George Cassidy Payne is a poet and social worker from Rochester, New York (U.S.). His work has been featured in the Hazmat Review, MORIA Poetry Journal, Chronogram Magazine, Ampersand Literary Review, The Mindful Word, The Angle, Mojave Heart Review, Red Porch Review, Up the River, and many others. George’s blogs, essays and letters to the editor have appeared in the USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, the Havana Times, the South China Morning Post, The Buffalo News, and more. He is the proud father of two beautiful children and works full time as a domestic violence and residential family counselor in Rochester. Mother's Milk From bibs to bigots, how does it happen? A love like a restaurant in Sologne in the Orleanais, and those nights when the body had no brain-back when the first 100 words tasted ancient like mother's milk. Deep TimeDeep time clinging to cliffs. As elemental as paper and spoon. Laughing, spinning, it's just escaping on the run-just molecules packed like prisoners- just portions skinned side down the sweet songs of our crazy sorrows. Deep time is sweet orange blossom water; it is a fluid that cannot be named. We Crashed Into the MythWe crashed into the myth. Melted away, we swallowed all of the atoms with our fingers. We crashed on a sheet of black ice. Without wasting a second, her maple burgundy locks bled out. We crashed on MLK Day, in the sprinkle of a January rain, the sky turned olive skinned and chocolate. We crashed. We crashed. We crashed. Ruthless ImmortalityCovered in a bright burst of December snowfall, the sun struck diamonds smile back. The scent of vanilla essence and Jim Beam whiskey bristling in the air. Each day is a day of endless breaths whisked away together in the infinite setting of golden custard set stars, like the last remaining virgin pine, you give me ruthless immortality. Even a Fool Can Make ItNot even light can escape the baleful vacuum of a chilled apricot. No radiation breakfast; no saucepan wisdom; no ready to serve senators in the dark. Just fruit and rind-that's Eden. And when she heard even a fool can make it, that's when she took the bite. Tied Loosely Into a Knot In front of a child,
the father in you will surely die. Yet the center comes out clean. A dark matter in your eyes. Yes, the holy is a tree stump, or better yet, it is two rogue planets ejected from their birthplaces. Neither created or destroyed, an unborn memory pressing through the ends, on to the edge, tied loosely into a knot.
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Melting Into An Autumn Evening |
While her mind returns to the water’s edge of her native eastern shore, Lilli Reine’s laptop keys click away in Ohio - in wait. Nearly three decades of mentoring young women, early years’ travels and her faith bolster her depository of thoughts and perspectives. Her poetry has been published in Vita Brevis. |
LITTLE WORLD CHAOS
twinkling ‘neath dewy-eyed sweetie-pies
race
to the big top to face
grand master’s three rings
where lions and tigers and bears — oh my
take to the sky and tumble off trampolines
but who sees?
since nary a soul goes
to the flea bag show
and alift in his lofty balloon
ringmaster can’t spot man
in the moon ‘hind the green cheese curtain
lurking with slippery whispers
“lady alice apples my pretties,
pretty please?”
poison so sweet before bitter
the curtain molds in all its folds and dish
scores the cores while the rubies flee
in search of clever mad hatter
soon
cheshire cat bounds with silver spoon
but the hole isn’t found where the rubies fell thru
their heels click two—by two —by
two
begging to go ‘til mirror
says no, simply no room in the inn
where your ringmaster’s been
pretties please unearth your inner
peace here in our chaotic
race
to hearty queen’s tea party dinner
and the grand prize goes
to the winner
which shan’t ever
be you — or you — or
you
LOVE CHILD
a scarlet moment
a tiny seed
and maude became
a sacred broken strand
lux laundry soap and big diaper pins
rolled down bobby socks and rolled up sleeves
one retracted promise of another’s design
life was love and love was fined
from a robin’s egg roadking
in her own scarlet show
she was no more
’44 the year of war gardens
maude became again
some elsewhere
and mother died here inside
legions of days she tilled and teared
she finally gave up, went on
2001 the year of mr. tito’s visit beyond
RIGHT?
he shifts into gear as he slides
his free hand on her leg
four inches too high
but little girls know
what’s right until
they’re told they didn’t
know what’s wrong all along.
HUSH, HUSH
he was titillating
shrewd and hoary
playful, droll, like her
and not like her
downy sweet swooned by that haggardy old tune
feathers caught in a bough of the hemlock tree
heart flitting like hummingbird wings
did he see?
tugging at bangs that curled too much
tiny toe tips, endlessly scuffed
petrified eyes as he came
— again —
— again —
— again --
why didn’t daddy stop it?
hush, hush little girl
we don’t mention those things
BULLY
can’t see the house for the trees
memories rusted in my yard
i kick one by my rotted tire swing
its rope overhead hangs still
unholy frayed
my mind unearths the scattering that day
squealing girls race to my tree
like insects flee
their predator
my fence rattles
my mind pushes against the chain-links
he straddles
unnerved
i wield my threat like a bayonet
‘don’t do it’
a soft boy with something to prove
jumps to enemy soil
i strike like a garter snake coiled
i was the hero that day and he went away
i moved on
grander yard
stealthier schemes
he faced his fear
loosed my tire to my fallow ground
and ended his war
while he swung from my tree
NGOZI OLIVIA OSUOHA is a Nigerian poet/writer/thinker. A graduate of Estate Management with experience in Banking and Broadcasting. She has published over one hundred poems/articles in over ten countries. Her first two longest poems of 355 and 560 verses titled THE TRANSFORMATION TRAIN and LETTER TO MY UNBORN published in Kenya and Canada respectively are available on Amazon. She has also featured in over ten international anthologies/books/blogs. She is a passionate African ink. |
SECOND CHANCE
It creates ripples too,
Life is a cycle
It bends and breaks,
That way we are fixed.
When you encounter troubles
Double your strength,
When you face challenges
Triple your passion,
That way, you sail through the storm.
Until death, do not give up
Once beaten, twice shy
But once bitten, thrice fly
That, I say to you.
Our destiny has several links
Until they are linked, we may keep tossing
So stay put, there is a second chance.
Always remember suicide is not the best option,
Hang in there, the future is a mystery
You can conquer the mastery.
AT THE FACILITY:
AVIARY
The case’s floor of parti-colored grains,
The thumb-sized finches flit. They take no pains,
It seems, to twig to what we’re thinking of
Who watch them hop and dart from branch to branch
To tiny dowel-trapeze. Though on display,
They pay no mind, but will in mid-swing launch
As if it were all one—hard work or play.
The back wall like a cliff of shredded wheat
Props up a cup of cuttle here and there.
The circus chirps, the fluttering finches tweet,
As fine-fletched greys and crimsons streak the air.
So with impassive patience they perform
Their act each blessèd day. It is the norm.
AT THE FACILITY:
SOLITAIRE WITH CREDIT CARDS
His bedspread offers muffles any chance
Of snap or snap. He sorts and deals the cards
So-many-odd concerns have sent his days:
A passport to the wide world at a glance;
A deck of revelations dealt in shards.
Post-sharper’s shuffle, down the plastic comes
In stacks, a parody of solitaire
Enacted at the bedside. Nothing sums
To anything. He hunches from his chair,
Dealing the hand his creditors have dealt
Him as the colors fill the cover’s felt.
“Don’t cheat,” they joke—the nurses and the aides--
As all his wealth pours down in bright cascades.
AT THE FACILITY:
SOLDIERS
Where he will fall in with them, wheelchair bound,
At ease until the digits start to twitch.
About his lap, gnarled fingers bounce and flit;
Waking island-hops with drifting, dozing,
Until the well-worn numbers, come around
Once more, recite themselves without a hitch,
And midway through his nap, the lids snap to
A form of lax attention-by-unclosing:
“33345839,” he reels
The number off—which he can always do,
When where he sleeps and eats, and who he is
Are long a forlorn hope. The RN wheels
Him to the mess he knows at least is his.
BATHROOM REMODEL
The mortar to an AM beat. There is
No song whose words he doesn’t know. They’re his
Completely, as he pins the spacers in
And sings along to everything he hears,
His reedy tenor a surprising fit
With almost any designated hit.
To call his twenty-year-old’s moustache thin
Would smutch the memory of Errol Flynn
(And Jason’s cheerful giggle doesn’t help).
His partner at the wet-saw, Russ, is Shrek
In Carhartts: gruff (but more than competent)
And given, as the slurry pelts the deck,
To little more than hummed accompaniment.
With each precision cut, he hands tile on
To Jason pressing each square into place.
When will they finish, working at this pace?
For I am thinking even now what grade
To give this pair on some consumer site
That means to lend my neighbors vital aid
In their eternal home-remodeling plight.
How shall these two be rated soon on Yelp?
How will they shine on Angie’s List as shower-
Stall men? One more day and they’ll be gone;
Two more and I’ll have my echo-chamber-
Quality recording studio--
Reverberating to my vocal power,
Lending it an operatic timbre
Jason, I’m convinced, will never know.
BEAUTY
she sits perfectly still
all white.
Even without eyes
she looks right at me.
That face could tame men
even make fools of them if she wanted.
How could a human hand and hammer make such a thing.
For a second I thought she was going to come to life and tell me my love had set her free.
She is still looking at me now
I don't want to leave her
but I guess I must before people begin to stare at me.
DONKEY
the man was talking
and I knew he would still be talking
when I got off in fifty minutes.
He
was mostly talking about Bob.
"Yea he is okay but you know".
He said in a way that only people who are used to talking, talk.
He is still talking now
perhaps he never stops as long as he has someone to listen.
My mother would say
he could talk the legs off a donkey.
This guy could talk the legs off of thousands.
As I thought about this I took another look at him
a pictured him in a field
talking to a donkey with others behind
and a big pile of donkey's legs all piled up
He got off a Clapham junction
still talking
and once again I could see him in that field.
TAP
not a dam thing
no joy
no hate
nothing but black clouds
and the sound of nothing
no one to talk to
no thing do you want to do
no doing
no coming
no going
not even the chance of a little drink to kill the day before it begins
no
these days
just go on forever
like a leak
from a tap
drip
drip
THE SOANE AND RHONE
two ducks and a seagull sit on the quai where the two rivers meet
They don't talk to each other
but they seem to be saying something
it seems to be important
but whatever it is
it doesn't involve me.
I kept walking past the drunks who sat on the steps at the square with the horses that had smoke coming from their noses
but they could not breathe life into themselves.
I don't know why I just didn't stop and sit with the drunks at least I would finally know my place.
FANNY
I was only ten and she may have been younger.
She always smelt a bit funny
I wonder where she is now and whether she is still showing people her fanny
MEMORIES
One of the few clean pairs
then I forgot all about them.
A few days later I came out of the gym and there they were still on the floor of the car.
I grabbed them and hung them on the mirror
they sway back and forth as I drive around.
If she asks me I can say I wanted something to remind me of you
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AHMAD AL-KHATAT
ANEEK CHATTERJEE
ANISHA YADAV
DAVID FAUNTLEROY
DAWID JURASZEK 7 BIJOU ZHOU
E. K. KRAFFT
GEORGE CASSIDY PAYNE
GUY FARMER
JAMES OWENS
JOHN HORVATH
JOHN ("JAKE") COSMOS ALLER
JONATHAN EVERITT
KEITH BURKHOLDER
KEITH MOUL
LEN KRISAK
LILLI REINE
LOIS GREENE STONE
LOU MARIN
LUIS CUAUTHEMOC BERRIOZABAL
MARC CARVER
MARGARITA SERAFIMOVA
NGOZI OLIVIA OSUOHA
PAT ASHINZE
R. GERRY FABIAN
ROBIN WYATT DUNN
SATVIKA MENON
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