Monday, November 23, 2015

New Poetry by William C. Blome










UNTITLED

Lincolns by the balcony,
a Buick toppled in the sculpture garden,
how many times do I have to tell you
there’s no one out there quite like me.
It’s no accident you echo like an owl
when you keep saying I’m in Yellowknife
and emailing I won’t hie back to Minot
till mallards have turned all-blue
in paint-polluted Four Bears Bay.
Well, as much as pistons rise and fall
from fires above themselves;
as much as sound and color get defined
as aimlessly deflected waves—
so too my love for you is random,
because it’s not my own creation.


- William C. Blome 2015


William C. Blome writes poetry and short fiction. He lives wedged between Baltimore and Washington, DC, and he is a master’s degree graduate of the Johns Hopkins University Writing Seminars. His work has previously seen the light of day in such fine little mags as The Alembic, Amarillo Bay, Prism International, Fiction Southeast, Roanoke Review, Salted Feathers and The California Quarterly.


Wednesday, November 18, 2015

New Poetry by Nathanael O'Reilly










Solitude

Traveling backwards from Bath to Dorchester
through Freshford, Bradford-on-Avon, Trowbridge,
Westbury, Castle Cary, Yeovil and Maiden Newton,
over hills, through vales, across meads,
reading Time’s Laughingstocks
I delve into the heart of Hardy’s Wessex.

Morning sun glistens on green grass,
cows graze in the shadow of hedgerows,
freshly-shorn sheep lounge on hillsides.
I pass harvested fields, baled hay, falling leaves,
ripening apples, stone cottages with slate roofs.

I walk from Dorchester to Stinsford
beside the gurgling water, visit
Hardy’s grave at St. Michael’s,
explore the church interior,
stand alone at the pulpit
declaiming from the Book of Job.










Through fields and woods I hike
to Higher Bockhampton, stopping
in Thorncombe Wood for sandwiches
beside Hardy’s birthplace, then onwards
across the Roman Road to Lower Bockhampton.
Crossing the Froom I pass freshly-mowed
fields following Hardy’s footsteps to Max Gate.

After a pick-me-up-pint at the Trumpet Major
I stroll back into the centre of Dorchester,
explore the ruins of a Roman villa at dusk,
marvel at intact third-century mosaics
before retiring for dinner at The Royal Oak.


- Nathanael O'Reilly 2015


Nathanael O’Reilly was born in Warrnambool & raised in Ballarat, Brisbane and Shepparton; he currently resides in England. He is the author of Distance (2014) and the chapbooks Suburban Exile: American Poems (2011) and Symptoms of Homesickness (2010), all published by Picaro Press. He is the recipient of an Emerging Writers Grant from the Australia Council. Over one hundred of his poems have appeared in journals & anthologies around the world, including Antipodes, Australian Love Poems, Blackmail Press, Bluepepper, Cordite, fourW, LiNQ, Mascara, Postcolonial Text, Prosopisia, Red River Review, Snorkel, Social Alternatives, Tincture, Transnational Literature, Verity La, Writ Poetry Review and Windmills



Monday, November 16, 2015

New Poetry by John Sweet










the false prophet

held an empty frame up to the
sky said that’s it said that’s everything
and creeley was dead and the
house across the street
had burned to the ground
man i knew had christ locked in a
cage at the far edge of town

gave him bukowski’s bones to gnaw on
gave him the poisoned water
from lake superior
 
touched him but wasn’t cured


- John Sweet 2015

 
 
spontaneous benediction
 
these men in the room of maps,
lying naked on piles of money
these prayers that feed no one
these poems that mean nothing
 
that devour the truth and
shit out empty platitudes and hope,
of course, is not a drug,
but the children are all stoned
the astronauts are falling from
the sky like dreams turned to
fire and blood
catch what you can and make
your small desperate wishes


- John Sweet 2015


John Sweet is a believer in sunlight and the undying power of surrealism, opposed to all organized religion, and has no use for millionaire politicians who claim to have his best interests at heart. His most recent collection is THE CENTURY OF DREAMING MONSTERS (2014 Lummox Press).





Thursday, November 12, 2015

New Poetry by Karen Pape










Mothwoman

Climbing the night vines
Into the sky toward Luna,
The perverse moon
With her guardian man,
I am a great moth, gray
As night, chanting
The moth song--fire,
Fire, fiero, te amo,
The itch between my legs
Is strong, the desire
To go up ever with me.
Moths are sensual
Creatures drawn
From the dark recesses
Of the skin of the world
Toward lanterns,
Toward bulbs.
Why not the romantic
Moon, that great orb
On whom man has
Left his ruddy prints,
Upon whom we have
Gazed and gazed again
The one desire out
Of bounds.



- Karen Pape 2015



Karen Bingham Pape is a teacher and writer.  Her poems have appeared in small press publications such as Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review and Maverick Press and in on-line journals such as Big River Review, Red River Review, Words-Myth and Perigee. She has read her work at conferences such as Southwestern ACA/PCA Pop Culture, ASU Annual Writers Conferences in Honor of Elmer Kelton, and Fort Concho Literary Festival.

Friday, November 06, 2015

New Poetry by Lizz Murphy










Dry Ink

She finds her answers
in the dry ink of other writers
the blow of a disturbed morning
the rearrangement of aggregates
branches pounding a beat
on the side of iron sheds
the gathering place of long dark night
the ancestral ache for the grave

She is reminded of old-time letter habits
the style of days she thought naive
and that the imagination is a personal well
a winged monkey or a mapmaker
climbing the rocks of her dreams
or singing the road ahead

Occasionally a hawk hovers in her thoughts
quivers with the thrill of a potential kill
And that poem she wrote about the pony show
and the hand-repaired Australian flag?
Really she was saying we do need a new one
no offence to the old Diggers*


It’s all dry ink


- Lizz Murphy 2015


Lizz Murphy is still writing. Still publishing. Still wondering.


* Australian colloquial for ex-soldiers, particularly those who served in World War One.



Tuesday, November 03, 2015

New Poetry by C S Hughes










Roll The Bones

I send signals to ships at sea
I was confused about what you were saying
But you’ve cleared that up now with what you said
Your wet-mouthed commentaries
Because of signal latency
We are receiving your message early
Please unrepeat
Semaphore your little flags
Three flares at night
A warning that the rocks
Are underneath and overhead
The water between treacherous
The squid small and curious
The suckers lecherous
In their fifty-dollar suits
Pockets turned out
Grottoes empty of treasure
Secondhand shoes
Shined with spit
For two dollars
Below the heels
Above the toes
Aching pirouettes
Amongst a litany of other complaints
Dancing under turbid behemoths
You can see the lighthouse


- C S Hughes 2015


C S Hughes grew up on both sides of the tracks in ochre towns and charcoal cities. When he was young he hoboed across the country by thumb and freight train, before spending several years in reading and study. He has lived in parks and palaces and worse places, creates innovative poetry pieces illustrated with his own photography and digital artworks in iBooks, including the interactive poem “Four Score”, and has occasionally had a story or poem published on paper. He also recently created and wrote the book on "The Art Of Knitting Needle Ikebana". His pictures of cows and trees can sometimes be seen around South Gippsland in local art and photography shows.
He writes commentary on popular culture and edits at nerdalicious.com.au, publishes some older poems and occasional musings online at http://satanloves.me/author and more recently has released the collection "Cars Crashed In Charcoal Cities" as an ebook, and had poems published in A Guide To Sydney Rivers and Uneven Floor.

He says he is getting older but no more wise.

Monday, November 02, 2015

New Poetry by Dael Allison

Archimedes Palimpsest

stars glitter beyond bath-showroom glass.
archimedes, lost down a plughole in syracuse
resurfaces in brunswick, everything bared.
i watch him clamber from tub to tub, testing
the hippest gloss black or white freestanding
styles. night cars growl past as he slips
into the current sensation, clear burnt orange.
he floats, overflowing the cliché, feels
the buoyant surge of inspiration—why run
through the streets naked when the eureka
moment can be witnessed through
transparent acrylic?  he scrubs a heel
with pumice, wondering how many
grains of sand it takes to fill
his universe. i wonder about
scratches in gloss acrylic.


- Dael Allison 2015


The Archimedes Palimpsest: a parchment overwritten by 13th century monks which included a copy of previously unknown theorems by Archimedes.


Dael Allison edits and writes poetry, essays and prose. Fairweather's Raft, poems exploring the life of artist Ian Fairweather, was published by Walleah Press in 2012.  

New Poetry by Williams Davies Jr.










Untitled

Rain comes
Down in October,
The cold brethern
From the house
Of July,
The one who
Chose undertaking-
His fascination
With embalming fluid,
The keen eye
For a message
In dead leaves.



- William Davies Jr. 2015