Free Verse

 

 

Helen Bar-Lev, IL Waiting for the Rains   There is an impatience in the air, an anticipation in the fields, parched, in the orchards, picked fruit-less, in the clouds, grey and heavy   There is a promise in the darkness, lengthening, as the sun spins its way to another solstice, as the land cools down and waits for the relief of rain for the release of green for another winter for another spring

 

Deborah Finkelstein, US   Untitled For James Rosenquist   Spray-painted numbers On my lens Where Alphabet City meets Chinatown Games under the umbrella in the restaurant The bomb The railroad Eject here Pastels in the background Green grass in the sky Turning brown from too much sun

 

Jan Oskar Hansen, PL   Inconsequent Calamity   Men in suits carrying cardboard boxes out of a bankrupt finance house, it isn’t money they carry out but private belongings, picture of wife and kids and executive toys, so what do I care? In the basement where there are no gleaming windows and walls are cement grey, damp and unadorned, the janitor sits, he lives from one pay check to the next, won’t be paid this week though; maybe he should join the navy and see the world, but at sixty five it isn’t a wise thing to do. But he has, unlike the suits upstairs, been unemployed before, he can, if he must, sweep the streets of New York. The TV’s glare and sympathy is not on him, the world of middle class men worries about their own future not the janitor’s or his son who is on his third tour of duty in Iraq

 

Doug Holder, US   Jacob Wirth ( Boston, Mass. 1868 to? ) * an old tavern in Boston, Mass.   The sawdust on the floor has gone the way of all dust. But it is the hard slap of the house dark on the dark, mahogany bar that sustains me. Yes , they have made concessions to a high definition TV but the ancient beaten ivories of the piano still hold their torch songs on Friday nights. And it seems there is still a wholesome, yellow statement of cornbread, and a saucer of baked beans. The long dining room has stretched over 100 years and in the rear there is a pay phone in its battered booth before you hit the head. And that din of laughter— (and I admit I miss the cigar smoke) and the bright red— sheaves of corned beef sprouting from dark bread. What was once alive in this city is still not quite dead.     Meat is a tasty murder   Broiled, fried, crucified. On a plate on a platter what does it matter? We classify all our oh-so mannered cuts: sirloin, tenderloin and for the regular Joes you can call it "Chuck." With a flash of silvery cutlery I cut, but really I want to tear into my succulent meat, and delicately wipe the blood that stained my cheek. My word for savages we are so neat!

 

Elizabeth Howard, US   Cecil's Dream   In my sleeping chair, I am cold. I dream scary stuff, rats with long yellow teeth, monsters coming in the cracked window, a red-eyed giant with a belt. When teacher tells us to draw our room, I draw my chair. Where's your bed? she asks. I never had a bed so I dream one with a soft pillow, blue sheets, a quilt like the one on the wall at school. In a warm bed, I bet I wouldn't have scary dreams.

 

Richard Krawiec, US   Dry   A yellow jacket buzzes my bare legs, crotch and chest, I stiffen; the porch swing rocks gently. Slow as stone I raise my head to notice for the first time the eye-succulent white and pink dogwoods, the tulips sodden with red and purple. When I try to see the hornet hovers closer to my dry, open mouth.     a gray tangle   of branches cramp the window unfold to graceful spires that tendril the open blue sky a flash of red perks above the window sill blossoms to slender limbs autumn-daubed leaves which cling sway like the last drops of martyr's blood the world changes as you rise sit stretch walk truth contingent to your position

 

Free Verse   Andreas Gripp, CA—September 11th Shanna Baldwin Moore: Free Verse—Untitled Aju Mukhopadhyay, IN: Free Verse—Love Like a Statue, Of Melody Rhythm and Meaning, Cultivating the Human Being, Hunger and Thirst, Structural Violence, Amrita's Annaprasan, Act like a Sage Dr. Ram Sharma, IN: Free Verse—O! Dawn, Not You Jeffrey Spahr-Summers, US: Free Verse—Silence, uncontested marriage, razor blade, ripvan winkle, Riding blue, octopus’s garden, next to me, Locked in the poetry room II, gwendolyn, No Reply, Peter Pan, Winging It, In the Kiaat Tree, inside the barrel Craig Tigerman, US: Free Verse—Sudden Smile, Sylvan Angel, Phrenicam RD Armstrong, US: Free Verse—Artifact from from Fire and Rain Selected Poems - Vol. 2 Pris Campbell, US: Free Verse—Hurricane Season Angela Consolo Mankiewicz, US: Free Verse from Chapbook, As If: Who Am I To Cry, "Smiles Of a Summer Night", As If Angela Consolo Mankiewicz, US: Free Verse: De-Cap, A Putting Aside, Temporary Poem 2 G. David Schwartz: Free Verse—Had A Very Bad Dream, A F ish Without A Head, I’ve Been Seeking A Light Basket Tracy McPherson, US—Free Verse: Homeless , It's almost sunset, Vanilla ice cream, Tight Buns and 501s, Beach outlaws, 57 Chevy Christopher Mulrooney, US—Free Verse: new city men, general repetition, key to the city, glazed donut Lyn Lifshin: Free Verse: from Race Track Poems: Have You Ever Wondered?; The Family Shoe; Have You Ever Read Passionate Poems, Not Feeling Like Writing Any Love Poems; When The Man In A Motorized Wheel Chair At The Book Fair Picks Up My Books; December 2, After The First Day Out Of The House; December 2; December 2; December 7.