Reality Check, poem by Phillip Giambri (Self-Portrait Poetry Series)

REALITY CHECK
by Phillip Giambri

My futile attempts
at rearranging the universe,
to suit my perception
of perfection,
only serve to accentuate
the flawed reality
in which I exist.

The world fumbles along
oblivious to my feeble attempts
at control,
yet words continue to tumble
forth from my lips and my pen,
as though trying to maintain the illusion
that I am somehow relevant.

I’m nothing but a loud, flashing,
bright, bolt of lightning,
illuminating a storm-filled sky,
for a very brief moment in time,
disappearing quickly,
and lost to memory forever
by the next brilliant flash.

IMAGE: “The Son of Man” by René Magritte (1964).

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Phillip Giambri, aka “The Ancient Mariner,” a product of the streets of South Philadelphia, obtained his deviant perspective on life listening to Jean Shepherd on WOR radio back in the ’50s. Fleeing Philly at 17, he served in the military, has been an actor, hairstylist, stoner, janitor, writer, drifter, recording engineer, hired hand, poet, traveling salesman, barfly, banker, biker, bronco buster, announcer, mail-order minister, photographer, and computer guru. He arrived in New York City in ’68, joined the hippie pilgrimage to St. Marks Place, and never left. He’s attended too many schools to mention, studying nearly everything, without ever attaining a degree in anything. He produces and hosts a popular monthly spoken word/poetry event, Rimes of The Ancient Mariner, as well as special collaborative events with other artist/performers — most recently the very successful Barflies & Broken Angels. His website, Ancient Mariner Tales, offers bored web surfers a glimpse into his futile search for self-discovery and meaning. He can be found in downtown NYC, regularly spinning yarns and telling tall tales anywhere that will tolerate him.

An Acceptance, A Forgiveness, poem by Adrian Manning (Self-Portrait Poetry Series)

AN ACCEPTANCE, A FORGIVENESS
by Adrian Manning

whichever way you slice it
there are echoes of my mother,
my grandfather and on some days
my brother catching my mirror’s eye
the hair is receding like wild horses
over the hills and there are ridges
and furrows forming where
smooth patches of pale land once lay
tired eyes and marked, dented skin
follow through the days
the mouth has dropped
with experience and sorrow
but there is still a glint in the pupils
that suggest the child is still alive
in there somewhere mischievous, playful
and not giving in just yet
dissatisfaction and reluctant satisfaction
in equal measure
a coming to terms
an acceptance
a forgiveness
of myself

AUTHOR’S NOTE: This was written upon the reflection of myself seen literally in the reflection of the mirror now as compared to when I was younger.

IMAGE: “Not to Be Reproduced” by René Magritte (1937).

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Adrian Manning hails from Leicester, England, where he writes poems and is editor of Concrete Meat Press.

June Moon, poem by Daniel McGinn

JUNE MOON
by Daniel McGinn

Today was sheltered
in a marine layer, we waded through
a sea without shadows.

Today I made a donation
for the funeral of a friend
killed by a drunk driver.

Tonight I watched a mouse escape from my dog.
I watched pink feet and black fur blur across concrete.
Tonight I saw the moon
poke its head out from the clouds
a black mist began rising up like a cape
to cover the chin, the lips, the teeth…

Lori asked me,
Does the moon always show us the same face
or does it sometimes show us other faces?
I don’t know, I said and we marveled
at how clouds had misshapen the moon’s skull.
It looked dented and pockmarked.
It looked like it had been kicked
and kicked repeatedly.

Feral kittens under my house began to yowl.
My dog ran zigzags
and barked and barked and barked.
A mouse squeezed her body into a hole in a brick wall,
a tight passage, small as a pencil spine,
then the mouse was gone.

No lights twinkled.
The moon turned dark as a dime
dropped down a slot.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Daniel McGinn’s writing has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies including So Luminous the Wildflowers and Beyond the Valley of the Contemporary Poets. He was a journalist for the East Whittier Review, the OC Weekly and Next Magazine. He has hosted poetry shows across Southern California and performed at a variety of venues such as The Bowery Poetry Club in NYC and The Fuse in Philadelphia. Five of his chapbooks have been included in the Laguna Poets Series. 1,000 Black Umbrellas, his full length book of poetry, was published in 2012 by Write Bloody Publishing. “June Moon” and other writing by Daniel McGinn appears in the Silver Birch Press Summer Anthology (2013).

PAINTING: “La page blanche” (“The white page”) by René Magritte (1967).

Birds Appearing in a Dream, poem by Michael Collier

BIRDS APPEARING IN A DREAM
By Michael Collier

One had feathers like a blood-streaked koi,

another a tail of color-coded wires.

One was a blackbird stretching orchid wings,

another a flicker with a wounded head.
 
All flew like leaves fluttering to escape,

bright, circulating in burning air,

and all returned when the air cleared.

One was a kingfisher trapped in its bower,
 
deep in the ground, miles from water.

Everything is real and everything isn’t.

Some had names and some didn’t.

Named and nameless shapes of birds,
 
at night my hand can touch your feathers

and then I wipe the vernix from your wings,

you who have made bright things from shadows, 

you who have crossed the distances to roost in me.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Michael Collier is an American poet, teacher, creative writing program administrator and editor. He has published five books of original poetry, a translation of Euripedes‘ Medea, a book of prose pieces about poetry, and has edited three anthologies of poetry. From 2001 to 2004 he was the Poet Laureate of Maryland. As of 2011, he is the director of the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, a professor of creative writing at the University of Maryland, College Park, and the poetry editorial consultant for Houghton Mifflin (now Houghton Mifflin Harcourt). (Read more at Wikipedia.org.)

Painting: ”L’Homme au Chapeau Melon” (1964) by René Magritte

Your World, poem by Georgia Douglas Johnson

YOUR WORLD
by Georgia Douglas Johnson

Your world is as big as you make it.
I know, for I used to abide
In the narrowest nest in a corner,
My wings pressing close to my side.
 
But I sighted the distant horizon
Where the skyline encircled the sea
And I throbbed with a burning desire
To travel this immensity.
 
I battered the cordons around me
And cradled my wings on the breeze,
Then soared to the uttermost reaches
With rapture, with power, with ease!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Georgia Douglas Johnson (1880-1966) wrote plays, a syndicated newspaper column, and four collections of poetry: The Heart of a Woman (1918), Bronze (1922),An Autumn Love Cycle (1928), and Share My World (1962). Born in Atlanta, Georgia, to parents of African American, Native American, and English descent, she graduated from Atlanta University Normal College and studied music at the Oberlin Conservatory and the Cleveland College of Music. Johnson published her first poems in 1916 in the NAACP’s magazineCrisis. Her weekly column, “Homely Philosophy,” was published from 1926 to 1932. She wrote numerous plays, including Blue Blood(performed 1926) and Plumes (performed 1927). (Read more atpoetryfoundation.org.)

PAINTING: “The Promise” by Rene Magritte, 1966.

Nocturne, poem by Jennifer K. Sweeney

NOCTURNE
by Jennifer K. Sweeney

There is a blue city in mind
constructed slantways
 
along a rippling canal, 

clean and unpeopled but for a musician
 
who plays a harp without strings. 

The city has one chair
 
where he sits by the broad strokes of water. 

A lone streetlight tends
 
its blue arc of light. 

A Persian door. A zeppelin sky.
 
The world filters through 

his empty frame as he plucks the air.
 
Maybe you hear a song or maybe you don’t. 

That is the choice we are always making.
***
Jennifer K. Sweeney is the author of two poetry collections: Salt Memory (Main Street Rag, 2006), available at Amazon.com, and How to Live on Bread and Music (Perugia Press, 2009), available at Amazon.com. Visit the author at jenniferksweeney.com. This remarkable poet offers private instruction and poetry critiques. Learn more here.

PAINTING: “La page blanche” (“The white page”) by René  Magritte (1967). Learn more at masterworksfineart.com.

Believe in Magic, quote by Roald Dahl with painting by René Magritte

“And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it.”

ROALD DAHL

Painting: “The False Mirror” (1928) by René Magritte

Gravity, poem by John Frederick Nims

GRAVITY
by John Frederick Nims

Mildest of all the powers of earth: no lightnings
For her—maniacal in the clouds. No need for
Signs with their skull and crossbones, chain-link gates:
Danger! Keep Out! High Gravity! she’s friendlier.
Won’t nurse—unlike the magnetic powers—repugnance;
Would reconcile, draw close: her passion’s love.
 
No terrors lurking in her depths, like those
Bound in that buzzing strongbox of the atom,
Terrors that, lossened, turn the hills vesuvian,
Trace in cremation where the cities were.
 
No, she’s our quiet mother, sensible.
But therefore down-to-earth, not suffering
Fools who play fast and loose among the mountains,
Who fly in her face, or, drunken, clown on cornices.
 
She taught our ways of walking. Her affection
Adjusted the morning grass, the sands of summer
Until our soles fit snug in each, walk easy.
Holding her hand, we’re safe. Should that hand fail,
The atmosphere we breathe would turn hysterical,
Hiss with tornadoes, spinning us from earth
Into the cold unbreathable desolations.
 
Yet there—in fields of space—is where she shines,
Ring-mistress of the circus of the stars,
Their prancing carousels, their ferris wheels
Lit brilliant in celebration. Thanks to her
All’s gala in the galaxy.
 
                                   Down here she
Walks us just right, not like the jokey moon
Burlesquing our human stride to kangaroo hops;
Not like vast planets, whose unbearable mass
Would crush us in a bear hug to their surface
And into the surface, flattened. No: deals fairly.
Makes happy each with each: the willow bend
Just so, the acrobat land true, the keystone
Nestle in place for bridge and for cathedral.
Let us pick up—or mostly—what we need:
Rake, bucket, stone to build with, logs for warmth,
The fallen fruit, the fallen child . . . ourselves.
 
Instructs us too in honesty: our jointed
Limbs move awry and crisscross, gawky, thwart;
She’s all directness and makes that a grace,
All downright passion for the core of things,
For rectitude, the very ground of being:
Those eyes are leveled where the heart is set.
 
See, on the tennis court this August day:
How, beyond human error, she’s the one
Whose will the bright balls cherish and obey
—As if in love. She’s tireless in her courtesies
To even the klutz (knees, elbows all a-tangle),
Allowing his poky serve Euclidean whimsies,
The looniest lob its joy: serene parabolas.

SOURCE: “Gravity” appears in John Frederick Nims’ collection The Six-Cornered Snowflake and Other Poems (New Directions, 1990), available at Amazon.com.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Poet and academic John Frederick Nims (1913-1999) graduated from DePaul University, University of Notre Dame with an M.A., and from the University of Chicago with a Ph.D. He taught English at Harvard University, the University of Florence, the University of Toronto, Williams College and the University of Missouri. His books of poetry include Zany in Denim (University of Arkansas Press, 1990); The Six-Cornered Snowflake and Other Poems (1990); The Kiss: A Jambalaya (1982); Knowledge of the Evening (1960), nominated for a National Book Award; A Fountain in Kentucky (1950); and The Iron Pastoral (1947). Among his honors are an American Academy of Arts and Letters award, a National Foundation for the Arts and Humanities grant, and fellowships from the Academy of American Poets, The Guggenheim Foundation, and The Institute of the Humanities. He served as editor of Poetry magazine from 1978 to 1984.

Painting: ”Le Château des Pyrénées” by René Magritte (1959)

Birds Again, poem by Jim Harrison

BIRDS AGAIN
by Jim Harrison

A secret came a week ago though I already

knew it just beyond the bruised lips of consciousness.

The very alive souls of thirty-five hundred dead birds

are harbored in my body. It’s not uncomfortable.

I’m only temporary habitat for these not-quite –
weightless creatures. I offered a wordless invitation

and now they’re roosting within me, recalling

how I had watched them at night

in fall and spring passing across earth moons,

little clouds of black confetti, chattering and singing

on their way north or south. Now in my dreams 

I see from the air the rumpled green and beige,

the watery face of earth as if they’re carrying

me rather than me carrying them. Next winter

I’ll release them near the estuary west of Alvarado

and south of Veracruz. I can see them perching

on undiscovered Olmec heads. We’ll say goodbye

and I’ll return my dreams to earth.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Jim Harrison is the author of thirty books, including Legends of the Fall, Dalva, and Shape of the Journey. His work has been translated into two dozen languages and produced as four feature-length films. In 2007, Mr. Harrison was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He divides his time between Montana and southern Arizona.

Painting: ”L’Homme au Chapeau Melon” (1964) by René Magritte

Time Transfixed, painting by René Magritte

I decided to paint the image of a locomotive . . . In order for its mystery to be evoked, [and] another immediately familiar image without mystery—the image of a dining room fireplace—was joined.” René Magritte

PAINTING: “Time Transfixed” by René Magritte (1898-1967), permanent collection, Art Institute of Chicago.