Satish Verma, 18 july 2012
Writing on sleeves
to remember your departure
and becoming a stray cloud.
The maternal touch
of the sky, you can sleep whole life
on dense logics.
White sheets were burning
unannounced in the home.
I lost the key, to open the door.
All I wanted to tell you
about, selling the roses.
Thorns must not go free.
The snake was shedding the skin,
time to hone on whetstone.
The tender loaf was ready.
Satish Verma
B.Z. Niditch, 17 july 2012
A bird dances
on a branch
of evergreen,
not knowing
you're distracted
on your bicycle,
when a soul
with a Slavic accent,
says "After you,"
and holds you up
down the road,
for a divine
appointment.
B.Z. Niditch, 17 july 2012
Days after your death in Paris,
that town square in Poland
still recites parables of survival
at your passing
making us feel orphaned
as solitude,
older than the most tortured
dog under a tree
begotten by whispers
in the child's art
of dreaming kaleidoscopes
in cathedrals of the blue Madonna
begging for bread and sun
lit by a poet's miracle
of words in unquiet radiance
putting on your pawned
overcoat covering a jacket
of rain showers
walking with a cane of images
outside a tiny room
with the cold bulb
now broken.
B.Z. Niditch, 17 july 2012
Footsteps follow a cat
on snowy streets
near the central station
shadowing Warsaw's night
In a half asleep city
no one sees either of you
stretching silence
by sweet shop windows
Everything disappears
even milk for the cat
moonlight hides
a few ragged strangers
Deportations rise
every quarter of an hour
with dawn's finality
on brownshirted platforms
Angels are not welcome
on your shaved head era
when beasts seize beauty
on a pile of books
Disorder takes on
a life of its own
but you, Wislawa
will have a keepsake.
Gert Strydom, 17 july 2012
In my childhood days I pick lilies in the marsh,
I pick lilies, the most beautiful that I can find
in colours of red, yellow and white
but now a tar road cuts past.
The highway runs almost to eternity,
I wonder where the dilapidation did start
see no coots, plovers calling
broken lies the marshland that I love
and I have to search into the bright blue
to cling to the untouched
while smoke clouds of white, yellow and grey hang
like a blanket that is folding over everything
while wealth increases, nature becomes distorted,
and the plain has offices that is encroaching it.
Gert Strydom, 17 july 2012
Like ants living clustered in, we do live
and are rushing
without noticing the red rising sun;
and everything
falls into place in our quickened pace
and each feeling,
action, glance is set in a quick-fix day
where we do loose the ability to pray,
with significant others instead of
husbands and wives,
where our children do not have to obey,
living their lives
totally Godless as they reach for more
and are in strive
with the laws and the ways of society
as everything centres just on I and me.
Gert Strydom, 17 july 2012
Dress your legs with nylons
with cat eyes in between
glowing next to huge pylons
never serene, just weirdly obscene
and destroy every patch of green
with shopping malls and every chain store
disrupting how towns and cities had been
and plant power stations by the score
and be a age totally foul
with scores of minibus taxi’s asunder
acting as if without a soul
to kill and to plunder
with the monsters bellowing
smoke like gallows, energizing electrical strings.
Glenn McCrary, 17 july 2012
That freedom is a fine goddess
Is a keepsake to which we Americans are wise.
Her toga conceals timeless wounds
That once perhaps were lies.
louis gander, 17 july 2012
“Dear Lord and Savior, hear my plea.
I've one request - wait, two or three....
This time though, I'm in a fix,
so maybe there'll be five or six....
Please answer quickly, hear me now
and I'll pray daily - that's my vow.
Unlike before, please don't postpone,
for really Lord, You should have known.
I've sacrificed so much for You,
for years been nagged by 'you know who'....
The children too, yell at the spouse -
we really need a larger house....
My boat is bleached from Your hot sun
so I really need a brand new one.
My wardrobes full - but can't wear those -
for Heaven knows I need new clothes.
You know I just went out to eat,
‘all I could eat' - wow, what a treat -
topped it off with cream and cake -
so take away my stomachache.
I've tried so hard to lose some weight,
from all this fat that You create....
I feel so tired and weak somehow,
so give me strength - I need it now.
Well, thank You for my new guitar,
my brand new camper, one more car,
but vacation's what I really need -
roller coasters, lots of speed.
You are so great. I know You care,
so answer now - my simple prayer.
These aren't mere words, these are my needs
and if You grant, I've more good deeds....
There's so much more I'd ask of You,
with credit cards long overdue....
But you, dear Lord, must surely know,
the fish are biting - I must go.
I only ask for what I need.
These are not 'wants' so please proceed.
Stay close to me - I'll call again.
Please grant me what I need, Amen.”
©2007 louis gander - ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
http://www.ganderpoems.org/
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