March 18, 2024

Helvius Cinna Walks the Forum on the Eve of His Dismemberment by Eric Brown

With Ariadne’s crown gleaming sidereal,
Pitched in heaven by the god of wine, to twine
There with celestial ivies, I lingered last night
Passing your Forum, Caesar, where your steed
Stands stout, and down whose steps you came
Only last week for the Feast of Lupercal,
When I hosted you and we drank our cups clean.
Such sport beggars those whose debts lie unpaid,
Vitruvius, Moscius, and barren Hermia,
But for you the riches of the table are spent
With never a thought of impecunity.

Fennel-sweet ham hocks, no less proportioned
Than that Crommyonian sow, slain by the son
Of Aegeus and fatted on the flesh of Corinthians.
Nor were scant the salted eels, brined and basted,
And our grapes full of juice, pulpy and bursting,
With pan-fired breads and goat’s cheese. And we ate
Past satiety those honeyed butterflies you claimed
A delicacy in Alesia. Nor did the rubious wine
Fermented from the old vineyards of Oenopion
Mix with waters of Volturnus, but stained our lips
And garments a deep purple, as you told tales
Of many a cold Gallic battle, frosted stubblefields
Where crows huddled and gorged on barley grains
And the fat aphids that burrowed into the browning
Stalks, while Rhinish tribes brought tribute of gold,
Lest great Caesar like flame-robed Hyperion
Incandesce and put their frozen hovels to fire.

Such thoughts warm me now, sole wanderer
On this chill night: Aurora’s dull orange glow
Still hours away, and the city quiet as a snowfall.
Now in the shadow of Saturn’s star-bright altar,
On the fluted stones of mossy pillars, sluggish snails
Slime their oozy trails, and wait for the empyreal sun
To light their way.






Eric Brown is Professor Emeritus of English at the University of Maine Farmington and current Executive Director of the Maine Irish Heritage Center. His work has previously appeared or is forthcoming in The Ekphrastic Review, Mississippi Review, Carmina Magazine, The Galway Review, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, and The Frogmore Papers (shortlisted for the 2023 Frogmore Poetry Prize).

March 15, 2024

Wildwood by William Doreski

Razorbacks haunt the forest.
Tusks poised, they pepper new snow
with hoofprints the size of quarters.
We never see them. Too shy
to indulge our love of wildlife,
they grunt and snort in the dark
like old men troubled by sex.

The winter hisses in the eaves.
We nurse the blights of daily life
and fuss over debts and debits.
Sometimes after chatting with folks
in the café we pun on boars
and bores but not too unkindly,
aware of our common descent.

We hope some flamingo dawn
raving breakneck over the hills
will catch the hogs still abroad
so we can glimpse them bristling
and shrugging off a vinyl world
too genteel to embrace them
while their primal hunger grins.





William Doreski lives in Peterborough, New Hampshire. He has taught at several colleges and universities. His most recent book of poetry is Venus, Jupiter (2023).  His essays, poetry, fiction, and reviews have appeared in various journals.

March 14, 2024

Then / Haunted by Kenneth Pobo

Then--

falls over my head.  

My good mood, 

peppermint.  Then—

I die.  A heart attack?  

Who knows, I drop over 

and hit my head on a pink 

Passionate Kisses rose.   

I hadn’t expected to go 

like this, wanted something 

Bergmanesque, a chess 

game with Death, 

though I don’t play chess.  

Even at checkers I lose.  

My husband finds 

my body, seems far away 

even as he tries 

to resuscitate me.  I call 

for my guardian angel 

who’s busy sewing a cloud 

that broke above a maple.  

This is the end.  

It’s vague and beams 

of light flash 

and flash before fading.

Haunted

We spread

my mother’s ashes

in our garden

as she wanted.  

Her presence,

not her absence,

haunts the garden.

Every flower

has her

in it.  Even the yard

greens with her vitality.

Haunted makes 

some people nervous.  

They imagine portraits 

in houses with eyes

that move.  My haunted

garden is a joy.

I visit my mother,

petal by petal.

We talk,

have much to say

in sun or rain.

March 12, 2024

My Graveyard Confession / Enough of These Visitations, Already by John Grey

My Graveyard Confession

I confessed my love
to Anna's pale fearful face
in that same secluded eerie spot
where Jamie Harryman
butchered Lisa Winters
with a steak knife,
confessed my love
to the relentless hum
of Jamie's savage blade
through graveyard air,
the screeching echo of
Lisa's tombstone screams.
"Love you too,"
whispered a trembling Anna.
"Now let's get out of here."
Nothing like young love...
except, of course, for old murders.




Enough of These Visitations, Already

All I have to ask of you
is that you go back
the way you came –
through the wall,
to the graveyard,
the soil, the coffin,
and stay there.

No more shrieks,
no more flailing arms,
no more tumbling backward
into a heap on the floor.

You died once.
I killed you once.
We’re even.





John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident, recently published in New World Writing, North Dakota Quarterly and Lost Pilots. Latest books, ”Between Two Fires”, “Covert” and  “Memory Outside The Head” are available through Amazon. Work upcoming in California Quarterly, Seventh Quarry, La Presa and Doubly Mad.

March 10, 2024

Like Zen / Crows by Michael Lee Johnson

Like Zen (V3)

This version
is tacitly the best.
I am in the morning sun
when the artist arrives.
My pair of pajamas
sleep in frozen still patterns.
I turn my face oriental with my poems.
Cherry blossoms, I turn inside out
light pink to white, brevity, for a short
time then walk alone, then die.
I hear the sound of notes in my ears
approaching on silent footprints.
I enter the monastic life; abandon untimely
meals, vulgar songs, and dance, mime statuette
toss garlands, toss racy clothing,
abstain skunk of perfumes abstain no visitors.
I leave all sinful shadows behind.
But I am of this world, not out of this world.
I swear way too much and pray too little.
The way of Zen and Jesus is a boxing match.
Crack and smack a curse—
twigs break silence.





Crows (V2)

Tired of hunger
tired of emptiness
late February winter snow—
crow claws locked in
on my condo balcony
steel railings.
Their desperate eyes
focus in on my green eye
sockets—
their search begins,
I go to bed, no ruffled feathers showing—
their imaginary dreams of green—
black wings fly flapping—
the hunt, scavengers, over barren fields—
shadows in the way
now late August
summer sun
bright yellow
turning orange—
hard corn.





Michael Lee Johnson lived ten years in Canada during the Vietnam era. Today he is a poet in the greater Chicagoland area, IL. He has 300 plus YouTube poetry videos. Michael Lee Johnson is an internationally published poet in 46 countries, a song lyricist, has several published poetry books, has been nominated for 7 Pushcart Prize awards, and 6 Best of the Net nominations.

March 8, 2024

The Dance of Death / A Cruel Spring by Sarah Das Gupta

The Dance of Death

Drums beat, wildly, madly,
echoing grimly among the green hills.
In the distance forest trees
lashed by a titanic storm,
bend in obeisance to the gods
of a savage Spring.

In a circle, young girls dance,
at first their steps slow, graceful.
Bare, slender feet leave
soft, momentary footprints.
The drum beat quickens, darkens.
The dancers, captured, controlled
by the demands of the music,
quicken their footsteps
in the whirling hysteria of the violins.

One lone girl remains.
Faster, faster the music rushes
A crazy orgy, an insane tempo,
her feet no longer touch the turf.
Long, dark hair, blown and tortured
by the rising wind.
The dancer becomes a circle,
a whirling flash of colour and light.
a pattern, an emblem,
a dying sacrifice to Spring.




* Stravinski’s ballet ‘The Rite of Spring’ was first performed in Paris on 29th May, 1913 amid riots among some of the audience. It concludes with the Dance of Death.




Water rushes, angrily, cruelly,

crashing jagged boulders

against the soft, green banks.

Red clay colours the waters.

Now a stream of blood

dashes onward.

 

In forest glades

beneath the tangled roots

of oak and beech,

Death Cap, Funeral Bell,

fairy toadstools

to lure the unwary.

 

The elusive shapeshifter, hare,

runs through the bramble thickets

where sharp thorns hide

under new, green livery. 

Beneath the sparkling

woodland pond

thick, black sludge

lies in ambush.

 





Sarah Das Gupta is a teacher from Cambridge, UK who enjoys writing poetry when it is getting dark and she can just see the bare branches of the trees and hear the river flowing quickly just below the window.

March 6, 2024

That Old Black Magic by Juleigh Howard-Hobson

You are sorry. I understand. Still, we are faced with that which must be acknowledged.
Real love cannot be broken. So, what we had…was a different thing.

Brick dust. Glass shards. Three rusty needles. A photograph of you. Wrapped in a white handkerchief.
Tied with black ribbon. Buried in front of your house. Certain words whispered. A waning moon.
A starless night. This is all I need.

And from this moment on, your life will not go well. You will never prosper.
Never be happy. Time will not change what I have wrought.

Like love, some spells cannot be broken.




Juleigh Howard-Hobson’s poetry has appeared in Midnight Echo, Bowery Gothic, 34 Orchard, The Dead Lands, Under Her Skin (Black Spot Books) Vastarien: Women’s Horror (Grimscribe Press) and many other places. Her most recent book is Curses, Black Spells and Hexes (Alien Buddha). She lives on the Pacific Northwest Coast. There might be werewolves, there are certainly ghosts… She tweets: @poetforest