Tag Archives: poem

9 to 5 by Monica Garcia

9 to 5

I ate an apple fritter once
A honeysuckle whisper
Glazed each hair within my ear
And told me to look from the screen

I sat by a window
Happy and soft
A dimple tugged shyly at my cheek
A coat of sugar crowned my teeth

Then the clock, upon the ninth hour
Ticked and tousled its morning hymn
I swallowed in shame, a begging whisper
And closed the drapes another day.

I sipped warm tea with lemon once
A cumin seed powered a song
And stretched the deepest baritone
To juice my piercing bones.

A lime drop rested on my tongue
And drowned the cracking skin
And dared to dress behind a hum
The scarring screams within

Then the half-hour struck,
And coughing up, upon a pulp
My bare feet plead again
Not to walk on that burning dessert

Of golden sand
And golden coins

Once I ate an apple from a tree
And upon the fifth hour
My teeth ripped from my skin
And my blood drenched
the yearning soil
And the tree stretched high

And its green leaves flapped away
Sighting whispers
On green-driven eyes

And I sat with a half-eaten apple
And with blood-stained soil
And browning leaves,
To rest and mourn.

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Image credit: Desert abstract (vecteezy.com)

The Rapture by Ken Poyner

The Rapture

Not as big a thing as I anticipated.
For many, it did not go as expected.
They would see someone start bodily off,
Smile in preparation, roll
To their toes, jut out
Their arms – and nothing. If
They had closed their eyes
They would open them one
At a time, looking about
To see who was still abandoned
On Earth. From the looks of it,
The final selections were a bit thin,
There is going to be a fearful horde
Of us left to face what is next. No
Airliners pilotless falling from crowded skies,
Few cars suddenly driverless spinning
Pinball-like on shocked highways. Mothers
Checking perambulators not sure whether
Finding the baby or not is best.
People running outdoors thinking God
Might need a straight shot, standing
A few awkward moments, sullenly
Dragging themselves back in. Cell phones
Still working, I call the wife
To see how it looks where she waits.
It rings and rings and rings, and I start
To leave a message, then pause.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________

Image Credit: Ciker.com

The Caste-Priests of Jabberology by Andrew Kozma

The Caste-Priests of Jabberology

Here, they open their mouths, the doors to their temples.

What spills out are river-smoothed pebbles on a drumhead.

Only the elite are given this gift, a font of nonsense.

Nature is a dumb miracle. Never a faithful explanation given.

When mumbling, all words are equally incontrovertible.

This is the ritual: a tongue swollen from sea salt,

ears plugged with wax, eyes dull and silicate.

A thing preserved so long it’s meaningless except as memory.

Speak except when spoken to, accept when spoken to.

The universe is misunderstood. That is its blessing.

Here, they function their eyelids, the dongles to their tumors.

Sip, sip at that blessing. Here, hear a calling.

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Editor’s Notes: “What can SA [South Africa] learn from Mao’s deadly chaos?” by Chris Mann, Mail & Guardian, November 17, 2016: Trofim Lysenko, Stalin’s scientific adviser, rejected genetics as an “expression of the senile decay and degradation of bourgeois culture”. A colleague called scientists who used experiments to verify results “the caste priests of jabberology”. In the book, “The Cold War Politics of Genetic Research: An Introduction to the Lysenko Affair,” William deJong-Lambert discusses “the reaction of a number of biologists in the United States and Great Britain to provide an overview of one of the most important controversies in Twentieth Century biology, the “Lysenko Affair.” … including the interwar eugenics movement, the Scopes Trial, the popularity of Lamarckism as a theory of heredity prior to the synthesis of genetics and Natural Selection, and the Cold War.” In the book, he dismisses scientists and academics who sought to understand problems to be answered by Mendel’s statistics, calling them “caste priests of jabberology.” In a more recent paper, Mendelian statistics is vindicated (https://www.aber.ac.uk/en/ibers/news/archive/2020/january/title-228982-en.html). Ultimately, however, my interpretation of this eloquent poem points to the “caste as a neurotic and psychotic system that has now been transfigured itself as an ethno-religious fascist state,” which is a political sentiment and statement.

Image Credit: abstract art evoking violence (img.wallpapersafari.com)

She lingers by Kim Whysall-Hammond

She lingers

She who is the silence of the hills
sits today in a grassy bowl
on their northern flank
white hair streaming behind her
in a wind that is not there

She is larksong ascending
bleats of sheep
cries of blind baby rabbits within
the safety of deep dug havens

She is a bird of prey on the wind
runs with deer, fights stags for the joy of it
leaves gates open, flattens corn
dances with magpies, parleys with rooks
eats with the badger, leaps and twists as a vixen
loves a dark crow in the night

She walks in the distance
is the figure approaching in the corner of your eye
never there when you turn
the unexpected footstep when you are trying to rest
the laughter of storms

She is the buzz and burr of tractors
yet winces as they corrugate tracks
flinches as they plough and harrow
her skin

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Kim Whysall-Hammond grew up in London but now lives where the skies are much darker. She has worked as an Astronomer, in Climate Research, and in Telecommunications. Her speculative poetry has been published by KaleidotropeOn SpecSpace and Time MagazineStar*LineAndromeda SpacewaysThe Future FireUtopia Science FictionFrozen WaveletsCrannóg, and others. She has two poems in the Dead of Winter anthology from Milk and Cake Press.

Image Credit: Mother Nature (wallpapercave.com)

The Formosa Rose by Yi Jung Chen

The Formosa Rose

Hearing the whip-poor-will calling three times,
she drinks a gimlet cocktail alone
with a memory—
the unforgettable faces
of two young souls yearning for each other
as their passions ebb away.
What might have been left behind?

Neither to the whale or kauri tree
living on their own,
ramblers with no abode,
does anything come vividly clear out of the blue.

A fork in the road—
a lady takes a right turn under the dim streetlight.
A quirk of fate leads
a determined mind to meet her companion
sailing across the ocean for paradise.

Pineapple-shaped lockets, in pairs,
shimmer in the moonlight.
Brave trailblazers go their separate ways—
the sweet potatoes still warm—
flourishing as long as they settle somewhere.

The image of her country
looming on the horizon day after day,
an emblem that never fades away.

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Author’s Comment: This poem is about the “concept about time and space: golden moments also will be the strength for us to hang on through difficult times.”

Image Credit: Lady with a cocktail (ambiance-sticker.com) in silhouette superimposed on an orchid hybrid, Phalaenopsis Formosa Rose (photo by Craig J. Plahn, D.D.S.)

Growing Up by Lynn White

Growing Up

Sometimes I borrowed my mother’s clothes
and her make-up, her high heels and handbags.
Of course, they were too big for me.
Same with daddy’s briefcase
and the suitcases we took on holiday trips.
When I saw the tiny red suitcase in the toyshop
I bought it with my birthday money.
It had thick shiny plastic
and looked really swish.
I took it everywhere.

Continue reading Growing Up by Lynn White