a family history i’m trying to play it cool with the medical procedure i have tomorrow morning i’m trying to not think about what they could find when they look at my stomach that a family history of cancer and god knows what else is nothing to be concerned with that i’ll simply be a little groggy when my sister drives me home listening to some music, thinking about how much i hate thanksgiving
god has all the answers i laugh when they tell me god has all the answers for me so, i suppose i was supposed to learn a lesson from my cousin molesting me or my father never telling me he loved me before he died trust me i can take a fucking hint he ignores me and i show him the amount of respect he has earned
just not the one i have had more than one woman tell me i am a great guy, just not the one and on these nights alone where the world makes it feel like the one for me never existed in the first place the mind starts to wander back to my youth and the first time i tasted my own blood where i started to question my will to live and accept the pain how many times can a person talk themselves out of death how many times can a man listen to himself cry before enough is enough it’s one thing to realize being unloved it’s another to stomach knowing that’s never going to change
already burned too much fell in love with a mystic she was already burned too much by this world one of these days i hope to find bliss dripping from her lips and an eagerness for just one special night before either one of us finds the sweet relief of death
shopping on my porch a little over three weeks from christmas wondering if anyone has the guts to go shopping on my porch this year
Spring, Suddenly I smelled a watermelon from the sea. Maybe I miss my childhood-nostalgia when everything was just pleasant and happy.
Summer, If two people live life together, there is much more happiness than loneliness because when two people are together, in everything
There’s a feeling of being one, not two.
Throw away haughtiness, Throw away greed, and hatefulness, and resentment, and the memories which sometimes makes me sad. To live happy and beautiful, I ‘m going to have to throw them all away.
I want to be a woman who always misses someone whom I love. I want to live a beautiful life with someone I love, become the only precious treasure to each other.
Autumm, Autumm prepares for New Birth. Leaves are ripening in Autumm sunlight. I also am ripening, we all are ripening. I learn to love more, how to be one for two or everyone, also I’ll keep learning through life . My body is getting older, but I don’t want my heart which can love someone who loves me, to grow old.
A couple days ago, The sun which I had seen covered by clouds, It looked exactly like a diamond. How breathtaking was that!! I was lucky to see that moment. I feel like that marvelous and amazing moment has shown me a hint that my wishes will come ture.
And Winter, Now I feel grateful, everything is precious. I’ve had a hard and painful time by myself It was for a long time.
A winter sun to the heart hugs me today too.
The sunshine is so warm ……………………….
Marble Icebergs
Words engraved on monuments
resound
from the mouths
of our chosen leaders.
But these words,
when laden
with deceit—crater,
and our trust descends
along with them.
Monuments are more
than mere marble
gleaming—buffed by the sun;
their spirit can be fragile as glaciers
the warmer the earth becomes.
When facades of Statecraft
undermine hope,
monuments’ foundations erode;
statues become like icebergs
that lose their grip
and float away in the fog.
Camp of Dreams
Dreams at dawn fade like voices in the woods
from a gathering of hunters at the end of their trail.
There, they huddle in the mist
to trade one last tale of stalking game—
stitching vapor into legends as full of stuffing
as animal heads mounted in a dusty den.
Then, as the coals of their fire hiss
and the nest of ashes dies,
the hunters recede into a glen
past the bog of the mind,
just before one’s eyes
open wide.
Rural Auction
The caw and cadence of the auctioneer
cuts through the din as dust swirls ‘round
farm wives, daughters, cousins, friends.
Jawbone to ear, they nudge and whisper.
Their strong arms stretch
as they pick through and gauge
the hodgepodge of housewares on display:
pots and dishes and the many evening hours
gathered in boxes of hand crochet.
Ringed behind them, young farmers listen
as fathers swap gossip, weather and news.
Their clay-red faces are outcrops of rock
jutting under ball caps, atop denim and plaid.
Afternoon long, they mill and mingle,
their ears keenly tuned to the auctioneer’s call.
They see, but never watch, the objects they want:
that newly-painted tractor, a tiller, a plow,
that old sleigh and harness—just for kicks,
or maybe those bibs lined with woolen fleece.
About the yard, children frolic.
They weave their families into cloth made whole,
except for the one kid who sits by the road,
draws in the dirt and counts the autos
that brake for a look and drive on.
Under the oaks, the old folks totter
in wooden rockers not yet sold.
Their faces relax and offload worries.
Humming soothes them, as watches lie
stopped on their bed stands at home.
Cattle graze in summer pastures.
The corn grows fatter as the harvest waits.
Toil is tempered with patience and tactics
to outwit markets and partner with nature. These Confounded Desires
I felt at ease with my desires undeclared—
I didn’t want their objects all the same.
But they kept lining up like autos
in used car lots,
lies on their meters
and paint layered over
their hungry scabs of rust.
With so little difference between them,
it took years to see them all.
My home on the web is www.johnmiddlebrookpoet.com, and here, you can find the details of my publication history. I live in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, where I manage a consulting firm focused on non-profit organizations. I have been writing poetry since I was a graduate student at the University of Chicago, where I also served on the poetry staff of Chicago Review.
In league with French counter-revolutionaries
resident in Cayenne, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe attempted to smuggle seeds of
pepper, nutmeg, & cloves into Yuan Dynasty China. Caught at the border by
customs officials, he was told that if he had just tried to bring in smaller
quantities of the spices, he may have escaped detection completely. I see, said Mies. Less is more.
If God Allows by Robert P. Cohen is a novel about an advertising executive, Paul Goldberg, who accepts a position in Jakarta at an ad agency as Chief Advertising Creative. His job is to build up an agency that is struggling a bit and make it the best agency in Indonesia. He worked at an agency in the US that was heavily into partying and now has to adapt to a different way of life. He finds out in Jakarta that there are certain things he cannot say without getting himself into loads of trouble. He also has dreams of writing a great novel and having it made into an even greater movie.
This is an excellent book with plenty of suspense, drama and humor. It will keep the reader interested. I would recommend it for late teens to adults for language and sexual content. With Christmas right around the corner it would make an excellent gift for the reader or someone they know. I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Iraqi-born Canadian author Ahmad Al-Khatat revels in imaginative fancy nearly as much as Mahbub, although acknowledging the power of painful memories to inspire grief and withdrawal from the world.
Nigerian writer Chimezie Ihekuna’s latest relationship advice essay encourages us to make carefully considered decisions about marriage and divorce. Rather than getting swept up in infatuation or petty grievances, think through everything you do clearly in light of reality.
Imagination can guide us to better understand reality
Caution on our use of imagination: There can be gaps between how nature works and how people think, and maybe nature and evolution have better ideas than our imagination.
From Albuquerque, PW Covington’s poems explore gender through power exchange in relationships and our relationship to the natural world by remembering the cycles of seasons and how ultimately, nature and geology are humanity’s ‘landlords’ and ‘border guards.’ We should be thankful for the privilege to pass freely.
Speaking of Christmas, one of our regular contributors, Chimezie Ihekuna (Mr. Ben) has released a new book for the holiday season, entitled Christmas Time!
From the book’s website: Christmas Time! Is a collection of short stories that reflect the mood of the season—Christmas—as it affects the lives of people who appreciate it’s worth. A story collection related to children and young adults, it mirrors the ordeals people go through to observe the yuletide and reflects the courage they summon and the inspiration and encouragement they receive in order to celebrate the season in merriment.
