Neil Slevin is a 26 year-old writer from the West of Ireland. An English teacher, he has returned to university to complete an M.A. in Writing at N.U.I. Galway and to pursue a writing-based career. Neil writes for Sin (N.U.I. Galway's student newspaper), editing its entertainment section and culture column, Resonate, and as Events Reporter for the Institute for Lifecourse and Society. Neil’s poetry has been published by The Galway Review and numerous international journals. The Gaelic Chieftain I am the starlit horseman warring the fallen night: With the raining light of stars my shadow’s flecked, stars that stream like trickling tears from the eyes of a crying sky: tears that streak the face of night in grief for what’s long lost – what I alone have won, I who will not die. Draped in ebony-black I stand alone against your darkness, winds that shriek the curlew’s call; I know they howl to me of death but to them I must not yield, to them I will not fall. I who ride through time and space, my horse’s route no longer stone-blocked road nor slow-rising hillside, I, who all must pass and face to know my honour and my pride. Not even when this battle ends, when daylight reigns and peacetime calls will I rest, I will outlive the dawn: I wait for it with sword’s embrace, my eternal wrath guarding the West. My war rages on. The Lobster After Dalí The lobster’s guarding the phone again; that’s the reason I haven’t called you. He’s there, watching me with the reproach of my father whenever I’d done something parents never want their children to do even when there’s no harm in doing it, like using the word ‘cops’ repeatedly to describe policemen (as if it were some sort of curse) because it was all I’d ever heard them described as on my diet of American television. But I digress. The phone is there too, you at the other end of a line that traces its way from me to you. You most likely not even wanting me to call but there all-the-same, waiting for life’s next moment to set that beautiful ball of uncertainty rolling into some unknown valley where we will push it up the hills we find, Sisyphus-like, before letting it fall, never crossing the path of its glorious descent but embracing its fall because it is falling, because we have been falling our whole lives, into life, out of love, toward each other; because falling is part of the fun. But I’ve already fallen: the lobster cannot rescue me from this mire of delight I’ve been lost in since that day we first met. Hide and Seek You watch it play hide and seek like a playground’s child hidden behind clouds yet peeping out (though curiosity kills most cats) as it tries to beat the count of each falling drop – last breath its first, its only pulse – of the shower’s symphony that rises, rises then reaches its crescendo. From the conductor’s wand, a single ray trickles earthward, molten gold spelling out I will shine again. Summer Shadow Though you’re not here I say your name with the softness I’d say I love you, whether there’s another to hear the sound or only silence to diffuse it into the distance we share; while the woods listen and the trees rise, their branches nodding in the gentle breeze as if to show they understand, they know that the one they shelter is alone despite the summer’s light trickling through their leaves like afterthoughts of liquid gold to warm him in your shadow. Your Face I’ve never seen your face undressed, you stripped of the layers between us built up by time and space; but I have caught those glimpses, the stardust you let fall to Earth, pennies drizzled by astral hands to ignite my homeless heart and soul, lull my nomad’s mind with love.
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Yuan Changming, 9-time Pushcart nominee and author of 7 chapbooks (including Wordscaping [2016]), grew up in rural China and published monographs on translation before immigrating to Canada. With a PhD in English from the U of Saskatchewan, Yuan currently edits Poetry Pacific with Allen Yuan in Vancouver, and has poetry appearing in Best Canadian Poetry (2009,12,14), BestNewPoemsOnline, Poetry in Voice, Threepenny Review and 1179 others across 38 countries. poetrypacific.blogspot.ca http://poetrypacificpress.blogspot.ca/ http://www.facebook.com/poetry.pacific Cheese, Vancouver in April Don’t even think of Trying to pretend, but Just show your most natural Charm and grace; stand straight Amidst the greening maple trees Hold all the blooming cherry flowers Closer to your heart; face towards The bluest sky above the pacific Move a bit more forward Before the grouse mountain Shake off the rain drops of last long winter On your hair, and now Say cheese, you vancouver in april On the Freeway Driving through a forest I saw a deer Standing alone still Like what I wish to watch: Every human is so busy Passing by I Think; Therefore, I Am But of course being what I am Does not always require thinking Being what I am is actually sufficient Or requires nothing but eating, drinking Fucking, farting, pissing, pooing and sleeping Often, being what I am doesn’t even require Feeling, besides making money by selling All that I have and/or I am. Indeed Being what I am requires neither thinking Nor feeling, now except perhaps writing I write; therefore, I am Though I am not what I think Tree Scars With your fingers, hands And even arms cut off You have scars all over Your body, which first You used to protest against all human pain And injury in deafening silence, then Your mouths became eyes staring still At each evil knife, each inhuman act Now you are looking forward, and beyond Without a wink, without a tear drop Slowly Let us take all the long time we need To wake up from our overdue dreams Get out of the bed, and stretch our Limbs as far as possible for a new morning Let us take all the long time we need To listen to the first song of the birds Watch the rise of this summer sun, feel The breeze combing each tree with tenderness Let us take all the long time we need To enjoy being together with our beloved Exchange a smile so that they can stay with Us just a few seconds or even minutes longer Yes, let’s take all the long time we need To drink this tea, to chat about this weather To look back at the road we have travelled along To think, to cry, and to die in lingering twilight Crows You’re neither the mystic Prophet Nor the common Fortune teller As you are believed to be In the east or the west Rather, you are the soul of a fellow Human, perching on the treetop Speechless, as if meditating over Life, as if recalling your prayers Michael Lee Johnson lived ten years in Canada during the Vietnam era. Today he is a poet, freelance writer, publisher, photographer, and small business owner in Itasca, Illinois. He has been published in more than 885 small press magazines, in 27 different countries, and he edits 10 poetry sites. He has 89 poetry videos on YouTube. He is also the publisher of Moonlight Dreamers of Yellow Haze available on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/dp/1530456762 I Regret Grinder, but, No Remorse I have no regret, no grinder of remorse, nor memory of the dental chair. I have no feeler of sins lost in sand dust with golden teeth, diamond over lay of lies. Do not dance, play checkers, between the lines of memory-black/white. I am a sinner wild with elbow muscle, flex right to left. Dental floss is my Jesus, purple robe, violent-victim. The cheeks of God whisper fools of toy tot decay, hanger on a cross-victim. I was an outcast of hell with flames hanging from my behind. What age of flowers is a whisper into the colors, fool enamel solid white. I wild elbows flex from right to left, dental floss violent-victim. I am owner of the cheeks of sunken bones. What left is decay open space, mouth, tongue, cavities. Christ never liked the sound of a drill, only aging of flowers, whispers from toy toots. Lost in the blur of the blue heron I toss my gambling cards, fold. Back to the farm fields forever and the sounds of wheat in the wind. Jesus is the stop point, remorse, joy, where the sounds end. I am an abstract artist, setting black outline in a dental chair, false teeth pending white, waiting for second coming. Ball Jar I am the cut-off ends of yellow lemon, end cuts off green lime skin and juice squeezed, mixed with Pure Vitamin crystals heavy-duty vitamin C, leads me to Christ. I hang my survival on orange and lime trees. I cut you with Chicago cutlery knives. 6 ounces of Barton vodka brand a twist of above, between this night, my thighs, my thoughts morning is the master of exchanges of fluids myself or others. Life is a single squeeze both ends of both fruits. Jerk me hands free top end of a Ball Jar a hinge of plastic. Bring me to the end of the straw, up/down over again mix it/mix me to the end of hell. Old Men Walk Funny Old men walk funny with shadows eating at their heels. Pediatric walkers, prostate exams, bend over, and then mostly die. They grow poor, leave their grocery list at home, and forget their bank account numbers, dwell whether they wear dentures, uppers or lowers; did they put their underwear on. They cannot remember where they put their glasses, did they drop their memory on route to some place. They package old bones, dry dreams; testicles empty, and giggle choking on past sexual fantasies. Mogen David madness accesses 100 BC concord wine, all remaining parts sit down- waves go through their brain as if broken cylinders float undefined travelers. At night, they scream in silent dreams no one else hears, they are flapping of monarch butterfly wings. Old men walk funny to the barbershop with gray hair, no hair; sagging pants to physical therapy. They pray for sunflowers above their graves, a plot that bears their name. They purchase their plots, pennies on a dollar, beggar's price a deceased wife. Proverb: in the end, everything that is long at one time is now passive, cut short. Ignore those old moonshiners that walk funny, "they aren't hurting anyone anymore." Cut Through Thickness (V2) I angle at your youth and cross my eyes to see reality of time passed. I cut through thickness of you retina, thin splinters, raw oak from the North, Cypress trees, bending, rebel in Southern ways. My present and past tenses are confused with feelings. I cross the border of knowing you and forced to retreat. I am seasoning of salt, pepper, and sugar in your veins. I am daddy tenderness long time gone memories, graveyard, and suppressed images. I squeeze scars, raw pimples, Clearasil, alcohol masking, blend in hate cosmetics. Jesus is a forgiving hallo symbol hanging over a cross. I hang alligator skins on the shells of Saturn and Apollo. I lift the Vertical Assembly Building over a trailer sky. I launch pad of love, a missile, old time arrow direct to hearts. Every time I feel like crying, Bob Dylan, ages, angels with a handful of tears. I am a Jamaican aspiring poet, the product of a country which has a rich oral history of storytelling. I have been listening all my life, and now I feel confident enough to try at telling my little made-up stories too. In so doing, I would like to hold the faces around the campfire spellbound; the way mine was completely captured, listening to these far away wonders, dramas and melodramas. So, I hope that these lines can take the reader to a somewhere place. MY PAIN My pain is a million poems told in a million languages, My pain sears the same, with a million variation to the theme, trying their all to anaesthetized itself, My pain is the present and a past that is stuck in the pathway of healing, My pain is insufficient pixel a grainy, hazy future, My pain is more crumpled paper, calligraphy of an inane mind, My pain is the reiteration of pain which is a cursory glanced at to be flipped over to the cartoons, My pain digs a deep hole in a bid to be pitch, black melancholy, My pain gets stuck down there, my pain cries out a monotonous echo. POOR LOVE The poverty of our love is monumental its footing is buried deep in emptiness. someone goes to the open window, curses the vacuum again another variation to the misrepresentation of the misrepresented facts arms around the apparitions of each other, swearing to new lines that rhymes, then plastering it over future deeper hurt as we are about to sink deeper into each other’s unresolved concept, that is still drilling between the granite for oil. Which upon its euphoric discovery charity and compassion with flow unimpeded, ‘ what of etiquette, civility, free gestures, right? someone goes to the open window and asked, ‘too poor right now’, the soliloquy snaps back, ‘costly things: tenderness and affection’. so we rightly had to squeeze down tighter on the coins in our pockets because if love is a fairground the simple trick of tossing a coin in the ring, is a trick we are glad not to learn, but the scars in our deformed kiss will hopefully be straightened out as we extend our rig, as we send down an even deeper drill. YOUR HERO is a developing work a work in progress a self-indulgent act on your part, being stenciled by a still hand after the imaged held steadfastly to by a perfectionist mind, these brush stroke of yours without messing up the floor this the denied caricature, your hero is a hewed justification from a river’s rock, your conviction, a fine brush moving deftly over the erased but still imprinted effigy, until your square-jaw hero emerging like a ‘scratch-and-win’ card, your hero is a customized papier-mache’ punch-out whose piercing silence like a scalpel intent on piercing the balloon that cocoons your hero, your hero is a job unto itself, running faucet a running argument between paint, water and yourself, because to a roomful of doubters, your stand, your testament a prerogative beyond critique… BEAUTY: SUPPOSE Beyond the mirage, in the mirage still, balance on tip-toes, to see someone, someone beautiful to look, an attempt at breathing for a rose because when it shows all of it shows, That heaven, hell, nowhere somewhere hangs in suspension and for a rose this ad-hoc philosophy rolls, a dice on the table top not to explain, but to continue the exercise: IN OUT IN OUT life’s meaning, someone beautiful when suppose, Beyond shadowy oasis, beyond...up on tip toes when blood for coffee, plasma-stained utensils, when for the faintest feeling of someone beautiful, a rose a rose to worry about, held under your nose, among these breathing landmines, bullet riddled buildings, yellow-taped-off -life, When the Ferris Wheel slows, slow slow to grab a hold, when beauty suppose, a rose, beauty imagined something out there this muscular spasm, on tip-toes up on tip toes. Allison Grayhurst is a member of the League of Canadian Poets. Three times nominated for Sundress Publications “Best of the Net” 2015, she has over 850 poems published in over 375 international journals. She has twelve published books of poetry, six collections, eight chapbooks, and a chapbook pending publication. She lives in Toronto with her family. She is a vegan. She also sculpts, working with clay; www.allisongrayhurst.com Blue light Blue light around your mouth, cascading on covers, paralyzing your voice, pulling your soul into a choice of “which destiny?” Bread drops into your mouth, unable to open or close. You see this light without seeing the light. You dive into the doorway, pulling free, taking steps. You draw breath. You draw the last straw. I am a definition with many loop-holes octopus arm holes, and then some. I speak of a pavilion where my ancestors bred their disciplines and murder was released - an option, like a second chance, murder as affirmation. I was a definition, secular, single-habit, yang-streams exuding, sharp and solid, marvelous as a thunderstorm - rage, ripple into a cave into base-neck movement, into simple one-focus activity. But here I lack a definition under banners, barely audible compromise, excuses to not take up the sword, battle the lies told as traditional fables. I swing from pillar to post navigating ceiling heights and floor splinters when I land niching out obedience to a changeling definition. …I exist! Seal me up and wash the river. Sunny days to sing “It is over, over!” Frozen perfection, alive but dying cliffs and cupboards waving hello to the ruthless Earth, plastic in the nest I am hungry I am whole Facing mortality to make something immortal, encountering the dark part of God’s loins - orgasmic reckoning, not afraid to make faces, stick out your tongue, not denying the chaos of pain - Fingertips unused and brighter burns, where are you? Snow ploughs and stone, no more copying, but diving, owning the pathway yet to be made clear, owning the receptive flowing-in of grace. Old grooves removed. The bird knows this and shouts its song. Too damaged to be renewed Broken sheep, hybrids of birds Was there anything of myself in that greenhouse, the end-gone and a warm kiss ensuing? Was it purgatory – to sense love, give all for love and find the bottom turned over? For nothing that I fell, that I gave twice what I was capable of, thought of beauty in trivial things, had a pool of joy to soak my innocence in. The fish is dead, bloated with shadows - from where the shape came from, I cannot understand. I do not understand love or God or what I believed. It was reflection, undisciplined over-the-top harming the heart instead of fortifying it. In this world of hooded Christs and tornados, the predator wins and solitude is the only savior. It cannot hold purity. It sometimes dances, is sensual and thrives on owning only what is perpetually lacking. Riding bareback I seep into corners flat and blending for a chance to call faith a choice. Shadows are not evil but ambiguous, a vague scent of putrid uncertainty. Themes of children’s horns and the penetrating air. Going off ground into the softness of a dream, supplanted by the ethereal plane and growing a strange set of limbs to accommodate such relaxed pressure. Solitude sings, bird are around me, up trees, paddling through the condensed atmosphere. Explore, I forgot the beauty in discovery, a chance to mutilate cynicism with a single blow. I blow wild peppers out of my hands, touch heads with the shy sparrow. There is a horse, chestnut copper. I rub the dust from her coat. I am everything while looking into her large left eye - a child in tune, exhilarated, heart-rate galloping, catching its rhythm from her swaying forelock. The sound like a star being transformed or two moons colliding - I am taken on the path, inches from the cliff - moving too fast to be afraid, moving like fine sand through a sieve, piling below, building a mythic mountain from gravity, from quicksand-joy imagination. Gareth is an aspiring poet who has been published in various magazines. He resides in N Wales. He enjoys walking, writing, watching sport and being with his dogs. LOG SPLITTING I would place them one by one on a stump where they waited like a swimmer on a diving board, ready to split from life. the logs were scattered in an awkward pile listening to the splintering of bone near by. I heaved up the axe and tapped the log on the head as a father to son sort of tap. before creating a line to fall back through. slicing the sky in two then letting it drop as if I am releasing my self from the board. a dip of the knees and 'WHACK!' the log would grip the axe and hold it tight, not wanting anymore. I kicked it to release, the threads creaking with a crackling wood sound on a fire, before a half roll like a sliced apple. MEMORIAL DAYS We had just got out of the teenage tunnel seeing new light up ahead. Our bodies changing, so our minds. Bent forward, elbow tight, feet firm eyeball solid, as if glass. acute or obtuse, angles were calculated Striking one to nudge another, or blast or tap, whatever you needed. Sometimes a shave to slightly roll for the fish catch pocket. Numbers added up on the board. It was educational, allowing us to view the rest of our life as we looked at the table. Everything mapped out like the sea treasure hidden, just needing to be found: stormy weather and rough currents taking us to places we couldn't get out of. We did our best to work things through but snooker is a life game, getting easier as we sail along the years. MORTAR MAN I always remembered him as the mortar man On occasion he would come out, puff a ciggie The big wheel turned sand and lime until it Became a cake mix, water would fill from a hose Splashing us in the eyes then we’d rub and rub Until a burn would build up, an itchy burn He would sit there on his sofa, a sandy sofa One you could pat and see haze fill the room A daily mirror rolled up, coffee stained mug Bricks in a corner, broken bricks that is, They would be thrown into the mixer to clean any scum and crust that’s built up. We would press dried mortar between our fingers Feeling the grainy bits as if it’s our own bones Fading away. Pushing the wheelbarrow in coffin Heavy steel toecaps, the mortar man would Watch us, puffing a rollie, watching the seagulls fly Over and us, walking away. Donal Mahoney, a native of Chicago, lives in St. Louis, Missouri. He has worked as an editor for The Chicago Sun-Times, Loyola University Press and Washington University in St. Louis. His fiction and poetry have appeared in various publications, including The Wisconsin Review, The Kansas Quarterly, The South Carolina Review, The Christian Science Monitor, Commonweal, Guwahatian Magazine (India), The Galway Review (Ireland), Public Republic (Bulgaria), The Osprey Review (Wales), The Istanbul Literary Review (Turkey) and other magazines. Some of his work can be found at http://eyeonlifemag.com/the-poetry-locksmith/donal-mahoney-poet.html#sthash.OSYzpgmQ.dpbs (Photo: Carol Bales) After Listening to World News Tonight When the next emperor dies and arrives in Hades there will be great applause from the other emperors who arrived there before him. They will drop pitchforks, kneel in bonfire and bow to their newest colleague, the one for whom Satan now rises and offers his throne so the new man can reign in glory as Emperor of Hades until someone more evil arrives, someone whose glee for war harmed even more people, people with little to lose except for their lives. Funeral for the Last Parent They were never one always two yet they had five, adults themselves now, bowling pins today upright in the front pew, wondering still after all these years why the two were never one. It's not a story the two would tell even if they could. They were galaxies apart. They had no answer yet they still had five, adults themselves now who can celebrate they're here at all, bowling pins today upright in the front pew. No need to wonder why the two who loved them were never one. It's not a story the two would tell even if they could. They're galaxies away. Home Invasion Encore This time Wilma is ready for the bastards jimmying her front door, coming back for more. The first time she was asleep, the bedroom light on, the Bible open at her side to John, Chapter 6, "Do this in remembrance of me." Tonight, however, Wilma's lying on the couch with the lights out, the rosary in one hand, her late husband's pistol cocked in the other. Jack taught her how to use it when she was a bride and tonight she will pray for the men now coming through the door and then she will use it in remembrance of Jack and call the police. With all the commotion, she'll probably miss Mass but it's a weekday, no sin involved. Dying at Midnight Two big attendants in white coats are here to remove my remains. My son called the mortuary after Murphy said I was gone. The doctor, a good neighbor, came over at midnight, found no pulse and made it official. I could have saved him the trip. I knew I was gone. My wife's in the kitchen crying with my daughter in a festival of Kleenex. I told her I was sick but she didn't believe me. She thought I was faking it so I wouldn't have to go to her mother's for dinner. I don't like lamb but her mother's from Greece. Lamb shanks are always piled on the table. Stuffed grape leaves I like and she'll make them for Christmas provided I start begging at Thanksgiving. Every Easter, however, it's another fat leg of lamb, marbled with varicosities and sauced with phlebitis. Right now I'm wondering who'll win the argument between the two angels facing off in the mirror on top of the dresser. The winner gets my soul which is near the ceiling, a flying saucer spinning out of control. I want the angel in the white tunic to take it in his backpack. The other guy in gray looks like Peter Lorre except for the horns. Horns Over Hooves You meet all kinds of women in pubs, women far different than women you meet in church on Sunday when you're in a pew with your wife which is why I was surprised to hear this beautiful woman two stools over ask me if I believed in angels before I had ordered a drink. Well, as a matter of fact, I do, I said, happy to get the small stuff out of the way before we got down to business, whatever that might be. What kind of angels do you believe in, she smiled and asked, sipping a Guinness. Well, I believe in seraphim, cherubim, principals, thrones, dominations, all the different choirs of angels listed in the Bible I studied in school. What about guardian angels, she asked. Do you believe you have one? Indeed I do believe I have one, I said, although I saw no reason why guardian angels couldn't be women if angels had genders which as pure spirits they don't have. And what does your guardian angel do, she inquired, getting rather personal. Well, I said, my guardian angel is busy from the moment I get up at dawn till I fall back in the sack at night because Satan or one of his minions is always trying to worm his way into my mind, memory or imagination trying to get me to do things forbidden by the Ten Commandments. For example, whenever I see a beautiful woman, Satan always says I should introduce myself and I always ask my guardian angel if I should and he always asks what my wife would say and I always ask if I have to tell her and he always says I should keep walking while he does what guardian angels do and knocks Satan horns over hooves back into Hades, something he does for me several times a day, especially when I stop at this train station pub for root beer on ice when my train is late and a beautiful woman two stools over smiles and asks if I believe in angels. |
An interesting site to check out:
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