the bouncy ball man’s bi-polar journey
 
unlike the yo-yo
with its advantage
of a straight trajectory
 
he rises
into the heavens
where he dances unabashed with comets
using astroids as castanets
while his castilian boot heels click across the sky
his silky sable hair being blown
by cosmic wins
his head thrown back
as a gleeful song
rises from his throat
the blessed cold and dark
do not bother him
 
His descent
takes him past us
and as he passes
he laments the fact
that we don't see him
he thinks
 
below
in the depths
the pressure is so onerous
like atlas or the turtle
he struggles to hold up
his own world
the cursed heat of pain and sorrow
subjecting him to
merciless vexing light
and unbroken rage
eventually sets him alight
and as he  burns
what comes from his throat
sounds nothing like song
but as does the phoenix
he will rise from the ashes
again transitioning
once again a passerby
in the land of man
he still laments the fact
that we don't see him
he thinks
 
but this time he wonders
 
( Linda Imbler is the Kansas based author of “Big Questions, Little Sleep.” )

Lightning Rod
 
The garden of the gut –
flora and fauna,
lush as a jungle,
seeking perfect homeostasis
at all times
as nutrients are absorbed
and toxins are flushed
out of the central hub
to constantly create
the organic system anew
as a holy temple
where consciousness
beyond the pale
can be divined
from the source
and flooded
through the synapses of the mind
which acts as an antenna
by tuning in to vibrations
of electricity
and energies that pulse
from dimensions
which have yet to be
fully understood
by the incomplete theories
of modern science.
 
There is more happening here
than can be seen or heard.
 
There is a truth that burns
far hotter than any gadget can measure.
 
There are answers found within the soul
which cannot be discovered through simple observation.
 
There is a love which resonates at such a high frequency
that only a pure and open heart is able to experience it.
 
There is an infinite and eternal state of perfect peace
which can only be gleamed when the body
and mind are completely clean.
 
There is a path which leads to the Kingdom of God
that is paved with intentions
that glimmer more brightly than gold.
 
(excerpt from Happy Hour Hallelujah)
 
 
Daring the Impossible
 
A thousand beams of buried lies
hiding just behind those twinkling eyes
and it’s not a shock nor a surprise
when the truth bursts forth into the light
 
…but enough with all the silly rhymes
for while they might be fun to dance around with
this really is no laughing matter
 
More like a disaster
that comes to bear
as a tired witness
of the despair
born from a thousand years
of tragedies piled on high
when dropped from ivory towers
 
Bombs of broken apathy
disease a disillusioned populace
when the wicked wages of war
become too heavy a cross
to carry
 
Sad is the state
of abysmal affairs
spreading as a pestilence
across the earth
 
How long, Lord, how long?
 
There is no easy escape, it’s true
we’ve all these problems, and know not what to do
 
We whine and moan and blame each other
but no solution through such means is discovered
 
The only answer that’s worth a damn
is when united we decide to stand
 
To pluck both the apple and the mote from eyes
behind which our oppressors hide
 
But there I go again with rhymes
when words are meant to be drawn as lines
 
Upon the sand to be clearly seen
by all those of us who still dare to dream
 
About a time born so soon now
when faith and hope are fully allowed
 
To enter unto the hearts of Man
as we come together with a foolproof plan
 
That breaks the chains with which we’ve been bound
and opens our hearts to the holy sound
 
I’m not afraid to sing such a song
for I know there are others who will sing along
 
As together we raise our voice on high
and give peace on earth one final try
 
(excerpt from Happy Hour Hallelujah)
 
 
( Scott Thomas Outlar hosts the site 17Numa.wordpress.com where links to his published poetry, fiction, essays, interviews, reviews, and books can be found.)

Pathologies
 
A figure lies forlorn on the steel-bed.
Strapped to catheters and tubes and a blinking monitor, covered with blanket.
Breathing slowly, in the ICU, where antiseptic smells and a deathly silence combine and strongly prevail, magnifying the tread on the bare floor or the scratch of a gifted golden fountain- pen or the muffled coughs around---borderlands of life and mortality ever shifting so arbitrarily; everything is clinical, measured, cold and couched in expertspeak, total Greek to the hapless carers, blinking eyes, in a dim shrine.
There, yet not there--- slipping.
 
Emotions are strictly forbidden entry in this rarefied province. Inmates are at the mercy of the machines and mechanical gaze, gesture and tone of the guys in the white. An imposed order and sanity on apparent turbulence of different kind.
 
We are just numbers here!
 
Pain. Suffering. Weariness of soul. Exhaustion. Stress. Hope against flickering hope. The moods varied, all collide in such a cramped space both material/mental, strange alchemy.
 
Doctors arrive; exit, with the accuracy of the subway trains of a wounded Paris---automated, punctual and precise, ferrying thousands to destinations scattered.
Every minute, every footfall counts by the billing department.
 
Outside the mystery of an ICU, sits a hunched figure on the bench, on this balmy Mumbai evening---teary; shell-shocked; silently praying to a chosen god out of a million, for comfort and mercy divine, in a polis where everybody is rushed. Expecting miracles that can defy the verdict of approaching death. Bewildered, yet looking for some opening in a cul-de-sac.
 
Faith Vs fact; Optimism Vs commerce collide. The wait can be terrifying inside/outside. Uncertainties are killers.
Mind refuses reality.
Healing might occur any time!
 
Hospitals! They are the real places for re-learning on the human condition and existential angst.
And a bonding among patients and their relatives---a shared experience of loss and gain, across assorted geographies and demographics.
 
And a will to survive in a most bleak place where fresh beginnings and exhausted endings happen simultaneously in a never ending game.
 
Sounds
 
The waves crash near the coconut clump
where the ocean comes up to kiss the sands
of the beach secluded from touristy feet
and talk to the matted brown kid about
long boats, fishing, laughter, boisterous dad.
 
The young kid gets lulled by these sounds and
dreams of a shack, a coughing mother and siblings
eaten by a hungry typhoon one horrible day.
Sounds!
They often remind of things that will not be
otherwise remembered!
Waves---crashing, hissing, singing
their own symphony that resurrects the dead
for the sad orphan and others orphaned of many
sweet possessions.
Sounds
both sweet
and bitter
comforting
scary
for a mind on a rewind mode.
 
( Sunil Sharma is a Mumbai based senior academic, writer, freelance journalist and editor with 18 published books).

The Wall
 
There’s a wall that gaps between the meaning of my existence
and the meaning of existence in general.
It’s a wall I can’t climb,
a wall without measure,
a wall without borders.
Because of this wall is why I’ve been blind for so long.
It’s why I leave the lights on at night.
It’s why I cover my face with shadow figures not wanting anything to remember my complexion.
 
It’s a wall made up of everything I’m afraid of.
Things that make a paper-cut-throat gush with the screams you never knew existed.
Things that cause teardrops to not only fall but instead break the barriers of sanity.
Things I don’t like to speak of.
 
Like how when I was younger,
I couldn’t differentiate between sane moments and the moments where everything seemed perfect
yet I was a suicide-time-bomb ticking away.
As if an alarm were trapped in my wrists.
As if a god were dictating from inside my veins,
from inside my bones,
until I exploded with the questions never answered until it was too late.
 
These are the things that make my stomach curl into the fetal position
until I rebirth new moments of wanting to be alive.
 
These are the moments I can’t relive until I can actually live again.
This wall, this wall of terror within my heart will never crumble
until I can leave the past in the past and remember that my future is bright.
 
This wall is a concrete resemblance of power,
a mountain so planted in my thoughts
it can never be removed.
 
Never be consumed by the tsunami of my ambition.
Never become a path I can easily walk to the other side.
It’s this wall that keeps me afraid at night.
Keeps me from jumping the fence of my mind to the other realm of my reality.
It’s this wall I can’t replace with one easily escapable.
 
It’s this wall.
This wall I find so unmistakably hard to confront.
This wall that has never been moved,
never been shaken from my psyche’s foundation.
Never been remembered as anything but a traumatic remembrance.
 
But everyday for the past three years,
I’ve found myself staring at the wall.
Challenging it.
Whispering ideal chants and hopeful phrases into it’s core.
Until I’m not afraid anymore.
 
Until I realize borders cannot define my destination.
This wall will know I will not bow down again,
I will not crumble to it’s mass.
Or answer the echo calls bounced off its sides to scream lies into my soul.
 
NO, I can now turn the lights off,
I can uncover my face from the shadow world
and face the wall with unveiled freedom.
I will conquer,
I will prevail,
I will tear down the wall until each piece is nothing but particles of dust on life’s shelf.
The wall will never again define me 
this wall will never again be resurrected.
 
This wall
This wall
This wall
 
I am free...    


(Levi J. Mericle is a poet from New Mexico whose work has appeared in over 30 Literary magazines and journals from over half a dozen countries).

Manic
 
I dash beneath the arch,
down past the boarded Legion.
 
Rain comes down in streaks.
The drink has failed to execute its tricks.
 
Now ordered lawns lapse to a tangle of fields and woods
where hungry feelings stir desire:
 
Dangerous as diabetic thirst, as fire
pulsing for oxygen.


Psychiatric Nurse in January
 
Spring feels far away. Distractions of the everyday
neutralize magic. Trees are blossomless.
Weeds crowd spaces snowdrops should poke noses.
A dull drizzle dirties Castle Hill
where the sinister, lopsided monkey-puzzle
looms in my dreams of coroner’s courts,
wrongness in abundance.
I ready my work-bag for Monday’s shift, my plasters
all too small.
 
 
​The Cat that Comes and Goes with the Mist
 
We know when it’s coming,
ears to the ground like Red Indians –
its drum-drumming
like hooves up the track, pawing the earth.
What started as anger – that red roar on the plains –
returns as fear now, fear
shifting like sands.
It’s worse when darkness falls.
Its hunger’s a palpable
gnawing in the chest,
a heart digesting itself.
Light torches, stoke fires,
take to high ground.
It loses interest. Sun will rise. 


( Kitty Donnelly is a nurse and a poet. Her poems have been published in Acumen, The American Journal of Poetry, The Fenland Reed, The Dawntreader, Mslexia and has work due out in Sentinel Literary Quarterly and Granta amonst other publications.  kittydonnellypoet.com )