TABLE OF
CONTENTS
Panacea - Tine Wilde
White Noise - John R.
Sweeney
Black and Blues - Paul
Nachbar
The Virus of Time -
Sean MacNiven
To
Jacquelyn and Ngoc - Grant Jerome Fisher
Achoo! - C. Frost
Bedlam - Maria
Claudia Faverio
Telos - John R. Sweeney
Till Now
and Forever - Grant Jerome Fisher
Lamentations - Paul
Nachbar
Song - Faverio Maria
Claudia
Colours - Faverio
Maria Claudia
Bittersweet - Mark Norman
The Winds
Have Grown Sonnet - Sean MacNiven
Dust Bunny, Dust
Bunny - Mark Norman
Confessions of a Hypocrite - Grant J. Fisher
Back from
Forever - Grant Jerome Fisher
Panacea - Tine Wilde
Summer's day
.. twinkling light in million facets ..
At this marketplace panacea is for sale:
for some five dollars it is yours.
The salesman promises the changes will be stunning.
No single use the little books had – no -
No single use for he who made them:
flash fire blackened skin on chin and arm
there even had to be a transplantation set.
The buyers do not mind that sorry sight
what matters are their own complaints.
Hanging heads nailed downward to leaf through towards salvation
.. like he does every night ..
praying that some bright morning mirror shows a perfect face.
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White Noise - John R.
Sweeney
The wind, thro' the forest, blowing;
'tis a stable,restful sound,
the sound of myriad frequencies, blended.
No tone, dominant above the others,
but all together unite into sonic purity;
a purity, reminiscent of that
of fresh, driven snow -
White -
White as when the sevenfold hue
of the rainbow spectrum are complemented,
complemented into whiteness of unified light -
'tis also why soapsuds, riding upon-
e'en upon soiled swirling waters,
look so pure, so innocent in whiteness.
Take one bubble and see,
within its filmy surface,
the same sevenfold, spectral hue -
Place it back and there, becomes it, white,
white in unified, cohesive community.
What a lesson, 'tis this for humanity,
that Nature, the child of creative, Divine Hand,
does present to us if we, but listen, observe -
In the beginning, there was Light -pure, white.
From it, were molded the seven frequencies, so beauteous,
that arch o'er every storm, every tempest,
that bedevils mankind in his self-driven quest
to lord, to exploit, to dominate -
only to create dissonance, disharmony,
destruction and needless death.
Take time, in the forest, where all of nature's offspring,
together sing in ecoharmony to pure-blended white noise,
from which each, within her realm, a tone, extracts,
to mold each it's own unique song;
and thus see how if only mankind would likewise do -
such that the cacophony of conflict, usurped lordship,
may then perhaps become as the whiteness of mutual cooperation,
rather than the sore redness of cruelty, of exploitation -
Stop, be still - take time...
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Black and Blues - Paul
Nachbar
Oh momma
Can't you see
What all of them
Have done to me?
Oh momma
Can't you see
That all of them
Are part of me?
Oh momma,
Can you blame
If I am part
Of all of them?
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The Virus of Time -
Sean MacNiven
(Verse style - Villanelle)
One life, ten lives, yours, theirs mine,
Viral replications march on,
Droplets in the puddle of time.
Speak loud questions for which we pine,
Viral replications march on,
Their answers lie within life’s mine.
Build houses from redwood and pine,
Viral replications march on,
For all houses rot in good time.
The past, for the present, doth pine,
Viral replications march on,
And we are for them a gold mine.
How tall, proud and strong is the pine,
Viral replications march on,
And the bulldozer’s always on time.
Our purpose is buried in pine,
Viral replications march on,
They steal what is yours and what’s mine,
All food for the virus of time…
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To
Jacquelyn and Ngoc - Grant Jerome Fisher
When beauty lies
Inside the eyes
of he who doth behold
Kind words afford
me rich reward,
as precious jewels or gold
PS By "he" I mean "he" or "she"
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Achoo! - C. Frost
Springtime is icumim in,
Lewd sing boohoo,
Grass flyeth up, throats dryeth up
And how the snouts doth pour.
Sing boohoo, achoo, cuckoo
Hives fryeth up, eyes cryeth up
And sinuses doth roar
Lewd sing achoo, boohoo
Boohoo, boohoo, boohoo
'Tis cuckoo,
Achoo, achoo, lewd cryeth up
Spring is icumin in.
Achoo, boohoo, achooo!
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Bedlam - Faverio Maria
Claudia
Colours crumble
at twilight
like illusions
delusions
moments of being
too weak to break
the bell-jar
of potentiality.
What are we looking for
in the bedlam of the mind,
this chaos of stars
refusing to join
into constellations,
hands that shake
alone
alone
alone,
like a crocus
in the desert.
Vagaries of being
turn unto themselves
like a tired carousel
or an albatross
that has lost its bearings.
Loyal devotees
of Adam and sin,
we ramble through the labyrinth
of life
without even looking
for the exit,
in love with darkness
like owls,
worshipping our blurred image,
dirty image
in the quagmires
of the ego,
this Janus
that drinks whisky with demons,
while we pray for a miracle,
a sign
to fulfill our life.
The albatross flies in a circle,
haunting itself
like a masochist
who has forgone
the chimera of love.
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Telos - John R. Sweeney
To everything, there is a purpose -
and a time to consider,
to what end, we are born.
Born to exploit?
Born to indulge?
Born to bomb?
Born to poof?
Or born to enrich;
to rise after defeat;
to beckon with courage, to the fearing;
to set example, worthy of following;
to one day, inherit the cosmos, renewed,
due to having done the Sovereign Almighty's Will.
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Till Now
and Forever - Grant Jerome Fisher
Oh, how I love singing sweet music
And how I'm immersed in my song
When all that's eternal and soothing
Appears not to last for too long
When summer is lost in an instant
And winter brings with it the care
That comes with long days of hard labour
But carries our dreams everywhere
Sing with me the songs of forever
And linger in wisdom and love
But know that life's mysteries will never
Be shared by the stars from above
The love of forever is sheltered
From victims of sunshine and shame
While hearts of a million children
Think life is but only a game
Come live in my heart till forever
And follow me into the void
Tomorrow is still and unbounded
Our souls are too soon overjoyed
Breathe freely and deeply with vigour
As life pumps and jumps in the throat
But know that the mind is still yearning
For an happier anecdote
The meaning in dreams is unyielding
And reasons we have for our cares
Shall tightly remain in us (sealed in)
Till `here's lead us to `anywhere's
So live on and dream till forever
And swim in the mystery of love
Defend all the hopes that you treasure
But fly with the wings of a dove
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Lamentations - Paul
Nachbar
My life it feels like a disease
My gifts they seem mostly a curse
I dream or hope amidst all these
Though know it could be much, much worse;
I cannot help the things I do
I cannot help the things I say
The world it gathers at my feet
I think I throw it all away;
I cannot help the things I think
Those things too pure and not so nice
Alas, they pour out in mere ink
Which cannot fetch too high a price;
The world just is I cannot take
So much of what is simply real
They say we're glad you're not a fake
Then make another worldly deal;
I know that there is more than this
It is a race I cannot win
I skirt around some vast abyss
Around the edge of darkest sin;
At least here I almost express
Those things which here could simply kill
Am I embittered by distress
Or simply one who lacks a will?
Some feel life hot, it seems quite cold
Though others say here I am warm
I seem quite young, I feel quite old
Frustrated by my friendly swarm;
What can I do? I write such stuff
As blankets for my cold dark night
I'd want to be but am not rough
And see the world with troubled sight;
I guess I love, I guess I work
What else is there for Man to do?
Sometimes a hero, or a jerk
In life is there much really new?
I'm wounded by a simple phrase
This illness which I now address
And hope to spend some finer days
For having tried to clean this mess;
Some feel life hot, it seems quite cold
Though others say here I am warm
I seem quite young, I feel quite old
Frustrated by my friendly swarm;
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Song - Faverio Maria
Claudia
The stillness of the air
pierces my soul
like flight of birds
or flow of petals -
warm, unpredictable.
Too much has been said
during the day -
chaos of words
unable to join
into meaning
or carrousel of innuendos.
The forced implications
of polysemy
bereft the mind
of the apocryphal comfort
of simplicity,
communication
as in the beginning,
when the troubled reflections
of the ego
didn’t sing a swan song
on the cliff of death
surmounting
trail of drift
and debris.
Spokes of light
turned out to be
deceptive as faith,
vanishing in the apocalypse
of twilight
like a nursery rhyme.
Where does the ultimate truth,
beautiful Thule,
halt the excited efflux of the soul
and the chaos of atoms
taking hold of existence
in the name of some convention
never deliberated,
forcing itself into being
like a scream?
The stillness of the air -
bucket of ashes
strewn
over astonished souls,
enhances the uncertain light
of truth
in the Virgilian cadences
of silence,
dancing with shadows
on the threshold of heaven.
The inescapable rhythm of life
relaxes into a song
under the holy ashes
of sacrifice.
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Colours - Faverio
Maria Claudia
How the night revolves
around its rifle of impossibles!
Black, blue, violet bullets
under the yellow grin
of the moon.
And a face
piercing the sky
under the red blanket
of fear.
Take it off.
Shake off the bad habit
of darkness,
blind mole
huddling up
in the frozen womb,
ancient and grandiose
like a pietà.
You don’t shriek.
Your fingers are numb
with inertia,
crashing under the cancerous pallor
of desire.
The sky is dimming with loss,
collecting the stars
like change
in the starving silence
of the mind.
Mangling its pallor,
the moon disappears
behind a rocketing storm
of clouds,
and the sky lies
blank open
like hope.
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Bittersweet - Mark Norman
In bed
embraced by the solitude,
the shadows do what
shadows do.
Juxtaposing present and
past only long enough to
tease perception, then
vanish
Breathlessness, soon turning
to melancholy remorse
Mentally grasping, grappling
for the rung of recall
The past so much
part of us, dancing to
the borders of consciousness
and then beyond.
The fog grows denser
with time, more palpable,
carrying haunted
glimpses, sensations from the past.
The time comes when
memories satisfy more then
anticipation, but then
slowly fade.
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The Winds
Have Grown Sonnet - Sean MacNiven
The winds have grown since Summer's slow bourne ebb,
A chill has come into the bracing air,
The leaves turn now to yellow and to red,
As hibernating creatures seek their lairs,
And all life’s processes do slow their pace,
In precognition of the snows to fall,
We gather and no longer join the chase,
As time doth slowly bleach the season’s call,
In careful preparation we collect,
A nourishing supply of captured dreams,
Before we slowly curl up and reflect,
Upon such things as ask what it all means,
Between the heat and cold shed seasonally,
Where sanctuary is an Autumn’s tree…
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Dust Bunny, Dust
Bunny - Mark Norman
Dust bunny, dust bunny
emotional thought
analytical insight
to a perpetual stop.
Gone again, here again
retentive admission
to a guilty submission
of battles hard fought.
Ashes to ashes
ecological I think not
made soulless to
gain insight to Evil's thought
Figments, fig leaves
white doves of imagination
flakes of the ethereal
vapors of damnation.
Works of salvation
baptism by Father, why
chlorination, fluorination of
the holy tap water.
Let me raise my mind high
in a hymnal of confusion
faith for a faithless
sad adherent of fact
Faith is not proof
and proof is soulless
is mankind a divine species
providing the message sublime?
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Confessions of a Hypocrite - Grant J. Fisher
O, poor hypocrite me
Disbursing words of life
As though they were the Southern Cross!
O'ercome by a single colossal wave
I drift upon the frail wreckage
Of my hot-air-hopes
Half-praying some lantern to dry land
Will end the indecision
God's unforgiving sea seems calm
(anchorless, adrift, alone)
Oh, merciful Tempest
Approach now
And end this Amistad!
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Back from
Forever - Grant Jerome Fisher
Oh, please put an end to the madness
And the slavery of learning
To my heart's everlasting sadness
To the emptiness and the yearning
And then put an end to the heartache
To a world too fast for feeling
And the salty tears of heartbreak
To the groveling and the kneeling
Oh, please put an end to the sorrow
(The pain and the hurt and the tears)
And pray with our might that tomorrow
Will free us from all of our fears
I live in a world of my making
Yet bellow above for a sign
To prove that the path that I'm taking
Was destined to be only mine
I search for the love of the heavens
I've felt it at times, all alone
Again I'm at "sixes and sevens"
Still lost on a road far from home
I yearn to be free from the struggle
But know freedom's price to be high
The million and one tasks I juggle
Bear only the fruit of a lie
I've plead with my fortune to lead me
To honesty, wisdom and truth
While all of the tears that precede me
Are drowning in gin and vermouth
The songs in my heart keep on singing
I've tried to suppress every word
The sounds in my head are left ringing
The humdrum of life is absurd
I've searched left and right for the reasons
I've begged and demanded reply
I've troubled my brothers, all seasons
For answers, but still I must die
The nature of love is beyond me
The mercy that sings from above
I dream of some moments so fondly
My heart is unable to move
If only true mercy was flowing
An endless supply like a tap
I'd drink from the tap ever-knowing
The tenderness filled any gap
But merciless days are unending
And nights with their peace are too few
And love in my heart would be sending
The love I have only or you
I'll live and I'll love till tomorrow
And cry a thousand-and-one tears
An end to the grief and the sorrow
Is sure as the end to my years
Believe me, these words that I've written
Were born in a place beyond me
With love of my universe, smitten
With love and the mercy to see
Farewell, my dear friend of a moment
Believe what I'm sharing with you
If prayers can be answered to torment
The truth lives in all that we do
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