Caught in his eyes
With every breath
We fell in love
In a moment of the sweetest
Most pleasurable was his
rapture upon me
A breathtaking beauty
Loving
Adoring
Taken in by his kiss
Breathtaking
In his raptured moment
Beauty in his eyes
Adoration on his face
A love of mine
Embrace
Beauty of breathlessness
In his kiss
Love
Endlessness
Don't I feel like
a loser when I learn you're through with me.
It was news to everyone, especially to me.
Don't I feel pathetic, like there's something wrong with me.
She is far more beautiful than I could ever be.
I stand here null and solemn, though it must be written on my face,
that I've found before the world what you couldn't say to my face.
You blow right on by me with your new love, hand in hand.
So smug, haughty, and thoughtless. You are not much of a man.
Filled with anger, through and through, I feel like I could drown.
I lift my glass and drink fast to chase the feeling down.
I close my eyes. I still see your face. Somehow I should have
known.
You kill me inside with a passing glance, and now my heart grows cold.
So much time spent in a one sided love was wasted all on you.
Don't I feel like a loser for ever caring about you.
By Anne Rasico (Joyce)
One Day we will understand this question known as
why.
Like all that we must wait for, it will come to us in time.
Then, we can tell our children why a stranger bombed our home.
But, now all that we can say is "Dad's not coming home."
We fall down to our knees and anxiously we pray
that they will find another trapped beneath the stones today.
Frantically we searched for friends who aren't accounted for.
And now, we must accept that we won't see them anymore.
When all the dust had settled, we searched for what we couldn't find,
the answer we all needed to the question known as why.
This question still rings in my ears as I stare up at the sky.
How could this have happened? I never got to say goodbye.
There's nothing I know now to ease the pain inside.
So, full of hope, I wait for the answer as to why.
dedicated to all lost in the September 11th tragedies
By Anne Rasico (Joyce)
You sit there proud and mighty, judging me from your throne.
Telling all my secrets while
forgetting all of your own.
You twirl around and wear that
crown. It shines so beautifully.
Polished by a veil of righteous
purity.
You no longer need my loyalty
When you view yourself as
royalty.
Your star glows brightest of us
all, a phony painting of morality.
Illuminating everything I'm not
and never hope to be.
But I'll sit here like a silent
jester. I won't let the truth be known.
I won't tarnish your snow white
reputation. One day you'll do that on your own.
By Anne Rasico (Joyce)
Education
By D.M. McGowan
2018
They taught us
many things in school and some of us where fine
At following the
words and rules along a designated line
A few were branded
trouble when they left the proven trail
And popped the
system bubble when they just refused to fail
“If you do exactly
what we say you’re sure to get an “A”
Though you may not
learn very much to help you through the day
But you’ll get the
all important grade and be every politician’s dupe
For if you follow
where you’re lead you’ll think they speak the truth”
What many didn’t
see both students and the staff
It isn’t learning
simple facts but how to love and laugh
Edison, Curie,
Gates and Einstein they all had imagination
They didn’t follow
another’s path or stay locked within their station.
Sure there is
knowledge we all need in writing, science and math
Some we need more
than others depending on our chosen path
And if you intend
to just get along to do only as you’re told
What need for any new
idea? What need to be so bold?
But if you intend
to make a mark to be a Gates, or Jobs or Woz
You’ll need some
imagination to be anywhere near the top
How do you
exercise imagination, build its strength and survival?
Understand poetry,
fiction and music to rise above any rival.
“Be less curious about
people and more curious about ideas.” Marie
Curie.
“The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in
a good novel, must be intolerably stupid.” ― Jane Austen
“Study the past
and you’ll know your mistakes aren’t unique.” Dave McGowan
Inclusion
By D.M. McGowan
2018
We spend a lot of
time now
And the effort is
immense,
Ensuring
everyone’s included
And not left
outside the fence
But this feeling
of exclusion
It isn’t something
real
It’s part of
hearts and minds
What some people
simply feel
But they were not
really walled off
Or blocked by some
social shield
The door was
always open
Not locked, barred
or sealed
If you want inside
the herd
Say hello now and
then
Start a
conversation
With those inside
the pen
Learn what the
herd does
How they live
their lives
What they think is
moral
Their view of
wrong or right
You don’t have to
do things
The way that they
all do
But remember if
you’re different
Majority still set
the rules
Nothin’ wrong with
being different
Even if some think
you strange
But don’t expect
to see big smiles
When you demand others
change.
I watch the glow of my joint burn out
As I find a new way of dreaming
Beneath the stairs.
I keep the jester’s hand on the end of a chain
Around my neck
And strangle the promises made by the heavens
And I the buffoon bought.
Now I just stare outside the window
Through the eyes of a cold
as ghosts
Drift down river
Then are gone.
Maybe it was the Nyquil
Somewhere down the avenue of memories
Where SROs still stand
one can hear
Fuck!
Fuck!
Fuck!
Shouted from a window.
Just goes to show that love is a speckled egg
That doesn’t hatch angels or devils
But ordinary voices
Of unordinary men
Or women.
It’s the voice of the
Naked heart.
...DARK PIT
by Larry Yoakum III
(Currently published in 'Yoakum's Collection of Poems and Blurbs'
Up the escalator I went as any
other time
Up and up, simple with no reason or
rhyme.
Up the escalator I went and very
much enjoyed
Until it vanished from under me and
sent me into a black void.
I fell and I fell into a big black
pit
Falling and falling, surprised me a
bit
I fell and I fell into nothingness
below
Faster and faster refusing to slow.
I screamed and I screamed as I fell
into dark
Screaming and screaming sounding a
bit like a bark
I screamed and I screamed as I ever
fell in
This dark nothingness of an endless
black bin.
I woke in a start covered in sweat
Pillows and sheets soaked and
coldly wet
What sort of a nightmare had just
forced me to wake?
I better calm myself for my own
bloody sake.
To go back to sleep again would now
be my goal
If I could only calm my shuddering
soul.
My eyes closed and my breath I
forced to control
And I dreaded again falling into
that black hole.
Where are your bones, I wonder?
Your dust, your last breath?
I see you queued with your mates
In your final military assembly:
Bates next to Beasley
Gillum next to Green
And so on.
It is a moment captured forever in brass letters,
The year scuffed and barely legible.
How does a hero sleep? Do you dream of past valor?
Or soft shoulders and tender kisses lost forever?
This once hallowed ground is swathed in weeds,
Cannons and missiles rusted and impotent,
The fence sagging with age.
People pass by, but nobody sees.
Even the names have become ghosts.
John W. Bebout 2018
...Our untold story waits for its explosion
As our love ages more than we know.
The first time I saw you under a peepal tree
With your hair flowing in the air like
It has escaped all the aches and your lips
Weaving stories of a fairytale, I knew
It was you who warmed all my particles of heart
And now they are restless for an explosion;
An explosion of vigorous love, care and bond.
Everytime I sublime myself in the sweet essence of you,
I can feel the explosion of eternity occuring in my skin.
~ ©storytellersuchismita
Water buffalo, cows, dogs, goats, roosters, and chickens wander across and sleep in the streets.
Masses of people – women in beautiful flowing saris with dabs of paint on their foreheads and men wearing clothes of every conceivable style from leather biker-jackets to loin cloths – walk, run, push carts loaded with lumber, bricks, or raw meat.
Street vendors point at their goods and shout as we pass by.
Shop owners gesture enthusiastically or doze, and beggars hold up withered limbs or a malnourished child.
We pass men shaving and women washing their long black-hair in buckets of water right beside the street.
Cars, busses, trucks, motorcycles, bicycles, rickshaws, tuk-tuks, and animal-drawn carts flow chaotically by.
Road surfaces vary from stone, brick, pock-marked pavement, or rutted dirt.
Odors of incense, spicy foods, diesel and auto exhaust, sewage, and body odor assault us. Horn blasts, shouts, conversations and arguments in a polyglot of languages, bleats, barks, bellows and clucks of animals, and the grinding gears and strain of rickety vehicles on the verge of collapse create a surround sound you’d never hear in Indiana.
Our car pauses beside a bright red rickshaw. Its driver
stares at us with dark perplexed eyes, then opens his almost toothless mouth
and laughs as we pull away.
Jeff Rasley
He rode an old
McClellan that had seen better days
But he sat up
there like a king who controlled all he surveyed
His mount a
buckskin mare as pretty as you’ve seen
With legs meant
for working and eyes bright and clean
Behind him trailed
a mule, a fine example of the breed
A pack piled high
with goods but no halter or a lead
I asked him where
he’s headed and where he might have been
The reason for his
travel and what he might have seen
“I’ve seen the
greatest country that God ever made
Sometimes mountain
vistas, sometimes a grassy plain.
I’ve seen family
members who make me feel ashamed
And many fellow
workers who lie their way to fame
I’ve seen herds of
caribou clicking cross the plain
Massive Mountain
Grizzlies, great horses wild and tame.
I’ve seen massive
progress ended by greedy fools
Or by those who
need control and impose silly rules
And others
stopping growth by thinking with their heart
When simple logic
tells ‘em the horse is behind the cart.
We all get our little
chance but others need a turn
The younger need
some room to grow to build to learn
When I’ve done my
time, my life here is thru
I don’t want my
final vision to be only gloom and fools.
I’ll be free of
all that as will the mule and mare
We’ve trod the
greatest land, together scenery shared
It all makes my
former life shallow and pale
And now where I
travel nothing is ever stale
I’ve had my days
of wealth measured in dollars and cents
With days, weeks
and years surrounded by wall and fence
But now I have much
more, a far greater treasure
Surrounded by
natures wonders, beauty that can’t be measured
Any measure of
success may not be right for all
The test that has some
rise up will make others fall
I hope the path I
travel and the message that I preach
Will be heard and
understood by people that I meet
No one has the
right to say that my view is wrong
Nor do I have the
right to condemn another’s song
But enjoy the journey
and help your fellow man
Have a laugh and
learn, and make a proper stand
For something you
believe, give it a proper fight
And if you should
lose and you know you might
Within your heart
you’ll know you did your very best
And did what you
thought right when put to the test.
The ranch is
lonely this time of year
Now that my
sweetheart‘s gone
We hadn’t planned
for either one
To leave for the
great beyond
Hitched in
harness, a team we where
Going the same
direction
Pulling together
we made a pair
But now it’s all
reflection
Daughter found
herself a man
And they’re off
chasing the dollar
The boys the same,
all working lives
But their kids
pleasing grandfather
They don’t listen
much to me
That life ain’t
about the buck
I think you need
beauty and humor
Or you’re just
plain out of luck
That no one
listens to me
Well I’ve got used
to that
Horses usually
take instruction
But cows no more
than a cat
Always have to
repeat myself
And some folks
have to be led
Just like a pig I
once had
Didn’t hear a word
I said.
But the daughter
called today
She’d been talking
to her brothers
Said them and her
husband agreed
And they’d talked
some to others
They want to come
back to the ranch
Her call gave me
quite a lift
As the year rolls
up to Christmas
I couldn’t get a
better gift.