Poetry By Lynn White

Chosen

They were the master race
chosen by genes
pure.
They chose who should die
by burning
by bombing
by starving
by any means necessary.
They chose
those who were different
genetically
politically.
They chose
the naysayers
those who didn’t make the grade
those who didn’t pass the test
they chose.
They were the master race
chosen to be
masters of all
the captured people
the captured territories
masters of all.
They were the chosen people
chosen by genes
pure.
They chose who should die
by burning
by bombing
by starving
by any means necessary.
They chose
those who were different
genetically
politically.
They chose
the naysayers
those who didn’t make the grade
those who didn’t pass the test
they chose.
They were the chosen people
chosen to be
masters of all
the captured people
the captured territories
masters of all.
Time after time
might defines right
in the selection process.
Time after time there’s a selection process
where only the masters have the right to choose.

Poetry By Carl “Papa” Palmer

Misstep

Happy with myself the first time in years,
able to look folks in the face unashamed,
knowing another day has been conquered.

My friends, my family, all proud of me,
of how my life is finally turning around,
all offering hope, support, courage, love.

Each hour counted, each day, each night,
until reaching one solid month, yesterday.
I deserved a night off to reward myself.

So what do I do, I celebrate my success
by doing exactly what got me here in the
first place. Like last time, the time before,

take a taste, tell myself I can stop after
one. Like last time, knew I would not,
could not, and like last time, fail again.

I missed my high, wondered why I ever
stopped, why I started again. When the
low returns, I return. Like the last time,

like the first time, accepted by comrades
sharing my journey of steps and missteps.
Days sober reset. Tomorrow is my goal.

~ The twelve-step program is a set of guiding principles outlining a course of
action for recovery from addiction, compulsion, or other behavioral problem.

Poetry By Timothy Horne

“Knock, knock, knock”

“ Peter’s at the door!”
The answer to your prayers
it’s what you all hoped for”
Their shock showed unbelief
“ You’re crazy, it’s not true!
An angel yes, not Peter,
Would God actually come through?”
Will he give us what we ask?
As we seek him in prayer
Does God still do miracles?
Every answer shows he cares.
Sometimes yes, he’s loving
Sometimes no, he’s wise
Sometimes “wait” he’s working
But he always hears our cries.

Poetry By Bronwyn C

Horatic ode to messengers

It won’t happen on command or as the clock strikes, but it happens
And my eyes fill with stars so bright I lose all my scars and regrets
You are stronger than all my remorse

Poetry By Michael Hack

You Asked Me For Space:

I wear my heart on my sleeve

You filter your emotions

I try to act like you don’t push me away

But I wear my heart on my sleeve

And when

I start to crack

And when

I filter my emotions back

And I don’t wear my heart on my sleeve

And then

You asked me for space

And that is all I ever wanted to give you

The whole universe

My whole universe

But you asked me for space

And so I gave it to you

And I learned

Never to wear my heart on my sleeve

Poetry By Nicholas De Marino

Two Moments

“I think about it a lot,” Mom says, sitting
on the steps as my daughter lets the cat sniff her.

“Waiting there. All the people with puppies.
And Little Dog’s back from the dead.”

I tiptoe next to Mom and hook an arm
around her. “You’re the good son,” she says,

smiling away tears. I’m your only son,
I remind her, and kiss her on the head.

ii.

“I’m standing because you are,” my daughter says
as we pant in the curbside fug. “It feels like

you’re pressuring me.” I sit down on a bench
and coo at a pair of pink-footed pigeons.

“Like this?” she asks. No, you need more phlegm.
“You mean spit?” Yeah, spit. Look how they’re

preening each other. “Dad, all birds do that,”
she reminds me, and I kiss her on the head.

Poetry By Ghairo Daniels

Black Sea

On a deserted shore I lie splayed

blood letting into mud as

akashic ink with a blue bead

rain tattered flag

life force gasping

a silenced Aleph commands not returning

to Eden, trousers torn

I’m to bear stretching salty

pebbles rattling freedom songs

a release — from foreign ensigns

war wailing, skin torn

invisible fingers on

thyroid witnessing mudskippers sliding —

am I to crawl into sea voiding ?

babes in unnamed coves or

before rifle mouths

I perceive not !

my bead quiet

spherical time taking its toll from fragmented

fragrant smiles dancing

waves of auburn hair

float before my vision

matrixing into filmstrips

watched by silent soldiers

snaking silhouettes

a sanatorium under my skull —-

Black Sea shimmers obsidian blood

zealous warriors into desert camps

dried dates in pockets hidden

oracles buried, wrapped in

scarves, black and white

combat paraphernalia looping

birth land

serpent scales melting into grit

witnessing human absurdity

chaos indigestible

labyrinths spinning vortices

sacred body upturned shining on

midnight waters

begging truce

blue bead rolling

~~~

sombre sea peering ________

mirroring what Most High

plans to deliver next

would indecision dissolve into His

luminous spleen or

writhe on a shore

not speaking

glazed as mud fish ?

dim are frameless memories

spilling jigsaw questions gaping on

sands without shells

nerve damaged hips exposed

phantoms rising from waters

~~~

…Aah Beloved Sea ! Let womb melt into your darkness

connecting eyeballs in an eternal movement to rupture or accord

Forlorn Sea ! claim premature wrinkles

aiding misplaced oysters to

crawl through nostrils

or ….

let rose prayers reach his ossicles

before roe gestate on moondrops falling feeding cod waters – —

veins ripple frequencies

into Black Sea

prudent, evading

is this one more unfinished Love

hacked by skirmishes ?

might wheels of Helios reach mine gestating inward —

grasping not revolving spikes

fingering forehead

magnetising El Morya or

Mother Mary

I sit in a black mist waiting ______

can Love rescue carnal conflagration games within own quarks —

before skin become mesoderm of

scorpion-fish…?

minds derailing God’s plans for winds of

lullabies across invaded lands

its soil my own grey matter

strife solitude etching meridians

~~~

stillness after bloodshed

before surrender

lungs knowing

absconding is procrastinator

to stroking Brahmin’s hairline

blue bead rambling — —

Black was Sea before hostilities

guts modulating depths

Black is Sea after goddess power stands resurrected

cradling rebirthing

I’m malfunctioning to reach the Danube

awaiting arms of Jason’s Argonauts

black is water where I stitch

pips __

muse eternal marry mythos reconstructing

Golden Fleece …

for certain

a rainbow

arches ~

Poetry By Jennifer Weigel

I’ve never been much of a poet.

My tongue trips over words
with an awkward uncertainty
and my deciphering of context
is more than a shade awry.

Yet the ebb and flow of my life’s own observations
boil and roil and toil within me, yearning to be known;
like a rush hour traffic jam on a Monday morning,
my thoughts often race to a halt before speeding on.

Words that best express me
wax and wane and stop and go;
lost to the traffic of my mind,
my musings become congested.

In this strange habit I have of thinking silently aloud,
I seem to have rambled my thoughts into a corner
and, having tripped over an awkward pause in conversation,
I ponder navigating a new course of words through the jam.

But the words that I search for
are always miles ahead or behind
and I come to realize once again –
I’ve never been much of a poet.

Poetry By John Holding

South

(After North by Seamus Heaney)

I returned to stand on

Encounter Bay’s wrap of

Off white sand, that bastion—

Holds the Coorong’s spill.

To shun Antarctica

Frozen, hard-white, bleak

And Van Diemens land, that

One grim island lying south—