Thank you to Editor Mark Antony Rossi of Ariel Chart for publishing my three poems in the August issue.

https://www.arielchart.com/

The Diverse Frames of Mind

 

 Change regarded as success,

a tendency toward new achievement,

walking along with blockbuster moves,

hailing the novel structure of a well-oiled roulette wheel.

 

Caught in an inescapable mood

with only serious purpose,

feeling bereavement for what was years ago,

the can’t or won’t mindset 

trying to purge the tracks of yesteryear,

clinging to the exotic structure of rust.

 

The relative warmth or coolness

of multiple frames of mind

lies within us, 

but they all have their genius.

A Somewhat Delicate Thought Process

 

Your deep thinking 

will hinge on your own theories,

your own thoughts.

You alone 

will be selecting 

the sharp and difficult questions

that you consider 

to be of paramount importance.

 

You will abandon what ideas 

should have been easily prepared 

on your own behalf

in answer to those questions

only if you get 

a hole in the pocket of your mind.

Rare Rage

 

Let it be rare rage

to flail against those 

who despise you with disdain.

Your sorrows exemplified by

seeds sown as the suffering caused by your doubts.

 

Ward off blows of such scandals

as produced by a violent maelstrom

of fierce and frequent hearsay.

 

Disregard a good deal of talk in the air around you

from those who will never stay.

 

You can never fall from favor

if you weren’t up there in the first place.

 

Throw in the towel.

Let your painful associations order a last meal.

Why cultivate unpleasant memories?

 

Thank you to Deborah Edgeley of Ink Pantry: Curator of Fine Words for publishing my three poems today.

https://inkpantry.com/poetry-drawer-in-the-murky-hours-there-was-still-hope-express-mark-i-paid-a-visit-by-linda-imbler/?unapproved=276&moderation-hash=393aa7edb4688c242c14b92d0111faf9#comment-276

In The Murky Hours There Was Still Hope

In the murky hours are the murderers,
freshly convened,
flippant and fickle,
with whines and snivels.

Malevolently intent on revising the rules,
and lopping off the light.
Deeply resentful,
always resorting to cunning,
enabling complicity in their crime.

Crushing an incalculable number of vexing secrets
set for the future to be told or heard.
Their annihilation
all enacted with feverish haste.

A sacrificial onslaught of hostility,
the appointment of a shadowing stab,
leaves them rapidly breathing around the stench of bloodshed
from wounds to be overcome,
leaving graves shaped like bulbous domes
hidden under silk.

They try to beg meaning from
haphazard blackbird dreams
that burst into flames upon awakening.

They hone mosaic transmissions,
coded in sombre shades
within the gloom and seep of murk,
encrypted to discredit legends.

When all is torn, crushed, spilled,
when fume and reek have become the prize sought,
it is the poets’ job
to exhale inky breath across paper landscapes,
to bring back life to thought,
to find the almighty past man’s destruction.

Express Mark

In sunlight, we pass through gates,
hung in the middle of rush-clad walls,
gates which once bore
the bruise of broken door hinges.

Everyone observing stones cut into
concrete images,
brimming with geocentric activity.

The once imposed form of empty vessels,
strewn about long ago,
currently to be filled with
a bioluminescent blue-violet thick jet of light,
unconfounded,
in its aim toward an express mark
of interwoven destinies.

There’s apparent understanding hoped for,
and to a considerable extent,
we relish the recovery of our strength,
after the feel of shipwrecked bodies,
and we will complete a sojourn
rather than be held in complete confinement.

All due to the impressive profusion
of one large empire of artists.

I Paid A Visit

I paid a visit to a person of certain origins,
who, after hearing the clarion call,
became determined to get past vague language,
and dip us into a charming melody,
using an eloquent speech.

From the brushing of clouds
comes that melody,
an etched rhapsody,
once confined by a back door locked,
where a few of its remnants were left on a stoop,
the entire symphony now recovered..

The majority of those troubled
and alarmed by the liability of war,
by the havoc of battle,
those clad with a doctrine of fear,
those who have theorized some popular notion
of who is to blame for the catastrophes,
to them goes this speech.

Live
to be better off emotionally,
with a higher sense of people’s’value,
than corruptible vicars,
sultans, chancellors, and counts,
causing formidable misfortunes.

Live
to hear more tender strums within all seasons
than all the above who forget the names,
by sterile fail,
of all the living and the dead.

Live
to burn hotter in the quest to cleanse one’s soul
than these short-sighted,
who will trade music and science for occupational malevolence.

Let them not be those who lead the charge.
That being said, you now know
what we need to do to preserve the peace,
and win the song of the world.

 

Thank you to Dagmara K at Spillwords for publishing my poem today. Please like at Spillwords if you get the chance. (there's a place to click a little heart)

https://spillwords.com/reading-to-my-dead-friend/

READING TO MY DEAD FRIEND AT HER BEDSIDE

written by: Linda Imbler

 

After your breath turned around,
they came to remove you.

Before you could be carried away,
I wanted you to hear
some of your favorite words
one more time.

I searched your library
for those books you held most dear,
those you had gathered and preserved
with the utmost care.

I found the passages that you had told me
you’d experienced as enchantments.

I put another pillow under your head,
an aptly placed temple
for one about to re-worship
the gods of the lexicon.

I read aloud:

-a passage spoken by a small arachnid
that changed another creature’s life
-several passages from “A Man Called Ove,”
you laughed so hard when I called him Ohv.
-clues recited by amateur detective Nancy Drew
passages that lured us into loving mystery writers
-lines from Moby Dick, whose work I first despised
until you convinced me to pay attention
to what Ishmael said rather than did.

Ideas that were abstract,
but so is death,
and now future excerpts will look different to me.

 

Thank you to editor Mark Antony Rossi and Ariel Chart for nominating my poem "Delirium Through The Drained Glass" for a Best of the Net award.  I am humbled.

Thank you to Mark Antony Rossi of Ariel Chart  for publishing three of my poems in the July issue.

https://www.arielchart.com/

Synn

Whoever told you they didn’t love you,

offered you no coat against chill winds,

kept you from hellos

that should have been said,

gave you no oar

against the strong waves of derision?

Whoever told you they didn’t love you,

gave no protection

against eccentric ferocities toward you

by those recruits they furnished? 

 

Whoever told you they didn’t love you,

while projecting an affectionate deception,

while acting as a well-behaved chum,

yet withholding something as simple

as tea in a mug?

They wish for you to stand beside them

as they gaze into the glasses in a hall of mirrors,

hoping your reflections 

will show crestfallen images

depicting misery and shame.

If you’re wise,

you’ll be looking elsewhere.

When Lions Cry Out Their Courage From Within The Dark

Conjurers claim to grant concessions 

that as legend tells us 

were once sought in the Old Testament.

Illusionists bewitch 

with poised innuendo

only resembling what we should embrace, 

summed up with such force

within the sphere.

In the meantime, we seek

to read and hear

things of great importance.

What we need is

a free heart, free wings,

not to be taken for granted.

We look forward to the truth of all matters,

spoken with hands that weave,

shame no longer exposed.

We as lions burning through shadows

with our golden eyes,

embellished and enlarged,

piercing,

benefitting from early training

of guarding from monsters

that which is extant.

True change happens

when we are no longer

afraid of the dark.

Fine Feathers, Fine Words

Here is my whispered wish,

made on a single feather.

The ideas of the builders 

of bridges conferring closely together,

their compatible heritages

stated on many levels.

An infusion of goodness,

held in common,

nurturing seeds of enduring character,

watered with the sweetly sprinkled scent

of rosewater and berries.

Both sides holding up their end

of the social contract,

learning from the energy of swans.

All people, thoughtful,

exclaiming love,

such a power in the world,

prescribed, prized,

glowing brighter than bioluminescent algae.

A final testament 

to the practical use of the heart.