Bipolar Sunday
Red Hot Chili peppers strumming
through the ceiling as my upstairs
neighbor plays his fuzzy electric
guitar. Weird phrases
keep falling from my fingertips
and I rise, a baby phoenix,
from the fire and ice of manic
depression, crazed and alone.
Sometimes it feels like
peacock tails and dusty tumbleweeds.
The pace revved up inside
my well-greased and dripping brain.
Captivated by a sparkle or
brought low by an unkind word,
I turn slowly,
a broken-winged angel,
towards the musical face of the sun.
Kallima Hamilton's worked as an assistant museum librarian, ESL instructor and legal clerk. Her poetry has appeared in Mudlark, Sugar Mule and Shenandoah.
Friday, February 24, 2012
Thursday, February 23, 2012
Austin McCarron
The Indispensible Guide to Unearthly Practices
After a universe of time,
spring is a shock to my eyes:
the promise
of light in a chimney of air.
On hills or near gardens, baby
lambs offer kisses of new blood.
Beautiful animals glide on
colours and draw blinds of sound.
There is a gift of water, like breath
in open veins,
but leaves of skin gather like food
of inconsolable factories
around plants and trees and lawns.
Looking ahead I throw away the
blanket of its extraordinary aim but
it is not higher within, where graves
fester like flies around sweating pits.
The sun of fire returns a blaze but its
inner light is forked. In spiritual
green the doctors of spent deliveries
appear in shining
boots to unravel traces of the dead.
Roots of demonic earth I fail to revive.
I see into the mirror of its eyes and find
nothing but still
like worms in hair its silence is a word.
After a universe of time,
spring is a shock to my eyes:
the promise
of light in a chimney of air.
On hills or near gardens, baby
lambs offer kisses of new blood.
Beautiful animals glide on
colours and draw blinds of sound.
There is a gift of water, like breath
in open veins,
but leaves of skin gather like food
of inconsolable factories
around plants and trees and lawns.
Looking ahead I throw away the
blanket of its extraordinary aim but
it is not higher within, where graves
fester like flies around sweating pits.
The sun of fire returns a blaze but its
inner light is forked. In spiritual
green the doctors of spent deliveries
appear in shining
boots to unravel traces of the dead.
Roots of demonic earth I fail to revive.
I see into the mirror of its eyes and find
nothing but still
like worms in hair its silence is a word.
Wednesday, February 08, 2012
Tatjana Debeljački
Japanese Mountaineer
Filled up with lust
to quench my thirst,
shocked through the rays
of the tired sun.
Revived by the breath.
Ignited, you wake me up,
you kindle during my sleep
the last signs
of recognition.
Every ground letter
You bring back written
In all languages
In the dark lair.
Smudge again
The colors across the dead
whiteness of the night, smash the dawn
before the sun.
From the night, the flowers bloom
And the morning is glittering in the horizon,
Under the veil of the morning.
The eyes of the mountaineer,
The light of the sun
Japanese mountaineer
naked in the moonlight.
Tatjana Debeljački was born on 23.04.1967 in Užice. Writes poetry, short stories, stories and haiku. Member of Association of Writers of Serbia -UKS since 2004 and Haiku Society of Serbia - HDS Serbia, HUSCG – Montenegro and HDPR, Croatia. A member of Writers’ Association Poeta, Belgrade since 2008, HKD Croatia since 2009 and a member of Poetry Society "Antun Ivanošić" Osijek since 2011. Deputy of the main editor (cooperation with magazines & interviews).
http://diogen.weebly.com/redakcijaeditorial-board.html
Editor of the magazine "Poeta", published by Writers’ Association "Poeta"
http://www.poetabg.com/
Union of Yugoslav Writers in Homeland and Immigration – Belgrade, Literary Club Yesenin – Belgrade. Up to now, she has published four collections of poetry: “A HOUSE MADE OF GLASS “, published by ART – Užice in 1996; collection of poems “YOURS“, published by Narodna knjiga Belgrade in 2003; collection of haiku poetry “VOLCANO”, published by Lotos from Valjevo in 2004. A CD book “A HOUSE MADE OF GLASS” published by ART in 2005, bilingual SR-EN with music, AH-EH-IH-OH-UH, published by Poeta, Belgrade in 2008. Her poetry and haiku have been translated into several languages. Email/Websites/Blogs http://debeljacki.mojblog.rs/
Filled up with lust
to quench my thirst,
shocked through the rays
of the tired sun.
Revived by the breath.
Ignited, you wake me up,
you kindle during my sleep
the last signs
of recognition.
Every ground letter
You bring back written
In all languages
In the dark lair.
Smudge again
The colors across the dead
whiteness of the night, smash the dawn
before the sun.
From the night, the flowers bloom
And the morning is glittering in the horizon,
Under the veil of the morning.
The eyes of the mountaineer,
The light of the sun
Japanese mountaineer
naked in the moonlight.
Tatjana Debeljački was born on 23.04.1967 in Užice. Writes poetry, short stories, stories and haiku. Member of Association of Writers of Serbia -UKS since 2004 and Haiku Society of Serbia - HDS Serbia, HUSCG – Montenegro and HDPR, Croatia. A member of Writers’ Association Poeta, Belgrade since 2008, HKD Croatia since 2009 and a member of Poetry Society "Antun Ivanošić" Osijek since 2011. Deputy of the main editor (cooperation with magazines & interviews).
http://diogen.weebly.com/redakcijaeditorial-board.html
Editor of the magazine "Poeta", published by Writers’ Association "Poeta"
http://www.poetabg.com/
Union of Yugoslav Writers in Homeland and Immigration – Belgrade, Literary Club Yesenin – Belgrade. Up to now, she has published four collections of poetry: “A HOUSE MADE OF GLASS “, published by ART – Užice in 1996; collection of poems “YOURS“, published by Narodna knjiga Belgrade in 2003; collection of haiku poetry “VOLCANO”, published by Lotos from Valjevo in 2004. A CD book “A HOUSE MADE OF GLASS” published by ART in 2005, bilingual SR-EN with music, AH-EH-IH-OH-UH, published by Poeta, Belgrade in 2008. Her poetry and haiku have been translated into several languages. Email/Websites/Blogs http://debeljacki.mojblog.rs/
Monday, January 30, 2012
Peter Taylor
Words
I want to say thank you
for welcoming me into your healing homes
even though all I do is dishes
and then I break a few—
eleven, I think; maybe six.
They are buried in the usual places.
I want to say thank you
for teaching me useful things again,
like eggs that have more than chickens
in them, frogs, cooking spices,
playing cards, and how some walls
that are hard and immovable
can be beautiful, too.
I want to say thank you
for listening to my poems
even though they made you cry,
and trusting me with your car,
and offering me kindness
I could not find on my own.
I want to say thank you
but dream, this is family.
Peter Taylor’s poems explore how time and imagination shape our perceptions of the world through creative expression. He is the author of three books and his poems have appeared in literary journals in Australia , Canada , the Caribbean, France , India , Romania , Sweden , the United Kingdom , and the United States . He lives in Aurora , Canada .
I want to say thank you
for welcoming me into your healing homes
even though all I do is dishes
and then I break a few—
eleven, I think; maybe six.
They are buried in the usual places.
I want to say thank you
for teaching me useful things again,
like eggs that have more than chickens
in them, frogs, cooking spices,
playing cards, and how some walls
that are hard and immovable
can be beautiful, too.
I want to say thank you
for listening to my poems
even though they made you cry,
and trusting me with your car,
and offering me kindness
I could not find on my own.
I want to say thank you
but dream, this is family.
Peter Taylor’s poems explore how time and imagination shape our perceptions of the world through creative expression. He is the author of three books and his poems have appeared in literary journals in Australia , Canada , the Caribbean, France , India , Romania , Sweden , the United Kingdom , and the United States . He lives in Aurora , Canada .
Sunday, January 29, 2012
Sophie Waring
Bring Battle
To hasten the clouds that
charge the west in the dark. Light
of the red apple that peels
itself from the caterpillar
and crudely turns crimson.
Where are the babies now?
Are they turning flash west? Coconut
bluebells of African descent are folding into tulips –
a clown of great importance, an eel
in the bath.
She was a north-westerly,
diacritic situation, bringing gingerbread
to the house of Eden,
rubbing rosemary on her thighs.
Orange fever, bring me the children.
Let me feed them
my home, my sanity
in its own right. Great golden houses
with little yellow men. No crowns,
no leftover rivers
or open wound sores.
Sophie Waring: I am twenty-one years old and live in Palmerston North, New Zealand with my fiance. When I was eighteen, I plummeted into a dark and dangerous world. I was in the prime of my life, having just recieved dux of my highschool. I was studying towards a double major at Massey university and finished my first year with straight A's, but I was holding a dark secret. Following self-harm, substance abuse, overdose and a very close suicide attempt, I spent seven weeks in a psychiatric ward. I left hugely medicated and sedated and the next year was quite a battle. However, I feel like just now my life is getting back on track. I felt unable to write (though I had a massive output while unwell) until recently, and although my studies never resumed, I have just started a new position training to become a pharmacy dispensary technician. I am also engaged to my soul mate and feel like I am finally happy. For someone my age, I feel like an old soul. I probably know myself, as well as the ins and outs of life, more than a lot of people. My values have completely changed, but what's important to me now is family, love and happiness.
To hasten the clouds that
charge the west in the dark. Light
of the red apple that peels
itself from the caterpillar
and crudely turns crimson.
Where are the babies now?
Are they turning flash west? Coconut
bluebells of African descent are folding into tulips –
a clown of great importance, an eel
in the bath.
She was a north-westerly,
diacritic situation, bringing gingerbread
to the house of Eden,
rubbing rosemary on her thighs.
Orange fever, bring me the children.
Let me feed them
my home, my sanity
in its own right. Great golden houses
with little yellow men. No crowns,
no leftover rivers
or open wound sores.
Sophie Waring: I am twenty-one years old and live in Palmerston North, New Zealand with my fiance. When I was eighteen, I plummeted into a dark and dangerous world. I was in the prime of my life, having just recieved dux of my highschool. I was studying towards a double major at Massey university and finished my first year with straight A's, but I was holding a dark secret. Following self-harm, substance abuse, overdose and a very close suicide attempt, I spent seven weeks in a psychiatric ward. I left hugely medicated and sedated and the next year was quite a battle. However, I feel like just now my life is getting back on track. I felt unable to write (though I had a massive output while unwell) until recently, and although my studies never resumed, I have just started a new position training to become a pharmacy dispensary technician. I am also engaged to my soul mate and feel like I am finally happy. For someone my age, I feel like an old soul. I probably know myself, as well as the ins and outs of life, more than a lot of people. My values have completely changed, but what's important to me now is family, love and happiness.
Friday, January 27, 2012
Thomas L. Vaultonburg
Bus Station
Please don’t steal my bag.
Please don’t steal my blue bag
With all my poems in it.
Please don’t try to to steal my
Blue bag with all my poems
In it and a bag of pepitas
And the number for my caseworker
Then feign confusion when caught
Because you, too, have a blue bag
That says Downtown Mental Health Center.
Please don’t try to lift my blue
Bag with all my mom’s cancer poems
And the name of my caseworker in it etc...
It’s far too heavy.
Beaten
Every face
At the bus station
Is a torn
Lottery ticket.
Thomas L. Vaultonburg is from Rockford, Illinois, United States. He was diagnosed with both Schizoid Personality Disorder and Major depressive Disorder at age 16. Most of his adult life has been a battle against these disorders. Poetry has always been one of his great solaces. His poetry has appeared in Exquisite Corpse, Chiron Review, Caliban, Bogg, Gargoyle, and others.
Please don’t steal my bag.
Please don’t steal my blue bag
With all my poems in it.
Please don’t try to to steal my
Blue bag with all my poems
In it and a bag of pepitas
And the number for my caseworker
Then feign confusion when caught
Because you, too, have a blue bag
That says Downtown Mental Health Center.
Please don’t try to lift my blue
Bag with all my mom’s cancer poems
And the name of my caseworker in it etc...
It’s far too heavy.
Beaten
Every face
At the bus station
Is a torn
Lottery ticket.
Thomas L. Vaultonburg is from Rockford, Illinois, United States. He was diagnosed with both Schizoid Personality Disorder and Major depressive Disorder at age 16. Most of his adult life has been a battle against these disorders. Poetry has always been one of his great solaces. His poetry has appeared in Exquisite Corpse, Chiron Review, Caliban, Bogg, Gargoyle, and others.
Thursday, January 26, 2012
B.Z. Niditch
Understanding
What signals
when eyes withdraw
their masks
and you notice
a light twinkles
on a mushrooming
face with expressionism
rebounding to thought
of choreography
covering themselves
in the air
of conversation
in ideograms of language
hidden from awareness
that only a poet
would comprehend.
B.Z. Niditch is a poet, playwright, fiction writer and teacher. His work is widely published in journals and magazines throughout the world, including: Columbia: A Magazine of Poetry and Art; The Literary Review; Denver Quarterly; Hawaii Review,; Le Guepard (France); Kadmos (France); Prism International; Jejune (Czech Republic); Leopold Bloom (Budapest); Antioch Review; and Prairie Schooner, among others. He lives in Brookline, Massachusetts.
What signals
when eyes withdraw
their masks
and you notice
a light twinkles
on a mushrooming
face with expressionism
rebounding to thought
of choreography
covering themselves
in the air
of conversation
in ideograms of language
hidden from awareness
that only a poet
would comprehend.
B.Z. Niditch is a poet, playwright, fiction writer and teacher. His work is widely published in journals and magazines throughout the world, including: Columbia: A Magazine of Poetry and Art; The Literary Review; Denver Quarterly; Hawaii Review,; Le Guepard (France); Kadmos (France); Prism International; Jejune (Czech Republic); Leopold Bloom (Budapest); Antioch Review; and Prairie Schooner, among others. He lives in Brookline, Massachusetts.
Sunday, December 18, 2011
Jefferson Hansen
Schizophrenics
the people I know
with schizophrenia
are a far cry from “schizos”—
the stereotypical guy
drooling in his beard
who takes a break
from braying at the moon
only long enough to ask
for a quarter
as for violence
most violent acts
are committed
by so-called healthy folks
the actual dangerous category
if a person with schizophrenia
is violent
does the condition
have anything to do
with the act
why is it okay
for the TV news
to mention “a history
of mental illness”
when no relevant link
has been established
between the condition
and the crime
prisons are full
of the mentally ill
but what sane person
wouldn’t go crazy
there
time to consider cause
and effect
time to think through
the implications
of metaphor
would we say “drunk like
an Irishman” or
“stupid like a Polish
person”
why “crazy like
a schizo”
the people I know
most reckless with
others’ feelings
are horrifically “healthy”
you would probably
be surprised to learn
how many schizophrenics
you interact with
on a daily basis
what is it to stuff
a human being
into a sealed
metal category
wind of a reason
without
the wind of a reason
aimed in a particular
direction
started walking
like a root
curling and
branching its way
toward water—
it thinks
in its way
Jefferson Hansen has been publishing in a variety of contexts for several decades.
the people I know
with schizophrenia
are a far cry from “schizos”—
the stereotypical guy
drooling in his beard
who takes a break
from braying at the moon
only long enough to ask
for a quarter
as for violence
most violent acts
are committed
by so-called healthy folks
the actual dangerous category
if a person with schizophrenia
is violent
does the condition
have anything to do
with the act
why is it okay
for the TV news
to mention “a history
of mental illness”
when no relevant link
has been established
between the condition
and the crime
prisons are full
of the mentally ill
but what sane person
wouldn’t go crazy
there
time to consider cause
and effect
time to think through
the implications
of metaphor
would we say “drunk like
an Irishman” or
“stupid like a Polish
person”
why “crazy like
a schizo”
the people I know
most reckless with
others’ feelings
are horrifically “healthy”
you would probably
be surprised to learn
how many schizophrenics
you interact with
on a daily basis
what is it to stuff
a human being
into a sealed
metal category
wind of a reason
without
the wind of a reason
aimed in a particular
direction
started walking
like a root
curling and
branching its way
toward water—
it thinks
in its way
Jefferson Hansen has been publishing in a variety of contexts for several decades.
Monday, December 12, 2011
Austin McCarron
A City of Palms
The summer is eating
the colours in my room
with teeth of blue water.
The sea falls on my beach
with
stones of light. My blood is
amazed at the whiteness of
sand.
Birds drowse in shining trees.
The sky is on fire with matches
of gold
and like a visionary animal
it wrestles with some great hurt.
I sit at a loss, in a city of
palms, browner than faces of rain.
The summer is eating
the colours in my room
with teeth of blue water.
The sea falls on my beach
with
stones of light. My blood is
amazed at the whiteness of
sand.
Birds drowse in shining trees.
The sky is on fire with matches
of gold
and like a visionary animal
it wrestles with some great hurt.
I sit at a loss, in a city of
palms, browner than faces of rain.
Friday, December 09, 2011
Tatjana Debeljački
Familiar With Insanity
– am I gifted person? Is it important, since I no longer exist?!
I was sailing through the endless space, still angry at the death that came in malevolent
time. The success was feasible. The space is so cold, and my physicus, which I imagined,
transformed into the powerful energy that has no use. I did not have a plan.
time. The success was feasible. The space is so cold, and my physicus, which I imagined,
transformed into the powerful energy that has no use. I did not have a plan.
– Probably I do not need the plan here, – as if the thought was spotted.
From some star constellation, a man in white floated towards me. He was tampering
something about my bodiless being, and then suddenly disappeared.
something about my bodiless being, and then suddenly disappeared.
People around me were freely walking in their pajamas, it was only me bound to bed
Tatjana
Debeljački was born on 23.04.1967 in Užice. Writes poetry, short
stories, stories and haiku. Member of Association of Writers of
Serbia -UKS since 2004 and Haiku Society of Serbia - HDS Serbia,
HUSCG – Montenegro and HDPR, Croatia. A member of Writers’
Association Poeta, Belgrade
since 2008, HKD Croatia since 2009 and a member of Poetry Society
"Antun
Ivanošić" Osijek since 2011. Deputy of the main editor
(cooperation with magazines & interviews).
Editor
of the magazine "Poeta",
published by Writers’ Association "Poeta"
Union
of Yugoslav Writers in Homeland and Immigration – Belgrade,
Literary Club Yesenin – Belgrade. Up
to now, she has published four
collections of poetry: “A HOUSE MADE OF GLASS “, published by ART
– Užice in 1996; collection of poems “YOURS“, published by
Narodna
knjiga Belgrade in 2003; collection of haiku poetry “VOLCANO”,
published by Lotos from Valjevo in 2004. A CD book “A
HOUSE MADE OF GLASS”
published by ART in 2005, bilingual SR-EN with music, AH-EH-IH-OH-UH,
published by Poeta, Belgrade in 2008. Her
poetry and haiku have been translated into several languages. Email/Websites/Blogs http://debeljacki.mojblog.rs/