Fortress As Duet in Latter Days
Nothing to be heard,
but heartbeats and sighs
we hear,
inside,
each other’s heads,
as gentle breeze
and rhythm.
The cosmic magnificence
of our mutual mantra
chanted in tandem,
over decades.
Simple plans,
and actions assented,
remedies,
good medicine,
accrued,
long forgotten laughter,
and so few regrets.
Thoughts,
recollections,
secrets,
inside
a fortress
only we two,
during so many years,
could engineer.
WRITTEN YEARS AGO. AM CURRENTLY WORKING ON A NEW POEM AFTER SEEING THE AMAZING MOVIE.
Jacko
A little boy upon the stage ,
His voice was strong and pure.
Everyone who heard him sing,
Thought “he's a star for sure.”
Had no childhood, yet grew taller,
With each new passing year.
Many more people saw him,
Chased him to the point of fear.
More Peter Pan,
Rather than a man.
Just wanted to be a real boy,
He changed his skin and nose.
Might have also changed his mouth,
That's how the story goes.
He befriended counterfeit pals,
The ones who wished for fame.
Thought they would be also known,
If attached to his name.
And, still today, his songs are played.
His children, three, now grown.
He no longer hears applause,
The King of Pop's gone home.
A big thank you to Editor Mark Antony Rossi for publishing my poem in the June issue of Ariel Chart.
Cold Water
Dank glares
drip cold water
on victims’ hearts.
Another scarf unraveled..
The crestfallen,
stopped dead in their tracks,
with no way forward.
The boomerang of gossip grows,
as the flock follows the ram.
The wet wool of caustic words
proves malodorous.
Speaking of smell,
there’s an intravenous scent of fear
reeking out from the
misery of their own herd,
and from the possibility
that they may become the bullseye
for the next wave of disallowance.
Self-imagined stalking knights,
who think they have the most to gain,
imbuing the world with beefy fictions,
using hot panther breath that stalks.
Masters of disastrous,
deceitful
words on the street,
now dripping
cold sweats
from their own skin,
as well as cold water
thrown
onto their own hearts.
MANY, MANY POETS IN THIS ANTHOLOGY. I HAVE THREE POEMS HERE. ALL PROCEEDS GO TO THE MICHAEL J. FOX PARKINSON'S FOUNDATION. THANK YOU, ELLIOT, FOR PUTTING THIS TOGETHER. AVAILABLE AT AMAZON.
Poets for Parkinson's: An Anthology Fundraiser (2026), edited by Elliot M. Rubin, is a remarkable gathering of voices that proves poetry at its best is never a solitary act. Drawing from poets he has known, Rubin has assembled almost forty experienced poets from across the globe — New Jersey and New York, Vermont and Los Angeles, the UK, South Africa — whose work spans an extraordinary range of forms and sensibilities. The collection opens with a preface that frames the anthology not as a competition but as a communion, and that spirit of generous listening and mutual revision is palpable on every page. This is poetry made in community, and it shows.
The range of voices here is the anthology's greatest strength. From Sarfraz Ahmed's wry, tender opening poems to LindaAnn LoSchiavo's formally inventive work, from David Sandler's debut publication to the battle-tested lines of Duane L. Herrmann and Richard Fireman, the collection refuses to settle into any single aesthetic. There are love poems and elegies, urban snapshots and pastoral reveries, meditations on grief, on humor, on the strange beauty of ordinary days. Rubin's own contributions — including the Beat-inflected "pork pink" and the wandering, wide-eyed "short walk near the battery" — sit easily alongside the work of his fellow poets, proof that this editor leads from within rather than above.
What elevates Poets for Parkinson's beyond a worthy literary gesture is that it succeeds on both counts: as art and as advocacy. Every dollar of proceeds goes to the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research, giving each poem a second purpose beyond the page. The dedication — "To those who fight disease / and those who suffer" — is spare and sincere, and it resonates across the whole collection. Rubin has built something genuinely moving here: a book that reminds us why we write, why we gather, and why it still matters to put words into the world.
Helene Faraday – retired editor and educator
AVAILABLE AT AMAZON. $3.99 Paperback
After the remarkable debut of her first poetry collection “Big Questions, Little Sleep”, Linda Imbler again delves deeply into our emotions, this time focusing on things vanished or attained.Nestled between the sorrowful first poem and the hope and glory of the last, she offers images and ideas of reverence, humor, suspense and survival.This is one poet’s guided tour through the peaks and valleys of the human heart when confronted with experiences of what can be lost and what can be found.
