Daytime TV - A Poem by J.K. Durick - Dive into the Depths of Contemporary Voices

Daytime TV – A Poem by J.K. Durick

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Time, spent like this, doesn’t weigh heavily, weighs
almost nothing at all, fills in, fills up, follows a set
schedule, offers some diversion, endless game shows,
some cooking, and home improvement, reruns of
reruns, comedies we know well enough to recall
the lines and old police shows smacking of relevance
from ten, twenty years ago; we’ve come to this after
the years we were too busy to even know that this
exists, this world of filler, what some of us do all day
while the rest are away, it’s like a waiting room for
those of us waiting for time to pass, the day to end
it explains us, begins to define us, the lost, the ghosts
the shadows of our former selves, it knows us well
replaces friends and family and conversation, fills
in the silence that so easily grows all around us now.

Reflections on a Snowy Evening - A Poem by Roy Pullam - Dive into the Depths of Contemporary Voices

Reflections on a Snowy Evening – A Poem by Roy Pullam

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I stood with Robert
In the woods
In the stillness and the chill
Of the time stopped
To reflect
On my destination
Where I would go
What I would see
And how deep
The snows ahead
Were for me
Still a mystery
But there was
A clarity in the air
The time to pause
So needed
But I could not stay
Even with the cold logic
Mine was to forge ahead
There was only
So much time left
And I had to be
Where I was suppose to be
Like the horse
And the sleigh
My life has a mission
With a slush-covered path
That leads me finally
To my home

White Oak - A Poem by Roy Pullam - Dive into the Depths of Contemporary Voices

White Oak – A Poem by Roy Pullam

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The country road
Ends at the graveyard
In the shadow
Of a white church
The steeple
Shows
Proof of its age
Peeling skin
Hanging
From the boards
Directly below the cross
Sections of old and new
Burials
Surround the building
Its expanded residency
Greater than Memorial Days
Of my youth
Names I recognize
Neighbors and friends
Reaching their ends
Stones bearing their names
Remind me
Of who they were
I can still hear
Some of their voices
Hear their laughter
As we shared jokes
My father’s grave
Amid the other granite
Heralds
That he came
With the dawn
Of the twentieth century
How he regaled me
With advents
In his time
Cars, planes and space craft
Rushing into his years
Since his birth
The marvelous adventure
With the awe
Never ceasing
As his life
Evolved from horse and buggy
To a modern world
Never jaded
He approached life
With wonder
Advocating
That I never
Close my eyes
To the ever-changing world
How I wonder
What amazement
He would find
In the nearly 40 years
Since his death?
My mother
As always
By his side
Her voice smaller
Accepting her role
As she did
When her father
Took her from the school
She so loved
Hers was to be a wife
To sublimate her ambition
To her husband
To put her 6th grade education
Aside
Folding it as past
As accepting
As the fate
Of the rag doll
She had carried
Earlier in her childhood
She never complained
Accepting her role
With so much
She wanted
Undone
I walked away
Heavy in thought
Aware
That others
Will read my dates
But will they appreciate
What came
In between?
Will anyone care
Enough
To remember my name
To learn my story
To see me as a person
Who lived
Who loved
Who had a part
No matter how small
In the time
Before them?

Tomb XVII - A Poem by Rafaela Panagou - Dive into the Depths of Contemporary Voices

Tomb XVII – A Poem by Rafaela Panagou

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Wasted feelings never die.
Instead, they thrive upon our grieving
Perhaps, they seek a noble ending
To draw the barest form and meaning.

Unbeknownst to us, these hours,
they choose to escape to violet fields.
Crowned with gray and withered flowers,
they lay like corpses on their shields.

Can you paint their sky once more?
Silence.
Why did you bring me to this place?
Alas, I have been here before.

This procession past their tomb
echoes of the steps I took
on those paths that smelled of heather,
let me ponder to remember.

Yes, my love, I have recalled.

On this stone as blank as ice,
eulogy of our destined end
the lie you uttered to be nice
Reads handwritten “to a friend”.

Master of the Wheel - A Poem by Roy Pullam - Dive into the Depths of Contemporary Voices

Master of the Wheel – A Poem by Roy Pullam

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Throwing mud
Making a being
From the clay
The essential element
Of the earth
Shaping with molding hands
A vision
Others cannot see
Until it is done
It is a lonely world
The artist vision
That sees beyond
20/20
The wheels turning
Both in the head
And with the manipulation
The earth showing
Its resistance
Just like
The times
When it pulls down
Creation
But there is a stubborn will
The long-sought perfection
He will never know
But the potter’s fingers
Are much more
Than the critic’s eye
His is the path
To an immortality
None of us
While living
Will ever reach

ATM Life - A Poem by G. S. Katz - Dive into the Depths of Contemporary Voices

ATM Life – A Poem by G. S. Katz

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Manhattan
New York City
It’s not a Zen zone
It’s a money machine
ATM life
You gotta make a lot of it
Just to stay average
Yet there is a beauty in that
It’s a flesh on flesh town
Intermingling of the masses
Nobody knows who’s got what
The gardeners work on rooftops
My lawn is never brown
Because there is no grass
Everyone smokes pot though
It wafts into your head space
Skunking every corner
I don’t do drugs
I’m trying to give up drinking
Sugar doesn’t make me sweet
Frozen red seedless grapes save the day

The Puzzle - A Poem by Roy Pullam - Dive into the Depths of Contemporary Voices

The Puzzle – A Poem by Roy Pullam

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With a yellow pad
And a funeral home pen
I struggle with words
Lining them up
To give meaning
To thought
I have not clearly defined
A line of clarification
So many attempts
Stacks of crumbled yellow
Projectiles that do not reach
The overflowing trash can
I struggle
Stopping to read others
Whose hands is guided
By an intellect
I do not possess
I leave the cross-outs
Starts and stops
Then abandoned pieces
I hope to return to
To give order
To rank and align
Metaphors and similes
Until I please me
Some thoughts
Will not let me go
They come back
In various forms
Scolding me
To find my way
From the dry docks
Where my ambition
Is moored

Four Feet Walking Up - A Poem by Gareth Culshaw - Dive into the Depths of Contemporary Voices

Four Feet Walking Up – A Poem by Gareth Culshaw

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We went a couple of times.
Taking our weight up loose scree.
Our lives had spread and circled
so we brought our tongues together

for another crack. The heaviness
was in your back. I watched you bend
like a golf flag pole in low wind.
You carried so much I never thought

we would reach the top. Both of us
are two of the same breed.
But the walk down is where we differ.
I pick up speed and reach new heights,
you seem to slow, and bring the mountain

with you, as if you’re scared to feel weightless.

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