Viracocha

Viracocha 
god of sun & storm 
creator of all things

wearing a sun crown
thunderbolts for hands
tears streaming from black eyes

hoarding the substance
of universe & civilization 

commanding sun to move across sky
offering an intimate measure of time 


Ashley Parker Owens,

Richmond, KY, USA
parker.owens@gmail.com 

First Cut

The first cut is brutal
always deep with cold
blade tearing into timber
opening a pathway
for subtler strokes
slicing with sharpness, 
carving strongly,
the base for intricate designs
on blocks gripped tightly
in the jaws of steel vices

The last cut is gentler
a loving after thought
adding a signature
to shaped and shaved fibres
decorating with care
completed artistry
the chisel held lightly
like a violin bow
in the closing movement
of a great concerto.



David Subacchi
Wrexham
Wales (UK)
david.subacchi@tiscali.co.uk

The Darkness Within

To wake with a dark blanket over my head is a recurring event that I want to opt out of.

To breathe is such hard work now as it seems like energy wasted on this empty body.

Yearning to taste life again, to savour happiness, to drink in life and all it has to offer.

My eyelids open with hazel eyes inside that see only black onyx life.

The blood still pumps through my veins but the flow does not bring a rush of life but a stream of still.

Breathe in breathe out, that is the continual work that my lungs keep doing.

My skin still feels to touch, my lips still moist to kiss and my heart still has love.

Maybe the love will light this darkness and show the way to life.

L. van der Draay

Sydney,

Australia

Answer Now

I was just a boy 
but I remember Hitler
at the start

and how too few 
understood his plan to
do away with Jews.

I’m a codger now
certain that too few 
understand ISIS 

so let the word go forth
for all with eyes to see
and ears to hear:

We have another genocide,
this one more inclusive. 
We must answer now

or else Christians, Jews 
and Muslims too will keep 
dying in the sand.


Donal Mahoney

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

Ad Nauseam

In the mind of my eye, I see a world of sand on fire
water turned to stone with shopping carts embedded 
in frozen suspension
s t r a i n e d pigeons 
caught in them
a bloated corpse on a couch inside the rubble of a home
in front of a television set that houses syndicated lives
a man lives in a clock on the wall
chasing a cuckoo with a shotgun that BLASTS at the top 
of every hour
a broken record on a turntable repeats intestinal strings 
murdering crows perched above roofless beds 
monitoring stale dreams 

the sky falls
in 
jagged 
pieces
splintering earth while overgrown silverfish and earwigs run amok
engaging in gang battles with cockroaches.


Parker Weston
Mesa, 
Arizona, US
facebook.com/artofparker
parkerwneely@gmail.com

World Cup

The ISIS Brit
tall in the desert

blade by his side
talks to the camera

severs the head 
of the orange infidel

kneeling beside him 
kicks the head

across the sand
while the world 

has a beer
in its coliseum

deaf to Satan
shouting “Goal!”


Donal Mahoney

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

Unfit

I feel unfit
mentally obese
the little grey cells
have matured like John Major
into something ignored and sour

Can the old biro
still scrawl anything half true
relegated to a dusty shelf
of things no one’s sure they should throw away

easier to soak the mind
in old TV, beer, cigars and fear

Why say it in 40 lines
in begging for money magazines
which still insist dead trees
are needed for our muses
when one can littler twitter
and disqus with mental pus
that will remain forever unloved
till someone presses the off button.


Anthony Miller
http://www.pearshapedcomedy.com/A_E_Miller_Poetry.html
mraemiller@aemiller.net