At Some Point

Some day,
I think you’ll know my heart.
You’ll pick up the folder, book, journal
and break your heart
like the ice forming outside,
(At least this sheet)

You’ll know
how hurt I was when forgotten
when i was secondary
to life in general
the show,
phone call.

at this point,
i am gone
a scratch of ink lines
stretching a word to a thought,
into a strange passion,
you’ve never read.

Dave Barber
Albuquerque, New Mexico
United States

Desert Poem

Windprint on the clear face soothes man’s mark
Mirror patterns of nature’s art.

We climb in order to survey
And at each brow
Another dune ascends
Nature mocks our miniature attempts.

Shapes of hip and cheek and brow
The endless line twixt sky and sand.

Mind and lungs expand
To meet the stretch of desert space
Ripples to land’s end.

Samantha Burns
Salalah
Oman

Life of a Candle

Count the carbons
fifteen, twenty, twenty-five
yes, linked, bound, binding
together into a cold set.

Useless,
until fire
lights me,
then,

Burning coldly
casting our amber light
into rooms.

But what of it?
who counts the candle
save a monastery
pressing prayers into his hands

lighting,
extinguishing and lighting again.

day after day.

when I’m burned out
spilling my liquid
useless short wick,

then I’m waste
just that collection
of carbon refuge.

Collection: 'Natural Law'

Dave Barber
Albuquerque, New Mexico
United States

Where the Mountain Took Him

Imagine this room,
stain on the dark wooden floor
hole where the gas line ran
where I sat up worried
I’d killed everyone.
A room wet with guilt
a shrine to ignorance
and naivety,
a manger of pain.
This room changed
but remained the same.
When I kept falling down
it made the same crash.
When I returned,
it was for sewing-
(Nothing else really)

My feet creak the floor
boards giving under the weight
of years, or under my shadow-
light
shadow
both mixed.
No shadow of turning.

Dave Barber
Albuquerque, New Mexico
United States
(Upcoming Book: 'Don’t Ask Those Questions')

Eternal Return

Before the day my heart was shattered,
My thoughts eternally return.
A perfect likeness won’t discern.
Enochian doused fractions whispered
‘The price of love is ego martyred.’
Father Time’s trapped in passion’s urn.
Before the day my heart was shattered,
My thoughts eternally return.
I was a mouldering moon fettered
To orbit radiance that burned.
A stagnant satellite, I yearn
For those days when each moment mattered
Before the day my heart was shattered:
My thoughts eternally return.

Justin Ehrlich
Essex
England
lordhenry@hotmail.co.uk

ISSN awarded

You may have noticed the ISSN appearing in the top right-hand corner of the screen. I just had confirmation form a very friendly contact at the National Library of Australia that I am allowed to continue to use the existing ISSN here in Australia. I always derive a sense of excitement when an ISSN is awarded. It denotes official approval of one's efforts. Good stuff.

Soul Flare

I sent you a wish last night.
Just for you.
While you were sleeping,
And I was awake,
I sent it marked and wrapped.
I tapped it with kisses.
When it was gone I missed it.

Did you get my wish?
You never replied.
Although you didn't need to,
I'd have liked it if you had.
I feel less complete now, but satisfied.
I fell asleep when it was done.
I was tired.

So just in case it was lost in transit,
Just to check,
What it did feel like to receive?
Could you believe it?
Did you laugh? Or cry?
Did you sleep through it?
Did you weep?

Really, I'd like a reply.
I'd like to know why
I'm without a soul.
You never said a word.
I never heard a thank you,
Or a murmur.

It was a gift you couldn't compare.
Just something I drummed up
In my sleepy time.
A soul flare.

Natalie Williams
Liverpool,
United Kingdom

Friendly fellow editor

Have a look at the current issue of Poetry Life and Times, a great UK based poetry mag edited by my good mate Robin Ouzman Hislop. He always manages to get great content and makes a point of supporting new talent. In the current issue there is a mention of AHM and also a few poems by yours truly. Have a look, then come back here and submit a brilliant poem.

Arrived in Oz

Dear readers and poetry lovers, the good news is that your editor has survived his first week in beautiful Balmain. Already, I have seen the interior of quite a number of its famous pubs. I look forward to publishing poems from all over, but it would be nice if I could include a local poem for the first one to hit the pixels of my mag after re-launching here in Sydney. Spread the word and do submit, always submit..

Encounter with the Possible World

Where you can be sitting on a shelf
Half dusty, fully forgotten
When you can have an encounter
With the possible world that you will never forget
And fall hard into the mud one day
Cause your shelf gave out a little after the flood had finally surrendered
Like a curio, your life is an object onto its Self
Like a souvenir from a place
That normally would have been forgotten . That’s how it’s supposed to be…
Except the Possible World will one day arrive
Like a loud accusing angel, just, say, call him Ike.
Ike the invisible equalizer.
Ike the wasteful hunter.
Ike the destroyer of the objects that hold the memories that hold our lives.

Now voyager -
Exchanging one dream for another…
That is what an encounter with the possible world can do.
Even if you are half-dusty


II

(and some God some where works, furiously focused on just today.
I guess like a real God would.
Forgetting the past, forgiving the future
Ready to hear the case of the next accusing angel)


Tony Wynn
Galveston Island, USA
From the collection - 'Hurricane Writings'

Embryo

Lifeless flesh clinging for its life,
Anticipating breath, before it formed a mind
The yearning to have vision, before it formed its eyes.
An immaculate decision, with wisdom from up high.

Buoyant pre-existence, amphibious with persistence
Comfortably claustrophobic, and growing by the inches
Searching for the answers in its maternal prison
Why had I been chosen, or isn’t it my business?

A council of the Angels arrive at their position
Asking all the questions as they sit and watch and listen.
Once the scroll is rolled up the writing can begin
A life that’s full of questions, the answers lay within.

Jason DeAngelis
Caroline Springs,
Victoria, Australia

Not long now!

Just a few more weeks and AHM and I will be leaving for Sydney, Australia. Ancient Heart Magazine will be an Australian poetry magazine, which in itself I quite like. In due course I shall be applying for an Aussie ISSN but the blog/mag needs to get going a bit more first.

I've started spreading the word about AHM's new incarnation a bit more so hopefully we'll see a few more submissions. Counting down..

Bliss

caught between
flights of rainbows
and spirit’s sighs

chasing handfuls of life
pulled whole from the blush of dawn,
twirling in a fragrant rose-hued breeze,
drowning in the innocence
of bliss

delicate moss yields, softly,
giving gracefully beneath my touch,
and the cool morning dew
settles on my skin,
gleaming

Donna L. Doyle
Nova Scotia, Canada

36 Watts

Lighthouses, it seems, take thirty-six watt bulbs
A third of those that shine above me, used
To keep rocks unencrusted by skeletons
Hulls draped like whalebone fossils over stone

How many men does it take to change them?
No joke when so far from shore, remote
And guarded even from repair crews’ boats
By frothing water sheathing points beneath

No men wait within the place these days, no
Bearded keeper, lonely, watching out for
Shadows of things lit too near the rocks
No peaceful stay within this man made spur

Nothing but that single thirty-six watt bulb.

Stuart Sharp,
Beverley.

First submission in!

Stuart Sharp from Beverley is the first ever contributor to this new incarnation of Ancient Heart Magazine. Check out the next post for his poem 36 Watts. Great stuff and thank you Stuart!

Setting course!

The good ship Ancient Heart Magazine is setting sail again. Still based in the old harbour town of Bristol but within the near future we'll be arriving in our new base of Sydney, Australia, another famous harbour city. More news about this will be forthcoming at some point.

For now, let's enjoy the fact that the poetry mag is alive and well again and let's see whose poem will be the very first to be published.

I'm waiting..

Austral

I'll get there, you'll see,
Come hell or high water,
I'll set foot on that blessed land,
That lucky country,
That southern heart that made me long for it.

I'll be older,
And not much wiser,
And certainly no surf dude,
But I will make my way,
And lay my head down somewhere I can call home
For the very first time.

Richard James,
Bristol, UK

Alive and kicking all over again!

Well, here we are again. Some of you may remember the UK poetry magazine with the same title that appeared in print and online for a number of years. Towards the end of its run I found that far too much time was taken up with correspondence, submissions, answering emails and queries and much more besides. It proved to be a distraction from the noble art of poetry and my Muse was not best pleased, I can tell you..

That is why this time around, things will be different. The mag will appear in blog format and rather than submitting your poems by email the process will be thus:

Submissions:

-Leave your poem (just one poem!), your pen name, home town and optional email address as a comment on the last appearing poem/blog post. So, all you need to do is post a comment on the latest blog post here and in due course you may see your poem show up on this blog that just happens to be a poetry magazine.

-Nota Bene: I will not be entering into any correspondence and I won't be acknowledging receipt of your poem or feel obliged to answer any other queries.

-Let's have some fun!