Michael Keshigian- Three Poems

MIDNIGHT ACTOR

Often at midnight I’ll go out to see
an abundantly clear sky
and its cast of starry characters,
playing lead roles
in their own dimensions.

I stare upward on a bed of grass
as the lingering heat of the day
penetrates cotton fabric
which covers my back.
The night quiet soothes me.

I venture to become part of the scene,
take my place in the universal drama,
a fragment of infinity,
belonging to an existence
greater than the value of man.

But the part overwhelms me,
the boundless stage is frightful,
space and time alter my perception
and as small a role as I play in the production,
I no longer feel comfortable with the script.

Abruptly, I rise
to return to the friendly lights
and secure surroundings of home,
happy to be a leading character
in a lesser presentation,

a star with gravitational force
in a personal galaxy,
aware that upon another midnight,
I’ll attempt to compromise my casting
in the grander scheme.



SPACE DIRT

In the living air
of bedroom darkness

a ray of sunshine
pierces the margin

of a drawn shade
and dust celebrates

with a dance
on the bottomless stage

twinkling like stars
in the lifeless corridors of space

floating amid empty tunnels
and illimitable holes

after an unparalleled boom
which resulted in particulate

with one minuscule speck
of inhabitants.


 
THE FIFTH LEVEL

The moment arrived
when I bridged the chasm
between chronological time
and the timeless holes of space
to bask in the wonderment
of stasis. Death kicked my rear
beyond the realm of mortality
toward the gangplank
over the sea
of chaotic debris
where the brave swim
in swirls of creativity
to shape floating potential
into radiance
singing human essence.
With a jump
I submerged into a void
of unlimited aesthetic possibilities
adrift upon Earth
and about the unfiltered universe.



Michael Keshigian’s ninth poetry book, Dark Edges was recently released this September, 2014 by Flutter Press. He has been widely published in numerous national and international journals and appeared as feature writer in over a dozen publications with 5 Pushcart Prize and 2 Best Of The Net nominations. (michaelkeshigian.com)
 

Ayaz Daryl Nielsen- A Poem

Zombiecoup

another fallen chunk  

as the zombie sighs 

a lung detaches

zombies soaked 

by morning’s acid mist

bubbling puddle-goo

dental hygienist

screams as a maggot

falls from my nose

epidemic

tearing another friend

into beefy chunks

remote train wreck

many severely injured  

zombie magpie food

black and red dawn

fading rumble of a

graveyard nightmare 

transmogrify into this  

dead awakening. . .

grasping my wife as 

she chews on my arm

living as the dead

soon enough, whatever remains

of everyone

  

werewolf, vampire, zombie, 

oh, my!  so many shortcuts  

to immortality. . .

ayaz daryl nielsen, husband, father, veteran, x-roughneck (as on oil rigs)/hospice nurse, editor of bear creek haiku (25+ years/120+ issues), homes include Lilliput Review, Jellyfish Whispers, Boston Literary Magazine, Dead Snakes, Shamrock, and! bearcreekhaiku.blogspot.com (translates as joie de vivre)

J.D. DeHart- Three Poems

Lore

we don't care about

the demons

of old, the ancient texts.

they are just scrolls

in a gift shop.

but when we met

the source, with flaming eyes,

we knew we had better

not bottle and sell

his special snake magic.

Artificial (2)

they have propellers

and rudders and, if that's

not enough, their bow ties

turning in the breeze

like windmills.

they move forward, face

like us, smell like us,

but decidedly diverse.

Sternum

he woke in the morning

a light pain

that grew into a larger pain.

by noon, when the other

emerged from his chest,

he was too fatigued

to call it by name.

Alan Catlin- Three Poems

A Different Planet for Bartenders

I guess it was

assumed I was

supposed to be an

inexhaustible source

of useless information.

A noise finished on

the infernal machine

and he asked me:

"What was that, how

many minutes is it &

who was the artist?"

"First of all, "I sd

"If you're referring

to the noise, I have

a blocking mechanism

that blots that out.

Secondly, I like

Mozart and that wasn't

by him.  Lastly,

if we're going to do

trivia let's do

something interesting

like how many symphonies

did Haydn write

or what do the initials

of famous writer's

stand for.  I'll go

first Thomas Sterns is

for T.S. Eliot."

The look he gave me

suggested I wasn't

the type of bartender

he was used to.

He might even think

I was that legendary

bartender from

another planet.

                                                           My Secret Life

                                                           I receive transmissions.

                                                           That’s what the antennae

                                                           are for.

                                               

Transmissions from space.

                                               

All kinds. Mostly radio

                                                           signals these days;

                                                           clear days you can pick up dozens

                                                           of stations right here on earth.

                                                           Battle plans.  Outlines of what

the future will look like once

we take over.

It won’t be pretty for you guys

that’s for sure but given what

you’ve done to this planet,

what do you expect?

Yeah, lots of people have said

I’m a few pills short of a commitment.

Truth is I have been committed.

Bunches of times.  In fact, I’m out now

on a work release program.

Gathering information.  That’s my job,

king o sabe. I’m working incognito like

James Bond only better looking.

Nothing some cosmetic surgery and a few

false teeth couldn’t fix.

Gotta cigarette? No, how about a quarter?

No, it’s doesn’t pay well.  Hey, when you’re

a sleeper agent, you have to take the good

with the bad. You know, go with the flow.

Be authentic, dude.  I’m as authentic as it gets.

I do have one major worry.  Sometimes I get

video messages.  I know most people would

need a TV for that but I’m different.

The problem is the signals are changing

and I don’t have a convertor box.

What if a vital message comes through

after the change and I don’t get it?

Where will I be then ?  What will I do?

                                            Alien Abduction

“Do you believe in aliens from other planets?

I do. And they have much longer memories

than ours.” Christopher Reiner, “Pain”

After the alien abduction, she swore off

derelicts and drunks, said she was a changed

woman, something like a nun but not quite

as pure, a kind of bride to a Christ with

no hair, a long white beard, who stood

twelve feet tall.  Naked, he was like a God

and after she gave herself to him there would

be no other. She swore he said he’d be back

for her when the time was right, though she

neglected to ask how he measured time,

a failing that might prove fatal if his standards

were radically different than ours. Not that it

mattered to her; she’d wait forever if necessary.

She’s still waiting.

J.D. DeHart- Three Poems

Fabric

 

The first person to touch the fabric

Fell into a crystal sway of capture,

Held still by its ice.

Then the next, then the next.

All told, hundreds gripped it

Before realizing to handle with care.

Now the fabric rests behind a curtain,

Carried there delicately

By outstretched arms.

To destroy the fabric would be impossible.

Every now and then a child or an old

Person with forgetfulness still stumbles in

And has to be unfrozen again.

 

 

Desmond Dark

 

He’s got the shades,

Of course, the dark armor

Underneath a long ebony coat.

He brings the night with him,

Even at the beach.

A sudden tempest, the pasty

Sunbathers buried in shadow.

He can’t help it, it’s his power,

It’s his art, the swirling of chocolate

Thick evening comes with his passing.

He hasn’t seen the sun in years,

And though tough, cries for its blazing

Memory.

 

 

The Tangle

 

We began to walk earnestly enough,

Then were pricked by thorns.

Stung by the occasional bee.

We were ready to head back, but the vines

Would now allow it.

So we trudge on endlessly, occasionally

Sustained by some twigs, a bit of fruit,

Skin stinging with disobedience

To those who told us never to venture

Into the deeper wood.

JD DeHart is the author of the chapbook, The Truth About Snails.  He is a staff writer for Verse-Virtual and his blog is jddehart.blogspot.com.

John Pursch- Two Poems

Now

  

With billions of brains working full time,

it’s likely that someone will someday

try to remember this very moment.

If we listen carefully,

maybe we’ll hear them searching,

or see their lookup rippling the shadows,

or feel the rumble of their memory waves.

How does the brain search the past,

seeking stored experience?

Maybe it does something akin to

reliving certain moments,

acting as a kind of time machine.

This invites us to compare

being and remembering.

If we can’t tell the difference between

the present and a perfect recollection

or a flawless premonition

and a deeply vivid dream,

maybe that’s because there is none.

Bobble E. Lee

 

Suppose you wish to take a vacation to the Battle of Gettysburg. You contact your local time travel agency, pay for the trip, appear at their facilities at the appointed hour, ingest a time travel tab, relax in a comfy bed in a private room, seem to drift off to sleep, and find yourself in a field or on a hill or in the woods or marching down the Chambersburg Pike, toting a bed roll and rifled musket, wearing blue or gray or butternut; maybe you land in mid-battle, Minie balls whizzing by, comrades shouting and falling, chaos everywhere….

In an instant, you forget that you’re time traveling and actually become a person who has always been at the Battle of Gettysburg, a part of history, essential to that moment, quickly absorbed by the flow, forgetting yourself for the duration of your vacation.

This complete immersion prevents you and other time travel tourists from changing the consciousness and behavior of the original combatants. Not only are no additional physical bodies injected into the battle, there is no additional awareness; any of these would change events, shoving the target into a new timeline. Thus the integrity of the past is maintained, even as millions routinely time-travel to that fateful weekend in July of 1863.

So Bobby Lee ends up being occupied by millions of visiting scholars, day trippers, wayward housewives, foreign dignitaries, avid reenactors; his consciousness simply absorbing them, not missing a beat. Despite their historical knowledge, he still fails to heed the protestations of Longstreet and Hood, abandons his tactical defensive policy, insists on doomed attempts to take Little Round Top, and finally orders Pickett’s Division to march face-first into volleys of canister. One might say he fails unfailingly, repeating his actions every time, but it is this precise repetition of events that defines them as happening only once, forever. He always makes the same decisions, the wind blows just so; now it’s silent, the batteries begin, limbs detach and take flight, thousands fall, identical cries of dying men emerge from Devil’s Den precisely now, forever.

A couple of words on how time travel drugs work. Simply put, they act upon the brain, enabling and triggering perfect recall and more. The subject is first sequestered in a dark room, where his or her body will be safely stored in a climate controlled module for the duration of the trip. The drug is administered; within minutes the subject regresses through his or her life history, reliving key events in startlingly accurate and ever-increasing detail, until it is impossible to distinguish memories from reality. At this point, a limited time-slip ingredient kicks in. The subject’s consciousness then goes off the rails, so to speak, and begins accessing events beyond its known past. Up to this point, the process could be explained as simply an incredibly vivid form of recall; after this, the brain is actually scanning the past, beyond its physical history, something like the way we search the internet for stored information.

In short, the brain is a time machine, capable of transporting a person’s consciousness back in time (remembering) or forward (extrapolating, predicting) or even across timelines (imagining). The so-called time travel drugs are simply chemical agents that enhance, enable, and trigger these activities.

So much for time travel tourism. In the highly classified military-industrial realm, several techniques enable time travelers to physically impact the past or future. These methods make use of the Montauk Chair, higher technologies developed by the Days Again government, and Graylien timeline travel secrets. In these cases, time travelers actually create new timelines from old, using targeted events as starting points. When they modify the past, they spawn new timelines and experience what is known as “time slip”, surfing from their original targets to a series of modified timelines. The tricky part, of course, is to navigate such a sequence of alternate universes and return to one’s starting point, more or less intact.

John Pursch lives in Tucson, Arizona. His work has been nominated for Best of the Net and has appeared in many literary journals. A collection of his poetry,Intunesia, is available at http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/whiteskybooks. Check out his experimental lit-rap video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l33aUs7obVc. He’s @johnpursch on Twitter and john.pursch on Facebook.

Denny E. Marshall- Three Poems

Doubt, Doubt

Our love is shining now
Will it shine tomorrow?
Our love is happiness
Will it turn to sorrow?
Your eyes are singing messages
The notes I don’t know
You were catching some signals
That I can’t even throw
Doubt, doubt
What’s it all about

Our trust was a fire
Turned into a glow
We would get high on each other
Now we both feel low
Our faith is breaking
Cracks are starting to show
Have to release the emotion
Have to let them go
The bridge of trust we have
Will it wash out?
Doubt, doubt
What’s it all about


Angel Call

Lost in the woods walking at night
Hoping to find a guiding light
Take a wrong step and you can fall
In the sky, hear an angel call

Life is a storm blowing like sand
Signs can be hard to understand
The answers no one has them all
In the sky, hear an angel call

Pathways can be lonely and dark
The fire can lose magic and spark 
Hear a voice say time to stand tall
In the sky, hear an angel call


Touch of Angel Wings

Never noticed the touch of angel wings
Then felt the unexplained, tap the shoulder
Light plays like magic and the great sky rings
Never noticed the touch of angel wings
Four times saved by the invisible kings
Each time felt the black-robe hand grow colder
Never noticed the touch of angel wings
Then felt the unexplained, tap the shoulder