Snared

 

I’ve a snozzle

For a distressingly putrefied pride,

Lingering rustiness

In a milk-and-honeyed world.

 

A squeal for break-no-bones intentions?

Ha!  Heads shake.

A puncture of confidence,

Slump head-teeter

Into a tub, Scotch-fuddled.

 

We’re plunging into a flow,

                              Conversations –

Obliged to unsnarl riggings

To hitch that sort of pull.

 

You used to swank the whiskers

Of a tin lion. 

 

By Christopher Barnes, UK

 

The Imagined and the Real

You wear your clothes inside out

to confuse me.

You let me believe I am inside you.

Breathing out

a flood of light.

To feed you.

But my happiness is pallid and grotesque.

It blinds you instead.

That’s why I am still running.

Backwards.

Before you.

Trying to keep you

from walking away.

A.J. Huffman is a poet and freelance writer in Daytona Beach, Florida.  She has previously published four collections of poetry: The Difference Between Shadows and Stars, Carrying Yesterday, Cognitive Distortion, and . . . And Other Such Nonsense.  She has also published her work in national and international literary journals such as Avon Literary Intelligencer, Writer's Gazette, and The Penwood Review.  Find more about A.J. Huffman, including additional information and links to her work at http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000191382454 and https://twitter.com/#!/poetess222. 

New Boss

They warned me my new boss was

intimidating.

The CEO was an elegant lady that

was all business.

She was thin as a rail and half a head

taller then me.

Smartly dressed in an navy blue

tailored business suit.

She had stoic sharp chiseled features.

Her words were clipped and she had

a low sounding male voice.

She wanted to know all about me

and stoically sat and listened.

There wasn't a hint of a smile on her

face when I told her I was a perpetrator

of puns.

After ten minutes, she stood to signal

the interview was over.

Jumping to my feet, I was glad to

leave.

She took my hand and stared straight

into my eyes.

A subtle soft smile cut across her face

as I walked out the door.

Biography

Mike Berger is an MFA, PhD. He is a retired and writes poetry and short stories full

time. He has been writing poetry for less than two years. His work appear in seventy-one

journals. He has published two books of short stories and seven poetry chapbooks, He

is a member of The Academy of American Poets. poetry chapbooks, He is a member of

The Academy of American Poets.

Apologies

Just wanted to excuse the gap in submissions, to make up for it i'll post two this month and get things back on track. Please continue to send your work, I really do enjoy reading them all!

Robert.

I WALK WHERE MEMORIES WALK

I walk where memories walk

I trace their steps

Breathe their air

And before my very eyes performs

The life I once called mine.

Before the edges were worn away,

The fringes tattered,

The hopes and dreams not yet conceived

So could not die

And all was hope and longing:

Was this me? Where did we go?

Have all left home so soon?

Scattered to the heavens by the

Centrifugal force called life

That honors no adhesion?

The chill of drafts drops my gaze

Away from all that was hidden:

A cursory glance,

A dismissive shiver,

A quick step onward in life.

I leave the memories there to walk

Alone, no steps retraced;

The air is still,

The eyes are closed to all performances:

The life I now call mine.

Bio:

Rev. Judith Mensch served as a pastor in the United Methodist Church. She began writing poetry in the last years of her life, as a way of responding to and coping with breast cancer. She passed away in 2003.

Exposed

Natural three

in those days spent,

red lights.

It's not too late to cross them off your list.

I saw it in your pocket.

I saw you place it there

under supervision

in wed-locked circumstance,

across the stoney floor

we fall.

Through smoke and dim lit forests

we grow and tackle to the ground,

until

our bodies, clothes

are smeared in blood and grit.

To be the act of violence

and dance with its ideas.

By Robert William Atherton

Poetry in the Mens Room

Graffiti that caught my attention in the toilets of a bar in Liverpool.