Pradip Chattopadhyay

May 2018

Eric W

Cycles

Sometimes the darkness is all I know.
A man sits in a chair in a black room,
television casting shadows and
violent fantasies onto the walls.
He stands
and moves slowly
as if he were submerged in the muddy water
of all the wrongs accrued.
He makes his way into the kitchen,
eventually,
and the pain shoots through his neck
— fool —
he stalls
and leans against the doorway.
The dishes remain undone
while parts of the broken dishwasher
are strewn across the counter.
Dirt from the unswept floor
sticks to his bare feet
as he shuffles to the fridge
again.

up and down, round and round

May 2018

Sjr1000

Many Where's

Invalid curtains
Broken down houses
Mold is growing
Everywhere

Not many live here anymore
Used to be a boom town
babies born
Everyone was employed
Took coupons at
the company store
Milled that wood
Ground that red ore
they don't build
washing machines
around here anymore

Invalid curtains
blowing in a toxic wind
nuclear plant failed
but that wasn't
the end.

The wind is still blowing
down main street
twitching the
"For Lease" signs
If the mud doesn't getcha
The *** holes will,
Schools?
Salting the roads?
There isn't any more revenue

At least Rays is open
the general store
Thomas's, the hardware store
next door
Tony's One Stop Coffee Shop
Barney's Pharmacy
Sellin' out those Oxys
The gas station pulled out their tanks
The doctor's gone
The dentist closed
Got to go forty miles to go to Costco

Still catching trout
at Jackson Meadow
down the highway
Pulled out an 8 pound bass
Never knew it was there
Put it back
Old guy one more life to live.

Staying here is all we know
No one knows we're here
Just like that 8 pound bass
One more life to go?
even though
We keep hearing singing
in the sundown snow,
the dying song
of a dying town.

In the tradition of James McCurtry, Greg Brown, Emmylou

Pradip Chattopadhyay May 2018

Camouflage

My waking time
in the narrowest part of the creek
chases spots in the shadows
a streak between bushes
thirsty tongue lapping green opal
cautious cotton on the fallen leaves
the priceless prowler in the morn mist
or in the dusk
the graceful glory
in the hinterland of my heart.

May 2018

Sally A Bayan

Maybe,

.... it's normal...maybe it's not,
maybe, i overdo it....yet, i still do it...
i always think of things to come
...at day time....even late nights,
thinking too much of my children
my children's children...i must always
be there...for when they need help...
i worry too about my siblings
i even think of my siblings' brood
my dear friends and their worries
...thinking how i can help them...
later, i get weary....fed up at times,
exhausted from worrying, wondering
how i could offer even a bit of a remedy
especially when they are too far to be
touched warmly...or, my hands are tied,
....or, not that long to reach out...

i realize before long...i am not alone
decidedly, i refuse to be solaced
by the thought, that my worries
could just be pebbles...not rocks...
i musn't compare at all....

(excerpts from an old posted poem...edited)

Sally

© Rosalia Rosario A. Bayan
May 20, 2018

(excerpts from an old posted poem...edited)

#children #siblings #dearfriends #worry #maybe

May 2018

Lor

Vernum

A vein in the Earth
Where those fallen subside
Called to fill it with life
And await command further

Helmets rosy but not of blood
Each soldier light and with grace
A call finally comes
And they fly out in a swarm

A swirling spectacle of life and it’s beginning
And end, the veins empty
Trenches once again barren
The scheme once again bleak

#spring