Resident Poets

The Perils of Norris Cartoon has moved to its own gallery here... don't miss gorgeous Norris misadventures!

The Perils of Norris started in August 2000. To catch up on past episodes, click the links below.

The Perils of Norris Page 6 (prior adventure)

The Perils of Norris (earlier and current adventures)

Index of poets:

Robin Ouzman Hislop
Sara L. Russell
Helga Ross
Michael R. Burch

Robin Ouzman Hislop (Editor)

Out of the Blue Nothing* (Continuation)

v.)

v. We Mortals are Taught only Fake News.

When I die I want my body to be preserved
In molten glass and set to float upon the seas.

Will I wreck upon a rock, fragment,
Flesh & bone, my face a spume?

Or pierce the ice floe to glacier hilt, melt
To the deluge, a castaway on white sand,

Through the eye of a shard revived,
As hour drops solidify on the skeleton?

We mortals are taught only fake news.

vi. Lament for the Brönte Sisters.

Though a lover kept her tryst.
Though her heart were steadfast.
Yet they whispered, she knew not,
She only her beloved called
From those lonely raven ridges.
Beyond the world, word for word,
Beyond the forlorn answering echo,
On another horizon, that orison
That told her that she’d loved.
Yet I’ll roam no more the downs
Gloaming, to seek their odes.
For sisters three, still I hear icy wails flail
On bitter winds, nor freedom from their rags,
Raised to riches by the coolies,
Amongst those dark satanic mills.*

*W Blake. Jerusalem.

vii. Swinery.*

In the photos you came out looking
like the ghost of a medieval swineherd
& me, like a leper, ghoulish.
Well in those days the swine
had a better time of it
than either their keepers
Did or the swine do now.

Except here of course,
in this restored medieval misery
where stuffed straw Jake lacky
sleeps in by sow’s pen, whose litter
will keep them through the winter.
Here in the mud and the rain,
The pig in its sty’s at hame.

* Cosmeston. Vale of Glamorgan. Wales.

viii. Yet She Sings.

I hear her singing. A singing of
Indescribable lightness, a melody
That’s neither tune nor song.

Her voice permeates these rooms,
As if they were without walls,
Whilst rain falls & storm brews.

I close my eyes, to see her
Running naked on the wind.
La la la la la la, so blissful

In this stricken world,
My heart quickens to flame.
She tells me she is dreaming

A universe for me to be free.
Will I awaken there Gaia, earth’s
Mother, womb & mistress moon?

ix. She is Oneness.

You ask me, if there’s anything I fear.
Or words to that affect. I cannot reply.
Is that because there were so many
When at the time I could think of none.
But then I thought death drew near
& I would dwell no more on that for had
I not already there too long. So that I

Feared to dwell more on & then I feared
Fear’s approach & its awful multiple host.
No wonder Adam fled to Paradise.
I thought, I confided, I cited.
I see him now & then not at all.
Only the four walls steered
& I braced myself for the fall

Until I stood as tall as the sky.
Must I explain what I have seen,
When I know it must come to mean.
That fear for a lament born to know loss,
Born out of, created out of perpetual war,
That pitiful madness, remorse at its
Own destruction. She is not One,

She is Oneness. She is the flaming
Maw of Kali. Do I not fear? Do I not
Tremble, in the myriad veil of illusion.
Have I not yet sighted Her Oneness.
Here where the moon casts only shadow,
As memories amidst mists, a moment
Before a dawn chorus that may never break.

____________________

* Title of a painting by Amparo Arrospide.

ROBIN OUZMAN HISLOP: Born UK. Childhood in Lyme Regis & Poole Dorset. Lived Scotland & Scandinavia, The East & Spain. He now lives in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, UK. Appeared in Dawn Millenium Anthology & Crystal Dawn Anthology published by Kedco Studios. When he first joined the world wide net he abandoned his previous poet performance career, mostly had in Spain and often as bilingual joint translation recitals. His first anthology After the Cave the Comet appeared two years ago & is available here, another anthology is shortly planned. He started as resident poet with Poetry Life & Times in January 2005 & took over its editorship together with Spanish poetess Amparo Arrospide from Sara Russell in May 2007 .

Back to top

A WEREWOLF'S TALE
by Sara L. Russell 22:00 29/01/2000

1

Do Werewolves dream about the Hunter's Moon
That rises on a Summer Solstice eve?
This lover dreamed he might not change too soon;
He had more than a daydream up his sleeve.

While the full moon wrought changes in his brain,
His thoughts were of a girl with auburn hair
And how a man might easily explain
Fur growing on his hands, and everywhere.

The Hunter's Moon brought fire to his blood
And made his blue eyes red as burning coals,
Making him run through forest thorns and mud
To hunt and kill, devouring flesh and souls.

What might the lady say, if he confessed
"My love, I'm not the same as all the rest"?

2

A wolf is but a dog without a home.
He's much-maligned in tame society;
For underneath the night sky's star-flecked dome
He must survive by random savagery.

We cannot know the world seen through his eyes,
Nor know the same intensity of smell,
Nor, when the full moon first begins to rise,
Why he must howl, as if under its spell.

Thus Silas, though hybrid of wolven kind,
Found ways to to live with wild wolves and survive;
They seemed to whisper to him in his mind
Of how to kill, or how to stay alive.

Most mornings, by the light of early dawn,
He'd wake up naked, sprawled on his front lawn.

3

Fair Marianne was always his delight,
In contrast to his strange nocturnal life;
Therefore he only met her by daylight
And daydreamed that she might become his wife.

He draped her neck with flowers of the field,
Swearing that one day, precious chains of gold
Would take the place of Springtime's humble yield,
With all the precious rings her hands could hold.

She never dreamed his hands were sprouting fur
Or that his teeth were fangs, on each moonrise,
But loved the gentle way he smiled at her
And never saw the red moons in his eyes.

Poor Silas, ah, poor lady Marianne,
When love speaks to the wolf inside the man.

4.

They kept a tryst one summer afternoon,
The amber sunset quickened their desire;
Silas was heedless that the rising moon
Was soon to re-ignite his savage fire.

He kissed his lady softly, while outside
The silver moon emerged from veils of cloud;
Then Marianne was roughly pushed aside
As Silas hid his face and moaned aloud.

Now brown bristles, emerging from his hands,
Confused the lady further, so she screamed.
The ire of wolverine was in his glands,
Whose curséd soul might never be redeemed.

Now, as Marianne screamed, in great distress,
With teeth and claws, he ripped away her dress.

Read More: Continuation of the serial poem.

c. Sara L. Russell 2000~2007

SARA RUSSELL Poet, cartoonist and short story writer. Founder of Poetry Life & Times.
Newsgroup signature was originally 'Pinky Andrexa, Last Of The Cyber Vixen Poets From Outer Space'. Won Internet Arts Award from Kedco Studios Artist Profile Press. Runner-up in Capricorn International Love Poetry competition 1998. Her website Poetry Life & Times recently won the Alpha Poets' Poetic Eyes web award. Won Poet of the Week in the Poetry For Thought group (The Globe groups) for the week April 28-May 4th, 2001, with the poem "If You Were Mine". Inducted into The Poets' Hall of Fame, 2001, and included in its anthology for that year.
5 illustrated e-books published by Kedco Studios Artist Profile Press (most recent first): Worlds Inside The Head, Quickies, Spiders And Gliders, A Way With Words (in collaboration with four other poets) and Pinky's Little Book of Shadows.Also published in several Kedco e-book anthologies and Forward Press bound book anthologies.

Michael R. Burch

Infinity

Have you tasted the bitterness of tears of despair?

Have you watched the sun sink through such pale, balmless air

that your soul sought its shell like a crab on a beach,

then scuttled inside to be safe, out of reach?

Might I lift you tonight from earth’s wreckage and damage

on these waves gently rising to pay the moon homage?

Or better, perhaps, let me say that I, too,

have dreamed of infinity . . . windswept and blue.

US Verse, after Auden

“Let the living creature lie,
Mortal, guilty, but to me
The entirely beautiful.”

Verse has small value in our Unisphere,

nor is it fit for windy revelation.

It cannot legislate less taxing fears;

it cannot make us, several, a nation.

Enumerator of our sins and dreams,

it pens its cryptic numbers, and it sings,

a little quaintly, of the ways of love.

(It seems of little use for lesser things.)

Free Fall

These cloudless nights, the sky becomes a wheel

where suns revolve around an axle star ...

Look there, and choose. Decide which moon is yours.

Sink Lethe-ward, held only by a heel.

Advantage. Disadvantage. Who can tell?

To see is not to know, but you can feel

the tug sometimes–the gravity, the shell

as lustrous as damp pearl. You sink, you reel

toward some draining revelation. Air–

too thin to grasp, to breath. Such pressure. Gasp.

The stars invert, electric, everywhere.

And so we fall in spirals through night’s fissure–

two beings–pale, intent to fall forever

around each other–fumbling at love’s tether ...

now separate, now distant, now together.

MICHAEL R. BURCH is the editor of The HyperTexts where he has published the work of three Pulitzer Prize nominees and recent winners of the T. S. Eliot, Richard Wilbur and Howard Nemerov awards. He has been twice nominated for the Pushcart Prize, and his work has appeared over 450 times in literary journals and sundry publications in the USA, England, Scotland, Canada, Australia, South Africa and India, including The Chariton Review, Poetry Magazine, Verse, Poet Lore, Unlikely Stories, Light Quarterly, Writer’s Digest – The Year’s Best Writing 2003, The Best of the Eclectic Muse 1989-2003, The Lyric, ByLine, Icon and Nebo.

To Top

Helga Ross

Reluctant Bride

The Eskimos had fifty-two names for snow because it was important to them:
there ought to be as many for love. ~Margaret Atwood

Where’s the snow that fell the year that fled—Where’s the snow?
~Samuel Lover

Snow, a surprise to see, to like, at last!
The ground lovely white as a wedding gown,
the diaphanous veil drowning the brown,
she beyond beauty, the bride of forecast.
Rumour has it she has cold feet; is fast,
of late, feeling the heat of the count down;
so she shrugs the cold shoulders and fells the frown
as her suitor pleads, who’s pleased that that’s past.
But wait—signs are served along with her vows
of no forever; no death do us part;
meaning, all the seasons of her seasons.
Her feelings melting just as ours arouse,
like her spouse, wedded to her fickle heart,
whose need exceeds want: Love has its reasons.

Past & Present:

Smoothing Stones

Make the most of your regrets. . . . To regret deeply is to live afresh.
~Henry David Thoreau

Zephyrous regrets, need we pin you down
or sift through the dumpsters of the psyche;
dwell with the shames we'd never show the town,
scarce remember, nor assign to Nike*?

Yes, the dues for what’s done we can’t undo;
yes, aches we’d stake through the heart, with their harm
never dreamt nor meant, if only we knew;
yes, the hurts only remorse helps disarm.

What of what we didn’t, wouldn’t, couldn’t?
Too late to flagellate—stay the foray.
Who’s to say if we had, that we shouldn’t?
Some ones, some things, aren’t meant to come our way.

The stones of regrets all humans quarry:
The Gods, themselves, sort the weight of Sorry.

*Greek Goddess of Victory

Forever Now*

The living moment is everything. ~D.H. Lawrence

Forever is composed of nows. ~Emily Dickinson

The present is a present, all we’ve got,
for all we’ve opened; or would ever hope;
the lifeline thrown our drifting raft or yacht
the least of it to stay afloat and cope.

We tend to look behind and live ahead,
the past, the pains, the lustrous peerless kiss,
the not-yet-mets the ones to which we’re wed,
the pungent now the senses mostly miss.

With guilt and worry springboards into now,
regret, nostalgia, rumbas down the deck,
while here the sun sets sweeter off the bow,
and we, the lovers, clinging life’s shipwreck.

The presents come, and come, one at-a-time,
as they're meant to be undone. Taste the thyme?

On the Cusp of Something

Pinocchio: [noticing the raft] A raft? That's it! We'll take the raft. And when the whale opens his mouth...

A tawdry and a dreary time
a dictator's dead and there is no snow
but rogue storms through the Rockies
winter in limbo.
A phony season pretending spring,
lovely, yet a peculiar thing
lulls the hot heads from its hint of threat
off-focus of the battle zone.
On the flanks, toboggans in the basement,
cooler heads worry so.
December drizzle and a war without end
with the daily drip, drip, drip, of the dead
to the three-thousandth repeat round number
and the New Year still in old throes;
the breaking Arctic ice shelf alarming the caring,
of the drowning polar bears;
"we're winning!" what global warming?" let's pretend.
Yet the real is not the reality show;
the denouement, not the drop of puppeteer prop—
a sham of a martyrdom—
and the moral tale Pinocchio's*.
What's to fear you prefer? Nature's wrath? Nuclear holocaust?
Where's the Hero we hunger for, or the hope?
Who can save us the Future from the looming harms?

*Adventures of Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi (1881-1883)

Fisticuffs Fallout

This piece inspired by "The Greatest"

Float like a butterfly
Sting like a bee.
Your hands can't hit what your eyes can't see.
~Mohammed Ali

Good inside

I feel...

Exhausted

from the throes

of fighting my way

through

R-E-S-I-S-T-A-N-C-E

from

C
O
N
T
R
A
R
Y

souls.

The ordeal
is over.
Not for forever.
Just for today.

But, I feel better.
Much relieved
and

D
R
A
I
N
E
D

Spent,
altogether.

I said my piece.
I did my bit.
I did my best.
I got it off my chest.
Spilled the beans.
Spoke from my gut
without
hitting below the belt.

Bully for me!

That wasn’t easy—believe me.
Big mouth, big belly
inviting, let me tell you!
Ideal target for verbal blows.

Impolite epithets, rude labels,
caterwauls and name calls,
complaints, accusations, recriminations,
met with
incredible, impossible,
down-for-the-count knockout!
I’m amazed and D-A-Z-E-D…

'Member when Ali rumbled Forman?

This may have been
some of how it happened,
according to legend,
boxing lingo:

My opponent:

Jab, jab right, left bob and weave, left hook, right cross, right knee, left knee, right elbow, left elbow, right round ...
Lead with jab to eyes; throw right winging punch to ribs. ... Shoulder barge, right hook, left hook to body, right upper cut to chin, left hook to jaw, right cross…

Pardon me...I don’t remember a thing about it!

Except what I’ve been told.

Goodbye My Friend, Hello!

Dedicated to friend and mentor, Richard Rockwell, who passed away peacefully on May 4, 2004.
See his many contributions, graphic and written, on my web site and in my AD articles.

Fine philosopher friend I’ve never met,
so singular you are—so long. My best.
For you the silence means your final rest;
for me the sudden aching space… I fret.
Minds combined mutual care—I won’t forget.
My wise old owl’s wry musings welcome guest.
Your grace, gifts of one gifted, for my quest:
an art that lasts, a credit serves the debt.
Your brief reign ordained my rite: Poetry.
Why, oh why, did your lion heart give out,
tear out that part of me, too soon decline?
“Send him a message” someone said to me!
So the mail, service suspends, do you doubt?
But the song sung? “All’s fine up on Cloud Nine…”

© Helga Ross 2004, 2007

c. All poems by Helga Ross, 2007

Canadian poet, HELGA ROSS loves the well-written word and loves to write her own; derives great pleasure from great literature, art and life, and the great outdoors. Everything old is new again in 2007 – She’s moved back to her old home town, Burlington, Ontario, after half a lifetime--for a new start. "You can't go home again" so they say -- She shall see. Helga expresses herself through an eclectic writing repertoire of material, style and form. 2004, however, was her literary turning point: She 'discovered' poetry in a big way. Now, poetry is her passion and focus, particularly Sonnet forms, though not exclusively. For Helga, the theme is 'Passion' in the broadest sense. She believes and illustrates in her writing: "The creative mind plays with the objects it loves". - Carl Jung Her poetic voice is playful, provocative, uplifting. Her serious pieces conclude on a positive note; reflect her approach to life: "Love. Fall in love and stay in love. Write only what you love, and love what you write. The key word is love. You have to get up in the morning and write something you love, something to live for." — Ray Bradbury On the key to success Recent Accomplishments: Prix Poesie's laissez-faire Faire Award, April 2004. Poetry selections published in Sonnetto Poesia Vol.3 no.2 Spring 2004; Vol.4 no.4 Autumn 2005; Vol. 5 no.2 Spring 2007.