Poems Found by Poet Hound

http://poetrysuperhighway.com/pshffa.html
Not a poem but an awesome idea for sharing more poetry with the world…

I have a major re-certification exam next Friday and have been studying more so there are no more posts for this week, please stay tuned for next week…

Indiana Crime Edited by Murphy Edwards and James Ward Kirk and Durable Goods Issue 61 Edited by Aleathia Drehmer

Indiana Crime 2012 is an anthology of poems, flash fiction, short stories, and art focusing on the crimes and horror stories of the Midwest. Edited by Murphy Edwards and James Ward Kirk, there are gruesome tales as well as heartbreaking hard-luck tales within its pages. Below, I’ll share a couple of poems and a review of one of the stories:

Murder in greasepaint
By: Brian Rosenberger

A painted smile
can hide many things
some longer than others
but nothing forever

Matchless mirth maker
and member of the
fun bunch
in good standing
Harry the clown
had a hole in his heart
as red as his nose

Morganna, mistress of the high wire
and Harry’s bed
was found in repose with
the dead harlequin
wearing the clown’s oversized shoes
and a matching wound

The lovers’ final performance
went largely unnoticed,
save for one

Esmerelda, wife to Harry
and resident sword swallower
bit off more than she could chew
a victim of her own devices
after dispatching the adulterous pair,
she choked hiding the murder weapon

And that marked
the last time
the circus
came to town.

A tale of circus performers caught up in high-stakes of a different kind, this poem is entertaining and tragic all at once. For the sword swallower to choke on the murder weapon is a morbid twist of fate for seeking revenge on her adulterous husband. I enjoy seeing such a story as a poem instead of as a short story tale, taking the skeleton of it and setting its bones for the reader to fill in their own picture of the scene.



Pulp City
By: Roger Cowin

1. Welcome to Fat City

The city is a vampire that bleeds
the vitality from the soul, breeding
its own infestation of violence, greed,
hatred and hopelessness,
leaving only half animated corpses
wandering the brutal streets
looking for their next fix,
the next big score,
the next sure bet.

Welcome to Fat City,
city of suicide dreams and wasted lives,
of sterno bums, junkies, thugs
and ten dollar whores,
of cop killers and killer cops,
of dime store hoods and degenerate gangsters,
a city populated by the living damned
where being down and out is a way of life,
and every cockroach that crawls out of the sewer
has its own story to tell.

This poem actually has six sections and so I share with you its introduction. The description of the city as being a vampire sucking the life out of you is vivid and straightforward enough to let the readers know that only bad things happen here. The following sections showcase miscreants and mishaps, it is riveting and well worth reading.

The Kill Stand by Larry D. Sweazy is a short story of a man who served in Vietnam and is now working a blue collar job killing turkeys for a living and must confront the fact that he must work a third shift regardless of the fact that his granddaughter will be performing in the local church and wants him to be there to see her. It is a heart-breaking story that people can relate to more nowadays than ever before in an economy where jobs are scarce and you must sacrifice time with family to keep whatever job you can. The ending fills the reader with uncertainty and hope that I cannot spoil here. All I can say is if you have every worked long hours and had to face tragedies in family life that effect your ability to keep a job while slogging away then this story will shoot you like an arrow through the heart.

This collection of poems, stories, and artwork is a well-rounded collection of tragedies and hard luck that I highly recommend reading. If you enjoyed this review you may obtain a copy of Indiana Crime for yourself for $12.48 through Amazon of Indiana Crime by using this link below:

http://www.amazon.com/Indiana-Crime-2012-James-Ward/dp/1468146718



Durable Goods is a microzine edited by writer Aleathia Drehmer and issue Number 61 landed in my mailbox recently. Similar in size to the small journal of Lilliput Review, the issue arrives in your standard letter-sized envelope and contains several poets’ poems within. Inside this issue there are poems that describe the daily items of life such as magazines, Dixie cups, clothes you hang on the clothesline, and the feelings that overwhelm us amongst our every-day life existence. Since there are so few poems I will only share one of them with you:


A Lack of Color
By: Jesse Bradley

This couch is like a gondola, spines of
magazines brushing against it
when I almost trip over them;
airbrushed areolae, stomachs
almost break my neck. I drink just
enough for your number to melt
from my thumb. I build a wedding
chapel out of used red Dixie cups
after impregnating your voicemail. I
slap it apart in the morning when
the right side of the bed feels like
the last days of autumn.

I love the imagery in the poem, the couch as a gondola floating among the mess of magazines and Dixie cups in the living room, the idea of a wedding chapel made out of those cups. I’m not sure exactly what the inspiration behind the poem is but I picture the aftermath of a party and the hostess waking on the couch alone and realizing she has filled an ex-lover’s voice mail from drunk-dialing. Jesse Bradley’s poem is enticing in its potential story lines and I hope she sees this post and sheds some light on her poem, even if my interpretation is completely wrong.

If you enjoyed this short sample you can subscribe to Durable Goods for an entire year for a mere $12.00 with an issue being sent your way every two weeks. Wouldn’t that be a wonderful change from receiving nothing but bills in the mail, too? To find out more, send an e-mail to Aleathia Drehmer at:
Windwitch27ATyahooDOTcom


Thanks always for reading, please click in tomorrow for more Poems Found by Poet Hound…

Michael Wells’ Blog Stick Poet Superhero

Insights into poetry, poets, and art, all irresistible, can be found at the also irresistibly titled Stick Poet Superhero at:
http://stickpoetsuperhero.blogspot.com/

Thanks for clicking in, please stop by tomorrow for two poetry reviews…