Poetry@About The Arts

Mike Amado

2008-02-05T13:36:00.000-05:00

Mike Amado is a performance poet, a percussionist and drummer who does

lyrical, rhythm-based tomes attuned to the social and semi-political.

His first volume of verse is entitled:"Poems: Unearthed from Ashes" (2006).

He is the host at three poetry venues in Massachusetts.

He has been performing for ten years and has featured numerous times

in Massachusetts and Rhode Island. He has been published in the

Wilderness House Literary Review, the Bagelbard's anthology 1&2,

Apt magazine #12, and Down in the Dirt. To quote the author:

"I don't Slam, I rock!"

"VOICE DEFYING THE B.S."

I long not for war and spilling blood

But . . . this soul seeks just a moment

To gleam strong with liquid fire,

I seek to be nothing. Not to gain what

Is attained, take what is not achieved.

This world fools even the mystics

Into greed; tangible, intangible.

This soul seeks the moment beyond

To gleam strong with liquid fire

In the face of the empty-fist.

I sit in lotus as the scull-bone puppets

Take the Emperor's throne as false idols,

Pluck statues like straws

In shammed victory where peace

Quivers on a rope with tyrants.

These Powers that Be really aren't;

Good blood stains, fingerprints on

Hundred dollar bills, winged bad ideas.

Small as a folded penny.

I pray that I yank that penny

From the laugh lined hand. To be nothing.

Not become a life-like product of a mark-down

As seen on TV thing. Headed for the yard sale;

Soul tricked into becoming.

I seek to be. Not to suit the suit of the

Talk radio impresario, giving pity change

To kids with cancer, or, the diehard listener

Who can¢t think for himself. To be . . .

Nothing, only a bolt of light.

I wish for this or something better -

Not rebirth as a politician¢s son,

A legless soldier, or the cadaver of a

Third world orphan stuffed with

Pure Columbian -

Fifteen kilos of fame.

Death and money.

Our brutal world.

" CELEBRITY-JUNKIE-FRANKENSTEIN"

(to Chris Farley, Phil Hartman etc.)

He lives lonely, he dies anyway.

There is no time. If moving fast or slow,

He¢ll deny it anyway.

He¢s loosing it . . . he wants to be alone.

Waking up, late afternoon -

Another day, another autopsy.

High and hung over

On vice and fame

Shook up and strung out on

Tinsel-town electrocution.

Cursed to live up to his photograph,

A beast of chemicals and pasty make up.

An emotional train-wreck

Turned funny clown.

Sunbathing by the pool like

Laying reclined on a slab;

With needles and electrodes

Waiting for the lightning bolts

To resuscitate new life

Or grant him defunct.

The hands don¢t move

But the clock still ticks

As cameras flash to memory:

The empty pill bottles,

The shot gun shell,

The yellow spread,

The murder/suicide,

His speed-wrecked sports car,

And alleged hit.

A somber time.

FIFTEEN MINUTES

2008-01-27T11:50:00.000-05:00

FIFTEEN MINUTES
© Del A. Garza

I was late to work
and in these fifteen minutes
I could have saved the world,
or at least this is
how the supervisor made
it appear. She raged and ranted.

I would be on her list,
the bad one at that, and her
roving eye would fall upon me.
Meanwhile the people
that were on time, socialized for hours,
oblivious of the world in need of saving.

LATE CALL
© Del A. Garza

There was a late phone call,
waking up the entire house.
It sounded like a gunshot,
which pierced our hearts.

There had been other calls
to our house in the past:
Drug induced babble found
its way into our ears.

This call was different, a
wrong number, an error.
When the receiver was put down
we calmly went back to sleep.

CASUALTIES
© Del A. Garza

Overseas and at home
the newspapers list
the casualties of this world.

Some that go looking for trouble
and others minding their own
business, end up on that list.

There must be some sick
accountant adding up the numbers
with Death embroidered on his cloak.

THE LONER

2008-01-27T11:35:00.000-05:00

ABOUT JASON VISCONTI
ASTORIA, NEW YORK

I have been writing poetry since I was 15. I have been published in several magazines, and am currently attending a poetry workshop with Denver Butson in New York City.

The Loner © Jason Visconti

I cross the street of daydreams
to arrive at myself
Only to find I am mere shadow
A picture in a window passed by unseen
A name signed on the dotted line smudged

I tell fibs to taxi-cab drivers on my destinations to nowhere
Nowhere a plain road always ahead
nowhere a place on a map I can mark with my thumb

I pass by cemeteries at midnight
to mingle with the headstones
my name is in an umbrella of silence
silence that takes me for cover under the trees
I can’t shield this death any longer
I stand out as a stark imitation of myself
I feel for flowers whose petals wilt in my hands
I confuse myself with the passengers on a train
and find the wrong way
wristwatches tell me a time I’m willing to end
towers of so long ago have salted their tears
and the business of me has gone by
and I just look out the window at the rain
that falls as deeply as I.

CONFUSION

I have known the night
to be an error in my eyes
liable to shapes that shift
between camouflage
the kite that leaves the hands
and won’t return
the sun that rises
while the moon still shows its faded image
like a misprint of the hand against the sky
and the voices in the park
are shattered fragments that fall upon deaf ears
the hourglass that shows nothing in its cups
time no longer spilling like a routine glance at the hand
the world spinning so fast our eyes can’t follow

Rage of Civilization

2008-01-15T21:02:00.000-05:00

Dressing naked

is the password

to this knees-up

where dimples

consumed by hostile

kisses mutate

where supermen run

into blind bullets

and professors darkness

of their bottomless knowledge

where random quests

for limitless latitude

cage some, maim others

kill everyone

‘we shall leave

no stone unstained

till liberty is chained

to our whims!’

‘we too shall leave

no one standing

save liberty

and liberty alone!’

nakedness indeed

is the password

to this great knees-up.

Sumaila Isah Umaisha is the Literary Editor of New Nigerian Newspapers, Kaduna, Nigeria. He began his journalism career (after teaching for ten years) in 1993 with the Kaduna-based Hotline magazine as Associate Editor and later promoted to Deputy Editor. He has written two collections of short stories; The Last Hiding Place and Burning Dreams, and a collection of poems; hell@heavensgate. He is a co-editor of After The Curfew, an anthology of poems and short stories by members of the Kaduna State chapter of Association of Nigerian Authors, ANA. His poems and short stories are published in seven anthologies including Vultures in the Air, anthology of short stories and poems edited by Zaynab Alkali et al. He is currently working on a collection of interviews with Nigerian writers; Nigerian Writers Talking. He is former Publicity Secretary of ANA and former Chairman of Kaduna State chapter of ANA. His awards include New Nigerian Reporter Award, 2000, Merit Award by Kano State chapter of ANA, 2001, and he is a joint winner of ANA Literary Journalist of the Year Award, 2004. He holds Higher National Diploma in Journalism and Post-Graduate Diploma in Public Administration

The Wall

2007-12-28T20:31:00.000-05:00

By: K. Mulroney
05-05-2005
Copyright

It hovers before me ridged
Defiant
It's border is as tall as the
Heavens
As broad as
Time
I reach out my quivering
Hand
As if a checkerboard it
Flashes
Red and blue
Hot and cold
Love and hate
A void, a vacuity travels its
Extent
Can it be
Penetrated?
Can this fortress ever
Weaken?
As I stand before a mirror of
Self
I need to shun this
Intruder
But the void moves to
Swiftly
I can not capture the
Passage
To the other side of my
Creation
My life's work is sturdy and
Impassable
My protection has become my
Prison
This wall that surrounds me
Keeps me safe and
Alone

My Name is Kim Mulroney. I am a 48 yr. old Cad Draftsperson. I have raised five
children and Five Rottweilers. I started writing poetry when I was in grade
school, about the same time I started drawing. As with most teenagers, not all,
I delved into the darker side of poetry through high school. The "I see no end
to my teenage pain" Poetry. I have since turned the corner, as an adult and now
write all kinds. I write children's rhymes, humor, good Vs evil (the new dark
poetry for me) children's story poems and those that are down right silly, but
written to put a smile on an otherwise dull day. I write children's poems for
learning and humorous poems for adults reminding us of the crazy things we all
had in common as children. I also have a growing collection of "monster" poems.
The humorous side of monsters. I have been married for 15 years and look forward
to one hundred more!

Dear Poet

2007-12-28T20:29:00.000-05:00

Congratulations!
Your work is worthless.
Your rant is not worth a grant.

Why do you care?
Starving artists exhibit the most flair.
They cater to no constituency

Save the solitary soul.
Unfettered by the skeins of expediency
They rise

To universality

© Copyright 2002 Rochelle Hope Mehr

No Fault of My Own & Remorse

2007-12-28T19:57:00.000-05:00

He's not happy
he just looks happy
because he's drunk
all the time
and it's not his fault
that the light at the end
of the tunnel
turned out to be
a train.

remorse

not much left, lately,
from the right side.
trying. all too hard
to be Right.
go east
maybe, or not,
I went too far...
so far,
that I started going west
Regrets make me step
off the Earth.
A slow downward spiral;
falling leaf, maybe.
Blurred by 80 proof
and endless cheap nights.
Momentarily broken up
by a devil bitch mouth,
that reeks of dollar packs
of cigarettes
instead of Love,
that speaks flat thoughts;
stupid ideas...
so, so, so far
from where I use to be.
Nothing left to look forward to.
Except, maybe, at the most,
this poem.

Voices on the Psychiatric Ward

2007-12-28T19:37:00.000-05:00

© Doug Holder

So many voices to answer to.

The ones bleating in their heads-

the perfunctory prompts from the staff.

Some sit

anesthetized by the pattering drone

of the television-

the leaden grip of medication.

The pacers

stalk the hall

against inertia,

some silently

scream behind the headlined

scrims of newspapers.

And we talk

to them in that measured

slightly, patronizing tone

and we can hardly believe

that voice

is our own.

--Doug Holder

Doug Holder is the founder of Ibbetson Street Press of Somerville, MA. Several years ago he appeared on About the Arts, along with his fellow poets. He is the former president of Stone Soup Poets, Inc. In Boston, a faculty member of Newton Community Ed., where he teaches poetry workshops, and the new host of the Newton Free Library Poetry Reading Series.

Doug's own articles and poetry have appeared in the Somerville News, Stuff, Spare Change, 96inc, Boston Poet, Compost, Cambridge Tab, Arts Around Boston, Cambridge Chronicle, Harvard Mosaic, Dudley Review and many more. He currently runs an online review service, Ibbetson Update that reviews books from around the country.

All my Life

2007-12-28T19:21:00.000-05:00

I've been on mountains,

I've been in caves.

I've put my own child in an early grave.

I've seen the deserts and the setting sun,

But never seen the growing up of my only son.

You see I been of places.

I even swam the seas,

But I'd give it all up just to be in a family.

No one in my real family even acts like I exists.

I'm searching high and low,

Looking for my long lost soul.

I been put on Earth for a reason, I still do not know.

Will someone point me the right way to go?

All my life I've felt destitute.

It's like the world lived around me and could not move.

People see the outside but never the real me.

Cause I don't even know who I'm supposed to be.

I live in fear of my own self.

I can't find love nor can I find wealth.

Never had fortunes

Fame never came by.

I wonder why I even try.