Edgar Degas Speaks His Mind, by Christopher Hileman

Edgar Degas, Breakfast After The Bath II

 

Edgar Degas Speaks His Mind
by Christopher Hileman

My friends drop away
but I prefer solitude
and I so complain
and help them depart.

I have too much work to do.

And besides that, Jews,
they keep secrets so
I cannot tell who is who.

You call me to head
your movement… they write
in the stupid magazines.
Impressionistic
they call my art – No!
I resist this bastard word!
To Hell with you all!

 

Note: Written in response to Red Wolf Poems, Prompt 164.

Christopher Hileman moved to Oregon in 1973. He has 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.

Episodes, by Sanjeev Sethi

Episodes
by Sanjeev Sethi

(1)

“I beg of you to forgive me,” you howled
with hands folded like the heroine
of a two-hankie film.
“Don’t plead. I’m not God.” I hollered.

My inner voice:
“ your volume, the velocity
of word… in this relationship
at least you think you’re god.”

(2)

“Lying will get you nothing.”
you squealed.
“Sometimes, telling the truth too.”
I lisped and we laughed.

That was our truth.
Or lie?

Hindsight answers
such things.

 

Sanjeev Sethi has authored three books of poetry which includes This Summer and That Summer (Bloomsbury, 2015), widely published in several countries. He was recently in The Bitchin’ Kitsch, Futures Trading, The Aerogram, Revolution John, Chronogram, Duane’s Poe Tree, Sentinel Literary Quarterly, Ink Sweat and Tears, New English Review, The Galway Review, In Between Hangovers,  Otoliths, and elsewhere. He lives in Mumbai, India.

Me, by Sanjeev Sethi

Me
by Sanjeev Sethi

I sit calmly in my cubbyhole,
so no one chucks
at me a crag.

I fear the hit –
as I bleed easy
and heal slow.

 

Sanjeev Sethi has authored three books of poetry which includes This Summer and That Summer (Bloomsbury, 2015), widely published in several countries. He was recently in The Bitchin’ Kitsch, Futures Trading, The Aerogram, Revolution John, Chronogram, Duane’s Poe Tree, Sentinel Literary Quarterly, Ink Sweat and Tears, New English Review, The Galway Review, In Between Hangovers,  Otoliths, and elsewhere. He lives in Mumbai, India.

Loss And Other Lessons, by Sanjeev Sethi

Loss and Other Lessons
by Sanjeev Sethi

Ma was in hospital
with a heart condition.
We: sister and I
were at a friend’s place.
Pa was at *daddy’s funeral.

I remember, sister and me,
sitting on the parapet.
Sun was about to set.
That is when first essence
of loss filtered in.
This was not like losing
a pouch of picayunes.
This was big time loss.
As though someone had
punched my solar plexus.
The heart felt hard.
I wasn’t even a teenager.

I remember her, my sister,
just about a teen, sitting
next to me. She seemed
much older, wiser, calmer.
I remember, looking at
her chocolate brown eyes,
looking at them for direction.
Her silence was palpable.
Finally she spoke:
“Don’t feel bad. Daddy is with God.”

Suddenly…
I was allayed of ache.
That sunset…
I learnt my first big lesson:
Trust.

*Daddy: Mother’s father.

Sanjeev Sethi has authored three books of poetry which includes This Summer and That Summer (Bloomsbury, 2015), widely published in several countries. He was recently in The Bitchin’ Kitsch, Futures Trading, The Aerogram, Revolution John, Chronogram, Duane’s Poe Tree, Sentinel Literary Quarterly, Ink Sweat and Tears, New English Review, The Galway Review, In Between Hangovers,  Otoliths, and elsewhere. He lives in Mumbai, India

Discovery, by Sanjeev Sethi

Discovery
by Sanjeev Sethi

As a child when I witnessed
marriage cavalcades
on overwrought passages,
strings of sorrow trussed me.
As though my cells were encoding
jiggers I wasn’t conscious of.

Later it crawled:
Parturition had hierarchized another set.
Ordinariness of happiness wasn’t for me.
Quiddity was itching to be ciphered.

 

Sanjeev Sethi has authored three books of poetry which includes This Summer and That Summer (Bloomsbury, 2015), widely published in several countries. He was recently in The Bitchin’ Kitsch, Futures Trading, The Aerogram, Revolution John, Chronogram, Duane’s Poe Tree, Sentinel Literary Quarterly, Ink Sweat and Tears, New English Review, The Galway Review, In Between Hangovers,  Otoliths, and elsewhere. He lives in Mumbai, India.

Pilgrims From The East, by Edilson Afonso Ferreira

Pilgrims From The East
by Edilson Afonso Ferreira

Sometime, somewhere in the East Lands,
there was a spot relieved by four rivers,
right place to settle shadowed a garden.
A traveling Potentate loved the scenery,
took possession of it, there building
magnificent a manor house.
Having not a hermit’s heart and His will
for creation unsatisfied,
and applying unsuspected powers,
He created, to Him and His peers’ likeness,
the beginning of a new nation, what he named
the humans.
Love and the desire to create, the bequest
we were awarded from our Lord
has leading us to populate and stretch out
the once Garden of Eden.

 

Note: Written in response to Red Wolf Poems, Prompt 158.

Mr. Ferreira is a Brazilian poet who writes in English rather than Portuguese. Recent works have appeared in Red Wolf Journal, Right Hand Pointing, Whispers, Indiana Voice Journal, The Lake, Young Ravens, Synesthesia, Every Day Poems, Dead Snakes, The Literary Nest, Mocking Heart Review, among others. He lives in a small town with wife, three sons and a granddaughter and, unhurried, is collecting his works for a forthcoming book. See some of his poems at http://www.edilsonmeloferreira.wordpress.com.

The Cream Of The Garden, by Vivienne Blake

The Cream Of The Garden
by Vivienne Blake

The bank, left wild for birds, insects,
and January primroses,
before violets, bluebells, nettles,
cow parsley and foxgloves.
The hedge, murdered every few years
for winter logs and kindling – a motley thing
of alder, hazel, chestnut,  ash,
wild cherry and baby hedgerow oaks;
there’s a hollow stump sprouting hazel hair,
where a blackbird raises a brood in Spring,
becoming hideaway for summer children.
Its brambles give us jelly and crumbles,
sweetness from undergrowth.
Sweetness, too, behind the shed
where grass cuttings, weeds and waste,
moulder undisturbed into compost,
loved by vegetables, flowers, fruit, and me.

Vivienne Blake makes quilts and poems and stories in her small village home in Normandy. Her slow and wobbly rambles often appear in the poetry. Finding the sublime in the mundane is her aim. Her work has been published in Curio Poetry, Mouse Tales, Red Wolf Journal, Long Story Short, The Book of Love and Loss and other anthologies.

Waiting For Berry Pie, by Christopher Hileman

Waiting For Berry Pie
by Christopher Hileman

You said, “Let us pray.”
I said, “Can’t you see the past –
the shade of this day?”

It’s true the garden
is filled with noon’s bright green light.
Here my cat twitches.

Meanwhile, the berry
arbor grows green slender spines
and threatens to fruit.

Note: Written in response to Red Wolf Poems, Prompt 157.

 

 

Christopher Hileman moved to Oregon in 1973. He has 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.