THE LAST MAN STANDING (1)


I rise with a white flag in my hands for peace
But shown up with a sorrowful smile
Which holds none but my country's name.

On my face there is a tint of jeopardy
And scribbles that widely cover it
Such that I look no more like a human being.

With my tone I feel the waves of agony,
And in my heart, there is an emblem of death
For I alone has fought and vanquished my woes.

Say, let it be as it is, and If there is still life 
Then, there is still hope even with a bloody heart
Cause the last man standing is one with might

But let be know that death is of no exception
Thus even the last man standing today
Is likely to become the first blood of tomorrow's war.

By  TAOFEEQ IBRAHIM (Newborn Poet 4)

When winter's embrace arrives,
Softly stirring from slumber,
Like a hushed lullaby sung by gentle winds,
Yearning for the familiar path of old,
Guiding us towards the new.

Like the courageous battle of dawn against night,
I witnessed mama's presence, fierce and overpowering,
As she crushed the boy and his mother,
With a force that echoed through the air,
Sucking the light from their souls.
She attempted to bind the elusive breeze,
But all she saw was the breeze binding her,
Within the confines of her modest bamboo kitchen.
Moments passed by, yet the tangled threads above remained oblivious,
To the elusive vapor that perpetually emerged,
From mama's fiery stick that dances with flames.

But in the end,
That flammable liquid quelled her burdens,
And the threads warmly welcomed their companion,
Transforming the walls into a canvas of darkness.



Are you a soul, a being enraptured by melodies in this vast world? Yesterday, my mother's voice, like a bare tongue, unraveled a prophecy within me. It spoke of a looming day when those who cling to the insignificant beats will be drawn towards the allure of the most enchanting tones. On that last day, drums shall resound, reverberating throughout the realms for all to hear. Yet only a select few shall surrender to the rhythm's irresistible pull.

But I question if this day bears the weight of judgment's hand, a day where girls and boys, women and men, shall race swifter than a fleeting sparrow. I beseech not for our presence in witnessing such a day, but for our transcendence, away from its grasp. For this day is known as "Nafsi, Nafsi," a whispered call to depart, where no companions can remain. It is a mystery, where strangers move alongside one another, their true selves concealed.


In the depths of our hearts, we crave a tranquil oasis, where peace flows like a gentle river. Like the sweet embrace of a mother's love, unity is the tapestry that adorns our deepest desires. 

Our nation, once plagued with turbulence, yearns for the soothing balm of harmony. Fear shall not bind us, for we possess the courage of steadfast warriors. As we kneel in humble reverence, our prayers ascend like fragrant incense, seeking divine intervention for our heralds.

Together, we must forge an unbreakable bond of trust, as solid as the earth beneath our feet. For the lands we tread upon are vast, stretching infinitely towards the horizon, beckoning us to summon our leaders and beckon forth their unwavering support.

BREATH

 
I go through from inside to the outside deck via the automatic doors of an impossibly large ship. Just beyond handsome wooden slats beige that meet white painted wrought iron dividers topped with a teak rail, are nothing but waves, the waves of the salt sea. I sit down and watch the horizon line. Some birds appear birds that are tropical and that follow the ship. I wonder then where and when they rest, and it puzzles me. I sit in a chair with faded orange cushions. A woman comes out and her dress is long and is a print decorative and unapologetic.

 

 

 The wind makes it to dance.

 

 

I wish I had a camera, she says, because I would get you take a picture of me. My dress is part of the wind and I look like a bird. Can I sit next to you? I don’t want to bother you.

 

 

Sure.

 

 

The woman says she is from the Carolinas now, but lived most of her life in New York City. I am no Southern Belle. Her intonation denotes that she is not below such, but rather more expansive, even cosmopolitan.

 

 

She remains on my left. A man approaches from the right but I don’t see him. She does. She says to him, You are one fine man. I have had my eye on you. And what a head of hair. Every time I lay my eyes on you I can’t take them off. Other men just don’t compare.

 

 

I look over, turning my head right to a forty five degree angle. He is a bit shy. He has flyers in his hand and is smoking a cigarette. I handed out these flyers advertising a party and I put the wrong information and now I have to go around and hand out the new ones. A pain. But I’ll get it done.

 

 

He takes a long drag of smoke into his lungs and exhales. The woman and I look at him and then glance out to the sea. By the way, he says to me, pointing to a table messy with wine glasses and beer bottles, an industrial strength ashtray with half its metal lid missing, I don’t know you but wanted to mention that you handled yourself really well in the midst of that fiasco last night. My husband and I were watching the whole thing. Bravo. Admirable.

 

 

I have no idea what he is talking about because he has mistaken me for someone else, which is a pattern, which is something that happens often.

 

 

Thanks but it wasn’t me. I wasn’t even near here.

 

 

He is surprised. I breathe in smoke. The woman breathes in smoke. He breathes in smoke again. We are all thinking.

 

 

Say, I say, What was it all about anyway? Sounds intense.

 

 

Abortion.

 

 

Abortion?

 

 

Ya. There is a group of women here that think the new anti abortion laws are great. I could hardly believe it from anyone, but from women makes it worse in my mind. I was so angry.

 

 

He is political. The non-Southern Belle with the beautiful dress nevertheless says something but I can’t make it out for a gust of wind, wind somehow like a breath exhaled by the sea skies. I am generally apolitical, though I have a few ideas here and there that lean left. I let them talk.

 

 

He listens to her and is upset about something and then voices his disagreement... They continue on though and are friendly but there is still some problem. Yet, they seem to find common ground on other things, more than not. Their voices fade out. I am thinking. I wonder what will happen if someone mistakes me for a person other than one that had a gift of oratory in debate, or attended an information technology training weekend, or someone who worked construction in the north of towns for a company that I, in reality, had never even heard name of. I wonder some more, about other things similar that have also happened, like the man who identified me as the person who Did not deserve one bit what Lisa and them did to you…no way, not you, who is a good guy and they are wicked evil and I am sorry you had to go through that..

 

I don’t know any Lisa or group like that.

 

 

But so far the reviews of the persons that are not me but look like me are good reviews.

 

 

I wonder what would happen if some authorities approach and say simply, Can you come with us please, and though it is a question on paper, is not a question in real life but a statement, and I have been mistaken for someone who did something, well, bad, untoward.

 

Two men come out and sit beside me on the right. One is of German descent. He told me this before. He chews on his cigar. I am a fisherman, from California, he says, as if simply continuing a days old conversation.

 

There are many rules where I come from, about fishing, I offer. If you get caught out of season they can impound your car, your boat, basically anything.

 

That’s right. Where I go also it is the same. Your Canada country population can fit into my California by the way. And, he puts his hand in front of him to help his point, and makes a gesture of some sort, There are rules for a reason, and they should be obeyed. It’s to protect the poor fishies.

 

I laugh inwardly at hearing this big and otherwise tough guy, chewing on the thickest cigar I have ever seen, say, ‘fishies,’ instead of ‘fish’.

 

Beside him I see another man. His face and affect, clothing and something about his general aura remind me of an old friend who committed suicide. Joseph Campbell said that once you reach over thirty everyone you meet will remind you of someone else you already met. True enough. And then what about fifty? What happens then? Maybe unless you are an extrovert, you don’t want to meet anyone else.  This man looks like the suicide had he lived another decade or two. The man wears a collar shirt, a golf shirt or something close to one. Non-descript haircut, average height and weight if there are such things. I sense he is not an asshole though, but rather an okay guy. The suicide was also kind, especially as the world goes. Golf shirt is thoughtful but thinks about worldly things. He is talking to someone on his right about points, aero plan, miles, and he keeps glancing at his phone. This mediocrity consumes many people, perhaps the majority.

 

I breathe deeply, drawing the tropical air as if right to my stomach. Then I take a drag of nicotine and chemicals in smoke and bring them just as deeply in.  I don’t really want to talk to any of these people, one way or the other, but there is nowhere else to go to smoke. Its hard maintaining, to coin a phrase, ‘lonership,’ upon a ship. Someone apparently caused a fire on a balcony and there is no smoking any longer on such personal outdoor spaces. Everyone pays for the sins of one. Plus it’s gotten late, and alcohol is a strange thing, - it loosens the mind otherwise inhibited and lubricates the lips. People say things they otherwise would not. I don’t know that I want to see or hear or know what waits dormant in most peoples’ minds and behind their lips.

 

The ship continues at eighteen to twenty knots, but it feels much faster than that in my guts and blood and bones. Maybe I am too sensitive, empathic towards the immediate and not so immediate environment. Luckily, a song sounds, and it’s Fleetwood Mac. It’s somehow soothing, a calm against the cacophony. Almost everywhere I go, they play Fleetwood Mac, because there is something universal about it all. I listen. I listen then to Stevie Nicks as she sings Dreams,

 

Oh, thunder only happens when it’s raining

Players only love you when they’re playing

 

The wind picks up. A storm is beginning but they don’t close the area. The man with the exemplary  hair excuses himself and goes inside. I am back with the bird-dress lady, who is kind and articulate, animated and eccentric and quite beautiful, statuesque. She speaks of many things seemingly at once. America. The Black experience. Diasporas. Education. Employment. Travel. Relationships. Even diet and nutrition. And hens, ‘Hens,’ which I sought clarification on, and was her designation for women that, as she put it,… talk gossip, talk cheap talk, talk nothing but shit and lies about others, people that spread darkness and not light, not realizing that their darkness is going to come back and visit them double-fold in time…

 

 

It begins raining hard.

 

 

That warm tropical rain.

 

 

The wind pushes it into the deck area.

 

 

We stand up together. She is tall by any metric. But I am taller.  She asks me if she can hold my arm to go inside, and it is windy, for the breath of nature has become much more pronounced.

 

 

I guide her inside at her request.

 

 

Where is the woman’s washroom, she asks.

 

 

I don’t know. I know the men’s is here. But I have never gone to the woman’s washroom. She walks with me to the stairs and I ask her if she will be okay to find one.

 

 

Yes.

 

 

I ascend the steps and she disappears down a hallway. I would normally offer to help her a bit more, to get there, but I have then begun worrying about many things, half formed fears, mistaken identities and the faulty perception of people, even of good people. I was thinking of storms, of politics and division, of life and no life, of health problems and health care, of alcohol, tobacco, and vessels that travel in the night through tropical storms strong.

 

 

At the top of the steps I was not out of breath, yet I paused and took a deep breath anyhow.

 

 

Then I began to make my way to my room, walking alone under one green electrical sign after another that illumined the way. I could feel the ship rocking back and forth more than usual, a ship perhaps five or seven stories high and housing more than three thousand people.

 

 

The night storm had gathered so much strength by then that I could hear the winds whistling even from the inner corridors of the boat.

 

 

They sounded like spirits calling out diatribes, rhetoric, pleas, strange joys plus metaphysical pains and warnings, all songs and long wild unabridged strange poems in the middle of a living dream. It all mixed together in my brain and spirit, and I thought of the sea and its vast expanse, of the Atlantic, the Caribbean, of how it rains, the sometimes pregnant sky birthing endlessly through time and cycle its own waters, and how the wind often takes these and places them everywhere, blows them with a breath, and they land sometimes in drips and drops like tears across and down windows, mostly never seen or noted, but having existed nevertheless.

 

There are spirits simply everywhere, and I think to myself then that many of the dead so-called are more alive than the living.


 

To deflesh,

the shaman,

the seer,

the mystic

lacerates,

purges,

starves,

punishes,

isolates

the body

of the self.


The poet,

inventor,

entrepreneur

concentrates

the body

of the self

on the solution

of a problem

like a laser

microscope,

to deflesh.


An ordinary,

to deflesh,

removes from

the flesh

of the body

by reading,

by dreaming,

by jogging,

by gaming,

by giving,

by loving.


SACRIFICES, ALL


That pilot brags about

the size of his payload

and he forgets about

chasing a horizon.


He imagines himself

to be a volcano.

Will you permit yourself,

then, to be the virgin?


Oh, those gladiolas

that brightened Pilate’s halls,

like those gladiators,

distractions from trials.


RICHARD FIRST


Across geographies

maintaining emperors

by cults and soldiery


has been a commonplace

matter of procedure

against the populace.


Richard had good PR

since he was popular

among the troubadours.


And today, presidents

who can stay in power

are liked by journalists.



SIGNS


The philosophers,

poets, and scholars,

workers of the mind,

invented Mankind.


They made Being firm

by creating terms

and categories,

the mythic stories,

right words and patterns:


They shaped God Saturn

and then mere planet:

Elements: Senates:

Beauty: Gram: Language:

Society: Beige:

History; Prisms:

Patriotism:

Sin: Geography:

Self: Heredity:

Time: The unconscious.....

The list is endless.


These concepts define

our world by their signs.


THE CONJUGATION OF AGING


Years are no series of jumps across gulfs.

We pass through life on a conveyor belt,

paying little notice to the timelets

that pace our course on the running machine.


We only slowly accept we're the guests

of Is, Are, Was, Were, Be, Being, and Been.

Our exercise machine slows then ends

before we realize we've reached the When.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
the neon nights of my youth
 

listening to an

old elton john

song

 

thinking of the

neon nights of

my youth

 

where the drugs

lifted me to

endless heights

 

where the drinks

made me invincible

 

where women

seemed to still

be interested

 

where the yellow

brick road seemed

like it was still

possible it always

existed
-------------------------------------------------------------------
drink for courage
 

some people drink

for courage and

others are trying

to cope with the

pain of life

 

some like to unwind

and others think of

the magical powers

they suddenly posses

 

i find it more likely

these days that i'm

drinking to hopefully

end all of this way

sooner than the

powers that be

intended

 

plus, arthritis has

made it rather

difficult to hold a

gun or tie a fucking

noose

 

so, it's either the

bottle or a good

hose and some

duct tape

 

when the bottle stops

helping to write these

poems

 

be kind enough to

check my garage

if you don't hear

from me for a few

days
-------------------------------------------------------------------
the retired life
 

two cups of coffee

 

fall asleep in the

sun like a cat

 

i tell my mother

to enjoy the retired

life

 

she doesn't

 

can't come to terms

with getting older

and not being able

to do certain things

alone

 

i'm always there

to help

 

even though most

of the time she

doesn't bother

to ask

 

i tell her pride

will kill her faster

than any disease
---------------------------------------------------------
wars have been fought over less
 

soft brown skin

 

years of regret

 

a lover's lament

 

it was us against

the world

 

now we can't see

past each other to

accomplish anything

 

wars have been

fought over less

 

and no matter how

much either side

wants to give in

and let the calm

set in

 

pride and the ego

always get in the

way

 

a lack of

communication

will be the end

of us all
-------------------------------------------------------
the smallest nugget of joy
 

you ever noticed

the death poems

come easy

 

but how you

languish over

the page for

love

 

for happiness

 

for even the

smallest nugget

of joy

 

but death

 

that cold reality

 

the cruel mistress

that always laughs

at your pain

 

it's the old routine

or perhaps

 

you always

understood

 

that death was

always a part

of life

 

just a part that

most are unwilling

to talk about or

even consider

J.J. Campbell (1976 – ?) is old enough to know better. He’s been widely published over the last quarter century, most recently at The Rye Whiskey Review, Disturb the Universe Magazine, Carcinogenic Poetry, Lothlorien Poetry Journal and Horror Sleaze Trash. You can find him most days on his mildly entertaining blog, evil delights. (https://evildelights.blogspot.com)

Bad Habits and Old Addictions 


Just when I think I've finally lost them

Convinced they'd never find me again. 

There's a knock at my door

Heavy fists pound harder and louder 

Yelling for me to let them in 

Bad Habits and Old Addictions 

Constantly ringing the doorbell.

The Ding-dongs wakes up my weakness 

The flaws in my willpower now exposed 

To the uninvited influence wearing down my resistance 

Bad Habits and Old Addictions 

I buried them away years ago

Must've dug the grave too shallow 

They've escaped and returned 

My resolve losing faith to temptation 

Bad Habits and Old Addictions    

Our association never matured into a friendship  

More of an acquaintance of inconvenience at best 

Stained with bad blood 

Not one breath of trust  

Exhaling  air of incessant suspicion 

Bad Habits and Old Addictions

Where do I find the courage 

to tell them 

I'm more than the sum of my mistakes

I'm not the man I once was

No longer devoid of self-respect 

Or a festering scab on God's face 

Bad Habits and Old Addictions 

Now my subconscious is questioning my decision 

Sending them away may be a mistake

What's the harm in extending some hospitality 

After all they've come such a long way 

I'll tell you why they've gotta get Because one is too many and a thousand is never enough

Now head on down the road 

get your ass out of town

Don't ever think of coming back 

I've fought a long fight to save my soul 

Surrender no longer an option 

Confidence in the faith to stay true to my convictions

Vete Lárgate 

Bad Habits and Old Addictions

Denis Emorine’s new collection A Step Inside attacks, blasts, compels, disturbs, and ultimately enchants us with the (quite literal) power of language. 

The first section’s poems evoke the psychological and emotional toll the creative process can take, along with its wonderment.  We begin with an anecdote where the speaker stabs the disembodied voice of his creative muse when it asks him to write about the woman he loves, then finds blood on his pillow as he has destroyed part of himself (Metaphor). In another memorable piece, the letters of the alphabet literally assault a protagonist (A trap). Other pieces speak to acknowledging inspirations and aspirations one cannot fully reach (Nocturnal), to the havoc creative obsessions can wreak on one’s personal life (Disobedience), to the rejection an artist can face at the hands of the public (Fever) to the struggle to be able to create at all (Face to Face) to the solidarity creative writers can feel for each other (In Solidarity). 

Yet, even with these tough-minded renditions of mental turmoil, the beauty, wonder, and ecstasy of the creative process still come through in A Step Inside. Emorine draws upon many of the traditional positive literary metaphors for inspiration: muses, stars, dreams, gardens at night, even in some of his most violent poems. Also, writer protagonists encounter magical moments others miss, including a lively visit with Kafka, climbing up to one’s flat. 

The second section, From My Window, consists of longer narratives blurring the lines between artistic performance and seduction. In one, a former live theater tech invites his female neighbor to dress for him in the robes of Greek goddesses. At first reluctant, she embraces the role at the end and chooses to dress as Venus before they consummate their relationship (The Mural). Another story shifts the gender roles, with a male artist undressing in tune with the rise and fall of music and another man watching and discovering his passion for him (The Virgin and the Shadow). In another piece, an old and sick man who comes close to cheating on his wife at a literary conference finds himself instead taking comfort in the memory of her healing touch (Irina) and the final piece, Twenty-One Hundred Hours, involves a chaste intellectual friendship that develops between an older professor and a sex worker who turns out to be a literary student. 

This new collection from Denis Emorine explores the different forms creative inspiration can take and the various ways it can shape and revamp our lives. Whether we are alone staring at a blank page in our bedrooms or encountering others at a symposium or theater, we can find ourselves wrestling with the angels of our art.