Poetry for the Lost Souls
Poetry for the Lost Souls
There used to be passion, enlightenment, great poetry … now there is loss, disenchantment in life, in reality and sometimes in contemporary literature too. But let’s face it, being overwhelmed with a huge amount of vampires, magicians, popularitycontests, we do not have to marvel about this phenomenon. Multitude may bring choice but it’s a limited choice determined by the market. Diversity and quality however keep existing, in a hidden corner, a niche where the damned feel at ease. The lost souls in their eternal search for qualitative contemporary literature … That is what this piece is all about, bringing qualitative, contemporary poetry to the lost – or should I say last? – souls who still reach out to find that burning flame that can warm their heart over and over again. I bring you Poetry for the Lost Souls: Jesse Bradley, Doctori Sadisco, Eric Basso, Michael Solender, Si Philbrook, Mark Newey, Madrea Marie and Mary Ann Blinkhorn.
The Kama Sutra of Quitting (By Jesse Bradley)
Do not bother unpacking
your fun bags; my mouth
is a gangrene grocer tired
of tasting poor mammograms
like cheap cantaloupe.
Dull your legs like butter knives
so it doesn’t hurt when you
spread yourself once more.
My pandemic, one day you will
find someone nice enough
to quarantine again.
© Jesse Bradley
THE BLUE MOTHER’S MOUTH (By Doctori Sadisco)
This is the mother who wants nothing from you
she has roared in your ear to go on your way
Quit suckling at her breast
her breast which shrivels from your mouth
and in revulsion sours
What more can she give in her vast creative neutrality
the news has her wanting to kill you
like a bear might kill her lame cub
i turn the page
we are too busy killing each other to listen
Thinking that the giant blue mouth overhead is smiling
will not save us when its teeth come down
© Doctori Sadisco
THE CHESS OF BLOOD (By Doctori Sadisco)
The poet opened her mouth
and out fell a king. A king in love,
the romantic king she so wanted to marry.
And have his baby. Even if it was ugly.
But that was never her hope. Her hope
was a mirage of a bygone world, the one
we think we imagine, the one which didn’t
have toilet paper, or medicine, the one
in which men bent beneath religion hunted
other men, and finding them tortured them to death.
No, not Iraq, and certainly not the Taliban,
she/he wanted knights laden in armor, who rode
white steeds through magical forests. Not the
forests full of zombies you see today, but forests
full of beautiful sylphs in flowing gowns and maidens
in love with princely men, who could not possibly
smell putrid, because in romance there can be
only sweetness and joy. Never checkmate
among the polite bishops with bloody hands,
and timely rooks with bloody chests.
Only rivers of wine, and chivalry protecting beauty
with the warmth of their blood caked swords.
© Doctori Sadisco
The Accomplice (By Eric Basso)
the killer always carried
a pebble in his back pocket
he’d snatched it years ago from
a headstone in the Jewish cemetery
the pebble’s bond with death
lent weight to his delusion that
it possessed a property which
had made him invulnerable
it brought a peaceful sleep
a time for forgetting that
taste of hot iron when
the blood sprayed his lips
after noon the blinds were drawn
the pebble lay on the dresser
eyeing the killer in his bed
and as he slept without dreams
there was a waking dream of
grass and the innocence
an endless quiet beneath
cool marble scars
© June 30, 2007, Eric Basso
Phallosaur (By Eric Basso)
yes and it’s an embarrassment to
the entire city a public humiliation
so I’ll spare us both a description of
the head and neck except to confirm
the creature has no eyes no nose
just that spout of a mouth which
drenches our roofs and streets
with its disgusting spittle
even on the hottest afternoon
we keep our windows shut
and never venture out without
a large umbrella for protection
the latex factory manager tells us
they’re working day and night to
come up with the obvious solution
but no one believes this
killing the phallosaur would be
as great a violation of our sensibilities
as the beast itself and so we wait
impatiently for it to die
the bees sleep soundly in the crocuses
the rest of us kick at the sheets
desperately trying to resist
the recurring dream of being
beaten at chess by a blind man
© July 10, 2008, Eric Basso
The following three poems are linked by the common theme of Philip Larkin’s novel, “A Girl in Winter”. By Si Philbrook …
A Girl in Winter (i) (By Si Philbrook)
a girl betrayed
i touch your hair as you sleep
my fingers blister
you wake and kiss my cheek
and down
a trail of cigarette burns
blacken
my
acid
etched
skin,
you are naked now
fiercely erect
my dry lipped kiss
goes
un-noticed
as you ignite within,
i want this pain
i have won it
it is mine
words fade
but
the brutal touch of lies
will keep me
from
returning.
© Si Philbrook
A Girl in Winter (ii) (By Si Philbrook)
some other Saturday
drunk and fumbling with her bra strap
his crap and clumsy clutches stink
of bear, and fags, and desparate shags,
they both know it,
she laughs at him and releases the clip
quickly he licks and flicks
and thinks that is it,
she doesn’t care tonight,
he has one of those thick crap condoms
two quid a drunken packet in the bogs
romantic
if it weren’t so funny,
she’s been here before
knows the score and has to grab him
give him some clue
as to where to put it,
she sighs and tries to like him
it’s not easy,
he stinks so cheaply
laughable,
she wants him gone
it’s not that she didn’t come,
but just that empty feeling
or lack of feeling,
some other saturday it would be ok,
some other bloke
not so clumsy
but they all are.
© Si Philbrook
A Girl in Winter (iii) (By Si Philbrook)
“While there is still time”
this was her death
I woke up early
the gentle dawn
whispering quietly in my ear,
muted light peered tentatively
around the un-drawn curtains
patient for an invitation,
I turned on the TV
the volume, set too loud
crowded out all other thoughts;
like thunder,
or the heavy screech of brakes,
I fumbled for the remote.
This was her death.
She’d been unhappy
I’d known that,
but put it carefully to one side
like a book
leant by a friend
do read this it’s great
I never did.
We’d split up six, or was it eight months
(I’ve never been good at anniversaries)
how long should have passed
before, it was,
not my fault
not my guilt,
An overdose, perhaps an accident?
but I knew her too well,
knew she knew the score
and how to measure
the lies that she injected.
Sometimes it seems to me
that all we are is sadness,
“we should be careful of each other
we should be kind
while there is still time.”
© Si Philbrook
North Woods (By Michael J. Solender)
Sometimes I
go back
to the snows of my
youth
Feathered birch
bark kindled
the flames that ignited
dreams
Modest visions
of who
I could be, discovery
uncovered
Those snows
melt not
then nor now, not
ever
Where did
then go
snowy hope of that
time
I saw
between the
solstice nadir and fresh
awakening
© Michael Solender
Futures Past
Scaling tiger’s nests
searching pasts
for future meanings.
Owning not
of burdens,
indentured still.
Soundly mute while
speaking clearly,
emboldened by the passing day.
Tethered aspirations yield
flights, flames
and candies.
Unadorned they talk
with listeners,
calloused hands are journey worn.
© Michael Solender
It has nothing to do with you (By Madrea Marie)
I’m smiling to myself, because I am amused
You might have thought I glared at you
I was just scowling in your general direction.
It has nothing to do with you.
The sun may have been too bright
or an unpleasant thought filled my head
don’t flatter yourself, that look
wasn’t meant for you.
In fact, I didn’t even notice your existence.
© Madrea Marie
In this life (By Madrea Marie)
It’s hard to question reality when its right there in front of you.
But it’s also hard to accept the things you wish to be otherwise.
Everyone started dying since the day they were born.
Some of us just chose to hasten it up a bit.
Things didn’t work out like you planned in your head.
But we’re not all dead yet.
© Madrea Marie
Inspiration (by Madrea Marie)
Inspire me
With your words
Don’t make me crazy
With talk
I want to feel tender
With touch
Don’t make me feel violated
With grasp
Like me
For what I can do
Don’t love me
Because I made you happy
I can destroy it all with one swipe of indifference.
The Worm (By Madrea Marie)
The worm wiggled
Could you imagine
it doing otherwise?
Inching and crawling
all the same
Towards its goal
the center of the apple
traveling and yearning
for that center core
Only to reach it
and find
it had been beaten.
© Madrea Marie
Mermaid (By Madrea Marie)
When I was a young kid
I used to love to swim
underwater
and pretend I was a mermaid
watching my long hair flow
like seaweed.
© Madrea Marie
The Storm of the Eye (By Mark Newey)
My mind holds the sound of a shore
it’s sky a warm and frigid purple
fragile as an endless sheet of sugarglass
spotted here and there with clouds of illumination against a backdrop of a sun that draws back the light of the day
and here i stand
my soul drawing back and forth with the surges of the water
understanding reached only at the peak of each, struggling with reconciliation in the between time
and intoxicated to the skeleton with the salty breeze and the ionic displacement of the water molecules as they crash against my sinus
High aloft i hold my love
imploring against all reason to the thunderheads to strike me with a vision
silently i cry out for a way
a path to take
even the breathless old nightmare
the reaking cold from the three mountain top lakes
Dance with me this endless dawn
© Mark Newey
Pivoting (By Mary Ann Blinkhorn)
Pivoting on thoughts alone
His pen oscillates across the page
His hazy existence
Ever freeing itself from the
Everyday facades he knows too well
Carrying a painful
Yet much needed divide
Between his own existence
As he perceives it
And that which he perceives to be
Everyone else’s existence
He writes on
Brilliantly accessing
His best and worst thoughts
His former and contemporary thoughts
His silver and gold feelings
Filling page upon page
With what will never be
Classified as insubstantial work
But rather the principal findings
Of a most-valued creative mind
© Mary Ann Blinkhorn
[...] poem, “The Kama Sutra of Quitting”, is up on the Outsider Writers Collective. Click here to read [...]