Why Do I Do This?

A writer of modest talent can only hope one day to put together a word or two—on on a rare week, a phrase—that’s worth keeping. This is not the conceit of perfectionism. This is just the reality of a mediocre vision that cannot totally grasp and share what floats in and out of view. It’s the frustration that has to be managed—The gap between what might be glimpsed, a brief impression of something sublime, and the skill that, were it a painting, only produces stick figure drawings.

So the experience is one of enduring a sense of constant failure, working to press my cheek up against the foggy glass that keeps me from the truth, but still trying to catch a scent of it and convey it honestly….Throwing the lariat a thousand times at a stallion that prances just out of reach, hoping that one more throw will tame the beast and bring him nearer to feel the heat and the true wild life of him.

That’s the job. (Neurotic? Of course it is. But what’s a little neurosis among friends?). It’s just a matter of putting up with failure long enough to feel the hot breath of something beautiful. It is insanity. But oh, so seductive.

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Innocence

 

The sound of children

comes in swells

like the sea…. I love

how they fill the emptiness and silence

THE THRILL OF WRITING

By Charles Robert Lindholm

I Hear The Rhythm
Of My Pulse Beating
Between My Ears
As I Tap, Tap, Tap The Keys

These Words

These words on a page
in my little book
I’ll return to again
for another good look
As I’ll craft them and
often I’ll rearrange
for the syntax to work
from a nuance or change

Words to Poet

Words to poet
Poet to rhyme
Syntax discovered
Time upon time

CHANGE

Submitted by The Dark Horse

.

Do seasons shift?

Why do you stand in a limbo
Faithfully expecting the sun to remain

You’ll burn out from the rays of its ceaseless continuity
Only to then be eroded once the downpours turn up to your shores

Does passion eventually disenchant like fashion?

WORD SNOWFLAKES

By Charles Robert Lindholm

Words Fall Down Upon Me
As Snowflakes From The Universe
Soaking Into My Soul
Capturing My Mind
Filling My Heart

OLD FASHIONED WINTER

Submitted by Marie Tarrant

.

The smoke from chimneys climbing high
Form cloud like objects in the sky
The mist lies hovering over a field
Logs for fires in gardens build
The smell of cooking through the air
With bonfire smoke, they mix and share
The sun is out but cooler now
The farmers put away the plough
Trees undressed and waiting for,

Ode to Kashmir

Submitted by Ayesha Azhar

.

Three in the morning
There’s been a raid
Twenty-one for the mourning
Seventeen coffins prepared

Wild, wild and vile
Blood, gore and bile
Broken limbs; still, still eyes
Food everywhere; it’s a feast for the flies

They say your in a better place

Submitted by Sasha Deppen
.
They say your in a better place
But what the hell do they know
They say your always with me
As I shake my head real slow
There is no better place for you,

I STRUGGLE TO WRITE IN CURSIVE

By Charles Robert Lindholm

A Simple
Thoughtless
And Automatic Act
When I Was Young
But Not Now
The Years
And Tears
Have Changed That

An American Satire

Submitted by Peter M Burns
.

The elephant sitting in a sycamore tree
Lazily peeling a banana for his tea
Pauses to wonder why ants are free
To march with banners extolling
Demands to ban pesticides that are
Harmful to them and pollenating bees.

The COMPLEXITY of TIME

Submitted by Emphorium

.

What is it I elude to
Within the complexities of time.
The arrows of time,
The linearity of time,
Or is it space time,
Or the simple neglectful
Waste of anyone’s’ time?

The creative well is all dried out

Submitted by Catherine Keller

The creative well is all dried out
Hiding the truth in plain sight
Seasons change and so do we
In this dysfunctional paradise.
Another day about to be wasted
As a fading youth
Trapped within these ink-splattered pages.

Vexes

Submitted by Catherine Keller
.

We’re always chasing, killing and craving time
There will always be bullies
Whether it be in the sandbox
Or the Senate.

Got a new pen

What once was Brighton’s bead shop
now sells stationary
Upmarket and pretentious
but good enough for me
For on a shelf, bright colours
a row of writing pens
So I just had to have one
as I do that now and then

Caravan

Submitted by Pratik Bose
.

Night after night
My city passes through
Some drowsy dark eyes..

When I die
I scarcely think
But I bleed all because of fading past

Newness

The skyscrapers

In a black city

Attracting the throng

To surrender the things

When the sense

Of newness wears off.

 

Build an attempt

So high

With an aim so tight

To render love

In a warm and vivid

Colors of shine.

Third party-

Submitted by Meg eliza

.
Another slam poem about love right,
But the thing ill never understand is the way that your hand;
Can fit so perfectly into another’s.
that happiness is monumental but so momentary.
I don’t know maybe it’s just me or my inability to see the cracks and creases in the broken pieces of your smile.

The state of mind!

The state of mind

Calling the stars

Flaunt a little

The love of life.

 

We lie when woozy

Or we just cozy?

WHAT WRITING ISN’T

By Charles Robert Lindholm

Sometimes We Think We Know
But We Really Don’t
Because We Only Have
A Limited View
A Preconceived Idea

Our Goodbye

Submitted by JPhantom

.

I’m sitting across from a person who knows everything about me, but they feel like such a stranger
And we’re just looking into each other’s eyes, for they tell our story more than words could muster
A story that has succumb to the winds of a cold world, as frost it bites and gnaws at our weary souls

Time after time

Yes, I know I have written
many times in the past
of this beach and the sea
and it won’t be my last
For this place here in Sussex
I will gravitate to
whenever I can
Well you would, wouldn’t you?

I awake to waves

Submitted by thaharbor

.

I awake to waves colliding into bleached sands as they sizzle across the seemingly-endless coastline

Waves that are a deep blue, yet also transparent; waters that appear to be pure, but are found to be brine

Its spray weaves within the wind, a mist that grazes over the beach and onto the tops of my exposed feet

Poetry comes alive

Midnight petrichor
the earth brings me to her and
night time takes me there

Sometimes my best words
come in the small hours
when I should be deep in slumber

LEAVE IT UNSPOKEN – REPRISE

By Charles Robert Lindholm

Some things are hard to say
filled with deep emotions
and feelings
that are aching
in your heart

With inspiration here

I write with words that always come
formed into lines until I’m done
A synergy that’s oft begun
with inspiration here

Summer Wars

The dust of Summer,
rubber, barbecue and
mT air that I beg might bring the rains, Neruda’s
gold ghost, Las Manos del Dia under an umbrella say
do I comprehend, how much it may mean
to meet a grizzled old tree
hale and green
after the many deaths
of teething Winter,
hollow poems
no justice
they cannot say,
Longfellow is out walking
my cautious light around the park.