Thank you to Editor Glory Sasikala of GloMag for publishing my poem in the April Issue of GloMag.

The Platform of Isolation

An afternoon of tea and biscuits,

staring into the floret of a flame,

the smell of ozone

and anonymous newscasters drone,

in this dark and silent time.

In all minds,

mankind is planning how to

refashion themselves from the grave

while the insistent chill of December’s pale light

reminds us that the end

will always come with fire or harps,

and we won’t have long to wait.

Thank you to Editor Glory Sasikala for featuring some of my thoughts in the April Issue of GloMag.

https://view.joomag.com/glomag-glomagapril2019/0385545001555810578?short

Thank you to Editor Shahadat Hossain Shaan for publishing this poem in The Local Train Magazine.



Giovanni Antonio Guardi, “The Healing of Tobias’s Father”, c. 1750
(courtesy of The Local Train Magazine)

Apocryphal Painting

The sky torn and repatched with tools
constructed from sorrowful rain.
This sham artist has left
the world poorly explained.

An apocryphal painting,
varnished images wrecked,
set upon fragile easels,
chipped pigment now takes effect.

Creeping blemishes below clouds,
leaving the splattered canvas dark,
with neither hope nor signature,
man’s, not nature’s work.

For Easter weekend, here's a poem I wrote a few years ago.  It was published at Beneath the Rainbow in December of 2017.

The Lilies of Gethsemane

And there they were on Easter morn

at the peep of day.

Their petals unfolding,

as they had days before,

when they stood as a herald

from inside the sacred garden

where the final warnings were prelected.

Ivory costumed messengers of hope,

once again on the ground of the garden,

like they had also appeared 

when they sprung up 

below the Teacher’s crow’s nest.

Ambassadors of hope,

grown to remember

that much will bloom 

in the springtime of our lives, 

to bring renewal to all things,

including those things  

we thought forever lost.

Thank you to the Editors of Erothanatos for publishing my three poems in their Volume 3, Issue #2.


https://www.erothanatos.com

City

​

Two urban areas,
photographed-black and white or color.
Two different locations,
separated by vast distance.
Up close images placed side-by-side.
One would see no difference.
Collapsed buildings,
burned.
Smoke and fire,
fire and tears raging,
ash,
upside down cars
in the streets.
In both places,
hope has fled.
Destruction, desolation:
In Kathmandu by the hand of God,
In Baltimore by the hand of man.

***********************************************************************

Considerations

​

Beauty within peace,
These things I consider:

Perceiving the swimming leadership of the sun,
leaving shadows in its wake.
Observing degrees of luminosity
from the unhidden path of moonlight.
Relishing the sunny smiles of children,
still innocent,
before learning the meaning of vulgar words.
Friends and family of many flavors,
a trail of love and fellowship.
Finding triumph in a fair-minded purpose,
betterment.
Championing truth,
indestructible and brave,
from a righteous heart.

The elegance of beauty and peacefulness,

neatly intertwined.​

Prison’s Prison

​

Careful what you wish for. 

The Devil’s bargain does not sound strange.

It seems promising

until those jail cell doors clank shut,

useless remorse, starting and lingering.

Assume no hope. 

Revealed cells,

the short green mile,

the strong antiseptic smell of bleach like on bathroom tiles.

You join the tears of night,

constant,

meant to relieve guilty pasts,

no such undoing.

Growing up wrong offers no excuse.

There is coupled:
man’s justice and nature’s agreement sealed behind iron bars.

Your need to take life,

the beast having underwritten the hand you were dealt.********

Thank you to Visual Verse for publishing "Stargazers."


https://visualverse.org/images/nasa-astronaut/

STARGAZERS

Linda Imbler

Telescope, don't you know,
we'll see the wonders of the sky.
Telescope, don't you know,
we'll see beyond the naked eye.
Every evening, we’ll see more stars,
all flaring from afar.
Telescope, don't you know,
we’ll see new lights identified.
Every dark night you can find us
looking through the lens.
with him by my side
and the star guide in his hand.
And when all that blazes in the sky is finally scanned,
I will still be his woman, he’ll still be my man.

Thank you to Editor Rajnish Mishra for publishing "Permutations of Getting Wet in the Rain" in the April, 2019 Issue of PPP Ezine.




https://poetrypoeticspleasureezine.wordpress.com

Permutations of Getting Wet 

When rain and fate are intertwined,

some will get wet and never dry,

submerged in guilt that amplifies,

much moisture causes them to die.

Wily folks hidden by deep fog,

it dampens them and only blurs

their truth they claim as demagogue,

their crimes and sins always obscured.

Splashing through pools of enmity,

saturated with pelting rain,

a bright sun shower quickly forms,

bathed in sunshine, these dry again.

Some survive a spate and torrent.

They turn deluge into drizzle.

These then convince the clouds to form

only mist, soft dew does fizzle.

The cold disdain of those in sleet,

icy crystals freeze their numb hearts.

They never care for others’ pleas.

They simply choose to live apart.

Through hail and snow and pouring rain,

we walk the earth and live our lives,

through haze and spray we must maintain

lasting existence of all types.

Thank you to Pif Magazine for publishing "Love As Warmth" in their April, 2019 Issue.



https://www.pifmagazine.com/2019/04/love-as-warmth/

Love As Warmth

There once was wariness within your eyes.

I heard the questions between your words.

You thought your story escaped from my lips.

And believed I had shouted it to the world.

But, we slept through the cold season,

then awakened to sunlight and warm veins.

We pushed the chill aside,

let bitter thoughts stay frozen in time

let all our suspicions dissolve back then,

and when we knew we were far enough removed,

let what had been an icebound float,

white ice changed to the white of a feather

landing upon soft green fields,

{in aice le linn ár gcroí saor in aisce agus liopaí miongháire}

(next to us with our free hearts and smiling lips)

while we fulfilled love’s ambition.

If all else dies but us, we shall not mourn.

That feeling of us as one never leaving.

I’ll watch the sunrise along with you.

I’ll remember summer as you do.

Thank you to The Remington Review for publishing "A Backyard Incident in St. Louis".

https://www.flipsnack.com/Remingtonreview/remington-review-spring-2019.html

A Backyard Incident in St. Louis

My mother checks the yard for my brother

every night by flashlight,

forgetting he drowned.

She’s so certain he’ll be found.

My father took the blow up pool

to the dump

six months ago.

Only five inches of clear water

along with the grass clippings

that fell off the soles of our feet.

Birds and butterflies lined against

yellow and blue rubber,

a green garden hose

sending joy and tragedy

through the same tube.

And each night, the crickets are no guide

and the fireflies unveil no hiding places,

and all the calling in the world

will never flip the switch back to bright.

Thank you to Foliate Oak for publishing two of my poems.



https://www.foliateoak.com/linda-imbler.html






Two Poems

by Linda Imbler


Bandaids
 
Remember when bandaids came in a tin box
instead of flimsy cardboard?
It’s as if the hurts
don’t need to be protected as much as they once were.
 
The glamour and illusion of safety
in childhood is today dispelled
 
whiskered chins
and palsied hands
offer no safekeeping
 
and the mitigation of unhappiness
is no longer a hope
 
the illusion of size to security,
shattered
 
falling is still an option,
but now it’s so much harder to get back up.




To The Dead, We Are Monotonous
 
The dead have no interest in being alive again.
 
They don’t hang out in cemeteries.
They go other places,
find more interesting locales.
 
They hold their cycle of conferences
and do all manner of deft plotting
with only their own future in mind.
 
There is no opportunistic uprising
being prepared by those gone cold
in order to wipe us out.
 
So, while the night wind croons
and we worry we will have visitations,
while our seamy superstitions
force us to light bulbs and candles
and wring our hands,
as these demonstration of our fearfulness
consumes our dark hours
 
the dearly departed stand apart,
impartial to our world.
 
They see us as monotonous.
 

Thank you, J.K. Shawhan, for publishing my tribute to Cornelius
in The Basil O'Flaherty.



https://thebasiloflaherty.weebly.com/animal-poems.html

Cornelius

The once noble renegade,

the zealous infidel of squirreldom,

the daytime thief of others’ treasure troves,

even bounties of rabbit carrots.

His heralded jaw forewarning of the onset

of another chewing frenzy.

His gurgling stomach assuaged

with each new groundnut swallowed.

This dutiful organism whose growth we watched,

all the while as he watched us,

and whose hindmost parts we observed

whenever he scurried to the next peanut burial site.

This star practitioner of food juggling,

carrying more than one at a time,

one in hand, one in mouth.

This furry creature who met and loved a man.

Who once having been trapped and removed 

from his safe haven by strangers,

found his way back home,

after two years,

and acted as if he had been at the threshold 

of that doorway only yesterday.

This poem,

meant as homage to the little critter

whose time did end,

who, although no bigger than a breadbox

held within him a very large heart

and a very long memory.

This poem,

meant to mark worth

on his short, but notable life.