Lyrical Passion Poetry E-Zine

Free Verse & Prose Poetry

Page 2.

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

Dozing While it Rains by Michele Byrne

In the half-land when sleep has crept close

but consciousness still lingers. Images scissor.

There is a sigh of hem against stocking.

A wisp of blue smoke. A hand holds a cup,

little finger crooked in tea-time elegance.

And downstairs an old man shuffles.

The cardigan is holed. Wool is worming

out of frayed edges. His pate is liver-spotted.

He bends his neck to gaze into a meagre grate.

Picks up a faded photograph and listens

to the birds circling as he remembers the noise.

Outside, reflections in a silver pavement

flutter against passing eyes.

The rain tumbles to glimmering windows

and the sleeper turns over to the rhythm of the fall.

Peace Poem by Michele Byrne

I am not a fearsome warrior,

Yet I am the feather-weight

of cloud-shadow shifting.

I am not iron

But I am the soft sand gently sifting.

I am not a burial chamber,

Yet hold within the lives of generations.

I am not a foreign language,

Yet converse with those of many nations.

I am not bitter

As with the taste of aloes

But hold in my mouth woodsmoke

and marshmallows.

I am not a blade,

That slides you into death

I am the gentle breeze,

That gives a whispered breath.

I am not visited by the recent dead,

But walk through tombs without fear or dread.

I am not a war that leaves so many deceased

I walk in freedoms footsteps and only long for peace.

"January Persuasion" by Steven Pacheco

Though my skin has never known yours,

and our lips have ushered words

but never come together,

you have existed beneath the flesh

and set the rhythm of my heart.

I have never had the pleasure

of cradling you in my arms,

nor have gentle fingers

caressed wayward strands

beyond the cashmere of your cheek,

I know the passion of your soul

and distantly admire

every facet of your being.

Were beauty stagnant

and without definition

your very existence

would re-write language,

and grace the glory of the world

in the image of your splendor.

Your heart a sacred altar

before which I kneel

and in the warmth of your wonder

see the world through focused eyes

and every shape

in comparison to yours;

no glowing swathe of sun

nor sublime sight of sky

can even minutely compare

to the perfection of your...

everything.

Country Doctor by Kevin Heaton

The quest for Quivira parts fabled
rivers where bluestem and switchgrass
yawn early from wet winters, without
much guidance from the sun.
I salve aloe into deep cuts, and suture
fevers onto windy dreams easting
across the Great North Bend.
Range fires gloat, then hush.
The moon suits up in butterfly weed
orange, then turns ashen above the knoll
where Coronado’s horse sparked flint
rock, and flamed the hills.
In time, dust settles onto sand plum
roots, and we cellar the little red fruits
in mason jars. The prairie gathers baskets
full of loaves and fishes for wolf
and coyote children.
I pause to place coins on weary eyes
no longer witnessing horizons, and criss-
cross two arms at rest beneath one stone.

A Meditation on Chemical Death by Jeni Booker Senter

Jane answers her door wearing a floppy pink cap.

Her baby chick hair peeking out over one ear.

She tells me to come in, sit down, visit for a while.

Her eyes glisten as she eases down slowly into her chair

while my eyes are drawn to that patch of fuzz.

I remember her hair, glossy, black, sharply styled

when she would pick me up on Sunday mornings.

I glance at her hands, marred by fresh puncture wounds.

Her hands were thin, beautiful, long,

playing the piano and weaving baskets on Saturday evenings.

She tells me she is well, asks how I have been.

She wants me to go to church; I lie and say I will.

I can hardly sit still, keep looking her over

as if she were a still-life to study--

A meditation on chemical death.

The cancer came back.

It blossomed like a June rose

and spread like the vines of bluebells.

Deep into her armpits, through the lymphatic system,

burying itself deep into her brain and liver.

And now she rocks, gently rooted in her chair.

She smiles at me

while I bite my cheek and try not to cry.

Too soon it is time to go,

and she bends forward to kiss me.

I am amazed that she still smells like honeysuckles.

Two Magnolia Buds Almost Kissed Today by Jeni Booker Senter

Two magnolia buds almost kissed today.

Their rain-soaked heads hung from tender stems

leaning with the wind

bobbing forward and back and forward again,

at times with only a whisper between them—

until a sudden gust from the North

twisted one upon its stem

and dropped it

onto the Earth below.

SUBMERSION by Jeni Booker Senter

She steps into the frigid, tea-colored river slowly;

one foot dips into the tannin-laced water.

Her peony-tipped toes sink into the sandy bottom.

The smell of the evergreen forest is thick in the air and a frail hand reaches

to feel the piney fragrance floating inches from her delicate-boned, sad face.

Whip-poor-wills echo between the thick upper canopies of live oak

as the night falls deeply around her.

Deep blue-grey sky presses down, hanging over her head like a shroud

as the sun drops like a stone into the river.

A mist rises from the Blackwater and envelopes a thin leg as it is lowered into the water.

One more step and she sinks into the darkening water,

her thighs now surrounded by the Blackwater and its mist.

She looks down at the river of scars flowing along her softly rounded stomach.

The furrow of a brilliant scar slashes from hipbone to hipbone.

A school of little silver minnows swim across the skin of her breasts.

Thick ropes of ebony hair cling to her neck and trail over her left breast.

She takes a deep breath of the creosote-scented air and remembers the sound of a child laughing.

She wonders if the candles she left on the window sill still flicker.

The river and its mist rise up to meet her full hips, slowly admitting her waist and breasts.

She draws another deep breath before she sinks to her neck.

She feels her body reacting to the embrace of the icy water.

Her nipples contract, and for the first time in forever, she feels her breasts perk and her skin tighten.

Somewhere in the distance a coyote howls his greeting to the night.

Somewhere closer, a child snuggles his dark head into a downy-scented pillow and hugs a stuffed seal.

She leans her head back; her neck stretches long and pale—bare before the rising moon.

The rail divides us... by Martin Lochner

they say that the rail divides us

separating the glossy from the dodgy

barbwire streamers on our side

Babylon gardens on their side

they say that the rail divides us

separating the factories from the boulevards

customer service on their side

able bodied guards on our side

they say the rail divides us

that the train leaves for the golden city

unable to pay, what a pity. feel the iniquity

a bridge connects us

but the littered path knows no feet

His Garden by Damian Rucci

He told me there,

when I was young,

how it would all end.

If he couldn’t take care

of himself, he’d take care of it

in the end.

Those words passed like silver-

word flies gnawing on vegetables in

the garden, now asking questions in the tomb.

Not just a granddad, but a role model and a friend;

hands soaked with dirt and weathered with the scars

of a labored life; a favored man who’s

words spoke little, but eyes wept stories

now lost on the floor.

It was time; the skies had whispered

and he sought release in the morning

with crimson-tears and led resonance;

he left us all behind.

My grandmother asked me,

does taking one's own life make a man strong,

or foolish?

I don’t know, but my eyes swim as I

find myself picking tomatoes in the garden

that will forever speak his name.

Reconciliation is the Last Thing on My Mind by Gretchen E. Tessmer

When you cut me from your soul
did it hurt?

When you put that blade on the edge of my name
and you sliced scarlet across the lips of every smile,
my freely given smiles,
did it sting?

When you scraped out those words,
those secret, wax-sealed words,
did you flinch?

When you tangled the breeze
in my honey-colored hair
did it stick?
(lemon juice might do the trick)

And when you found that kiss,
that first sweet kiss,
did you dig deep?

Sea trench deep...
but enough, you think?

Oh wrap that gauze loosely, darling,
unless you want me to fester beneath.

TO THE FUTURE by Joanna M. Weston

a sip of blueberry liqueur

chases the old year

through my skin

leaving a desire

for the fermenting

of new berries

a discarded Tim Horton’s mug

spills bawdy jokes

Shakespearean swears

cold coffee

into my garbage bag

INSOMNIAC by Joanna M. Weston

nights

chewed by the moon

to rags of sleep

worn to tattered wakefulness

these my haunting

On Wednesday by Michele Byrne

On Wednesday

gravity released me.

Very slowly.

So that my stride lightened

Like soft glue

Un-sticking bit by bit.

At first it felt like skating.

With my feet sliding

on two millimetres of air.

I stepped off a pavement

and rose up.

I jumped over a fence.

Just to see

and kept on rising.

I windmilled for balance.

Couldn’t look

at the big nothing growing

beneath my feet.

I passed bedroom windows.

Saw rooftops,

birds’ nests, treetops.

I batted through

a flock of starlings

and felt bad

when innocent feathers

fell onto me.

Then cloud

Was all enveloping.

Soft and wet.

Swathes of mist

wrapped about me.

I swam upward into only blue.

As blue as could ever be.

The sun was a golden orb

in the east.

I saw the curve of the horizon.

Silence filled me completely.

I rose with a sense of peace.

Up into the star-speckled blackness

Of space.

This Poem Is About: by Kevin Heaton

I love you

breathing on it’s own;

distant lust, distant self,

forever: sans eros, and flesh.

This poem is about:

lungs sighing her sorrows,

a pulse bleeding empathy,

washing her feet with tears,

sipping daylight from her smile.

Believing, without groping

the wound.

"Paper Trails" by Steven Pacheco

There is no heartbeat

in a pencil

Graphite runs cold

on the page, lingers faintly and

refuses to become one

with the paper. It burns cool,

latent print reveals

the ghost of a smudge, a sense

of hesitation, a fear to commit

and become

something more.

Ink spills hot,

boils on the skin and floods

into the soft chasm cut

by the warm metal of that fang.

The page breathes,

the ink bubbles and fingers

douse themselves in that dark pool,

thick smears adorn the skin

and blur the line

between art form and life form.

Frail wood splinters,

breaks apart and scatters

graphite to the corners

of every barren page.

Ink gushes forth,

runs wild and consumes all,

leaving no inch untouched

with the flush of warmth,

the hot brush and wet kiss

of passion unshackled.

Thin gray lines

fade before the stroke

of frightened fingers and

red, erasable hearts,

brushed away, into dust.

We, with inky fingers

and dark, stained skin

scribe vivid, broad lines

that will not fade and

can never be

brushed from the page

Indian Summer by Kevin Heaton

Crisp northern omens
blanch green from grass
kingdoms of the summer
queen, and conceal her
cache of emeralds deep
in secret root cellars.
Miserly sycamores
grudgingly count gold leaf
into silver reflections
ambling downstream past
painted river turtles,
sunbathing before nestling
into bottom mud.
Deer and buffalo herds
bask in midday sunshine,
soliciting pardons;
precluding the inevitable
lash of winter, but for now,
all creatures rejoice amidst
the season, prior to suffering.

Burning Blue Skies by Damian Rucci

We liked to hang around

Orange-red fires,

Smoking silly things

And sitting on old tires.

Talking about the future

Or so we believed,

Our minds were wondering

Through pale diamond seas.

The water splashed over the sparkling sand

and we smiled at the longing rocks,

sneaking from my backyard

in nothing but our socks.

I don’t know what tomorrow brings,

perhaps a cotton bed of lies

but we’ll keep sitting on the beach

burning blue skies.

Cartoon You by Colin Gilbert

(for Franklin Hannatt, winner of the 2010 Ripley’s Believe It or Not! Atlantic City Great Face Off)

Intimacy is a man
willing to be ugly
for you in public.

Slip your fingertips
under the waistbands
of your eyes. Press in
as if holding a cup
to a door, listening
so hard it bows.

Until the water
balloons of your face
can nourish newborns.
Until your audience
wonders if shaving cream
or soup will splash out.
Or if clouds burst
against a sidewalk.

Spread the plumage
of your lips wider
than the cartoon you,
soft as Louis Armstrong’s
deflated cheeks.
Ignore the tapping
in your mouth.
Do not relinquish teeth
white as a threat.

Present the threat
that you will not threaten.
Be the curtain of a man,
someone somewhere
claimed was good. Revel
in the soft mattress
a face becomes for a wife
and stranger. Whether they
Believe It or Not!

2 POEMS by Dietmar Tauchner

blinded by night

shadows

tending to the darkness,

getting out of the mirror

at the corridor's end,

sneaking to a moonfield

there, a rose in bloom,

red and without a scent, holding

dry thorns of memories

barks, roughly rubbed

by the fall wind,

wood skin shimmering

with rain rests,

layers of history

in the stock face of

a winter nightman,

who presses against

nothing anymore

Emptiness by Kate Murphy

The mirror, broken & tarnished,

reflects a worn,

tired chair;

When the sun shines

through the window in the corner,

fighting through limp-hanging curtains,

streaks of rust on powder-boxes

make the silvery metal wink

out.

Separated teeth of a silver-backed comb

point to the left,

to the door.

The oaken door, ajar,

leading out

into a darkened hallway

where delicate spider-webs,

covered in dust,

decay.

Lines of the floorboards

tracing the entrance hall,

where, at one time, smaller feet shuffled

a rhythm:

like the beating echo of a heart.

Spring by Gretchen E. Tessmer

Once a season scorned
by missteps of her own making
led to a cautious existence
slow to anger, slow to assumptions
drawn by gestures of informality.

Thus cast, she has been
as the crutch and curiosity of so many men
who bear their souls with little prodding
served on half priced silver platters
with salted fish and holly berries

but there's nightshade in the water
and salt stings in open sores.

Farewell by Colin Gilbert

The morning I finished the time machine
I traveled to five minutes before
we met. Nothing changed. I shot myself

back fourteen times. Each trip led me
to the same aluminum shell and copper
wires. Last night I returned to ten
minutes before, trying to forget.