after the smoke cleared outside my window somebody in a car is blasting the clash & a pack of motorcycles is revving in unison & a woman is feeding her dog an ice cream cone right below in the square & the blue night is coming on ever so gently & all the voices floating up to the second story are telling me all is well ————————- sometimes i remember springtime like this mother pulling marigolds from crinkly plastic trays digging holes for roots no gardening gloves just earth-stained hands father sinking wooden stakes in turned over soil for waiting tomato plants beagle loose running back & forth along chainlink yapping w/ neighbor’s dog soft spears of green grass welcoming bare soles grandmother visiting from city sitting in lounge chair beneath maples full of sap humming to old music on radio no hands swinging no hammers shattering no tongues spitting no leashes choking no knees pleading no limbs snapping no points jabbing no feet stomping etc… just hearts like bright bouquets of grace ——————————- prayer for the unborn stay in the trumpets of the daffodil stay in the tears of the wisteria stay in the grit of the anthill stay in the spots of the monarch stay in the posture of the frog stay in the network of the oak leaf stay in the wind thru the wheat stay in the flatness of the shadow stay in the nerves of the sand flea wherever you might be just hold, stay ——————————————— tonight w/ each poem i take the risk of reaching my hand out in the dark & placing a flower behind the ears of each of my monsters i think i see teeth flash their mouths open but only to sweetly hum this time
Category Archives: CHAOS
Story from Chuck Taylor
When The Lightning Struck
I wasn’t there when the lightning struck the top of the fireworks stand out on HW 80, the year we were broke and had lost our apartment. Peddling silver salutes and cherry bombs was a dream come true. We started selling three weeks before the 4th and slept on the grass of our locked fireworks stand. Each night after we closed at midnight, I put the cash box in a hole I dug near my sleeping bag and covered it with a box.
We were hippies then, in our late twenties, peddling rockets and silver salutes. We hoped to take in enough cash to spend spring and summer in the mountains near Santé Fe, New Mexico, on national forest land.
I’d taken the pickup to get change at the bank. Katherine ran out the back door when the lightning struck with a boom, and high up the structure began to burn. Everything we had tumbled off the shelves, but not one rocket took flight or one firecracker snapped, crackled or popped. Nothing even smoked. The fire up top on the Mr. W sign went out by itself.
Katherine said she was rather disappointed by such a tepid divine intervention. There should have been a bigger show, happenings more impressive. It sprinkled dribbles of rain only a minute or two.
She waited for about ten minutes, went back inside the stand, cleaned things up, and waited for the cars to start pulling in. The lot had been empty with the lightning hit. I thought that was divine intervention enough.
Soon Katherine was again smiling and selling.
—
Paste into your browser the following website addresses to either view Chuck Taylor’s photographs or to learn more about Slough Press:
http://fineartamerica.com/art/all/Chuck+Taylor/all
http://www.redbubble.com/people/geezerpoet/art?page=4
Tan-Renga poetry from Christina Chin and Kimberly Gomes
1 fluffy goldfinches at the birdfeeder spring snow flakes a feather fluttering down signals an intruder Christina Chin/Kimberly Olmtak Gomes 2 spring rain fills the lily cups— impassable stream up to my knees in a flooded street Christina Chin/Kimberly Olmtak Gomes 3 sweet and plump in the faded family photos —aged envelopes prying eyes search for a birth certificate Christina Chin/Kimberly Olmtak Gomes
Poetry from Michael Todd Steffen
The Difference We Make September 2013 Empty air was hissing as from a gold string fob sifted on marble. Some things take another thing to make sense for them. When I reached down to pick it up, the name chestnut echoed as a keepsake to imagine luck for my pocket, carried with change. We gathered at Memorial Church to listen to readings of your poems. None of them were set in churches, allowing you this further chance to resist yet also embellish a welcoming exile and attempt to naturalize you. One of the professors related your meditation on the pastor’s beret, your insight into the thing’s aerodynamic shape and lightness, holding it like a frisbee between thumb and finger, mind’s-eyeing it flung into the congregation. The poet’s vision could perform the necessary desanctification of the sacred, to share grace for our laughter, which the pastor for heaven’s sake might thank the poet for. With vaults to echo the skies, the altar for your or my supper table and by metonymy of use the fruits of the earth, the earth itself, a church makes a kind of poem of the world— with acoustics especially for song and speech, middle-earth in its edification of a mind waking to meaning, to prayer, or to a poem to articulate our wonder, to advocate for us, for our reconciliation, to forge the soul or, say, shape us, to belong, in the difference we make. For something slightly unusual we guessed our way down Brattle to the garden at Longfellow’s. Starlings and a crow pecked in the grass. A russet squirrel gnawing an acorn motioned for us to follow the path along the beds with labels for end of summer’s crestfallen roses— onto a trellised vine. Wanting thoughts looked. Were those real, clustered in perfect cone-shapes? They couldn’t—could they be ripe? It would be wrong to lift a handful—as my hand reached for the grapes to roll and crush their tartness on my tongue thinking this appropriate for a trade poet’s memory, a frisson’s object to flesh out the reed music Seamus Heaney made with prudence and propriety to contradict.
Michael Todd Steffen is the recipient of a Massachusetts Cultural Council Fellowship and an Ibbetson Street Press Poetry Award. His poems have appeared in journals including The Boston Globe, E-Verse Radio, The Lyric, The Dark Horse, and The Poetry Porch.
Of his second book, On Earth As It Is, now available from Cervena Barva Press, Joan Houlihan has noted Steffen’s intimate portraits, sense of history, surprising wit and the play of dark and light…the striking combination of the everyday and the transcendent.
Poetry from Maja Milojkovic
FOLLOW ME I'm giving you a secret sign, follow the white rabbit. My shoulder tattoo says it all. Yes, I forgot, we are not in the movie The Matrix. I want you to be my companion, but you don't know how to read the signs which is set by the Universe through numbers and in the child's speech. There is a celestial artist whose pen writes the signs of the horoscope. All this is as clear as the future in the palm of your hand, in answer to prayer. But instead of looking, you sleep and dream of me in a silk nightgown, and you don't understand that I'm warm on a hot night, and not to provoke your senses. I am giving you a path that is walked without material desires and to head to the Himalayas where we will see with different eyes. We will dive into the mountain of snow, in whose interior there is a world of abundance. Close your eyes and follow me. I will take you, companion, when you learn that tattoos speak, when you recognize the signposts written with a pen of gold, we will not need a body made of earth. Follow me, I'll take you to the abundance of dreams brought to life. And once you step there you won't want to go back, but he wants it first. I AM YOUR MASK In kindergarten you wanted to be a clown. I painted over your features and you were so adorable with a round red nose.. You are at a ball in your youth put a mask over his eyes yes poor girl she wouldn't recognize that you are the son of a rich man, It looked perfect on you because I can make you be what you want. And in your passion you were afraid of illness and convinced you to be your protection of polyester cloth over the mouth and nose. Your ears started ringing, and no one saw the sad eyes because they have become dull. I, who was your servant and mask of life I humiliated you and you forgot to be free man. I shout to myself: "I am your mask, get off my face and smile, captive man, because there is a way out!" Maja Milojković was born in 1975 in Zaječar, Serbia. She is a person to whomfrom an early age, Leonardo da Vinci's statement "Painting is poetry that can be seen, and poetry is painting that can be heard" is circulating through the blood. That's why she started to use feathers and a brush and began to reveal the world and herself to them. As a poet, she is represented in numerous domestic and foreign literary newspapers, anthologies and electronic media, and some of her poems can be found on YouTube. Many of her poems have been translated into English, Hungarian, Bengali and Bulgarian due to the need of foreign readers. She is the recipient of many international awards. "Trees of Desire" is her second collection of poems in preparation, which is preceded by the book of poems "Moon Circle". She is a member of the International Society of Writers and Artists "Mountain Views" in Montenegro,and shealso is a member of the Poetry club "Area Felix" in Serbia.
Poetry from Azemina Krehic
CHERRY I hide in you like a stone in an overripe cherry. I float in your fragrant juices, Trembling from the bird's greedy beak that will tear us apart. And, I will not answer your question: Are fruits also doomed to loneliness? Azemina Krehić was born on October 14, 1992 in Metković, Republic of Croatia. Winner of several international awards for poetry, including: Award of university professors in Trieste, 2019, Mak Dizdar award, 2020. Award of the Publishing Foundation of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, 2021. Fra Martin Nedić Award, 2022. She is represented in several international anthologies of poetry.
Poetry from Elmaya Jabbarova
MY BOOK OF LIFE O my soul mate, my book of life, There are beautiful moments on every page, Even though it's imaginary, my Endless novel, The month comes again every year, my spring! You're so far away, the longing never ends I don't have enough, I don't have enough fame, Why doesn't fate laugh at us, Star of my luck, dear half! Beloved of my eyes, Come immerse me in your gaze Relatives who fill the heart in his absence, Destroy with your presence, my last hope! Stay in the world for love, your enthusiasm, Let's return the soul, the breath to the beloved, The map of undying love, Let's shoot for the first time, my promise - first! The song of the soul, the voice of the heart, The will of loving hearts, A monument of divine love, Let's create together, my dear architect! Let's change the place of the Sun, the Moon, Let's turn the direction of the flowing river, Let's give a share to the forest from every tree, Let's stand in pairs, I'll face the mountain alone! Let's decorate a table with flowers - flowers, With birds of prey, with white butterflies, You are an artist with a dream, a loving heart, I am "Shur", "Bastanigar", oh my faithful! Elmaya Jabbarova. 27.06.2022. Elmaya Jabbarova - was born in Azerbaijan. She is poet, writer, reciter, translator. Her poems were published in the regional newspapers «Shargin sesi», «Ziya», «Hekari», literary collections «Turan», «Karabakh is Azerbaijan!», «Zafar», «Buta», foreign Anthologies «Silk Road Arabian Nights», «Nano poem for Africa», «Juntos por las Letras 1;2», «Kafiye.net» in Turkey, in the African's CAJ magazine, Bangladesh's Red Times magazine, «Prodigy Published» magazine. She performed her poems live on Bangladesh Uddan TV, at the II Spain Book Fair 1ra Feria Virtual del Libro Panama, Bolivia, Uruguay, France, Portugal, USA.