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Poem by Dr. Alok Kumar Ray – Let not give me Sermon! January 3, 2023

Posted by vscorpiozine in poems, poetry, Uncategorized, Veteran Poets.
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Let not give me Sermon!

Don’t you know, my soulmate
I am neither a habitual offender of casual type
Nor an escapist with utmost hype!
You know a little bit but very well
About me, my sense of both seriousness and humour,
My outer side that dazzles day in and day out.
My inner self that hides its face under the veil of dark paramount.
Gone are those days when though being matured by age,
I was also a novice of cent percentage.
Knew not I the prevailing atmosphere of selfishness at the core but philanthropic at the front galore.
You left me on the way,
Whether to perish or flourish,
The reasons you know the better,
How I can guess , what was the matter?
But your unprovoked indifference, being a silver lining
Gave me a lesson to learn
Don’t tell me like my grandmother,
Now everyday, at each moment of every journey I meet persons and events novel and unforeseen.
I very well know where exists the deadly manhole and also the footpath that resists the turmoil,
When to overtake at which juncture and when to say someone good bye with kind gesture,
Where the speed needs to be augmented and where the rumblers are sharp enough haunted.
The ups and downs of this road have opened up my eyes for good,
Now it’s hard for someone to deceive me in plentitude.
Even now you are not the right person for me to  sermoning,
May be one of my well-wishers whom I still love and beckoning.

Dr. Alok Kumar Ray

Bio-Note: Dr.Ray is a professor of Political Science and a bilingual poet who hails from Kendrapara district of Odisha in India..He has authored two poetry books in solo i.e. Sillage (in English) and Meghapanata (in Odia). He has edited one international bilingual poetry anthology named as Trouvaille. By profession he is an academician, but by passion he is a poet.

Poem by John Sweet – with broken wings, with bruised hearts December 29, 2022

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with broken wings, with bruised hearts

& the future is prisons, you see,
and the future is loss

let go of yr house, of yr
children, but hang onto the hatred
that defines you

give up christ

give up all those pretty songs
your mother used to sing

close in on holiness
like a soldier taking aim

Read more of John’s poetry at The Bleeding Horse, Avenged

Poetry by Luis Cuauhtémoc Berriozábal – Better Days and Biography December 15, 2022

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Better Days

I was less of myself 
from the days I was better.

The mirror did not lie.
I left my best days behind.

I waited for daylight,
dreaming of better days.

I knew that day would come.
More of me would return every

hour of every day.  The sun
would wash my eyes out and

return my soul that had left 
my body believing I had died.

I was less of myself
from the days I was better.

Biography

I know I was born
and I know I am still alive.
I am here to tell you about it.
When I was a child
I was raised by my grandparents.
I had a good life growing up.
Each day was better than the next.
I had yet to see the ocean
and death was not a thing I thought about.
It might as well been a wounded beast
moaning in pain and I would not have
recognized that sound. I lived a quiet life.
I lived an innocent life.
I played in the rain and never got sick.
I learned grammar in school.
I did not know I would be a writer.
As I grew older I experienced the deaths
of almost all the people that influenced me
the most. I have my mother still,
whom I love most of all. Without her my life
and those of my siblings would be in ruins.

BIO: Luis lives in California and works in the mental health field in Los Angeles. His poetry and artwork has appeared in Art:Mag, Medusa’s Kitchen, Nerve Cowboy, Rogue Wolf Press, and Venus in Scorpio Poetry E-Zine.

Poem by Sushant Thapa – Beautiful Melancholy December 10, 2022

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Beautiful Melancholy

Finding Lana Del Rey’s song
“Summertime Sadness” beautiful,
I spill my happiness.
My gates of misery
Are closed forever.
I have the spinning world
Under my feet.
The stars that miss the sun
Have awakened in the morning sky;
They are only unseen to your eyes.
My pure passionate heart
Has seen troubled arts
And have got drunk in
Their expressive happiness.
I get carried away by their
True expressions.
The cup of life,
Sugar-coated self
Is far untrue than a true sky
That pours melancholic rain.
Each time I turn the page
Love gets misread
In the unshared room of life.
I wait to dream again.
A drop of heaven
In liquefied and poured melancholy
Is what I read.
When the Himalaya misread my signs
I built a road to mount on it.
In shards of love, a poem
I shared wayback, I express
How melancholic a lover is
And at times how happy he is.
A mixture of imagination
And whistling wind
Carries the message of love
And scripts “Melancholic, but true.”
Freedom battles with melancholia
And reaches the soaring height of
Blue without pain.

Bio of the poet: Sushant Thapa is a Nepalese poet from Biratnagar, Nepal who holds a
Master’s degree in English literature from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi,
India.

He has published three books of poetry namely: The Poetic Burden and Other Poems
(Authorspress, New Delhi, 2020), Abstraction and Other Poems (Impspired, UK, 2021)
and Minutes of Merit (Haoajan, Kolkata, 2021).

Sushant has been published in places like The Gorkha Times, The Kathmandu Post,
The Poet Magazine, The Piker Press, Trouvaille Review, Lothlorien Poetry Journal,
Impspired, Harbinger Asylum, New York Parrot, Pratik Magazine, The Beatnik
Cowboy, The Dope Fiend Daily, Atunis Poetry, EKL Review, The Quiver Review,
Dissident Voice, As It Ought To Be Magazine
and International Times, among many.

He has also been anthologized in national and International anthologies. His poem is
also included in the Paragon English book for Grade 6 students in Nepal. He teaches
Business English to undergraduate level students of BBA and BIT at Nepal Business
College, Biratnagar, Nepal.

Winter-Poem by Jade Blackmore December 3, 2022

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It’s not cold enough at 50 degrees. The seasons are all mixed up.
We need a challenge, a thin sheet of ice, a specter from the sky.
A myopic wind chomping at the reigns.
Something to make the tribe tougher.

And then the window rattles you awake
To guarantee ice cube drudgery with each step.
The bridge across the river clotted with snow,
A crunchy and obstacle-ridden
reminder of your delicacy.
Square shards of ice in shoe corners, a numbing,

And then the reprieve –
A push through flimsy aluminum,
flesh crooked with cold pushes through to the crackle of home
The door hinge squeaks like a welcoming sigh
Then seals you into recovery,
A warm blast of love and soup.  

Poems by Luis Cuauhtémoc Berriozabal – The Finding and Heavy Baggage August 20, 2022

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The Finding

It is all in the finding.
It is in unearthing what
is lost. It is a matter of 
luck to find peace in
this world. Go on about
it. Go do what you will.
I am opening veins. I 
will not let the pain get
in the way. It is all about 
coming out of the hole.
It is in the way you fight.
Leave the past behind.
Bury the past if you must.
It is a lot to take in. Let
this finding commence.

Heavy Baggage 

I leave the heavy baggage at home.
It will remain there when I go back.
I leave it there in hope that someday 
there is a positive metamorphosis.

The baggage will be gone and I will 
no longer carry it around with me.

I want to feel light as a feather.
The weight has been dragging me down.
It will take a lot of luck and work.
My baggage is an anchor on my soul.
It is nothing to take lightly.
I only have so much time left.

Bio:

Luis lives in California and works in the mental health field in Los Angeles. His poetry and artwork has appeared in Art:Mag, Medusa’s Kitchen, Nerve Cowboy, Rogue Wolf Press, and Venus in Scorpio Poetry E-Zine.

Poems by John Grey – Why Bother? and The Honeymoon Mystery August 15, 2022

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WHY BOTHER

Why bother waking up
from your afternoon nap?
There’s some kids outside
tormenting a dying bird.

A nap is to be contented in.
To enter a world where birds sing,
don’t crawl broken-winged across the sidewalk
while being poked by sticks.

Being awake, you report to the open window
and scream at the urchins down below.
They laugh at you, old man.
Why bother waking up your impotency?

THE HONEYMOON MYSTERY

You were into some amazing secret
that is often hinted at but never revealed.
It is inconceivably sacred.
Incredibly precious.

There were times I thought it was mere coincidence
that I was lying on the bed beside you.
I certainly wasn’t the fruit of the holy.
The mystery no heart can fathom or tongue relate.

Byzantine? I was half-undressed.
Pagan ceremony? I wrapped an arm around you.
Templar and Cathar? I held you close to me.
But what was that shining dimly in the background?

Your hand was host enough.
Your body made for an elegant cross.
We were in a cheap hotel room in Phoenix.
Not in the midst of some Arthurian legend.

It was 1987. The object in question, a honeymoon.
I don’t think we failed in our quest.

BIO

John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident, recently published in Sheepshead Review, Stand, Poetry Salzburg Review and Hollins Critic. Latest books, “Leaves On Pages” “Memory Outside The Head” and “Guest Of Myself” are available through Amazon. Work upcoming in Ellipsis, Blueline and International Poetry Review.

Poem by Jade Blackmore – A Man of Some Renown July 24, 2022

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He was a man of some renown in certain circles. All the crusty bohemians, naïve wanna-bes, and adjuncts to the rich and famous crossed paths with him. You’d find him at blueblood soirees, art galleries, and biker bars.

“I met this guy in the Village,” someone would say, and drop his name, with no description or story attached.  And their friends would chime in with unbridled enthusiasm.  “Yeah, I know, he’s an asshole” “He owes me money!” or “A girl I work with is his mistress. He treats her like shit.”

But when he died, everybody was ready with a sound bite.

“He was an outstanding guy, a real trailblazer” they all agreed, “We’ll miss him.

Poem by Sushant Thapa- Silent Song June 24, 2022

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The evening moon seems so late tonight
The stars seem too shy to shine
There is no goodbye song sung by birds of dusk
I am waiting with my heart
You haven’t written to me for so long
Your old alphabets are my consolations.
I would while away my time, but you would
Not be wiped from my wandering mind.
The distance seems so near in my memory
But you are not present.
The flame of your absence
Provides me brighter lights of loneliness.
No, this is not a song of detachment
It is a silent song of longing and
Its music is love.
Although, I do not live with emblems of love
I hear you have become words
So, I continue to write about you.
You have forgotten the way to your heart.
Speak not of dreams, and meet me
In my silence.

Bio:

Sushant Thapa is a Nepalese poet from Biratnagar, Nepal who holds a Master’s
degree in English literature from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India.
He has published three books of poetry namely: The Poetic Burden and Other Poems (Authorspress, New Delhi, 2020), Abstraction and Other Poems (Impspired, UK, 2021) and Minutes of Merit (Haoajan, Kolkata, 2021).

Sushant has been published in places like The Gorkha Times, The Kathmandu Post, The Poet Magazine, The Piker Press, Trouvaille Review, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Impspired, Harbinger Asylum, New York Parrot, Pratik Magazine, The Beatnik Cowboy, The Dope Fiend Daily, Atunis Poetry, EKL Review, The Quiver Review, Dissident Voice, As It Ought To Be Magazine and International Times, among many.

He has also been anthologized in national and International anthologies. His poem is also included in Paragon English book for Grade 6 students in Nepal. He teaches Business English to undergraduate level students of BBA and BIT at Nepal Business College, Biratnagar, Nepal.

Poems – Sleepless Again and Good Days by Luis Cuauhtémoc Berriozabal  May 10, 2022

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Sleepless Again

Sleepless again,
awake at the witching hour,
an everyday thing,
no  wonder I seem so tired.
I read and watch tv
like I have all the time in the world.
My thoughts are all scrambled.
Who knows when I will fall asleep.

I heard the birds
and their late night songs.
Nature is beautiful.
I sit down to write.
Gathering words,
I throw them against the wall.

Night is when I write
the small poems.
I go to outer space spaces.
I cut things short.

Good Days

Good days stray.
Bad days stay.
One day things 
will balance.

Before then,
them bad days
know they are
killing it.

know they arekilling it.

That gets me
down. It hurts.
Help does not
seem to come.

Waterfall tears.
Arms hanging.
At times these
moments stray.

Today is
a good day.
Said as much
yesterday.

Give it time.
You know well
something else
is coming.

Do not fret.
It happens.
It is life
testing you.

Remain strong
in your mind
and hope for
the good days.

BIO:
Luis lives in California and works in the mental health field in Los Angeles. His poems have appeared in Escape Into Life, Live Nude Poems, Mad Swirl, Unlikely Stories, and Venus in Scorpio Poetry E-Zine.