Dear Readers,
Featured poets this month include --in random order: Bryon D. Howell, Barbary Chaapel, Toni Calvello, Taylor Graham, Torre DeVito, James Schwartz, Chris Barnes and Richard Vallance.
Please scroll down the page.
Results
for our last
Readers'
Poll: Top rated poems were those published by Jim Dunlap.
All poems will be found in PL&Times
July 2007~Featured Poets.
This was our last poll for this summer: the section is now under revision.
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Bryon D. HowellTHE PLACE The place where dreams don't come true anymore. The place where I am let down all the time. The place where sweetness is a closing door. The place where loving you is deemed a crime. The place where I am always thrown aside - I'm on my own without the will to live. I've given up on counting tears I've cried and no one wants the love I have to give. The place where you don't know how much I care. The place where all my feelings seem absurd. The place that's brim with anger, doubt, and fear. The place where all these words will go unheard. The place where all you know is "time apart." My love, this place I speak of - is your heart. ODE TO A FLOOR PLANT The last time I got drunk I felt the grief. I knew that it was time to make a change. The time had come to turn a brand new leaf. I was so sauced, but yet I felt ashamed. A brand new leaf and planting brand new seeds - that sounded nice for reasons I don't know. Of plants there are so many different breeds. I knew not where to start or when to go. I wobbled over to the living room, the artificial plant looked way too thin! "Look at this dust! My house is such a tomb!" Half drunk I shouted, "Here it shall begin!" I was so drunk and frazzled, had to pee. "Drink up, my friend. It's time to be a tree!" PENNIES FOR MY DREAMS To be as free as freedom, what a dream! A thought which I indulge in all the time. A tricky treasure I cannot redeem - I settle for the truth, not worth one dime. The homeless and the hungry, babies dead. The unpaid bill, the jobs no one can find! Still “freedom” somehow echoes in my head. Who knew that hope itself could be unkind? Each blue day passes and I fear the next - insurgency, the killings - thoughtless tripe. I do believe this world I’m in is hexed - and as for love I am nobody’s type. I have a jar yet have no change to spare. Perhaps it stinks since I deny it air? CPR FOR SONNETS They told me rhyme will be my true demise. My friends, I disagree with all that spat. Don't you give into all that nonsense chat - like ghosts from coffins, watch my sonnets rise. They told me many things I just ignore - so quick they are to label what's a miss. They'll bleed with no constraints to fatal bliss. My sonnets will live on forevermore. They told me, "Stop, you do not have a chance!" I told them, "So, what else is new for me?" I put my soul into my poetry. We all must die someday. For now, romance. A B A B times three has met its death? I'll save each with a couplet from my breath. THE BARNYARD DOOR My love was like a cow which always mooed. My love was like a garden snake which slid. My love was like a squirrel, nuts - it's true. My love was like a fox who ran and hid! My love was like a horse which always dumped. My love was like a chicken laying eggs. My love was like a hare which always thumped. My love was like a rat on sneaky legs. My love was like a bull, you know the rest. My love was like a pig which oinked a lot. My love was like a sheep - that "secret sex." My love was like a hen who laid all cock. My love, she was, she is my love no more. My love died when I closed the barnyard door. THE SPELL-TALE HEARTS Held back so long I now can barely think and eyes patrol the room like rookie cops. My heart's a dam, your presence is the chink - I'm leaking from the heart. I hope it stops. It's been so long I have denied my eyes the rainbows and the mist stares leave behind. For you it's all returned, they're open wide. I'm gazing at perfection. Does it mind? So back to thoughts inside all turned and tossed ... back to my heart, the one which aims to leak. Blood's dripping, rippling, fleeting, breaking - lost. I once said, "Not again." Alas. I'm weak. Four eyes cast spells in one warm line of fire. In disbelief, they break. Farewell, Desire! c. All poems by Bryon D. Howell, 2007. |
 Much of DeVito's poetry deals with interpersonal relationships, but he seems to draw his inspiration and much of his metaphor from the natural world. His voice is very consistent throughout the body of his work, but he explores a variety of styles. Most of his poems are metrical; many employ rhyme - sometimes in surprising ways. Torre currently lives in North Carolina with his wife and children. |
TORRE DEVITOA Week on Squam LakeI had never heard a loon cry Until that first night in New Hampshire At the lake house in Holderness While we nine friends (more like one family: five siblings with four parents) Talked and joked and made loon-puns: About bird's underwear (panta-loons), And big mean ugly birds (loon-goons). Meanwhile the haunting, lonely sound Entered my soul. And then that first brisk morning We woke before the fish Picked our way between the wisps Of silent silver mist to cast our lines to the dark water. It was the last time a summer day Would seem to linger for a brief eternity Those languid days which stretched before me like the lake, yet rushed behind me Like the wake of our small mottorboat The last warm days of a summer that had begun With the death of a friend And would soon fade into the autumn of my childhood. Even now I hear the sounds Of days that ended way too soon: The lap of water 'gainst the boat, A fat trout flapping on the dock, Slap of paddles, outboard's drone, Sweet laughter, and the cry of loons. A Long Way South of NowDown, down, down in the south of my childhood, Drawn out dreams of days departed Drape, like moss in limbs of bleached wood: Shrouded bones, in a glade uncharted. The memories flash like dusk heat lightning, Or the fire flies that flit and flare, But grow rusty like the screen door, sighing With creaks and groans in the hot night air. These dreams of Dixie hang like laughter Of small black children clear and sweet, But bleed like fingers picking cotton, And cling like the stale mill house heat. Oh, they taste like a sweet ripe watermelon, But crack, like the hard, red, sun-baked clay, And just like a ripe, ripe fig start smelling. A thing, once fine, that's spoiling away. CommutingThe waiting eyes, the vacant stares, the feet that pace and rest, Become alive at eight-oh-nine, fold their papers, ask the time, Move down the platform in a line, as the eight-oh-one pulls in. The air-brakes hiss, the metal wails, the train stops with a sigh. And so another day's begun: the programmed bodies move as one, Board the train and sit benumbed, or peer through smudged green windows. As for me I search their faces, looking for some sign of life. What I seek I do not find, the fault however may be mine, I think; perhaps, that I've grown blind from too much introspection. A hiss, the smell of ozone, and a lurch, and we begin As plastic smells and smoke combine, I feel detached, displaced in time, Hurtling on without design down steel rails worn bright with use. Peering out the window, I think about a friend. I mourn his loss and feel resigned. Did I commute his death to mine? I strain to see beyond the grime of scratched, green-tinted plastic. Through granite rock-cuts, barren trees, beneath a steel gray sky, The world’s grown dim and monochrome. amidst this crowd, I am alone. I feel that I have turned to stone, devoid of all emotion. I strain to see beyond the grime of scratched, green-tinted windows, I read the name of every station, watch them pass in desperation Till I reach my destination, then, alone, I disembark. The cigarette butts, and coffee cups; a paper bag, and I: Kinetic cast-offs, unaware, move down the platform toward the stair; Motivated by the air that rushes in the wake of things. Be Strong my Love, and SoftBe strong my love,And soft, like mountain rain. Find pools of peace Reflecting love and light, Form torrents that The rocks cannot contain Drive onward with Relentless waters, white... Be deep enough Absorbing joy and pain, Be strong my love, And soft, like mountain rain. GlidingWe move through mist, wordlessIn our separate thoughts, gliding Through muddy whiteness, straining To see yellow lines on wet asphalt. Taut power-lines emerge Against a brooding sky, sudden Illumination, then nothing. You sleep beside me through the vision. I feel alone, yearning For your conversation, longing Through lonely landscapes, sharing My secrets, though you are sleeping. You stir without waking. Sensory deprivation ending: The fog clears or we emerge, Closing on an unknown destination. |
