Poems by A.J. Kaufmann

JAZZ ME BLUES (EXILE DEUTSCHLAND!)

The seraph, the tempest, in cobbled sky
avert in milky mourning 

thumbs up, 23
still wedded under
hope signs

Strands and days of marriage
jazz your blues
out of the moon
cheering wrecks
in harvest

Starlight reclaims
mind's burden
suicide hipsters
drown
where nightfalls 
blow

Soul's fire showers
stigmata whirled in sands
scythes
in the whirlwind
driven to flame

Fountains pitched in the lightning
screaming
exile Deutschland!
while mercy reigns
on Saturday heaven
Body be our pride
black sex
chalk stain
lions in lettering light
hunting
penthouse pain

Palms crash
your madrigal flesh
granite soul
a quarter of earth
you’re ink sketch Christ
unshapeable

Exile Deutschland!
for the years we spent
on bitter surf

THE SHADOW BOYS

Wake up to the burden
feel pain in everything wild
Polaroid electric smile

Round formless river eating herself
drinking with sadly late some
enduring in parade of poker

True fat age
shows through winter covers
tight family suits

Stormy days of heavy past
gather round
mouth meat
hearing fellow sounds
of a rat reel

Money, air, eccentric ink
with little sun painted squeals
brown bowdlerized
dinners rose
to prove
you’re eating noise

Night knell for the clowns
hard-earned peace
diminished
in clattering thoughts

We suddenly stop stealing
savage states
hitching strange 
rags of times
tuned with low
sailor days’ cravat

One frightful April
policeman laughing at
a nameless death
climbed, in face anguish
to the silence jury doodling:
talk of the pigs

Cold everything, muffled sick
shelved to watch
worried women
insects, booze
blue, burnt blankets
The frantic wait 
of sharp cruel dogs
dead city thirst
war sick divers
playing the old
patriotic drum

On far German deserts
of circus love
in begging eyes, serving
the glare wheel
you soberly walk
round twirling of words
memorizing
the shadow boys’
heaven

YOU DON’T EXIST

Murmur of leaden wings
dead edge
of a coffin

Thru whispers mad
we know you

Little pitiful
body death
a warm strange hand
in the night

Between incense
and the dark
blood is the flame
you burn

In waking moments
carefully watching
the blade
 
Rarify ecstasy now
then you don’t exist

BOMBAY

Ashes she describes 
her white and smallest you
light unwraps your head
every ornament
of intellect
childlike, translated
larvae

Guiding lady hybrids
thru satisfactory ages
burning sand in your eyes
days to their palm
anxious, demoralized
nights

Simple cracks, like us
subtle to destiny
practice monotony
against the shades
of reply 
this black, nauseous
leather

Parting with the quiet life
long, indigenous months
make me feel resigned
but I hold my true Bombay
in words timidly
carved

YIDDISH GHETTO FLOWER

Yiddish ghetto flower
old twilight bird 
searching eyes
in irony of vision

Cities forgotten
in velvety gleaming night
are slow side
phosphorus flesh psalm

Ridiculous, gone 
gleaming without a world
as ancient darkness saddles
our thought

Empty sunken stones
parade red words 
creeping up our fine cold skulls
blocking books and harmonies

Garbage goblets, mirrors
dull, ephemeral beauty
shocks the stars, screaming grapes
on vermilion black surface




A.J. Kaufmann is a young poet and songwriter hailing from Poznan, Poland, whose debut poetry chapbook, "Siva in Rags", was published on June 28, 2008 with a small American publisher, Kendra Steiner Editions. Since then he has published lots of poetry chapbooks in the USA, UK and Poland, including “Saint of Kreuzberg”, “Cut-up 2010” and “I’m Already Not Here”. His debut studio album, "Second Hand Man", appeared on the Polish music market on October 2, 2011.

poems by Michael Estabrook

frogs and the Boston Strangler

I’m at work, at my desk, finishing up a poem

about frogs (Everything in my life ends up

in a poem it’s sad yes I know it is a very

sad thing, but what can you do?)

when one of my fellow-workers sticks

his bald, shiny head into my office and says,

“Hey I heard this great joke

on TV last night about a frog . . .”

Of course I’m stunned by the coincidence

but can’t say anything about it because

nobody at work knows I’m a poet

when I’m not at work,

like the Boston Strangler was

a strangler when he wasn’t driving a cab.

Alpha-Male on the Beach

Yesterday the water was cold
and the waves choppy, but I went in anyway,
I went all the way in anyway,
the only one in.

I swam along the shoreline,
half a mile or so, my wife and granddaughter
following along on the beach.

"Wow," her eyes sparkled, "You were like
a triathlete out there." She took
my hand, so proud of me.

So today, the same situation, only with
the water even colder, the waves choppier.
When things calmed down, everyone finished
with their snacks and flying their kites,
I stood from my beach chair,
stretched like a waking bear,
swung my arms around and around
over my head so everyone could see me,
flapped them like Michael Phelps does
before he dives in.
Then I popped in my ear plugs,
strode out solemnly, so bravely, so manly
(the alpha-male on the beach)
through the rocks and seaweed,
cracked shells and snails,
finally diving into the churning frigid sea,
swam out and fought my way
along the craggy shoreline just like yesterday,
only this time nobody even noticed.


Pink Ribbon

I brought her her birthday present,
flew all the way across the country
to give her a belated birthday present.

I'm waiting out on her deck to surprise her.
She finally comes home from work
up the side steps to the deck,
smiling and giggling and chattering
with two of her girlfriends
just like the 13-year old beauty I knew so well.

Her hair is dark and long with a ribbon
holding it back, a pink ribbon.
She's wearing a white sweater.

I'm waiting for her on the deck at the top of the steps.
I thought she would be surprised to see me,
surprised and happy to see me,
waiting there with her present out on her deck.

Suddenly she's quiet,
stops talking with her girlfriends.
She doesn't seem to notice me,
(but I know she does),
doesn't even look at me
as I'm standing there all excited to give her
her present, to see her again after 47 years.

It's as if I don't exist, and in reality, I don't.
She rejected me a long, long time ago
and that's how it still is.
Some things simply do not change with time.


Risk

Truth of this matter was
I was far too frightened
that I'd lose her for good, forever,
if I stayed away, testing to see if she'd miss me.
What if she didn't miss me, what then?
What if after she sent me away
so she could date that other guy,
I stayed away until she missed me enough
to want me back, and she didn't?
What if I didn't come around
for a couple weeks, didn't call her
or write to her and she liked it!
What if she liked her freedom (from me),
like a songbird released from her cage, finally free,
free from me, free to flap her wings
and fly wherever she pleased, away from me,
unimpeded by me, free, forever free?
Where would I be then?
Certainly not here, lying in bed next to her
listening contentedly to her soft sweet snoring
and marveling once again that she married me,
agreed to spend her life with me,
agreed to being my girl till the end.
No, I couldn't risk it. I couldn't risk losing her,
that's why I didn't stay away,
why I returned almost the very next day,
coward that I am.


Baptism

In church for our grandchildren's baptism,
an hour, a long, long hour of the Benediction,
the New Testament Lesson, Pastoral Prayer, Offertory,
and the One Voice Choir singing ancient tunes.

I'm reminded of why I don't go
to church anymore -
anachronistic, old-fashioned, out-of-touch
with reality, feeling like I'm back in time to 1860.

But some people love it, feel fulfilled,
so I am happy for them,
wish I could be more simplistic and feel
the same way too, but I can't.

Brief bio:

Michael Estabrook is a baby boomer who began getting his poetry published in the late 1980s. Over the years he has published 15 poetry chapbooks, his most recent entitled “When the Muse Speaks.” Other interests include art, music, theatre, opera, and his wife who just happens to be the most beautiful woman he has ever known.

poems by Kevin Heaton

 Ageless Issues

                    from natural springs

                   

The first placenta pardoned sweet

water through mother’s earth canal

onto thirsty feral parchment.

A natural spring preened velvet green

clusters tickling sweet gum toes,

and spit-shined flint-flaked remnants

etched into sojourner missteps whisked

away on the current. Errant time

traveller tracks not yet held to account

were foot-washed unto salvation.

I stood hushed inside the terminus seeking

truth, and ponderd mysteries entrusted

to ageless artesian Samaritans summoned

by holy men. There, I wet the nib

of my hopes in quenching second chances,

and absolved solace of mortal restraint.         

The Fountain of Youth

The ghost of Juan Ponce de Leon

possessed the serpentine tongue

of a python. It told the Moorish

tale of an everafter fountain

along the River Euphrates 

in The Garden of Eden beside

the tree of good and evil, formed

by strange tides and divers tidings,

where scarlet parrots cleanse

their plumes in the refilled Cup

of Christ and splash Templar

wine on red flamingos panning

for watercress at Alexander’s

well. There, forbidden fruits dine

on carnal flesh without conviction,

and fabled springs extend the life—

                             of each inquisitor.

Westward Ho!

Sodbusters burrowed in Mississippi

mud and found comfort on the backs

of True People. The brittle dead fingers

of Custer’s Elm branch splintered

wanderdust into dream seeker eyes.

Peyote pricks from a cactus rose thorn

grafted trances onto sage seer visions:

hinting moonlight glints through

a bullsnake’s reflection; sidewinding

snips at the nib of an owl. Deer antler

tips neath a rolling flint hill flaked

the frontier edge of an oak grove cusp.

Lies and tall tales agreed to split hairs

on the gist of a small Kansas town.

Roman Nose

Nephilim fell to Mount Olympus

and sired her a warrior son.

Through halcyon days on phoenix

wings swaddled warm in fox fur.

Principle god of prairie wars

sent to stir the great Cheyenne

and let the squatter vein. His talisman:

a Spencer carb, breech-clout lashed

to four six guns. A compound bow

drawn near to splinters; sentried

at the left hand. Where legends legion

he lingered long beside Platte water

counting coup. His blood-tipped nose:

a Roman lance; to preen the blue

in yellow eyes, and snipe the aim

from soldier awe.

The Godfather’s Soul

James Brown died with his cape

on. God cast him in bronze, booked

into a night gig on Broad Street;

where re-glazed burnt sugars sweet

roll johns’ dough in crack-alley pink

cadillacs, and homies sift dust

on the hood. They tend ‘The Father’s’

soul for a blessing and spit shine

his brass with crepe myrtle dew,

then deal salvation to pimps

and pisspot prophets with gold

lamé teeth, while baby mamas

suffer their little children to rap

a few beats wit ‘Da Man.’

Pushcart Prize nominee Kevin Heaton was born in Kansas, and now lives and writes in South Carolina. His fascination with history and love for the outdoors have led him on a journey to better understand life beyond the city limits. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in 150 publications, including: Raleigh Review, Foundling Review, The Honey Land Review, and elimae. His fourth chapbook, Chronicles, is forthcoming from Finishing Line Press in early 2012. He is a Best of the Net 2011 nominee.

http://kevinspoetrysite.com/

poems by Joseph Farley

Joseph Farley

Heretic (3)

 

in andorra among the cathars

a soul waits to be collected

by the agents of the inquisition.

 

thumbscrews, hot pokers and the rack

wait in dungeons to redeem

this wayward heretic

 

so confession and redemption

can be stamped with a thumb print

on a canon's long parchment

 

before purification in cleansing flames

turns man into the purest ash.

Satori 12

wind and sky

blue oblivion

easy to get lost

like a bird

flying aimlessly

land and sky

and water and sun

river and mountain

all this to feed upon

and yet be

empty

hunger always

for the horizon

or just over

After The Conquest

We did not know

about the invasion

until after it

was over

and the new ruling

beings

had acquired

their mantles

of power

and taken up

residence

in the choicest

quarters.

As coups go

this was global.

Our new leaders

are inhuman,

but so far the change

has not been that bad.

They have sought

to clean up

the environment,

and end local feuds.

Sure, they do seize

and eat the occasional

citizen.

Neighbors

have disappeared,

but similar injustices

happened before

the alien's arrival..

Violence and

violation

have long been

the lot of the poor

and the chosen

who have fallen

out of favor.

I feel it is best

to give our masters

a chance,

the benefit

of the doubt.

Besides, what else

can we do?

Hold on.

I'll be right back.

There is someone

or some thing

knocking at my door.