Poetry Drawer: Broadcasting: This Glass of Water by Jim Bellamy

Giant whispering and coughing machines,
But the Quietus shaped by thieves
Broadcasts from a churchyard sleeved
With coats that serve as muscle:
The wavebands glowing overpower
The rabid storms of chording where
Your child hands clap against the air.

Beautifully devout before a spent
Cascade of money pours from out
A vast resettling of drums. Thence
Begins the mental struggles of arcane
Girls, who may not dance upon a floor
Nor faces inside faces prick music.

Vast Sundays and organ-frowned spaces
Leave dark emptied trees behind
Seas, where sotto voce tames the race
Of gaoled men; and the sureness of
Faith will dive into the bays and quays
Which seem too straight or still-born.

The light of rock attunes to sound
But this noise contests the altar-lit
Grounds of life’s lurch, groomed with
Minds which govern sadness from ground
Teas, but still the coffees of the earth
Grind to dust the magmas of bent birth.

This Glass of Water

This glass of water is engrained
With rivers, dowsed by man-rills
And the coitus of the seas must wrench
Cockles from the winkles near dread
Dreaming. Or else, the spinning seas
Of shells made real must swim death
Or the lights of oceans spiel away
The milky dancing spurning of bays

The lotus of the salts inflames hordes
And the swiftness of sailing prove
That girl kind may not despise shores
Nor the genus of sandcastles smooth
Sirens from spars

Thence, the oared
Homes of drinking waters dive down
Against the drowning peoples of
Love’s heartfelt pools The shadowed

Depths of art refine their current where
Lies slip their lake-rivalry when
The sucking fish of dying death sprays

Sea-Pay?

Jim Bellamy was born in a storm in 1972. He studied at Oxford University. He has written thousands of poems and won three awards for his poetry. He tends to write in a bit of a fine frenzy. He adores prosody.

Poetry Drawer: Studies in Language by Robert Demaree

1.
Language, quixotic, carries weight
It cannot bear.
A boy spent hours in practice—
Tennis, piano scales, free throws.
Later he practiced medicine,
His sister practiced law,
Always getting ready, it seemed,
For something else.
At the restaurant
He thought of a bad pun
And made a note:
He also waits who only stands and serves.

2.
Language tells you what it sees,
So pejorative becomes
Normative.
I want to hear about people
Who are ept, couth,
Ruthful, clueful souls with
Shevelled hair.
Do you remember when we
Worried about creeping -ism’s?
Neologism;
Barbarism,
An ancient word, meant to
Mock the sound of
Those who do not talk like you.

3.
The English teacher had asked
A Latin student of mine
About the mood of a piece;
Dark, foreboding were answers
He had in mind.
Subjunctive, the boy replied. Others laughed,
As though wit might somehow lie in
The hand tools on my father’s bench,
Which I could neither name nor use.
If I was you, I joked,
I’d pay more attention
To the future less vivid,
The present contrary to fact.

4.
As a teacher of high-school Latin
I insisted to fourteen-year-olds
That a knowledge of arcane grammars
Would help them in later life.
The ablative absolute, for example,
Which, in translation,
Makes you seem a bit pompous.
That said, I would proceed to explain
The imponderables of limit,
The accusatives of extent of space
Or duration of time,
And my favourite usage, which described
The fragile and random way things connect,
One life with another,
One moment with the next,
The ablative of attendant circumstance.

Robert Demaree is the author of four book-length collections of poems, including Other Ladders published in 2017 by Beech River Books. His poems have received first place in competitions sponsored by the Poetry Society of New Hampshire and the Burlington Writers Club. He is a retired school administrator with ties to North Carolina, Pennsylvania and New Hampshire. Bob’s poems have appeared in over 150 periodicals including Cold Mountain Review and Louisville Review.

You can find more of Robert’s work here on Ink Pantry.

Poetry Drawer: Bejewelled: To The Time Of The Season: God Given by Lynn White

Bejewelled

This little piece of gold
will not be enough
to feed the fruit
of my swelling belly.

And it will take bigger scales
to weigh out the quantities
we will need to survive.

But I still have jewels to sell
and I think they will be
enough.

I shall weigh them carefully.

It’s in the balance
but I think there will be
enough.

To The Time Of The Season

It’s that time of the season
midwinter
coasting from
one year
to the next
from old to new
facing both ways
still
unable
to move
on
watching
a gleam of light
caught in the falling
all too briefly
before it becomes
part of the old
before it turns
to mush
and decays
like all things passed.

God Given

If such a creature didn’t exist
we’d have to invent it for sure.
Whether Zeus or Allah,
Jehovah or any of the rest,
all fulfil the same
purpose.
All create a framework
of behaviour,
the laws of god
which must be obeyed
without argument,
without thinking,
without due process.
All create a framework
of rights.
Some have them,
others don’t.
They’re god given
so no argument,
no thinking,
needed.
And all need a territory,
a god given territory
from the beginning of time
and for evermore
No argument,
no thinking,
god given.

Lynn White lives in North Wales. Her work is influenced by issues of social justice and events, places and people she has known or imagined. She is especially interested in exploring the boundaries of dream, fantasy and reality. She was shortlisted in the Theatre Cloud ‘War Poetry for Today’ competition and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and a Rhysling Award. Her poetry has appeared in many publications including: Apogee, Firewords, Capsule Stories, Gyroscope Review and So It Goes. 

Poetry Drawer: detailed descriptions of spiders: volumes institute cloudburst singles: full service glue wisp: headphone spark plug: contracts display overabundance by Joshua Martin

detailed descriptions of spiders

touching imperils green
studies dart gun handles
pardons dusty tarts
skirmishes military carriage
dalliances dance penguins
atrophied encyclopedia
dogmatic banjo drink
a drunk in a kangaroo tank
less evil than a tooth fairy

volumes institute cloudburst singles

Now you KNOW televised plutonium
charts PATHS between GRAZING invisibility
little GUSTS of hiding a distorted rendering

          CircuS peeling mousetrap
          HOLEs where fingers SWELL
          softer & stiller than a YACHT

full service glue wisp

telephone hooks catfish mummy
popularized three stooges dinner party
games provoke pin cushions
pangs of ulcerated shovel digging

big BOWL of sugar CUBES
& frozen vehicular kidneys

          STRAINed against screen
      spenT     ON          sabbatical
framed w/in horseshoe wolfhound
barnacle sunsets regained

headphone spark plug

perversions lustrous as angel hair
pasted contracts flame kicking
outward model faculty embalmed
copied notepad legalized budget

     prioritized up & coming machete
     glow fish resigning commission

starting time warp haiku
membrane pontificates
provincial tunnel parade

          traffic poisons prisms
          readies atmosphere
          unknown utilities
          supersized leave taking

     milestone toasted grace crowd
     hedgehog placemat grinder

a lucite table leg
mannequin football roast
canned to hint w/o appeal

contracts display overabundance

stray hammers swallow lip sockets
timeline agenda grouping microfiche
air tube intestine vents spooling
traumatic integrated palsy graduation
beetle byline bypassing database
recorded sprig parsley a troll
interiorized sanitation spill pinball
machine chronic influenza
stressed boiled reduced mothball
basic fingernail back light hump
excessive melting renegotiated

Joshua Martin is a Philadelphia based writer and filmmaker, who currently works in a library. He is the author of the books Pointillistic Venetian Blinds (Alien Buddha Press, 2021) and Vagabond fragments of a hole (Schism Neuronics). He has had pieces previously published in Coven, Spontaneous Poetics, Ygdrasil, Expat, Selcouth Station. RASPUTIN, Train, Fugitives & Futurists, Otoliths, M58, Punk Noir Magazine, Ink Pantry, Beir Bua, and Scud among others. 

You can find more of Joshua’s work here on Ink Pantry.

Poetry Drawer: Road Blocks: Break-Up Song: Give Me a Tree: Growing Greyer: Eight Minutes by Luis Cuauhtémoc Berriozabal

Road Blocks

I come upon
every red light
and road block
along the way.

If you are in a hurry,
prepare for adversity
and all the obstacles
life can throw at you.

Monkey wrenches,
pins and needles,
that voodoo doll,
and the worst traffic
you can imagine.

Break-Up Song

A message from the radio.
Oh, it’s just a song.
Some break-up lyrics and
a bit of pleading.

I turn the dial for something
else less desperate.
I find nothing to my liking.
The radio just offers

the same old songs that get
stuck inside my head.
A message from a songbird
just outside my window.

I tune in to that for a while.
The bird lyrics soothe me
this morning. It’s probably
just another break-up song.

Give Me a Tree

Give me a tree.
That’s enough for me.
Rain in the evening.
Snow once in a while.
In the nest of the
tree singing birds.
Summer in winter
and sun in the day.
Give me a sweet smile
lovelier than any tree.
Give me a time to
see you once again.

Growing Greyer

The hair is not growing,
unless growing greyer
counts. The belly is growing.
My shirt buttons complain.

I am slowing down all
the time. I get so tired.
I need to get in shape,
get fit, and lose the pounds.

The hair is gone for good;
the excess hair from youth.
I grew a beard but shaved
it away after a few years.

I just could not get used
to it. I am sure it would
have made a good mugshot
if I ever got arrested.

Eight Minutes

In eight minutes
I could walk
to the Thai restaurant
and order take out.

In that time I
could start on
the laundry, make a sandwich,
and take my medicine.

In eight minutes
I could just
be a vegetable, drink some
wine, or run in circles.

In eight minutes
I could take
a power nap or write a
poem like this one.

Luis lives in California and works in Los Angeles. His poems have appeared in Blue Collar Review, Mad Swirl, and Unlikely Stories. His book, Make the Water Laugh, is published by Rogue Wolf Press.

Poetry Drawer: Home by John Hansen

Each time the screen door closes,
a mother rabbit sprints off

through seedlings I mowed slowly around
twenty-three years ago.

John Hansen received a BA in English from the University of Iowa and an MA in English Literature from Oklahoma State University. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Summerset Review, Spillwords Press, Trouvaille Review, 50-Word Stories, One Sentence Poems, The Dillydoun Review, Schuylkill Valley Journal, Eunoia Review, Sparks of Calliope, Amethyst Review, Drunk Monkeys, and elsewhere. He is English Faculty at Mohave Community College in Arizona.

Poetry Drawer: The Strange Emptiness of the Night: Long Forgotten Memories: Strange Pulses in my Questing Mind: The Goddess in my Mind Garden by James G. Piatt

The Strange Emptiness of the Night

Eerie emotions stormed through my weary mind
as dark visions screamed
into my haunting memories
streaming through the wind,
and as the moon flowed into the darkness
of the unforgiving horizon,
my mind was forced
to wade into the icy metaphoric ocean
ebbing in the shallows of my sorrows.
I strived to extinguish
the absurdity of the sorrowful existence
with cheerfulness,
but pieces of metallic anxiety
spewed from under the earth
to a place near where my mind
could not carry the heaviness of oxidized time,
and while climbing inside
rusting silence to escape,
I failed to bury
the demons of the night that called to me
in the hundred stolen voices of a mocking bird.
In the far-off distance,
I heard the faint haunting sound
of a ghost train’s whistle
echoing in the space between life and death,
a place where those in their fading years,
like me,
watched nervously
as the spectre with a scythe
searched for us to end our absurd existence.
The decomposing hours of the night,
continually held me captive
in this nightmare of dread,
left me with a sense of agonized wistfulness,
as I anxiously waited,
to no avail,
for reality to smother the hauntings of unreality
that had arrived in the strange emptiness
of the night.

Long Forgotten Memories

In an old cardboard box in the attic,
personal notes sent on cold mornings,
bent nails,
rusted paper clips,
a high school ring,
pencil stubs,
a chipped red checker piece,
but mostly just long lost memories.
The old box sits beside
an antique mirror,
a single bed,
a dented in trumpet from the 1930s,
boxes of esoteric philosophy books,
magazines,
sacks of old games;
monopoly,
chess,
clue,
and an old picture album
of unknown faces… unfinished;
the forgotten memories attached,
are covered with countless years of dust.
The things glistened with newness
a long time ago
when those who lived in this old house
still breathed, laughed and loved… now
a dull silence.
Life, so brief, so taken for granted,
as precious moments fade,
and then,
what was can only be found
in old picture albums,
and in the memories of
those very few of ebbing years,
who are still alive to remember.

Strange Pulses in my Questing Mind

The quivering lobes in my questing brain,
wait for soothing symbols
from a remote entity,
to tell me I should not be afraid.
I know it may be true, but,
I see the limits of reason
when concerning the problems,
and questions, concerning God’s existence.
Even scientists claim
that nothing can
evolve from nothing,
ergo something,
God, must have created everything.
But then what created God?
Or does God
have no beginning,
and time does not really exist,
except in our limited
time controlled minds?
My grandfather’s clock,
peals the message that death is inevitable.
However,
my mind still refuses
to accept the reality of the timing,
for it is still playing with an unreality…
that we do not really exist,
and are only imaginary figments
in the mind of a God.

The Goddess in my Mind Garden

Sekhmet the lioness,
covered my withering mind garden
with seven arrows and three tears,
and I watched grief growing
in my plastic garden soil
of red crystals
where shadows of sorrow lived.
It was a dark metallic day,
and the rusting sun
hid in the lonely thoughts of tears,
as she released
an icy wind into my mind,
so that I couldn’t remember
the warm metaphors
that would grow
beautiful visions into memories.

James, a retired professor and octogenarian, Best of Web nominee and three time Pushcart nominee, has had four books of poetry; “Solace Between the Lines,” “Light,” “Ancient Rhythms,” and “The Silent Pond,” over 1530 poems, five novels and 35 short stories published worldwide.  He earned his BS and MA from California State Polytechnic University, SLO, and his doctorate from BYU. His fifth book of poetry is set for release this year. 

Poetry Drawer: Sleepy Whale Poems 236-435 by Terry Brinkman

Sleepy Whale 236

Mary’s without a second care
Every animal’s fault
The art of man
Barring the Bees
Ship of the streets
Brutes of the field
Ambulating, acquaintance, passionately
Friendly fashion indubitable
Making her look sideways at me
Hankering new vistas
Had her father’s gift
Irish exquisite, variations

Sleepy Whale 248

What did you see on the range?
In your father’s house
Your dying sister in the kitchen
Her point of junction
Flow from Round wood Revivers
Liner aqueduct yard exultance
Did it flow, subterranean bounty
Fallen below the sill
Water works unshed tears
Lay in the glen of the downs
Prolong the summer’s doubt

Sleepy Whale 407

Granite rocky mountain’s Utah High
Best Snow on Earth anywhere
Gloved hand, Cast Iron pan to fry
Message from Salvation Auctioneer
Lime-Green-Jell-O Frog Prince lie
She began to weep, wept an embrace
Be-mused over his limp wet rag
Shifty looking fellow playing the base
Drinking beer in an Irish Pub we all brag
Un-hasty friendliness to face
She melt a hearts of stone, rich silk stockings nag

Sleepy Whale 427

Sleepwalk to the grave, buried last evening
Wayne’s hand on his quest
Brightness of the stained glass
Haunting girlish shyness drinking beer
Instantaneous smoking effigy
Proceeding the sage sloops heard of Deer
Dark woman and fair man seated at Mass
Witchy bluest Irish blue eyed volunteer

Sleepy Whale 435

Shadows over her childhood’s crest
Her eyes glistering with tears last evening
Slightly flecked hair with gray, a long kissed guest
Gazing out the window’s Azul Glass
Have mercy, her end so near
Holiday’s lattice window Mass
Verge of tears, sighted eyes volunteer

Terry Brinkman has been painting for over forty five years. He started creating poems. He has five Amazon E- Books, also poems in Rue Scribe, Tiny Seed, Jute Milieu Lit and Utah Life Magazine, Snapdragon Journal, Poets Choice, In Parentheses, Adelaide Magazine, UN/Tethered Anthology and the Writing Disorder.

You can find more of Terry’s work here on Ink Pantry.

Poetry Drawer: Fish Chips and Mushy Peas by Gail Thornhill

Fish and chips on a plate
A meal meant for me
But I was late
Wait…
I wasn’t

A misunderstanding
Clear to see
But fate already awaited me

Back of my head
Fistful of hair
Thrust my face
in that plate right there

Fish, chips, and mushy peas
embedded my face
with apparent ease

But that wasn’t enough
to vent your rage
Slapping followed
Head to toe
Bladder reacted
and let it flow

The shame, the pain,
Still felt today
Memories
Never go away…

Gail Thornhill is a bookworm from Cheshire. Her best subjects at school were English Language and Literature. She has always enjoyed reading, fact, fiction, and poetry.

Poetry Drawer: Suffrage: Negation: Covid Winter: Christmas Lights: Letter Against Anger to the Daughters of George Hoshida by Brian Glaser

Suffrage

My grandmother was asked as a young woman
by her young son:

What do you want for Christmas
besides world peace?

The anecdote survived for decades in my family.

Tonight I realize it said more about her
than I had seen:

she was born just after the First World War,
her Cold War Catholic parenting

was unafraid of the Red menace—

she didn’t want to frighten her children
about the Communists,

she had been able to vote,
she had made something,

call it a difference.

Negation

     Twilight—
there are many brief
         hues to it—

Covid Winter

My grandmother would carefully select
Hallmark cards
with the appropriate words for the recipient and occasion.

I defended Hallmark for this reason—
without the detail that this was my grandmother,
she was a possible person in my comment—

I defended Hallmark to my literature teacher in college
and he said, with a laugh,

“If you have to rely on Hallmark, you’re in trouble.”

My son’s world history teacher showed his class
a Hallmark movie today at the end of the semester,

and she told them all that
she and her husband love to watch Hallmark movies together.

We laughed at them afterwards in my son’s room,
gentle, brief, slightly sad laughter.

And I walked in the cold darkness of December tonight
and prayer graced me

and language itself died like night at the dawn
and was reborn in the unspeakable pain of the dying.

Christmas Lights

      I am proud
                   of the dark houses,
            their hopefulness—

Letter against Anger to the Daughters of George Hoshida

Begin with the beauty of smallness:
on the evening of the convergence,
on the longest night of the year,
winter solstice, my children and wife looked for the bright planets
coming together, joining,
and they could not find them in the dark winter sky.

The vastness of the universe has for decades
seemed to me annihilating,
the dark everywhere around us—
so that meaning would become as if it never was
if I thought about that emptiness for too long.

But tonight I discovered how small I am,
my loves and worries,
and realized that it is, despite this, more than nothing, my life,
my family and my home, my being,
my human body and soul,
truly small though I am in the winter solstice of space.

Your father had every reason to be enraged,
imprisoned as he was simply for being Japanese in Hawaii—
losing his oldest daughter from whom he was separated—
and through it all
he kept drawing,

mostly human figures,
as he had been taught by correspondence school,
often three of them sharing a loose-leaf page—
maybe there was a rageful healing thoroughness there,
assembling families of separate figures again and again,
like laughter occupying each body
until its independence was complete.

Brian Glaser has published three books of poems and many essays on poetry and poetics.