Sanjeev Sethi on the Ferris Wheel of Wuthers Above the Private Demons as the Jingoistic Spiels Whoa Nellie

US

You are itching to be opened
aching for tendresse to begin her twirl.
You’ve chosen to cache in cauldron
of uncertainities. That may well
be the way. Or is it?

Waiting for wuther will not help.
It is fighting its own fog.
Baby steps to ferris wheel of options
will bring you to the roster of results.

Paradox of preaching:
the schematizer
is trapped in his own snarl.

CONTRARIAN

(1)

Day opens her legs unlike my
love the previous night. Will
fog of failure seal the midmost?
In sublimation lies my savor.

(2)

Your murmurous paternoster
more fluent than the feints
stalking me. I sent myself
searching for certitudes, in
your thigh I met my moksha.


THE PATRIOT

When his portfolio actualized
he surmised some of his private
demons could never be exorcized.
He sensed he couldn’t alter the
mess his offspring was in. He
weaned his heart to ache only for
the nation. Ache in a drawing room
sort of way. He moved his guests
with   jingoistic spiels: politicos
would be happy to co-opt him.



PEEVERS

God knows me. Let this one know or
claim not to. Certes, rhythm of breath
realizes my innermore sarment is lit.
I dread no dusk. Carrier of catatonia
I know not your motive. Draw your
drapery: energize your environment.

(2)

Your weir is a whoopsie wave. Early at
sea one learns grief of gudgeon, quickly
one gathers when to yell, Whoa Nellie.


SANJEEV SETHI is the author of three well-received books of poetry. His most recent collection is This Summer and That Summer (Bloomsbury, 2015). His poems are in venues around the world: 3:AM Magazine, The Tower Journal, Peacock Journal, The Penmen Review, Red Fez, Indiana Voice Journal, The Penwood Review, Easy Street, Soul-Lit, Visual Verse, W.I.S.H. Press, Novelmasters, Poetry Pacific, Transnational Literature, Otoliths, and elsewhere. He lives in Mumbai, India. 

Michael Paul Hogan Observes the Marlin Hook Ray-Bans, the Girls of Green Parrot Bar, the Lobster Pots, the Jai Alai scores, and Everybody Wishin'

Sunday in Key West by Michael Paul Hogan


I / Morning

The captain buys gasoline and bait
and ice and the Sunday New York Times
and sits himself down on his fighting chair to wait
for a charter he knows damn well
will be good and late.

How do, Jim? He starts up and looks
like someone caught reading something obscene
but it’s only the Sunday Review of Books.
The rims of his Ray-Bans are silver
as 15-O marlin hooks.

No worries. He checks down the dock,
up it and down it, just Sunday morning,
nothing to go to church about, no shock
of an asteroid one day away,
just the tick of the clock.

He looks up again as a car
turns off Roosevelt towards him, real slow,
then drives past. So Fuck it he lights a cigar,
has a six-pack on ice in the galley
and a girl in the Green Parrot bar.


II / Afternoon

Along the street
Cubans in sea-green denim
lounge and sweat. A battered Ford
is slewed on the sidewalk
like a lobster pot; its radio

sparks the air with nylon static.
Petronia Street: the washing hangs
and rots. The stray cats hiss
and arch their backs and sniff
at wire-screened windows locked

against the heat. The lifers scratch
their balls and check
the jai alai scores. O Caro Mio
crackles in lace-trimmed lycra,
sweats and screams.




III / Evening

Miss Margharita turns her chair
to let the sunshine dry her hair.
The kids ain’t home but she don’t care
          - they probably gone fishin’.

What sunshine’s left is filtered through
the palm trees on the avenue,
but what ain’t much will have to do,
          and what’s the use of wishin’?

Wishin’s wished we owned a store,
a nothin’ fancy sawdust floor,
with flush-tight fly screens on the door
          and whitewash on the ceilin’.

Just take a look across the street:
Miguel’s as dumb as sugar’s sweet;
Consuela don’t know twit from tweet
- they don’t have paintwork peelin’.

Miss Margharita strips a can
and waves the ring-pull like a fan.
The sun’s gone down; the moon’s a man
          - but what’s the use of wishin’?


Born in London, Michael Paul Hogan is a poet, journalist and literary essayist whose work has appeared extensively in the USA, UK, India and China. His poetry has been featured in over thirty magazines and in six collections, the most recent of which, Chinese Bolero, with illustrations by the great contemporary painter Li Bin, was published in 2015.

Adam Levon Brown Wipes Away the Soot-Filled Sarcasm for the Whiplash of Solemn to See Better the Stare of Death

I live

I exist in the shadows
of an empty stomach
and broken dreams

I strive for the stars
while sitting amongst
the windswept clouds

I stare in the direction
of the soliloquy sun
while biding my time

I jump at the opportunity
to share a piece of myself
in the bleak December rains

I live for the unexpected
and the train-songs sung
by the unknown poet.



Syllables Never Suited Saints

Drenched in the solitude
Of a soliloquy

Soot-filled sarcasm
Serrates the edge.

A semblance of searing
Sardonic splendor

Separates synapses
In a whiplash of solemn Salivation

Stoic simplification
Saddens the seas

As the sailboat slacks
To a stop


Midnight Stroll

Graveyard bones
Juxtaposed
against a rotting
termite-infested two by four

The inhabitants
of Mausoleums
remain untouched
and withered

A lone stranger
walks the crypts
at midnight. hoping
to find solace in the dead

Reading black-drop
poetry at the graves in between
whistling Greensleeves
to the Crimson harvest moon

The Stranger kneels by
an open grave and imagines
themselves trapped for all eternity
under Oak and brass

What the stranger doesn't
know is that when you
look at death, death
stares back.

Adam Levon Brown is a published author, poet, amateur photographer, and cat lover. He is owner of Madness Muse Press; a micro-press that publishes dark poetry, editor of Madness Muse Magazine, and a book reviewer for Five 2 One Magazine. He has over 120 poems published in 9 different countries. He has been published in venues such as Burningword Literary Journal, Corvus Review, and Yellow Chair Review. Adam can be contacted via his website at www.AdamLevonBrown.org where he offers free poetry resources.