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.

 

Thank you to Abhilash Frazier and Juan Crevillo for publishing my three prose poems in July's Masticadores Canada.

Survivor’s Empire

What happens below you to those who once loved you? Their fix is in. Their choices are out.

They may not look it, but they are never still at the finish line because that last second is a kicker. Being left behind takes real grit, takes away your la-dee-das, shapes them into goals. Roll the dice left, then right, then flip it around until fate comes swinging your way. Grab the bull by the horns and get the jump. Nothing becomes something when they’re really gone.

The Modern Workings Of A Clock

Put your time’s clock in your pocket. Wait for your checkpoint. Soon after that date 

get ready for a shakedown.  Beg your pretty please on the down-low. Round and round 

and round old mythological years go in the slow times. Examine the do-nothingness you 

have cherished.  Whether upscale or rat-knocked, cut off the crust to taste the fast times.

What’s what must be kept in mind!  It’s too late now. Your coincidence has found you.

Hard Wood Shaking

The mood of western ken prepares and despairs, taking crowds to places which lecture 

with a series of sweeping decrees. Radio frequency ricochets to great effect. Glum 

namesakes reminisce about the hurried assembled abhorrence at a rate both loud and barbarous. 

Industrial transport, bogged down from a general preoccupation with 

unexceptional dilly-dally, becomes diminished under beveled regulation, allows for a 

larger give. Even the baby pram in the streetreflects agitation from within. What acquittal 

can ever be allowed to such a restive and dogmatic crowd? A malady of corrupting 

trepidation, sung as a mantra, repeated, repeated, turns out to be branded by a 

single-minded mistaken opinion.