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Image courtesy of Pixabay
THE POETS OF MERIT for competition one are...
Shalom Galve Aranis
For her poem, “Neroli”
Missi Lynn Boness
For her poem, “Plunge, Drop and Nod”
Neall Calvert
For his poem. “bopped: 1997”
Joseph a Farina
For his poem, “after the cups, the marmalade, the tea”
Nidica Ilić
For her poem, “My tides”
LaVern Spencer McCarthy
For her poem, “A Field of War”
T. P. O’Brien
For his poem, “My pen”
Ellen Stout
For her poem, “Colours of life”
Morgan Traquair
For her poems, “a knowing” and “i am”
Neroli by Shalom Galve Aranas
And so, the Queen
from the second isle
of the second Grecian sea
married the King
of the Arab world
but could not sire a son.
The Alchemist
from the labyrinthine corridors
below the castle, was tasked
by the Queen to give
her a son in time
to save her life.
He brushed her fine
green skin and looked
deep into her green eyes
green as the sea
and the flasks of chemicals
in his laboratory of salves
and fell in love.
Her hair fell into his shoulder
and he kissed her
on lips pursed back
in the garden of salves.
He picked a blossom
from the orange tree
and crushed it to the scent
of Neroli.
This is to remember
how we shall find each
other in this lifetime
or the next.
Shalom Galve Aranas is a freelance writer published in Synaeresis, Andrews College- Spire Light, Enchanted Conversations, and elsewhere. She is a loving, single mother of two.
Plunge, Drop, & Nod by Missi Lynn Boness
(This poem is written with Layne Staley, of Alice in Chains, and also my mother in mind.)
He feels the sharp.
Call out to someone - yeah he should.
Pain filling all senses.
Sit with me awhile if you could.
Numb it burns.
Something like a memory.
Close your eyes.
You try not to see.
Wreckage of what he is.
Illusion of what used to be.
Spittle stained toothless smile.
Nodding at a tiny thought.
Takeaway boxes litter a musky loft.
Burns mottle chairs, ashes overflow cans.
Is this what you dreamed of when you thought of being a man?
Who are you anymore?
A ghost who I used to know.
Feeling uncomfortable... maybe I should go?
Nooo!
Stay!
It can be like it used to be.
I wish it could my friend.
Tears blurring...I can barely see.
Just stay awhile - we can play games and jam.
I wish I could relate but that's just not who I am.
86 pounds.
You're wasting away.
It's you who wants comfort.
When it's you who won't stay.
Pain - you left it behind.
Stains smell and boxes they all get to stay.
Echoing words of lost conversations continuously on replay.
There's no problem you'd always smile and say.
Be cool and relax.
Get creative and just nod for the day
You plunged, dropped and nodded until you nodded too far away.
No one could ever make you smile enough to stay.
Missi-Lynn Is a 46 year-old, disabled struggling artist. I've lived in Wisconsin my whole life and just now I'm learning more and more how my views on life have been so skewed. I'm learning better and doing better daily.
Bopped: 1997 by Neall Calvert
Strolling Kits Point’s evening streets, I’m
stunned by a starry radiance above North Shore
peaks, but I feel strange effects. As healers are
taught, I ask “Are you of the Christ Consciousness?”
and back comes: “I AM the Christ Consciousness.”
Washington State coastal ferries stopped mid-
run, killed engines mid-ocean: travellers gazed
silently at Hale-Bopp, two-tailed spectre arcing
our solar system (returning in just 2,380 years
—inspiring where else meantime?)
Ancient magi called comets heralds, harbingers
of new eras, messengers from Heaven, but
we’ve tuned out nature’s utterances nowadays.
May a too-busy world thirsty for divine
download heed this brief chat (suiciding
Heaven’s Gate cult members having mortally
mistaken the message); notice that times
have changed, the paradigm has shifted
(tribal / national to cosmic, upon first blue-
green Earth photos arriving from space),
and that Aquarian Age teachings can occur
unexpectedly:
You decide to walk around the block and
some light-bringing, epoch-changing
celestial ice ball decides: time for a talk
Neall Calvert has 25 years’ experience as a journalist, book editor and writer. Influenced by the German-speaking poets Hölderlin and Rilke, he’s been published in The Men’s Journal, Borrowed Solace, the book Vistas of the West, and online at Dreamers, Fresh Voices and Recovering The Self. Neall, an associate member of the League of Canadian Poets, writes from Campbell River, BC, Canada, near the wilderness of northern Vancouver Island.
after the cups, the marmalade, the tea by Joseph a Farina
"after the cups, the marmalade, the tea"
T. S. Eliot
his nights have changed
from embracing lovers
to clasping sweat stained sheets
in a nightly prayer
waiting for a tomorrow
that is just another day
further from a memory
he cannot undo
or pretence that he wants to
taken as his failure
used as his escape
at times purposeful
then irrelevent
but always resigned
to culpability
imploring faith
pleading his innocence
a boyhood lapse
made legend by himself
a memory of breath quickening
a memory of dreams found hollow
accusing echoes waiting
for the reckoning of madness
or the prophecy to take him
forever in a phantom world
where memories have their vengence
and time remorseless in their keeping
Joseph A Farina is a retired lawyer in Sarnia, Ontario, Canada. His poems have appeared in Philadelphia Poets, Tower Poetry, The Windsor Review, and Tamaracks: Canadian Poetry for the 21st Century. He has two books of poetry published, The Cancer Chronicles and The Ghosts of Water Street
My Tides by Nidica Ilić
The sadness in me walks,
every bat step
echoes like a horde, ...
tears flow down the lids.
I feel like I’m dying quietly,
eyes open
with thoughts in the nights,
which they hide a secret.
Where to find peace,
calm the crying soul
for my family missing,
forever like raindrops
Nidica Ilić was born in 1948 in Pirot, a university lawyer. After this war I was left alone and live in Belgrade, tf-381653412717. I am a member of the Culture of Dreams of Poetry Zagreb, Association of Writers Zenit Podgorica CG, DKB Belgrade and associate of literary clubs of the former republics of SFRY and abroad. I have been awarded for my literary works in a group of authors in our country and the wider region. In Asia, I published two hymnals “Past” and “Present” in Arabic-Serbian, where I lived for more than 25 years before this war because my husband worked in diplomacy.
The collection-songbook "VOW TO THE SON" and "HUG" edited by the Cultural Center MESOPOTAMIA from Belgrade Sabah Al Zubeidi, an Iraqi-Serbian journalist, translator and literary creator, has been published.
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A Field of War by LaVern Spencer McCarthy
A hallowed field of war is never still.
Tall grasses rustle from immortal pain.
The earth moves sharply with a haunted will.
A soldier's ghost bestirs the wild terrain.
Tall grasses rustle from immortal pain.
It rises from below on waves of fear.
A soldier's ghost bestirs the wild terrain.
His ghastly screams make other ghosts appear.
It rises from below on waves of fear,
a never ending sound that chills the air.
His ghastly screams make other ghosts appear.
The lonely cries commingle with despair.
A never ending sound that chills the air,
the endless wailing makes the flowers weep.
The lonely cries commingle with despair.
We find the ones who perished do not sleep.
The endless wailing makes the flowers weep.
The earth moves sharply with a haunted will.
We find the ones who perished do not sleep.
A hallowed field of war is never still.
LaVern Spencer McCarthy is a published poet, with many state and national awards to her credit. She is a life member of the Poetry Society of Texas and is a member of several other state poetry societies. She has published five books of poetry and three books of short stories.
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My Pen by T. P. O’Brien
It is my close friend and counsel,
following me and consoling my heart.
Always knowing it will be my lifeswell,
from this pen I shall n'er ever depart.
From colours so green and hues so strained,
my eyes and soul give strength to my pen.
Suddenly passed and a sight having gained,
it leaps to the page; for the why and the when.
Never take for granted the power it wields,
strikes fear to dictators and lovers of yore.
The lies and deceit can never hold;yields!
To expose either glory or gore.
My first ever pet, is laid down here today,
memories of mine splashed to the world.
Younger then, real joy in all play,
young child gambolling;whose flag is unfurled.
Khayam wrote of dreams and of wine,
secure knowledge he had of his fate.
The quiet writer whose trade he did dine,
his eyes wrote the lure after death,golden gate?
The jolly blackbird, the noise still ringing,
lemon and lime trees their joy still appear.
Monitored by man with the pen still singing,
history's voice when written, is clear.
Enter my body, both spirit and soul,
finding warmth and truth, that ne'r grows old.
My pen strips me bare,
places me naked before words.
Sights, scenes and opinion there,
sky, souls pain, even a small blackbird.
Sultry women, devious men, humans arranged,
sizes, shapes and dressed up for life.
The love of self laid bare, politicians exposed,
Interpreting loves many facets and strife.
Since childhood; I've known to feel,
abandoned yet raised by maternal gran.
That golden haloed lady allowed me to heal,
pen released, prayer at night; in dreams I ran.
Studious, analytical and inquisitive as youth,
imbued to read; Saint Augustinian’s art.
Joyous behaviour, with some humans uncouth,
where lies are churned; then space for my part!
Soft, gentle and thoughtful I am indeed,
to view a muscular man with bright blue eyes.
My thoughts transfer, then my soul will bleed,
to face all the hypocrisy and human lies.
My woman beside, curvaceous and clever,
my guide to being left alone, intellectually free.
A compromise with lies; one knows this; NEVER!
My pen, dear friend and an extension of me.
T P O' Brien is a man born and raised in Wales in the UK; currently living in Portugal. Worked in private industry as a labourer for close to twenty years. I then studied at two different University's. Having taught for many years across the age and location spectrums; I am now seeking to write poetry.
Colours of Life By Ellen Stout
A great sadness reaps the harvest —
rips apart hidden pieces of the night,
and opens restless memories that crawl
into dawn clinging to dark shadows.
I run — run from my mind into a calm
utopian meadow of green grasses
and hypnotic starry velvet blooms.
In my illusionary world, I stare at a pond
where a swan glides among lotus blossoms
while a gentle breeze sways the leaves
in the ancient oak branching above me.
Quietude enters my mind and I rest.
I awake to realness with a burst of delight —
delight as fresh truth enters me.
The pent up sadness quietly dissipates,
and a new aliveness serenely evolves
as nature’s sun warms my spirit.
In awe, I rise to my own truth and reality,
grateful for the peace, joy, and hope
now alive and conscious deep within me.
ELLEN ELIZABETH STOUT was Born in Paramaribo, Suriname, emigrated to Canada in 1948, and presently reside in Burlington, Ont. I enjoy reading, saving and contributing, poetry to Pinterest, and participating in Sheila Tucker’s Poetry and Prose open mic salons. I have poems published in Mindshadows and Lemon tradewinds Anthologies. My poems generally communicate a quest for illumination.
a knowing by Morgan Traquair
she’s taken to hunching
over her work
measuring words
she mixes metaphors
brews a poem
her body transforms
becomes a temple
where-in fires burn
a chant builds
a dance dictates her feet
arms wind-blown branches
cradle the crescent moon
eyes blazing coals
glow across time
she spins tales of running
freely upon the open moor
of her people gathering
in a sod cottage
peat warming a stone hearth where
they sing the old songs
their words waft across
the ocean from a barren homeland
they lament their loss
no potatoes for the pot
hope dashed on the rocks
of a jagged famine
she struggles to speak
but words wound ‘round by silken webs
decompose
as if eviscerated by spiders who dine at their leisure
tangling the telling
still
her presence thrums
eloquent with life
each breath a song
testament
to her Irish roots
where peat fires shimmer
burning still
Morgan's poetry explores intimate coastlines of relationships, both stormy and calm, inflow and ebb. She writes about joy, shame, heartbreak and release. Morgan celebrates diversity, serendipity and the wonders of life and nature. Her work has appeared in spring magazine, Our Lives, an anthology and Impermanence, a chapbook and other publications.
Tagged in Poetry