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Category: Poetry

The Decision

The Decision

building

And he thought about building
Crafting
Making things

Merging the useful with the useless
To some

For there are beings in this world
Who care nothing for beauty

There are beings in this world
Who care nothing for art

So he would build the functional
And make it sing for the tone deaf

For the colorless he’d make
Things bloom in usefulness

But then he thought
Why work so hard
For them?

For the beings who pass it all by
As if it’s just an obstacle in their way?

Why destroy himself for their sake?
He wondered

river8

But he remembered her and that walk
Along the strand and the found things
The found-art things that sang to them both

Like some lost child or lost friend
They thought they’d never see again
In this world

In this battered old world of obstacles to shatter
And eclipse

Thrown into Being

Thrown into Being

pic8

The clearing
She thought she heard

The last clearing
It was Heidegger’s not hers
And after his keyre
His turn

So many turned on him
But not for that
For other things like his falling out of Being
With the world

With the world as it ought to be

So she passed through that last clearing
On her way to something nonfictional
Non-mythical
. . . beyond epic legend and folk-tale

pic7

Existence comes before essence she thought
Or we have essentialized all mythologies

Deifying the final clearing
Waiting for gods and goddesses who toy with us
Reverses that
Reverses existence and essence

So that there are no white-capped mountains
Or heathered valleys or suns or half moons
In real time
Only in stories and black words on the page

And we seek both she thought
We seek lost words and brave actions
And projects for our lives
In real cities and real towns

Through the clearing beyond the black clouds

 

Being With Time

Being With Time

Angles of Being I push awayangles5
Like winter visions in summer
Or summer sweat in the fall

I fall for it all the time
The angles of Being as if
They existed like that

Just like that in realities
We can’t fathom and never
Will see

Because our senses are puerile
In the grand scheme of things
In the swelter of summer

In the mists of winterish
Storms and  howls
And legendery wooshing

Like some pack of grey wolves
Glowing across the bad lands
Towering above us all like black clouds

    The winterish heart of Being survives
            In the midst of this or that spring

thetrees3

Being with time
Being with time for the crash
For just a third or fourth shattered sound
For just an inch of crescendo

I wander between the angles
And the wisp of a chance
That it will ever

                    Ever see me again

 

 

Colin James: New Poems

Colin James: New Poems

          

MENTORS OF THE IMPERVIOUS

 

An old trail opposed
to change.
A gate with the top slat
for comments, “I was just here” etc.
I must have missed you
because the day hadn’t.
Consequently, there is misery in
your circle dotted I’s.
Who takes the time
to cauterize the wood
and burn the careless pistols?
Ah sure, it’s only testosterone
but it’s fading just the same.

 

RESISTING PROBABILITY

 

Squandered, fairly innocent
chimes hanging from a tree.
This place has suddenly become quietly profound.
Formally just the jingle of tact,
none of which was particularly happening.
Now an unthematic sound
abides inclusively.
The chimes allow someone’s prayers
to catch a wind and wave phonetically.

 

_________

Copyright ©2016, by Colin James. All Rights Reserved.

Colin James has a pamphlet of micro poems
out from Rinky Dink Press………
https://rinkydinkpress.wordpress.com/authors/

 

                           

New Poetry by Ann Applegarth

New Poetry by Ann Applegarth

A PLACE IN THE SUN

     – basking before Earl Stroh’s “Sunscape”

In the museum I love,
we stroll and consider
paintings, sculptures, and
a few random examples
of what passes for art
in this 21st century.
Weary, we sit and gaze
at Stroh’s serene, soothing
Sunscape – palest oils
smoothed in stunning simplicity,
no trace of brush or canvas,
a silk veil of softest paint
encircled by slim silver wire.
Glow and warmth are palpable.
I should have brought my parasol.

              

 

TWO FACES OF BEAUTIFUL

 

In his Albuquerque studio
on an easel near the north window
rests Howard Wexler’s stunning portrait
of artist Alice Seely
regal posture
elegant as a queen
sleek black hair in chic chignon
black velvet décolleté gown
a cloud of maribou encircling the neck
dangling onyx earrings
antique ruby pendant at her throat
aura of Arpège
delicate suede sandals
half-full Baccarat glass of claret
wistful dark eyes gazing into distance
mind in Prague, Nairobi, or New York
“Beautiful woman,” Howard murmurs.
 
At her Hondo Valley Iris Farm,
on a stone bench shaded by trumpet vines
and weathered wood lattice
Alice Seely surveys her garden
leaning forward
arms akimbo — resting on her knees
silver-streaked hair tied back with a scarf
faded denim work shirt
chinos and sturdy leather boots
gray Stetson shading her lovely face
pewter earrings dangling African-straw circles
(her signature design)
mug of black coffee cupped in her hand
luminous dark eyes survey iris, poppies, roses
suggest memory of soft, rich soil
scent of early rains and fragrant compost
“Beautiful this year,” she murmurs.

 
— ANN APPLEGARTH

______________________

Copyright© 2016 by Ann Applegarth. All Rights Reserved.

Ann Applegarth lives and writes in Roswell, New Mexico, where she served as poet-in-residence for the High Plains Writing Project at Eastern New Mexico University. The recipient of an Academy of American Poets prize at the University of New Mexico in 1980, her poems have been widely published in the small press, in online journals, and in the Linda Rael art book Living in Green Acres.

 

New Poetry by Daniel Ableev

New Poetry by Daniel Ableev

From 8 NONSEMES

 

Oh complex Gran,
let there finally be thy numbers:
First 1 Pafnutian opinion,
thereafter 3 poseiding whales.

What have I left behind but old suffering.
Not head, not feet hold me here.
It was farmer’s naught, obviously,
by the name of Walter.

Yesterday was “hihi” ridicule,
today death is to be applied.
Yesterday: “dadance,”
today: thy soul’s distress.

Complex iterations
seem to the eighth viewer
as rather dull sonuds/echeos,
redolent of unsense, dumb-as-lake.

Gunners from all over,
gunners from every frikkin’ state out there:
Flirting with dadaster
is the way to goo!

A walking pupum,
slowly looking at me,
slowly asking me stuff.
A walking nunum.

Everywhere formations …
(my head is growing).
Colors of perplexion …
(my head is x-wing).

———-

I was bitten by a spider
last summer.
I bit back immediately:
Its head will be missed dearly.

In the abstract’s flow
instead of water is chagrin.
It does right into the ocean,
where lies seem to be the ruling caste.

There is no pig in Silberstein.
Silberstein is taboo anyway.
But if it weren’t for the taboo,
then there would still be a lot of kung-fu.

Since death tends to end life,
which thusly has never existed, ever …
No suffering, no joy,
no Einstein, Harry, droids.

Confused wives’s ankles
rub against Kogel.
Kogel, however, has got 1 bird.
Kogel wants to drive it “home.”

Kogel is hiding behind that mountain of yours,
where Selen is growing rapidly.
Kogel suddenly got afraid
of the Notorious Saxony.

Omens are like little animals:
peeping through small pox,
looking for food and/or gemini,
which happen to be a particularly grey area …

There are those who are “smart,” wise.
There are those who are “well-read,” peeping.
There are the learners who “can.”
And then there is Moennen“.”

Inside the rain

liquids happily splash all over yours truly.
Oh, yours truly is so full of it,
quite the rainiac, to be honest.

— Daniel Ableev

 

Copyright ©2016, by Daniel Ableev. All Rights Reserved.

 

Daniel Ableev, *1981 in Novosibirsk, Russia, is a certified strangeologist from Bonn, Germany; he has studied law and comparative literature, writes for the metal magazine “Legacy”, composes avantsounds for “Freuynde + Gaesdte” and co-edits “DIE NOVELLE – Zeitschrift für Experimentelles”; ∞ publications in German & English, print & online (“Born to Fear: Interviews with Thomas Ligotti”, “Jahrbuch der Lyrik 2009”, “Alu” etc.).

 

George Spencer: god: a quarterback without a playbook

George Spencer: god: a quarterback without a playbook

god gets nervous when we get too close to him
— rene leclerc. god and his ways 

attention flutters, takes a walk. the narrative grinds on
boards so marched over aging thespians throw lines away.
cell phones buzz. messages zing round our heads. 
red onions eavesdrop and gossip underground.
all’s so bland road-kill is news  as a worm is cut in half by the gardener’s shovel  
but still they repeat beautiful the dew, lovely the garden. 

 there’s blood in my ear now and i’m happy to spin a song of small sins,
of the deceit of love’s sticky ropes
 from which sad young wannbe icarus tried to escape,                                                        
mounting the diving board over the empty swimming pool.
we’ve seen it a thousand times
and the motel isn’t responsible for unattended kids. 

the other side’s worse chaos 
where god’s a quarterback without a playbook.
a nihilist, solipsist,  ironist,  
 aslant his tongue overflowing with love
for the eighth false prophetess of  extended sunrises.

 too much of a bodice-ripper this life on the lamb.
perhaps ‘tis better to just accept the good with the bad
and let the dust settle where it may.   

 

— George Spencer 

 

Copyright © by George Spencer. 2016. All Rights Reserved.

 

George Spencer interviews poets and writers for the Poetry Thin Air cable show and produces a cable series about multimedia artists, Arts(Performing)@Tribes. These interviews and documentaries are in the collections of The New York Public Library, the Fales Collection at NYU and many others.

His visual art is about power and who has it. This can be seen in his feature length film Tom, Sally and the Marquis that asks who, de Sade or Thomas Jefferson, is the sadist and who is the hypocrite. A recent documentary explores the cinematic work, paintings, sculpture and writing of Nick Zedd, originator of the Cinema of Transgression, that is dedicated to the concept that power corrupts, that we live in a controlled environment and that opposition is the only way to arrive at self-realization.

His sculpture is made from found objects and is preserved as photographs. The sculpture is disassembled  and the  components go back into an inventory of objects to be reused in new sculpture.

His preference is for the camera embedded in the iPhone. 

He is working on a fictional biography and continues to write poetry.