Bernie Kyle

To the Trees - FAREWELL.

By

Bernard Vance Kyle

.

They were trees of more than a hundred years, on a central city plot,

A legacy from days gone by, but not really worth a lot,

And now they ' hindered progress,' or so some tried to say ,

By growing on a building site, & being in the way.

Yet despite the protestations, of caring city folk,

The wish to save those ancient trees was rated as a joke,

The chain saw hummed, the trees succumbed,

In a rabid fierce onslaught,

And the retention of a heritage, then simply came to naught.

So on this butchered city site, yet another tower will rise,

Apartments soaring upwards, sixteen stories to the skies

No leafy bough will be there now, no bird song as before,

Just the concrete jungle, engulfing more & more.

[C] Bernard Vance Kyle 2006

jerryb

[All your words]

The day you had died, I found
An open door

To your sanctuary.

All your words…
Those inestimably brilliant portraits
Your rooms, deep in wood smoke and oiled leather
Those books, dusty windows onto other people’s worlds.
Even the worn carpet where your feet would wait anxiously,
fidgetty as mice, fretfully exploring other outcomes.

Your world was formed, as you were, by what others wanted to
say.

You feasted upon their experiences…

I once left my fingerprint in soft dust on a smoothly painted sill,
Hoping you would summon me, demand my simple explanation.

Outside rain hung like winter-sleepy bees, visiting the elder
and tiny courageous apple one last time.

They have out-waited you, who were not my friend.
And all your words,
Not of encouragement or even love.
But of condemnation, the way impatient storms
brush aside empty dinghies,
hungry for larger shores.

We never danced in syncopation, you and I.
Instead we stepped within each other
And grew separate…

[The crows upon my tongue]

It’s a cold place inside
a discarded man
Do you remember the first morning?
You brought me juice and a flower
I lay across your thighs
and counted your smiles
Your eyes warmed my skin
Your hands led me across
the adventure of your body
We were children for a day a week
Was it that long?
And now those same eyes
are broken windows
as barred and forbidden as caves
beneath the waterline
Last night we fought again
Two insects leaping at the glass
Bruising splitting with every blow
Today we limp uneasily
My tears puddle uselessly inside
A silent haemorrhage
Whilst yours are greedily drunk
By your sisters
What will you tell them?
How much have we forgotten?
There are two ends to every journey
Two threads unraveled
Two lives pecked apart
by the crows that live upon our tongues

[Whimsy number 1]

There are morning when a man awakes
to find that he has lived the wrong life.

All his friends are fenceposts
or have lost themselves among queues
of willow.

The soldiers came last night, they say.

They smelt our fear and made a soup of it.
Still the sparrow visits each tree, stopping to
compose a poem upon the barbed wire.

The oranges hang gladly in the orchard
behind the moss and bricks.

the rotten, rusty bucket

dreaming...

Jason Page

Does Home Exist

Honey! Ignore what I once said.

Suicide lies in this bed.

They show themselves,

from time to time.

Its a symbolic thread,

darting in between my mind.

Honey! I see them,

them the dead.

They choose the colours to display,

its part of this gift I sway.

Believe! if you would,

it scares me worse than it should.

Honey! help me,

I need you now.

Nothing else matters,

but you, me,

tell me how.

Because soon it will be dead,

I am needing you,

enough said for now.

Christopher Mulrooney

Incidentalism

the progression features
a whole like this
host of characters
Armagnac the baker
of living goods
Beelzebub who manufactures
cakewalks in the rain
Cornhusker the world-beater
and his theatre of cruel ties

an Alpha Beta of assortments

Devlin the mongrel wear
of debonair defalcations hawks
Evangeline who sings in the shower
of golden mythology
Franz the pipe merchant
laid end to end to end
Graham of the dyspeptic crackers
mercifully really keening
Horatio wandering endlessly
in a forest of speculation
Iona with a room out back
and a hayrick bed
Joseph wandering aimlessly
and plumb tuckered out
Kevin who wants to know
whither you are bound from where too
Lyle the oceangoing sailor
and his travelogues so fair
Montgomery the placer-mining
company man upon his feet
Nils who never seems to know
what is expected of him anyway
Olivia the trade school mascot
barking up the wrong tree
Quentin always asking just when
no wrong questions are needed
Ronald who wants to know as well
what wonders world last where

size more than actuality
is a persistent claim to fame

Susanna would like to hold fast
to the adherents of malefactors
Tompkins wants to know still more
than daily bread and wine and water
Ursula has her cave and friends
who keep a time clock stamping

these are the professional elements

Veracity has her place keep clean
she says the memory of that
Waldemar has this to say
upon the rocks seals bark like dogs
Xenos has a friend in the business
wants to know if there are any connections
Yarby has a steeplechase to ride
around the track (was here to there)
Zeb has this to say at last
my friends there was a man here once

at the tradeware conference they sing
and submit their papers on the thing

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Copyright © 2006 by AucklandPoetry.com

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Nicholas Alexander

For her song

to have never seen the bark protect the tree
or have neer seen the wood underlying it...

the difficulty is where we are
stranded here between one another
locked in doors that stay any breeze
adapting to new songs
between the weeks
passing by
ludicrous assumptions
turning back the steam
inverting the process
swaying the location
for the point of view
shaking the ground - in other words

turning heads as we pass
placing names in the new phone book
that arrived in the letterbox
as we pass through this time booth
and laugh at our mistakes
we face the future
with our eyes

7:36am
1 April 2006

Michael Oakley-Browne

Epiphytic Rangitoto

By the black dirty road
That convicts moulded,
Broad, green, epiphytic,
Kawa-puka leaves
Sprouted and took
Hold on folded
Old cold lava
And sintered boulders

The island’s coarse black rock,
Had flowed blistering down
To its hissing, heavenly habitat,
To form a mould on a lens
Of an artesian water clock
Where a busy echo-system
Ticked down time,
Layer on layer of epiphytic grime

In the absence of trees and
The presence of life, laden air
The black, bleak, blazed rock
Bled and buckled no more
And unique flora cross bred there
Forming hybrid trees of
Rata-pohutukawa on
Rangitoto’s gnarled floors.

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Bernard Kyle

THE STAG

BY

Bernard V Kyle
[c] 2002

Oh Mighty Stag on yonder Crag,
Thy stately form Elates,
And shows the World and All Therein,
What He above Creates.

For the Silhouette, that there Unfolds,
Is a sight from Times Primeval,
Against a moon that's waxes Full,
And Shines on things Coeval.

That Haughty head with Antlers Poised,
A'reaching for the Sky,
Enables that most Noble Stance,
The Dangers to Defy.



Yet be Aware and take good Care,
For Terrors lurk in Hiding,
For both Man and Beast and none the Least,
In ev'ry place abiding.

But Stag and Hind and all your Kind,
Have Graced us down the Ages,
So Pray continue on your Way,
As the World with Terror Rages.

*************

Paula Sfeir

Invisible


I don´t mind waiting for him and he loves it-
At three o´clock he wakes me up, touching my arm
Near his wonderful long fingers and I can´t stop-
His size his movement,his release:

He rings my bells like a golden bird flying,
Hugging my ivory bones so I could feel him one more time-
In time our relationship will end up near ashes.
He will stop kissing me in tune and banish white-

I think he loves me in spite of his words,
He knows for sure we will stop some day-
He will leave folding his shirts becoming grotesque.
And my heart will cry creating a blue lake

Because he wouldn't desire my black cave anymore.
I realize know what will be his problem:
He will think I am invisible,
Because for him I am inferior-

I have been holding him in bed,
So he will get scared!





Jelly Beans

When you said goodbye I painted myself into black tones,
Where we, stripped silver and exact, came loud by water,
Like white rabbits and their Arab rugs as cover.
It was good for two years, our happenings- But know
As if nothing had occurred, as if
Other black peacocks got inside my puzzle in between
Our jelly beans,
Our strange beds cried your strength by me.
I had nothing to say to you with remorse or guilt
As we hung up yesterday taking one last breath.

Crying as a tot in the nightgown you bought
I visualized your caresses, step by step.
You died yesterday and got swallowed by worms.
Us ended in a split of a second-
As I woke up, woke up reddish brown-
I erased your name; I erased your organs and all.
I conserve you in a wood box;
Our past rests in a bone pot,
Near my house and our hotel.



Our love

His touch of sand-blue color
And insides blackened and glowed up
In between-near addictions and purple remedies;
There was no way of knowing if we would
Come on top or behind
Or inside out by green lace-
That lace,glued and kissed us,

Glued as bright stars: They
Have a unique view,
A green song faced down
On top of water, then after
Love´s sake we fled-near the blue sea-
King crabs,tropical fish,avian
And sea gulls,swam,their way

On top of each other to face the morning sun.







Paula Sfeir





Bio: I am from Santiago de Chile , raised in México City.Appeared or going to be on:S.M.U.T. Magazine,The International Journal of Erotica,www.muse-apprentice-guild.com.www.erotica-readers.com(Poetry Gallery), Aesthetica Magazine,Edifice WRECKED, The Literary Sybarite : Erotic Poetry and Prose Poetic Diversity , peacockblue.com, bluefood.cc , in the Anthology Desconstruction Quarterly , Zygote in my coffee and Word Riot.

Joseph Farley

Hi, I edit Axe Factory.My latest book is Suckers.
Dream Castles, a collection done with Marie Kazalia is
due out from Red Hand Press in 2006. I was named poet
of the year by Muses Review for 2004. Hope you like
this poem.

Joseph Farley


Sunny Isles Beach, Florida

The sea changes
from green to blue
the blue-black
the further out
you go from shore.

The sun remains the same
warm and friendly
as long as
you don't stay out in it
too long
and remember
your sun screen.

Boats move off shore,
shadows gray on gray
nailed to the blue line
of the horizon.
At night they twinkle
with many lights,
floating cities
that distract the eye
from the city
on land.

The sand is warm,
so is the water.
To walk along the beach
alone
is to forget
the world as it is
and to remember
yourself,
the person you left behind
so long ago
when life began
to spiral and grow
beyond what
you could measure
or control.

The condo boom
doesn't distract
from finding coral
or watching a coconut
bob in the surf
before being taken back
by the ocean
for another trip
to another landing.

Your stay isn't long,
only the length
of a conference,
not enough for you
to become disenchanted.
This is good.
You can leave
with memories
and photos,
no disappointments.

That will leave you
with something else to learn
should you ever return
to this land
of condos and hotels,
hopefully not
during hurricane season.

William P. Robertson

BRUCEHARD Y CABMAN

brucehard y cabman hedonist deluxe
what do his eyes devise
behind his shades
why is his cap pulled
down so low while making change
why is his taxi on the prowl
outside the topless bars
why does he drink his
dr. pepper
out of mason jars
how does he slip through
changing lights
like light through prism walls
why doesn't even his mother
return his calls?


I DRIVE

i drive past yr house at night
down the crowded little street
& see yr lighted hall, yr open door
& wonder how it'd be
if i'd park my limousine
proceed upstairs
to open all my dreams
of you & i & sheets wound tight

i drive past yr house at night
with lines prepared & kisses memorized
i drive & drive around yr block
but never in yr life
a life i want to touch & spark
so i may too return to life
instead of driving zombie-like
afraid of my reflection in the dark


RUMBLE BUMP TROUBLE MACHINE

mother dear
oh mother dear
i hope you can see
as well as hear
i'll try to keep
my language clean
while describing my
rumble bump trouble machine
the wipers won't wipe
& the horn doesn't work
i kick in the lights
& get lost in the murk
the shocks all squeak
& the hood goes clump
driving my *#@% rumble bump
yes the shocks all squeak
the gas tank
leaks
& leaves a trail
down the street
yes this time
i got myself up a stump
driving my *#@% rumble bump
i need all the cash
that you can send
for my brakes
go through
more +#@$ shoes
than a well-fed family
of ten
a nice passing motorist
tried giving me a jump
& the shocks went squeak
& the hood went clump
but the rumble didn't rumple
& the bump didn't bump
so please mother dear
i hate to annoy
but there's not much
to do
here
in central illinois
so send me some cash
some negotiable green
& i'll rumble bump
home
in my trouble machine


William P. Robertson is a freelance writer from Duke Center, PA in the
United States. These poems are from his latest poetry collection,
GHOSTS OF A BROKEN HEART from Infinity Publishing.

Bernard Kyle

THE HAND

In the performance of ones ministrations,
Ones hand will come to the fore,
It will wave a welcoming gesture,
As it hastens to open the door,
It will grasp the hand of a comrade
And tend him as a true friend,
It will shake on a deal to confirm it for real
And sign the deal when it's penned.


It can tweak the ball for a 'leggie,'
And reverse it for one from the 'off,'
And while It may cover the sneezing,
It can also stifle the cough,
It's able to do all those odd things,
That involve both front & behind,
But don't ask me to more specific,
Or I'll tell you to please "never mind !


It can push the tiller to starboard
And haul on the sheet to the main,
It will lift up the cup when having a sup
And dazzle with legerdemain,
It will scratch that bit where it itches,
And rub that troublesome part,
Not to mention caress, a bit more or less,
When it comes to affairs of the heart..

So give praise through the land to the right & left hand,
For these and the acts I've omitted,
You'll see how one needs to acknowledge the deeds
Of the appendage with which we are fitted,
For from tying the shoes, to playing the blues,
In all tasks, both mundane and grand,
We're needing dexterity combined with celerity
In those wonderful right and left hands,


Copyright © 2004 by Bernard V Kyle

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