Drowning
this poem
is like the deep blue sea
rolling with numerous history
lingering in its sleeves.
at the depth of this poem
are dead bodies swimming to freedom,
bodies that have bumped themselves into death
while escaping the jaws of slavery,
this poem, too, is a graveyard
like the deep blue sea,
this poem is a diary
of many lives that never returned home
& dreams the sea waves have destroyed;
dive to the depth of this piece
you will see pieces of mama Liberia
swimming to the shores of freedom
wanting to be independent like the sun
with corruption glued to her skin;
she’s wearing a floater, but
her body is befriending the sea’s bottom.
Category Archives: CHAOS
Poetry from Hong Ngoc Chau
THE POET AND LIFE Authoress: HONG NGOC CHAU Leaving the school podium, I process my dream Literary career desire still lingers me, I write poems About life, my feelings spread everywhere I take the standard of human love as the ruler The true, the good, the beautiful are my desires Living for people, I respect this value as ever Originally literature helps me sublimate my soul And music, painting with glittering feature halo I reflect on human life from the reality Getting humanities to lead the journey I always look towards the spiritual world Teaching offsprings as the basic words With virtuous behavior, I keep morality To know mutuality, love, I live sincerely Subjectively wrong or right as my own mind Not many words, cunning I don’t mesmerize For my career, I keep my words indeed In my heart, the enthusiasm of the poet I love life, days by days increasing vitality Love my country, my people, and humanity
Her true name is NGUYEN CHAU NGOC DOAN CHINH. Her Pen name is HONG NGOC CHAU, her Facebook name is NGUYEN CHINH.
She was graduated Master degree in Education Management. She is a member of the Association of Writers of Ho Chi Minh City (Vietnam), the Honorary Foreign Advisor, Ambassador of the Suryodaya Literature Foundation (SLF) From- Vietnam; the member Admin of W.U. P (World Union of Poets), the level of GENERAL COUNCILOR of the World Union of Poets with COORDINATORS SILVER MEDAL ( 14th medal of the World Union of Poets), Contributor of VISHWA BHARATI – India (The Vishwabharati Research Center), Administrator, moderator, group expert of many literary forums around the world…
She got a lot of rewards and diplomas such as World Literary Prize World poetic Star 2019; Diploma of II ND Level “Temirqazyq – the Best Poet – Writer of the World,2019”; Certificate of honor is a Gold categorized member in Motivational Strip showing outstanding qualities in global literary excellence and contributions 2019. Premio Mundial A La Excelencia Literaria 2019-2020; COPPER CROSS of The World Union Of Poets for promotion of art 2020; Honorary Diploma 2020/2021: Literary Luminaries Award of The School of Art and Poetry; S.L.F Literary EXCELLENCE AWARD 2020, Certificate of appreciation of TOP TEN WRITER 2020; HAVEN FOR THE WORLD WRITERS, Certificate of honor 2020 of WORLD AWARDS “CÈSAR VALLEJO 2020”, for education, culture, academy, art, reporting, communication, TV, business, civic, human rights…; “THE ODER OF SHAKESPEARE” MEDAL (23/4/2021) of MOTIVATIONAL STRIPS; Certificate of author recognition presented to NGUYEN CHINH – 2021, Poetic warriors Award of excellence 2021; CASA POETICA Magia y Plumas, Primio De Arte Y Literatura Universal 2021, RHYTHM OF THE HEART, Certificate of appreciation is awarded as TOP CONTRIBUTOR (2021), GENESIS WORLD WRITER COMMUNITY Global Certificate of Excellence (World Wide Platform to Elevate Outstanding Global Writers) 2021, Queen Zenobia Award for Global Culture 2021, Perfect Attendee Award GOLD A 2021-2022 of POETRY CENTER;
CULTURAL AND ARTISTIC ACTIVITIES Books of poems published: Vietnamese Contemporary Poetry (Volume 1); The road to the true heart, Pitiable or Blamable… and many works have been published on world literary forums, newspapers, magazines of English Literature, USA, India, Poland, China, etc., global publications; honored to receive the Excellence Award of the European Poetry Championship 2021, honored to participate in the 2nd World Literature Festival 2021, honored works selected by Indian Educators to be published in a multilateral anthology Global convenience, honor to attend the World Poetry Championship 2021, Inner Child Press International-‘building bridges of cultural understanding’ 2019, 2020, 2021. v.v…
Poetry from Christopher Bernard
#littlebylittle (A sequel to “How to Save the World: A New Year’s Resolution”) By Christopher Bernard 1. “Little by little” was the phrase for everything she feared to face, to keep her quiet, calm, unfazed despite whatever she must do that otherwise might make her crazed with the enormity of the true. 2. Who was she? A heart of life, loyal, strong, generous, kind, true, not without strife, not perfect yet good, for me, for us. I save and keep her name. Her love was stronger than life. She taught me love 3. Little by little, we can do what we must do. Strangers, friends, pull back a little here, just so, a little now. Prevent the end. Protect the earth from our dark arts. Preserve the world with your strong heart. _____ Christopher Bernard’s latest collection of poems, A Socialist’s Garden of Verses, won a 2021 PEN Oakland Josephine Miles Literary Award and was named one of Kirkus Reviews’ “Top 100 Indie Books of 2021.”
Poetry from J.J. Campbell
nerve damage i can feel the nerve damage in my middle finger i guess the knife went deep enough part of me knows that many people are chuckling knowing they wanted the knife to go deeper all i can preach is patience your day will be here before you know it ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- fogs up my glasses another morning in some medical center scribbling poems in the waiting room as my mask fogs up my glasses i doubt the pandemic ever ends and i'm sure this will be my life until my mother dies not much of a life by the usual standards but i do what i can with what i have i can't say the same for everyone else --------------------------------------------------------------------------- a little less gentle soft black skin connecting the tubes explaining this is going to hurt a little i chuckle and explain my high pain tolerance, hoping she knows to be a little less gentle she starts the procedure and i imagine her naked i believe she noticed or that was my imagination having her lick her lips and start to open her sweater up for a better view -------------------------------------------------------------------------- laughing at the hard times i learned a long time ago that laughing at the hard times will take you much farther than the endless misery of complaining now, my laughter has turned more to sarcasm as i have grown older the joys of becoming an old cynical fuck it does have some perks no one tends to fuck with you or bother to talk to you or most days, if you can get so lucky, they will forget you exist talk about a good day ------------------------------------------------------------------------- make me find the joy contemplating suicide again it always comes up around the holidays there's an angel out there that hopes to cure me make me find the joy i applaud and admire her effort but she's old enough to know there is no escaping certain tragedies
J.J. Campbell (1976 – ?) is old enough to know better. He’s been widely published over the years, most recently at Beatnik Cowboy, Terror House, Horror Sleaze Trash, The Rye Whiskey Review and Mad Swirl. You can find him most days on his mildly entertaining blog, evil delights. (https://evildelights.blogspot.com)
Poetry from Mark Young
A Narrow Channel Once again I walk those long baroque corridors. A bird is singing; I have heard its song before. Butterflies rise disturbed by the wind yet resettle to wait for the next gust. The book falls open at the same page. Will no-one rescue me? Oh Carol It was a night just right for singing Neil Sedaka songs. No wonder he had Leonard Cohen on his mind. Apparently gluttony is not recognized as a sin by the individual links in the food chain— viz. this quite large spider with a wasp of similar size pinioned in its pincers but flipped over so they travel back to back; & the conjunction being hungrily tracked by a lizard that is smaller than either of them. Per severe When he presented his latest premise he said it's the same as the old one & the one that came before that but I'll keep on presenting it because one of these times its time will come.
Poetry from Patricia Doyne
CIVIL WAR: ACT 2
Three hundred years ago,
Europe wasn’t white.
Men were French, Polish, Italian, Greek,
Swiss, Danish, Ukranian, Turk,
Finns, Spanish, Austrian, Swedes,
Dutch, Irish, German, Serbs.
Not white.
Three hundred years ago,
Africa had no blacks.
They were Maasai, Himba, Zulu, San,
Dogon, Yoruba, Berber, Bantu,
Kikuyu, Ndebele, Ashanti, Hausa,
Fulani, Samburu, Hadzabe, Igbo.
Not black.
Then slave traders came with guns and ropes,
buying and selling.
Captured Africans filled boats
stacked like cordwood.
Now they were black.
Auctioned off to customers
who matched every shade on the gray scale,
but had the power to be white.
Opposites. Duality.
Authority vs. slavery.
Slavery endorsed by church-going whites.
After all, black property wasn’t Christian.
Nor truly human.
When the world is black and white,
individuality is erased.
Only poles remain,
like goalposts in a football game.
Immigrants jockey for a place on the yard line.
But the poles are not equal.
The balance is off,
and imaginary goalposts
flash like ghosts.
Tremors of change shake the field,
and those who own nothing but whiteness
lash out,
afraid they will lose their grip.
Those whose blackness is matched
by talent and ambition
see a new day on the horizon.
But many hang on to the old days,
days when Jim Crow kept order,
kept the lowest white
a degree above the highest black.
Along comes a TV name with a slogan:
Make America great (white) again.
The second Civil War begins.
Shots ring out.
Hate crimes multiply—
against Muslims, Asians, Jews, Hispanics, Blacks…
The first skirmishes in a war we thought was over.
Democracy dies first.
A foot on the neck, until life is snuffed out.
We should have seen this coming.
Poetry from Lorette C. Luzajic
Heaven and Hell (Hieronymus Bosch, in scrambled haiku) a peacock, three Eves with four apples up on top dark twins flank six white thighs * a woman torn asunder by silver spiked saw all breast and sinew * grown from fish gums rabid incisors, dark claws how we are hungry
he is the keeper of dead birds, their ocular sockets oozing death * a man with a platypus bill points to the words on the page hooked crooked nose, a flashlight * the gourd drums, the cockroaches the sloped ukeleles * butterfly wings salamander feet a parade of devils * pterosaurs and frogs sail through the constellations feathers like silk, hook web flippers * slippery, sex stuffed with moonlight, cock and buttock cuffed, cucked, drowning * the pigment is cracking the bonfires are crackling the witches are cackling
soot, smut, braided angels fingers in her sex, mouth open drowning men are swimming * owls, line laundry, hooded heads and varicose veins stingray, crab, a basket of wolverine * the lamb of the world in a tunnel below the loam the keys to death and hades in her hooves * sail away sail away sail away * you are the doctor at this table, this emptied heart these fractured bones * my ears and my feet have been severed by arrows hell's sharp blades * the water is green life and your wife's skin is red blood, trickling from struck branches
a murder of crows streaming from the crack of your ass from his, gold coins. * a cauldron, an oboe, a man vomits into a portal, another man is born from blue. * three fey faces feed on blackberries and pigs a martyr is hogtied and stung with arrows * this is the house of empty barrels, and an old and spooky widow eyes glued to the window * the bridge to nowhere the ladder to an overpass that slides back down to earth, or hell * a reindeer is a centaur a fig leaf is a burial cloth a bovine jangles goblets and red silk * the gooseberry orgy, naked circling the giant spiked fruit, mouths open, dice, vice, stockings, and scorpions * the bull ruts until the woman's thighs fall open and she cries with relief at entry *
a nun screams at puncture porcupine quills, claws of skunk sex with white teeth and a mask * plucked bird, polka dotted fox hijab pewter vessel of bitter water a turtle, a crystal ball in his rubber throat * there are ladders across hell the miners and their shovels hoist volcanic ash, ashes to ashes * the arrow, the bullet they are aimed at the swan watch how her wings span death, then life * frail white eggs glow among cymbals and harps so long ago, the garden Lorette C. Luzajic
Lorette C. Luzajic writes poetry and flash fiction inspired by visual art. Her works are widely published and nominated. She is the founder and editor of The Ekphrastic Review. She is also an internationally collected visual artist.