Sunday, 23 January 2011

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.

Tuesday, 21 December 2010

Prism

Just as the sun descends into
A drop of water
Creating a canvass of hues
The 7 columns of mist-spray
Embrace it with open arms
Painting a world of colours into
Its little body

I too possess a sun
And when I embrace it
A spectrum of rainbow-flowers grow from within me
All it takes is a slight change of direction
And again I become
A simple droplet of water
Blank and colourless.

Rehan Qayoom
London
www.rehanqayoompoet.blogspot.com

Friday, 5 November 2010

Cuckold's Plea

You'll never see him again, you say,
but what if he brings to your room
a midnight poem he says
he's written for you.

Will you read it together
a couple of times, out loud,
as you have in the past?
And what if he then

shoots like a rocket
into the forest, igniting the fire,
as he has in the past.
Will you see him again?

We have the children
to think about.
That's why I'm here.
We all need to know.


Donal Mahoney
P.O. Box 140184
St. Louis,
Missouri 63114-0184
U.S.A.
donalmahoney@charter.net

Saturday, 11 September 2010

Shadows Falling from the Heart

for Kelly K. Moran

Before they fell in love
he'd met her heart in a dream.
It offered hope and beat within him,
brought soil and light to the trees.

Then she came to him, full-bright,
an unearthly light across the fields.

As she spoke
her voice lifted flowers from the gray.
They swelled and broke the silence within him,
brought blue to the sea.

In such time she carried him, sleep-quiet,
placed his broken body in the arms of angels.

When the shadows fell away, one by one,
they could see that his heart resembled hers.
An undeniable sign.

Oh love, mysterious thing,
as vital to life as the stars are to the universe,
you are what gives God his sight.


Jason Sturner
Wheaton, Illinois, U.S.A.
www.jasonsturner.blogspot.com

Wednesday, 1 September 2010

Swing and Creak

See-sawing in the breeze-
the thin crusted line
between the disparate worlds
is trodden down by soft petal-toed feet,
on this day of horrors.

On other dark hued days preceding.
On the long oily chain of days following.

Said but not spread,
only to whim
and not design.
It is not bright,
not suffiently warm enough to
gnaw holes in the freezing ice that covers everything.
freezing innocuous
moments like diseased flies in amber.

Find oneself in a familiar, previously trodden down spot?
Say welcome back Mrs.


Rebecca Woods
becki.woods@hotmail.co.uk

Wednesday, 16 June 2010

Homesick

Far.
It is not long since the moon crept in
And broke a few silver paces across the deck.
Not Far.
Since the light held your eyes,
As a lonely crystal flew
Across your face.
Liquid.
It is not far.
Since the day waved goodbye to morning
And welcomed politely the afternoon.
It is not far.
Since the earth jumped to caress you
Warm its kiss upon your face encased in nevers and not evers.
It is not far.
To walk to hear your laughter.
No, no,
It is not far.


Natalie Williams,
Wirral, UK
nataliewilliams-gypsybutterfly@hotmail.co.uk

Thursday, 18 February 2010

Tangle

As your broad stemmed green shoots emerge
from the heather, slowly
eclipsing the rosemary and dandelion
rooted with azalea and blackberry intertwined, and your viburnum,
fuschia, and yucca crowd
the cedars, cherries, dogwoods, magnolias,
on whose feet
the climbing rose and English ivy tangle, hopelessly
thriving, I want

to know
when will I know enough to stand still with you, too still
to say your name?


Christianne Balk
cbalk@juno.com
Seattle, Washington
USA