Tag Archives: Poetry

a quantum of holiness

a little vagrant sleeps under a church ladder
shares his bedding with a lame puppy and deaf adder
he has never tasted sweets or sugar scones
his usual dinner is leavings, skin and bones

one beautiful summer day right after the mass
someone spat a throat lozenge onto the grass
it shined beneath the sun like a real gem
blameless, faceted, wet from mucous phlegm

little vagrant retrieved the lozenge with trembling hand
unbelievably happy as though he’d won a big grant
but he wasn’t the only one who had reached the prize
the puppy was looking at him with pleading eyes

some people aren’t dogmatic, have never attended church
their lives can seem useless, their family’s honour besmirch
but on that day it was the lord’s supper under church ladder
little vagrant shared his first candy with lame puppy and deaf adder

by TETIANA ALEKSINA
© All rights reserved 2018

GUEST POST // 10,000 Pencils by Gregg Savage

Two years and two days and 10,000 pencils,
No tracing or reprints or cheap, plastic stencils.
From a dot to a line from a shape to a figure,
A symbol of thoughts from my brain to my fingers.

A mark on the page meant the white was now tainted,
With another damned hope that this time I’ll make it.
My passions run under my detailed bridge,
With the promise they’ll say, “Let’s stick that on the fridge!”

by GREGG SAVAGE
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License 2018

Open-Source Poetry Two #2

Dear Readers,

Today we received a wonderful letter from Von Smith of Above the Noise, and we cannot resist sharing what it said with you:

From: Von Smith
Subject: You guys inspired me

Tetiana & Tony,

Thanks for reading my haikus. Your 100 word skittle was a novel idea for me.

You also triggered another idea, 50 Words or less, which I did two experiments right after the skittle.

Thought you two creates might enjoy these.

Thanks for being you,
Von Smith

Well, thanks for being you, Von Smith! Your efforts have not gone unnoticed, and we’ve enjoyed them immensely! And we should confess right here that it’s a very mutual feeling. All of you, Dear Readers, inspire us every day! You never cease to amaze us. Your creativity knows no bounds!

And this leads us to our latest installment of Open-Source Poetry. Your submissions for this so far have been, without exception, exceptional! As you can imagine, it has been an onerous task choosing what the next line should be. However, we feel that Thom of tnkerr’s line is ripe with story possibilities, so we’re going with that. Congratulations, Thom!

So, let’s keep this rolling, Dear Readers. And let us remind you of the simple rules of this game…

1) We provide the next line of the poem.
2) You write the following line.
3) You submit your line via the comments section of this very post.
4) We pick the line we like most and add it to the poem.
5) We publish every line to date in a follow-up post.
6) Steps 1-5 are repeated until we have a masterpiece!

So, what are you waiting for? Amaze us all over again with all new submissions! We cannot wait to see what comes next!

Вензель

She looks in the book like into a mirror
The face of her sister is there
She wears daffodils in her hair

Вензель_нижний

by TETIANA ALEKSINA, TONY SINGLE & THOM TNKERR
© All rights reserved 2018

i may never

you died in the month of may, didn’t you
when you slipped and fell from the dead god’s hand
you knew then that you’d only led yourself astray
that silence was not the only silence

and all you could think to say
how is my life not mine
never have i deserved to die
never was i requested to live

you’re the once and ever failure, aren’t you
you never could shine as bright as they
all crafted jewel and curated moments
superior vessels built for purpose

and all you could think to say
how are these tears divine
never have i deserved to die
never was i requested to live

you’re the shadow that shrank behind, so you
became harrowed when tracing your heart song
and moths stole along, they ate your pockets
and then all of your dreams trailed sore away

and all you could think to say
i am the last of my kind
never have i deserved to die
never was i requested to live

by TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2018

don’t call us, we’ll call you

he goes away with a drooped head
followed by the eyes of alley cats
without applause, without flowers
his key monologue remains unsaid

he goes away in a fading ray
stepping over scattered set and props
and wind frays his shadow on the wall
like the theater bill of a failed play

by TETIANA ALEKSINA
© All rights reserved 2018