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 Oct 2024
Francie Lynch
"What in the world happened!"

An innocent cliche,
We hear it every day,
At work, at home, at play.

"You don't say!"

A congenial comment?
Perhaps,
but...
Be careful what you say.
It could add to the maelstrom
That's becomes unfriendly fire.

Arguments in... arguments out.
Trash in, trash comes out.
That shouldn't surprise us.

The unseen whisperers make silent decisions,
Unheard among the raging shouts.

Who understands
How it went wrong.
The Why is easy.
But How.

How in the world did it happen?

I can't say.
High School doesn't seem to be enough.
Men feel threatened.
Not enough black hats are being unhorsed.
Women do very well
Walking over coals and broken glass,
In stilettos, clogs, mules,
Bare footed.
They will be revenged.

How in God's name did this happen?

Such unwarranted blasphemy.
 Oct 2024
Francie Lynch
The upper branches
Of the Family Tree
Are visible.
I'm not near the base
Where I used to be.

There are fewer branches above;
And as I move there's
More and less to love.

Some limbs above have broken,
Suffered drought and heat
Through the elements of life.
But the trunk is true, strong,
Stalwart and flexible
As the lineage of its rings,
These expanding circles of life.
And above,
The transplanted branches
Were rooted with love.
Sprouts apppear below,
As further up I go.
And my limbs
Are moving slow.
Mistankenly posted this one before I had finished it from my notes.
 Sep 2024
Francie Lynch
The message was as legible
As orbits in astrophysics.
The syntax was true as
A mathematical equation,
Not calculated by accident or coincidence.
And precise, announcing,

HAPPY VALLEY NUDIST CAMP

Boldly, on a southern hillside,
In white-painted stones,
On Hywy #22,
On the crossroads between youth and age,
Doubt and confusion.

The stones are gone.
Picked over, or, rolled down the hillside.
And the Hywy is hardly used.
How. By accident or happenstance?
Or a higher intelligence orchestrated
The arrangement of the stone message.


And this happened outside our town.
On the road to London.
 Sep 2024
Francie Lynch
Mammy died years ago,
So I'm older than her now,
Though I never feel this way.
But I'm younger than my father was
Years after his delay.

I'm an aging Granda now,
But I seldom feel this way;
When in my memories,
Where they truly lie,
I'm still their son today.
Mammy is  an Irish term of endearment for Mother or Mom.
 Aug 2024
Megan H
How scary it is-
To realize
None of this is truly mine.
Not these things,
Not this life.

Time is my master,
She owns it all.
I cannot keep any of it.
 Jul 2024
Thomas W Case
Night comes on like
an old hound lumbering
in from the field.
I don't fight it.
I'm getting too old.
I sit with pen in hand,
and wait for the
darkness to show
me something.

I think about vaginas and
Ireland and fish that
hunt a t night.
I think about
Bukowski and
Beethoven, and the
*******, and a kernel
of corn.
I think about my
life and this night, and
how it is better than
those near-death years of
caterwauling and chaos;
drunk by the river, lonely
as a glass snake.
I was living to drink, and
didn't give a **** about
anyone.
I was searching.
I found it
when the light came.
Here is a link to my you tube channel where I read my poetry from my recent books, Seedy Town Blues Collected Poems, on Amazon and Rise Up Collected Poems and Short Stories, available on Booksie.com
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qum45hpUqrg&t=16s
 Jul 2024
Francie Lynch
So many roads lead back home,
But not the one where I was born.
That first wet road was slippery,
With curves and hills and holes,
But every mile I travelled on,
Without knowing, I headed home.

Those many highways,
Like a wheel,
Were radiating spokes,
But like the wheel,
They're circular,
So always lead back home.
 Jul 2024
Thomas W Case
My friend asks
me where I get
the fodder for
writing my poems.
I tell him, life.
He says that's too
simple.
He isn't satisfied.
I tell him that
sometimes, I sit at
my desk and open
the window above the
litterbox, and look
outside at the
orange daylilies and
wait.

He says he writes
from a small place above
his left ear.
It tickles at times, but
often it's painful.
I nod and make a
note to call my
doctor about the
headaches I've been having.

He reads his posey at
the coffee shops while
drinking espresso and
chatting with the other
young poets in sweaters.
I tell him that I used
to live under a bridge,
I read my poems to the
savage river and the
Mallard ducks, and the
drunk friends that
wandered in for a drink of
***** or a beer.
He says the little place above
his left ear is beginning to
hurt.

I walk him to the door and
tell him goodbye.
He asks if I will come
to the coffee shop to
hear him read his poetry.
"Sure", I say, smiling blankly.
After closing the door,
I sit and smile at the view from
my window.
I can smell the freshly cut
grass, and hear the
grinding whine of the
lawnmower.
A woman across  
the street is lying in
the sun.
She's wearing a turquoise
bikini and big sunglasses.
Just then, a slight hint
of coconut wafts into my room.
I get hard and pick up the pen.
Here's a link to my you tube channel where I read my poetry.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KjeCroHYQxU
 May 2024
Francie Lynch
I woke to the warning blasts
Of fog horns on the St. Clair.
They comfort like a weighted blanket.
And the rain falls evenly, now,
On my vegetables,
On everyone's lawn and garden.
All is as it should be this morning.
Quiet, ordered and secure.
I'm glad I'm not over there,
Or anywhere else,
But here.
 Apr 2024
Francie Lynch
Do you see
How all things
Have conspired
For an average ******,
Like me.

I am grateful
To evade
The poxes
Others have endured.

The cold, the hunger, the homelessness;
The hate, the fear, the lonliness.
There's more.

I have never
Stretched out
A hand or fist
In want, fear, or hate.

I held chalk, and *****, and babies.
Such things sealed my fate.
Peace and Love
Filled our waves;
No poppies and crosses
On a friend's foreign grave.

Yes, all things conspired.
And this time got it right,
To live happily ever after
In my middle-class life.
 Apr 2024
Carlo C Gomez
It must be dark
out here in the cold penumbra,
where mile after mile
no one smiles,

dots and loops,
dots and loops,
a kind of blissful nullity,
beautiful and pointless,

wearing at the edges
it almost stings,
seclusion unraveling
at the underground in us all,

aubade aberrations abound,
challenging the orthodoxy
of the troublesome
morning road,

but should this near-life experience
hydroplane toward
another mineshaft, it helps to know
less is less, not more.
 Apr 2024
Francie Lynch
Distant trains still sound alarms,
Blinds are drawn, people yawn,
It's time to call the day.

The sun's turned off,
The moon's turned on,
The stars like pinholes
Blink till dawn.
The animals are bedded
On the farm;
Beneath this counterpane we're warm.

Today our work is done;
Tomorrow worries not begun.
But tonight I'll sleep
Like the seventh son.
 Apr 2024
Thomas W Case
I'm in a cool group.
To stay on top
of my writing, and to
promote and market
my poetry, I often
publish online.
If Lord Byron could
hear that.

In this place that
I belong,
I have deadlines.
I procrastinate until
the very last day, and then
scribble some ******
lines and get angry with
myself for putting the
writing off.

I have a couple of
weeks before I need
to write a sonnet or villanelle.
I'm getting anxiety.
It's not producing the
desired effect of
hard work or discipline.
No
Not that.
It is getting me thinking.
That is sometimes productive,
and usually comical.

I'm thinking about
the 15 months I've
been sober.
For many years,
I was miserable.
Drinking and writing.
Writing and drinking.
Holding the bottle of
***** to my shivering
lips to get the last
spider of liquid.
My clothes smelled of
decay and cowardice, and
everything tasted like
rotten meat.

Now, I have a beautiful
maple desk that my three
cats like to sleep
on while I write
poems about
procrastination and sobriety.
Such fuzzy black miracles.
They twitch as they
dream of fish and catnip,
and just maybe they
dream about writing a
sonnet for me.
We are all
addicted to something.
Check out my youtube channel where I read from my recent book, Seedy Town Blues Collected Poems.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgXtR-Z6G9s
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