Stone Circle in Bute Park

On past Stonehenge, the tracks not going that way,

through Plymouth and into Wales—no plan or map 

toward what one day could hold:

Cardiff Castle and the River Taff,

a pub, a pint, and shepherd’s pie, 

and then to find the ring of druid stones.

Dating from recent years, I had learned—

but enough to stop me that afternoon

for a good half hour,

and good it was to stand there,

to take some slides, then pack the Canon

back into its bag and stare with believing eye

till I was moved to walk sunwise

three times round the power,

to tiptoe toward the Logan Stone—

stand there centered amid the twelve

and raise my arms like a gnomon

shining in the sun, to look right

toward the portal stone and wish

I had been here for Midsummer Sunrise

or maybe at midnight drawing down the moon.

From stone to feet to head to fingertips, 

the god within me wakened and this poem began to shape.

Small matter, really, when the stones arrived—

they are as old as they ever were,

and of a strength to hold within their gritty hearts

all possible chants and prayers.

© David Black, 2014

Gorstedd stones, Bute Park, Cardiff
Photo by Andy Dingley
from Wikimedia Commons

ARTIST-MOTHER; JUNKYARD-FATHER: BOTH HEROES

My mother’s colors swarmed over the canvas in her basement studio while I watched intoxicated by the smell of turpentine and oil paint.  I swarmed and am still swarming in those slathered lavish hues; some, though, were the night behind the lightning.  When her huge cat Sansloy, scared by a dog as she cuddled him, bit her deeply in the arm, she took no revenge and her bed remained his comfort.  It shames me to say that I did not justly value her soiled white collar husband, my father.  Dazed and lonely in a family of artists, he decided to paint half of what we owned in gold color, to honor his wife, making a golden small domain.  Our concrete steps became gold; our bronze gods holding a clock became gold; chairs and tables often turned gold.  But after he died I realized he saved his children and wife from homelessness.  His finicky investments fed us.  I am ashamed.  He was a better man than I after all and merited his wife more than I.

And his junkyard!  His brief treasured part ownership! S crap!  Yet what the heart discarded or forgot confirmed me as an artist. I owe him that as well as shelter.  As if Stella and Rauschenberg and the Merzbau and Frank O’Hara had baptized me!

At the age of five I climbed over my father’s junkyard fence constructed like entangled steel claws.  In temporarily fearless fierce reverie, I voyaged through what seemed like all the haughty toys we could not afford, mountain ranges of squashed rainbow plastic or tin giddy gizmos that now bored wised-up wealthy children.  I wallowed in mazes, fondled ousted wheels, weapons, torsos, wings, their still exciting insulted spectrums. Encouraged, I hopped into actual condemned automobiles and thrust myself in this one instance through the space-time continuum far outdistancing in those saurian motorless cars the starship Enterprise.  In increasingly scratchy fact, the mutant and quarantined metal around me was for me an alluringly hulking perhaps unidentified dinosaur.  I began to get cut.  I tried to ask help from a nice alien, a “gilt” birdbath.  I levitated, swaying in the lap of armless cast iron garden statues.  I began to get dented.  I skimmed through gravel and into the air on bicycle frames.  I saw sprawling art books.  I tumbled face down into a volume of Aubrey Beardsley.  Unfairly sudden, a jungle of pipes like a pile of anacondas unjokingly and unjustifiably surrounded me.  My daze was dear to me but dangerous.  I strayed bleeding and weeping for an unfunny mile until I came upon a highway like Lake Victoria.  A cop got me.  The sun remained amiably lavish overhead, slathering me with easy gold.

My father had almost lost me.  But I found sharp art and his junk endowed me with the bedazzled and dazzling wound of poetry. In that junkyard was everything that evaded nothingness for awhile, cowering or lowering or posing bravely.  I found the tangle that reveals hard dream and plush but worn reality.  I measured trashed treasure. Merciful mother!  She pardoned the cat!  She pardoned my fine father, finally.  I still inhale her oils.  But has art pardoned me?  Are you justly valued?

© Stephen Margulies, 2014

Junkyard cat
Photo by Downtown gal
from Wikimedia Commons

Cherry Blossoms

We will meet under the cherry tree

That graces the front lawn,

Where you whimsically threw your books,

Stretching beneath its blossom-laden bough.

Let us find some sprigs,

Loosened here and there,

Combining our  bouquets

To adorn the sitting room.

Ensconced by silken pink tufts,

I wait each year for you.

As falling petals skim my hair,

I envision blooms of long ago.  

© Shelly Sitzer, 2014

Cherry blossoms
Photo by Tony Russell

Twitnomenon

Increasingly outnumbered by Tweeple, 

conversationalists are dwindling.

One friendapalooza can recruit 

hundreds instantly to the Twitosphere.

Just one of these twewbies can grab 

more by hosting a friendscrapping.

The Hivemind grows exponentially, 

forcing out the old social order.

Twitterflies have many followers, 

often becoming part of the twiterrati.

Despite twettiquette, there are 

bulltwits, drunktwitters, and trashtweeters.

Twaffic is jammed with 

tweetsults, mistweets, twitterage.

Twishing and twittworking can be 

dangerous, especially to neweeters.

Searching for twitterphoria and higher twitrank, 

tweeterboxes risk becoming tweetaholics

by speeding endless drive-thru-tweets, 

drive-by-tweets, retweets, and detweets.

Often twitterpated, some opt 

for twabstinence or InnerTwitter to recover.

Others, hungrier for twitterapps, 

seek BiggerTwitter and FollowersForSale.

In the name of twart, twitterature has flowered

Twaikus, poetweets, to novels in serial tweets. 

The tweet goes on, the tweet goes on.

Tweets keep going faster every day – 

La de da de de, la de da de da.

Tweets keep pounding a rhythm to the brain – 

La de da de de, la de da de da.

The tweet goes on, the tweet goes on.

© Patsy Asuncion

(Note: All of the italicized words do exist!  Published Spring 2013 in  The Truth About the Fact, Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles, CA)

Photo by Ed Brown
from Wikimedia Commons

Eye of the Beholder

Is there ever going to be

enough time to get it right?

I thought this evening near perfect--

air so clear, the sounds just so, you know.

Why do these bugs get in my eyes?

They’re wrecking my vision!

What can I do?

Put them in the vision too.

© Gerry Sackett, 2014

Male Striped Horse Fly
Photo by Thomas Shahan
from Wikimedia Commons

To a Mouse, Inside her House

Wee sticky, sleek and stubborn beastie

Ye canna’ point

Na north, na eastie

Nae matter how I push 

And slide you on

Your odious little pad 

Your cursor, curse it,

Stays put or dawdles, 

Meanders where it wants.

Has someone cut your cord?

Witless, e’en wireless?

Are ye on your own, lass?

Na far, you’ll get

Beyond this gray electron patch,

Your gray dominion.

Since you’re sae sticky

I think I’ll have a look inside thee

Off with your cover 

Ah, there for ilke man to see

Wrapped ‘round your tiny shafts

The stuff of mousepads,

Detritus of dead skin cells 

From unsuspecting users 

Who left tracks of their DNA

Inside your house

When they were making 

Witting marks on screens.

Dupes of  “user-friendly” ads.

Fie on them all!

Teach them to fiddle 

With a mouse trap.

The best laid plans o’ men

Often go awry.

What you’ve hoarded 

Inside your gummed up works

May some day solve a crime

A doltish beastie like yourself

Can afford to gloat.

You’ve nae cause to fret:

The present only toucheth thee.

But those who’ve wrapped 

Their hands around thee--

Stealers of identity

May come to grieve their past 

And dread the days ahead.

As much mousetrap as mouse

A dual identity

Quiet as an electron’s song,

Still ye may be,

In annals of the FBI,

A mouse that roared. 

© Bill Sypher, 2014

Trust wheel-mouse MI-1200 PS2
Photo by Mart Rootamm
from Wikimedia Commons

Image

She screams out, “You're Not Worth It!”

and I call back “I know.”

For that's all she's ever told me.

I see her looking at me through the streaked glass,

and I wonder what makes me carry all her burdens,

better yet what makes me hate her so?

Yes, yes, I know, hate is a strong word,

but there is no other way to describe this relationship.

We go back as far as scented markers and play dough.

Elementary times, when hurtful words were spoken,

and she never once took up for me.

Instead she made me believe I was all those things.

The abuse only became worse with each passing year,

as she continued to beat me down.

I reached ages of physical yet not emotional maturity,

and my mind started to wander and wonder about the opposite sex,

and she had me tell her over and over I was wasting my time.

"Just look at yourself, no one wants you."

Her “I told you so's” stung with each rejection.

I cried myself into dark slumbers night after night,

hoping one day we might part,

but she had taken claim on my soul

so many years ago.

 I tried to escape her grasp, even changed my name,

but she remained,

and as I said I do, I could hear her laughter echoing.

She started all the arguments with me and him,

creating panic, attacking with screams

and items flung through the air.

Making me believe that he and his love were untrue.

Locked behind doors, scissors pressed to wrists,

I heard her say “Cut deep,

for it's the first one that counts.”

I struggled to hear the cry of another

saying “Let me in,

let me in,”

and for that brief moment,

I felt I had reason to live.

My battle struggled on, though,

leading me astray,

and I searched for ways to keep her at bay,

causing loved ones pain. 

I grasped the shame in the palm of my hand.

Holding tight that crimson letter.

My life unraveled,

breaking windows to the truth.

Exposed and vulnerable,

cowering beneath her once again,

I took the blows.

Wished I had strength to battle back.

By then I should have become immune,

but she created cancerous cells,

that I knew so well,

seeping through walls I had built.

Imprisoned,

I reflect a moment,

and reach for my pen.

© Suzanne Saxon, 2014

"La Parisienne Japonaise,: by Alfred Stevens
from Wikimedia Commons