Monday, March 14, 2016

  Cleaning Up

The sink fills, the hot water turns the Dawn to suds,
To slight bubbles; these are last night’s dishes,
The ones we left undone, so now I make the clatter
And scrape of doing the undoing of the mess we made
Last night; things stick when left too long; the sponge
And steel wool scratcher help; pasta past its time
Begins to harden, clings to the plates, the tomato
Sauce becomes as much stain as substance, too much
Like blood left this long to even think of that analogy.
This is the morning after a meal that ended like this,
So much to clean up, so much to put away; I’m here
In the midst of it, a memory turned to this, the dishes
Emerging like new as the water cools, as I look off
In the distance wondering what else I could possibly do.
 
                                                            J.K. Durick


      Remembering

What vague generalizations
we’ve become
 
descending those stairs
silently crossing the hall
 
crossing over the sill
looking back    
 
one more time
 
and finally
closing the door.
 
                     J.K. Durick


              In Retirement
 
There’s a silence all around today,
Like yesterday, all along the street
The neighbors’ houses sit, quiet as
Grave stones, cars in driveways stay
Silent, lending a solemnity to it all
 
The birds and squirrels, the only
Other citizens of our world, are absent
Their presence would disturb this
Oddly perfect Thursday morning;
It comes down to this after all
 
After all the planning and loud voices
The choosing and choices, the things
We set in place and counted on, counted
Off, all the things we tried to be but
Never were, come down to this after all
 
Life becomes oddly perfect Thursday
Mornings, our calendar fills up with them,
Nothing to distract from the silence of
Them, even memories have failed us in
This morning, this presence we have become
 
                                                J.K. Durick
Galactic Mix

Gaseous nebula’s and clouds jettisoned
Joined by a dance of multi-shaped galaxies
The spiral motions swirl about
Like powdered colors in a glass
Stirred by a magic finger
Churning together an unyielding blend
With ingredients that never seem to mix


Science Fiction Haiku

mars evolution
history long ago hid
by meteorites

aliens attack
humans eliminated
want the parking space

the star exploded
in the universes hand
fireworks of awe

landing UFO
destination the South Pole
looking for ice cubes

recent twitter message
attack of earth will start soon
tech savvy Martians

the little green men-
Sightings all around the world
Could they be insects?

maybe aliens
do not contact us because
still a little green

entering orbit
not a spaceship, a creature
eats space satellites

loud firecracker
who lit big bag fuse, unknown
or dark gravity

passing above
ship or star
both answer


Iceland Ceremony

Long before man
Stood one world
Us like ants with sticks
Lines are drawn in sand
Each set or sides
With different rules
Ants that think like gods
Gather pretend visions
In all the long wait
The clouds with the air
Laugh
Seas and mountains
Make jokes about us
Lets have all the sticks
Too, destroy and carry
Thrown in a volcano
In Iceland ceremony


Two Tanka

while on Pluto
commander sees an object
glow in the distance
walking up to find a sign
in red ink, not a planet

do aliens dream?
of inhabitable planets
with other life forms
do they call them aliens?
or do they call them neighbors


Spaces Dreams

See billion specks
Of fast moving stars
On the edges
Speeding by clearly
Slowly slowing down
Upon a world or place
In a point unfathomable
Descriptions get lost
Once touched by rays
Human hand disappears
A dance of dreams
With unnamed galaxies

Denny E. Marshall 
Stroke
 
      Ireland to America, long ago
 
In this Kerryman’s eyes
big ships sail
and lighthouses flicker
light years away.
He’s 70 today and sits 
tombstone straight
in his caneback chair,
waves at a flake
hanging from his nose,
misses and curses.
It’s his first curse of the day
and he’s ready for anything,
an ancient ram braced for the British
climbing through the mist.
His children, parents themselves now,
sit in his parlor, silent around him.
When they hear his first curse,
they know it’s 20 years earlier
and Father is calling
a meeting of the family.
They shift in their chairs
as his eyes and his words
whiz around the room
like bees liquored up
looking for something to sink into.

 
Donal Mahoney


Dingle, Ireland

The bathroom carpet,
wall to wall, is blue,
the lightest blue,
to complement
the bowl and ceiling.

Apropos the moment: 
I bend the waist
and heave the gristle
from last evening's steak.

Tomorrow I shall row again
to see those ancient men
in caps and coveralls
stand like statues
while they talk
and tap gold embers
from clay pipes
forever glowing. 

I'll go there
at the dinner hour
and see them once again
fork potatoes,
whole and steaming,
from big kettles filled
at dawn by crones
forever kerchiefed
and forever bent.

At dawn you hear 
these women
sing their hymns
like seraphim
a cappella
as they genuflect and dip
big black kettles
in the sometimes still
sometimes foaming sea.


Donal Mahoney
An Irish Christening
 
Thomas said
you can’t go home again
but I did for my sister
and the christening of her first.
Everyone, on folding chairs, against
the whitewashed basement walls, was there
for ham and beef and beer, the better
bourbons, music, argument and talk.
Maura came; she hadn’t married. 
Paddy, fist around a beer, declared
I owed my family the sight
of me more often.
Hannah, thickset now,
gray and apronless,
rose beside the furnace,
wolverined me to the coal bin door
and asked me in the face,
with sibilance and spittle,  
who or what it was
that kept me anywhere,
everywhere, but there.
 
 
Donal Mahoney

Ocean of Love
Forget the sadness
seconds are ticking.
Smile in the present
even thinking about
the past.
Love was a wave
surging forward
pulling you under
coming up gasping for
air. 
There was always someone on
the shore watching and caring.
She happily watched the vast ocean
of love.

Lily Tierney

Sunday, March 6, 2016



To the Lost Children
At night I hear the cries,
mostly ignored
by fellow citizens
of dwindling moral sway,
too preoccupied
with their fears
to stem the flow of tears
from tormented children,
screamed at, beaten by Mom,
tortured by the boyfriend,
murdered for gobbling candy,
for not using the toilet,
getting in someone's way,
easier to remove
then to comfort, educate,
give a chance
to become a person,
survive a daily diet
of indigestible abuse
shocking the brain cells
until they no longer learn,
shattering the heart
until it no longer feels,
locked away in prison shell
a simulacra of youth
amputated from humanity.

The shattered discards,
punished for being born,the wrong place, wrong time,
to the wrong people
unfit to raise children
whatever the reason,
corroding the minds and souls,
destroying the bodies,
creating twisted creatures
who cannot adapt
and succumb to rot of the street
in indifferent cities,
arbitrarily denied
the right to join the system,
with hopes, dreams, aspirations,
consigned to urban trash piles
for a tarnished existence.

Yet they watch the same tv
as the rest of us
and cannot comprehend
why they are deprived,
with no structure
to provide guidance
turn to crime, violence,
a desperate attempt
to get the goods they crave
dangled tantalizingly
out of honest reach.
But they never see beyond
the nearest store to rob,
the nearest victim to mug,
oblivious to the system
that manufactures monsters
from what should have been humans.

I do not sleep well at night
having seen the suffering
of so many children,
helpless to alter their fate,
knowing it is worse
in third world countries,
but the anguish never leaves me
that I cannot prevent
the horrors that go on
all over America.

Gary Beck

Entertainment Industry
In ancient Rome
the games entertained
rich and poor alike,
the only difference
the rich went home to comfort,
but both equally enjoyed
barbaric bloodshed.

Other empires before Rome
gave the people festivals,
the Olympiad in Greece
the most notable
non-religious event,
substituting games for war.

In modern times, radio
spoke directly to millions,
a rapid revolution
in mass communication
and the airways were innocent,
except for some of the news
bringing distant horrors
to avid listeners.

Once a picture was worth
a thousand words
and television briefly
confirmed the exchange rate,
when people tended
to believe what they saw.

Then new technology,
fueled by the computer
developed the power
to alter images,
so we can no longer trust
whatever they show us.

Twenty four hours a day
cable tv
provides diversion
for most appetites,
the spread of sex and violence
consistently guaranteeing
attentive audiences.


 Gary Beck
 

Helpless I do not know if good intentions prevail among the elected, among the appointed, leaving me apprehensive that the fate ...