. I don’t speak only in rhyme, and bongos don’t magically appear, when I have something important to say.
I am not your typical poet. Poems don’t just come to me after viewing the constellations. Nor do I have the urge to live amongst the trees.
I am not your typical poet. I don’t have an MFA, but I do have enough poetic vision to fill up a Thanksgiving day parade float.
I am not your typical poet, because typical poets may find my writing to be shallow, selfishly focusing on myself, when I should be writing about nature and the spiritual being.
See, my poems are mostly grounded in reality, except when words like ladybugs crawl up my arm and rest on my shoulder, waiting for the perfect time to cannonball jump on the page. Or interrupt me when I’m eating empanadas de queso at 8 AM on a Saturday.
And sometimes, these words don’t let me sleep, prying my eyes open in the middle of the night and forcing me to create art that only other atypical people will appreciate. And maybe that’s who I choose to write for, create for, bare my soul for.
People who have had doors slammed in their face time after time, but refuse to stop, trying, believing, and dreaming. People who don’t know how to be anything else but themselves. Because at the end of the day, maybe we shouldn’t want to be typical, and just maybe we should just want to be original instead.
Walker Valdez is a Bolivian American spoken word poet, educator, and teaching artist from Falls Church, Virginia. He holds a B.A. in English (Performance Media Concentration) from Marymount University and a M.Ed. in Special Education from George Mason University. He has performed throughout the DC area including at the Studio Theatre, Gala Hispanic Theatre, and the Rayburn House Office Building. He was recently a featured poet on the Zona San Antos Podcast (San Antonio, Texas.) Mr. Valdez hosts a monthly open mic, “Coffee House Poetry”, at Grace Episcopal Church in Georgetown, and is a teaching/performing artist for the Heard non-profit arts organization.
Featured image in this post is, “Siebenpunkt-Marienkäfer (Coccinella septempunctata) auf Blüte im FFH-Gebiet “Viernheimer Waldheide und angrenzende Flächen” By Stephan Sprinz – licensed creative commons via Wikimedia Commons.
I stay. But it isn’t as if There wasn’t always Hudson’s Bay And the fur trade. –Robert Frost, ‘An Empty Threat’
But you never had it planned. Then the trail wasn’t yet blazed As the First Nations moved Through without leaving a sign For the First Settlers to follow– And yet they never gave it away, The invisible gathering place Stretching without a trace Too vague for a castaway– I stay.
Only shards are found On these islands, anyway. You don’t mention where you are Or have been anymore. You cast your line into the surf On a beach below the cliff– There’s already been enough trouble You think, getting to this point. The Muse’s words linger–If, But it isn’t as if…
It seems centuries since Another refugee cleared a field near The far shore scattered with dead fish. He sometimes told of bones plowed up But he didn’t say where they are– He had trouble enough, enough hearsay To bury the unmarked graves Without the rattlesnakes and arrowheads. And when he’d been drinking, he’d say There wasn’t always Hudson’s Bay–
And long ago he didn’t stay; and Others came through and moved west, Leaving a faded blazed trace For scribes of hieroglyphs Or petroglyphs on the riverbanks. Long-haul truckers masquerade As sleepless pioneers throwing clouds Of dust as fine as ash across the feral fields– Unsettled again, and again renegade, And with the fur trade.
Speak For Yourself Speak for yourself, John Alden. — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, The Courtship of Miles Standish 1 Ley Lines —
Seasons of mist and brine, The scent of spring in the cold–
A quiet cove where the locals Curl inside a chambered nautilus,
A Palladian colonnade built around An old stone cenotaph —
I have no will, just a wish: Saltwater bays where I can slip anchor
And drift unseen, unnoticed Under a smuggler’s moon,
Bearing contraband relics From a faraway cay,
No blind response, no backward Look, no ravening recognition.
The past changes with the future Driving past remains of the Marie Celeste
Or the grander experiments Of the Titanic or the Hindenburg.
Slowly we become no one With no trailing embers
That lead you to a dying inferno Which the stars are, even the sun
Which will become a black hole Storing memories of millennia.
2 Soundings
Sailing without water, you dream That darkness waits in desert islands,
Hidden rivers and lunar tides And unknown undercurrents stream
Into oases’ pools reflecting a turquoise moon Emerging among the vast flowing dunes.
As thundering breakers still pour jade foam Over indigo seas, echoing beneath high bluffs–
Punctuated by the cries of seabirds driven inland On a shoreward gale reshaping the coast.
And you, should you search beneath fragments Of memoirs for the lost songs that water makes,
Raise anchor, as an hourglass pours sand Into sand, before setting sail for timeless seas.
3 Listen…
Listen. Thunder rumbles offshore. Seabirds wheel in before the storm.
And the seasons shift against a dark plain Of half-truths, putting the past to rest
As easily as we retrace our steps Into the new snow, that itself melts away–
You brush away the debris of grief Misplacing comfort for belief,
Stoking the last gleaming embers Of last evening’s winter blaze.
Teach us a treason to ourselves In the battle between love and fear,
You resist returning again — The river skim ice has already melted,
The air tangible, electric, Gathering cold gusts–
Leave the timeless For your children’s children
To paint the great migrations In the flickering light of sacred caves.
And though past the last step is space, Where your deep breath is exhaled–
John Alden rests his case, Speak for yourself, Priscilla.
Edward Baranosky has painted seascapes since he was seven years old. His focus on marine-scapes, draws him back to visit his native home in the American east coast, for inspiration from the North Atlantic. As a poet-artist he crosses the channels and pathways between the visual and the textual. He continues to exhibit in the United States and Canada. Baranosky owns a small press EAB Publishing, for poetry chapbooks and related material. He currently lives in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Visit his website. Portrait painted by his friend by Melisa Fauceglia from Ravenna, Italy,
Featured Image: “Melting of river ice 1950” by Voutilainen Erkki under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license.
