O Sweet Flowery Roses is an award winner!

The Art of Definition, in conjunction with the open-minded, free spirited nature of poetry and communication inherently underlying the poetry blog community, has given us a TOTALLY SWEET AWARD! This is the Premio Arte Y Pico award...an award we can really be proud of. Why? Because it's an award by a poet reading poetry who reads this site. This award represents the spirit of O Sweet Flowery Roses; it's a do-it-yourself way to insert oneself into the arts community, which is not a community of closed mindedness and social snobbery. Rather, this award places a reader and writer in the valued role of critic and respectable authoritarian, while also taking presumptive measures to place O Sweet Flowery Roses in the role of arts journal worthy of criticism. This is fun, excellent news. It means a lot to be a part of something creative like this, wherein critics are not necessarily highfalutin, scrutionous hawks high atop some pre-existing aerie of poetic tradition and legacy. A critic, just like a poet, artist, writer, et. al. can be anybody responding. Keep reading and please...keep submitting! We have some things coming up but more things wanted. If you are reading and haven't submitted...why not take a walk on the flowery side? Best, Russell Jaffe

Featured Poet: Paul Stevens

"Paul Stevens was born in UK but lives in Australia. He teaches English Literature, and has published verse and prose in a number of online journals, including Poemeleon, The Centrifugal Eye, CounterPunch, The New Formalist, Shattercolors, Sliptongue, WORM, Snakeskin, The Road Not Taken, Lighten Up, The Argotist, Southern Ocean Review, 14by14 and Contemporary Sonnet, as well as in print. In penance for his many sins he founded and edits The Chimaera Literary Miscellany and The Shit Creek Review. " ~~~ Dendrophilia Eye to eye tracks as the heliotrope, sunlight ripples ticklish on their skin; her touch on his touch, phototactic, sticks. They bathe in energy, their element: sky trickling liquid down bare branches, earth fingering upward through deep roots; buds and foliage spring from manic fingers, hands become the very fruit they reach for: sense, exactly, what sense apprehends. Engrafting difference of sex and soul - stock to scion, trunk to shaggy trunk - they have become a paragon of plants, all-sensitive, to sway, to sway, through tight circadian rhythms: light, then dark, then light. ~~~ Einar's feast The food a shining glory, shafted through by this fierce spear of light from where the roof gave way to nature or the work of men; a mess of offal strikingly arranged across the table in the greater hall; the drumsticks, sinews, torn spine of a fowl ; a tumbled horn, sour beer to drip and splash; a rended loaf; a disembowelled swine , garlands of sweetbreads, kidneys, livers, brains, with tripes and gizzards wound in artful skeins: steaming to charm the spiteful rafter gods who gaze down from their paradise of dust: slice by slice, a flesh feast of pain— and Halfdan, carved, blood-eagled, as the main. ~~~ The Misty Path A walker faded down a misty path. At dawn I left White Emperor City. The pack-ice cracked, the weather turned to steel. I met a traveller from an antique land. I met a pilgrim in the jungle steam, beneath the canopy of jewelled birds where syrup-songs dripped guano cool as bells. Death watches me from the towers of Córdoba. As my soul bent towards the East, I met a lady in the meads, who made sweet moan. I've seen the starry archipelagos; the beast that bears me plods dully on. In Southwark, at the Tabard as I lay, a friend showed me the way to Hell or Heaven: her locks were yellow gold, her looks were free. I met three witches on the heath near Forres. There's a killer nel cammin di nostra vita: his mind is squirming; countless roads diverge. I heard twa corbies making mane; I met a wanderer on Ilkley Moor baht 'at: I have no way, and therefore want no eyes. Twice, gloriously, across the Achéron, I met a pieman, going to the fair, a man upon the stairs who wasn't there, and he hath led me through the watery maze. I walked into Charleroi, to the Green Inn, and met myself returning to myself: hence is it, that I'm carried to the west, late surfer on the last wave to shore. As I came over Windy Gap, I rode the King's Highway, Baby, wandered lonely as a cloud to where there ain't no snow. Who is it who can tell me where I am? A walker faded down a misty path.

Featured Poet: C.B. Anderson

"C.B. Anderson was the longtime gardener for the PBS television series, The Victory Garden. Fingers once stained with soil and weed sap now bear traces of ink. In the past five years over two hundred of his poems have been published in dozens of print and online journals, including 14 by 14, Innisfree, Lucid Rhythms, The Raintown Review, Harp-Strings, Nassau Review, Hidden Oak and Shit Creek Review. "

Time Slips Honey

One rose sniff down a dreary lane, embalmed

in butter. Wonder if you'll feel the same

when heavy-laden treasure ships becalmed

tomorrow founder off the proper name

of your employer. Sand is not a type

of footing only found on paper; it's

geography ground fine, a lemon ripe

for picking from the many little bits

of history we remember: citrus dreams

encumbered with an extra load of twine

and paper clips. The world is as it seems,

and all the errors it contains are mine.

The two of us should congregate more often,

before the natal cradle comes a coffin.

I Stand Around

And Time, imperious magistrate

of all that is,

Oppresses subjects he seems to hate --

advantage: his.

Morphing wordage he's been known to phuk

with is fodder

For logophagic legions that truck

someone's daughter

To the entrance of a slaughterhouse

where the charnel

Conventions of blood-letting will douse

the proud carnal

Conflagrations everyone's worried

about. And I

Look back to the past I thought buried

beneath the sky

And find it wanting, but not without

veins of merit

That my own offspring someday, no doubt,

will inherit.

Ruth

There stood Ruth, aloof.

I struggled to uncover her untruth,

but could discover none.

She didn't seem to mind when I approached her,

and needed little coaching when I touched

her beating heart and made her part

of every dream I'd ever played

inside the chamber of my head.

The lead had turned to gold,

to amber, raven, ruby, pink

and other colors (had I paused to think)

no spectral palette's broad enough to hold.

toeknuckles touching tooth

roof of southward searching

mouth unbuckled froth

she roared a blinding

un-uncled hard landing

finding, finding, finding...

I mumbled out a bit of witless babble,

and then she told me that she had to travel,

today -- her plane was leaving in an hour.

And that was that: So long, I'm scratchin' gravel.

It bothered me, the way she hurried off,

but nothing like the days and weeks and months

until I learned to laugh again, to scoff

at my unraveling, to swallow lunch.

The Christmas after, I was hoping for

a miracle -- another rising star

to dawn into my life, a future wife

perhaps -- before my faith had lapsed too far.

Was ever there a god who walked this earth?

I heard some knocking, stuffed my empty stockings

and shuffled through the hall and to the door.

I opened it and nearly hit the roof!

There stood Ruth, the living proof.

Featured Poet: Ken Pobo

"About me: Tangerines, cats, “She’s Got The Time” by The Poor, salmon-colored balsam, the 80s garage band revival, Ingmar B, fantasy: Marc Bolan and I in the cramped back seat of a planet, rain with attitude."

JUST SHY OF THE RAINBOW

The director calls me to the set. I’m

Dorothy—a tough acting job

for a fifty-four year old man.

It’s the scene where the twister’s

dashing up fast and I can’t open

the storm cellar door. John McCain

walks up behind me and opens it,

says I’d look better in a suit. I say

he’d look better in a dress.

Auntie Em’s head pops up

and says, A fuckin’ storm’s

biting your asses—get in here.

Okay. John says he prefers

war pictures. Well, we all

take roles we don’t like,

right? Uncle Henry smokes pot.

Toto barks I want to be a poodle.

“You Can’t Always Get What You Want”

will be dubbed into

the soundtrack. Cut. We go

to our dressing rooms. The director

enters mine and blows me

twice. He’s nice. But demanding.

I’m going to be a star! Kansas

will wiggle its ruby ass

and I’ll come running—

there’s no place like home.

I LOVE LUCY, CANCELLED AFTER HALF AN EPISODE

Look, you prick, either I get to be on your show

or I’ll leave you.

Go ahead, leave.

Slam. Door closes.

Cancelled.

CRIME SCENE

You say I’ll kill you

if you don’t like “Puppet Man”

by the 5^th Dimension. I say:

Do your worst. You do.

Your worst. I’m dead.

Close-up on the body

being wheeled out

on the 10 p.m. report.

A news personality asks

a neighbor: Are you

upset? No, the neighbor,

Mr. Felch, says. You get

a suspended sentence.

The Judge thinks I made you

do it. He did the same thing

to his wife who baldly claimed

she disliked “Crystal

Blue Persuasion.” I hear

well in my coffin. The scuttlebutt

is that you’ve found

another lover. You dance

and dance to the 5D. But I wait.

You haven’t asked him yet about

“Things I’d Like To Say”

Featured Poet: Benjamin Nardolilli

"Benjamin Nardolilli is a twenty three year old writer currently living in New York City. His work has appeared in Houston Literary Review, Perigee Magazine, Canopic Jar, and Lachryma: Modern Songs of Lament, Baker’s Dozen, Thieves Jargon, Farmhouse Magazine, Poems Niederngasse, The Delmarva Review, Clockwise Cat, Sheroes Rag, Literary Fever, and Perspectives Magazine. In addition he was the poetry editor for West 10th Magazine at NYU and maintains a blog at mirrorsponge.blogspot.com." A Prayer Submission Re: Your Prayer, Thank you for thinking of me, I see that you have really Done your research! Unfortunately The market for this is cluttered With a million other suppositions, The gift you sent, is appreciated, But ultimately I am going To have to pass on this prayer, It just doesn’t fit with the scope I am trying to erect, of course You could try one of the subsidiaries, As this is just one deities’ position. Scent The heavy air one wears Around himself, And the invisible halo she weaves, These stink, But the scent of a hundred thousand Cries out and must be christened Perfume. Floss The toothless gain nothing, Day to day, they strive And fail to conquer, They build empires Of paper teeth, flammable incisors, Molars made of tissue, They can scare, But never occupy, They’re blown away Before they can stay.

Featured Poet: Juliet Cook

"Juliet Cook is a poet and the editor of Blood Pudding Press. A few of her recent publication credits include ‘DIAGRAM’, ‘OCTOPUS’, ‘Spooky Boyfriend’, ‘Taiga’ and ‘blossombones’. Some of her print chapbooks can be acquired via www.BloodPuddingPress.etsy.com

. Her first e-chapbook, ‘Projectile Vomit’, is forthcoming from Scantily Clad Press—and another print chapbook, ‘Gingerbread Girl’ is forthcoming from Trainwreck Press. Her first full-length book is slinking around, mewling and hissing and seeking a peculiar home." SLUMBER PARTY SCANDAL 1. cheerleader/lawnmower mishap she used to be a cheerleader now she’s a gimp dragging that past behind her like some parasitic umbilicus disguised with pink nail polish dragging that hacked-up left leg behind her like some pep rally back of skirt menstrual blood blurt phantom limb of a split jump off that human pyramid period in which his fingers slid into her panties as she tried to keep her balance on the top feeling like some tainted christmas tree angel burnt cookies slimy salt lick when they were expecting a sugar cube trail (in the dreams the girls are dogs with coagulated fur and blood-stained nails straining against choke collars baring their teeth barking at her in the dreams his fingers are blades at first she thought the girls were barking CUT HER! like a threat but they were really barking CUTTER! like an accusation as if she sucked his fingers in there on purpose with her whirring underside with the burning rubber of her flesh) now it’s gingerbread house crashing and all the other girls at the slumber party neatly file to the restroom to purge the pieces of her out of their aerosol halos even their vomiting is petite saccharine sweet a hushed chorus of whispered secrets she wears the smallest bra she doesn’t know how to use tampons her golden brown tan is fake she doesn’t even know how to put on the brakes she slips some nail polish remover into the lemon cupcakes To a Modern Dance Soundtrack Another ballerina malfunctions and her pointe shoes send shards of pink shrapnel into the crowd. Her toes couldn’t take the pressure. Our voyeuristic vitreous humor streams down cheeks, soaks the plush velvet of theater seats until we are sitting on red sponges, gumming soggy popcorn, no longer able to see her suppurating stumps, her sequined tantrum— puppet strings jerking mutant limbs. A pervert’s eyeballs pop like a soft atomizer squeeze & the whole auditorium fills with the aroma of wormy cheese. Her phalanges twitch every which way. Little sausages splitting out of casings. Recombining in different forms. Recombinant DNA, gene splicing, string theory, finger sandwiches dangling from tiny nooses, fingering of crumbs from puckering eyeholes. During intermission we will be fitted with our 3-D glass eyes and mind boggling electrodes. The better to watch her die. Smoosh How did that sticky gaggle grope its way out of its crimped-tight packaging? Don’t they know they can’t escape the hue of artificial fruit and spoiled milk? Just who do they think they are, getting carried away in this queasiness-inducing parade: Circus Peanuts with centipede legs, Circus Peanuts with tiny fright wigs, Circus Peanuts in heat, trying to mate with the crayfish of the murky creek bed, with the sickly sweet roil of fake banana etouffee. Is that a banana in your pocket or are you just smuggling a Circus Peanut injected with human growth hormone? Are you linked to the black market trade of glowing Circus Peanut Fetal Pigs, planted into the bellies of Visible Woman Model Kits (with Pregnancy Option included) so that grade school kids can pluck them out and practice a new breed of dissection? Scythe off their ooey gooey heads— so chewy, so plush, so stuck between teeth like a sugary snuff. How does that taste, little girl? Like a squishy orange polliwog bluff, they keep giggling and squiggling in increasingly iffy incarnations, growing too legion for the ranks of transparent anatomically correct female abdomens. Now we’re substituting Visible Horse Anatomy Model Kits or Transparent Roswell Alien Models for the pregnant women. Just who do these in utero mutations think they are, or maybe it’s the conniving uteri themselves, popping out Circus Peanuts with nipple clamps and decorative ruching or are those surgical incision scars? Circus Peanuts with club feet and tiny crutches or are they Circus Peanuts AS tiny crutches? Either way, we can’t risk a Circus Peanut insurgency. This Circus Peanut infestation must be stopped. Do you want Circus Peanuts leaving their gelatin droppings inside your designer high-heeled shoes? Do you want to give birth to a slime-encased Circus Peanut, then be tempted to cannibalize that malformed marshmallow fluff? Do you want to turn into a fat orange frump, a sugar-laden shapeless blob, a cheap candy nightmare spawn with engorged Circus Peanuts where your heart belongs?

Featured Poet: J.H. Hobson

"J H Hobson is, dear readers, a poet of many faces. One of which is green with blobby pink features. You may find J H Hobson's work in many great and respected poetry journals. Then again, you may not."

J. H. Hobson doesn't give a fuck about being in journals or having his poems shoot through the hierarchical tubes of the publishing world like so much waste through a sewage system. Why? Because he's a bowling ball with a pink playdough face.

O Ow

Cow should rhyme with snow

So

I say now

I'll say snow:

Snouw.

*

Outlaw Gunslinger Poem,

Showing Crime, Punishment and Remorse

Bang!

Hang.

.............dang.

*

Surprise

A saltine cracker,

broken and crumbled,

inside the box.

What's left of it

looks like the head of

a tan and toasty hobgoblin

and

reminds me that no matter

how far we go,

no matter how brightly lit the tables

are of the kitchens

where we eat our dead and processed foods,

there lurks--

at the root of it all,

still alive in the shadows,

and in the boxes:

our ancient

and lightly salted past.

Featured Poet: Alfonso Colasuonno

"Alfonso Colasuonno is a 24-year old native New Yorker. He is a graduate of Beloit College with a BA in Creative Writing. He is currently working as a special education teacher in the New York City public school system, while simultaneously working towards his MS in Adolescent Special Education at Long Island University within the NYC Teaching Fellows program. In his creative pursuits, he primarily works within the mediums of screenplays and traditional prose, but is currently experimenting with poetry. " Editors note: Alfonso, a good friend of the OSFR editorial team and new poet, absolutely tore it up at the OSFR reading as a last minute replacement for Robert Voris, who was unable to attend. Alfonso's poetry represents a lot about the spirit of this site...he doesn't write lots of poetry, but he gave it a try, and then he was given a platform on which to stand and share it. It's too bad other poetry journals don't do that. Too bad indeed. Social Significance This poem is not socially significant. This poem won't make you think about the human condition. This poem won't alter your perceptions of reality like a drug that comes on slowly and then swiftly rushing into your bloodstream at 2 AM on a Saturday night in a nameless Midwestern college town surrounded by fields of wheat after a couple of rounds at the local pub that doesn't check IDs with the shamrock lit up in front with the Budweiser insignia on it. This poem is NYC since Rudy G. phallic skyscrapers piercing grey sky cunt delancey without ebon faced teenage hookers bensonhurst without sallow Mafiosi Williamsburg without tall bearded Israelites in fifties hats and suits alphabet city without heroin thin leather jacket mohawks. Hopelessly 21st century white out-of-touch with the streets male middle-class goyish upbringing bar hopping suit wearing upright citizen obama loving liberal arts college lack of culture useless dreck waste of time waste of space banned from the canon. An exercise in hopeless vanity. Art for commerce's sake. This poem is not (so)cially significant. I Hate Poetry Boring depictions of natural life flowers gardens pastoral settings classed mentality. What relation does that have to us in the city selling souls punching clocks? Woolf wrote beautifully. But works can't speak without a voice. Or any semblance of plot. College lecturers continue teaching to vapid careerists in lecture halls seating 500 Staring bored blank-eyed blasted by the ejaculated cacophonous voices making up this public circle jerk. A Creative Writing degree means that you have successfully learned how to type mediocre drivel. But it rhymes! It rhymes! Iambic pentameter. You can follow conventions You can join the work force Fight in wars Be a cop. Wear ties with smoking twin towers and "We will never forget" looking down at Art history philosophy degree from Reed Antioch Evergreen Oberlin Grinnell Carleton Beloit at job interviews in soaring office towers. It rhymes! A Love Poem to RJ Reynolds (8/15-17/08) Marlboro Lights are like smoking air. Marlboro Reds are as harsh as unfiltered Lucky Strikes. Winstons are addictive as hell. Nat Shermans are smooth but expensive. American Spirits are for hippies and you have to double puff. Parliaments have funny looking filters. Pall Mall Reds are decent but I feel like my grandfather when I smoke them. Basics USA Golds even Dorals are way too cheap tasting and burn too fast. I can't roll my own cigarettes and Drum tastes like crap anyway. Camel Lights Camel Filters Camel Turkish Gold as long as it's not mentholated. The mix of Virginia and Turkish tobacco creates a new race. All the cool kids artists writers fashionistas baristas college dilettantes smoke Camels. Joe Camel is a wickedly funny mascot stared at by students with lopsided grins on rich kid day old laptops in prison cell rooms in glorified bomb shelter dorms with trash bins filled with smashed Keystone Light cans and bottles of Carlo Rossi filled with cigarette butts. Camel, of course. If I had never smoked Camels I would have quit a lot sooner.

Featured Poet: Gene Wagendorf III

"Gene Wagendorf III is student and grifter from Chicago. He loves the beach, but hates water. On a good day his work smells like bowling alleys and sounds like old typewriters. When he's not writing he spends his time complaining about the city-wide smoking ban, working with Write For A Change, and trying to find poker games full of flounders. His work has appeared in issues of Kill Poet, Word Riot, Vowel Movements, Robot Communism and Verve." Technically, we're all dead "Technically we are all dead this is my own thought! a hail of hell! Saint Dionysius reminds us of flight to unknowable Knowledge the doctrine of initiates completes the meditation!" - Phil Lamantia Born under the liberal western sun A 1927 son of magic and myths Spawned under Pan's gleaming eye Let loose on a world aroused enough To inspire you with a View of Dali And allow a laminated playground for creation A supermarket Adonis toting cucumbers and pears Sneaking snaps of onion in the backrooms Of Blue Collar cathedrals Scribbling looping words on thin trees Mapping out phosphorus kisses Winking feedback soaked sockets Conjuring up surreal whipped portraits Of existence and the nuts and bolts of the world You boarded the most challenging platforms in search Of a new perspective for thought Another angle at which to consider the business Of human life Muddled by the tension between earth’s aches and The simple and elegant beauty of private moments Your words soared across sand-speckled pomegranate skies And creaking saline floors where ancient secrets Manifested into hallucinogenic dreams of children As of yet unbaptized by the terrors of absurdity Never a spoken word caught in its own meat saying nothing You both pulverized and delicately wielded The velvet lips of time And rubbed the innocent belly of the universe With the affection of a mother wondering where her child will go in the world And the universe wondered back And your travels have been crimson dyed in the burning gas giants of heaven And you've left us with a silent legacy of inspection And an unmasking of societal insanity And the overwhelming joy of floating in no current What I hope you find now is a cloud to sit on Some honorable place in the afterlife with a telescope to watch When five years from now a kid discovers you Creeping in some narcotic night Sneaking glances from behind melting monuments of lust And separation Finds himself glued to the pages you dropped along your path Eating every peyote syllable Digesting and sizzling from every pore of his body Without the background required to miss you When the kid yammers about meeting you And reads your poems to his friends in a forest at midnight Burning the tips of his fingers with matches to see Every spot of ink on the page Hissing and crackling like holy fireworks Splashing bliss before the open curtains Of his eyes Another voluntary synesthesia The head shaking youth bubbling glow Of the eternal life of language pouring out of someone new And how you've captured them And how you project through every questioning body To pick up a copy of Sphinxes In this I think you'll beat what was meant a compliment The day they hailed you as "a voice that rises once in a hundred years" Because every time a kid doesn't know you don't exist But you do And the slippery English thaws into his brain Or tumbles out of his clumsy mouth Your voice volcanoes up And bridges the gap Between the dual personalities of the world you struggled to paste together And the generations lost inside it ... anything is not right so layitonme i'm elliptical moonshine light glowing before you stop what? yr doing b r e a t h e cancel remarks, abstain- bad sex bad sex bad sex sexsexsex boom... tinker with machines long enough and they'll blow quack and cover puritan bombs exploding bemoaning belittling bewitching just bitching the fire is going out and with it the (inner)light i cannot wield this pen(is) without comparison to dead language dead men dead laws dead ideology putting a hand over my mouth and a bleep in my speach my dotdotdots lay stagnant as i watch a zombie christ parade down michigan avenue and nobody says anything (worth saying) i've given up rather be in bed late nights planning out later breakfasts a she and a mattress making a sandwich of me all ham&cheese and saving some for the poor youknowthere'

schildrenstarvinginchina? in hell (just down the street) ink can't scratch out spoken word and i've no podium if ignorance is bliss than instant gratification is patriotism so just jot me down for another dotdotdot and don't tell me twice because i've heard it all before Dorothy yr grim face in mosaics like a stalking tiger watching me teeth gnarled and anxious yr eyes sizzling discontent wincing in pain, brows furrowed cringing at being as if there's no place like home noplacelikehome noplacelikehome noplacelikehome

Featured Poet: Pamela Tyree Griffin

“According to her mother, Pamela Tyree Griffin has been reading and writing since the age of five and has been unable to stop. Pamela's work may be found in many online and print publications. Her finest work? Her children.” As always, Mother knows best. But what Mother doesn't know is that the O Sweet Flowery Roses editorial staff does not care about attachements or poems in the bodies of emails. Please do either. All we ask is that you send it in a word attachement or within the body of an email, no wacky other formats. O Sweet Flowery Roses is hitting the biggest strides of its short lifespan. Our first reading was an intimate and awesome event; the poets were fantastic, the space was cool, and the entire thing was taped for public access here in NYC. Stay tuned for artist compilations from that reading, which will be available on Youtube! Yes, the easiest and best way to see videos just got a little more sweet, flowery, and O. And roses. Please enjoy Pamela's poems, and keep sending. Something else that needs to be mentioned: the volume of submissions is at an all time high. If you don't see your poems on the site within a week, be patient! They will make it. Everyone makes it in this journal. We wouldn't have it any other way. HIS STRAWBERRY DAY Before he died he asked for a bowl of strawberries. He knew he should not have them But he said "What the heck - Death is coming no matter what I eat." So I went down by the woods at the edge of our property - just where the sun touches the fallen pine cones and the soft breezes bend the tall grasses before dusk. No bucket - so in My crisp, white cotton apron I carried as many strawberries as I could pick. My hands were stained red- my mouth too because I ate almost as many as I carried. I returned to the house, dumped them unceremoniously into the kitchen sink to wash. He said, "Did you get 'em?" In response, I brought him a large bowl filled to the overflowing. And so before he died, we ate those strawberries, slowly through one silent hour. When months later, he was gone- I thought- Everybody should have a strawberry day before they must leave this world. ANNE Sometime during the 1500's, King Henry The Eighth had his wife Anne Boleyn beheaded. Had I known, that serving your desires would have meant the surrender of my own, would I have so calmly given my soul before your sturdy throne? Had I known that the cost of becoming Queen, would not equal any finely tapestried wall, sturdy hewn floor, or meal of quail and pheasant, would any one thing have changed? Had I known that my end would come with my bowing before the waiting axe, it would not have mattered. I, despite your rough handling of my heart, would still have come to you. EMMA Emma called it a wind chime. "See?" she said and showed us a bunch of gnarled twigs knotted together with bits of discarded yarn and bottle caps stolen from the rubbish. She perched near the top of a swaying tree. "See?" she said, hanging it there. Then teetered Emma in its branches and chirped, "See?" she said pointing to her object d’art just before she toppled down to earth. Her chimes became the scratching song of things invisible.

Post-Reading Fallout

The first OSFR reading is all over! And the dust has settled on a kick ass time, great poetry, and the foundations for a new reading series. And the best news? PUBLIC ACCESS NYC! OSFR is leaping into this new age of televisied vision, or TV for short. A compilation of our first reading is in the works with NYC public access. Stay tuned for more. Thanks to Christine Hamm, David Tamura, Sean Frasier, and last minute additions Alfonso Colasuonno and Branden Morel for a helluva reading! Stay tuned for more poets, more expansion, and more flowery revolution! -Russell

Featured Poet: Rose Kelleher

"Rose Kelleher grew up in Massachusetts and lives in Maryland. She has worked as a technical writer and programmer, and authored four computer books. Since rediscovering poetry in recent years, Rose has published poems and essays in a variety of magazines, including Anon, Atlanta Review, and the Dark Horse, and been nominated twice for the Pushcart Prize. Her first book of poems, Bundle o' Tinder, won the 2007 Anthony Hecht Poetry Prize and will be published by Waywiser Press this fall." Luny Terzanelle for Orwn The Sea of Nectar, darling, it's so beautiful this time of year! Just play it safe--stay at the Ritz. The Marsh of Mists? Too late--I fear it's gone downhill. It used to be so beautiful this time of year. Lacus Mortis? Goodness me, it's deadly dull, a crashing bore. It's gone downhill. It used to be delightful! Now it's just a chore, like Palus Nebularium. So deadly dull! A crashing bore. Palus Epidemarium? You must be mad! It's even worse than Palus Nebularium! (But if you go, do bring a nurse.) The Sea of Nectar, darling, it's the best, though hardest on the purse. Just play it safe--stay at the Ritz. Resistance Unfletched an arrow flies but rarely hits the mark; restrained it goes directly to the heart. It’s in gripping the bow and tightening the slack the archer makes an art of hold- ing back. Submission Having just slain the dragon in its lair, he’s slick with sweat and blood, and striped with weals where fiery tongue met iron mail. His hair is singed, he’s dizzy with fatigue, he reels and almost passes out, but doesn’t dare. Instead he lays a sack of bullion down, as much as he could carry back; reveals the password, but no word of his ordeals; and begging the forgiveness of the crown, lowers his eyes before the queen, and kneels.

What's this? Rose gets ONE MORE POEM? WHY? Well, because it's a onesie twosie, our first one not written by Becky or myself. They Keep Biting His Ears lucky mosquitoes

Featured Poet: Barry Frauman

“The workshop director of Chicago’s NewTown Writers, Barry Frauman has written numerous short poems, as well as longer verse narratives, which include WEST-EAST AND SHORTER POEMS, a gay male romance between an American and a Taiwanese, published in 2003 by Xlibris Corp, and the self-published SONS OF NEW TOWN, celebrating life in the area of Chicago for which NewTown Writers is named. He is working on a verse narrative LIONHEART, on England’s crusader King Richard.” Just one poem here from Barry Frauman, but it’s an epic. We embrace all kinds here, from epics to Onsie-Twosies. And that reminds me: don’t feel shy to send attempts at poetic constraint games and activities you see on this site. T Minus 6 days to the reading… .

Featured Poet: Nathan Logan

"Nathan Logan is the editor of Spooky Boyfriend and a MFA candidate at Minnesota State University Moorhead. His work has appeared in/is forthcoming from Literary Tonic, No Posit, The Scrambler, Sir!, and Superficial Flesh." Spooky Boyfriend is an awesome, hip, kick-ass journal and I suggest everyone read it, memorize it, and commit revolutionary acts, citing it as the catalyst. Please enjoy the poems. And the reading is SATURDAY! $2 CHEAP! Florida A cream-colored llama stares at me from under a string of non-blinking white Christmas lights, so I know the neighbors are home. That llama is only outside when Betty and Ted go to Dutch Delight Party House, which is the safest swingers club in the state. Their kids are cool with it apparently, but they’ve got issues too. Their oldest runs an alligator beauty contest from the middle of the Everglades. (The winner becomes a nice pair of boots.) The second child haunts Daytona Beach in the spring, tries selling vibrating condoms and seashells to the oily, overexcited Midwestern co-eds. As if they need the help; all kinds of shit, palm trees, tangerines, etc., take to the air whenever hurricanes get lonely for people. …But it’s A Dry Heat Conquest is a type of quest, Tori hardly explains. We’re both standing in the bedroom, her hand clawed over my heart. It doesn’t sound like a nice kind of quest, I tell her. An overhead fan spins, the sheets sputter. Her little Pomeranian sits motionless outside the door, waiting. Waiting for what? A jeep cruises past the window, pounding some beats into our bloodstreams. Palms across the street wave goodbye. At 12:47pm on June 15th, 2004, in Gilbert, Arizona, I get what is meant by “dry heat.” The Grapecrushers The grapes have grown grim. Grapecrushers around the county are sad. With no grapes, they spend their daze in the beauty salon remembering "the good 'ole days," whatever those were. I don't remember any time in which grapes were happy, danced off their vines under moonlight, enjoyed fancy cocktails downtown. Maybe the season has made the grapecrushers delusional, altered their memories so that they think that at one time, forty years ago, they enjoyed their work and relished any occasion to get dirty among the rows of succulent fruit. They're so convinced of this, I almost forget the truth myself: there are no grapes in Howard County. Only squash patches.

Featured Poet: Michael Lee Johnson

"Michael Lee Johnson is a poet and freelance writer from Itasca, Illinois. He is the author of The Lost American: from Exile to Freedom, http://www.iuniverse.com/bookstore/book_detail.asp?isbn=0-595-46091-7. He has also published two chapbooks of poetry and is presently looking for a publisher for two more. He has been published in USA, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, Scotland, Turkey, Fiji, Nigeria, Algeria, Africa, India, United Kingdom, Republic of Sierra Leone, Nepal, Thailand, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Finland, and Poland internet radio. Michael Lee Johnson has been published in more than 240 different publications worldwide. Audio MP3 of poems are available on request.He is also publisher and editor of four poetry flash fiction sites--all presently open for submission:http://birdsbywindow.blogspot.com/ http://www.poetriclegacy.mysite.com/ http://atendertouch.blogspot.com/ http://wizardsofthewind.blogspot.com/Author website: http://poetryman.mysite.com/" Besides doing a little extra-cirricular shilling for Michael Lee Johnson's salvo of blogs and web pages, I have managed to pluck these poems from his submission of more than three, which may or may not have been culled from dozens of different countries spanned through hundreds of auditory and visual communicative realms. Nevertheless, there were other poems I liked, but I had to make the final call as Editor ULTIMO. But these three were my favorite...and I absolutely could not NOT publish a poem beginning, "I'm going to take Islam where their God has not before-" Remember, readers. Everyone gets three. You want three more, you gotta submit again. In the Garden Where the Flowers Grow I'm going to take Islam where their God has not been before- to the garden of Jesus, olive oil presses, Gethsemane-- trees, flowers, fruits, vegetables didn't poison anyone there. Passion was sweat on the ground and brow. There weren't darts of hate, misconception or terrorism; children on their knees five times a day brainwashed to hate. Christ didn't lead them astray nor make them pagan pink. There is no God apart from Allah, and Mohammed is the Prophet, but it's Jesus who makes the garden grow with or without water. Then and now the apples grow in my garden of forgiveness. Figs trees grow far away where I can't reach them but believe in them. Like the Tamarisk tree, Christ is a source of honey, manna and wafer, a taste so sweet in the desert so dry. You don't have to be a scholar to write poetry, religion, or understand the Eucharist; but you need to be a real saint to know the difference. Islam, is Judas Iscariot among your converts nose pointed toward Mecca today? I'm going to take Islam where their God has not been before- to the garden where the flowers grow. The Christians Arrived Salvation Army and the Christians arrived today, Christmas, like every other Sunday morning feed the homeless, chasing the rats from the bathroom, basement, kicking the dead flies out of the corner spots where the cat used to lounge- clean the toilet bowl, a form of revival and resurrection. I privately pastor to these desires though I myself am homeless. I forgot what it's like to be a poet of the cloth, savior in street clothing with a warm home to blend into. I watch them clamp the New Testament in one hand, And pull a cancer stick out of the pocket with the other. It's all a matter of praising the Lord. Everything is nonsense when you're in a place where you don't belong. Even praying to Jesus from a dirty dusted pillow seems strange and bewildering. Someday I will walk from this place and offer spare meals by myself to others; feed the party in between the theology, the bingo of sins and salvation. I forgot the taste of a Stromboli Sandwich with a 6 pack of Budweiser with or without the Chicago Bears--it would make every Sunday a Salvation Army holiday. Today is a fairy creating miracles from the dust of the floor multiplying fish and chips, baked ham, ribs with sauce Chi-Town type, dark color of greens and veggies tip me to the Christian clock on the wall peeking down on lost and unsaved. I feel like a fragment. A birth date the way again to begin, fragmented. Pinto beans mixed with graffiti fingers, Christians arrived on Christmas day- they always do every Sunday morning. I pastor to these desires. It's all a matter of praising the Lord. The Christians arrived today. Tiny Sparrow Feet It's calm. Too quiet. My clear plastic bowl serves as my bird feeder. I don't hear the distant scratching, shuffling of tiny sparrow feet, the wing dances, fluttering, of a hungry morning's lack of big band sounds. I walk tentatively to my patio window, spy the balcony with detective eyes. I witness three newly hatched toddler sparrows, curved nails, mounted deep, in their mother's dead, decaying back. Their childish beaks bent over elongated, delicately, into golden chips, and dusted yellow corn.

Reading in Williamsburg 10 days away! Pictures from my last reading there!

FROM TOP TO BOTTOM: A singer/songwriter sings/songwrites. I read some poems. Note the awesome slideshow in the background The crowd enjoys itself.

698 Flushing Ave. #1F

(1 block from Flushing stop on JMZ, 2 from Flushing stop on G)

Brooklyn (E. Williamsburg/Bushwick) Tell your friends! Tell your folks! Come early and come often.

Featured Poet: William Doreski

"Hope the poems below have some fun left in them." Well, what he lacks in bio, he makes up for in fun, which required very little wringing because it was not so that there was little fun left in them; rather they were vessels of fun that were spilling fun and enjoyment everywhere, and I had to choose just three of the six poems he sent! O Sweet Flowery Explosions are happening on the site, with a greater volume of submissions than ever before. Don't worry; if you have submitted, you'll make it on. But things may have to change a bit. First, a reminder: Please remember to include a bio if you would like anyone to know about yourself or your style or thoughts or ANYthing, and remember to send three poems. If not, I will choose the three poems which go on the site. It's a bad idea to put anything on OSFR that you are trying to get published elsewhere; other journals may not be happy with simulinaity. Don't publish things here that you have done so elsewhere, either. No one here or on your end wants to end up getting sued over a poetics site dedicated to fun. Village Roaster Twenty different coffees roasted on the spot. No latte, no mocha, no yuppies served here. Debbie with her silver gray mane tucked under her cap doles out coffee to Democrats and Independents, fusses over dogs who come to join her Biscuit Club. She talks down her nose at Republicans who hate small business, who cozy to corporations big enough to devour small towns whole. The coffee, fresh from the roaster, makes its own way in the world. Columbian, Costa Rican, Sumatran, Kenyan, Honduran. Pour yourself a cup and relax outside under the umbrella and let the flavor plumb you, annulling all your complaints. A Naked Man Behind the funeral home the sea crests up to the parking lot and rattles a pebbly beach. As Jenny wades in the shallows with her skirt tucked around her waist I skip a stone toward the wharf, a blackened, half-collapsed wreck. A gray car pulls up. A door opens. Big and sweaty in the driver’s seat a naked man leers at Jenny. He looks so familiar I almost shout his name, but instead fling a stone that rackets inside the car and frightens him away. Only a stink of exhaust remains when the cops arrive. Jenny can’t identify the man, her expression simple as phlox, but I remember voting him into office twenty years ago when the surface of the planet felt smoother to the touch. The cops sigh because they knew it was him. The sea also sighs because Jenny has put on shoes and sits ladylike on the pebbles while organ music seeps from the draped room where her father lies flatter than he ever lay in life. Time to escort her to whatever rites will resolve the sudden absence of a soul. As we enter we note the naked man seated fully dressed among her father’s other friends. Of course he has eyed Jenny all her life although she barely noticed him and now she’ll always remember how colorless he looks in his skin. The ritual begins with a Baptist minister pronouncing death good; but I hear the sea rattling stones in derision, lapping Jenny’s thighs as she wades with her skirt up— and the naked man appeals to her with a gaze that rhymes with the slop of waves and a silence only a favorite obscenity can fill. Sharon Stone Naked Up late watching a movie featuring Sharon Stone naked as a caryatid, I’m afraid I won’t make my seven-thirty doctor’s appointment, the dawn obscured by the pearly rain combing the summer forest. Too late to go to bed and hope for sleep enough to sustain me through a day of obscurities. The doctor will numb my eyesight with tropicamide and peer so deeply into my retinas I’ll feel ashamed of having them. Maybe she’ll note some problem to necessarily alarm me; maybe she’ll grunt and scrawl illegible notes and dismiss me without a hint of diagnosis. Sharon Stone wields a knife. Maybe she’ll cut the heart from our hero and leaving him steaming like an Aztec sacrifice. Maybe he’ll survive to make a sequel. I’ve seen this movie before but refuse to remember how it ends. The rain won’t abate for many hours, its imperative as personal as my desire to see Sharon Stone reveal not only her skin but her motive, a dark psychosis that transcends gender to fill all available psychic space. I fear going blind. Maybe that’s why I’m staying up all night to see whatever this movie can show before something darker than dark decides to replace it.

Featured Poet: Felino Soriano

" Felino Soriano is a Californian philosophy student and case manager working with developmentally and physically disabled adults. His chapbook "Exhibits Require Understanding Open Eyes" was published by and is available through Trainwreck Press, 2008. The juxtaposition of his philosophical studies with his love of classic and avant-garde jazz explains his poetic stimulation. Recent poems appear at BlazeVOX, Sugar Mule, Unlikely Stories 2.0, Apt, Wilderness House Literary Review, among others. Visit www.felinosoriano.com for a complete publication history and for more information." Trance Strange world to the unobservant, the mind blind unimaginative whose contoured ability to escape critical thought toward other than reality, excites, stimulates. The spider dangling in golden slanted light, drawing tremors with truncated hands holds musicality within paused excerpts of exerted existential glistening through open window functionality. Too the arrow shaped avifauna overhead headed directionally for mapped landing of feeding mannerisms, escape from weather envelopes. Said of maintaining sightless interrogation of nearby manifestations, the mind deteriorates, finding itself, the egoist explained only within mirrored paradoxes.

Societal Gap Word graffiti appeared across a once silent wall, now shouting à la mode language images lacking drawings to depict what the mind of which some ascertain as Defacer, composed prior within the mind and ensuing atop the once silent and now verbalizing wall. Psychologists would delve into perhaps a childhood intertwining with now's such behavior, environmental influences. The positing wind with faith our eyes blind to its visible vast slithering body may howl and perseverate that the glorified graffiti to a culture denouncing a culture wanting to hide a generation wishes only to harmonize a blend of future with societal pleasantries. Partial Entity Torn the numbness of day's ridicule clambering against thought process patterned brought into needling exhaustion, the mimic up and down sounds like the exact visual dedicated to the moon spilling atop the lake's wounded belly.

The INAUGURAL OSFR READING LIST OF POETS READING!

PHEW. Try saying that 5 times fast. Oh wait, you don't have to. Because if a tree falls in the internet, no one hears it. Unless it's on youtube. But seriously rats and cats, here is who will be reading: Christine Hamm Sean Fraiser Russell Jaffe David K. Tamura Robert Voris also featuring introducer / host to tha starz, Becky Dewing! If you happen to be one of those readers, please bring no more than 5 (F I V E) poems to read, and please email a short bio of yourself. Why put this here where everyone can see it? BECAUSE WE HAVE ROOM FOR MORE! There were originally two more poets scheduled to read, but they have been forced to drop out due to the major stress of having to be on vacation. Therefore, if you read this and live in or around NYC and want to get MADE in WILLIAMSBURG, please contact me soon, as the list of readers in being finalized by our finalization-tron as we speak. It's a very expensive machine. Hope to hear from you and see you there! -Russell

Featured Poet: David McLean

"David McLean is Welsh though he has lived in Sweden since 1987. He has a couple of chapbooks out, one a free download at Whyvandalism.com. The other, in print, can be ordered at http://www.erbacce-press.com/#/davidmclean/4527659941. He has a full length poetry collection available at Whistling Shade Press called Cadaver's dance. It can be ordered on alibris.com or on amazon.com. A second book of 128 pp is coming from Erbacce-press in August, "pushing lemmings." There is a self-published book of 109 pages at Lulu called "eating your night" - http://www.lulu.com/content/2756039. There are 550 poems now in, or forthcoming, in round 250 magazines online and/or in print. Details are at his blog at htpp://mourningabortion.blogspot.com."

Aside from being our first international poet megastar (everyone else is just a regular megastar,) David McLean has a name eerily similar to Powerful Women of Wrestling / Women of Wrestling / Glorious Ladies of Wrestling promoter / schlock hawk David McLane. But enough about unimportant nonsense: we have a READING coming up on AUGUST 16, and POEMS RIGHT BELOW THIS PARAGRAPH!

god's mouth we go down on the absences, and it is their juice that waters us like passions and night's replete non-sense. the night is a body straining for the plenitude of being that is an incarnation, the meat itself seeks souls to fill it and holes in the darkness wherein to exist, a god's almost irresistible mouth to eat that being

a Kantian confession Kant's ghost sat on the sofa and admitted the deception, the ploy to pull the sheepish wool over moral eyes in “the form of a law in general," - whence the pious idea came he was clearly not saying - “we were all believers then, or pretended” - he said - a bit of specious reasoning was plain sailing

blades anxiety's rusty razor blades lie between the lids and the eyes, they are like dry dead flowers waiting to decorate that mourning decay, the blood just blackness glowering in the flowing veins - for our gods are flatulent old men today, they shall stand naked in their graves and misspell salvation on their feverish fingers, plucking the drugs from dead eyes, collecting fingers ears and nipples, greedy souvenirs of life. harmless cannibals these amateurish scavengers stand around us, vulgar as vultures, they count psychoses like dinner bells pealing, and wait for us, their well-dressed lunch, they are anonymous mostly though their names are plainly listed on midnight's insomniac ceiling - excuses are seldom sufficient reasons

of dwelling

we do not dwell here but

live, eat, fuck, shit, breathe

and all that crap, but dwell

on the earth here,

in the presence of missing

gods, we do not

fuck no!

i dwell in the instant

which distresses me

by constantly pissing

off, like a faintly scented

memory

you can not dwell

there, if dwell was to remain

in place and abide,

just corpses do that -

we live in distances, absences,

and time

giving it all away and we gave everything away like memories absences and anxiously lingering fingerings. we donated it to a future or a past that was so ancient the very dust had deserted it, and sought better deaths and loves for the worms had tunneled us to a ferocious cannibal fiesta where god gnawed the knuckle bones grown clumsy as lust in reason's luscious skeleton tumbling through this sweaty nothing, a night and its appropriate fucking washed in vulgar vodka, skillfully stolen from tattered words unheard though geared to roll slow over the slimy waters god invented himself under drenched in a minute's oblivion or a devil's loveless cum the meaning and the reason sinking like a penis or a sweating sun (some cum thus undun)

Introducing...ONSIE TWOSIES

This is the hottest new poetry form sweeping the editor's apartment. Join the Onesie Twosie wave. Here's how they work: A poem is done with a title, underlined, and one line under it. Thus, it's not clear whether it is a one or two line poem, because the function of the title is to elaborate on / juxtapose itself to the first line. Now that you have mastered this confusing form, please enjoy these Onesie Twosies by Russell Jaffe, editor of this site. Please feel free to send your own. OH YEAH. Before I get going, how could I have forgotten to drop another reminder about our *FABULOUS FIRST READING?* Why, it's just one post below this one. Middle class struggle I jammed the copier 5 times today. Plath Revisited Poem, Poem, Poem Freedom to: I've seen many women tattoo the names of their boyfriends and husbands on their arms. Had I realized I would have, still What my heart is: an apple. What my heart is: Variations of (a) skull. The source of it, myself, complaining by night. Candles: most of them blown out. Still a room. The herald of the atomic age my father, smiling, by his new DVD burner Conversations, etc. Uncertainties on an infinite loop. That man's beard wet galloshes Sexton would approve The poem! Oh, paternal poem. I'm building something. What is it? Manta Ray time: wings, shallow water, clouds Coney Island For it is beloved; it must be shut down. Odysseus Camped, looked out; ultimately was. Happy Birthday Becky! Though you ultimately deserve a good one. The Jellyfish No coast. No coast at all. Iron Skillet A floor made of wood. Moths think light bulbs are the moon destined for space, sky, boundless anyway These are Onesie Twosies done collaboratively with Becky Dewing. My favorite day at the ball game. Cats all around us Old age as threatening as my next birthday Cats all around us What'll we do?! An inconsequential act I have it in my head, but I don't know how to say it. Cats all around us at the ball game Whose turn is it? Our turn now. Our turn now: What's that guy doing tomorrow? Seduction of the innocent Photos of babies dressed in costumes. There, I noticed birds: they were chirping and they were- America's favorite pass-time: Growing old with cats. What my heart's made of: cotton candy, thumbtacks, coca-cola. Teresa says, "Don't give up." She's someone I know just ok. This is why I smiled: cats all around us. No water today. No lemonade ever. This is an important list: I'll never give in.

IT'S OFFICIAL: THE O SWEET FLOWERY READING IS ON!

WHERE:

An urban arts gallery that a close friend of mine (Jonathan Roberts, a musician, writer, artist of all trades sort...you'll meet him at the event) started a few months ago. He has held gallery shows, poetry readings, and concerts there.

698 Flushing Ave. #1F

(1 block from Flushing stop on JMZ, 2 from Flushing stop on G)

Brooklyn (E. Williamsburg/Bushwick)

WHEN:

Saturday, August 16.

7:00 PM

ADMISSION: $2. CHEAP! That's 2 measly bills away from being free.

FEATURED READERS:

Sean Lymon Frasier

Robert Voris

Niina Pollari

David K. Tamura

and yours truly, Russell Jaffe

Come, bring friends, bring family, and for the love of Thanos bring yourself.

THE CLOCK IS TICKING TICKING TICKING

TOWARDS OUR INAUGURAL READING...

MORE UPDATES ON THE WAY! (and fliers)

-Russell Jaffe Editor in Chief

Featured Poet: Linda Prussen

"Linda is inspired by the life and works of Sylvia Plath and Dorothy Parker.She believes poetry should be both beautiful and brutal; it is the presenceof one that helps us to recognize the other."

Linda is no stranger to online publishing, and has had poems appear in, to extract directly from her submission email, "Paper Wasp (print), Fresh (printand online), Simply Haiku (online), Word Riot (online), Spiral Bridge(online) and the Processing Unit (online)." I'm certain she and all readers know by now that this site publishes, period, regardless of other sources, but sharing is caring and caring is sweet. Flowery, also, I suppose.

***

She wanted to wave goodbye She looked back at Shelia Shelia with the stringy hair Crooked teeth And mismatched clothes She looked back at Shelia and remembered how In the fourth grade Shelia’s cool hand Felt comforting pressed upon her fevered forehead And how Shelia missed the class field trip to the zoo Along with her Just so she wouldn’t feel alone. She looked back at sophomore Shelia on the bus stop And her stomach started to ache She wanted to wave goodbye But she didn’t Because if she did the girls who were juniors The girls with driver’s licenses The girls that thought she was cool Even though she was only a sophomore like Shelia Wouldn’t understand She hoped Shelia would. She wondered if Shelia would wave If it was she sitting in the bright yellow jeep With the top down And the radio blasting And the boys staring And she knew the answer And that she made the wrong decision In the instant the jeep turned the corner And it was too late to wave anyway.

Just to say goodbye? How can you miss someone you met only once? How can you miss their smile? Their laugh? How quickly their laughter came, When you said something that you hoped was funny, Though it probably wasn’t. Putting you at an ease you never felt before. How can you miss their eyes? The way their eyes looked at you, Warm and welcoming with flashes of heat. Like a summer thunderstorm not yet broke. How can you miss the brush of their lips on your cheek? No stronger than a whisper, As unforgettable as your first kiss, But just a kiss goodbye.

Power Plays His eyes focus on her Warm rays of sunlight His focus wraps around her A flannel blanket Staving off the chill of isolation His interest illuminates her As a spotlight would In front of a million adoring fans Only they share the room Yet to her It is their red carpet Each ordinary day She glows Feeling safe, secure, special His kindness An addiction His eyes begin to wander Their absence Felt more strongly than their presence She darts about Trying in vain to catch a flash Of his brilliant and familiar gaze His seeming distraction Lets icy breezes Into their sanctuary He needn’t be angry, or cruel No need to raise a voice Or hand His malicious withdrawal of attention Less a vicious slap More a slow strangulation As what she has come to need Like oxygen Is slowly taken away Worse even than the total absence Of his attention Is the unrelenting fear of its loss The cold hollow feeling That settles in her chest A wind tunnel of uncertainty At her core A self-fulfilling prophecy Created by The teasing plays at affection Increasingly rare But always hinting at what could be And what could be taken away On a whim On his whim Gasping for breath She lashes out at him His calm and quiet A wall she is unable to shatter Her angry words and gestures Desperate attempts to reignite The fire that lit her life Placidly he states She is angry, unreasonable and needy But he knows The power is not in what’s given But in the taking away Of what one has come to rely on

Featured Poet: Larry Terry

"I am a career Navy Veteran of over 18-years and am originally from a small town of about 70,000 people in Albany Georgia. I joined the Navy because I wanted to make a difference in the lives of others, and to learn different cultures. I come from a very large family of 9-children (5-sisters & 3-brothers). I don't claim to be an accomplished writer, but I write because I do it from the heart. I love sharing my ideas to an audience that can appreciate my points of view. In fact I have written my first novel, entitled "Looking Into The Eyes Of Evil". The freedom of speech is one of the greatest rights we have in the United States, and I think everyone should be heard, because everyone has something to offer." THAT is an OSFR bio. Bra-vo. Also, I want to note that Larry submitted under the nom-de-plume "San Diego Guy," which is also a good name.

LIFE’S JOURNEY

On one very special day, my Mother brought me into this world; She only wished for a healthy baby, no matter if boy or girl. Learning so much from my upbringing, education was in session; I was taught life's twists & turns, I received so many lessons. In no time at all, I quickly sprouted up like a tree; I received the toughest discipline, because I needed to be the best I could be. When I completed my real life schooling, it was time to branch out on my own; I needed to take my life to the next level, I needed to prove I could make it and demonstrate what I was shown. It was no easy voyage, there were lots of bumps in the road; But remembering what I was taught, I took on some heavy loads. There were many many rough days and I may have been down, but I was never out; Figuring out and correcting my mistakes, now that's what it's all about. Never give up and never quit, that is the motto that I live; I may not immediately reach my goals, but my best step forward is what I give. Life is a big journey, and sometimes the trip can be a real drag; But one thing is for certain, I shall never raise the white flag.

THIS IS WHY I WRITE

Writing makes me feel happy and writing makes me feel free; When I pickup a pen and paper, expressing myself is all I like to be. Whether it be an article or a nice poem, when I focus, the words just seem to flow; It's like a time machine, going back in time, I just relax and let the thoughts go. Sometimes I like to write about happy times, but mostly I just like to write; The visions & memories that I write about, simply reminds me that life is alright. I can travel on a fantastic adventure, and I can venture through memory lane; As I visualize about creative journeys, I see a beautiful world that is still untamed. Escaping this crazy world, if even just for a short while; Feelings I haven't seen in a long time, not since I was a child. Oh what a wonderful feeling I have when I write, so many stories to share; It reminds me how good life can be, what others think, I really don't care. When I get lost in my words, I feel like I can conquer the world; Even if you think you can't write, just try it and give it a whirl.

WINTER IS NO FRIEND OF MINE

It's the changing of seasons and here comes the snow;

No more birds are singing, I wonder where they all go.

I miss the butterflies and even the bees;

The grass is turning brown and there are no fruit in the trees.

The days are short and the nights are just too long;

I miss the sunshine, oh I wish the snow was all gone.

Going to miss the wind in my face, can't let my rag top down;

I love car drives, but until Summer, there is no cruising around town.

Oh it's a very frosty morning, I hate putting on gloves;

Wish I could wear my shorts, but I see a snow storm brewing above.

So much for a picnic in the park, I'll have to wait awhile;

Until Spring is in the air, the beaches will be deserted for miles.

Ice cycles on my window panes, the sight alone makes me shiver;

If I don't light up the furnace, a chilly night is what Winter will deliver.

Eggnog may be a good touch, but I rather be sipping on ice tea;

Cold weather doesn't appeal to me, year long summers are for me.

Until it’s Summer again, I will be inside by eight;

Just like the bears, Winter makes me want to hibernate.