Thank you to David K. Montoya, Stephanie J. Bardy, and Jeff R. Young of The World Of Myth Magazine for publishing my poem in the 100th Anniversary issue,  Congratulations to you, WOM!!

The Chain Of Days
By: Linda Imbler 

The chain of days and the constant succession of the dead: 
Hard fathers, 
Supine maidens with bright, creamy complexions, 
Everyone's selected beloved, 
Young men at the height of their bronzed manliness, 
The youngest taken only as a last resort.

Wooden or steel frameworks of the cadavers' stage surrounds them, 
along with pretty formations of flowers.

The living do not know how easy it is - 
the straight forwardness of dying anywhere.

The dead have forgotten 
the fundamental impact of grief upon the living, 
have overlooked 
the shock of our loss that moans inside our mortal chord.

The deceased lie as clones. 
There's no pantomime, 
petrified limbs frozen in time, 
their voices joining the chant of the great silence.

They use these newly developed skills to pose, 
to display the cynosure of their rock star recognitions, 
seemingly expressing beauty in the silence, 
testifying contentment in the stillness.

In the usual galaxy of the visitations, sympathies emerge. 
There is indiscriminate unmasking of what is left, 
and suitable saints and sinners are revealed.

Some of their essence must go elsewhere, 
because after centuries of their numbers swelling, 
we are not hemmed in where we stand, 
so they must be leaving room for us 
to tie into the link.

 

 

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

Thickened Scent Of Voices As Images Of The Infinite

 

 

Within the thickened scent of voices,

hear above the buzz of those presently singing.

 

Lay eyes and hands on fancy sculptures reflecting magic glows,

individuals seeing a different dream,

one by one with an image 

of what they believe Heaven knows in their minds.

 

A sleeping babe, dressed in a robe of innocence, 

oval eyes and a small mouth,

having no idea of his great journey ahead.

Birth

 

A maiden, graceful  

lush lips of her blissful smile and flowing hair,

and eyes of great delight.

Youth

 

A lady all knowing, yet old and gray,

her life understood and recalled

through filmy windows of the past.

Old age

 

A dying rocker,

barefoot and bearded, 

saying hello to death, 

perhaps like a wizard he once knew.

Mortality spent

 

We unravel the mosaic.

We see past the gallery of each mind

to see each of us transparent through to the soul.

 

Every soul’s true veil pulled back,

like an easel cloth removed,

revealing all resplendent arts and scents of the universe.

The Decade Within The Beats (Streaming)

Truces, pacts, and trade deals, televised war

conflict-hot or cold.

Bomb strikes, strikes-Ché Guevera.

 

Riots, draft cards burning in pockets,

on streets sit-ins, walk-outs, protests.

 

Paint it Black- Civil rights:

Thurgood Marshall, Robert C. Weaver,

Black Panthers M.L.K.

 

Ed Sullivan in the middle, helping all voices count,

knowing that music is the great link:

 

Blonde on Blonde-

Warhol channels Marilyn

Leary weds Window Pane.

 

An actor becomes a governor,

and through public sacrilege, a Beatle becomes a pariah.

 

Indira, Fidel, Leonid, Charles (oui, oui)

Space walks, Moon landings, Star Trek (Spock)

 

Maharishi or Manson

 

Walt created a small world

later, entered a larger one.

 

Dick Speck, Chuck Whitman

Bobby and Robert and Martin (tears)

 

British Invasion, Fab Four, (screams)

Woodstock, Monterrey, (wowing electric!)

Newport. (controversial electric!)

 

Rawboned courage,

front and center,

in that unsettled time,

as the beat went on,

and it still streams.

Standing On The Edge of Occasion

 The anti-clockwise appeal

of stepping back,

hoping to bewitch into constant reminder

the passing slurry of long-ago voices.

You’ll now be nothing but a silent onlooker,

so lose that dramatic woe. 

There are no more dances-the ballroom has been razed.

You experience the great gulp,

exhale the fog that memory can bring.

 

Step left,

and even with so many banal sorts

someone always goes mad,

enduring wordless conversations that reflect gestures 

meant to move mountains in a world of emojis.

And in the the valleys between

lies the greasy path,

that slippery slope of high-living indulgence

 

Step right,

and you may even find bald sobriety.

This is the place where eagles stop 

and roost, and stay.

There’s a unique tolerance here

that requires some special thinking.

This is where you imagine you’ll be understood, 

only to find unwelcome schemes 

to play against your cerebral exercises,

a place where strange thoughts seek to intrude.

 

Step forward now.

Breathe in all the love.

You’ll sense an uplifting shift,

an equal pull of fine, upstanding emotions,

an affectionate trend to do what is good and right.

You’ll discover all this in a silver wrapper of joy.

Read the handy future clocks.

Jump from the moving swing, and never fear.

The only important surface available to land on

is the one that houses unimpeachable truths

of opportunity and possibility.

 Thank you to Mark Antony Rossi of Ariel Chart for publishing my 9/11 poem in the September issue.

https://www.arielchart.com/2021/09/911.html

9/11

 

 

In his luggage, that did not complete the soar, 

was a beautiful memory of having once flown to Holland.

A more pleasant memory than the one 

which he will never bring home.

 

Today, bars and taverns have turned into churches.

The sky is silent but for the sound of weeping clouds.

 

Poets use terms like ‘gone to eternal rest’ 

and 'found the big sleep.’

I also know this poet’s song 

will now never be completely sung. 

 

I wonder what we will call this day

in one hundred years, 

and if its potency will be diminished.

 

And, in all the days that follow this Tuesday,

I will hear his voice in my head, 

that voice all others have forgotten.

 

I’ll open the door and suddenly 

be out on windy Kansas plains,

sighting all the other lonely people. 

I’ll say this moment must not rule me, 

and sometimes that will be the truth.