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 Jan 27
Vivian
I knew It was coming the moment I opened the door.

The sky warned me. A distant, dull voice whispered, "You can't beat It." The sweetest sadness slowly ****** each syllable. I accepted the challenge and began to pedal. For a while, I pedaled without disturbance, except for a distant, dull sky sadly trailing behind. Watching. Waiting. Knowing.

Then It came. It took its time. It was not the one who needed to hurry. I pedaled on and felt It kiss the tip of my forehead, then lick the side of my nose, leaving me cold. I began to count the touches; one, two -pedal, pedal, pedal, pedal - three - pedal, pedal, pedal - four - pedal - five - pedal, pedal - six -pedal - seven - pedal - eight, nine, ten...

And I’m drenched.
 Nov 2023
Mike Hauser
After all these many carnivore years
You can call it guilt or you can call it fear
I've made up my mind to decide
I'm going vegan this November time

So I broke down hard and read some books
Heard some tapes on what it took
From veggies steamed to veggies raw
From beans of green to yellow squash

As my nightly dreams were all filled with meat
I pushed back hard with collard greens
But still had no clue of what to do
With a turkey substitute

And that is when a friend came in
Who Tofu's the line at turkey time
So I read more books and heard more tapes
On Tofu fried, boiled, broiled, and baked

Opening up my kitchen to fine cuisine
Minus the best part...that being meat
As I promised myself I can make this work
My Tofurkey would be the finest in edible art

I had bought my Tofu by the pound
Lucky for me it is pliable
As I stretched and pulled and pulled and stretched
Until I had something that looked like a head

With my artistic abilities seriously in doubt
I'm pretty sure what I conjured was the head of a cow
So I pulled and stretched and stretched and pulled
No ones going to call me an abstract fool

As I bring to boil the "Rodin" juices in me
And baste at my skills repeatedly
Where I come up with a turkey, giblets and all
And just for good measure I gobble a turkey call

Of course cooking the thing is another road and
I sadly lost a few in the explosions
When finally scored I invited my friends
Whose friendship with them will take time to mend

Just because a turkey looks like a turkey, don't mean that it is
I'm now learning all this while I clean up the mess
As forks went to the mouths at the very same time
So did the retching along with the crying

But in a month they'll forget this entire sordid ordeal
When they get the invites for my Christmas holiday meal
With my time in the books and tapes I will spend
Looking forward to  Christmas and a delicious soy bean ham
 Jan 2023
Darcie Fitzpatrick
the sun has that certain haze
as if it were the dead of Summer
and heat radiated through the air

but

this is a tease a reminder of those days
because indeed the air is fresh
and sharp as it should be in Winter

at the seaside a roaring song and dance
those distant waves appear as a range
the ridges of a desert mountain top

and

silhouetted at depths with the vibrance
of sunset hues bringing shade to the wild
while preparing for the cool of night

the reflections are shorter now
and I lose sight of that glowing orb
as far off clouds take shape to dip

then

colors shift to violet, navy and maroon
leaving a bruise to bumps in the night
and dream of an August day by the sea
©2021
 Jan 2023
Darcie Fitzpatrick
Did you hear that distant murmur of imagination?

The door is open wide to make all the dreams you can possibly dream, a reality

This mustn’t be of surprise because every time you set your mind on a goal it eventually becomes part of the present

Apply your wildest hopes to the checklist and start moving toward those, you shall find them easier to attain than you once thought

Truly it is all within your grasp and the only barrier is of ruminating upon fear

Let there be no distance between you and your imagination

Allow yourself utter freedom to find joy and create space for making it all happen

Now, right now… please
©2022
 Jul 2021
Francie Lynch
Kathleen Avenue still has houses,
But people left, and trees were felled;
The canopy across the street
Has lost some limbs
And many feet
Of children
Playing hide and seek.

One house, a brown-shingled frame
Is aging there as are our names;
The front yard doesn't boast corn
That Daddy grew
When first we landed;
Not knowing neighbours were offended
With farming behind green picket fences.

      so corn, cabbage and turnip too
      were left to rot. Daddy knew to
      strike when hot.

The locals weren't too much impressed
When Daddy taught them some respect.
The human smell of decaying turnip
Turned noses down that stood straight up. The front was never farmed again.
    
Recently, I passed that yard,
The picket fences gone;
And someone has a garden there,
The new arrivals,
If they care,
Really see the wisdom there.
I give a nod
To my Old Man,
An immigrant
Before his time.
All true.
 Apr 2021
Francie Lynch
Just picked up my thirtieth pair of glasses
(perhaps you call them eye glasses).
Progressive, photo-chromatic, temples with wrap around cables.
Same round frames since I was sixteen (first saw them in How I Won the War).
I don’t mess with what works. We fit. No need to look further.
Had my eye on the prize.
They give me perfect sight. And I waited years to get perfect sight.
Always needed glasses. Finally got them when I was eleven.
Big family. Immigrants. No health coverage. So, no glasses.
Couldn’t see the forest or the trees. A genetic thing too.
Several sisters and brothers are as myopic as moles.
Mammy and Daddy never wore glasses (which is not to say they didn’t need them).
All granny glasses are wire rims with a golden finish.
All of mine were. These ones are round black wire rims. I’m being so adventurous.
I remove them (singular is a monocle) to shower and go to bed. I never ask to try on someone’s frames, and I never loan mine for a second (Period)
I also have a face that has grown so accustomed to glasses, that my eyes have surely deepened into my skull. I don’t recognize myself on my driver’s license, health card or passport (Why do they insist on that? I’m never asked to remove my glasses upon surrender of any document for visual verification).

I’ve yet to regret the wealth I’ve spent.
Their cost could pay the rent
For a third world family for years.
It would feed and clothe a village, I’m sure.
I'm not blinded by how good I've got it here.
The title comes from Jer. 5:21
"How I Won the War" starring John Lennon. He first wore wire rims in this movie, and removed the stigma of being called "Pop bottles" in the school yard.
 Oct 2020
Francie Lynch
Two ebon crows got drunk last night,
Pecked their way into a fight;
Feathers flew as they clawed and cawed,
Till the losing crow pulled a gun in spite.
The other bird flew off in fright,.
Returning with a murderous flock,
And circled the gunner, a fierce gamecock.
They fluttered and feathered in a spree,
Then flipped before two crows winged off.

They returned with hair from a dead man's chest,
And proposed the two should build their nest.

They fashioned tools from human fingers,
Framed the nest with human femurs;
Used two green eyes to glaze windows;
Make a two car garage from the nose.
Are these not two of the smartest crows.

Next they laid out the toes
As hinges to swing their doors closed.
Each crow brought back an ear,
To hang on hinges, front and rear.
They peeled off lips, once used to talk,
And paved a route as their sidewalk.
They  yanked out teeth like skilled SS,
To tile bathroom and kitchenette.
Lastly, they peeled back the skin,
And wallpapered their nest,
And lived within.

See what's achieved by two drunk crows,
Who settled their scores
After crow blows.
 Oct 2020
Francie Lynch
I came to see an alligator, lizard or a toad,
Drove along the waters to the Tamiami Road.
We took our time to see the myths all about the park,
But still I wanted desperately,
To hear the gators bark.

Watched the dawning day arrive
Above the mossy trees,
Watched the night herald morn,
Tasted the salty breeze.
We lived a captive life
Along the shell shod shores;
Traded time for trinkets,
Shopped the main street stores.

We oiled our bodies near
The alligator swamp;
Waited bated near
The large tortoise hole;
We didn't see the turtle,
Didn't see the shell;
So looking for the gators,
Remained our only goal.

We heard one lived in the lake,
Invisible in his lair;
Eating shanked golf *****,
Go on look, if you so dare.
We watched from a distant bank,
With each kerplunk,
Our odyssey sunk.

We searched further down
The TamiamiTrail;
Studied bees in their hives,
Awed by the order we saw there,
Made us more alive.

We wandered lost in orange groves
Perfuming winding trails;
But we never saw a gator,
We never saw a tail.

So, if you want to see some gators,
Skip the Tamiami Trail.
Wow. Found this one I wrote in 1978 on my first trip to Fort Myers, FL. I was in teacher's college. Married for eight months. It was March Break (Reading Week) . There wasn't much time for writing poetry in those days; however, Ann had an Aunt and Uncle living out a Canadian winter there. They invited us down. What a terrific holiday. What another life. I sound disappointed, however, I must have done a lot. I should send this to my former wife. We don't live far apart. And we have daughters with children living in homes between us. What a world.
 Jul 2020
Francie Lynch
During dinner talk
I hear her say,
His poems are very clever.
She said it loud, and all could hear;
(she said it out of spite)
And some who heard her say it, thought,
Isn't she so nice.

Clever. Clever. Clever.
Clapped inside my head,
For earlier she reproached me
For not reaching out instead.
I should ladle bowls of soup,
Drive the elderly wherever,
Volunteer to save the planet,
Comfort those in need of such,
Or visit with the sick.

Clever.  Cleverer.  Cleverest.
So clever when she spoke;
I find it now so obvious,
She'd not read a word I wrote.
"Your poetry is clever, but you need to do something for the benefit of others... blah, blah, blah." The nerve of some people. My anti-trump ******* poems have been read by millions, thank you ma'am.
Chapter VIII
Alikantus harangues Medea

Alikantus paradigm of Alikanto in his astral journey just three days after climbing in Gaugamela ...! The corners of anxiety buzz after lightening their igneous hooves by the slippery stones of the footsteps that seemed to be the same projections of their tasks that marked the Tracian soil before arriving at the request of their harangue. He resorts to Medea, before arriving in Thrace after wandering around different places in search of protection and advice to protect his master Vernarth. While He was submitting to his last opioid libations of vivid liliaceae from angiosperms encapsulated by his right pectoral. That was Alikanto's missive. Ask Medea for a potion so that she can supply her master to deflate his breastplate, and thus be able to use his Panoply breastplate in combat, since there were three days left for the duel. Medea arrived in the city of Athens on a stormy day with great dark Dantesque gray on the palm of the cliff, previously escaping near Abdera, whose east came evacuating black poetry to the west. Medea, while looking at the sky, took a piece of feldspar coal, to create the aluminum javelins that Alikanto would have to carry on her return, along with the potions to deflate her infected chest. I paint the sky with gray lattice lines later lodged in its crooked bun.
He could see from infinity something that came mounted on an aluminum beam, whose face seemed to be a king, it was Aegean, who not only offered him hospitality but married Medea in the hope that his sorceries would allow him to conceive a son despite to the advanced age. The sorceress fulfilled her expectations, having from her a son named Medo.
When Theseus, the secret son of Aegean, arrived in Athens willing for his father to recognize him as heir, Medea took him as a threat to his son's future, and attempted to poison him. But Theseus discovered her and, accused of committing horrible crimes and witchcraft, Medea had to flee again. In this crusade she had the assistance of Alikantus, who transported her flying from Abdera, so as not to be captured and supplementing the potions that Alikantus had requested, also with the aluminum javelins that she had to take to Vernarth, to escort him in the majestic affront.
  Thus, Medea is the archetype of a witch or sorceress, and they share their status as an autonomous and unusual woman, contrary to the ideal prototype of the time, with Calypso and Circe, among other Hecate and their instructors. I take a cauldron in which I had prepared a potion. Shortly after this a young foal emerged from her. Because of this relationship, Medea went to the icy waters of the Lete River to reenchant their lives in times past. This is how she takes hold of the sheds like the wings of Alikantus, to invade the estuaries and collect with her mouth the blue water displaced from the purgatory sky, so as not to stain with her ****** hands after having committed harassment with Jason.
They subtracted the ooze from the three days of the Solstice, to pounce with the south wind to meet again Vernarth in Bumodos. After Medea bathed in the beautiful melodies of the Lete river, the masculine sphinx of Likantus continued to undress her from all past Lives, as in ****** fusion consenting and thanking the rhythm of her onslaught for the great display of her sorceries that by misfortune comes, it signals revenge for the righteous and reconciliation to the unvenged opposites.
As the Solstice began, there was a lumberjack near the love nest between the personality of Alikantus and Medea. He interrupts them when Alikantus hit the slopes of his buttocks so that the potion bounced by his navel to take Gaugamela.
The Woodcutter says:   "Visibly used to seeing these scenes in Lete, he tells them that he has had to carry these axes in his hands since he was a child." I have never cut a tree, but I only follow these proportions that speak to me as a child when I was ordered by my parents to follow these cultures. My cult is not to treasure anything, much less accumulate rumors of tree species. I am only pleased to see one day a slight glimpse of Medea's face in me, who is part of her under this spell of never being able to bring her wood, on the contrary a song of her many passionate loves, even of her vengeful gaze when she is not. beloved, who underlies the worst poisoned evenings, even gazing at them with unpoisoned eyes with the miter in my hands.

Medea answers:  To infinity, on the other hand, if I am uncomfortable with principles, how could I suggest that your my woodcutter will be imperishable? Because your own beings grow dependent on those who do not believe they are beings who end their lives in the same way. Since you are the bearer of an ax, your conscience is to become a more capital statement of the Truth. As a unit of my imprecations, I must take you to the last survival merits of my beautiful melodies, but of fatal songs of death.
So your unit from today will be the same as yours, product of your parents' inheritance, and the other will be mine, which I have deposited in you to protect Lete. As I mention it with our blessed dance that Clovis suddenly and manifestly says ..., the river Lete in the underworld, dissolves your Memories, cleanses your mind permanently. That is the branch of a poplar tree from the underworld, from my father Hipnos. "Lete is not the place you want to go swimming ..."
Puzzled The Woodcutter looks at her and passes the ax to him, so that he can give it to Likantus, as a means of thanks to Vernarth prostrated in the disenchantment of the war spells, like tree limbs in the arms of his seeds, more than regrets. I am a woodcutter who never cut a tree, because through this offering I will give my ax so that Vernarth makes this circumcision with his talent those of others who are so many, less than what I can never count.

Medea comes out of this charm. Run away without a trace. Only this steed with its golden wings remain, pale as the day of good half-hopes. She takes the potions with her muzzle, weapons and the ax of good wood. Skewing its course, it takes flight to the north, to approach the villages of the gangs and cavalries by thousands who were heading to the vicinity of Te Gomel already in the jurisdiction of Vernarth. Day and night the Likantus Arengas flutter to repeat their same episode lived with Medea, towards the commanders to get them ready to shake their swords.

To be continued / under editing
ALIKANTUS  HARANGUES  TO MEDEA
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