Selected from The Orc Poems* collection & New Small Poems

Chip Chop
 
Poems are alms bowls
In each bowl sweet milk rice plop
On the mead boards of werewolves
 
Scrawled on the skin of my drum
Escaping the shadow of doom
 

**


Paganini.
 
Tremulous poplars
Black in winter’s bitter wind:
Mad violinists. 

Ink
 
Dark muddy footpaths
Beyond back yards, unleashed dog:
Rabid ravener.


Scroll
 
Black wolves chase black crows,
The moon pales silver rice
Paddies: commotion.

**

Turning on the hill
In winter’s gloaming
Dark perspectives

A slanting horizon
On racing slopes
Black trees close

On falling skies
In rising mists
& distant ring hedges

Ellipse in an eye
Broken images of a word
To accompany their dead

Buried with this frozen heart
That is the centre of me,
In the costume of the moment.

SARA RUSSELL

By MICHAEL BURCH

Three Poems

For Rhonda, with Butterflies

Where does the butterfly go
when lightning rails and thunder howls
and hailstones scream and winter scowls
and storms compound the frost with snow?
Where does the butterfly go?

Where does the rose hide its bloom
when night descends oblique and chill
and stars such vacuum fail to fill?
Where does she then her bloom bestow,
and where does the butterfly go?

And where shall the spirit flee
when life is harsh, too harsh to face,
and hope is lost without a trace?
Oh, when the light of life runs low,
where does the butterfly go?


Her Preference

Not for her the pale incandescence of dreams,
the warm glow of imagination,
the sweet, hushed whispers of possibility,

or frail, blossoming hope.

No, she prefers the anguish and screams
of bitter condemnation,
the hissing of hostility,

damnation's rope.



Ince St. Child

When she was a child
  in a dark forest of fear,
    imagination cast its strange light
      into secret places,
      scattering traces
    of illumination so bright,
  years later, they might suddenly reappear,
their light undefiled.

When she was young,
  the shafted light of her dreams
    shone on her uplifted face
      as she prayed;
      though she strayed
    into a night fallen like mildewed lace
  shrouding the forest of screams,
her faith led her home.

Now she is old
  and the light that was flame
    is a slow-dying ember . . .
      What she felt then
      she would explain;
    she would if she could only remember
  that forest of shame,
faith beaten like gold.

***

 c. Mike Burch, 2008.

**










by

HELGA ROSS
(above, with Sherman)

By HELGA ROSS

Fun with Shakespeare

 

Shakespeare is credited with a most impressive list of invented words (neologisms).

Here’s my Shakespearean-inspired sonnet in his honor, comprised accordingly:

A fun challenge, using old words for a modern message.

 

 

Letter to the Editor: You-Name-It News

 

As if rants arouse lackluster lovers,

your panders leave me cold in gossip's gust;

the laughable stuff your courtship covers:

Media, will you not mimic my trust?

You, bandits of the bedroom, serve skim milk,

while, (hint), I hobnob, blushing, on the blogs

where the blood-stained blankets wave—their ilk

caters to the hungers your news cycle hogs.

Yes, I’m a madcap romantic, rest assured,

lonely for a cold-blooded critic,

who’s secure there’s no two sides of torture,

and barefaced, scuffles with what makes me sick.

I’d champion an ode to the obscene

to have you, News, metamorphize your mien.

~A concerned citizen

And he'll say, as he scratches himself with his claws,

"Well, the Theatre's certainly not what it was.

These modern productions are all very well

But there's nothing to equal, from what I hear tell,

That moment of mystery

When I made history

As Firefrorefiddle, the Fiend of the Fell.

Gus the Theatre Cat by T.S. Elliot:

 

 

No cat of mine’s confuddled by cartoons,

in fact, purr-furs, when they’re playing, not to snooze,

and flips from Ratatouille to raccoons

as nimbly as your kiddies take their cues.

Sphinx-like, my rascal eyes the screen a smile,

but stays his ambush of bite-size wildebeest,

being wise to having once tried that dial

and smacked a lunch wouldn’t yield in the least.

He’s wise to the ways of living indoors,

adapting to having been out before,

with wedding both worlds to these scenes on all fours,

or feathers, or sketch—yet never fool for :

To watch him watch is to know which is which—

Only God’s creatures will make his tail twitch.

 

 

JIM DUNLAP

Three Poems by JIM DUNLAP

Several Yellow Bricks Short Of A Road


Much "free verse" they call poetry
is simply broken prose.
Can it really be called literature,
or just deceit and pose?

It's rather strange to arbitrate
if words rhyme, or their position,
since so much is garbled nonsense
that pretends to erudition.

These poseurs should accumulate
their writings for transposition
to a final cardboard coffin
for their best "decomposition".


Pieces And Puzzles

What place has man in Nature's schemes?
A bridge that spans the black abyss
that yawns beneath our feet in dreams,
the while we pause and reminisce,
exploring all life's countless themes.

If brute we were, long ages past,
uncouth, degenerate ape-man;
yet to the end we'll come at last,
a rudimentary super-man --
with future bright and powers vast.

Envision how our world could be
if Intellect, like Cosmic-Mind,
emblazoned Life's periphery --
and Art and Science joined to find
the key that bares Infinity.



Rite Of Possession

"Did he hurt you, darling sister?"
Oh my God ... the blood ... the blood.
It was spewing in a scarlet flood,
as she moved her lips to whisper:
"Death is coming.  I can feel it.
Are the children safe and well?"
I struggled to keep calm, and quell
her panic ... lest my face reveal it.
"They're fine, I breathed, as 911
replied help is on the way.
I heard the madman kneel to pray,
and as the ambulance arrived, the gun
barked once ... his jealousy grew still:
he'd proved 'what men most love, they kill.'


c. Jim Dunlap, 2008.