Monday, December 09, 2013

New Poetry by Sharmagne Leland- St. John









La Kalima
Like swallows they return each year
their vermilion scarves stirring
in the relentless,
oppressive, scalding Siroccos.

They come amber scented
from Tunisia
the hems of their lilac kaftans
fluttering in Zephyr's
white-hot breath.

They come from Kashmir
with mehndi stained hands and feet,
physical graffiti,
their silk saris whispering raginis
pitched to sultry winds.

They come from Cairo
their kohl eyes
searching the bazaar
for the delicate spider web lace,
the rondels woven by
needle pricked fingers.

They come from Andalusia
with jessamine and geranium
pinned into the lustrous ripples
of their burnished ebony hair

They come and they go
to return each year like swallows.


Sharmagne Leland- St. John 2013
(Prize winner Ina Coolbrith 86th Annual Poets Dinner Berkeley)


7 time Pushcart Prize nominee, Native American poet, concert performer, lyricist, artist, film maker, Editor-in-Chief Quill and Parchment.com
Widely anthologised.  Published 4 poetry collections Co-authored Designing Movies: Portrait of a Hollywood Artis.t Co-editor of Cradle Songs: An Anthology of Poems on Motherhood (winner of the 2013 International Book Award) 

Sunday, December 01, 2013

New Poetry by Phillip Ellis









Zodiac's Form
         Setting: an outback station

 Washed dry by rain
 on this dry earth
 under our sun,
 bull's skeleton--
 Zodiac's form--
 on this hard earth
 under our moon,
 crumbles to dust.

 When the sky's cloud
 loudly mutters
 thunder under
 summer stars, there
 bull's skeleton
 waits for the rain
 tumbling, fumbling
 to coax new growth.


- Phillip Ellis 2013



The Adventures of the Chevalier De La Salle and His Companions, in Their Explorations of the Prairies, Forests, Lakes, and Rivers, of the New World, and Their Interviews with the Savage Tribes, Two Hundred Years Ago

 James Marquette was born at the ancient seat,
 he was very desirous of conveying
 Canada and its savage tribes
 on the banks of the St. Lawrence,
 upon which no eye of civilized man
 had ever yet looked.
 At certain seasons of the year
 the Indians came by hundreds,

 endowed with their store-house,
 and, most prominent of all,
 canoes, light as bubbles,
 between the two parties
 of civilized and uncivilized

 sins of the world.



- Phillip Ellis 2013