​A chorus of suicides, old relations worn out
by marching in place, a whining
off an icy bridge, three ODs . . . no, four.
Four, how: the dead pile up since I’m not done,
not done rasping them faceless, not nearly done
amid this shifting about, this clattering,
good bones grated, ground, sifted
for a tone-deaf daily bread.

​Above my house, student pilots
fly circles, figures.  I don’t mind
the low, day-long buzz.   They’re learning--

I believe this--how not to crash.

​Storms raging elsewhere out there,
country, culture, old order unhinged,
pitch-black fires not lit by dead-summer   
Sonoran heat, dawn-stoked 110°, &
climbing, like blunt June blue moon, 
& while we hunker-down for years,
it seems, One World Together at Home,
yearning for human heat & grand passion,
full flowering life we thought we knew,
we’re willing to settle, fast-track color
and fall-into-bitter-winter, countless,
moonless nights swiping the iPhone,
bingeing the tube, home fires blazing,
d.o.a..
 
 

The geese have come back,
one last drink at the Bosque,                                                                                                         
 
flight north, cold already with them
on the wing, carried in their bones,
 
heat, banked-out fires, earth-ash and dead,
memory imbued in the marrow.

​We’re sensing it might never leave 
from where it came, threading through
 
The Organs’ Needle, Baylor Canyon Pass,
by air, luxe steamer, quiet footfall border
 
breach, disturbing the peace, filling home,
us, scrubbed with dread, who know no
 
this- or-off-world fix making life livable
as before. By dawn & moon lamplight,
 
we dream of home, how it is, was,
never be home again.

​ 
Outlier nesters filling up- and -out spring greens,   
chitalpa, spruce, willow curated street transplants,   
white-wing petite doves, thrashers, whiptails,
each flat as a paten, tiny, tight clutch, solo-living
in deep time, sheathed-in-place, tasked by instinct
to be watchful, patient, in fierce, daylong desert heat, 
never once stirring, embracing, this throbbing air.          

​The full moon rises, pauses,
takes its place among all              
midsummer stars not known
for color, shape, size,
overwrought pride,
full moon, with stars,
the kind of night thing,
above all, we wish ever
with us, in a dark time,
never not be new.
 

​Lois Greene Stone, writer and poet, has been syndicated worldwide. Poetry and personal essays have been included in hard & softcover book anthologies.  Collections of her personal items/ photos/ memorabilia are in major museums including twelve different divisions of The Smithsonian.  The Smithsonian selected her photo to represent all teens from a specific decade.​​

Celebrations
cancelled;
home-bound became
our new-normal.
Age-category concerns
eliminated even
grocery shopping.
Calendar
discarded;
filling another with
happy events seemed
far-off.
Pandemic vaccine
offers global hope.
We’ve accepted
role-reversal:
in-town offspring
attends to tangible
needs; Zoom provides
visual sharing, texting
rapid communication.
My husband and I
touch fingers
feeling privileged
for caring loved-ones,
and allow ourselves
to be receivers
rather than givers. ​

​On the rainy on morning 
I walked to the church, 
you was standing alone 
at the steps, awaiting me.

I know you have not memories. 
I know you cannot remember.
but always I love you, 
more than everything.

I don't assure that, 
like you doctor saying
Alzheimers is a big disease.
Dear,it is not a disease,today and always.


Please forget your problem.
Come, we will Love each other, 
We will hug each other, 
We will kiss each other.

Wow,  what a happiness on your face, 
Dear you are not a patient, 
Just wait with patience, 
I will prove it to all. 

Cling on to me,
Breathed life in my tearful face
Cling on to me
As if you leave me,
I lose your energy
Much needed to sustain my soul!

The pain weighing over me
Was getting too heavy
And my fingers
Clinging on to the ropes of life
Were getting weaker
Unable to hold on!

Don't you know, continued life
That those who give up
Are given worse fates
Than those who make it
To their fate's ends?

I looked down at the seas raging 
Beneath my feet
And I wondered
At how wonderful must it be
To be mermaid
Gliding gracefully through the waters,
So much that
I did not feel the impact of my fall,
As my transformation was
Way too overwhelming!

​Days tap heavy feet
Upon similar essence
Of life's mirage

Empty days echo
Sweaty beds reverberate
Clocks keep ticking by

Dozing dawns and dusks
Threatened by viral virus
Dreams shattered boldly

Hands joined together
Humans face the dull despair
Waiting for rescue

Yet, desolate world
Only sings a lullaby
As a ray of hope

​he says his style is prized and purposeful 
besides inventive writing helps us catch 
a break from monotony , from real life? he says 
hear hear –is he real or he has gone overboard? 
when did criminality pay off , good folks?
I called for his arrest with immediate effect
but his fans would have none of it as if he
hasn’t been raping the rules really wantonly   
in fact, his enthusiasts howled for my blood 
they claimed that they are weary of rigidity 
I asked him where he got his poetic licence from--
the one he hypes about, but he wouldn’t tell me!  
the poet finds pleasure in playing with language 
calling himself The Experimentalist, he wrenches
meaning, narration and syntax in unimagined  ways 
by the way, when I write wrench, he writes rench   
when I spot a misspelling, he sees an apt, arty spelling  
when I tell him it`s no longer funny, he calls me a fossil 
he brands his poetry a lawless dish of foreplay & wordplay
he says when convention died  innovation resurrected
peeps,it looks like  The Experimentalist`s insanity is sane,
hey ,excuse his hooey, the poet has a legion of enthusiasts
surprise,  editors  and publishers fall over themselves 
for his brand of works; wild, wild  works they call divine         
his punctuation is unconventional , his words are unruly 
he pushes boundaries , made- up  words and nonsense
‘ in a bid to keep the fire of absurdity, freedom & fun alive’
doesn’t his ballooning record of made-up words, parodies , 
paradoxes and oxymorons turn  perfect readers into morons?
hear hear ,he says  the difference is the same, reading should be fun!
he acknowledges that oil and water don’t blend at all but that didn’t  
stop him from coming  up with a portmanteau word: oiater; dear Lord! 
he relishes fosic, and this funny combination comes from music and food!
peeps, I give up, let him boil his oaiter and enjoy his fosic, and be ecstatic  
      

​She had been hounded, headbutted by strife, 
Cheated by the moods, sparks & spins of life

Her challenges were many and various—spiritual, 
occupational, environmental, mental and  financial     

She was named May since that was her month
 of birth , but what evaded her life were funds   

It was in the month of May that she set out
on a life-changing path and gave it her bout 

She sought happiness, health and holisticism  
in spite of a hail of hellish winds and criticism  

It was a daring, deserved and dynamic stride
to wellness that saw her life enjoy a real ride 

Her life realized and relished a love for oneself,
hence she recovered her purpose in life, herself   
 
 
Hers was a life metamorphosed into meaningfulness,       
characterized  by regular exercises and liveliness  

and a balanced diet, a good sleep, a positive thought
and a holistic way to health that made her less distraught    

How do they do all this? Where are they from?-- I`ve no answers   
A virtual walk sees me stumble on a video that features dancers

Their dancing is so spirited & springy that I call it exertainment 
A portmanteau word derived from exercise and entertainment

Exercises keep our bodies in shape as they also boost our health 
We use planks, squats, single-leg deadlifts to raise the strength

Around the muscles as the body burns the calories: the road
To ultimate fitness is a routine that is well-ordered and bold  

When I watch the video of the dancing troupe, the energy
And finesse that it exudes ---not forgetting the synergy--

I see the quintessence of a theatre, what entertainment! 
I see a gymnasium, I swear there is sweat & commitment   

​a worthy read is a life, a fondle 
whose cute  tenderness tantalizes 
the heart to flirt and fall with it
booklovers need that intercourse  
an interaction that is suspenseful 
a touch therapeutic , meaningful  
an affair lovely, loving & haunting 
let characters breathe and breed   
let them dictate, dance with depth 
an emotional connection with them 
can be a memorable and plausible
affair in spite of their blemishes as
metaphors marry time and place   
writing is like constructing a house
each word is like a brick that has to
be of the right size, shape and color
yes, it is more of quality than quantity 
and more of a process than a product
or so said a word nerd to an aspirant   

the first word is one`s first brick that
should be prudently positioned at one
end and tapped slightly and pleasantly 
to bed in, yet the next word is the second
brick that should be buttered up  with plaster
or mortar spread onto each end before being rightly
rested and adjoined to the first word, and when a poet
or an author is pleased with their work of art only  then can
they submit it to an editor, who in turn uses his or her editorial
expertise and experience as their trowel to put away extra putty,
as excess mortar has to be pushed out from below or in between bricks
       

​hoary, humming, it`s at it   
a manifestation to marvel at,
it turns my skin into a tailspin    
a sight  to devour and delight in, 
a scene to behold, to sing along to, 
my bathwater, thirst-quencher, dew   
I’m wowed by its whispers & lullabies
I listen to its meandering murmurs & melodies  
its surging, swaying, serenading serenities & sounds  
keep me exhilarated & entertained ; it carries wounds, 
seawater carts them all, silently shimmering  like ten moons 
I feel its flow, its flow is slow, I see its glow; I listen to its croons  
I adore the calmness of the cascading water, and how it glistens, 
life is a fountain of fresh water ,when it talks , cleanness  just listens!    

​Her demeanor endeared her
She sang simplicity, her fair fur
Her eloquent love for development
Saw her tackle topics dear and relevant 
She was always calm, careful and elegant 
When stating the crust of the matter, the elephant

​Auntie Sithe was on the verge leaving, 
To them she was fun, friendly and frank 
They would miss her, and her verbal antics 
One day after a lovely lunch she fired them up 
Into a spell of laughter, love and self-awareness,   
This is what she said to her nieces and nephews:
We`ve feasted on delicious isitshwala and baked beans
My weather reporter predicts increased cases of gassiness 
You`re all close to me but now it`s time to launch your missiles
From a safe distance, keep at bay until the whole shelling subsides! 

Isitshwala—thick maize flour porridge, sometimes it made from millet or sorghum flour.   

Bitter is the fate of poets
of all tribes, but fate has
punished Russia
worst of all.
                   -WilhelmKuchelbecker.
 
Poetry paramount over prose
more Pushkin, less Tolstoy
important and influential
censored by exile.
 
oppressive state control
poets dangerous to power
memorised each other’s work
memories stronger than chains.
 
poems on scraps on paper
one reads, the other burns
as Chukovskaya quotes:
Hands, matches and ashtrays.
 
trials by opinion
no room for interpretation
poets speak their truth
their integrity unpublished
 
Siberia reached out
recitations in the gulag
verse their only defence
words and thought survive.
 

​Books now withdrawn
knowledge diminishing
reading lists shortened
history thrown away.
 
books stamped out
shelf life over
our memories lost
defaced by time.
 
library no refuge
books unwanted guests
thinking time served
on literary death row
 
reader’s loyalty marginalised
like folded page corners
dust jackets collect dust
book sale imminent.
 
photos of authors
reputations now cropped
autographs unwanted
lines scribbled on egos.
 
now a closed chapter
fate always the same
ideas on their way
to the knackers yard.

​A rejected home
no backwards vision
consent absent
for an untouched future.
 
nothing left behind.
gathering broken parts
of temporary images
of a second-hand life.
 
many long days
of a childhood betrayed.
no out-flung arms
of immature years.
 
an unwanted birth
of memories cut out
of unlinked hands
contact deformed.
 
a birthmark discarded on
an unloved face.
a history stillborn
like a wound closing.
 
a confused youth
now incognito
merely a cipher
en-route to where?
 
no guide, no map, just steps
on unknown streets.
not fleeing, just changing
looking for wisdom.
 

​an ordinary bench
a witness to history
a record of forgetting
as years unfold
 
impassive, unmoved
a static reminder
of life evolving
but rarely upgraded.
 
footsteps approach
identity unknown
an invisible birthmark
faces promising nothing.
 
sees failure abound
some wasted breath
hears truth and lies
in different languages.
 
lovers expose a love-knot
in everlasting moonlight
host wooden faced
taken for granted.
 
a memorial plaque
time unwinding backwards
brings death to life
old becomes young.
 
bench removed
old, broken, pitted
an empty space
filled only by memory.

mapping the contours of
the world. Recording others
history. Like explorers
finding new words,
discovering unknown lives.
 
spreading communication like
a street map of cities, an old
print where debate can surge,
where the past
meets the present.
 
making sense of foreign lands
unfamiliar countries reveal
untapped potential. Knowledge
gift-wrapped for success.
Wisdom in another language.
 
forging links to obscurity
like opening closed doors
to rooms unfurnished
with light. No longer
reading in the dark.
 
a messenger for all
words across continents
translating infamy, cruelty,
compassion and aspirations.
Evil now displayed.
 
once out of reach, but
meaning now revealed
touching the edges of literacy,
 shaping understanding,
prompting praise and critique.
 
reading between the times
revealing the forbidden,
learning truth from lies,
emotional power released
liberating the past.

ve You Seen Me?
 
 
A misplaced Congolese-slave,
trips on a banana-peel,
slides onto a slave ship,
beneath the bunks onto the sardine-packed splintered-floor
with magical shackles and chains
appearing round the waist and legs,
sailing-em’ off onna angry boisterous battered sea,
into a door of no-return
with no lock or a ‘steal’ key,
repeatedly raped,
all the way to Jamestown VA.,
1619 (to be exact),
misplaced slave fabricates lies bout-being,
“SOLD TO THE HIGHEST BIDDER,”
by a fine, noble, honorable, decent and respectable lady of liberty,
fabricates lies bout
babies fed as alligator-bait,
fabricates lies bout
slaves having them so-called relationships,
fabricates lies bout
Presidents’ owning slaves,
fabricates lies bout
babies with Presidential DNA,
fabricates lies bout
wet-nurse slaves,
fabricates lies bout
slaves ever being treated nice,
fabricates lies bout
white sheets branding and hanging-em out to dry,
fabricates lies bout
slavery dying,
fabricates lies bout
the 21st century “PTSD aftermath”
of anger-management, protest, and cries.
 
 
Ole’ truthful george, and christopher columbus
didn’t ev’n see this one coming,
but
Stevie, and Ray Charles did,
O say can you see?
 
 
If you see me (near the truthful cherry tree),
please by all means,
return me
to my Rightful Owner.
 
 
Dedicated to: I’m here, flawless, after-all the lies I’ve told???
 
A B.A.D. poem

​To those teachers
who ‘neva saw-us,
sitting in the back of those classrooms.
 
We paid attention to you.
We paid attention to you.
 
From the back of the room;
we watched you teach
the “select” few.
 
We paid attention to you.
We paid attention to you.
 
From the back of the room;
looking at the pictures on the board,
while watching your mouth(s) move.
 
We paid attention to you.
We paid attention to you.
 
Now, looking at us, watching and wondering
“How do “that” intellectual mind, do what-it-do?”
 
Glad you asked.
Now, I’ll tell you:
In the midst of your discrimination, while you pay us no mind.
 
 
We paid attention to you.
We paid attention to you.
 
 
Dedicated to: If you ain’t ‘gone teach I before E except after C to ‘uryone…GET OUT THE WAY!
 
 
A B.A.D. poem
 

​I tasted him in my cup of coffee this morning. Lukewarm and bitter, yet enough to leave me wanting more of that same exact taste. Black, because cream weakens his richness and removes his lingering scent from my tongue. Unsweetened, because along the way I’ve been brainwashed to believe that a man is unfeeling.
When I am in his presence there are shadows of vulnerability that even the most luminous of light cannot erase. The day I met him, one could smell his sense of entitlement from miles away. He had to have me and he did. From the moment our eyes met I was his, mind, body, soul, I belonged to him.
He was a fountain of bad decisions and dry well of promises but I loved him. I looked passed his ill temper and razor blade words because a woman should have forbearance my mother said. He makes me happy, at times. But I do not have a photographic memory to keep this one picture of him in freeze frame, to make the moments of happiness last longer than they should. I'll settle for this moment to moment happiness because it is far better than being alone.
Yes, his love may be violently expressed but I have met men far more vicious. He is only a fraction of my father, I guess that’s why I’m only half as strong as my mother. I see it you know, the silent judgment from the women who know better. Through my tinted shades covering our argument from last night which left my indignation imprinted across my eye, I see them.
I've conjured up this idealism of a man unbeknown to the existence of men. Hoping that my daughter will experience a tender love that doesn’t bruise so easily on the skin. An unimaginable vision of goodness of which she will tell her sons and daughters one day and they will marvel.
Teach your sons that it is important to be human, to reserve humanity. Tell them how the art of chivalry was never dead yet merely suffocated by Neanderthals.
To those who have already been ruined, remember your mothers and daughters. May you see your raised fists in the reflection of your daughter’s eyes because maybe then will you see your ferocity more clearly.

​Ghosts only make an appearance when you least expect. God only makes an appearance when you least expect. The sea is the world's looking glass, I searched the world over but could not find him. Sometimes I think he chooses not to be found. Let the record state that I fought as hard as I could for my sanity, but it was oil in the palm of my hands that was bound to slip through my fingers.
Endless one sided conversations and calling it prayer. Bended knees to altars I've never seen, singing songs I never wrote, paying levies for my recurring sin. But still I wait, at the shore for the tide to come in and bathe me. For the salt to nurse my wounds. Craving a mythical healing only attainable through death. The closest I've come to dying was vanquishing myself to this foreign land where no one knows me. It makes sense to feel alone in a place of no relation than in your own home.
Desperate. High strung and desperate. Desperation can have you living outside of yourself for so long, you'll have no idea how to get back to you. This is slowly lacerating through every layer that took me so long to insulate my fragile core within.
Stripped bare. I’ve tried to use these fig leaves to cover myself but you have not noticed my absence, have not yelled out my name. The fountain of living water from which we drink and never thirst? But I am parched. I've quenched my thirst from this very fountain and find myself having to come back every so often. Teach me how to drink of you, teach me. The journey to myself has been a long road but the one to you is endless.
 

​My back still carries the wound, the blade sized wound of the machete you used. In folly I blamed Cupid, thinking he must have missed my heart when I in fear turned my back on fate. Forgive and forget? In order to forgive I’d have to admit that you hurt me, so there is nothing to forgive. Forgetting means total annihilation of the memory of you.
Sniper in hand, tracing every step that you take as you run through my mind and at the perfect moment assassinating the very thought of you. Suicide, was when I thought I could trust you.
Like an addict, I momentarily relapsed at every sniff of attention you gave I caved. From strong values to attention seeking my next fix. Going cold turkey was never an option because I never ran out of the supply of you, nor did I want to.
The very first step to recovery is admitting that you have a problem. Well I guess I don’t because you’re the problem here and I don’t have you. So there is no need to rehabilitate me back to my senses it’s senseless, to think that I fell in the absence of gravity? We denied any form of chemistry between us therefore the laws of physics don’t apply.
It’s safe to say we never met, I never wept, I never slept and dreamt of you and I, and I never fell in love with you. For there to ever be a chance between us we would have to be strangers once again. Retrograde amnesia, you walk past me and at second glance turn back smile and say hi. But sadly life does not have a reset button. As flawed mortals we bit the hand that fed us breath and scripted our love story the day we failed to play our role.
You're not fully to blame, my hand was dealt when I took residency in this here zone of comfort. Comfort of always flirting with the ideal of meant to be. Comfort of always being someone’s fantasy but never really anyone’s reality. And most frighteningly, comfort of built up walls of insecurities.
But for my sanity, just for my sanity, the yoke must be fully on your shoulders. Because mine are too limb from having cushioned so many heads and being drowned by salt water. I, myself, thought I had found shoulders on which to rest my head. But my time has not yet come and for us the sun has not set. I’m not trying to deny your existence or the impact that it had me. It’s simply a case of selective memory. So if ever asked I’d have to say, I don’t remember you.

​When does holding on become unhealthy? Clutching onto the memory of a loved one long deceased as to not lose sight. As to not forget their significance and what their presence once brought.
I forget sometimes, that there was ever a time I had a mother. That I once lived a life that was considered a family portrait. I use to stare at your pictures for long periods of time, a few years after your passing. I was trying to imprint your face in my mind as to never forget you. Never forget your laugh lines, your big, bright eyes, delicate skin and lushes jet black hair. I told myself I would never forget. Never!
It worked, for a few years but as the years passed it became easier to forget. You see keeping the memory so vividly was equally beautiful as it was torturing. It always ended with me in tears, mourning the loss all over again.
My special form of torture was choosing to wallow in misery on the anniversary of your passing each year. It somehow made me feel like I was honouring you. As a kid I use to scratch out that date every single year from the calendar in my journals. It was a day that should never have existed I reckoned. So every year I would cry myself numb on that day as a form of solidarity. I needed you to know that time had not made it easier.
Sometimes I could not recall your face and that gutted me inside. So today, as I looked into the mirror, my eyes swelled up with tears because I could swear you were looking right back at me. The face I tried so long to imprint in my mind had somehow become my own reflection.
 

​you are a beautiful distortion
born with a voice so loud it shatters 
through the airwaves of affliction 
reducing obstacles to lumps of clay 
that you reform to tangible dreams
you nurture the universe from your bosom
quenching its thirst for unrequited love
you radiate Love and Sapphire
you are home
you are woman
never look outside of yourself 
to find what’s already within.

Rob Lowe is a disabled senior citizen living in Milton Keynes in the U.K. where he shares an apartment with a niece who is also his medical carer. He began publishing his writing after retiring from employment as a Student Support Officer. His work has since appeared in numerous magazines, anthologies, and journals, both online and in print, most recently in Dwell Time, Libretto, Squawk Back, Silver Stork, Lucent Dreaming, Seventh Quarry, Abridged, Aromatica Poetica The Stony Thursday Book, and elsewhere. He is a member of The Open University Poetry Society, and likes baking, growing things, reading novels and contemporary poetry; as well as listening to live music.

​Do they know they are the legacy of God?
They saddle the winds with their black flight;
Strut like cocky boys upon November sod;
Their cawing scrawls graffiti on the light:
Not a hundred winter days can rub it out;
Those dried-out nests that look like crowns of thorn,
Which nail demented branches to the skies,
Resist the years; re-used by fledglings born
To the harsh cradling of late March days,
They will gradually fall apart; but not until
Neighbouring woodland has been vandalised;
Neither the farmer’s gun, nor the brown fox
Can prevent this: the world is colonised
By every offspring of God, both good and bad… 

​Well, I don’t drive a car
And I don’t watch TV,
And my flat has no central heating.
 
But I do have a place in the sun.
 
I don’t have a freezer
Or microwave cooker;
Or stereo-system, or washer
 
For my life in the light of the sun.
 
I don’t travel by ‘plane;
And I don’t use machines
For those jobs one can best do by hand;
 
It is good to work land in the sun.
 
I don’t do any sports
That demand good physique:
I like walking, swimming and thinking
 
With my wife, and my brother, the sun.
 
You could say that I am,
Like the birds or the lamb,
Untroubled by many possessions,
 
And live in the loved sun’s reflections.
 
I don’t smoke, drink or bet
For my ways are all set
By cycles of day, night and seasons:
 
Those signs that the Sun has its reasons.
 
So I worship God Ra
And am one of his tears
Spilt from his “Barque, of Millions of Years”
 
And I live in the Light of the Sun.

​If we cared about birds
We would not pave our gardens
Nor have so many cats
Nor would we trim our lawns like Gillette shaves,
If we cared about birds
 
If we cared about birds
We would not use slug pellets
Nor cover our soft fruits with netting
Nor would we have
So many polluting cars
 
If we cared about birds
We would dim city streets at night;
Our gardens would have no sensor lights,
Trees would grow by our kitchen doors
And the thrush would sing from a branch
 
Having been outside to the road
Where I live, and looked right and left
At vehicles in paved drives
With cats squatting underneath;
And sensor security lights
Over each garage door and house;
And examined the state of the lawns
Free of invading plants,
I am forced to conclude
That we do not care about birds