October / Archetypes by Jason Ryberg

1) October (Tanka)

A Halloween wind
is moaning a low oboe
tone through October's
dark haunted forest of strange
     birds and boney xylophones.



2) Archetypes (Tanka)

The wind has always
    been able to read our minds
and the ten thousand
    myriad archetypes have
    their own memory palaces.

Jason Ryberg lives part-time in Kansas City, MO with a rooster named Little Red and a Billy-goat named Giuseppe, and part-time somewhere in the Ozarks, near the Gasconade River, where there are also many strange and wonderful woodland critters.

A Ghoulish Time for Fun by Fausto Avendaño

They rise at night from old tombstones
ghouls and skeletons with noisy bones.
They seek to scare children with horrid cries
showing their faces devoid of eyes.

They march down darkened streets
where many treats, boys and girls seek.
They tag along with little girls,
sizing up their little heads with pretty curls.

They search for naughty children, and their tricks,
those who splatter eggs on homes of bricks.
They throw tomatoes on houses’ sidings
and knock down signs with welcome writings.

On October thirty first crowds of ghosts
scramble out from their putrid posts.
They scare the little ones with their ghostly face,
stalking them in a frightening race.
As the children turn to run,
the specters chase them just for fun.

Some skeletons dance with grudging partners,
others conjure up their spells with devil sponsors.
All night the monsters frolic until late
dismissing their awful, gruesome fate.
They’re dead, they know, but they don’t care.
for all they want to do is scare.

But then they see far out on the horizon
The bluish light of dawn arising.

At once, a well-dressed specter from Paree
announces loudly “C’est fini!”
The time has come to stop all fun.
Back into their crypts the big and little monsters run.
Back into their yearlong slumber.
Until October comes around again.
They shout out this last refrain:
“Our night will soon be gone,
but we’ll be back, it won’t be long.”

Fausto Avendaño is a writer and an emeritus professor from Sacramento, California. He has published short stories and poetry in American and foreign journals, novels and a play. Fausto has won two literary prizes in the United States and abroad. Some of his books are featured on the Internet.

Black Poppy Open for Autumn Submissions

 

~ Have you got your ticket for Black Poppy Carnival?  Black Poppy is now open for submissions and will be posting works on September 1st (or whenever the first poem arrives).  Get your tickets ready for a new Autumn season of dreadful delights!  

Nietzsche by Robert L. Penick

Nietzsche was wrong
when he said the abyss
looks back into the seeker.

When one looks too long
into the abyss, one becomes
the abyss, is translated
into less a lacking
than a vacuum, an absence
of warmth, light, and pulse.

One becomes
every word unwritten,
a single great thought
uncomposed.

The poetry and prose of Robert L. Penick have appeared in well over 200 different literary journals, including The Hudson Review, North American Review, Plainsongs, and Oxford Magazine. The Art of Mercy: New and Selected Poems is now available from Hohm Press, and more of his work can be found at theartofmercy.net

Sleepwalking by Luis Cuauhtémoc Berriozábal

Join me in sleepwalking
without fear.
The weight of the world
is all wind.

We can climb walls with
our eyes closed.
We can run against the wind
and the world.

We can take measured steps
and slow turns.
We can let the man know the sky
is limitless.

My sleepwalking is all I have.
Touch my heart.
Meet where the day begins to
fade away.

Luis Cuauhtémoc Berriozábal lives in California and works in Los Angeles. His poetry and art has appeared in Black Petals, Black Poppy Review, Blue Collar Review, Escape Into Life, Four Feathers Press, and Kendra Steiner Editions.

Unraveling by Joan McNerney

all those mundane strings broken
mores manners, perhaps it is better
to forget names dates skills scores

we who are human who have
spoiled and squandered so much

do we long to become those primal
creatures as we were meant to be?

simply swaying with winds breathing in
flowers gazing at birds tasting raindrops
gathering sunshine on our faces

Joan McNerney’s poetry is published worldwide in over thirty-five countries in numerous literary magazines. Four Best of the Net nominations have been awarded to her. The Muse in Miniature, Love Poems for Michael, and At Work are available on Amazon.com. A new title Light & Shadows has recently been released.

In the Shadows / The Crossing by Wayne Russell

In the Shadows

On the night shift
there's no one to
talk to.

You learn that the
sounds of your own
voice is all you have.

The shadows on the
walls are shaped and
like your disparity-

they morph into the
demons hidden upon
the innate tapestry of
your soul.

The minutes tick by so
slowly, two icy hands
screeching methodical

etching the sad history
upon your gravelly heart
and you just know that

the real world will surely
continue tomorrow, in
the bloodletting sunrise
of a new day.






The Crossing

When the rain plummets down
upon flesh, soaking through to
bones that are weary-

when nightingales’ song, interwoven,
with the mourning of a starling’s weep,
dead unto the earth and slate grey

of tomb. Rise from this terminus
point, ride the waves and cast off
this salty hue-

and the flowers bloom in spring, no
mammoth flowing hillside palace can
encapsulate soaring red tail hawk-

a feather's soft touch, a rebuke of
death in the soft ebbs of twilight,
and those that are the galloping

hooves of the dark reaper's horse,
a mockery of life crossing over the

bridge into immortality.

Wayne Russell is a creative jack of all trades, master of none. Poet, rhythm guitar player, singer, artist, photographer, and author of the poetry books “Where Angels Fear” via Guerilla Genius Press, and the newly released “Splinter of the Moon” via Silver Bow Publishing, they are both available for purchase on Amazon.