That’s When The Sun, by Christopher Hileman

That’s When The Sun
By Christopher Hileman

I thought my joy gone,
taken from me as summer
takes spring and fall takes
summer, as drought takes
rain, I thought my joy dried up.
That’s when the sun broke
my bones open wide,
light roaring out of my eyes,
when you said to me,
yes.

Christopher Hileman moved to Oregon in 1973. He had retired to live on the volcanic bluff overlooking Willamette Falls in Oregon City, Oregon. He ascends the stairs from his basement digs to improvise on his Yamaha keyboard or the house Playel grand when the calico cat releases him from below. The part-Irish Wolfhound here likes him.

Christopher blogs at View From The Northern Wall.

With The Goddess, by Christopher Hileman

With The Goddess
By Christopher Hileman

As you approach me
I find the edge of myself
tremble, then dissolve
as your sea takes me
into the orbit
of your lunar gravity.

There I find that I’m
overcome, must be
with you, conjunction of sun,
moon, total eclipse,
full corona, flares
on all sides of me as I
burn, nuclear fire.

Christopher Hileman moved to Oregon in 1973. He had retired to live on the volcanic bluff overlooking Willamette Falls in Oregon City, Oregon. He ascends the stairs from his basement digs to improvise on his Yamaha keyboard or the house Playel grand when the calico cat releases him from below. The part-Irish Wolfhound here likes him.

Christopher blogs at View From The Northern Wall.

Running For My Life, by Christopher Hileman

Running For My Life
By Christopher Hileman

A faithless king
dogs me, snuffling my sorrow
like rivers crashing
past rocks and I hide
my house below the cataract
in the darker mists
I found in your eyes.

That faithless king promised me
my own river shore.
Then he pulled the sun
down from my gathering sky.
Oh I’ve been so lost
without you, my love,
without your sweet blue cascade.

I’m a running man,
running for my life.
That faithless king has lost me
and in time will fade.

Christopher Hileman moved to Oregon in 1973. He had retired to live on the volcanic bluff overlooking Willamette Falls in Oregon City, Oregon. He ascends the stairs from his basement digs to improvise on his Yamaha keyboard or the house Playel grand when the calico cat releases him from below. The part-Irish Wolfhound here likes him.

Christopher blogs at View From The Northern Wall.

Diane Arbus held, by Alan Catlin

Diane Arbus held

a print of her
photograph
of a boy caught
in a candid
moment: geeky
smile, skinny
arms and legs,
bony knees,
suspender straps
sliding down his
no muscle arms,
short pants soon
to follow and
the hand grenade
held in his left
hand, an almost
incidental detail
that warm, bright,
summer day in
Central Park 1960
whatever, she sd.,
“For me the subject
of the picture is
always more im-
portant than the picture.
And more complicated.”
Words spoken a few
months before her suicide.

Alan Catlin has published dozens of chapbooks and full length books of prose and poetry on a wide variety of subjects. His latest forthcoming chapbook of poetry is from Night Ballet Press, Beautiful Mutants. He is the poetry editor of the online poetry journal Misfitmagazine.net.

Waterloo Bridge: Effect of Sunlight in the Fog 1903 after Claude Monet, by Alan Catlin

Waterloo Bridge: Effect of Sunlight in the Fog 1903
after Claude Monet
By Alan Catlin

Dull blue
grey night

in the after
noon;

a blistering
ripple of water

colored
by sun;

in the mist,
human shadows

formed, remain
incomplete

Process: During a three and half year period I wrote little else but poems on Art ranging from Turner to extreme forms of Modern Art.

Alan Catlin has published dozens of chapbooks and full length books of prose and poetry on a wide variety of subjects. His latest forthcoming chapbook of poetry is from Night Ballet Press, Beautiful Mutants. He is the poetry editor of the online poetry journal Misfitmagazine.net.

Views of Charing Cross Bridge after Claude Monet, by Alan Catlin

Views of Charing Cross Bridge
after Claude Monet
By Alan Catlin

Evanescent
sunlight

on River
Thames –

Later a density
of fog

first blue-grey
then darker

still

no longer
visible:

Houses of Parliament
Charing Cross Bridge

men in skiffs
swept away

Process: During a three and half year period I wrote little else but poems on Art ranging from Turner to extreme forms of Modern Art.

Editor’s note: Watch this space for poem three tomorrow.

Alan Catlin has published dozens of chapbooks and full length books of prose and poetry on a wide variety of subjects. His latest forthcoming chapbook of poetry is from Night Ballet Press, Beautiful Mutants. He is the poetry editor of the online poetry journal Misfitmagazine.net.

Nocturne in Blue & Silver 1872-78 of James McNeill Whistler, by Alan Catlin

Nocturne in Blue & Silver 1872-78
of James McNeill Whistler
By Alan Catlin

Dark foundering
landscape

where all
the rivers

of the mind
converge

in shadows;

a clock face
without

hands in last
discernible

light

Process: During a three and half year period I wrote little else but poems on Art ranging from Turner to extreme forms of Modern Art. The poems included are from the Impressionistic period.

Editor’s note: Watch this space for the second poem tomorrow.

Alan Catlin has published dozens of chapbooks and full length books of prose and poetry on a wide variety of subjects. His latest forthcoming chapbook of poetry is from Night Ballet Press, Beautiful Mutants. He is the poetry editor of the online poetry journal Misfitmagazine.net.

I May Not Be Much But I Am All I Think About, by Christopher Hileman

I May Not Be Much
But I Am All I Think About
By Christopher Hileman

The sun will rise up.
It will devastate the dark
crannies of the night
with implacable light.
This always happens.

Spiders
spin their gossamer
dew lapped webs between
the tiny green fresh faced twigs.

I see that with my
eagle eyes as I
plummet to the mossy place,
(unerring this time
not like other times)
that place You made for us all.

I like to think You
made it just for me.
I shiver a bit knowing
that is not the truth.

Christopher Hileman moved to Oregon in 1973. He had retired to live on the volcanic bluff overlooking Willamette Falls in Oregon City, Oregon. He ascends the stairs from his basement digs to improvise on his Yamaha keyboard or the house Playel grand when the calico cat releases him from below. The part-Irish Wolfhound here likes him.

Christopher blogs at View From The Northern Wall.

Butterfly Kiss, by Alan Catlin

Butterfly Kiss
By Alan Catlin

As if emerging from light,
some snowbound dream
she appears inside empty
bar room, brushing snow
from long knitted shawl
draping her head and well-
below shoulders red hair.
Looks disheveled but
preternaturally calm
like some Pre-Raphaelite
angel that hadn’t been
painted yet, pale skin
flushed with the cold.
Barely able to speak,
she asks for something
hot to drink, words
formed no more than a
whisper, a draft through
the space between window
and sill. Looks into back
bar mirror for the reflection
that isn’t there.

Process notes: The poem thinks Long Black Veil in a more ethereal context indoors seeking warmth on a night like this one.

Alan Catlin has published dozens of chapbooks and full length books of prose and poetry on a wide variety of subjects. His latest forthcoming chapbook of poetry is from Night Ballet Press, Beautiful Mutants. He is the poetry editor of the online poetry journal Misfitmagazine.net.

Ecstasy, by Amitabh Vikram Dwivedi

Ecstasy
By Amitabh Vikram Dwivedi

These apparels are mere adoration on our bodies.
Pure and naked, we bathe in each other’s pond.
Like true lovers, we are just born in one another’s lap.
There is no sign of dying and decay.
We do not know our religions even.
We shake, and clinch our fists,
With our eyes half open, and half closed in ecstasy.
We cry for light, and
Idle tears fall as we release, they do not know–
That we want to dissolve into each other’s love.

Amitabh Vikram Dwivedi is university faculty and assistant professor of linguistics at Shri Mata Vaishno Devi University, India; and author of two books on lesser known Indian languages: A Grammar of Hadoti and A Grammar of Bhadarwahi. As a poet, he has published around fifty poems in different anthologies, journals, and magazines worldwide. Until recently, his poem “Mother” has included as a prologue to Motherhood and War: International Perspectives (Eds.), Palgrave Macmillan Press. 2014.