Category Archives: poem

“The Blood of a King” by Barbara Goldberg

Once there was a certain King who pricked
his thumb on the thorn of a white rose.
Even the blood of a King runs scarlet, and did.

It ran and ran. It ran until all the rivers
and streams in the kingdom ran red. Then
the fields turned red and everything that grew

in them, corn, barley, soon the milk from the cows
and goats. And when the Princess wept for her father
her tears ran red. And then he died. He was buried

without pomp in the red earth, leaving
the kingdom in disarray—the Queen
took to muscatel and her royal bed, attended

by seven simpering knaves. The Minister of Finance
retired to the counting house to count up the money.
There was plenty. He issued an edict forthwith

forbidding the pleasures of hunting, dancing, racing
and conversing, then galloped by horseback out
of the kingdom, followed by a pack of 42 mules

hauling coffers of sovereigns. And thus
the wealth of the kingdom was carted away.
The kingdom languished under a shroud

of thirst. But over time a particular flower
thrived, which the Princess, a botanist, named
amaranthus caudatus, love-lies-bleeding.

-Barbara Goldberg,
Kingdom of Speculation
(Accents Publishing)

Barbara Goldberg is the author of four prize-winning books of poetry, including The Royal Baker’s Daughter, winner of the Felix Pollak Poetry Award. She is the translator of Scorched by the Sun, poems by the Israeli poet Moshe Dor. The two selected and translated four anthologies of contemporary Israeli poetry. Goldberg received two fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts as well as awards in translation, fiction and speechwriting. Her poems appear in Best American Poetry, Paris Review, Poetry and elsewhere, Goldberg is the series editor of the Word Works’ International Imprint.

“You Don’t Need to Know Geography” by Ekaterina Yosifova

“You Almost Kill Your Mother and Yourself” by Curtis L. Crisler

“Merciless” by Patty Paine

176 Replies

Again, the pigeons arrive,
three months, and still expecting
a scribble of seed along the sill.
How not to hate their relentless
innuendo, their inexhaustible need
to return? The hand that feeds you
is no more. Take your stupid swagger,
your useless iridescence, alight
yourselves, be gone.

The night you hit the black ice
of addiction, it came to me
razor clean. After, someone wailed
and keened and turned
beggar. Someone strung
beads of no, no, no. Someone
collapsed, and broke open,
while someone else murmured
over, over, over

–Patty Paine,
Grief & Other Animals
(Accents Publishing)

Patty Paine is the author of The Sounding Machine (Accents Publishing), Feral (Imaginary Friend Press), Elegy & Collapse(Finishing Line Press), and co-editor of Gathering the Tide: An Anthology of Contemporary Arabian Gulf Poetry (Garnet Publishing & Ithaca Press) and The Donkey Lady and Other Tales from the Arabian Gulf (Berkshire). Her poems, reviews, and interviews have appeared in Blackbird, The Louisville Review, Gulf Stream, The Journal and other publications. She is the founding editor ofDiode Poetry Journal, and Diode Editions, and is an assistant professor of English at Virginia Commonwealth University Qatar where she teaches writing and literature, and is interim director of Liberal Arts & Sciences.

“Right Brothers” by Frank X Walker

12 Replies

for Cecil

An unexpected tornado
taught us everything

we would ever need
to know about flight

kiting my little brother’s
paperdoll body

off the ground
like a black superman.

Tethered to me with
with a magic lasso:

mama’s instructions
to watch over him.

–Frank X Walker,
About Flight
(Accents Publishing)

Multidisciplinary artist and Danville, Kentucky native, Frank X Walker, is the former Poet Laureate of Kentucky, and Professor in the department of English and the African American and Africana Studies Program at the University of Kentucky. The founding editor of Pluck! The Journal of Affrilachian Arts & Culture is a Cave Canem Fellow, co-founder of the Affrilachian Poets, and the author of seven collections of poetry including Turn Me Loose: The Unghosting of Medgar Evers, winner of the 2014 NAACP Image Award for best poetry collection. The Lannan Literary Fellowship for Poetry recipient is the originator of the word, Affrilachia, and wholly committed to deconstructing and forging a new definition of a pluralistic Appalachia.

“I Had to Be Born in February” by Rossen Karamfilov

125 Replies

I realized
I’m paralyzed
about 240 months ago

That
has never killed me it is
just one part of me about which I know

I don’t know anything and so during one
June day I started walking without thinking
I did it and I was filled with joy like a child

even though I’m too guilty
to be a child if you only knew how
happy I was underneath me there was

water
there was a lot of water
and for a moment the weight was dead

and I was a walking man then
everything became as before
But I prefer

to look at things
from a better angle
Otherwise I’ll collapse

But I won’t …

-Rossen Karamfilov,
translated from the original Bulgarian
by Katerina Stoykova-Klemer
The Season of Delicate Hunger:
Anthology of Contemporary Bulgarian Poetry
(Accents Publishing)

Rossen Karamfilov was born on November 20th, 1992 in Sofia. He is the author of two poetry collections—The Eagle and the Child (2011) and Stereo Silence, which was released in 2013. Rossen currently lives in Plovdiv, where he is studying applied linguistics (German and English) at Paisii Hilendarski University.

“Being Andrew Merton” by Andrew Merton

172 Replies

Over a brandy my mother told me about the first boy,
stillborn two years before I came along:

how much she and my father had wanted that child.
How, for a month, they could not speak to each other,

even look at each other, without tears.
How it took them a year to try again,

and how, later, I was given his name.
She had not meant to tell me, ever—

It just slipped out, she said. I’m sorry.
She need not have apologized.

I would have taken the job
even had I known

I was not their first choice.

-Andrew Merton,
Lost and Found
(Accents Publishing)

Andrew Merton is a journalist, essayist, and poet. Publications in which his nonfiction has appeared include Esquire, Ms. Magazine, The New York Times Magazine, Boston Magazine, and The Boston Globe.His book Enemies of Choice: The Right-To-Life Movement and Its Threat to Abortion, was published by Beacon Press in 1980. His poetry has appeared inBellevue Literary Review, Alaska Quarterly Review, The Rialto (U.K.), Comstock Review, Louisville Review, Vine Leaves, the American Journal of Nursing,and elsewhere. His book of poetry, Evidence that We Are Descended from Chairs?, with a foreword by Charles Simic (Accents Publishing, 2012) was named Outstanding Book of Poetry for 2013–2014 by the New Hampshire Writers’ Project. He is a professor emeritus of English at the University of New Hampshire. His website is available here.

“Just to Get By” by Jude Lally

3 Replies

Approaching swiftly
from down the street, reveling
Winter air nipping
each breath expanding, escaping
Hands covered
joystick still shivering

Coming steadily
from street to sidewalk
into parking lot
onto walkway
Invading space gradually
almost stealthily
marking my territory

Smokers take notice
nudge and elbow
stand uptight upright
so I can get by, inside
let greenbacks blow
watch our team’s demise
Tonight’s enemy
dressed yellow

Outside double doorway
my patience testing
Waiting to inch in
How many more times
do I need to say it?
Excusing necessary, feeling eluding
Quickly announcing
not only walking
drinking and driving
patting, poking
unrightfully grab-assing
attention gathering
Step aside enabling
apology accepted
Magazine stands encroaching
approaching frustration

Toes aware
coming through, beware
except for one
Too late!
Too much hesitate
not enough dictate
BUMP! SMASH!
Up and over
DANCE! RELOCATE!
Implicate, shrug and simmer
No hope for surrender
realize, empathize, notice, appreciate
Remember next time
exact moment without indicate

–Jude Lally,
The View from Down Here
Accents Publishing

Jude Lally writes and recites poetry as an outlet for his creative needs and as a means of enlightening, inspiring, engaging and entertaining listeners. Fortunately, Jude’s main source of inspiration in his writing is easily accessible; unfortunately, so many places in the world are not: in 1998 Jude was diagnosed with a rare, degenerative neuromuscular disease called Friedrich’s Ataxia. Jude received a BA in Business Administration in May of 2006. Jude is a member of the poetry group Poezia, occasionally attends The Poet’s Supper and the Artcroft writer’s group outside of Carlisle, KY, and is a regular presenter at the Holler Poets series events.

“Post Mortem” by Yasen Vasilev

1 Reply

this cannot be the end
it cannot have no meaning
it cannot not have anything
godot can suck it
absurdity is no longer in fashion
yet we all remain
waiting

–Yasen Vasilev,
translated from Bulgarian
by Katerina Stoykova-Klemer

Yasen Vasilev was born on June 5th, 1988 in Sofia. He has a degree in dramaturgy from the Krastyo Sarafov National Academy for Theatre and Film Arts in Sofia. He is the author of the play The Walled-in, as well as two poetry books, most recently Androgyne (2011). He is known for his performances of original work, notably Dirtify/WarX and Bread and Circuses. Yasen has received various literary awards, including the grand prize audience award at the Sofia Poetiki festival. He lives and works in Sofia.

“A Hanging” by Jim Lally

2 Replies

1)
My life, tied up
in the middle of house chores,
loses itself in hanging clothes
on the line between
the tulip poplar and red maple.
This is a job I make meticulous
with unnecessary arranging
and sorting by color and shape.
Suddenly, I sense someone
behind me.
“That’s alright,” she says,
“don’t stop hanging.”
I hear her camera clicking.
“I’m doing a photo essay
on bed linens and dish rags.
It’s one of the best-selling subjects
at my gallery.”
An artist, it seems, from Pasadena
has accidentally
made her way to my dead-end
road to ask for directions
to the covered bridge.

I keep on hanging
every item from my basket;
by then she’s discovered
the chickens – framing
the hens in the falling down
barn yard while trying to avoid
the roosters.

“I grew up on a farm,” she says,
“but where I live now,
there are laws against clothes lines
and domesticated fowl.”
“Wow!” is all I can say.
“You’re in the middle of nowhere,”
she says. “How did you find this place?”
“Every nowhere is somewhere,” I say
and notice her foot prints in places
she’ll later regret.
“I’ll send you some prints,”
she says, getting into her car.

2)
Four a.m.
summer solstice
the cat wants out
the rooster crows
and I suddenly remember
the clothes
hanging on the line
………….. a ghostly image
of flapping sheets
on someone’s upscale
California wall.

–Jim Lally,
Stick Tight Man
Accents Publishing

Jim Lally is a Kentucky poet known for his curly white beard and straggly ponytail. He is a member of the Poets’ Supper, Poezia, and Holler writers’ groups as well as the founding member of Writers at Artcroft. He graduated with a degree in English from Brescia College where he was the editor of the school’s first literary magazine. Jim has been the Spoken Word artist at the Walk for the Arts in Berea for the last two years. He is a partner with his wife, Jennifer Gleason, in the organic farm business of Sunflower Sundries. His poetry ranges from the irregularly scattered to the tangle of the stranglehold.

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