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Poetry by

Tim Poland

When Lazarus Comes Forth, as Instructed

she slumps on her low stool in the garden,
drops her chapped hands in her lap, and stares
at the stone rolled from the cave mouth, stares
at the shrouded corpse waddling into the light

unnoticed by the distracted crowd, exhausted,
she mutters under her thin breath, oh, now
why did he have to go and do that?

each night, while her sister slept, she sat
by his pallet in the stingy light of sputtering oil,
swabbing his fevered forehead with cool water,
salving his sores with ointment she mixed herself,
propping up his lolling head in her hand and
dribbling a bit of broth through his cracked lips,
struggling to remain awake, vigilant under
the weight of her own leaden fatigue

now, the house has been cleaned, the walls scrubbed,
the floor swept, the windows thrown open to the
welcome air, the sick-room odor dissipating at last

the gathered crowd beneath the one olive tree,
by the well in the garden, they came for her,
a small conclave of neighbors, bringing bread
or dates, a smoked fish, a little wine, come to
join her and her dreamy-eyed sister, to absorb
the weight of private loss into the communal vault,
to silently permit her relief, the unvoiced portion
of grief, her due after duty faithfully performed

but the crowd of neighbors is lost to her now,
dazzled by the display, teased by the miraculous,
some shudder with gap-jawed astonishment,
some drop to their knees, lift their hands aloft,
some run from the terror of the breached sepulcher
as the corpse stumbles closer and closer,
no one notices her

she had warned him, it was obvious, she thought,
despite her sister’s giddy delight, that four days in
its cave, behind its stone, would leave no more than
a putrid carcass to stagger forth, her brother would
stink and stink he does, the rank wind carries the scent
of rot up the hillside to her stool in the garden

oh, let him be, she had pleaded
let him lie, as intended

she rubs her raw hands on her thighs,
moans, and turns her gaze from the
quivering crowd to her clean, open house,
denied the solace of living memory,
forced to linger with the animated dead

I live and work in the New River Valley near the Blue Ridge Mountains in southwestern
Virginia and teach American literature and creative writing at Radford University. I’m
the author of Escapee (America House, 2001), a collection of short fiction. My work has
also been published or is forthcoming in various literary magazines, such as The Beloit
Fiction Journal, Timber Creek Review, Literal Latté, The Georgetown Review, Acorn
Whistle, The Edge City Review, Main Street Rag, Sow’s Ear Poetry Review, One Trick Pony
and Appalachian Heritage. My piece in Appalachian Heritage received the 2002 Denny C.
Plattner/Appalachian Heritage Award for creative non-fiction.

http://www.timpoland.com

Tim Poland's poetry can also be found in Autumn Skyline E-Magazine

Poetry by

Perry Nicholas

Father’s Toast

In photographs, I touch your granite face,

To rub away those times you hurdled home.

Straight VO in your hand, with trembling grace,

You lifted a mock toast to set the tone

Of strength and shadowy presence of birch.

I stare at you, then conjure black and blue,

Small soldier on his silent march to church—

The way a father teaches, I assumed.

After long nights of roaming districts dark,

I used your branch to shield the blinding day

And carved a deeper sweetness in the bark,

Sought other mentors-- Cummings, Hemingway.

Here’s to you, who taught me “how not to sing”:

No more “nada y pues nada”—just everything.

Perry Nicholas: I live in Buffalo, N.Y. I am an English
instructor at a local community college and have had several poems published online and in local magazines and newspapers.

Poetry by

Alia Hussain

Serene Sky

Then if we hid from the sun,
I’d plant a dandelion on this trampled earth
and offer a tear to sacrifice the roots.

So what if transcending meant the final
tangling of ground-marrow before I cut it loose?
It must be better to kill mint than taste its sting
upon bits of tongue I’ve slashed to silence
with this staining sharpie.

But I will paint loud as a piper,
as you should breathe soft as a leper
cast away with the bulkiest
of spider-cloud nets, but never forgotten.

And air-drowned leper, you are still not forgotten
every time I settle like dust on my back and heave
with the joy of creating your legacy
into immortal skyscape dreams,
when I fill lines of straight-blue ice
with boiling water that seeps the sun of your smile,
when I dream of illusionary mountains
that crumble at my outstretched grip on the horizon,
my hand on your world
dark as a fleeing sun.

And I will not let go
or cast away rocks with nets
for you to catch and heave
the weight of my words.
And I will not let go
or brand you castaway like drowning weeds
for you to wrap around pebbles and sink
with the weight of my steps.
I will not let go
or shake the crevasse-clipboard
for you to dance off these leaflets refreshed
while I’m left to fling paint into the sun’s ice.

But if the sun truly hid from us,
I’d pluck a dandelion from this trampled earth
and blow a wish to scatter each lingering cloud.

Alia Hussain was born on December 1, 1987. She has been writing poetry and prose since the age of ten. She dreams that someday words will open the voices of souls.

Poetry by

Jon Stocks

ALICIA’S DIARY

Meet me and I shall know you, light and shadow,
A formless, fantastic distillation,
Confection of smoke and fogs and gaslight.

Meet me and I’ll watch you as you wander,
Dreamily up pea-souped side streets,
Long neck hidden by black buttoned collar,
Your exhaled breath, a ghostly miasma,
Drifting past the clanking city tram-cars,
The news boy who teases you, calling out your name.

Meet me on Fargate, waiting at Cole’s corner,
Top hat and tailed, tapping with my cane.
Yours for all eternity my darling,The six- thirty for St Pancras.

London lays waiting at the end of the line
Seething with metropolitan passion
Under cloudless sky’s this hot June day
Imagine it humming like a locust swarm
Shimmering wildly under ozone
Leaking dreams into the stratosphere.

London’s words flow and flood with the river
Inundating bookshops and libraries
I ponder the latest emissions
The no mans land of St Pancras station
Less than an hour away as the wine flows
London imagined seems just as real.

When I travelled south with the anarchists
From Manchester with righteous anger
Our knives sharpened for the Thatcher boys
Then I hated London with a mission
The proletarian toadying Tories
The drab pomposity of royalty
Slick bankers smug in their easy vice.

I couldn’t love London until it called
Inviting my time to read and talk
Until it put me up in smart hotels
And I began to feel it wanted me
But now it’s love unconditional
For chaos and deconstruction
The capital’s chameleon smile.

Yours beyond the final cutting edge of time.

Late for your theatre tea, warm hands wrapped in velvet,
Hat pulled down over your pert, pink ears.
Your diary shows me all your sweet conceits,
And makes me long to hold you, snug as the grave.

My name is Jon Stocks. I live and work in Sheffield UK, a city once famous for it’s
steel industry but now re-inventing itself as a creative arts and new media city.
Sheffield is surrounded by some wild and beautiful scenery and London is only a few hours away. I spent a lot of time in both.
Like most poets I also spend a lot of time in bars, drinking Latte’s or red wine. I find
that both help to facilitate moments of deep, solipsist insight. I like to think that I
write poems of intense mystical beauty, but as I also think I should have been the future of rock and roll and opened the batting for England against Australia, I am probably just another half-cooked ego-maniac.
I am widely published in the UK recent work having appeared, or being scheduled to appear in The Coffee House magazine, Coffee House, Littoral, the Other, Cambridge University review, Manifold, Candelabrum, Decanto, Poetry Monthly, Tadeeb, Harlequin, the Black Rose and Carillon.

I am currently working on a first novel and also write short stories; winning the
Carillon magazine, short story competition last year. My poem, ‘Moon dreams’ was recently short-listed for the National Poetry Anthology. A small number of poems are currently being transformed into short films as part of a film poetry project, and my poem, ’Alicia’s Diary’ was selected to be performed in Sheffield Cathedral as part of a Multi media poetry presentation. Other work has been performed on live radio on world poetryday.

Poetry by

Pamela MacBean

Before

Ions danced upon my skin
as lightning sizzled the sky
before the rain, before the rain.

A soft kiss stunned my world,
spun silk upon my soul
before the pain, before the pain.

Enduring

What a stretch - the Milky Way
dripping stars into my eyes.
An ancient candelabrum
beaming light from ages past
like a soul wrapped in eternity
reaches out,
still flickering
memories.

Unbalanced

Touching soft new growth,
gray flecked brown,
rising straight up
out of chemo-cooked scalp.
Long flowing curls
hacked off in front of
toothpaste speckled mirror,
months ago. Trashed.

Feeling too butch,
so
earrings spangle dangle,
blushed cheeks glow
with artificial health,
lipstick glowing femininity.
But upon hearing,
"It'll grow back,"
she thinks of the new
heaviness, a prosthetic,
on the left side
of her chest,
weighing her down.

One Minute After Midnight

I shed my skin -
no more slithering in dust clouds
upon a belly filled with fear.

Moon shadows etched
on spring's alabaster mural
are more violet than black
upon this voiceless night
that steals the stars;
my bruised spirit healing -
moving closer to
light than darkness.

Espying the poetry within
all creation I rise above
earthly woes,
this area where wings soar
within lambskin clouds,
within blue ether,
whether of birds or angels.
I treasure the pastel butterfly of life
trembling in my outstretched hand,
a gift of another day.

Pamela MacBean lives in the Great North Woods of New Hampshire. Besides writing poetry she enjoys photography and decorative painting. Published in Open Mind's Quarterly, Adagio Verse Quarterly, Autumn Leaves, Subtletea.com and Interpoetry recently.

Poetry by

Orania Hamilton

A GIFT OF LIFE

When MY Sun Goes Down
.
When the day comes that I am to leave here
don't close me in wood so I lose my sight.
Give my heart to someone in greater fear
so they might feel the warmth of morning light.
.
Give my eyes to one that has never seen
a golden sunrise or the stars at night,
nor the colors of autumn at full beam,
or the Eagle that spreads its wings in flight.
.
Let my blood flow to the veins of sorrow
that fights for life from the moment of birth,
with cries and hope for one more tomorrow
and the sweetness of life upon this earth.
.
Utilize my cells so that they might grow
so the deaf can hear the roar of the sea
and the rippling sound of the river's flow
that nurtures the roots of the willow tree
.
To remember me is to grant my plea
of all I ask before my last goodbyes
so perhaps what was intended for me
you will someday see in another's eyes
.
Reduce to ashes what is left of me.
Scatter them freely to nourish the earth
that lets me live on once again to be
a part of the living days of my birth.

Orania created and hosts Platinum Poetry More about Orania Hamilton

There are times when we all face sadness and despair. It takes but a moment to reach out to someone that needs you. poetry is an eternal language of souls. It can soothe, heal, liberate and enlighten you to the world around you. Words like the wind touch each one of us as gentle rain washes away our tears. Poetry is like a seed planted in soil wanting to be nourished, to grow with brilliant colors that please the human thought. Take my hand, stroll with me through these pages of love, sadness, want, happiness, friends and nature.

                            For the love of poetry,
                               Orania Hamilton
                                     Cally2001