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

https://www.arielchart.com

Good Help Is Really Hard To Find

                  (For Mark)

  

Gloria gripes to Brian,

“There ought to be a law.

These domestics all have creaky joints.

It has to be a design flaw.”

 

“Quality control’s a problem.

They have limited mobility.

The factory that manufactures them

should have a better, longer warranty.”

 

“They don't understand their programming.

Their power source is weak.

Repetitive tasks should be a cinch,

but their sensory systems are hard to tweak.”

 

“This planet should make a worldwide pact right now,”

She spoke with acumen.

Then this cyborg waved her robotic arms,

“No more hiring puny humans!”

Exhilaration Along the Dark Road

 

Ill-prepared for gloom,

and the seep of murk.

The awful bound of somber shades

and unmoving lightlessness.

The stygian, sterile fail of a mental sarcophagus.

Emotions shivery in a sunless morn.

The vague memory of used up relevance.

 

Carry not a creed of ignorance.

Not all is worthwhile.

There are incontrovertible truths,

known by most,

that those who read it as Delphic

scramble in an attempt to perceive missing pieces,

that lack of facts strewn across desert-like expanses.

 

No use sealing the door 

through which ignorance may flow,

while still leaving the walls as they are,

until you are so desperate for air and life.

No use disturbing routine,

Unlimited trapping,

no nostrum to cure the ennui.

 

Grasp each dream,

and turn it,

like a Rubik’s cube

to bring truth and light to your life.

Chester

Chester ran across the road,

or tried to.

He didn't quite make it.

Here comes running

the one who neither believed

in licenses nor leashes.

 

A truth as hard as the concrete

across which Chester is now spilled,

entering her mind,

as tears of remorse

are spilled also.

 

Then Chester stands,

once again whole,

without blood-soaked fur.

He gives himself a quick shake,

and runs on,

runs like the wind.

Nothing’s gonna stop him 

in his new world.

 

Thank you to Soma Publishing for creating and sponsoring this ad for my newest e-book. (see very top of sidebar for link) This e-book is  $1.99 at many fine book seller sites both nationally and internationally.  And, a HUGE thank you to my readers.  You are loved and appreciated!

 Thank you to With Painted Words  for publishing my poem inspired by Christy Kirk's marvelous painting, entitled "Silenced."

http://withpaintedwords.com/view_submission.php?news_id=1522

The Most Deafening Sound

by Linda Imbler 

The most deafening sound is:

a silence born of fear.  The evil spell

of a struggling need to speak one’s mind

while leaving traces

of a terrible time:

Wherein

the sinister has happened,

and all wicked deeds have been covered up.

Photo Courtesy of Artist Christy Kirk and poetry site With Painted Words.

Tomb

Indian empress

In majestic palace.

Pharaoh,

Colossal pyramids and valley of kings.

Chinese emperor 

Under protection of enormous, imperial army.

Abbeys and churches,

Splendid, kingly.

Czech ossuary,

Decorative bones create glorious ambiance.

Immense Irish mounds,

Green and grand.

Parisian and Italian catacombs,

Lambent flames of candles illuminating.

Monuments to presidents and monarchs

Visited by heads of state.

Tomb of the Unknown Soldier

Represents otherwise forgotten victims of wars past and present.

City cemeteries,

Vaults and mausoleums dot the landscape.

Family graveyards,

Tombstones detail ancestral history.

Solitary, unmarked graves

On purpose or not.

Mass graves,

One of the spoils of war.

A small, dark grotto,

Once covered with a rolling rock,

Now empty.

Its former resident

Watches over them all

From his vantage point,

Watches over the living

And the still entombed.

©Imbler, 2015

“Tomb” was the third poem I ever wrote.  It was composed in January, 2015.  Its development has an interesting beginning.  I had been working a crossword puzzle and came across the word ‘lambent,’ which means glowing, gleaming, or flickering with a soft flame.  The word immediately brought to mind the catacombs which serve as crypts in some places in Europe.  My thinking then jumped to different types of graves. It then jumped to listing types of graves from most magnificent to least (in terms of looking splendorous.)  As I worked through the progression, and more of the poem spread across the paper, I knew I needed a way to wrap it up nicely.  I don’t remember the exact point that it hit me, but I remember thinking that the poem would have a circular flavor to it.  Start at the most visually stunning tomb, the Taj Mahal, and end the poem with the most splendid tomb of all, in my humble opinion, the tomb of Christ.

 Thank you to Lipi Magazine for publishing my poem today.

Unavoidable (Re)viewpoint

A pile of pictures, flip through them quickly,

showing the quick succession of year’s passing.

Memories kissed onto each image,

unavoidable (re)viewpoint.

Midnight recalls come most vivid,

sends me back down that road,

and lets me re-walk those steps,

when yours was the only hand I held.

Summer stars and radio songs,

we could not part then without grief,

and after all these years,

there’s no more tears, just subtle smiles.

 A huge Thank You to J Alejandro and Madelyn Cruz for the beautiful readings of three of my poems on Creative Drive.  The link can be found to the right under Audio/Visual.

 Thank you to Steve Cawte of Impspired for publishing my three poems in the April issue.

https://impspired.com/2021/04/01/linda-imbler-5/

No Spotlight Within The Storm’s Grace

As midnight darkens your crystalline house,
you watch the rain outside fill a pail.
Deep, thick downpours, saturating, all the more, the sorrows of man.

The sky’s in agony, but storms satisfy you. 
Drinking the blood of a reasoned day,
inside your strange quarters, 
releases none of your treasured turmoil into the air.
There’s something needful about imagining
the security of not being in the spotlight.

Cherish the remaining black hours
before slivers of blue sky, not wished for beyond the dawn, are shown.
Once bouncing raindrops now lying flat.
Such is not the pretty picture many say it should be,
and you cannot conceive 
that there is anything more majestic than total darkness.

Your tears shed as fear is revealed, contentment concealed,
because they told you that you must not forget to play like a child;
skip, sing, smile, run, 
all this you do 
beneath the lunacy of a now bright sky.

Temperatures Within Memories
I did not wish to revisit the fire and blind of the sun,
nor to fly back to that forgotten burn
that introduced us to all our summers.

But, there you were,
Standing,
on the sidewalk in front of my house.
And now the landscape of my front yard has changed.

I slip back the curtain.
I think to myself,
wasn’t it you who loved Lightfoot and his carefree highway,
and wasn’t that why you left?

I watched you try to stuff your breath in my mailbox.
You only left dust in the shade within where you stood.

That night in a dream,
I finally understood the truth of you.
That dream explained your magnetic strangeness.
 All those images in the dream,
those half-lit or full faces
floating on new, cool waves of the sea,
I thought those were all you,
or did I just imagine the relief from the heat.