Checkpoint Lurching, they bluster – ghouls into the chasm. Fierce lava, blowing, nullifies their fall And dissipates harsh gravity’s concussion, Forces a seething screen of phoenix cowardice, Leaping to swell Into a fresh, mendacious crust, Tripping and throttling the led Into a smear upon pure metamorphic beauty. The skeleton’s jaws yawn apart; A stranded mountaineer was frozen At his prime […]
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Manhattan Landlord I ran a swell restaurant for many years on a good block in Manhattan. I wasn’t rich, but made a good living, paid my workers well so they were happy and passed it on to customers. Then my lease ran out. The landlord raised the rent, three hundred percent. There was no way I could […]
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OF BIBLICAL PROPORTIONS Although there was no Noah Or Gilgamesh around, No blast like Krakatoa To deafen with its sound, The Ocean of the Indies Awakened from its sleep When scarp off Indonesia Collapsed in Sunda Deep. The nine-o quake by Richter With cataclysmic force Unleashed a silent killer Unnoticed at its source. A bump upon the […]
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IN WILLIAMSBURG In Williamsburg we learn How freedom ours was earned, At least for lucky born Of alabaster skin. Their independence claimed By declaration famed That Founding Fathers framed, Though was still had to win. But if from continent Of African descent, Whatever effort spent Was not for likes of you. Four score and seven years Still had to bear […]
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Rear View Mirror Basking on the beaches of the Amalfi Coast I left the world behind, in southern Italy. It was so unique and exclusive. I was glad to see the dust fly in my rear view mirror.
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In Crowd I discover in myself this startling desire to fit in. As if I am some teenager in an afterschool special or training video. Listen, honey, don’t worry about those other kids. I am now looking for a new teacher than those crowding voices around me. An inner truth to tether myself to the world, eschewing the script, enveloped […]
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“Don’t ever think the poetry is dead in an old man because his forehead is wrinkled, or that his manhood has left him when his hand trembles! If they ever were there, they are there still.” – Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.
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Just a toy though the string is still afraid, tied as if inside a weightlessness is pulling it closer and closer and can’t let go caged in on all sides by the color blue and emptiness –a trapped balloon, banded the way all buoys spread out and the channel lurking below unravels as rain that has no water […]
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The was an upside down bowl drying on the counter, and I was trapped beneath it, trying to find an edge to pry the whole thing up and slip away. Bio: Valentina Cano is a student of classical singing who spends whatever free time she has either reading or writing. Her works have appeared in numerous publications and […]
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I take a 12 month chip, a copy of The Iceman Cometh, drape myself in Union blue, cultivate a salesman’s grinning grip. A Valley trip lies ahead, road miles registered in a company car. Spring becoming summer, there’s a ghost in the garden, a feral cat, sensuous in the drying grass. I light a Tiparillo, block walk the […]
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