Lyrical Passion Poetry E-Zine

Free Verse & Prose Poetry

Page 3.

We make out of the quarrel with others, rhetoric, but of the quarrel with ourselves, poetry.
William Butler Yeats - (1865- 1939)

The Outcast by Matthew Ivan Bennett

He saw Father naked

so his feet rip

& blot red on the alkali sand

When he lies down vipers trace him

blow musk into his wounds

so they never close

His eyes are vinegar

soured by the dawns

he greets alone

Why did he tell his brothers

who held a white robe behind them

inching backwards into the tent

to cover Father

drunk, sweating, hairy Father

whose skin we should never see

Grey Monotone by Nicholas Damion Alexander

A steady drizzle swarms the district

teeming down in droves.

Starts and stops...starts and stops

until the horizon is white like a grudge

and the locality silent like the grave;

the birds have vacated the air.

A dog scours the yard for food

enduring the wet wet for belly-full.

Grey monotone inhabits the peace

as a strophic drizzle chimes roofs.

Light has deserted time; rain scampers

like a child hurrying home-

the woman sleeps in the soon-dark of 6 o'clock

dreaming of a brighter tomorrow.

UNTITLED #7 by Judith Mensch

You have to be a little bit tired

You have to be willing to put your heart on edge

For the song to come

To wander out from where you’d like to be

To reside with tears in your heart

Watering your spirit with sorrow

Making joy an arid place

Damn this poetry! by Martin Lochner

Last night I started smoking again

I chose the corner in my yard

where I felt the safest

Under the flood light I could see

everything and the glaring made me invisible

Somebody was running a bath

children were crying over the street

and my neighbor beat his wife again

The coal burned in saffron red

each puff confirmed my breath

and the death of an approaching moment

My wife was calling for me and I did not want to respond

you see she was worried about the 14 years

I was going to squander on the box

The light fused, the children stopped crying

Bob Seger sounded up in a bathroom

The beating next door was resolved

with screams of love making

"There you are," my wife said

and I thought to myself

"damn this poetry"

For a nice heart by Haris Adhikari

Not home but just walls surrounding
a deafening silence that stares
at the cobwebbed wait of her
like how the owl glares with popped eyes –
in an eerie zone, her light heart longing
for a hand – soft and soothing –
upon her furrowed visage, she seems calm
not from within, what’s sprouting?
Not promises but circumstances fill
the absences, and the emptiness grows
to gulp her little hope. She sits observing
how easily the cat can vent its emotions
unlike people; sometimes talking
to herself – in the language of dreams.
How inaudible the waves are
that hurl the pearls from deep down her eyes?
Gone down, her voice. She has learnt
a lot of silence, seeking peace in prayers,
or reading from the Gita: ‘We come alone,
we go alone, we are all alone.’ Nice consolation
for a nice heart.

Toxic by Seren Fargo

It was that hike in the pine woods

when you told me you wished

I wasn’t so dense, and that you hadn’t loved me

for a long time –

and that the girl down the street

visited you

whenever I went to my poetry readings.

Did you notice? –

there were red amanitas everywhere.

blue by Owen Bullock

efficient, coded

jeaned, with boots

or latest sneakers

sea & sky

death, when the sea breaks cover

to greens

black & frothing

ecstatic white

to carry on, you need a blue card

correctly stamped & signed

a uniform, starched

I own you blue

you’re the colour

of belonging

cause and effect

of ‘you stay in this family’

blue is blood

lost in an artery

it has to come out

into a challenge

it will hate

satori by Owen Bullock
she puts the car
on first

gets out
into the open...fast

this time
she’s
damn
sure. . .

an old man, of about seventy long hard years. . .

by Kanchan Chatterjee
he reclined on his worn out
easy chair

smelling of
tobacco
and beer. . .

as the midsummer evening
hung heavy
over the ageing terrace

he started talking
about books

and began
with
Leon Uris. . .

A PART OF ME by Clive Oseman, UK

You only know a part of me,
the slice that glows or glares
under the needs of situations
when your journey crosses mine.

I am a classic novel
you're a speck of dust
or maybe vice versa, depending
on the angle of the view,

so like fools we take some random lines
and blend them as we will.
If what you read is not for you,
then put me down for sure
but try not to condemn

I am the complexity of science
the simplicity of air
but my door is heavily fortified.
The code remains elusive
if you never breathe the words.

****

Everything exists within original rhythms
Snarks and those quarks even goodnight kisses
The enactment of aeons and footfalls of ancients
Everything exists within original rhythms
Within a long wait for morning
Within the yearning for home
Everything exists within original rhythms
Snarks and those quarks even goodnight kisses

The days, so cold by ayaz daryl Nielsen

The days, so cold

The nights, so long

Another tundra

wind from

above timberline

Wild geese and

blue heron

gone

months ago,

black bear, deep

asleep

mule deer and elk

hiding

among pine and

leafless aspen.

The clock ticks

toward midnight,

the year,

about to end.

Here, beside this

glowing hearth,

you gently

place your lips

upon mine.

WIDE IRAQI SEA by Jenean McBrearty

Strange traveling companions we,
Him missing a leg.
Me missing my youth.
Stairs ahead.
Stares ahead
As we navigate down the cliff
Each of us clinging to our parallel railings
Like wounded turtles struggling to the sea
He met my gaze once
Then turned away,
Preferring to watch the college kids
Playing volley ball on the beach
While phantom limbs
And time tease us,
Their ridiculing laughter hidden
In the giggly gaiety of a California day.