Issue 2 - December 2007 - Poetry
The Hunger World by Hanna Krishna S. Callora
Perfection on surgical tables
Fast cars suede pumps
Seize the day or the Dolce!
Blinded by the bling, a choir of benjamins sing
Clinical fables of mice and men.
Turn up the treble on your disappearing freckle
Trapped in the velvet vanity of the hunger world
A quick fix –
The easy way out through a needle prick.
Hide in a haystack despite the rains,
Alcoholy water in your veins,
Chemical wonders cooked up by warriors,
Chopper rides to the moon’s crater,
Thrust and fast and scream out your lust –
Brief joys fall into submission.
Hitch a ride to the morgue
On a one-way trip to the hunger world.
Legal action for emancipation
A statue of liberation
A journey with written directions
Holiday proclamation
The finish line of a marathon
Fists up in red flag celebration
A revolution for the hunger world's resurrection.
Lure a cure for preys of terminal conclusion
Inquiring minds on a subway mission
A feast of the senses in brown paper packages
Band-aids for broken promises
Casket sales from the crypt
Robbed of a honeymoon suite
Shards of glass in a slash
Wear your grief with a sash
Palms up to the constellations
Humming coin prayers for salvation
Bearing a sign for the generation of poor,
That said, "Feed The Hunger World."
21 by Robyn Dennis
In among the haar-cast heather
On hills that furrow winds of winter,
Pen is wrought in endless measure
As tideful thoughts arise
And fall into abeyance.
The solicitude of youth
Has me in its grasp,
And I ponder how I might escape
The disgraces of my age
But this, to no avail.
What has happened in my life
Aside from the passage of time?
Things have fallen away; people, places
And what have I gained but
A troubled mind?
Like light to weary retina
I cannot see,
With clarity,
This streaked and swirling
World of reality.
Short Poems 2006 by John Foster
i. Lookunlike
This could be a photo of Irvine Welsh
If only he looked more like somebody else
ii. This Is The Third
For several days now
I have had two poems in my head
Balanced, as it were.
Today I wrote one down
And as I did the second vanished.
This is the third.
iii. 3 lines
I wanted to fit all you are into three lines
Will you wait till I improve
Or will I wait till you diminish
iv. No, no, no, no, no
My father lies
Full fathoms six.
Contrary git.
v. Oh My Scars
'Oh oh my scars, my wounds, my scars'
You flaunt your scabs for all to see
And reckon that it's poetry
That comes out if you squeeze them hard.
vi. This Actually Happened
Today
I found my wallet
Underneath
The Communist Manifesto
Sea of Poets by Rachel Fox
I’m in a sea of poets
And drowning while I swim
The water’s soused in meaning
The light from shore so dim
Some poets just keep groaning
I even hear a shout
“Some of us are better
The rest of you – get out!”
But groups are bobbing past now
And more and more appear
The water is so crowded
A threshold must be near
We cannot all stay swimming
And leave the land so bare
But who gets to stay buoyant here
Who washed up over there?
I swim but in a funny way
Too many thoughts in mind
The sea’s not what it used to be
And fish are hard to find.
The Vanishing by Ella Hickson
Two tired pages of Ted Hughes stick
With an orange disk;
Marmalade-made.
Prised part with a finger slip,
I wonder if you cried.
Pages that cupped the buttocks of coffee cups
Corners that turned, shame-faced, from focus,
A spine so crippled by your persistent pleasure
Or pain?
Did you cry on these pages?
Flicking the sagging stains of water drops
I find the smudge of your identity.
Your thumb has thumbed this page
Before mine.
I wonder if you cried.
A line becomes a lamp-lit city street
With commas for corners where couples kiss.
Where you took a seat and watched and questioned
The vanishing.
Oh God I hope you cried.
Did you allow yourself
A little light comparison,
Through the silent howls of night?
When midnight stole your feet
And crawling, hands and knees
Through pitching vacant night,
You needed him.
We needed you.
By morning you had to be my mother.
You pressed through pelting pages of
'Daddy Daddy Daddy',
Who had become a meagre type of man.
You were bionic in benevolence,
A factory for mending men and wiping eyes.
You must have cried with tears you'd earned,
From buckling shoes and packing lunches
From sucking in a lower lip
From Sainsburys to an unmanned mansion
Where slowly we slid from four to three.
This book, your ally then, clutched as I clutch now
Determined it should make a little more sense of things
In my small world of dramas in the oh-so-minor key.
I tuck myself between its downy pages
And squeeze it to me, pillow palimpsest.
If it means a thing, I am humbled by your victory -
You never left me milk and bread.
Dreams by Coirle Magee
As we walked in
Our party slowed to let her go ahead,
Catching breath at stumbles in her step.
Before the small hands neared the ground
We swooped, and caught her so she would not cry.
Tiny feet took time to shuffle
To the chair; then when we sat she would not choose
Some food, but scribbled crayon flowers.
The teapot sat before me,
Silver steaming gently as it cooled.
A small hand reached and hovered
Near the handle; With a gasp,
I snatched and reached it first.
A lucky swipe left my hand striped with red,
But hers quite safe. I smiled and heard her laugh.
Two years had taught no caution.
We turned at jangling bells,
A signal of arrival, holding on too long.
The door kept wide by a waitress
With pity for a smile, to let the old man through.
We stared as that man leant upon the frame
As we were leant on by the child. A whisper to the waitress,
Who flinched from him as he inclined to speak.
Ninety today, we were informed.
They flocked around him, cooing,
As though he could not hear their words,
Or if he could, would not reply.
They brought him cake, told him he need not pay.
‘Ninety years? Well, aren’t you getting on!’
They crooned, as if his mind had ceased
Or wrinkles replaced shame. A bright balloon
Nodded by his sparse white hair.
I stirred my tea in silent thought,
Looking from the old man to the girl.
Three meters, eight decades and eight years
Were between them, but dependants both.
Does only rapid speech gain us respect?
Or do we lose that right with legs that shake?
Dreams of the future fell in futile heaps
With that idea; Not love nor fame
Will make the fare one way to glory.
My little cousin laughed and grabbed the tea.
Breaking a habit by Zach Zeid
Breaking a habit
is like killing a man
so they said
languished away
20 to life cells
So simple!
So easy!
to kill a man
than to kill a habit
I thought so too
till I killed a habit
and got my own
cell
20 to life.