DOUGLAS YOUNG-POETRY

DOUGLAS YOUNG POETRY

Douglas Young was reared a faculty brat in Athens, Georgia before becoming a professional nerd myself for the last 27+ years. He teach political science at the University of North Georgia-Gainesville where I also advise the Politically Incorrect and Chess Clubs. After being blessed to have essays published in many newspapers, as well as having gotten disillusioned with contemporary politics, in recent years he has written more poetry.


DOUGLAS YOUNG

Our Legacy

As my leaves begin to brown,

I want ever more to plant my tree,

Big, bold, tall, and sound,

Inspiring others and outlasting me.

Wandering graveyards and reading dates,

Lives are reduced to names and mates,

Noting whose plots are well kept

And whose are now decrepit.

How soon dear ones who’ve died at work

Are fast forgotten, no matter the hurt,

As carefully crafted castles along the shore

Are soon leveled by waves with nary a roar.

We’re brief “Here”s in the roll call of time,

Small cameos in a film that won’t rewind,

For even a Victorian home bulldozed for an office,

In a few years is all but forgotten.

So how best to lay down a legacy,

Deep-rooted in spite of me,

A home-run record that won’t be broken,

A souvenir to keep, not some token?

For even Ozymandias got overtaken by time,

Since statues become challenges for children to climb.

As sidewalk chalk marks get erased by rain,

So last year’s bird’s nest is never used again.

Yet values last as timeless truths,

And a kindness delivered can’t be diluted.

All the good we do

Can inspire others, too.

Good (and bad) deeds

Plant many strong seeds

As we provide much of the toil

That helps till the youths’ soil.

If we want our values remembered

Long after our lives are surrendered,

We should grab every chance to help others,

SKERDI BRAHIMAJ-POETRY

Skerdi Brahimaj, 23 years old. Has been writing his whole life in Albanian and English and have over 50 poems in English. He is an architect by profession and this his my first attempt to get published. He lives in New York City. 

Skerdi Brahimaj

BURNED

Burned before so I’m afraid to touch

I don’t want to feel again

I still remember the pain

Those scars still remain

That fire I put out

It took a lot from inside

I still remember her cry

Those tears have not dried

In denial for emotions once felt

It’s LOVE you’re trying to downgrade

Like ice, your memories you try to melt

Your decisions you try to mitigate

Cliché metaphors of fire and ice

Your state of mind you try to describe

The comparisons can’t capture it

Although bullets or bombs might work better…

They all cause death

That mysterious end we’re all heading towards

That thing closest to love

Both being an end of life as we know

It’s your sanity you try to harbor

Holding on to it

Like a baby gripping his mother

 

COLIN DODDS-POETRY

Colin Dodds grew up in Massachusetts and completed his education in New York City. His poetry has appeared in more than a hundred fifty publications, and has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. The poet and songwriter David Berman (Silver Jews, Actual Air) said of Dodds’ work: “These are very good poems. For moments I could even feel the old feelings when I read them.” Dodds is also the author of several novels, including WINDFALL and The Last Bad Job, which the late Norman Mailer touted as showing “something that very few writers have; a species of inner talent that owes very little to other people.” And his screenplay, Refreshment, was named a semi-finalist in the 2010 American Zoetrope Contest. Colin lives in Brooklyn, New York, with his wife Samantha. You can find more of his work at thecolindodds.com.

Colin Dodds new ebook called Wisdom’s Real opposite—101 Poems about an Odyssey on a Stool. And it’s currently available for pre-order here:

http://www.amazon.com/Wisdoms-Real-Opposite-Odyssey-2002-2012-ebook/dp/B00OGBB2H4/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1413295073&sr=1-1&keywords=wisdom%27s+real+opposite

and here:

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/484426

Colin Dodds 

Fun or Failure

Eventually the fun or the failure

goes on too long.

And a man at the bar

pulls his dick out.

If it’s erect,

he’s a threat to the women and the men.

If it’s flaccid,

he’s diseased.

And worse, he’s acted out the sad capitulation

that haunts peaceful people in bars.

Either way,

the crowd must drive him out.

The sidewalk, the sky, the shame and the cold air

cure his lust.

His testicles are quiet as a library

on the stagger home.

The Angel of Death in the Bar

The angel of death is a weak little man

who sits in a bar, finishing other people’s sentences

and other people’s drinks

and never looking you in the eye.

He says that what you can’t admit when you’re sober

is that you hate the world

because the world was drunk before you arrived.

The whole scene is as unlikely

as the first song or the last song.

The jukebox kicks in and a saintly Johnny Cash

plays all the rooms in hell tonight.

The people who can imagine nothing

but Saturday night and their need of it

are better than them who think

they can make up their own names,

the angel says.

The lights come on and the music changes.

Last call wakes us from a strange dream

of sex and violence.

I lose the angel of death

in the lights, in the sound of a hundred hands

reaching into pockets.

I hear the word and know it’s time.

They only call me sir

when they ask me to leave.

 

THE POETRY OF BRUCE MCRAE

The Poetry of Bruce McRae
BIO:

Originally from Niagara Falls Ontario, Pushcart-nominee Bruce McRae is
a musician who has spent much of his life in London and British Columbia.
He has been published in hundreds of periodicals and anthologies. His first
book, ‘The So-Called Sonnets’ is available from the Silenced Press website
or via Amazon books. To hear his music and view more poems visit his
website: www.bpmcrae.com.

Cometh The Hour

Can’t you sense it, son of a bitch?

Something is coming over the fields.

Something approaches us on its stomach.

Some say it’s winter, or an army of snow.

Some suggest a muted messenger.

Everyone nods when death is mentioned.

It’s marching out of the seventh level,

dragging a chain, a bad foot, a giant’s head.

It flies from out the valleys of reason,

my sweetest demons prattling in their beds,

all my soft monsters despairing,

the sun blighted, the air scoured.

But it’s only the rain, an optimist declares.

Schools darken, our churches condemned.

It’s only the plague of our indifference.

The Spider Says

I’m familiar with apprehension,

aware of doubt, sympathetic to terror.

Consider me a patient knot in a thread,

a little stone calling to the dark of the world,

the multi-eyed beast in her sullen quarter;

she who is tethered to a latch or a hair.

The spider says Sweet fly, sweetmeat,

think me the wraith to your gummy end,

my door invitingly ajar, the table always set.

And these are my babies, my thousands,

so curious, so ravenous, nimble copies

of copies, sentient pebbles fleeing hunger’s edge.

It is they, era-perfect, who scurry.

I set them loose upon the edible earth.

Eventide

One of those evenings the dog slips its leash.

Tree branches scarring a yellow moon.

The saucy stars conspiring.

One of those evenings peace officers loathe.

The mad resigned to their fate.

A drunkard lost in his bedroom.

Civilization’s smoke rising over the rooftops,

as if gravity had given up on us

and our slow blue world.

A page turns in a family bible.

In the harbour is a sloop named Solitude.

And the black bat, resuming its lifelong journey —

a traveler come to the country of night.

As if such things were worthy of a mention.

THE POETRY OF PIJUSH KANTI DEB

The Poetry of Pijush Kanti Deb
BIO:

Achievement- 66 poems and haiku are accepted or published by Indian and international publishers since June 2013,.they are, Tajmahal review, Camel Saloon Blog Spot, E-pao.Net, Dead Snake Blog Spot, Down in the Dirt, Poetic Monthly Magazine, Poems and Poetry Blog Spot, Poetry 24 Blog Spot, Long Story Short , Gean Tree Haiku Journal, My Word Wizard, and A Handful of Stones , Kalkion, ,Verse Engine and The Apple Tree.

An instance of divinity

Divinity –an unanswered inquisitiveness-

makes a theist mad in quest of a little hint

or an instance of extra-ordinary feature,

capable of resolving the mystery of existence

of a power- supernatural and super-normal,

building a faith to surrender everything-

pains and gains, to His safe-custody.

Indeed, cuckoo sings always in the flock of crows

and the record of common incidences may be added

and embellished by a celestial incident

as the amazing incident of a Vietnamese citizen,

compelling the atheists to stand in front of mirror.

A poor Vietnamese citizen---

a victim of self devastative civil war,

an ill-lucky witness of the merciless killing

of his own beautiful wife and affectionate sons,

sneaked to the depth of the nearest jungle

along with his one year old baby son

and disappeared therein mysteriously .

The stony world remained busy

in moving towards selfish destination

and the tragedy of the Vietnamese citizen

and the others were simply forgotten.

Nevertheless, fantastic was the God’s wish,

as the Vietnamese was rescued along with his son alive

after passing of long forty years, wherein

human- surviving, indeed, seemed to be impossible,

yet they were found safe and sound,

as a miraculous power guarded and saved their lives.

Soul-blooming incidence it is for mankind,

quite influential and inspirational miracle-

as an atheist witnesses, perceives and realises

the presence of divinity- a super power and the roll -

it plays in each and every moment of our lives

and bows down to his super-natural power.

It is just another coating of paint,

embellishing the universal belief of a God fearing

‘’Never be killed who is saved by God

And never be saved who is killed by God’’.

 

Go To Hell

The shameless face of yours

ought not to face that of mine

as irritating it is now to my open eyes,

scaring to my broken heart

and disturbing to my weak soul.

Let your lips be refrained from

uttering the common words to me,

‘’I love you’’,

as just before entering the Hell,

I perceive the injurious destination

of your tom boy’s game of love.

Indeed, a fucking machine you are-

nothing more than that

except an owner of animal- instincts.

Your lustful scanning eyes are monotonous

to my juicy lips and eyes,

senseless to my tits and curves

and worthless to my pussy and so on.

But unmindful you are to my

melodious tune- reverberated inside my lips,

a colourful dreamland-

built beneath my blue eyes,

an emotional young heart

beneath my bashful breasts

and soft and sweet offspring of tomorrow

beneath my pussy.

Ought not to blow hot air in my ear

and expect lascivious expansion

of my limbs favourable to you

in meeting your lustful passion,

In the name of

and for the sake of so-called love.

Now I am quite cautious and contracted too

to your desirous longing for swimming

on my sacred lake of love,

well recognized you are-

an Imp- a disciple of the Devil,

hence, leave me alone and go to Hell.

My Girl Friend

Tumultuous was the last evening,

my vital life was cheerful in obtaining

seventeen candles only to put off,

A bunch of hilarious hearts to add to

the garland of my sweet memory

and a silent and surprising

beckon of an enchanting pair of eyes-

belonged to my girl friend –Pamela,

my best friend , not more than that.

A babbler she has been in general

but mysteriously mum she was in that evening

as something wrong in the ongoing party.

Hence my obligation was instant

to take her in a lonely and dark corner,

circumscribed her affectionately with

some formal questions relating to her

unprecedented role in the party,

but my inquisitiveness was unanswered.

A tiny smile appeared on her lips

and made me happy to push her to the hall

where all were quite blissful in dancing.

‘’W-a-i-t’’ her lips trembled but uttered,

she took my hand in her shivering hand

and looked at the floor

where she was engraving an unknown picture

on the tiles with her pointed shoe.

My second round of inquisitiveness

rushed to her,

made her lips quivering

and at last opened these up to pronounce

three most popular words

‘’I love You’’ by embracing me.

Surprised I was to her unexpected change,

amazed at wave of her pleasant emotion-

that had been bubbling up from her heart to lips,

made her different throughout the evening

and gifted me a beautiful tomorrow too.

Ensnared I was finally to admit her love

with a passionate kiss on her juicy lips.