|
TESA DUNCAN, editor of Wakan |
Click to enter Wakan  |
NEW - in our merchandise store: the Poetry Life & Times Poetry Journal... click image to find out more. |
Editor's Letter, June 2006
| Dear Poets,
Welcome to the June 2006 issue of Poetry Life
& Times (For those of you reading this on a mirror site and not
poetrylifeandtimes.com, click here).
This month we feature an interview
with Tesa Duncan, editor of Wakan. We are also including a
selection of Tesa Duncan's poems both as original in Spanish
and translated into English.
click here).
Featured Poets include: Clive Oseman, Aberjhani, Robert Wilson, Christopher Major, Joseph Armstead.
Resident Poets feature Robin Ouzman Hislop, Michael Burch, Helga Ross and Sara L. Russell. See below Featured Poets for the link to this page. |
 |
|
The Potato of Terror reviews JABBERWOCKY by Lewis Carroll Click here to read the review. UNDER CONSTRUCTION - Poetry Life & Times
section "La
caja de Pandora" (on an interactive format) : The Pandora Box
Click
here to read more.
Fans of Norris cartoons: you will find it on our Resident poets section: follow the link below.
Poetry submissions should be in plain text in the body of an email, with a small jpeg author picture attached, also a bio, with the URLs of any ezines mentioned, so that they can be shown as links. This increases the chance of inclusion, especially for late submissions. Pictures are best at a maximum of 520 pixels across, otherwise they take ages to arrive by email, especially in bitmap or TIFF format. We recommend that poets click the submissions link on our main page, for full guidelines, and please, always use a spellchecker. Poets can submit previously-published work here. If another editor likes it, there's a chance we'll like it too. Best Regards,
|
Featured Poets this month
include Clive Oseman, Aberjhani, Robert Wilson, Christopher Major, Joseph Armstead.
Many thanks to all
contributors.
See below Featured Poets for our Resident Poets' page
link.
ABERJHANI |
Star People © Aberjhani
every dawn we dance the sun out of hiding.
Every howling night we cry the moon back to joyful beauty.
This fire that we call Loving is too strong for human minds. But just right for human souls.
Everywhere we shine death and life burn into something new, rise up like perfumed nebulae through the jubilant road flowing beneath our feet.
Magnetic Black Towards Light © Aberjhani 2005 Broken skylark emerging magnetic black towards light feels pressed against ethereal lips words and worlds of blue-white enigma. True lovers earn their genius in schools of blood, prophecy and dust. Those who survive death's stern teachings graduate with honors from the university of the soul. When next you open the emerald book of your heart, read carefully what it says about the seeds of this moment and the butterfly blossoms of your future. Turn to that page where your eyes speak as one with the visions of glorious eternity. Know yourself fearlessly (even quietly) for all the things you are. Each star is a mirror reflecting the truth inside you. Every roaring sigh of the ocean a mystic remembering God's name. © All poems by Aberjhani, 2005-2006 |
CHRISTOPHER MAJOR I live in Stoke on Trent , Staffordshire, where i traing to be a Psychiatric Nurse. |
Heir (2006) © Chris Major The ones here have no faith, no religion, science gave them answers. They lie shaven headed to mask identity, and gape a chest or spill innards from an open belly. Medics and nurses hold hearts, unravel intestines and marvel at the size of livers- as those donated become nothing but 'aids'. In fact, don't think of them as human, cover the face, ignore odd tattoos naming loved ones, and those lungs that wheeze, sigh, when lifted from a chest....... © Chris Major We're in this bar when she blurts she luvs me, wishes she met me before her husband- wants to be with me. I stare at her. "Do you really want snatched half hours in dingy bars, secret meetings in cheap motels, moments of stolen passion. Do you really want that for us?" "No.No." she sobs. "Oh well, don't get upset" I say. "It was just a suggestion......" Post (2006) © Chris Major There’s part of you still there you know, for your shed skin compacts under their baby’s nails, and collects as dust haunting dark corners; your grey hair beards the plug holes, and mirrors that swallowed your image reflect things smeared with your prints. Oh, they may throw out carpets rich with your bits, decorate and paint ceilings your tobacco breath kissed, but always you leave a trace, always. Somewhere…..somewhere. If only hair, if only dust, or finally just, atoms…..atoms. Years later they still receive your mail. |
JOSEPH ARMSTEAD Joseph
Armstead is a horror/dark fantasy writer living in Oakland, California,
where he works as a computer technologist. He is a member of the Horror
Writers of America organization, a member of the Speculative Literature
Foundation and a member of the American Mathematical Society. |
The Katana's Edge Transfixes My Eye (Sharp Prayers) © by Joseph Armstead, 2006 ...morning, and the light from the sun is reluctantly eclipsed by the honed edge of something sharp and unforgiving... the brittle voice of the koto hides behind the thrum of the O-uchi, a bleak rhythm of thunder, from a spectral jikata, and cold rain crosses the mountains under the watchful unblinking gaze of an orbital surveillance platform, a steel satellite riding a starless orbit around a planet bristling with antennae and hollow radar dishes there is no voice for this Song, music from a wire-frame soul trapped behind mimetic frequencies in a cyberspace universe peppered with the remnants of a more historic Age, where allegiances extended beyond mere politics and where whispered prayers once wound like paper dragons through a forest of hidden agendas the melody is constant the melody slowly fades ... something sharp emerges from the coolness of the Void, slicing through illusion without mercy... platitudes, well wishing, secrets and regrets mix with the persistence of the invisible rhythm, magic lodged in the throat of choking saints, and sinners drawing razored-edged blades hungry to plunge them into the bellies of enemies, real and imagined, while sunlight reflected off the moon's face sings like opera in the stillness of night the repetition of the pulse beat, don doko, from this dark and secret symphony is too fast and too harsh to hold the tune; the melody is too sharp the melody cuts too deep ... morning and something sharp catches the crystal tear sliding out from the corner of my eye... The Laying of Dark Hands Upon the Masses ©by Joseph Armstead The healing cannot begin until the wound is closed. Dancing a graceless waltz, all the zombies fall down. It is nightfall over the restless city, a metropolis of buzzing electrical wires and spilt ink birthing legends and rumors to strangle ideas and emotions, and a gathering of like-minded individuals (such a joke, "like-minded" -- scammers and cheats standing side by side with visionaries, prophets, and circus freaks uncomfortably rubbing shoulders with attorneys, physicians, teachers, bankers, and other children of a babbling, schizophrenic Mammon) collect at the foot of a towering steel skyscraper, art nouveau needle piercing the sky, monolith and leviathan both, where the ululating siren song from a lost dream beckons them, their minds invaded by flash-cut imagery, scenes of chaos and drama where alienation and misplaced pride explode, with each pulse of the bloodstream, across minds befogged by the incessant babble of cell phone transmissions, "Who Am I?" - "Why Am I?" - "Am I loved?" - "Am I real?" and "Have you hugged your Real Estate Broker today?", it is all a whirlwind of marketing demographics and self-affirmative consumerism, Tower of Bable, Neon Babylon, that doesn't disspate until the sun begins to rise in the pollution-stained sky... The zombies have stopped dancing. The wounds start to close and the healing reluctantly begins. The Straw Man in the Flames of the Sky He is burning in a sea of blue burning night... ............no birds haunt the sky ............no feathers of Heaven ........ litter ................. ............the bright fires rising ........... from churning soul ...... of the Unquiet Earth smoke the color of a spring memory pours into the open void, well of Time, that looks down upon the lone figure of a paper-doll scarecrow raging against his Fate. All is changing, All is torn, rippling through an ocean of wind, light, and enigma. .........gravity is a candle....... burning in the vastness of his senses He is a blue burning torch lighting the dark seas of flickering change. © All poems by Joseph Armstead, 2006 |
CLIVE OSEMAN |
Beyond The Boundary © Clive Oseman, 2006 Battle lines are drawn- day one of four. They won the toss and chose to bat, a wise decision vindicated as our bowlers toil in rapidly increasing heat, scoreboard moving steadily towards a towering sum as I look on helplessly. At tea I hear the news- more mindless mutilation in Iraq, poor kids who never chose to bat. Now as the heat increases battle lines are drawn, scoreboard spiralling uncontrolled towards a towering sum and I look on so helplessly once more. Parting © Clive Oseman, 2006 I could spell it out, try to make you see where I am coming from, but what's the point? Your mind's made up and blinded to such suffering. Why let pain kill my dignity if destiny is unperturbed? So I will merely tell you this. If dreams turn sour you can still return to the arms of truth..... then I will turn away to camouflage my cries as I am slowly crushed by what I find. © All poems by Clive Oseman, 2006 |
ROBERT M. WILSON |
I Wish I Could Write A Poem ©Robert Wilson, 2006 I wish that I could write a poem, So pert it makes you smile, One that sings like a Sunday finch To entice you for awhile, As sweet as candy kisses, So sultry that you moan, So shocking that you shout out loud, As smooth as old sandstone, As hot as Jalapeño, So tender that you cry, So funny that you wet your pants, More mystic than the sky. But first I have to find the time To figure how to make it rhyme. This Madness Called Writing This madness called writing, of marks made on tablets, Describing in symbols what can't be described, With strings of abstractions that prey on each other, Is praised by its makers 'til reason is bribed. A drug that's accepted, hypnotic in beauty, The readers slip into a trancelike retreat. Injected in childhood and dimming discernment, Consensus ensures its narcotic repeat. In moments of clarity, time-honored classics May often spell bafflement, leavened by mirth, At language whose fanciful vanity lessens, Or never had, any connection to Earth. Like birds in a fishbowl or fish in the sky, This madness called writing diverts, then we die. | To A Dark Beauty You float alone and sing in a sea of pale jellyfish, made stronger by their sting. They do not see you wait or even see each other. It's a wonder that they mate. To me, you are sweet guava, a lush tropic island, the fruit of flaming lava. My inner isle's your twin. Would you notice me if I changed my skin? Find Another Farm, Cowboy Find another farm, Cowboy, Ride a different herd! You can't treat us like cattle, No matter what you've heard. Although you like big udders, We're not your mother lode. Go get the milk you're craving At Wal-Mart down the road. And if you're selling lovin', Your bull is no more needed. We heifers please ourselves now The pasture has been weeded. © All poems by Robert Wilson, 2006 |
Click the above banner to discover our free weekly market e-zine and searchable database of writer's guidelines with 1,000 publications - 200 that publish poetry.
Poetry Life & Times won The
Prix Poesie's laissez-faire Grand Prize in 2002
|
Voulez-vous
recontrez de nos amis poètes et rédacteurs |
The Crystal Rose © Ice Shard
Visit Crystal Rose's Place
Val Magnuson Galactic Poet Award
|
|
 |
OUT NOW! CRYSTAL
DAWN
An exciting new
anthology, by Kedco
Studios Artist Profile Press, |
|
NEW: The Poetry Life & Times Store Buy Perils of Norris
Merchandise online, including mouse mats, clocks, tote bags and
postcards. |
 |
Click here for BACK ISSUES page
Email us
early
with poetry, articles or poetry news, by 20th June for the July 2006
issue. Please remember to follow our submission guidelines.