"A revolutionary poem will not tell you who or when to kill,
what and when to burn, or even how to theorize.
It reminds you... where and when and how
you are living and might live,
it is a wick of desire."
Adrienne Rich

featured poems

Heart

it happened again today
as it has many times before

the bandage
it loosened
the stitches
they broke free

fissures
all at once ruptured
and the life poured out

fragments now
carried by tears
waiting for kisses tossed upon the currents

such beautiful music
never again to be heard...

- Tammy Brown

(added 05.21.13)

editor's note: Tragic loss; the wound renews. Hum that tune, not forgotten. You know it! Hum that tune and heal. - mh

THE LOVELY TRAIL

She would walk each day,
One foot in front of the other...
Every day,
Moving

There was no way to get around her fears,
She chose to plow through them.

She ran past her enemies,
But reached back her hand when needed.

She skipped often,
Always with a song in her heart.

She carried light at all times,
To shine the way for the little ones.

She danced with her family,
Waded through sorrow,
Paved new memories,
And marched for her beliefs.

She took her final step at the finish line.
That's when she soared...

...Leaving a lovely trail behind

- Stephanie Duchouquette

(added 05.20.13)

editor's note: No better legacy; leave something lovely, others will follow. - mh

All of This Light

All of this Light
Is deeply embedded
In living human flesh;

Even the bone tunnels
Must be baptized with the holy water

Of the mind: space itself, the opening
Of the Syllable-door,

Because the liquid
In the marrow depths
Will otherwise be black gold.

- Mark Fleury

(added 05.19.13)

editor's note: Keep that door open or burn in someone else's engine. - mh

Play The Role

We should all be
Like white women in
50’s B-movies.

They screamed to the
Top of their lungs,

Eyes bulged out to
The size of volleyballs

Their hands either pressed
On their pale cheeks or
Extended out as they
Look away.

Because the evil thing
Covered in plastic and makeup
Creeps along to seal their doom.

There might be something
They can do to prevent it
(Such as the logical idea of
Running), but they don’t.

They scream motionless
Hoping someone hears and
Saves them – but they won’t.

Yeah, we should all be doing
That right now. Scream. That’s
The only thing missing.

- Roderick Richardson

(1 poem added 05.18.13)

editor's note: Aaaaaaaaaiiiiiiiiiiieeeeeeeeeeeeee, helpmehelpmehelpmehe-e-e-e-e-e-elp! (The monster is still there...) - mh

CANNIBAL SUICIDE

I poured a finger of scotch into a coffee cup
and ate the cup and licked up the spilled scotch
and ate the mouth of the fifth down to the neck and
was wolfing the table leg, when
mother came in to iron some bugs out
of her pocket calculator
and couldn’t help but notice the ruined fifth,
the cup nowhere and the table wobbly
on three legs. She threatened to knuckle down
and hand it to me,
but I trumped her rump,
tugged the table leg out of my throat
and clubbed her to death. Blood spattered
the venetian blinds and mother slumped
to the foot of the refrigerator.

I threw up a window and sat on a foot stool and
reswallowed the table leg
and munched on the arm of a chair
till I was stuffed, then jerked down the wallphone
and ate out the mouthpiece
and considered sucking the news off the tv,
but decided instead to put the mouth
of a firearm to my temple
and pray.

- Willie Smith

(1 poem added 05.17.13)

editor's note: Sounds more like salvation for this confused carnivore. Crikey! - mh

Shape of a Heart

We play the game called Exquisite Corpse –
you with the curlicued lust lines
of your tragic fine-point pens,
I with charcoal-smudged
weather reports and raucous blackbirds –
two sides unseen of the same
folded paper’s fearful symmetry.

I hand you the scalpel, Dottoressa,
and turn away at the first red spots
beading along the curve you cut,
a rotated cardioid, the rolling circle
that traces a two-lobed valentine.

- Ray Sharp

(added 05.16.13)

editor's note: This is playing doctor for keeps; no greater love... - mh

Herostratus

Burn me down
from the roof
to the ground-
in multi-breasted glory,
my beastly yearning-
I want it burning,
you bastard!
Because I love you,
my Alexander. I have
forsaken my sanctity
for your golden curls.
I’d rather be ashes
than a Goddess now!
My temple slips
beneath swamp-myth
to fuel your firelight.

- Trier Ward

(added 05.15.13)

editor's note: The height of devotion and self-sacrifice. No hero is worthy of this! - mh