Featured poets this month include:
Ron Cervero, Michael Levy, Ian Thorpe, Loni Yarnold, Kimmy Van Kooten and Christopher Barnes.
Please scroll down the page.



by Kimmy Van Kooten

"Word Peckers" by Kimmy Van Kooten

Remember, every poem in this section participates in PLT  Readers' Poll, where you may choose your favourite one by vote. The only rule is for Featured Poets not to vote for their own poems.
Results for our Second Readers' Poll: Top rated poem was "Homecoming" by Elisha Porat.  All poems will be found in PL&Times May 2007~Featured Poets.











Ron Cervero resides in New Haven, CT.



He began writing poetry in the late 80’s when he worked in the TV &
film industry in Los Angeles, CA.  Ron has been published in: DeComp
Magazine, Other Voices International, Scream of the Buddha Magazine, Blue House, Verse
Marauder, Poetry Life &Times-Sheffield, Flask Review and more.

Ron is also the editor of Lost Beat Poetry. His first book is called “Cranial Speedway.”


 



  Some poems at PL&T:
Featured Poets
Temptation and Other Poems



   

RON CERVERO


Another Window


Standing at my kitchen window,
silver maples dot my neighbors lawn.
I imagine in a different space and time,
peering through another pane of glass —
in a nursing home seeing birds eat a worm,
or a jail cell watching lives roll by on a train.
Life moves fast; things change
by the click of the clock.
Fire.
Flood.
Death.
Soon, I’ll be looking out one more
window; see my reflection and wonder,
"Who is that strange fellow looking back at me?"
Wrinkles, double chin, gray hair... it scares me to think
about looking out another window,
especially if mine is the only reflection that I see...


Box of Dreams


Baseball cards,
a rubber band,
an 1894 Indian head penny,
the aroma of cheap tobacco
filled the bottom of an old cigar box;
my box of dreams where no one else could go.

When I was grown the box became a distant memory,
I had forgotten the magic of dreams, cynical adulthood.

In Hollywood I was sure that I was home,
only to find a pink slip and a plane ticket.

My depression?
Black as coal or even blacker,
I lived inside this tube of insanity
where nothing made sense —
I felt like I was dying.

Snorting coke and drinking Buds
to take away the pain, growing thin,
I lost control of my life once again.
Gazing through teary eyes I saw it...
my box of dreams.

When I opened it, I found a time capsule:
baseball cards
a rubber band
and that 1894 Indian head penny;
the box still wafting old tobacco
from 30 years ago, it filled my nostrils.

My life was not full of hope anymore,
just the agony of knowing;
how I wished that I could start over...
one more feeble attempt at life.

Eventually, I fell asleep
clutching my box of hope.
I had a dream that it was all a terrible mistake —
my war wounds,
my drug addiction all passed away
in my unconscious mind.

When I awoke
I felt a moment of peace... of hope.
Through blood shot eyes I looked around the room,
stacks of empty beer bottles,
an ashtray full of death ,
the residue of cocaine
and a dirty rolled up dollar bill,
still on my mothers’ antique mirror;
no box of dreams where no one else could go.

And I knew that I was back —
back in the pit of hell.


Strange Eyes


My fingers are on the keys.
I can type anything.
We can go on a journey of war,
or celebrate peace.
But the words come rough.
Strange Eyes look past the present.
Time – Manipulated
The world hugs you and tells you,
everything is going to be alright.
You look up in astonishment,
and know it’s not going to be alright.
It will never be alright


c. All poems by Ron Cervero, 2007.

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Michael Levy is the author of seven books, a mystical poet, inspirational philosopher and wellness/healthy living speaker. His latest books are "The Joys of Live Alchemy" and "Worry Causes Wrinkles" which help a person to change dark negative situations into beautiful, colorful, positive actions, that bring de-lights on the darkest of days.
Website: Point Of Life.





  Some poems at PL&T:
Featured Poets

 



 

MICHAEL LEVY


The Wisdom of the Dead



Dead people are

the most intelligent people

not on earth

for they now know

the truth

and realize what

put them

in their graves

If only un-dead people

would awaken

to fathom

the wisdom of the dead.

 


What’s in a Name?

 
The Stock Exchange,

Straddled with Bulls, Bears and Stags,

A faux farmhouse,

Mask the... pen and ink!

Time and money to invest,

What's the option?

Perhaps a change of name..........

The Rascal House?

Call; for a pastrami-on-rye

Put; on plenty of ketchup and mustard

Order; executed and full-filled.

 

His Milestone

 

He worked hard, for twenty-five years,

His business was a huge success,

The biggest in town,

A new milestone,

Hitting the headlines, in all the local newspapers,

Quite an achievement, since he started out with nothing,

He made a speech, saying he would retire soon,

Low and behold, new, more venturesome firms abounded,

Competition grew fierce,

No problem; he was up to the task,

After fifty years in the business, he was the biggest in the country,

A new milestone

Catching the headlines, in all the national newspapers,

He gave a speech,

Saying he would definitely retire, very shortly,

However new, novel, unfamiliar competition snowballed,

Nevertheless, he was up to the task,

After sixty-five years in business, he was the biggest in the world,

A new milestone,

Striking the headlines, in every newspaper in the world,

That day as he prepared, to make his speech to retire...

His milestone, became his headstone.

 
 

The Thinker of the Thought



Reflections of the mind

in a life beyond earths green meadows,

My, how a seasons dramas pass by

like wind driven clouds,

And how congested the thinker of the thought.

 

Oceans shimmer like diamond starlight,

Mountain tops hide in silvery mystical haze,

Shadows stretch, tinted by crimson sunsets

varnishing the deep forests of pleasure,

Laughter and color frolic in twilight skies.

 

Beauty and joy dance in ever increasing circles

around the genius of fresh life,

Animals and plants live here

feeding each others existence,

Streams of exotic light infuse all.

 

But; how did it all slip by unnoticed?

Divine emptiness now fills the eternal voids,

A speck of mysterious nothingness reminisces,

Gazing,

Towards a place, of awe and wonderment.


 
 
  c. by Michael Levy, 2007.


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A happy child but a late developer, Ian Thorpe was born at quite an advanced age and remembers nothing more for several years. One morning he awoke and was aware of being in a large white room. The blinds were drawn but the furniture was real. A note pinned to the wall said XYZZY. "I've only got your word for that" Ian replied and the note threw itself in a waste paper bin. This experience convinced Ian that his destiny was to become a writer. He immediately composed his first poem "Ode to a Milkman."

Seriously, Ian has been away some time but is back with challenging proposals.




   Some poems by Ian Thorpe previously published at PL&T:
Featured Poets

  The Making and Unmaking Dance and other poems.



   

IAN THORPE




4 POEMS



CIVILISATION


It is difficult to be exact about the day,
the exact day when civilisation ended,
the day we stopped being members
of communities that respected, even cared
about each other and the precious world.
It was not the day that awful, bossy woman*
said "there is no such thing as society,
only selfish bastards looking after number one."
It was not then.
Nor was it the day John Lennon died
and so much hope perished
on that New York sidewalk with him.
Was it one day or perhaps a gradual thing?
Did the rich slowly abandon responsibility?
the young stop talking to the old?
did we each become only
the sum of what we own?
At the start we did not know the thing
we were losing was a great thing.
In the end we will understand that we
lost everything, the day civilisation
came to an end.

*the "bossy woman" in question is Margaret Thatcher, former British Prime Minister and one of the architechts of the mess the world economy is in.

 



In Byzantium


There's a prison in Byzantium
where men say gods will not tread.
Led in chains to dwell in darkness
innocence is drowned in dread.
The Priest - King of Byzantium
rules through strength and fear,
abuses power to repress
freedoms the good revere.

The men who built Byzantium
were broken on the wheel.
For all its gold and shining marble
 the great glory is not real.
In a courtroom in Byzantium
human nature is on trial.
The truth - seeker and rebel
are coerced into denial.

A land lies beyond the North Wind
where the spirit can grow free,
where the dogmas of Byzantium
hold no authority,
where an all - forgiving mother
would hold all in her embrace
while the Priest - King of Byzantium
rages against love and grace.



 

November 14, 2006 - 54o North.


Mid - November in the north
and leaves, dying, drying,
yellowing slowly still cling
to branches they have clothed.
Flowers of garden, moor and hedgerow
enjoy a second blooming well after
their vibrant shades ought to fade.
New buds swell when trees should rest
through long, cold days.

The seasons are confused and our
ill - used mother is in trouble.
Fall cannot be summers double,
dark doppelganger bringing false spring
to spawn new life. In desperate strife
Earth wrestles against human greed.





A Pale Horse


In a dream I saw a rider on a pale horse
but still felt no remorse for the thing I'd done,
and the moonlight shone upon a graveyard
picking out black letters on a pale stone.

The sky grew lighter as the dawn drew near,
revealing the name of one I once held dear
her head lay on my pillow for a joyful year.
Slender as a willow, she had blue-black hair,

slender as a willow and as pale as death
and tender as a blossom on a green stem.
Her hips clung like ivy and her sweet breath
tasted of berries drenched in warm cream.

I knew my cold heart froze the spark within her,
the vital spark that wills life to persist.
My cold indifference tore the life within her
as sure as if my hand had held a cruel knife.

Indifference to a love that's truly given
is cold as any blade, as cruel as any blow.
I found her cold and rigid in the morning,
hanging from a willow in the cold rain.

In my dream her lifeless eyes accuse me.
Beside her is a rider on a Pale Horse.
I want to cry and beg for absolution,
Retribution would grant a kind of justice.

All my life those lifeless eyes will haunt me.
Each man kills the one he loves the poet said;
she was my world, my breath and wine and bread,
I tried to love her but she was a mystery.

Each day I try but can feel no remorse,
beside me steps a rider on a pale horse,
only through remorse may my love live again.
I only see reality within a dream


c. Ian Thorpe, 2007.


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Born in Pequannock, NJ.
At a young age,  she moved to a 70 acre horse farm in Allentown, Pennsylvania
with all of her 7 sisters and six brothers!
The apple doesn't fall far from the tree!
Now residing deep in the woods of a
Florida tropical fauna...
Kimmy is inspired...
"I love being a mother, a grandmother,
and best of all, my husbands wife!"
She surrounds herself with nature and loves to hike unknown territories!
She also loves gardening, smelling the roses and
playing her red conga drums!
"They call me "Conga Kimmy!"
"Life itself motivates me and all it has to offer!"

"Those that can see beyond the negative, wrap themselves up in the simplicity surrounding, can
Listen to the Whispers and Rejoice!"


Kimmy Van Kooten




THE WORD-PECKER AND THE WITWORMS
If in zwodder, you might as well heed
A zuggers among us, with a will to intercede
So take in yeepsen, wuzzle in muse
wrine in thought, as I wordify you!

At anywhen now, in a bout to baffound
There’s a be-hounc’d tale of a belly-pinched bird
Higher up, in eye-reach seems,
a burdalone word-pecker drills his hole in dreams

Years in batilbaby, wisp bull-speaking crows,
davering in day-mares and their deepmusing throws
Dawed to extinction, as a downfart spews
Where the dittology of witworms, in an elfmill rules

Not affected by the dudman’s birds,
this fine farded word-pecker faffles his words
So hit up the blink-fencers, choosehow now
There’s a clapperclaw chryme, willed to clash in clow

The bouffage’s set, where all the jarkmen adjourn
ready to bumwhush, all the butts and bounds learned
Bowdlerized in bruzzle, a chantepleur
The word-pecker now sings his new first word...
"Lexicon."
 

 by Kimmy Van Kooten
"Eros Forest" by Kimmy Van Kooten

 

THE BALLAD OF A WINTER DAMNED


"Make these chilled winter winds pass me
I've seen the damn beyond my pane"
"And the live oaks they shiver,
their bark trembles my deign!"

"Please, give the currents a voice
Awake! This sleep-seasoned phase
The sun seeks to warm
the heartless leaves craze"
"Look, look, the Almighty air seizes
the cold pants and flinches! "
"Ay,  Will it expire all life
clung to its winches?"

"Yea, golden with highlights
The Fall’s reminisce
It’s leaving across,
as the bare maples hiss! "

"In blending with Jasmine’s
anew the bright yellows trumpets,
A price of will paid
leaving, toward flowers of strumpets!"

"So, if the tall pines in shedding,
as it needles and hones,
with the red berries of Holly
nestling in gathers , the air groans?"

"Here me, this eve blows in the garden,
and in sight, sways azaleas
When the chimes ring above,
an air hopes to obtain us!"

"Lo! Petals are falling
Arose in the wind!"
"Yea, the damn near freezes
as nature abscinds!"


A BARD'S CUPPA TEA


Steep ’d, I beseech thee, enter
into the pome of a poem!
Compose your Ge or jeu d’ esprit
Come! . . .mellowly prose
evermore disrobe
Thy poetical faculty

Pour ’d, seasoning fro’ the cuppeth of you
Influentially a tome and astute
Marking thy name
Hath origins’,
O fame!
Read writings of yore to denude

Sips from esteemed language in muse
Spot to rise o'er and defuse
Dispersing in verse
that rest will unpurse
Whilst ye wet lips’ provenances
lauds ope to thy words

Savor my Poet!
Thy quills’ will, doeseth wells in me!
A Scribe’ d in flavoring leaves
‘Tis readings of sorrows
Thro’ joyous repasts till morrows
May our forbearance for pens ne'er cease!



IN THE SPRING CLIME OF THE WILY BIRD

(HAIKU 5-7-5)


Twirps me, blinked weather
Typical women’s tactic
Fit as a feather!



FLUORESCE CONCUPISCENCE


Oak pines, Maple’s share
Sun rays
treeing me, between
striate shadows
down the Earth,
our souls are mingling...

Posts beam, talks billow
Love that doubles up
Perennial pillows
blanket the flesh,
his urging’s
lay her neath

Vessels burst, mauler’s clench
Legs, he’s over me
Shooting pulses
e’er around,
rings of color,
thrust

Redbud’s sleep, Pinus fall
fluoresce concupiscence
Nature’s way,
of coming in
A bed of roses
drenched...






Copyright 2007
Kimmy Van Kooten

 







 I am a 21 year old psychology student in Australia. My first love is
writing, and I've been writing poetry since I was in primary school...
hopefully my work has gotten better since then. I was highly commended
in a
country poetry contest when I was maybe 12, and apart from winning
first and
second for Humorous Verse in a few country shows, that's about all my
poetry
has won. I enjoy expressing myself and my emotions through poetry, as
poetry
is a universal language of sorts where people can see themselves in
your
words and know they are not alone. I am engaged to a wonderful man, who
never minds if I get up at 7am to write something down for a future
poem. My
dream is to one day see a book of my poetry in that lonely corner of
the
local bookstore.




LONI YARNOLD



For Frankie


Would you have had
Your daddy’s eyes
Your mommy’s smile
A birthmark shaped
Remarkably
Like a foreign country
I’ll never see
Would you have been good at sport
Short, tall
A ladies man
Have artist’s hands
Live to be 100
Hate the color pink
Or do you think
You would have been
Your daddy’s little girl
All lace and pretty bows
I would have liked to meet you
To have a chance
To teach you
How to tie your shoe
Or read you Dr. Seuss
By nightlight in your room
Where would you have taken
Your first steps in this world
I wish I could have heard
The patter of your feet
Or your first word
All your promise
Wiped away
What I wouldn’t give to say
I love you
Just one time
To hold you, call you mine
Dry your tears
Kiss a knee
Some naughty tree had skinned
Or cry
On your first day of school
To admire who you’d be
You would have been my angel
Your daddy’s bestest friend
It was all my fault
And in the end
I wish sometimes I’d died with you.


Wrong


And the whole world
Has been inside this skin
An earthly crawl between
What should and has never been
A moment, nothing in it
What was left behind
Was not enough to wrap her
And in the comfort of her mind

Today, tomorrow
Nowhere
No place where she was home
Places she had been before
Were like she’d never known
The texture of the walls
And all she ever had to say
Was that when she made her lines
In crayon
It was not marked out this way


Its Been A Long Year


Hide away and whisper
A curse against your name
Time itself heals nothing
When every moment is the same

Wrap yourself away in war
But it wont keep you safe
Black wont make you stronger
Leather ties you to your fate

Blame them all in public
But inside you blame yourself
Your body can’t take much more of this
So you keep it on a shelf

Bring it down on such occasions
As to punish it some more
Wake up again tomorrow
Be reborn a whore

With every tear you cry you try
To play martyr on your own
Keep all your pain a secret
Everybody dies alone

Laugh and say your happy
Because no-one wants to hear
Listen, because they need that
You can dry their tears

Were you really happy
When they told you not to die?
Or would it have been the only thing
To truly make you smile?

Someone stole your truth away
Now everything is strange
Just because your life’s encrypted
Doesn’t mean you’ve changed

Everyone’s the devil
The worst of whom is you
Just because its over
Doesn’t mean its through

I wish that you could start again
Erase everything you’ve done
But you take your burden with you
And hell has just begun



c. Loni Yarnold, 2007.


 



Christopher Barnes



In 1998 I won a Northern Arts writers award.  In July 200 I read at Waterstones bookshop to promote the anthology 'Titles Are Bitches'.  Christmas 2001 I debuted at Newcastle's famous Morden Tower doing a reading of my poems.  Each year I read for Proudwords lesbian and gay writing festival and I partake in workshops.  2005 saw the publication of my collection LOVEBITES published by Chanticleer Press, 6/1 Jamaica Mews, Edinburgh.
 
 On Saturday 16th Aughst 2003 I read at theEdinburgh Festival as a Per Verse poet at LGBT Centre, Broughton St.
 
I also have a BBC webpage  www.bbc.co.uk/tyne/gay.2004/05/section_28.shtml and http://www.bbc.co.uk/tyne/videonation/stories/gay_history.shtml (if first site does not work click on SECTION 28 on second site).
 
Christmas 2001 The Northern Cultural Skills Partnership sponsored me to be mentored by Andy Croft in conjunction with New Writing North.  I   made a radio programme for Web FM community radio about my writing group.  October-November 2005, I entered a poem/visual image into the art exhibition The Art Cafe Project, his piece Post-Mark was shown in Betty's Newcastle.  This event was sponsored by Pride On The Tyne.  I  made a digital film with artists Kate Sweeney and Julie Ballands at a film making workshop called Out Of The Picture which was shown at the festival party for Proudwords.  The film is going into an archive at The Discovery Museum  in Newcastle and contains my poem The Old Heave-Ho.  I worked on a collaborative art and literature project called How Gay Are Your Genes, facilitated by Lisa Mathews (poet) which  exhibited at The Hatton Gallery, Newcastle University before touring the country and it is expected to go abroad,  funded by The Policy, Ethics and Life Sciences Research Institute, Bioscience Centre at Newcastle's Centre for Life.  I was  involved in the Five Arts Cities poetry postcard event which exhibited  at The Seven Stories children's literature building.  In May I had 2006 a solo art/poetry exhibition at The People's Theatre .

 
The South Bank Centre in London recorded my poem "The Holiday I Never Had", I can be heard reading it on this link



 
Some poems by C. Barnes previously published by Poetry Life and TImes:



CHRISTOPHER BARNES



Frank

 
A splint
Of adamantly tensioned hamstrings
On a pukka stranger.
 
His iron-buck body, over and above mine
Is fit to crumple.
 
A nuzzle-awake crablouse
Goosesteps across his thigh.
 
This is not my sap sac.
 

 

Freeze The Sequence!

 
You can be arbi-trator, Mr. Openshaw,
Rat-ify Mr. McHinge blabbed to you,
His pinch-and-rub tom-cat.
 
We have him glaring photo-window eyes
But phonic channels were depressed that day.
 
At the Apex Lounge
What were his web-spins?
Who put the bullet in motion,
Did he tickle your palm?
 
 

Fresh Oils In Old Bottles

 
“Bacon’s work is like a diary, it mirrors
his life and loves.” – Andrew Sinclair
 
It’s the nerve impulses scratching
That triggers this clamour to slosh the afternoon
In vino, a blaze of live wires
Static with love for men (a bed of thorns)
Convulsion, a tremble, to coax the smothering nuisance
Of fright, and all this tilting
As paint on a desolate-dark canvas.
 
I squeeze out your cock, weigh
My labour as a painter –
A kind of sponge
Bound to swab the looming chaos.
You finger me, gnaw the skin on my back,
It will soon be time
To tinge the oils from black.


From the Francis Bacon poems

Fright

 
Dwight the spook bob-quivers
With the sound of gnashing teeth,
Bucking turned spindles
Up Solandar’s Guest House stairs.
He sings as he works,
     Swings umbrageous cleansers.
 
             Checklist: Candleshine,
                              Vacuum,
                              Doilies,
                              Floppy-mop heads.
 
           All fossil-cheeked Mrs. S. has to do
    Is console gristley hands,
                Bend to the register,
                        Greeting stagger guests
With a loose-dentured smile.
 
Squashing a puff of must
                   Off the cash-relic coffer
She gives him a grubby-faced scowl.
So under the duster it goes,
Smelling like a grave of flowers.
 

 

 

From The Paunch Of The Oven

 
On Mussolini pudding day
Midrinda sniffles,
“Either Sterrie short-shrifts his arias
Or you find me earache bungs.”
 
On vegan bake night
I coo,
“I’ve always apple-eyed Jerry.



 

From The Roll Film Not Used By Time Magazine

 
Edgeless polythene.
Dusty air – flashpoint aerosols.
The mouldy Sun Rose, seeping,

Heaves its torpor into the long shot.

All poems by Christopher Barnes, UK. c. 2007.

 

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