Two Poems by Antonia Alexandra Klimenko

 

side order 

 

don't leave my bed on Sundays 

don't go to church to pray 

i leave my back door open 

and i'm open every day 

 

you can worship at my altar 

just get down on your knees 

i m not the flesh of Mary 

but i still aim to please 

 

plastic Jesus on my dashboard 

my upholstery wearing thin 

they say God is dead 

but She's just knockin' back a gin 

 

or whiskey in the parlour 

milk and honey on the mind 

while the Devil's in your pantry  

robbing you blind     'course 

 

your hunger for my pleasure's 

bound to keep us satisfied  

you can hunt for buried treasure 

i'll strike oil between your thighs 

 

or tattoo your broken promises 

across my breaking heart 

have anything on my menu 

or just  order a la carte  

 

come worship at my drive-in  

come roll a dream or two 

smoke the whole damn joint down 

boy   it's your funeral   too 

 

they say God is dead  

but   Lord knows   She's just chillin'  

when the world has gone to hell  

come see me if you're willin'                            

 

honey   pass the collection plate 

you know love takes its toll 

come offer up a tear or two 

it's good for the soul 

 

the low-down weary blues  

  

it's a quarter past two  

and my man ain't home 

i lie awake in bed  

i listen for the phone 

but it ain't ringin’ 

and my heart's begun to moan 

i got the lowdown weary blues 

 

he beats me in the mornin’  

he stays out late at night 

he doesn't pay the rent  

spends money on highlife  

he’s a liar and a cheat  

brings me trouble  toil and strife 

i got the low down weary  blues 

 

bloodstains on my pillow 

sour whisky on my breath 

as if we're not already dyin’ 

i worry ‘bout my death 

i can't afford a funeral 

i ain't got no tears left  

i got the lowdown weary blues 

 

the rats are in the parlour 

eating bread and honey 

the bats are in the belfry 

acting kinda funny 

the cat s out of tune 

he dogs are barkin’ 

the melody's broken  

the days are markin’ 

my name on a tombstone  

the angels be harkin’ 

and calling me soooon 

 

cause  

there s a wound in my heart  

that can't ever heal 

the hole's soooo big  

i can’t even feel 

the train passing through  

leaving its sorry tracks 

i cry the whole night through                 

but he ain't commin bac 

 

my pleas are on their knees                                             

fallin’ straight to hell 

he d be pawning my soul  

if  i didn’t already sell it 

i be causin’ him pain 

is the way he'd like to tell it 

i feel bad and that ain’t good 

but it's so hard to leave 

why don't i just stay a spellll 

 

we live in a blind alley 

on a street of memory 

my dreams are second-hand    

and reality ain't free 

in this broken down hotel room   

we don t even own the key 

there’s no where to go  

but up     you see 

 

blood stains on my pillow  

sour whiskey on my breath 

as if we ain’t already dying  

i worry bout my death 

i d finish this song  

but i aint t got no words left 

I got the lowdown weary bluessssssssss 

 

Antonia Alexandra Klimenko was first introduced on the BBC and to the literary world by the legendary James Meary Tambimuttu of Poetry London–-publisher of T.S. Eliot, Dylan Thomas, Henry Miller and Bob Dylan, to name a few.  his death, it was his friend, the late great Kathleen Raine, who took an interest in her writing and encouraged her to publish.  A nominee for the Pushcart Prize and a former San Francisco Poetry Slam Champion, she is widely published. Her work has appeared in (among others) XXI Century World Literature (which she represents France) and Maintenant : Journal of Contemporary Dada Writing and Art archived at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. and New York’s Museum of Modern Art. She is the recipient of two grants: one from Poets in Need, of which Michael (100 Thousand Poets for Change) Rothenberg is a co-founder; the second—the 2018 Generosity Award bestowed on her by Kathleen Spivack and Joseph Murray for her outstanding service to international writers through SpokenWord Paris where she is Writer/ Poet in Residence.  Her collected poems On the Way to Invisible is forthcoming in 2022. 

 

Five Poems by Ben Nardolilli

Passively Complementing the Natural Curve of the River

 

Walking along the Potomac in a park nestled

Against the edge of Georgetown, I wonder

What a poet could hope to do with this scene

 

Everything is clean, the river is a deep blue,

The traffic passes by in a humble roar,

And the air refreshes all who breathe it in

 

Meanwhile, the dry land in front and below

Is filled with winding paths and trees,

As if a poet already came to arrange this place

 

There is nothing to comment or dwell on,

Or to look over or under for a secret, 

The order is already here and any chaos slight

 

 

Soft Approaches

 

Get on a new level and try to get the wagon across,

The world is not a shape, but made of them,

Find a shape between the others

That is clear as a channel and lets you go through

 

No promises for a promised land, you are going

Somewhere else without me, 

So I can say little about what will be there,

Go drool over it yourself, in the wagon you brought

 

 

The Second Blockbuster

 

Beyond how I act, I must dream

Recklessly, where else

If not in dreams can I live that way?

 

What happens there? I get to fly

And be motionless too,

My decomposing biomass forgotten

 

Waking up with thorns tickling me, 

That is one way to think 

Of being happy, I think to myself

 

 

Inner Cell Loyalty

 

Everybody sits under the ship, 

And wonder why it won’t sail away, 

They say no one can be blamed

As they continue to remain in place,

Ears and hair grazing the hull

 

Rumours echo from the stern: 

New ideas to get the ship moving,

Thinking of wind is the new solution,

Masses from their thoughts 

Will help, so they imagine a breeze

 

The first dreams bring smiles,

And no wind, no waves, no coasts,

The ship remains above us all,

While the ocean begins its rise,

Because I am dreaming of a moon

 

 

The Newer Testament

 

Adopting pseudonyms to get a fresh hearing, 

The new beginning can only be found 

In imitation of the old, it seems, find the right name

From the right era and your views will bloom

 

No one may know you were the one

All along revising in the shadow of an elder god

Or saint, that will be the price, 

Humility, knowing no statue will be made for you

 

And the monuments to whoever you puppet

Will double in size and presence,

While your name will be forgotten, even though

You were the one who made the current and waves

 

Ben Nardolilli currently lives in New York City. His work has appeared in Perigee Magazine, Red Fez, Danse Macabre, The 22 Magazine, Quail Bell Magazine, Elimae, The Northampton Review, Local Train Magazine, The Minetta Review, and Yes Poetry. He blogs at mirrorsponge.blogspot.com and is trying to publish his novels.

Four Poems by Sheila E. Murphy - from a work-in-progress titled "October Sequence"

 

Four Poems by Sheila E. Murphy from a work-in-progress titled "October Sequence"

90/

Mindful of the lapdog teachings of a pseudo

Monk she drove another way

Clouding the mirror with her lesser half

And sounded out each word while reading

Palms and palimpsests by sight

By seeds by soundlings as a carapace

Reverts to safety as presumed

Recursed crossed out and slammed between

A pair of irons heated halfway

So wormwood holds and viaducts

Allow flow through to winter here

Where butterflies the hue of marshmallow

Plaintext their way to moth-hood

As though temples never real could be

Contained and trapped as strangers

See via slides one through seventeen

No one picture truer than preceding

Olivetti prints on cold white line free

Pastel shreds of ink laced messaging

Intended to be kept like stem cells

Held fast in case

There is a run on original material

Dreamed valid various and of need

 

91/

Otto twin of Opus decorated mirror after

Mirror with untinted facial muscles

And bright teeth his brother whose name

Denoted work kept at his labour

Birthing little save the doldrums

They’d been taught by parents diligent

And driving to pieces thought

Behind the swag and sugar feeling given

To inhabitants of pens for play

With plastic coverings coated with Braille

And ivory pendants hoped into

Existence by quietly receding roles

As though the sideburns in a photograph

Might come to life and flourish

Where name brands had been

And cozy through usual weather

On the sidelines chaperoned invisibly

Enough to freeze gateways from interfering

With the potency of precedent

Still whole in lazy minds uncomfortable

With “show your work” pronouncements

By faculty lacking in faculties

All mood long where sack cloth

Seemed to close in on a fashion statement

 

92/

Ball and chain make nice amendments

To be cauterized blue silver laced

Atop the heads that bow to weather

Eminently qualified to preclude chance

Lacking in wilderness like Inverness

Kept generous and filled by name with

Syllables aglow and fastened to

Rich young breath translating silence

To its former state of saddlehood

Wide open gentle sails encompassing

The mild patter of opacity where wind

Slows to a crawl and chafes

Intact skin to afford its strength

In stamina denuding force fit practice

To make room for window dressing clear

And fresh and ramified the way the

Ocean at last moves minds commingled

With hold still forces left like platitudes

Along cold hills unmeant just there

While all the silver in the stretchmarks

Divvy up their glam shot makeover

In favour of just-is plush forever

Viable new ways of enclosing

Soul and yarn and seeds

 

93/

Fear of freedom shacks up with potbelly

Frat boy deeming fatherhood ploys

To grab the rabid beat feet impulse

Of unready joy boys wanting

Bags of bucks attendant power

To pounce with upon the unsuspecting

Unthinking unwound flurry of feelgood

Nobodaddies mutually playing keepaway

With jewels and scraps and cobwebs

Seeds and mood lit rodeo posses

Chock full of unmended lives vulnerable

To cajoling by conscience free midges

Corresponding to abandoned wasps’ nests

Curlicued not taught collapse as maiming

Corresponding enmity piercing strong skin

Unbroken thus far in the siege of wafer

Splintering and say-so in the free flow

Through new margins and spun ghost avenues

Once whole now horror as mid mood

Scurries to land on lambast hotbeds

Nigh to whittling as the flaws

Gnaw our right to be plated

Sheila E. Murphy is the recipient of the Gertrude Stein Award for her book Letters to Unfinished J. (Green Integer Press, 2003). Her most recent book is Golden Milk (Luna Bisonte Prods, 2020). Reporting Live from You Know Where won the Hay(na)Ku Poetry Book Prize Competition (Meritage Press (U.S.A.) and xPress(ed) (Finland), 2018).  Also in 2018, Broken Sleep Books brought out the book As If To Tempt the Diatonic Marvel from the Ivory.

 

We - Short Story by Jon Moray

We - Short Story by Jon Moray

 

I became a leader in a land in desperate need of leadership. Our village supreme elder’s premonition of the impending apocalypse became a reality and only those fortunate enough to seek refuge in underground caves survived peril. I forced through the rock filled cavern opening and looked out into a world of twisted, deformed rubble.

It was understood by all, the first emerging survivor would alert the rest by sounding the ivory-tusked survival horn buried at the top of the Mountain of Waves. As I looked about the cluttered carnage in search of humanity, I realized the one to make the climb would be me. Me, a seventeen-year-old, groomed to be a warrior against the fist of slavery. My father would be proud.

Clad in formed rusted armour, I carefully stepped over the remains of a society corrupted by personal invasion. As I crept further, I saw the unimaginable, a trail of broken mirrors that belonged to all the young women of the villages in the region.

As I reached for one of the tainted mirrors, I realized Klutok, the evil warlock from Klublaland, unleashed his earth-shattering spell during the slave extermination conflict. The discarded mirrors once contained the magic of holographic images of all the female descendants of these women. An unblemished mirror represented the natural beauty of its possessor. The mirrors were collected by the warlock’s sentries and disposed of at the foot of the village mountain, robbing the women of their alluring hereditary memorials. It was only a matter of time that these women would wilt away to dust.

At the foot of the Mountain of Waves, I looked back at the broken mirrors, and helplessly wondered if any of the women had survived. I turned and began my climb, snaking around swords and maces that belonged to the valiant fallen heroes.

I scaled further up and laying harmlessly on the dusty trail was my dad’s sword, distinct with the warrior leader crest of twin dragons etched on the golden handle. I grasped the weapon of honour, enemy blood visible on the ever-sharp blade, and marvelled at his heroic sacrifice, while tears welled my eyes. My dad, the Sentinel Warrior, fought until the “Spell of Extinction” killed anyone who was devoid of shelter. Under my dad’s tutelage, I managed to escape captivity and survive in the cave.

I carried the sword and headed up the jagged terrain toward the apex, accepting the new role of warrior leader. I reached the top and was welcomed by an auburn sun that finally cleared the denseness of death scented ashes. I peered out at demolished lands, as a mixture of sadness, anger, and passionate perseverance dominated my emotions.  I used the sword to dig at the spot where the horn was strategically buried by the first sergeant of battle. I knelt and dug further with my hands and uncovered the horn. I stood, drew a deep breath, blew into the alarm, and waited.

Through the royal blue dust appeared figures with zombie-like movements, encroaching closer towards me. Most were the elders, since almost all non-adults were captured and left to suffer a torturous death. Old, tired eyes beckoned me for guidance, solutions, and leadership. One of the wise elders, San Magi, pointed toward the sun and its symbol of hope. They knelt in silent meditation as I surveyed and pondered the tattered land.

And now, it was left to me to lead anew. Me, young, but well trained. Me, the warrior’s son, relied upon by the remaining villagers to lead them in post-apocalypse survival. If the surviving citizens were to live in peace, it would have to be led by me.

A scratchy disturbed gravel sound broke my trancelike thought process. I turned and was stunned by the sight of a beautiful woman, battle-scarred, but alert. Since the evil rulers enforced gender segregation to eliminate reproduction, I had never met her before. She stood motionless; her blond hair streaked of blood. She wore dried tears that appeared pasted onto her face. Her eyes were bloodshot, but focused. Her pink lips, cracked from the arid air, were pursed in determination. She was warrior-like in her stance and her attire. Her slight smile was welcoming, as she stepped inches from me. Her hand took mine and a sudden warmness enveloped me. Her other handheld her silver framed mirror, intact, and glowing of visions of her family of matriarchs.

Her eyes were locked on mine, frozen in time, and then she held up her mirror, reflecting our youthful images. She drew in and planted a soft kiss on my lips that loosened my grip on the sword. Suddenly, aqua liquid crystals emitted from her mirror like fireflies and gravitated towards the mound of broken mirrors. She whispered that our kiss reversed the evil warlock’s spell and would restore the mirrors and the women’s beauty back to prominence. Together, we looked out onto the barren land. It was at that moment, I realized the mission to restore the villages was no longer left to me, but her and I, we. 

 

Jon Moray has been writing short stories for over a decade and his work has appeared in several online and print markets. When not working and being a devoted family man, he enjoys sports, music, the ocean, crossword puzzles, and SCI-FI/Fantasy media. 

Three Poems by Jan Napier

 

Moth

 

While I was out

it hatched

 

split and quit its

chrysalis

 

on a first leaf

dull wet wings

 

folded to a thorax

boxy and squat.

 

lumpen    stubby

moveless till moonlight

 

wrote silver

on russet

 

limned antennae

fanned and feathery

 

moth launched

an unsure orbit

 

around porch lamp

a bright shadow

 

brushing

the cusp of dusk.

Patchwork Prayers

Listen to the silence as the world wakes —

factory stacks stand cold and unsmoking.

Our patchwork prayers are almost answered.

 

Watch all the shapes that turning birds make

our joy ballooning with every motion,

listen to the silence as the world wakes.

 

Smile at ashen skies so slowly blueing

while great whales sing in shipless oceans.

Our patchwork prayers so nearly answered.

 

Polar cubs play on glaciers cooling,

frog spawn froths, growing into commotion.

Listen to the silence as the world wakes.

 

In weedy streets teddy bears are blooming

with these painted rainbows, such loving notions:

our patchwork prayers may soon be answered.

 

In backyards families are moon viewing,          

clean air they’re sharing a healing potion.

Listen to the silence as the world wakes.

Our patchwork prayers are almost answered.

Squamous

Youth a burn of merry go rounds and laughing clowns,

zinc swiped on by mum mopped off after goodbye,

 

Ambre Solaire, flirty skirts, hat’s a dirty

word, sleeves a modesty affected by the old.

 

Skin seared and salty peels, small storm of foreboding

ignored. Red spots erupt, in years less volatile,

less radiant. Gods in white (no haloes),

 

evict wilding nuclei, emergent purple nudging

from under dressings. Dermis distends, encircles

 

brow and socket tight and shiny as a child’s balloon.

Eye squinched. Lid gibbous. The world unreadable.

 

Darkness passes. Stitches inflicted by fingers intent

on excision of sins held by cells, unpicked.

 

Lessened yet again, I adjust akubra, squint

sunwards, sky a pethidine that doesn’t numb.

Jan Napier is a Western Australian poet. Her work has been showcased in journals and anthologies both within Australia and overseas.

Jan’s first poetry collection Thylacine was launched in 2015. Her haiku collection Day Moon was published in 2020, as was her third poetry collection Listening to Frost. Jan is on the committee of the Out of the Asylum Writer’s Group, (OOTA), which is based in Fremantle Western Australia.      

Four Poems by Michael Lee Johnson

 

Frogs

 

"Grow grass,

stone frogs,"

written on bathroom walls.

Hippie beads, oodles

colourful acid pills

in dresser draws,

no clothes,

kaleidoscope condoms, 

ostentatious sex.

No Bibles or Sundays

that anyone remembers.

Rochdale College,

Toronto, Ontario 1972,

freedom school, free education.

Makes no sense,

when you're high on a song

"American Women" blasting 

eardrums and police sirens come on.

 

(Note: Rochdale College was patterned after Summerhill School-Democratic "freedom school" in England founded in 1921 by Alexander Sutherland Neill with the belief that the school should be made to fit the child, rather than the other way around.)

 

Poetry Man

 

I’m the poetry man, understand?

Dance, dance, dance to the crystals of night,

healing crystals detox nightmares, night tremors.

Death still comes in the shadow of grief,

hides beneath this blanket of time,

in the heat, in the cold. 

Hold my hand on this journey

you won’t be the first, but

you may be the last.

You and I so many avenues,

ventures & turns, so many years together

one bad incident, violence, unexpected,

one punch, all lights dim out.

 

97, Coming to Terms & Goodbye

(An atheist faces his own death)

 

Wait until I have to say goodbye,

don’t rush; I’m a philosophical professor

facing my own death on my own time.

It takes longer to rise to kick the blankets back.

I take my pills with water and slowly lift

myself out of bed to the edge of my walker.

Living to age 97 is an experience I share

with my caretaker and so hard to accept.

It’s hard for youngsters who have not experienced

old age to know the psychology of pain

that you can’t put your socks on or pull

your own pants up without help anymore—

thank God for suspenders.

“At a certain point, there’s no reason

to be concerned about death, when you die,

no problem, there’s nothing.”

But why in my loneness, teeth stuck

in with denture glue, my daily pillbox complete,

and my wife, Leslie Josephine, gone for years,

why does it haunt me?

I can’t orchestrate, play Ph.D. anymore,

my song lyrics is running out, my personality

framed in a gentler state of mind.

I still think it necessary to figure out

the patterns of death; I just don’t know why.

“There must be something missing

from this argument; I wish I knew.

Don’t push me, please wait; soon

is enough to say goodbye.

My theatre life, now shared, my last play,

coming to this final curtain, I give you

grace, “the king of swing,” the voice of

Benny Goodman is silent now,

an act of humanity passes, no applause.

 

*Dedicated to the memory of Herbert Fingarette, November 2, 2018 (aged 97).  Berkeley, California, U.S.A. Video credit and photo credits:     https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qX6NztnPU-4.

 

Keyboard

 

Keyboard dancing, poet-writer,

old bold, ribbons are worn out,

type keys bent out of shape.

40 wpm, high school,

Smith Corona 220 electric ultimately

gave out, carrying case, lost key.

No typewriter repairman anymore.

It is this media, new age apps,

for internet dreams, forged nightmares,

nothing can go wrong, right?

Cagey, I prefer my Covid-19 shots

completed one at a time.

Unfinished poems can wait,

hang start-up like Jesus

ragged on that wooden cross,

revise a few lines at a time;

near the end, complete to finish.

I will touch my way out of this life;

as Elton John says, 

“like a candle in the wind.”

I will be at my keyboard late at night

that moment I pass, my fingertips stop.

Michael Lee Johnson lived ten years in Canada, Vietnam era. Today he is a poet in the greater Chicagoland area, IL.  He has 248 YouTube poetry videos. Michael Lee Johnson is an internationally published poet in 43 countries, several published poetry books, nominated for 4 Pushcart Prize awards and 5 Best of the Net nominations. He is editor-in-chief of 3 poetry anthologies, all available on Amazon, and has several poetry books and chapbooks. He has over 536 published poems. Michael is the administrator of 6 Facebook Poetry groups. Member Illinois State Poetry Society: http://www.illinoispoets.org/.