Volume 8, Issue 4

two blue trees - zzbaggins

ZZ's Introduction

We want to thank all those who bent themselves inside with creative conviction and submitted their work to this issue of Poetry Victims. We continue to promote all those who seek publication of their passion and expression and also greatly appreciate the quality and distinctive presence that has moved Poetry Victims to continue evolving and publishing. Thank you to all who find a love of poetry, art, and breathe in it life. 

 

 

  --"Art is literacy of the heart."

Elliot Eisner--

 



Iron and Wine

 

 

913 Victims to Date

 

Our featured guest poet in this issue is, Heather Lenz, whose prismatic work has genuinely inspired and moved us in the passion for poetry that is raw and full of magnetic emotion. Her work is a pinnacle of inspiration and her talent embraces unique, and genuine human expression. We honor and admire her contribution, as well as, all others who contributed.

Telepathy

If you can hear me at all,

kick a wall for me.

Throw a vase

through your window.

Tear down another

set of lights. Burn another

candle and scream.

Clench your fists tightly.

Rip out the cords

from the outlets.

Speed down another

rain-washed highway.

Smash the cobalt glass.

Darken the moon

with your loneliness.

Fill your blood with the

weight of wine and tears.

Heather Lenz

Tired

I am full with you. Fed-up and guilt-scarred

like all things lost. Lost children know what

to sing. Shadows prevail.

Save my steam in a jar for whenever

you need to scream. About nothing.

Save any evidence of my spirit for times

when you feel I am not good enough.

Photographs? Save those also, they are

easy to burn when the time is right. 

Then call a shrink and tell him

you are preparing to burn them.

Every day when I wake up and rise 

to reason, I trip on your burdens and

bruise. Time shatters glass.

Memories like granite. Annihilation.

Heather Lenz

--"There are always flowers for those who want to see them."
Henri Matisse--

holding on - zzbaggins



Seven Stanzas to Christ

I wove these smoky dreams for you to weep on

Though at the start I had no such intent,

To be so dark in thought and decision,

To sear the sacred meaning of the Lent

Devils marred the roads with cults and money

Judas friends cemented pain and hate,

Lovers wandered off to other cities

And fists of wilting daisies sealed my fate

Still there is a fragile candle burning

A window of crimson glass stained with truth,

Of precious words that long ago I clung to

When kneeling at the alter and the booth

Sometimes a see a Gabriel or Mary

The blood dripping from her golden hand,

Then scarred arms remember something hidden

At the river in the grass and on the sand

The holy train has carried you uphill now

To where the water pours out over stone,

I do not understand how you could die

For each of those who left you all alone

Now the trestles rust and timbers burn

The valley mountain trembles deep within,

All the drunkards play the lonely jukebox

Like the trend of causing death is setting in

Far from there I weave my smoky dreams

And though you weep I had no such intent,

To become a pillar of salt or Doubting Thomas

To be so dark, so bruised by malcontent.

Heather Lenz

Harmony

Morning rain,

dark of autumn.

My hands are stained with

acrylic paint and it is time

to sleep for a while.

You are beside me, as calm

as soft notes from a piano that

move through the room

The rising and falling of

your breath is a song for me-

your eyes, harmony.

For years this concerto

has kept me alive,

and the rain on the roof

heavier now, drifts me slowly

into a dream when I first held

you. It was then that I learned

the depth of melody, and for

once in my life dissonance

did not prevail.

for my son

Heather Lenz

she - zzbaggins



i cannot see what flowers are at my feet - zzbaggins

Season's Ending

This middle house, first one on the right, she sits. Mist from

the far-off Smoky Mountains calms her in the eves of summer's

loneliness. She accomplishes a smile through the day, hands of

the children present them from their hearts, boldly crying for

attention. A dusty guitar and a departing sun strain her curiosity.

She wonders how he would laugh or greet her in the morning, but

the children distract her almost-enough. 

Sometimes she takes off around midnight in a truck with the

windows long gone, listens to the voices of arrogance and hostility,

and knows, that it is not her garden- that David and Job did not plant

seeds here; and that in her efforts would spring up weeds that soon

would fester all around her. Yet she stays on, maybe to learn or

gain reason to scream.

In the view of the sunset she feels peace, imagines the freedom of

freeways and back-roads to the river. This reminds her of other

dreams, the ocean's speed of waves, the outcry of lightning and rain.

She goes on swinging in silence. It has been a long, short day. The

night becomes a couch of therapy, and at the same moment a pit of

lowness.

She turns her eyes to the light of passing cars and feels alone. Summer

is departing; soon the autumn leaves will give new mood to the land.

It's times like this that she, too, may change. 

Heather Lenz

Al Leaf - Michael Crowley

Orphan

She felt like burning herself

with a cigarette or diving

headlong into a train.

All the hours of grief whirled in

her head like engines or the

memory of her father's saw blade.

It was dark and the snow

was creating trails under street lamps

like slow-motion tears in a dream.

She'd never make it back to Oregon-

stuck like a stump in a bone-yard,

like a piece of garden statuary

cast in a lost pose.

Eyes that see too much.

All the fires like shooting stars

on a canvas inside her.

Long lost mothers, distant fathers,

abort your melancholy children.

Do not expect them to surge

into sunlight laughing

when the doors of your house are silent.

Heather Lenz

--"Every day we slaughter our finest impulses, that is why we get a heartache when we read those lines written by the hand of a master and recognize them as our own, as the tender shoots which we stifled because we lacked the faith to believe in our own powers, our own criterion of truth and beauty. We are all kings, all poets, all musicians;  we have only to open up to discover what is already there."

Henry Miller-- 

Coy Crowd - Michael Crowley

life line

i pinch some of what is life between my fingers
it boils down to the seasoning i think
maybe
a rush of curry might be in order
or sea salt or peppers or something of considerable
import
perhaps
a little sage to go with that
perhaps
some articulate accidental fire

Jeffrey Spahr-Summers



the
poet

he loves words
he loves how just
like animals or children
no manner of calling
whistling or screaming
will bring them to him

Jeffrey Spahr-Summers

may showers for hours and hours - Amy Kohut

sometimes dreams dont come true

my dream was never really fame/or fortune/or

notoriety for what i had the/balls/vanity/to write/or

say/or do/or create/or imagine

my dream was never to be on my knees

my dream was easy

but naive

it was a dance to the step of a stay home dad/a

constant presence is what i hungered to be/a

light house/a domesticated god of fire and truth

and love and life

my dream was no secret

my dream was no surprise

my dream was to never allow/this/this/

wall/to be built between my son and myself/

between myself and the world/

between my father/s) and me

i/i/i/sold my dream to the highest bidder

for the sake of some peace and quiet and hope

and some purpose since passed me by

my dream was never to punish myself

and those i love relentlessly

Jeffrey Spahr-Summers 

regarding this

sometimes what takes us

what carries us away
past the anticipation
past duende
and the realization
of rationalizing
petty revelations
or pretences
of ego
of sorts
or the hot red reckless
abandon
of presuming to know

Jeffrey Spahr-Summers

Rimpoche Pimpoche - Amy Kohut

To begin...

yellow tirades escalate into excess, congregation of blaring trumpets,

playing the blues, as spirits linger lightly on the walls....

maxim of distance unending.

Nighttime meetings with madness, causing our great mother earth sadness,

believe what you want about our pretty little world,

sub-worlds inside....

for with this time i do declare a state of nothingness

and nonetheless accept your ridicule-

for scapegoats of divine intervention, made into a fake jewel;

duped once again by life's ultimate diversion-

that which causes shape.

Step out of the conservatively bound square, and reel through the air,

lose control against the life giving fire;

lose track, forget....

the lively darkness gives identity, that which is

non-existent;

no name, no numbers

words evaporate as water in the hottest hell.

Spin furiously in the cool night breeze, find

volcanoes of heat within,

as shadows shed light on self indulgence;

understand...comprehend....

ALL shall find disappointment in death.

No wind blows the same twice,

as churches mock the ground upon which they occupy-

insult after insult we inflict, without a second of remorse.

Beautiful prairies defy the human logic-

buildings, cars, smoke and smog....

this is our chosen course.

Deploy naughty thoughts into granted actions,

what am I?

Whatever my mind desires, stir the coals of life,

make them burn higher....

trapped on this world. stuck in this room.

Uncomfortable in these clothes. secure under these blankets.

willed into this skin.

Taught values discarded, fallacies now transparent....

the natural course of nature has been disrupted;

prepare a statement in defense.

Diversity's rare touch..........bless me.

Anthony Glumac

Found poem based on: I'm Broke

it's the car again

unexpected

deserted houses

tonight's story will focus on

or the dryer

these things happen

any reason why your payment was late

even with the deductible

I can't loan you a hundred, fifty maybe

stimulus package (several crude, but funny jokes)

I got your stimulus package right here

gave themselves bonuses

we needed that money for

man, can't even afford generic generics

family owned business

unpaid furloughs

selling their

no time-and-a-half no overtime

brother can you spare a

come to our attention

abandoned pets

so if we get the car fixed

buy one get one

this bill will be late

get me out of

can you loan me

late

Cindy Stell

--"We are all a little weird and life's a little weird, and when we find someone whose weirdness is compatible with ours, we join up with them and fall in mutual weirdness and call it love."

Dr. Seuss--

Katie B - Michael Crowley

Layering

The oil is vanilla and jasmine

and a bit of pepper

The pepper is a surprise, isn't it?

and while you're searching for the elusive pepper scent

you become aware of the vanilla

not so much that you are reminded of cookies

something edible, but not cookies

here is the jasmine,

a crazy floral, really

alone,

then it slow dances with the vanilla

and with a throw of pepper

now and then

you have to be careful

you can get lost

Cindy Stell

Love Connect

My wandered in search of love

the sultry vibration

has become the life line now.

With a majestic move and graceful smack

Loneliness has become a sweet companion!

His pulsating fondle

Brings solace to the queer of the soul

though ethereal

Transported to a groovy existence

At last I dare to laugh in the face of life

shaking the tresses loose

the spirit is elated

Resonating the craved strength

Sandhya Tiwari

Catapulting Nostalgia

Machine-washable love,

continually laced with sensory spices,

brewing into nostalgic catapults of

when you stood on time's shoulders,

and made deals about the infinity of your

protection.

About how far it could go,

and how long it could carry us,

until we eventually fall,

and claw away at the walls

of our own will.

Sarah Martin

Ephemera and Soap

You could say what she had experienced

Was a bout of magic;

A strange ephemeral burst of wicked

Confidence that could seemingly give one the ability

To blow dozens of shiny, prismatic bubbles without a wand,

To make billows of smoke dance when the incense

Burns too quickly,

But there wasn't anything magical about it

It was the stroke of a guru

A transient cluster of divinity's guise:

A lie,
Cloaked.

Sarah Martin

the dreamer - zzbaggins

The Performer I

An octave prickles

the tongue which

cradles it and

buds bust into bloom

as a need for projection

is expressed with

a single

coo
Yesterday failure fulfilled you

lips lubricated with glue

the thousand-headed

monster of the crowd

lies ravenous with

its eyes cast on

you

The Performer II

Into a tree you carved

a message with a knife

"IF FACES ARE TOPOGRAPHICAL

YOURS IS A RAVINE

SITUATED SOMEWHERE EAST

OF MY COMPLACENCY

WEST OF WHERE I DREAM

NORTH OF ALL THINGS WHICH ARE NOT

BUT PAINSTAKINGLY SEEM"

And you walked back to your car

dead leaves flying backward

beneath your feet

you drove all the way home with

the emergency signal on

singing the same song

your parents played

the night you were conceived

Sarah Martin

                               Madison bench - Michael Crowley

Fury

The before and after of a mortal dream

come true

The autumn leaves turn a crisp golden

brown and red

Watch as they fall to the ground and are

swept away

The cool breeze releases a new breath
Daylight breaks and unleashes a powerful

but calm roar

Anger lies in the pit ready to be purged

A man walking down the street in an inoffensive

manner suddenly lashes out with extreme ire

Raging red as the sun life suddenly begins

Watch the tiny buds of May bloom ever so

slowly

The colours illuminate the sky as tropical orange dances with

sea-breeze purple

A quiet dusty rose gently highlights the yellow sunshine

These colours will amalgamate to form an emotion

so strong not even the thunderous sky can impede

this feeling

Marcie Riel

per-spec-tive

caught

in a dali moment

just outside of wichita

just after dark in kansas

a ballerina of the cornfield

not far up ahead the

hot red hail of tail lights

just up ahead

a white tail deer pirouettes

in a puff of steam

just like this

as the hot blood trips

the frigid air

in my headlights

a strangely beautiful arc

of crimson red

Jeffrey Spahr-Summers

 --"We need to learn to love ourselves first, in all our glory and all our perfections. If we cannot love ourselves, we cannot fully open to our ability to love others or our potential to create. Evolution and all hopes for a better world rest in the fearlessness and open-hearted vision of people who embrace life."

John Lennon--

Meet Stela...

Please join us in welcoming Stela to the online world of literature. With my good friend and publishing partner Nicole E. Turiano as Editor-In-Chief and myself as Publisher, we are excited to share our new magazine with all of you. We are currently building our website, so please bear with us, but we will soon be ready to call for submissions. Please click on the link above and see what we are all about. Follow our blog, or our facebook page, or even twitter for updates... we are here!   

Thank you for reading, sharing, writing, creating...

Poetry Victims

Luv ya, Nic and ZZ