OPEN MIC ARCHIVES April

The ride....it's all to your dismay.

Murphy Parrish

-0-

I sat to watch the dancing trees,

But all I saw was wind blowing the leaves.

I expected poetic righteousness,

Unfamiliar to any likeness.

Maybe I can not conceive,

What I try to believe.

It must be so clear,

Even though I hide behind my fear.

I wish I could grasp the beauty of simplicity,

But I guess I am content with my lack of efficiency.

Sometimes I am rewarded with a similarity,

Needless to say it is an imparity.

Sometimes I try to envision,

And I can not make a decision.

Is it easier noticed than I realize,

Is life incognito in my eyes?

This can not and will not be my justification,

This must be oblivions unknown inflammation.

Jesse Flowers

-0-

London Underground

Ned Swan

Why is that Chinese girl

Wearing such a tiny micro skirt?

Because she thinks she looks good?

Or because her libido is out of control?

At Willesden Green station

Four fat Buddhist monks

In saffron robes

Get on the train with their luggage

As I come out of the station

I walk through a film shoot

A director is shouting:

“All right, let’s do this take again, the same way.”

Is this storm of images in North London

The aftershock of a butterfly flapping in the Amazon

Or the effect of Brazil winning its fifth World Cup

What time is it there?

-0-

DELHI'S NIGHT LIFE

-Neha Sharma

As night falls,

gatherings swarm up in balls.

Holding hands,

guys 'n girls

walk around in shining pearls.

Wines in hands,

discos 'n bands

Music aloud,

the shrieking crowd.

They've no time,

to look at those,

Who have to search

a place to doze.

Those who've no clothes,

no home,

some on a footpath,

some under a dome.

No food they have,

to curb the need

Not even a penny

to have a handful weed.

Sittimg on footpaths,

they look at those,

who come 'n go

with the richest pose.

-0-

A PIECE OF ELEGY FROM A REFUGEE CHILD

Yupril Kamarullah

When the fir tree roar around my camp

it's marked the day starting to go to the night

blowing of the wind are very cold jabing my bones

and hunger begin to dancing in my stomach

until tomorrow morning, uncertain

slowly I hear scream of the crows from distance

-0-

Do You Feel It
George Foytik

Love is something you have to show,

Even though it's a hard thing to do.

But in time that love will grow,

Into something that will change you.

You will find that person you really are,

Because it gives you the energy to fight.

Through all the things that made you scared,

And how alone you felt at night.

When you get that feeling you feel inside,

You will know its there to stay.

Then your life will start to glide,

Getting better every night and day.

Don't let your anger get the best of you,

And it will never go to the past.

Show your love all the way through,

Then it will always last.

-0-

"Dawn"

How beautiful this sun

Shining through my stained glass,

Tossing me hope for another tomorrow

While keeping me grounded in this day.

Steal into me and pull out my smile.

A.M. caffeine washes down my worries

Making them not so hard to swallow.

The walls around me fall silent

From the warmth that embraces their eastern side.

No creaks or groans in this early morn

Only hope and peaceful smiles.

I close my eyes and hear my girls

Singing in the memory of last nights bedtime…

“Please don’t take my sunshine away”.

Just a little off key

But perfect for me,

And the sunshine of this glorious day.

-Reide

-0-

lily bratan

I am like a wandering rainbow

and waiting for the rain

I am melting into invisible colors

My soul cannot encompass

a one night's happiness

when it wakes up

all alone

in vain tribulations.

But when the rain stops

I rise and dissolve myself

changing into red, green and golden

and I no longer know

whether I really existed...

I may have

but only for those eyes

that can see.

-0-

"Caring"

by R.J. Hinken

Little acts of kindness may,

Chase someone's blues away.

A hello,a fond"How Are You", or a smile,

Will brighten a person's life, and make you feel good inside, that you have gone the extra mile.

A phone call, an email, a card or a letter,

Will chase somebody's loneliness away, and make them feel better.

A kind gesture, asking them if they might have a need,

Will surely plant happiness within them, like if you had planted a seed.

Walking with a person through their life,

Surely will enlighten them, and make them feel free from all strife.

-0-

Cate Espener March/05

Woman on the bus

With cell phone on

Yak yak, chatter chatter

I gaze upon pink mauve sunset

Tonight all three

Yak woman, sun and me

Will sleep then rise

To greet another dawn

-0-

The Power Of A Word
Kerise Holden

I have the power to bend a man,

to break his spirit and crush his plans.

I can make the world spin round,

I can make lost hope found.

I can bring pain and I can bring sorrow,

But I can also give you hope for a better tomorrow.

I can make the strongest man cry,

I can make the weakest man try.

I hold the world in the palm of my hand,

Peace is waiting at my command.

I am love, and I am hate.

I am coincidence and I am fate.

I am everything you wish to be,

I am hopes, I am dreams.

I am chaos, destruction, war.

I am all of these things and more.

Oh the things I can do if only I am heard.

Such a power I hold, and I am just a word.

-0-

shiva dances with me

alpana issar

silence bursts into music

when my thoughts lead my way towards you..

i can hear the flute and its fluent tunes...

and the drum's beats,

within my caged centre ...

consistently i hear those tones.

the grace of the our dance

ancient as when life started by herself

takes my breath away...

eyes locked.

and i wish the lips were too,

with each other's..

but here they hang precariously...

trembling and shivering in anticipation.

the sun sends his beams down . an orange gold.

centre stage, we hold a countenance...

of depth and intensity.

within.. we can hear laughter create a magical rhythm...

the sound of gaiety

baffling all ...but ourselves...

the silence of this music flows on...

and... .our steps slow down

-0-

RAINDROPS ON THE WINDOW

SSYBLUEANGEL

rain falls and paints the windows with a clear liquid 1,2,3,4 clouds smother the sky like a snow covered field silent crack, crack boom then a sudden stream of light brightens the sky like a light house is fog signaling the ships to come its way putting the ships in a deep trance drip, drip, drip

the sun tries to make it's way through the layers of clouds

finally it peeps through and the rain slowly disappears

colors shine

red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple

shaped as an upside down "U"

beauty makes it's way all around

nature has given us it's ultimate prize

after rain has fallen

BEAUTY

-0-

SCARED BRAVE

By Tamara Beryl Latham, c2005

Boots,

still stiff from lack of wear,

too new

to know their path

in an unfamiliar land,

too green

to know the faceless

lie in wait.

Boots,

coated thick with mud,

as they step

into the present and the past,

on sacred hallowed ground,

and crumbled bombed out structures,

where an ambush

seals their fate.

Boots,

marching into chambers

of the mind,

through row on endless row

of tombstones drenched in blood -

as their cadence shakes us,

wakes us

in a cold and icy sweat,

to the lonely trumpet

sounding "Taps."

-0-

THE HILLS OF MY MIND
Widmarc Clark

I'm walking away my troubles

I've decided to give myself some time

Where have I spent the last twenty years

I've been traveling in the hills of my mind

I got lost on a trip to Boston

I had a ticket I got in town on time

I did well I sold my product our latest line

I was lost in the hills of my mind

Like a businessman I was on a mission

If I made top salesman the mountain top was mine

I could buy all the things I wanted

I could not escape the hills of my mind

I have the ball and now I'm running

I found the end zone each and every time

I'm sure to be the worlds best salesman

Why was I lost in the hills of my mind

I must have looked like a traveled road bum

I had left a million in sales dollars behind

Now I was free even though I didn't have a dime

I finally walked out of the hills of my mind

-0-

APRIL SHOWERS

M.L.BUTLER

It's like paint thinner splashed on the perfect idea. It smears the details. The trees are still there, the sky is there, just distorted. Even if you feel like dying you find yourself focusing on the asphalt and that damned drilling sound. The painful realization that life is flawless. My new world versus the old. They all run together like heaven and earth and words. It smears the details. The trees are still there, the sky is there, just distorted. The only hints we get are flashes of hatred and greed and guilt. Questions are so obsolete now. It's that indefinite revelation. You find yourself focusing on the clovers peeking through the asphalt and the laughter associated with carelessness. The painful realization that life is flawless. My own world versus theirs. They all run together like heaven and earth and dreams. It's that secret you just can't share though you occasionally hear them generalizing it all, not yet aware of the journey ahead. It's like paint thinner splashed on the perfect idea. When the details are smeared it's easier to make sense of it all. To see It for what It is and not what you want It to be. Sure, I still look for the details, but I'm willing to work around them. Maybe I'll get it right next time, or maybe I'll get a clue, or maybe I'm wrong.

-0-

Lost Impression

Ghejan I Andrei

(translation from romanian language)

Behind the mirror's mirror there's the abstract shadow...

In the stone hand, which floats on the water,

Lays down Ra's eye watching the show,

The right hand it is...but we think as the left one

And in the left one we're guessing...that's all we know.

We want to see what Brancusi saw:

The bronze clepsydra and the hidden signs in rocks

We dance in 3 a barbarian wails,

We dance...and we don't event think of

The song was wrote in 4.

The rounding spiral like an ADN carousel

Is shaking between the cortex and the dreams

We wish to see all through the mirror

Which strikes it back right in our head.

Preview is sad...there's just the shadow.

So I ask...like a lost impress:

-What's the point of the world?... just for guess?

If E=mc2 is true, and seems to me that's it: a perfect FIT,

And givin' a cold thought, that m could be or not...

You may take the E, I will always take the c.

-0-

BACK ON THE WARD

Christopher J. Ananias

Wondering around the corridors

A strange place to be, an error of society

Unseen people

Moving around in circles, once in never really out

Rooms of therapeutic consequence

To an eluding circumstance

A fraction of distraction being noticed and challenged

A dissention of sane interpretation

Us mental ward types, doubts about our sanity for life

A cast of deranged actors

Attempting to live up to the stage

As our fright fringes the night, of our worries

And we become dark inside again

Strolling outside

On a pass with a plastic glass

Slippers and pajamas

Our uniforms to conform

To the corridors

-0-

HAIKU:

at nest under the roof

sand-martines flied and depart

without address...

sunrise

the shadow of the plane - tree

bends toward the West...

jailbird

the cheery - tree at the garden near

when it bloomed don't see...

a thunderclap split off in two apart

age-long oak's trunk

as cureless wound...

the bird's migration towards the west

into their pockets have

passports without exit-visa...

kujtim agalliu

Albania

-0-

JUST DANCE

talie zrihen

the subtle song of slow dancing no longer played across the radio

but in young lovers heads

dancing to no beat

but the cracking of wooden floors (boards) that have been placed centuries ago

the movement of our (feet) foot prints leave an everlasting circle stained into the wood

what song are you thinking of?

no song, no song could ever fit this moment just right

she twirls

the first twirl across the stage of darkness/hollowness

you, me, (a dim) spot light, and an old wooden stage

blessed upon by the first dance

a tear

but is brushed away by a quick spin to dead left

then pulled back into the arms of a security net

a left hand slowly moves to the lower(ed’s) of her back

guiding her to a beat we both can’t hear

what do you think about love?

this is, shut up and dance

a half smile caress her face

then to a concentrated look to get the steps just right

follow my lead

123 spin

1,2,3 spin

our heads start to spin

we obtain a (“dizzy”) feeling like the first kiss

eyes gazing into each others

closer, hold me closer

our hearts become synchronize as they are pushed together

I love you

the beat dies down

I know, but for now, just dance

-0-

WHAT IS BEAUTY? WHAT IS LOVE?

GEORGE ALBERT SKAFF III

Who says beauty is in the eye of the beholder?

I say beauty is strictly in the soul of the beholder,

This one realizes as the grow a little older.

Who says when two people love each other they should let each other know,

If two people love each other the true love will always show.

If the love may die or flat out fail,

If the love is real it will always prevail.

Some say " I love you because your beautiful",

To me that sort of love is untrue,

To me it should be " Your beautiful because I love you"

-0-

The Pick-up Line

(A Country Western Theme)

Crystal Clineman

No, I don’t think I’ll have another drink.

I just came in for some time to think.

I thank you kindly for your offer,

But save your cash from the barman’s coffer.

Yes, I know what you were after.

You’d best find another with a heart of laughter.

I don’t think I’ll brighten my morning,

Don’t think I’ll stop my clouds a storming.

I’m just thinking of a man quite like you

Tho’ he had midnight raven’s hair,

And pale skin so fair,

Clear eyes made of summer blue;

He just told me we were through.

So, I don’t think I’ll brighten my morning,

Don’t think I’ll break my clouds a storming.

I’ll just sit nursing my drink,

Waiting for a time when I won’t think

Of one with a love you should not dare

To tempt if you have a care

To keep him close to your heart

And hope that you will never part.

But fairy tales come to an end.

Humpty Dumpty would not mend.

The Wicked Witch looked in that mirror,

Finding one who was much dearer.

I won’t brighten my morning,

Won’t break my clouds a storming,

Just sit nursing my drink.

Please pass me by with just a wink.

-0-

WHO I AM

By: Ariel C.

I close my eyes

And think of who i am,

My mind is blank

Criticized for my sins.

Eyes open

Self esteem low,

I stand up and look into a mirror,

I see a girl who is now grown.

Peering into her eyes,

I see a world of guilt;

Her life and heart

Seriously unbuilt.

I see this grown girl

Stare back into my eyes,

And follow them from side to side.

I breathe in and out,

Letting all fear go;

Making my heart and happiness,

Seem to grow.

I thank God for giving me life;

And with confusion known,

I stare back into the mirror;

A face, A glow.

I smile to this face,

And think to myself,

This is the girl

Not yet grown.

So i sit back down,

Knowing who i am,

And realizing it with pride

-0-

PREMIER COUP D'CEIL

Karmel

we exchanged glances

will our looks lead to something?

whatever the chances

we exchanged glances

scanned the expanses

of the room heard blue globes sing

we exchanged glances

will our looks lead to something?

-0-

The Lake

Simon N Birch

Sat in damp stillness

near a concrete lake

building thoughts out of fog

and drifting wood

is Peter

His name is always urgent

so he comes just to sit

and play with the

mist arcs and muted birdsong

To smell dirt and have it

harden onto denim

To fish the recede

-0-

HYPE

BY: NICHOLAS GORE

Get right for the night

Bright lights

Hype

Dymes with altered heights from

stilettos and miniskirts

Brothas put in work on the block

Now in hotspots

Palms holding knots

Anxiety blocks reality and fantasy's all that's known

DJs hold the throne

'MIC CHECK 1-to-da-2-to-da'

3 in the morning

Looking to take something home

Cars lined up outside like metallic models

posing on runways

Sleek curves and beautiful skin tones

Though only on designer shoes they stroll

And to think

This is only on the weekdays

-0-

Earth’s Transformation

(See what the seer was)

Evelyn Garrett Seer

There is a secret, kept through time,

wisdom asleep, in sleeping minds.

When, the ancient, clock strikes' one,

a programmed countdown, will have begun.

A sleeping force, will then awake,

only two decades, will the procedure take.

Earth's mantle core, will be transformed,

what was once, shall be reborn.

The whole of earth's, magnetic core,

will increase in heat, unto boiling shores.

Soon to become, a red glowing rock,

no man can stop, the tick of the clock.

Hope of deliverance, comes from the sky,

Evacuate! Evacuate! completion is nigh.

Soon thereafter, when all is done,

the heating rock, will bring forth a new sun.

-0-