Before the Law (my interpretation of Franz Kafka's short story)

My curiosity had brought me …to the gates of The Law
But all progress was halted… I could venture no more

A Gatekeeper there stood… who obstructed my path
With his menacing demeanour …and a soul filled with wrath

Warning not to continue… on my journey ahead
For more frightening will face me: The thought filled me with dread

Though my hunger for knowledge… of what lay inside
Simply would not relent …it just would not subside

But he held firm with his caution… of the immanent danger
So now who do I trust …myself or this stranger?

Held back with uncertainty, burdened with apprehension
Unsure of my fate… I’m held here in suspension

So I patiently waited, hoping he would relent
But time just marched on, with opportunities spent

As my life drifted on, and the years passed me by
All that remained… was just waiting to die

The end brought me courage… to enquire of this gate
Though I was informed, it was just for my fate

And thus when I am gone, it will be closed up and locked
I’ve no time to be sorry, nor time to be shocked

I think of all those ambitions, of those things I’ve desired
For the unique opportunities… that left me inspired

Although I look back and wish for… this chance once again
It is time to accept… this is where I’ll remain

But the long-term companion I chose …it was fear
Controlling my choices… it drove me to despair

So now at the end… I am filled with regret
The price that I’ve paid …is a terrible debt

And what of the lesson …I chose to endure?
It was my time spent in judgement… Before The Law!

Michael Major, 
London UK, 
mike@kafkaforourtime.com 

London Bridge

London bridge, falling
In the life and times
Of my great recluse.
The link is broken-
Chains rattle
At the disjoined ends.

I left behind
The truth
The lies
What lay in between.
Wire mesh
Of twisted tales.
Pricking
The leaden heart.

You stood
On the other side.
The icy river
Divided us.
Death
Finally did us part.

Maryam B. Mirza
Lahore, Pakistan 

Before My Funeral

Her finger at my cheek,
Voice timid and meek,
I see the ends of her lips shiver,
Words dying there which she couldn't utter,

She choked and smiled and cried anew,
And her soul whispered, I love you,
She looked at me, her eyes red,
As I lost the love I once had,

Then she asked that which I feared,
'How can you be so hard on me dear..
Was everything a lie you said,
Was it never there, the love we had?'

I shook my head, my eyes bowed low,
I was crying and she shouldn't know,
How can you be so hard? She asked again.
My love, you stone, said her eyes in pain,
I wanted to console but could find no way,
How do I tell her I am dying today?

-Aftab Yusuf Shaikh

Mumbai, India
ayshaikh@live.in 

Darque Doll

Cradling her wounds she thought back
Pressed to the ground
He had stolen her perfection
Once bright white porcelain and pure
She was now broken and scarred
She did the only thing she could think to do
Though soaked in her own blood
She threaded her needle with her yarn
And stitched herself back together.

Crystal Lane Swift (PhD, Rhetoric and Public Address, LSU, 2008) is a communication Professor at Mt. San Antonio College and California State University, Northridge. Her poetry has appeared in anthologies, Speaker & Gavel, on poemranker.com, and at the Poet’s Perch. She enjoys painting, writing, singing, acting, modeling, and producing all kinds of art. She has published an academic book, This House Would Ethically Engage (2008), over 15 academic articles (2005-2011), and a book of poetry, God Bless Paul (2008). She has produced three films: Sculpting the Rhetorician (2005), Debating Christianity from Below (2005), and It’s Never About a Boy (2011), as well as an album, On Going Battle (2011). She lives in Hollywood, CA with her best friend, Elba Soto-Quinones. (www.crystallaneswift.com)

Untitled

Cloud cover of gabble
Too much heat
Not enough light
for intelligent life
to thrive

Sing another chorus?
Clear the cover before us
with voices like sirens
reversed
Uncover, dispell the curse
if you will
or be part of the kill

Here, in this still place,
prior to awakening,
which dream takes hold?
Dream whatever dream you see.
Reveal your potent imagery.
Rlease your awesome wings
-- it's okay; it's just a dream ...

libramoon

http:emergingvisions.blogspot.com

Dingle, Ireland

The bathroom carpet,
wall to wall, is blue,
the lightest blue,
to complement
the bowl and ceiling.

Apropos the moment:
I bend the waist
and heave the gristle
from last evening's steak.

Tomorrow I shall row again
to see those ancient men
in caps and coveralls
stand like statues
while they talk
and tap gold embers
from clay pipes
forever glowing.

I'll go there
at the dinner hour
and see them once again
fork potatoes,
whole and steaming,
from big kettles filled
at dawn by crones
forever kerchiefed
and forever bent.

At dawn you hear
these women
sing their hymns
like seraphim
a cappella
as they genuflect and dip
big black kettles
in the sometimes still
sometimes foaming sea.


Donal Mahoney

donalmahoney@charter.net
Donal Mahoney lives in St. Louis, Missouri. He has had poems published Ancient Heart Magazine and other publications in the United State, Europe, Asia and Africa,

With Love from Euphor

On the tiled floor, I saw strange forms appearing.
The head of Spartacus
or that, more exciting, more modern also, of Actarus.

Princes
whether they come from Thrace or Euphor
always haunted my frozen mornings,
my capsized nights.

Later
- much later -
it is by their laughter that I was started the most.

The princes always had an open throat
and amazed eyes
in bed.

I saw their wings growing
at the same rate as their sexes
who were spread out around me
everywhere
in me
on me
in my eyes and the clouds.

I flew away too
far from this nest
to join
in dream
in the bathroom
unreal colorings,
small encrusted gravels,
in the shape of happy princes,
in the shape of dark princes.

First published in Poetry Super Highway September 2008

Walter Ruhlmann was born in 1974 in France. He currently lives in Mamoudzou, Mayotte where he works as an English teacher. He has been publishing mgversion2>datura (ex-Mauvaise graine) for fifteen years. Walter is the author of several poetry chapbooks in French and has published poems in various printed and electronic publications world wide. He co-edited and translated poems for the bilingual free verse and form section for the anniversary issue of Magnapoets in January 2011.

Back to Iraq

I saw Quinn again tonight,
first time in years, sailing the streets,
weaving through people,
collar up, head cocked,
arms like telephone poles sunk
in the pockets of his overcoat,

the brilliant pennants of his long red hair
waving over the stadium
where years ago he took my handoff,
bucked off guard, found the free field,
and heaved like a bison into the end zone.

Tonight, when Quinn wove by me muttering,
I should have handed him the ball.
I should have screamed, “Go, Quinn, go!”
He would have stiff-armed the lamppost,
found the free field again,
left all in his wake to gawk

as he hit the end zone
and circled the goal posts,
whooping and laughing,
flinging the ball like a spear
over the cross-bar,
back to Iraq.


Donal Mahoney
donalmahoney@charter.net

Donal Mahoney lives in St. Louis, Missouri. He has had poems published Ancient Heart Magazine and other publications in the United State, Europe, Asia and Africa,

Bath

She wanted to lie down next to me.
She did.
I said she ought to know there were no chances;
she took hers.

I remember this silent night
in my flat
up there
up the Plantation Shop
Bath
Nineteen
Ninety-six

Fanny
was her name
she once met the Native
and shared his wrath
against the wall
of uncertainties
that went up
between us.

Andy and Paul
were cutting plants,
tidying the shop,
clearing things,
counting money.
When she went downstairs
she helped herself with a cup of coffee
the smell of it filled up the kitchen.

I let her go
I had to
she had to go
and there were no
other ways.
The Native would come back shortly after.
He had been out all night.
Staring at the sky,
talking to the moon,
to the stars,
his fingers touching the darkest patch of the ethereal net
up there.

He entered the room
I was still lying on my bed.
He lied next to me.
The wine vapours still lingered in his hair,
on his clothes, on his pale skin.
I touched his back.
He said I ought to know there were no chances;
I got up
and went to work.


Previously published in Aesthetica Magazine, 2008

Walter Ruhlmann,

Mamoudzou, Mayotte,

France.

Walter Ruhlmann was born in 1974 in France. He currently lives in Mamoudzou, Mayotte where he works as an English teacher. He has been publishing mgvesion2>datura for fifteen years. Walter is the author of several poetry chapbooks and published poems in magazines such as Magnapoets, Poetic Diversity, Aesthetica Magazine, Ygdrasil, Above Ground Testing. He co-edited and translated poems for the bilingual free verse and form section for the anniversary issue of Magnapoets in January 2011.

Miss Lakeishia Sings The Blues

Listen, mister, you're a guest
at the Night Owl Club
so you can sit here
all night long, tip me
after every song,
buy me scotch
till the final gong
but none of this will help.

You'll still go home alone
unless some other lady has a need
to make her rent
and sees the opportunity
you offer. It won't be me;
I can't be bothered.
I need a different kind of man,
a man who'll hug me tighter

than my panties can,
a big old man
whose big old tongue
will be my tampon
when I'm dry.
If you'll get off that stool
and look in the mirror
behind those whiskey bottles

standing at attention,
you'll see clearly why
you can never be that man,
not even for an hour.
I'm no Billie Holliday,
but even with my glasses off,
I can see that you
ain't no John Wayne.

Donal Mahoney

donalmahoney@charter.net
---------------------

Donal Mahoney lives in St. Louis, Missouri, U.S.A. He has had poems published in a variety of print and online publications, including Public Republic (Bulgaria), Revival (Ireland), Ancient Heart Magazine (Australia), The Istanbul Literary Review (Turkey), Poetry Bulawayo (Zimbabwe), The Christian Science Monitor and Commonwealth.

Awakening

The sun trembled of its hot rays
sensitive to the cold, he remained there, doing nothing
he looked at the world in flames
the earth burning
the hell in front of his eyes and the flowers' as impure as the skies
when they ejaculate the psalms of the divine
avenger.

It is like a flashback:
a brother at his sides
seem to wait patiently
before the scream lay them down.
Marie, you still suffer from these infamies,
Joe shakes you such a long time, so often,
flowers of the fields
the songs put the spell on you
go back to Consecrated Land,
go back into the blue cave,
the children will show you the way.

In the blue cave
I am lying down on a bed of straw,
I am looking at the vault,
the solidified drawings,
the traces of my depressed ancestors.

The house burns.
The brain explodes.
I don't want to stay here anymore

Walter Ruhlmann Mamoudzou,
Mayotte, France

Walter Ruhlmann was born in 1974 in France. He currently lives in Mamoudzou, Mayotte where he works as an English teacher. Walter lived in England from 1995 to 1997. He began publishing Mauvaise graine, a literary magazine, in 1996, now know as mgvesion2>datura. Back in France, he has carried on publishing and writing mostly poetry, although he has published short stories in several French-language magazines. Walter is the author of several poetry booklets and published poems in magazines such as Magnapoets, Poetic Diversity, Aesthetica Magazine, Ygdrasil, Above Ground Testing. He edited and translated poems for the bilingual free verse and form section for the anniversary issue of Magnapoets in January 2011.