poetry from Eric Bonholtzer

Still Life


Its beauty is in its austerity
A room cool and vacant
One part indistinguishable
From the next

Flat ground marks a path
Around a circle meditation
Calm sought for
a room of light and beauty

Out a window that ocean
Of tranquil waves like thoughts
As I too watch
From that window, looking in

I can see myself
Through a frame of the mind
In this room as
my thoughts become clear

poetry from Eric Bonholtzer

A Dark Path Against a Barren Plain


The mountain stands like a man against the horizon of dark stars.
Dead space fills the barrens before it, the path wending
across the fruitless expanse, twisted switchbacks leading
upon senseless folding, an ever forward ageless progression.

There are no pilgrimages here, only pilgrims set against the storm torn sky
as they wend their way toward inexorable destination. Twisted thorn trees
clutter and clutch, tearing spirit, soul, body and garment alike.

Timeless lashes upon the backs of burdened beasts with their worldly possessions
Tightly gripped like crosses held to their chests, as the only choice
drives them forward. The watching moon has long since gone and come.

“When will we be there father?” It was an innocent question from impressionable eyes
watching a man who could only bend, a tear trickled through stubble.
A shake of the head and the boy fell silent. No one really knew.

But these were masses, the huddled tired streams of rags and tatters
torn, unmended threads tying them, not in unity but parts of a whole
Eyelets and minarets with their voyeuristic hypnotic gaze
Mesmerizing, entrancing and inviting even as they repelled.

“Will it be home again when we get there?”
The words fell upon unlistened air
No answer because he himself didn’t know
Dejected eyes shaded, saying only, “Onward we go.”

poetry from Eric Bonholtzer

Solace


The green grew around us
Like archways or caressing finger tips,
As hoof beats twined our own hearts as we trudged,
A road of many paths, directions an unnecessary nuisance
The beauty of being truly lost
Is that when you are found
All is as it should be, in these moments
Leaves, branching outward, onward.
This is the reward for taking the time to listen
To yourself and to others, in this hideaway
Of solace found in mind
The greatest sprits always within.

unabashed biased and subjective lists

these lists are offered in no particular order

SHORT STORIES


The Horla Guy De Maupassant

The Diary of a Madman Nikolai Gogol

Green Tea Sheridan Le Fanu

Carmilla Sheridan Le Fanu

poetry from Anselm Brocki

Solving

Instead of forever
looking for worthy
problems to solve
in order to become
breathlessly absorbed
living vibrantly for only
a few prized moments
because of so many
tedious, repetitive tasks
to perform, why,
in a more perfect
world, couldn’t
challenging problems
be on the breakfast
table neatly, discretely
like spoon, bowl, and
napkin each morning,
ready for my total
attention, puzzlement,
and startling crescendo
solutions?

--Anselm Brock

poetry from Anselm Brocki

Skirmish

“Don’t you dare
give me those old
rotten apples you’re
hiding behind there!”

That’s Louise, my
child mother, insulting
a swarthy, broken-English
fruit seller at Grand
Central Market in 1933,
She’s twenty-six,
I’m ten. He fills a paper
bag and grumbles back
in Middle European
from behind an artful
display mound of his
freshest fruit. Neither
of them thinks the
other quite human.

“We’ll wait till we get
home to wash these,”
she says loudly before
we leave. “No telling
where his hands
have been.”

I look at his smeared apron,
white cap bagging down
on both sides, dark
eyes, five o’clock shadow
and dirty fingernails but
can’t imagine yet what awful
things he has been doing
with his hands.

--Anselm Brocki

poetry from Michael Estabrook

Back in the Middle Ages

“Say, Doc? I grimace
as he yanks the stitches
out of my jagged red hernia scar
(though curiously it doesn’t hurt).
What happened
when someone had a hernia
and needed surgery like this
way back in the Middle Ages?”
He brushes
my incision carefully
with an alcohol wipe.
“They died,” he says
as he strides out of the room.


-- Michael Estabrook

poetry from Michael Estabrook

Looking Over His Shoulder

I saw a hawk
regal, strong, and proud,
invincible as Odysseus,
swoop down and land
in the tree out back, never
looking over his shoulder
to keep an eye out for death
or the tax man
or the latest physical ailment,
like the rest of us
seem to be doing
all the damn time.


-- Michael Estabrook

poetry by Micheal Estabrook

My Grandma Sadie

One of the survey questions
was to name a few
of the key influential people in my life.
I didn’t have to think about it long:
Shakespeare, Dante, Mozart
Whitman, Thoreau, and my Grandma Sadie
just noticed that none of them
are still alive, but that doesn’t
stop me from talking
to them regularly. Fortunately,
I suppose, my Grandma Sadie
is the only one who ever
feels impelled to talk back.

-- Michael Estabrook

Some questions for poets

How did you get started writing poetry?

Are you inspired by other poets, or do you take your “inspiration” from yourself?

How much revising/editing, if any, do you do?

What are your feelings on sharing your poetry with others?

Do you write for publication, or mainly for personal interest?



You can email your answers to . . . Fjm3eyes@aol.com

Call for Poetry

Part of what I want to do with Metaphorical Salad is to provide a showcase for poetry. The examples here hopefully represent a beginning. I would like a good sampling of prose poetry. If you would like to submit, please email me at Fjm3eyes@aol.com with your poetry or for information.

poetry from Lyn Lifshin

SOFT TISSUES


Eyeballs burst,
a spleen ruptured
by flying rubber.
Part of a skull
broken away by
something falling,
exposing a brain.
Limbs fractured
by falling walls, a
jugular vein slivered
by glass. Thousands
of grains of plaster
driven thru skin
reveal themselves
as a tell tale haze
on x ray





Lyn Lifshin

poetry from Lyn Lifshin

ONE FATHER HEARS HIS SON CALLING FOR A NEW TRUCK


his older one
happy about the
dollar from the
tooth fairy. ‘I
always hated to
leave her to go
to work.” Now
I hear them in the
ashes, they are
ashes. When I
think of flooring
the gas, my body
won’t m move





Lyn Lifshin

poetry from Lyn Lifshin

2 DAYS AFTER MOTHER’S DAY FIVE YEARS AGO

Maybe there could be
her soul floating over
the duck pond, laughing
at the geese as she does
still in the 8 millimeter
video, my sister’s hoarded,
kept as ransom for what
ever wasn’t in our lives.
Her smoke hair, licorice
and curly, astonished and
by ferreting out how much
this town house doesn’t.
She watches the dragon flies,
turquoise and sapphire,
but it’s the geese she floats
over waiting for me to come
back from ballet. Not having
a body is a relief she sighs
in my dream, no need to worry
about gaining or losing 50
lbs and if I wanted to smoke
she whispers I haven’t got
a mouth for that or for bad
mouthing any relative.
Better just be air, tho I can’t
hold my daughter who
never thought enough of
herself





Lyn Lifshin