Summer 2009

The Sun  

The yellow cat stoops in the

 yard, plays on the pecan tree

 clinging to a limb in the wind

 with his front claws,

 swinging like the brass

 pendulum on the clock itself

 he drops disappears into

 thin air on silent feet.

   Danny P. Barbare

Danny P. Barbare lives and grew up in the foothills of South Carolina. He loves to go on long walks especially on quiet winter days and visit the mountains of North Carolina when he can.  He reports:   My poetry has appeared in numerous magazines and journals since 1981. My first publication appeared in a magazine called Midwest Poetry Review in 1986. I have pretty much written steadily over the years appearing in some college journals and small press magazines including online magazines which can be found under my name especially under http://www.yahoo.com/.

*  *  *

With Morning Glories 

Our fighting lacks maturity; stark rage

consumes our entire energy once our

feeble egos threaten to despoil.  Grim, caged

adults, we chase familial phantoms hour

on hour around a den of lurid fears:

I, your mean daddy, marshal through your brain

Napoleonic orders which with tears

you disobey, enjoying them just the same.

You, my rejecting mama, with cold teat

bared, mocking me for wanting to be warm.

Like lonely wrinkled Rembrandt children fit

for geriatrics, ancients taking forms

from nurseries.  This is love?  This temple

stalks

Venus and her blue-eyed boy lost in talk? 

    -- Louie Crew, lcrew@andromeda.rutgers.edu

Louie Crew

Louie Crew reports that  I have edited special issues of College English and Margins.  I have 
written four poetry volumes Sunspots (Lotus Press, Detroit, 1976) 
Midnight Lessons (Samisdat, 1987), Lutibelle's Pew (Dragon Disks, 
1990), and Queers! for Christ's Sake! (Dragon Disks, 2003).

The University of Michigan collects all my papers.

As of today, editors have published 1,910 of my works.

Louie Crew
 

Jerome Brooke

*

Dance of the Torches

Far, far away, the flames do play,

Leaping in the far distance

Across the way, candles wildly turn,

Doing their reckless dance.

Stars glitter, then fall, in the sky;

Hopeless realm of night.

Falling, falling to our green realm,

Into our fading sight.

Memories, mere dreams, rise in the dark,

Blind eye of the mind.

Dreams of death, memories of fleeting love,

All, all of a single kind.

Jerome Brooke

*

                              Jerome Brooke

Jerome Brooke was born in Evansville, Indiana in 1949.

He lives in Thailand.  He is a retired attorney.  He has

written a number of collections of poetry, including Our

Lady of Silk, Dark  Sea of Sulu, and Mirage : Dance of the

Sun.

* * *  * * *

Frogs

Frog
squats
on lily pad
hoods blinking
deceptively
till thin sliver
uncoils
darting out
to secure
a frivolous fly.

I know
a frog
squatting
on office pad
bulging and bald
small eyes fixed
on bright fly-like figures
fat squab
poised
then a jab
and primly pinned
another unsuspecting tax-dodger.

Bob Nimmo

Bob Nimmo reports: My poetry is anchored in the areas in which I live,  including Asia, and reflects my passion for world affairs and the global difficulties we all face.  I am often moved by the struggle of others,  finding as Wilfred Owen so aptly observed:  "The poetry is in the pity."

I have had literature books published by Pearson-Longman and poetry,  short stories plus longer theses published in magazines,  newspapers and books in Britain,  Asia,  Australia and New Zealand.

*  *  * 

WHAT YOU LACK

What you lack tonight in the middle of the sea

is not the compass

---you have the stars there in the sky.

What keeps you among the waves is not the wind

the wild maritime storm that blew away

---now silence and doldrum reign.

What scares you in this dark night is not

the oceanic cold of the morning water

---nightmare has petrified your nerves.

What you lack this hopeless night

is not the memories, an entire life gathered in a shell

---fear has razed your recollection.

What you lack this last night

is your boat which cracked and sunk

and left you without hope in the middle of the endless sea...
 

 Ridvan Peshkopia

Ridvan Peshkopia has published a poetry book in Albanian (Qyteti Ideal [Ideal City] 1992, Tirana Albania), and also translated from English to Albanian poems of Langston Hughes and Maya Angelou, which have been published in the Albanian literary magazine Fjala [The Word] during 2005-2006. Ridvan also has translated from French to Albanian poems of George Brassens, and published them in Fjala (2005). His poems in Albanian have been published in Zëri i Rinisë [Youth's Voice], 1991, and Fjala, 2005, 2006.

*  *  *

Another Afternoon Charade

Another afternoon charade.  Sullen

children in the lot together,

we played the rain as if

we knew the sound of porous ground

beneath the asphalt;

played at going, and arriving

where the rules change,

and sang the difference

through tomorrow's raincoats and umbrellas,

sang the rain

of every day's charade.

Richard Spuler

Richard Spuler, Ph.D.

Spuler's poems have appeared in numerous literary magazines. He is currently working an a collection of short stories and poetry (Memorabilia and Other Assorted Forgettables). For nearly 20 years he has served as Senior Lecturer in German at Rice University in Houston, TX. He enjoys music and reading.

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