One Poem by John Patrick Robbins

 

Stratosphere

We escaped for a moment, and that was apparently for a moment too long.

All my dreams were dispersed into a void of emptiness as you were a victim of choice.

I cannot fathom the end, but no matter my readiness, it is most certainly here.

Heartbreaks are fragments of bad choices and damn near fatal accidents.

Now all I am left with is this broken shell and a barely functioning memory.

The poison is within reach as it is inside of me.

I cannot fathom what lies ahead.

I just know that in my life I got it all wrong.

There's no turning back, as at the beginning of any story, the saddest truth comes with the

realization it must inevitably end.

As with that said, I am gone.

John Patrick Robbins, is a southern gothic writer who's work has been published.In A Thin Slice Of Anxiety, Fixator Press, Fearless Poetry Zine, Disturb The Universe, Piker Press, Punk Noir Magazine, Yellow Mama Magazine, S.A.V.A Press and here at Lothlorien Poetry Journal.

His work is often dark and always unfiltered.

Seven Poems by John Yamrus

 

he was afraid...

 

afraid

of dark things,

 

strange things,

 

dangerous things,

 

difficult

and deep things,

 

and

most of all

he was afraid of her,

 

and that

was the best thing ever.

if

 

he

or she

 

or

they

or them

 

or it

 

speaks

to your heart,

 

take

it home

and keep it.

 

everything else

is a great big waste of time.

the only thing

 

a

writer

really has

 

is

a usable past

 

and

the time

to put it to use.

my friend Bill James played the blues...kinda.

 

mostly,

he drank beer

and smoked weed,

 

but,

every

now and then

he played the blues.

 

it

was the 60s

and the old blues guys

were having a revival of sorts,

 

and

Bill played

songs by really

obscure guys like Yank Rachell

and Sonny Terry and Brownie McGee.

 

when

i first met Bill

he was fresh in from New York,

 

where

he tried to

make a name

as a musician, but

the only thing he ever got

 

was

beat up,

and a real

love for the blues.

 

i remember the time

Bill got drunk,

 

and passed out in his car.

 

he

spilled a

quart of milk

on the seat, and

he slept all day in the sun

 

and

the milk

turned bad

and stank for a month.

 

and

Bill was

one of those

guys who came to mind

when you heard that old song

 

that

called someone

a walking contradiction,

partly truth and partly fiction...

 

except old Bill

(who was probably all of 26)

was all fiction, but he was a good guy,

 

right

up to the end,

when he locked his car

and took his guitar out into the park

 

and

hung himself

from a big old tree.

 

i wrote a poem

about him

once,

 

a

long

time ago.

i’m writing

another for him now.

 

he liked it

 

when

she said

(several times a week):

 

don’t

interrupt me now,

 

this

sorrow i’m feeling

is too good to ignore.

 

that

was cool,

and he respected that.

 

but then,

there were also

those days when she’d

sit back in her chair and mumble to herself:

 

don’t

let them

shit in your ice cream

and try to serve it to you cold.

 

almost

 

from

the day

they could walk,

the Kelly boys were

never called Walter and James...

 

they

were always

Fat and Fatter...and

 

even

though he was

the heavier of the two,

James was Fat and Walter was Fatter.

 

it

made

no sense,

but nothing

ever does when you’re 12

 

and

you got

no friends.

 

it

took

a lot of work

and a lot of years,

 

but, Fat

eventually

lost the weight,

changed his name to

Montana Todd and moved to Idaho,

 

where

he ran a

health food store,

until he got cancer and

on the day he died he weighed 87 pounds

 

and Fatter

never did leave town,

and just got

fatter

 

and that

was the end of that.

 

 

in a room

 

full of

other people

 

we

receive

from the woman we love

 

the answer

     

John Yamrus - One of the most prolific writers of poetry on the scene today, John Yamrus is widely considered to be a master of minimalism and the neo-noir in modern poetry. The relaxed style of his writing can be seen as a continuation of the oral tradition of literature associated with Allen Ginsberg and The Beats, and his poems are best appreciated when read aloud.

The unlikely pairing of often dark subjects, combined with humor and irreverence has become something of a trademark of his work.

His nearly 50 published books, which include not only poetry, but also novels, memoirs and a children’s book, are beginning to appear in translation, and he is a frequent guest on podcasts and television programs.

His acclaimed memoir, THE STREET, is a look back at his early years, growing up less than wealthy, in a Pennsylvania coal town in the late 1950s.

One Poem by Barbara Di Sacco in Italian with English Translation

 

Of a strange curiosity

 

He was in a kind of shop full of stuff

A build-up forced to push the wall

Old things, random pieces formed a landfill

without time or meaning.

He came out of that mess like a gloomy mask

A robust tragedy herself

with flabby flab.

The eyes circled with a lot of black like waxing

that descended sunk into the curse...

What he was doing in that chair, who knows

that he could never have sold...

If successful, but first at another age to give himself

Selling Herself

and all around it was legend.

However, she knew that she was noticed in her egocentricity

when he turned his eye sockets towards where the mocking lip

he twisted into a half-smile.

She had been blamed by rumors

that in the past he had helped someone in difficulty

going to visit her uterus with a knitting needle.

She wore woolen capes around her neck with summer dressing gowns

he believed in the evil eye for which bows and red ribbons adorned his style.

That was the bandwagon to live in and the fairy tale

of a post-war sorceress

I don't think she was old in the seventies

but nothing indicated an age between the temporal spaces of the teeth.

Of course if I had been an adult I would have interviewed her

because it's easy to imagine from the outside but I would have worked on it for days

for that personality who knew how to get away with even misunderstandings.

Now his story is with him in the parody of a circus and ambiguity.

The best trades in difficult times in the work of the architect devil

surviving the debacle of wars if you were still there in the rubble.

After about twenty years I was there to observe them with a strange curiosity. 

 

Di una strana curiosità

 

Stava in una specie di bottega piena di roba

un accumulo costretto a spingere il muro

cose vecchie, pezzi a caso formavano una discarica

senza tempo o senso.

Sbucava da quel casino come una maschera tetra

lei stessa una tragedia robusta

con ciccia flaccida.

Gli occhi cerchiati di tanto nero come ceretta

che calavano infossati nella maledizione…

Cosa facesse su quella sedia, chissà

che mai avrebbe potuto vendere…

Se riuscita, ma prima ad un’altra età a darsi

vendere sé stessa

e tutt’attorno era leggenda.

Comunque sapeva di esser notata nell’ egocentricità

quando girava le orbite verso dove il labbro beffardo

si storceva in un semisorriso.

Era stata incolpata da dicerie

di aver in passato aiutato qualcuna in difficoltà

andando a visitare il suo utero con un ferro da calza.

Portava mantelline di lana sul collo con vestaglie estive

credeva al malocchio per cui fiocchi e nastri rossi adornavano il suo stile.

Quello era il carrozzone da abitare e la favola

di una fattucchiera del dopoguerra

non credo fosse anziana negli anni settanta

ma nulla indicava un’età fra gli spazi temporali dei denti.

Certo che s’io fossi stata adulta l’avrei intervistata

perché facile immaginare da fuori ma ci avrei lavorato giorni

per quella personalità che sapeva cavarsela anche sugli equivoci.

Adesso la sua storia è con sé nella parodia di un circo e d’ambiguità.

I migliori mestieri in tempi difficili nell’opera del diavolo architetto

sopravvivendo allo sfacelo delle guerre se ancora c’eri fra le macerie.

Dopo circa un ventennio ero lì ad osservarli di una strana curiosità.

Barbara Di Sacco - Tuscan poet and writer, Barbara Di Sacco preserves mental pages of women's narratives its matriarchal tree enriched with legendary stories in the popular truthful vortices of its own of rural, vulgar culture, that of calluses on hands, of faces deformed by time working on the land exposed to each of the events, natural and otherwise. The kingdom of the radical apparatuses. In a circle the words dance, they return to the loom, to the washhouse, to the streets, to the ageless chairs in the continuity of stories, of the historical memory of our lives. Enjoy the reading where to knot everyone's path.

Barbara Di Sacco - Poetessa scrittrice toscana, Barbara Di Sacco conserva pagine mentali di narrazioni femminili il suo albero matriarcale arricchito di leggendarie storie nei vortici veritieri popolari della propria terra, della cultura rurale, volgare, quella dei calli sulle mani, dei volti deformati dal tempo lavorativo sulla terra esposta ad ognuno degli eventi, naturali e non. Il regno degli apparati radicali. In cerchio danzano le parole, tornano al telaio, al lavatoio, nelle vie, sulle seggiole senza età nella continuità dei racconti, della memoria storica della nostra vita. Buona lettura dove annodare il percorso di ognuno.

 

 

 

 

 

Five Poems by Mike Madill

 

Afraid to Blink

(after Mary Oliver’s ‘I Don’t Want to be Demure or Respectful’) 

 

There’s a fire in the lashes of my eyes,

illuminating everything I see.

This isn’t like the cliché

of rose-coloured glasses, but far more

incendiary: the bitterness

that lines a fur coat; the overheated

toddler in wool sweater; the burning

soles of restless nomads. I see it all

and I’m afraid to blink, in case

I lose that connection, that longing

to belong.

 

Feigning Zen                                                             

 

Choose your saviour.

Cue the wings and harps,

maybe a Bodhi tree

to set your sights on,

or some white-robed hero

on high. Feign some Zen,

despite your deep-

down squirm

whenever there’s talk of

the beyond.

 

Belief crystallizes

only at the brink

of oblivion.

 

For the night sky

to be worth so many

upturned eyes, the stars

need to show more shine.

You say your faith can

rise above even the

abduction of hope

and yet, here I am,

walking on water

just to get my feet wet.

 

Forest Floor                                                                                                                    

(after Charles Wright’s ‘Matins’)

 

Today would be a good day to try

something new, break through

the crust of rote, set my sights

on the undescribed. But how exactly

do I let the light in, Charles,

without breaking, leaving me

with a net loss of shadow?

 

If we’re nobodies, then aren’t we

all equally forgettable,

fooling ourselves that we have

marks to leave, when we’re just

another fallen leaf on the forest floor?

 

Think of the combined,

subtle hue released in their dying,

however fleeting. How do I

put my faith in so tenuous a promise,

risk being let down again, always

further than any light can go?

 

So make me a mojito, with its bold,

green sprig of mint and its devil-

may-care icy tinkle, and I’ll be

the cubes immersed in swirl,

the melting and the draining away

someone else’s problem. This day,

this moment, now all I can embrace.

 

Kick away the ground cover,

face head-on the buried honesty

beneath the leaves, beyond the glass

tumbler. Inhale the musty scent

of all the nobodies who’ve fallen

before, every bit as vital now in

their loamy rooms below.

 

Digging down, I’ll discover

how much deeper I still have to go.

Grubby hands will reveal I’ve tried

to come to grips with myself and

my past: Dad’s driven work ethic.

And me, caught in the rocky stratus,

failing to measure up to my

memory of his expectations, or even

grasp how desolate that makes me feel. 

 

 

Tarnished 

 

Set your sights

on a second round

this morning, soothe

your conscience with a

swap to instant decaf.

Plunge tarnished teaspoon

into Nescafe, watch dusty

grains sprinkle down

into your mug, insides

stained more than most.

The kettle crackles, sputters,

roils its way to a tantrum.

Pour off just enough

of its pique, imagine

the rest of your days

this simple, until you find

you’re out of milk.

Resort to whitener –

truck-stop mediocrity –

these muddy days still

no easier to swallow.                                                                         

Stir up that same old

mini-cyclone, an

eddy of froth

imploding.

 

Throat, Claw and Crown                                                                                     

(after Charles Bukowski’s ‘The Bluebird’) 

 

There’s a bluebird in my heart

and a cardinal in my brain,

a vulture in my spine that won’t

stop eating me alive and a raven

that’s feasting on my toes.

 

Why can’t I break free?

If I’m stuck with them, then

they’re stuck with me and there’s

no way in hell either of us

will change our minds. That cold,

exacting cardinal upstairs,

stubborn shit. Such a motley flock

of misfits, too single-minded

to ever leave their nest.

 

I’m in pieces on the page –

throats, claws and crowns.

Here lies the dim smirk between

November and forever, the sun

again with its entitlement issues.

 

Is it even darker than I fear

inside, like those lenses that lose

their rosiness when I step outdoors,

like John Lennon confronted

by Mark David Chapman?

I’m not going to let anybody see

 

what’s really going on inside

of me. Until the day they

break open my ribcage, find

frayed feathers and dulled-down

beaks, everything scared stiff by

the sickly-sweet rot of regret.

Mike Madill’s poems have appeared in literary journals widely across Canada, as well as in the U.S., Ireland and Australia, including in The Antigonish Review, The Hobo Camp Review, Event, The Fiddlehead, The Galway Review and Witcraft. After his manuscript was one of four winners in the inaugural 2022 Don Gutteridge Poetry Award Contest, he was awarded publication of his debut, full-length poetry collection, The Better Part of Some Time, (Wet Ink Books, 2022).