Category Archives: Metered Poetry

James Croal Jackson… Simple Machines, This Lonesome Noise

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SIMPLE MACHINES

Force plus distance creates the want.
Machines make work easier to do:
 
pick up the phone and call her.
A sloped surface can move the heart
 
from one peak to another by decreasing
exerted force per beat while increasing
 
the distance over which the want
can travel– a simpler way to have
 
without the work of wanting.

 
 
 

THIS LONESOME NOISE

spare a key
you industrial
 
revolution
you need the split
 
bark
 
not the forest
not the wood
 
not the temple
not the gate
 
unlock the room
you need you
 

James Croal Jackson is the author of The Frayed Edge of Memory (Writing Knights Press, 2017). His poetry has appeared in The Bitter Oleander, Rust + Moth, Cosmonauts Avenue, and elsewhere. Find him in Columbus, Ohio or at jimjakk.com.

Copyright © 2017 by James Croal Jackson

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Norah Vawter… Lie Next To Me

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Lie Next To Me

That raw poison used to shake my soul.
I am no longer angry at the world —
Now, lie next to me, and I am whole.
 
When I was very young, I felt so old,
With scars on my body, caught in the swirl —

That raw poison used to shake my soul.

Now we bob in the sea and shake off cold,
I am like a dancer. I spin and twirl.
Now, lie next to me, and I am whole.
 
I am lucky to be alive, I’m told
But I am no ordinary lost girl.
That raw poison used to shake my soul.
 
You showed me all the beauty in the bold
Ones who laugh until the pain is unfurled.
Now, lie next to me, and I am whole.
 
In your soft arms I am a newborn foal.
Into this new, fresh life I twist and curl.
That raw poison used to shake my soul.
Now, lie next to me, and I am whole.
 

Copyright © 2014 by Norah Vawter

 

 
 
 
 
 
 

Darren C. Demaree… blue and blue and blue #109 & #110

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blue and blue and blue #109

pink to red
& out
of breath,
 
i love
that the ocean
never lies down
 
& that i can
never lie down
in the ocean
 
 

blue and blue and blue #110

i’m alive
enough
to feel
 
no guilt
about
the dead
 
& that
is common,
that place
 
& that
terrible
feeling
 
that is
so deeply
necessary
 

Darren is a dangerous dreamer, concocting love poems to his home state, and pastorals to his true love.

Darren C. Demaree is the author of five poetry collections, most recently “The Nineteen Steps Between Us” (2016, After the Pause). He is the Managing Editor of the Best of the Net Anthology and Ovenbird Poetry. He lives and writes in Columbus, Ohio with his wife and children

Copyright © 2017 by Darren C. Demaree

 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Lindsay Diem… Playing House

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Playing House

 
her tiny fingers clasped a diaper wipe
and pressed it to my nose
she loudly instructed for me “blow”
and waited inquisitively
 
she wiped my face delicately
the way mommy and daddy do it
and blotted my eyeliner
with a look of disdain
 
she didn’t know what to do with the ugliness
the long black streak of make-up
her eyes, wide and innocent
baffled
by imperfection
 

I teach tenth grade English at Edsel Ford High School in Dearborn, MI. I graduated from Eastern Michigan University in 2006. I spend my free time writing poetry and painting. My daughter is my inspiration for my art.

Copyright © 2017 by Lindsay Diem

 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Darren C. Demaree… Nude Male With #201 & #200

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NUDE MALE WITH ECHO #201

Without immensity, with
the size of a forenoon day
I can be the white edges,
 
but then I can only grow
to interfere with the scene
of art. I want to be the art.
 
That’s why I’ve covered
my body with pictures,
because before all of those
 
little, driving ink pens found
me supple enough to be
taken, nobody looked at me.
 
 

NUDE MALE WITH ECHO #200

I want to lake
the tree, swim
the trunk
 
after suspending
myself briefly
above the foliage.
 
I want to be taken
in. I want the sun
to nourish me.
 

Darren is a dangerous dreamer, concocting love poems to his home state, and pastorals to his true love.

Darren C. Demaree is the author of five poetry collections, most recently “The Nineteen Steps Between Us” (2016, After the Pause). He is the Managing Editor of the Best of the Net Anthology and Ovenbird Poetry. He lives and writes in Columbus, Ohio with his wife and children

Copyright © 2016 by Darren C. Demaree