Autumn

When the yellow dress of Summer

Is replaced by Autumn's raincoat

It's the rolling rhythm of a drummer

On whose beat the colored leaves float

They're like dancers, from left to right

In their head kewl mega dope bytes

See their feet move, sleek and spicy

Empty, their eyes, cold and icy

These crowds don't see their hissing foe

Filling their blind minds with its woe

With cold and dark and emptiness

With crop shorted souls, raw distress

Until they're down in Autumn's soil

And wake, so drenched in Autumn's coil

Their dreamy hopes burked in the clouds

Their petty lives covered with shrouds

That's Autumn who turns green tops red

The sly fall that turns good moods bad

Its prime sprouts colors on our way

That soon will fly, dissolve in grey

Gone with the birds, they're all due south

The bare land left with open mouth

That breathes in rain and storm and chill

That's when we bend for Autumn's will

-0-

David Richardson

fresh spices

under her kitchen window

she waters the garden

on her patio

pottery with lavender

a pleasant smell

reading Shiki

dangling roses

around her

cold white wine

on a shady spot

inner peace

thoughts and feelings

thinking about drinking

a lax writer

Geert Verbeke 

FLU BLUES
Jerome Arthur Barnes

The nose, it flows

and blows then glows.

Brain floating, head bloating.

Eyes sore. What more?

Bones ache, knees shake,

legs weak, joints creak.

Stomach hurts, contents spurt,

in a heave it all leaves.

Medicine gone, so long.

Intestine churn, bowels burn,

diarrhea empty leaves yuh.

Oh no, more go!

Bed rest is best;

but fall asleep on toilet seat!

Woe is me, king of Potty.

Delicate Music, Delicate Minds

Jacob Jones

music in a mind

seems fragile to the creator

harsh to create

difficult to live out a note

cut out the chase

create a piece of mind

create peace of mind

Hey lanky shadow

You too use a walking stick

On this forest path.

The air is thick here with the aroma

of roasting coffee, sometimes sweet,

sometimes acrid, but always robust,

always changing, so that my nose

can never quite find a home

to make itself comfortable.

So syrupy dense is this atmosphere

that conversations do not dissolve

into a homogenous blend of blandness,

but float, like bits of foam, around the room.

Clumps of thoughts, airy and insubstantial,

yet somehow they complement this concoction.

A confection, this cafe,

sugary sweet, and filled with a caffeine

that unseals my creative energy.

I grab a straw and suck up the scene

'til its warmth and flavor satisfy, then

I fill the straw once more,

cap the end with my thumb,

and release its contents upon the page.

WINTER TREES

by Marcia Schechinger

Skeletons of trees crackle and creak

arthritically they bend in unison,

depending how the wind blows

Snow piles high on their limbs like white bouffant hair

Barren branches cry the death of buds

now too darkened to give life

Ice cycles sharp and angular cling down

gripping 'lest a thaw melts them away

The cold makes their limbs weary,

and they tire of the wind

Their company is an occasional visitor

who comes hungry, starving for their flesh

Still on the coldest of days

as the winds howl through their branches

they sustain their beauty

As we admire them through a frosty windowpane

Watching them weave and strain with strength

enduring the elements

The reunion time

Silent night, holly night

the moon light is on, everything is bright

After a while family meets again,

on this event where winter falls like rain

Joy and smile around the table

in every home the atmosphere is enjoyable

I remember this memorable time

Every time i feel i've crossed the red line

then my sorrow gone,

i know i'll end this year happy once again

Hearing the Silence Within

Bill Albright

The prairie is an outside home

     the sky its roof

Horizoned walls on all sides

     have no place to hang a clock.

Tall grass carpet pads the tracks of

     deer, buffalo, antelope, all

Residential creatures which walk,

     stalk, slither, and fly.

Absent partitions enhance clarity

     solitude becomes timeless,

Hearing more acute and everything is clear

     harmonious to a fault.

The whisper of the wind to the grasses,

     rustle the creek side cottonwood leaves,

Bird songs, shrill warnings of the hawk,

     signal to the silence with us.

When that silence is heard

     we sense our place,

A temporary guest

     in a universal community

STORMY WEATHER

By David Lee Ward

You can hear it then approaching,

You can see it in the sky,

You can smell it in the air,

Stormy weather has arrived!

Thunder like war drums loudly playing,

Lightning like fireworks the skies ablazing,

Raindrops are falling like oceans spraying,

Stormy has arrived!

Inside the house your amazed at,

How Mother Nature tends to play at,

Showing power in every phase at,

Stormy weather has arrived!

The thunder dims in the distance,

The lightning wanes, skies are hazy,

The raindrops stop, oceans lazy,

Stormy weather you survived!

THE BEACH

BY CATE PRICE

Swept up in the wind is an angry air

It blows across the beach, stinging with its stare

The sand between the toes of little ones soon grows cold

As night approaches, and the sunlight fades, old

Beauty is caught in the beach, at night,

No burning sand, no blinding light

One is free to stretch on the sand below

And let the moonlight enhance one's soul

But, snared in a tree is the angry air

With its cold, hard glance and its piercing stare

It's enough to chill anyone's bones

But the angry air just blows,

And blows,

And blows.

THE  DIARY

BY  LIP  SAI  LIN

NEVER  WRITTEN  TO  BE  READ

IT  WAS  THE  SECRET  OF  THE  HEART

IF  EVER  IT  WAS  READ

IT  WAS  JUST  A  NEWS  OF  THE  PAST

Freedom Song

Nancy Nolan Austin

                           

                            Dance on air

                            Fly across sky

                            Glide past midnight

                            Camp in tree

                            Listen to color

                            Catch red as it soars this way

                            Experience new

whoa

wait

what's that we hear

another star

falling to the ground

glittering sparks

marking its place

in the universe

hey

can you hear me now

is the signal clear

shower

brief and radiant

just like the time

we spent

take a picture

it'll make a lasting impression

fixed memory

of how things used to be

youth

i wish i was youth

(no really,) I want to be a little kid with not a care in the world

except for my TV., well cartoons mostly

i don’t want to know about the wars we caused

the lives we killed

the opportunities we passed

i just want to sit and watch my cartoons

i wish i was a kid

i want to be some 5 yr old running through the sprinkler on a hot summer day

i want to feel the cool water running down my back

instead of the blood shed from all they lives we took

instead of money sliding down my back as its washed away into the drain

i just want a sprinkler to play in

i want to be an infant

not one damn thought running through my head except...change me, feed me, put me to sleep

i want to sleep the days, months, hours, years, by like it was one long day

i want to eat my processed food

instead of processing hate and racism

i want to sit on the top of my own castle, built by me

instead of one built by another (that i just happened to take)

i want my diapers changed and thrown away

cause i don’t want shit on me

i want to be a baby in a carriage

but what i really want

is for the madness to stop

to feel free as i walk down a street that doesn’t belong to me

i want the youth not to know what danger we caused for there future

i want to know what the future holds for my children and there’s

i want our kids to feel like they can still dream

and be what their imagination says they can be

i want our infants to be thought from day one

that this is not ok

that blood shed is not ok

that controlling something that’s not there’s is not ok

that THIS is not ok

our country is not ok

we are not ok

but our youth

we have so much ahead for our youth

lets just hope that they can help us more then we can

The Ballad Of Billy The Kid        
By Randy Lane

 

 Billy was an outlaw who traveled down the trail

      with his six guns ablazin' as he rode strait into hell

 The purple sage mountains outlined the western town 

      where fate had been followin' like a shadow on the ground

 The marshal sat there waitin' that hot and hellish night

      a warrant for Billy just achin' for a fight

 So Judas told the marshal he sleeps across the way

      without his six guns handy and on a bed there he laid

 Well the night had exploded with gunfire in the air

      and as he awaken you could hear Billy swear  

 Marshal take your guns and ride out of town

      lets put an end to this a bullet cuts him down

 Marshal take your guns and ride out of town

      lets put an end to this Billy tumbles to the ground

 Billy was an outlaw who traveled down the trail

      with his six guns ablazin' as he rode strait into HELL

NIGHT ATTACK
Gary Tiani

 

In the night air I stalk.

The cities defenses down,

My confidence high

--airborne and searching.

My guidance systems humming,

Their technology sleeping,

I fly through their defenses

Searching quietly, undetected.

Passing by radar without a blip

Following the heat left by their living city

Zeroing in on faint traces left in the air

By my still unsuspecting foe.

The target spotted,

I move in for the kill.

My victim falls easy prey

To this stealth bomber.

With glory mine, I fly silently away

A victorious

Now satiated

Mosquito.

Why is time such a precious commodity

Is it because there’s finite supply a for everybody

The second’s tick by and death draws nearer

And this thing called life gets a little bit clearer

See every person says they would never sell there soul

Your souls is made up from the memories it holds

When u are done with life what will u’r soul derive 

Just a remembrance of working form nine to five?

The time u spend with your family and the ones u love

Should be remembered and cherished far above

Whatever it is u do with the rest of your time

But I want u to know why I designed this rhyme

My only porous was to make u realize

Your selling your soul one hour at a time

FINALLY FOUND THE WORDS
stephen ives

So you want a poem?

You want me to open a vein and spill my life upon the page?

You want me to take this pen and use its sharpened point to spill my guts all over the table so you, the vulture, the English student can pick through them for the interesting metaphors?

I will never write for you.

You, brain-dead race of thugs who have beaten me down into the dust and laughed at me, too tired to rise again for the hundredth time so you can exercise your fists against my body, you want me now to write about the world, about my feelings? About how my high horse was lamed, its hamstrings slashed by you, my waiting audience.

I will never write for you.

I write for your victims. The universe cowers in fear behind the fruits of my imagination staring at you! You waste whatever you can find; you use, abuse and finally walk away when the once proud casualty of your interest lays twitching and weeping before you. The world is turning to shit in your palms and you blame everything but yourselves.

You have slashed your mother’s throat so you can make a pound or two and for a few more I could watch you bathe in the stream of her blood.

All the flocks and herds and colonies look on in pity at your pseudo superiority which causes you to think yourself better than any species who decides not to saw off the branch on which they are resting.

I will never write for you.

I will write in sympathy for everything that ever has or ever will come into contact with the human race! The plague the virus the suicidal juggernaut that barrels through eternity and causes time and life and joy to leap out of the way or be smashed beneath the cog wheels of industry and the claws of the fat hording dragon of capitalism.

No I will never write for you. I will never forgive you. For what you have done, for what you are doing.

I cannot stand to see my reflection in the mirror. I am the tortured on the rack and my tormentor, a duplicate of me stands sneering. I am human and I hate myself for it. I am strapped to the front of the chariot of death and I want to get off.

This race that holds me prisoner with bonds of flesh will never change. I see the candle in the distance but the human moth carries on attracted by the colour of gold.

I will never write a poem for you. I send this out with all my being to any who care to learn about my race so that they safely can step aside and feel the hurricane force of our passing on a journey into ultimate destruction.

Keep away. Keep far from us as all we see we will destroy even past the point where we stand lonely in the dark.

Divine Write

Life is great,

Life is fine,

What is my fate,

Is it divine?

Intervention that is,

or so I read,

It's a place few go,

It's all in your head.

Your brain, I say.

It's how one shall think,

That paves the way,

For the cerebral ink.

To hit the pad,

To mark our say.

It's what we've had,

To learn our way.

Life is great,

Life is fine.

What is my fate,

It is divine.

ODE TO THE SEA

If I fall into your waves

of secrets of man and flesh,

it would not be to the tide which saves.

Mine would not be the fate of Gilgamesh.

You've touched many shores,

witnessed many times,

diluted the blood of countless wars,

and welcomed the ashes for whom the bell chimes. 

For to know what you hide

is to among the gods reside,

unleashing the imminent crimson tide

that tells the tale of peace and how it died.

MY COUNTRY MY COUNTRY

P POVERTY IS NOT A PROBLEM

I IMPROVEMENT IS LAST

N NO

A ARRASSMENT

S SO HELP US GOD

Sky Poem

Oh vast heavy sky!

you have thundered my heart here,

with your too loud voice.

Paw in the bottle

ADETAYO TELUWO.

Sweet brown tasty nuts lay in the bottle.

Real fresh and very mouth-watering.

The king of the arboreal dynasty is so jumpy.

Sight of the nuts running him itchy.

Can't just wait to devour the poor nuts.

Hyper-actively anxious, its paw is dipped in the bottle.

What goes in and never comes out?

Major food for thought!

The paw stays stuck, fingering the nuts.

At times, the cake's had and eaten.

The lustful greed sends the paw further down.

How the monkey longs to taste these nuts!

He now owns the bottle and the nuts therein.

The paw ain't his any longer.

Rewarded after much patience;

the hunter steps out of hiding.

One more greedy monkey to his agelong catch.

Generation upon generation, into captivity.

Lustful greed sends monkeys into.

They still never get to learn.

Its blinding, watch it though, it just mightn't be gold.

    -0-
      When the moon came to walk with me.

 

-0-

medieval times started

when rome's empire fell

inflation and the loss of values

the taxes raised and the emperor

made his army fight against each

other for his entertainment

COMPLIANCE OF SCIENCE
peter mcgann

FEELING SO FULL I NEED TO BE RELIEVED STOP SHOP AROUND THE CORNER

HEAD BOWED DOWN DON’T RECOGNIZE ME TAP ON THE DOOR HURRY UP PLEASE

FEEL EYES BURNING INTO MY HEAD READ MY MIND AS IF

DRESSING GOWN ON HALF A FACE

LOOKS ARE IMPORTANT WHEN THERE'S A PRICE TO PAY

EMBARRASSED TO REFUSE PROCEED TO PAY I NEED A TOILET NERVOUSLY FULL

NEED TO BE RELIEVED STENCH WET HANDS NO PERSONAL TOUCH KEEP YOUR DISTANCE DON’T ALLOW HUMAN TOUCH THE RESTAURANT IS DINGY DARK AND DAMP SIT AT THE TABLE COMPLIANCE MENU REQUESTED MAIN COURSE DENIED

I’LL HAVE STARTERS AND DESSERT USUAL PRICE TASTES SO NICE SO VERY SWEET

PANGS OF GUILT WONT SPOIL MY MEAL START TO FEEL SICK I QUICKLY FINISH MY DESSERT WHAT WAS SO HOT NOW SEEMS SO VERY COLD .JUICES THAT WERE USUALLY

WET ARE NOW DRY AS A BONE.WIPE AWAY THE FOOD THAT SPILT ON YOU CLEAN UP THE TABLE I HAVE A NEW CUSTOMER DUE.TISSUES DISAPPEAR WITHOUT A TRACE.

THE DOOR IS HALF OPENED SEE YOU SOON HEAD BOWED DOWN DON’T LOOK AT ME

THE PLACARD AROUND MY NECK SAYS THIS LITTLE PIGGY HAS BEEN FED AND WENT

WEE WEE WEE ALL THE WAY HOME