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Pinky Promise

Rachel Lim's untitled poem appeared here in July. She is part of a crop of young writers that bring energy and sophistication to their art. Today's poem gives us different images than her first but reflects upon another way of experiencing a loss of innocence. 

Pinky Promise
By Rachel Lim

If you speak truth, why do your words reflect
off each other? Why does light, as if
escaping a shadow, flee when
your mouth forms a mere sound? You
may call me paranoid,
but I see your smile
separate like
light through a
prism
glass.



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Posted by Annmarie at 9/2/2010 10:37 PM | Add Comment

O, September

Christina Marie Speed lives in Brooklyn NY with her husband and 2 sons. Off the mommy clock, she co-edits the Literary Reflections Department of Literary Mama. Her poem Cookie appeared here in July 2009 and she has work forthcoming at Dogzplot. She also maintains a column at Moondance. Keep up with her at her web site. This poem is another delight in the Albright Poets calendar series. Enjoy listening to the audio version as well.

O, September
By Christina Marie Speed

What, with your reds and yellows dotting
Green landscapes, covering my grassy knolls
Where schoolchildren frolicked and danced
Through the scorching heat of midsummer days

Daring jealousy to come out and play
Gritting teeth and donning an extra scarf for
The coming winds of a long Fall and Winter
We turn our shoulder to sharp temperatures

While the yellow buses rev their engines
Mothers in polka-dot dresses blot black tears
And rejoice in this stolen silence, where secrets 
Of other months unveil in Fall homes

O, September, how is it time?
Please take your reds and yellows, pack
Your teasing Indian Summer love
And leave me in my heat to brood.



Played: 9 | Download | Duration: 00:00:57

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Posted by Annmarie at 9/1/2010 11:35 PM | View Comments (3) | Add Comment

red impression

Omar Azam was born and raised in Chicagoland and has been writing poetry in earnest since studying the Imagists with Don Revell at the age of 16. He is also a songwriter, musician, and designer. His poems and artwork have been recently published in Autumn Leaves, Metazen, and Anastomoo. Read his poem and then listen to the audio recording of it being read. It is bursting with visual imagery!

red impression
By Omar Azam

Horse-brown red
riding on tile.

She is beauty
but all I see is

a mane 
tossing bobbing
wild.

Free white open

A bosom she has no capability of

Thread of an image
is what I soak but

All I see is a

Horse red
riding upon the tile.

Grown not yet
Not so far in the head yet

as she sinks to her knees
Red wild open free.

Played: 7 | Download | Duration: 00:00:45

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Posted by Annmarie at 8/31/2010 11:31 PM | Add Comment

It's not too late

Ivan Jenson's most recent poem here was Bullish Love, which we all enjoyed. When you remember that Ivan is a visual artist as well as a poet, it's no mystery that his poetry is so visual. Each line of this poem paints a picture.

It's not too late
By Ivan Jenson

before they take 
the blankets off my bed
and someone else
mows my lawn
and I get framed
and put up on
the wall next 
to grandfather 
clocks
yes, now while
only some gray
sprouts on my
chin like a small
hint from
the facts of life
and while
passion still
taps on
my shoulder
and says, 
"look over there
at that one"
and ambition
elbows me
on the subway
saying, "move"
I am going to 
savor the
sobriety
of strong coffee
because
I am 
addicted 
to the
legal
lethal
pursuit
of happiness






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Posted by Annmarie at 8/30/2010 10:39 PM | View Comments (2) | Add Comment

On Aging

Audrey Markowitz is a retired communications and training consultant who is now a volunteer mediator-in-training at her local dispute resolution center. She also helps elementary students with their reading. Audrey pursues her passions for making handmade one-of-a-kind greeting cards and writing poetry. Her poem here is an entertaining observation of the way certain rituals change over time.

On Aging
By Audrey Markowitz
Of all the things to note on getting older ...
    such as nose hairs and stiffness in the shoulder, 
        memory lapses and increased gas,
            needing to pee and afraid to laugh,
                joints that ache and skin that flakes,
the thing that annoys me and the part that I dread,
    is how long it takes me to get ready for bed.

The rituals keep increasing,
    yet my energy's decreasing.
And to be in bed by 11,
    I need to start at 7.
First the face—it must be cleansed
    (Where did I put that box of Replens?)
Then on to exfoliate all that dead skin,
    while reviewing new lines and my double chin.
So apply a clay mask—it's minty and cool,
    hide from my spouse cause I look like a ghoul.
Apply all those potions to my face and my eyes,
    and of course don't forget you must moisturize.
That took an hour and I'm still not done,
    my teeth and my gums, oh that should be fun.
First I brush, and then I floss,
    water pic—avoid gum loss.
Now Listerine for 30 seconds.
    ouch that burns—I'm done I reckon.
Oh no I'm not—must brush my hair
    find 5 new gray ones that weren't there.
Get out the dye stick and color each one,
    tweeze my eyebrows, I think I'm done.

It's time for bed,
    but I am no longer tired.
All the time that I've prepped,
    I'm awake and wired.
So I go to make love with my Hubby ... ahhh, heaven
    but he's fast asleep as it's way past eleven!

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Posted by Annmarie at 8/29/2010 11:27 PM | View Comments (1) | Add Comment

Restless Trance

Jo-Anne Fideles lives and writes in the Philippines. This poem explores the territory of "parallel life." How different is what you dream from what you live? What kind of poem would you write if those two lives were reversed?

Restless Trance
By Jo-Anne Fideles

Losing all the pretense
I found myself in a daze
In a restless trance
Of a parallel life

Where you and I existed 
In a breath of touch

Your skin that I yearned for
Your soul that never ceased
Walking with me
In my private nirvana

There you are,
Vivid and breathing
Wide awake by my side

Your eyes blazed
My heart jumped with desire
Your smile is a shaft of light
Sending my knees to a queer shudder

Inch by inch you moved
I drew myself nearer

Reaching out to catch
A glimpse of your face

In this reverie
In this dreamland
You were meant for me






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Posted by Annmarie at 8/29/2010 10:23 PM | View Comments (2) | Add Comment

Matter

John Grey's poem At the Age appeared here in April. Today he tackles death and what follows it. A poetic form of a will, perhaps, but written in a much more lyrical manner. The imagery in this might make you a little queasy, but there's no way around that.

Matter
By John Grey

Bury me in purple dulse on a rock,
if my shroud cannot be the rock itself.
Or let my coffin be the roots of a scotch pine,
the taller the better.
I don't mind mulch and fungus, believe me.
If six feet under is down where the periwinkle seeds
are mating with the soil
then leave my broken body there.
I'll be the corpse that dapples the last toothed leaf
of the golden Alexander.
I'll be the matter that cannot be created or destroyed
if it creates swamp milkweed, destroys ambition.
I'll swap my legs for cicadas,
my brains for spittlebugs.
The partridgeberry can have my armpits.
My intestine can wrap around the marsh mallow
until that flower returns the notched pink favor.
Don't let me live on in anyone's dreams or conversations.
Burn the photos. Cancel the tears.
I've done my time in a concrete wasteland.
I've seen the future and it's a May beetle's claw.






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Posted by Annmarie at 8/28/2010 10:32 PM | View Comments (2) | Add Comment

Pure Heart

Tapeshwar Amef gave us a lovely celebration of the World Cup in July (World Cup Starts). He lives and writes in India, but the miracle of technology allows us to chat with him as if we're all in the same space. Visit his blog to keep up with him. This poem is his tribute to Mother Teresa whose birthday is August 26. The poem makes lovely use of paradox in its presentation of the attributes of Mother Teresa. It gives us a view of this woman from the streets in which she served as well as from the spiritual center of those she touched. 

Pure Heart
By Tapeshwar Amef

Mother, you are Christian.
You serve the poor and you are God to them,
You talk, rendering honey from your mouth,
You are short, even while touching the sky,
Your attire is plain, but perceived kaleidoscopic,
You are stern, and hearts start palpitating.
Mother, you are nice and you exude humanity.
You are supple and sloppy, and all nature stoops on you.
Mother, your look is distant, but your effect is close,
You have sagging skin, and you are the most beautiful,
Your sons are leprosy ridden, deranged, in heaven,
You feed them and you are an angel.
You walk and the shadow looks on in awe.
You have faith in Christ and serve all Gods.
You are dead and you are living Now.
Your soul was above the intellect.
You are a Nirmal Hriday.






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Posted by Annmarie at 8/28/2010 12:18 AM | View Comments (1) | Add Comment

Ever

Author of 6 collections of poetry and more than 600 poems published in journals and anthologies, Scott Owens is editor of Wild Goose Poetry Review, Vice President of the Poetry Council of North Carolina, and recipient of awards from the Pushcart Prize Anthology, the Academy of American Poets, the NC Writers' Network, the NC Poetry Society, and the Poetry Society of SC. He holds an MFA from UNC Greensboro and currently teaches at Catawba Valley Community College. Keep up with him at Red Room. Now read his poem twice (at least) and write a response. Are you willing to leave it? Open to negotiation? Do you feel like the parting is better off put off as long as possible?

Ever
By Scott Owens

I would not leave it willingly for anything,
although I know it's never easy
and so full of sadness it makes tracks
in our faces, so full of pain it wrecks
hands, back, neck, nothing
at times but disappointment, a constant
rerun of days, routines of labor
and failure, attempt and frustration,
only rarely coming out on top.
Yet, when I can no longer wrestle
with the demands of the day and win,
still, I would not leave it willingly.
Even set upright in the chair,
blanket across my lap with nothing
but sight left, or sound, or any
sensation along the length of my body,
or nothing but thought, even reduced
to carcass or compost, mere elements,
or rising again in the veins of limbs
I would not leave it willingly, or ever.






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Posted by Annmarie at 8/26/2010 11:06 PM | View Comments (4) | Add Comment

Late Summer

Ann Van Velthoven lives in New Jersey. She doesn't think of herself as a writer, having spent many years drawing and painting instead. Her daughters tell her they would like to see her return to the visual arts since they are not gifted in that way. Ann says this poem appeared to her and she quickly wrote it down. It is an image of summer at first read, though it could be more if you read it again. 

Late Summer
By Ann Van Velthoven

A summer night
Fireflies flickering
A fleeting moment of beauty
Illuminating a dark landscape.






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Posted by Annmarie at 8/25/2010 11:01 PM | View Comments (2) | Add Comment
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